“But this old man was not to be put off with a mere academy. He piled up a veritable castle of instruction, a first-class fortress of learning. And he had an idea of something which should be unique among all the schools of the world. It was all his own idea. Even in Scotland it had not occurred to anyone else. You must know that in early Scotch ecclesiastical history, say from the eighth to the twelfth centuries, there are occasional mentions of some bounders called Culdees, who seem to have run a little sacerdotal show of their own, something between hermits and canons-regular—it is absolutely impossible now to make out just what they were. But this extraordinary old man was quite clear in his mind about them. He had reasoned it all out for himself. He said that ‘Culdees’ was, of course, a mere popular corruption of ‘Chaldees.’ He loved to argue this with all comers, and he did so,—my word for it, he did! How nobody in Scotland ever agrees with any view or opinion advanced by any other person, but the art of disagreeing has been reduced, by ages of use, to a delicately-modulated system. Everybody disputed his ridiculous notion of the ‘Chaldees’—they would have fought it just as stoutly if it had been a wise one—but he was a very rich man, and he had benevolent intentions toward the district, and so they ‘roared him gently as any sucking dove.’ They couldn’t admit his contention, oh no, but they let him feel that they were thinking about it, that it had made an impression on their minds, that in due time they might see it differently.
“The upshot was that the old fool established a Culdee Chair in the faculty of his new college, and made it worth more money than any other professorship of the lot. The celebrity of my performances at school was fresh then, and reached his ears. He gave the billet to me, and confirmed it to me in his will when he died, a year later—and that is all.”
“And you actually only work three weeks a year? And get paid a whole year’s salary for that?”
Vestalia regarded him with astonishment, as she put the question.
They had strolled meanwhile down the great thoroughfare, crossed it, and passed into a narrower lateral by-way.
“It is hardly even three full weeks’ work,” he replied. “There is nothing to do in the way of fresh discovery. Reeves and Skene and other fellows have gleaned the last spear of straw in the stubble. I do go through the form of getting up some lectures each Autumn, but it is really such dreadful humbug that I’m ashamed to look the students in the face, let alone my fellow-professors. Fortunately, most of the latter are clergymen, and that makes it a little easier. They know that they are as big frauds as I am, in their own line of goods, and so we say nothing about it.”
“What struck me,” she began, hesitatingly, “you spoke rather—what I mean is, you don’t appear to be very grateful to the old gentleman who arranged all this for you—and to me it seems the most wonderful thing I ever heard of. I should thank his memory on my bended knees every day of my life if I were the Professor of Culdees. I couldn’t find it in my heart to poke fun at him; I should think of him and revere him as my benefactor, always!”
“Hm—m!” said Mosscrop. “I’m not sure I don’t wish he’d never been born, or had choked on a bone of one of his own damned Finnan baddies, before ever he came back to us!”
The ring in his voice, like a surly rattling of chains, brought back to her vividly the scene of his despondency at the restaurant.
She made haste to lay her hand upon his arm.