Thomas Callendar stood a moment gathering his senses. He had a callant of his own who might conceivably have been at the pains to establish a summer-house in his yard. But then James was at present at the seaside with his mother. The builder went round the little hut, and at the further side he came upon Cleg Kelly dribbling water upon the wilting daisies from a broken brown teapot, and holding on the lid with his other hand. "Mercy on us! what are ye doing here, callant?" cried the astonished builder. Cleg Kelly stood up with the teapot in his hand, taking care to keep the lid on as he did so. His life was so constant a succession of surprises provided against by watchfulness that hardly even an earthquake would have taken him unprepared. He balanced the teapot in one hand, and with the other he pulled at his hat-brim to make his manners. "If ye please, sir," he said, "they turned me oot at the brickyaird, and I brocht the bits o' things here. I kenned ye wadna send me away, Maister Callendar." "How kenned ye that I wadna turn ye away, boy?" said the builder. "Oh, I juist prefarred to come back here, at ony rate," said Cleg. "But why?" persisted Mr. Callendar. Cleg scratched the turned-up earth of his garden thoughtfully with his toe. "Weel," he said, "if ye maun ken, it was because I had raither lippen[2] to the deil I ken than to the deil I dinna ken!" The builder laughed good-naturedly. "So ye think me a deil?" he asked, making believe to cut at the boy with the bit of planed moulding he was carrying in his hand with black pencil-marks at intervals upon it as a measuring-rod. "Ow, it's juist a mainner o' speaking!" said Cleg, glancing up at Mr. Callendar with twinkling eyes. He knew that permission to bide was as good as granted. The builder came and looked within. The hut was whitewashed inside, and the black edges of the boards made transverse lines across the staring white. Cleg explained. "I didna steal the whitewash," he said; "I got it frae Andrew Heslop for helpin' him wi' his lime-mixing. "It's a fine healthsome, heartsome smell," the boy went on, noticing that the builder was sniffing. "Oh, man, it's the tar that ye smell," he again broke in. "I'm gaun to tar it on the ootside. It keeps the weather off famous. I gat the tar frae a watchman at the end o' the Lothian Road, where they are laying a new kind o' pavement wi' an awsome smell." The interior of the hut was shelved, and upon a pair of old trestles was a good new mattress. The builder looked curiously at it. "It was the Pleasance student missionary got it in for my mither to lie on afore she died," said Cleg in explanation. "Aye, and your mither is awa," said the builder; "it's a release." "Aye, it is that," said Cleg, from whose young heart sorrow of his mother's death had wholly passed away. He was not callous, but he was old-fashioned and world-experienced enough to recognise facts frankly. It was a release indeed for Isbel Kelly.