ken they are no a very weel-liked class doon aboot Netherby. For they
come in squads to the Market Hill on Mondays, and whiles their tongues
and their sticks are no canny. Though some, I'm no denyin', are ceevil
chiels. But them that I'm gaun to tell ye aboot were no that kind.
"It was the middle o' the day and Alick was away for his denner. There
had been a bad market that day. Baith the marts were through hours
afore their usual. So the drovers swarmed up to the station to get
the afternoon train for Port Andrew. And on the platform the drinkin'
frae bottles an' the swearin' was fair extraordinar'! So I am telled.
Then, when the train cam' in, there was eight or nine o' the warst
o' them that wadna be served but they maun a' get into a first-class
compartment. And oot o' that they wadna get!
"The station-maister was a young man then and newly gotten on. He
thocht a heap o' himsel'—as a young station-maister aye does when he
first gets on the stemmed bonnet, and comes oot frae the office like
Lord Almichty wi' a pen ahint his lug.
"Weel, at ony rate, the Netherby station-maister was that kind. An' he
was determined that naebody should cross him in his ain station.
"'I'll juist lock them in and let them fecht it oot,' said the guard,
'and by the time we are through the big cutting at the Stroan they'll
hae shuggled doon as quaite as a session.'
"It was doubtless good advice. But the station-maister was mainly
angered. He gaed to the door o' the compartment and threatened the
drovers wi' the law. And they juist pelted him wi' auld sodjers and
ill talk. Then he cried for a' the porters and clerks, till there was
a knot o' ten or a dozen o' them aboot the door—and a' the folk in
the train wi' their heads oot o' the windows, askin' what on earth
(an' ither places) was keepin' the train. And doon the main line the
express was fair whustling blue-fire and vengeance because the signals
were against her. But nae farther could they get. The station-maister
he was determined to hae the drovers oot. And they were as set no to
come—being gye and weel filled wi' the weedow's cheapest market whusky
that she keepit special for the drovers, for faith it wad hae scunnert
a decent Heelant sow! I tried it yince and was I the waur o't for a
fortnicht. But ony whusky is guid enough for an Irishman, if only ye
stir plenty o' soot amang it! They think they're hame again if they get
that.
"So here the hale traffic o' Netherby Junction was stelled for maybe a
quarter o' an hour, and the station-maister was nearly daft to think
what he wad hae to enter on his detention sheet. A' at ance somebody
cries, 'Here's Muckle Alick coming up the street.' And sure enough
there he was, coming alang by the hill dyke wi' his hands in his
pooches. For ye see this wasna his train, and he had ten minutes to
spare. So wi' that the station-maister and the guaird and half-a-dozen
lads frae the offices rins to the far side o' the platform, waving on
Alick and crying on him to come on. Alick he juist looks aboot to see
wha was late for the train. But no' seein' onybody he steps leisurely
alang, drawin' on his weel-gaun pipe, proud-like as ye hae seen an
elephant at the head o' a show.
"And the mair they cried and waved, the mair Alick looked aboot him for
the man that was late for the train.
"'It maun be the provost at the least, wi' a' this fuss,' said he to
himself; 'he'll be gaun to Loch Skerrow to fish!'
"At last a wee upsettin' booking-clerk, the size o' twa scrubbers,
cam rinning and telled Alick a' aboot the drovers and the state the
station-maister was in.
"'I'm no on duty at this train,' says Alick, 'but I'll come and speak
to them.'
"So they made way for him, and Alick gaed through the crowd at the
platform like a liner through the herring-fleet below the Tail o' the
Bank.
"'Lads,' says he to the drovers, 'what's this?—what's this?'
"Then they mocked and jeered at him. For it so happened that nane o'
them had been often at Netherby Market, and so no a man o' them was
acquaint wi' Muckle Alick. Providence was no kind to the Paddies that
time whatever.
"'Boys,' says Alick, as canny as if he had been courtin' his lass,
'this wull never do ava', boys. It's no nice conduck! It's clean
ridiculous, ye ken. Ye'll hae to come oot o' that, boys!'
"But they were fair demented wi' drink and pridefulness at keepin' the
train waitin', and so they miscaa'ed Alick for a muckle nowt-beast on
stilts. And yin o' them let on to be an auctioneer, and set Alick up
for sale.
"'Hoo muckle for this great lumbering Galloway stirk?' says he.
"'Thrip!' says another, 'and dear at the money.'
"'Boys,' says Alick again, like a mither soothin' her weans when she
hears the guidman's fit, 'boys, ye'll hae to come oot!'
"But they only swore the waur at him.
"'Aweel,' says Alick, 'mind I hae warned ye, boys——'
"And he made for the carriage-door in the face o' a yell like a'
Donnybrook broken lowse. Then what happened after that it is no' juist
easy to tell. Alick gaed oot o' sicht into the compartment, fillin' the
door frae tap to bottom. There was a wee bit buzzing like a bee-skep
when a wasp gets in. Then presently oot o' the door o' the first-class
carriage there comes a hand like the hand o' Providence, and draps a
kickin' drover on the platform, sprawlin' on his wame like a paddock.
Then, afore he can gather himsel' thegither, oot flees anither and
faa's richt across him—and so on till there was a decent pile o'
Irish drovers, a' neatly stacked cross-and-across like sawn wood in a
joiner's yaird. Certes, it was bonny to see them! They were a' cairded
through yin anither, and a' crawling and grippin' and fechtin' like
crabs in a basket. It was a heartsome sicht!
"Then, after the hindermost was drappit featly on the riggin', oot
steps Muckle Alick—edgeways, of course, for the door wasna wide
aneuch for him except on the angle. He was, if onything, mair calm
and collected than usual. Muckle Alick wasna angry. He juist clicked
his square key in the lock o' the door and stood lookin' doon at the
crawlin' pile o' drovers. Folk says he gied a bit smile, but I didna
see him.
"'Ye see, boys, ye had to come oot!' said Muckle Alick."
ADVENTURE XXX.
HOW GEORDIE GRIERSON'S ENGINE BROKE ITS BUFFER.
"Hoo-r-ray!" shouted Cleg Kelly and Cleaver's boy together, till the
cook and little Janet of Inverness smiled at their enthusiasm.
"But there's mair," said the engine-driver.
"It canna be better than that!" said Cleg, to whom the tale was good as
new potatoes and salt butter.
"It's better!" said the engine-driver, who knew that nothing holds an
audience and sharpens the edge of its appetite better than a carefully
cultivated expectancy.
"It was that same day after the Port Andrew train got away, when the
cowed drovers were sent to the landing-bank to wait for their cattle
train, and the carriage that was coupled on to it for their transport.
The driver o' the main line express was Geordie Grierson, an' he was
no well-pleased man to be kept waitin' twenty minutes with his whistle
yellyhooin' bluefire a' the time. He prided himsel' special on rinnin'
to the tick o' the clock. So as soon as the signal dropped to clear he
started her raither sharp, and she cam' into the station under a head
of steam some deal faster than he had intended. Ye could hae heard the
scraichin' o' the auld wood brakes a mile an' mair. But stop her they
couldna. And juist as Georgie Grierson's engine was turnin' the curve
to come past the facing points to the platform, what should we see but
a wee bit ragged laddie, carryin' a bairn, coming staggerin' cross the
metals to the near bank. Every single person on the platform cried to
him to gang back. But the laddie couldna see Geordie's engine for the
way he was carryin' the bairn, and maybe the noise o' the folk cryin'
mazed him. So there he stood on the four-foot way, richt between the
rails, and the express-engine fair on him.
"It cam' that quick our mouths were hardly shut after crying out, and
our hearts had nae time to gang on again, before Muckle Alick, wha was
standin' by the side o' the platform, made a spang for the bairns—as
far as we could see, richt under the nose o' the engine. He gripped
them baith in his airms, but he hadna time to loup clear o' the far
rail. So Muckle Alick juist arched a back that was near as braid as the
front of the engine itsel', and he gied a kind o' jump to the side.
The far buffer o' the engine took him in the broad o' his hinderlands
and whammeled him and the bairns in a heap ower on the grass on the far
bank.
[Illustration: "He gripped them baith, but he hadna time to loup clear
o' the far rail."]
"Then there was a sough amang us wi' the drawing in o' sae mony
breaths, for, indeed, we never looked for yin o' them ever to stir
again. Geordie Grierson managed to stop his train after it had passed
maybe twenty yairds. He was leanin' oot o' the engine cubby half his
length an' lookin' back, wi' a face like chalk, at Muckle Alick and the
weans on the bank.
"But what was oor astonishment to see him rise up wi' the bairns baith
in his ae arm, and gie his back a bit dust wi' the back o' the ither as
if he had been dustin' flour off it.
"'Is there ocht broken, think ye, Geordie?' Muckle Alick cried
anxiously to the engine-driver.
"'Guid life, Alick, are ye no killed?' said the engine-driver. And,
loupin' frae his engine, Geordie ran doon, if ye will believe it,
greeting like a very bairn. And, 'deed, to tell the truth, so was the
maist feck o' us.
"'Killed?' says Alick; 'weel, no that I ken o'!'
"And he stepped across the rails wi' the twa weans laughin' in his
airms, for a' bairns are fond o' Alick. And says he, 'I think I'll pit
them in the left luggage office till we get the express cleared.' So he
did that, and gied them his big turnip watch to play wi'. And syne he
took the luggage over and cried the name o' the station, as if he had
done nocht that day forbye eat his denner.
"Then there cam' a lassie rinnin' wi' a loaf in her airms, and lookin'
every road for something.
"'Did ye see twa bairns? Oh, my wee Hugh, what's come to ye?' she
cried.
"'Ye'll find them in the luggage office, I'm thinkin', lassie,' says
Alick."
And here the engine-driver of the goods train rose to depart. But his
audience would not permit him.
"And what cam' o' the bairns?" cried Cleg, white with anxiety, "and
what was their names, can ye tell me?"
"Na, I never heard their names, if they had ony," said Duncan Urquhart.
"They were but tinkler weans, gaun the country. But Alick could tell
ye, nae doot. For I saw him gang doon the street wi' the wee boy in his
hand, and the lass carryin' the bairn. An' the folk were a' rinnin' oot
o' their doors to shake hands wi' Alick, and askin' him if he wasna
sair hurt?"
"'Na,' says he; 'I'll maybe a kennin' stiff for a day or twa, but
there's nocht serious wrang—except wi' the spring o' the engine buffer!
That's gye sair shauchelt!'
"And guid nicht to ye a', an' a guid sleep. That's a' I ken," said
Duncan Urquhart from the kitchen door, where he was saying good-bye to
the cook in a manner calculated to advance materially the interests of
his niece, Janet of Inverness.
"And I'm gaun the morn's mornin' to see Muckle Alick!" cried Cleg. And
he went out with the engine-driver.
ADVENTURE XXXI.
THE "AWFU' WOMAN."
A sore heart had Vara Kavannah as she sat in the hut in Callendar's
yard the night her mother had appeared at the gate of Hillside Works.
"I can never go back among them—no, never, never!" said Vara to herself
again and again.
And already she saw the sidelong glance, the sneering word thrown over
the shoulder, as the companions from whom she had held herself somewhat
aloof reminded her of her mother's disgrace. "O father, father, come
back to us—come back to us!" she cried over and over again till it
became a prayer.
She sat with her hands before her face so long that little Hugh
repeatedly came and stirred her arm, saying "What ails sister? Hugh Boy
not an ill boy!"
Vara Kavannah's thoughts ran steadily on Liverpool, to which her father
had gone to find work. She remembered having seen trains with carriages
marked "Liverpool" starting from the rickety old station at the end of
Princes Street. She knew that they went out by Merchiston and Calder.
That must, therefore, be the way to Liverpool. Vara did not remember
that it must also be the way to a great many other places, since many
carriages with other superscriptions passed out the same way.
As it darkened in the little construction hut, Vara listlessly rose to
set the room to rights, and to give the baby its bottle. Nothing now
seemed any use, since her mother had come back into her life. Yet Vara
did not cry, for that also was no use. She had lost her place at the
works, or at least she could never go back any more. Her world was at
an end.
Hugh Boy still lingered outside, though it was growing latish, and
the swallows that darted in and out of the stacked rafters and piled
squares of boards began one by one to disappear from the vaulted sky.
Hugh was busy watering the plants, as he had seen Cleg do. And he
kept one hand in his pocket and tried to whistle as like his model as
possible. Vara was just laying the baby in its cot when she heard a
scream of pain from Hugh at the door.
"Mercy me!" she said, "has the laddie tumbled and hurt himsel'?"
She flew to the open door, which was now no more than a dusky oblong of
blue-grey. A pair of dark shapes stood in front of her. Little Hugh lay
wailing on the ground. A hard clenched hand struck Vara on the mouth,
as she held up her hands to shield the baby she had carried with her in
her haste, and a harsh thick voice screamed accumulated curses at her.
"I hae gotten ye at last, ye scum, you that sets yourself up to be
somebody. You that dresses in a hat and feather, devil sweep ye! Come
your ways in, lad, and we will soon take the pride out of the likes o'
her, the besom!"
The man hung back and seemed loth to have part in the shame. But Sal
Kavannah seized him by the hand and dragged him forward.
"This is your new faither, Vara," she said; "look at him. He is a
bonny-like man beside your poor waff wastrel runnagate faither, Sheemus
Kavannah!"
The man of whom Sal Kavannah spoke was a burly low-browed ruffian,
with the furtive glance of one who has never known what it is to have
nothing to conceal.
But Vara thought he did not look wholly bad.
"Come in, mother!" she said at last in a low voice. Then she went out
to seek for Boy Hugh, who had run into the dark of the yard and darned
himself safely among the innumerable piles of wood, which stood at all
angles and elevations in Callendar's wide quadrangle.
"Hugh! Boy Hugh!" she cried. And for a long time she called in vain. At
last a low and fearful voice answered her from a dark corner, in which
lay the salvage of a torn-down house.
"Is she gane away?" said the Boy Hugh.
"No, but ye are to come hame," said Vara, holding the babe closer to
her bosom.
"Then Hugh Boy is no comin' hame the nicht till the 'awfu' woman' is
gane away!" said the lad, determinedly.
"Come, boy, come," she said again; "my heart is wae for us a'. But come
wi' your Vara!"
"Na, Hugh Boy is no comin'. Ye will hae to _hist_ me oot wi' big dogs
afore I will come hame to the 'awfu' woman,'" said Hugh Boy, who was
mightily set when his mind was made up.
So Vara had perforce to drag her feet back to the horrors which
awaited her within the construction hut. The man and her mother had
been pledging one another when she entered. A couple of black bottles
stood between them, and Sal Kavannah looked up at her daughter with a
fleering laugh.
"Aye, here she comes that sets up for being better than your mother!
But we'll show you before we are through with you, my man and me, you——"
However, it does not enter into the purpose of this tale to blacken
a page with the foul excrement of a devilish woman's hate of her own
child. The Scripture holdeth—the mother may forget. She may indeed have
no compassion on the child of her womb. And Vara Kavannah sat still
and listened, till the burning shame dulled to a steady throbbing ache
somewhere within her. The woman's threats of future torture and outrage
passed idly over her, meaningless and empty. The man drank steadily,
and grew ever silenter and more sullen; for, to his credit be it said,
the situation was not to his taste, and he looked but seldom at Vara.
The girl sat clasping the babe to her bosom with a secret sense that
in little Gavin she had her best and indeed her only protector. For
even the very bad man in his senses will hardly hurt an infant—though a
bad woman will, as we may read in the records of our police courts.
So Vara sat till the man reeled to the door, carrying the unfinished
bottle with him, and Sal Kavannah, her orgie logically completed, sank
in a fœtid heap on the floor with the empty one beside her.
The man as he stumbled out left the door open, and in a little while
Vara could hear Boy Hugh's plaintive voice, asking from the wood-pile
in the corner whether the "awfu' woman" was gone yet.
As Vara sat and listened all through the short hours of that midsummer
night to the clocks of the city churches, the stertorous breathing of
her mother and the babe's occasional feeble wail were the only sounds
within the hut itself. But Boy Hugh's plaint detached itself fitfully
from the uneasy hum of the midnight city without. A resolve, new-born
indeed, but seemingly old and determinate as the decrees of the God she
had learned about in the Catechism, took hold upon her.
It seemed to Vara that it did not matter if she died—it did not even
matter whether Hugh and Gavin died, if only she could find her father,
and die far away from her mother and all this misery.
The girl was so driven to the last extremity by the trials of the
day and the terrors of the night that she rose and put on her hat
as calmly as though she had been going for a walk with Cleg and the
children across the park. As calmly also she made her preparations,
stepping carefully to and fro across her mother on the floor. She put
all the scraps of bread that were left from Cleg's windfall into her
pocket, together with the baby's feeding bottle and a spare tube.
Then she added Hugh's whistle and a certain precious whip with a short
bone handle and a long lash, which Cleg had given him. Vara was sure
that Hugh Boy would cry for these, and want to go back if she did not
take them with her. She had nothing of her own to take, except the
indiarubber umbrella ring which Cleg Kelly had given her. So she took
that, though she had never possessed an umbrella in her life. Groping
in Gavin's crib, she found her shawl, and wrapped it about her with a
knowing twist. Then she deftly took up the baby. The shawl went over
her left shoulder and was caught about her waist at the right side, in
a way which all nurses and mothers know, but which no man can ever hope
to describe. The babe was still asleep, and Vara's tender touch did not
awake it as she stepped out into the night to walk to Liverpool to find
her father.
But as a first step she must find Boy Hugh. And that young man was
exceedingly shy. He had got it in his obstinate little head that his
sister wished to drag him back to the "awfu' woman." It was not,
therefore, till Vara had managed to persuade him in the most solemn
way that she had no intention of ever going back that he consented to
accompany her upon her desperate quest.
At last Boy Hugh took her hand and the three bairns left Callendar's
yard behind them for ever. What happened there that night after they
left we already know. It is with the children's wanderings that we now
have to do.
ADVENTURE XXXII.
MAID GREATHEART AND HER PILGRIMS.
It was grey day when the children fared forth from the city. Vara's
chief anxiety was lest they should not be able to escape out of the
town before the light came, so that some officious neighbour might
be able to direct her enemy upon their track. It was not long before
they emerged out of the side-alleys on a broad paved street which led
towards the south.
Vara paused and asked a policeman if this was the way to Liberton.
"And what are you going to do at Liberton so early in the morning?"
said the policeman. He asked because he was a Lothian man, who always
puts a second question before he can bring himself to answer the first.
"We are gaun to see our faither," said Vara, speaking the truth.
"Weel," said the policeman, "that is the road to Liberton. But if I was
you I would wait till the milk-cairts were drivin' hame. Then I could
get ye a lift to Liberton fine."
He was a kind-hearted "poliss," and in fact the same officer who had
looked over the screen by the watch-shelter behind which Tyke was
spinning his yarns to Cleg Kelly.
So that—thus strange is the working of events when they take the reins
into their own hands—at the very moment when Cleg Kelly was sleeplessly
turning over in his mind the problem of the life-fate of Vara and the
children by the dying fire at the Grange crossing, Vara herself with
the baby on her arm was trudging down the pavement opposite. As she
passed she looked across, and only the timbered edge of the shelter
prevented her from seeing Cleg Kelly.
Thus, without the least hindrance or observation, the three children
escaped out of their thrice-heated fiery furnace into the cool of the
country hedges and upon the clean hard surface of the upland roads.
With the inevitable instinct of hunted things Vara turned aside
whenever she heard the brisk clapper of the hoofs of a milk-cart, or
the slower rumble of a market waggon. For she knew that it was of such
early comers into the city that questions would be asked. So, when Cleg
set about his inquisition, he was foiled by the very forethought which
had only desired to defeat an enemy, not to mystify a friend.
Thus hour by hour they left quiet, kindly red-tiled villages behind,
set in heartsome howes and upon windy ridges. And, as they went ever
forwards, morning broadened into day; day crept dustily forward to hot
noon; noon drowsed into afternoon; with the scent of beanfields in the
air, dreamily sweet. Vara's arm that held the baby grew numb and dead.
Her back ached acutely from the waist downwards as though it would
break in two. Sometimes the babe wailed for food. Little Hugh dragged
leadenly upon her other hand, and whinged on, with the wearisome
iteration of the corncrake, that he wished to go back to Callendar's
yard, till Vara had to remind him, because nothing else would stay his
plaining, of the "awfu' woman" waiting for him there.
Vara did not rest long that whole day. They sat down as seldom as
possible, and then only for a few minutes. Vara poured a little of
the water from a wayside spring upon the crumbs that were left, and
gave them to little Gavin, mixing them with the remaining milk in his
bottle. Hugh begged incessantly that Vara would let him take off his
boots and walk barefoot. But his sister knew that he would certainly
become lame in a mile or two. Yet there might have been pleasure in
it too, for they sat down in the pleasantest places all that fine,
bough-tossing day. The shadows were sprinkled on the grassy hillsides,
like a patchwork quilt which Vara had once seen in their house when
Hugh was very little, but which had long ago become only a memory and a
lost pawn-ticket.
Never before had the children seen such quaint woodland places—nooks
where the rabbits tripped and darted, or sat on the bank washing faces
pathetically innocent and foolish. Little runnels of water trickled
down the gullies of the banks and dived under the road. But for Vara
there was no enjoyment, no resting all that day. They soon spent their
store of food. By noon Hugh had eaten all the cold potatoes. The babe
had taken, at first with difficulty, then, under the pressure of
hunger, greedily, the thin water and milk with the crushed crumbs in
it which Vara had made at the brook-side. So that also was finished.
Hunger began, not for the first time, to grip them.
But they could not rest long. In a little, just as Hugh Boy was
beginning to drop asleep and lean heavily against Vara, there came
again upon her without warning a terrible fear. She looked down the
road they had come, and she seemed to see the cruel eyes of her mother,
to hear again the foul threats of the life she was to be compelled to
lead for "setting herself up to be better than her mother," all the
words which she had listened to during those last hours of terror and
great darkness in the old construction hut.