began.

"You've heard of them, have you?"

"Everybody has heard of them," she said injudiciously, and he groaned
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 wager 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 eligible 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
Mortification, the bequest 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 soften, and get Tommy into a trade