"Did ye ever see the Track Woman?" said Cleg, dropping for a moment into his own manner. "I canna' bide her ava. There's them that we like to see comin' into our hooses—folk like Miss Celie, that is veesitor in oor district, or Big Smith, the Pleasance Missionary, even though he whiles gies us a lick wi' his knobby stick for cloddin' cats. But the Track Woman I canna bide. This is her!"
And he gathered up his sack very high in front of him, to express the damage which it would receive by contact with the dirt of Poet Jock's abode. Then he threw back his head and stuck out his chin, to convey an impression of extreme condescension.
"Good day, poor people," he said, "I have called to leave you a little tract. I don't know how you can live in such a place. Why don't you move away? And the stair is so dirty and sticky! It is really not fit for a lady to come up. What's this? What's this"—(smelling)—"chops! Chops are far too expensive and wasteful for people in your position. A little liver, now, or beef-bone——. What did you say? 'Get out of this!' Surely I did not hear you right! Do you know that I came here to do you good, and to leave you a little tract? Now, I pray you, do not let your angry passions rise. I will, however, do my duty, and leave a little tract. Read it carefully; I hope it will do you good. It is fitted to teach you how to be grateful for the interest that is taken in you by your betters!"
As soon as Cleg had finished, he lifted the skirts of his old sack still higher, tilted his nose yet more in the air, and sailed out, sniffing meanwhile from right to left and back again with extreme disfavour.
But as soon as he had reached the door his manner suffered a sea-change. He bounded in with a somersault, leaped to his feet, and pretended to look out of the door after the departing "Track Woman."
"O ye besom!" he cried, "comin' here nosing and advising—as stuffed wi' stinkin' pride as a butcher's shop wi' bluebottles in the last week o' July! Dook her in the dub! Fling dead cats at her, and clod her wi' cabbages and glaur! Pour dish-washin's on her. Ah, the pridefu' besom!"
And with this dramatic conclusion Cleg sank apparently exhausted into a chair with the skirts of the sack sticking out in an elegant frill in front of him, and fanned himself gracefully with an iron shovel taken from the stove top, exactly as he had seen the young lady performers at the penny theatres do as they waited in the wings for their "turn."
Great was the applause from Poet Jock, who lay in a state of collapse on the floor.
"Boys O!" he exclaimed feebly, "but ye are a lad!"
Auld Chairlie only shook his head, and repeated, "I misdoot that ye are a verra child o' the deevil!"