In the autumn of 1835, after a residence of some months at Moreby Hall, where he mingled with the local squires, and met certain legislators fresh from St. Stephen’s, he entered the Divinity Hall at Glasgow. But he did not now cross the quadrangle as if it were a ship’s deck. For one thing, he was no longer an idle student, but rose at unearthly hours to grind, or if he did not, his conscience put in for damages, which took the form of pages of eloquent remorse. Besides, he was a great handsome fellow, and, not to speak of his inner life,--so vitalised by various experience,--he had seen more than most Scottish students. Add his conversational powers and boundless vivacity, and he should be something of a lion in college society. He became the leader of the Tories, and it was in that capacity that he had his first taste of fame. At the Scottish Universities there falls to be elected by the students, once in three years, an honorary official called the Lord Rector. The candidates are usually leaders in the rival political camps. In Glasgow there seemed to be no chance for a Tory,--men like Jeffrey, Brougham, Cockburn, and Stanley having carried the day time out of mind;--but in 1836, under Norman Macleod’s leadership, the Whig tradition was broken by the triumphant return of Sir Robert Peel. At the Peel Banquet, which is almost historical, as the rise of the Tory tide dates from the oration delivered by the honoured guest, Norman made his first public appearance, replying to the toast of the Conservative students. ‘I think I can see him now,’ says Principal Shairp, ‘standing forth prominently conspicuous to the whole vast assemblage, his dark hair, glossy as a black-cock’s wing, massed over his forehead, the purple hue of youth on his cheek.’ His speech was striking, and impressed even Peel. Thus, if the first period of his college career was obscure, the last ended in a blaze of glory.
The family were now resident in Glasgow (his father having been translated to St. Columba’s), and in the house a number of young gentlemen, some of them boarders, pursued their college studies under Norman’s supervision. The scene of their work was ‘the coffee-room,’ and it was always a great moment when their tutor burst in upon them from his own den, radiant with life and joy. Among them was John Macintosh and John Campbell Shairp. Macintosh had come from Edinburgh with the laurels of first pupil of the New Academy. In Glasgow College he was at the head of all his classes, and his scholarship was not more remarkable than his piety. He was the sort of boy that takes all the prizes, including the prize for good conduct. As for Shairp, there is no one with a knowledge of the best Scotsmen of the last generation but reveres and loves the memory of that gifted and high-souled man. Though Macleod was more impressed by the saintly Macintosh, he found in Shairp, owing to the wider range of their mutual sympathies, a fitter companion. They were both Wordsworthians. Macleod could tell how his enthusiasm had once carried him to Ambleside, how he had seen and talked with the poet, how the old man had appeared in a brown greatcoat and a large straw hat, and had read ‘in his deep voice some of his own imperishable verses.’ The two students, many a night under the frosty starlight, walking home from the Peel Club (of which Macleod was president), kept firing at each other quotations from their favourite bard.