Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City: His Progress and Adventures

by S. R. Crockett

Vara always looks back upon that night of fear and loneliness as the worst in all their wanderings. She wrapped Gavin tightly in the shawl, till only a little space was left for him to breathe. Then she ran from knowe-top to knowe-top to look for Boy Hugh, and to call him to come back to her. She dared not go far from the boulder lest she should miss her way, and so not be able to find her way to the baby.

While Vara was wandering distracted over the moor, calling pitifully to him, Boy Hugh was comfortably asleep beneath a heather bush. And the June nights are brief and merciful in Scotland. It was not long before a broad bar of light lay across the eastern hills. The pale sea-green lingering in the west where the sun had gone down had not altogether faded into the ashy grey of uncoloured night ere the eastern sky began to flame.

The clouds of sunrise are like ocean-rollers on a wide beach—long, barred, and parallel—for the sun rises through them with majestic circumspection. But the clouds of sunset are apt to converge to a point, like the wake which the sun draws after him in his tumultuous downward plunge.

But the sun rose quite sharply this morning, as though he must be businesslike and alert, in spite of the fact that he had a whole long day before him. As he did so the shadows of every bush of bog-myrtle and each tuft of heather started westwards with a rush. And the cool blue image of a lonely boulder, like a Breton menhir, lay far half a mile across the moor. On the sunny side of this landmark the red rays fell on a bare and curly head. There was dew upon the draggled hair, just as there was upon the yellow bent grass upon which it pillowed itself.

Boy Hugh lay curled up, like a collie drowsing in the sun. He continued to sleep quietly and naturally the undisturbed sleep of childhood. Nor did he waken till the dew had dried from the bent and from off the tangles of his hair.

At last he awoke, when the sun was already high. He uncoiled him like a lithe young animal, and started to find himself under the open heaven instead of under a roof. With a shake and a toss of his head he made his toilet. Then suddenly he remembered about Vara, and hoped vaguely that he would soon find her. But, alas! the day was bright. The sunshine began to run in his veins, and all the moorland world was before him. He did not think much more about her at all. For the moment he was as merry as the larks singing above him. He hallooed to the plovers, and occasionally he threw stones at them, just as the mood took him. By-and-bye Boy Hugh came to a wide burn, and at once proceeded to cross it, as many a time he had crossed a plank in Callendar's yard, upon all-fours like a monkey.

The burn was fringed, like many of the watercourses of the southern uplands, with a growth of sparse and ill-favoured birches. Hugh Boy found one of these which leaned far over the water, having had its roots undermined by the winter spates. He crawled out upon its swaying top without hesitation till it became too slender to bear him. He counted upon the slender trunk bending like a fishing-rod and depositing him near enough to the opposite bank to drop safely to the ground. But just when Hugh Boy was ready to leap, the treacherous birch gave way entirely, and fell souse into the water, with the small human squirrel still clinging to it. The birch lay across the pool, and Boy Hugh held fast. He was up to the neck in water. He wondered how he would get out. First he managed to kick his legs free of the twigs which clutched him and tried to drag him down.

"Here, nice little boy!" suddenly a voice above him cried. "Take hold of my hand, and I will pull you out of the water."

It was the clearest little voice in the world, and it spoke with a trill which Boy Hugh seemed to have heard somewhere before. It conveyed somehow, indeed, a reminiscence of Miss Celie Tennant. But the little lady who spoke was only a year or two older than Boy Hugh himself, and she was dressed in the daintiest creamy stuff, fine like cobweb. Boy Hugh looked at her in such amazement that he came near to letting go the birch-tree altogether. She seemed to him to be all wonderful, with yellow hair like summer clouds, and blue eyes full of pity.