But he was in truth below the middle height, somewhat round-shouldered, with long arms, and small, well-shaped hands. His hair was plentiful, grizzled, and cut short. His head was large and his forehead wide, with overhanging brows; his eyes were small, dark, and brilliant; his nose had a certain look of decision--but a nose is a creature beyond description; his mouth was large, and his chin strong; his complexion dark, and his skin rugged. The only _fine_ features about him were his two ears, which were delicate enough for a lady. His face was not at first sight particularly attractive; indeed it was rather gloomy--till he smiled, not a moment after; for that smile was the true interpreter of the mouth, and, through the mouth, of the face, which was never the same as before to one that had seen it. After a word or two about the book he had borrowed, the laird took his departure, saying the sooner he left master and pupil to themselves the better. Mr. Simon acquiesced with a smile, and presently Cosmo was facing his near future, not without some anxiety. CHAPTER XI. THE NEW SCHOOLING. Without a word, Mr. Simon opened a drawer, and taking from it about a score of leaves of paper, handed one of them to Cosmo. Upon it, in print, was a stanza--one, and no more. “Read that,” he said, with a glance that showed through his eyes the light burning inside him, “and tell me if you understand it. I don’t want you to ponder over it, but to say at a reading whether you know what it means.” Cosmo obeyed and read. “I dinna mak heid nor tail o’ ’t, sir,” he answered, looking over the top of the paper like a prisoned sheep. Mr. Simon took it from him, and handed him another. “Try that,” he said. Cosmo read, put his hand to his head, and looked troubled. “Don’t distress yourself,” said Mr. Simon. “The thing is of no consequence for judgment; it is only for discovery.” The remark conveyed but little consolation to the pupil, who would gladly have stood well in his own eyes before his new master. One after another Mr. Simon handed him the papers he held. About the fifth or sixth, Cosmo exclaimed, “I do understand that, sir.” “Very well,” returned Mr. Simon, without showing any special satisfaction, and immediately handed him another. This was again a non-luminous body, and indeed cast a shadow over the face of the embryo student. One by one Mr. Simon handed him all he held. Out of the score there were three Cosmo said he understood, and four he thought he should understand if he were allowed to read them over two or three times. But Mr. Simon laid them all together again, and back into the drawer. “Now I shall know what I am about,” he said. “Tell me what you have been doing at school.”