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Dowbiggin warned the mothers of Muirtown against allowing their boys to associate with Speug, and Speug could never see her pass on the street without an expression of open delight. When Mr. McGuffie senior brought his son, being then ten years old, to the Seminary for admittance, it was a chance that he was not refused and that we did not miss our future champion. Mr.
Peter McGuffie senior came in with the general attention of the audience, and seated himself in a prominent place with Speug beside him. Not that Mr. McGuffie took any special interest in prize-givings, and certainly not because Speug had ever appeared in the character of a prize-winner. Mr.
Peter McGuffie, commonly called the Sparrow, or in Scotch tongue "Speug," and one of the two heads of our commonwealth, used to wait with an expression of such demureness that it ought to have been a danger signal till Bulldog was halfway down the stair, and a row of boys were standing in expectation with their backs to the forbidden place.
McGuffie, who included everybody in an affable nod; and behind this imposing deputation every boy of Muirtown Seminary who was not already in the mathematical class-room.
McGuffie had been long dead, and during her lifetime was a woman of decided character, whom the grooms regarded with more terror than they did her husband, and whom her husband himself treated with great respect, a respect which grew into unaffected reverence when he was returning from a distant horse-race and was detained, by professional duties, to a late hour in the evening.
Men of their hands, though, men of their hands! Their fathers' sons! Well done, Peter!" To which the benches listened with awe, for never had they known Bulldog after this fashion. When the school assembled next Monday morning the boys read in fresh, shining letters "Peter McGuffie and Duncan R. S. Robertson, who at the risk of their own lives saved a schoolfellow from drowning."
McGuffie senior departed through the front door amid a hush of admiration, leaving Peter to his fate not far from that "well" which was to be the scene of many of his future waggeries.
Peter McGuffie senior gave his opinion of the conduct of Bailie MacConachie, which he had been doing already for some time with much effect. "Imitatin' ye, was he, and followin' ye along the street, walkin' as ye walk, and so ye knocked him down in open day? Why should he not be doing as ye did? Is yir walk protected by law, that nobody dare step the same way on the streets of Muirtown?
Ye 'ill hunt us into Bulldog's class-room, and then go off yirsel to shoot rabbits; but ye 'ill no' play ony tricks on me, Peter McGuffie." "I will go," said Speug, manfully, "though I'll no' promise to write." "Say as sure's death," said Jock, knowing Speug's wiles.
McGuffie senior was striving to drive a dogcart with slender success and complaining loudly of obstruction.
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