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

"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.

ADVENTURE XIX.

THE PILGRIMS OF THE PENNY GAFF

The junior partner was, as he expressed it, "down on his luck." He was heartily sorry for himself, and indeed the fault was not all his own. It was now some considerable time since he began regularly to see home the lady member of the Knuckle Dusters' Club, and perhaps he had begun to some extent to presume upon his standing. He had, in fact, taken it upon him to warn her as to the difficulties of her position.

"It is not right for a young lady to be about in this district at night – no girl ought to do it, whatever be her motive."

He was sometimes a very short-sighted junior partner.

Celie Tennant fired up.

"And pray, Mr. Iverach, who made you my guardian? I am quite of age to judge where it is right for me to go, and what it is proper for me to do!"

The junior partner assumed a lofty attitude.

"I consider," he began, "that it is highly improper."

But this was as far as he got. The pose judicial was not one to which Miss Cecilia Tennant was accustomed, even from her own father. She dropped her companion a very pretty courtesy.

"I consider that our roads separate here," she said; "and I wish you a very good evening, Mr. Iverach!"

And she gave the junior partner a look at once so indignant and so admirably provocative, that he turned away righteously incensed, but at the same time miscalling himself for more kinds of idiot than his father had ever called him, even on his most absent-minded days in the office.

Nevertheless he endeavoured, by a dignified manner as he walked away, to express his wounded feelings, his unquenchable sense of injustice, the rectitude of his aims and intentions, and the completeness with which he washed his hands of all consequences. It is not easy to express all this by simply taking off one's hat, especially when you have a well-grounded belief that you are being laughed at privately by one whom you – well, respect. And saying "silly girl" over and over does not help the matter either. For the junior partner tried, and did not improve the situation so much as the value of a last evening's paper.

On the other hand, there was a sense of exhilaration about Celie Tennant's heart and a certain lightness in her head, when she had thus vindicated her independence. She stopped and looked into the window of a shop in which nothing was displayed but a large model of a coal-waggon, loaded with something "Jewels," and bearing the sympathetic announcement that Waldie's Best Household Coal was down this week one penny a bag.

It is a curious thing, when you come to think of it, that the prettiest girls often stop opposite dark shop fronts where there is apparently nothing to interest them, and pass by others all aglow with the blanched whiteness of female frilleries. There is some unexplained optical problem here. The matter has been mentioned to Miss Tennant, but she says that she does not know the reason. She adds that it is all nonsense. Perhaps, after Professor Tait has found out all about the flight of the golf-ball, he will give some attention to this question. He can obtain statistics and facts on any well-frequented street by keeping to the shady side.

So Celie stood a moment – only a moment, and was then quite ready to turn away, assured in mind and at peace with all men – with the doubtful exception of Mr. Donald Iverach.

Her bonnet was indeed "straight on." But she gave her foot a little stamp when she thought of the junior partner.

"The idea!" she said.

But she did not condescend to expound the concept which troubled her, so that an idea it has ever since remained, and indeed must be left as such.

Then Celie became conscious that some one was gazing at her – not a woman, of course. She turned. It was only Cleg Kelly. But she was glad to see even him, for, after all, one does need some support even in well-doing. It is so difficult to be independent all by one's self.

"Where are you going, Cleg?" she said.

"To the penny shows aff o' the Easter Road," replied Cleg.

"Will you take me, Cleg?" said Celie, with a sudden clearing of her face, her eyes beginning to blaze with excitement.

A great thought took possession of her. This appeared to be a providential chance to prove all that she had been advancing to Mr. Donald Iverach, who, indeed, had nothing whatever to do with the matter.

"Take you, Miss Celie?" stammered Cleg aghast. "Ye wadna gang to the shows?"

And he laughed a little laugh of wonderment at the jest of his goddess, for of course it could only be a joke.

"I will come with you, Cleg, if you will take me!" said Celie.

"But ye ken, Miss Celie, it's no for the like o' you. It's a' weel aneuch for boys and common fowk, but no for you!"

Thus Cleg urged prudence, even against the wild hope which took possession of him.

"Come on, Cleg!" said Celie Tennant, rushing into rebellion at the thought of having her independence called in question, even by one of the Knuckle Dusters.

"It's all his fault!" she said to herself.

Which it very clearly was – Cleg's, of course, for he ought not to have followed her home.

Now along the Easter Road, then only a somewhat muddy country track, there was a small quarry which is now filled up, and a vacant acre or two of land where the show-folk took up their stances, and waged mimic but not bloodless wars in the mornings for the best positions.

Great sheets of canvas were stretched above, flaring cressets were being lighted below, for some of the largest shows were dark inside, being those where the mysteries of "Pepper's Ghost" were shortly to be unveiled.

Celie Tennant was greatly excited by the prospect of eating of the tree of knowledge.

"Let us go in here," she said, pointing to the wondrous "Ghost Illusion" bearing the name and style of Biddle. She drew out her purse to pay, but Cleg stopped her with his hand. He had grown quite dignified.

"Na," he said, "ye canna do that. It's my treat the nicht, when ye are walkin' oot wi' me."

Then it dawned upon Celie that she was assisting at a well-understood function – no less than the solemn treating of a lady fair upon the evening of a pay-day. The thought nearly overcame her, but she only said, "Thank you, Cleg," and was discreetly silent.

For the time being she was Cleg Kelly's "young woman."

They went in. A fat woman, with large silver rings in her ears of the size of crown pieces, took Cleg's money and looked with great sharpness at them both. Cleg paid for the best places in the house. They cost him sixpence, and were carpeted – the seats, not the floor. To such heights of extravagance does woman lead man! The play was already proceeding as they sat down. Presently, after some very moral observations from an old gentleman in trouble with a dying child (he said "choild"), the curtain dropped and the roof of canvas was drawn aside, in order to let in the struggling daylight and save the flaring naphtha cressets.

Instantly Celie and Cleg became the sole centre of attraction – a doubleted courtier in tights, with an unruly sword which scraped the curtain, having no chance whatever by comparison with their grandeur. Cleg folded his arms with a proud disdain and sat up with a back as straight as an arrow.

"Glory be – if 'tisn't Cleg Kelly wid the Quane of Shaeba!" said a compatriot in the pit. (The house was divided into pit and carpet.) And this was the general opinion. It was the proudest moment of Cleg's existence – to date, as he himself said.

Celie sat all the while demure as a kitten and smoothed her gloves. Several Knuckle Dusters passed Cleg the private wink of the society, but none dared intrude on that awful dignity of responsibility. Besides, none of them were "on the carpet," and Biddle of the Silver Rings possessed a quick eye and a long arm.

The curtain went up. This time it was a haunted room. A haunted clock ticked irregularly in the corner, and the villain sat alone in his quite remarkable villainy, on a solitary chair in the middle of the room. It was very dark, owing to the murky cast of crime all round. Suddenly the gentleman on the chair shouted out the details of his "croime" at the pitch of his voice, as if he had been the town crier. He told how much he regretted having left his victim weltering in his gore, whereupon the aforesaid victim abruptly appeared, "weltering," it is true, but rather in a white sheet with the lower part of which his legs appeared to be having a difficulty.

The villain hastened to rise to the occasion. Once more he drew his sword, with which he had been making gallant play all the time. Again he informed the next street of his "croime." Then he pulled a pistol out of his belt and solemnly warned the spectre what would happen if he did not clear out and take his winding-sheet with him.

But the spectre appeared to be wholly unimpressed, for he only gibbered more incoherently and fluttered the bed-quilt (as Cleg called it) more wildly. The villain continued to exhort.

"He's an awfu' blatherumskite!" said Cleg, contemptuously. He knew something of real villains. He had a father.

Again the spectre was warned:

"Your blood be upon your own head!" shouted the villain, and fired the pistol.

The ghost remarked, Br-r-r-r-r! whoop!– went up to the ceiling, came down again wrong side up, and then set about gibbering in a manner more freezing than ever. Whereupon the villain seized his crime-rusted sword in both hands and puddled about in the spectre's anatomy, as if it had been a pot, and he was afraid it would boil over. But soon he satisfied himself that this was not the game to play with a spirit so indifferent. And with a wild shriek of despair he cast the sword from him on the floor.

"Ha, baffled! foiled!" he remarked, clasping his hand suddenly to his brow: "COL-LD FIRE IS USELESS!"

This was summing up the situation with a vengeance, and tickled Celie so much that she laughed joyously – as the audience clapped and cheered with appreciation, and Cleg rose to come out.

"What comes after that?" said Celie, who was quite willing to stay to the end.

"After that the devil got him. We needna wait for that!" said Cleg, simply. He had an exceedingly healthy and orthodox belief in the ultimate fate of ill-doers. But he did not choose that his goddess should witness the details.

ADVENTURE XX.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF ADONIS BETWIXT TWO VENUSES

But we must do our hero justice. After the spiriting away of Vara Kavannah and the children from the burning house in Callendar's yard, Cleg did not submit to their loss without making many attempts to find them. His friend, the sergeant's wife, set the machinery of the police in motion. But nothing could be heard of Vara or of Hugh, or of little Gavin. Cleg went the round of the men who drive the rubbish-carts, each man of whom was a personal and particular friend. Now a persevering ash-man knows a lot – more than a policeman, having a wider beat, and not so much encouragement officially to tell what he knows. But, as Cleg could tell you, an ash-man's temper needs watching. Like the articles of diet he empties out of the baskets into his great sheet-iron covered carts, it is apt to go both bad and high. A policeman patrolling his beat is, according to his personal deservings, stayed with flagons, comforted with apples. But what maid in all the areas thinks upon the poor dustman?

Nevertheless, Cleg went the round of the ash-cart men, and of each he inquired circumspectly about the Kavannahs. Not one had seen them in any part of the city. But, indeed, there were many people, even women and children, awake and abroad that morning of the great fire in Callendar's woodyard. Cleg next looked up the morning milkmen who converge upon the city from every point, summer and winter. They have risen to the milking of the cows during the small hours of the morning, and thereafter they have set their barrels upon a light cart, before spinning cityward between the hedges. The milkmen can tell as much of the country roads as the dustmen of the city streets. But to none had the vision of three pilgrim children, setting forth from the city of persecution, been vouchsafed.

So Cleg had perforce to abide, with his heart unsatisfied and sore. Perhaps, so he thought, one day hidden things would come to light, and the shadows which had settled upon the fate of the Kavannahs break and flee away.

In the meantime the ancient Society of the Knuckle Dusters flourished exceedingly in its new incarnation of "The Club." The deputation which approached Mr. Donald Iverach, having by the intervention of the watchman chosen a good time for their visit, was most graciously received. The watchman, a man of some penetration, gave Cleg the word to come at six o'clock on a day when the junior partner had brought his tennis shoes to the works.

"You want to use the old store-room every night?" said Donald Iverach, looking at the shamefaced deputation, every man of whom itched to draw triangles on the floor with his toe and yet dared not.

"Except Sundays," answered Cleg, who, as ever, was ready of speech, and not at all shamefaced.

"What does Miss Tennant say?" asked the junior partner, who wished to see where he was being led. He was not a selfish young man, but, like the rest of us, he wanted to be sure what he was going to get out of a thing before he committed himself.

"Miss Tennant's a memb – " began Tam Luke, who had no discretion.

Cleg kicked Tam Luke on the shin severely. Tam promptly coughed, choked, and was led out by unsympathetic friends, who expressed their opinion of him outside with pith and animation.

"Miss Celie wants us to look after this club oorsels," said Cleg. "We are the commy-tee – except Tam Luke," he added. Tam had de facto forfeited his position by his interruption.

The commy-tee hung its head, and looked about for possible exits.

"And who is responsible?" asked Mr. Donald Iverach, smiling a little and shaking his head.

"Me an' Miss Celie," answered Cleg, promptly.

The junior partner stopped shaking his head, but continued to smile.

"Come away, chaps," said Cleg, who knew when the battle was won; "guid nicht to ye, sir, an' thank ye. Miss Celie wull be pleased!"

Thereafter the Knuckle Dusters' Club was formally organised. The prominent feature in the management was the House Committee. Its powers were unlimited, and were chiefly directed to "chucking out." This was the club's sole punishment. Fines would certainly not be collected. Privileges were so few that it was not easy to discriminate those which pertained to members of the club in good standing. But the members of the House Committee were chosen on the principle that any two of them, being "in charge," should be qualified to "chuck" the rest of the club – members of the House Committee itself being of course excepted. It was a singularly able-bodied committee, and willing beyond all belief. So long as it held together, the situation was saved. Its average measurement round the forearm was eleven inches.

There were difficulties, of course. And, strange as it may seem, these rose chiefly from the ravages of the tender sentiment of love. The Knuckle Dusters had laid it down as a fundamental condition that no girls were to be permitted, or even encouraged. Miss Celie had insisted upon this. Perhaps, womanlike, she wished to reign alone, and could brook no rivals near her throne. But in practice the rule was found difficult of enforcement. For there was no maidenly backwardness about the girls of the Sooth Back. It was indeed a rule that each Keelie, beyond the condition of a schoolboy, should possess himself of a sweetheart – that is, so soon as he was capable of "doing for himself." Sometimes these alliances resulted in singularly early marriage. Oftener they did not.

Cleg, of course, was much too young for "nonsense" of this kind, as he described it. But Cleaver's boy, and Tam Luke, and indeed most of the Knuckle Dusters, being "in places," were from the first equipped with a complete working outfit of sweethearts, pipes, and navy revolvers. They got them all about the same time, not because they wanted them, but because it was the fashion. Yet I do them no more than justice when I allow that they thought most highly of the pipes. They treated their pipes with every consideration.

It is true that each Knuckle Duster spoke of his sweetheart as "my young lady," but this was only between themselves. To the "young ladies" themselves their words were certainly not the ordinary and hackneyed terms of affection, such as generations of common lovers have used.

But the girls were not to be daunted. With such cavalier and disdainful knights, ordinary methods were put out of court. It was clearly necessary that someone should do the wooing. If not the Knuckle Dusters (haughty knaves), why, then the "young lady" herself. It was always Leap Year in the Sooth Back. There were but two unforgivable crimes in the bright lexicon of love, as it was consulted in the lower parts of the Pleasance. On the side of the Knuckle Dusters the one unpardonable fault was "going with a swell." On the part of the "young ladies" it was "taking up with another girl." Blows, disdain, contumely, abuse, all fell alike harmless – mere love-pats of the gentle god. "Another" is the only fatal word in love.

So, then, it was quite in keeping with the nature of things, and especially with the nature of untrammelled youth, that the Knuckle Dusters' Club should have its amatorious difficulties. Part of each evening at the club was now devoted to the sciences. Arithmetic and writing were the favourites. There was also talk of forming a shorthand class. For shorthand has a mysterious fascination for the uneducated. It is universal matter of faith among them, that only the most gifted of the human race can learn to write shorthand. This is strange enough, for both observation and experience teach us that the difficulty lies in reading the shorthand after it is written.

The entrance to the club-room of the Knuckle Dusters was through a vaulted "pend," which, having no magistrate of the city resident within it, was wholly unlighted. It was no uncommon thing, therefore, for the solemn work of scientific instruction to be interrupted by the voice of the siren outside – a siren with a towse of hair done up loosely in a net, a shawl about her head, and elf locks a-tangle over her brow. The siren did not sing. She whistled like a locomotive engine when the signals are contrary and the engine-driver anxious to go off duty. At first the Knuckle Dusters used to rise and quietly depart, when, in this well-understood fashion, the voice of love shrilly breathed up the store-room stair. But after a little, Celie, who, from an entirely superfluous sense of delicacy, had hitherto suffered in silence, felt that it was time to remonstrate.

It was Cleaver's boy who caused most trouble. Now this was by no means the fault of Cleaver's boy, who, to do him justice, was far more interested in the adventures of "Sixteen String Jack" or "Deadshot Dick, the Cowboy of Coon County," than in a dozen Susies or Sallies. But Cleaver's boy was a youth of inches. Besides, he had a curly head and an imperious way with him, which took with women – who, gentle and simple, like to be slighted and trodden upon when the right man takes the contract in hand. Cleaver's boy was, in fact, just Lord Byron without the title and the clubfoot. Cleaver's boy had also genius like the poet. Here is one of his impromptus, written after a music-hall model:

I met my Sal a-walkin' out, a-walkin' on the street,I says to Sal, "Why do you walk upon them clumps of feet?"Says Sal to me, "None of your lip. I've got another chap!"So I hits Sal a slap, and I sends her backTo her ain countrie.

Cleaver's boy could do any amount of this kind of thing. He modelled himself upon the popular broadsheet of the day. But it was not popular in the Sooth Back. The article in demand there was a song about a little child who softly faded away after bidding farewell – a long farewell, to all his friends so dear – in a verse apiece. Like King Charles, this boy was quite an unconscionable time a-dying. But he did not know it. He was a popular boy in the Sooth Back, and Tam Luke warbled about him till the assembled Knuckle Dusters snivelled secretly, and looked hard down between their knees so as to pretend they were spitting on the floor. But Cleaver's boy, who in early youth had come from Blackburn with his father, the slaughterman, said it was "Bully-rot!" He swore that he could make a song about Sal Mackay that would be worth a shopful of such "tripe." The verse quoted above is part of the song he made. Cleaver's boy has repeated the whole poem to me more than once, but the above is all that I can bring myself to print. For Sal Mackay has able-bodied relatives, and, besides, there is a law of libel in this country, which is provided for in my agreement with my publishers.