ct for the Raeburn.

The Raeburn was a poor enough prize--a few books for an "essay in the
picturesque;" but it had a peculiar interest for the folk of Barbie.
Twenty years ago it was won four years in succession by men from the
valley; and the unusual run of luck fixed it in their minds. Thereafter
when an unsuccessful candidate returned to his home, he was sure to be
asked very pointedly, "Who won the Raeburn the year?" to rub into him
their perception that he at least had been a failure. A bodie would
dander slowly up, saying, "Ay, man, ye've won hame!" Then, having mused
awhile, would casually ask, "By-the-bye, who won the Raeburn the year?
Oh, it was a Perthshire man! It used to come our airt, but we seem to
have lost the knack o't! Oh yes, sir, Barbie bred writers in those days,
but the breed seems to have decayed." Then he would murmur dreamily, as
if talking to himself, "Jock Goudie was the last that got it hereaway.
But _he_ was a clever chap."

The caustic bodie would dander away with a grin, leaving a poor writhing
soul. When he reached the Cross he would tell the Deacon blithely of the
"fine one he had given him," and the Deacon would lie in wait to give
him a fine one too. In Barbie, at least, your returning student is never
met at the station with a brass band, whatever may happen in more
emotional districts of the North, where it pleases them to shed the
tear.

"An Arctic Night" was the inspiring theme which Tam set for the Raeburn.

"A very appropriate subject!" laughed the fellows; "quite in the style
of his own lectures." For Tam, though wise and a humorist, had his prosy
hours. He used to lecture on the fifteen characteristics of Lady Macbeth
(so he parcelled the unhappy Queen), and he would announce quite
gravely, "We will now approach the discussion of the eleventh feature of
the lady."

Gourlay had a shot at the Raeburn. He could not bring a radiant fullness
of mind to bear upon his task (it was not in him to bring), but his
morbid fancy set to work of its own accord. He saw a lonely little town
far off upon the verge of Lapland night, leagues and leagues across a
darkling plain, dark itself and little and lonely in the gloomy
splendour of a Northern sky. A ship put to sea, and Gourlay heard in his
ears the skirl of the man who went overboard--struck dead by the icy
water on his brow, which smote the brain like a tomahawk.

He put his hand to his own brow when he wrote that, and, "Yes," he cr