"Gang and deliver that paper!" Mistress Roy commanded, again looking up.
"I want my breakfast," said Cleg, with an air of sullen determination.
His mistress looked at him a moment, still sitting with the tinnikin of undutied whisky in her hand, and occasionally taking a sip. Cleg eyed her level-fronted.
She gave in all at once.
"Tak' the knife and help yoursel'," she said, pointing to a loaf and a piece of yellow
cheese.
She went into a back room.
"Get up, Jock," she said, giving the clothes a jerk over the foot of the bed, and seizing a water can. Her husband rose to his feet on the floor without a word. Thus was business begun in Mistress Roy's paper-shop on the Pleasance.
And so that day went on, the first of many. When Celie Tennant asked Cleg how he was getting on, he said, as the manner of his kind is, "Fine!" And no word more could she get out of him. For Cleg was not a boy to complain. His father, Timothy Kelly, was safely in gaol, and that was enough to give Cleg an interest in life. Moreover, he could save some of his three shillings a week to give to Vara Kavannah to help her with the children.
He had not as yet taken advantage of the "chance of the drawer" offered by Mr. Roy. But, on the other hand, he had stuck out for three shillings and his keep.
Also, as the advertisements which he read every day in the papers said, he meant to see that he got it.
Vara Kavannah was a friend of Cleg's. She lived with her mother in a poor room in the Tinklers' Lands, and tried to do her duty by her little baby brother Gavin and her younger brother Hugh. Her mother was a friend of Mr. Timothy Kelly's, and there is no more to be said. The only happy time for all of them was when both Mr. Kelly, senior, and Sal Kavannah were provided for in the gaol on the Calton. But this did not happen often at one time. When it did, Cleg went up the long stairs and told Vara. Then they started and took the baby and Hugh for a long walk in the Queen's Park. Cleg carried the baby. The boys of his own age did not mock him to his face for doing this. The Drabble had done it once, and severely regretted it for several days, during which time his face conveyed a moral lesson to all beholders.
It was also a happy time for Vara Kavannah when her mother was safely locked up on a long sentence, or when for some weeks she disappeared from the city. Her father, a kindly, weak man, stood the dog's life his wife led him as long as possible.
Sheemus Kavannah was a poet. The heart was in him which tells men that the world is wide and fair. He had endured his wife in the bitterness of his heart, till late one evening he rose, and with his wife lying on the floor, a log, he awaked his little lass. There were tears streaming down his cheeks. His daughter started from her bed with her hair all about her. She was used to sudden and painful wakenings.
"Vara," he said, speaking in Irish, "daughter of Sheemus, Vara Kavannah, hark to me. Mavourneen, my heart is broke with your mother. It's no good at all to stay. I am going to Liverpool for work, and when I get it I shall come back and take you away you, Vara, and Hugh and little Gavin. Lonely shall my road be and far. But I shall return, I shall return!"
Now Vara, being bred where they spoke not the tongue of the old country, understood nothing but the last words, "I shall return, I shall return!"
So it was in this way that Cleg Kelly became father and mother to the little company of three in the Tinklers' Lands.
As he went on the way of his duty, he found out some things about the business capacity of Mistress Roy that would have astonished the police. He had, in the impetuous ardour of youth, cleared away the accumulated papers on the floor, and raided the swarming cockroaches.
"Hullo, mother, what's the matter here?" cried one of the customers of the place, coming to Mistress Roy, who sat in the little den at the back.
"Naething," said that lady. "It's only that daft laddie. He disna think I gie him aneuch to do, so he's ta'en to finding wark for himsel'."
The customer, a burly, clean-shaven man, took a long look at Cleg.
"Tim Kelly's kid," said the woman, by way of explanation.
The man whistled a long, mellow whistle with an odd turn at the end.
"No," said Mistress Roy, shaking her head, "the lad's square. And what's mair, I'm no gaun to hae him meddled. He's the first boy that ever took oot the papers without cheatin'." A good character is a valuable asset, even in a shebeen.
ADVENTURE IX. THE WARMING OF THE DRABBLE
The Kavannahs had no furniture. It was just possible for Vara to get some little things together during the periods when her mother was under the care of the authorities. But as soon as Sal Kavannah came out, everything that would sell or pawn was instantly
dissolved into whisky.
At all times it was a sore battle in the Tinklers' Lands, for these were the days before city improvements. In his wildest days Cleg Kelly had always befriended the Kavannahs, and he had been as much Vara's friend on the sly as a boy could be who valued the good opinion of his companions. But when Cleg grew stronger in his muscles and less amenable to public opinion, he publicly announced that he would "warm" any boy who said a word to him about the Kavannahs.