promptly.
The temper of Sulky James was distinctly ruffled.
The train ran on down to Netherby. There the tickets were taken at
the little platform to which Muckle Alick had so often run, late and
early, with lamp in hand. It was a sleepy emergency man from the head
offices who took the tickets in Cleg's compartment. He lumped them all
together, and paid no attention whatever to the yellow first-class
through ticket among its green brethren, which Cleg handed to him with
such a natural air of loafish awkwardness.
Clang went the door. But the window was down for air, and Cleg could
hear the angry accents of Sulky Jamie further down the train.
"Nonsense! Your ticket took at the last station. More o' your gammon,
like enough. Find that ticket or pay for the journey from Port
Andrew—seven-and-nine! And look something slippy, too! I can't keep my
train waiting all day on the like of you, and the express due in twenty
minutes."
Cleg could not catch the answer of the military man. But the guard's
reply was clear.
"I don't care if ye were the Prince of Wales. Pay up, or I'll give ye
in charge!"
The train started down to the main platform. And Cleg had the door
open before the commercials in the corner were more than half awake.
He slipped out, and ran down the platform instead of up. At the corner
stood James Cannon's signal box, by the side of a white bridge. Cleg
swarmed up the pole at the corner, set a foot lightly on the white
painted palings, and dropped like a cat upon the road.
He was a modest boy, and did not desire to give any trouble.
He thought of the military man with joy in his heart.
"Now I guess we're about quits!" he said.
ADVENTURE L.
GENERAL THEOPHILUS RUFF.
Cleg slept that night in a hay-shed half a mile out of the town. He did
not mean to go to Sandyknowes till the morrow. And even then it was not
quite clear to him what he could do to help the widow. But as usual he
would think it out during the night.
The morning came, fiery with lamb's wool in fluffy wisps all about
the sky. Cleg shook himself, yawned, and dusted off the hay from his
garments.
Then he stepped over the edge of the stack and put his foot to the
road. He was very hungry and he had nothing upon which to break his
fast, except only the water of the brook. He stooped at the first burn
which crossed the road, and drank his fill. Presently he met a man who
came walking smartly down the road. He carried a cow switch in his hand
and chewed a straw.
"Can you tell me the road to Sandyknowes, if you please?" said Cleg,
politely.
The rustic with the straw in his mouth looked at Cleg all over
carefully. Then he roared with laughter, while Cleg flushed angrily.
"Your boots are no marrows!"[7] he cried. "O Lord, a stemmed bonnet and
his grandfather's waistcoat!"
And he went off again into such a fit of laughter that he let the straw
slip out of his mouth. But he perceived his loss, and lifted it from
the dust, wiping it carefully upon the dirtiest part of his trousers
before restoring it to the corner of his mouth.
"Can ye tell me the road to Sandyknowes, man?" said Cleg again, with a
little more sharpness and less politeness.
"I can, but I'll no!" gaped the rustic. And he went into another
prolonged fit of merriment, fairly hugging himself and squirming in his
enjoyment. It was the best jest he had had for a month. And he rather
fancied he landed some good ones.
Cleg Kelly's hand dropped upon a stone. The stone whizzed through the
air, and took effect on the third button of the man of straw's new
waistcoat.
The laugh ended in a gasp. The gasp was succeeded by a bad word,
and then the young man gave chase. Cleg pretended to run slowly—"to
encourage him," as he said afterwards. The yokel thought all the time
that he was just about to catch Cleg, but always just at the critical
moment that slippery youth darted a dozen yards ahead and again avoided
him.
At last the young man gave up the chase. He had suffered indignities
enough. He had lost his straw. But he had an appointment to keep with
a farmer three miles further on to whom he was offering his valuable
services. So he had perforce to turn away, and content himself with
promising what he would do to Cleg when he caught him.
What Cleg did was simpler. He patrolled the heights above, keeping
exact pace, step for step, with his enemy below. And with the aid of
the pebbles which plentifully strewed the brae face, he afforded the
young man of the straw some of the finest and most interesting active
exercise in getting out of the way he had had for many years. Indeed,
his whole line of march for more than a mile was completely enfiladed
by the artillery of the enemy.
"Will ye tell me the road to Sandyknowes noo?" cried Cleg, jubilantly,
as he kept the youth skipping from side to side of the highway.
At last he bade his adversary farewell, with a double machine gun fire
of words and heavier ammunition.
"This will maybe learn ye, country," he cried, "after this to gie a
civil answer to a civil question."
"Wait till I catch you——" the young man shouted, stung to desperation.
Whereupon, just for luck, Cleg ran in and delivered a volley at point
blank range, which sent the man of straw clattering up the road. It was
certainly not wise to dally with the prize marksman of the Sooth Back,
who in his good days could break any particular pane in a fifth story
window that you liked to specify, nine times out of ten.
After this Cleg Kelly returned along the heights to find out the way
to Sandyknowes for himself. More than a mile back a girl driving cows
pointed out to him the little path which led up to Mirren's door. But
Cleg did not go up directly. He played idly about, whittling sticks
and poking in hedge roots in his assumed character of vagrant boy. Yet
all the time he kept a bright look-out upon the door of the little
house among the flower-beds. The window blinds were drawn down, and
stared white like empty eye sockets of bone. The thought of the brave,
strong man who lay dead within oppressed Cleg's heart. Presently he saw
a woman come to the door, and go after the cow over the little meadow
pasture. Muckle Alick's wife, he thought. But he was wrong. It was her
warm-hearted neighbour, Mistress Fraser. Then presently he saw Boy Hugh
come running round the back of the house.
Cleg had arrived in time for Muckle Alick's funeral day. The large
company of mourners began to gather very early. All the town of
Netherby was there. Even the District Superintendent of the railway,
who happened to be in the neighbourhood on a tour, had telegraphed for
his "best blacks" from his wife in Greenock. And there he was standing
outside the house, waiting for the minister to finish the service, like
any common man.
Poor James Cannon was there, the tears coursing steadily down his
cheeks. The provost and magistrates were there. Every member of the
School Board was there, all agreed for once. Such a funeral had never
been seen in Netherby within the memory of man. That was the exact
phrase used (it is believed not for the first time) in describing the
occasion in the "Netherby Chronicle and Advertiser." But otherwise
Alick's dying request for silence was scrupulously regarded.
When the hearse moved away from the door, and the sombre congregation
fell in behind it, Mirren Douglas came to the door and watched it out
of sight. The good women who abode in the house to company with her
in her bereavement, begged her to go in and compose herself. But she
would not.
"I am in no ways discomposed," she said, "but I will watch him oot o'
sicht for the last time. I did it every mornin', ye ken," she explained
to them. "Let me bide!"
The black procession went serpentining down the road from Sandyknowes,
the men pacing slowly and gravely after the horses between the summer
hedges and under the green beech leaves.
Soon it approached the turn which would hide the hearse from those
standing at the door of the house. But a little hillock rose, grassy to
the top, at the gable end. It was the place to which she was used to
run out to watch for his return, in order to "mask" the tea in time for
his supper, that all might be ready for him when he came home wearied.
Mirren Douglas ran out thither, and, standing on the top of the
hillock, she waved her hand to that which was going out of sight. She
did not care who saw her.
"Fare ye weel, Alick," she cried, "fare ye weel that ever wast o' men
the kindest. Few are the choice hearts that will match thine—aye, even
up there, where thou art gane. And nane like to thysel' hast thou left
amang us. Fare ye weel, my ain man Alick! Naebody's man but mine!"
And with that she turned and walked in quite quietly.
As the funeral passed the end of the road, Cleg withdrew behind the
hedge, because, though his heart was full of love for the strong man
whom he had seen but once, he did not wish to disgrace that solemn
procession with his sleeved waistcoat and unpaired boots. As the hearse
passed him Cleg took off his railway cap and stood bareheaded behind
the hedge. So intent was he on the procession, that he did not see a
tall tightly-coated man of military carriage who had stepped over the
field towards him, and now stood silently by his side. The old officer
also took off his hat, and stood reverently enough till the last of the
mourners had passed by.
Then he laid his hand upon Cleg's shoulder.
"I'll trouble you for the price of my railway ticket!" he said. Cleg
turned. It was the man who had laughed when he was pitched out of the
carriage at Dunnure by Sulky Jamie!
For a moment his readiness forsook Cleg. He stood silent and gazed
dumbly at the tall figure before him, and at the right hand which
pulled grimly at the drooping moustache.
"You had better come away to the police station!" said the gentleman.
"Ye'll hae to catch me first, then!" cried Cleg, suddenly twisting
himself free and springing over into the highway. The old soldier made
no attempt to follow, but continued to gaze fixedly at Cleg.
"What is your name, boy?" he said, still keeping his eyes upon the lad.
"Slim Jim Snipe o' Slippery Lane!" cried Cleg promptly, "and muckle
obleeged to ye for speerin'!"
"You young imp!" cried the old man, advancing to the fence with his
cane uplifted threateningly, "would you dare to insult me?"
Cleg retreated.
"That's a guid enough name to gie to the poliss," he said. "If ye ask
me ceevilly, I'll tell you. Nae thanks to you that I got here ava!"
"I beg your pardon," said the old soldier, lifting his hat as to an
equal, with a certain punctilious restraint. "I have the honour to
inform you that my name is Major-General Theophilus Ruff, of Barnbogle
and Trostan."
"And mine," said Cleg Kelly, taking off his stemmed bonnet as politely,
"is Cleg Kelly o' the Sooth Back o' the Canongate, and late o'
Callendar's Yaird!"
The General bowed ceremoniously.
"And now," he said, "what do you propose to do about my railway ticket?"
"I'll work it out!" said Cleg, quickly.
There was something in "the looks of the starchy old geeser" (as Cleg
remarked to himself) which the boy rather liked, though without doubt
he was mad as a hatter.
"Work it out," cried the General; "what can you do?"
"Anything!" said Cleg. (It was his one touch of his father's dialect
that he still said "annything.")
"That's nothing!" said the General.
"Wait till you see," retorted Cleg. "You try me. I'm nae country gawk,
but reared in the heart o' the toon. I can rin errands. I can howk[8]
yairds for taties—or," he added, thinking of his flower-garden round
the old construction hut, "for flooers. And if I dinna ken the way to
do onything, I can find oot."
The General appeared to consider.
"Do you see that house over there among the trees—across the railway?"
"Aye," said Cleg, "I canna help seein' it! It's big eneuch and ugly
eneuch to be a jail!"
"Do you think that you could keep that house in order?"
"Me?" said Cleg, "me keep yon hoose—it's as big as the Infirmary."
"I live there all by myself," said the General. "I can not have women
about my place. The sight of them kills me. And I can not trust a grown
man not to bring a woman about the place. I might try a lad."
Cleg looked carefully from the General to the house and back again. He
was not sure that it might not be a joke.
"Have you a character?" asked the old man.
"Aye," said Cleg, "Miss Celie wad gie me yin."
The General turned pale and stamped with his foot.
"A woman," he said, "I could not apply to a woman. There is always
something odious about a woman's letter. I actually do not recover from
the shock of handling the writing of one of them for days. Do you not
know any one else?"
"There's Maister Donald Iverach," said Cleg. "He wad gie me a character
if I got Miss Celie to ask him," answered Cleg.
"My nephew in Edinburgh, that young three-legged stool! You'll do
nothing of the kind," cried the General. "I would not give a brass
button for his own character. And besides, from the tone in which
you speak, I have little doubt that the two persons you mention are
contemplating matrimony. I do not wish any communication with anything
so disgusting—much less when one of the parties is an ungrateful and
grasping relative of my own."
By this time Cleg had had enough of the General's catechism.
"I'll be requiring a reference mysel'," he said, in the tone which he
had heard Mistress Roy of the paper-shop adopt, when a new customer
asked for a week's credit.
"A what?" said the General, astonished.
"A reference as to your moral character, if I am to serve in your
house!" replied Cleg, unabashed.
The General clapped his hands with unfeigned pleasure.
"Bless you, my boy, you please me!" he said, chuckling; "do you know
that it is more than fifty years since General Theophilus Ruff had such
a thing?"
"All right," said Cleg, "suppose we chance the moral characters."
"Done!" said the old soldier, offering Cleg his hand.
Cleg took it and wrung it hard.
"I think we'll agree very well," he said. "I may be Ruff by name, but
I am Theophilus by nature. That's Greek, my boy—all I can remember,
indeed. The folk about here will tell you that I am crazy. They are no
judges. And my nephew wishes I were. Once his father tried to prove
it. But when the judge had once looked inside my account books, and
examined my system of bookkeeping, he said that, mad as I might be, it
was a kind of madness which was very well able to take care of itself."
Cleg accompanied the General over the fields to his house. The walks
and drives were completely overgrown with mossy grass and tangled
ferns. The gates were all padlocked and spiked. Whenever the General
came to one, he unlocked it with a brightly polished steel master-key
which he took from his pocket. Then, as soon as they had passed
through, he locked it behind him again as securely as before. "Spiked
on the top," he said to Cleg, with a cunning look, "keeps out the
women, you see. They don't like to have their frills and furbelows
torn."
Cleg nodded as though he understood. He was not particular either way.
"By-the-bye, you don't mind coffins and things?" said the old soldier,
glancing swiftly under his brows at Cleg.
"I don't think so, if they are empty. I yince slept in a coffin shop
for three months!" said Cleg.
"Have you anything you want to settle before you engage with me?" asked
the General.
"Yes," said Cleg, "there's a wife over the hedge yonder that has lost
her man. And I maun hae either the afternoon or the forenicht to help
her."
"Take any part of the day you like. Only change your clothes when you
come back," said the General testily, "but mind, if you bring any woman
inside the policies, I'll give you up to the police for obtaining
railway tickets under false pretences."
ADVENTURE LI.
THE GENERAL'S ESTABLISHMENT.
They were now standing at the front door. Cleg had never seen such a
house as this in his life. It was barred and defended like the Calton
jail, but no glass was to be seen in any of the windows. Indeed,
through some of the openings which served for lighting, one could see
straight through to the barred windows on the further side.
Barnbogle House had in time past been an ancient fortalice. But both
the former and the present lairds had spent large sums upon alterations
and repairs. The latest of these, General Theophilus Ruff, had a vast
and far-reaching local fame. Gamesome lasses skirled at his name, and
refused to keep their trysts for the terror of meeting him, wrapped in
his blue military cloak, stalking lonely by the light of the moon. The
very poachers would not fish in his streams or shoot in his coverts. He
had at once the repute of a wizard and the fame of a miser—rich beyond
calculation, but seeing things unseen to mortals. "He wasna canny!"
summed up the collective verdict of the countryside.
Theophilus Ruff had been an Indian officer at the time of the mutiny.
And those terrible days of midsummer when the sun dried up the blood
even as it was spilt, had changed the gay casual young officer into the
man whom all the country knew as "the daft general."
His father had been first a spendthrift and then a "neegar"—that is,
one who has become as great a screw as he had formerly been a mighty
and lavish spender.
The popular report of the contents of Barnbogle House told of chests
of gold and silver, cases of the most precious jewels, the spoil of
captured Indian cities—all watched over by the General himself with an
armoury of deadly weapons. For it was not the least of his terrors that
he dwelt all alone in that huge hundred-barred castle.
Yet there had been a time when Theophilus Ruff drove coach and four,
and when he saw only the gayest of gallant company. Among themselves
the chin-shaking elders would tell, with many cross-shoulder glances,
of the bold wanton eyes of ladies with once famous names, who had sat
beside Theophilus Ruff when he drove that coach and four, of the golden
candlesticks which had sparkled on the board, wide branching, holding
aloft many lights. Then Barnbogle was a gay place indeed, alive with
brilliant company, humming with mirth. For General Theophilus Ruff had
"used the company of the singing woman," and, as the Writ sayeth, he
had been taken in her attempts.
"He's garrin' the Indian yellow boys spin!" the Netherby people said
of him at this time. Yet they said it with a kind of pride, that such
wickedness should have happened in their parish.
But suddenly one morning, when the repair to his house was greatest,
when gold tresses shone most aureate, bright eyes most winsome and
sparkling, Theophilus Ruff came downstairs and gave every soul within
his house an hour's notice to quit. Great was the consternation, mighty
the upheaval. Ladies, lately so _débonnaire_, left by carriagefuls
wrangling fiercely as they went. Their gay companions took horse and
rode silently and wrathfully away. Theophilus Ruff stood on the step
of Barnbogle House and grimly watched them go. Then he went upstairs,
called his servants into the drawing-room, and dismissed them, paying
them their wages and board for six months in full. He kept on a stable
man or two till he could sell his horses, a manservant till he had
disposed of his cattle. Then he let his more distant grass parks, and
dwelt alone in the great house with barred and defended policies. After
this workmen from Glasgow were quartered at Barnbogle for nearly a
year. With them there came a man-cook to prepare their food, and rough
masons' labourers were lodged in the dainty, dismantled bedrooms where
last had dwelt the ladies of the blonde allures.
Now and then, on Sundays, one of these Glasgow callants would steal
out, at the risk of discovery and dismissal, to see the Netherby
lasses. Or, mayhap, an elder smith or joiner would escape to the
public-house of a dark evening. But it was at the peril of their places
and their excellent wages.
To them chiefly could be traced the tales of mighty strong-rooms, of
triple-barred gratings, of wondrously fitting doors with bolts, which
at the click of a key worn on the watch chain locked so firmly that
none could open again without secret passwords.
During this period General Theophilus Ruff had become an extremely
pious person. Every Sunday he conducted service with his workmen in
person. One day he would read the prayers and Litany of the Church of
England, with such a grace of intonation and a dignity, that it caused
the douce Glasgow Presbyterians to fear that even double wages would
hardly make up to them for their souls' peril in thus sacrificing to
idols.
But by the succeeding Sunday the General had discarded the
service-book, and he would lead them in prayer with the fervour and
interjectional fervour of a "ranter"—which at that date was the name by
which all revival preachers were called.
Every church in the neighbourhood benefited by the benefactions of the
General. And there was not a division of the Derbyites, Close, Open,
or Original, which did not receive a visit from him, and which had not
good cause to believe that the brethren had secured the richest convert
the sect had ever made. But the General contented himself with making
the most liberal contributions, and with listening to the brothers'
mourning for each other's backslidings, while at the same time
rejoicing that they only of all mankind could escape hell-fire. Then
he would return home, and the very next day proceed to give another
denomination the benefit of the doubt.
But, nevertheless, while the fit lasted the General was ready to
assist all and sundry to erect suitable places of worship. His purse
was long and deep. So the district of Netherby is distinguished among
its neighbours for the number of its spires and for the surpassing
whiteness of the outside of its cup and platter.
The only stipulation which the General made, was that he and he only
should have the right to prescribe the plan of the building, and
the time at which it was to be finished. This is the reason why the
"Englishy" kirk worships in a tabernacle erected in miniature of Mr.
Spurgeon's. So that the heart of the incumbent (who left the Church
of England (in England) to secure greater liberty of ritual) is daily
broken by the impossibility of having a procession within it, other
than one briefly semicircular; and also by the fact that he has to read
his sermon behind a table, only fitted for holding the glass of water
and Bible which completely equip the popular tribune.
Similarly the Kirk of Scotland by law established in Netherby presents
all the characteristics of a little Bethel meeting-house. And a new
minister of æsthetic tastes has to wrestle with the fact, that there is
no place in which to bestow an organ, except in the coal-cellar from
which the heating apparatus is worked.
But both the Auld Lichts and the Baptists are housed in haughty
fanes—not large, indeed, but built on the most approved cathedral
principles. The meeting-house of the Baptists, indeed, has no less
than two spires and the beginnings of another, after the fashion
of Lichfield. The whole front of the Free Kirk is a-glitter with
quartz-faced rocks. For during the time of its erection Theophilus
Ruff would arrive each day with his pockets full of stones with this
shell-white glance upon them. He even marked spots upon the moor, and
sent out masons to bring the pieces which took his fancy. And one by
one these all found their way into the frontage of the Free Kirk.
The most curious point about all this building of religious edifices
was, that Theophilus Ruff never allowed one of them to be finished.
When the last turret of the spire was on the point of being finished,
Theophilus would dismiss all the men, order the unfinished pinnacle to
be covered with lead to preserve it from the weather, and so leave the
church with an ugly hooded hump upon its back.