When the school assembled for conference among the Russian guns, their minds were divided between two subjects. The first was what Speug had written, on which that strenuous student would give no information, resenting the inquiry both as an insult to his abilities and an illustration of vain curiosity on the part of the school. Nestie, however, volunteered the trustworthy information that Speug had spent his whole time explaining the good which he had got from being kept in one Saturday forenoon and doing mathematical problems under the eye of Bulldog. And Nestie added that he thought it mean of Peter to "suck up" to the master in this disgraceful fashion just for the sake of getting a prize. Peter confided to Nestie afterwards that he had really done his best to describe a close race for the Kilmarnock Cup, but that he didn't think there were six words properly spelt from beginning to end, and that if he escaped without a thrashing he would treat Nestie to half a dozen bottles of ginger-beer.
Regarding the winner—for that was the other subject—there was a unanimous and sad judgment; that Dunc Robertson might have a chance, but that Thomas John, the head of the Dowbiggins, would carry off the prize, as he had carried off all the other prizes; and that, if so, they would let him know how they all loved him at the Town Hall, and that it would be wise for him to go home with the Count's prize and all the other prizes in a cab, with the windows up.
The prize-giving in the Town Hall was one of the great events in the Muirtown year, and to it the memory of a Seminary lad goes back with keen interest. All the forenoon the Provost and the bailies had been sitting in the class-room of the Seminary, holding Latin books in their hands, which they opened anywhere, and wagging their heads in solemn approval over the translation by Thomas John and other chosen worthies, while the parents wandered from place to place and identified their sons, who refused to take any notice of them unless nobody was looking. What mothers endured cannot be put into words, when they saw their darling boys (whom they had seen dressed that morning in their Sunday clothes, and sent away in perfect array, with directions that they were not to break their collars nor soil their jackets, nor disarrange their hair the whole day, or they need not come home in the evening) turn up in a class-room before the respectables of Muirtown as if their heads had not known a brush for six months, with Speug's autograph upon their white collar, a button gone from their waistcoat, and an ounce of flour in a prominent place on their once speckless jacket.
"Yes," said one matron to another, with the calmness of despair, "that is my Jimmy, I canna deny it; but ye may well ask, for he's more like a street waufie than onything else. On a day like this, and when I see what a sight he's made of himself in two hours I could almost wish he had been born a girl."
"Losh keep us, Mistress Chalmers, ye maunna speak like that, for it's no chancy, he micht be taken away sudden, and ye would have regrets; forbye your laddie's naithing to my Archie, for the last time I saw him, as I'm a livin' woman, there wasna more than two inches of his necktie left, and he was fishing his new Balmoral bonnet out of the water-barrel in the playground. Ye needna expect peace if the Almichty give ye laddies, but I wouldna change them for lassies—na, na, I'll no' go that length."
And the two matrons sustained themselves with the thought that if their boys were only a mere wreck of what they had been in the morning, other people's boys were no better, and some of them were worse, for one of them had inflicted such damages on his trousers that, although he was able to face the public, he had to retire as from the royal presence; nor was it at all unlike the motherly mind to conceive a malignant dislike to the few boys who were spick and span, and to have a certain secret pride even in their boys' disorder, which at any rate showed that they were far removed from the low estate of lassies.
The great function of the day came off at two o'clock, and before the hour the hall was packed with fathers, mothers, sisters, elder brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins and distant relatives of the boys, while the boys themselves, beyond all control and more dishevelled than ever, were scattered throughout the crowd. Some were sitting with their parents and enduring a rapid toilet at the hands of their mothers; others were gathered in clumps and arranging a reception for the more unpopular prize-winners; others were prowling up and down the passages, exchanging sweetmeats and responding (very coldly) to the greeting of relatives in the seats, for the black terror that hung over every Seminary lad was that he would be kissed publicly by a maiden aunt. Mr. Peter McGuffie senior came in with the general attention of the audience, and seated himself in a prominent place with Speug beside him. Not that Mr. McGuffie took any special interest in prize-givings, and certainly not because Speug had ever appeared in the character of a prize-winner. Mr. McGuffie's patronage was due to his respect for the Count and his high appreciation of what he considered the Count's sporting offer, and Mr. McGuffie was so anxious to sustain the interest of the proceedings that he was willing, although he admitted that he had no tip, to have a bet with anyone in his vicinity on the winning horse. He also astonished his son by offering to lay a sovereign on Nestie coming in first and half a length ahead, which was not so much based upon any knowledge of Nestie's literary qualifications as on the strange friendship between Nestie and his promising son. As the respectable Free Kirk elder who sat next Mr. McGuffie did not respond to this friendly offer, Mr. McGuffie put a straw in his mouth and timed the arrival of the Provost.
"Before the hour the hall was packed."