Cuthbert Ramsay had been one of the most remarkable undergraduates of those days, notable alike for mental and physical gifts which lifted him out of the ruck. He was six feet two—with the form of an athlete and as handsome a face as was ever seen within the gates of Trinity,—and these advantages of person, which would have been noteworthy in any man, were the more remarkable in him, because of his utter indifference to them, or, perhaps, it may be said, complete unconsciousness of them. He knew that he was a big man, because his tailor told him as much; but he had never taken into consideration the question as to whether he was or was not a handsome man; indeed, except when he had his hair cut, an operation which he always submitted to unwillingly and of dire necessity, it is doubtful if he ever looked into a glass long enough to know what manner of man he was—certainly not at his morning toilet, when he moved restlessly about the room, hairbrushes in hand, belabouring his handsome head, and exercising his extraordinary memory by the repetition of some scientific formula acquired during the previous night’s reading.
His own estimate of his appearance was comprised in the idea that he was “very Scotch.” That milky whiteness of complexion, touched with just enough ruddy colour to give life to the face, those brilliant blue eyes, the straight nose, clear-cut nostrils, firm lips and firmer chin, the high broad brow, and crisp auburn hair, constituted to his mind nothing more than his brevet of nationality.
“No one would ever take me for anything but a Scotchman,” he would say lightly, if any acquaintance ventured to hint at his good looks. “There’s no mistake about me. Albion is written on my brow.”
From his childhood upwards he had cared only for large things—intent upon investigation and discovery from the time he could crawl—asking the most searching questions of mother and of nurse—prying into those abstract mysteries which perplex philosophers before he could speak plain. The thirst for knowledge had grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength. His hardy boyhood had been spent for the most part in the windy streets of Aberdeen, marching with swinging stride along that granite pavement, his shabby red gown flapping in the north-easter; faring anyhow, as indifferent to what he ate as he was to what he wore; ahead of his fellows in all things intellectual, and abreast with the best athletes of his year in the sports they valued,—a king among men; and of such a happy disposition that nothing in life came amiss to him, and what would have been hardship to another seemed sport to him.
Some one, a wealthy member of his extensive family, found out that this Cuthbert was no common youth, and that with a little encouragement he might do honour to the clan. This distant kinsman, one of the heads of the great house of Ramsay, sent him to Cambridge; where he entered as a scholar of his college, and at the end of a year gained a University scholarship, which made him independent. This hardy youth from the city of Bon Accord was able to live upon so little—could not for the life of him have been extravagant, having none of that mollesse, or soft self-indulgence, which is at the root of most men’s squanderings. He was nine and twenty years of age, and he had never worn a gardenia, and had only had one suit of dress clothes since he grew to man’s estate. Needless to say that albeit he went out very seldom that suit was now somewhat shabby; but Cuthbert’s superb appearance neutralized the shabbiness, and he looked the finest man in any assembly. His parents were in their graves before he left the University. He had no ties. He was free as Adam would have been if Eve had never been created. There was no one near or dear to him to feel proud of his honours, though his name was high in the list of Wranglers, and he had taken a first-class in science. And now, after that interval of serious scientific work in Leipsic and Paris, he was plodding at St. Thomas’s with a view to a London degree, and thus the two hard-working young men—very intimate in the old days when Cuthbert’s rooms in the Bishop’s Hostel were conveniently adjacent to Theodore’s ground floor in Trinity Hall—were thrown together again upon their life-journey, and were honestly glad to renew the old friendship.
Ramsay was delighted with his friend’s chambers.
“I was afraid there was nothing so good as this left in the Temple,” he said, rapturously contemplating the blackened old wainscot, and the low ceiling with its heavy cross-beam. “I thought smartness and brand-new stone had superseded all that was historical and interesting within the precincts of the Lamb. But these rooms of yours have the true smack. Why, I really believe now, Dalbrook, you must have rats behind that wainscot?”
“Perhaps I had, till Miss Nipper came to keep me company,” answered Theodore, patting the terrier, whose neat little head and intelligent ears were lifted at the sound of her name.
“And Nipper has made them emigrate to the next house, no doubt?”
“I’m glad you like my rooms, Cuthbert.”