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

"Never you heed, Vara; there maun be nae mair o' this frae this time oot."

His manner was so positive that the girl gave way. Anything rather than abide with the thing which lay in the corner.

"Hae ye ocht that ye wad like to bring wi' ye?" Cleg asked of Vara, as he shouldered Hugh, and took up the baby on his other arm.

"Aye," said Vara, "wee Gavin's feedin' bottle."

And she had to step over the sodden face of her mother to get it.

So the four went out into the noonday streets, and Cleg marched forth like the pipe-major of the Black Watch – than whom no king on earth walks with more dignity and pomp, when there is a big parade and the full band of pipers leads the regiment.

Cleg almost wished that Humpy Joe might see him and taunt him, so that on Sunday he might beat him to a jelly. But, as it chanced, the streets were deserted, for it was the very middle of the workmen's dinner-hour. So that the streams that went and came a quarter of an hour sooner and a quarter of an hour later were for the moment all safely housed; while those who had brought their dinners with them sat on benches in the shade, and took no notice of the small forlorn company passing along the causeway.

There was another way to the old construction hut at the back of Callendar's yard which did not lead through the main gateway, but entered from some waste ground, where only broken bottles and old tin cans dwelt.

The children passed safely and unobserved by this way, and in a little while Cleg had them safely housed in his own city of refuge. But Vara was in great fear lest some of the men should see them and turn them out upon the street. So Cleg shut the door upon them with the lock of his own devising, and started at a run to find Mr. Callendar.

ADVENTURE XIV.

CLEG TURNS DIPLOMATIST

James Callendar, honest man and pillar of the Seceder Kirk, was sitting down to his dinner when Cleg came to his door. The one servant lass whom the Callendars kept was "tidying" herself for the afternoon, and very much resented having to answer the door for a ragged boy with bare legs.

"Gae 'way, we hae nocht for the likes o' you here!" said she, and would have shut the door upon him.

"No even ceevil mainners," said Cleg, stepping lightly past her into the little side room, where he knew that Mr. Callendar ordinarily took his meals. The builder was just putting a potato into his mouth. He was so surprised to see Cleg enter unannounced, that the fork with the round, well-buttered, new potato remained poised in mid-air.

Cleg plunged into his affairs without preamble, lest he should be captured from behind and ignominiously expelled. But the trim servant merely listened for a moment at the back of the door, to make sure that the intruder had some genuine business with her master, and then returned to the graver duties of her own toilet. It was her evening out, and her "young man" had hinted at a sail to Aberdour on the pleasure-boat, if they could get to the West Pier in time.

"Oh, Maister Callendar," Cleg began, eager and breathless, "ye hae been a kind man to me, and I want ye to help me noo – "

"What's this, Cleg?" said the builder; "surely the police are not after you?"

Cleg shook his head.

"Nor your faither gotten off?"

Again and more vigorously Cleg shook his head, smiling a little as he did so.

"Oh, then," said the builder, much relieved, carrying the suspended potato to his mouth, "it can be naething very dreadfu'. But when ye came in like that on me, I declare that I thocht the wood-yaird was on fire!"

Then Cleg proceeded with his tale. He told how the Kavannahs had been deserted by their father, who had gone to look for work in Liverpool. He sketched with the inevitable realism of the street-boy the career of Sal Kavannah. He stated in plain language the fate that threatened Vara. He described Sal's treatment of Hugh.

"And she battered her ain bairn till the blood ran on the floor. She tossed the bairn against the wall till its arm was near broke. She never hears her wee bit wean greetin' for the milk without cursing it. Will ye turn them away to gang back to a' that?"

This was Cleg's climax, and very artfully he had worked up to it. The builder, good man, was troubled. The tale spoiled the relish of his new potatoes, and it was the first time he had had them that year. He turned with some little asperity upon Cleg.

"But I dinna see what I can do," he said; "I canna tak' them here into my house. The mistress wadna alloo it."

It was the first time he had referred to the ruler of his fortunes, who at that moment was declaring to an acquaintance that she paid two shillings a week less for her rooms than her friend in the next pew at church. "And how she can afford it is mair than I can tell." It was no wonder that honest Mr. Callendar said that his wife would not allow him to bring the Kavannahs within his door.

"But," said Cleg, "if you will let them bide in the auld hut at the back o' the yaird, where naebody gangs, I can easy get ither lodgings. They'll meddle wi' naething, and I ken whaur to get wark for the lassie, when she's fit for it."

Mr. Callendar considered. It was a good deal to ask, and he had no guarantee for the honesty of his new tenants but the good word of the son of a thief who had squatted on his property.

"Weel, Cleg," he said at last, with his quiet humorsome smile coming back to his lips, "they can bide, gin ye are willing to come surety for them."

Cleg jumped up with a shout and a wave of his bonnet, which brought the trim servant to the back of the door in consternation.

"I kenned ye wadna turn them awa' – I kenned it, man!" he cried.

Then Cleg realised where he was, and his enthusiasm subsided as suddenly as it rose.

"I shouldna behave like this on a carpet," he said, looking apologetically at the dusty pads his bare feet had left on the good Kidderminster.

He was on the eve of departing when the builder called him back. He had been turning things over in his mind.

"I hae anither wood-yard doon by Echo Bank," he said. "There's a cubby-hole there you could bide in, gin ye had a blanket."

"That's nocht," answered Cleg, "in this weather. And thank ye kindly. I can do brawly withoot a blanket."

And he sped out as he came, without troubling the maid, who was wearying for her master to be done with his dinner and take himself away to his office.

The good news was conveyed directly to Vara, and then she set Cleg's hut in order with a quieter heart. Cleg showed them where to get water, and it was not long before the bairns were established in a safety and comfort they had been strangers to all their lives.

But Cleg was not done with his day's work for the Kavannahs. He went down to the Hillside Works and saw the watchman, after he had delivered his tale of evening papers.

"D'ye think," he said diplomatically, "that there's ony chance for a lassie to get wark here?"

The watchman shook his head.

"There's nae room for ony but the relations o' them that's workin' here already."

The watchman could be as diplomatic as Cleg. He had daughters of his own growing up, and, though he was willing to be a friend to Cleg, it was against his principles to encourage the introduction into "our works" of alien blood. There was a tradition at Hillside that every old servant got his daughters "in" as a matter of course. Indeed, matrimonial alliances were often arranged on that basis, and the blessing of children was looked upon as equivalent to the supreme blessing of money in the bank.

"But I dare say ye micht see Maister Donald," said the watchman, relenting. He remembered that he had no daughters that could be ready for a few years yet; and besides, Cleg was a good friend of his. "But what ken ye aboot lassies? My sang, but ye are early begun, my lad. Ye'll rue it some day."

Cleg smiled, but disdained an answer. He was not argie-bargiein' at present, as he would have said. He was waiting to get a job for Vara Kavannah. In another minute he found himself in the presence of Mr. Donald Iverach, junior partner in the firm of Iverach & Company, whose position in the paper trade and special eminence in the production of the higher grades of foreign correspondence were acknowledged even by rivals – as the senior partner wrote when he was preparing the advertisement for the firm's yearly almanack.

Mr. Donald Iverach was not in the best of humours. He had hoped to be playing "pocket-handkerchief tennis," of which he had grown inordinately fond, upon the lawn of Aurelia Villa. But it so happened that he had been required to supply his father upon the morrow with important data concerning the half-yearly balance. For this reason he had to remain in the dreary office in the South Back. This jumped ill with the desires of the junior partner, who was at present so very junior a partner that his share of the profits was only a full and undivided fiftieth – "amply sufficient, however," as his father said many times over, "and much more than ever I had at your age, with a wife and family to keep."

"I wish I had!" said the reckless Donald, when he had heard this for the twentieth time, not knowing what he said.

"Donald, you are a young fool!" said his father. Which, of course, materially helped things.

Now the temper of Mr. Donald Iverach was specially tried on this occasion, for he had good reason to believe that a picturesque cousin of Cecilia's from London, who had been invalided home from some ridiculous little war or other, was playing pocket-handkerchief tennis at Aurelia Villa that evening in place of himself.

So his greeting to Cleg was curt indeed, as he looked up with his pen in his fingers from the last estimate of "goods returned damaged" – an item which always specially annoyed his father.