you not feared?” said Dickson.
“Ay, I was feared. But ye’ll no’ choke off the Gorbals Die-Hards wi’ a gun. We held a meetin’ round the camp fire, and we resolved to get to the bottom o’ the business. Me bein’ their Chief, it was my duty to make what they ca’ a reckonissince, for that was the dangerous job. So a’ this day I’ve been going on my belly about thae policies. I’ve found out some queer things.”
Heritage had risen and was staring down at the small squatting figure.
“What have you found out? Quick. Tell me at once.” His voice was sharp and excited.
“Bide a wee,” said the unwinking Dougal. “I’m no’ going to let ye into this business till I ken that ye’ll help. It’s a far bigger job than I thought. There’s more in it than Lean and Spittal. There’s the big man that keeps the public—Dobson, they ca’ him. He’s a Namerican, which looks bad. And there’s two-three tinklers campin’ down in the Garple Dean. They’re in it, for Dobson was colloguin’ wi’ them a’ mornin’. When I seen ye, I thought ye were more o’ the gang, till I mindit that one o’ ye was auld McCunn that has the shop in Mearns Street. I seen that ye didna’ like the look o’ Lean, and I followed ye here, for I was thinkin’ I needit help.”
Heritage plucked Dougal by the shoulder and lifted him to his feet.
“For God’s sake, boy,” he cried, “tell us what you know!”
“Will ye help?”
“Of course, you little fool.”
“Then swear,” said the ritualist. From a grimy wallet he extracted a limp little volume which proved to be a damaged copy of a work entitled Sacred Songs and Solos. “Here! Take that in your right hand and put your left hand on my pole, and say after me. ‘I swear no’ to blab what is telled me in secret, and to be swift and sure in obeyin’ orders, s’help me God!’ Syne kiss the bookie.”
Dickson at first refused, declaring that it was all havers, but Heritage’s docility persuaded him to follow suit. The two were sworn.
“Now,” said Heritage.
Dougal squatted again on the hearth-rug, and gathered the eyes of his audience. He was enjoying himself.
“This day,” he said slowly, “I got inside the Hoose.”
“Stout fellow,” said Heritage; “and what did you find there?”
“I got inside that Hoose, but it wasn’t once or twice I tried. I found a corner where I was out o’ sight o’ anybody unless they had come there seekin’ me, and I sklimmed up a rone pipe, but a’ the windies were lockit and I verra near broke my neck. Syne I tried the roof, and a sore sklim I had, but when I got there there were no skylights. At the end I got in by the coal-hole. That’s why ye’re maybe thinkin’ I’m no’ very clean.”
Heritage’s patience was nearly exhausted.
“I don’t want to hear how you got in. What did you find, you little devil?”
“Inside the Hoose,” said Dougal slowly (and there was a melancholy sense of anti-climax in his voice, as of one who had hoped to speak of gold and jewels and armed men)—”inside that Hoose there’s nothing but two women.”
Heritage sat down before him with a stern face.
“Describe them,” he commanded.
“One o’ them is dead auld, as auld as the wife here. She didn’t look to me very right in the head.”
“And the other?”
“Oh, just a lassie.”
“What was she like?”
Dougal seemed to be searching for adequate words. “She is… ” he began. Then a popular song gave him inspiration. “She’s pure as the lully in the dell!”
In no way discomposed by Heritage’s fierce interrogatory air, he continued: “She’s either foreign or English, for she couldn’t understand what I said, and I could make nothing o’ her clippit tongue. But I could see she had been greetin’. She looked feared, yet kind o’ determined. I speired if I could do anything for her, and when she got my meaning she was terrible anxious to ken if I had seen a man—a big man, she said, wi’ a yellow beard. She didn’t seem to ken his name, or else she wouldna’ tell me. The auld wife was mortal feared, and was aye speakin’ in a foreign langwidge. I seen at once that what frightened them was Lean and his friends, and I was just starting to speir about them when there came a sound like a man walkin’ along the passage. She was for hidin’ me in behind a sofy, but I wasn’t going to be trapped like that, so I got out by the other door and down the kitchen stairs and into the coal-hole. Gosh, it was a near thing!”
The boy was on his feet. “I must be off to the camp to give out the orders for the morn. I’m going back to that Hoose, for it’s a fight atween the Gorbals Die-Hards and the scoondrels that are frightenin’ thae women. The question is, Are ye comin’ with me? Mind, ye’ve sworn. But if ye’re no, I’m going mysel’, though I’ll no’ deny I’d be glad o’ company. You anyway—” he added, nodding at Heritage. “Maybe auld McCunn wouldn’t get through the coal-hole.”
“You’re an impident laddie,’ said the outraged Dickson. “It’s no’ likely we’re coming with you. Breaking into other folks’ houses! It’s a job for the police!”
“Please yersel’,” said the Chieftain, and looked at Heritage.
“I’m on,” said that gentleman.
“Well, just you set out the morn as if ye were for a walk up the Garple glen. I’ll be on the road and I’ll have orders for ye.”
Without more ado Dougal left by way of the back kitchen. There was a brief denunciation from Mrs. Morran, then the outer door banged and he was gone.
The Poet sat still with his head in his hands, while Dickson, acutely uneasy, prowled about the floor. He had forgotten even to light his pipe. “You’ll not be thinking of heeding that ragamuffin boy,” he ventured.
“I’m certainly going to get into the House tomorrow,” Heritage answered, “and if he can show me a way so much the better. He’s a spirited youth. Do you breed many like him in Glasgow?”
“Plenty,” said Dickson sourly. “See here, Mr. Heritage. You can’t expect me to be going about burgling houses on the word of a blagyird laddie. I’m a respectable man—aye been. Besides, I’m here for a holiday, and I’ve no call to be mixing myself up in strangers’ affairs.”
“You haven’t. Only you see, I think there’s a friend of mine in that place, and anyhow there are women in trouble. If you like, we’ll say goodbye after breakfast, and you can continue as if you had never turned aside to this damned peninsula. But I’ve got to stay.”
Dickson groaned. What had become of his dream of idylls, his gentle bookish romance? Vanished before a reality which smacked horribly of crude melodrama and possibly of sordid crime. His gorge rose at the picture, but a thought troubled him. Perhaps all romance in its hour of happening was rough and ugly like this, and only shone rosy in retrospect. Was he being false to his deepest faith?
“Let’s have Mrs. Morran in,” he ventured. “She’s a wise old body and I’d like to hear her opinion of this business. We’ll get common sense from her.”
“I don’t object,” said Heritage. “But no amount of common sense will change my mind.”
Their hostess forestalled them by returning at that moment to the kitchen.
“We want your advice, mistress,” Dickson told her, and accordingly, like a barrister with a client, she seated herself carefully in the big easy chair, found and adjusted her spectacles, and waited with hands folded on her lap to hear the business. Dickson narrated their pre-supper doings, and gave a sketch of Dougal’s evidence. His