John. To the latter especially, as I
think I have said before, he was anxious to show well, wiping out
the blot, as he considered it, of his all but failure in the matter
of a bursary. For he looked up to her as to a goddess who just came
near enough to the earth to be worshipped by him who dwelt upon it.
The end of the session came nigh. Ericson passed his examinations
with honour. Robert gained the first Greek and third Latin prize.
The evening of the last day arrived, and on the morrow the students
would be gone--some to their homes of comfort and idleness, others
to hard labour in the fields; some to steady reading, perhaps to
school again to prepare for the next session, and others to be
tutors all the summer months, and return to the wintry city as to
freedom and life. Shargar was to remain at the grammar-school.
That last evening Robert sat with Ericson in his room. It was a
cold night--the night of the last day of March. A bitter wind blew
about the house, and dropped spiky hailstones upon the skylight.
The friends were to leave on the morrow, but to leave together; for
they had already sent their boxes, one by the carrier to Rothieden,
the other by a sailing vessel to Wick, and had agreed to walk
together as far as Robert's home, where he was in hopes of inducing
his friend to remain for a few days if he found his grandmother
agreeable to the plan. Shargar was asleep on the rug for the last
time, and Robert had brought his coal-scuttle into Ericson's room to
combine their scanty remains of well-saved fuel in a common glow,
over which they now sat.
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