But the grief and terror of the pawnbroker were beyond words. He sat down on the narrow stair, and laid his head between his hands.

"I shall be ruined—ruined! I took the place for a debt. I never got a penny of rent for it, and now to be made to spend money upon it——"

The police inspector touched him on the shoulder.

"If I were you, Nathan," he said, "I should get this put in order. If it is true that you got no rent for this place, the melting-pot in your back cellar got plenty."

"It's a lie—a lie!" cried the little man, getting up as if stung. "It was never proved. I got off!"

"Aye," said the inspector, "ye got off? But though 'Not proven' clears a man o' the Calton gaol, it keeps him on our books."

"Yes, yes," said the little Jew, clapping his hands as if he were summoning slaves in the Arabian Nights, "it shall be done. I shall attend to it at once."

And the inspector went out into the street, laughing so heartily within him that more than once something like the shadow of a grin crossed the stern official face which covered so much kindliness from the ken of the world.

The truth of the matter was that Cleg Kelly had squared the police. It is a strange thing to say, for the force of the city is composed of men staunchly incorruptible. I have tried it myself and know. The Edinburgh police has been honourably distinguished first by an ambition to prevent crime, to catch the criminal next, and, lastly, to care for the miserable women and children whom nearly every criminal drags to infamy in his wake.

Yet with all these honourable titles to distinction, upon this occasion the police had certainly been squared, and that by Cleg Kelly. And in this wise.

When Cleg had finished his search through the receptacles of his father and his own hidie-holes, he found himself in possession of as curious a collection of miscellaneous curiosities as might stock a country museum or set a dealer in old junk up in business. There were many spoons of silver, and a few of Britannia metal which his father had brought away in mistake, or because he was pressed for time and hated to give trouble. There were forks whole, and forks broken at the handle where the initials ought to have come, teapots with the leaves still within them, the toddy bowl of a city magnate—with an inscription setting forth that it had been presented to Bailie Porter for twenty years of efficient service in the department of cleaning and lighting, and also in recognition of his uniform courtesy and abundant hospitality. There were also delicate ormulu clocks, and nearly a score of watches, portly verge, slim Geneva, and bluff serviceable English lever.

Cleg brought one of his mother's wicker clothes-baskets which had been tossed out on the street by Mr. Nathan's men the day before, and, putting a rich Indian shawl in the bottom to stop the crevices, he put into it all the spoil, except such items as belonged strictly to himself, and with which the nimble fingers of his father had had no connection.

Such were the top half of a brass candlestick, which he had himself found in an ash-backet on the street. He remembered the exact "backet." It was in front of old Kermack, the baker's, and he had had to fight a big dog to get possession, because the brass at the top being covered with the grease, the dog considered the candlestick a desirable article of vertu. There was a soap-box, for which he had once fought a battle; the basin he used for dragging about by a string on the pavement, with hideous outcries, whenever the devil within made it necessary for him to produce the most penetrating and objectionable noise he could think of. There was (his most valuable possession) a bright brass harness rein-holder, for which the keeper of a livery stable had offered him five shillings if he would bring the pair, or sixpence for the single one—an offer which Cleg had declined, but which had made him ever after cherish the rein-holder as worth more than all the jewellers' shops on Princes Street.

These and other possessions to which his title was incontrovertible he laid aside for conveyance to his new home, an old construction hut which now lay neglected in a builder's yard near the St. Leonards Station.

All the other things Cleg took straight over to the police-office near the brickfield, where his friend, the sergeant's wife, held up her hands at sight of them. Nor did she call her husband till she had been assured that Cleg had had personally nothing to do with the collection of them.

When the sergeant came in his face changed and his eyes glittered, for here was stolen property in abundance, of which the Chief—that admirable gentleman of the quiet manners and the limitless memory—had long ago given up all hope.

"Ah! if only the young rascal had brought us these things before Tim's trial, I would have got him twenty years!" said the Chief.

But though Cleg Kelly hated and despised his father, his hatred did not quite go that length. He did not love the police for their own sake, though he was friendly enough with many of the individual officers, and, in especial, with the sergeant's wife, who gave him "pieces" in memory of his mother, and, being a woman, also perhaps a little in memory of what his father had once seemed to her.

Cleg did not stay to be asked many questions as to how he came into possession of so many valuables. He had found them, he said; but he could not be induced to condescend upon the particulars of the discovery.

So the sergeant was forced to be content. But ever after this affair it was quite evident that Cleg was a privileged person, and did not come within Mr. Nathan's power of accusation. So it was manifest that Cleg Kelly had corrupted the incorruptible, and crowned his exploits by squaring the metropolitan police.

ADVENTURE XI.
THE BOY IN THE WOODEN HUT.

The builder saw Cleg flitting hither and thither about the yard, but, being accustomed to such visitors, he took no great notice of the boy, till one day, poking about among some loose rubbish and boards at the back of his yard, he happened to glance at the old hut. Great was his astonishment to see it set on its end, a window frame too large for the aperture secured on the outside with large nails driven in at the corners, a little fringe of soil scraped roughly about it as if a brood of chickens had worked their way round the hut, and a few solitary daisies dibbled into the loose earth, lying over on their sides, in spite of the small ration of water which had been carefully served out to each.

Thomas Callendar stood a moment gathering his senses. He had a callant of his own who might conceivably have been at the pains to establish a summer-house in his yard. But then James was at present at the seaside with his mother. The builder went round the little hut, and at the further side he came upon Cleg Kelly dribbling water upon the wilting daisies from a broken brown teapot, and holding on the lid with his other hand.

"Mercy on us! what are ye doing here, callant?" cried the astonished builder.

Cleg Kelly stood up with the teapot in his hand, taking care to keep the lid on as he did so. His life was so constant a succession of surprises provided against by watchfulness that hardly even an earthquake would have taken him unprepared.

He balanced the teapot in one hand, and with the other he pulled at his hat-brim to make his manners.

"If ye please, sir," he said, "they turned me oot at the brickyaird, and I brocht the bits o' things here. I kenned ye wadna send me away, Maister Callendar."

"How kenned ye that I wadna turn ye away, boy?" said the builder.

"Oh, I juist prefarred to come back here, at ony rate," said Cleg.

"But why?" persisted Mr. Callendar.

Cleg scratched the turned-up earth of his garden thoughtfully with his toe.

"Weel," he said, "if ye maun ken, it was because I had raither lippen[2] to the deil I ken than to the deil I dinna ken!"

The builder laughed good-naturedly.

"So ye think me a deil?" he asked, making believe to cut at the boy with the bit of planed moulding he was carrying in his hand with black pencil-marks at intervals upon it as a measuring-rod.

"Ow, it's juist a mainner o' speaking!" said Cleg, glancing up at Mr. Callendar with twinkling eyes. He knew that permission to bide was as good as granted. The builder came and looked within. The hut was whitewashed inside, and the black edges of the boards made transverse lines across the staring white.

Cleg explained.

"I didna steal the whitewash," he said; "I got it frae Andrew Heslop for helpin' him wi' his lime-mixing.

"It's a fine healthsome, heartsome smell," the boy went on, noticing that the builder was sniffing. "Oh, man, it's the tar that ye smell," he again broke in. "I'm gaun to tar it on the ootside. It keeps the weather off famous. I gat the tar frae a watchman at the end o' the Lothian Road, where they are laying a new kind o' pavement wi' an awsome smell."

The interior of the hut was shelved, and upon a pair of old trestles was a good new mattress. The builder looked curiously at it.

"It was the Pleasance student missionary got it in for my mither to lie on afore she died," said Cleg in explanation.

"Aye, and your mither is awa," said the builder; "it's a release."

"Aye, it is that," said Cleg, from whose young heart sorrow of his mother's death had wholly passed away. He was not callous, but he was old-fashioned and world-experienced enough to recognise facts frankly. It was a release indeed for Isbel Kelly.

"Weel," said the builder, "mind ye behave yoursel'. Bring nae wild gilravage o' loons here, or oot ye gang."

"Hearken ye, Maister," said Cleg. "There's no a boy atween Henry Place an' the Sooth Back that wull daur to show the ill-favoured face o' him within your muckle yett. I'll be the best watch that ever ye had, Maister Callendar. See if I'm no!"

The builder smiled as he went away. He took the measuring-rod of white moulding in his hand, and looked at the marks to recall what particular business he had been employed upon. But even as he did so a thought struck him. He turned back.

"Mind you," he said to Cleg, "the first time that ye bring the faither o' ye aboot my yaird, to the curb-stane ye gang wi' a' your traps and trantlums!"

Cleg peeped elvishly out of his citadel.

"My faither," he said, "is snug in a far grander hoose than yours or mine, Maister Callendar. He has ta'en the accommodation for a year, and gotten close wark frae the Gowvernment a' the time!"

"What mean ye?" said the builder; "your faither never reformed?"

"Na, no that," answered Cleg; "but he got a year for ganging intil anither man's hoose without speering his leave. And I was there and saw the judge gie him a tongue-dressing afore he spoke oot the sentence. 'One year!' says he. 'Make it three, my Lord!' says I frae the back of the coort. So they ran me oot; but my faither kenned wha it was, for he cried, 'May hunger, sickness, and trouble suck the life from ye, ye bloodsucking son of my sorrow! Wait till I get hoult o' ye! I'll make ye melt off the earth like the snow off a dyke, son o' mine though ye are!'"

The respectable builder stood aghast.

"And your ain faither said the like o' that till ye?" he asked, with a look of awe in his face as if he had been listening to blasphemy. "And what did you say to him?"

"Faith! I only said, 'I hope ye'll like the oakum, faither!'"

ADVENTURE XII.
VARA KAVANNAH OF THE TINKLERS' LANDS.

Cleg having finished his dispositions, shut to his door, and barred it with a cunning bolt, shot with string, which he had constructed till he should be able to find an old lock to manipulate with the craft inherited from his father. Then he set forth for the Tinklers' Lands, to visit his friends the Kavannahs. He had delivered his papers in the early morning, and now he was free till the evening. For since a threatened descent of the police, Mistress Roy, that honest merchant, had discouraged Cleg from "hanging round" after his work was finished. She attempted to do the discouraging with a broomstick or anything else that came handy. But Cleg was far too active to be struck by a woman. And, turning upon his mistress with a sudden flash of teeth like the grin of a wild cat, he sent that lady back upon the second line of her defences—into the little back shop where that peculiar company assembled which gave to Roy's paper-shop its other quality of shebeen.

Cleg had just reached the arched gateway which led into the builder's yard, when he saw, pottering along the sidewalk twenty yards before him the squat, bandy-legged figure of his late landlord, Mr. Nathan. He had been going the round of the builders, endeavouring to discover which of them would effect the repairs of Tim Kelly's mansion at the least expense, and at the same time be prepared to satisfy the fiery Inspector of Sanitation.

Without a moment's hesitation, and as a mere matter of duty, Cleg bent his head, and, running full-tilt between his late landlord's legs, he overset him on the pavement and shot ahead on his way to make his morning call on the Kavannahs. The fulfilment of healthy natural function required that a well-conducted boy of good principles should cheek a policeman and overset a Jew landlord whenever met with. In such a war there could be no truce or parley.

Tinklers' Lands was in one of the worst parts of the city. Davie Dean's Street goes steeply down hill, and has apparently carried all its inhabitants with it. Tinklers' Lands is quite at the foot, and the inhabitants have come so low that they can fear no further fall. The Kavannahs, as has been said, dwelt in the cellar of the worst house in Tinklers' Lands.

Cleg ran down into the area and bent over the grating.

"Vara!" he cried, making a trumpet of the bars and his hands.

"Aye, Cleg, is that you?" said Vara. "She's oot; ye can come in."

So Cleg trotted briskly down the slimy black steps, from which the top hand-rail had long since vanished. The stumpy palings themselves would also have disappeared if they had been anything else than cast metal, a material which can neither be burned nor profitably disposed of to the old junk man.

Vara met him at the foot. She was a pleasant, round-faced, merry-eyed girl of ten—or, rather, she would have been round-faced but for the pitiful drawing about the mouth and the frightened look with which she seemed to shrink back at any sudden movement near her. As Cleg arrived at the door of the cellar a foul, dank smell rose from the depths to meet him; and he, fresh from the air and cleanliness of his own new abode among the shavings and the chips, noticed it as he would not have done had he come directly from the house by the brickfield.

"She gaed awa' last nicht wi' an ill man," said Vara, "and I hae seen nocht o' her since."

Vara Kavannah spoke of Sheemus Kavannah as "faither," but always of her mother as "she." To-day the girl had her fair hair done up in a womanly net and stowed away on the top of her head. When one has the cares of a house and family, it is necessary to dress in a grown-up fashion. Indeed, in some of her moods, when the trouble of Hugh and the baby lay heavy on her, Vara looked like a little old woman, as if she had been her own fairy godmother fallen upon evil times.

But to-day she had her head also tied in a napkin, rolled white and smooth about her brows. Cleg glanced at it with the quick comprehension which comes from a kindred bitterness.

"Her?" he queried, as much with his thumb and eyebrow as with his voice.

"Aye," said Vara, looking down at the floor, for in the Lands such occurrences were not spoken of outside the family; "yestreen."

Hearing the voices at the door, little Hugh, Vara's brother of four, came toddling unevenly upon legs which ought to have been chubby, but which were only feeble and uncertain. He had one hand wrapped in a piece of white rag; and, whenever he remembered, he carried it in his other hand and wept over it with a sad, wearying whimper.

Cleg again looked his query at Vara.

"Aye," said the girl, her eyes lighting this time with a glint of anger; "the bairn toddled to her when she cam' hame, and he asked for a bit piece. And wi' that she took him and gied him a fling across the floor, and he hurt his airm on the corner of the bed."

And Cleg, though he had given up swearing, swore.

"The wean's asleep!" said Vara; "speak quietly."

And upon tiptoe she led the way. The dusk of the cellar was so dense and the oppression of the foul air so terrible that had not Cleg been to the manner born, he could hardly have reached the little crib where the baby lay huddled among swathings of old petticoats and bits of flannel, while underneath was a layer of hay.

Vara stood gazing with inexpressible rapture at the babe.

"Isna he bonny—bonny?"

She clasped her hands as she spoke, and looked for the answering admiration in Cleg's face.

"Aye," said Cleg, who knew what was demanded of him if he expected to remain Vara Kavannah's friend; "he's juist terrible bonny—elegant as a pictur'!"

He had heard his father say that of a new "jemmy."

In truth, the babe was but skin and bone, with the drawn face of a mummy of five thousand years—and tiny hands, prehensile like those of a monkey.

"Vara," said Cleg, "ye canna bide here. I maun get ye awa'. This is no to be tholed. What hae ye had to eat the day?"

"We had some broth that a neighbour brocht in yesterday, and some fish. But the fish was bad," said Vara, flushing and hesitating even to say these things to Cleg.

The badness of the fish, indeed, sufficiently advertised itself.

At the mention of something to eat little Hugh sharpened his croon of pain into a yell.

"Hugh's awsome hungry! Hugh boy wants his dinner!"

Vara went to him and knelt beside him.

"Hush thee, Hugh boy!" she said, speaking with a fragrance of motherliness which must have come to her from some ancestor, for certainly never in her life had she experienced anything like it. "Hush! Hugh boy shall have his dinner if he is a good boy! Poor handie! Poor, poor handie!"

And the girl took the swollen wrist and torn hand into hers and rocked to and fro with the boy on her knee.

"Hugh is gaun to be a man," she said. "He wadna greet. Na, he will wait till faither comes hame. And then he will get ham, nice ham, singing in the pan; aye, and red herring brandering on the fire, and salmon in tins, an' aipples, an' oranges, an' cancellaries."

"Losh, aye, but that wull be guid!" said Hugh, stopping his crying to listen to the enthralling catalogue.

"Aye," said Vara, "and when faither comes hame, he will tak' us away to a bonny hoose to leeve where the ships sail by. For dadda has gane to the seaside to look for wark. It will be a bonny hoose wi' swings at every door, and blacky men that dance in braw, striped claes, and shows. And Hugh boy shall gang to them a'. We'll howk holes in the sand, and fill the dirt into buckets, and row our girds, Hughie. And we shall paidle in the tide, and splash the bonny water aboon oor heids!"

"Oh, oh," cried the child, "Hugh boy wants to gang noo. He wants to paidle in the bonny water and eat the oranges!"

"Bide ye, bonny man," said Vara, fondling him, "that's a' to be when dadda comes hame."

"Hugh boy is gangin' to the door to look for dadda!" said the boy as he moved off with his bandaged hand clutched to his side.

The baby in the bunk among the old clouts set up a crying, and Cleg went to it, for he was touched to the heart by the voice of dumb things in pain, whether babes or beasts.

But little Gavin (called for a comrade of Sheemus Kavannah's who had been kind to him) was wrinkling all his face into a myriad crinkles. Then, lifting up the tiniest shrill pipe, he cried with the cry of underfed and ill-used childhood—a cry that breaks off sharp in the middle and never attains to the lusty roar of the healthy and well-grown malcontent.

Vara flew to Gavin and, taking the babe in her arms, she hushed him back again to sleep, making a swift gesture of command for silence. She kept her eyes fondly upon the peaked little face, till the wailing ceased, the tiny clenched hand fell back from the puckered face, and the infant dropped again to sleep, clasping the frill of Vara's pinafore with fingers like bird claws.

"I was feared he wad waken an' I had nocht to gie him," she explained, simply.

"God!" said Cleg; "I canna stand this."

And without a word he skimmed up the cellar steps and out. He went straight to his mistress of the paper-shop, and with her he had a loud-voiced and maledictory interview, in which he endeavoured to uplift his week's wage before it was due. There were threats and recriminations on both sides before a compromise was effected. It ended in the half, which had already been worked for, being paid over in view of instant necessities—which, it is to be regretted, Cleg did not quite truthfully represent to Mistress Roy.

Then, with two silver shillings in his hand, Cleg went and bought twopence worth of meat from the neck and a penny bone for boiling, a penny worth of carrots, a halfpenny cabbage, a large four-pound loaf, and twopence worth of the best milk. To this he added two apples and an orange for Hugh, so that he might have a foretaste of the golden time when dadda should come home.

It was as good as a circus procession when Cleg went back laden like a bee, and no humble bee either, to the cellar in Tinklers' Lands. He had his head in the air, and his chest out, just as he used to march when he heard the regiments coming down the High Street from the Castle, and caught a glimpse of their swinging tartans and towering plumes.

Vara met him at the door. She raised her hands in amaze, but mechanically checked the cry of gladness and admiration on her lips as Cleg came scrambling down, without ever minding his feet on the slippery stairs.

"Cleg Kelly!" said she, speaking under her breath, "what are ye doin' wi' a' that meat?"

"Oh, it's nocht ava," said Cleg lightly; "it's juist some things that I had nae use for this week. Ye ken I'm watchman noo at Callendar's as weel as working at the paper-shop!"

"Save us!" said Vara, "this is never a' for us. I canna tak' it. I canna!"

"Aye, is it!" said Cleg, "an' you tak' it for the bairns' sake. Sheemus will pay me when he comes back, gin ye like!"

Vara's heart broke out in a cry, "O Cleg, I canna thank ye!" And her tears fairly rained down while she sobbed quickly and freely.

"Dinna, Vara, dinna, lassie!" said Cleg, edging for the door; "ye maun stop that or I declare I'll hae to rin!"

From within came the babe's cry. But it had no terrors for Vara now.

"Greet, Gavin, greet," she cried; "aye, that is richt. Let us hear something like a noise, for I hae gotten something to gie ye at last."

So she hasted and ran for the baby's bottle—which, as in all poor houses, was one of Maw's best. She mixed rapidly the due proportions of milk and water, and tested the drawing of the tube with her mouth as she ran to the cot. At first the babe could not be brought to believe in the genuineness of the nourishment offered, so often had the cold comfort of the empty tube been offered. It was a moment or two before he tasted the milk; but, as soon as he did so, his outcry ceased as if by magic, the puckers smoothed out, and the big solemn baby eyes fixed themselves on the ceiling of the cellar with a stare of grave rapture.

Then Cleg took himself off, with a hop and a skip up the steps, having seen Hugh settled to his bread and butter, eating eagerly and jealously, but never for a moment letting the orange, earnest of the Promised Land of his father's return, out of his other hand. Vara was putting away the great store of provision in the empty cupboard when Cleg looked his last down the grating which admitted the scanty light to the Kavannahs' home.

There had been few happier days in Cleg Kelly's life than this on which he spent the half of his week's wage for the benefit of the Kavannahs.

So altogether happy did he feel that he went and cuffed the ears of two well-dressed boys for looking at him. Then he threw their new bonnets into the gutter and departed in a perfect glow of happiness and philanthropy.

ADVENTURE XIII.
CLEG'S SECOND BURGLARY.

Cleg slept soundly on his bed within the whitewashed hut. The last thing he did the night before was to go to the bench where the men had been working, and bring an armful of the fragrant pine shavings for a bouquet to scent his chamber. And never did boy sleep better. It must be confessed, however, that the position of night-watchman at Callendar's, of which he had boasted to Vara Kavannah, was entirely a sinecure. For it was not until he heard the gruff voices of the men clicking their tools and answering one another in pre-breakfast monosyllables that he realized he had changed his abode. Then he stirred so sharply that the mattress fell off the trestles, and Cleg was brought up all standing against the side of the hut.

All that day he went about his duties as usual. He trotted to the newspaper office and distributed his roll of papers mechanically; but his mind was with the Kavannahs, and he longed for the time to come when he could, with some self-respect, go and gloat over the effects of his generosity. Doubtless there was a touch of self-glorification in this, which, however, he kept strictly to himself. But who will grudge it to a boy, who for the sake of a lassie has spent nearly half of his week's wage, and who knows that he will have to live on bread and water for ten days in consequence?

Cleg judged that it would not be advisable for him to go to Tinklers' Lands before noon. So in the meanwhile he betook himself to Simon Square to "lag for" Humpy Joe, who had called him "Irishman" the previous evening, at a time when, with his papers under his arm, Cleg was incapacitated for warfare, being, like Martha, much cumbered with serving.

But Humpy Joe proved unattainable. For he had seen his enemy's approach, and as soon as Cleg set foot within the square, he saluted him with a rotten egg, carefully selected and laid aside for such an emergency. And had it not been for the habitual watchfulness of Cleg, Joe's missile would have "got him." But as it was, a sudden leap into the air like that of a jack-in-the-box just cleared the danger, and the egg, passing between Cleg's bare feet, made a long yolky mark of exclamation on the ground.

Being defeated in this, Humpy Joe looked forth from an end window, and entertained the neighbourhood with a gratuitous and wholly untrustworthy account of Cleg's ancestors. And Cleg, in reply, devised ingenious tortures, which he declared would be the portion of Humpy Joe, when next he caught him "out."

Thus, after tiring of this, the embattled belligerents separated in high delight and with mutual respect and good feeling, vowing sanguinary vengeances when next they should meet at Sunday school.

At last the time came for Cleg to feast his happy eyes upon the table which had been spread by his means for his friends the Kavannahs. But first he lingered awhile about the end of Davie Dean's Street, ostentatiously looking for a boy to lick, and throwing stones over the wall at the baker's fat watch-dog to make it bark. In reality he was making sure that none of his companions were in the neighbourhood, lest, with some colour of truth, they should cast up at him the capital offence of "speaking to a lassie."

At last the coast was clear. The only boy within half a mile had been chased under the protection of the great guns of his own fortress, being the vicinity of his mother's wash-tubs. Then Cleg dived quickly down to the cellar beneath Tinklers' Lands.

For the first time in his experience, the door was shut. Cleg had set his ear to the keyhole and listened. Then he put his eye there. But neither sense told him anything.

"Vara!" he cried softly, and set his ear against the floor. Cleg knew that the place to hear behind a door (if there is no danger of its being hastily opened) is not at the keyhole, but close to the floor. He listened, holding his breath. At first he could hear nothing; but in a little, a low sob at stated intervals detached itself from the cursory noises made by the other tenants of Tinklers' Lands and from the steady growl of the streets above.

"Vara!" he cried a little louder; "Vara Kavannah, are ye in? What's wrang?"

Still nothing came back to him but the mechanical sob, which wore his patience suddenly to the breaking point.

"They're a' killed," said Cleg, who had once been at the opening of a door, and had seen that which was within. "I'll break open the door." And with that he dashed himself against it. But the strength of the bolt resisted his utmost strength.

"Cleg," said a voice from within, very weak and feeble, "gang awa' like a guid lad. Dinna come here ony mair——"

It was Vara's voice, speaking through pain and tears.

"Vara," said Cleg, "what's wrang? What for wull ye no open the door?"

"I canna, Cleg; she's here, lyin' on the floor in the corner. I canna turn the key, for she has tied me to the bed-foot."

Cleg instantly understood the circumstances. They were none so unprecedented in the neighbourhood of Tinklers' Lands. Sal Kavannah had come home drunk, singly or in company. She had abused the children, and ended by tying up Vara, lest she should go out while she lay in her drunken sleep. Such things had been done within Cleg's knowledge—aye, things infinitely worse than these. And with his unchildish wisdom Cleg feared the worst.

But he was not Tim Kelly's son for nothing. And it did not cost him a moment to search in his pocket for a fine strong piece of twine, such as all shoemakers use. He always carried at least ten sorts of cord about with him. This cobbler's string was a special brand, so wonderful that Cleg had made friends with the shoemaker's boy (whom he loathed) solely in order to obtain it.

Cleg knew that the key was in the lock, but that the wards were turned clear, for his eyes, growing accustomed to the gloom, could now look into the cellar. He also knew that nine door-keys out of ten have a little groove at the end of the shank just below the wards. So he made a noose of the fine, hard cobbler's twine, and slipped it into the keyhole just as if he had been "girning" sticklebacks and "bairdies" in the shallow burns about the Loch of Lochend.

After a failure or two the loop caught and tightened. Then Cleg shook the string about with a cunning see-sawing motion, learned from his father, till he felt the wards of the key drop down perpendicularly. Then he took a long piece of stick, and, thrusting it into the keyhole, he had the satisfaction of feeling the key drop inside the door, and hang by the cobbler's twine. He eased it down to the floor, and found that, as is the case with most doors, the bottom of that of the cellar of Tinklers' Lands did not come quite close to the floor. It was, therefore, easy for Cleg to dangle the key a little till he could bring the end of it to the place where the arch was worn widest. Then he took his hooked wire and pulled the key towards him. It was in itself a pretty trick, and was executed by Cleg in far less time than it takes to tell about it.

With the key in his hand, and in the other an open clasp-knife, Cleg turned the bolt back and stepped within. A terrible enough sight met his eyes, though not that which he dreaded. In the corner lay Sal Kavannah, with a pair of empty bottles tossed at her side, her black hair over her face, lying drawn together in a heap. Tied to the bed was Vara, bleeding from a cut on the head, and trying to cover her arms and hands from his sight. But Hugh and the baby lay in the bunk together, sleeping peacefully. It was upon poor Vara that the brunt of the woman's maniac fury had fallen.

Cleg stood stricken; but the sight of Vara bound with cords aroused him. He had the knife in his hand, and it did not take a moment to free her. But she was so stiff and exhausted that she fell forward on her face as soon as the straps were removed. Then, after Cleg had lifted her, he turned upon the sodden heap in the corner, and, with his knife glittering in his hand and the wild-cat grin on his face, he said, with a deep indrawing of his breath, "Oh, if ye had only been my ain faither!"

And it was as well that it was Sal Kavannah and not Tim Kelly that had done this thing.

Now, in an emergency Cleg always acted first and asked leave afterwards.

"Come awa' oot o' this, Vara, and I'll bring the bairn and Hugh," said he to the girl, when she was somewhat recovered.

"But, Cleg, where are we to gang?" said Vara, starting back.

"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.

"What do you want, boy?" he said, with a glance at the tattered trousers with one "gallus" showing across the blue shirt, which represented Cleg's entire summer wear.

"Hae ye ony licht job ye could gie a clever and wullin' lassie the morn?" said Cleg, who knew that the way to get a thing is to ask for it.

"What lassie?" said the junior partner indifferently.

"A lassie that has nae faither or mither," said Cleg—"worth speakin' aboot," he added as an afterthought.

"We are full up," said Donald Iverach, balancing himself upon one leg of his stool. For his father was old-fashioned, and despised the luxury of stuffed chairs as not in keeping with a sound, old-fashioned conservative business.

Cleg looked disappointed.

"It wad be an awsome graund thing for the lassie if she could get a job here," said Cleg sadly.

"Another time," replied the junior partner, turning to his desk. To him the case and application were as fifty more. He only wished the manager had been at hand to refer the case to. Donald was like most of his kindly fellow-creatures. He liked to have his nasty jobs done by deputy. Which is one reason why the law is a lucrative profession.

Cleg was at the door, his head sunk so low that it was nearly between his feet. But at the very out-going, with the great brass handle in his fingers, he tried once more.

"Aweel," he said, without taking his eyes off the brown matting on the floor, "I'll e'en hae to gang and tell Miss Tennant aboot it. She wull be desperate vexed!"

The junior partner swung round on his stool and called, "Hey! boy, stop!"

But Cleg was already outside.

"Call that boy back!" he shouted to the watchman, leaping to the door with sudden agility and astonishing interest.

Cleg returned with the same dejected mien and abased eyes. He stood, the image of sorrow and disappointment, upon the cocoa-nut matting.

"Whom did you say you would tell?" said Donald Iverach, in a tone in his voice quite different from his business one.

"Only Miss Tennant—a freend o' mine," said Cleg, with incomparable meekness and deference.

"Miss Tennant of Aurelia Villa?" broke in the eager youth.

"Aye, juist her," said Cleg dispassionately. "She learns us aboot Jacob and Esau—and aboot Noah," he added as if upon consideration. He would have mentioned more of the patriarchs if he could have remembered them at the time. His choice of names did not spring from either preference or favouritism. So he added Noah to show that there was no ill-feeling in the matter.

"And Miss Tennant is your friend?" queried the young man.

Cleg nodded. He might have added that sometimes, as in one great ploy yet to be described, he had been both teacher and friend to Miss Celie Tennant.

"Tell your lassie to be here at breakfast-time to-morrow morning, and to be sure and ask for Mr. Donald Iverach," was all the junior partner remarked.

And Cleg said demurely, "Thank you, sir."

But as Cleg went out he thought a great deal of additional matter, and when he said his adieus to the watchman he could hardly contain himself. Before he was fairly down the steps, he yelled three times as loud as he could, and turned Catherine-wheel after Catherine-wheel, till at the last turn he came down with his bare feet in the waist-belt of a policeman. The good-natured officer solemnly smacked the convenient end of Cleg with a vast plantigrade palm, and restored him to the stature and progression of ordinary humanity, with a reminder to behave—and to mind where he was coming if he did not want to get run in.

But even this did not settle Cleg.

"O Keelies!" he cried, as if he had been addressing a large company of his fellows, "wasna it rare to see him loup off that stool, like a yellow paddock into the canal!"

And Cleg, who scorned the eccentricities of love in more mature bosoms even when he traded upon the resultant weaknesses, went off into an ecstasy of mocking laughter.

ADVENTURE XV.
THE FIRE IN CALLENDAR'S YARD.

These were pleasant evenings in the wooden hut. Cleg generally dropped in to see his sub-tenants after his papers were delivered. Then he would potter about, watering the flowers, which now began to bloom bravely in spite of the city heat and the dust of the yard. Vara had a seam or a stocking, and sat at the outside of the door on a creepie stool.

Hugh learned to nurse Gavin on his knee or to rock him in the old cradle which the kindly foreman of the yard, a widower, had lent to Vara, saying, "I'm no needin' it the noo—no for a year or twa at ony rate."

He was a "seeking" widower, and did not make the presentation absolute because he was a far-sighted man, and one never knew what might happen. As for Vara, she seemed to shoot up in stature every day, and the curves of her wasted and abused body filled out. Her face again grew merry and bright, and she was ready to take her share in mirthful talk. But sometimes her eyes were sad and far away. Then she was thinking of her father, the gentle Sheemus; and she longed greatly to go to meet him in Liverpool, when the ill days should have overpassed and there was no mother any more in her life.

In the Works Vara gained the friendship of her companions, though she was younger than most of them. A tall girl, who was much looked up to in the mill because she sang in a choir, stood firmly her friend. And the two, Agnes Ramsay and little Vara, used to walk home together. Vara was anxious that Cleg should apply for a situation for himself at the Works; but Cleg preferred his untrammelled freedom, and continued to deliver his papers and sleep in the yard at Echo Bank all through the summer.

It was mid-August and the sky shone like copper. There was a peculiar dunness in the air, and light puffs of burning wind came in, hot and unrefreshing, from the walls and pavement in the afternoon. But when the girls came home "on the back of six," as they said, the air had grown cooler, and Agnes and Vara often lingered a little in the great "saal," or work-room, in order to let the press of girls well down the street before them, and so be rid of the rough chaff of the lads as they passed home.

But this evening, as they came leisurely out, arm linked in arm, Vara saw a great crowd blocking up the way in front of the clock which gave the time to the Works, and with a quick clutch at her companion's arm she would have drawn her away.

But Agnes Ramsay saw a woman furiously attacking the manager, and pushed forward to get a better view. Vara knew too well what it meant. Her enemy had found her. She tried to steal away, but it seemed impossible to move. With a cry of anger Sal Kavannah recognised her daughter, and threshed a way through the crowd to reach her. Vara stood still, white to the lips. Her mother seized her by the neck of her dress and began to shake her, striking her about the face and shoulders with foul names and blasphemous words.

"Brazen besom," she cried; "you and your 'Keelie' stole my bairns frae me. Where have you hidden them? Ye think I canna find oot. But I can track them as I tracked you. Aff wi' that dress, you slut. It's ower guid for the like o' you, and me trapesin' in a gown like this. Take it off, I say, and give me back my children."

Vara stood mute and silent under the storm of oaths. The manager would have sent for the police, but knowing that Vara was a protégée of Mr. Donald's, he went within, leaving them (as he said) to fight it out.

Then Agnes Ramsay pulled the shrinking girl away from her mother, and so turned the abuse upon herself. But Agnes was a well-grown girl, and, being supported by half-a-hundred of her companions, she stood her ground valiantly.

"Run," she said, "run, lassie, while ye can. She doesna ken yet where ye bide."

So like a hunted hare Vara turned and ran. But when she reached the little wooden house, so trim and quiet, with its fragrant wood-yard about it, and the daisies and pansies in the little plots and diamond-shaped patches which Cleg had made, the bitterness of her heart broke up within her, like the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep.

Little Hugh came trotting to her, waving a red flag, the latest gift of the widower foreman, in his hand. "Vara, Vara," he cried, "Gavin can say 'Dadda,' and I nursed him good as gold all day."

The tears were running down Vara's face. She went in without power of speech and sat by the babe's cot. He was asleep, and she laid her wet cheek on the pillow beside his and sobbed. Hugh kept a little way off, not knowing what to make of the unknown sorrow. Then he came softly up to her, and gave her sleeve a little pull.

"Vara," he said, "here's a seetie."

For Hugh understood no sorrow which a sweetie would not make better.

"I can never go back to the Works," sobbed Vara. "I am disgraced before them all. I can never face them—never!"

About seven Cleg came over the waste ground joyfully, having disposed of his papers. He sat silent while Vara told him of the terrible evening at the gate of Hillside, and of all her shame and terror. Cleg whistled very softly to himself, as he always did when he was thinking deeply.

"Wait here this ae nicht," he said. "I am watching with anither man at the corner o' the Grange where they hae the road up. I'll think it oot in the shelter. Keep up your heart, Vara—we'll win through yet."

But Vara would not be comforted. She would not even raise her head to bid him say "Guid nicht."

So, still more softly whistling, Cleg departed.

He was not great company that night for the man in the shelter, one "Tyke" Tweedie—a man who had once been a soldier for three months, before being bought off by his father, who had regretted the transaction ever since. "Tyke" was a man of battles. By his own account he had been in the Crimea. He was great upon "the Hichts o' Almy." He described the joint career of himself and the victorious Sir Colin Campbell, concluding his epic with, "Then we charged the enemy and carriet a' afore us, till we garred the Russian chiels rin like stour!"

But Tyke had a poor listener that night, though he never knew it. For Cleg sat silent, and only by a nod did he acknowledge his interest when Tyke had come to the crisis of one of his famous narrations.

The policeman on the beat would sometimes stop and look over the windward edge of the shelter. "Hae ye gotten to the battle o' the Inkermann yet?" he would ask.

"Na, Rob," Tyke would reply, "we are aye on the Hichts o' Almy yet! Dear, sirce, but it was a sare, sare job. Ye see, there was me and Sir Colin, and wi' that we at them sword in hand——"

And the policeman would stroll away from the glow of the fire, out under the stars—alone save for the transient rake-hell cat skirmishing across from area-railing to area-railing, and the tramp of a brother officer coming up sombre and subdued from far down the hill.

But about one of the clock, when the night was verging to its stillest, Cleg looked up and saw the stars overhead thinning out.

"It's never morning already!" he said, rubbing his eyes, for he had not half solved the hard problem of Vara Kavannah.

He stepped out of the shelter. All the heaven to the north was a-flicker with the skarrow of fire.

Without a word to the now drowsy Tyke, nodding over the blackening cinders in his grated brazier, Cleg Kelly set off at his top speed towards the fire, to be in at the death. "It's surely in the Pleasance," he said to himself as he ran. The flame towered mightily clear and clean, without sparks or crackling as when houses burn.

"It's Callendar's yaird!" said Cleg again, and never in his life had he run so fast. For there in the midst of the timber was the little wooden house in which were lying asleep little Vara Kavannah and her baby brothers.

It was indeed Callendar's wood-yard. When Cleg arrived there were whole regiments of firemen playing upon the flames; but his experienced eyes saw at once that the case was hopeless. Indeed, the officer in charge had come to the same conclusion some time before, and he was now directing the solid streams of water towards such surrounding properties as seemed in danger of catching fire.

The crowds were kept back by police, and all was orderly. The owner of all stood patiently at the gate, talking matters over with his foreman. After all, it was the visitation of God, and, further, he was fully insured. It is a great thing to be prepared for affliction.

Into the black mass of the onlookers Cleg darted. He wormed his way round to the back. He crossed a wall on which three or four boys were roosting.

"Ye'll get nabbed if ye gang that road," cried one of them, giving Cleg "the office" in the friendliest way, though he belonged to quite another gang.

But Cleg sped on. He dived between the long legs of his former friend, the red-headed officer known as "Longshanks." He skimmed across the yard among the falling sparks, dodging the flames which shot out of the burning piles to intercept him, as if they had been policemen.

The little wooden house lay before him in the red heart of the fire. He saw the daisies growing in his own garden plots. He remembered that, in the hurry and distress of listening to Vara's story, he had not watered them that day.

But he dashed for the door, opened it eagerly, and fell forward across the floor. The hut was filled with the odour of burning. Shooting flames met him in the face as he rose; but nevertheless he groped all about the tiny room, getting his hands and arms burned as he did so. The children were not there—Vara, Hugh, and the baby—all were gone! He turned to the door. The thing that he had stumbled over was a body. He turned over the lump with his bare foot. It was soft, heavy, and smelled of whisky. Cleg had found Sal Kavannah in the home he had made to protect her children from her search. He had little doubt that it was she who had set the yard on fire and stumbled in here afterwards.

Cleg stood a moment wondering whether he would not do better to leave her where she was; and more than once since that night has the same thought crossed his mind. He still fears that in dragging her away by the feet from the burning hut he unduly interfered with the working of the designs of an all-wise Providence.