to him, poked him and whispered to him to look sharp. But he didn't seem
to attend. I looked at his paper and saw he had put down nothing at all.
So I jogged him again harder than before and upbraided him sharply for
keeping us all waiting. That did have some effect. He started and seemed
to wake up, and then very quickly he scribbled about a couple of lines on
his paper, and showed it up with the rest. As it was the last, or nearly
the last, to come in, and as Sampson had a good deal to say to the boys
who had written _meminiscimus patri meo_ and the rest of it, it turned
out that the clock struck twelve before he had got to McLeod, and McLeod
had to wait afterwards to have his sentence corrected. There was nothing
much going on outside when I got out, so I waited for him to come. He
came very slowly when he did arrive, and I guessed there had been some
sort of trouble. "Well," I said, "what did you get?" "Oh, I don't know,"
said McLeod, "nothing much: but I think Sampson's rather sick with me."
"Why, did you show him up some rot?" "No fear," he said. "It was all
right as far as I could see: it was like this: _Memento_--that's right
enough for remember, and it takes a genitive,--_memento putei inter
quatuor taxos_." "What silly rot!" I said. "What made you shove that
down? What does it mean?" "That's the funny part," said McLeod. "I'm not
quite sure what it does mean. All I know is, it just came into my head
and I corked it down. I know what I _think_ it means, because just before
I wrote it down I had a sort of picture of it in my head: I believe it
means 'Remember the well among the four'--what are those dark sort of
trees that have red berries on them?" "Mountain ashes, I s'pose you
mean." "I never heard of them," said McLeod; "no, _I'll_ tell you--yews."
"Well, and what did Sampson say?" "Why, he was jolly odd about it. When
he read it he got up and went to the mantelpiece and stopped quite a long
time without saying anything, with his back to me. And then he said,
without turning round, and rather quiet, 'What do you suppose that
means?' I told him what I thought; only I couldn't remember the name of