Crockett Samuel Rutherford
Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City: His Progress and Adventures
ADVENTURE XVII.
THE KNUCKLE DUSTERS
Soon after this Cleg Kelly became a member of a young lady's class, in a manner which has been elsewhere related.3
That young lady was Miss Cecilia Tennant, otherwise known as Celie – a young lady much admired by all who knew her (and by some who did not, but wanted to); and especially admired by Mr. Donald Iverach, junior partner in the firm on whose premises the class was held. I have also related the tragical events which preceded the formation of the boys' class, organised under the guidance and tutelage of Cleg Kelly. But it soon became evident that something more than a night class was necessary, if any impression were to be made on the wild Arabs of the Sooth Back.
"Ye see the way o' it is this, Miss Celie," Cleg explained. "Ye canna keep a boy frae ill-doing by juist telling him aboot Jacob for an hour in the week. There's a' day in the shop, wi' the gaffer swearin' blue murder even on, an' ill-talk an' ither things that I juist canna tell ye. Then there's every nicht, when we drap work. What can we do but stand about the streets, or start the Gang an' look aboot us for a bobby to chivvy, or else for something handy for 'liftin'?'"
"But, Cleg," cried Celie, much alarmed, "surely I do not understand you to say that you steal?"
"Na," said Cleg, "we dinna steal. We only 'nick' things whiles!"
Celie had heard, indeed, of the "mobs," the "unions," the "gangs," the "crowds." But she thought them simply amiable and rather silly secret societies, such as her own brothers used to make a great deal of unnecessary secrecy about – calling themselves "Bloody Bill of the Ranch," "Navajo Tommy," and other stupid names. She had remarked the same mania in Cleg sometimes, and had some reason to believe that all boys are alike, whatever may be their station in life.
But Cleg soon put his friend out of the danger of any such mistake.
"Mind, say 'As sure as daith,' an' ye'll cut your throat gin ye tell," said Cleg, very earnestly, "an' I'll tell ye, aye, an' make ye a member!"
Cleg was about to reveal state secrets, and he did not want to run any risks. Celie promised faithfully the utmost discretion.
"Weel, Miss Celie, I can see that ye are no gaun to do muckle guid amang us boys, if I dinna tell ye. An' I want ye no to believe ony lees, like what are telled to the ministers an' folk like them. There's mair ill in the Sooth Back than can be pitten richt wi' a track. I canna bide them tracks – "
The distribution of tracts was an old grievance of Cleg's. But Celie earnestly and instantly put him on the plain way again, for if he once began upon "tracks," there was no telling if ever she would get any nearer to her promised lesson on the good and evil of the boys' unions.
Celie found herself as eager as ever was her first mother Eve, to eat of the tree of the forbidden knowledge.
"Gie us your han', Miss Celie, I'll no hurt ye," said Cleg.
Celie drew off her dainty glove, and instantly extended a hand that was white and small beyond all the boy's imagining. Cleg took it reverently in his dirty, work-broadened paw. He touched the slender fingers as if they were made of thistle-down and might blow away accidentally. So he held his breath. Then he took out his knife, one with a point like a needle, which had been used in a shoe factory.
Perhaps Celie winced a little as he opened the blade, but, if it were so, it was very little indeed. Yet it was enough to be perceptible to her very sincere admirer.
Cleg let her hand drop, and without a pause thrust the sharp point into the ball of his own thumb, squeezing therefrom a single drop of blood.
"It's no juist exactly richt, no to hae your ain blood, ye ken!" he explained gravely; "but as ye dinna tell so mony lees as the boys, maybe mine will do as weel this time to take the oath with."
With a clean new pen from Celie's desk, Cleg made on her palm the sign of a cross, and for her life the initiated dared not so much as let her hand quiver or her eyelid droop.
She knew that the occasion was an entirely critical one. But in a moment it was over, and Celie Tennant was admitted a bonâ fide acting member of the Sooth Back Gang, with full right in its secrets and to the disposal of one full and undivided share of its profits. No questions to be asked as to how these profits were come by. Indeed, from that moment there is little doubt that Celie Tennant might have been indicted for reset, conspiracy, and crimes infinitely various.
That night at Miss Tennant's class there was a full attendance, and the opening was delayed owing to necessity arising for the expulsion of a boy, apparently in no way offending against discipline.
Celie looked the question she dared not speak.
"He's no yin o' us!" explained Cleg in a whisper. "He belongs to the Potter-raw gang – a low lot."
Celie felt morally raised by the consciousness of belonging to a gang of the most high-toned "nickums" in the whole city.
Then Cleg, after the briefest opening exercises had been endured, explained that there remained for that evening only the ceremony of reception of a new member who had already been sworn in. In this Celie had to concur with as good a grace as possible. She was then and there appointed, with acclamation, a full member of the honourable (or dishonourable, according to the point of view) society of the Knuckle Dusters of the Sooth Back. It was generally felt after this, that Jacob (the Patriarch of that name) could very well afford to wait over for a little.
But, after the ceremony, when Celie looked again at her class, she could hardly believe her eyes. Were these the lads who night after night had stood before her with faces sleeked and smugged with arrant hypocrisy, or had looked up at her after some bout of intolerable mischief, as demure as kittens after spilling a saucer of milk?
A certain seriousness and comradeship pervaded the meeting. But Cleg was not yet at the end of his surprises.
"I perpose," he said, "that we hae a Club a' for oorsels."
The meeting with unanimous palm and hoof signified its approval of this grand proposal, obviously one which had been discussed before.
"We will hae it in here, and we'll pay to be members – an' that will do for the coals, and we'll hae smokin' – "
Celie sat aghast. Events were precipitating themselves with a vengeance. Indeed, surprise sat so manifest on her countenance that Cleg thought it wise to point out its genuine character to his brother members. It would never do for them to believe that the great idea of the club had not originated with themselves.
"She kens nocht aboot it, but I ken fine she's gaun to stan' in wi' us!" he explained, putting her, as it were, on her honour and under the solemn seal of the bloody cross of the Knuckle Dusters.
In this Celie, bound by her oath, had indeed no choice.
She must of a surety stand by them. But a serious difficulty occurred to her.
"Lads," she said, "we have only the right to this place for one night in the week. How can we occupy it every night?"
All the boys laughed loud. The question was mightily amusing. Indeed, Celie was often most amusing to them when she had no intention of being so.
"Of coorse, we ken, ye hae only to ask him!" they said, with one solid voice of general concurrence.
Celie felt herself beginning to burn low down on her neck, and it made her angry to think that in a minute more she would blush like a great baby just out of the senior class of the Ladies' College. The boys watched her maliciously till she looked really distressed, and then Cleg struck gallantly into the breach.
"Chaps," he cried, "I think we should ask for oorsels. We are gaun to elec' a commy-tee and run the show. Dinna let us begin by troublin' Miss Tennant. We'll gang an' ask oorsels. Gin ye are feared, I'm no!"
Crash! came a stone through the window. All leapt to their feet in a moment.
"It's that dirty scoondrel frae the Potter-raw. Oot after him!" cried Cleg.
Whereupon the newly constituted Knuckle Dusters' Club tumultuously detached itself for police duty. There was a scurry along the highway, a fight at a street corner. Two boys got a black eye apiece. A policeman was assaulted in the half-humorous way peculiar to the district. A letter-deliverer sat down suddenly on the pavement, to the delay of Her Majesty's mails, and after five well-spent and happy minutes, the Club re-entered, wiping its brow, and Cleg cried:
"Three cheers for the Knuckle Dusters' Club! Miss Celie to be the president for ever an' ever. We'll meet the morn's nicht to elec' the commy-tee. And there's twenty meenits left for Jacob!"
And so the Knuckle Dusters' Club sat patiently down to endure its Scripture lesson.
ADVENTURE XVIII.
BIG SMITH SUBDUES THE KNUCKLE DUSTERS
The reader of this random chronicle has not forgotten the Troglodytes – the Cave Dwellers, the Railing Roosters – alien to the race of men, with manners and customs darkly their own.
These are they with whom Cleg had to do, when he amused himself all that summer day opposite the house of the sergeant. Of the Troglodytes the chief were Tam Luke, who for a paltry consideration gave his time during the day to furthering the affairs of Tamson, the baker; Cleaver's boy, who similarly conducted the butcher's business next door; and the grocer's boy, who answered to the name of "Marg" – that is, if he who used it was very much bigger and stronger than himself. In other circumstances "Marg" chased and hammered according to his ability the boy who called the name after him – for it was contracted from "margarine," and involved a distinct slur upon his line of business.
But each man of the Troglodytes was a Knuckle Duster. In the Club they were banded together for offence and defence. In the days before Cleg took in hand to reorganise the club, they had a good many things in common besides the fear of the constable.
Now, each boy was most respectable during his hours of business. There was no "sneaking" the goods of their own masters. The till was safe, and they did not carry away the stock-in-trade to sell it. But that was pretty much all the way their honour went. Their kind of honesty, it is to be feared, was chiefly of the "best policy" sort. Fun was fun, and "sneaking" was the breath of life; but it was one thing to "fake an apple," and altogether another to be "nicked" for stealing from one's master. The latter meant the loss of situation without a character. Now a character is a valuable asset. It is negotiable, and must be taken care of. To steal does not hurt one's character – only to be found out. To break a plate-glass window with a stone does not harm a character as much as it damages the window; but to be an hour late three mornings running is fatal. So Cleaver's boy had a character; "Marg" had a character, and even Tam Luke had a character. They were all beauties. Our own Cleg had half a dozen different characters – most of them, however, rather indifferent.
But there is no mistake that, under the influence of Celie Tennant and the new Knuckle Dusters' Club, they were all in the way of improvement. The good character of their hours of work already began to lap over into their play-time. But thus it was not always.
Just before its re-inauguration the Sooth Back "mob" had been rather down on its luck. Cleg was among them only intermittently. They had had a fight with Bob Sowerby's gang, which frequented the Pleasance lands, and had been ignominiously defeated.
Worse than all, they had come across "Big" Smith, the athletic missionary of the Pleasance. He was so called to distinguish him from "Little" Smith, a distinguished predecessor of the same name, who was popularly understood to have read every book that was. Big Smith was not distinguished in the same way. All the same, he was both distinguished and popular.
On this occasion he was addressing his weekly meeting underneath one of the great houses. The Knuckle Dusters thought it good sport to ascend to the window of the common stair, and prepare missiles both fluid and solid. This was because they belonged to the Sooth Back, and did not know Big Smith.
Big Smith's mode of exhortation was the prophetic denunciatory. He was no Jeremiah – a Boanerges of the slums rather. He dealt in warm accusations and vigorous personal applications. He was very decidedly no minor prophet, for he had a black beard like an Astrakhan rug, and a voice that could outroar a Gilmerton carter. Also he was six feet high, and when he crossed his arms it was like a long-range marker trying to fold his arms round a target.
"Sinners in Number Seventy-three!" cried Big Smith, and his voice penetrated into every den and corner of that vast rabbit warren, "you will not come out to hear me, but I'll make ye hear me yet, if I scraich till the Day of Judgment. Sinners in Number Seventy-three, ye are a desperate bad lot. I hae kenned ye this ten year – but – "
Clash! – came a pail of dirty water out of the stair window where the Knuckle Dusters, yet completely unregenerate, were concealed.
Big Smith was taking breath for his next overwhelming sentence, but he never got it delivered. For as soon as he realised that the insult was meant for him, Big Smith pushed his hat firmly down on the back of his head and started up the stair. He had his oak staff in his hand, a stick of fibre and responsibility, as indeed it had need to be.
The first he got his hands upon was Tam Luke.
Tam was standing at the back of a door, squeezing himself against the wall as flat as a skate.
"Come oot!" said Big Smith, in commanding tones.
"It wasna me!" said Tam Luke, who very earnestly wished himself elsewhere.
"Come oot!" said Big Smith, missionary.
Tam Luke came – not wholly by his own will, but because the hand of Big Smith seemed to gather up most of his garments at once. And he grasped them hard too. Tam Luke's toes barely touched the ground.
"It wasna me!" repeated Tam Luke.
"What's a' this, then?" queried Big Smith, shaking him comprehensively, as the coal-man of the locality empties a hundredweight sack into the bunker. Half a dozen vegetables, more or less gamey in flavour, dropped out of his pockets and trotted irregularly down the stair.
Then Tam Luke, for the first time in his life, believed in the power of the Church militant. The Knuckle Dusters on the landing above listened with curious qualms, hearing Tam singing out his petitions in a kind of inappeasable rapture. Then, suddenly, they bethought them that it was time they got out of their present invidious position, and they made a rush downstairs.
But Big Smith stood on the steps, still holding Tam Luke, and with a foot like a Sutton's furniture van, he tripped each one impartially as he passed, till quite a little haycock of Knuckle Dusters was formed at an angle of the stair.
Then Big Smith, in a singularly able-bodied way, argued with the heap in general for the good of their souls; and the noise of the oak stick brought out all the neighbours to look on with approbation. They had no sympathy with the Knuckle Dusters whatever. And though they continually troubled the peace of mind of Big Smith with their goings on, yet they were loyal to him in their own way, and rejoiced exceedingly when they saw him "dressing the droddums" of the youths of the Sooth Back Gang.
"Lay on till them, Maister Smith! – bringin' disgrace on oor stair," cried a hodman's wife from the top landing, looking over with the brush in her hand. And Maister Smith certainly obeyed her. Each Knuckle Duster crawled hurriedly away as soon as he could disentangle himself. And as each passed the lower landings the wives harassed his retreat with brushes and pokers for bringing shame on the unstained good name of Number Seventy-three in the Pleasance.
"It'll learn them no to meddle wi' oor missionary," they said, as they retired to drink tea syrup, which had been stewing on the hearth since morning.
For they felt proud of Big Smith, and told their husbands, actual and attached, of the great doings upon their return at night. It became a standing taunt as far as the Arch of Abbeyhill for a month, "I'll send Big Smith till ye!" And there was not a Knuckle Duster that did not hang his head at the remembrance. The Pleasance was naturally very proud of its missionary, and offered long odds on him as against any missionary in the town. "He could lick them a' wi' his hand tied ahint his back," said the Pleasance in its wholly reasonable pride.
Now this was the cause of the depression which for a long time had rested upon the Knuckle Dusters and tarnished the glory of their name. So low had they sunk that it was more than a month since any of them had been up for assaulting the police. So that, as you may see, things were indeed coming to a pretty pass. From all this the new Club was to save them.
First of all, it re-established them in their own self-esteem, which is a great point. Then it gained them the respect of others as well, for Miss Tennant was a much honoured person in the Sooth Back. Lastly, the Club fire burned a half a ton of coals in the fortnight, and the fact was fame in itself.
So the Knuckle Dusters squared themselves up, and for the first time since the affair of Big Smith they looked a bobby in the face. More than that, they actually began to show some of their old spirit again.
Specially did they delight to tell the story of the Leith chief of police and the apples. It was, indeed, enough to gild any "mob" with a permanent halo of glory.
This is the tale at its briefest. But it took four nights to tell in the Club, working three hours a night.
The chief, in the plainest of plain clothes, was hastening down the shore to catch the Aberdour boat, for he was a family man, and also a most douce and home-loving citizen. He had taken a cottage near the shore at Aberdour, where he could have his bairns under his eye upon the beach, and at the same time be able to note how badly the Fife police did their duty in the matter of the Sunday excursionists.
But for all that he ought to have had that packet of apples better tied up, for he had bought a whole shilling'sworth on his way down. The chief was rather partial to a good apple himself; and, in any case, it is always advisable to be on the safe side of one's wife, even if you are a chief of police.
Now the chief reckoned without the Knuckle Dusters. These valiant youths were on the war-path, and as he was passing a point where the houses are few, along by the dock gates, Tam Luke came alongside and pulled the string of his parcel with a sharp and knowing twitch. Instantly it came undone, and the apples rolled every way upon the street. Thereupon every Knuckle Duster seized as many as he could reach, and the Club scattered like hunted hares down alleys and over fences.
For a moment the chief stood thunderstruck. Then he gave chase, selecting Cleaver's boy for his prey. But he found that he was not quite so supple as when he was a young constable fresh from the country. And besides, he heard the warning whistle blow from the "Lord Aberdour." He pictured his bairns on the quay and his wife looking out for him. After all, was it worth it? So he darted into a shop and bought chocolate instead, and took his anger out by saying, "I'll wager I'll make it warm for these young vagabonds." He said it as many as forty times on the way over. He never minded the scenery one single bit. Among the Knuckle Dusters there was great jubilation. That night they told the whole to Celie Tennant, who was horrified; but she could only advise them to "restore fourfold," an unknown idea to the Club.
It was, however, a proposition ably advocated by Cleg Kelly, who, owing to absence, not honesty, had taken no part in the larceny. And, strictly as a humorous conception, the idea of fourfold restitution caught on wonderfully.
This is why a very dirty paper containing two shillings came to the chief of the Leith police, with the inscription thereon: "FOR TO BUY MAIR AIPPLES."
Celie wanted them to send four shillings, but the Club unanimously declined, because the grocer's boy said that the chief's apples were only second quality.
And the Club had every confidence in the grocer's boy being well-informed on the point.
