Courage eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 28 pages of information about Courage.

Courage eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 28 pages of information about Courage.

   ’But where is now the courtly troupe
     That once went riding by? 
   I miss the curls of Canteloupe,
     The laugh of Lady Di.’

We have still left time for a visit to a house in South Street, hard by St. Leonard’s.  I do not mean the house you mean.  I am a Knox man.  But little will that avail, for M’Connachie is a Queen Mary man.  So, after all, it is at her door we chap, a last futile effort to bring that woman to heel.  One more house of call, a student’s room, also in South Street.  I have chosen my student, you see, and I have chosen well; him that sang—­

   ’Life has not since been wholly vain,
     And now I bear
   Of wisdom plucked from joy and pain
     Some slender share.

   ’But howsoever rich the store,
     I’d lay it down
   To feel upon my back once more
     The old red gown.’

Well, we have at last come to an end.  Some of you may remember when I began this address; we are all older now.  I thank you for your patience.  This is my first and last public appearance, and I never could or would have made it except to a gathering of Scottish students.  If I have concealed my emotions in addressing you it is only the thrawn national way that deceives everybody except Scotsmen.  I have not been as dull as I could have wished to be; but looking at your glowing faces cheerfulness and hope would keep breaking through.  Despite the imperfections of your betters we leave you a great inheritance, for which others will one day call you to account.  You come of a race of men the very wind of whose name has swept to the ultimate seas.  Remember—­

   ’Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
   Not light them for themselves. . . .’

Mighty are the Universities of Scotland, and they will prevail.  But even in your highest exultations never forget that they are not four, but five.  The greatest of them is the poor, proud homes you come out of, which said so long ago:  ’There shall be education in this land.’  She, not St. Andrews, is the oldest University in Scotland, and all the others are her whelps.

In bidding you good-bye, my last words must be of the lovely virtue.  Courage, my children and ‘greet the unseen with a cheer.’  ‘Fight on, my men,’ said Sir Andrew Barton.  Fight on—­you—­ for the old red gown till the whistle blows.

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Courage from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.