The signal box up yonder in the breast of the storm was almost carried away. So tall it rose that the whole fabric bent and shivered in each fierce gust which came hurtling in from the Atlantic. James Cannon, the signalman of Netherby West, was not asleep. His mate was ill, but not ill enough to be quite off duty. James Cannon had applied for a substitute, but headquarters were overtaxed for spare men and had not responded. Netherby was considered a light station to work, and the duty would no doubt be done somehow.

James Cannon had been on duty since six in the morning—sixteen hours already at the levers. Then he had also been up nearly all the night before with a weakly and fretful child. But the company's regulations could not be expected to provide for that.

James Cannon, however, was not asleep. He had his eyes fixed on the distant signal on the high bank, as he caught the gleam of it wavering through the storm. That was the way the boat express would have to come in a few minutes more. The electric needle quivered and clicked behind him. The signalman thought of the light upon the Little Ross, which he used to see from the green Borgue shore when he was a boy. He had always looked out at it every night before he went to sleep. The distant signal on the high bank seemed now to flash and turn like a lighthouse. Was that the Little Ross he was looking at? Surely he could hear the chafing of the Solway tides. Was that not his mother bidding him lie down and sleep? James Cannon saw the distant signal no more. The lights of other days beckoned him, and he attended to their signal.

Below in the left luggage office stood Muckle Alick. He was taking his mate's place at that night's express. He had asked away in order to visit his sweetheart, Alick knew. Though certainly his mate had not mentioned it in his application to the station-master. Many a time had he done the same for the sake of Mirren Terregles.

Muckle Alick was arranging the parcels—which were to go, and which to be delivered on the morrow. He laid them neatly on long high benches at opposite sides of the room, with the larger ones below on the floor. There was no work of Muckle Alick's doing which was not perfectly done, and as featly and daintily as a girl twitches her crochet needles among the cotton.

So engrossed was Alick in this work that it was five minutes past ten before he looked up at the clock—a cheap one which he had bought from a Jew pedlar, and fixed upon the wall himself—"to see the time to go home by," his mates said. The clock told him it was time to go home already.

He started up and rushed out. The London express was due from the Irish Boat! It passed Netherby without stopping, running on to the other line for thirty miles, which from the Junction was a single one. Duncan Urquhart's heavily-laden goods ought already to have passed. It was James Cannon's duty to keep back the express till he could turn the goods on to a siding, so that the rails might be kept clear for the passage of the express five minutes later.

Muckle Alick started up in instant affright. He had not heard Duncan Urquhart's heavy train go rumbling by.

ADVENTURE XLVIII.
MUCKLE ALICK SEES THE DISTANT SIGNAL STAND AT CLEAR.

With this ponderous tool in his hand Muckle Alick rushed along to the facing points, whence Duncan Urquhart's goods train might possibly be guided upon the proper metals ere the express rushed past. As he ran he saw Duncan's headlights coming, and the thunder of the express was also in his ears. He shouted with all his power, but the wind whirled away Muckle Alick's cries as though they had been baby Gavin's.

On came the goods train, laden with heavy merchandise and coals, beating up slowly against the westerly wind. At that moment the rending screech of the express pierced to his heart. Another moment and it must dash into the train driven by Duncan Urquhart.

Muckle Alick found the points open. Throwing his great crowbar forward he inserted it beneath the length of rail, and with the strength of Samson, he moved the whole section over to the other side. He could not lock the points, of course, as the signal-man could have done. But Alick held them tight with his lever, while the heavy goods train bumped along, passing over the improperly joined points with a terrible jolting which almost dislocated his arms. But still Muckle Alick held on. For he knew that the lives of a hundred men and women depended upon the sureness of his hand.

The goods train was a long one and it jolted slowly past. It was not till he saw the hind light of the guard's van passing him with a swing, that Muckle Alick's heart gave a joyful leap. But just as the last van went past, with a roar and a rush of fire-lighted smoke the express leaped by. A moment before the released points had flown back to their place. The way was clear. But something, it is thought the iron framework of the catcher on the postal car, caught Muckle Alick and jerked him thirty yards from where he had been standing. Without so much as a quiver, the express flew out again into the dark, her whistle screaming a death-knell and the back tempest hurtling behind her.

No one had seen Muckle Alick. None knew of his deed of heroism, save only Duncan Urquhart, who, unconscious of danger, had cried cheerfully as he passed, "What are ye hanging on to a post there for, Alick?"

It was fully a quarter of an hour later that Urquhart went to look for Muckle Alick. He thought he would walk the first part of his way home with him. It was always wholesome and always cheery to walk with Muckle Alick, even when he was going home from a long spell of overtime.

At that moment the station master woke up with a start. It was twenty minutes past ten. The Express——!

He rushed out. The signal box was quite dark. Duncan Urquhart was coming up the platform alone with his coat over his arm. He called out to the station master:

"Is your signal-man deid, or only sleepin'?"

A few moments after James Cannon awoke from a pleasant dream of the Ross Lighthouse.

"Get up, man!" cried the station master, standing over him with a lantern, "God kens how many lives ye hae lost through your ill deeds!"

Dazed and bewildered, James Cannon arose to the damning fact that the boat train was past, and he knew well that he had never altered the signals or set the points.

Five minutes later Duncan Urquhart found Muckle Alick. He was lying half on and half over the embankment of the cattle shipping bank, where the express had tossed him like a feather.

"Oh, what's wrang, what's wrang, Alick?" cried Duncan Urquhart in terror.

"It's a' richt, Duncan," said Muckle Alick, slowly but very distinctly. "I gripped the points and held them till ye won by!"

"Can ye bide a minute, Alick?" said Duncan tenderly.

"Ow, aye," said the wounded man, "dinna fash yoursel'. There's nae hurry—Mirren wasna' expectin' me!"

Faster far than his own train had passed the points, Duncan Urquhart sped back to the station.

"Alick's lying killed doon on the cattle bank!" he cried. "Help us wi' that board!"

And, rushing into the empty waiting-room, he laid hold of a newly-erected partition which had recently been set up to keep the draughts from the passengers.

It resisted his strength, but with the station master to help him, and a "One, Two, Three," it yielded, and the men tore down the platform with it.

With the help of poor, dazed James Cannon and another, they laid the giant tenderly upon it. But they had to wait for other two, hastily summoned from the nearest railway houses, before they dared try to lift Muckle Alick.

"Does it hurt, Alick?" asked Duncan of Inverness, gently, like a Highland man.

"It's no that sair," said Alick, as quietly, "but juist try no to be ower lang wi' me!"

They carried him to the left-luggage office, into which, a few weeks before, he had taken the children whom, at the peril of his life, he had saved from death. They were going to lay down the partition with its load upon the table on which he had been arranging the parcels half an hour before.

"Pit me on the bench," said Alick, calmly, "dinna meddle the parcels. They are a' ready to gang oot wi' the first delivery the morn."

So, even as he bade them, on the bench they laid Alick down. What like he was I know, but I am not going to tell. His wife, Mirren, might chance to read it.

There were tears running down Duncan Urquhart's face. The station master had already run for a doctor.

"Dinna greet, Duncan," said Alick. "The boat train won by a' richt, and I manned to haud the points for ye."

But Duncan Urquhart could answer him no word. In the corner sat James Cannon with his head on his hands, rocking himself to and fro in speechless agony of soul.

"Oh, I wuss it had been me," he wailed. "I wuss it had been me!"

"Hoot na, James," said Alick. "It's better as it is—ye hae a young family."

Then, as if he had been thinking it over—

"Duncan," he said, "Duncan, promise me this—ye'll no let Mirren see me. Mind ye, Mirren is no to see me. I dinna want her to think o' me like this.

"She was aye sae taen up aboot me, ye see," he added apologetically, after a little pause.

The doctor came. He bent over Alick. He moved him tenderly, this way and that. Then he ordered all out of the left-luggage office, except Duncan Urquhart and the station master's wife, a quiet motherly woman.

Then, while the doctor did his duty, Alick sank into a kind of stupor. Presently he woke from it with a little start.

"Doctor, is this you?" he said; "this is terrible kind o' ye. But it's a cauld nicht for you to be oot o' your bed so late—and you wi' a hoast!"

"Wheesht, Alick!" said the doctor. And said no more for a little. For, like every one else, he loved the soft-hearted giant.

Then Alick beckoned the station master to him from the door of the left-luggage office, where he stood nervously clasping and unclasping his hands. The station master came and bent his head.

"The boat train," whispered Muckle Alick, "ye'll hae to enter her in the shedule five meenites late. But ye can say that she passed Netherby wi' the signals standing at clear."

He was silent a moment. Then he looked up again.

"Mind ye, there's to be nocht said aboot it in the papers. You'll see to that, will ye no? It's my wish. An' if the company likes to do aught, it'll aye be a help to Mirren."

There was a sound of sobbing at the door, and the station master shoved the youngest porter out on the platform with his foot.

"Has—ony—body gaen to tell Mirren?" asked Alick in a little.

The doctor nodded. He had, in fact, sent his own coachman to Sandyknowes with a gig.

"Puir Mirren," said Alick again, "I'm some dootsome that she'll tak' this hard. She was na looking for it, like."

He looked about apologetically again.

"She was that sair set on me, ye see—maybe wi' us haein' nae bairns, ye ken."

He was silent a little while, and then he said, more brightly, "There's three comed noo, though. Maybe they'll be a blessin' to her. The Lord sent them to her, I'm thinkin'. He wad ken o' this aforehand, nae doot!"

Suddenly he held up his hand, and there was a light shining like a lamp in his eyes.

"Hearken! that's the whistle!" he cried. "Are the signals clear?"

There was no train in the station nor near it.

Muckle Alick went on. He lifted his head and looked through the open door as one looks ahead under his hand when the sun is strong.

"I can see the distant signal. It is standing at clear!" he said, and sank back.

And thus the soul of Muckle Alick passed out of the station—with the distant signal standing at clear.

They brought the little wife in to him a quarter of an hour after. Already her face seemed to have shrunk to half its size and was paler than Alick's own. The doctor had him wrapped delicately and reverently in the station master's wife's fairest linen. The face was untouched and beautiful, and as composed as it was on Sacrament Sabbaths when he carried in the elements at the head of the session, as it is the custom for the elders to do in the Cameronian Kirk.

His wife went up to him quietly and laid her hand on his broad white brow. "My man—my ain man!" she said. And she bent down and touched it, not with her lips but with her cheek.

She looked up at the station master's wife.

"He aye liked me to do that!" she said, smiling a little, as it were, bashfully.

And in all the room, where now stood ministers and doctors, men and women that loved him well, hers were the only dry eyes that dark midnight.

"I wad like to get him hame the nicht, if it's nae great trouble till ye," she said; "I think I wad be mair composed gin I had him hame to me the nicht!"

So they took her dead home to her to quiet Sandyknowes. They carried him through between the beds of dusky flowers and laid him in his own chamber. Then they left her alone. For so she desired it. The wandering children, Hugh and Gavin, were asleep in the next room. So Mirren watched her man all that night, and never took her eyes off the broad noble brow, save once when little Gavin woke and cried. Then she rose calmly and prepared him a bottle of milk, mixing it with especial care. As she did so she raised her eyes and looked out into the dark. And there on the brae face was the light of the distant signal shining like a star in the midst of the brightening sky of morn.

ADVENTURE XLIX.
CLEG COLLECTS TICKETS.

The last was a question prompted by the fleeting nature of Poet Jock's loves, and the ever recurring crisis through which his muse had to pass before he could settle upon a worthy successor to the late faithless fair.

But Poet Jock lay still and made no answer.

"Are ye no for ony supper?" said Cleg, practically, who was now as familiar and free of the little cabin of the Summit as if he had been the poet's twin brother—a little more so, in fact, for Jock was not on speaking terms with his brother. To tell the truth, his brother and he had had a fight on Monday fortnight at the level crossing—the subject of contention being the minister's sermon the Sabbath before. The theology of Poet Jock prevailed. His logic was most convincing. He "downed" his brother three times. But though his brother owned that he had had enough of theology, he had not since visited at the hut on the Summit. But for all that they continued to sit side by side on Sabbaths in the kirk, and to look on the family psalm-book, taking it as usual in turns to find the places and shutting the book unanimously when a paraphrase was given out.

It was now the fourth day of Cleg's sojourn at the hut. Every day he had gone up to the top of the craigs that looked towards Loch Spellanderie. And each day his resolve never to go near the place again because of the faithlessness of woman, sensibly weakened.

But he had something else to think about now. For since he came into the domains of the kindly surfacemen, Cleg had seen nothing so mysterious as the obstinate refusal of the Poet to take any supper.

Auld Chairlie tried again.

"Look you here," he said, "either you tell's what is the maitter wi' ye, or I'll send doon wi' the late passenger for the doctor to come up the first thing the morn's mornin'!"

Poor Jock groaned, but said nothing for some minutes.

"Chaps," he said at last, "I may as weel tell ye. Muckle Alick at Netherby was killed hauding the points to let by the boat train. And his wee bit wife's a widow the nicht! I hae been at Netherby lettin' a man off to fill his place."

Auld Chairlie dropped the tin platter which was in his hand.

"O Lord," he said, "could ye no hae ta'en ony o' the lave o' us? It wadna hae made so verra muckle differ—But Alick——"

He stood still contemplating the gap that there was in the world.

"That's what they hae been crying at me off the engine the last twa days, but I'm gettin' that deaf I couldna hear!"

But Cleg was prompt in action as ever.

"Guidnicht, lads," he said, "I'm gaun doon to Netherby to see gin I can be ony use."

Poet Jock started up from his bunk, instinctively guarding his head from the roof even in the midst of his distress of mind.

"What hae ye to do wi' it?" he cried, his voice sounding angry, though he was not angry.

"The twa bairns I telled ye aboot are in Muckle Alick's hoose. He saved their lives, and I'm gaun doon the noo to see what I can do for them."

"Ye canna gang that gate, man. Ye hae nae claes fittin' for a funeral!" said Chairlie. "Ye hae nocht but that auld sack!"

"I'm no carin'," stoutly asserted Cleg, "I'm gaun doon to see if I can help. It's no the funeral I'm carin' for, it's what's to come after."

Poet Jock got up and began cautiously to forage on all the shelves.

"A' my things are awesome big across," he said, "but maybe there will be eneuch amang us to fit ye oot."

Cleg's wardrobe had dwindled to a shirt and a pair of trousers. He had lost his cap in Loch Spellanderie.

But Auld Chairlie found him a pair of socks and a pair of boots—which, though they were not "marrows" or neighbours, were yet wearable enough. Cleg treated himself to a sleeved waistcoat, which, by merely shifting the buttons, became a highly useful garment. It had been exposed for some time to the weather, and when Cleg saw it, it was mounted upon two sticks, out in the little patch of cornland which Poet Jock had sown at the back of the cabin, upon a quarter acre of ground which the company had included within its wire fence with some idea of constructing a siding some day, when the traffic increased.

"Where gat ye that braw waistcoat?" queried Poet Jock when he came in, looking admiringly at the remarkable change in Cleg's appearance.

"O I juist changed claes wi' the craw-bogle!" replied Cleg with a quiet complacency, which became him like his new garment.

"Dod," said Auld Chairlie, "it's a maist remarkable improvement, I declare."

Poet Jock gave Cleg a grey woollen shirt with a collar attached which had washed too small for him, but which still reached nearly to Cleg's feet. He added a red-and-green tie of striking beauty (guaranteed to kill up to sixty yards), and an old railway cap, which had been a castaway of some former occupant of the cabin.

"There, noo," he said, when Cleg was finally arrayed. "Ye are nane so ill put on! Ye micht e'en gang to the funeral. I hae seen mair unfaceable folk mony a time. I'll get ye on the late express, that is, if it is no Sulky Jamie that's in chairge o' her."

Sulky Jamie was the name of a guard who withheld his hand from any work of mercy, if it involved the least irregularity. He was an incomparably faithful servant to the railway company of Port Andrew. But he could not be said to be popular among his fellow servants along the line.

So Poet Jock, seeing that Cleg was bent upon his quest, withstood him no more, but walked all the long way down the incline with him to Dunnure station, and there waited to pick up a "chance of a ride" on the night passenger. For no one in the cabin had a farthing of money. Poet Jock, indeed, never had any four days after pay day, and Auld Chairlie always sent his down to be banked, saving only what had to be paid monthly to Sanders Bee, the shopkeeper at the Dunnure huts, for their provisions.

"I canna trust mysel' when there's siller in the hoose!" said Auld Chairlie, who knew himself to be a brand plucked from the burning, and still glowing a little below the surface.

But it was with great good hope that Poet Jock walked with Cleg to Dunnure, in order to arrange a free passage for him down to Netherby.

The last "stopping" passenger before the boat train was late, and they had a good while to wait in the ill-lighted station.

But it came at last, and lo! Sulky Jamie was in charge.

Poet Jock went boldly up to his van and tackled him. He stated the case with eloquence and lucidity. He argued with him, as Sulky Jamie moved to and fro, swinging his lantern and never looking at him.

But the guard was incorruptible, as indeed he ought to have been. No tramp should come on his train so long as he was the guard of it.

Whereupon Poet Jock, stung to the quick, told Sulky Jamie his opinion of him. He said that when it came his time to leave the line, there would be a hurrah which would run along the metals from Port Andrew to Netherby. He further informed him that there was one testimonial which would be subscribed with enthusiasm among his mates—a coffin for Sulky Jamie. But even that only on condition that he would promptly engage to occupy it. Poet Jock ended by offering to prepare him for burial on the spot, and was in the act of declaring that he would put all these things into rhyme when the guard blew his whistle.

Cleg was nowhere to be seen, but Sulky Jamie had had his eyes wide open while he listened to the poet. He blew his whistle again, waved the lamp, and stopped the train as it was moving out of the station. He plunged into the forward van, which was sacred to the "through" luggage. In a moment Cleg came out with a fling which sent him head first upon the platform. A white-haired military-looking man looking out of the next carriage laughed loudly, and clapped his hands with glee.

This act of Sulky Jamie's aroused Poet Jock to fury.

"Wait," he cried, "wait till the fast day an' I'll settle wi' ye, ye muckle swine, pitchin' oot the bit boy like that."

But Sulky Jamie was unmoved.

"I'll be pleased to see ye on the fast day or ony ither day. But I'll hae nae tramps on my train!" said he, as he swung himself on board.

But, had he known it, he was carrying one at that moment. For it so happened that a Pullman carriage had been invalided from the morning boat train owing to a heated axle and an injury to the grease box. Now the resources of the Port Andrew fitting shop, though adequate for all ordinary purposes, were not sufficient to deal with the constitution of such a delicate and high-bred work of art as a bogie Pullman.

So Cleg waited till he saw the guard at Dunnure station raise his hand to blow his whistle. Then he darted sideways, in and out among the carriages, and before the train was properly in motion he was lying at full length on the framework of the bogie part of the Pullman.

With a growl and a roar the train started. Cleg's heart beat quickly. He was jolted this way and that. The dust and small stones swept up by the draught under the train nearly blinded him. But Cleg hung on desperately. He had determined at all hazards to travel upon Sulky Jamie's train. So the boy clutched the bars tighter and twined his feet more firmly round the bogie, determined to win his passage to Netherby in spite of all the ill-natured guards in the world.

Indeed, the jarring laugh of the man with the white moustache when he was thrown out at Dunnure station, rankled much more in his small heathen heart than the hard heart of Sulky Jamie.

"What was his business wi' it?" Cleg demanded of himself half a dozen times, during that interminable period before they came to the next station.

The train stopped at last, and Cleg dashed the wet locks off his brow and cuddled his beam closer. He could stand it out now, he thought. He was congratulating himself on being in Netherby in a few minutes, when he heard the military voice above him.

"Guard," it said, "the boy you threw out of the train at Dunnure got in below the empty Pullman. I think he is in there now."

Then Sulky Jamie swore loudly and emphatically. Cleg could hear him swinging himself down from the platform upon the line.

The reflection of the lantern showed him the bars and wheels of the forward bogie.

But Cleg did not wait for the arrival of Sulky Jamie. He dropped down and sped out at the dark side of the station, with bitter anger in his heart against the interfering military man. As he looked down from the wire paling he saw the deserted platform of Newton Edward, and a vengeful thought struck him. He ran quickly round the stern light of the train and climbed upon the platform. A lantern was sitting on a barrow. The station master was talking to the engine driver far away at the end, for the late train was always long. The guard was routing out tramps beneath the Pullman.

With sudden determination Cleg pulled the stem of his cap over his eyes, and buttoned the sleeved waistcoat of railway velveteen closer about him. Then he took the lantern in hand. He was going to pay his debts to that evil-conditioned military man with the white moustache.

He could see him now, sitting at his ease, and trying to read his paper by the light of the miserable oil lamp, fed with scanty drains of dirty, half-melted oil, which to this day is supplied as an illuminant by the Port Andrew Railway Company.

Cleg opened the door smartly.

"Ticket, sir!" he said briskly.

The military man put his hand in his side pocket, and handed out his ticket without looking up, with the ease and freedom of a well-seasoned traveller. He never took his eyes off his paper.

"Netherby—right, sir!" said Cleg Kelly, ticket collector.

Then Cleg went to the nearest compartment and promptly jumped in. It was half full of sleepy commercial travellers, who took little notice of the curiously attired boy.

Cleg could hear the tramp of his enemy as he came up from routing below the Pullman. It sounded sulkier than ever upon the platform.

"Did not you nab him?" cried the voice of the military man from his carriage window.

"None of your gammon!" replied the other voice. And the whistle sounded promptly.

The temper of Sulky James was distinctly ruffled.

The train ran on down to Netherby. There the tickets were taken at the little platform to which Muckle Alick had so often run, late and early, with lamp in hand. It was a sleepy emergency man from the head offices who took the tickets in Cleg's compartment. He lumped them all together, and paid no attention whatever to the yellow first-class through ticket among its green brethren, which Cleg handed to him with such a natural air of loafish awkwardness.

Clang went the door. But the window was down for air, and Cleg could hear the angry accents of Sulky Jamie further down the train.

"Nonsense! Your ticket took at the last station. More o' your gammon, like enough. Find that ticket or pay for the journey from Port Andrew—seven-and-nine! And look something slippy, too! I can't keep my train waiting all day on the like of you, and the express due in twenty minutes."

Cleg could not catch the answer of the military man. But the guard's reply was clear.

"I don't care if ye were the Prince of Wales. Pay up, or I'll give ye in charge!"

The train started down to the main platform. And Cleg had the door open before the commercials in the corner were more than half awake. He slipped out, and ran down the platform instead of up. At the corner stood James Cannon's signal box, by the side of a white bridge. Cleg swarmed up the pole at the corner, set a foot lightly on the white painted palings, and dropped like a cat upon the road.

He was a modest boy, and did not desire to give any trouble.

He thought of the military man with joy in his heart.

"Now I guess we're about quits!" he said.

ADVENTURE L.
GENERAL THEOPHILUS RUFF.

Then he stepped over the edge of the stack and put his foot to the road. He was very hungry and he had nothing upon which to break his fast, except only the water of the brook. He stooped at the first burn which crossed the road, and drank his fill. Presently he met a man who came walking smartly down the road. He carried a cow switch in his hand and chewed a straw.

"Can you tell me the road to Sandyknowes, if you please?" said Cleg, politely.

The rustic with the straw in his mouth looked at Cleg all over carefully. Then he roared with laughter, while Cleg flushed angrily.

"Your boots are no marrows!"[7] he cried. "O Lord, a stemmed bonnet and his grandfather's waistcoat!"

And he went off again into such a fit of laughter that he let the straw slip out of his mouth. But he perceived his loss, and lifted it from the dust, wiping it carefully upon the dirtiest part of his trousers before restoring it to the corner of his mouth.

"Can ye tell me the road to Sandyknowes, man?" said Cleg again, with a little more sharpness and less politeness.

"I can, but I'll no!" gaped the rustic. And he went into another prolonged fit of merriment, fairly hugging himself and squirming in his enjoyment. It was the best jest he had had for a month. And he rather fancied he landed some good ones.

Cleg Kelly's hand dropped upon a stone. The stone whizzed through the air, and took effect on the third button of the man of straw's new waistcoat.

The laugh ended in a gasp. The gasp was succeeded by a bad word, and then the young man gave chase. Cleg pretended to run slowly—"to encourage him," as he said afterwards. The yokel thought all the time that he was just about to catch Cleg, but always just at the critical moment that slippery youth darted a dozen yards ahead and again avoided him.

At last the young man gave up the chase. He had suffered indignities enough. He had lost his straw. But he had an appointment to keep with a farmer three miles further on to whom he was offering his valuable services. So he had perforce to turn away, and content himself with promising what he would do to Cleg when he caught him.

What Cleg did was simpler. He patrolled the heights above, keeping exact pace, step for step, with his enemy below. And with the aid of the pebbles which plentifully strewed the brae face, he afforded the young man of the straw some of the finest and most interesting active exercise in getting out of the way he had had for many years. Indeed, his whole line of march for more than a mile was completely enfiladed by the artillery of the enemy.

"Will ye tell me the road to Sandyknowes noo?" cried Cleg, jubilantly, as he kept the youth skipping from side to side of the highway.

At last he bade his adversary farewell, with a double machine gun fire of words and heavier ammunition.

"This will maybe learn ye, country," he cried, "after this to gie a civil answer to a civil question."

"Wait till I catch you——" the young man shouted, stung to desperation.

Whereupon, just for luck, Cleg ran in and delivered a volley at point blank range, which sent the man of straw clattering up the road. It was certainly not wise to dally with the prize marksman of the Sooth Back, who in his good days could break any particular pane in a fifth story window that you liked to specify, nine times out of ten.

After this Cleg Kelly returned along the heights to find out the way to Sandyknowes for himself. More than a mile back a girl driving cows pointed out to him the little path which led up to Mirren's door. But Cleg did not go up directly. He played idly about, whittling sticks and poking in hedge roots in his assumed character of vagrant boy. Yet all the time he kept a bright look-out upon the door of the little house among the flower-beds. The window blinds were drawn down, and stared white like empty eye sockets of bone. The thought of the brave, strong man who lay dead within oppressed Cleg's heart. Presently he saw a woman come to the door, and go after the cow over the little meadow pasture. Muckle Alick's wife, he thought. But he was wrong. It was her warm-hearted neighbour, Mistress Fraser. Then presently he saw Boy Hugh come running round the back of the house.

Cleg had arrived in time for Muckle Alick's funeral day. The large company of mourners began to gather very early. All the town of Netherby was there. Even the District Superintendent of the railway, who happened to be in the neighbourhood on a tour, had telegraphed for his "best blacks" from his wife in Greenock. And there he was standing outside the house, waiting for the minister to finish the service, like any common man.

Poor James Cannon was there, the tears coursing steadily down his cheeks. The provost and magistrates were there. Every member of the School Board was there, all agreed for once. Such a funeral had never been seen in Netherby within the memory of man. That was the exact phrase used (it is believed not for the first time) in describing the occasion in the "Netherby Chronicle and Advertiser." But otherwise Alick's dying request for silence was scrupulously regarded.

When the hearse moved away from the door, and the sombre congregation fell in behind it, Mirren Douglas came to the door and watched it out of sight. The good women who abode in the house to company with her in her bereavement, begged her to go in and compose herself. But she would not.

"I am in no ways discomposed," she said, "but I will watch him oot o' sicht for the last time. I did it every mornin', ye ken," she explained to them. "Let me bide!"

The black procession went serpentining down the road from Sandyknowes, the men pacing slowly and gravely after the horses between the summer hedges and under the green beech leaves.

Soon it approached the turn which would hide the hearse from those standing at the door of the house. But a little hillock rose, grassy to the top, at the gable end. It was the place to which she was used to run out to watch for his return, in order to "mask" the tea in time for his supper, that all might be ready for him when he came home wearied.

Mirren Douglas ran out thither, and, standing on the top of the hillock, she waved her hand to that which was going out of sight. She did not care who saw her.

"Fare ye weel, Alick," she cried, "fare ye weel that ever wast o' men the kindest. Few are the choice hearts that will match thine—aye, even up there, where thou art gane. And nane like to thysel' hast thou left amang us. Fare ye weel, my ain man Alick! Naebody's man but mine!"

And with that she turned and walked in quite quietly.

As the funeral passed the end of the road, Cleg withdrew behind the hedge, because, though his heart was full of love for the strong man whom he had seen but once, he did not wish to disgrace that solemn procession with his sleeved waistcoat and unpaired boots. As the hearse passed him Cleg took off his railway cap and stood bareheaded behind the hedge. So intent was he on the procession, that he did not see a tall tightly-coated man of military carriage who had stepped over the field towards him, and now stood silently by his side. The old officer also took off his hat, and stood reverently enough till the last of the mourners had passed by.

Then he laid his hand upon Cleg's shoulder.

"I'll trouble you for the price of my railway ticket!" he said. Cleg turned. It was the man who had laughed when he was pitched out of the carriage at Dunnure by Sulky Jamie!

For a moment his readiness forsook Cleg. He stood silent and gazed dumbly at the tall figure before him, and at the right hand which pulled grimly at the drooping moustache.

"You had better come away to the police station!" said the gentleman.

"Ye'll hae to catch me first, then!" cried Cleg, suddenly twisting himself free and springing over into the highway. The old soldier made no attempt to follow, but continued to gaze fixedly at Cleg.

"What is your name, boy?" he said, still keeping his eyes upon the lad.

"Slim Jim Snipe o' Slippery Lane!" cried Cleg promptly, "and muckle obleeged to ye for speerin'!"

"You young imp!" cried the old man, advancing to the fence with his cane uplifted threateningly, "would you dare to insult me?"

Cleg retreated.

"That's a guid enough name to gie to the poliss," he said. "If ye ask me ceevilly, I'll tell you. Nae thanks to you that I got here ava!"

"I beg your pardon," said the old soldier, lifting his hat as to an equal, with a certain punctilious restraint. "I have the honour to inform you that my name is Major-General Theophilus Ruff, of Barnbogle and Trostan."

"And mine," said Cleg Kelly, taking off his stemmed bonnet as politely, "is Cleg Kelly o' the Sooth Back o' the Canongate, and late o' Callendar's Yaird!"

The General bowed ceremoniously.

"And now," he said, "what do you propose to do about my railway ticket?"

"I'll work it out!" said Cleg, quickly.

There was something in "the looks of the starchy old geeser" (as Cleg remarked to himself) which the boy rather liked, though without doubt he was mad as a hatter.

"Work it out," cried the General; "what can you do?"

"Anything!" said Cleg. (It was his one touch of his father's dialect that he still said "annything.")

"That's nothing!" said the General.

"Wait till you see," retorted Cleg. "You try me. I'm nae country gawk, but reared in the heart o' the toon. I can rin errands. I can howk[8] yairds for taties—or," he added, thinking of his flower-garden round the old construction hut, "for flooers. And if I dinna ken the way to do onything, I can find oot."

The General appeared to consider.

"Do you see that house over there among the trees—across the railway?"

"Aye," said Cleg, "I canna help seein' it! It's big eneuch and ugly eneuch to be a jail!"

"Do you think that you could keep that house in order?"

"Me?" said Cleg, "me keep yon hoose—it's as big as the Infirmary."

"I live there all by myself," said the General. "I can not have women about my place. The sight of them kills me. And I can not trust a grown man not to bring a woman about the place. I might try a lad."

Cleg looked carefully from the General to the house and back again. He was not sure that it might not be a joke.

"Have you a character?" asked the old man.

"Aye," said Cleg, "Miss Celie wad gie me yin."

The General turned pale and stamped with his foot.

"A woman," he said, "I could not apply to a woman. There is always something odious about a woman's letter. I actually do not recover from the shock of handling the writing of one of them for days. Do you not know any one else?"

"There's Maister Donald Iverach," said Cleg. "He wad gie me a character if I got Miss Celie to ask him," answered Cleg.

"My nephew in Edinburgh, that young three-legged stool! You'll do nothing of the kind," cried the General. "I would not give a brass button for his own character. And besides, from the tone in which you speak, I have little doubt that the two persons you mention are contemplating matrimony. I do not wish any communication with anything so disgusting—much less when one of the parties is an ungrateful and grasping relative of my own."

By this time Cleg had had enough of the General's catechism.

"I'll be requiring a reference mysel'," he said, in the tone which he had heard Mistress Roy of the paper-shop adopt, when a new customer asked for a week's credit.

"A what?" said the General, astonished.

"A reference as to your moral character, if I am to serve in your house!" replied Cleg, unabashed.

The General clapped his hands with unfeigned pleasure.

"Bless you, my boy, you please me!" he said, chuckling; "do you know that it is more than fifty years since General Theophilus Ruff had such a thing?"

"All right," said Cleg, "suppose we chance the moral characters."

"Done!" said the old soldier, offering Cleg his hand.

Cleg took it and wrung it hard.

"I think we'll agree very well," he said. "I may be Ruff by name, but I am Theophilus by nature. That's Greek, my boy—all I can remember, indeed. The folk about here will tell you that I am crazy. They are no judges. And my nephew wishes I were. Once his father tried to prove it. But when the judge had once looked inside my account books, and examined my system of bookkeeping, he said that, mad as I might be, it was a kind of madness which was very well able to take care of itself."

Cleg accompanied the General over the fields to his house. The walks and drives were completely overgrown with mossy grass and tangled ferns. The gates were all padlocked and spiked. Whenever the General came to one, he unlocked it with a brightly polished steel master-key which he took from his pocket. Then, as soon as they had passed through, he locked it behind him again as securely as before. "Spiked on the top," he said to Cleg, with a cunning look, "keeps out the women, you see. They don't like to have their frills and furbelows torn."

Cleg nodded as though he understood. He was not particular either way.

"By-the-bye, you don't mind coffins and things?" said the old soldier, glancing swiftly under his brows at Cleg.

"I don't think so, if they are empty. I yince slept in a coffin shop for three months!" said Cleg.

"Have you anything you want to settle before you engage with me?" asked the General.

"Yes," said Cleg, "there's a wife over the hedge yonder that has lost her man. And I maun hae either the afternoon or the forenicht to help her."

"Take any part of the day you like. Only change your clothes when you come back," said the General testily, "but mind, if you bring any woman inside the policies, I'll give you up to the police for obtaining railway tickets under false pretences."

ADVENTURE LI.
THE GENERAL'S ESTABLISHMENT.

Barnbogle House had in time past been an ancient fortalice. But both the former and the present lairds had spent large sums upon alterations and repairs. The latest of these, General Theophilus Ruff, had a vast and far-reaching local fame. Gamesome lasses skirled at his name, and refused to keep their trysts for the terror of meeting him, wrapped in his blue military cloak, stalking lonely by the light of the moon. The very poachers would not fish in his streams or shoot in his coverts. He had at once the repute of a wizard and the fame of a miser—rich beyond calculation, but seeing things unseen to mortals. "He wasna canny!" summed up the collective verdict of the countryside.

Theophilus Ruff had been an Indian officer at the time of the mutiny. And those terrible days of midsummer when the sun dried up the blood even as it was spilt, had changed the gay casual young officer into the man whom all the country knew as "the daft general."

His father had been first a spendthrift and then a "neegar"—that is, one who has become as great a screw as he had formerly been a mighty and lavish spender.

The popular report of the contents of Barnbogle House told of chests of gold and silver, cases of the most precious jewels, the spoil of captured Indian cities—all watched over by the General himself with an armoury of deadly weapons. For it was not the least of his terrors that he dwelt all alone in that huge hundred-barred castle.

Yet there had been a time when Theophilus Ruff drove coach and four, and when he saw only the gayest of gallant company. Among themselves the chin-shaking elders would tell, with many cross-shoulder glances, of the bold wanton eyes of ladies with once famous names, who had sat beside Theophilus Ruff when he drove that coach and four, of the golden candlesticks which had sparkled on the board, wide branching, holding aloft many lights. Then Barnbogle was a gay place indeed, alive with brilliant company, humming with mirth. For General Theophilus Ruff had "used the company of the singing woman," and, as the Writ sayeth, he had been taken in her attempts.

"He's garrin' the Indian yellow boys spin!" the Netherby people said of him at this time. Yet they said it with a kind of pride, that such wickedness should have happened in their parish.

But suddenly one morning, when the repair to his house was greatest, when gold tresses shone most aureate, bright eyes most winsome and sparkling, Theophilus Ruff came downstairs and gave every soul within his house an hour's notice to quit. Great was the consternation, mighty the upheaval. Ladies, lately so débonnaire, left by carriagefuls wrangling fiercely as they went. Their gay companions took horse and rode silently and wrathfully away. Theophilus Ruff stood on the step of Barnbogle House and grimly watched them go. Then he went upstairs, called his servants into the drawing-room, and dismissed them, paying them their wages and board for six months in full. He kept on a stable man or two till he could sell his horses, a manservant till he had disposed of his cattle. Then he let his more distant grass parks, and dwelt alone in the great house with barred and defended policies. After this workmen from Glasgow were quartered at Barnbogle for nearly a year. With them there came a man-cook to prepare their food, and rough masons' labourers were lodged in the dainty, dismantled bedrooms where last had dwelt the ladies of the blonde allures.

Now and then, on Sundays, one of these Glasgow callants would steal out, at the risk of discovery and dismissal, to see the Netherby lasses. Or, mayhap, an elder smith or joiner would escape to the public-house of a dark evening. But it was at the peril of their places and their excellent wages.

To them chiefly could be traced the tales of mighty strong-rooms, of triple-barred gratings, of wondrously fitting doors with bolts, which at the click of a key worn on the watch chain locked so firmly that none could open again without secret passwords.

During this period General Theophilus Ruff had become an extremely pious person. Every Sunday he conducted service with his workmen in person. One day he would read the prayers and Litany of the Church of England, with such a grace of intonation and a dignity, that it caused the douce Glasgow Presbyterians to fear that even double wages would hardly make up to them for their souls' peril in thus sacrificing to idols.

But by the succeeding Sunday the General had discarded the service-book, and he would lead them in prayer with the fervour and interjectional fervour of a "ranter"—which at that date was the name by which all revival preachers were called.

Every church in the neighbourhood benefited by the benefactions of the General. And there was not a division of the Derbyites, Close, Open, or Original, which did not receive a visit from him, and which had not good cause to believe that the brethren had secured the richest convert the sect had ever made. But the General contented himself with making the most liberal contributions, and with listening to the brothers' mourning for each other's backslidings, while at the same time rejoicing that they only of all mankind could escape hell-fire. Then he would return home, and the very next day proceed to give another denomination the benefit of the doubt.

But, nevertheless, while the fit lasted the General was ready to assist all and sundry to erect suitable places of worship. His purse was long and deep. So the district of Netherby is distinguished among its neighbours for the number of its spires and for the surpassing whiteness of the outside of its cup and platter.

The only stipulation which the General made, was that he and he only should have the right to prescribe the plan of the building, and the time at which it was to be finished. This is the reason why the "Englishy" kirk worships in a tabernacle erected in miniature of Mr. Spurgeon's. So that the heart of the incumbent (who left the Church of England (in England) to secure greater liberty of ritual) is daily broken by the impossibility of having a procession within it, other than one briefly semicircular; and also by the fact that he has to read his sermon behind a table, only fitted for holding the glass of water and Bible which completely equip the popular tribune.

Similarly the Kirk of Scotland by law established in Netherby presents all the characteristics of a little Bethel meeting-house. And a new minister of æsthetic tastes has to wrestle with the fact, that there is no place in which to bestow an organ, except in the coal-cellar from which the heating apparatus is worked.

But both the Auld Lichts and the Baptists are housed in haughty fanes—not large, indeed, but built on the most approved cathedral principles. The meeting-house of the Baptists, indeed, has no less than two spires and the beginnings of another, after the fashion of Lichfield. The whole front of the Free Kirk is a-glitter with quartz-faced rocks. For during the time of its erection Theophilus Ruff would arrive each day with his pockets full of stones with this shell-white glance upon them. He even marked spots upon the moor, and sent out masons to bring the pieces which took his fancy. And one by one these all found their way into the frontage of the Free Kirk.

The most curious point about all this building of religious edifices was, that Theophilus Ruff never allowed one of them to be finished. When the last turret of the spire was on the point of being finished, Theophilus would dismiss all the men, order the unfinished pinnacle to be covered with lead to preserve it from the weather, and so leave the church with an ugly hooded hump upon its back.

Or he would leave a rough stone dyke and a dozen old sand pits and lime heaps lying for years about the gate, just as they had been thrown down at the time when the building was begun. He preferred to see one gate-post up and the other down. He had been known to build a mill and fit it with expensive machinery, to construct a mill-dam with the most approved modern sluices, and import the most advanced American "notions" in the way of farm implements. Then one fine morning he would arrive, and, when everything was almost complete, pay the labourers their wages, discharge the engineers in the midst of fixing a steam boiler or laying hot-water pipes for the most improved method of preparing food for cattle. Thereafter he would write their masters a cheque, and there was an end. Not an ounce of water would ever run out of that granite-embanked mill-dam. Not a wheel of that beautiful machinery would ever turn round. No horse wearing shoe-iron would ever tread the asphalted floor of these sanitary stables. Year after year the whole premises stood empty. The glass would early disappear from the windows under a galling cross-fire from the catapults of all the boys in the neighbourhood, with whom it was a point of honour to break everything breakable about the various "follies" of General Theophilus Ruff. Never did houses get the reputation of being haunted so quickly as those buildings erected by him in all manner of unlikely places. Even during the very week after the workmen had been unceremoniously dismissed, and while the new gloss was yet on the handles of the doors and the shop polish upon the machinery, the place began to be deserted after dusk by every man, woman, and child in the neighbourhood.

Nay, more than this, the same mysterious blight was instantly communicated to any property acquired by the General. For at this time it was his habit to buy all that came into the market, without any discrimination whatever. He had been known to buy the middle house of a row of respectable tenements, turn out the occupants, look through the windows one by one to see if they were all gone, then lock the door and stalk solemnly away with the key in his pocket.

That very night the premises were haunted. The next day the boys began to break the windows, from a safe distance, with their catapults, frightening each other the while with the cry that the General was coming. In six months the house was a mere melancholy wreck, in which tramps camped at nights, and (if the police did not occasionally interfere) pulled out the frames of the windows and the fittings of the kitchen to burn over their fires.

It was no wonder that Cleg Kelly looked with much interest upon Barnbogle House. And had he known its sinister repute, and the character of his new master, he might never have set foot within its doors. But he had never heard of Theophilus, as the General was familiarly called by all the neighbourhood behind his back. The minister of the U. P. denomination (the only one in the town which had not been fostered by the General's money) explained on a sacramental occasion that Theophilus meant a friend of God, but hastened to add that this might be taken ironically, and that even the devil sometimes appeared in the guise of an angel of light.

Nevertheless it was at the time thought a strange thing that the U. P. cow died on the U. P. pasture, soon after the close of the service at which this explanation was delivered from the U. P. pulpit.

This induced a carefulness of speech with regard to the General in the pulpits of other denominations—except, perhaps, when the ministers had probationers supplying for them. For probationers never have any cows.

When Cleg and he arrived at the house, the General bowed a moment, with his back to his visitor, over the handle of the front door, whirled a many-lettered combination, clicked a key, touched a knob, and lo! the massive door swung noiselessly back.

When he invited Cleg to enter, Cleg put his foot over the threshold as if he had been entering the Calton jail. But he had pledged himself, and could not in honour draw back. Besides, Cleg had in him, as we have seen, the spirit of the natural adventurer. He constantly did things for the sake of seeing what would come of it, and embarked upon perilous adventures only to see how the problem would work itself out.

The hall in which he found himself was of old panelled oak, with lights which came from very high above. Oak furniture stood sparsely here and there. The only remarkable things were a couple of plain white tablets let into the wall at either side, like marble memorials in a church.

Through many passages and past the doors of innumerable rooms Theophilus Ruff led our young hero. Bookcases filled with solemn-looking books stood all along the corridors. Marble timepieces squatted silently on the ledges. White statues held out cold glimmering arms from dusky recesses. Here and there, on little round tables by oriel windows, large-type family Bibles lay open, many of them having bookmarks inserted here and there, some of discoloured ribbon, but many of common pink and white string such as is used by country grocers to tie up parcels of sugar.

They went next through a great echoing kitchen, with all manner of rusted machinery for roasting and turning cobwebbing the walls; by the side of vast black cooking-ranges, past a glimmering and diminishing array of brass pans and silver dish-covers upon the walls, Cleg followed the General like his shadow.

"We shall have some dinner presently," said Theophilus Ruff. "I always dine in the middle of the day ever since I began to keep house for myself."

He spun another combination lock, clicked a key, and Cleg found himself in a little brick addition, plastered like a swallow's nest against the rear wall of Barnbogle House.

Here were a little table of scoured woodwork, and a cheap cooking-range with a paraffin stove, which, like all its kind, leaked a little. Upon a shelf under the window were tumbled roughly a cooking-pot, a frying-pan, a skillet, a brander, two tin plates, and half-a-dozen cheap knives and forks, all of the poorest and most ordinary description, and most of them dirty in the extreme.

The General ushered Cleg into this place with some ceremony and condescension, like a superior initiating a new and untried assistant into the work of his department.

"I will show you how to light the stove," he said; "it is an exceedingly convenient invention. I wish we had had them in the army in my time. I will do the cooking myself on this occasion, in order that you may see in what manner you may best assist me in the future.

"There are herring here," he said, waving his hand to a barrel which showed through a sparred locker, "and a ham there beyond. Butter you will find in that firkin on your left. It is the best Danish from Kiel. The tinned beef on the shelves is to be kept for emergencies. It is not to be touched. The butter I import myself, and dispose of what I do not use to an Italian warehouseman in Netherby. I find that it takes the place of lard also. Here is flour for sauces, and I always bring home a four-pound loaf every second day, which I find to be amply sufficient. I propose to continue the duty, and shall bring two in future. If there is anything necessary for your health which you do not find, I shall be happy to supply it. I think I have a suit of clothes—not my own, but which I happen to possess. They can easily be adapted for your use."