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!" ADVENTURE XLVII. THE SLEEP OF JAMES CANNON, SIGNALMAN. On the morrow Cleg was up betimes. But not so early as Poet Jock and Auld Chairlie. His own clothes were pretty dry, but Cleg had been so pleased with the freedom and airiness of his "sack suit," as he called it, that, as it was a warm morning and a lonely place, he decided to wear it all day. Cleg went out, and, starting from the side of the line, he ran light-foot to the top of a little hill, from whence he could look over a vast moorish wilderness—league upon league of purple heather, through which the railway had been cut and levelled with infinite but unremunerative art. From horizon to horizon not a living thing could Cleg see except the moorbirds and the sheep. But over the woods to the east he could catch one glimpse of Loch Spellanderie, basking blue in the sunlight. He could not, however, see the farmhouse. But he rubbed his hands with satisfaction as he thought of swimming away from them all into the darkness the night before. "I showed her wha was the man, I'm thinkin'!" he said. And there upon the heather-blooms Cleg Kelly flapped his thin arms against his sack and crowed like a chanticleer. Then in a few moments there came back from over the moor and loch a phantom cock-crow reduced to the airiest diminuendo. It was the tyrant of the Loch Spellanderie dung-hill which spoke back to him. "I'm richt glad I'm no there," said Cleg, heartily. Nevertheless he went down the hill again a little sadly, as though he were not quite sure, when he came to think about it, whether he was glad or not. But on the whole it was perhaps as well that he was where he was, at least in his present costume. When Cleg got back to the hut, he looked about for something to do till his friends returned. His active frame did not stand idleness well. He grew distracted with the silence and the wide spaces of air and sunshine about him. He longed to hear the thunderous rattle of the coal-carts coming out of the station of St. Leonards. He missed the long wolf's howl of the seasoned South Side coalman. In the morning, indeed, the whaups had done something to cheer him, wailing and crying to the peewits. But as the forenoon advanced even they went off to the shore-side pools, or dropped into the tufts of heather and were mute.