ADVENTURE XVII. THE KNUCKLE DUSTERS.

Soon after this Cleg Kelly became a member of a young lady's class, in a manner which has been elsewhere related.[3]

That young lady was Miss Cecilia Tennant, otherwise known as Celie—a young lady much admired by all who knew her (and by some who did not, but wanted to); and especially admired by Mr. Donald Iverach, junior partner in the firm on whose premises the class was held. I have also related the tragical events which preceded the formation of the boys' class, organised under the guidance and tutelage of Cleg Kelly. But it soon became evident that something more than a night class was necessary, if any impression were to be made on the wild Arabs of the Sooth Back.

"Ye see the way o' it is this, Miss Celie," Cleg explained. "Ye canna keep a boy frae ill-doing by juist telling him aboot Jacob for an hour in the week. There's a' day in the shop, wi' the gaffer swearin' blue murder even on, an' ill-talk an' ither things that I juist canna tell ye. Then there's every nicht, when we drap work. What can we do but stand about the streets, or start the Gang an' look aboot us for a bobby to chivvy, or else for something handy for 'liftin'?'"

"But, Cleg," cried Celie, much alarmed, "surely I do not understand you to say that you steal?"

"Na," said Cleg, "we dinna steal. We only 'nick' things whiles!"

Celie had heard, indeed, of the "mobs," the "unions," the "gangs," the "crowds." But she thought them simply amiable and rather silly secret societies, such as her own brothers used to make a great deal of unnecessary secrecy about—calling themselves "Bloody Bill of the Ranch," "Navajo Tommy," and other stupid names. She had remarked the same mania in Cleg sometimes, and had some reason to believe that all boys are alike, whatever may be their station in life.

But Cleg soon put his friend out of the danger of any such mistake.

"Mind, say 'As sure as daith,' an' ye'll cut your throat gin ye tell," said Cleg, very earnestly, "an' I'll tell ye, aye, an' make ye a member!"

Cleg was about to reveal state secrets, and he did not want to run any risks. Celie promised faithfully the utmost discretion.

"Weel, Miss Celie, I can see that ye are no gaun to do muckle guid amang us boys, if I dinna tell ye. An' I want ye no to believe ony lees, like what are telled to the ministers an' folk like them. There's mair ill in the Sooth Back than can be pitten richt wi' a track. I canna bide them tracks——"

The distribution of tracts was an old grievance of Cleg's. But Celie earnestly and instantly put him on the plain way again, for if he once began upon "tracks," there was no telling if ever she would get any nearer to her promised lesson on the good and evil of the boys' unions.

Celie found herself as eager as ever was her first mother Eve, to eat of the tree of the forbidden knowledge.

"Gie us your han', Miss Celie, I'll no hurt ye," said Cleg.

Celie drew off her dainty glove, and instantly extended a hand that was white and small beyond all the boy's imagining. Cleg took it reverently in his dirty, work-broadened paw. He touched the slender fingers as if they were made of thistle-down and might blow away accidentally. So he held his breath. Then he took out his knife, one with a point like a needle, which had been used in a shoe factory.

Perhaps Celie winced a little as he opened the blade, but, if it were so, it was very little indeed. Yet it was enough to be perceptible to her very sincere admirer.

Cleg let her hand drop, and without a pause thrust the sharp point into the ball of his own thumb, squeezing therefrom a single drop of blood.

"It's no juist exactly richt, no to hae your ain blood, ye ken!" he explained gravely; "but as ye dinna tell so mony lees as the boys, maybe mine will do as weel this time to take the oath with."

With a clean new pen from Celie's desk, Cleg made on her palm the sign of a cross, and for her life the initiated dared not so much as let her hand quiver or her eyelid droop.

She knew that the occasion was an entirely critical one. But in a moment it was over, and Celie Tennant was admitted a bonâ fide acting member of the Sooth Back Gang, with full right in its secrets and to the disposal of one full and undivided share of its profits. No questions to be asked as to how these profits were come by. Indeed, from that moment there is little doubt that Celie Tennant might have been indicted for reset, conspiracy, and crimes infinitely various.

That night at Miss Tennant's class there was a full attendance, and the opening was delayed owing to necessity arising for the expulsion of a boy, apparently in no way offending against discipline.

Celie looked the question she dared not speak.

"He's no yin o' us!" explained Cleg in a whisper. "He belongs to the Potter-raw gang—a low lot."

Celie felt morally raised by the consciousness of belonging to a gang of the most high-toned "nickums" in the whole city.

Then Cleg, after the briefest opening exercises had been endured, explained that there remained for that evening only the ceremony of reception of a new member who had already been sworn in. In this Celie had to concur with as good a grace as possible. She was then and there appointed, with acclamation, a full member of the honourable (or dishonourable, according to the point of view) society of the Knuckle Dusters of the Sooth Back. It was generally felt after this, that Jacob (the Patriarch of that name) could very well afford to wait over for a little.

But, after the ceremony, when Celie looked again at her class, she could hardly believe her eyes. Were these the lads who night after night had stood before her with faces sleeked and smugged with arrant hypocrisy, or had looked up at her after some bout of intolerable mischief, as demure as kittens after spilling a saucer of milk?

A certain seriousness and comradeship pervaded the meeting. But Cleg was not yet at the end of his surprises.

"I perpose," he said, "that we hae a Club a' for oorsels."

The meeting with unanimous palm and hoof signified its approval of this grand proposal, obviously one which had been discussed before.

"We will hae it in here, and we'll pay to be members—an' that will do for the coals, and we'll hae smokin'——"

Celie sat aghast. Events were precipitating themselves with a vengeance. Indeed, surprise sat so manifest on her countenance that Cleg thought it wise to point out its genuine character to his brother members. It would never do for them to believe that the great idea of the club had not originated with themselves.

"She kens nocht aboot it, but I ken fine she's gaun to stan' in wi' us!" he explained, putting her, as it were, on her honour and under the solemn seal of the bloody cross of the Knuckle Dusters.

In this Celie, bound by her oath, had indeed no choice.

She must of a surety stand by them. But a serious difficulty occurred to her.

"Lads," she said, "we have only the right to this place for one night in the week. How can we occupy it every night?"

All the boys laughed loud. The question was mightily amusing. Indeed, Celie was often most amusing to them when she had no intention of being so.

"Of coorse, we ken, ye hae only to ask him!" they said, with one solid voice of general concurrence.

Celie felt herself beginning to burn low down on her neck, and it made her angry to think that in a minute more she would blush like a great baby just out of the senior class of the Ladies' College. The boys watched her maliciously till she looked really distressed, and then Cleg struck gallantly into the breach.

"Chaps," he cried, "I think we should ask for oorsels. We are gaun to elec' a commy-tee and run the show. Dinna let us begin by troublin' Miss Tennant. We'll gang an' ask oorsels. Gin ye are feared, I'm no!"

Crash! came a stone through the window. All leapt to their feet in a moment.

"It's that dirty scoondrel frae the Potter-raw. Oot after him!" cried Cleg.

Whereupon the newly constituted Knuckle Dusters' Club tumultuously detached itself for police duty. There was a scurry along the highway, a fight at a street corner. Two boys got a black eye apiece. A policeman was assaulted in the half-humorous way peculiar to the district. A letter-deliverer sat down suddenly on the pavement, to the delay of Her Majesty's mails, and after five well-spent and happy minutes, the Club re-entered, wiping its brow, and Cleg cried:

"Three cheers for the Knuckle Dusters' Club! Miss Celie to be the president for ever an' ever. We'll meet the morn's nicht to elec' the commy-tee. And there's twenty meenits left for Jacob!"

And so the Knuckle Dusters' Club sat patiently down to endure its Scripture lesson.