The Right Stuff | Page 4

but immediately after this encountered an imposing gentleman in a frock-coat, who asked his pleasure. Robert inquired respectfully if the gentleman kept ribbon. The gentleman said "Surely, surely!" and Robert's modest requirements were thereupon sent ringing from a throat of brass into the uttermost recesses of the establishment, and he himself was passed, hot-faced, along the fairway until he reached the right department. Here his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and the siren behind the counter, with difficulty stifling her amusement, was reduced to discovering his needs by a process of elimination.
"What will I show you?"
No answer.
"Ladies' gloves?"
A shake of the head.
"Handkerchiefs?"
Another shake.
"Stockings?"
Another shake, accompanied by a deepening of complexion.
"Well--ribbon?"
"Aye, that's it," replied Robert, suddenly finding his voice (which, by the way, rather resembled the Last Trump). "Hauf a yaird--one inch wide--satin--cream!" he roared mechanically.
He received the small parcel, and furtively fingering the money in his pocket, asked the price.
"Two-three, please," replied the damsel briskly.
How Robert thanked his stars that he had some cash in hand! But what a price! All that for a scrap of ribbon! It seemed sinful; but he laid two shillings and threepence on the counter. Greatly to his alarm, the young woman behind it, who up to this point had kept her feelings under commendable control, suddenly collapsed like a punctured balloon on to the shoulder of her nearest neighbour--there being no shop-walkers about--and expressed a wish that she might be taken home and buried. Finally she recovered sufficiently to push Robert's two shillings back across the counter and to place his threepence in a mysterious receptacle which she thrust into a hole in the wall, from which it was ejected with much clatter a minute later; and on being opened proved to contain what the dazed Robert at first took for a half-sovereign, but which he ultimately discovered, when he had abandoned the still giggling maiden and groped his way out into the street, to be a bright new farthing.
The same day he returned to his home; but he did not reach it without one more adventure, a slight one, it is true, but not without its effect upon his future.
The train was over-full, and Robert ultimately found himself travelling in company with nine other passengers, seven of whom were suffering from that infirmity once poetically described by an expert in such diagnoses as "a wee bit drappie in their een." The exception was a gentleman in the far corner, accompanied by a most lovely young lady, upon whom Robert gazed continuously with an admiration so absorbing and profound that it took him some little time to realise, shortly after the commencement of the journey, that the rest of the company were indulging in a free fight all over the compartment, and that the lady was clinging in terror to her escort. Robert was of considerable service in restoring order, and found his reward in the eyes of the lady, who thanked him very prettily. Her husband had the sense not to offer Robert money, but gave him his card, and said in a curious, stiff, English way that he hoped he might be of service to him some day. They got out at Perth, and Robert travelled on alone.
Hours later he was met by his brother David at a little wayside station, and driven over fifteen miles of hilly road to the farm where he had been born and brought up.
Next morning he was up at daybreak, and set to work at his usual tasks about the yard, well knowing that such would be his lot to the end of his life if the examination list did not show his name at the top.
* * * * *
Some days had to elapse before the result could be known; but Robert Chalmers Fordyce--by the way, I think we know him well enough now to call him Robin, which was the name his mother had given him on his third birthday--and his household, being Scottish and undemonstrative, made little or no reference to the subject.
Robin was the scholar of his family. He was the second son, David being four years older. But in accordance with that simple, grand, and patriarchal law of Scottish peasant life, which decrees that every lad of parts shall be given his chance to bring credit on the family, even though his parents have to pinch and save and his brothers bide at the plough-tail all their lives in consequence--a law whose chief merit lies in the splendid sacrifices which its faithful fulfilment involves, and whose vital principle well-meaning but misguided philanthropy is now endeavouring to dole out of existence--he had been sent to Edinburgh to make the most of this, his one chance in life.
Still, though the credit of the family hung upon the result of the