Men in these narrow circumstances go naturally in pairs—divide the same potato, and share the same bed. They unite without ever having previously known each other, and, for the sake of a small saving, are chained together while the session lasts. In the desperate struggle of existence and pinch of poverty, these necessitated marriages are often embittered with rivalry and hatred. There are cases in which a nail has been driven into the middle of the chimney-piece, a string tied to it, drawn across the room, and attached to the middle of the opposite wall, so as to divide the chamber into two equal parts. “This is my territory—that shall be yours. _Nemo me impune lacessit_—that’s what I say.” “And I say, _Noli me tangere_—that’s all.” The fellows sit on opposite aides of their diminutive fire, “glowering” at each other over their books—the one smoking and the other snuffing the strongest tobacco procurable, to keep their hunger down while forcing the brain through the weary night-watches. The professors make a point of inviting them to breakfast or supper as often as they can, and give them a great feed. It is their only chance of a hearty meal during the whole of the session. And yet, in spite of all that they have to contend with, they make a very creditable appearance in the class, even by the side of men who have been well coached the night before by competent tutors. The odds, however, are dead against them, and they suffer for it in the end. They have very seldom been regularly educated, and when they go to college they devote much of that energy which ought to be given to their studies to earning their daily bread by teaching or by manual labour. Overworked and underfed, many of them go home, at the end of the session, shadows of their former selves, and death written in their faces—almost all of them have made acquaintance with disease. The number of men at the Scottish universities who run the course of Henry Kirke White is prodigious. Friends write their biographies; their college essays and school poems are published; their fellow-students are told to beware, and everybody takes an interest in their fate, about which a certain air of romance hangs. Year after year, however, one hears of so many cases that, at last, one becomes callous and feels inclined to ask—Why did not this young Kirke White remain in the butcher’s shop? It would have been better for him to have slaughtered oxen, sold mutton-chops, and ridden the little pony all his life, giving such leisure as he could really afford to books, than die in the vain endeavour to take the position of a gentleman and a clergyman. Most of these men, if they survive their period of study, go into the Church, and the result is that the Scottish clergy are notorious for their ill-health. How can it be otherwise? The fearful struggle which they have to maintain at college has to be kept up for eight long years before a licence to preach the Gospel can be obtained.