it will be remembered, suffered severe qualms from his
familiarity with certain rural traditions concerning the composition of
London pies,--but he was far from happy. He had never slept away from
his native hillside before; he had never seen a town possessing more
than three thousand inhabitants; and he had only once travelled in a
train.

Moreover, he was proceeding to an inquisition which would decide once
and for all whether he was to go forth and conquer the world with a
university education behind him, or go back to the plough and sup
porridge for the rest of his life. To-morrow he was to have his
opportunity, and the consideration of how that opportunity could best be
gripped and brought to the ground blinded Robin even to the wonders of
the Forth Bridge.

He sat in the corner of the railway carriage, passing in review the
means of conquest at his disposal. His actual stock of scholarship, he
knew, was well up to the required standard: he was as letter perfect in
Latin, Greek, Mathematics, and Literature as hard study and remorseless
coaching could make him. Everything needful was in his head--but could
he get it out again? That was the question. The roaring world in which
he would find himself, the strange examination-room, the quizzing
professors--would these combine with his native shyness to seal the lips
and cramp the pen of Robert Chalmers Fordyce? No--a thousand times no!
He would win through! Robert set his teeth, braced himself, and kicked
the man opposite.

He apologised, attributing the discourtesy to the length of his legs--he
stood about six feet three--and smiled so largely and benignantly, that
the Man Opposite, who had intended to be thoroughly disagreeable, melted
at once, and said it was the fault of the Company for providing such
restricted accommodation, and gave Robert _The Scotsman_ to read.

Robert thanked him, and, effacing himself behind _The Scotsman_,--though,
for all the instruction or edification that his present frame of mind
permitted him to extract from that coping-stone of Scottish journalism,
he might as well have been reading the Koran,--returned to his thoughts.
He collated in his mind the pieces of advice which had been bestowed
upon him by his elders and betters before his departure. In brief,
their collective wisdom came to this:--

His father had bidden him--

(a) To address all professors with whom he might come in contact as
"Sir";

(b) To arrive at the Exam