Cleg was too young for this profession, but according to his father's friends his day was coming. In the meantime he spent most of the day in a brickyard at the back. For Tim Kelly, owing to a little difficulty as to rent, had moved his household goods from Meggat's Close to the outskirts of the city. Now they do not use many bricks about Edinburgh; but there are exceptions, especially in the direction of Leith, and this was the place where they made the exceptions. The brickyard was a paradise to Cleg Kelly in the warm days of summer. The burning bricks made a strange misty fume of smoke in the air, which was said to be healthy. People who could not afford to go to Portobello for convalescence brought their children to the brickyard. They made drain-pipes and other sanitary things there; and on that account also the brickyard was accounted healthy for people in the position of the Kellys. At any rate Cleg Kelly was well content, and he played there from morn to night. His mother generally watched him from a window. There was but one window in the little "rickle of brick" which their pawnbroking Jew landlord called a "commodious cottage." He might call it what he liked. He never got any rent for it from Tim Kelly. Yet Isbel was happier here than in the city. At least she could see the trees, and she had neighbours who came in to visit her when her husband was known to be from home. "Eh, Mistress Kelly, I wonder ye can pit up wi' sic a man," said the wife of Jo Turner, a decent man steadily employed on the brickfields, who only drank half his wages. Isbel signed frantically towards the bed with her hand. But without noticing her signals of distress, the innocent Mrs. Turner went on with the burden of her tale. "Gin _I_ had sic a man, I wad tak' him to bits an' pit him up again anew—the black-hearted scoondrel o' a red-headed Irishman!" Tim Kelly rose from the bed where he had been resting himself. They do not set a bed in a room in that country. They put it down outside a room and build it round on three sides. Then they cover the remaining side in with as many cloths as possible, for the purpose of keeping out the air. From such a death-trap Tim Kelly rose slowly, and confronted Mistress Turner. "Get out av me house, Misthress Turner, afore I break the thick skull av yer ill-conditioned face," said Tim, whose abuse was always of the linked and logical kind. "'Deed an' I'll gang oot o' yer hoose wi' pleesure, Timothy Kelly; gin I had kenned that the likes o' ye was in it, Mary Turner wad never hae crossed yer doorstep." "Well, now that ye are here, be afther takin' yersilf acrost the durestip, as suddent an' comprehensive-like as ye can—wid yer brazen face afore ye an' yer turned-up nose in the air. When ye are wanted bad in this house, ye'll get an invite wid a queen's pictur' on it an' me kyard!" said Tim Kelly, sarcastically.