"Have the goodness, if you please, to write, not what you ought, but what you want. Were you at the cricket match, you will tell me of the capture of the wickets; or you were in the country, I will hear of the woods and the beautiful pheasants" (this delicate allusion to Mr. Byles's poaching experiences was much appreciated); "or you were among the books, then you will describe what you love in them; or you were looking at a horse, I expect to hear about that horse"; and the whole school understood that this was a direct invitation to Speug, to give an exact picture of an Irish mare that his father had just bought. "The subject, ah!" said the Count, "that does not matter; it is the manner, the style, the esprit, that is what I shall value. I wish you all the good success, and I will go a walk in the meadow till you have finished."
"Do yir best, laddies," said Bulldog, "for the credit of the school and to please the Count. If I see ony laddie playing tricks I'll do my part to teach him sobriety, and if I see one copying from another, out he goes. Ye have one hour from this meenut, make the most o't," and the tournament was open.
Bulldog, apparently reading his morning paper, and only giving a casual glance to see that no one took advantage of the strange circumstances, was really watching his flock very closely, and checking his judgment of each one by this new test. Dull, conscientious lads like the Dowbiggins began at once, in order that they might not lose a moment of time, but might put as much written stuff upon the paper as possible; yet now and again they stopped and looked round helplessly because they had no books and no tutor to assist them, and they realised for the first time how little they had in their own heads.
"Ha! ha!" said Bulldog to himself, "I kent ye were naithing but a painted show, and it 'ill do ye good to find that out for yirselves."
Jock Howieson and his kind regarded the whole matter as a new form of entertainment, and as he could not have put into anything approaching connected words the experiences of his last Saturday, he employed the time in cutting up his unwritten paper into squares of an inch, and making them into pellets with which he prevented the Dowbiggin mind from being too much absorbed in study. He did this once too often, and Bulldog went down to call upon him with a cane and with plain, simple words.
"His head is an inch thick," said Bulldog, as he went back to his desk, "but there's the making of a man in Jock, though he 'ill never be able to write a decent letter to save his life. He would suit the Scots Greys down to the ground."
Speug had given a solemn promise to Nestie, under the customary form of oath, that he would write something, and whatever he wrote he would hand in, though it was only twenty words, and Speug never went back from his oath. When Howieson caught the Dowbiggin ear with a pellet there is no doubt that a joyful light came into Speug's eyes, and he struggled with strong temptation, and when old friends made facetious signs to him he hesitated more than once, but in the end assumed an air of dignified amazement, explaining, as it were, that his whole mind was devoted to literary composition, and that he did not know what they meant by this impertinent intrusion upon a student's privacy. Cosh certainly jumped once in his seat as if he had been stung by a wasp, and it is certainly true that at that moment there was a piece of elastic on the thumb and first finger of Speug's left hand, but his right hand was devoted to literature. The language which Cosh allowed himself to use in the heat of the moment was so unvarnished that it came under Bulldog's attention, who told him that if he wanted to say anything like that again he must say it in Latin, and that he ought to take notice of the excellent conduct of Peter McGuffie, who, Bulldog declared, was not at all unlikely to win the prize. And as the master returned to his seat his back was seen to shake, and the wink with which Speug favoured the class, in a brief rest from labour, was a reward for an hour's drudgery. Bulldog knew everybody up and down, out and in—what a poor creature Cosh was, and what good stuff could be found in Speug; and he also knew everything that was done—why Cosh had said what he said, and why Speug at that moment was lost in study. Bulldog was not disappointed when Nestie's face lighted up at the title of the essay, and he knew why his favourite little lad did not write anything for fifteen minutes, but looked steadily out at the window and across the North Meadow, and he returned to his paper with a sense of keen satisfaction when Nestie at last settled down to work and wrote without ceasing, except when now and again he hesitated as for a word, or tried a sentence upon his ear to know how it sounded. For the desire of Bulldog's heart was that Nestie should win, and if—though that, of course, was too absurd—Speug by the help of the favouring gods should come in second, Bulldog would feel that he had not lived in vain.
"Ye have three meenuts to dot your i's and stroke your t's," said Bulldog, "and the Count will tell ye how ye're to sign yir names," and then the Count, who had come in from his walk, much refreshed, advanced again to the desk.
"It would be one great joy to have your autographs," said the Count, "and I would place them in a book and say, 'My friends'; but honour forbids. As I shall have the too great responsibility of judging, it is necessary that I be—ah! I have forgotten the word—yes! show the fair play. No, I must not know the names; for if I read the name of my friend the ever active, the ever brave, the ever interesting Speug" (at this indecent allusion Speug grew purple and gave the bench in front of him to understand by well-known signs that if they looked at him again he might give them something to look for outside), "I would say that Speug is a sportsman but he is not a littérateur, and I might not do my comrade the full justice. And if I read the name of the composed, the studious, the profound young gentlemen who are before me" (and it was fortunate the Dowbiggins had their backs to the school), "I would know that it must be the best before I read it, and that would not be the fair play.
"No! you will write on your admirable essay a motto—what you please—and your name you will put in an envelope, so," and the Count wrote his own name in the most dashing manner, and in an awful silence, on a piece of paper, and closed the envelope with a graceful flourish: "and outside you will put your motto, so it will be all the fair play, and in the Town Hall next Saturday I shall have the felicity to declare the result. Voila! Has my plan your distinguished approbation?" and the Count made a respectful appeal to Bulldog. "Nothing could be fairer, you say? Then it is agreed, and I allow myself to wish you adieu for this day."