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Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City: His Progress and Adventures

Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City: His Progress and Adventures

ADVENTURE I.
THE OUTCASTING OF CLEG KELLY

"It's all a dumb lie – God's dead!"

Such a silence had never fallen upon the Sunday school, since the fatal day when the gate was blown into the middle of the floor by Mickey McGranaghan, a recent convert (and a temporary one) to the peculiar orthodoxy of Hunker Court. But the new explosion far outstripped the old in its effects. For it contained a denial of all the principles upon which the school was founded, and especially it confounded and blasphemed the cheerful optimism of Mr. James Lugton, its superintendent, otherwise and more intimately known as "Pund o' Cannles."

The statement which contained so emphatic a denial of the eternity of the Trinity was made by Cleg Kelly, a barelegged loon of eleven, who stood lone and unfriended on the floor before the superintendent's desk in the gloomy cellar known as Hunker Court school. Cleg Kelly had been reported by his teacher for incorrigible persistence in misconduct. He had introduced pins point upwards through the cracks in the forms. He had an instrument of wire cunningly plaited about his fingers, by means of which he could nip unsuspecting boys sitting as many as three or four from him – which is a great advantage to a boy in a Sunday school. Lastly, he had fallen backwards over a seat when asked a question; he had stood upon his hands and head while answering it, resuming his first position as if nothing had happened so soon as the examination passed on to the next boy. In fact, he had filled the cup of his iniquities to the brim.

His teacher did not so much object to the pranks of Cleg Kelly himself. He objected mainly because, being ragged, barelegged, with garments picturesquely ventilated, and a hat without a crown, he was as irresistible in charm and fascination to all the other members of his class as if he had been arrayed in silver armour starry clear. For though Hunker Court was a mission school, it was quite a superior mission. And (with the exception of one class, which was much looked down upon) the lowest class of children were not encouraged to attend. Now Cleg Kelly, by parentage and character, was almost, if not quite, as the mothers of the next social grade said, "the lowest of the low."

So when Cleg's teacher, a respectable young journeyman plumber, could stand no more pranks and had grown tired of cuffing and pulling, he led Cleg up to the awful desk of the superintendent from which the rebukes and prizes were delivered.

Thereupon "Pund o' Cannles," excellent but close-fisted tallow chandler and general dealer, proceeded to rebuke Cleg. Now the rebukes of "Pund o' Cannles" smelt of the counter, and were delivered in the tones in which he addressed his apprentice boys when there were no customers in the shop – a tone which was entirely different from the bland suavity which he used when he joined his hands and asked, "And what is the next article, madam?"

"Do you know, boy," said the superintendent, "that by such sinful conduct you are wilfully going on the downward road? You are a wicked boy, and instead of becoming better under your kind teacher, and taking advantage of the many advantages of this place devoted to religious instruction, you stick pins – brass pins – into better conducted boys than yourself. And so, if you do not repent, God will take you in your iniquity and cast you into hell. For, remember, God sees everything and punishes the bad people and rewards the good."

The superintendent uttered, though he knew it not, the most ancient of heresies – that which Job refuted.

It was at this point in the oration of "Pund o' Cannles" that Cleg Kelly's startling interruption occurred. The culprit stopped making O's on the dusty floor with his toe, amongst the moist paper pellets which were the favourite distraction of the inattentive at Hunker Court; and, in a clear voice, which thrilled through the heart of every teacher and scholar within hearing, he uttered his denial of the eternity of the Trinity.

"It's all a dumb lie – God's dead!" he said.