第105章 EVENTS OF WEDNESDAY; THE UNIVERSITY OF CRAMOND(3)

Or, come: it's early, but is man the slave of hours? what do you say to a chop and a bottle in Dumbreck's Hotel?'

I refused all false comfort; but when he went on to remind me that this was the day when the University of Cramond met; and to propose a five-mile walk into the country and a dinner in the company of young asses like himself, I began to think otherwise.I had to wait until to-morrow evening, at any rate; this might serve as well as anything else to bridge the dreary hours.The country was the very place for me: and walking is an excellent sedative for the nerves.Remembering poor Rowley, feigning a cold in our lodgings and immediately under the guns of the formidable and now doubtful Bethiah, I asked if I might bring my servant.'Poor devil! it is dull for him,' I explained.

'The merciful man is merciful to his ass,' observed my sententious friend.'Bring him by all means!

"The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried by an orphan boy;"

and I have no doubt the orphan boy can get some cold victuals in the kitchen, while the Senatus dines.'

Accordingly, being now quite recovered from my unmanly condition, except that nothing could yet induce me to cross the North Bridge, I arranged for my ball dress at a shop in Leith Street, where I was not served ill, cut out Rowley from his seclusion, and was ready along with him at the trysting-place, the corner of Duke Street and York Place, by a little after two.The University was represented in force: eleven persons, including ourselves, Byfield the aeronaut, and the tall lad, Forbes, whom I had met on the Sunday morning, bedewed with tallow, at the 'Hunters' Rest.' I was introduced; and we set off by way of Newhaven and the sea beach; at first through pleasant country roads, and afterwards along a succession of bays of a fairylike prettiness, to our destination -

Cramond on the Almond - a little hamlet on a little river, embowered in woods, and looking forth over a great flat of quicksand to where a little islet stood planted in the sea.It was miniature scenery, but charming of its kind.The air of this good February afternoon was bracing, but not cold.All the way my companions were skylarking, jesting and making puns, and I felt as if a load had been taken off my lungs and spirits, and skylarked with the best of them.

Byfield I observed, because I had heard of him before, and seen his advertisements, not at all because I was disposed to feel interest in the man.He was dark and bilious and very silent; frigid in his manners, but burning internally with a great fire of excitement;

and he was so good as to bestow a good deal of his company and conversation (such as it was) upon myself, who was not in the least grateful.If I had known how I was to be connected with him in the immediate future, I might have taken more pains.

In the hamlet of Cramond there is a hostelry of no very promising appearance, and here a room had been prepared for us, and we sat down to table.

'Here you will find no guttling or gormandising, no turtle or nightingales' tongues,' said the extravagant, whose name, by the way, was Dalmahoy.'The device, sir, of the University of Cramond is Plain Living and High Drinking.'

Grace was said by the Professor of Divinity, in a macaronic Latin, which I could by no means follow, only I could hear it rhymed, and I guessed it to be more witty than reverent.After which the SENATUS ACADEMICUS sat down to rough plenty in the shape of rizzar'd haddocks and mustard, a sheep's head, a haggis, and other delicacies of Scotland.The dinner was washed down with brown stout in bottle, and as soon as the cloth was removed, glasses, boiling water, sugar, and whisky were set out for the manufacture of toddy.I played a good knife and fork, did not shun the bowl, and took part, so far as I was able, in the continual fire of pleasantry with which the meal was seasoned.Greatly daring, I ventured, before all these Scotsmen, to tell Sim's Tale of Tweedie's dog; and I was held to have done such extraordinary justice to the dialect, 'for a Southron,' that I was immediately voted into the Chair of Scots, and became, from that moment, a full member of the University of Cramond.A little after, I found myself entertaining them with a song; and a little after - perhaps a little in consequence - it occurred to me that I had had enough, and would be very well inspired to take French leave.It was not difficult to manage, for it was nobody's business to observe my movements, and conviviality had banished suspicion.