CHAPTER LXXXVI.

Notwithstanding Alec's diligence and the genial companionship of Mr.
Cupples--whether the death of Kate, or his own illness, or the
reaction of shame after his sojourn in the tents of wickedness, had
opened dark visions of the world of reality lying in awful
_unknownness_ around the life he seemed to know, I can not tell--cold
isolations would suddenly seize upon him, wherein he would ask
himself--that oracular cave in which one hears a thousand questions
before one reply--"What is the use of it all--this study and labor?"
And he interpreted the silence to mean: "Life is worthless.  There is
no glow in it--only a glimmer and shine at best."--Will my readers set
this condition down as one of disease?  If they do, I ask, "Why should
a man be satisfied with any thing such as was now within the grasp of
Alec Forbes?"  And if they reply that a higher ambition would have set
him at peace if not at rest, I only say that they would be nearer
health if they had his disease.  Pain is not malady: it is the
revelation of malady--the meeting and recoil between the unknown death
and the unknown life; that jar of the system whereby the facts become
known to the man that he is ill.  There was disease in Alec, but the
disease did not lie in his dissatisfaction.  It lay in that poverty of
life with which those are satisfied who call such discontent disease.
Such disease is the first flicker of the aurora of a rising health.

This state of feeling, however, was only occasional; and a reviving
interest in any thing belonging to his studies, or a merry talk with
Mr. Cupples, would dispel it for a time, just as a breath of fine air
will give the sense of perfect health to one dying of consumption.

But what made these questionings develop into the thorns of a more
definite self-condemnation--the advanced guard sometimes of the roses
of peace--was simply this:

He had written to his mother for money to lay out upon superior
instruments, and new chemical apparatus; and his mother had replied
sadly that she was unable to send it.  She hinted that his education
had cost more than she had expected.  She told him that she was in
debt to Robert Bruce, and had of late been compelled to delay the
payment of its interest.  She informed him also that, even under James
Dow's conscientious management, there seemed little ground for hoping
that the farm would ever make a return correspondent to the large
outlay his father had made upon it.

This letter stung Alec to the heart.  That his mother should be in the
power of such a man as Bruce, was bad enough; but that she should have
been exposed for his sake to the indignity of requesting his
forbearance, seemed unendurable.  To despise the man was no
satisfaction, the right and the wrong being where they were.--And what
proportion of the expenses of last session had gone to his
college-accounts?

He wrote a humble letter to his mother--and worked still harder.  For
although he could not make a shilling at present, the future had hope
in it.

Meantime Mr. Cupples, in order that he might bear such outward signs
of inward grace as would appeal to the perceptions of the Senatus, got
a new hat, and changed his shabby tail-coat for a black frock.  His
shirt ceased to be a hypothesis to account for his collar, and became
a real hypostasis, evident and clean.  These signs of improvement led
to inquiries on the part of the Senatus, and the result was that,
before three months of the session were over, he was formally
installed as librarian.  His first impulse on receiving the good news
was to rush down to Luckie Cumstie's and have a double-tumbler.  But
conscience was too strong for Satan, and sent him home to his
pipe--which, it must be confessed, he smoked twice as much as before
his reformation.

From the moment of his appointment, he seemed to regard the library as
his own private property, or, rather, as his own family.  He was
grandfather to the books: at least a grandfather shows that
combination of parent and servant which came nearest to the relation
he henceforth manifested toward them.  Most of them he gave out
graciously; some of them grudgingly; a few of them with much
reluctance; but all of them with injunctions to care, and special
warnings against forcing the backs, crumpling or folding the leaves,
and making thumb-marks.

"Noo," he would say to some country bejan, "tak' the buik i' yer han's
no as gin 'twar a neip _(turnip),_ but as gin 'twar the sowl o' a
new-born bairn.  Min' ye it has to sair _(serve)_ mony a generation
efter your banes lie bare i' the moul', an' ye maun hae respec' to
them that come efter ye, and no ill-guide their fare.  I beg ye winna
guddle't _(mangle it)."_

The bejans use to laugh at him in consequence.  But long before they
were magistrands, the best of them had a profound respect for the
librarian.  Not a few of them repaired to him with all their
difficulties; and such a general favorite was he, that any story of
his humor or oddity was sure to be received with a roar of laughter.
Indeed I doubt whether, within the course of a curriculum, Mr. Cupples
had not become the real center of intellectual and moral life in that
college.

One evening, as he and Alec were sitting together speculating on the
speediest mode of turning Alec's acquirements to money-account, their
landlady entered.

"Here's my cousin," she said, "Captain McTavish o' the _Sea-horse,_
Mr. Forbes, wha says that afore lang he'll be wantin' a young doctor
to gang and haud the scurvy aff o' his men at the whaul-fishin'.  Sae
of course I thoucht o' my ain first, and ran up the stair to you.
It'll be fifty poun' i' yer pooch, and a plenty o' rouch ploys that
the like o' you young fallows likes, though I canna say I wad like sic
things mysel'.  Only I'm an auld wife you see, and that mak's the
differ."

"Nae that auld, Mistress Leslie," said Cupples, "gin ye wadna lee."

"Tell Captain McTavish that I'll gang," said Alec, who had hesitated
no longer than the time Mr. Cupples took to say the kind word of
flattery to their landlady.

"He'll want testimonials, ye ken."

"Wadna _ye_ give me ane, Mrs. Leslie?"

"'Deed wad I, gin 'twar o' ony accoont.  Ye see Mr. Alec, the day's no
yesterday; and this session's no the last."

"Haud yer tongue, and dinna rub a sair place," cried Mr. Cupples.

"I beg yer pardon," returned Mrs. Leslie, submissively.

Alec followed her down the stair.

He soon returned, his eyes flashing with delight.  Adventure!  And
fifty pounds to take to his mother!

"All right, Mr. Cupples.  The Captain has promised to take me if my
testimonials are satisfactory.  I think they will give me good ones
now.  If it weren't for you, I should have been lying in the gutter
instead of walking the quarter-deck."

"Weel, weel, bantam.  There's twa sides to maist obligations.--I'm
leebrarian."

The reader may remember that in his boyhood Alec was fond of the sea,
had rigged a flagstaff, and built the _Bonnie Annie._ He was nearly
beside himself with delight, which continued unjarred until he heard
from his mother.  She had too much sense to make any opposition, but
she could not prevent her anticipations of loss and loneliness from
appearing.  His mother's trouble quelled the exuberance of Alec's
spirits without altering his resolve.  He would return to her in the
fall of the year, bringing with him what would ease her mind of half
of its load.

There was no check at the examination this session.