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

"Ow, aye," said the wounded man, "dinna fash yoursel'. There's nae hurry – Mirren wasna' expectin' me!"

Faster far than his own train had passed the points, Duncan Urquhart sped back to the station.

"Alick's lying killed doon on the cattle bank!" he cried. "Help us wi' that board!"

And, rushing into the empty waiting-room, he laid hold of a newly-erected partition which had recently been set up to keep the draughts from the passengers.

It resisted his strength, but with the station master to help him, and a "One, Two, Three," it yielded, and the men tore down the platform with it.

With the help of poor, dazed James Cannon and another, they laid the giant tenderly upon it. But they had to wait for other two, hastily summoned from the nearest railway houses, before they dared try to lift Muckle Alick.

"Does it hurt, Alick?" asked Duncan of Inverness, gently, like a Highland man.

"It's no that sair," said Alick, as quietly, "but juist try no to be ower lang wi' me!"

They carried him to the left-luggage office, into which, a few weeks before, he had taken the children whom, at the peril of his life, he had saved from death. They were going to lay down the partition with its load upon the table on which he had been arranging the parcels half an hour before.

"Pit me on the bench," said Alick, calmly, "dinna meddle the parcels. They are a' ready to gang oot wi' the first delivery the morn."

So, even as he bade them, on the bench they laid Alick down. What like he was I know, but I am not going to tell. His wife, Mirren, might chance to read it.

There were tears running down Duncan Urquhart's face. The station master had already run for a doctor.

"Dinna greet, Duncan," said Alick. "The boat train won by a' richt, and I manned to haud the points for ye."

But Duncan Urquhart could answer him no word. In the corner sat James Cannon with his head on his hands, rocking himself to and fro in speechless agony of soul.

"Oh, I wuss it had been me," he wailed. "I wuss it had been me!"

"Hoot na, James," said Alick. "It's better as it is – ye hae a young family."

Then, as if he had been thinking it over —

"Duncan," he said, "Duncan, promise me this – ye'll no let Mirren see me. Mind ye, Mirren is no to see me. I dinna want her to think o' me like this.

"She was aye sae taen up aboot me, ye see," he added apologetically, after a little pause.

The doctor came. He bent over Alick. He moved him tenderly, this way and that. Then he ordered all out of the left-luggage office, except Duncan Urquhart and the station master's wife, a quiet motherly woman.

Then, while the doctor did his duty, Alick sank into a kind of stupor. Presently he woke from it with a little start.

"Doctor, is this you?" he said; "this is terrible kind o' ye. But it's a cauld nicht for you to be oot o' your bed so late – and you wi' a hoast!"

"Wheesht, Alick!" said the doctor. And said no more for a little. For, like every one else, he loved the soft-hearted giant.

Then Alick beckoned the station master to him from the door of the left-luggage office, where he stood nervously clasping and unclasping his hands. The station master came and bent his head.

"The boat train," whispered Muckle Alick, "ye'll hae to enter her in the shedule five meenites late. But ye can say that she passed Netherby wi' the signals standing at clear."

He was silent a moment. Then he looked up again.

"Mind ye, there's to be nocht said aboot it in the papers. You'll see to that, will ye no? It's my wish. An' if the company likes to do aught, it'll aye be a help to Mirren."

There was a sound of sobbing at the door, and the station master shoved the youngest porter out on the platform with his foot.

"Has – ony – body gaen to tell Mirren?" asked Alick in a little.

The doctor nodded. He had, in fact, sent his own coachman to Sandyknowes with a gig.

"Puir Mirren," said Alick again, "I'm some dootsome that she'll tak' this hard. She was na looking for it, like."

He looked about apologetically again.

"She was that sair set on me, ye see – maybe wi' us haein' nae bairns, ye ken."

He was silent a little while, and then he said, more brightly, "There's three comed noo, though. Maybe they'll be a blessin' to her. The Lord sent them to her, I'm thinkin'. He wad ken o' this aforehand, nae doot!"

Suddenly he held up his hand, and there was a light shining like a lamp in his eyes.

"Hearken! that's the whistle!" he cried. "Are the signals clear?"

There was no train in the station nor near it.

Muckle Alick went on. He lifted his head and looked through the open door as one looks ahead under his hand when the sun is strong.

"I can see the distant signal. It is standing at clear!" he said, and sank back.

And thus the soul of Muckle Alick passed out of the station – with the distant signal standing at clear.

They brought the little wife in to him a quarter of an hour after. Already her face seemed to have shrunk to half its size and was paler than Alick's own. The doctor had him wrapped delicately and reverently in the station master's wife's fairest linen. The face was untouched and beautiful, and as composed as it was on Sacrament Sabbaths when he carried in the elements at the head of the session, as it is the custom for the elders to do in the Cameronian Kirk.

His wife went up to him quietly and laid her hand on his broad white brow. "My man – my ain man!" she said. And she bent down and touched it, not with her lips but with her cheek.

She looked up at the station master's wife.

"He aye liked me to do that!" she said, smiling a little, as it were, bashfully.

And in all the room, where now stood ministers and doctors, men and women that loved him well, hers were the only dry eyes that dark midnight.

"I wad like to get him hame the nicht, if it's nae great trouble till ye," she said; "I think I wad be mair composed gin I had him hame to me the nicht!"

So they took her dead home to her to quiet Sandyknowes. They carried him through between the beds of dusky flowers and laid him in his own chamber. Then they left her alone. For so she desired it. The wandering children, Hugh and Gavin, were asleep in the next room. So Mirren watched her man all that night, and never took her eyes off the broad noble brow, save once when little Gavin woke and cried. Then she rose calmly and prepared him a bottle of milk, mixing it with especial care. As she did so she raised her eyes and looked out into the dark. And there on the brae face was the light of the distant signal shining like a star in the midst of the brightening sky of morn.

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.