But as Cleg went out he thought a great deal of additional matter, and when he said his adieus to the watchman he could hardly contain himself. Before he was fairly down the steps, he yelled three times as loud as he could, and turned Catherine-wheel after Catherine-wheel, till at the last turn he came down with his bare feet in the waist-belt of a policeman. The good-natured officer solemnly smacked the convenient end of Cleg with a vast plantigrade palm, and restored him to the stature and progression of ordinary humanity, with a reminder to behave—and to mind where he was coming if he did not want to get run in.
But even this did not settle Cleg.
"O Keelies!" he cried, as if he had been addressing a large company of his fellows, "wasna it rare to see him loup off that stool, like a yellow paddock into the canal!"
And Cleg, who scorned the eccentricities of love in more mature bosoms even when he traded upon the resultant weaknesses, went off into an ecstasy of mocking laughter.
ADVENTURE XV.
THE FIRE IN CALLENDAR'S YARD.
Vara Kavannah went daily to the factory at Hillside. She was but a slip of a thing, yet she soon learned the work that fell to her share, and developed marvellous quickness in passing the thin quires of foreign paper, examining them for flaws and dirt, and rejecting the faulty sheets.
The girls were mostly kind to her, though they teased her about her name. And, indeed, in a world of Maggies and Jeanies, her Christian name appeared somewhat strange. But Vara had a reverence for it, because it had been her single legacy from her father, the gentle and imaginative Sheemus, who had found married life so different from his hopes that he had been brought at last to try that bitter pass of flight, through which so many have gone to find a new life on the other side.
These were pleasant evenings in the wooden hut. Cleg generally dropped in to see his sub-tenants after his papers were delivered. Then he would potter about, watering the flowers, which now began to bloom bravely in spite of the city heat and the dust of the yard. Vara had a seam or a stocking, and sat at the outside of the door on a creepie stool.