Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City: His Progress and Adventures

ADVENTURE XIII.
CLEG'S SECOND BURGLARY

Cleg slept soundly on his bed within the whitewashed hut. The last thing he did the night before was to go to the bench where the men had been working, and bring an armful of the fragrant pine shavings for a bouquet to scent his chamber. And never did boy sleep better. It must be confessed, however, that the position of night-watchman at Callendar's, of which he had boasted to Vara Kavannah, was entirely a sinecure. For it was not until he heard the gruff voices of the men clicking their tools and answering one another in pre-breakfast monosyllables that he realized he had changed his abode. Then he stirred so sharply that the mattress fell off the trestles, and Cleg was brought up all standing against the side of the hut.

All that day he went about his duties as usual. He trotted to the newspaper office and distributed his roll of papers mechanically; but his mind was with the Kavannahs, and he longed for the time to come when he could, with some self-respect, go and gloat over the effects of his generosity. Doubtless there was a touch of self-glorification in this, which, however, he kept strictly to himself. But who will grudge it to a boy, who for the sake of a lassie has spent nearly half of his week's wage, and who knows that he will have to live on bread and water for ten days in consequence?

Cleg judged that it would not be advisable for him to go to Tinklers' Lands before noon. So in the meanwhile he betook himself to Simon Square to "lag for" Humpy Joe, who had called him "Irishman" the previous evening, at a time when, with his papers under his arm, Cleg was incapacitated for warfare, being, like Martha, much cumbered with serving.

But Humpy Joe proved unattainable. For he had seen his enemy's approach, and as soon as Cleg set foot within the square, he saluted him with a rotten egg, carefully selected and laid aside for such an emergency. And had it not been for the habitual watchfulness of Cleg, Joe's missile would have "got him." But as it was, a sudden leap into the air like that of a jack-in-the-box just cleared the danger, and the egg, passing between Cleg's bare feet, made a long yolky mark of exclamation on the ground.

Being defeated in this, Humpy Joe looked forth from an end window, and entertained the neighbourhood with a gratuitous and wholly untrustworthy account of Cleg's ancestors. And Cleg, in reply, devised ingenious tortures, which he declared would be the portion of Humpy Joe, when next he caught him "out."

Thus, after tiring of this, the embattled belligerents separated in high delight and with mutual respect and good feeling, vowing sanguinary vengeances when next they should meet at Sunday school.

At last the time came for Cleg to feast his happy eyes upon the table which had been spread by his means for his friends the Kavannahs. But first he lingered awhile about the end of Davie Dean's Street, ostentatiously looking for a boy to lick, and throwing stones over the wall at the baker's fat watch-dog to make it bark. In reality he was making sure that none of his companions were in the neighbourhood, lest, with some colour of truth, they should cast up at him the capital offence of "speaking to a lassie."

At last the coast was clear. The only boy within half a mile had been chased under the protection of the great guns of his own fortress, being the vicinity of his mother's wash-tubs. Then Cleg dived quickly down to the cellar beneath Tinklers' Lands.

For the first time in his experience, the door was shut. Cleg had set his ear to the keyhole and listened. Then he put his eye there. But neither sense told him anything.

"Vara!" he cried softly, and set his ear against the floor. Cleg knew that the place to hear behind a door (if there is no danger of its being hastily opened) is not at the keyhole, but close to the floor. He listened, holding his breath. At first he could hear nothing; but in a little, a low sob at stated intervals detached itself from the cursory noises made by the other tenants of Tinklers' Lands and from the steady growl of the streets above.

"Vara!" he cried a little louder; "Vara Kavannah, are ye in? What's wrang?"

Still nothing came back to him but the mechanical sob, which wore his patience suddenly to the breaking point.

"They're a' killed," said Cleg, who had once been at the opening of a door, and had seen that which was within. "I'll break open the door." And with that he dashed himself against it. But the strength of the bolt resisted his utmost strength.

"Cleg," said a voice from within, very weak and feeble, "gang awa' like a guid lad. Dinna come here ony mair – "

It was Vara's voice, speaking through pain and tears.

"Vara," said Cleg, "what's wrang? What for wull ye no open the door?"

"I canna, Cleg; she's here, lyin' on the floor in the corner. I canna turn the key, for she has tied me to the bed-foot."

Cleg instantly understood the circumstances. They were none so unprecedented in the neighbourhood of Tinklers' Lands. Sal Kavannah had come home drunk, singly or in company. She had abused the children, and ended by tying up Vara, lest she should go out while she lay in her drunken sleep. Such things had been done within Cleg's knowledge – aye, things infinitely worse than these. And with his unchildish wisdom Cleg feared the worst.

But he was not Tim Kelly's son for nothing. And it did not cost him a moment to search in his pocket for a fine strong piece of twine, such as all shoemakers use. He always carried at least ten sorts of cord about with him. This cobbler's string was a special brand, so wonderful that Cleg had made friends with the shoemaker's boy (whom he loathed) solely in order to obtain it.

Cleg knew that the key was in the lock, but that the wards were turned clear, for his eyes, growing accustomed to the gloom, could now look into the cellar. He also knew that nine door-keys out of ten have a little groove at the end of the shank just below the wards. So he made a noose of the fine, hard cobbler's twine, and slipped it into the keyhole just as if he had been "girning" sticklebacks and "bairdies" in the shallow burns about the Loch of Lochend.

After a failure or two the loop caught and tightened. Then Cleg shook the string about with a cunning see-sawing motion, learned from his father, till he felt the wards of the key drop down perpendicularly. Then he took a long piece of stick, and, thrusting it into the keyhole, he had the satisfaction of feeling the key drop inside the door, and hang by the cobbler's twine. He eased it down to the floor, and found that, as is the case with most doors, the bottom of that of the cellar of Tinklers' Lands did not come quite close to the floor. It was, therefore, easy for Cleg to dangle the key a little till he could bring the end of it to the place where the arch was worn widest. Then he took his hooked wire and pulled the key towards him. It was in itself a pretty trick, and was executed by Cleg in far less time than it takes to tell about it.

With the key in his hand, and in the other an open clasp-knife, Cleg turned the bolt back and stepped within. A terrible enough sight met his eyes, though not that which he dreaded. In the corner lay Sal Kavannah, with a pair of empty bottles tossed at her side, her black hair over her face, lying drawn together in a heap. Tied to the bed was Vara, bleeding from a cut on the head, and trying to cover her arms and hands from his sight. But Hugh and the baby lay in the bunk together, sleeping peacefully. It was upon poor Vara that the brunt of the woman's maniac fury had fallen.

Cleg stood stricken; but the sight of Vara bound with cords aroused him. He had the knife in his hand, and it did not take a moment to free her. But she was so stiff and exhausted that she fell forward on her face as soon as the straps were removed. Then, after Cleg had lifted her, he turned upon the sodden heap in the corner, and, with his knife glittering in his hand and the wild-cat grin on his face, he said, with a deep indrawing of his breath, "Oh, if ye had only been my ain faither!"

And it was as well that it was Sal Kavannah and not Tim Kelly that had done this thing.

Now, in an emergency Cleg always acted first and asked leave afterwards.

"Come awa' oot o' this, Vara, and I'll bring the bairn and Hugh," said he to the girl, when she was somewhat recovered.

"But, Cleg, where are we to gang?" said Vara, starting back.

"Never you heed, Vara; there maun be nae mair o' this frae this time oot."

His manner was so positive that the girl gave way. Anything rather than abide with the thing which lay in the corner.

"Hae ye ocht that ye wad like to bring wi' ye?" Cleg asked of Vara, as he shouldered Hugh, and took up the baby on his other arm.

"Aye," said Vara, "wee Gavin's feedin' bottle."

And she had to step over the sodden face of her mother to get it.

So the four went out into the noonday streets, and Cleg marched forth like the pipe-major of the Black Watch – than whom no king on earth walks with more dignity and pomp, when there is a big parade and the full band of pipers leads the regiment.

Cleg almost wished that Humpy Joe might see him and taunt him, so that on Sunday he might beat him to a jelly. But, as it chanced, the streets were deserted, for it was the very middle of the workmen's dinner-hour. So that the streams that went and came a quarter of an hour sooner and a quarter of an hour later were for the moment all safely housed; while those who had brought their dinners with them sat on benches in the shade, and took no notice of the small forlorn company passing along the causeway.

There was another way to the old construction hut at the back of Callendar's yard which did not lead through the main gateway, but entered from some waste ground, where only broken bottles and old tin cans dwelt.

The children passed safely and unobserved by this way, and in a little while Cleg had them safely housed in his own city of refuge. But Vara was in great fear lest some of the men should see them and turn them out upon the street. So Cleg shut the door upon them with the lock of his own devising, and started at a run to find Mr. Callendar.

ADVENTURE XIV.
CLEG TURNS DIPLOMATIST

James Callendar, honest man and pillar of the Seceder Kirk, was sitting down to his dinner when Cleg came to his door. The one servant lass whom the Callendars kept was "tidying" herself for the afternoon, and very much resented having to answer the door for a ragged boy with bare legs.

"Gae 'way, we hae nocht for the likes o' you here!" said she, and would have shut the door upon him.

"No even ceevil mainners," said Cleg, stepping lightly past her into the little side room, where he knew that Mr. Callendar ordinarily took his meals. The builder was just putting a potato into his mouth. He was so surprised to see Cleg enter unannounced, that the fork with the round, well-buttered, new potato remained poised in mid-air.

Cleg plunged into his affairs without preamble, lest he should be captured from behind and ignominiously expelled. But the trim servant merely listened for a moment at the back of the door, to make sure that the intruder had some genuine business with her master, and then returned to the graver duties of her own toilet. It was her evening out, and her "young man" had hinted at a sail to Aberdour on the pleasure-boat, if they could get to the West Pier in time.

"Oh, Maister Callendar," Cleg began, eager and breathless, "ye hae been a kind man to me, and I want ye to help me noo – "

"What's this, Cleg?" said the builder; "surely the police are not after you?"

Cleg shook his head.

"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.