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 [301]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 [302]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.
"Will ye tell me the road to Sandyknowes noo?" cried Cleg, jubilantly, as he kept the youth skipping from side to side of the highway.
At last he bade his adversary farewell, with a double machine gun fire of words and heavier ammunition.
"This will maybe learn ye, country," he cried, "after this to gie a civil answer to a civil question."
"Wait till I catch you——" the young man shouted, stung to desperation.
Whereupon, just for luck, Cleg ran in and delivered a volley at point blank range, which sent the man of straw clattering up the road. It was certainly not wise to dally with the prize marksman of the Sooth Back, who in his good days could break any particular pane in a fifth story window that you liked to specify, nine times out of ten.
After this Cleg Kelly returned along the heights to find out the way to Sandyknowes for himself. More than a mile back a girl driving cows pointed out to him the little path which led up to Mirren's door. But Cleg did [303]not go up directly. He played idly about, whittling sticks and poking in hedge roots in his assumed character of vagrant boy. Yet all the time he kept a bright look-out upon the door of the little house among the flower-beds. The window blinds were drawn down, and stared white like empty eye sockets of bone. The thought of the brave, strong man who lay dead within oppressed Cleg's heart. Presently he saw a woman come to the door, and go after the cow over the little meadow pasture. Muckle Alick's wife, he thought. But he was wrong. It was her warm-hearted neighbour, Mistress Fraser. Then presently he saw Boy Hugh come running round the back of the house.
Cleg had arrived in time for Muckle Alick's funeral day. The large company of mourners began to gather very early. All the town of Netherby was there. Even the District Superintendent of the railway, who happened to be in the neighbourhood on a tour, had telegraphed for his "best blacks" from his wife in Greenock. And there he was standing outside the house, waiting for the minister to finish the service, like any common man.
Poor James Cannon was there, the tears coursing steadily down his cheeks. The provost and magistrates were there. Every member of the School Board was there, all agreed for once. Such a funeral had never been seen in Netherby within the memory of man. That was the exact phrase used (it is believed not for the first time) in describing the occasion in the "Netherby Chronicle and Advertiser." But otherwise Alick's dying request for silence was scrupulously regarded.
When the hearse moved away from the door, and the sombre congregation fell in behind it, Mirren Douglas came to the door and watched it out of sight. The good women who abode in the house to company with her in [304]her bereavement, begged her to go in and compose herself. But she would not.
"I am in no ways discomposed," she said, "but I will watch him oot o' sicht for the last time. I did it every mornin', ye ken," she explained to them. "Let me bide!"
The black procession went serpentining down the road from Sandyknowes, the men pacing slowly and gravely after the horses between the summer hedges and under the green beech leaves.
Soon it approached the turn which would hide the hearse from those standing at the door of the house. But a little hillock rose, grassy to the top, at the gable end. It was the place to which she was used to run out to watch for his return, in order to "mask" the tea in time for his supper, that all might be ready for him when he came home wearied.
Mirren Douglas ran out thither, and, standing on the top of the hillock, she waved her hand to that which was going out of sight. She did not care who saw her.
"Fare ye weel, Alick," she cried, "fare ye weel that ever wast o' men the kindest. Few are the choice hearts that will match thine—aye, even up there, where thou art gane. And nane like to thysel' hast thou left amang us. Fare ye weel, my ain man Alick! Naebody's man but mine!"
And with that she turned and walked in quite quietly.
As the funeral passed the end of the road, Cleg withdrew behind the hedge, because, though his heart was full of love for the strong man whom he had seen but once, he did not wish to disgrace that solemn procession with his sleeved waistcoat and unpaired boots. As the hearse passed him Cleg took off his railway cap and stood bareheaded behind the hedge. So intent was he on the procession, [305]that he did not see a tall tightly-coated man of military carriage who had stepped over the field towards him, and now stood silently by his side. The old officer also took off his hat, and stood reverently enough till the last of the mourners had passed by.
Then he laid his hand upon Cleg's shoulder.
"I'll trouble you for the price of my railway ticket!" he said. Cleg turned. It was the man who had laughed when he was pitched out of the carriage at Dunnure by Sulky Jamie!
For a moment his readiness forsook Cleg. He stood silent and gazed dumbly at the tall figure before him, and at the right hand which pulled grimly at the drooping moustache.
"You had better come away to the police station!" said the gentleman.
"Ye'll hae to catch me first, then!" cried Cleg, suddenly twisting himself free and springing over into the highway. The old soldier made no attempt to follow, but continued to gaze fixedly at Cleg.
"What is your name, boy?" he said, still keeping his eyes upon the lad.
"Slim Jim Snipe o' Slippery Lane!" cried Cleg promptly, "and muckle obleeged to ye for speerin'!"
"You young imp!" cried the old man, advancing to the fence with his cane uplifted threateningly, "would you dare to insult me?"
Cleg retreated.
"That's a guid enough name to gie to the poliss," he said. "If ye ask me ceevilly, I'll tell you. Nae thanks to you that I got here ava!"
"I beg your pardon," said the old soldier, lifting his hat as to an equal, with a certain punctilious restraint. "I have the honour to inform you that my name [306]is Major-General Theophilus Ruff, of Barnbogle and Trostan."
"And mine," said Cleg Kelly, taking off his stemmed bonnet as politely, "is Cleg Kelly o' the Sooth Back o' the Canongate, and late o' Callendar's Yaird!"
The General bowed ceremoniously.
"And now," he said, "what do you propose to do about my railway ticket?"
"I'll work it out!" said Cleg, quickly.
There was something in "the looks of the starchy old geeser" (as Cleg remarked to himself) which the boy rather liked, though without doubt he was mad as a hatter.
"Work it out," cried the General; "what can you do?"
"Anything!" said Cleg. (It was his one touch of his father's dialect that he still said "annything.")
"That's nothing!" said the General.
"Wait till you see," retorted Cleg. "You try me. I'm nae country gawk, but reared in the heart o' the toon. I can rin errands. I can howk[8] yairds for taties—or," he added, thinking of his flower-garden round the old construction hut, "for flooers. And if I dinna ken the way to do onything, I can find oot."
The General appeared to consider.
"Do you see that house over there among the trees—across the railway?"
"Aye," said Cleg, "I canna help seein' it! It's big eneuch and ugly eneuch to be a jail!"
"Do you think that you could keep that house in order?"
"Me?" said Cleg, "me keep yon hoose—it's as big as the Infirmary."
[307]
"I live there all by myself," said the General. "I can not have women about my place. The sight of them kills me. And I can not trust a grown man not to bring a woman about the place. I might try a lad."
Cleg looked carefully from the General to the house and back again. He was not sure that it might not be a joke.
"Have you a character?" asked the old man.
"Aye," said Cleg, "Miss Celie wad gie me yin."
The General turned pale and stamped with his foot.
"A woman," he said, "I could not apply to a woman. There is always something odious about a woman's letter. I actually do not recover from the shock of handling the writing of one of them for days. Do you not know any one else?"
"There's Maister Donald Iverach," said Cleg. "He wad gie me a character if I got Miss Celie to ask him," answered Cleg.
"My nephew in Edinburgh, that young three-legged stool! You'll do nothing of the kind," cried the General. "I would not give a brass button for his own character. And besides, from the tone in which you speak, I have little doubt that the two persons you mention are contemplating matrimony. I do not wish any communication with anything so disgusting—much less when one of the parties is an ungrateful and grasping relative of my own."
By this time Cleg had had enough of the General's catechism.
"I'll be requiring a reference mysel'," he said, in the tone which he had heard Mistress Roy of the paper-shop adopt, when a new customer asked for a week's credit.
"A what?" said the General, astonished.
[308]
"A reference as to your moral character, if I am to serve in your house!" replied Cleg, unabashed.
The General clapped his hands with unfeigned pleasure.
"Bless you, my boy, you please me!" he said, chuckling; "do you know that it is more than fifty years since General Theophilus Ruff had such a thing?"
"All right," said Cleg, "suppose we chance the moral characters."
"Done!" said the old soldier, offering Cleg his hand.
Cleg took it and wrung it hard.
"I think we'll agree very well," he said. "I may be Ruff by name, but I am Theophilus by nature. That's Greek, my boy—all I can remember, indeed. The folk about here will tell you that I am crazy. They are no judges. And my nephew wishes I were. Once his father tried to prove it. But when the judge had once looked inside my account books, and examined my system of bookkeeping, he said that, mad as I might be, it was a kind of madness which was very well able to take care of itself."
Cleg accompanied the General over the fields to his house. The walks and drives were completely overgrown with mossy grass and tangled ferns. The gates were all padlocked and spiked. Whenever the General came to one, he unlocked it with a brightly polished steel master-key which he took from his pocket. Then, as soon as they had passed through, he locked it behind him again as securely as before. "Spiked on the top," he said to Cleg, with a cunning look, "keeps out the women, you see. They don't like to have their frills and furbelows torn."
Cleg nodded as though he understood. He was not particular either way.
[309]
"By-the-bye, you don't mind coffins and things?" said the old soldier, glancing swiftly under his brows at Cleg.
"I don't think so, if they are empty. I yince slept in a coffin shop for three months!" said Cleg.
"Have you anything you want to settle before you engage with me?" asked the General.
"Yes," said Cleg, "there's a wife over the hedge yonder that has lost her man. And I maun hae either the afternoon or the forenicht to help her."
"Take any part of the day you like. Only change your clothes when you come back," said the General testily, "but mind, if you bring any woman inside the policies, I'll give you up to the police for obtaining railway tickets under false pretences."