ADVENTURE XXVIII.
THE ENGINE-DRIVER WITH THE BEARD.
What James Annan said to little Janet of Inverness on the way home, and what Janet of Inverness said to James Annan, I know. But since it concerns only themselves, with themselves I will leave it. At all events, it was no long season before they were at one. Miss Cecilia Tennant's exact share in the plot is a harder matter to apportion. But that she had a share in it far beyond the mere issuing of the invitations is certain, for Mr. Donald Iverach was heard saying to the arch-conspirator in the semi-privacy of the dusky angle of the stairs, "But what I want to make out is, what I am to get out of it."
"Virtue is its own reward," replied Miss Celie, sententiously, "and, besides, you make love to that sort of person so well, that it is evident you must have had a great deal of practice."
"Now I call that a little hard on me," said the Junior Partner, who felt that he had made a martyr of himself all the evening, and that he had, indeed, narrowly escaped the sacrificial altar.
"Wait," he said threateningly, "till you want me to do anything else of the kind for you."
Celie Tennant set her pretty head the least bit to the side. It could not be called a cock, but it was the next thing to it. Next she pursed her mouth till it looked like a cherry.
"You would do it just as quick if I asked you to do it all over again," said Celie Tennant, looking pins and needles at Donald Iverach, till the very palms of his hands pingled.
The Junior Partner stamped his foot.
"Oh, hang it all!" he cried, "I believe that's the God's truth—I would."
That night as he walked home, the Junior Partner, who had no gifts for the imparting of religious instruction, but who respected those who had (especially if they were pretty), wondered what could make a Sunday school teacher act in such a perverse manner. He could not understand how it was that Celie Tennant, who upon occasion would weep over the crushing of a fly, and who was all the time worrying her life out over these young rascals of hers, could yet take pleasure in tormenting a fellow-creature, and making his very existence a burden to him.
But when he came to think of it afterwards, he had to confess that on the whole he rather liked it. In fact, that he would rather be made unhappy by Celie Tennant than that anyone else should give him the happiness of Paradise. He was a rankly foolish young man, and he would have hugged his follies if this particular one would have permitted him.
The present chronicler has, be it understood, undertaken to relate the adventures of Cleg's companions as well as those which immediately concern the hero. But these adventures of Cleaver's boy and his Janet of Inverness were not without direct bearing upon the fates of Cleg and of his lost friends the Kavannahs. For it so happened that Duncan Urquhart, the uncle of Janet of Inverness, came one night to see her in the kitchen of Bailie Holden. The cook was pleased with him, for he was a single man and well bearded; in fact, the very kind of man whom all cooks adore. Housemaids, on the other hand, like clean-shaven or moustached men, and as a rule prefer to catch them younger. And this is the reason why cooks marry gardeners while housemaids marry coachmen. While nurses, having had enough of children, live to a good old age in picturesque cottages, with assured pensions and uncertain tempers, eventually dying old maids. At least, so sayeth the philosopher.
Duncan Urquhart was not the chief of a clan. He was an engine-driver in the goods department of the Greenock and South-Eastern Railway. In the course of conversation the engine-driver, chiefly for the sake of the applause of the cook, cast about him for moving tales of the iron road on which his working hours were passed. He had settled in his mind that the cook was a wonderful woman. She could, to his certain knowledge, watch a roast, turn an omelette, taste a soup, and cast a languishing glance over her shoulder at him, all at the same time. He could not help thinking how excellent a thing it would be to come home after a grimy run on the footplate. And then, having washed, sit down in his own house to the soup, the omelette, and the joint, with (so little did he know) as many of the languishing glances as he could wish for, thrown in as a permanent asset of his home. So overcome was he by the idea, that for the moment he forgot that matters had proceeded even further with another cook in the town of Netherby, which formed his alternate stopping-place. It was a pity, he sometimes thought (for an instant only), that the laws of his country did not permit two such homes to be set up, one at either end of his daily journeyings.
Now, as one good effect of Duncan Urquhart's visit to the kitchen of Bailie Holden, the position of Janet of Inverness as kitchenmaid was made a far more tolerable one. It is a thing strongly advisable, that if the junior domestics of a house have presentable brothers or even uncles, unmarried and eligible, they should make haste to produce them. Janet of Inverness quite understood this. She knew, indeed, that Duncan was to marry his cousin Mary in the Black Isle. But she was far too wise a little girl to say anything about a family arrangement like that. And then the cook always allowed her to walk in pleasanter places for several days after the visits of her Uncle Duncan, who, as has been said, was a handsome man with a beard, and in habit very well put on and desirable.
But it is with Duncan's story that we have to do. Duncan had the English of Inverness crossed with the dialect peculiar to the Greenock and South-Eastern—a line whose engines are apple-green and gold, but the speech of whose engineers is blue, with purple patches. Not that Duncan swore before ladies, though Bailie Holden's cook would have forgiven him because of his beard. It was indeed a habit she was rather partial to, thinking it a mighty offset to the conversation of bearded men. There was no denying that Duncan's speech was picturesque. But Cleg could not help feeling that swearing of Duncan's sort was altogether roundabout and unmanly. For himself, when he had need and occasion, he simply said "Dam" and had done with it. Anything more savoured of superfluity to a boy of his simple tastes.
Duncan the engine-driver was talking about feats of strength.
"In my young days," he said, "I could toss the caber with any man. The Black Deil o' Dumfries tak' me, gin I couldna send a young tree birlin' through the air as if it had been a bit spale board. But ye should see Muckle Alick doon at Netherby Junction, where I pit up for the nicht. He's the porter there on the passenger side. An' the mid steeple is no better kenned for twenty miles round Netherby. Hands like the Day o' Judgment comin' in a thunder-cloud—heart like a wee white-faced lammie on the braes o' the Black Isle—that's Muckle Alick o' Netherby.
"As braid across the breast as if he was the gable end o' a bakehoose coming linkin' doon the street its lane. Lord bless me, when the big storm blew doon the distant signals last spring, I declare gin Muckle Alick didna juist stand on the railway brig that sits end on to the Market Hill, and signal in the trains wi' airms like the cross trees o' a man-o'-war!
"I declare to conscience it's a Guid's truth!
"Aye, an' when that puir trembling chicken-hearted crowl, Tam Mac Wheeble, that drives the Port Andrew passenger, stood still, wi' the bull's-eyes o' his wee blue engine juist looking round the corner, an' whistled and yelled for the proper signal, pretendin' that he didna see Muckle Alick (him belongin' to anither kirk), Alick cried doon at him off the brig, so that they could hear him half a mile, 'Ye donnert U. P., come on wi' your auld steam-roller an' your ill-faured cargo o' Irish drovers, or I'll come doon an' harl ye a' in mysel'!'
"Fac' as daith! I was there, talkin' to a nice bit lass that stands in the Refresh'!
"You weakly toon-bred loons" (here Duncan Urquhart looked at Cleg and Cleaver's boy) "thinks me a strong man. But Alick, though his shooders are gettin' a wee bowed and his craw-black hair is noo but a birse o' grey, could tak' half-a-dozen like me and daud our heads thegither till we couldna speak. True as the 'Reason Annexed' to the Third Commandment! I hae seen him wi' thae een that's in my head the noo!"
"Tell us mair," said Cleg, standing with his mouth open, for the relation of feats of strength is every unlearned man's "Iliad." So Duncan went on to tell mighty things of the wrath of Muckle Alick.
"But, lads, ye maun ken Alick is no a ramblin' wastrel like the rest o' us. He's an elder amang the Cameronians. Haith! a weel-learned man is Alick, an' guid company for a minister—or ony other man. And never an ill word oot o' the mouth o' him. Na, no even when yince there was twa trains at different platforms, an' the station-maister cried to Alick to tak' the tickets frae baith o' them at the same time. 'Juist tak' the Port Road train yoursel', gin ye are in sic a fidge!' quoth Alick. An' it was the station-maister that swore—Alick was even mair pleased-like than usual.
"But nae man ever saw Muckle Alick angry. The ill-set callants o' the Clearin' Hoose tries whiles to provoke him. Alick, he says little—only looks at them like a big sleepy dog when the pups are yelping. Then after a while he says, 'Ye are like Tam Purdy's cat, when it ate the herrin' he had for his breakfast the time he was askin' the blessin', ye are "gettin' raither pet!"'
"And then, if they winna take a telling, Alick will grip them in his loofs, gie them a shake and a daud thegither as if he was knockin' the stour aff a couple o' books, syne stick their heads in a couple o' bags o' Indian meal, an' leave them wi' their heels in the air. But Alick is never oot o' temper. And ceevil—fresh kirned butter is no sweeter at eighteenpence a pund!"
ADVENTURE XXIX.
MUCKLE ALICK'S BANNOCKBURN.
"But what was I gaun to tell ye? Oh, aboot the Irish drovers. Ye maun ken they are no a very weel-liked class doon aboot Netherby. For they come in squads to the Market Hill on Mondays, and whiles their tongues and their sticks are no canny. Though some, I'm no denyin', are ceevil chiels. But them that I'm gaun to tell ye aboot were no that kind.
"It was the middle o' the day and Alick was away for his denner. There had been a bad market that day. Baith the marts were through hours afore their usual. So the drovers swarmed up to the station to get the afternoon train for Port Andrew. And on the platform the drinkin' frae bottles an' the swearin' was fair extraordinar'! So I am telled. Then, when the train cam' in, there was eight or nine o' the warst o' them that wadna be served but they maun a' get into a first-class compartment. And oot o' that they wadna get!
"The station-maister was a young man then and newly gotten on. He thocht a heap o' himsel'—as a young station-maister aye does when he first gets on the stemmed bonnet, and comes oot frae the office like Lord Almichty wi' a pen ahint his lug.
"Weel, at ony rate, the Netherby station-maister was that kind. An' he was determined that naebody should cross him in his ain station.
"'I'll juist lock them in and let them fecht it oot,' said the guard, 'and by the time we are through the big cutting at the Stroan they'll hae shuggled doon as quaite as a session.'
"It was doubtless good advice. But the station-maister was mainly angered. He gaed to the door o' the compartment and threatened the drovers wi' the law. And they juist pelted him wi' auld sodjers and ill talk. Then he cried for a' the porters and clerks, till there was a knot o' ten or a dozen o' them aboot the door—and a' the folk in the train wi' their heads oot o' the windows, askin' what on earth (an' ither places) was keepin' the train. And doon the main line the express was fair whustling blue-fire and vengeance because the signals were against her. But nae farther could they get. The station-maister he was determined to hae the drovers oot. And they were as set no to come—being gye and weel filled wi' the weedow's cheapest market whusky that she keepit special for the drovers, for faith it wad hae scunnert a decent Heelant sow! I tried it yince and was I the waur o't for a fortnicht. But ony whusky is guid enough for an Irishman, if only ye stir plenty o' soot amang it! They think they're hame again if they get that.
"So here the hale traffic o' Netherby Junction was stelled for maybe a quarter o' an hour, and the station-maister was nearly daft to think what he wad hae to enter on his detention sheet. A' at ance somebody cries, 'Here's Muckle Alick coming up the street.' And sure enough there he was, coming alang by the hill dyke wi' his hands in his pooches. For ye see this wasna his train, and he had ten minutes to spare. So wi' that the station-maister and the guaird and half-a-dozen lads frae the offices rins to the far side o' the platform, waving on Alick and crying on him to come on. Alick he juist looks aboot to see wha was late for the train. But no' seein' onybody he steps leisurely alang, drawin' on his weel-gaun pipe, proud-like as ye hae seen an elephant at the head o' a show.
"And the mair they cried and waved, the mair Alick looked aboot him for the man that was late for the train.
"'It maun be the provost at the least, wi' a' this fuss,' said he to himself; 'he'll be gaun to Loch Skerrow to fish!'
"At last a wee upsettin' booking-clerk, the size o' twa scrubbers, cam rinning and telled Alick a' aboot the drovers and the state the station-maister was in.
"'I'm no on duty at this train,' says Alick, 'but I'll come and speak to them.'
"So they made way for him, and Alick gaed through the crowd at the platform like a liner through the herring-fleet below the Tail o' the Bank.
"'Lads,' says he to the drovers, 'what's this?—what's this?'
"Then they mocked and jeered at him. For it so happened that nane o' them had been often at Netherby Market, and so no a man o' them was acquaint wi' Muckle Alick. Providence was no kind to the Paddies that time whatever.
"'Boys,' says Alick, as canny as if he had been courtin' his lass, 'this wull never do ava', boys. It's no nice conduck! It's clean ridiculous, ye ken. Ye'll hae to come oot o' that, boys!'
"But they were fair demented wi' drink and pridefulness at keepin' the train waitin', and so they miscaa'ed Alick for a muckle nowt-beast on stilts. And yin o' them let on to be an auctioneer, and set Alick up for sale.
"'Hoo muckle for this great lumbering Galloway stirk?' says he.
"'Thrip!' says another, 'and dear at the money.'
"'Boys,' says Alick again, like a mither soothin' her weans when she hears the guidman's fit, 'boys, ye'll hae to come oot!'
"But they only swore the waur at him.
"'Aweel,' says Alick, 'mind I hae warned ye, boys——'
"And he made for the carriage-door in the face o' a yell like a' Donnybrook broken lowse. Then what happened after that it is no' juist easy to tell. Alick gaed oot o' sicht into the compartment, fillin' the door frae tap to bottom. There was a wee bit buzzing like a bee-skep when a wasp gets in. Then presently oot o' the door o' the first-class carriage there comes a hand like the hand o' Providence, and draps a kickin' drover on the platform, sprawlin' on his wame like a paddock. Then, afore he can gather himsel' thegither, oot flees anither and faa's richt across him—and so on till there was a decent pile o' Irish drovers, a' neatly stacked cross-and-across like sawn wood in a joiner's yaird. Certes, it was bonny to see them! They were a' cairded through yin anither, and a' crawling and grippin' and fechtin' like crabs in a basket. It was a heartsome sicht!
"Then, after the hindermost was drappit featly on the riggin', oot steps Muckle Alick—edgeways, of course, for the door wasna wide aneuch for him except on the angle. He was, if onything, mair calm and collected than usual. Muckle Alick wasna angry. He juist clicked his square key in the lock o' the door and stood lookin' doon at the crawlin' pile o' drovers. Folk says he gied a bit smile, but I didna see him.
"'Ye see, boys, ye had to come oot!' said Muckle Alick."
ADVENTURE XXX.
HOW GEORDIE GRIERSON'S ENGINE BROKE ITS BUFFER.
"Hoo-r-ray!" shouted Cleg Kelly and Cleaver's boy together, till the cook and little Janet of Inverness smiled at their enthusiasm.
"But there's mair," said the engine-driver.
"It canna be better than that!" said Cleg, to whom the tale was good as new potatoes and salt butter.
"It's better!" said the engine-driver, who knew that nothing holds an audience and sharpens the edge of its appetite better than a carefully cultivated expectancy.
"It was that same day after the Port Andrew train got away, when the cowed drovers were sent to the landing-bank to wait for their cattle train, and the carriage that was coupled on to it for their transport. The driver o' the main line express was Geordie Grierson, an' he was no well-pleased man to be kept waitin' twenty minutes with his whistle yellyhooin' bluefire a' the time. He prided himsel' special on rinnin' to the tick o' the clock. So as soon as the signal dropped to clear he started her raither sharp, and she cam' into the station under a head of steam some deal faster than he had intended. Ye could hae heard the scraichin' o' the auld wood brakes a mile an' mair. But stop her they couldna. And juist as Georgie Grierson's engine was turnin' the curve to come past the facing points to the platform, what should we see but a wee bit ragged laddie, carryin' a bairn, coming staggerin' cross the metals to the near bank. Every single person on the platform cried to him to gang back. But the laddie couldna see Geordie's engine for the way he was carryin' the bairn, and maybe the noise o' the folk cryin' mazed him. So there he stood on the four-foot way, richt between the rails, and the express-engine fair on him.
"It cam' that quick our mouths were hardly shut after crying out, and our hearts had nae time to gang on again, before Muckle Alick, wha was standin' by the side o' the platform, made a spang for the bairns—as far as we could see, richt under the nose o' the engine. He gripped them baith in his airms, but he hadna time to loup clear o' the far rail. So Muckle Alick juist arched a back that was near as braid as the front of the engine itsel', and he gied a kind o' jump to the side. The far buffer o' the engine took him in the broad o' his hinderlands and whammeled him and the bairns in a heap ower on the grass on the far bank.
"Then there was a sough amang us wi' the drawing in o' sae mony breaths, for, indeed, we never looked for yin o' them ever to stir again. Geordie Grierson managed to stop his train after it had passed maybe twenty yairds. He was leanin' oot o' the engine cubby half his length an' lookin' back, wi' a face like chalk, at Muckle Alick and the weans on the bank.
"But what was oor astonishment to see him rise up wi' the bairns baith in his ae arm, and gie his back a bit dust wi' the back o' the ither as if he had been dustin' flour off it.
"'Is there ocht broken, think ye, Geordie?' Muckle Alick cried anxiously to the engine-driver.
"'Guid life, Alick, are ye no killed?' said the engine-driver. And, loupin' frae his engine, Geordie ran doon, if ye will believe it, greeting like a very bairn. And, 'deed, to tell the truth, so was the maist feck o' us.
"'Killed?' says Alick; 'weel, no that I ken o'!'
"And he stepped across the rails wi' the twa weans laughin' in his airms, for a' bairns are fond o' Alick. And says he, 'I think I'll pit them in the left luggage office till we get the express cleared.' So he did that, and gied them his big turnip watch to play wi'. And syne he took the luggage over and cried the name o' the station, as if he had done nocht that day forbye eat his denner.
"Then there cam' a lassie rinnin' wi' a loaf in her airms, and lookin' every road for something.
"'Did ye see twa bairns? Oh, my wee Hugh, what's come to ye?' she cried.
"'Ye'll find them in the luggage office, I'm thinkin', lassie,' says Alick."
And here the engine-driver of the goods train rose to depart. But his audience would not permit him.
"And what cam' o' the bairns?" cried Cleg, white with anxiety, "and what was their names, can ye tell me?"
"Na, I never heard their names, if they had ony," said Duncan Urquhart. "They were but tinkler weans, gaun the country. But Alick could tell ye, nae doot. For I saw him gang doon the street wi' the wee boy in his hand, and the lass carryin' the bairn. An' the folk were a' rinnin' oot o' their doors to shake hands wi' Alick, and askin' him if he wasna sair hurt?"
"'Na,' says he; 'I'll maybe a kennin' stiff for a day or twa, but there's nocht serious wrang—except wi' the spring o' the engine buffer! That's gye sair shauchelt!'
"And guid nicht to ye a', an' a guid sleep. That's a' I ken," said Duncan Urquhart from the kitchen door, where he was saying good-bye to the cook in a manner calculated to advance materially the interests of his niece, Janet of Inverness.
"And I'm gaun the morn's mornin' to see Muckle Alick!" cried Cleg. And he went out with the engine-driver.
ADVENTURE XXXI.
THE "AWFU' WOMAN."
A sore heart had Vara Kavannah as she sat in the hut in Callendar's yard the night her mother had appeared at the gate of Hillside Works.
"I can never go back among them—no, never, never!" said Vara to herself again and again.
And already she saw the sidelong glance, the sneering word thrown over the shoulder, as the companions from whom she had held herself somewhat aloof reminded her of her mother's disgrace. "O father, father, come back to us—come back to us!" she cried over and over again till it became a prayer.
She sat with her hands before her face so long that little Hugh repeatedly came and stirred her arm, saying "What ails sister? Hugh Boy not an ill boy!"
Vara Kavannah's thoughts ran steadily on Liverpool, to which her father had gone to find work. She remembered having seen trains with carriages marked "Liverpool" starting from the rickety old station at the end of Princes Street. She knew that they went out by Merchiston and Calder. That must, therefore, be the way to Liverpool. Vara did not remember that it must also be the way to a great many other places, since many carriages with other superscriptions passed out the same way.
As it darkened in the little construction hut, Vara listlessly rose to set the room to rights, and to give the baby its bottle. Nothing now seemed any use, since her mother had come back into her life. Yet Vara did not cry, for that also was no use. She had lost her place at the works, or at least she could never go back any more. Her world was at an end.
Hugh Boy still lingered outside, though it was growing latish, and the swallows that darted in and out of the stacked rafters and piled squares of boards began one by one to disappear from the vaulted sky. Hugh was busy watering the plants, as he had seen Cleg do. And he kept one hand in his pocket and tried to whistle as like his model as possible. Vara was just laying the baby in its cot when she heard a scream of pain from Hugh at the door.
"Mercy me!" she said, "has the laddie tumbled and hurt himsel'?"
She flew to the open door, which was now no more than a dusky oblong of blue-grey. A pair of dark shapes stood in front of her. Little Hugh lay wailing on the ground. A hard clenched hand struck Vara on the mouth, as she held up her hands to shield the baby she had carried with her in her haste, and a harsh thick voice screamed accumulated curses at her.
"I hae gotten ye at last, ye scum, you that sets yourself up to be somebody. You that dresses in a hat and feather, devil sweep ye! Come your ways in, lad, and we will soon take the pride out of the likes o' her, the besom!"
The man hung back and seemed loth to have part in the shame. But Sal Kavannah seized him by the hand and dragged him forward.
"This is your new faither, Vara," she said; "look at him. He is a bonny-like man beside your poor waff wastrel runnagate faither, Sheemus Kavannah!"
The man of whom Sal Kavannah spoke was a burly low-browed ruffian, with the furtive glance of one who has never known what it is to have nothing to conceal.
But Vara thought he did not look wholly bad.
"Come in, mother!" she said at last in a low voice. Then she went out to seek for Boy Hugh, who had run into the dark of the yard and darned himself safely among the innumerable piles of wood, which stood at all angles and elevations in Callendar's wide quadrangle.
"Hugh! Boy Hugh!" she cried. And for a long time she called in vain. At last a low and fearful voice answered her from a dark corner, in which lay the salvage of a torn-down house.
"Is she gane away?" said the Boy Hugh.
"No, but ye are to come hame," said Vara, holding the babe closer to her bosom.
"Then Hugh Boy is no comin' hame the nicht till the 'awfu' woman' is gane away!" said the lad, determinedly.
"Come, boy, come," she said again; "my heart is wae for us a'. But come wi' your Vara!"
"Na, Hugh Boy is no comin'. Ye will hae to hist me oot wi' big dogs afore I will come hame to the 'awfu' woman,'" said Hugh Boy, who was mightily set when his mind was made up.
So Vara had perforce to drag her feet back to the horrors which awaited her within the construction hut. The man and her mother had been pledging one another when she entered. A couple of black bottles stood between them, and Sal Kavannah looked up at her daughter with a fleering laugh.
"Aye, here she comes that sets up for being better than your mother! But we'll show you before we are through with you, my man and me, you——"
However, it does not enter into the purpose of this tale to blacken a page with the foul excrement of a devilish woman's hate of her own child. The Scripture holdeth—the mother may forget. She may indeed have no compassion on the child of her womb. And Vara Kavannah sat still and listened, till the burning shame dulled to a steady throbbing ache somewhere within her. The woman's threats of future torture and outrage passed idly over her, meaningless and empty. The man drank steadily, and grew ever silenter and more sullen; for, to his credit be it said, the situation was not to his taste, and he looked but seldom at Vara. The girl sat clasping the babe to her bosom with a secret sense that in little Gavin she had her best and indeed her only protector. For even the very bad man in his senses will hardly hurt an infant—though a bad woman will, as we may read in the records of our police courts.
So Vara sat till the man reeled to the door, carrying the unfinished bottle with him, and Sal Kavannah, her orgie logically completed, sank in a fœtid heap on the floor with the empty one beside her.
The man as he stumbled out left the door open, and in a little while Vara could hear Boy Hugh's plaintive voice, asking from the wood-pile in the corner whether the "awfu' woman" was gone yet.
As Vara sat and listened all through the short hours of that midsummer night to the clocks of the city churches, the stertorous breathing of her mother and the babe's occasional feeble wail were the only sounds within the hut itself. But Boy Hugh's plaint detached itself fitfully from the uneasy hum of the midnight city without. A resolve, new-born indeed, but seemingly old and determinate as the decrees of the God she had learned about in the Catechism, took hold upon her.
It seemed to Vara that it did not matter if she died—it did not even matter whether Hugh and Gavin died, if only she could find her father, and die far away from her mother and all this misery.
The girl was so driven to the last extremity by the trials of the day and the terrors of the night that she rose and put on her hat as calmly as though she had been going for a walk with Cleg and the children across the park. As calmly also she made her preparations, stepping carefully to and fro across her mother on the floor. She put all the scraps of bread that were left from Cleg's windfall into her pocket, together with the baby's feeding bottle and a spare tube. Then she added Hugh's whistle and a certain precious whip with a short bone handle and a long lash, which Cleg had given him. Vara was sure that Hugh Boy would cry for these, and want to go back if she did not take them with her. She had nothing of her own to take, except the indiarubber umbrella ring which Cleg Kelly had given her. So she took that, though she had never possessed an umbrella in her life. Groping in Gavin's crib, she found her shawl, and wrapped it about her with a knowing twist. Then she deftly took up the baby. The shawl went over her left shoulder and was caught about her waist at the right side, in a way which all nurses and mothers know, but which no man can ever hope to describe. The babe was still asleep, and Vara's tender touch did not awake it as she stepped out into the night to walk to Liverpool to find her father.
But as a first step she must find Boy Hugh. And that young man was exceedingly shy. He had got it in his obstinate little head that his sister wished to drag him back to the "awfu' woman." It was not, therefore, till Vara had managed to persuade him in the most solemn way that she had no intention of ever going back that he consented to accompany her upon her desperate quest.
At last Boy Hugh took her hand and the three bairns left Callendar's yard behind them for ever. What happened there that night after they left we already know. It is with the children's wanderings that we now have to do.
ADVENTURE XXXII.
MAID GREATHEART AND HER PILGRIMS.
It was grey day when the children fared forth from the city. Vara's chief anxiety was lest they should not be able to escape out of the town before the light came, so that some officious neighbour might be able to direct her enemy upon their track. It was not long before they emerged out of the side-alleys on a broad paved street which led towards the south.
Vara paused and asked a policeman if this was the way to Liberton.
"And what are you going to do at Liberton so early in the morning?" said the policeman. He asked because he was a Lothian man, who always puts a second question before he can bring himself to answer the first.
"We are gaun to see our faither," said Vara, speaking the truth.
"Weel," said the policeman, "that is the road to Liberton. But if I was you I would wait till the milk-cairts were drivin' hame. Then I could get ye a lift to Liberton fine."
He was a kind-hearted "poliss," and in fact the same officer who had looked over the screen by the watch-shelter behind which Tyke was spinning his yarns to Cleg Kelly.
So that—thus strange is the working of events when they take the reins into their own hands—at the very moment when Cleg Kelly was sleeplessly turning over in his mind the problem of the life-fate of Vara and the children by the dying fire at the Grange crossing, Vara herself with the baby on her arm was trudging down the pavement opposite. As she passed she looked across, and only the timbered edge of the shelter prevented her from seeing Cleg Kelly.
Thus, without the least hindrance or observation, the three children escaped out of their thrice-heated fiery furnace into the cool of the country hedges and upon the clean hard surface of the upland roads.
With the inevitable instinct of hunted things Vara turned aside whenever she heard the brisk clapper of the hoofs of a milk-cart, or the slower rumble of a market waggon. For she knew that it was of such early comers into the city that questions would be asked. So, when Cleg set about his inquisition, he was foiled by the very forethought which had only desired to defeat an enemy, not to mystify a friend.
Thus hour by hour they left quiet, kindly red-tiled villages behind, set in heartsome howes and upon windy ridges. And, as they went ever forwards, morning broadened into day; day crept dustily forward to hot noon; noon drowsed into afternoon; with the scent of beanfields in the air, dreamily sweet. Vara's arm that held the baby grew numb and dead. Her back ached acutely from the waist downwards as though it would break in two. Sometimes the babe wailed for food. Little Hugh dragged leadenly upon her other hand, and whinged on, with the wearisome iteration of the corncrake, that he wished to go back to Callendar's yard, till Vara had to remind him, because nothing else would stay his plaining, of the "awfu' woman" waiting for him there.
Vara did not rest long that whole day. They sat down as seldom as possible, and then only for a few minutes. Vara poured a little of the water from a wayside spring upon the crumbs that were left, and gave them to little Gavin, mixing them with the remaining milk in his bottle. Hugh begged incessantly that Vara would let him take off his boots and walk barefoot. But his sister knew that he would certainly become lame in a mile or two. Yet there might have been pleasure in it too, for they sat down in the pleasantest places all that fine, bough-tossing day. The shadows were sprinkled on the grassy hillsides, like a patchwork quilt which Vara had once seen in their house when Hugh was very little, but which had long ago become only a memory and a lost pawn-ticket.
Never before had the children seen such quaint woodland places—nooks where the rabbits tripped and darted, or sat on the bank washing faces pathetically innocent and foolish. Little runnels of water trickled down the gullies of the banks and dived under the road. But for Vara there was no enjoyment, no resting all that day. They soon spent their store of food. By noon Hugh had eaten all the cold potatoes. The babe had taken, at first with difficulty, then, under the pressure of hunger, greedily, the thin water and milk with the crushed crumbs in it which Vara had made at the brook-side. So that also was finished. Hunger began, not for the first time, to grip them.
But they could not rest long. In a little, just as Hugh Boy was beginning to drop asleep and lean heavily against Vara, there came again upon her without warning a terrible fear. She looked down the road they had come, and she seemed to see the cruel eyes of her mother, to hear again the foul threats of the life she was to be compelled to lead for "setting herself up to be better than her mother," all the words which she had listened to during those last hours of terror and great darkness in the old construction hut.
So Vara shook Hugh awake, stroking his cheeks down gently till his eyes opened. She settled the shawl over her other shoulder, and the bairns were soon on their way again. The dusty road beneath appeared to stream monotonously between their feet, and so weary did they grow that sometimes they seemed to be only standing still. Sometimes, on the contrary, they appeared to be going forward with incredible speed. Vara bore the aching of her carrying-arm till it became agony unspeakable, and the weight of Gavin dragged on her very brain. Then, for a treat, she would shift him to the other arm, and for a few minutes the keen twingeing ache deadened to a dull ache, as the tired wrist and elbow dropped to her side. But soon in the other arm the same stounding agony began.
Still the children fared on, spurred forward by the fear of that which was behind them. The thought and hope of their father had greatly died out of Vara's mind, though not altogether. But the mighty instinct of hiding from days and nights like those which had gone over her head recently drove her restlessly forward. Yet she began sadly to acknowledge that, though she might be able to stumble on a little longer that night, little Hugh could not go much further. He began to lag behind at every turn, and whenever they stopped a moment he fairly dropped asleep on his feet, and his head fell flaccidly against her side.
The bells of a little town on the slope of a hill were just striking six and the mill-folk were streaming homeward, when the children had their first great piece of luck. They were just by a stone watering-trough at the curve of a long brae, when a smart light cart with yellow wheels came past. It was driven by a young man, who sat, looking very bright and happy, with his sweetheart beside him. As the pair came slowly up the brae they had been talking about the children, whom they could see dragging on before them weary-foot, sick with pain and weariness.
Perhaps the young man's heart was touched. Or mayhap his sweetheart asked him to give them a penny, and he wished to show his generosity. But in either case certain it is that as he passed up the hill he nodded brightly back to the children and threw them a coin. It rolled on its edge to Vara's feet, who stooped and picked it up, solacing her independent soul as the silver lay apparent in her hands by telling herself that she had not asked for it. Her mother had found all her savings the night before, and had emptied them into the hand of her companion, out of the cup in which they had stood on the shelf which served for the mantelpiece of the construction hut. So that but for this happy young man's sixpence Vara and her charges were absolutely penniless.
ADVENTURE XXXIII.
THE BABES IN THE HAYSTACK.
But even Hugh brightened at the sight of the silver, and when Vara proposed to go back and buy something for them while he stayed with Gavin and gathered him flowers to play with, the lad said determinedly, "Hugh Boy come too!"
So they all went back to the village. They stood looking long and wistfully into the shop-windows, for what to buy was so momentous a question that it took them some time to decide. At last Vara made up her mind to have twopence-worth of stale bread at a baker's. She was served by the baker's wife, who, seeing the girl's weary look, gave her a fourpenny loaf of yesterday's baking for her coppers, together with some salt butter in a broad cabbage leaf into the bargain. Vara's voice broke as she thanked the woman, who had many bairns of her own, and knew the look of trouble in young eyes. Then at another shop Vara bought a pennyworth of cheese, which (as she well knew) satisfies hunger better than any other food. Then came a pennyworth of milk for the baby, with which she filled his bottle, and gave what was over to Hugh Boy, who drank it out of the shopkeeper's measure.
When the children came out, Vara took Hugh by the hand, and they marched past the baker's without stopping. For the boy had set his love upon a certain gingerbread lion with a pair of lack-lustre eyes of currants, and as they passed the baker's shop he set up a whining whimper to have it. But his sister marched him swiftly past before the dews in his eyes had time to fall. The baker's wife had come to the door to look after them, and seeing Hugh Boy's backward-dragging look, she sent her little girl after them with the very gingerbread lion of Hugh's dreams. Hugh Boy stood speechless, open-mouthed with thankfulness. The little girl smiled at his surprise.
"We hae lots o' them at our house," she said, and hurried back to her mother.
They mounted the hill once more and sat on the grassy bank by the side of the watering-trough, into which a bright runlet of water fell, and in which little stirring grains of sand dimpled and danced.
Never was anything sweeter than the flavour of yesterday's bread, except the gingerbread lion, from which Hugh had already picked one black currant eye, leaving a yellow pitted socket which leered at him with horrid suggestiveness of stomach-ache. But hunger-ache was Hugh Boy's sole enteric trouble, so that the suggestion was lost upon him.
The water of the hill spring, splashing into the stone trough, sounded refreshing beyond expressing. The baby dreamed over his bottle, and lay with his eyes fixed on the clear heavens above—from which, if all tales be true, he had come to a world of whose kindness he had had so little experience since his arrival.
For the first time that day Vara took a bite for herself and many a draught of the dimpling springwater, whose untiring crystal rush into the basin it was so pleasant to watch. Then Vara washed Hugh's feet and her own in the overflow of the trough, just at the place where the burn ran under the road. On Hugh Boy's feet was a painful pink flush, but no blister appeared. On her own feet, however, there were two or three. Vara was glad that Hugh was fit for his journey.
They started again, and, with the refreshment of the food and the rest, they managed to make two or three miles further before the dark fell. But soon it was evident that the three wanderers could go little further that night. The babe's eyes were long closed with sleep, and poor little Hugh could only keep awake and stagger on by constantly rubbing his knuckles into the corners of his eyes.
They were now on a high wild moor, and there was no house within sight. They still went onward, however, blindly and painfully. The roadsides trailed past them black and indistinct till they came to a farmhouse. They could see tall buildings against the skies and hear the lash of an unseen mill-stream over a wheel into a pool. A blackcap sang sweetly down in some reeds by the mill-dam.
Vara did not dare to knock at the door of the house. She was just about to go into the farmyard in search of a shed to lie down in, when she remembered that she had heard from Cleg how there were always fierce dogs about every farmhouse. For Hugh's sake she could not risk it. Instead of going forward, therefore, she groped her way with one hand into a field where there were many stacks of hay and corn. Vara could tell by the rustling as her hand passed over them. Soon she came to a great stack in a kind of covered shed, which stood between wooden posts like trees. One end of it was broken down and cut into platforms. Vara mounted upon one with the baby, and reached down a hand for Boy Hugh. For the last few miles, indeed ever since it grew dark, Hugh had been more than half asleep, and his weariful sobbing had worn down to a little clicking catch in his throat, which still recurred at intervals. It was by the sound that Vara found him. She leaned over as far as she dared, and drew him up beside her. He was asleep in her arms before she could lay him down.
Vara thought the people of the farm would not be very angry in the morning if she pulled out a little of the hay.
"It is for the baby's sake!" she said, to excuse herself.
So she scooped out of the higher step of the stack where it was broadest a little cave among the hay, and into this she thrust Boy Hugh gently, putting his legs in first and leaving only his head without. Then she rolled the babe and herself in the shawl and crawled in beside him. She drew the hay close like a coverlet about them. She listened awhile to Hugh Boy's breathing, which still had the catch of bygone tears in it. She kissed Gavin, closed her eyes, and instantly fell asleep herself. Vara said no prayers. But the incense of good deeds and sweetest essential service went up to God from that haystack.
ADVENTURE XXXIV.
THAT OF MARY BELL, BYRE LASS.
The morning came all too soon, with a crowing of cocks and the clashing hurrahs of the rooks, circling up from their nesting in the tall trees. But the tired children slept on. The life of the farm began about them, with its cheerful sounds of clinking head-chains as the cattle came in, and of tinkling harness as the teams went afield. But still the children did not wake. It was not till Mary Bell, byre lass, came to get an armful of fodder from the stack that they were found.
"Lord, preserve us! what's that?" she cried when, with her knees upon the step of the stack, she saw the children—Vara's wearied face turned to the babe, and the dew damp on the white cheeks of Boy Hugh.
"I maun fetch the mistress!" said Mary Bell.
And then these two women stood and marvelled at the children.
"Mary," said the mistress of the farm, "d'ye mind the text last Sabbath?"
Mary Bell looked indignantly at her employer.
"How do ye think I can mind texts wi' as mony calves to feed?" she asked, like one of whom an unfair advantage is taken.
"O Mary!" said her mistress, "how often hae I telled you no to set your mind on the vainities o' this wicked world?"
"An' whatna ane do ye pay me for?—to keep mind o' texts or to feed the calves?" asked the byre lass, pertinently.
"Mary," said the other, ignoring the argument, "the text was this: 'I will both lay me down and sleep'—dod, but I declare I forget the rest o't," she concluded, breaking down with some ignominy.
"In the land o' the leal," suggested Mary Bell, either wickedly or with a real desire to help. Her superior promptly accepted the emendation.
"That's it!" she said. "Is it no bonny to look at thae bairns and mind the text, 'I will both lay me down and sleep, in the land o' the leal'?"
"I'll wauken them," said practical Mary Bell, "and bring them into the hoose for some breakfast."
"Na, na," said her mistress, "ye maunna do that. What wad the guidman say? Ye ken he canna be doin' wi' folk that gang the country. A wee drap o' yestreen's milk noo—or the scrapins o' the parritch pot!"
"Aye," said Mary Bell, "'in the land o' the leal.' Ye had better gang ben and look up the text, mistress; I'll attend to the bairns."
"Aye, do that," said the good wife, with perfect unconsciousness of Mary Bell's sarcasm, "but be sparin'. Mind ye, this is hard times for farm folk! And we canna spend gear and graith recklessly on unkenned bairns."
"Ye will be free o' that crime, mistress," murmured Mary, as her mistress took her way into the house; "gin ye could tak' a' that ye hae saved wi' ye, what a bien and comfortable doon-sitting wad ye no hae in heeven! Itherwise, I'm nane sae sure—in spite o' your texts."
Then Mary sat down and took the children one by one, touching their faces to make them waken. Vara sat up suddenly, with wild eyes and a cry of fear. In her terror she clasped the baby so hard that it waked and cried. With the other hand she brushed away the elf locks about her own eyes. But her heart stilled its fluttering as she caught the kindly eyes of Mary Bell, set in a brown sun-coarsened face of broad good humour.
"O," said Vara, "I thought ye were my mother!"
And Mary Bell, who, though a byre lass and daughter of toil, was born with the gentle heart of courtesy within her, refrained from asking why this wandering girl should be so greatly afraid of her own mother.
"Are you hungry?" she said, instead.
And little Boy Hugh awoke, rolled out of the hay, and shook himself like a young puppy. He stretched his arms wide, clasping and unclasping his fingers.
"I'm that hungry!" he said, as if he had heard Mary Bell's words in a dream.
"That's answer enough!" said the byre lass. "Certes, ye are a bonny laddie; come here to me."
And Mary Bell, who was born to love children and to bear them, snatched him up and kissed him warmly and roughly. But Hugh wriggled out of her arms, and as soon as he found himself on the ground he wiped his mouth deliberately and ungratefully with the back of his hand.
"Hae ye ony pieces and milk for wee boys?" he said.
The byre lass laughed.
"Ye like pieces and milk better than kisses," said she. "Hoo does that come?"
"Pieces and milk are better for ye!" said Boy Hugh, stating an undeniable truth.
"It's a peety," said Mary Bell, sententiously, "that we dinna aye ken what's guid for us." And she was thoughtful for some moments. "Come awa', bairns," she said, taking Gavin from Vara, and carrying him herself into a milk house, which was filled with a pleasant smell of curds and cheese.
Hugh Boy went wandering about, wondering at the great tin basins filled with milk to the brim, some fresh and white, and some covered smoothly with a thick yellow coating of cream.
"I never thocht there was as muckle milk in the world!" said Boy Hugh.
So here the children ate and drank, and were refreshed. And as she set before them each new dainty—farles of cake, thick new scones, milk with the cream still generously stirred amongst it, fresh new milk yet warm from the cow for Gavin, Mary Bell said: "This is better than mindin' a text! Sirce me, heard ye ever the like o' it—'To the land o' the leal'?' An' she took it a' in. She reads a' the Bible ever she reads between her sleeps in the kirk, I'se warrant. Wait till I see Jamie Mailsetter; I'll hae a rare bar to tell him!"
It was an hour after, much comforted and refreshed, with a back load of provisions and one of Mary Bell's hardly-earned shillings, that the wanderers set out. They continued to wave her their farewells till they were far down the loaning.
And they might well be sorry, for there were not many people so kind and strong-hearted as Mary Bell to be met with between the Town of Pilgrimage and the City of the Twelve Foundations. And some of these are rough-handed and weather-beaten men and women, who work out their Christianity in feeding calves and bairns instead of parading texts, keeping the word of God in their hearts according to the commandment.
ADVENTURE XXXV.
THE KNIGHT IN THE SOFT HAT.
And so their second day was a good day, as most days are that are well begun with a good breakfast. For, together with a good conscience, that makes all the difference. And especially when you are Hugh Boy's age, for then even the conscience does not so much matter.
Hugh Boy had never been in the country before, and, being a lad of much observation, he had to watch all that there was there. And there were many things for Hugh Boy to see that day. Robin redbreasts peeped with their summer shyness upon them from the low bushes on the banks. Sparrows pecked among flower patches, instead of at the mud in the streets, as Hugh Boy had always seen them do before. There was a big bird which floated above the farmyard of one of the farms they passed. Hugh wondered what sort of bird it could be. He heard a motherly hen, which had been scraping and clucking among the dust when they came round the corner, suddenly give a strange screech, just like that which Vara had given the other night when the "awfu' woman" came to their door. He saw the hen droop her wings and crouch in the dust, keeping her beak up in the air, her timid eyes glittering with anger.
Hugh Boy questioned Vara, but Vara had the baby to attend to, and answered that it was just a bird. But soon the big shadow on the sky with the outstretched wings floated away, and the hen went back to its contented picking. The children also went along the wayside to-day with many more rests and lingerings. For they had no longer the instant spur of pursuit driving them on.
They stopped to take their meal by a little bridge, under which a moorland burn ran bickering down to join a big river which flowed to the distant sea.
They sat down in the dark of the arch, and Vara had spread out all the provision which her kind friend, Mary Bell, had given her before she saw that at the other end a young man was sitting close in by the wall. At sight of him Vara started, and would have put her bread and milk back again. But the man cried over to her, "Not so fast, my pretty dears; there's another hungry stomach here."
"You are welcome to a share o' what we have," said Vara, who had been too often hungry herself not to know the pain it meant.
The youth came and sat down by them. He was a lean and unwholesome-looking vagrant. The whites of his eyes had turned an unpleasant lead colour, while the pupils were orange-coloured, like the stripes on a tiger's skin.
Vara gave him one of the largest of Mary Bell's scones, and some of the butter they had got from the baker's wife the day before. The young man ate these up greedily, and reached out his hand for more. Vara offered him some of the loaf which she had bought.
"None o' that dry choko-tuck for me; gimme the soft bread!" said he, rudely snatching at it.
Vara told him civilly that it was not for herself that she wanted to keep it, but to break up in the baby's milk.
In spite of her pitiful protest, however, the young man snatched the scone and ate it remorselessly, looking at Vara all the time with evil eyes, and smiling a smirk of satisfaction. There was no snivelling weakness about him. Hugh Boy never took his eyes off him. Then, when he had finished, the lout rose, coolly stuffed the remainder of their provision into his pocket, and came over towards Vara with his hand stretched out. He caught her by the wrist and sharply twisted her arm.
"Shell out your tin," he said. "Out with it now, and no bones about it!"
Vara bore the pain as well as she could without crying out. Suddenly, however, the rascal dropped her hand, and snatched Gavin from her arms. He stood on the edge of the ravine over which the bridge went, holding the child, and threatened to throw him over if she did not give him all the money she had. He was, of course, as he told himself, only "kidding" her, but Vara was in wild terror for Gavin. Her particular evil genius had never hesitated to carry out such threatenings.
"I will! I will!" cried Vara. And she took the byre lass's shilling out of her pocket and gave it to the man.
"Any more?" said he. "Yes, I see there is. Out with it!"
And Vara drew out the remainder of the sixpence which the young lover had thrown to her from his cart yesterday.
Then the cruel hobbledehoy tossed her the child with a laugh, and sprang sharply round the parapet of the bridge. Pale as ivory, Vara ran after him to watch. The rascal was quite at his ease, for he stopped to light his pipe and take a drink out of a little square bottle. This he stowed away in the tails of his coat, which were very long. Then he waved his hand humorously at Vara and Boy Hugh as they stood by the arch of the bridge.
A tall, well-built young fellow, was coming down the road, and a hope sprang up in Vara's mind that he might do something for her. The stranger's round soft hat and dark clothes marked him for a clergyman. But he swung his stick and whistled, which were new things to Vara in one of his cloth.
At sight of him the thief pulled down the corners of his mouth and put on his regulation mendicant's whine.
"For the love o' God, sir, help a poor fellow that's dyin' o' hunger. I've walked fifty miles without a bite—hope to die if I haven't, sir. I wouldn't tell you a lie, sir."
The stalwart young minister smiled, and gave his stick another swing before he spoke.
"You have not walked five miles without drinking, anyway, as my nose very plainly tells me. And your pipe is setting your coat on fire at this very moment!"
The hobbledehoy plucked his lighted pipe out of his pocket and set his thumb in the bowl.
"You are one of the good kind," he persisted; "you are not the sort that would deny a poor chap a sixpence because he takes a draw of tobacco when he can get it?"
"Not a bit," said the minister, good-humouredly; "I can take a whiff myself. But I don't ask anybody else to pay for it. It's a fine business, yours, my lad. But I'm not keeping a free rum and tobacco shop. So you had best tramp, my man."
At this the tramp began to pour forth a volley of the most foul-mouthed abuse, cursing all parsons for rogues, liars, and various other things. The minister listened patiently for some time.
"Now," he said, when at last there came a pause, "I have given you your say—away with you! And if I hear another foul word out of your mouth, I will draw my stick soundly across your back."
"Oh!" said the other impudently, "I thought you were one of the softish kind—the sort that when you smote them on the one cheek, turned the other also."
The young man in the round hat squared his shoulders.
"Did anyone smite me on the one cheek?" he asked. "If they did, I didn't know it. Perhaps you would like to try?"
And he came nearer to the rascal, who drew off as if not at all inclined to make the experiment. He made no reply.
"But," said the minister, "since you are so ready with your Scripture, you will not object to another text, just as good, and more suitable for application to the like of you. It is—'A rod for the fool's back!'"
And with that he lifted his stick and brought it down on the young rough's shoulders with the swing of a cricketer cutting a high ball to the boundary.
Never was there a more astonished scoundrel. He turned on the instant and ran. But Vara was close beside them by this time.
"He stole my money!" she cried; "catch him! O dinna let him away!"
The young minister clapped his hat firmly on the back of his head and gave chase. The thief was for the moment the swifter, but he had not the wind nor the training of his opponent.
"Stop!" cried the pursuer.
The thief glanced about, and seeing the stick he had tasted before hovering in the air, he dropped in a heap across the path to trip his pursuer. The minister cleared him in his stride and turned upon him. The rascal kept perfectly still till his captor approached. Then suddenly he shot out his foot in a vicious kick. But the young fellow in the round hat had been in France and knew all about that game. He caught the foot in his hand and turned the fellow over on his back. Vara came panting up.
"Give this girl her money," said the minister. "How much was it, my lassie?"
"It was a shilling and two pence," said Vara.
"Out with it or I'll go through you!" said the minister. And the thick stick again hovered an ultimatum.
So Vara got her money, and without even a parting curse the cowed and frightened rascal took himself off down the road at a slow trot, keeping his eyes on the ground all the way.
Vara was left alone with her knight of the soft hat.