"Noo that the collyshangie's dune," quoth Mirren Douglas, "ye micht gie us a word o' advice what we should do wi' the bairns. But come oot by. They are a' to their beds doon the hoose. And we can be takin' a look at the blossoms as we gang."
"We are to plant cabbage here next year, Mistress Fraser says!" cried Muckle Alick.
"Havers!" said his wife. But Mistress Fraser gave Alick a look which said as plain as print, "Have you not had enough?"
"Heard ye what the name o' the puir wandering things might be?" asked Mistress Fraser.
"Aye," said Mirren, briskly, "I hae heard a' aboot it. Their name is Kavannah. Their faither gaed awa' to Liverpool a whilie since to seek wark. And the bairns has left their mither in Edinburgh to seek their faither. And I judge their mither is a gye ill yin."
"Did she tell ye that?" asked Muckle Alick, quickly.
"Na, but I jalloused it!"[5]said his wife.
"And hoo in the world could ye jallouse sic a thing as that?" said he.
"Just the way ye jallouse that the express is comin' when ye hear the whistle, and the signal draps to 'clear,' ye muckle nowt!" said his wife, taking what is known as a personal example.
"The lassie didna tell me yae single word, but the boy showed me anarr-mark on his temple. 'The awfu' woman did that!' says he.
"'And wha's the awfu' woman, my bonny man?' says I."
"The lassie tried to turn him, but he oot wi' it. 'It's just my mither!' says he. And if ye didna caa that a gye near signal, I ken na what is. It's as plain as findin' bits o' a dog collar in the sausage or a burn troot in the milk!"
But her husband did not laugh, as he usually did at her sayings. His own humour was not of that kind, but slow, ponderous, and deliberate.
"What are ye standin' there gapin' at?" demanded his wife.
Alick held up his hand. His wife knew that this was a signal that he wished to be left to think undisturbed a little longer. So she hurried Mistress Fraser along to look at what she called her "nasty-hurcheons." Sandy's mental machinery, like his bodily, was slow to set in motion, but it worked with great momentum when once it was set a-going.
Muckle Alick was putting two and two together.
"I ken a' aboot it," he said at length, when the process was complete. "We will need to be awesome careful. Thae bairns' faither never got to Liverpool; consequently it's little use them gaun there to seek him. He's either in his grave or the Edinburgh Infirmary. D'ye mind yon tramp man that gat the hurt in his head last spring, by hiding and sleepin' in the cattle waggons when they were shuntin'? His name was James Kavannah. I'se warrant he was the bairns' faither!"
Mirren Douglas gave Muckle Alick a bit clap on the shoulder.
"Whiles ye are nane so stupid, man," she said, "I believe ye are richt."
"And he was on his road to Liverpool, too," addedAlick, "for when he was oot o' his mind he cried on aboot that a' the time. And aye the owerword o' his sang was, 'She'll no get me in Liverpool!'"
His wife looked at Alick. And Muckle Alick looked at Mirren.
"We'll keep them awhile, onyway, till they can get a better hame. The lassie will soon be braw and handy," said Mirren.
"I'm thinkin'," said Alick, "that the flower-beds will hae to come up after a', and we'll plant taties if the porridge pot shows signs o' wearin' empty."
It was thus that our three wanderers found a place of lodgment in the wilderness in the kindly house of Sandyknowes.
"There's my sister Margaret up at Loch Spellanderie," said Mistress Fraser; "she was tellin' me on Monday that she was wantin' a lass. She's no very easy to leeve wi', I ken. But she will gie a guid wage, and the lass would get an insicht into country wark there. It micht be worth while thinkin' aboot."
"It is kind o' ye to think o't," said Mirren, doubtfully.
"O," replied Mistress Fraser, "I'm nane so sure o' that. As I tell ye, oor Meg is nane o' the easiest to serve. But, as the guid Buik says, it's a good and siccar lesson for the young to bear the yoke in their youth."
"An' I'm sure thae puir bairns hae had their share o't," said Muckle Alick.
"I suppose," said Mistress Fraser, as she prepared to take her leave, "that ye canna keep your thumb on the joke aboot the twa laddies and a lassie. Na, it's no to be expected o' you, Mirren. It's ower guid a tale to tell, specially on me, that aye prided mysel' on letting naebody draw my leg. But ye did me to richts this time, ye greatstirk—to bring me fleein' ower here wi' my coaties kilted as if I had the back-door trot, a' to see three newly-come-hame bairns, and the auldest o' them near woman muckle. And the loon that gaed me the cheat an elder o' the kirk! Sorrow till ye, Alick, but I could find it in my heart to clour your lugs even yet."
"Ye hae my richt guidwull," said Mirren, encouragingly.
But Muckle Alick only laughed. Then Tam Fraser came in seeking his wife.
"I hae been hearin' a' aboot your daft ploy, rinnin' in front o' the engine and gettin' dunted oot o' the road," said he. "Some folk was threepin' that it was awesome brave o' ye, but I think it was juist a daft, rackless triflin' wi' Providence. That's my thocht on't."
"What was that? I hae heard tell o' it for the first time," said Mirren. "But that's nae new thing in this hoose. Alick's married wife is aye the last to hear o' his daft-like doin's."
"O, nocht very special this time," said Tam Fraser. "He only threw a hundred and six Irish drovers oot o' a third story window ower the engine o' the Port express, but there's nae mair than ten o' them dead. And then he louped in front on an engine gaun at full speed and to draw some bairns frae below the wheels," said Tam Fraser, giving the local version, corrected to date.
"Is this true?" said his wife severely, fixing her eyes upon Alick with a curious expression in them.
"There's juist aboot as muckle truth in it as there is in maist Netherby stories for common, after they hae gotten ten minutes' start," said Muckle Alick.
"What is your version o't?" said his wife, never taking her eyes off her husband.
"O, it was naething to tell aboot," said Muckle Alick."There was some drovers in a carriage where they had nae business, and they wadna come oot, till I gaed in to them—and then they cam' oot! And the wee laddie an' the bairn were comin' alang the line afore the engine. And Geordie couldna stop. So I gied them a bit yirk oot and gat a dunch in the back wi' the buffer."
Mirren took her husband by the rough velveteen coat-sleeve.
"My man!" she said, rubbing her cheek against it. "But what for did ye no tell me?"
"I was gaun to tell ye the morn's mornin'," said Alick. "There was nae harm dune, ye see, but yin o' my gallus buttons riven off an' the buffer of Geordie's engine smashed. I was gaun to tell ye in the mornin' aboot the button needing sewin' on."
"Did ye ever see siccan auld fules," said Tam Fraser, as he and his wife went home, "rubbin' her cheek again his airm, that's as thick as a pump theekit frae the frost wi' strae rapes?"
"Haud your tongue, Tam," said his wife, whose temper had suffered; "if I had a man like that I wad rub my cheek against his trouser leg, gin it pleasured him, the day by the length."
Mr. Cleg Kelly awoke early on the day upon which he was to make the bold adventure of getting to Netherby Junction without enriching the railway company by the amount of his fare. But his conscience was clean; he was going to work his passage. It is true that neitherthe general manager nor yet the traffic inspector had been consulted in the matter. But for the sake of Cleg's friend (to be exact, Cleaver's boy's sweetheart's fellow-servant, cook at Bailie Holden's), Duncan Urquhart was willing (and he believed able) to engineer Cleg's passage to Netherby without fee or reward.
Duncan was friendly with the guard of his goods train, which is a thing not too common with those who have to run goods trains together, week in and week out. The shunting at night in particular is wearing to the temper, especially in the winter time, when it is mostly dark in an hour or two whenever your train happens to start.
"Can you stand there and turn a brake?" said Duncan to Cleg, setting him in a small compartment by himself; "screw her up whenever we are running downhill. Ye will ken when by the gurring and shaking."
Mr. Duncan Urquhart was a very different man during the day, to the gay and gallant evening caller who had won the easy-melted heart of the cook at Holden's—which a disappointed suitor once said bitterly was made of dripping. He was very grimy; he spoke but seldom, and then mostly in the highly imaginative and metaphorical language popular on the Greenock and South-Eastern. Duncan Urquhart, as has already been mentioned, was quite a first-class swearer, and had an originality not common among engineers, which he owed to his habit of translating literally from the Gaelic. Also, though he swore incessantly, he never defiled his mouth with profanity, but confined himself assiduously to personal abuse, which, if less sonorous, is infinitely more irritating to the swearee.
So hour after hour Cleg stood in the train and was hurled and shaken southwards towards Netherby. Hehelped at the shunting, coupling, and uncoupling with the best. For, from his ancient St. Leonards experience, he could run the coal-waggons to their lies as well as a professional. And though his occupations had been varied and desultory, Cleg was a born worker. He always saw merely the bit of work before him, and he set his teeth into it (as he said picturesquely) till he had clawed his way through.
Thus it was that Cleg found himself at Netherby Junction one Saturday night at six o'clock. It was the first time he had ever been further than the confines of the Queen's Park. And his vision of the country came to him as it were in one day. He saw teams driving afield. He saw the mowers in the swathes of hay. He watched with keen delight the grass fall cleanly before the scythe, and the point of the blade stand out at each stroke six inches from under the fallen sweep of dewy grass.
"Netherby Junction! Guidnicht!" said Duncan Urquhart, briefly. He had an appointment to keep with the provost's cook, who was also partial to well-bearded men with blue pilot-cloth jackets. Duncan would not have been in such a hurry, but for the fact that it took him half an hour to clean himself. He knew that half an hour when you go a-courting, and when the other fellow may get there first, is of prime importance.
Now, as Cleg Kelly stepped out upon the cattle-landing bank, he caught a glimpse of the biggest man he had ever seen, walking slowly along the white dusty road which led out of the passenger station. He was swinging his arms wide of his sides, as very big and broad men always do.
Cleg sped after him at top speed and took a tour round him before he spoke. The big man paid no attention, walking with his eyes fixed on the ground.
"Are ye the man that pitched oot the drovers?" said Cleg at last, coming to anchor in front of the giant.
Muckle Alick stopped in the road, as much surprised as though the town clock had spoken to him. For Cleg put a smartness and fire in his question to which the boys about Netherby were strangers.
"Where come ye frae?" he said to Cleg.
"I come from Edinburgh to see Vara Kavannah," said Cleg. "Is she biding wi' you?"
"She was, till yestreen," said Alick.
"And where is she noo?" said Cleg, buckling up his trousers.
"She is gane to serve at Loch Spellanderie by the Water o' Ae!" said Alick.
"And how far micht that be?" asked Cleg, finishing his preparations.
"Three mile and a bittock up that road!" said Muckle Alick, pointing with his finger to a well-made dusty road which went in the direction of the hills.
"Guidnicht!" cried Cleg, shortly. And was off at racing pace.
Muckle Alick watched him out of sight.
"That cowes a'!" he said, "to think that I could yince rin like that to see a lass. But the deil's in the loon. He's surely braw an early begun!"
Then Muckle Alick went round and told his wife.
"It will be the laddie frae Enbra that got them the wark in the mill, and gied up his wood hut to the bairns to leeve in. What for did ye no bring him to see Hugh Boy and the bairn?"
"I dinna ken that he gied me the chance," said Alick. "He was aff like a shot to Loch Spellanderie. I wad gie a shilling to hear what Mistress McWalter will say to him when he gets there. I houp that it'll no make herunkind to the lassie! If it does, I'll speak to her man. And at the warst she can aye come back to us. At a pinch we could be doing without her wage!"
"Aweel," said his wife, "the loon will be near there by this time."
And the loon was.
Cleg was just turning up over the hill road towards Loch Spellanderie, when he heard that most heartsome sound to the ear of a country boy—the clatter of the pasture bars when the kye are coming home. It is a sound thrilling with reminiscences of dewy eves, or heartsome lowsing times, of forenichts with the lasses, and of all that to a country lad makes life worth living.
But to Cleg the rattle of the bars meant none of these things. Two people were standing by the gate—a boy and a girl. Cleg thought he would ask them if this was the right road to Loch Spellanderie.
But as he came nearer he saw that the girl was Vara herself. She was in close and, apparently, very friendly talk with a stranger—a tall lad with a face like one of the white statues in the museum, at which Cleg had often peeped wonderingly on free days when it was cold or raining outside.
"Vara!" cried Cleg, leaping forward towards his friend.
"Cleg! What are you doing here?" said Vara Kavannah, holding out her hand.
But there was something in her manner that froze Cleg. He had come with a glowing heart. He had overcome difficulties. And now she did not seem much more glad to see him than she had been to talk with this young interloper at the gate of the field.
"This is Kit Kennedy," said Vara, with a feeling that she must by her tactfulness carry off an awkward situation.
"O it is, is it?" said Cleg, ungraciously.
Vara went on hastily to tell Cleg about the children—how well and how happy they were, how Gavin was twice the weight he had been, how Hugh Boy ran down the road each night to meet Muckle Alick, and how she was now able to keep herself, besides helping a little to support Hugh and Gavin also.
Cleg stood sulkily scraping the earth with the toe of his boot. Kit Kennedy left them together, and was going off with the cows towards the byre. He had seen a tall, gaunt woman, who was not to be trifled with, walking through the courtyard, and he knew it was time to take the kye in.
Vara stopped talking to Cleg somewhat quickly. For she also had seen Mistress McWalter. She walked away towards the farm. Cleg and Kit were left alone.
Quick as lightning Cleg thrust his arm before Kit Kennedy's face.
"Spit ower that!" he said.
Kit hesitated and turned away.
"I dinna want to fecht ye!" he said, for he knew what was meant.
"Ye are feared!" said Cleg, tauntingly.
Kit Kennedy executed the feat in hydraulics required of him.
"After kye time," said he, "at the back o' the barn."
Cleg nodded dourly.
"I'll learn ye to let my lass alane!" said the town boy.
"I dinna gie a button for your lass, or ony ither lass. Forbye there was nae ticket on her that I could see!" answered he of the country.
"Aweel," said Cleg; "then I'll warm ye for sayin' that ye wadna gie a button for her. I'm gaun to lick ye at ony rate."
"To fecht me, ye mean?" said Kit Kennedy, quietly.
Thus was gage of battle offered and accepted betwixt Cleg Kelly and Kit Kennedy.
The lists of Ashby were closed. The heralds and pursuivants did their devoirs, and the trumpets rang out a haughty peal. Or at least to that effect, as followeth:
"Come on!" said Cleg Kelly.
"Come on yoursel'!" said Kit Kennedy.
"Ye're feared," cried the Knight of the City, making a hideous face.
"Wha's feared?" replied the Knight of the Country, his fists twirling like Catherine wheels. The boys slowly revolved round one another. It was like the solar system, only on a somewhat smaller scale. For first of all their fists revolved separately round each other, then each combatant revolved on his own axis, and lastly, very slowly and in a dignified manner, they revolved round one another.
All this happened in the cool of the evening, at the back of the barn at the farmhouse of Loch Spellanderie. It was after the kye had all been milked and Vara Kavannah was in the house clearing away the porridge dishes, while the mistress put the fretful children to bed with an accompanying chorus of scoldings, slappings, and wailings of the smitten.
As the lads stood stripped for fight Cleg was a little taller than Kit Kennedy, and he had all the experiencewhich comes of many previous combats. But then he was not, like Kit Kennedy, thrice armed, in the consciousness of the justice of his quarrel.
"Come on," cried Cleg again, working up his temperature to flash point, "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 wadmake 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 thecountry 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 havestopped 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 shoulderas she passed. But this was simply, as it were, a payment on account, forhisfinal 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 himselfa 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 SoothBack, 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!"
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 undressedposts, 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.
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.
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,
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.
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 beDirt frae fit to croon.Tam and Wull are juist the sameFor a' I tak' sic pains—Auld Granny Grey Pow,Gather hame the weans.
Bring in Rab to get him washed,Weel I ken the loon,Canna do unless he beDirt frae fit to croon.Tam and Wull are juist the sameFor a' I tak' sic pains—Auld Granny Grey Pow,Gather hame the weans.
Bring in Rab to get him washed,Weel I ken the loon,Canna do unless he beDirt frae fit to croon.Tam and Wull are juist the sameFor a' I tak' sic pains—
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.
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.
Auld Granny Grey Pow,Gather hame the weans.
Auld Granny Grey Pow,Gather hame the weans.
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 togie 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.
"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 enoughwith 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.
What a night it was in that wild place! The poet chanted his lays between alternate mouthfuls of ham and fried scones of heavenly toothsomeness. Auld Chairlie said quite a lengthy prayer by way of asking a blessing. And the supplication would have continued a longer time still, but for Poet Jock's base trick of rattling a knife and fork on a plate, which caused Auld Chairlie to come to an abrupt stoppage lest any unsportsmanlike march should be stolen upon him.
Finally, however, all started fair.
"I wadna' wonder gin thae troots were poached!" said the poet, winking slily at Cleg; "ye wadna' believe what a set o' ill-contrivin' fallows there are in this countryside!"
"As for me," said Auld Chairlie, "I can see naething wrang in catchin' the bit things. Ye see it's no only allowed, it's commanded. Did ye never read how the birds in the air and the fishes in the flood were committed too or faither Aaidam to tell the names o' them? Noo, unless he gruppit them, how could he possibly tell their names? The thing's clean ridiculous!"
"Mony a decent man has gotten sixty days for believin' that!" cried the poet between the mouthfuls.
In the middle of the meal the poet leaped up suddenly, checking himself, however, in the middle of his spring with a quick remembrance of the roof above him. "Preserve us, laddie, ye are a' wat!"
"So would you," quoth Cleg, who in the congenial atmosphere of the cabin had recovered all his natural briskness, "gin ye had soomed Loch Spellanderie as weel as me! Even a pairish minister wad be wat then!"
"Aye," said Auld Chairlie, sententiously, "that's juist like your poet. He hears ye tell a' aboot soomin' a loch. But he never thinks that ye wad hae to wat your claes when ye did it."
"But ye didna' speak aboot it ony mair than me, Auld Chairlie!" retorted Poet Jock.
"An' what for should I do that? I thocht the laddie maybe prefer't to 'bide wat!" said Auld Chairlie, with emphasis.
"Ye are surely growin' doited, Chairles," said the poet; "ye took the Netherby clearin' hoose clerk for the General Manager o' the line the day afore yesterday!"
"An' so micht onybody," replied Auld Chairlie, "upsetting blastie that he is! Sic a wame as the craitur cairries, wag-waggin' afore him. I declare I thocht he wad be either General Manager o' the line or the Provist o' Glescae!"
"Haud your tongue, man Chairlie, and see if ye can own up, for yince! If we are to judge folk by their wames, gussy pig gruntin' in the trough wad be king o' men. But stop your haverin' and see if ye hae ony dry claes that ye can lend this boy. He'll get his death o' cauld if he lets them dry on him."
But Auld Chairlie had nothing whatever in the way of change, except a checked red-and-white Sunday handkerchief for the neck.
"And I hae nocht ava'!" exclaimed the poet. "Ye maun juist gang to your bed, my man, and I'll feed ye over the edge wi' a fork!"
But Cleg saw in the corner the old flour sack in which the surfaceman had imported his last winter's flour. The bag had long been empty.
"Is this ony use?" said Cleg. "I could put this on!"
"Use," cried the poet, "what use can an auld flour sack be when a man's claes are wat?"
"Aweel," said Cleg, "ye'll see, gin ye wait. Railway folk dinna ken a' thing, though they think they do!"
So with that he cut a couple of holes at the corners, and made a still larger hole in the middle of the sack bottom. Then he disrobed himself with the utmost gravity, drew the empty sack over his head, and put his arms through the holes in the corners.
"It only needs a sma' alteration at the oxters to fit like your very skin," he said. Then he took up Auld Chairlie's table-knife and made a couple of slits beneath the arms, "and there ye hae a comfortable suit o' claes."
The poet burst into a great laugh and smote his thigh. "I never saw the match o' the loon!" he cried, joyously.
"They are nocht gaudy," Cleg went on, as he seated himself at the corner of the table, having first spread his wet garments carefully before the stove, "but it is a fine an' airy suit for summer wear. The surtowt comes below the knee, so it's in the fashion. Lang-skirted coats are a' the go on Princes Street the noo. A' the lawyers wear them."
At this point Cleg rose and gave an imitation of the walk and conversation of a gentleman of the long robe, as seen from the standpoint of the Sooth Back.
Once he had looked into Parliament House itself, andmanaged to walk twice round before "getting chucked," as he remarked. So he knew all about it.
He took an oily piece of cotton waste with which Poet Jock cleaned his lamps. He secured it about his head, so that it hung down his back for a wig. He put a penny in his eye, instead of the orthodox legal eyeglass. Then he set his hands in the small of his back, and began to parade up and down the centre of the old railway carriage in a very dignified manner, with the old sack waving behind him after the fashion of a gown.
He pretended to look down with a lofty contempt upon Poet Jock and Auld Chairlie, as they watched him open-mouthed.
"Who the devil are those fellows?" he said; "lot of asses about. Everybody is an ass. Who's sitting to-day? Ha! old Bully-boy—bally ass he is! Who's speaking? Young Covercase—another bleating ass! Say, old chappie, come and let's have a drink, and get out of the way of the asses."
It is to be feared that Cleg would next have gone on to imitate the clergy of his native city. But he was hampered by the fact that his opportunities for observation had been limited to the street. He had never been within a church door in his life. And that not so much because he would have stood a good chance of being turned out as a mischief-maker, but from natural aversion to an hour's confinement.
Then Cleg wrapped his old sack about him very tightly, and assumed a fixed smile of great suavity. He approached the poet, who was stretching his long limbs in the upper bunk which occupied one side of the hut.
"Ah," said Cleg, slowly wagging his head from side to side, "and how do we find ourselves to-day? Better? Let me feel your pulse—Ah, just as I expected. Tongue—furry?Have you taken the medicine? What you need is strengthening food, and the treatment as before. See that you get it—blue mange, grouse pie, and the best champagne! And continue the treatment!Good-morning!"
Cleg wrapped his sack closer about him as he finished, to represent the slim surtout of the healing faculty, and, setting an old tea "cannie" of tin upon his head to represent a tall hat, he bowed himself out with his best Canongate imitation of a suitable and effective bedside manner.
There was no end to Cleg's entertainment when he felt that he had an appreciative audience. And as the comedy consisted not so much in what he said as in the perfect solemnity of his countenance, the charm of his bare arms meandering through the holes in the corners of the sack, and the bare legs stalking compass-like through its open mouth, Poet Jock laughed till he had to lie down on the floor in the corner. Even Auld Chairlie was compelled perforce to smile, though he often declared his belief that it was all vanity, and that Cleg was certainly a child of the devil.
Chairlie was specially confirmed in this opinion by Cleg's next characterisation.
"Did ye ever see the Track Woman?" said Cleg, dropping for a moment into his own manner. "I canna' bide her ava. There's them that we like to see comin' into our hooses—folk like Miss Celie, that is veesitor in oor district, or Big Smith, the Pleasance Missionary, even though he whiles gies us a lick wi' his knobby stick for cloddin' cats. But the Track Woman I canna bide. This is her!"
And he gathered up his sack very high in front of him, to express the damage which it would receive bycontact with the dirt of Poet Jock's abode. Then he threw back his head and stuck out his chin, to convey an impression of extreme condescension.
"Good day, poor people," he said, "I have called to leave you a little tract. I don't know how you can live in such a place. Why don't you move away? And the stair is so dirty and sticky! It is really not fit for a lady to come up. What's this? What's this"—(smelling)—"chops! Chops are far too expensive and wasteful for people in your position. A little liver, now, or beef-bone——. What did you say? 'Get out of this!' Surely I did not hear you right! Do you know that I came here to do you good, and to leave you a little tract? Now, I pray you, do not let your angry passions rise. I will, however, do my duty, and leave a little tract. Read it carefully; I hope it will do you good. It is fitted to teach you how to be grateful for the interest that is taken in you by your betters!"
As soon as Cleg had finished, he lifted the skirts of his old sack still higher, tilted his nose yet more in the air, and sailed out, sniffing meanwhile from right to left and back again with extreme disfavour.
But as soon as he had reached the door his manner suffered a sea-change. He bounded in with a somersault, leaped to his feet, and pretended to look out of the door after the departing "Track Woman."
"O ye besom!" he cried, "comin' here nosing and advising—as stuffed wi' stinkin' pride as a butcher's shop wi' bluebottles in the last week o' July! Dook her in the dub! Fling dead cats at her, and clod her wi' cabbages and glaur! Pour dish-washin's on her. Ah, the pridefu' besom!"
And with this dramatic conclusion Cleg sank apparently exhausted into a chair with the skirts of the sacksticking out in an elegant frill in front of him, and fanned himself gracefully with an iron shovel taken from the stove top, exactly as he had seen the young lady performers at the penny theatres do as they waited in the wings for their "turn."
Great was the applause from Poet Jock, who lay in a state of collapse on the floor.
"Boys O!" he exclaimed feebly, "but ye are a lad!"
Auld Chairlie only shook his head, and repeated, "I misdoot that ye are a verra child o' the deevil!"
On the morrow Cleg was up betimes. But not so early as Poet Jock and Auld Chairlie. His own clothes were pretty dry, but Cleg had been so pleased with the freedom and airiness of his "sack suit," as he called it, that, as it was a warm morning and a lonely place, he decided to wear it all day.
Cleg went out, and, starting from the side of the line, he ran light-foot to the top of a little hill, from whence he could look over a vast moorish wilderness—league upon league of purple heather, through which the railway had been cut and levelled with infinite but unremunerative art.
From horizon to horizon not a living thing could Cleg see except the moorbirds and the sheep. But over the woods to the east he could catch one glimpse of Loch Spellanderie, basking blue in the sunlight. He could not, however, see the farmhouse. But he rubbed hishands with satisfaction as he thought of swimming away from them all into the darkness the night before.
"I showed her wha was the man, I'm thinkin'!" he said. And there upon the heather-blooms Cleg Kelly flapped his thin arms against his sack and crowed like a chanticleer. Then in a few moments there came back from over the moor and loch a phantom cock-crow reduced to the airiest diminuendo. It was the tyrant of the Loch Spellanderie dung-hill which spoke back to him.
"I'm richt glad I'm no there," said Cleg, heartily.
Nevertheless he went down the hill again a little sadly, as though he were not quite sure, when he came to think about it, whether he was glad or not.
But on the whole it was perhaps as well that he was where he was, at least in his present costume.
When Cleg got back to the hut, he looked about for something to do till his friends returned. His active frame did not stand idleness well. He grew distracted with the silence and the wide spaces of air and sunshine about him. He longed to hear the thunderous rattle of the coal-carts coming out of the station of St. Leonards. He missed the long wolf's howl of the seasoned South Side coalman. In the morning, indeed, the whaups had done something to cheer him, wailing and crying to the peewits. But as the forenoon advanced even they went off to the shore-side pools, or dropped into the tufts of heather and were mute.
Cleg grew more and more tired of the silence. It deafened him, so that several times he had to go outside and yell at the top of his voice simply, as it were, to relieve nature.
It happened that on the second occasion, as soon as he had finished yelling—that is, exhausted an entire vocabulary of hideous sounds—a train to Port Andrew brokethe monotony. It did not actually stop, because it was a passenger train and had already "watered up" at Netherby. But Cleg was as pleased as if it had brought him a box of apples. He climbed up and sat cross-legged on the top of the hut in his sack, for all the world like an Indian idol; and the engine-driver was so astonished that he forgot to put the brake on till he was thundering headlong half way down the incline on the western side of the Summit cabin.
But the stoker, a young man incapable of astonishment (as many of the very young are), picked up a lump of coal from the tender and threw it at Cleg with excellent aim. However, as the train was going slowly uphill at the time, Cleg caught it and set the piece of coal between his teeth. His aspect on this occasion was such as would fully have warranted Auld Chairlie in setting him down not as a child of the devil, but as the father of all the children of the devil.
The train passed, and Cleg was again in want of something to do. He could not sit there in the sun, and be slowly roasted with a piece of coal between his teeth, all for the benefit of the whaups. He thought with regret how he should like to sit, just as he was, on some towering pinnacle of the Scott monument where the police could not get him, and make faces at all the envious keelies in Edinburgh. To do this through all eternity would have afforded him much more pleasure than any realisation of more contentional presentations of the joys of heaven.
He descended and looked about him.
At the end of the little cabin he found a pitcher of tar, but no brush. He searched further, however, till he found it thrown carelessly away among the heather. Whereupon Cleg forthwith appointed himself house-painter-in-ordinaryto the Port Andrew Railway Company, and attacked the Summit cabin. He laid the tar on thick and good, so that when the sun beat upon his handiwork it had the effect of raising a smell which made Cleg's heart beat with the joy of reminiscence. It reminded him of a thousand things—of the brickyard on blistering afternoons, and also (when the perfume came most undiluted to his nose) of that district of Fountainbridge which has the privilege of standing upon the banks of the Forth and Clyde canal, and of containing several highly respectable and well-connected glue factories. Cleg had once gone there to "lag for a boy" who had offended his dignity by "trapping" him at school in the spelling of the word "coffin."
Cleg had spelled it, simply and severely, "kofn."
The boy from Fountainbridge, however, had spelled it correctly. Not only so, but he had been elated about the matter—very foolishly and rashly so, indeed.
"For," said Cleg, "it's easy for him. His faither is a joiner, and makes coffins to his trade. Besides, he had a half-brither that died last week. He micht easy be able to spell 'coffin'!"
To prevent the pride which so surely comes before a fall, Cleg waited for the "coffin" boy and administered the fall in person—indeed, several of them, and mostly in puddles.
He was therefore agreeably reminded of his visit to Fountainbridge whenever he stirred up the pitch from the bottom and the smell rose to his nostrils particularly solid and emulous. He shut his eyes and coughed. He dreamed that he was back and happily employed in "downing" the orthographist of Fountainbridge upon the flowery banks of the Union Canal.
It was after ten o'clock in the evening before PoetJock came in sight. He had been on a heavy job with a break-down gang on the Muckle Fleet incline. All day long he had been rhyming verses to the rasp of pick and the scrape of shovel. Sometimes so busy was he that he had barely time to take his mate's warning and leap to the side before the engine came leaping round the curve scarcely thirty lengths of rail away. But Poet Jock was entirely happy. Probably he might have travelled far and never known greater exhilaration than now, when he heard the engine surge along the irons, while he tingled with the thought that it was his strong arms which kept the track by which man was joined to man and city linked to city.
A fine, free, broad-browed, open-eyed man was Poet Jock. And his hand was as heavy as his heart was tender. As, indeed, many a rascal had found to his cost. Those who know railwaymen best, are surest that there does not exist in the world so fine a set of workers as the men whose care is the rails and the road, the engines and the guard vans, the platforms, goods sheds, and offices of our common railways.
A railway never sleeps. A thousand watchful eyes are at this moment glancing through the bull's-eyes of the driver's cab. A thousand strong hands are on the driving lever. Aloft, in wind-beaten, rain-battered signal boxes, stand the solitary men who, with every faculty on the alert, keep ten thousand from instant destruction. How tense their muscles, how clear their brains must be as they pull the signal and open the points! That brown hand gripping lever number seventeen, instead of number eighteen within six inches of it, is all that preserves three hundred people from instant and terrible death. That pound or two of pressure on the signal chain which sent abroad the red flash of danger, stopped the express inwhich sat our wives and children, and kept it from dashing at full speed into that over-shunted truck which a minute ago toppled over and lay squarely across the racer's path.
And the surfacemen, of whom are Auld Chairlie and Poet Jock? Have you thought of how, night and day, they patrol every rod of iron path—how with clink of hammer and swing of arm they test every length of rail—how they dash the rain out of their eyes that they may discern whether the sidelong pressure of the swift express, or the lumbering thunder of the overladen goods, have not bent outwards the steel rail, forced it from its "chair," or caused the end of the length to spring upward like a fixed bayonet after the weight has passed over it?
A few men standing by the line side as the train speeds by. What of them? Heroes? They look by no means like it. Lazy fellows, rather, leaning on their picks and shovels when they should be working. Or a solitary man far up among the hills, idly clinking the metals with his hammer as he saunters along through the stillness.
These are the surfacemen—and that is all most know of them. But wait. When the night is blackest, the storm grimmest, there is a bridge out yonder which has been weakened—a culvert strained where a stream from the hillside has undermined the track. The trains are passing every quarter of an hour in each direction. Nevertheless, a length of rail must be lifted and laid during that time. A watch must be kept. The destructiveness of nature must be fought in the face of wetness and weariness. And, in spite of all, the train may come too quick round the curve. Then there follows the usual paragraph in the corner of the local paper if the accident has happened in the country, a bare announcement of the coroner's inquest if it be in the town.
A porter is crushed between the platform and the moving carriages; a goods guard killed at the night shunt in the yard. Careless fellow! Serves him right for his recklessness. Did he not know the risk when he engaged? Of course he did—none better. But then he got twenty-two shillings a week to feed wife and bairns with for taking that risk. And if he did not take it, are there not plenty who would be glad of the chance of his empty berth?
And what then? Why, just this: there is one added to the thousands killed upon the railways of our lands—one stroke, a little figure 1 made at the foot of the unfinished column, a grave, a family in black, a widow with six children moved out of the company's house on which grow the roses which he planted about the door that first year, when all the world was young and a pound a week spelled Paradise. The six children have gone into a single room and she takes in washing, and is hoping by and by to get the cleaning of a board school, if she be very fortunate.
To blame? Who said that any one was to blame? Of course not. Are we not all shareholders in the railways, and do we not grumble vastly when our half-yearly dividend is low? So lengthen the hours of these over-paid, lazy fellows in corduroys—lengthen that column over which the Board of Trade's clerk lingers a moment ere he adds a unit. O well, what matter? 'Tis only statistics filed for reference in a Government office.
But while Cleg waited for Poet Jock something else was happening at Netherby.
It was a bitter night there, with a westerly wind sweeping up torrents of slanting rain through the pitchy dark. Netherby Junction was asleep, but it was the sleep which draws near the resurrection. The station-master was enjoying his short after-supper nap in the armchair by thefire. For the down boat-train from Port Andrew and the Duncan Urquhart's goods train would pass each other at Netherby Junction at 10.5P. M.