"ye gawky, ill-jointed, bullock-headed, slack-twisted clod-thumper, ye!
See gin I canna knock the conceit oot o' ye in a hop, skip, and jump!
I hae come frae Edinburgh to do it. I'll learn you to tak' up wi' my
lass! Come on, ye puir Cripple-Dick!"
And at that precise moment Kit Kennedy, after many invitations, very
suddenly did come on. Cleg, whose passion blinded him to his own
hurt, happened to be leaning rather far forward. It is customary in
the giving of "dares" round about the Sooth Back, for the threatener
to stick his head as far forward as he can and shake it rapidly up
and down in a ferocious and menacing manner. This ought to continue,
according to the rules, for fully ten minutes, after which the
proceedings may commence or not according to circumstances. But Kit
Kennedy, farm assistant to Mistress McWalter of Loch Spellanderie,
was an ignorant boy. He had had few advantages. He did not even know
the rules appertaining to personal combats, nor when exactly was the
correct time to accept an invitation and "come on."
So that was the reason why Cleg Kelly's left eye came unexpectedly in
violent contact with Kit's knuckles. These were as hard with rough
labour as a bullock's hind leg.
The sudden sting of the pain had the effect of making Cleg still more
vehemently angry. "I'll learn you," he shouted, "ye sufferin', shairny
blastie o' the byres, to strike afore a man's ready. You fecht! Ye can
nae mair fecht than a Portobello bobbie! Wait till I hae dune wi' ye,
my man. There'll no be as muckle left o' ye as wad make cat-meat to a
week-auld kittlin'. What for can ye no fecht fair?"
Our hero's cause was so bad, and his lapse into heathenism became at
this point so pronounced, that for the sake of all that has been we
decline to report the remainder of his speech.
But Kit Kennedy did not wait on any further preliminaries.
_Ding-dong!_ went his fists, one on Cleg's other eye and the other
squarely on his chest. Cleg was speaking at the time, and the latter
blow (as he afterwards said) fairly took the words from him and made
him "roop" like a hen trying to crow like a cock.
At this terrible breach of all laws made and promulgated for the proper
conduct of pitched battles, what remained of Cleg's temper suddenly
gave way. He rushed at Kit Kennedy, striking at him as hard as he
could, without the slightest regard to science. But Kit Kennedy was
staunch, and did not yield an inch. Never had the barn end of Loch
Spellanderie witnessed such a combat. Cleg, on his part, interpolated
constant remarks of a disparaging kind, such as "Tak' that, ye seefer!"
"That'll do for ye!" But Kit Kennedy, on the other hand, fought
silently. The most notable thing, however, about the combat was that in
the struggle neither of the knights took the slightest pains to ward
off the other's blows. They were entirely engrossed in getting in their
own.
The dust flew bravely from their jackets, until the noise resembled
the quick, irregular beating of carpets more than anything else. But,
after all, not very much harm was done, and their clothes could hardly
have been damaged by half a dozen Waterloos. It was like to be a drawn
battle, for neither combatant would give in. All Cleg's activity
and waspishness was met and held by the country boy with dogged
persistency and massive rustic strength. Cleg was lissom as a willow
wand, Kit tough and sturdy as an oak bough. And if Cleg avoided the
most blows, he felt more severely those which did get home.
Thus, not unequally, the battle raged, till the noise of it passed all
restraint. John McWalter of Loch Spellanderie was making his evening
rounds. As he went into the barn he heard a tremendous disturbance
at the back among his last year's corn-stacks. He listened eagerly,
standing on one foot to do it. The riot was exceedingly mysterious.
Very cautiously he opened the top half of the barn door and peered
through. It might be an ill-set tinker come to steal corn. John
McWalter had Tweed and Tyke with him, and they frisked their tails and
gave each a little muffled bark to intimate that they should much like
to join in the fray.
John McWalter was not used to facing difficult positions on his own
responsibility, so quite as cautiously he slipped back again through
the barn, and crossed the yard to the house.
His wife was actively engaged scolding Vara for wasting too much hot
water in cleaning the supper bowls. This happened every evening,
and Vara did not greatly mind. It saved her from being faulted for
something new.
"Ye lazy, guid-for-naething!" Mrs. McWalter was saying, "I wonder what
for my daft sister at Netherby sent a useless, handless, upsetting
monkey like you to a decent house—a besom that will neither work nor
yet learn——"
At this moment John McWalter put his head within the door.
"There's twa ill-set loons killin' yin anither ahint the barn!" he
said.
"What's that gotten to do wi' it, guidman," replied his wife. "Guid
life! Ye cry in that sudden I thought it was twa o' the kye hornin'
yin anither. But what care I for loons? Juist e'en let them kill yin
anither. There ower great plenty o' them aboot Loch Spellanderie at ony
rate! Ill plants o' a graceless stock. Never was a McWalter yet worth
his brose!"
"But," said her husband, "it's Kit Kennedy fechtin' wi' a stranger loon
that I never saw afore! And I dinna believe he has foddered the horse!"
Mistress McWalter snatched up the poker.
"Him," she cried, "the idle, regairdless hound, what can the like o'
him be thinkin' aboot? I'll learn him. Gin he gets himsel' killed
fechting wi' tinklers for his ain pleesure, wha is to look the sheep
and bring in the kye in the mornin'? And the morn kirnin' day too!"
So in the interests of the coming hour at which the week's cream was to
be churned into butter, and from no regard whatever for her nephew's
life or limb, the mistress of Loch Spellanderie hasted out to interfere
in the deadly struggle. But Vara Kavannah was before her. She flew out
of the kitchen door, and ran round the house. The McWalters followed as
best they could, her mistress calling vainly on her to go back and wash
the dishes.
When Vara turned the corner, Cleg and Kit were still pelting at it
without the least sign of abating interest. Cleg was now darting hither
and thither, and getting in a blow wherever he could. Kit was standing
doggedly firm, only wheeling on his legs as on a pivot, far enough to
meet the town boy's rushes. It was a beautiful combat, and the equality
of it had very nearly knocked all the ill-nature out of them. Respect
for each other was growing up in their several bosoms, and if only they
could have stopped simultaneously they would have been glad enough to
shake hands.
So when Vara came flying round the corner and ran between them, the
boys were quite willing to be separated, indeed even thankful.
"Run, quick!" she cried to Cleg, "they are comin'. O haste ye fast!"
But Cleg did not know any respect for the powers that be. He knew
that the ordinary bobby of commerce did not dwell in the country. And
besides, even if he did, the lad who could race red-headed Finnigan,
the champion runner of the Edinburgh force, and who had proved himself
without disgrace against the fastest fire engine in the city, was not
likely to be caught, even in spite of the fact that he had run all the
way from Netherby Junction that night already.
So Cleg turned a deaf ear to Vara's entreaties, and, very simply and
like a hero, wiped his face with the tail of his coat.
Kit Kennedy also kept his place, a fact which deserves recognition. For
he, on his part, faced a peril long known and noted. The mystery of
unknown and unproven danger did not fascinate him.
In a moment more Mistress McWalter, a tall, masculine woman, with
untidy hair of frosty blue-black, came tearing round the corner, while
at the same time out of the back barn door issued John McWalter, armed
with a pitchfork, and followed by Tweed and Tyke, the clamourous
shepherding dogs of Loch Spellanderie.
Cleg found his position completely turned, and he himself beset on
all sides. For behind him the Loch lay black and deep. And in front
the wall of the barn fairly shut him in between his enemies. Mistress
McWalter dealt Kit Kennedy a blow with the poker upon his shoulder as
she passed. But this was simply, as it were, a payment on account, for
_his_ final settlement could be deferred. Then, never pausing once in
her stride, she rushed towards Cleg Kelly. But she did not know the
manifold wiles of a trained athlete of the Sooth Back. For this kind of
irregular guerilla warfare was even more in Cleg's way than a plain,
hammer-and-tongs, knockdown fight.
As she came with the poker stiffly uplifted against the evening sky,
Mistress McWalter looked exceeding martial. But, as Cleg afterwards
expressed it, "A woman shouldna try to fecht. She's far ower flappy
aboot the legs wi' goons and petticoats." Swift as a duck diving, Cleg
fell flat before her, and Mistress McWalter suddenly spread all her
length on the ground. Cleg instantly was on his feet again. Had the
enemy been a man, Cleg would have danced on him. But since (and it was
a pity) it was a woman, Cleg only looked about for an avenue of escape.
Kit Kennedy pointed with his finger an open way round the milkhouse.
And Cleg knew that the information was a friendly enough lead. He had
no doubts as to the good faith of so sturdy a fighter as Kit Kennedy.
He was obviously not the stuff that traitors are made of.
But a sudden thought of inconceivable grandeur flushed Cleg's cheek.
Once for all, he would show them what he could do. He would evade his
pursuers, make his late adversary burst with envy, and wring the heart
of Vara Kavannah, all by one incomparable act of daring. So he stood
still till Mistress McWalter arose again to her feet and charged upon
him with a perfect scream of anger. At the same time John McWalter
closed in upon the other side with his hay-fork and his dogs. Cleg
allowed them to approach till they were almost within striking distance
of him. Then, without giving himself a moment for reflection, he
wheeled about on his heels, balanced a moment on the brink, bent his
arms with the fingers touching into a beautiful bow, and sprang far out
into the black water.
So suddenly was this done that the good man of Loch Spellanderie,
approaching with his hay-fork from one direction, ran hastily into the
arms of his spouse charging from the other. And from her he received
a most unwifely ring on the side of the head with the poker, which
loosened every tooth John McWalter still retained in his jawbones.
"Tak' that, ye donnert auld deevil, for lettin' him by!" cried the
harridan.
"Ye let him by yoursel', guidwife," cried her husband, who did not
often resent anything which his wife might do, but who felt that he
must draw the line at having to welcome the poker on the side of his
head. "Dinna come that road again, my woman. I declare to peace; had it
no been for the hay-time comin' on, and few hands to win it, I wad hae
stuck the fork brave and firmly intil ye, ye randy besom!"
To what lengths the quarrel would have gone if it had been allowed to
proceed, will never be known. For just at that moment the head of Cleg
emerged far out upon the dark waters of Loch Spellanderie.
Cleg Kelly swam nearly as easily in his clothes as without them. For he
had cast his coat at the beginning of the fray, and as to his trousers,
they were loose and especially well ventilated. So that the water
gushed in and out of the holes as he swam, much as though they had
been the gills of a fish. Indeed, they rather helped his progress than
otherwise.
Then from the dusky breadths of the lake arose the voice, mocking and
bitter, of the Thersites of the Sooth Back, equally well equipped for
compliment and deadly in debate.
"Loup in," he cried, "try a dook. It is fine and caller in here the
nicht. But leave the poker ahint ye. It will tak' ye a' your time to
keep your ain thick heid abune the water. Come on, you!" he cried
pointedly to Mistress McWalter. "That face o' yours hasna seen water
for a month, I'll wager. A soom will do you a' the guid in the world!
And you, ye guano-sack on stilts, come and try a spar oot here. I'll
learn ye to stick hay-fows into decent folk!"
But neither John McWalter nor yet his wife had a word to say in answer.
Then began such an exhibition as Loch Spellanderie had never seen.
Cleg trod water. He dived. He swam on his back, on his side, on his
breast. His arms described dignified alternate circles—half in air and
half in water. He pretended to be drowning and let himself, after a
terror-striking outcry, sink slowly down into deep water, from which
presently he arose laughing.
And all the time his heart was hot and prideful within him.
"I'll learn her," he said over and over to himself, "I'll learn her to
tak' up wi' a country Jock."
And then he would execute another foolhardy prank, dismally rejoicing
the while in Vara's manifest terror.
"Cleg, come oot! Ye'll be drooned!" Vara cried, wringing her hands in
agony. Simple and innocent herself, she could not understand why her
kind good Cleg should act so. She had no conception of the evil spirit
of pride and vainglory, which upon occasion rent and tormented that
small pagan bosom.
"I'll show her!" remained the refrain of all Cleg's meditations for
many a day.
Finally, when this had gone on for a quarter of an hour, Cleg trod
water long enough to kiss his hand, and cry "Guidnicht!" to Mistress
McWalter and her husband, who meanwhile stood dumb and astonished on
the bank.
Then he turned and swam steadily away across the loch. He did not know
in the least how he would get his clothes dried, nor yet where he would
have to sleep. But his many adventures that day, and in especial the
way he had "taken the shine oot o' that loonie wi' the curls," warmed
and comforted him more than a brand new suit of dry clothes. So long as
he could see them he looked over his shoulder occasionally. And when he
noted the four dark figures still standing on the bank, Cleg chuckled
to himself and his proud heart rejoiced within him.
"I telled ye I wad show her," he said to himself, "and I hae shown her!"
ADVENTURE XLV.
THE CABIN ON THE SUMMIT.
Like most Scottish lakes, Loch Spellanderie is not wide, and Cleg
manfully ploughed his way across without fear of the result. For he
had often swam much further at the piers of Leith and Trinity, as
well as much longer in the many lochs which are girt like a girdle of
jewels round about his native city. But presently his clothes began to
tire him, and long ere the dark line of the trees on the further side
approached, he was longing to be on shore again.
Sometimes also he seemed to hear the voices of men before him, though,
owing the deep shadow of the trees, he could see no one. Cleg's arms
began to ache terribly, and his feet to drag lower and lower. The power
went out of his strokes. He called out lustily for the men to wait for
him. He could hear something like a boat moving along the edge of the
reeds, rustling through them with a sough as it went.
Suddenly Cleg saw something dark swimming slowly along the surface of
the water. He struck towards it fearlessly. It was a piece of wood
moved, as it seemed, by some mysterious power from the shore. Cleg
called out again for the men whose voices he had heard to wait for him.
But, instead of waiting, they promptly turned and fled. Cleg could
hear them crashing like bullocks through the briars and hazels of the
underbrush.
However, he was not far from the land now, and in a minute more he felt
his feet rest upon the shelving gravel of the lake shore. Cleg brought
the wedge-shaped piece of wood with him. He found upon holding it close
to his eyes in the dim light, that a double row of hooks was attached
to it beneath, and that there were half a dozen good trout leaping and
squirming upon different sides of it.
Cleg had no notion of the nature of the instrument he had captured. Nor
indeed had he the least idea that he had disturbed certain very honest
men in a wholly illegal operation.
He only shook himself like a water-dog and proceeded to run through the
wood at an easy trot, for the purpose of getting some heat back into
his chilled limbs.
As he ran his thoughts returned often to Loch Spellanderie, and each
time he cracked his thumbs with glee.
"I showed her, I'm thinkin'!" he said aloud.
Suddenly Cleg found himself out of the wood. He came upon a slight
fence of wire hung upon cloven undressed posts, over which ran the
shallow trench of the railway to Port Andrew.
Cleg knew himself on sure ground again so soon as he came to something
so familiar as the four-foot way. He felt as if he had a friend in each
telegraph post, and that the shining perspective of the parallel metals
stretched on and on into direct connection with Princes Street Station
and the North Bridge tram lines which ran almost to the Canongate Head.
He was, as it were, at home.
The boy hesitated a little which way to turn. But ultimately he decided
that he would take the left hand. So Cleg sped along the permanent way
towards Port Andrew at the rate of six miles an hour.
Had he known it, he was running as fast as he could out of all
civilisation. For at this point the railway passes into a purely
pastoral region of sheep and muircocks, where even farms and cot-houses
are scarcer than in any other part of the lowlands of Scotland.
Nevertheless Cleg kept up the steady swinging trot, which had come to
him by nature in direct descent from Tim Kelly, the Irish harvestman
and burglar who in his day had trotted so disastrously into Isbel
Beattie's life.
But Cleg was not to lie homeless and houseless that night, as Vara and
the children had often done. Cleg possessed all a cat's faculty for
falling on his feet.
At a lonely place on the side of the line he came upon a little cluster
of tanks and offices, which was yet not a station. There was, in fact,
no platform at all. It consisted mainly of the little tank for watering
the engine, and, set deep under an overhanging snout of heathery
moorland, an old narrow-windowed railway carriage raised upon wooden
uprights.
Cleg stood petrified with astonishment before this strange encampment.
For there were lights in the windows, and the sound of voices came
cheerfully from within. Yet here was the lonely moor, with the birds
calling weirdly all about him, and only the parallel bars of the
four-foot way starting out east and west into the darkness, from the
broad stream of comfortable light which fell across them from the
windows of the wheelless railway carriage.
Finally Cleg plucked up heart to knock. He had a feeling that nothing
far amiss could happen to him, so near a railway which led at long
and last to Princes Street, where even at that moment so many of his
friends were busily engaged selling the evening papers. Besides which
he was in still nearer connection with his friends Muckle Alick,
the porter, and Duncan Urquhart, the goods enginedriver at Netherby
Junction.
Cleg tapped gently, but there was at first no cessation in the noise.
He knocked a second time a little harder; still it was without effect.
A voice within took up a rollicking tune, and the words came rantingly
through the wooden partition. Cleg's hand slid down till it rested
upon the stirrup-shaped brass handle of a railway carriage. It turned
readily in his fingers, and Cleg peered curiously within.
He could now see the singer, who sat on a wooden chair with his
stocking-soles cocked up on the little stove which filled all one end
of the hut. There came from within a delightful smell of broiling bacon
ham, which hungry Cleg sniffed up with gusto.
The singer was a rough-haired, black-bearded man with a wide chest
and mighty shoulders, even though he could not be called a giant when
compared with Muckle Alick down at Netherby. And this is what he sang:
Auld Granny Grey Pow,
Fetch the bairnies in;
Bring them frae the Scaur Heid,
Whaur they mak' sic din.
Chase them frae the washin' pool,
Thrang at skippin' stanes—
_Auld Granny Grey Pow,
Gather hame the weans._
The singer's voice sang this verse of the Poet of the Iron Road[6] so
gaily that Cleg felt that his quarters for the night were assured. He
was about to step within when a new voice spoke.
"'Deed and it micht serve ye better a deal, Poet Jock, gin ye wad
set doon your feet and lift your Bible to tak' a lesson to yoursel',
instead o' rantin' there at a gilravage o' vain sangs—aye, even wastin'
your precious time in makkin' them, when ye micht be either readin'
the Company's rules or thinkin' aboot the concerns o' your never-dying
sowl!"
"You haud your tongue, Auld Chairlie," cried the singer, pausing a
moment, but not turning round; "gin ye hadna missed thae troots the
nicht and lost your otter to the keepers in Loch Spellanderie, ye wadna
hae been sitting there busy wi' Second Chronicles!"
And again the singer took up his ranting melody:
Bring in Rab to get him washed,
Weel I ken the loon,
Canna do unless he be
Dirt frae fit to croon.
Tam and Wull are juist the same
For a' I tak' sic pains—
_Auld Granny Grey Pow,
Gather hame the weans._
So the singer sang, and ever as he came to the refrain he cuddled an
imaginary fiddle under his chin and played it brisk and tauntingly like
a spring:
_Auld Granny Grey Pow,
Gather hame the weans._
Then, before another word could be spoken, Cleg stepped inside.
"Guidnicht to ye a'!" he said politely.
The man who had been called Poet Jock took down his feet from the top
of the stove so quickly that the legs of the chair slipped from under
him, and he came down upon the floor of the carriage with a resounding
thump. Auld Chairlie, a white-haired old man who sat under a lamp with
a large book on his knee, also stood up so suddenly that the volume
slipped to the floor.
"O mercy! Lord, preserve me, what's this?" he cried, his teeth
chattering in his head as he spoke.
"Wha may you be and what do ye want?" asked poet Sandy, without,
however, getting up from the floor.
"I'm juist Cleg Kelly frae the Sooth Back," said the apparition.
"And whaur got ye that otter and troots?" broke in Auld Chairlie, who
could not take his eyes off them.
"I got them in the loch. Did ye think they grew in the field, man?"
retorted Cleg, whose natural man was rising within him at the enforced
catechism.
"Preserve us a'—I thocht ye had been either the deil or a gamekeeper!"
said Auld Chairlie, with intense earnestness; "weel, I'm awesome glad
ye are no a game watcher, at ony rate. We micht maybe hae managed to
gie the deil a bit fley by haudin' the muckle Bible to his e'e. But
gamekeepers are a' juist regairdless heathen loons that care neither
for Kirk nor minister—except maybe an orra while at election time."
"Aye, man, an' ye are Cleg Kelly? Where did ye 'Cleg' frae?" asked the
poet, who contented himself jovially with his position in the corner of
the floor, till a few cinders fell from the stove and made him leap to
his feet with an alacrity which was quite astounding in so big a man.
Then the reason why he had been content to sit still became manifest.
For his head struck the roof of the little carriage with a bang which
made him cower. Whereupon he sat down again, rubbing it ruefully,
muttering to himself, "There maun be the maist part o' an octavo volume
o' poems stuck to that roof already, and there gangs anither epic!"
When the Poet and Auld Chairlie had re-composed themselves in the
little hut, Cleg proceeded to tell them all his adventures, and
especially all those which concerned Mistress McWalter of Loch
Spellanderie, and the great swim across the water.
ADVENTURE XLVI.
A CHILD OF THE DEVIL.
"We'll e'en hae yon trouts to our suppers yet!" said Poet Jock.
"Chairlie, man, pit on the pan. It's wonderfu' the works o' a gracious
Providence!"
And so in a trice the two noble loch trouts were frying with a pat
of butter and some oatmeal in the pan, and sending up a smell which
mingled deliciously enough with that of the fried ham which already
smoked upon an aschet by the fireside.
The good-hearted surfacemen at the Summit Hut seemed to take it for
granted that Cleg was to remain with them. At least neither of them
asked him any further questions. This might be because in the course of
his story he had mentioned familiarly the name of Duncan Urquhart the
goods guard, and the still greater one of Muckle Alick, the head porter
at Netherby. And these to a railway man on the Port Road were as good
as half-a-dozen certificates of character.