Crockett Samuel Rutherford
Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City: His Progress and Adventures
So suddenly was this done that the good man of Loch Spellanderie, approaching with his hay-fork from one direction, ran hastily into the arms of his spouse charging from the other. And from her he received a most unwifely ring on the side of the head with the poker, which loosened every tooth John McWalter still retained in his jawbones.
"Tak' that, ye donnert auld deevil, for lettin' him by!" cried the harridan.
"Ye let him by yoursel', guidwife," cried her husband, who did not often resent anything which his wife might do, but who felt that he must draw the line at having to welcome the poker on the side of his head. "Dinna come that road again, my woman. I declare to peace; had it no been for the hay-time comin' on, and few hands to win it, I wad hae stuck the fork brave and firmly intil ye, ye randy besom!"
To what lengths the quarrel would have gone if it had been allowed to proceed, will never be known. For just at that moment the head of Cleg emerged far out upon the dark waters of Loch Spellanderie.
Cleg Kelly swam nearly as easily in his clothes as without them. For he had cast his coat at the beginning of the fray, and as to his trousers, they were loose and especially well ventilated. So that the water gushed in and out of the holes as he swam, much as though they had been the gills of a fish. Indeed, they rather helped his progress than otherwise.
Then from the dusky breadths of the lake arose the voice, mocking and bitter, of the Thersites of the Sooth Back, equally well equipped for compliment and deadly in debate.
"Loup in," he cried, "try a dook. It is fine and caller in here the nicht. But leave the poker ahint ye. It will tak' ye a' your time to keep your ain thick heid abune the water. Come on, you!" he cried pointedly to Mistress McWalter. "That face o' yours hasna seen water for a month, I'll wager. A soom will do you a' the guid in the world! And you, ye guano-sack on stilts, come and try a spar oot here. I'll learn ye to stick hay-fows into decent folk!"
But neither John McWalter nor yet his wife had a word to say in answer.
Then began such an exhibition as Loch Spellanderie had never seen. Cleg trod water. He dived. He swam on his back, on his side, on his breast. His arms described dignified alternate circles – half in air and half in water. He pretended to be drowning and let himself, after a terror-striking outcry, sink slowly down into deep water, from which presently he arose laughing.
And all the time his heart was hot and prideful within him.
"I'll learn her," he said over and over to himself, "I'll learn her to tak' up wi' a country Jock."
And then he would execute another foolhardy prank, dismally rejoicing the while in Vara's manifest terror.
"Cleg, come oot! Ye'll be drooned!" Vara cried, wringing her hands in agony. Simple and innocent herself, she could not understand why her kind good Cleg should act so. She had no conception of the evil spirit of pride and vainglory, which upon occasion rent and tormented that small pagan bosom.
"I'll show her!" remained the refrain of all Cleg's meditations for many a day.
Finally, when this had gone on for a quarter of an hour, Cleg trod water long enough to kiss his hand, and cry "Guidnicht!" to Mistress McWalter and her husband, who meanwhile stood dumb and astonished on the bank.
Then he turned and swam steadily away across the loch. He did not know in the least how he would get his clothes dried, nor yet where he would have to sleep. But his many adventures that day, and in especial the way he had "taken the shine oot o' that loonie wi' the curls," warmed and comforted him more than a brand new suit of dry clothes. So long as he could see them he looked over his shoulder occasionally. And when he noted the four dark figures still standing on the bank, Cleg chuckled to himself and his proud heart rejoiced within him.
"I telled ye I wad show her," he said to himself, "and I hae shown her!"
ADVENTURE XLV.
THE CABIN ON THE SUMMIT
Like most Scottish lakes, Loch Spellanderie is not wide, and Cleg manfully ploughed his way across without fear of the result. For he had often swam much further at the piers of Leith and Trinity, as well as much longer in the many lochs which are girt like a girdle of jewels round about his native city. But presently his clothes began to tire him, and long ere the dark line of the trees on the further side approached, he was longing to be on shore again.
Sometimes also he seemed to hear the voices of men before him, though, owing the deep shadow of the trees, he could see no one. Cleg's arms began to ache terribly, and his feet to drag lower and lower. The power went out of his strokes. He called out lustily for the men to wait for him. He could hear something like a boat moving along the edge of the reeds, rustling through them with a sough as it went.
Suddenly Cleg saw something dark swimming slowly along the surface of the water. He struck towards it fearlessly. It was a piece of wood moved, as it seemed, by some mysterious power from the shore. Cleg called out again for the men whose voices he had heard to wait for him. But, instead of waiting, they promptly turned and fled. Cleg could hear them crashing like bullocks through the briars and hazels of the underbrush.
However, he was not far from the land now, and in a minute more he felt his feet rest upon the shelving gravel of the lake shore. Cleg brought the wedge-shaped piece of wood with him. He found upon holding it close to his eyes in the dim light, that a double row of hooks was attached to it beneath, and that there were half a dozen good trout leaping and squirming upon different sides of it.
Cleg had no notion of the nature of the instrument he had captured. Nor indeed had he the least idea that he had disturbed certain very honest men in a wholly illegal operation.
He only shook himself like a water-dog and proceeded to run through the wood at an easy trot, for the purpose of getting some heat back into his chilled limbs.
As he ran his thoughts returned often to Loch Spellanderie, and each time he cracked his thumbs with glee.
"I showed her, I'm thinkin'!" he said aloud.
Suddenly Cleg found himself out of the wood. He came upon a slight fence of wire hung upon cloven undressed posts, over which ran the shallow trench of the railway to Port Andrew.
Cleg knew himself on sure ground again so soon as he came to something so familiar as the four-foot way. He felt as if he had a friend in each telegraph post, and that the shining perspective of the parallel metals stretched on and on into direct connection with Princes Street Station and the North Bridge tram lines which ran almost to the Canongate Head. He was, as it were, at home.
The boy hesitated a little which way to turn. But ultimately he decided that he would take the left hand. So Cleg sped along the permanent way towards Port Andrew at the rate of six miles an hour.
Had he known it, he was running as fast as he could out of all civilisation. For at this point the railway passes into a purely pastoral region of sheep and muircocks, where even farms and cot-houses are scarcer than in any other part of the lowlands of Scotland.
Nevertheless Cleg kept up the steady swinging trot, which had come to him by nature in direct descent from Tim Kelly, the Irish harvestman and burglar who in his day had trotted so disastrously into Isbel Beattie's life.
But Cleg was not to lie homeless and houseless that night, as Vara and the children had often done. Cleg possessed all a cat's faculty for falling on his feet.
At a lonely place on the side of the line he came upon a little cluster of tanks and offices, which was yet not a station. There was, in fact, no platform at all. It consisted mainly of the little tank for watering the engine, and, set deep under an overhanging snout of heathery moorland, an old narrow-windowed railway carriage raised upon wooden uprights.
Cleg stood petrified with astonishment before this strange encampment. For there were lights in the windows, and the sound of voices came cheerfully from within. Yet here was the lonely moor, with the birds calling weirdly all about him, and only the parallel bars of the four-foot way starting out east and west into the darkness, from the broad stream of comfortable light which fell across them from the windows of the wheelless railway carriage.
Finally Cleg plucked up heart to knock. He had a feeling that nothing far amiss could happen to him, so near a railway which led at long and last to Princes Street, where even at that moment so many of his friends were busily engaged selling the evening papers. Besides which he was in still nearer connection with his friends Muckle Alick, the porter, and Duncan Urquhart, the goods enginedriver at Netherby Junction.
Cleg tapped gently, but there was at first no cessation in the noise. He knocked a second time a little harder; still it was without effect.
A voice within took up a rollicking tune, and the words came rantingly through the wooden partition. Cleg's hand slid down till it rested upon the stirrup-shaped brass handle of a railway carriage. It turned readily in his fingers, and Cleg peered curiously within.
He could now see the singer, who sat on a wooden chair with his stocking-soles cocked up on the little stove which filled all one end of the hut. There came from within a delightful smell of broiling bacon ham, which hungry Cleg sniffed up with gusto.
The singer was a rough-haired, black-bearded man with a wide chest and mighty shoulders, even though he could not be called a giant when compared with Muckle Alick down at Netherby. And this is what he sang:
Auld Granny Grey Pow,
Fetch the bairnies in;
Bring them frae the Scaur Heid,
Whaur they mak' sic din.
Chase them frae the washin' pool,
Thrang at skippin' stanes —
Auld Granny Grey Pow,
Gather hame the weans.
The singer's voice sang this verse of the Poet of the Iron Road6 so gaily that Cleg felt that his quarters for the night were assured. He was about to step within when a new voice spoke.
"'Deed and it micht serve ye better a deal, Poet Jock, gin ye wad set doon your feet and lift your Bible to tak' a lesson to yoursel', instead o' rantin' there at a gilravage o' vain sangs – aye, even wastin' your precious time in makkin' them, when ye micht be either readin' the Company's rules or thinkin' aboot the concerns o' your never-dying sowl!"
"You haud your tongue, Auld Chairlie," cried the singer, pausing a moment, but not turning round; "gin ye hadna missed thae troots the nicht and lost your otter to the keepers in Loch Spellanderie, ye wadna hae been sitting there busy wi' Second Chronicles!"
And again the singer took up his ranting melody:
Bring in Rab to get him washed,
Weel I ken the loon,
Canna do unless he be
Dirt frae fit to croon.
Tam and Wull are juist the same
For a' I tak' sic pains —
Auld Granny Grey Pow,
Gather hame the weans.
So the singer sang, and ever as he came to the refrain he cuddled an imaginary fiddle under his chin and played it brisk and tauntingly like a spring:
Auld Granny Grey Pow,
Gather hame the weans.
Then, before another word could be spoken, Cleg stepped inside.
"Guidnicht to ye a'!" he said politely.
The man who had been called Poet Jock took down his feet from the top of the stove so quickly that the legs of the chair slipped from under him, and he came down upon the floor of the carriage with a resounding thump. Auld Chairlie, a white-haired old man who sat under a lamp with a large book on his knee, also stood up so suddenly that the volume slipped to the floor.
"O mercy! Lord, preserve me, what's this?" he cried, his teeth chattering in his head as he spoke.
"Wha may you be and what do ye want?" asked poet Sandy, without, however, getting up from the floor.
"I'm juist Cleg Kelly frae the Sooth Back," said the apparition.
"And whaur got ye that otter and troots?" broke in Auld Chairlie, who could not take his eyes off them.
"I got them in the loch. Did ye think they grew in the field, man?" retorted Cleg, whose natural man was rising within him at the enforced catechism.
"Preserve us a' – I thocht ye had been either the deil or a gamekeeper!" said Auld Chairlie, with intense earnestness; "weel, I'm awesome glad ye are no a game watcher, at ony rate. We micht maybe hae managed to gie the deil a bit fley by haudin' the muckle Bible to his e'e. But gamekeepers are a' juist regairdless heathen loons that care neither for Kirk nor minister – except maybe an orra while at election time."
"Aye, man, an' ye are Cleg Kelly? Where did ye 'Cleg' frae?" asked the poet, who contented himself jovially with his position in the corner of the floor, till a few cinders fell from the stove and made him leap to his feet with an alacrity which was quite astounding in so big a man. Then the reason why he had been content to sit still became manifest. For his head struck the roof of the little carriage with a bang which made him cower. Whereupon he sat down again, rubbing it ruefully, muttering to himself, "There maun be the maist part o' an octavo volume o' poems stuck to that roof already, and there gangs anither epic!"
When the Poet and Auld Chairlie had re-composed themselves in the little hut, Cleg proceeded to tell them all his adventures, and especially all those which concerned Mistress McWalter of Loch Spellanderie, and the great swim across the water.
ADVENTURE XLVI.
A CHILD OF THE DEVIL
"We'll e'en hae yon trouts to our suppers yet!" said Poet Jock. "Chairlie, man, pit on the pan. It's wonderfu' the works o' a gracious Providence!"
And so in a trice the two noble loch trouts were frying with a pat of butter and some oatmeal in the pan, and sending up a smell which mingled deliciously enough with that of the fried ham which already smoked upon an aschet by the fireside.
The good-hearted surfacemen at the Summit Hut seemed to take it for granted that Cleg was to remain with them. At least neither of them asked him any further questions. This might be because in the course of his story he had mentioned familiarly the name of Duncan Urquhart the goods guard, and the still greater one of Muckle Alick, the head porter at Netherby. And these to a railway man on the Port Road were as good as half-a-dozen certificates of character.
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, and managed 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 by contact 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 sack sticking 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!"
