"Nor your faither gotten off?"
Again and more vigorously Cleg shook his head, smiling a little as he
did so.
"Oh, then," said the builder, much relieved, carrying the suspended
potato to his mouth, "it can be naething very dreadfu'. But when ye
came in like that on me, I declare that I thocht the wood-yaird was on
fire!"
Then Cleg proceeded with his tale. He told how the Kavannahs had been
deserted by their father, who had gone to look for work in Liverpool.
He sketched with the inevitable realism of the street-boy the career
of Sal Kavannah. He stated in plain language the fate that threatened
Vara. He described Sal's treatment of Hugh.
"And she battered her ain bairn till the blood ran on the floor. She
tossed the bairn against the wall till its arm was near broke. She
never hears her wee bit wean greetin' for the milk without cursing it.
Will ye turn them away to gang back to a' that?"
This was Cleg's climax, and very artfully he had worked up to it. The
builder, good man, was troubled. The tale spoiled the relish of his
new potatoes, and it was the first time he had had them that year. He
turned with some little asperity upon Cleg.
"But I dinna see what I can do," he said; "I canna tak' them here into
my house. The mistress wadna alloo it."
It was the first time he had referred to the ruler of his fortunes,
who at that moment was declaring to an acquaintance that she paid two
shillings a week less for her rooms than her friend in the next pew at
church. "And how she can afford it is mair than I can tell." It was no
wonder that honest Mr. Callendar said that his wife would not allow him
to bring the Kavannahs within his door.
"But," said Cleg, "if you will let them bide in the auld hut at the
back o' the yaird, where naebody gangs, I can easy get ither lodgings.
They'll meddle wi' naething, and I ken whaur to get wark for the
lassie, when she's fit for it."
Mr. Callendar considered. It was a good deal to ask, and he had no
guarantee for the honesty of his new tenants but the good word of the
son of a thief who had squatted on his property.
"Weel, Cleg," he said at last, with his quiet humorsome smile coming
back to his lips, "they can bide, gin ye are willing to come surety for
them."
Cleg jumped up with a shout and a wave of his bonnet, which brought the
trim servant to the back of the door in consternation.
"I kenned ye wadna turn them awa'—I kenned it, man!" he cried.
Then Cleg realised where he was, and his enthusiasm subsided as
suddenly as it rose.
"I shouldna behave like this on a carpet," he said, looking
apologetically at the dusty pads his bare feet had left on the good
Kidderminster.
He was on the eve of departing when the builder called him back. He had
been turning things over in his mind.
"I hae anither wood-yard doon by Echo Bank," he said. "There's a
cubby-hole there you could bide in, gin ye had a blanket."
"That's nocht," answered Cleg, "in this weather. And thank ye kindly. I
can do brawly withoot a blanket."
And he sped out as he came, without troubling the maid, who was
wearying for her master to be done with his dinner and take himself
away to his office.
The good news was conveyed directly to Vara, and then she set Cleg's
hut in order with a quieter heart. Cleg showed them where to get water,
and it was not long before the bairns were established in a safety and
comfort they had been strangers to all their lives.
But Cleg was not done with his day's work for the Kavannahs. He
went down to the Hillside Works and saw the watchman, after he had
delivered his tale of evening papers.
"D'ye think," he said diplomatically, "that there's ony chance for a
lassie to get wark here?"
The watchman shook his head.
"There's nae room for ony but the relations o' them that's workin' here
already."
The watchman could be as diplomatic as Cleg. He had daughters of his
own growing up, and, though he was willing to be a friend to Cleg, it
was against his principles to encourage the introduction into "our
works" of alien blood. There was a tradition at Hillside that every
old servant got his daughters "in" as a matter of course. Indeed,
matrimonial alliances were often arranged on that basis, and the
blessing of children was looked upon as equivalent to the supreme
blessing of money in the bank.
"But I dare say ye micht see Maister Donald," said the watchman,
relenting. He remembered that he had no daughters that could be ready
for a few years yet; and besides, Cleg was a good friend of his. "But
what ken ye aboot lassies? My sang, but ye are early begun, my lad.
Ye'll rue it some day."
Cleg smiled, but disdained an answer. He was not argie-bargiein' at
present, as he would have said. He was waiting to get a job for Vara
Kavannah. In another minute he found himself in the presence of Mr.
Donald Iverach, junior partner in the firm of Iverach & Company, whose
position in the paper trade and special eminence in the production
of the higher grades of foreign correspondence were acknowledged
even by rivals—as the senior partner wrote when he was preparing the
advertisement for the firm's yearly almanack.
Mr. Donald Iverach was not in the best of humours. He had hoped to
be playing "pocket-handkerchief tennis," of which he had grown
inordinately fond, upon the lawn of Aurelia Villa. But it so happened
that he had been required to supply his father upon the morrow with
important data concerning the half-yearly balance. For this reason he
had to remain in the dreary office in the South Back. This jumped ill
with the desires of the junior partner, who was at present so very
junior a partner that his share of the profits was only a full and
undivided fiftieth—"amply sufficient, however," as his father said many
times over, "and much more than ever I had at your age, with a wife and
family to keep."
"I wish I had!" said the reckless Donald, when he had heard this for
the twentieth time, not knowing what he said.
"Donald, you are a young fool!" said his father. Which, of course,
materially helped things.
Now the temper of Mr. Donald Iverach was specially tried on this
occasion, for he had good reason to believe that a picturesque cousin
of Cecilia's from London, who had been invalided home from some
ridiculous little war or other, was playing pocket-handkerchief tennis
at Aurelia Villa that evening in place of himself.
So his greeting to Cleg was curt indeed, as he looked up with his pen
in his fingers from the last estimate of "goods returned damaged"—an
item which always specially annoyed his father.
"What do you want, boy?" he said, with a glance at the tattered
trousers with one "gallus" showing across the blue shirt, which
represented Cleg's entire summer wear.
"Hae ye ony licht job ye could gie a clever and wullin' lassie the
morn?" said Cleg, who knew that the way to get a thing is to ask for it.
"What lassie?" said the junior partner indifferently.
"A lassie that has nae faither or mither," said Cleg—"worth speakin'
aboot," he added as an afterthought.
"We are full up," said Donald Iverach, balancing himself upon one
leg of his stool. For his father was old-fashioned, and despised the
luxury of stuffed chairs as not in keeping with a sound, old-fashioned
conservative business.
Cleg looked disappointed.
"It wad be an awsome graund thing for the lassie if she could get a job
here," said Cleg sadly.
"Another time," replied the junior partner, turning to his desk. To
him the case and application were as fifty more. He only wished the
manager had been at hand to refer the case to. Donald was like most of
his kindly fellow-creatures. He liked to have his nasty jobs done by
deputy. Which is one reason why the law is a lucrative profession.
Cleg was at the door, his head sunk so low that it was nearly between
his feet. But at the very out-going, with the great brass handle in his
fingers, he tried once more.
"Aweel," he said, without taking his eyes off the brown matting on the
floor, "I'll e'en hae to gang and tell Miss Tennant aboot it. She wull
be desperate vexed!"
The junior partner swung round on his stool and called, "Hey! boy,
stop!"
But Cleg was already outside.
"Call that boy back!" he shouted to the watchman, leaping to the door
with sudden agility and astonishing interest.
Cleg returned with the same dejected mien and abased eyes. He stood,
the image of sorrow and disappointment, upon the cocoa-nut matting.
"Whom did you say you would tell?" said Donald Iverach, in a tone in
his voice quite different from his business one.
"Only Miss Tennant—a freend o' mine," said Cleg, with incomparable
meekness and deference.
"Miss Tennant of Aurelia Villa?" broke in the eager youth.
"Aye, juist her," said Cleg dispassionately. "She learns us aboot Jacob
and Esau—and aboot Noah," he added as if upon consideration. He would
have mentioned more of the patriarchs if he could have remembered them
at the time. His choice of names did not spring from either preference
or favouritism. So he added Noah to show that there was no ill-feeling
in the matter.
"And Miss Tennant is your friend?" queried the young man.
Cleg nodded. He might have added that sometimes, as in one great ploy
yet to be described, he had been both teacher and friend to Miss Celie
Tennant.
"Tell your lassie to be here at breakfast-time to-morrow morning, and
to be sure and ask for Mr. Donald Iverach," was all the junior partner
remarked.
And Cleg said demurely, "Thank you, sir."
But as Cleg went out he thought a great deal of additional matter,
and when he said his adieus to the watchman he could hardly contain
himself. Before he was fairly down the steps, he yelled three times as
loud as he could, and turned Catherine-wheel after Catherine-wheel,
till at the last turn he came down with his bare feet in the waist-belt
of a policeman. The good-natured officer solemnly smacked the
convenient end of Cleg with a vast plantigrade palm, and restored him
to the stature and progression of ordinary humanity, with a reminder to
behave—and to mind where he was coming if he did not want to get run
in.
But even this did not settle Cleg.
"O Keelies!" he cried, as if he had been addressing a large company
of his fellows, "wasna it rare to see him loup off that stool, like a
yellow paddock into the canal!"
And Cleg, who scorned the eccentricities of love in more mature bosoms
even when he traded upon the resultant weaknesses, went off into an
ecstasy of mocking laughter.
ADVENTURE XV.
THE FIRE IN CALLENDAR'S YARD.
Vara Kavannah went daily to the factory at Hillside. She was but a slip
of a thing, yet she soon learned the work that fell to her share, and
developed marvellous quickness in passing the thin quires of foreign
paper, examining them for flaws and dirt, and rejecting the faulty
sheets.
The girls were mostly kind to her, though they teased her about her
name. And, indeed, in a world of Maggies and Jeanies, her Christian
name appeared somewhat strange. But Vara had a reverence for it,
because it had been her single legacy from her father, the gentle and
imaginative Sheemus, who had found married life so different from his
hopes that he had been brought at last to try that bitter pass of
flight, through which so many have gone to find a new life on the other
side.
These were pleasant evenings in the wooden hut. Cleg generally dropped
in to see his sub-tenants after his papers were delivered. Then he
would potter about, watering the flowers, which now began to bloom
bravely in spite of the city heat and the dust of the yard. Vara had
a seam or a stocking, and sat at the outside of the door on a creepie
stool.
Hugh learned to nurse Gavin on his knee or to rock him in the old
cradle which the kindly foreman of the yard, a widower, had lent to
Vara, saying, "I'm no needin' it the noo—no for a year or twa at ony
rate."
He was a "seeking" widower, and did not make the presentation absolute
because he was a far-sighted man, and one never knew what might happen.
As for Vara, she seemed to shoot up in stature every day, and the
curves of her wasted and abused body filled out. Her face again grew
merry and bright, and she was ready to take her share in mirthful talk.
But sometimes her eyes were sad and far away. Then she was thinking of
her father, the gentle Sheemus; and she longed greatly to go to meet
him in Liverpool, when the ill days should have overpassed and there
was no mother any more in her life.
In the Works Vara gained the friendship of her companions, though she
was younger than most of them. A tall girl, who was much looked up to
in the mill because she sang in a choir, stood firmly her friend. And
the two, Agnes Ramsay and little Vara, used to walk home together. Vara
was anxious that Cleg should apply for a situation for himself at the
Works; but Cleg preferred his untrammelled freedom, and continued to
deliver his papers and sleep in the yard at Echo Bank all through the
summer.
It was mid-August and the sky shone like copper. There was a peculiar
dunness in the air, and light puffs of burning wind came in, hot and
unrefreshing, from the walls and pavement in the afternoon. But when
the girls came home "on the back of six," as they said, the air had
grown cooler, and Agnes and Vara often lingered a little in the great
"saal," or work-room, in order to let the press of girls well down the
street before them, and so be rid of the rough chaff of the lads as
they passed home.
But this evening, as they came leisurely out, arm linked in arm, Vara
saw a great crowd blocking up the way in front of the clock which gave
the time to the Works, and with a quick clutch at her companion's arm
she would have drawn her away.
But Agnes Ramsay saw a woman furiously attacking the manager, and
pushed forward to get a better view. Vara knew too well what it meant.
Her enemy had found her. She tried to steal away, but it seemed
impossible to move. With a cry of anger Sal Kavannah recognised her
daughter, and threshed a way through the crowd to reach her. Vara stood
still, white to the lips. Her mother seized her by the neck of her
dress and began to shake her, striking her about the face and shoulders
with foul names and blasphemous words.
"Brazen besom," she cried; "you and your 'Keelie' stole my bairns frae
me. Where have you hidden them? Ye think I canna find oot. But I can
track them as I tracked you. Aff wi' that dress, you slut. It's ower
guid for the like o' you, and me trapesin' in a gown like this. Take it
off, I say, and give me back my children."
Vara stood mute and silent under the storm of oaths. The manager would
have sent for the police, but knowing that Vara was a _protégée_ of Mr.
Donald's, he went within, leaving them (as he said) to fight it out.
Then Agnes Ramsay pulled the shrinking girl away from her mother, and
so turned the abuse upon herself. But Agnes was a well-grown girl, and,
being supported by half-a-hundred of her companions, she stood her
ground valiantly.
"Run," she said, "run, lassie, while ye can. She doesna ken yet where
ye bide."
So like a hunted hare Vara turned and ran. But when she reached the
little wooden house, so trim and quiet, with its fragrant wood-yard
about it, and the daisies and pansies in the little plots and
diamond-shaped patches which Cleg had made, the bitterness of her heart
broke up within her, like the breaking up of the fountains of the great
deep.
Little Hugh came trotting to her, waving a red flag, the latest gift of
the widower foreman, in his hand. "Vara, Vara," he cried, "Gavin can
say 'Dadda,' and I nursed him good as gold all day."
The tears were running down Vara's face. She went in without power of
speech and sat by the babe's cot. He was asleep, and she laid her wet
cheek on the pillow beside his and sobbed. Hugh kept a little way off,
not knowing what to make of the unknown sorrow. Then he came softly up
to her, and gave her sleeve a little pull.
"Vara," he said, "here's a seetie."
For Hugh understood no sorrow which a sweetie would not make better.
"I can never go back to the Works," sobbed Vara. "I am disgraced before
them all. I can never face them—never!"
About seven Cleg came over the waste ground joyfully, having disposed
of his papers. He sat silent while Vara told him of the terrible
evening at the gate of Hillside, and of all her shame and terror. Cleg
whistled very softly to himself, as he always did when he was thinking
deeply.
"Wait here this ae nicht," he said. "I am watching with anither man at
the corner o' the Grange where they hae the road up. I'll think it oot
in the shelter. Keep up your heart, Vara—we'll win through yet."
But Vara would not be comforted. She would not even raise her head to
bid him say "Guid nicht."
So, still more softly whistling, Cleg departed.
He was not great company that night for the man in the shelter,
one "Tyke" Tweedie—a man who had once been a soldier for three
months, before being bought off by his father, who had regretted the
transaction ever since. "Tyke" was a man of battles. By his own account
he had been in the Crimea. He was great upon "the Hichts o' Almy." He
described the joint career of himself and the victorious Sir Colin
Campbell, concluding his epic with, "Then we charged the enemy and
carriet a' afore us, till we garred the Russian chiels rin like stour!"
But Tyke had a poor listener that night, though he never knew it. For
Cleg sat silent, and only by a nod did he acknowledge his interest when
Tyke had come to the crisis of one of his famous narrations.
The policeman on the beat would sometimes stop and look over the
windward edge of the shelter. "Hae ye gotten to the battle o' the
Inkermann yet?" he would ask.
"Na, Rob," Tyke would reply, "we are aye on the Hichts o' Almy yet!
Dear, sirce, but it was a sare, sare job. Ye see, there was me and Sir
Colin, and wi' that we at them sword in hand——"
And the policeman would stroll away from the glow of the fire, out
under the stars—alone save for the transient rake-hell cat skirmishing
across from area-railing to area-railing, and the tramp of a brother
officer coming up sombre and subdued from far down the hill.
But about one of the clock, when the night was verging to its stillest,
Cleg looked up and saw the stars overhead thinning out.
"It's never morning already!" he said, rubbing his eyes, for he had not
half solved the hard problem of Vara Kavannah.
He stepped out of the shelter. All the heaven to the north was
a-flicker with the skarrow of fire.
Without a word to the now drowsy Tyke, nodding over the blackening
cinders in his grated brazier, Cleg Kelly set off at his top speed
towards the fire, to be in at the death. "It's surely in the
Pleasance," he said to himself as he ran. The flame towered mightily
clear and clean, without sparks or crackling as when houses burn.
"It's Callendar's yaird!" said Cleg again, and never in his life had he
run so fast. For there in the midst of the timber was the little wooden
house in which were lying asleep little Vara Kavannah and her baby
brothers.
It was indeed Callendar's wood-yard. When Cleg arrived there were whole
regiments of firemen playing upon the flames; but his experienced
eyes saw at once that the case was hopeless. Indeed, the officer in
charge had come to the same conclusion some time before, and he was
now directing the solid streams of water towards such surrounding
properties as seemed in danger of catching fire.
The crowds were kept back by police, and all was orderly. The owner of
all stood patiently at the gate, talking matters over with his foreman.
After all, it was the visitation of God, and, further, he was fully
insured. It is a great thing to be prepared for affliction.
Into the black mass of the onlookers Cleg darted. He wormed his way
round to the back. He crossed a wall on which three or four boys were
roosting.
"Ye'll get nabbed if ye gang that road," cried one of them, giving
Cleg "the office" in the friendliest way, though he belonged to quite
another gang.
But Cleg sped on. He dived between the long legs of his former friend,
the red-headed officer known as "Longshanks." He skimmed across the
yard among the falling sparks, dodging the flames which shot out of the
burning piles to intercept him, as if they had been policemen.
The little wooden house lay before him in the red heart of the fire. He
saw the daisies growing in his own garden plots. He remembered that, in
the hurry and distress of listening to Vara's story, he had not watered
them that day.
But he dashed for the door, opened it eagerly, and fell forward across
the floor. The hut was filled with the odour of burning. Shooting
flames met him in the face as he rose; but nevertheless he groped all
about the tiny room, getting his hands and arms burned as he did so.
The children were not there—Vara, Hugh, and the baby—all were gone! He
turned to the door. The thing that he had stumbled over was a body.
He turned over the lump with his bare foot. It was soft, heavy, and
smelled of whisky. Cleg had found Sal Kavannah in the home he had made
to protect her children from her search. He had little doubt that it
was she who had set the yard on fire and stumbled in here afterwards.
Cleg stood a moment wondering whether he would not do better to leave
her where she was; and more than once since that night has the same
thought crossed his mind. He still fears that in dragging her away by
the feet from the burning hut he unduly interfered with the working of
the designs of an all-wise Providence.
ADVENTURE XVI.
IN THE KEY OF BOY NATURAL.
In time and under a new superintendent Cleg Kelly went back to Hunker
Court Sunday school, some time after the loss of his friends the
Kavannahs. This is equivalent to saying that Hunker Court became again
an exceedingly lively place of instruction and amusement on a Sabbath
afternoon. It is true that Cleg was not always present, and when he
was absent his teacher's heart sent up a silent thanksgiving. That, of
course, was before Miss Cecilia Tennant took him in hand.
Cleg had several teachers before he found his fate. He was, in fact,
the crux of the school, and every aspiring young neophyte who "took a
class" was provided with a nut to crack in the shape of Cleg. But he
never cracked him.
The superintendent of Hunker Court at the date of this first pilgrimage
was a somewhat ineffective gentleman, whose distinguishing trait was
that he appeared to be of a pale sandy complexion all over. That
is, all of him not covered by a tightly-buttoned black surtout.
His name was Samson Langpenny. Why it was so, is historically
uncertain—"Langpenny," probably, owing to his connection with his
father. But "Samson" is wholly inexplicable, and was certainly
exceedingly hard upon Master Langpenny as a boy. For it procured him
many lickings at that delightful season, owing to logic of the usual
schoolboy type and cogency.
"Jock, ye dinna ken wha was the strongest man?"
"It's a lee, I do ken. It was Samson!"
"Na, then it juist isna, for I lickit Samson this mornin' mysel'!"
The second boy thought this over a moment—saw it—considered it rather
good.
"Dod," he said, "I wad like to could say that mysel'. I can lick Samson
mysel' as weel as Pate Tamson!"
Whereupon he went and lurked for Samson till that unfortunate youth
came along. Then he triumphantly established his claim to be the
strongest man by once more thrashing "Samson" Langpenny, while the
tears of the first combat were hardly yet dry upon the cuff of the
coat-sleeve which Master Langpenny ordinarily used instead of a
pocket-handkerchief.
It was quite in accordance with the contrariness of things, that
Samson Langpenny should develop into the superintendent of the
roughest Sunday school in all the South Side of Edinburgh. He had
now a real handkerchief, as every one might see, for he wore about
equal parts of it within his pocket and without. The lower and
unseen portion was the working end. Now, there may be excellent
moral purpose in a judiciously-used pocket-handkerchief. There is,
indeed, a certain literary man whose wife avers that her husband's
toilet consists ordinarily of "four paper knives, four pens, and no
pocket-handkerchief." But this person is not usually held up in Sunday
schools as a shining example. Quite the contrary.
Now, Cleg Kelly had no great personal grievance against his
superintendent. But he said in his vulgar way (for there is no doubt
that he was that kind of boy) that "he did not cotton to that wipe o'
Langpenny's!"