Tom Brierly was one of these. Sandie tried hard to reform him, but I fear with little success.
Sandie more than once, thinking that example was better than precept, accompanied Tom to Mother Robertson’s, an inn in the Guestrow, much frequented by the students. There were more merry faces round the tables of the coffee-room than there had any right to be; there were more steaming tumblers of toddy, and there would be more headaches in the morning. Sandie drank nothing but stone bottles of ginger-beer.
“How can you be so merry on that?” cried Tom.
“It’s all custom,” said Sandie. “I feel very happy and merry on this, and I won’t have the ghost of a heavy head in the morning.”
So Sandie sat with them, and he told stories that made every one laugh, and he sang songs that made some of them cry; but at ten o’clock he arose, and, in spite of their importunities, bade all good-night and walked straight home to his attic.
The principal practical jokes performed at night by the students in Sandie’s day were extinguishing gas lamps, wrenching off knockers with the twist of a strong stick, and pulling out bell-handles.
The night-watchmen, as they were called, were certainly a body of grand men. Their physique left nothing to be desired. But then they were not active.
They were called “Charlies,” just as the day-policemen were denominated “Bobbies.”
These sturdy fellows were dressed in strong broadcloth fear-nothing coats, that reached down to their heels; they wore broad Tam o’ Shanter bonnets, and were armed with oaken cudgels big enough to have felled an ox.
At nine o’clock each evening they were marshalled two deep in front of the watchhouse door. The officer gave the words of command in the broadest of Scotch.