It were not possible to imagine anything more different than a Muirtown boy and the Count; but boys judge by an instinct which never fails within its own range, and Muirtown Seminary knew that, with all his foreign ways, the Count was a man. Legends gathered around him and flourished exceedingly, being largely invented by Nestie, and offered for consumption at the mouth of the pistol by Speug, who let it be understood that to deny or even to smile at Nestie's most incredible invention would be a ground of personal offence. The Count was in turn a foreign nobleman, who had fallen in love with the Emperor of Austria's daughter and had been exiled by the imperial parent, but that the Princess was true to the Count, and that any day he might be called from Mistress Jamieson's lodgings to the palace of Vienna; that he was himself a king of some mysterious European State, who had been driven out by conspirators, but whose people were going to restore him, and that some day Speug would be staying with the Count in his royal abode and possibly sitting beside him on the throne. During this romance Speug felt it right to assume an air of demure modesty, which was quite consistent with keeping a watchful eye on any impertinent young rascal who might venture to jeer, when Speug would politely ask him what he was laughing at, and offer to give him something to laugh for. That the Count was himself a conspirator, and the head of a secret society which extended all over Europe, with signs and passwords, and that whenever any tyrant became intolerable, the warrant for his death was sent from Mistress Jamieson's. Whenever one fable grew hackneyed Nestie produced another, and it was no longer necessary in Muirtown Seminary to buy Indian tales or detective stories, for the whole library of fiction was now bound up and walking about in the Count.
"Watching a battle royal between the tops."
Between him and the boys there grew up a fast friendship, and he was never thoroughly happy now unless he was with his "jolly dogs." He attended every cricket match, and at last, after he had learned how, kept the score, giving a cheer at every new run and tearing his hair when any of his boys were bowled out. He rushed round the football field without his cane, and generally without his hat; and high above all cheers could be heard his "Bravo—bravo, forwards! Speug!" as that enterprising player cleft his way through the opponent's ranks. It mattered nothing to the Count that his boots were ruined, and his speckless clothes soiled, he would not have cared though he had burst his stays, so long as the "dogs" won, and he could go up in glory with them to Janet MacWhae's and drink to their health in flowing ginger-beer. During the play hour his walk seemed ever to bring him to the North Meadow, and if a ball by accident, for none would have done it by intention, knocked off the Count's hat, he cried "Hoor-r-rah!" in his own pronunciation and bowed in response to this mark of attention. It was a pretty sight to see him bending forward, his hands resting on his knees, watching a battle royal between the tops of Speug and Howieson; and if anything could be better it was to see the Count trying to spin a top himself, and expostulating with it in unknown tongues.
As the boys came to the school in the morning and went home in the evening up Breadalbane Street, the Count was always sitting at one of the windows which had been broken, ready to wave his hand to any one who saluted him, and in the afternoon he would often open the window to get the school news and to learn whether there would be a match on Saturday. As time went on this alliance told upon the Count's outer man; he never lost his gay manner, nor his pretty little waist, nor could he ever have been taken for a Scot, nor ever, if he had lived to the age of Methuselah, have been made an elder of the Kirk; but his boots grew thicker, though they were always neat, and his clothes grew rougher, though they were always well made, and his ties became quieter, and his week-day hat was like that of other men, and, except on Sundays, Muirtown never saw the glory of the former days. With his new interest in life, everyone noticed that the Count had grown simpler and kindlier, and Muirtown folk, who used to laugh at him with a flavour of contempt, began to love him through their boys. He would walk home with Bulldog on a summer evening, the strangest pair that ever went together; and it was said that many little improvements for the comfort of the lads, and many little schemes for their happiness at Muirtown Seminary, were due to the Count. It was believed that the time did come when he could have returned to his own land, but that he did not go because he was a lonely man and had found his friends in Muirtown; and when he died, now many years ago, he left his little all for the benefit of his "jolly dogs," and the Count, who had no mourners of his blood, was followed to his grave by every boy at Muirtown Seminary.