Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City 20

Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City 20

Vara's eyes blazed at the sight of the porridge and milk.

 

"O, gie that to the baby!" she cried, her eyes fairly sparkling fire.

"Gie that to wee Gavin. The dog doesna want it!"

 

The little boy ran back into the house, crying out at the top of his

voice, "O, mither, mither, here's a lassie wants to gie our Snap's

porridge to a babby!"

 

A kindly-faced, apple-cheeked country woman came to the door of the

cottage. She had been baking cakes, and she dusted the oatmeal off her

hands as she stood there.

 

"Can I get the dog's porridge for the bairns? He doesna want them.

'Deed he doesna!" cried Vara, beseechingly.

 

"Of course, lassie, ye can hae the porridge, and welcome!" said the

woman, doubtfully.

 

"O, thank ye, mem, thank ye!" cried Vara, pouncing instantly on the

porridge, lest the permission should be withdrawn. In a minute she

had put most of the milk into the babe's bottle and the rest into the

hands of Boy Hugh, who fell upon the porridge unceremoniously with his

fingers. Vara smiled as she looked. She was hungrier than either—but

happy.

 

The woman stood watching the wolfish eagerness of the younger children

at the sight of food with a strange look on her face. Her lip tightened

and her eyes grew sterner. Suddenly Vara glanced up at her with frank

blue Irish eyes, brightened by hunger and suffering. They looked

through and through the woman at the door.

 

"Mither," said the boy, "they're eatin' up a' our Snap's porridge, and

there will no be a drap left——"

 

The woman turned on him with a kind of gladness.

 

"Hold your tongue!" she said, with quite unnecessary vehemence. And

she slapped her son smartly for no particular reason. The tears were

running down her cheeks. She almost dragged the children into the

house. Then and there she spread such a breakfast for them as Vara

had been seeing in her dreams ever since she grew hungry. It seemed

that Gavin grew visibly plumper before her very eyes, with the milk

which he absorbed as a sponge takes up water. And there appeared to

be no finality to Boy Hugh's appetite. He could always find room for

just another scone, spread with fresh butter and overlaid with cool

apple-jelly such as Vara had never in her life partaken of.

 

Vara herself was almost too happy to eat. But the kind woman pressed

her and would not let her leave the table.

 

"But I hae naething to pay ye wi'!" said Vara, whose soul was great.

 

"Hoot, hear to the lassie! I wadna tak' pay frae the Queen if she caaed

in aff the road to drink a dish of tea. My man's the Netherby carrier.

But tell me what's brocht ye here, wi' sic a bairn?"

 

And Vara told her as much as was necessary.

 

"To Liverpool to find your faither," said the woman. "Ye dinna stir a

fit till the morrow's morn, and then ye can get a ride wi' our John as

far as Netherby, at ony rate."

 

Vara was more than grateful to her. She was the first person who had

taken their quest seriously. So the carrier's wife kept them till

night, and helped Vara to give the baby and Hugh a bath. Then she

made Vara strip herself, and shut the door upon her till the girl

had enjoyed such a tubful of warm water as she had never washed in

before. As Vara was finishing and rubbing her slender, wearied body and

blistered feet with a soft towel, the carrier's wife opened the door.

"Put on these!" she said; "they were my wee Gracie's, and I canna bear

to keep them in the house." Vara would have protested, but the woman

shut the door with a slam.

 

When Vara came out, Gavin was sitting on the carrier's knees and

plucking at his beard. For "our John" had come in and heard their

story. He was a wise carrier, and knew better than to attempt

to interfere with his wife's benevolences. Then what was Vara's

astonishment to find the babe also clad in a new frock, and giving

rustling evidence of fresh underclothing. She could hear Boy Hugh's

voice outside. He and Snap's master had made up the peace, and were now

out somewhere about the barn, encouraging Snap to possess himself of

another dinner of rat.

 

The woman's wonderful kindness went to Vara's heart.

 

"Ye shouldna, oh, ye shouldna!" she said, and bowing her head in

her hands, she wept as she had never done in the worst of all her

sufferings.

 

"Hoot! can ye no haud your tongue, lassie?" said the carrier's wife.

"So mony bairn's things were just a cumber and a thocht to me in this

hoose. Our youngest (Tam there) is ten, an' we hae dune wi' that kind

o' nonsense in this hoose. What are ye lauchin' at, guidman?" she

cried, suddenly turning on the carrier, who had been quaintly screwing

up his face.

 

"I wasna lauchin'," said "our John," his face suddenly falling to a

quite preternatural gravity.

 

"They were juist a cumber and a care," continued the carrier's wife.

"And they are better being o' some use to somebody."

 

"Now ye will lie down and sleep in the back room, till the guidman

starts on his round at five i' the mornin'."

 

So the wearied children were put to bed in the "back room," and they

fell asleep to the sound of psalm-singing. For the good carrier and his

wife were praising the Lord. It is quite a mistake to suppose that most

psalm-singers are hypocrites. Much of the good of the world is wrought

by those who, being merry of heart, sing psalms.

 

 

 

 

ADVENTURE XL.

 

A NEW KIND OF HERO.

 

 

Then with the morning came the new day. The bitterest blast was over

for these small pilgrims. The night's rest, the clean clothes, the

goodness of the kind carrier folk were new life to Vara. There was

brighter hope in her heart as the carrier's wife set them under the

blue hood of the light cart, for her "man" did not expect any heavy

loads that day. The children, therefore, were to ride in the covered

waggon. The good woman wept to let them go, and made Vara promise many

a time, to be sure and send her a letter. As they went away she slipped

half-a-crown into Vara's hand.

 

"For the baby!" she whispered, like one who makes a shamefaced excuse.

And at that moment the carrier pretended to be specially busy about his

harness.

 

But Hugh Boy had quarrelled again with Snap's master, and that

enterprising youth sat on the fence opposite and made faces at the

party, till his mother, turning round somewhat quickly, caught him in

the act.

 

"Ye ill-set hyule," said she, "wait till I get ye!"

 

But her firstborn did not wait. On the other hand, he betook himself

down the meadow with much alacrity. His mother's voice followed him.

 

"My lad, wait till bedtime. It'll dirl far waur then. 'Warm backs, guid

bairns!' I'll learn you to make faces ahint my back."

 

And as Snap's master went down the meadow, the parts likely to be

nocturnally affected began to burn and tingle.

 

And the thought of the interview she would have with her son in the

evening did something to console the carrier's wife for the loss of the

children to whom she had taken such a sudden liking.

 

The light cart went jingling on. The Netherby carrier whistled steadily

as he sat on the edge of his driving-board, with his feet on the shaft.

Every now and then he passed over a bag of peppermint drops to the

children.

 

"Hae!" he said.

 

The Netherby carrier was a man of few words, and this was his idea of

hospitality. Hugh Boy did not remember ever to have been so happy

in his life. Kissing was very well in its way, though Vara had not

been pleased when she heard of it. But it was nothing to sitting in

a blue-hooded cart and hearing the click and jingle of brass-mounted

harness. Now and then the carrier stopped at snug farm-houses, and

went in to chaffer with the goodwife for her eggs. Then he left the

horse in charge of Hugh Boy, and so completely won that small heart.

When the carrier came out again, the farmer's wife mostly came too,

and the bargaining and bantering were kept up as the cart receded from

the door. Even when the blue-hooded cart was far down the loaning, a

belated and forgetful goodwife would come running to some knowe-top,

and from that eminence she would proceed to give further directions for

commissions from the town.

 

"Mind ye buy the thread at Rob Heslop's—no at that upstart sieffer's at

the corner, wi' his wax figgurs an' his adverteesements. I dinna haud

wi' them ava'!"

 

For there are still uncouth and outlandish parts of the country, where

the medical axiom that it is wicked and unprofessional to advertise

holds good in practical commerce. Now the road toward England does not

run directly through Netherby, but leaves the town a little to one side

with its many spires and its warring denominations. From the outside

Netherby looks like a home of ancient peace. But for all that, there

were hardly two neighbour shopkeepers down all its long main street who

belonged to the same religious denomination—the only exceptions being

Dickson the baker and Henderson the butcher. But Henderson and Dickson

did not speak to one another, having quarrelled about the singing of

paraphrases in the Seceder kirk.

 

However, the poor benighted Kavannahs did not know one kirk from

another. And what is worse, indeed held almost criminal in Netherby,

they did not care.

 

It was here at the parting of the roads that John the carrier took his

leave of them. His farewell was not effusive.

 

"Weel," he said, cracking his whip three times over, while he thought

of the rest of his speech, "guid-day. Be sure and come back and see us,

as the wife bade ye. The sooner the better!"

 

But he put a shilling into Hugh's hand as they parted.

 

"For peppermints!" he said.

 

Vara did not know when she might come to another town on her way, so

she decided to buy a loaf in Netherby before going further. For though

they never asked for food, except when driven by hunger, as in the case

of Snap's dinner, yet since the night on the moor she had resolved to

ask for shelter if they came to any house at nightfall. So after the

carrier was gone, with many charges Vara left Hugh in care of Gavin and

went into the town to make her markets.

 

Hugh Boy sat a good while by the roadside, till the time began to

pass very dully. Then he became interested in the trains which kept

shunting and whistling behind him. So he carried Gavin to the side of

the railway line, where he could just see the road by which Vara would

return. He was quite sure that he could not be doing any harm. Directly

opposite there was a fascinating turn-table, upon which two men stood

with iron poles in their hands wheeling round a great engine as if it

had been a toy. This was really too much for Boy Hugh. Forgetting all

about Vara's warning, he scrambled over the wire paling, and staggered

across the netted lines in order to get a nearer view of the marvel.

 

But just at that moment up came the main line express twenty minutes

behind time, and the engine-driver in a bad temper. And if Muckle

Alick had not opposed the breadth of his beam to the buffer of Geordie

Grierson's engine, this tale, so far at least as two of the Kavannahs

were concerned, would have ended here. But when Muckle Alick gripped

the children in his great arms, and made that spring to the side,

the engine caught him so exactly in the right place that it did no

more than considerably accelerate his lateral motion, and project

him half-way up the bank. As has been recorded, Muckle Alick's first

exclamation (which immediately became proverbial all over the Greenock

and South-Eastern) was, "Is there aught broke, Geordie, think ye?"

 

They talked of getting up a testimonial to Muckle Alick. But the hero

himself strongly discouraged the notion. Indeed, he went so far as to

declare that he "wad gie the fule a ring on the lug that cam' to him

wi' ony sic a thing!" This was a somewhat unusual attitude for a hero

to assume in the circumstances. But it was quite genuine. And so well

known was the horse-power of Alick's buffet, that it would have been

easier to recruit a storming party in Netherby than a deputation to

present a "token of esteem" to the head porter at Netherby Junction.

 

In time, however (though this is somewhat to anticipate the tale),

there came from the Royal Humane Society a medal, together with a long

paper setting forth the noble deed of the saving of the children. No

notice of this ever appeared publicly in the local prints, to which

such things are usually a godsend.

 

For Alick immediately put the medal in the bottom of his trunk, beneath

his "best blacks" which he wore only twice a year at Sacraments.

 

He had heard that the editor of the "Netherby Chronicle and

Advertiser" had collogued with the provost of the town to bring about

this "fitting acknowledgment." Now Muckle Alick could not help the

thing itself, but he could help people in Netherby getting to hear

about it.

 

Muckle Alick called upon the editor of the "Chronicle." He found him

in, and engaged in the difficult task of penning an editorial which

would not alienate the most thin-skinned subscriber, but which would

yet be calculated to exasperate the editor of the opposition local

paper published in the next county.

 

"Maister Heron," said the head-porter, "I juist looked in to tell ye,

that there's nocht to come oot in the 'Chronicle' aboot me the morn."

 

"But, my dear sir," said the editor, "the item has been specially

communicated, and is already set up."

 

"Then it'll hae to be set doon again!" said Muckle Alick, firmly.

 

"Impossible, impossible, I do assure you, my dear friend," remonstrated

the editor. He was proprietor—editor and proprietor in one. Such

editors in agricultural communities are always polite to subscribers.

 

"But it's no onpossible. It's to be!" said Alick—"or there's no a paper

will leave the junction the morn—aye, and there'll no be a paper sell't

in this toon eyther."

 

It was not clear to the editor how Muckle Alick could bring about this

result.

 

"But," said he, tapping the desk with his pen, "my dear sir, the

stationmaster—the railway company——"

 

"Ow aye, I ken," said Muckle Alick, "there wad be a wark aboot it

after, nae doot. But it's the morn I'm speakin' aboot, Maister Heron.

It is possible I micht get the sack ower the head o' it—(though I'm

thinkin' no). But that wadna help your papers to sell the morn." Alick

paused to let this sink well in. Then he took his leave.

 

"Noo, mind, I'm tellin' ye. Guid day, Yedditur!"

 

That afternoon Alick presided at a gathering of the amalgamated paper

boys of the town, being accredited representatives of all the various

newsagents. The proceedings were private, and as soon as strangers were

observed, the house was counted out (and stones thrown at them). But

the general tenor of the resolutions passed may be gathered from the

fact that when Mr. Heron heard of it, he ordered the junior reporter to

"slate a novel" just come in—a novel by an eminent hand. "It's to make

three quarters of a column, less two lines," he said.

 

So that we know from this, the length of the suppressed article on the

presentation of a medal of the Royal Humane Society to "our noble and

esteemed townsman, Mr. Alexander Douglas." The "Netherby Chronicle

and Advertiser" enjoyed its normal circulation next day. And, after

Muckle Alick had carefully searched every column of the paper, the

parcels were forwarded from the junction with the usual promptitude and

despatch.

 

But this is telling our tale "withershins about," as they say in

Netherby. We return to Vara and her bairns.

 

 

 

 

ADVENTURE XLI.

 

"TWA LADDIES—AND A LASSIE."

 

 

Muckle Alick trotted the children soberly down the street, and at the

foot he turned his long lumbering stride up a country road. For Alick

had a little wife who was an expert market-gardener and beekeeper.

 

Her name was Mirren, and her size, as reported by her husband, was

"near-aboots as big as twa scrubbers." It was for her sake and because

he could not help himself, that Muckle Alick lived so far from his work.

 

"D'ye think that because I hae to put up wi' a great hulk like you,

comin' hame at nicht smellin' o' cinders and lamp oil, that I'm gaun

to leeve in a hut amang the coal waggons? Na, certes, gin ye want to

hae Mirren Terregles to keep ye snug, ye maun e'en walk a mile or twa

extra in the day. And it will be the better for keepin' doon that great

muckle corporation o' yours!"

 

And that is the way that Muckle Alick Douglas lived out at Sandyknowes.

It was to his small garden-girt house that he took the children.

 

"What's this ye hae fetched hame in your hand the nicht?" cried the

little wife sharply, as she saw her husband come up the loaning. "It's

no ilka wife that wad be pleased to hae a grown family brocht in on her

like this!"

 

"Hoot, Mirren woman!" was all that Muckle Alick said, as he pushed Vara

and Hugh in before him, Gavin nestling cosily in his arms the while.

 

"Whaur gat ye them, Alick?" said Mirren, going forward to look at the

bairn in his arms. "They are bonny weans and no that ill put on."

 

Little Gavin was so content in the arms of Muckle Alick that he smiled.

And his sweetness of __EXPRESSION__ struggling through the pinched look of

hunger went right to the heart of Mirren, who, having no bairns of her

own—"so far," as Muckle Alick remarked cautiously—had so much the more

love for other people's. She turned on Vara, who stood looking on and

smiling also. The little woman was almost fierce.

 

"What has been done to this bairn that he has never grown?" said Mirren

Douglas, wife of Muckle Alick.

 

Vara flushed in her slow still way, at the imputation that she had not

taken good care enough of her Gavin—to pleasure whom she would have

given her life.

 

"I did the best I could," she said, "whiles we had to sleep oot a'

nicht, an' whiles I had nae milk to gie him."

 

"Lassie! lassie!" cried Mirren Douglas, "what is this ye are tellin'

me?"

 

"The truth," said Vara Kavannah, quietly; "Gavin and Boy Hugh and me

hae walked a' the road frae Edinburgh. We hae sleepit in the hills,

and——"

 

"But how cam' the bairn here?" asked Muckle Alick's fiercely tender

little wife; "tell me quick!"

 

"I hae carried Gavin a' the road!" said Vara, simply.

 

"You, lassie!" cried Mirren, looking at the slip of pale girlhood

before her, "it's juist fair unpossible!"

 

"But I did carry him. He's no that heavy when ye get the shawl weel set."