Erchie filled his pipe and thought a little. “Smert’s the word, Jinnet,” said he. “That’s whit students is for.”
“I don’t think he’s very strong,” said Jinnet. “If he was in his mither’s hoose she wad be giein’ him hough soup for his dinner. I think I’ll jist mak’ some for him to-morrow, and put a hot-water bottle in his bed.”
“That’s richt,” said Erchie; “and if ye hae a haddie or a kippered herrin’, or onything else handy, it’ll dae for me.”.
“Ye’re jist a haver!” said Jinnet.
For a week George P. Tod was a model lodger. He came in at early hours of the evening and went to bed timeously, and was no great trouble to his landlady, whose cookery exploits in his interest were a great improvement on anything he had ever experienced in lodgings before.
When he was in his room in the evenings Jinnet insisted on the utmost quietness on the part of her husband. “Mr Tod’s at his hame lessons,” she would say. “It’ll no’ dae to disturb him. Oh, that heid wark! that heid wark! It must be an awfu’ thing to hae to be thinkin’ even-on.”
“Heid wark!” said her husband. “I ken the heid wark he’s like enough at; he’s learnin’ the words o’ ‘Mush Mush, tu-ral-i-ady’ to sing at the students’ procession, or he’s busy wi’ a dictionary writin’ hame to his paw to send him a post office order for twa pounds to jine the Y.M.C.A. But he’s no’ thinkin’ o’ jinin’ the Y.M.C.A.; he’s mair likely to start takin’ lessons at a boxin’ cless.”
But even Erchie was compelled to admit that the lad was no unsatisfactory lodger.
“I declare, Jinnet,” he said, “I think he’s yin o’ the kind o’ students ye read aboot but very seldom see. His faither’ll be a wee fairmer up aboot Clachnacudden, hainin’ a’ the money he can, and no’ giein’ his wife her richt meat, that he may see his son through the college and waggin’ his heid in a pulpit. Him and his faither’s the stuff they mak’ the six shillin’ Scotch novells oot o’—the kind ye greet at frae the very, start,—for ye ken the puir lad, that was aye that smert in the school, and won a’ the bursaries, is gaun to dee in the last chapter wi’ a decline.”
“Puir things,” said Jinnet.