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

ADVENTURE XLIX.
CLEG COLLECTS TICKETS

Cleg Kelly had long finished the tarring of the hut at the Summit. Poet Jock had not come home, though it was after ten at night. Auld Chairlie wandered to and fro in front of the house and out on the muir at the back, waiting upon him and complaining that the supper would be spoiled. Cleg busied himself with "reddin' up" till it grew too dark to see. That is, he carried all the old mouldy boots to a moss-hole and sank them out of sight. Then he arranged all the useful articles each upon its own shelf round the walls, and the bunks were never so well made before nor the stove so bright.

But not that night, nor yet for three nights did Poet Jock return. It was seven o'clock on the evening of the third day when he arrived. He came walking up the Big Cutting with his head sunk on his breast, and he did not even look up when Cleg called to him. He came in slowly, and instead either of explaining, inquiring heartily for supper, or sniffing as usual at the fragrant steam of the frying pan, he threw himself down on the wooden shelf which constituted his bed.

"What has happened to ye, Poet Jock? Where hae ye been? Ye'll be reported, as sure as daith," said Auld Chairlie, after silent contemplation of this marvel for full five minutes. "Hae ye been fu', or has she gi'en you up?"

The last was a question prompted by the fleeting nature of Poet Jock's loves, and the ever recurring crisis through which his muse had to pass before he could settle upon a worthy successor to the late faithless fair.

But Poet Jock lay still and made no answer.

"Are ye no for ony supper?" said Cleg, practically, who was now as familiar and free of the little cabin of the Summit as if he had been the poet's twin brother – a little more so, in fact, for Jock was not on speaking terms with his brother. To tell the truth, his brother and he had had a fight on Monday fortnight at the level crossing – the subject of contention being the minister's sermon the Sabbath before. The theology of Poet Jock prevailed. His logic was most convincing. He "downed" his brother three times. But though his brother owned that he had had enough of theology, he had not since visited at the hut on the Summit. But for all that they continued to sit side by side on Sabbaths in the kirk, and to look on the family psalm-book, taking it as usual in turns to find the places and shutting the book unanimously when a paraphrase was given out.

It was now the fourth day of Cleg's sojourn at the hut. Every day he had gone up to the top of the craigs that looked towards Loch Spellanderie. And each day his resolve never to go near the place again because of the faithlessness of woman, sensibly weakened.

But he had something else to think about now. For since he came into the domains of the kindly surfacemen, Cleg had seen nothing so mysterious as the obstinate refusal of the Poet to take any supper.

Auld Chairlie tried again.

"Look you here," he said, "either you tell's what is the maitter wi' ye, or I'll send doon wi' the late passenger for the doctor to come up the first thing the morn's mornin'!"

Poor Jock groaned, but said nothing for some minutes.

"Chaps," he said at last, "I may as weel tell ye. Muckle Alick at Netherby was killed hauding the points to let by the boat train. And his wee bit wife's a widow the nicht! I hae been at Netherby lettin' a man off to fill his place."

Auld Chairlie dropped the tin platter which was in his hand.

"O Lord," he said, "could ye no hae ta'en ony o' the lave o' us? It wadna hae made so verra muckle differ – But Alick – "

He stood still contemplating the gap that there was in the world.

"That's what they hae been crying at me off the engine the last twa days, but I'm gettin' that deaf I couldna hear!"

But Cleg was prompt in action as ever.

"Guidnicht, lads," he said, "I'm gaun doon to Netherby to see gin I can be ony use."

Poet Jock started up from his bunk, instinctively guarding his head from the roof even in the midst of his distress of mind.

"What hae ye to do wi' it?" he cried, his voice sounding angry, though he was not angry.

"The twa bairns I telled ye aboot are in Muckle Alick's hoose. He saved their lives, and I'm gaun doon the noo to see what I can do for them."

"Ye canna gang that gate, man. Ye hae nae claes fittin' for a funeral!" said Chairlie. "Ye hae nocht but that auld sack!"

"I'm no carin'," stoutly asserted Cleg, "I'm gaun doon to see if I can help. It's no the funeral I'm carin' for, it's what's to come after."

Poet Jock got up and began cautiously to forage on all the shelves.

"A' my things are awesome big across," he said, "but maybe there will be eneuch amang us to fit ye oot."

Cleg's wardrobe had dwindled to a shirt and a pair of trousers. He had lost his cap in Loch Spellanderie.

But Auld Chairlie found him a pair of socks and a pair of boots – which, though they were not "marrows" or neighbours, were yet wearable enough. Cleg treated himself to a sleeved waistcoat, which, by merely shifting the buttons, became a highly useful garment. It had been exposed for some time to the weather, and when Cleg saw it, it was mounted upon two sticks, out in the little patch of cornland which Poet Jock had sown at the back of the cabin, upon a quarter acre of ground which the company had included within its wire fence with some idea of constructing a siding some day, when the traffic increased.

"Where gat ye that braw waistcoat?" queried Poet Jock when he came in, looking admiringly at the remarkable change in Cleg's appearance.

"O I juist changed claes wi' the craw-bogle!" replied Cleg with a quiet complacency, which became him like his new garment.

"Dod," said Auld Chairlie, "it's a maist remarkable improvement, I declare."

Poet Jock gave Cleg a grey woollen shirt with a collar attached which had washed too small for him, but which still reached nearly to Cleg's feet. He added a red-and-green tie of striking beauty (guaranteed to kill up to sixty yards), and an old railway cap, which had been a castaway of some former occupant of the cabin.

"There, noo," he said, when Cleg was finally arrayed. "Ye are nane so ill put on! Ye micht e'en gang to the funeral. I hae seen mair unfaceable folk mony a time. I'll get ye on the late express, that is, if it is no Sulky Jamie that's in chairge o' her."

Sulky Jamie was the name of a guard who withheld his hand from any work of mercy, if it involved the least irregularity. He was an incomparably faithful servant to the railway company of Port Andrew. But he could not be said to be popular among his fellow servants along the line.

So Poet Jock, seeing that Cleg was bent upon his quest, withstood him no more, but walked all the long way down the incline with him to Dunnure station, and there waited to pick up a "chance of a ride" on the night passenger. For no one in the cabin had a farthing of money. Poet Jock, indeed, never had any four days after pay day, and Auld Chairlie always sent his down to be banked, saving only what had to be paid monthly to Sanders Bee, the shopkeeper at the Dunnure huts, for their provisions.

"I canna trust mysel' when there's siller in the hoose!" said Auld Chairlie, who knew himself to be a brand plucked from the burning, and still glowing a little below the surface.

But it was with great good hope that Poet Jock walked with Cleg to Dunnure, in order to arrange a free passage for him down to Netherby.

The last "stopping" passenger before the boat train was late, and they had a good while to wait in the ill-lighted station.

But it came at last, and lo! Sulky Jamie was in charge.

Poet Jock went boldly up to his van and tackled him. He stated the case with eloquence and lucidity. He argued with him, as Sulky Jamie moved to and fro, swinging his lantern and never looking at him.

But the guard was incorruptible, as indeed he ought to have been. No tramp should come on his train so long as he was the guard of it.

Whereupon Poet Jock, stung to the quick, told Sulky Jamie his opinion of him. He said that when it came his time to leave the line, there would be a hurrah which would run along the metals from Port Andrew to Netherby. He further informed him that there was one testimonial which would be subscribed with enthusiasm among his mates – a coffin for Sulky Jamie. But even that only on condition that he would promptly engage to occupy it. Poet Jock ended by offering to prepare him for burial on the spot, and was in the act of declaring that he would put all these things into rhyme when the guard blew his whistle.

Cleg was nowhere to be seen, but Sulky Jamie had had his eyes wide open while he listened to the poet. He blew his whistle again, waved the lamp, and stopped the train as it was moving out of the station. He plunged into the forward van, which was sacred to the "through" luggage. In a moment Cleg came out with a fling which sent him head first upon the platform. A white-haired military-looking man looking out of the next carriage laughed loudly, and clapped his hands with glee.

This act of Sulky Jamie's aroused Poet Jock to fury.

"Wait," he cried, "wait till the fast day an' I'll settle wi' ye, ye muckle swine, pitchin' oot the bit boy like that."

But Sulky Jamie was unmoved.

"I'll be pleased to see ye on the fast day or ony ither day. But I'll hae nae tramps on my train!" said he, as he swung himself on board.

But, had he known it, he was carrying one at that moment. For it so happened that a Pullman carriage had been invalided from the morning boat train owing to a heated axle and an injury to the grease box. Now the resources of the Port Andrew fitting shop, though adequate for all ordinary purposes, were not sufficient to deal with the constitution of such a delicate and high-bred work of art as a bogie Pullman.

So Cleg waited till he saw the guard at Dunnure station raise his hand to blow his whistle. Then he darted sideways, in and out among the carriages, and before the train was properly in motion he was lying at full length on the framework of the bogie part of the Pullman.

With a growl and a roar the train started. Cleg's heart beat quickly. He was jolted this way and that. The dust and small stones swept up by the draught under the train nearly blinded him. But Cleg hung on desperately. He had determined at all hazards to travel upon Sulky Jamie's train. So the boy clutched the bars tighter and twined his feet more firmly round the bogie, determined to win his passage to Netherby in spite of all the ill-natured guards in the world.

Indeed, the jarring laugh of the man with the white moustache when he was thrown out at Dunnure station, rankled much more in his small heathen heart than the hard heart of Sulky Jamie.

"What was his business wi' it?" Cleg demanded of himself half a dozen times, during that interminable period before they came to the next station.

The train stopped at last, and Cleg dashed the wet locks off his brow and cuddled his beam closer. He could stand it out now, he thought. He was congratulating himself on being in Netherby in a few minutes, when he heard the military voice above him.

"Guard," it said, "the boy you threw out of the train at Dunnure got in below the empty Pullman. I think he is in there now."

Then Sulky Jamie swore loudly and emphatically. Cleg could hear him swinging himself down from the platform upon the line.

The reflection of the lantern showed him the bars and wheels of the forward bogie.

But Cleg did not wait for the arrival of Sulky Jamie. He dropped down and sped out at the dark side of the station, with bitter anger in his heart against the interfering military man. As he looked down from the wire paling he saw the deserted platform of Newton Edward, and a vengeful thought struck him. He ran quickly round the stern light of the train and climbed upon the platform. A lantern was sitting on a barrow. The station master was talking to the engine driver far away at the end, for the late train was always long. The guard was routing out tramps beneath the Pullman.

With sudden determination Cleg pulled the stem of his cap over his eyes, and buttoned the sleeved waistcoat of railway velveteen closer about him. Then he took the lantern in hand. He was going to pay his debts to that evil-conditioned military man with the white moustache.

He could see him now, sitting at his ease, and trying to read his paper by the light of the miserable oil lamp, fed with scanty drains of dirty, half-melted oil, which to this day is supplied as an illuminant by the Port Andrew Railway Company.

Cleg opened the door smartly.

"Ticket, sir!" he said briskly.

The military man put his hand in his side pocket, and handed out his ticket without looking up, with the ease and freedom of a well-seasoned traveller. He never took his eyes off his paper.

"Netherby – right, sir!" said Cleg Kelly, ticket collector.

Then Cleg went to the nearest compartment and promptly jumped in. It was half full of sleepy commercial travellers, who took little notice of the curiously attired boy.

Cleg could hear the tramp of his enemy as he came up from routing below the Pullman. It sounded sulkier than ever upon the platform.

"Did not you nab him?" cried the voice of the military man from his carriage window.

"None of your gammon!" replied the other voice. And the whistle sounded promptly.

The temper of Sulky James was distinctly ruffled.

The train ran on down to Netherby. There the tickets were taken at the little platform to which Muckle Alick had so often run, late and early, with lamp in hand. It was a sleepy emergency man from the head offices who took the tickets in Cleg's compartment. He lumped them all together, and paid no attention whatever to the yellow first-class through ticket among its green brethren, which Cleg handed to him with such a natural air of loafish awkwardness.

Clang went the door. But the window was down for air, and Cleg could hear the angry accents of Sulky Jamie further down the train.

"Nonsense! Your ticket took at the last station. More o' your gammon, like enough. Find that ticket or pay for the journey from Port Andrew – seven-and-nine! And look something slippy, too! I can't keep my train waiting all day on the like of you, and the express due in twenty minutes."

Cleg could not catch the answer of the military man. But the guard's reply was clear.

"I don't care if ye were the Prince of Wales. Pay up, or I'll give ye in charge!"

The train started down to the main platform. And Cleg had the door open before the commercials in the corner were more than half awake. He slipped out, and ran down the platform instead of up. At the corner stood James Cannon's signal box, by the side of a white bridge. Cleg swarmed up the pole at the corner, set a foot lightly on the white painted palings, and dropped like a cat upon the road.

He was a modest boy, and did not desire to give any trouble.

He thought of the military man with joy in his heart.

"Now I guess we're about quits!" he said.

ADVENTURE L.
GENERAL THEOPHILUS RUFF

Cleg slept that night in a hay-shed half a mile out of the town. He did not mean to go to Sandyknowes till the morrow. And even then it was not quite clear to him what he could do to help the widow. But as usual he would think it out during the night.

The morning came, fiery with lamb's wool in fluffy wisps all about the sky. Cleg shook himself, yawned, and dusted off the hay from his garments.

Then he stepped over the edge of the stack and put his foot to the road. He was very hungry and he had nothing upon which to break his fast, except only the water of the brook. He stooped at the first burn which crossed the road, and drank his fill. Presently he met a man who came walking smartly down the road. He carried a cow switch in his hand and chewed a straw.

"Can you tell me the road to Sandyknowes, if you please?" said Cleg, politely.

The rustic with the straw in his mouth looked at Cleg all over carefully. Then he roared with laughter, while Cleg flushed angrily.

"Your boots are no marrows!"⁷ he cried. "O Lord, a stemmed bonnet and his grandfather's waistcoat!"

And he went off again into such a fit of laughter that he let the straw slip out of his mouth. But he perceived his loss, and lifted it from the dust, wiping it carefully upon the dirtiest part of his trousers before restoring it to the corner of his mouth.

"Can ye tell me the road to Sandyknowes, man?" said Cleg again, with a little more sharpness and less politeness.

"I can, but I'll no!" gaped the rustic. And he went into another prolonged fit of merriment, fairly hugging himself and squirming in his enjoyment. It was the best jest he had had for a month. And he rather fancied he landed some good ones.

Cleg Kelly's hand dropped upon a stone. The stone whizzed through the air, and took effect on the third button of the man of straw's new waistcoat.

The laugh ended in a gasp. The gasp was succeeded by a bad word, and then the young man gave chase. Cleg pretended to run slowly – "to encourage him," as he said afterwards. The yokel thought all the time that he was just about to catch Cleg, but always just at the critical moment that slippery youth darted a dozen yards ahead and again avoided him.

At last the young man gave up the chase. He had suffered indignities enough. He had lost his straw. But he had an appointment to keep with a farmer three miles further on to whom he was offering his valuable services. So he had perforce to turn away, and content himself with promising what he would do to Cleg when he caught him.

What Cleg did was simpler. He patrolled the heights above, keeping exact pace, step for step, with his enemy below. And with the aid of the pebbles which plentifully strewed the brae face, he afforded the young man of the straw some of the finest and most interesting active exercise in getting out of the way he had had for many years. Indeed, his whole line of march for more than a mile was completely enfiladed by the artillery of the enemy.

"Will ye tell me the road to Sandyknowes noo?" cried Cleg, jubilantly, as he kept the youth skipping from side to side of the highway.

At last he bade his adversary farewell, with a double machine gun fire of words and heavier ammunition.

"This will maybe learn ye, country," he cried, "after this to gie a civil answer to a civil question."

"Wait till I catch you – " the young man shouted, stung to desperation.

Whereupon, just for luck, Cleg ran in and delivered a volley at point blank range, which sent the man of straw clattering up the road. It was certainly not wise to dally with the prize marksman of the Sooth Back, who in his good days could break any particular pane in a fifth story window that you liked to specify, nine times out of ten.

After this Cleg Kelly returned along the heights to find out the way to Sandyknowes for himself. More than a mile back a girl driving cows pointed out to him the little path which led up to Mirren's door. But Cleg did not go up directly. He played idly about, whittling sticks and poking in hedge roots in his assumed character of vagrant boy. Yet all the time he kept a bright look-out upon the door of the little house among the flower-beds. The window blinds were drawn down, and stared white like empty eye sockets of bone. The thought of the brave, strong man who lay dead within oppressed Cleg's heart. Presently he saw a woman come to the door, and go after the cow over the little meadow pasture. Muckle Alick's wife, he thought. But he was wrong. It was her warm-hearted neighbour, Mistress Fraser. Then presently he saw Boy Hugh come running round the back of the house.

Cleg had arrived in time for Muckle Alick's funeral day. The large company of mourners began to gather very early. All the town of Netherby was there. Even the District Superintendent of the railway, who happened to be in the neighbourhood on a tour, had telegraphed for his "best blacks" from his wife in Greenock. And there he was standing outside the house, waiting for the minister to finish the service, like any common man.

Poor James Cannon was there, the tears coursing steadily down his cheeks. The provost and magistrates were there. Every member of the School Board was there, all agreed for once. Such a funeral had never been seen in Netherby within the memory of man. That was the exact phrase used (it is believed not for the first time) in describing the occasion in the "Netherby Chronicle and Advertiser." But otherwise Alick's dying request for silence was scrupulously regarded.

When the hearse moved away from the door, and the sombre congregation fell in behind it, Mirren Douglas came to the door and watched it out of sight. The good women who abode in the house to company with her in her bereavement, begged her to go in and compose herself. But she would not.

"I am in no ways discomposed," she said, "but I will watch him oot o' sicht for the last time. I did it every mornin', ye ken," she explained to them. "Let me bide!"

The black procession went serpentining down the road from Sandyknowes, the men pacing slowly and gravely after the horses between the summer hedges and under the green beech leaves.

Soon it approached the turn which would hide the hearse from those standing at the door of the house. But a little hillock rose, grassy to the top, at the gable end. It was the place to which she was used to run out to watch for his return, in order to "mask" the tea in time for his supper, that all might be ready for him when he came home wearied.

Mirren Douglas ran out thither, and, standing on the top of the hillock, she waved her hand to that which was going out of sight. She did not care who saw her.

"Fare ye weel, Alick," she cried, "fare ye weel that ever wast o' men the kindest. Few are the choice hearts that will match thine – aye, even up there, where thou art gane. And nane like to thysel' hast thou left amang us. Fare ye weel, my ain man Alick! Naebody's man but mine!"

And with that she turned and walked in quite quietly.

As the funeral passed the end of the road, Cleg withdrew behind the hedge, because, though his heart was full of love for the strong man whom he had seen but once, he did not wish to disgrace that solemn procession with his sleeved waistcoat and unpaired boots. As the hearse passed him Cleg took off his railway cap and stood bareheaded behind the hedge. So intent was he on the procession, that he did not see a tall tightly-coated man of military carriage who had stepped over the field towards him, and now stood silently by his side. The old officer also took off his hat, and stood reverently enough till the last of the mourners had passed by.

Then he laid his hand upon Cleg's shoulder.

"I'll trouble you for the price of my railway ticket!" he said. Cleg turned. It was the man who had laughed when he was pitched out of the carriage at Dunnure by Sulky Jamie!

For a moment his readiness forsook Cleg. He stood silent and gazed dumbly at the tall figure before him, and at the right hand which pulled grimly at the drooping moustache.

"You had better come away to the police station!" said the gentleman.

"Ye'll hae to catch me first, then!" cried Cleg, suddenly twisting himself free and springing over into the highway. The old soldier made no attempt to follow, but continued to gaze fixedly at Cleg.

"What is your name, boy?" he said, still keeping his eyes upon the lad.

"Slim Jim Snipe o' Slippery Lane!" cried Cleg promptly, "and muckle obleeged to ye for speerin'!"

"You young imp!" cried the old man, advancing to the fence with his cane uplifted threateningly, "would you dare to insult me?"

Cleg retreated.

"That's a guid enough name to gie to the poliss," he said. "If ye ask me ceevilly, I'll tell you. Nae thanks to you that I got here ava!"

"I beg your pardon," said the old soldier, lifting his hat as to an equal, with a certain punctilious restraint. "I have the honour to inform you that my name is Major-General Theophilus Ruff, of Barnbogle and Trostan."

"And mine," said Cleg Kelly, taking off his stemmed bonnet as politely, "is Cleg Kelly o' the Sooth Back o' the Canongate, and late o' Callendar's Yaird!"

The General bowed ceremoniously.

"And now," he said, "what do you propose to do about my railway ticket?"

"I'll work it out!" said Cleg, quickly.

There was something in "the looks of the starchy old geeser" (as Cleg remarked to himself) which the boy rather liked, though without doubt he was mad as a hatter.

"Work it out," cried the General; "what can you do?"

"Anything!" said Cleg. (It was his one touch of his father's dialect that he still said "annything.")

"That's nothing!" said the General.

"Wait till you see," retorted Cleg. "You try me. I'm nae country gawk, but reared in the heart o' the toon. I can rin errands. I can howk⁸ yairds for taties – or," he added, thinking of his flower-garden round the old construction hut, "for flooers. And if I dinna ken the way to do onything, I can find oot."

The General appeared to consider.

"Do you see that house over there among the trees – across the railway?"

"Aye," said Cleg, "I canna help seein' it! It's big eneuch and ugly eneuch to be a jail!"

"Do you think that you could keep that house in order?"

"Me?" said Cleg, "me keep yon hoose – it's as big as the Infirmary."

"I live there all by myself," said the General. "I can not have women about my place. The sight of them kills me. And I can not trust a grown man not to bring a woman about the place. I might try a lad."

Cleg looked carefully from the General to the house and back again. He was not sure that it might not be a joke.

"Have you a character?" asked the old man.

"Aye," said Cleg, "Miss Celie wad gie me yin."

The General turned pale and stamped with his foot.

"A woman," he said, "I could not apply to a woman. There is always something odious about a woman's letter. I actually do not recover from the shock of handling the writing of one of them for days. Do you not know any one else?"

"There's Maister Donald Iverach," said Cleg. "He wad gie me a character if I got Miss Celie to ask him," answered Cleg.

"My nephew in Edinburgh, that young three-legged stool! You'll do nothing of the kind," cried the General. "I would not give a brass button for his own character. And besides, from the tone in which you speak, I have little doubt that the two persons you mention are contemplating matrimony. I do not wish any communication with anything so disgusting – much less when one of the parties is an ungrateful and grasping relative of my own."

By this time Cleg had had enough of the General's catechism.

"I'll be requiring a reference mysel'," he said, in the tone which he had heard Mistress Roy of the paper-shop adopt, when a new customer asked for a week's credit.

"A what?" said the General, astonished.

"A reference as to your moral character, if I am to serve in your house!" replied Cleg, unabashed.

The General clapped his hands with unfeigned pleasure.

"Bless you, my boy, you please me!" he said, chuckling; "do you know that it is more than fifty years since General Theophilus Ruff had such a thing?"

"All right," said Cleg, "suppose we chance the moral characters."

"Done!" said the old soldier, offering Cleg his hand.

Cleg took it and wrung it hard.

"I think we'll agree very well," he said. "I may be Ruff by name, but I am Theophilus by nature. That's Greek, my boy – all I can remember, indeed. The folk about here will tell you that I am crazy. They are no judges. And my nephew wishes I were. Once his father tried to prove it. But when the judge had once looked inside my account books, and examined my system of bookkeeping, he said that, mad as I might be, it was a kind of madness which was very well able to take care of itself."

Cleg accompanied the General over the fields to his house. The walks and drives were completely overgrown with mossy grass and tangled ferns. The gates were all padlocked and spiked. Whenever the General came to one, he unlocked it with a brightly polished steel master-key which he took from his pocket. Then, as soon as they had passed through, he locked it behind him again as securely as before. "Spiked on the top," he said to Cleg, with a cunning look, "keeps out the women, you see. They don't like to have their frills and furbelows torn."

Cleg nodded as though he understood. He was not particular either way.

"By-the-bye, you don't mind coffins and things?" said the old soldier, glancing swiftly under his brows at Cleg.

"I don't think so, if they are empty. I yince slept in a coffin shop for three months!" said Cleg.

"Have you anything you want to settle before you engage with me?" asked the General.

"Yes," said Cleg, "there's a wife over the hedge yonder that has lost her man. And I maun hae either the afternoon or the forenicht to help her."

"Take any part of the day you like. Only change your clothes when you come back," said the General testily, "but mind, if you bring any woman inside the policies, I'll give you up to the police for obtaining railway tickets under false pretences."