our, from
Leven, himself a jovial medical student enjoying an active part in the
melee. On the occasion of a great battle in the winter of 1869--or
1870--Mr Stevenson and one or two men, now well known in various
professions, had seated themselves on a ledge in the quadrangle to watch
the fight. From this vantage ground they encouraged the combatants, but
took no active part in the fray. Within swarmed the students armed with
snowballs, without, the lads of the town, equally active, stormed the
gates. All were too intent on the battle to notice the advent of the
police, who rushed into the college quadrangle and made prisoners where
they could. Craning his neck too much, in his keen enjoyment, Mr
Stevenson overbalanced himself, slipped from his perch and was promptly
captured by 'a bobby,' and, in spite of gallant efforts for his rescue,
was ignominiously marched off to the Police Office at the very moment
that his blandly unconscious mother was driving up the Bridges. It was
useless for his attendant friends to assert that he had been a
non-combatant. Was he not taken in the very thick of the fight? The
police had him and they meant to keep him for he could not produce
sufficient bail from his somewhat empty pockets. His cousin and his
friends, by leaving all their stray coins, their watches and other
valuables, managed to secure his release so that he had not the
experience--which it is possible he might have enjoyed--of passing a
night in the police cells of his native city.

In his introduction to the _Memoirs of Professor Fleeming-Jenkin_, he
himself tells a good story of his relations with that Professor, who was
always a true and appreciative friend to his clever if idle student. He
had handed in so few cards at the class of Engineering that his
certificate was not forthcoming until he told his friend that his father
would be very vexed if he could not produce the certificate--which he
never intended to _use_--whereat the tender-hearted Professor handed it
to him.

Another prime favourite of his among the Professors was Professor
Kelland; and one can well understand the attraction which the dainty,
gentle refinement of that most kind-hearted of men had for a nature so
akin to it as young Stevenson's. All Professor Kelland's students loved
him; this one understood him also. Professor Masson was one of the
giants of those days whom he was also most capable of appreciating, and
whose lectures he occasionally atten