rascal here made a fule o' 'msel' last session
and didna pass; and--"

"Let bygones be bygones, if you please, Mr Cupples, said Mrs Forbes
pleasantly.

"'Deed no, mem. What's the use o' byganes but to learn frae them hoo to
meet the bycomes? Ye'll please to hear me oot; and gin Alec doesna like
to hear me, he maun jist sit _and_ hear me."

"Fire away, Mr Cupples," said Alec.

"I will.--For them that didna pass i' the en' o' the last session,
there's an examination i' the beginnin' o' the neist--gin they like to
stan' 't. Gin they dinna, they maun gang throu the same classes ower
again, and stan' the examination at the end--that is, gin they want a
degree; and that's a terrible loss o' time for the start. Noo, gin
Alec'll set to wark like a man, I'll help him a' that I can; and by the
gatherin' again, he'll be up wi' the lave o' the fleet. Faith! I'll sit
like Deith i' the spectre-bark, and blaw intil his sails a' that I can
blaw. Maybe ye dinna ken that verse i' _The Rhyme o' the Ancient
Mariner_? It was left oot o' the later editions:

'A gust of wind sterte up behind,
And whistled through his bones;
Through the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth,
Half-whistles and half-groans.'

There! that's spicy--for them 'at likes ghaistry."

That very day Alec resumed. Mr Cupples would not let him work a moment
after he began to show symptoms of fatigue. But the limit was moved
further and further every day, till at length he could work four hours.
His tutor would not hear of any further extension, and declared he
would pass triumphantly.

The rest of the summer-day they spent in wandering about, or lying in
the grass, for it was a hot and dry summer, so that the grass was a
very bed of health. Then came all the pleasures of the harvest. And
when the evenings grew cool, there were the books that Mr Cupples
foraged for in Glamerton, seeming to find them by the scent.

And Mr Cupples tried to lead Alec into philosophical ways of regarding
things; for he had just enough of religion to get some good of
philosophy--which itself is the religion of skeletons.

"Ye see," he would say, "it's pairt o' the machine. What a body has to
do is to learn what pinion or steam-box, or piston, or muckle
water-wheel he represents, and stick to that, defyin' the deevil, whase
wark is to put the machine out o' gear. And sae he maun grin' awa', and
whan Deith comes, he'll say, as Andrew Wylie did--'Weel run, little