what's mair, I'm no gaun to hae him meddled. He's the first boy that
ever took oot the papers without cheatin'." A good character is a
valuable asset, even in a shebeen.
ADVENTURE IX.
THE WARMING OF THE DRABBLE.
The Kavannahs lived in the Tinklers' Lands at the foot of Davie Dean's
Street. That was where Sheemus Kavannah left them when he went to
Liverpool to seek work. Originally they had lived on the second floor
of this great rabbit-warren of a land, but now they had sunk till they
occupied one room of the cellar. Their sole light came from an iron
grating let into the pavement.
The Kavannahs had no furniture. It was just possible for Vara to get
some little things together during the periods when her mother was
under the care of the authorities. But as soon as Sal Kavannah came
out, everything that would sell or pawn was instantly dissolved into
whisky.
At all times it was a sore battle in the Tinklers' Lands, for these
were the days before city improvements. In his wildest days Cleg Kelly
had always befriended the Kavannahs, and he had been as much Vara's
friend on the sly as a boy could be who valued the good opinion of
his companions. But when Cleg grew stronger in his muscles and less
amenable to public opinion, he publicly announced that he would "warm"
any boy who said a word to him about the Kavannahs.
One day he heard that Archie Drabble had kicked over the Kavannahs'
family bed, and left it lying, when Vara was out getting some things
for the children. Cleg started out to look up the Drabble. He
had formerly had an interview with that gentleman, which has been
chronicled elsewhere.[1] Cleg Kelly was on the way to reformation now,
so would not kick him. But as a faithful friend he would "warm" him
for his soul's good. Cleg did not mind doing this. It was a congenial
sphere of Christian work.
The Drabble was found trying to steal collars off a clothes-line at the
back of Arthur Street. Cleg Kelly had no objections to this feat. He
was not a policeman, and if the Drabble wished to get into the lock-up,
it was not his business. But first of all he must settle the matter
of the Kavannahs' bed. After that the Drabble, an it liked him, might
steal all the collars in the Pleasance.
"Drabble," cried Cleg, "come here, I want ye!"
"Want away," cried the Drabble, "gang and say yer prayers!"
This was intended for an insult, and so Cleg took it.
"Ye had better say yours!" he retorted. "When I catch you it'll no be
ordinar' prayers that will help you!"
Cleg had a disbelief in the efficacy of the prayers of the wicked which
was thoroughly orthodox. The Drabble was of the wicked. Once he had
thrown mud at a Sunday school teacher. Cleg only threw snow, as soft as
he could get it.
There was a wall between Cleg and the Drabble, a wall with a place for
your toes. With his boots off Cleg could have shinned up like a cat.
But three-shilling boots with toe caps are tender things and need to be
treated with respect. Whereupon Cleg had resort to guile.
"Hae ye seen the last number o' 'Gory Dick, the Desprader of the
Prairies,' Drabble?" cried Cleg over the wall.
"Gae 'way, man, an' eat sawdust, you paper boy!" cried the Drabble over
the wall.
The Drabble was of the more noble caste of the sneak thief. He had
still his eye on the collars. Cleg raged impotently. All his Irishry
boiled within him.
"Be the powers, Archie Drabble, wait till I catch ye. I'll not leave a
leevin' creature on ye from head to fut!"
The completeness of this threat might have intimidated the Drabble,
but he was on the safe side of the wall, and only laughed. He had
a vast contempt for Cleg, inasmuch as he had forsaken the good and
distinguished ways of Timothy Kelly, his father, and taken to missions
and Sunday schools. Cleg foamed in helpless fury at the foot of
the wall. He grew to hate his boots and his mended clothes, in his
great desire to get at the Drabble. To the original sin with regard
to the bed of the Kavannahs, the Drabble had now added many actual
transgressions. Cleg was the vindicator of justice, and he mentally
arranged to a nicety where and how he would punch the Drabble.
But just then the Drabble came over the wall at a run. He had been
spotted from a distance by an active young officer, Constable
Gilchrist, who was noted for his zeal in providing for the youth of
the south side. The Drabble dropped to the ground like a cat, with the
drawn pale face and furtive eyes which told Cleg that the "poliss" were
after him.
Without doubt Cleg ought to have given the offender up to justice, as
a matter of private duty. He might thus have settled his own private
matters with the pursued. But the traditional instincts of the outlaw
held. And, seeing the double look which the Drabble turned up and down
the street, he said softly—
"Here, Drabble; help me to deliver thae papers."
The Drabble glanced at Cleg to make out if he meant to sell him to
justice. That was indeed almost an impossibility. But the Drabble did
not know how far the evil communications of Sunday schools might have
corrupted the original good manners of the Captain of the Sooth-Back
Gang.
However, there was that in Cleg's face which gave him confidence. The
Drabble grabbed the papers and was found busily delivering them up one
side of the street while Cleg Kelly took the other, when Constable
Gilchrist, reinforced by a friend, came in sight over the wall by the
aid of a clothes-prop and the nicks in the stones.
Now the peaceful occupation of delivering evening newspapers is not
a breach of the peace nor yet a contravention of the city bylaws.
Constable Gilchrist was disappointed. He was certain that he had seen
that boy "loitering with intent"; but here he was peacefully pursuing a
lawful avocation. The Drabble had a reason, or at least an excuse, for
being on the spot. So the chase was in vain, and Constable Gilchrist
knew it. But his companion was not so easily put off the scent.
"Cleg Kelly," he cried, "I see you; hae you a care, my son, or you'll
end up alongside of your father."
"Thank ye, sir," said Cleg Kelly. "Buy a News, sir?"
"Be off, you impudent young shaver!" cried the sergeant, laughing.
And Cleg went off.
"That's a smart boy, and doing well," said Constable Gilchrist.
"Decent enough," returned the sergeant, "but he's in a bad shop at
Roy's, and he'll get no good from that Drabble loon!"
And this was a truth. But at that moment, at the back of the Tinklers'
Lands, the Drabble was getting much good from Cleg Kelly. Cleg had off
his coat and the Drabble was being "warmed."
"That'll learn ye to touch the Kavannahs' bed!" cried Cleg.
And the Drabble sat down.
"That's for miscaain' my faither!"
The Drabble sat down again at full length.
"That's for tellin' me to say my prayers! I learn you to meddle wi' my
prayers!"
Thus Cleg upheld the Conscience Clause.
But the Drabble soon had enough. He warded Cleg off with a knee and
elbow, and stated what he would do when he met him again on a future
unnamed occasion.
He would tell his big brother, so he would, and his big brother would
smash the face of all the Kellys that ever breathed.
Cleg was not to be outdone.
"I'll tell _my_ big brother o' you, Drabble. He can fecht ten
polissmen, and he could dicht the street wi' your brither, and throw
him ower a lamp-post to dry."
Cleg and the Drabble felt that they must do something for the honour of
their respective houses, for this sort of family pride is a noble thing
and much practised in genealogies.
So, pausing every ten yards to state what their several big brothers
would do, and with the fellest intentions as to future breaches of the
peace, the combatants parted. The afternoon air bore to the Drabble
from the next street—
"_You—let—the Kavannahs—alane frae this oot—or it'll be the waur for
you!_"
The Drabble rubbed his nose on his sleeve, and thought that on the
whole it might be so.
Then he took out three papers which he had secreted up his sleeve,
and went joyfully and sold them. The Drabble was a boy of resource.
Cleg had to come good for these papers to Mistress Roy, and also bear
her tongue for having lost them. She stopped them out of his wages.
Then Cleg's language became as bad as that of an angry Sunday school
superintendent. The wise men say that the Scots dialect is only Early
English. Cleg's was that kind, but debased by an admixture of Later
Decorated.
He merely stated what he meant to do to the Drabble when he met him
again. But the statement entered so much into unnecessary detail that
there is no need to record it fully.
ADVENTURE X.
THE SQUARING OF THE POLICE.
Cleg was free and barefoot. His father was "in" for twelve months.
Also it was the summer season, and soft was the sun. The schools were
shut—not that it mattered much as to that, for secular education was
not much in Cleg's way, compulsory attendance being not as yet great
in the land. Cleg had been spending the morning roosting on railings
and "laying for softies"—by which he meant conversing with boys in nice
clean jackets, with nice clean manners, whose methods of war and whose
habit of speech were not Cleg's.
Cleg had recently entered upon a new contract with the mistress of
Roy's paper shop. He was now "outdoor boy" instead of "indoor boy," and
he was glad of it. He had also taken new lodgings. For when the police
took his father to prison, to the son's great relief and delight, the
landlord of the little room by the brickfield had cast the few sticks
of furniture and the mattress into the street, and, as he said, "made a
complete clearance of the rubbish." He included Cleg.
But it was not so easy to get rid of Cleg, for the boy had his private
hoards in every crevice and behind every rafter. So that very night,
with the root of a candle which he borrowed from a cellar window to
which he had access (owing to his size and agility), he went back and
ransacked his late home. He prised up the boards of the floor. He
tore aside the laths where the plaster had given way. He removed the
plaster itself with a tenpenny nail where it had been recently mended.
He tore down the entire series of accumulated papers from the ceiling,
disturbing myriads of insects both active and sluggish which do not
need to be further particularised.
"I'll learn auld Skinflint to turn my faither's property oot on the
street," said Cleg, his national instinct against eviction coming
strongly upon him. "I'll wager I can make this place so that the man
what built it winna ken it the morn's morning!"
And he kept his word. When Nathan, the Jew pawnbroker and cheap
jeweller, came with his men to do a little cleaning up, the scene
which struck them on entering, as a stone strikes the face, was, as
the reporters say, simply appalling. The first step Mr. Nathan took
brought down the ceiling-dust and its inhabitants in showers. The next
took him, so far as his legs were concerned, into the floor beneath,
for he had stepped through a hole, in which Cleg had discovered a rich
deposit of silver spoons marked with an entire alphabet of initials.
The police inspector was summoned, and he, in his turn, stood in amaze
at the destruction.
"It's that gaol-bird, young Kelly!" cried Nathan, dancing and
chirruping in his inarticulate wrath. "I'll have him lagged for it—sure
as I live."
"Aye?" said the inspector, gravely. He had his own reasons for
believing that Mr. Nathan would do nothing of the sort. "Meantime, I
have a friend who will be interested in this place."
And straightway he went down and brought him. The friend was the Chief
Sanitary Inspector, a medical man of much emphasis of manner and
abruptness of utterance.
"What's this? What's this? Clear out the whole damnable pig-hole! What
d'ye mean, Jackson, by having such a sty as this in your district?
Clean it out! Tear it down! It's like having seven bulls of Bashan in
one stable. Never saw such a hog's mess in my life. Clear it out! Clear
it out!"
The miserable Nathan wrung his hands, and hopped about like a hen.
"Oh, Doctor Christopher, I shall have it put in beautiful
order—beautiful order. Everything shall be done in the besht style, I
do assure you——"
"Best style, stuff and nonsense! Tear it down—gut it out—take it all
away and bury it. I'll send men to-morrow morning!" cried the doctor,
decidedly.
And Dr. Christopher departed at a dog-trot to investigate a misbehaving
trap in a drain at Coltbridge.
The police inspector laughed.
"Are you still in a mind to prosecute young Kelly, Mr. Nathan?" he
said.
[Illustration: "I shall be ruined!"]
But the grief and terror of the pawnbroker were beyond words. He sat
down on the narrow stair, and laid his head between his hands.
"I shall be ruined—ruined! I took the place for a debt. I never got a
penny of rent for it, and now to be made to spend money upon it——"
The police inspector touched him on the shoulder.
"If I were you, Nathan," he said, "I should get this put in order. If
it is true that you got no rent for this place, the melting-pot in your
back cellar got plenty."
"It's a lie—a lie!" cried the little man, getting up as if stung. "It
was never proved. I got off!"
"Aye," said the inspector, "ye got off? But though 'Not proven' clears
a man o' the Calton gaol, it keeps him on our books."
"Yes, yes," said the little Jew, clapping his hands as if he were
summoning slaves in the Arabian Nights, "it shall be done. I shall
attend to it at once."
And the inspector went out into the street, laughing so heartily within
him that more than once something like the shadow of a grin crossed the
stern official face which covered so much kindliness from the ken of
the world.
The truth of the matter was that Cleg Kelly had squared the police. It
is a strange thing to say, for the force of the city is composed of men
staunchly incorruptible. I have tried it myself and know. The Edinburgh
police has been honourably distinguished first by an ambition to
prevent crime, to catch the criminal next, and, lastly, to care for the
miserable women and children whom nearly every criminal drags to infamy
in his wake.
Yet with all these honourable titles to distinction, upon this occasion
the police had certainly been squared, and that by Cleg Kelly. And in
this wise.
When Cleg had finished his search through the receptacles of his father
and his own hidie-holes, he found himself in possession of as curious a
collection of miscellaneous curiosities as might stock a country museum
or set a dealer in old junk up in business. There were many spoons
of silver, and a few of Britannia metal which his father had brought
away in mistake, or because he was pressed for time and hated to give
trouble. There were forks whole, and forks broken at the handle where
the initials ought to have come, teapots with the leaves still within
them, the toddy bowl of a city magnate—with an inscription setting
forth that it had been presented to Bailie Porter for twenty years of
efficient service in the department of cleaning and lighting, and also
in recognition of his uniform courtesy and abundant hospitality. There
were also delicate ormulu clocks, and nearly a score of watches, portly
verge, slim Geneva, and bluff serviceable English lever.
Cleg brought one of his mother's wicker clothes-baskets which had been
tossed out on the street by Mr. Nathan's men the day before, and,
putting a rich Indian shawl in the bottom to stop the crevices, he
put into it all the spoil, except such items as belonged strictly to
himself, and with which the nimble fingers of his father had had no
connection.
Such were the top half of a brass candlestick, which he had himself
found in an ash-backet on the street. He remembered the exact "backet."
It was in front of old Kermack, the baker's, and he had had to fight a
big dog to get possession, because the brass at the top being covered
with the grease, the dog considered the candlestick a desirable
article of _vertu_. There was a soap-box, for which he had once fought
a battle; the basin he used for dragging about by a string on the
pavement, with hideous outcries, whenever the devil within made it
necessary for him to produce the most penetrating and objectionable
noise he could think of. There was (his most valuable possession) a
bright brass harness rein-holder, for which the keeper of a livery
stable had offered him five shillings if he would bring the pair, or
sixpence for the single one—an offer which Cleg had declined, but which
had made him ever after cherish the rein-holder as worth more than all
the jewellers' shops on Princes Street.
These and other possessions to which his title was incontrovertible
he laid aside for conveyance to his new home, an old construction hut
which now lay neglected in a builder's yard near the St. Leonards
Station.
All the other things Cleg took straight over to the police-office near
the brickfield, where his friend, the sergeant's wife, held up her
hands at sight of them. Nor did she call her husband till she had been
assured that Cleg had had personally nothing to do with the collection
of them.
When the sergeant came in his face changed and his eyes glittered,
for here was stolen property in abundance, of which the Chief—that
admirable gentleman of the quiet manners and the limitless memory—had
long ago given up all hope.
"Ah! if only the young rascal had brought us these things before Tim's
trial, I would have got him twenty years!" said the Chief.
But though Cleg Kelly hated and despised his father, his hatred did not
quite go that length. He did not love the police for their own sake,
though he was friendly enough with many of the individual officers,
and, in especial, with the sergeant's wife, who gave him "pieces" in
memory of his mother, and, being a woman, also perhaps a little in
memory of what his father had once seemed to her.
Cleg did not stay to be asked many questions as to how he came into
possession of so many valuables. He had found them, he said; but
he could not be induced to condescend upon the particulars of the
discovery.
So the sergeant was forced to be content. But ever after this affair
it was quite evident that Cleg was a privileged person, and did not
come within Mr. Nathan's power of accusation. So it was manifest that
Cleg Kelly had corrupted the incorruptible, and crowned his exploits by
squaring the metropolitan police.
ADVENTURE XI.
THE BOY IN THE WOODEN HUT.
The wooden hut where Cleg had taken up his abode was on the property
of a former landlord, who in his time had tired of Tim Kelly as a
tenant, and had insisted upon his removal, getting his office safe
broken into in consequence. But Mr. Callendar had never been unkind
to Isbel and Cleg. So the boy had kindly memories of the builder, and
especially he remembered the smell of the pine shavings as Callendar's
men planed deal boards to grain for mahogany. The scent struck Cleg as
the cleanest thing he had ever smelled in his life.
So, with the help of an apprentice joiner, he set up the old
construction hut, which, having been used many years ago in the making
of the new coal sidings at the St. Leonards Station, had been thrown
aside at the end of the job, and never broken up.
The builder saw Cleg flitting hither and thither about the yard, but,
being accustomed to such visitors, he took no great notice of the boy,
till one day, poking about among some loose rubbish and boards at the
back of his yard, he happened to glance at the old hut. Great was his
astonishment to see it set on its end, a window frame too large for
the aperture secured on the outside with large nails driven in at the
corners, a little fringe of soil scraped roughly about it as if a brood
of chickens had worked their way round the hut, and a few solitary
daisies dibbled into the loose earth, lying over on their sides, in
spite of the small ration of water which had been carefully served out
to each.
Thomas Callendar stood a moment gathering his senses. He had a callant
of his own who might conceivably have been at the pains to establish a
summer-house in his yard. But then James was at present at the seaside
with his mother. The builder went round the little hut, and at the
further side he came upon Cleg Kelly dribbling water upon the wilting
daisies from a broken brown teapot, and holding on the lid with his
other hand.
"Mercy on us! what are ye doing here, callant?" cried the astonished
builder.
Cleg Kelly stood up with the teapot in his hand, taking care to
keep the lid on as he did so. His life was so constant a succession
of surprises provided against by watchfulness that hardly even an
earthquake would have taken him unprepared.
He balanced the teapot in one hand, and with the other he pulled at his
hat-brim to make his manners.
"If ye please, sir," he said, "they turned me oot at the brickyaird,
and I brocht the bits o' things here. I kenned ye wadna send me away,
Maister Callendar."
"How kenned ye that I wadna turn ye away, boy?" said the builder.
"Oh, I juist prefarred to come back here, at ony rate," said Cleg.
"But why?" persisted Mr. Callendar.
Cleg scratched the turned-up earth of his garden thoughtfully with his
toe.
"Weel," he said, "if ye maun ken, it was because I had raither
lippen[2] to the deil I ken than to the deil I dinna ken!"
The builder laughed good-naturedly.
"So ye think me a deil?" he asked, making believe to cut at the boy
with the bit of planed moulding he was carrying in his hand with black
pencil-marks at intervals upon it as a measuring-rod.
"Ow, it's juist a mainner o' speaking!" said Cleg, glancing up at Mr.
Callendar with twinkling eyes. He knew that permission to bide was
as good as granted. The builder came and looked within. The hut was
whitewashed inside, and the black edges of the boards made transverse
lines across the staring white.
Cleg explained.
"I didna steal the whitewash," he said; "I got it frae Andrew Heslop
for helpin' him wi' his lime-mixing.
"It's a fine healthsome, heartsome smell," the boy went on, noticing
that the builder was sniffing. "Oh, man, it's the tar that ye smell,"
he again broke in. "I'm gaun to tar it on the ootside. It keeps the
weather off famous. I gat the tar frae a watchman at the end o' the
Lothian Road, where they are laying a new kind o' pavement wi' an
awsome smell."
The interior of the hut was shelved, and upon a pair of old trestles
was a good new mattress. The builder looked curiously at it.
"It was the Pleasance student missionary got it in for my mither to lie
on afore she died," said Cleg in explanation.
"Aye, and your mither is awa," said the builder; "it's a release."
"Aye, it is that," said Cleg, from whose young heart sorrow of his
mother's death had wholly passed away. He was not callous, but he was
old-fashioned and world-experienced enough to recognise facts frankly.
It was a release indeed for Isbel Kelly.
"Weel," said the builder, "mind ye behave yoursel'. Bring nae wild
gilravage o' loons here, or oot ye gang."
"Hearken ye, Maister," said Cleg. "There's no a boy atween Henry Place
an' the Sooth Back that wull daur to show the ill-favoured face o'
him within your muckle yett. I'll be the best watch that ever ye had,
Maister Callendar. See if I'm no!"
The builder smiled as he went away. He took the measuring-rod of white
moulding in his hand, and looked at the marks to recall what particular
business he had been employed upon. But even as he did so a thought
struck him. He turned back.
"Mind you," he said to Cleg, "the first time that ye bring the faither
o' ye aboot my yaird, to the curb-stane ye gang wi' a' your traps and
trantlums!"
Cleg peeped elvishly out of his citadel.
"My faither," he said, "is snug in a far grander hoose than yours or
mine, Maister Callendar. He has ta'en the accommodation for a year, and
gotten close wark frae the Gowvernment a' the time!"
"What mean ye?" said the builder; "your faither never reformed?"
"Na, no that," answered Cleg; "but he got a year for ganging intil
anither man's hoose without speering his leave. And I was there and saw
the judge gie him a tongue-dressing afore he spoke oot the sentence.
'One year!' says he. 'Make it three, my Lord!' says I frae the back of
the coort. So they ran me oot; but my faither kenned wha it was, for
he cried, 'May hunger, sickness, and trouble suck the life from ye, ye
bloodsucking son of my sorrow! Wait till I get hoult o' ye! I'll make
ye melt off the earth like the snow off a dyke, son o' mine though ye
are!'"
The respectable builder stood aghast.