or himself.

On the second day after the commencement of lectures, it was made known
to the first class that the Magistrand (fourth-class) Debating Society
would meet that evening. The meetings of this society, although under
the control of the magistrands, were open, upon equal terms in most
other respects, to the members of the inferior classes. They were held
in the Natural Philosophy class-room, at seven o'clock in the evening;
and to the first meeting of the session Alec went with no little
curiosity and expectation.

It was already dark when he set out from his lodgings in the new town,
for the gateway beneath the tower with that crown of stone which is the
glory of the ancient borough gathered beneath it. Through narrow
crooked streets, with many dark courts on each side, he came to the
open road which connected the two towns. It was a starry night, dusky
rather than dark, and full of the long sound of the distant sea-waves
falling on the shore beyond the _links_. He was striding along
whistling, and thinking about as nearly nothing as might be, when the
figure of a man, whose footsteps he had heard coming through the gloom,
suddenly darkened before him and stopped. It was a little spare,
slouching figure, but what the face was like, he could not see.

"Whustlin'?" said the man, interrogatively.

"Ay; what for no?" answered Alec cheerily.

"Haud yer een aff o' rainbows, or ye'll brak' yer shins upo'
gravestanes," said the man, and went on, with a shuffling gait, his
eyes flashing on Alec, from under projecting brows, as he passed.

Alec concluded him drunk, although drink would not altogether account
for the strangeness of the address, and soon forgot him. The arch
echoed to his feet as he entered the dark quadrangle, across which a
glimmer in the opposite tower guided him to the stairs leading up to
the place of meeting. He found the large room lighted by a chandelier,
and one of the students seated as president in the professor's chair,
while the benches were occupied by about two hundred students, most of
the freshmen or _bejans_ in their red gowns.

Various preliminary matters were discussed with an energy of utterance,
and a fitness of speech, which would have put to shame the general
elocution of both the pulpit and the bar. At length, however, a certain
_semi_ (second-classman, or more popularly _sheep_) stood up to give
his opinion on some subject in dispute, and attempting to speak too
soon after