Bursary examination time had come, and to the siege of Aberdeen marched a hungry half-dozen—three of them from Thrums, two from the Glenuharity school. The sixth was Tod Lindertis, a ploughman from the Dubb of Prosen, his place of study the bothy after lousing time (Do you hear the klink of quoits?) or a one-roomed house near it, his tutor a dogged little woman, who knew not the accusative from the dative, but never tired of holding the book while Tod recited. Him someone greets with the good-natured jeer¹, "It's your fourth try, is it no, Tod?" and he answers cheerily, "It is, my lathie, and I'll keep kick, kick, kicking away to the nth time."  
"Which means till the door flies open," says the dogged little woman, who is the gallant² Tod's no less gallant wife, and already the mother of two. I hope Tod will succeed this time.
 
The competitors, who were to travel part of the way on their shanks, met soon after daybreak in Cathro's yard, where a little crowd awaited them, parents trying to look humble³, Mr. Duthie and Ramsay Cameron thinking of the morning when they set off on the same errand—but the results were different, and Mr. Duthie is now a minister, and Ramsay is in the middle of another wob. Both dominies were present, hating each other, for that day only, up to the mouth, where their icy politeness was a thing to shudder⁴ at, and each was drilling his detachment to the last moment, but by different methods; for while Mr. Cathro entreated⁵ Joe Meldrum for God's sake to mind that about the genitive, and Willie Simpson to keep his mouth shut and drink even water sparingly, Mr. Ogilvy cracked jokes with Gav Dishart and explained them to Lauchlan McLauchlan. "Think of anything now but what is before you," was Mr. Ogilvy's advice. "Think of nothing else," roared Mr. Cathro. But though Mr. Ogilvy seemed outwardly calm it was base pretence⁷; his dickie gradually wriggled⁸ through the opening of his waistcoat, as if bearing a protest from his inward parts, and he let it hang crumpled⁹ and conspicuous¹⁰, while Grizel, on the outskirts¹¹ of the crowd, yearned¹² to put it right.
 
Grizel was not there, she told several people, including herself, to say good-by to Tommy, and oh, how she scorned Elspeth, for looking as if life would not be endurable without him. Knowing what Elspeth was, Tommy had decided¹³ that she should not accompany him to the yard (of course she was to follow him to Aberdeen if he distinguished¹⁴ himself—Mr. McLean had promised to bring her), but she told him of her dream that he headed the bursary list, and as this dream coincided with some dreams of his own, though not with all, it seemed to give her such fortitude¹⁵ that he let her come. An expressionless face was Tommy's, so that not even the experienced dominie of Glenquharity, covertly¹⁶ scanning his rival's lot, could tell whether he was gloomy or uplifted; he did not seem to be in need of a long sleep like Willie Simpson, nor were his eyes glazed¹⁷ like Gav Dishart's, who carried all the problems of Euclid before him on an invisible blackboard and dared not even wink¹⁸ lest he displaced them, nor did he, like Tod Lindertis, answer questions about his money pocket or where he had stowed his bread and cheese with
 
"After envy, spare, obey, The dative put, remember, pray."
 
Mr. Ogilvy noticed that Cathro tapped his forehead doubtfully every time his eyes fell on Tommy, but otherwise shunned¹⁹ him, and he asked "What are his chances?"
 
"That's the laddie," replied Mr. Cathro, "who, when you took her ladyship to see Corp Shiach years ago impersona—"
 
"I know," Mr. Ogilvy interrupted him hastily, "but how will he stand, think you?"
 
Mr. Cathro coughed. "We'll see," he said guardedly.
 
Nevertheless Tommy was not to get round the corner without betraying a little of himself, for Elspeth having borne up magnificently when he shook hands, screamed at the tragedy of his back and fell into the arms of Tod's wife, whereupon Tommy first tried to brazen²⁰ it out and then kissed her in the presence of a score of witnesses, including Grizel, who stamped her foot, though what right had she to be so angry? "I'm sure," Elspeth sobbed²¹, "that the professor would let me sit beside you; I would just hunker on the floor and hold your foot and no say a word." Tommy gave Tod's wife an imploring²² look, and she managed to comfort Elspeth with predictions of his coming triumph and the reunion to follow. Grateful Elspeth in return asked Tommy to help Tod when the professors were not looking, and he promised, after which she had no more fear for Tod.
 
And now, ye drums that we all carry in our breasts, beat your best over the bravest sight ever seen in a small Scotch²³ town of an autumn morning, the departure of its fighting lads for the lists at Aberdeen. Let the tune²⁴ be the sweet familiar one you found somewhere in the Bible long ago, "The mothers we leave behind us"—leave behind us on their knees. May it dirl through your bones, brave boys, to the end, as you hope not to be damned. And now, quick march.
 
A week has elapsed, and now—there is no call for music now, for these are but the vanquished²⁵ crawling back, Joe Meldrum and—and another. No, it is not Tod, he stays on in Aberdeen, for he is a twelve-pound tenner. The two were within a mile of Thrums at three o'clock, but after that they lagged, waiting for the gloaming, when they stole to their homes, ducking as they passed windows without the blinds down. Elspeth ran to Tommy when he appeared in the doorway²⁶, and then she got quickly between him and Aaron. The warper²⁷ was sitting by the fire at his evening meal, and he gave the wanderer a long steady look, then without a word returned to his porridge and porter. It was a less hearty²⁸ welcome home even than Joe's; his mother was among those who had wept to lose her son, but when he came back to her she gave him a whack²⁹ on the head with the thieval.
 
Aaron asked not a question about those days in Aberdeen, but he heard a little about them from Elspeth. Tommy had not excused himself to Elspeth, he had let her do as she liked with his head (this was a great treat to her), and while it lay pressed against hers, she made remarks about Aberdeen professors which it would have done them good to hear. These she repeated to Aaron, who was about to answer roughly, and then suddenly put her on his knee instead.
 
"They didna ask the right questions," she told him, and when the warper asked if Tommy had said so, she declared that he had refused to say a word against them, which seemed to her to cover him with glory. "But he doubted they would make that mistake afore he started, she said brightly, so you see he saw through them afore ever he set eyes on them."
 
Corp would have replied admiringly to this "Oh, the little deevil!" (when he heard of Tommy's failure he wanted to fight Gav Dishart and Willie Simpson), but Aaron was another kind of confidant, and even when she explained on Tommy's authority that there are two kinds of cleverness, the kind you learn from books and a kind that is inside yourself, which latter was Tommy's kind, he only replied,
 
"He can take it wi' him to the herding³⁰, then, and see if it'll keep the cattle frae stravaiging."
 
"It's no that kind of cleverness either," said Elspeth, quaking, and quaked also Tommy, who had gone to the garret, to listen through the floor.
 
"No? I would like to ken³¹ what use his cleverness can be put to, then," said Aaron, and Elspeth answered nothing, and Tommy only sighed, for that indeed was the problem. But though to these three and to Cathro, and to Mr. and Mrs. McLean and to others more mildly interested, it seemed a problem beyond solution, there was one in Thrums who rocked her arms at their denseness³², a girl growing so long in the legs that twice within the last year she had found it necessary to let down her parramatty frock. As soon as she heard that Tommy had come home vanquished, she put on the quaint³³ blue bonnet³⁴ with the white strings³⁵, in which she fondly believed she looked ever so old (her period of mourning was at an end, but she still wore her black dress) and forgetting all except that he was unhappy, she ran to a certain little house to comfort him. But she did not go in, for through the window she saw Elspeth petting him, and that somehow annoyed her. In the evening, however, she called on Mr. Cathro.
 
Perhaps you want to know why she, who at last saw Sentimental³⁶ Tommy in his true light and spurned³⁷ him accordingly, now exerted herself in his behalf instead of going on with the papering of the surgery. Well, that was the reason. She had put the question to herself before—not, indeed, before going to Monypenny but before calling on the Dominie—and decided that she wanted to send Tommy to college, because she disliked him so much that she could not endure the prospect³⁸ of his remaining in Thrums. Now, are you satisfied?
 
She could scarcely take time to say good-evening to Mr. Cathro before telling him the object of her visit. "The letters Tommy has been writing for people are very clever, are they not?" she began.
 
"You've heard of them, have you?"
 
"Everybody has heard of them," she said injudiciously, and he groaned³⁹ and asked if she had come to tell him this. But he admitted their cleverness, whereupon she asked, "Well, if he is clever at writing letters, would he not be clever at writing an essay?"
 
"I wager⁴⁰ my head against a snuff mull that he would be, but what are you driving at?"
 
"I was wondering whether he could not win the prize I heard Dr. McQueen speaking about, the—is it not called the Hugh Blackadder?"
 
"My head against a buckie that he could! Sit down, Grizel, I see what you mean now. Ay, but the pity is he's not eligible⁴¹ for the Hugh Blackadder. Oh, that he was, oh, that he was! It would make Ogilvy of Glenquharity sing small at last! His loons have carried the Blackadder for the last seven years without a break. The Hugh Blackadder Mortification⁴³, the bequest⁴⁴ is called, and, 'deed, it has been a sore mortification to me!"
 
Calming down, he told her the story of the bequest. Hugh Blackadder was a Thrums man who made a fortune in America, and bequeathed the interest of three hundred pounds of it to be competed for yearly by the youth of his native place. He had grown fond of Thrums and all its ways over there, and left directions that the prize should be given for the best essay in the Scots tongue, the ministers of the town and glens to be the judges, the competitors to be boys who were going to college, but had not without it the wherewithal to support themselves. The ministers took this to mean that those who carried small bursaries were eligible, and indeed it had usually gone to a bursar.
 
"Sentimental Tommy would not have been able to compete if he had got a bursary," Mr. Cathro explained, "because however small it was Mr. McLean meant to double it; and he can't compete without it, for McLean refuses to help him now (he was here an hour since, saying the laddie was obviously hopeless), so I never thought of entering Tommy for the Blackadder. No, it will go to Ogilvy's Lauchlan McLauchlan, who is a twelve-pounder, and, as there can be no competitors, he'll get it without the trouble of coming back to write the essay."
 
"But suppose Mr. McLean were willing to do what he promised if Tommy won the Blackadder?"
 
"It's useless to appeal to McLean. He's hard set against the laddie now and washes his hands of him, saying that Aaron Latta is right after all. He may soften⁴⁵, and get Tommy into a trade to save him from the herding, but send him to college he won't, and indeed he's right, the laddie's a fool."
 
"Not at writing let—"
 
"And what is the effect of his letter-writing, but to make me ridiculous? Me! I wonder you can expect me to move a finger for him, he has been my torment⁴⁶ ever since his inscrutable face appeared at my door."
 
"Never mind him," said Grizel, cunningly. "But think what a triumph it would be to you if your boy beat Mr. Ogilvy's."
 
The Dominie rose in his excitement and slammed the table, "My certie, lassie, but it would!" he cried, "Ogilvy looks on the Blackadder as his perquisite⁴⁷, and he's surer of it than ever this year. And there's no doubt but Tommy would carry it. My head to a buckie preen⁴⁸ he would carry it, and then, oh, for a sight of Ogilvy's face, oh, for—" He broke off abruptly⁴⁹. "But what's the good of thinking of it?" he said, dolefully, "Mr. McLean's a firm man when he makes up his mind."
 
Nevertheless, though McLean, who had a Scotchman's faith in the verdict of professors, and had been bitterly disappointed by Tommy's failure, refused to be converted by the Dominie's entreaties⁵⁰, he yielded to them when they were voiced by Ailie (brought into the plot vice⁶ Grizel retired), and Elspeth got round Aaron, and so it came about that with his usual luck, Tommy was given another chance, present at the competition, which took place in the Thrums school, the Rev⁵¹. Mr. Duthie, the Rev. Mr. Dishart, the Rev. Mr. Gloag of Noran Side, the Rev. Mr. Lorrimer of Glenquharity (these on hair-bottomed chairs), and Mr. Cathro and Mr. Ogilvy (cane); present also to a less extent (that is to say, their faces at the windows), Corp and others, who applauded the local champion when he entered and derided⁵² McLauchlan. The subject of the essay was changed yearly, this time "A Day in Church" was announced, and immediately Lauchlan McLauchlan, who had not missed a service since his scarlet⁵⁴ fever year (and too few then), smote⁵⁵ his red head in agony, while Tommy, who had missed as many as possible, looked calmly confident. For two hours the competitors were put into a small room communicating with the larger one, and Tommy began at once with a confident smi............