Chapter XI: Part 11

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.

They were now standing at the front door. Cleg had never seen such a house as this in his life. It was barred and defended like the Calton jail, but no glass was to be seen in any of the windows. Indeed, through some of the openings which served for lighting, one could see straight through to the barred windows on the further side.

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."

ADVENTURE LII.

THE THREE COFFINS IN THE STRONG-ROOM.

While the General was explaining all these things, he was at the same time deftly handling the gridiron upon which he was cooking the four red herrings which he had laid out. These, with bread and the aforesaid best specially imported Danish butter, dug out of the keg with a scoop, furnished their simple meal. General Theophilus made tea in a black kettle, by the simple process of putting in a soup ladle filled with tea and allowing the water in the kettle to come to the boil.

"The tea is of the best quality," he said, "though I am somewhat prodigal of it, as you see. But a man must have some luxuries."

Yet all the time, while Cleg was partaking of the herrings, cutting the bread, and drinking the tea, he was oppressed by the dark overwhelming bulk of the house behind him, through which he had been led. He instinctively felt it to be full of secrets, of unknown echoing passages, doors that clicked and sprung, and of all untold and unutterable mysteries.

All through their dinner time the General was most courteously polite, handing the salt and helping the herrings with infinite address. And when Cleg in his ignorance or his awkwardness committed a solecism, the General only in the slightest degree emphasised the correctness of his own demeanour, so that Cleg, if he chose, might benefit by the lesson in deportment. Not that Cleg needed many, for had he not often taken tea with Miss Celie Tennant, which in itself was a charmingly liberal education?

When the meal was finished, Theophilus Ruff took Cleg into a little room adjoining. Here there was a fixed wash-tub and a tiny boiler.

"I do my own washing, you see. Cleanliness is most important!" the General explained. "I learned the art while campaigning in Afghanistan. For the present, therefore, I shall continue to do the washing, though I shall be glad of your assistance in the matter of drying and ironing!"

Cleg could hardly credit his ears—a General and the owner of all this wealth, talking freely of doing his own washing. Cleg looked at the beautiful linen sheets on the bed and marvelled still more. Then he remembered what Theophilus had said about the presence of women.

"This is your bedroom," said the General, opening a still smaller room, which contained nothing but a wash-stand and a small "scissors" camp-bed. Upon a nail behind the doors hung a couple of suits of clothes.

"These are yours," explained the General; "this room is also yours. I shall not again enter it. I beg of you, therefore, that when you have been visiting your friend the widow you will wear one of these suits, either as it pleases you. But when you come into the rooms which I share with you, or undertake any of the duties connected with your position, you will take the trouble to change into the other."

Cleg touched the nearer suit of clothes gently with his hand. It was of fine texture, though of a fashion somewhat antique, with wide lapels to the coat and the vest very long. The General opened a drawer.

"Here," he said, "you will find collars, shirts, and stockings which, though a little large for you, are such as you will rapidly grow into. Consider them as your own. Assure yourself completely that the owner of these has no further need for them."

Cleg thanked his benefactor frankly, but without subservience or profusion.

"Now," said the General, turning rapidly upon Cleg, "I should like to come to financial terms with you. I am willing to give you one pound sterling or twenty shillings a week and your food. At the present rate of the rupee in India, from which much of my income is derived, I am not desirous of making it more. But in the event of any decided appreciation in the price of silver, I should be willing to consider your claims to a supplement."

"It's far ower muckle as it is," cried honest Cleg. "Man, I wad be glad o' the half o't!"

The General waved his hand.

"My dear sir," he said, "you are as yet unaware of the intensely peculiar services which your position here will require of you. You may have to see strange things sometimes, and to learn to say nothing. I desire, therefore, to remunerate you suitably in advance. What I shall reveal to you is perfectly harmless, as I shall show you. But still I am aware that there is a not unnatural prejudice against such experiences, especially among the young. We will call it, therefore, for the present a pound a week."

Cleg nodded. He was willing to sleep in a vault amongst skulls and crossbones, with a reliable up-to-time ghost thrown in, for a pound a week.

"I will now show you my own bedroom," he said.

The General opened the locks of the doors leading into the house with the same precise caution, and with some additional secrecy as well. But even in this the General behaved with a gentlemanly reticence.

"You will observe," he said, "that I do not for the present make you free of the passwords of the fortress. That in time will doubtless come; but in the meantime you will consider me as the governor of the castle, with discipline to maintain and my own secrets to keep.

"Your nerves are strong, I trust?" he added, as they passed along gloomy passages through which the winds blew gustily as in some cave of the winds.

"I'm no feared, gin that's what ye mean. I dinna ken aught aboot nerves," said Cleg.

The General led him sideways down a flight of steps like one that goes stealthily into a cellar.

They stopped before a door of massive iron painted red as a ship is before she is launched, and with the boltheads neatly picked out in white.

"You observe," said the General, "this door is entirely of my own construction—aided, that is, by the most skilled smiths and mechanicians. You notice that the rock upon which the house is built is above our heads, and also that the door is really excavated in the stone itself. The iron frame upon which the door closes is mortised so deeply and completely into the solid rock all round, that to all intents and purposes it is practically one piece with it."

The General pointed upwards to where a pale yellow gleam on the wall showed through a range of open and glassless but triply barred windows.

"That," he said, "is _Cheiranthus Cheiri_, the common, yellow, or wild wallflower—of a different species from that of the garden and, in my opinion, a much finer plant. It is growing up there on the natural rock. So that I sleep, as sayeth the Scripture, 'within the living stone'!"

Cleg looked at the General. His eyes seemed to grow darker, his figure became more erect. He continued every few minutes to refer to his watch.

"This lock," he said, patting the keyhole, "is a highly ingenious union of a time-lock and the commoner letter combination lock. This morning I set the wards to open at two in the afternoon. So that it is now almost the time when we shall be able by the application of the key-word to open the door."

He waited till the hands of the watch were opposite the hour.

"Now!" he said, and stepped forward with some show of eagerness.

The son of the burglar looked on with an interest which was almost painful.

The General twirled the lock till he had brought five letters into line upon the dial. Then he inserted a little key which hung at his watch-chain. The massive red iron door, with its white-studded nails, swung back softly of its own accord.

"A simple application of the principle of the water balance," he said, "thus—I open the lock, the water runs out and the door opens. In another five minutes the small cistern will fill of its own accord, and its weight will automatically close the door."

Cleg hung back. He was not afraid, as he had said. But it seemed an uncanny place to be shut up in with only a madman for company. For Cleg had no doubt whatever that the General was out of his mind.

General Theophilus Ruff noticed his hesitancy.

"Do not be afraid. I have the combinations all in the inside of my watch scales, so that even if I were suddenly to die here, you would still be able to make your way out."

The two stepped within, Cleg being ashamed to show any further feelings of reluctance to trust his benefactor.

The General touched a match to a large lamp which stood on a pedestal. The whole room, which had been pitchy dark a moment before, seemed now fairly bursting with light.

"My bedroom!" said the General, circling the place with his hand, with the air of one who makes an important introduction.

The walls were of red-painted iron throughout, the red of farm carts in the district, and the bolts were again picked out with white. But the furniture was the strange thing. There was nothing whatever in the room save three coffins, each arranged squarely upon its own table.

The lids of the two at either side were hinged and closed. The centre one stood open. The coffins were not large or fine ones, but, on the contrary, common and covered with black cloth. The lid of the centre one was off, and stood leaning against the wall at the coffin head. Cleg could easily read the inscription, which was in white letters upon a black painted plate:—

MAJOR-GENERAL THEOPHILUS RUFF,
E.I.C. BENGAL ARMY.
BORN JULY 21st, 18—.
DECEIVED JULY 21st, 18—.
UNDECEIVED JULY 21st, 18—.
DIED JULY 21st, 18—.

"It is not long now," he said, pointing to the latter date. "I have not added the year, you observe. But it was revealed that all my days of fate should culminate on the 21st of July. And so hitherto they have. I do not think I shall see more than other four."

Then a new thought seemed to strike him. He turned to Cleg Kelly sharply.

"Note the lettering on the coffins," he said; "I did it all with an ordinary sharpened knitting needle. I bought a plain black tin plate from the carpenter of the village, and he showed me how the paint scrapes off. It is quite easy. But I have done it much more neatly than could the carpenter himself. I have since attended quite a number of male funerals in order to observe the quality of the lettering upon the coffin. I do assure you it is, in general, disgracefully slipshod. The man does not appear to take the least pains to improve. I have even thought of offering to do the job for him."

Cleg was continuing to look about him, when a sudden noise behind him caused him to leap to the side. The great red iron door had swung to with a little well-oiled click.

The General smiled indulgently and reassuringly.

"It is only the water balance I told you of. It is now full; the little wet-bob rises to the top, and the door swings to of its own accord."

Cleg continued to look about him. The room was about thirty feet square and half as high. But there was no bedstead or any other furniture to be seen.

The General noticed his perplexity.

"I observe," he said, smiling, "that you are looking for my bed. Here it is," laying his hand on the central coffin. "Oblige me with your hand. I usually depend upon a stick, but your shoulder is better."

The General balanced himself for a moment upon the edge of the coffin, and let his head drop back upon the little white pad. Then he arranged his shoulders into the fiddle-shaped swell, and deftly drew in his feet after him.

"Now," he said, "damp the herbs in that pipe. Light a ribbon of the prepared paper at the lamp, and put it in the bowl to smoulder."

Cleg hastened to obey. It was a large-headed East Indian pipe with a flexible handle, and mouthpiece of fine pale amber.

"You observe," said the General, as he calmly and carefully adjusted his pipe-stem over the edge of the coffin, "I do not use ordinary tobacco, but a mixture of Indian hemp and _Datura stramonium_, or thornapple, a common dunghill plant. With ordinary people the smoking of these would produce madness; but in my case they produce only a peculiar exaltation, and then a kind of ethereal coma, without at all being followed by the evil effects of opium."

He beckoned Cleg to come nearer. Cleg did so, and took up his position at the foot of the coffin with some reluctance.

"Now," he said, "I am about to take my siesta. Do you set the time arrangement by carefully turning the hands of the small clock to seven—the lower dial, if you please. Thank you. Now bring the letters of the word FALSE to the face of the lock attachment, and you will be able to open it by the use of this duplicate key. The same word will (for this day only) enable you to open the outer door—from the inside, that is, not again from the outside. The pass-word is changed every day. I always write it on a paper inside my watch every morning."

As Cleg was leaving the room the face and neck of the General were suddenly jerked up, so that he rose almost to a sitting position. Cleg's muscles twitched, and with a sharp cry he leaped into the air.

The General waved the hand which was not employed in managing the pipe-stem, upon which his eyes were steadily fixed.

"I beg your pardon most heartily," he said, "I should have warned you of this. The fact is, I have an automatic attachment, which I have applied beneath the pillow, by which at certain intervals my head is raised. For, though so remarkably spare of person, I have several times in the East been threatened with apoplexy; and, indeed, I suffer constantly from asthma, for which I find the _Datura stramonium_ most useful."

And as Cleg whirled the combination circles in imitation of the General, he prayed that he might never again have to enter that ghastly chamber. Yet it was his fortune to abide with the General four years as his body servant, and to enter the strong-room of Barnbogle nearly every day.

ADVENTURE LIII.

A STORMY MORNING AT LOCH SPELLANDERIE.

It had been a stormy morning at Loch Spellanderie. It was not wholly that the winds howled gustily up the loch, or that the tiny breakers lashed the shore in mimic fury. Mistress McWalter had ofttimes been a deceived woman, but never before had she taken to her bosom so complete a viper as Vara Kavannah. She had, indeed, been telling her so for well-nigh four years. Even Kit Kennedy had become for once almost an angel of light when compared with her. The reason of the sudden riot was that Cleg Kelly had been discovered talking to Vara by the orchard dyke the night before.

"Ye brazen-faced besom—ye toon's madam," cried Mrs. McWalter, "I'll learn you to bring your ragged, unkempt, stravagin' followers here!—Guidman, gin ye were worth your salt, as ye are not, ye wad tak' speech in hand, and order sic a randy instantly frae 'boot the hoose!"

It was early in the morning. Mrs. McWalter was still in bed, and her husband was pretending to be asleep. But she was well acquainted with his guile.

"Ye needna pretend ye are sleepin', John, for brawly do I ken that ye hear every word."

Vara, grown by this time into a tall, handsome girl, was already brushing out the kitchen and lighting the fire. Kit Kennedy was whistling cheerfully about the stable. Mistress McWalter always assisted at reveille in the house of Loch Spellanderie. Her voice was so sharp and shrill that it could easily reach every corner of the house from her bed. And upon occasion, when she felt that she was generally doing herself justice, it had been known to sweep the cart-shed, and even beat upon the walls of the barn with considerable effect. But that was, of course, when the front door of the dwelling-house was open.

While thus lying comfortably upon her back, Mistress McWalter could keep up a steady and destructive criticism of life in a high-pitched falsetto, as it was represented below in the sweeps of Vara's brush and the patter of Kit Kennedy's clogs upon the stone floor.

"What are ye doin' near the dresser, ye sly, ill-contrivin' limmer," she cried; "hae I no telled ye a thousand times, that if I catch ye takkin' as muckle as a sup o' the milk that was skimmed yestreen for the bairns' breakfast this mornin', I will hae the polissman at ye? But the jail wad be no surprise to the likes o' you. Na, I'm guessin' ye hae been weel acquant wi' the poliss a' your days. Tak' up the water-cans and gang your ways to the well for water. Then haste ye fast back and put on the muckle pot and the porridge pot, baith o' them. Or, my certes, I'll come at ye wi' a stick, ye careless, trapesin' slut, ye!"

Vara was not slow in obeying this command. To go to the well meant, at the least, to be for five minutes out of the hearing of the all-compassing tongue of Mistress McWalter, and out of the shrill ding-dong of her vocabulary. It was not much, but still it was something.

The girl took the blue cans readily, and went towards the door.

"Gang some deal quaiter," cried Mistress McWalter, "or, by my faith, I'll thresh ye like a sheaf o' corn when I rise to ye, ye misleared gamester frae the streets! Dinna wauken a' the puir tired bairns, for they were honestly gotten and weel brocht up. And shut the door after ye, when ye gang oot. Ye want us a' to get our deaths o' cauld, nae doot!"

The anger that burned in Vara's breast was healthy and natural, and it would have done her a world of good if she had been able to allow herself the safety valve of intemperate speech. But she only said to herself, "I'll thole awhile yet for Boy Hugh's and wee Gavin' sake, till they can fend for themselves. I need the siller she pays me."

Kit Kennedy met Vara as she crossed the yard. Now in order to reach the well it was necessary to go through the gate at the far angle of the yard, and to walk some distance along the grassy road which led to the next farm. The gusts blew off the lake and twirled Vara's hair becomingly about her face. She was certainly growing a tall, shapely, personable lass. And so thought Kit Kennedy, and said so with his eyes.

Kit was also tall and strong. There was nothing rustic about his appearance. He had the profile and pose of head of the young Apollo of the Bow. He did not, indeed, possess the sinewy, gypsy alertness of Cleg Kelly, nor yet the devil's grit, turned, on the whole, to good intents, which drove that youth safely through so many adventures. Kit Kennedy was slower, more thoughtful, more meditative. Cleg never by any chance wasted a moment in meditation, so long as there was a chance to do anything. And when he did, it was only that he might again dash the more determinedly and certainly into the arena of action.

But Kit Kennedy could call friends out of the visionary air to sit with him in "sessions of sweet silent thought." Often he walked day after day in a world all his own. And the most stinging words of Mistress McWalter did not affect him one whit more than the gusts of wind-born rain which dashed at him across the lake.

In the same circumstances, Cleg would simply have smitten Mistress McWalter with a stone, or, if more convenient, with a poker, and so departed well content. But Kit Kennedy forbore, and made nothing of her persecution. He could dodge her blows by watching her hand. And he could go on calmly rehearsing the adventures of Sir Aylmer de Vallance, while the abuse of his aunt provided a ready-made background of storm and fret, which gave a delicious relish to a victorious single combat in Kit's imagination.

When Kit met Vara on the well road he took the cans naturally out of her hands, as if he had been well accustomed to doing it. He had been waiting for her. In his heart he always called her his lady Gloriana, and it was only with difficulty that he could remember to call her Vara. Kit had been much happier during the years since Vara came. He had now a heroine for his romances, as well as a companion for his hours of ease. For Kit went about acting another life all day long. He fed the bullocks to the clatter of cavalry hoofs. He shepherded the sheep towards pastures new, to the blast of trumpet and the beat of drum. Or, as a great general, he stood gloomily apart upon a knoll, with his staff around him, and sent a barking aide-de-camp here and another there, to direct the woolly battalions how to make their attack upon the bridge. He always thrust one hand into his breast, in order to represent the correct attitude of a great general on such occasions. He was compelled to unloose the third button of his waistcoat in order to do it. This seemed strange. He had never read that this was necessary. He wondered what heroes did in that case. But it struck him afterwards that very likely they had their waistcoats made open on purpose.