Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City 23

Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City 23

But a sudden thought of inconceivable grandeur flushed Cleg's cheek.

Once for all, he would show them what he could do. He would evade his

pursuers, make his late adversary burst with envy, and wring the heart

of Vara Kavannah, all by one incomparable act of daring. So he stood

still till Mistress McWalter arose again to her feet and charged upon

him with a perfect scream of anger. At the same time John McWalter

closed in upon the other side with his hay-fork and his dogs. Cleg

allowed them to approach till they were almost within striking distance

of him. Then, without giving himself a moment for reflection, he

wheeled about on his heels, balanced a moment on the brink, bent his

arms with the fingers touching into a beautiful bow, and sprang far out

into the black water.

 

So suddenly was this done that the good man of Loch Spellanderie,

approaching with his hay-fork from one direction, ran hastily into the

arms of his spouse charging from the other. And from her he received

a most unwifely ring on the side of the head with the poker, which

loosened every tooth John McWalter still retained in his jawbones.

 

"Tak' that, ye donnert auld deevil, for lettin' him by!" cried the

harridan.

 

"Ye let him by yoursel', guidwife," cried her husband, who did not

often resent anything which his wife might do, but who felt that he

must draw the line at having to welcome the poker on the side of his

head. "Dinna come that road again, my woman. I declare to peace; had it

no been for the hay-time comin' on, and few hands to win it, I wad hae

stuck the fork brave and firmly intil ye, ye randy besom!"

 

To what lengths the quarrel would have gone if it had been allowed to

proceed, will never be known. For just at that moment the head of Cleg

emerged far out upon the dark waters of Loch Spellanderie.

 

Cleg Kelly swam nearly as easily in his clothes as without them. For he

had cast his coat at the beginning of the fray, and as to his trousers,

they were loose and especially well ventilated. So that the water

gushed in and out of the holes as he swam, much as though they had

been the gills of a fish. Indeed, they rather helped his progress than

otherwise.

 

Then from the dusky breadths of the lake arose the voice, mocking and

bitter, of the Thersites of the 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 Road[6] so

gaily that Cleg felt that his quarters for the night were assured. He

was about to step within when a new voice spoke.

 

"'Deed and it micht serve ye better a deal, Poet Jock, gin ye wad

set doon your feet and lift your Bible to tak' a lesson to yoursel',

instead o' rantin' there at a gilravage o' vain sangs—aye, even wastin'

your precious time in makkin' them, when ye micht be either readin'

the Company's rules or thinkin' aboot the concerns o' your never-dying

sowl!"

 

"You haud your tongue, Auld Chairlie," cried the singer, pausing a

moment, but not turning round; "gin ye hadna missed thae troots the

nicht and lost your otter to the keepers in Loch Spellanderie, ye wadna

hae been sitting there busy wi' Second Chronicles!"

 

And again the singer took up his ranting melody:

 

Bring in Rab to get him washed,

Weel I ken the loon,

Canna do unless he 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 yewad hae to wat your claes when ye did it."