initial commit of ebook 2795HEADmain

1 files changed, 10070 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/2795-0.txt b/2795-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7282a9c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/2795-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10070 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bob, Son of Battle, by Alfred Ollivant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Bob, Son of Battle
+
+Author: Alfred Ollivant
+
+Posting Date: December 8, 2008 [EBook #2795]
+Release Date: February, 2007
+Last Updated: March 16, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOB, SON OF BATTLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+
+BOB, SON OF BATTLE
+
+By Alfred Ollivant
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+     PART I  THE COMING OF THE TAILLESS TYKE
+     Chapter I. The Gray Dog
+     Chapter II. A Son of Hagar
+     Chapter III. Red Wull
+     Chapter IV. First Blood
+
+
+     PART II THE LITTLE MAN
+     Chapter V. A Man's Son
+     Chapter VI. A Licking or a Lie
+     Chapter VII. The White Winter
+     Chapter VIII. M'Adam and His Coat
+
+
+     PART III THE SHEPHERDS' TROPHY
+     Chapter IX. Rivals,
+     Chapter X. Red Wull Wins
+     Chapter XI. Oor Bob,
+     Chapter XII. How Red Wull Held the Bridge
+     Chapter XIII. The Face in the Frame
+
+
+     PART IV THE BLACK KILLER
+     Chapter XIV. A Mad Man
+     Chapter XV. Death on the Marches,
+     Chapter XVI. The Black Killer
+     Chapter XVII. A Mad Dog
+     Chapter XVIII. How the Killer was Singed
+     Chapter XIX. Lad and Lass
+     Chapter XX. The Snapping of the String
+     Chapter XXI. Horror of Darkness
+
+
+     PART V OWD BOB O' KENMUIR
+     Chapter XXII. A Man and a Maid
+     Chapter XXIII. Th' Owd Un
+     Chapter XXIV. A Shot in the Night
+     Chapter XXV. The Shepherds' Trophy.
+
+
+     PART VI  THE BLACK KILLER
+     Chapter XXVI. Red-handed
+     Chapter XXVII. For the Defence
+     Chapter XXVIII. The Devil's Bowl
+     Chapter XXIX. The Devil's Bowl
+     Chapter XXX. The Tailless Tyke at Bay
+
+
+     Postscript
+
+
+
+
+PART I THE COMING OF THE TAILLESS TYKE
+
+
+
+Chapter I. THE GRAY DOG
+
+
+THE sun stared brazenly down on a gray farmhouse lying, long and low
+in the shadow of the Muir Pike; on the ruins of peel-tower and barmkyn,
+relics of the time of raids, it looked; on ranges of whitewashed
+outbuildings; on a goodly array of dark-thatched ricks.
+
+In the stack-yard, behind the lengthy range of stables, two men were
+thatching. One lay sprawling on the crest of the rick, the other stood
+perched on a ladder at a lower level.
+
+The latter, small, old, with shrewd nut-brown countenance, was Tammas
+Thornton, who had served the Moores of Kenmuir for more than half a
+century. The other, on top of the stack, wrapped apparently in gloomy
+meditation, was Sam'l Todd. A solid Dales--man, he, with huge hands and
+hairy arms; about his face an uncomely aureole of stiff, red hair; and
+on his features, deep-seated, an expression of resolute melancholy.
+
+“Ay, the Gray Dogs, bless 'em!” the old man was saying. “Yo' canna beat
+'em not nohow. Known 'em ony time this sixty year, I have, and niver
+knew a bad un yet. Not as I say, mind ye, as any on 'em cooms up to Rex
+son o' Rally. Ah, he was a one, was Rex! We's never won Cup since his
+day.”
+
+“Nor niver shall agin, yo' may depend,” said the other gloomily.
+
+Tammas clucked irritably.
+
+“G'long, Sam'! Todd!” he cried, “Yo' niver happy onless yo' making'
+yo'self miser'ble. I niver see sich a chap. Niver win agin? Why, oor
+young Bob he'll mak' a right un, I tell yo', and I should know. Not as
+what he'll touch Rex son o' Rally, mark ye! I'm niver saying' so, Sam'l
+Todd. Ah, he was a one, was Rex! I could tell yo' a tale or two o' Rex.
+I mind me hoo--”
+
+The big man interposed hurriedly.
+
+“I've heard it afore, Tammas, I welly 'ave,” he said.
+
+Tammas paused and looked angrily up.
+
+“Yo've heard it afore, have yo', Sam'l Todd?” he asked sharply. “And
+what have yo' heard afore?”
+
+“Yo' stories, owd lad--yo' stories o' Rex son o' Rally.”
+
+“Which on' em
+
+“All on 'em, Tammas, all on 'em--mony a time. I'm fair sick on 'em,
+Tammas, I welly am,” he pleaded.
+
+The old man gasped. He brought down his mallet with a vicious smack.
+
+“I'll niver tell yo' a tale agin, Sam'l Todd, not if yo' was to go on
+yo' bended knees for't. Nay; it bain't no manner o' use talkin'. Niver
+agin, says I.”
+
+“I niver askt yo',” declared honest Sam'l.
+
+“Nor it wouldna ha' bin no manner o' use if yo' had,” said the other
+viciously. “I'll niver tell yo' a tale agin if I was to live to be a
+hunderd.”
+
+“Yo'll not live to be a hunderd, Tammas Thornton, nor near it,” said
+Sam'l brutally.
+
+“I'll live as long as some, I warrant,” the old man replied with spirit.
+“I'll live to see Cup back i' Kenmuir, as I said afore.”
+
+“If yo' do,” the other declared with emphasis, “Sam'l Todd niver spake a
+true word. Nay, nay, lad; yo're owd, yo're wambly, your time's near run
+or I'm the more mistook.”
+
+“For mussy's sake hold yo' tongue, Sam'l Todd! It's clack-clack all
+day--” The old man broke off suddenly, and buckled to his work with
+suspicious vigor. “Mak' a show yo' bin workin', lad,” he whispered.
+“Here's Master and oor Bob.”
+
+As he spoke, a tall gaitered man with weather-beaten face, strong, lean,
+austere, and the blue-gray eyes of the hill-country, came striding into
+the yard. And trotting soberly at his heels, with the gravest, saddest
+eyes ever you saw, a sheep-dog puppy.
+
+A rare dark gray he was, his long coat, dashed here and there with
+lighter touches, like a stormy sea moonlit. Upon his chest an escutcheon
+of purest white, and the dome of his head showered, as it were, with
+a sprinkling of snow. Perfectly compact, utterly lithe, inimitably
+graceful with his airy-fairy action; a gentleman every inch, you could
+not help but stare at him--Owd Bob o' Kenmuir.
+
+At the foot of the ladder the two stopped. And the young dog, placing
+his forepaws on a lower rung, looked up, slowly waving his silvery
+brush.
+
+“A proper Gray Dog!” mused Tammas, gazing down into the dark face
+beneath him. “Small, yet big; light to get about on backs o' his sheep,
+yet not too light. Wi' a coat hard a-top to keep oot Daleland weather,
+soft as sealskin beneath. And wi' them sorrerful eyes on him as niver
+goes but wi' a good un. Amaist he minds me o' Rex son o' Rally.”
+
+“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” groaned Sam'l. But the old man heard him not.
+
+“Did 'Enry Farewether tell yo' hoo he acted this mornin', Master?” he
+inquired, addressing the man at the foot of the ladder.
+
+“Nay,” said the other, his stern eyes lighting.
+
+“Why, 'twas this way, it seems,” Tammas continued. “Young bull gets
+'isseif loose, somegate and marches oot into yard, o'erturns milkpail,
+and prods owd pigs i' ribs. And as he stands lookin' about un, thinking'
+what he shall be up to next, oor Bob sees un 'An' what yo' doin' here,
+Mr. Bull?' he seems to say, cockin' his ears and trottin' up gay-like.
+Wi' that bull bloats fit to bust 'isseif, lashes wi's tail, waggles his
+head, and gets agate o' chargin' 'im. But Bob leaps oot o' way, quick
+as lightnin' yet cool as butter, and when he's done his foolin drives un
+back agin.”
+
+“Who seed all this?” interposed Sam'l, sceptically.
+
+“'Enry Farewether from the loft. So there, Fat'ead!” Tammas replied, and
+continued his tale. “So they goes on; bull chargin' and Bob drivin'
+un back and back, hoppin' in and oot agin, quiet as a cowcumber, yet
+determined. At last Mr. Bull sees it's no manner o' use that gate, so he
+turns, rares up, and tries to jump wall. Nary a bit. Young dog jumps
+in on un and nips him by tail. Wi' that, bull tumbles down in a hurry,
+turns wi' a kind o' groan, and marches back into stall, Bob after un.
+And then, dang me!”--the old man beat the ladder as he loosed off this
+last titbit,--“if he doesna sit' isseif i' door like a sentrynel till
+'Enry Farewether coom up. Hoo's that for a tyke not yet a year?”
+
+Even Sam'l Todd was moved by the tale.
+
+“Well done, oor Bob!” he cried.
+
+“Good, lad!” said the Master, laying a hand on the dark head at his
+knee.
+
+“Yo' may well say that,” cried Tammas in a kind of ecstasy. “A proper
+Gray Dog, I tell yo'. Wi' the brains of a man and the way of a woman.
+Ah, yo' canna beat 'em nohow, the Gray Dogs o' Kenmuir!”
+
+The patter of cheery feet rang out on the plank-bridge over the stream
+below them. Tammas glanced round.
+
+“Here's David,” he said. “Late this mornin' he be.”
+
+A fair-haired boy came spurring up the slope, his face all aglow with
+the speed of his running. Straightway the young dog dashed off to
+meet him with a fiery speed his sober gait belied. The two raced back
+together into the yard.
+
+“Poor lad!” said Sam'l gloomily, regarding the newcomer.
+
+“Poor heart!” muttered Tammas. While the Master's face softened visibly.
+Yet there looked little to pity in this jolly, rocking lad with the
+tousle of light hair and fresh, rosy countenance.
+
+“G'mornin', Mister Moore! Morn'n, Tammas! Morn'n, Sam'l!” he panted as
+he passed; and ran on through the hay-carpeted yard, round the corner of
+the stable, and into the house.
+
+In the kitchen, a long room with red-tiled floor and latticed windows,
+a woman, white-aproned and frail-faced, was bustling about her morning
+business. To her skirts clung a sturdy, bare-legged boy; while at
+the oak table in the centre of the room a girl with brown eyes and
+straggling hair was seated before a basin of bread and milk.
+
+“So yo've coom at last, David!” the woman cried, as the boy entered;
+and, bending, greeted him with a tender, motherly salutation, which he
+returned as affectionately. “I welly thowt yo'd forgot us this mornin'.
+Noo sit you' doon beside oor Maggie.” And soon he, too, was engaged in a
+task twin to the girl's.
+
+The two children munched away in silence, the little bare-legged boy
+watching them, the while, critically. Irritated by this prolonged stare,
+David at length turned on him.
+
+“Weel, little Andrew,” he said, speaking in that paternal fashion in
+which one small boy loves to address another. “Weel, ma little lad,
+yo'm coomin' along gradely.” He leant back in his chair the better to
+criticise his subject. But Andrew, like all the Moores, slow of speech,
+preserved a stolid silence, sucking a chubby thumb, and regarding his
+patron a thought cynically.
+
+David resented the expression on the boy's countenance, and half rose to
+his feet.
+
+“Yo' put another face on yo', Andrew Moore,” he cried threateningly, “or
+I'll put it for yo'.”
+
+Maggie, however, interposed opportunely.
+
+“Did yo' feyther beat yo' last night?” she inquired in a low voice; and
+there was a shade of anxiety in the soft brown eyes.
+
+“Nay,” the boy answered; “he was a-goin' to, but he never did. Drunk,”
+ he added in explanation.
+
+“What was he goin' to beat yo' for, David?” asked Mrs. Moore.
+
+“What for? Why, for the fun o't--to see me squiggle,” the boy replied,
+and laughed bitterly.
+
+“Yo' shouldna speak so o' your dad, David,” reproved the other as
+severely as was in her nature.
+
+“Dad! a fine dad! I'd dad him an I'd the chance,” the boy muttered
+beneath his breath. Then, to turn the conversation:
+
+“Us should be startin', Maggie,” he said, and going to the door. “Bob!
+Owd Bob, lad! Ar't coomin' along?” he called.
+
+The gray dog came springing up like an antelope, and the three started
+off for school together.
+
+Mrs. Moore stood in the doorway, holding Andrew by the hand, and watched
+the departing trio.
+
+“'Tis a pretty pair, Master, surely,” she said softly to her husband,
+who came up at the moment.
+
+“Ay, he'll be a fine lad if his fether'll let him,” the tall man
+answered.
+
+“Tis a shame Mr. M'Adam should lead him such a life,” the woman
+continued indignantly. She laid a hand on her husband's arm, and looked
+up at him coaxingly.
+
+“Could yo' not say summat to un, Master, think 'ee? Happen he'd 'tend
+to you,” she pleaded. For Mrs. Moore imagined that there could be no one
+but would gladly heed what James Moore, Master of Kenmuir, might say
+to him. “He's not a bad un at bottom, I do believe,” she continued. “He
+never took on so till his missus died. Eh, but he was main fond o' her.”
+
+Her husband shook his head “Nay, mother,” he said “'Twould nob' but
+mak' it worse for t' lad. M'Adam'd listen to no one, let alone me.” And,
+indeed, he was right; for the tenant of the Grange made no secret of his
+animosity for his straight-going, straight-speaking neighbor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Owd Bob, in the mean time, had escorted the children to the larch-copse
+bordering on the lane which leads to the village. Now he crept
+stealthily back to the yard, and established himself behind the
+water-butt.
+
+How he played and how he laughed; how he teased old Whitecap till that
+gray gander all but expired of apoplexy and impotence; how he ran the
+roan bull-calf, and aroused the bitter wrath of a portly sow, mother of
+many, is of no account.
+
+At last, in the midst of his merry mischief-making, a stern voice
+arrested him.
+
+“Bob, lad, I see 'tis time we larned you yo' letters.”
+
+So the business of life began for that dog of whom the simple
+farmer-folk of the Daleland still love to talk,--Bob, son of Battle,
+last of the Gray Dogs of Kenmuir.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II. A SON OF HAGAR
+
+
+It is a lonely country, that about the Wastrel-dale.
+
+Parson Leggy Hornbut will tell you that his is the smallest church in
+the biggest parish north of the Derwent, and that his cure numbers more
+square miles than parishioners. Of fells and ghylls it consists, of
+becks and lakes; with here a scattered hamlet and there a solitary hill
+sheep-farm. It is a country in which sheep are paramount; and every
+other Dalesman is engaged in that profession which is as old as Abel.
+And the talk of the men of the land is of wethers and gimmers, of
+tup-hoggs, ewe tegs in wool, and other things which are but fearsome
+names to you and me; and always of the doings or misdoings, the
+intelligence or stupidity, of their adjutants, the sheep-dogs.
+
+Of all the Daleland, the country from the Black Water to Grammoch Pike
+is the wildest. Above the tiny stone-built village of Wastrel-dale the
+Muir Pike nods its massive head. Westward, the desolate Mere Marches,
+from which the Sylvesters' great estate derives its name, reach away in
+mile on mile of sheep infested, wind-swept moorland. On the far side of
+the Marches is that twin dale where flows the gentle Silver Lea. And it
+is there in the paddocks at the back of the Dalesman's Daughter, that,
+in the late summer months, the famous sheep-dog Trials of the North are
+held. There that the battle for the Dale Cup, the world-known Shepherds'
+Trophy, is fought out.
+
+Past the little inn leads the turnpike road to the market-centre of the
+district--Grammoch-town. At the bottom of the paddocks at the back of
+the inn winds the Silver Lea. Just there a plank bridge crosses the
+stream, and, beyond, the Murk Muir Pass crawls up the sheer side of the
+Scaur on to the Mere Marches.
+
+At the head of the Pass, before it debouches on to those lonely
+sheep-walks which divide the two dales, is that hollow, shuddering with
+gloomy possibilities, aptly called the Devil's Bowl. In its centre the
+Lone Tarn, weirdly suggestive pool, lifts its still face to the sky. It
+was beside that black, frozen water, across whose cold surface the storm
+was swirling in white snow-wraiths, that, many, many years ago (not in
+this century), old Andrew Moore came upon the mother of the Gray Dogs of
+Kenmuir.
+
+In the North, every one who has heard of the Muir Pike--and who has
+not?--has heard of the Gray Dogs of Kenmuir, every one who has heard
+of the Shepherd's Trophy--and who has not?--knows their fame. In that
+country of good dogs and jealous masters the pride of place has long
+been held unchallenged. Whatever line may claim to follow the Gray Dogs
+always lead the van. And there is a saying in the land: “Faithfu' as the
+Moores and their tykes.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the top dresser to the right of the fireplace in the kitchen
+of Kenmuir lies the family Bible. At the end you will find a loose
+sheet--the pedigree of the Gray Dogs; at the beginning, pasted on the
+inside, an almost similar sheet, long since yellow with age--the family
+register of the Moores of Kenmuir.
+
+Running your eye down the loose leaf, once, twice, and again it will be
+caught by a small red cross beneath a name, and under the cross the one
+word “Cup.” Lastly, opposite the name of Rex son of Rally, are two of
+those proud, tell-tale marks. The cup referred to is the renowned Dale
+Cup--Champion Challenge Dale Cup, open to the world. Had Rex won it but
+once again the Shepherds' Trophy, which many men have lived to win, and
+died still striving after, would have come to rest forever in the little
+gray house below the Pike.
+
+It was not to be, however. Comparing the two sheets, you read beneath
+the dog's name a date and a pathetic legend; and on the other sheet,
+written in his son's boyish hand, beneath the name of Andrew Moore the
+same date and the same legend.
+
+From that day James Moore, then but a boy, was master of Kenmuir.
+
+So past Grip and Rex and Rally, and a hundred others, until at the foot
+of the page you come to that last name--Bob, son of Battle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the very first the young dog took to his work in a manner to
+amaze even James Moore. For a while he watched his mother, Meg, at her
+business, and with that seemed to have mastered the essentials of sheep
+tactics.
+
+Rarely had such fiery élan been seen on the sides of the Pike; and with
+it the young dog combined a strange sobriety, an admirable patience,
+that justified, indeed, the epithet. “Owd.” Silent he worked, and
+resolute; and even in those days had that famous trick of coaxing the
+sheep to do his wishes;--blending, in short, as Tammas put it, the
+brains of a man with the way of a woman.
+
+Parson Leggy, who was reckoned the best judge of a sheep or sheep-dog
+'twixt Tyne and Tweed, summed him up in the one word “Genius.” And James
+Moore himself, cautious man, was more than pleased.
+
+In the village, the Dalesmen, who took a personal pride in the Gray Dogs
+of Kenmuir, began to nod sage heads when “oor” Bob was mentioned. Jim
+Mason, the postman, whose word went as far with the villagers as Parson
+Leggy's with the gentry, reckoned he'd never seen a young un as so took
+his fancy.
+
+That winter it grew quite the recognized thing, when they had gathered
+of a night round the fire in the Sylvester Arms, with Tammas in the
+centre, old Jonas Maddox on his right, Rob Saunderson of the Holt on the
+left, and the others radiating away toward the sides, for some one to
+begin with:
+
+“Well, and what o' oor Bob, Mr. Thornton?”
+
+To which Tammas would always make reply:
+
+“Oh, yo' ask Sam'l there. He'll tell yo' better'n me, “--and would
+forthwith plunge, himself, into a yarn.
+
+And the way in which, as the story proceeded, Tupper of Swinsthwaite
+winked at Ned Hoppin of Fellsgarth, and Long Kirby, the smith, poked Jem
+Burton, the publican, in the ribs, and Sexton Ross said, “Ma word, lad!”
+ spoke more eloquently than many words.
+
+One man only never joined in the chorus of admiration. Sitting always
+alone in the background, little M'Adam would listen with an incredulous
+grin on his sallow face.
+
+“Oh, ma certes! The devil's in the dog! It's no cannie ava!” he would
+continually exclaim, as Tammas told his tale.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the Daleland you rarely see a stranger's face. Wandering in the wild
+country about the twin dales at the time of this story, you might have
+met Parson Leggy, striding along with a couple of varmint terriers at
+his heels, and young Cyril Gilbraith, whom he was teaching to tie flies
+and fear God, beside him; or Jim Mason, postman by profession, poacher
+by predilection, honest man and sportsman by nature, hurrying along with
+the mail-bags on his shoulder, a rabbit in his pocket, and the faithful
+Betsy a yard behind. Besides these you might have hit upon a quiet
+shepherd and a wise-faced dog; Squire Sylvester, going his rounds upon
+a sturdy cob; or, had you been lucky, sweet Lady Eleanour bent upon some
+errand of mercy to one of the many tenants.
+
+It was while the Squire's lady was driving through the village on a
+visit* to Tammas's slobbering grandson--it was shortly after Billy
+Thornton's advent into the world--that little M'Adam, standing in the
+door of the Sylvester Arms, with a twig in his mouth and a sneer fading
+from his lips, made his ever-memorable remark:
+
+“Sall!” he said, speaking in low, earnest voice; “'tis a muckle wumman.”
+
+     Note:* It was this visit which figured in the Grammoch-town
+     _Argus_ (local and radical) under the heading of “Alleged
+     Wholesale Corruption by Tory Agents.” And that is why, on
+     the following market day, Herbert Trotter, journalist,
+     erstwhile gentleman, and Secretary of the Dale Trials, found
+     himself trying to swim in the public horse-trough.
+
+“What? What be sayin', mon?” cried old Jonas, startled out of his usual
+apathy.
+
+M'Adam turned sharply on the old man.
+
+“I said the wumman wears a muckle hat!” he snapped.
+
+Blotted out as it was, the observation still remains--a tribute of
+honest admiration. Doubtless the Recording Angel did not pass it by.
+That one statement anent the gentle lady of the manor is the only
+personal remark ever credited to little M'Adam not born of malice and
+all uncharitableness. And that is why it is ever memorable.
+
+The little Scotsman with the sardonic face had been the tenant of the
+Grange these many years; yet he had never grown acclimatized to the
+land of the Southron. With his shrivelled body and weakly legs he looked
+among the sturdy, straight-limbed sons of the hill-country like some
+brown, wrinkled leaf holding its place midst a galaxy of green. And as
+he differed from them physically, so he did morally.
+
+He neither understood them nor attempted to. The North-country character
+was an unsolved mystery to him, and that after ten years' study.
+“One-half o' what ye say they doot, and they let ye see it; t'ither half
+they disbelieve, and they tell ye so,” he once said. And that explained
+his attitude toward them, and consequently theirs toward him.
+
+He stood entirely alone; a son of Hagar, mocking. His sharp, ill tongue
+was rarely still, and always bitter. There was hardly a man in the land,
+from Langholm How to the market-cross in Grammoch-town, but had at
+one time known its sting, endured it in silence--for they are slow of
+speech, these men of the fells and meres--and was nursing his resentment
+till a day should bring that chance which always comes. And when at
+the Sylvester Arms, on one of those rare occasions when M'Adam was not
+present, Tammas summed up the little man in that historic phrase of his,
+“When he's drunk he's wi'lent, and when he bain't he's wicious,” there
+was an applause to gratify the blasé heart of even Tammas Thornton.
+
+Yet it had not been till his wife's death that the little man had
+allowed loose rein to his ill-nature. With her firmly gentle hand no
+longer on the tiller of his life, it burst into fresh being. And alone
+in the world with David, the whole venom of his vicious temperament was
+ever directed against the boy's head. It was as though he saw in his
+fair-haired son the unconscious cause of his ever-living sorrow. All
+the more strange this, seeing that, during her life, the boy had been
+to poor Flora M'Adam as her heart's core. And the lad was growing up the
+very antithesis of his father. Big and hearty, with never an ache or ill
+in the whole of his sturdy young body; of frank, open countenance; while
+even his speech was slow and burring like any Dale-bred boy's. And
+the fact of it all, and that the lad was palpably more Englishman than
+Scot--ay, and gloried in it--exasperated the little man, a patriot
+before everything, to blows. While, on top of it, David evinced an
+amazing pertness fit to have tried a better man than Adam M'Adam.
+
+On the death of his wife, kindly Elizabeth Moore had, more than once,
+offered such help to the lonely little man as a woman only can give in
+a house that knows no mistress. On the last of these occasions, after
+crossing the Stony Bottom, which divides the two farms, and toiling up
+the hill to the Grange, she had met M'Adam in the door.
+
+“Yo' maun let me put yo' bit things straight for yo', mister,” she had
+said shyly; for she feared the little man.
+
+“Thank ye, Mrs. Moore,” he had answered with the sour smile the Dalesmen
+knew so well, “but ye maun think I'm a waefu' cripple.” And there he had
+stood, grinning sardonically, opposing his small bulk in the very centre
+of the door.
+
+Mrs. Moore had turned down the hill, abashed and hurt at the reception
+of her offer; and her husband, proud to a fault, had forbidden her
+to repeat it. Nevertheless her motherly heart went out in a great
+tenderness for the little orphan David. She knew well the desolateness
+of his life; his father's aversion from him, and its inevitable
+consequences.
+
+It became an institution for the boy to call every morning at Kenmuir,
+and trot off to the village school with Maggie Moore. And soon the lad
+came to look on Kenmuir as his true home, and James and Elizabeth Moore
+as his real parents. His greatest happiness was to be away from the
+Grange. And the ferret-eyed little man there noted the fact, bitterly
+resented it, and vented his ill-humor accordingly.
+
+It was this, as he deemed it, uncalled-for trespassing on his authority
+which was the chief cause of his animosity against James Moore. The
+Master of Kenmuir it was at whom he was aiming when he remarked one
+day at the Arms: “Masel', I aye prefaire the good man who does no go to
+church, to the bad man who does. But then, as ye say, Mr. Burton, I'm
+peculiar.”
+
+The little man's treatment of David, exaggerated as it was by eager
+credulity, became at length such a scandal to the Dale that Parson Leggy
+determined to bring him to task on the matter.
+
+Now M'Adam was the parson's pet antipathy. The bluff old minister, with
+his brusque manner and big heart, would have no truck with the man who
+never went to church, was perpetually in liquor, and never spoke good of
+his neighbors. Yet he entered upon the interview fully resolved not to
+be betrayed into an unworthy expression of feeling; rather to appeal to
+the little man's better nature.
+
+The conversation had not been in progress two minutes, however, before
+he knew that, where he had meant to be calmly persuasive, he was fast
+become hotly abusive.
+
+“You, Mr. Hornbut, wi' James Moore to help ye, look after the lad's
+soul, I'll see to his body,” the little man was saying.
+
+The parson's thick gray eyebrows lowered threateningly over his eyes.
+
+“You ought to be ashamed of yourself to talk like that. Which d'you
+think the more important, soul or body? Oughtn't you, his father, to be
+the very first to care for the boy's soul? If not, who should? Answer
+me, sir.”
+
+The little man stood smirking and sucking his eternal twig, entirely
+unmoved by the other's heat.
+
+“Ye're right, Mr. Hornbut, as ye aye are. But my argiment is this: that
+I get at his soul best through his leetle carcase.”
+
+The honest parson brought down his stick with an angry thud.
+
+“M'Adam, you're a brute--a brute!” he shouted. At which outburst the
+little man was seized with a spasm of silent merriment.
+
+“A fond dad first, a brute afterward, aiblins--he! he! Ah, Mr. Hornbut!
+ye 'ford me vast diversion, ye do indeed, 'my loved, my honored,
+much-respected friend.”
+
+“If you paid as much heed to your boy's welfare as you do to the bad
+poetry of that profligate ploughman--”
+
+An angry gleam shot into the other's eyes. “D'ye ken what blasphemy is,
+Mr. Hornbut?” he asked, shouldering a pace forward.
+
+For the first time in the dispute the parson thought he was about to
+score a point, and was calm accordingly.
+
+“I should do; I fancy I've a specimen of the breed before me now. And
+d'you know what impertinence is?”
+
+“I should do; I fancy I've--I awd say it's what gentlemen aften are
+unless their mammies whipped 'em as lads.”
+
+For a moment the parson looked as if about to seize his opponent and
+shake him.
+
+“M'Adam,” he roared, “I'll not stand your insolences!”
+
+The little man turned, scuttled indoors, and came running back with a
+chair.
+
+“Permit me!” he said blandly, holding it before him like a haircutter
+for a customer.
+
+The parson turned away. At the gap in the hedge he paused.
+
+“I'll only say one thing more,” he called slowly. “When your wife, whom
+I think we all loved, lay dying in that room above you, she said to you
+in my presence--”
+
+It was M'Adam's turn to be angry. He made a step forward with burning
+face.
+
+“Aince and for a', Mr. Hornbut,” he cried passionately, “onderstand I'll
+not ha' you and yer likes lay yer tongues on ma wife's memory whenever
+it suits ye. You can say what ye like aboot me--lies, sneers, snash--and
+I'll say naethin'. I dinna ask ye to respect me; I think ye might do sae
+muckle by her, puir lass. She never harmed ye. Gin ye canna let her bide
+in peace where she lies doon yonder”--he waved in the direction of the
+churchyard--“ye'll no come on ma land. Though she is dead she's mine.”
+
+Standing in front of his house, with flushed face and big eyes, the
+little man looked almost noble in his indignation. And the parson,
+striding away down the hill, was uneasily conscious that with him was
+not the victory.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III. RED WULL
+
+
+THE winter came and went; the lambing season was over, and spring
+already shyly kissing the land. And the back of the year's work broken,
+and her master well started on a fresh season, M'Adam's old collie,
+Cuttie Sark, lay down one evening and passed quietly away.
+
+The little black-and-tan lady, Parson Leggy used to say, had been
+the only thing on earth M'Adam cared for. Certainly the two had been
+wondrously devoted; and for many a market-day the Dalesmen missed the
+shrill, chuckling cry which heralded the pair's approach: “Weel done,
+Cuttie Sark!”
+
+The little man felt his loss acutely, and, according to his wont, vented
+his ill-feeling on David and the Dalesmen. In return, Tammas, whose
+forte lay in invective and alliteration, called him behind his back,
+“A wenomous one!” and “A wiralent wiper!” to the applause of tinkling
+pewters.
+
+A shepherd without his dog is like a ship without a rudder, and M'Adam
+felt his loss practically as well as otherwise. Especially did he
+experience this on a day when he had to take a batch of draft-ewes over
+to Grammoch-town. To help him Jem Burton had lent the services of his
+herring-gutted, herring-hearted, greyhound lurcher, Monkey. But before
+they had well topped Braithwaite Brow, which leads from the village
+on to the marches, M'Adam was standing in the track with a rock in his
+hand, a smile on his face, and the tenderest blandishments in his voice
+as he coaxed the dog to him. But Master Monkey knew too much for that.
+However, after gamboling a while longer in the middle of the flock, a
+boulder, better aimed than its predecessors, smote him on the hinder
+parts and sent him back to the Sylvester Arms, with a sore tail and a
+subdued heart.
+
+For the rest, M'Adam would never have won over the sheep-infested
+marches alone with his convoy had it not been for the help of old
+Saunderson and Shep, who caught him on the way and aided him.
+
+It was in a very wrathful mood that on his way home he turned into the
+Dalesman's Daughter in Silverdale.
+
+The only occupants of the tap-room, as he entered, were Teddy Bolstock,
+the publican, Jim Mason, with the faithful Betsy beneath his chair and
+the post-bags flung into the corner, and one long-limbed, drover-like
+man--a stranger.
+
+“And he coom up to Mr. Moore,” Teddy was saying, “and says he, 'I'll gie
+ye twal' pun for yon gray dog o' yourn.' 'Ah,' says Moore, 'yo' may gie
+me twal' hunner'd and yet you'll not get ma Bob.'--Eh, Jim?”
+
+“And he did thot,” corroborated Jim. “'Twal' hunner'd,' says he.”
+
+“James Moore and his dog agin” snapped M'Adam. “There's ithers in the
+warld for bye them twa.”
+
+“Ay, but none like 'em,” quoth loyal Jim.
+
+“Na, thanks be. Gin there were there'd be no room for Adam M'Adam in
+this 'melancholy vale.'”
+
+There was silence a moment, and then--:
+
+“You're wantin' a tyke, bain't you, Mr. M'Adam?” Jim asked.
+
+The little man hopped round all in a hurry.
+
+“What!” he cried in well-affected eagerness, scanning the yellow mongrel
+beneath the chair. “Betsy for sale! Guid life! Where's ma check-book?”
+ Whereat Jim, most easily snubbed of men, collapsed.
+
+M'Adam took off his dripping coat and crossed the room to hang it on a
+chair-back. The stranger drover followed the meagre, shirt-clad figure
+with shifty eyes; then he buried his face in his mug.
+
+M'Adam reached out a hand for the chair; and as he did so, a bomb in
+yellow leapt out from beneath it, and, growling horribly, attacked his
+ankles.
+
+“Curse ye!” cried M'Adam, starting back.
+
+“Ye devil, let me alone!” Then turning fiercely on the drover, “Yours,
+mister?” he asked. The man nodded. “Then call him aff, can't ye? D--n
+ye!” At which Teddy Bolstock withdrew, sniggering; and Jim Mason slung
+the post-bags on to his shoulder and plunged out into the rain, the
+faithful Betsy following, disconsolate.
+
+The cause of the squall, having beaten off the attacking force, had
+withdrawn again beneath its chair. M'Adam stooped down, still cursing,
+his wet coat on his arm, and beheld a tiny yellow puppy, crouching
+defiant in the dark, and glaring out with fiery light eyes. Seeing
+itself remarked, it bared its little teeth, raised its little bristles,
+and growled a hideous menace.
+
+A sense of humor is many a man's salvation, and was M'Adam's one
+redeeming feature. The laughableness of the thing--this ferocious atomy
+defying him--struck home to the little man. Delighted at such a display
+of vice in so tender a plant, he fell to chuckling.
+
+“Ye leetle devil!” he laughed. “He! he! ye leetle devil!” and flipped
+together finger and thumb in vain endeavor to coax the puppy to him.
+
+But it growled, and glared more terribly.
+
+“Stop it, ye little snake, or I'll flatten you!” cried the big drover,
+and shuffled his feet threateningly. Whereat the puppy, gurgling like
+hot water in a kettle, made a feint as though to advance and wipe them
+out, these two bad men.
+
+M'Adam laughed again, and smote his leg.
+
+“Keep a ceevil tongue and yer distance,” says he, “or I'll e'en ha' to
+mak' ye. Though he is but as big as a man's thumb, a dog's a dog for
+a' that--he! he! the leetle devil.” And he fell to flipping finger and
+thumb afresh.
+
+“Ye're maybe wantin' a dog?” inquired the stranger. “Yer friend said as
+much.”
+
+“Ma friend lied; it's his way,” M'Adam replied.
+
+“I'm willin' to part wi' him,” the other pursued.
+
+The little man yawned. “Weel, I'll tak' him to oblige ye,” he said
+indifferently.
+
+The drover rose to his feet.
+
+“It's givin' 'im ye, fair givin' im ye, mind! But I'll do it!”--he
+smacked a great fist into a hollow palm. “Ye may have the dog for a
+pun'--I'll only ask _you_ a pun',” and he walked away to the window.
+
+M'Adam drew back, the better to scan his would-be benefactor; his lower
+jaw dropped, and he eyed the stranger with a drolly sarcastic air.
+
+“A poun', man! A pouxi'--for yon noble dorg!” he pointed a crooked
+forefinger at the little creature, whose scowling mask peered from
+beneath the chair. “Man, I couldna do it. Na, na; ma conscience wadna
+permit me. 'Twad be fair robbin' ye. Ah, ye Englishmen!” he spoke half
+to himself, and sadly, as if deploring the unhappy accident of his
+nationality; “it's yer grand, open-hairted generosity that grips a
+puir Scotsman by the throat. A poun'! and for yon!” He wagged his head
+mournfully, cocking it sideways the better to scan his subject.
+
+“Take him or leave him,” ordered the drover truculently, still gazing
+out of the window.
+
+“Wi' yer permission I'll leave him,” M'Adam answered meekly.
+
+“I'm short o' the ready,” the big man pursued, “or I wouldna part with
+him. Could I bide me time there's many'd be glad to give me a tenner
+for one o' that bree--” he caught himself up hastily--“for a dog sic as
+that.”
+
+“And yet ye offer him me for a poun'! Noble indeed!”
+
+Nevertheless the little man had pricked his ears at the other's slip
+and quick correction. Again he approached the puppy, dangling his coat
+before him to protect his ankles; and again that wee wild beast sprang
+out, seized the coat in its small jaw, and worried it savagely.
+
+M'Adam stooped quickly and picked up his tiny assailant; and the
+puppy, suspended by its neck, gurgled and slobbered; then, wriggling
+desperately round, made its teeth meet in its adversary's shirt. At
+which M'Adam shook it gently and laughed. Then he set to examining it.
+
+Apparently some six weeks old; a tawny coat, fiery eyes, a square head
+with small, cropped ears, and a comparatively immense jaw; the whole
+giving promise of great strength, if little beauty. And this effect
+was enhanced by the manner of its docking. For the miserable relic of
+a tail, yet raw, looked little more than a red button adhering to its
+wearer's stern.
+
+M'Adam's inspection was as minute as it was apparently absorbing; he
+omitted nothing from the square muzzle to the lozenge-like scut. And
+every now and then he threw a quick glance at the man at the window, who
+was watching the careful scrutiny a thought uneasily.
+
+“Ye've cut him short,” he said at length, swinging round on the drover.
+
+“Ay; strengthens their backs,” the big man answered with averted gaze.
+
+M'Adam's chin went up in the air; his mouth partly opened and his
+eyelids partly closed as he eyed his informant.
+
+“Oh, ay,” he said.
+
+“Gie him back to me,” ordered the drover surlily. He took the puppy
+and set it on the floor; whereupon it immediately resumed its former
+fortified position. “Ye're no buyer; I knoo that all along by that face
+on ye,” he said in insulting tones.
+
+“Ye wad ha' bought him yerseif', nae doot?” M'Adam inquired blandly.
+
+“In course; if you says so.”
+
+“Or airblins ye bred him?”
+
+“'Appen I did.”
+
+“Ye'll no be from these parts?”
+
+“Will I no?” answered the other.
+
+A smile of genuine pleasure stole over M'Adam's face. He laid his hand
+on the other's arm.
+
+“Man,” he said gently, “ye mind me o' hame.” Then almost in the same
+breath: “Ye said ye found him?”
+
+It was the stranger's turn to laugh.
+
+“Ha! ha! Ye teekle me, little mon. Found 'im? Nay; I was give 'im by a
+friend. But there's nowt amiss wi' his breedin', ye may believe me.”
+
+The great fellow advanced to the chair under which the puppy lay. It
+leapt out like a lion, and fastened on his huge boot.
+
+“A rare bred un, look 'ee! a rare game un. Ma word, he's a big-hearted
+un! Look at the back on him; see the jaws to him; mark the pluck of
+him!” He shook his booted foot fiercely, tossing his leg to and fro like
+a tree in a wind. But the little creature, now raised ceilingward, now
+dashed to the ground, held on with incomparable doggedness, till its
+small jaw was all bloody and muzzle wrinkled with the effort.
+
+“Ay, ay, that'll do,” M'Adam interposed, irritably.
+
+The drover ceased his efforts.
+
+“Now, I'll mak' ye a last offer.” He thrust his head down to a level
+with the other's, shooting out his neck. “It's throwin' him at ye, mind.
+'Tain't buyin' him ye'll be--don't go for to deceive yourself. Ye may
+have him for fifteen shillin'. Why do I do it, ye ask? Why, 'cos I think
+ye'll be kind to him,” as the puppy retreated to its chair, leaving a
+spotted track of red along its route.
+
+“Ay, ye wadna be happy gin ye thocht he'd no a comfortable hame,
+conseederate man?” M'Adam answered, eyeing the dark track on the floor.
+Then he put on his coat.
+
+“Na, na, he's no for me. Weel, I'll no detain ye. Good-nicht to ye,
+mister!” and he made for the door.
+
+“A gran' worker he'll be,” called the drover after him.
+
+“Ay; muckle wark he'll mak' amang the sheep wi' sic a jaw and sic a
+temper. Weel, I maun be steppin'. Good-nicht to ye.”
+
+“Ye'll niver have sich anither chanst.”
+
+“Nor niver wush to. Na, na; he'll never mak' a sheep-dog”; and the
+little man turned up the collar of his coat.
+
+“Will he not?” cried the other scornfully. “There niver yet was one o'
+that line--” he stopped abruptly.
+
+The little man spun round.
+
+“Iss?” he said, as innocent as any child; “ye were sayin'?”
+
+The other turned to the window and watched the rain falling
+monotonously.
+
+“Ye'll be wantin' wet,” he said adroitly.
+
+“Ay, we could do wi' a drappin'. And he'll never mak' a sheep-dog.”
+ He shoved his cap down on his head. “Weel, good-nicht to ye!” and he
+stepped out into the rain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was long after dark when the bargain was finally struck.
+
+Adam M'Adam's Red Wull became that little man's property for the
+following realizable assets: ninepence in cash--three coppers and a
+doubtful sixpence; a plug of suspicious tobacco in a well-worn pouch;
+and an old watch.
+
+“It's clean givin' 'im ye,” said the stranger bitterly, at the end of
+the deal.
+
+“It's mair the charity than aught else mak's me sae leeberal,” the other
+answered gently. “I wad not like to see ye pinched.”
+
+“Thank ye kindly,” the big man replied with some acerbity, and plunged
+out into the darkness and rain. Nor was that long-limbed drover-man ever
+again seen in the countryside. And the puppy's previous history--whether
+he was honestly come by or no, whether he was, indeed, of the famous Red
+McCulloch* strain, ever remained a mystery in the Daleland.
+
+     *N. B.--You may know a Red McCulloch anywhere by the ring of
+     white upon his tail some two inches from the root.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV. FIRST BLOOD
+
+
+AFTER that first encounter in the Dalesman's Daughter, Red Wull, for
+so M'Adam called him, resigned himself complacently to his lot;
+recognizing, perhaps, his destiny.
+
+Thenceforward the sour little man and the vicious puppy grew, as it
+were, together. The two were never apart. Where M'Adam was, there was
+sure to be his tiny attendant, bristling defiance as he kept ludicrous
+guard over his master.
+
+The little man and his dog were inseparable. M'Adam never left him even
+at the Grange.
+
+“I couldna trust ma Wullie at hame alone wi' the dear lad,” was his
+explanation. “I ken weel I'd come back to find a wee corpse on the
+floor, and David singin':
+
+     'My heart is sair, I daur na tell,
+     My heart is sair for somebody.'
+
+Ay, and he'd be sair elsewhere by the time I'd done wi' him--he! he!”
+
+The sneer at David's expense was as characteristic as it was unjust.
+For though the puppy and the boy were already sworn enemies, yet the
+lad would have scorned to harm so small a foe. And many a tale did David
+tell at Kenmuir of Red Wull's viciousness, of his hatred of him (David),
+and his devotion to his master; how, whether immersed in the pig-bucket
+or chasing the fleeting rabbit, he would desist at once, and bundle,
+panting, up at his master's call; how he routed the tomcat and drove him
+from the kitchen; and how he clambered on to David's bed and pinned him
+murderously by the nose.
+
+Of late the relations between M'Adam and James Moore had been unusually
+strained. Though they were neighbors, communications between the two
+were of the rarest; and it was for the first time for many a long
+day that, on an afternoon shortly after Red Wull had come into his
+possession, M'Adam entered the yard of Kenmuir, bent on girding at the
+master for an alleged trespass at the Stony Bottom.
+
+“Wi' yer permission, Mr. Moore,” said the little man, “I'll wheestle ma
+dog,” and, turning, he whistled a shrill, peculiar note like the cry of
+a disturbed peewit.
+
+Straightway there came scurrying desperately up, ears back, head down,
+tongue out, as if the world depended on his speed, a little tawny beetle
+of a thing, who placed his forepaws against his master's ankles
+and looked up into his face; then, catching sight of the strangers,
+hurriedly he took up his position between them and M'Adam, assuming his
+natural attitude of grisly defiance. Such a laughable spectacle he made,
+that martial mite, standing at bay with bristles up and teeth bared,
+that even James Moore smiled.
+
+“Ma word! Ha' yo' brought his muzzle, man?” cried old Tammas, the
+humorist; and, turning, climbed all in a heat on to an upturned bucket
+that stood by. Whereat the puppy, emboldened by his foe's retreat,
+advanced savagely to the attack, buzzing round the slippery pail like a
+wasp on a windowpane, in a vain attempt to reach the old man.
+
+Tammas stood on the top, hitching his trousers and looking down on his
+assailant, the picture of mortal fear.
+
+“'Elp! Oh, 'elp!” he bawled. “Send for the sogers! Fetch the p'lice!
+For lawk-amussy's sake call him off, man!” Even Sam'l Todd, watching
+the scene from the cart-shed, was tickled and burst into a loud guffaw,
+heartily backed by 'Enry and oor Job. While M'Adam remarked: “Ye're
+fitter for a stage than a stable-bucket, Mr. Thornton.”
+
+“How didst come by him?” asked Tammas, nodding at the puppy.
+
+“Found him,” the little man replied, sucking his twig. “Found him in
+ma stockin' on ma birthday. A present from ma leetle David for his auld
+dad, I doot.”
+
+“So do I,” said Tammas, and was seized with sudden spasm of seemingly
+causeless merriment. For looking up as M'Adam was speaking, he had
+caught a glimpse of a boy's fair head, peering cautiously round the
+cow-shed, and, behind, the flutter of short petticoats. They disappeared
+as silently as they had come; and two small figures, just returned from
+school, glided away and sought shelter in the friendly darkness of a
+coal-hole.
+
+“Coom awa', Maggie, coom awa'! 'Tis th' owd un, 'isself,” whispered a
+disrespectful voice.
+
+M'Adam looked round suspiciously.
+
+“What's that?” he asked sharply.
+
+At the moment, however, Mrs. Moore put her head out of the kitchen
+window.
+
+“Coom thy ways in, Mister M'Adam, and tak' a soop o' tea,” she called
+hospitably.
+
+“Thank ye kindly, Mrs. Moore, I will,” he answered, politely for him.
+And this one good thing must be allowed of Adam M'Adam: that, if there
+was only one woman of whom he was ever known to speak well, there was
+also only one, in the whole course of his life, against whom he ever
+insinuated evil--and that was years afterward, when men said his brain
+was sapped. Flouts and jeers he had for every man, but a woman, good or
+bad, was sacred to him. For the sex that had given him his mother and
+his wife he had that sentiment of tender reverence which, if a man still
+preserve, he cannot be altogether bad. As he turned into the house he
+looked back at Red Wull.
+
+“Ay, we may leave him,” he said. “That is, gin ye're no afraid, Mr.
+Thornton?”
+
+Of what happened while the men were within doors, it is enough to tell
+two things. First, that Owd Bob was no bully. Second, this: In the code
+of sheep-dog honor there is written a word in stark black letters; and
+opposite it another word, writ large in the color of blood. The first
+is “Sheep-murder”; the second, “Death.” It is the one crime only to
+be wiped away in blood; and to accuse of the crime is to offer the one
+unpardonable insult. Every sheep-dog knows it, and every shepherd.
+
+That afternoon, as the men still talked, the quiet echoes of the
+farm rung with a furious animal cry, twice repeated: “Shot for
+sheep-murder”--“Shot for sheep-murder”; followed by a hollow stillness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The two men finished their colloquy. The matter was concluded
+peacefully, mainly owing to the pacifying influence of Mrs. Moore.
+Together the three went out into the yard; Mrs. Moore seizing the
+opportunity to shyly speak on David's behalf.
+
+“He's such a good little lad, I do think,” she was saying.
+
+“Ye should ken, Mrs. Moore,” the little man answered, a thought
+bitterly; “ye see enough of him.”
+
+“Yo' mun be main proud of un, mester,” the woman continued, heedless of
+the sneer: “an' 'im growin' such a gradely lad.”
+
+M'Adam shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I barely ken the lad,” he said. “By sight I know him, of course, but
+barely to speak to. He's but seldom at hame.”
+
+“An' hoo proud his mother'd be if she could see him,” the woman
+continued, well aware of his one tender place. “Eh, but she was fond o'
+him, so she was.”
+
+An angry flush stole over the little man's face. Well he understood the
+implied rebuke; and it hurt him like a knife.
+
+“Ay, ay, Mrs. Moore,” he began. Then breaking off, and looking about
+him--“Where's ma Wullie?” he cried excitedly. “James Moore!” whipping
+round on the Master, “ma Wullie's gone--gone, I say!”
+
+Elizabeth Moore turned away indignantly. “I do declar' he tak's more
+fash after yon little yaller beastie than iver he does after his own
+flesh,” she muttered.
+
+“Wullie, ma we doggie! Wullie, where are ye? James Moore, he's gone--ma
+Wullie's gone!” cried the little man, running about the yard, searching
+everywhere.
+
+“Cannot 'a' gotten far,” said the Master, reassuringly, looking about
+him.
+
+“Niver no tellin',” said Sam'l, appearing on the scene, pig-bucket
+in hand. “I misdoot yo'll iver see your dog agin, mister.” He turned
+sorrowfully to M'Adam.
+
+That little man, all dishevelled, and with the perspiration standing on
+his face, came hurrying out of the cow-shed and danced up to the Master.
+
+“It's robbed I am--robbed, I tell ye!” he cried recklessly. “Ma wee
+Wull's bin stolen while I was ben your hoose, James Moore!”
+
+“Yo' munna say that, ma mon. No robbin' at Kenmuir,” the Master answered
+sternly.
+
+“Then where is he? It's for you to say.”
+
+“I've ma own idee, I 'aye,” Sam'l announced opportunely, pig-bucket
+uplifted.
+
+M'Adam turned on him.
+
+“What, man? What is it?”
+
+“I misdoot yo'll iver see your dog agin, mister,” Sam'l repeated, as if
+he was supplying the key to the mystery.
+
+“Noo, Sam'l, if yo' know owt tell it,” ordered his master.
+
+Sam'l grunted sulkily.
+
+“Wheer's oor Bob, then?” he asked.
+
+At that M'Adam turned on the Master.
+
+“'Tis that, nae doot. It's yer gray dog, James Moore, yer ---- dog. I
+might ha' kent it,”--and he loosed off a volley of foul words.
+
+“Sweerin' will no find him,” said the Master coldly. “Noo, Sam'l.”
+
+The big man shifted his feet, and looked mournfully at M'Adam.
+
+“'Twas 'appen 'aif an hour agone, when I sees oor Bob goin' oot o'
+yard wi' little yaller tyke in his mouth. In a minnit I looks agin--and
+theer! little yaller 'un was gone, and oor Bob a-sittin' a-lickin'
+his chops. Gone foriver, I do reck'n. Ah, yo' may well take on, Tammas
+Thornton!” For the old man was rolling about the yard, bent double with
+merriment.
+
+M'Adam turned on the Master with the resignation of despair.
+
+“Man, Moore,” he cried piteously, “it's yer gray dog has murdered ma wee
+Wull! Ye have it from yer ain man.”
+
+“Nonsense,” said the Master encouragingly. “'Tis but yon girt oof.”
+
+Sam'l tossed his head and snorted.
+
+“Coom, then, and i'll show yo',” he said, and led the way out of the
+yard. And there below them on the slope to the stream, sitting like
+Justice at the Courts of Law, was Owd Bob.
+
+Straightway Sam'l whose humor was something of the calibre of old
+Ross's, the sexton, burst into horse-merriment. “Why's he sittin' so
+still, think 'ee? Ho! Ho! See un lickin' his chops--ha! ha!”--and he
+roared afresh. While from afar you could hear the distant rumbling of
+'Enry and oor Job.
+
+At the sight, M'Adam burst into a storm of passionate invective, and
+would have rushed on the dog had not James Moore forcibly restrained
+him.
+
+“Bob, lad,” called the Master, “coom here!”
+
+But even as he spoke, the gray dog cocked his ears, listened a moment,
+and then shot down the slope. At the same moment Tammas hallooed: “Theer
+he be! yon's yaller un coomin' oot o' drain! La, Sam'l!” And there,
+indeed, on the slope below them, a little angry, smutty-faced figure was
+crawling out of a rabbit-burrow.
+
+“Ye murderin' devil, wad ye duar touch ma Wullie?” yelled M'Adam, and,
+breaking away, pursued hotly down the hill; for the gray dog had picked
+up the puppy, like a lancer a tent-peg, and was sweeping on, his captive
+in his mouth, toward the stream.
+
+Behind, hurried James Moore and Sam'l, wondering what the issue of the
+comedy would be. After them toddled old Tammas, chuckling. While over
+the yard-wall was now a little cluster of heads: 'Enry, oor Job, Maggie
+and David, and Vi'let Thornton, the dairy-maid.
+
+Straight on to the plank-bridge galloped Owd Bob. In the middle he
+halted, leant over, and dropped his prisoner; who fell with a cool plop
+into the running water beneath.
+
+Another moment and M'Adam had reached the bank of the stream. In he
+plunged, splashing and cursing, and seized the struggling puppy; then
+waded back, the waters surging about his waist, and Red Wull, limp as
+a wet rag, in his hand. The little man's hair was dripping, for his cap
+was gone; his clothes clung to him, exposing the miserableness of his
+figure; and his eyes blazed like hot ashes in his wet face.
+
+He sprang on to the bank, and, beside himself with passion, rushed at
+Owd Bob.
+
+“Curse ye for a ----”
+
+“Stan' back, or yo'll have him at your throat!” shouted the Master,
+thundering up. “Stan' back, I say, yo' fule!” And, as the little man
+still came madly on, he reached forth his hand and hurled him back; at
+the same moment, bending, he buried the other hand deep in Owd Bob's
+shaggy neck. It was but just in time; for if ever the fierce desire of
+battle gleamed in gray eyes, it did in the young dog's as M'Adam came
+down on him.
+
+The little man staggered, tottered, and fell heavily. At the shock, the
+blood gushed from his nose, and, mixing with the water on his face, ran
+down in vague red streams, dripping off his chin; while Red Wull, jerked
+from his grasp, was thrown afar, and lay motionless.
+
+“Curse ye!” M'Adam screamed, his face dead-white save for the running
+red about his jaw. “Curse ye for a cowardly Englishman!” and, struggling
+to his feet, he made at the Master.
+
+But Sam'l interposed his great bulk between the two.
+
+“Easy, little mon,” he said leisurely, regarding the small fury before
+him with mournful interest. “Eh, but thee do be a little spit-cat,
+surely!”
+
+James Moore stood, breathing deep, his hand still buried in Owd Bob's
+coat.
+
+“If yo'd touched him,” he explained, “I couldna ha' stopped him. He'd
+ha' mauled yo' afore iver I could ha' had him off. They're bad to hold,
+the Gray Dogs, when they're roosed.”
+
+“Ay, ma word, that they are!” corroborated Tammas, speaking from the
+experience of sixty years. “Once on, yo' canna get 'em off.”
+
+The little man turned away.
+
+“Ye're all agin me,” he said, and his voice shook. A pitiful figure he
+made, standing there with the water dripping from him. A red stream was
+running slowly from his chin; his head was bare, and face working.
+
+James Moore stood eyeing him with some pity and some contempt. Behind
+was Tammas, enjoying the scene. While Sam'l regarded them all with an
+impassive melancholy.
+
+M'Adam turned and bent over Red Wull, who still lay like a dead thing.
+As his master handled him, the button-tail quivered feebly; he opened
+his eyes, looked about him, snarled faintly, and glared with devilish
+hate at the gray dog and the group with him.
+
+The little man picked him up, stroking him tenderly. Then he turned away
+and on to the bridge. Half-way across he stopped. It rattled feverishly
+beneath him, for he still trembled like a palsied man.
+
+“Man, Moore!” he called, striving to quell the agitation in his
+voice--“I wad shoot yon dog.”
+
+Across the bridge he turned again. “Man, Moore!” he called and paused.
+“Ye'll not forget this day.” And with that the blood flared up a dull
+crimson into his white face.
+
+
+
+
+PART II THE LITTLE MAN
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V. A MAN'S SON
+
+
+THE storm, long threatened, having once burst, M'Adam allowed loose rein
+to his bitter animosity against James Moore.
+
+The two often met. For the little man frequently returned home from the
+village by the footpath across Kenmuir. It was out of his way, but
+he preferred it in order to annoy his enemy and keep a watch upon his
+doings.
+
+He haunted Kenmuir like its evil genius. His sallow face was perpetually
+turning up at inopportune moments. When Kenmuir Queen, the prize
+short-horn heifer, calved unexpectedly and unattended in the dip by the
+lane, Tammas and the Master, summoned hurriedly by Owd Bob, came running
+up to find the little man leaning against the stile, and shaking with
+silent merriment. Again, poor old Staggy, daring still in his dotage,
+took a fall while scrambling on the steep banks of the Stony Bottom.
+There he lay for hours, unnoticed and kicking, until James Moore and
+Owd Bob came upon him at length, nearly exhausted. But M'Adam was before
+them. Standing on the far bank with Red Wull by his side, he called
+across the gulf with apparent concern: “He's bin so sin' yesternight.”
+ Often James Moore, with all his great strength of character, could
+barely control himself.
+
+There were two attempts to patch up the feud. Jim Mason, who went about
+the world seeking to do good, tried in his shy way to set things right.
+But M'Adam and his Red Wull between them soon shut him and Betsy up.
+
+“You mind yer letters and yer wires, Mr. Poacher-Postman. Ay, I saw 'em
+baith: th' ain doon by the Haughs, t'ither in the Bottom. And there's
+Wullie, the humorsome chiel, havin' a rare game wi' Betsy.” There,
+indeed, lay the faithful Betsy, suppliant on her back, paws up, throat
+exposed, while Red Wull, now a great-grown puppy, stood over her, his
+habitually evil expression intensified into a fiendish grin, as with
+wrinkled muzzle and savage wheeze he waited for a movement as a pretext
+to pin: “Wullie, let the leddy be--ye've had yer dinner.”
+
+Parson Leggy was the other would-be mediator; for he hated to see the
+two principal parishioners of his tiny cure at enmity. First he tackled
+James Moore on the subject; but that laconic person cut him short with,
+“I've nowt agin the little mon,” and would say no more. And, indeed, the
+quarrel was none of his making.
+
+Of the parson's interview with M'Adam, it is enough to say here that,
+in the end, the angry old minister would of a surety have assaulted his
+mocking adversary had not Cyril Gilbraith forcibly withheld him.
+
+And after that the vendetta must take its course unchecked.
+
+David was now the only link between the two farms. Despite his father's
+angry commands, the boy clung to his intimacy with the Moores with a
+doggedness that no thrashing could overcome. Not a minute of the day
+when out of school, holidays and Sundays included, but was passed at
+Kenmuir. It was not till late at night that he would sneak back to the
+Grange, and creep quietly up to his tiny bare room in the roof--not
+supperless, indeed, motherly Mrs. Moore had seen to that. And there he
+would lie awake and listen with a fierce contempt as his father, hours
+later, lurched into the kitchen below, lilting liquorishly:
+
+     “We are na fou, we're nae that fou,
+     But just a drappie in our e'e;
+     The cock may craw, the day may daw',
+     And ay we'll taste the barley bree!”
+
+And in the morning the boy would slip quietly out of the house while his
+father still slept; only Red Wull would thrust out his savage head as
+the lad passed, and snarl hungrily.
+
+Sometimes father and son would go thus for weeks without sight of one
+another. And that was David's aim--to escape attention. It was only his
+cunning at this game of evasion that saved him a thrashing.
+
+The little man seemed devoid of all natural affection for his son. He
+lavished the whole fondness of which his small nature appeared capable
+on the Tailless Tyke, for so the Dalesmen called Red Wull. And the dog
+he treated with a careful tenderness that made David smile bitterly.
+
+The little man and his dog were as alike morally as physically they were
+contrasted. Each owed a grudge against the world and was determined to
+pay it. Each was an Ishmael among his kind.
+
+You saw them thus, standing apart, leper-like, in the turmoil of life;
+and it came quite as a revelation to happen upon them in some quiet spot
+of nights, playing together, each wrapped in the game, innocent, tender,
+forgetful of the hostile world.
+
+The two were never separated except only when M'Adam came home by the
+path across Kenmuir. After that first misadventure he never allowed his
+friend to accompany him on the journey through the enemy's country; for
+well he knew that sheep-dogs have long memories.
+
+To the stile in the lane, then, Red Wull would follow him. There he
+would stand, his great head poked through the bars, watching his master
+out of sight; and then would turn and trot, self-reliant and defiant,
+sturdy and surly, down the very centre of the road through the
+village--no playing, no enticing away, and woe to that man or dog who
+tried to stay him in his course! And so on, past Mother Ross's shop,
+past the Sylvester Arms, to the right by Kirby's smithy, over the
+Wastrel by the Haughs, to await his master at the edge of the Stony
+Bottom.
+
+The little man, when thus crossing Kenmuir, often met Owd Bob, who had
+the free run of the farm. On these occasions he passed discreetly by;
+for, though he was no coward, yet it is bad, single-handed, to attack
+a Gray Dog of Kenmuir; while the dog trotted soberly on his way, only
+a steely glint in the big gray eyes betraying his knowledge of the
+presence of his foe. As surely, however, as the little man, in his
+desire to spy out the nakedness of the land, strayed off the public
+path, so surely a gray figure, seeming to spring from out the blue,
+would come fiercely, silently driving down on him; and he would turn and
+run for his life, amid the uproarious jeers of any of the farm-hands who
+were witness to the encounter.
+
+On these occasions David vied with Tammas in facetiousness at his
+father's expense.
+
+“Good on yo', little un!” he roared from behind a wall, on one such
+occurrence.
+
+“Bain't he a runner, neither?” yelled Tammas, not to be outdone.
+
+“See un skip it--ho! ho! Look to his knees a-wamblin'! from the
+undutiful son in ecstasy. An' I'd knees like yon, I'd wear petticoats.”
+ As he spoke, a swinging box on the ear nearly knocked the young
+reprobate down.
+
+“D'yo' think God gave you a dad for you to jeer at? Y'ought to be
+ashamed o' yo'self. Serve yo' right if he does thrash yo' when yo' get
+home.” And David, turning round, found James Moore close behind him, his
+heavy eyebrows lowering over his eyes.
+
+Luckily, M'Adam had not distinguished his son's voice among the others.
+But David feared he had; for on the following morning the little man
+said to him:
+
+“David, ye'll come hame immediately after school to-day.”
+
+“Will I?” said David pertly.
+
+''Ye will.
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because I tell ye to, ma lad”; and that was all the reason he would
+give. Had he told the simple fact that he wanted help to drench a
+“husking” ewe, things might have gone differently. As it was, David
+turned away defiantly down the hill.
+
+The afternoon wore on. Schooltime was long over; still there was no
+David.
+
+The little man waited at the door of the Grange, fuming, hopping from
+one leg to the other, talking to Red Wull, who lay at his feet, his head
+on his paws, like a tiger waiting for his prey.
+
+At length he could restrain himself no longer; and started running down
+the hill, his heart burning with indignation.
+
+“Wait till we lay hands on ye, ma lad,” he muttered as he ran. “We'll
+warm ye, we'll teach ye.”
+
+At the edge of the Stony Bottom he, as always, left Red Wull. Crossing
+it himself, and rounding Langholm How, he espied James Moore, David, and
+Owd Bob walking away from him and in the direction of Kenmuir. The gray
+dog and David were playing together, wrestling, racing, and rolling. The
+boy had never a thought for his father.
+
+The little man ran up behind them, unseen and unheard, his feet softly
+pattering on the grass. His hand had fallen on David's shoulder before
+the boy had guessed his approach.
+
+“Did I bid ye come hame after school, David?” he asked, concealing his
+heat beneath a suspicious suavity.
+
+“Maybe. Did I say I would come?”
+
+The pertness of tone and words, alike, fanned his father's resentment
+into a blaze. In a burst of passion he lunged forward at the boy with
+his stick. But as he smote, a gray whirlwind struck him fair on the
+chest, and he fell like a snapped stake, and lay, half stunned, with a
+dark muzzle an inch from his throat.
+
+“Git back, Bob!” shouted James Moore, hurrying up. “Git back, I tell
+yo'!” He bent over the prostrate figure, propping it up anxiously.
+
+“Are yo' hurt, M'Adam? Eh, but I am sorry. He thought yo' were going for
+to strike the lad.”
+
+David had now run up, and he, too, bent over his father with a very
+scared face.
+
+“Are yo' hurt, feyther?” he asked, his voice trembling.
+
+The little man rose unsteadily to his feet and shook off his supporters.
+His face was twitching, and he stood, all dust-begrimed, looking at his
+son.
+
+“Ye're content, aiblins, noo ye've seen yer father's gray head bowed in
+the dust,” he said.
+
+“'Twas an accident,” pleaded James Moore. “But I _am_ sorry. He thought
+yo' were goin' to beat the lad.”
+
+“So I was--so I will.”
+
+“If ony's beat it should be ma Bob here tho' he nob'but thought he was
+doin' right. An' yo' were aff the path.”
+
+The little man looked at his enemy, a sneer on his face.
+
+“Ye canna thrash him for doin' what ye bid him. Set yer dog on me, if ye
+will, but dinna beat him when he does yer biddin'!”
+
+“I did not set him on yo', as you know,” the Master replied warmly.
+
+M'Adam shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I'll no argie wi' ye, James Moore,” he said. “I'll leave you and
+what ye call yer conscience to settle that. My business is not wi'
+you.--David!” turning to his son.
+
+A stranger might well have mistaken the identity of the boy's father.
+For he stood now, holding the Master's arm; while a few paces above
+them was the little man, pale but determined, the expression on his face
+betraying his consciousness of the irony of the situation.
+
+“Will ye come hame wi' me and have it noo, or stop wi' him and wait till
+ye get it?” he asked the boy.
+
+“M'Adam, I'd like yo' to--”
+
+“None o' that, James Moore.--David, what d'ye say?”
+
+David looked up into his protector's face.
+
+“Yo'd best go wi' your feyther, lad,” said the Master at last, thickly.
+The boy hesitated, and clung tighter to the shielding arm; then he
+walked slowly over to his father.
+
+A bitter smile spread over the little man's face as he marked this new
+test of the boy's obedience to the other.
+
+“To obey his frien' he foregoes the pleasure o' disobeyin' his father,”
+ he muttered. “Noble!” Then he turned homeward, and the boy followed in
+his footsteps.
+
+James Moore and the gray dog stood looking after them.
+
+“I know yo'll not pay off yer spite agin me on the lad's head, M'Adam,”
+ he called, almost appealingly.
+
+“I'll do ma duty, thank ye, James Moore, wi'oot respect o' persons,” the
+little man cried back, never turning.
+
+Father and son walked away, one behind the other, like a man and his
+dog, and there was no word said between them. Across the Stony Bottom,
+Red Wull, scowling with bared teeth at David, joined them. Together the
+three went up the bill to the Grange.
+
+In the kitchen M'Adam turned.
+
+“Noo, I'm gaein' to gie ye the gran'est thrashin' ye iver dreamed of.
+Tak' aff yer coat!”
+
+The boy obeyed, and stood up in his thin shirt, his face white and set
+as a statue's. Red Wull seated himself on his haunches close by, his
+ears pricked, licking his lips, all attention.
+
+The little man suppled the great ash-plant in his hands and raised it.
+But the expression on the boy's face arrested his arm.
+
+“Say ye're sorry and I'll let yer aff easy.”
+
+“I'll not.”
+
+“One mair chance--yer last! Say yer 'shamed o' yerself'!”
+
+“I'm not.”
+
+The little man brandished his cruel, white weapon, and Red Wull shifted
+a little to obtain a better view.
+
+“Git on wi' it,” ordered David angrily.
+
+The little man raised the stick again and--threw it into the farthest
+corner of the room.
+
+It fell with a rattle on the floor, and M'Adam turned away.
+
+“Ye're the pitifulest son iver a man had,” he cried brokenly. “Gin
+a man's son dinna haud to him, wha can he expect to?--no one. Ye're
+ondootiful, ye're disrespectfu', ye're maist ilka thing ye shouldna be;
+there's but ae thing I thocht ye were not--a coward. And as to that,
+ye've no the pluck to say ye're sorry when, God knows, ye might be. I
+canna thrash ye this day. But ye shall gae nae mair to school. I send
+ye there to learn. Ye'll not learn--ye've learnt naethin' except
+disobedience to me--ye shall stop at hame and work.”
+
+His father's rare emotion, his broken voice and working face, moved
+David as all the stripes and jeers had failed to do. His conscience
+smote him. For the first time in his life it dimly dawned on him that,
+perhaps, his father, too, had some ground for complaint; that, perhaps,
+he was not a good son.
+
+He half turned.
+
+“Feyther--”
+
+“Git oot o' ma sight!” M'Adam cried.
+
+And the boy turned and went.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI. A LICKING OR A LIE
+
+
+THENCEFORWARD David buckled down to work at home, and in one point only
+father and son resembled--industry. A drunkard M'Adam was, but a drone,
+no.
+
+The boy worked at the Grange with tireless, indomitable energy; yet he
+could never satisfy his father.
+
+The little man would stand, a sneer on his face and his thin lips
+contemptuously curled, and flout the lad's brave labors.
+
+“Is he no a gran' worker, Wullie? 'Tis a pleasure to watch him, his
+hands in his pockets, his eyes turned heavenward!” as the boy snatched
+a hard-earned moment's rest. “You and I, Wullie, we'll brak' oorsel's
+slavin' for him while he looks on and laffs.”
+
+And so on, the whole day through, week in, week out; till he sickened
+with weariness of it all.
+
+In his darkest hours David thought sometimes to run away. He was
+miserably alone on the cold bosom of the world. The very fact that he
+was the son of his father isolated him in the Daleland. Naturally of a
+reserved disposition, he had no single friend outside Kenmuir. And it
+was only the thought of his friends there that withheld him. He could
+not bring himself to part from them; they were all he had in the world.
+
+So he worked on at the Grange, miserably, doggedly, taking blows and
+abuse alike in burning silence. But every evening, when work was ended,
+he stepped off to his other home beyond the Stony Bottom. And on Sundays
+and holidays--for of these latter he took, unasking, what he knew to be
+his due--all day long, from cock-crowing to the going down of the sun,
+he would pass at Kenmuir. In this one matter the boy was invincibly
+stubborn. Nothing his father could say or do sufficed to break him of
+the habit. He endured everything with white-lipped, silent doggedness,
+and still held on his way.
+
+Once past the Stony Bottom, he threw his troubles behind him with a
+courage that did him honor. Of all the people at Kenmuir two only ever
+dreamed the whole depth of his unhappiness, and that not through David.
+James Moore suspected something of it all, for he knew more of M'Adam
+than did the others. While Owd Bob knew it as did no one else. He could
+tell it from the touch of the boy's hand on his head; and the story was
+writ large upon his face for a dog to read. And he would follow the lad
+about with a compassion in his sad gray eyes greater than words.
+
+David might well compare his gray friend at Kenmuir with that other at
+the Grange.
+
+The Tailless Tyke had now grown into an immense dog, heavy of muscle and
+huge of bone. A great bull head; undershot jaw, square and lengthy and
+terrible; vicious, yellow-gleaming eyes; cropped ears; and an expression
+incomparably savage. His coat was a tawny, lion-like yellow, short,
+harsh, dense; and his back, running up from shoulder to loins, ended
+abruptly in the knob-like tail. He looked like the devil of a dogs'
+hell. And his reputation was as bad as his looks. He never attacked
+unprovoked; but a challenge was never ignored, and he was greedy of
+insults. Already he had nigh killed Rob Saunderson's collie, Shep; Jem
+Burton's Monkey fled incontinently at the sound of his approach; while
+he had even fought a round with that redoubtable trio, the Vexer, Venus,
+and Van Tromp.
+
+Nor, in the matter of war, did he confine himself to his own kind.
+His huge strength and indomitable courage made him the match of almost
+anything that moved. Long Kirby once threatened him with a broomstick;
+the smith never did it again. While in the Border Ram he attacked Big
+Bell, the Squire's underkeeper, with such murderous fury that it took
+all the men in the room to pull him off.
+
+More than once had he and Owd Bob essayed to wipe out mutual memories,
+Red Wull, in this case only, the aggressor. As yet, however, while they
+fenced a moment for that deadly throat-grip, the value of which each
+knew so well, James Moore had always seized the chance to intervene.
+
+“That's right, hide him ahint yer petticoats,” sneered M'Adam on one of
+these occasions.
+
+“Hide? It'll not be him I'll hide, I warn you, M'Adam,” the Master
+answered grimly, as he stood, twirling his good oak stick between the
+would-be duellists. Whereat there was a loud laugh at the little man's
+expense.
+
+It seemed as if there were to be other points of rivalry between the two
+than memories. For, in the matter of his own business--the handling of
+sheep--Red Wull bid fair to be second only throughout the Daleland to
+the Gray Dog of Kenmuir. And M'Adam was patient and painstaking in the
+training of his Wullie in a manner to astonish David. It would have been
+touching, had it not been so unnatural in view of his treatment of his
+own blood, to watch the tender carefulness with which the little man
+moulded the dog beneath his hands. After a promising display he would
+stand, rubbing his palms together, as near content as ever he was.
+
+“Weel done, Wullie! Weel done. Bide a wee and we'll show 'em a thing or
+two, you and I, Wullie.
+
+     “'The warld's wrack we share o't,
+     The warstle and the care o't.'
+
+For it's you and I alane, lad.” And the dog would trot up to him, place
+his great forepaws on his shoulders, and stand thus with his great head
+overtopping his master's, his ears back, and stump tail vibrating.
+
+You saw them at their best when thus together, displaying each his one
+soft side to the other.
+
+From the very first David and Red Wull were open enemies: under the
+circumstances, indeed, nothing else was possible. Sometimes the great
+dog would follow on the lad's heels with surly, greedy eyes, never
+leaving him from sunrise to sundown, till David could hardly hold his
+hands.
+
+So matters went on for a never-ending year. Then there came a climax.
+
+One evening, on a day throughout which Red Wull had dogged him thus
+hungrily, David, his work finished, went to pick up his coat, which he
+had left hard by. On it lay Red Wull.
+
+“Git off ma coat!” the boy ordered angrily, marching up. But the great
+dog never stirred: he lifted a lip to show a fence of white, even teeth,
+and seemed to sink lower in the ground; his head on his paws, his eyes
+in his forehead.
+
+“Come and take it!” he seemed to say.
+
+Now what, between master and dog, David had endured almost more than he
+could bear that day.
+
+“Yo' won't, won't yo', girt brute!” he shouted, and bending, snatched
+a corner of the coat and attempted to jerk it away. At that, Red Wull
+rose, shivering, to his feet, and with a low gurgle sprang at the boy.
+
+David, quick as a flash, dodged, bent, and picked up an ugly stake,
+lying at his feet. Swinging round, all in a moment, he dealt his
+antagonist a mighty buffet on the side of the head. Dazed with the blow,
+the great dog fell; then, recovering himself, with a terrible, deep roar
+he sprang again. Then it must have gone hard with the boy, fine-grown,
+muscular young giant though he was. For Red Wull was now in the first
+bloom of that great strength which earned him afterward an undying
+notoriety in the land.
+
+As it chanced, however, M'Adam had watched the scene from the kitchen.
+And now he came hurrying out of the house, shrieking commands and curses
+at the combatants. As Red Wull sprang, he interposed between the two,
+head back and eyes flashing. His small person received the full shock
+of the charge. He staggered, but recovered, and in an imperative voice
+ordered the dog to heel.
+
+Then he turned on David, seized the stake from his hand, and began
+furiously belaboring the boy.
+
+“I'll teach ye to strike--a puir--dumb--harmless--creetur,
+ye--cruel--cruel---lad!” he cried. “Hoo daur ye strike--ma----Wullie?
+yer--father's----Wullie? Adam--M 'Adam's--Red Wull?” He was panting from
+his exertions, and his eyes were blazing. “I pit up as best I can wi'
+all manner o' disrespect to masel'; but when it comes to takin' ma puir
+Wullie, I canna thole it. Ha' ye no heart?” he asked, unconscious of the
+irony of the question.
+
+“As much as some, I reck'n,” David muttered.
+
+“Eh, what's that? What d'ye say?”
+
+“Ye may thrash me till ye're blind; and it's nob'but yer duty; but if
+only one daurs so much as to look at yer Wullie ye're mad,” the boy
+answered bitterly. And with that he turned away defiantly and openly in
+the direction of Kenmuir.
+
+M'Adam made a step forward, and then stopped.
+
+“I'll see ye agin, ma lad, this evenin',” he cried with cruel
+significance.
+
+“I doot but yo'll be too drunk to see owt--except, 'appen, your bottle,”
+ the boy shouted back; and swaggered down the hill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Kenmuir that night the marked and particular kindness of Elizabeth
+Moore was too much for the overstrung lad. Overcome by the contrast of
+her sweet motherliness, he burst into a storm of invective against his
+father, his home, his life--everything.
+
+“Don't 'ee, Davie, don't 'ee, dearie!” cried Mrs. Moore, much
+distressed. And taking him to her she talked to the great, sobbing boy
+as though he were a child. At length he lifted his face and looked up;
+and, seeing the white, wan countenance of his dear comforter, was struck
+with tender remorse that he had given way and pained her, who looked so
+frail and thin herself.
+
+He mastered himself with an effort; and, for the rest of the evening,
+was his usual cheery self. He teased Maggie into tears; chaffed stolid
+little Andrew; and bantered Sam'l Todd until that generally impassive
+man threatened to bash his snout for him.
+
+Yet it was with a great swallowing at his throat that, later, he turned
+down the slope for home.
+
+James Moore and Parson Leggy accompanied him to the bridge over the
+Wastrel, and stood a while watching as he disappeared into the summer
+night.
+
+“Yon's a good lad,” said the Master half to himself.
+
+“Yes,” the parson replied; “I always thought there was good in the boy,
+if only his father'd give him a chance. And look at the way Owd Bob
+there follows him. There's not another soul outside Kenmuir he'd do that
+for.”
+
+“Ay, sir,” said the Master. “Bob knows a mon when he sees one.”
+
+“He does,” acquiesced the other. “And by the by, James, the talk in the
+village is that you've settled not to run him for the Cup. Is, that so?”
+
+The Master nodded.
+
+“It is, sir. They're all mad I should, but I mun cross 'em. They say
+he's reached his prime--and so he has o' his body, but not o' his brain.
+And a sheep-dog--unlike other dogs--is not at his best till his brain
+is at its best--and that takes a while developin', same as in a mon, I
+reck'n.”
+
+“Well, well,” said the parson, pulling out a favorite phrase, “waiting's
+winning--waiting's winning.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+David slipped up into his room and into bed unseen, he hoped. Alone with
+the darkness, he allowed himself the rare relief of tears; and at length
+fell asleep. He awoke to find his father standing at his bedside. The
+little man held a feeble dip-candle in his hand, which lit his sallow
+face in crude black and white. In the doorway, dimly outlined, was the
+great figure of Red Wull.
+
+“Whaur ha' ye been the day?” the little man asked. Then, looking down on
+the white stained face beneath him, he added hurriedly: “If ye like to
+lie, I'll believe ye.”
+
+David was out of bed and standing up in his night-shirt. He looked at
+his father contemptuously.
+
+“I ha' bin at Kenmuir. I'll not lie for yo' or your likes,” he said
+proudly.
+
+The little man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“'Tell a lee and stick to it,' is my rule, and a good one, too, in
+honest England. I for one 'll no think ony the worse o' ye if yer memory
+plays yer false.”
+
+“D'yo' think I care a kick what yo' think o' me?” the boy asked
+brutally. “Nay; there's 'nough liars in this fam'ly wi'oot me.”
+
+The candle trembled and was still again.
+
+“A lickin' or a lie--tak' yer choice!”
+
+The boy looked scornfully down on his father. Standing on his naked
+feet, he already towered half a head above the other and was twice the
+man.
+
+“D'yo' think I'm fear'd o' a thrashin' fra yo'? Goo' gracious me!” he
+sneered. “Why, I'd as lief let owd Grammer Maddox lick me, for all I
+care.”
+
+A reference to his physical insufficiencies fired the little man as
+surely as a lighted match powder.
+
+“Ye maun be cauld, standin' there so. Rin ye doon and fetch oor little
+frien'”--a reference to a certain strap hanging in the kitchen. “I'll
+see if I can warm ye.”
+
+David turned and stumbled down the unlit, narrow stairs. The hard, cold
+boards struck like death against his naked feet. At his heels followed
+Red Wull, his hot breath fanning the boy's bare legs.
+
+So into the kitchen and back up the stairs, and Red Wull always
+following.
+
+“I'll no despair yet o' teachin' ye the fifth commandment, though I kill
+masel' in doin' it!” cried the little man, seizing the strap from the
+boy's numb grasp.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When it was over, M'Adam turned, breathless, away. At the threshold
+of the room he stopped and looked round: a little, dim-lit, devilish
+figure, framed in the door; while from the blackness behind, Red Wull's
+eyes gleamed yellow.
+
+Glancing back, the little man caught such an expression on David's
+face that for once he was fairly afraid. He banged the door and hobbled
+actively down the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII. THE WHITE WINTER
+
+
+M'ADAM--in his sober moments at least--never touched David again;
+instead, he devoted himself to the more congenial exercise of the
+whiplash of his tongue. And he was wise; for David, who was already
+nigh a head the taller of the two, and comely and strong in proportion,
+could, if he would, have taken his father in the hollow of his hand and
+crumpled him like a dry leaf. Moreover, with his tongue, at least, the
+little man enjoyed the noble pleasure of making the boy wince. And so
+the war was carried on none the less vindictively.
+
+Meanwhile another summer was passing away, and every day brought fresh
+proofs of the prowess of Owd Bob. Tammas, whose stock of yarns anent Rex
+son of Rally had after forty years' hard wear begun to pall on the
+loyal ears of even old Jonas, found no lack of new material now. In
+the Dalesman's Daughter in Silverdale and in the Border Ram at
+Grammoch-town, each succeeding market day brought some fresh tale. Men
+told how the gray dog had outdone Gypsy Jack, the sheep-sneak; how he
+had cut out a Kenmuir shearling from the very centre of Londesley's
+pack; and a thousand like stories.
+
+The Gray Dogs of Kenmuir have always been equally heroes and favorites
+in the Daleland. And the confidence of the Dalesmen in Owd Bob was now
+invincible. Sometimes on market days he would execute some unaccountable
+maneuvre, and... strange shepherd would ask: “What's the gray dog at?”
+ To which the nearest Dalesman would reply: “Nay, I canno tell ye! But
+he's reet enough. Yon's Owd Bob o' Kenmuir.”
+
+Whereon the stranger would prick his ears and watch with close
+attention.
+
+“Yon's Owd Bob o' Kenmuir, is he?” he would say; for already among the
+faculty the name was becoming known. And never in such a case did the
+young dog fail to justify the faith of his supporters.
+
+It came, therefore, as a keen disappointment to every Dalesman, from
+Herbert Trotter, Secretary of the Trials, to little Billy Thornton, when
+the Master persisted in his decision not to run the dog for the Cup in
+the approaching Dale Trials; and that though parson, squire, and even
+Lady Eleanour essayed to shake his purpose. It was nigh fifty years
+since Rex son o' Rally had won back the Trophy for the land that gave
+it birth; it was time, they thought, for a Daleland dog, a Gray Dog of
+Kenmuir--the terms are practically synonymous--to bring it home again.
+And Tammas, that polished phrase-maker, was only expressing the feelings
+of every Dalesman in the room when, one night at the Arms, he declared
+of Owd Bob that “to ha' run was to ha' won.” At which M'Adam sniggered
+audibly and winked at Red Wull. “To ha' run was to ha' one--lickin'; to
+rin next year'll be to--”
+
+“Win next year.” Tammas interposed dogmatically. “Onless”--with
+shivering sarcasm--“you and yer Wullie are thinkin' o' winnin'.”
+
+The little man rose from his solitary seat at the back of the room and
+pattered across. “Wullie and I are thinkin' o' t,” he whispered loudly
+in the old man's ear. “And mair: what Adam M'Adam and his Red Wull think
+o' doin', that, ye may remairk, Mr. Thornton, they do. Next year we rin,
+and next year--we win. Come, Wullie, we'll leave 'em to chew that”; and
+he marched out of the room amid the jeers of the assembled topers.
+
+When quiet was restored, it was Jim Mason who declared: “One thing
+certain, win or no, they'll not be far off.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile the summer ended abruptly. Hard on the heels of a sweltering
+autumn the winter came down. In that year the Daleland assumed very
+early its white cloak. The Silver Mere was soon ice-veiled; the Wastrel
+rolled sullenly down below Kenmuir, its creeks and quiet places tented
+with jagged sheets of ice; while the Scaur and Muir Pike raised hoary
+heads against the frosty blue. It was the season still remembered in the
+North as the White Winter--the worst, they say, since the famous 1808.
+
+For days together Jim Mason was stuck with his bags in the Dalesman's
+Daughter, and there was no communication between the two Dales. On
+the Mere Marches the snow massed deep and impassable in thick, billowy
+drifts. In the Devil's Bowl men said it lay piled some score feet deep.
+And sheep, seeking shelter in the ghylls and protected spots, were
+buried and lost in their hundreds.
+
+That is the time to test the hearts of shepherds and sheep-dogs, when
+the wind runs ice-cold across the waste of white, and the low woods on
+the upland walks shiver black through a veil of snow, and sheep must be
+found and folded or lost: a trial of head as well as heart, of resource
+as well as resolution.
+
+In that winter more than one man and many a dog lost his life in the
+quiet performance of his duty, gliding to death over the slippery
+snow-shelves, or overwhelmed beneath an avalanche of the warm,
+suffocating white: “smoored,” as they call it. Many a deed was done,
+many a death died, recorded only in that Book which holds the names of
+those--men or animals, souls or no souls--who tried.
+
+They found old Wrottesley, the squire's head shepherd, lying one morning
+at Gill's foot, like a statue in its white bed, the snow gently blowing
+about the venerable face, calm and beautiful in death. And stretched
+upon his bosom, her master's hands blue, and stiff, still clasped about
+her neck, his old dog Jess. She had huddled there, as a last hope, to
+keep the dear, dead master warm, her great heart riven, hoping where
+there was no hope.
+
+That night she followed him to herd sheep in a better land. Death from
+exposure, Dingley, the vet., gave it; but as little M'Adam, his eyes
+dimmer than their wont, declared huskily; “We ken better, Wullie.”
+
+Cyril Gilbraith, a young man not overburdened with emotions, told with
+a sob in his voice how, at the terrible Rowan Rock, Jim Mason had stood,
+impotent, dumb, big-eyed, watching Betsy--Betsy, the friend and partner
+of the last ten years--slipping over the ice-cold surface, silently
+appealing to the hand that had never failed her before--sliding to
+Eternity.
+
+In the Daleland that winter the endurance of many a shepherd and his
+dog was strained past breaking-point. From the frozen Black Water to
+the white-peaked Grammoch Pike two men only, each always with his shaggy
+adjutant, never owned defeat; never turned back; never failed in a thing
+attempted.
+
+In the following spring, Mr. Tinkerton, the squire's agent, declared
+that James Moore and Adam M'Adam--Owd Bob, rather, and Red Wull--had
+lost between them fewer sheep than any single farmer on the whole March
+Mere Estate--a proud record.
+
+Of the two, many a tale was told that winter. They were invincible,
+incomparable; worthy antagonists.
+
+It was Owd Bob who, when he could not drive the band of Black Faces over
+the narrow Razorback which led to safety, induced them to _follow_ him
+across that ten-inch death-track, one by one, like children behind
+their mistress. It was Red Wull who was seen coming down the precipitous
+Saddler's How, shouldering up that grand old gentleman, King o' the
+Dale, whose leg was broken.
+
+The gray dog it was who found Cyril Gilbraith by the White Stones, with
+a cigarette and a sprained ankle, on the night the whole village was out
+with lanterns searching for the well-loved young scapegrace. It was the
+Tailless Tyke and his master who one bitter evening came upon little
+Mrs. Burton, lying in a huddle beneath the lea of the fast-whitening
+Druid's Pillar with her latest baby on her breast. It was little M'Adam
+who took off his coat and wrapped the child in it; little M'Adam who
+unwound his plaid, threw it like a breastband across the dog's great
+chest, and tied the ends round the weary woman's waist. Red Wull it was
+who dragged her back to the Sylvester Arms and life, straining like a
+giant through the snow, while his master staggered behind with the babe
+in his arms. When they reached the inn it was M'Adam who, with a smile
+on his face, told the landlord what he thought of him for sending _his_
+wife across the Marches on such a day and on his errand. To which: “I'd
+a cauld,” pleaded honest Jem.
+
+For days together David could not cross the Stony Bottom to Kenmuir.
+His enforced confinement to the Grange led, however, to no more frequent
+collisions than usual with his father. For M'Adam and Red Wull were out,
+at all hours, in all weathers, night and day, toiling at their work of
+salvation.
+
+At last, one afternoon, David managed to cross the Bottom at a point
+where a fallen thorn-tree gave him a bridge over the soft snow. He
+stayed but a little while at Kenmuir, yet when he started for home it
+was snowing again.
+
+By the time he had crossed the ice-draped bridge over the Wastrel, a
+blizzard was raging. The wind roared past him, smiting him so that he
+could barely stand; and the snow leaped at him so that he could not see.
+But he held on doggedly; slipping, sliding, tripping, down and up
+again, with one arm shielding his face. On, on, into the white darkness,
+blindly on sobbing, stumbling, dazed.
+
+At length, nigh dead, he reached the brink of the Stony Bottom. He
+looked up and he looked down, but nowhere in that blinding mist could he
+see the fallen thorn-tree. He took a step forward into the white morass,
+and 'sank up to his thigh. He struggled feebly to free himself, and sank
+deeper. The snow wreathed, twisting, round him like a white flame, and
+he collapsed, softly crying, on that soft bed.
+
+“I canna--I canna!” he moaned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Little Mrs. Moore, her face whiter and frailer than ever, stood at the
+window, looking out into the storm.
+
+“I canna rest for thinkin' o' th' lad,” she said. Then, turning, she saw
+her husband, his fur cap down over his ears, buttoning his pilot-coat
+about his throat, while Owd Bob stood at his feet, waiting.
+
+“Ye're no goin', James?” she asked, anxiously.
+
+“But I am, lass,” he answered; and she knew him too well to say more.
+
+So those two went quietly out to save life or lose it, nor counted the
+cost.
+
+Down a wind-shattered slope--over a spar of ice--up an eternal hill--a
+forlorn hope.
+
+In a whirlwind chaos of snow, the tempest storming at them, the white
+earth lashing them, they fought a good fight. In front, Owd Bob, the
+snow clogging his shaggy coat, his hair cutting like lashes of steel
+across eyes, his head lowered as he followed the finger of God; and
+close behind, James Moore, his back stern against the storm, stalwart
+still, yet swaying like a tree before the wind.
+
+So they battled through to the brink of the Stony Bottom--only to arrive
+too late.
+
+For, just as the Master peering about him, had caught sight of a
+shapeless lump lying motionless in front, there loomed across the
+snow-choked gulf through the white riot of the storm a gigantic figure
+forging, doggedly forward, his great head down to meet the hurricane.
+And close behind, buffeted and bruised, stiff and staggering, a little
+dauntless figure holding stubbornly on, clutching with one hand at the
+gale; and a shrill voice, whirled away on the trumpet tones of the wind,
+crying:
+
+     'Noo, Wullie, wi' me!
+     Scots wha' hae wi' Wallace bled!
+     Scots wham Bruce has often led!
+     Welcome to ----!'
+
+“Here he is, Wullie!”
+
+     '--or to victorie!”
+
+The brave little voice died away. The quest; was over; the lost sheep
+found. And the last James Moore saw of them was the same small, gallant
+form, half carrying, half dragging the rescued boy out of the Valley of
+the Shadow and away.
+
+David was none the worse for his adventure, for on reaching home M'Adam
+produced a familiar bottle.
+
+“Here's something to warm yer inside, and”--making a feint at the strap
+on the walls--' “here's something to do the same by yer ----. But,
+Wullie, oot again!”
+
+And out they went--unreckoned heroes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was but a week later, in the very heart of the bitter time, that
+there came a day when, from gray dawn to grayer eve, neither James Moore
+nor Owd Bob stirred out into the wintry white. And the Master's face was
+hard and set as it always was in time of trouble.
+
+Outside, the wind screamed down the Dale; while the snow fell
+relentlessly; softly fingering the windows, blocking the doors, and
+piling deep against the walls. Inside the house there was a strange
+quiet; no sound save for hushed voices, and upstairs the shuffling of
+muffled feet.
+
+Below, all day long, Owd Bob patrolled the passage like some silent,
+gray spectre.
+
+Once there came a low knocking at the door; and David, his face and hair
+and cap smothered in the all-pervading white, came in with an eddy of
+snow. He patted Owd Bob, and moved on tiptoe into the kitchen. To him
+came Maggie softly, shoes in hand, with white, frightened face. The two
+whispered anxiously awhile like brother and sister as they were; then
+the boy crept quietly away; only a little pool of water on the floor and
+wet, treacherous foot-dabs toward the door testifying to the visitor.
+
+Toward evening the wind died down, but the mourning flakes still fell.
+
+With the darkening of night Owd Bob retreated to the porch and lay down
+on his blanket. The light from the lamp at the head of the stairs shone
+through the crack of open door on his dark head and the eyes that never
+slept.
+
+The hours passed, and the gray knight still kept his vigil. Alone in the
+darkness--alone, it almost seemed, in the house--he watched. His head
+lay motionless along his paws, but the steady gray eyes never flinched
+or drooped.
+
+Time tramped on on leaden foot, and still he waited; and ever the pain
+of hovering anxiety was stamped deeper in the gray eyes.
+
+At length it grew past bearing; the hollow stillness of the house
+overcame him. He rose, pushed open the door, and softly pattered across
+the passage.
+
+At the foot of the stairs he halted, his forepaws on the first step, his
+grave face and pleading eyes uplifted, as though he were praying. The
+dim light fell on the raised head; and the white escutcheon on his
+breast shone out like the snow on Salmon.
+
+At length, with a sound like a sob, he dropped to the ground, and stood
+listening, his tail dropping and head raised. Then he turned and began
+softly pacing up and down, like some velvet-footed sentinel at the gate
+of death.
+
+Up and down, up and down, softly as the falling snow, for a weary, weary
+while.
+
+Again he stopped and stood, listening intently, at the foot of the
+stairs; and his gray coat quivered as though there were a draught.
+
+Of a sudden, the deathly stillness of the house was broken. Upstairs,
+feet were running hurriedly. There was a cry, and again silence.
+
+A life was coming in; a life was going out.
+
+The minutes passed; hours passed; and, at the sunless dawn, a life
+passed.
+
+And all through that night of age-long agony the gray figure stood,
+still as a statue, at the foot of the stairs. Only, when, with the first
+chill breath of the morning, a dry, quick-quenched sob of a strong man
+sorrowing for the helpmeet of a score of years, and a tiny cry of a
+new-born child wailing because its mother was not, came down to his
+ears, the Gray Watchman dropped his head upon his bosom, and, with a
+little whimpering note, crept back to his blanket.
+
+A little later the door above opened, and James Moore tramped down the
+stairs. He looked taller and gaunter than his wont, but there was no
+trace of emotion on his face.
+
+At the foot of the stairs Owd Bob stole out to meet him. He came
+crouching up, head and tail down, in a manner no man ever saw before or
+since. At his master's feet he stopped.
+
+Then, for one short moment, James Moore's whole face quivered.
+
+“Well, lad,” he said, quite low, and his voice broke; “she's awa'!”
+
+That was all; for they were an undemonstrative couple.
+
+Then they turned and went out together into the bleak morning.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII. M'ADAM AND HIS COAT
+
+
+To David M'Adam the loss of gentle Elizabeth Moore was as real a grief
+as to her children. Yet he manfully smothered his own aching heart and
+devoted himself to comforting the mourners at Kenmuir.
+
+In the days succeeding Mrs. Moore's death the boy recklessly neglected
+his duties at the Grange. But little M'Adam forbore to rebuke him. At
+times, indeed, he essayed to be passively kind. David, however, was too
+deeply sunk in his great sorrow to note the change.
+
+The day of the funeral came. The earth was throwing off its ice-fetters;
+and the Dale was lost in a mourning mist.
+
+In the afternoon M'Adam was standing at the window of the kitchen,
+contemplating the infinite weariness of the scene, when the door of the
+house opened and shut noiselessly. Red Wull raised himself on to the
+sill and growled, and David hurried past the window making for Kenmuir.
+M'Adam watched the passing figure indifferently; then with an angry oath
+sprang to the window.
+
+“Bring me back that coat, ye thief!” he cried, tapping fiercely on the
+pane. “Tak' it aff at onst, ye muckle gowk, or I'll come and tear it aff
+ye. D'ye see him, Wullie? the great coof has ma coat--me black coat, new
+last Michaelmas, and it rainin' 'nough to melt it.”
+
+He threw the window up with a bang and leaned out.
+
+“Bring it back, I tell ye, ondootiful, or I'll summons ye. Though ye've
+no respect for me, ye might have for ma claithes. Ye're too big for yer
+ain boots, let alane ma coat. D'ye think I had it cut for a elephant?
+It's burst-in', I tell ye. Tak' it aff! Fetch it here, or I'll e'en send
+Wullie to bring it!”
+
+David paid no heed except to begin running heavily down the hill. The
+coat was stretched in wrinkled agony across his back; his big, red
+wrists protruded like shank-bones from the sleeves; and the little tails
+flapped wearily in vain attempts to reach the wearer's legs.
+
+M'Adam, bubbling over with indignation, scrambled half through the open
+window. Then, tickled at the amazing impudence of the thing, he paused,
+smiled, dropped to the ground again, and watched the uncouth, retreating
+figure with chuckling amusement.
+
+“Did ye ever see the like o' that, Wullie?” he muttered. “Ma puir
+coat--puir wee coatie! it gars me greet to see her in her pain. A man's
+coat, Wullie, is aften unco sma' for his son's back; and David there
+is strainin' and stretchin' her nigh to brakin', for a' the world as he
+does ma forbearance. And what's he care aboot the one or t'ither?--not a
+finger-flip.”
+
+As he stood watching the disappearing figure there began the slow
+tolling of the minute-bell in the little Dale church. Now near, now far,
+now loud, now low, its dull chant rang out through the mist like the
+slow-dropping tears of a mourning world.
+
+M'Adam listened, almost reverently, as the bell tolled on, the only
+sound in the quiet Dale. Outside, a drizzling rain was falling; the
+snow dribbled down the hill in muddy tricklets; and trees and roofs and
+windows dripped.
+
+And still the bell tolled on, calling up relentlessly sad memories of
+the long ago.
+
+It was on just such another dreary day, in just such another December,
+and not so many years gone by, that the light had gone forever out of
+his life.
+
+The whole picture rose as instant to his eyes as if it had been but
+yesterday. That insistent bell brought the scene surging back to him:
+the dismal day; the drizzle; the few mourners; little David decked out
+in black, his fair hair contrasting with his gloomy clothes, his face
+swollen with weeping; the Dale hushed, it seemed in death, save for the
+tolling of the bell; and his love had left him and gone to the happy
+land the hymn-books talk of.
+
+Red Wull, who had been watching him uneasily, now came up and shoved
+his muzzle into his master's hand. The cold touch brought the little man
+back to earth. He shook himself, turned wearily away from the window,
+and went to the door of the house.
+
+He stood there looking out; and all round him was the eternal drip, drip
+of the thaw. The wind lulled, and again the minute-bell tolled out clear
+and inexorable, resolute to recall what was and what had been.
+
+With a choking gasp the little man turned into the house, and ran up the
+stairs and into his room. He dropped on his knees beside the great chest
+in the corner, and unlocked the bottom drawer, the key turning noisily
+in its socket.
+
+In the drawer he searched with feverish fingers, and produced at length
+a little paper packet wrapped about with a stained yellow ribbon. It was
+the ribbon she had used to weave on Sundays into her soft hair.
+
+Inside the packet was a cheap, heart-shaped frame, and in it a
+photograph.
+
+Up there it was too dark to see. The little man ran down the stairs, Red
+Wull jostling him as he went, and hurried to the window in the kitchen.
+
+It was a sweet, laughing face that looked up at him from the frame,
+demure yet arch, shy yet roguish--a face to look at and a face to love.
+
+As he looked a wintry smile, wholly tender, half tearful, stole over the
+little man's face.
+
+“Lassie,” he whispered, and his voice was infinitely soft, “it's lang
+sin' I've daured look at ye. But it's no that ye're forgotten, dearie.”
+
+Then he covered his eyes with his hand as though he were blinded.
+
+“Dinna look at me sae, lass!” he cried, and fell on his knees, kissing
+the picture, hugging it to him and sobbing passionately.
+
+Red Wull came up and pushed his face compassionately into his master's;
+but the little man shoved him roughly away, and the dog retreated into a
+corner, abashed and reproachful.
+
+Memories swarmed back on the little man.
+
+It was more than a decade ago now, and yet he dared barely think of that
+last evening when she had lain so white and still in the little room
+above.
+
+“Pit the bairn on the bed, Adam man,” she had said in low tones. “I'll
+be gaein' in a wee while noo. It's the lang good-by to you--and him.”
+
+He had done her bidding and lifted David up. The tiny boy lay still a
+moment, looking at this white-faced mother whom he hardly recognized.
+
+“Minnie!” he called piteously. Then, thrusting a small, dirty hand into
+his pocket, he pulled out a grubby sweet.
+
+“Minnie, ha' a sweetie--ain o' Davie's sweeties!” and he held it out
+anxiously in his warm plump palm, thinking it a certain cure for any
+ill.
+
+“Eat it for mither,” she said, smiling tenderly; and then: “Davie, ma
+heart, I'm leavin' ye.”
+
+The boy ceased sucking the sweet, and looked at her, the corners of his
+mouth drooping pitifully.
+
+“Ye're no gaein' awa', mither?” he asked, his face all working. “Ye'll
+no leave yen wee laddie?”
+
+“Ay, laddie, awa'--reet awa'. HE's callin' me.” She tried to smile; but
+her mother's heart was near to bursting.
+
+“Ye'll tak' yen wee Davie wi' ye mither!” the child pleaded, crawling up
+toward her face.
+
+The great tears rolled, unrestrained, down her wan cheeks, and M'Adam,
+at the head of the bed, was sobbing openly.
+
+“Eh, ma bairn, ma bairn, I'm sair to leave ye!” she cried brokenly.
+“Lift him for me, Adam.”
+
+He placed the child in her arms; but she was too weak to hold him. So he
+laid him upon his mother's pillows; and the boy wreathed his soft arms
+about her neck and sobbed tempestuously.
+
+And the two lay thus together.
+
+Just before she died, Flora turned her head and whispered:
+
+“Adam, ma man, ye'll ha' to be mither and father baith to the lad noo”;
+and she looked at him with tender confidence in her dying eyes.
+
+“I wull! afore God as I stan' here I wull!” he declared passionately.
+Then she died, and there was a look of ineffable peace upon her face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Mither and father baith!”
+
+The little man rose to his feet and flung the photograph from him. Red
+Wull pounced upon it; but M'Adam leapt at him as he mouthed it.
+
+“Git awa', ye devil!” he screamed; and, picking it up, stroked it
+lovingly with trembling fingers.
+
+“Maither and father baith!”
+
+How had he fulfilled his love's last wish? How!
+
+“Oh God! “--and he fell upon his knees at the table-side, hugging the
+picture, sobbing and praying.
+
+Red Wull cowered in the far corner of the room, and then crept whining
+up to where his master knelt. But M'Adam heeded him not, and the great
+dog slunk away again.
+
+There the little man knelt in the gloom of the winter's afternoon, a
+miserable penitent. His gray-flecked head was bowed upon his arms; his
+hands clutched the picture; and he prayed aloud in gasping, halting
+tones.
+
+“Gie me grace, O God! 'Father and mither baith,' ye said, Flora--and I
+ha'na done it. But 'tis no too late--say it's no, lass. Tell me there's
+time yet, and say ye forgie me. I've tried to bear wi' him mony and mony
+a time. But he's vexed me, and set himself agin me, and stiffened my
+back, and ye ken hoo I was aye quick to tak' offence. But I'll mak' it
+up to him--mak' it up to him, and mair. I'll humble masel' afore him,
+and that'll be bitter enough. And I'll be father and mither baith to
+him. But there's bin none to help me; and it's bin sair wi'oot ye.
+And--. but, eh, lassie, I'm wearyin' for ye!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a dreary little procession that wound in the drizzle from Kenmuir
+to the little Dale Church. At the head stalked James Moore, and close
+behind David in his meagre coat. While last of all, as if to guide the
+stragglers in the weary road, come Owd Bob.
+
+There was a full congregation in the tiny church now. In the squire's
+pew were Cyril Gilbraith, Muriel Sylvester, and, most conspicuous, Lady
+Eleanour. Her slender figure was simply draped in gray, with gray fur
+about the neck and gray fur edging sleeves and jacket; her veil was
+lifted, and you could see the soft hair about her temples, like waves
+breaking on white cliffs, and her eyes big with tender sympathy as she
+glanced toward the pew upon her right.
+
+For there were the mourners from Kenmuir: the Master, tall, grim, and
+gaunt; and beside him Maggie, striving to be calm, and little Andrew,
+the miniature of his father.
+
+Alone, in the pew behind, David M'Adam in his father's coat.
+
+The back of the church was packed with farmers from the whole March Mere
+Estate; friends from Silverdale and Grammoch-town; and nearly every
+soul in Wastrel-dale, come to show their sympathy for the living and
+reverence for the dead.
+
+At last the end came in the wet dreariness of the little churchyard, and
+slowly the mourners departed, until at length were left only the parson,
+the Master, and Owd Bob.
+
+The parson was speaking in rough, short accents, digging nervously
+at the wet ground. The other, tall and gaunt, his face drawn and
+half-averted, stood listening. By his side was Owd Bob, scanning his
+master's countenance, a wistful compassion deep in the sad gray eyes;
+while close by, one of the parson's terriers was nosing inquisitively in
+the wet grass.
+
+Of a sudden, James Moore, his face still turned away, stretched out a
+hand. The parson, broke off abruptly and grasped it. Then the two men
+strode away in opposite directions, the terrier hopping on three legs
+and shaking the rain off his hard coat.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+David's steps sounded outside. M'Adam rose from his knees. The door of
+the house opened, and the boy's feet shuffled in the passage.
+
+“David!” the little man called in a tremulous voice.
+
+He stood in the half-light, one hand on the table, the other clasping
+the picture. His eyes were bleared, his thin hair all tossed, and he was
+shaking.
+
+“David,” he called again; “I've somethin' I wush to say to ye!”
+
+The boy burst into the room. His face was stained with tears and rain;
+and the new black coat was wet and slimy all down the front, and on the
+elbows were green-brown, muddy blots. For, on his way home, he had flung
+himself down in the Stony Bottom just as he was, heedless of the wet
+earth and his father's coat, and, lying on his face thinking of
+that second mother lost to him, had wept his heart out in a storm of
+passionate grief.
+
+Now he stood defiantly, his hand upon the door.
+
+“What d'yo' want?”
+
+The little man looked from him to the picture in his hand.
+
+“Help me, Flora--he'll no,” he prayed. Then raising his eyes, he began:
+“I'd like to say--I've bin thinkin'--I think I should tell ye--it's no
+an easy thing for a man to say--”
+
+He broke off short. The self-imposed task was almost more than he could
+accomplish.
+
+He looked appealingly at David. But there was no glimmer of
+understanding in that white, set countenance.
+
+“O God, it's maist mair than I can do!” the little man muttered; and the
+perspiration stood upon his forehead. Again he began: “David, after I
+saw ye this afternoon steppin' doon the hill--” Again he paused. His
+glance rested unconsciously upon the coat. David mistook the look;
+mistook the dimness in his father's eyes; mistook the tremor in his
+voice.
+
+“Here 'tis! tak' yo' coat!” he cried passionately; and, tearing it off,
+flung it down at his father's feet. “Tak' it--and---and--curse yo'.”
+
+He banged out of the room and ran upstairs; and, locking himself in,
+threw himself on to his bed and sobbed.
+
+Red Wull made a movement to fly at the retreating figure; then turned
+to his master, his stump-tail vibrating with pleasure. But little M'Adam
+was looking at the wet coat now lying in a wet bundle at his feet.
+
+“Curse ye,” he repeated softly. “Curse ye--ye heard him. Wullie?”
+
+A bitter smile crept across his face. He looked again at the picture now
+lying crushed in his hand.
+
+“Ye canna say I didna try; ye canna ask me to agin,” he muttered, and
+slipped it into his pocket. “Niver agin, Wullie; not if the Queen were
+to ask it.”
+
+Then he went out into the gloom and drizzle, still smiling the same
+bitter smile.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That night, when it came to closing-time at the Sylvester Arms, Jem
+Burton found a little gray-haired figure lying on the floor in the
+tap-room. At the little man's head lay a great dog.
+
+“Yo' beast!” said the righteous publican, regarding the figure of his
+best customer with fine scorn. Then catching sight of a photograph in
+the little man's hand:
+
+“Oh, yo're that sort, are yo', foxy?” he leered. “Gie us a look at 'er,”
+ and he tried to disengage the picture from the other's grasp. But at
+the attempt the great dog rose, bared his teeth, and assumed such a
+diabolical expression that the big landlord retreated hurriedly behind
+the bar.
+
+“Two on ye!” he shouted viciously, rattling his heels; “beasts baith!”
+
+
+
+
+PART III THE SHEPHERDS' TROPHY
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX. RIVALS
+
+
+M'ADAM never forgave his son. After the scene on the evening of the
+funeral there could be no alternative but war for all time. The
+little man had attempted to humble himself, and been rejected; and
+the bitterness of defeat, when he had deserved victory, rankled like a
+poisoned barb in his bosom.
+
+Yet the heat of his indignation was directed not against David, but
+against the Master of Kenmuir. To the influence and agency of James
+Moore he attributed his discomfiture, and bore himself accordingly. In
+public or in private, in tap-room or market, he never wearied of abusing
+his enemy.
+
+“Feel the loss o' his wife, d'ye say?” he would cry. “Ay, as muckle as
+I feel the loss o' my hair. James Moore can feel naethin', I tell ye,
+except, aiblins, a mischance to his meeserable dog.”
+
+When the two met, as they often must, it was always M'Adam's endeavor
+to betray his enemy into an unworthy expression of feeling. But James
+Moore, sorely tried as he often was, never gave way. He met the little
+man's sneers with a quelling silence, looking down on his asp-tongued
+antagonist with such a contempt flashing from his blue-gray eyes as hurt
+his adversary more than words.
+
+Only once was he spurred into reply. It was in the tap-room of
+the Dalesman's Daughter on the occasion of the big spring fair in
+Grammoch-town, when there was a goodly gathering of farmers and their
+dogs in the room.
+
+M'Adam was standing at the fireplace with Red Wull at his side.
+
+“It's a noble pairt ye play, James Moore,” he cried loudly across the
+room, “settin' son against father, and dividin' hoose against hoose.
+It's worthy o' ye we' yer churchgoin', and yer psalm-singin', and yer
+godliness.”
+
+The Master looked up from the far end of the room.
+
+“Happen yo're not aware, M'Adam,” he said sternly, “that, an' it had not
+bin for me, David'd ha' left you years agone--and 'twould nob'but ha'
+served yo' right, I'm thinkin'.”
+
+The little man was beaten on his own ground, so he changed front.
+
+“Dinna shout so, man--I have ears to hear, Forbye ye irritate Wullie.”
+
+The Tailless Tyke, indeed, had advanced from the fireplace, and now
+stood, huge and hideous, in the very centre of the room. There was
+distant thunder in his throat, a threat upon his face, a challenge in
+every wrinkle. And the Gray Dog stole gladly out from behind his master
+to take up the gage of battle.
+
+Straightway there was silence; tongues ceased to wag, tankards to clink.
+Every man and every dog was quietly gathering about those two central
+figures. Not one of them all but had his score to wipe off against the
+Tailless Tyke; not one of them but was burning to join in, the battle
+once begun. And the two gladiators stood looking past one another,
+muzzle to muzzle, each with a tiny flash of teeth glinting between his
+lips.
+
+But the fight was not to be; for the twentieth time the Master
+intervened.
+
+“Bob, lad, coom in!” he called, and, bending, grasped his favorite by
+the neck.
+
+M'Adam laughed softly.
+
+“Wullie, Wullie, to me!” he cried. “The look o' you's enough for that
+gentleman.”
+
+“If they get fightin' it'll no be Bob here I'll hit, I warn yo',
+M'Adam,” said the Master grimly.
+
+“Gin ye sae muckle as touched Wullie d'ye ken what I'd do, James Moore?”
+ asked the little man very smoothly.
+
+“Yes--sweer,” the other replied, and strode out of the room amid a roar
+of derisive laughter at M'Adam's expense.
+
+Owd Bob had now attained wellnigh the perfection of his art. Parson
+Leggy declared roundly that his like had not been seen since the days
+of Rex son of Rally. Among the Dalesmen he was a heroic favorite, his
+prowess and gentle ways winning him friends on every hand. But the point
+that told most heavily for him was that in all things he was the very
+antithesis of Red Wull.
+
+Barely a man in the country-side but owed that ferocious savage a
+grudge; not a man of them all who dared pay it. Once Long Kirby, full
+of beer and valor, tried to settle his account. Coming on M'Adam and Red
+Wull as he was driving into Grammoch-town, he leant over and with his
+thong dealt the dog a terrible sword-like slash that raised an angry
+ridge of red from hip to shoulder; and was twenty yards down the road
+before the little man's shrill curse reached his ear, drowned in a
+hideous bellow.
+
+He stood up and lashed the colt, who, quick on his legs for a young un,
+soon settled to his gallop. But, glancing over his shoulder, he saw a
+hounding form behind, catching him as though he were walking. His face
+turned sickly white; he screamed; he flogged; he looked back. Right
+beneath the tail-board was the red devil in the dust; while racing a
+furlong behind on the turnpike road was the mad figure of M'Adam.
+
+The smith struck back and flogged forward. It was of no avail. With a
+tiger-like bound the murderous brute leapt on the flying trap. At the
+shock of the great body the colt was thrown violently on his side; Kirby
+was tossed over the hedge; and Red Wull pinned beneath the debris.
+
+M'Adam had time to rush up and save a tragedy.
+
+“I've a mind to knife ye, Kirby,” he panted, as he bandaged the smith's
+broken head.
+
+After that you may be sure the Dalesmen preferred to swallow insults
+rather than to risk their lives; and their impotence only served to fan
+their hatred to white heat.
+
+The working methods of the antagonists were as contrasted as their
+appearances. In a word, the one compelled where the other coaxed.
+
+His enemies said the Tailless Tyke was rough; not even Tammas denied he
+was ready. His brain was as big as his body, and he used them both
+to some purpose. “As quick as a cat, with the heart of a lion and the
+temper of Nick's self,” was Parson Leggy's description.
+
+What determination could effect, that could Red Wall; but achievement
+by inaction--supremest of all strategies--was not for him. In matters of
+the subtlest handling, where to act anything except indifference was
+to lose, with sheep restless, fearful forebodings hymned to them by the
+wind, panic hovering unseen above them, when an ill-considered movement
+spelt catastrophe--then was Owd Bob o' Kenmuir incomparable.
+
+Men still tell how, when the squire's new thrashing-machine ran amuck
+in Grammoch-town, and for some minutes the market square was a turbulent
+sea of blaspheming men, yelping dogs, and stampeding sheep, only one
+flock stood calm as a mill-pond by the bull-ring, watching the riot with
+almost indifference. And in front, sitting between them and the storm,
+was a quiet gray dog, his mouth stretched in a capacious yawn: to yawn
+was to win, and he won.
+
+When the worst of the uproar was over, many a glance of triumph was shot
+first at that one still pack, and then at M'Adam, as he waded through
+the disorder of huddling sheep.
+
+“And wheer's your Wullie noo?” asked Tapper scornfully.
+
+“Weel,” the little man answered with a quiet smile, “at this minute he's
+killin' your Rasper doon by the pump.” Which was indeed the case; for
+big blue Rasper had interfered with the great dog in the performance of
+his duty, and suffered accordingly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Spring passed into summer; and the excitement as to the event of the
+approaching Trials, when at length the rivals would be pitted
+against one another, reached such a height as old Jonas Maddox, the
+octogenarian, could hardly recall.
+
+Down in the Sylvester Arms there was almost nightly a conflict
+between M'Adam and Tammas Thornton, spokesman of the Dales men. Many a
+long-drawn bout of words had the two anent the respective merits and Cup
+chances of red and gray. In these duels Tammas was usually worsted. His
+temper would get the better of his discretion; and the cynical debater
+would be lost in the hot-tongued partisan.
+
+During these encounters the others would, as a rule, maintain a rigid
+silence. Only when their champion was being beaten, and it was time for
+strength of voice to vanquish strength of argument, they joined in
+right lustily and roared the little man down, for all the world like the
+gentlemen who rule the Empire at Westminster.
+
+Tammas was an easy subject for M'Adam to draw, but David was an easier.
+Insults directed at himself the boy bore with a stolidity born of long
+use. But a poisonous dart shot against his friends at Kenmuir never
+failed to achieve its object. And the little man evinced an amazing
+talent for the concoction of deft lies respecting James Moore.
+
+“I'm hearin',” said he, one evening, sitting in the kitchen, sucking his
+twig; “I'm hearin' James Moore is gaein' to git married agin.”
+
+“Yo're hearin' lies--or mair-like tellin' 'em,” David answered shortly.
+For he treated his father now with contemptuous indifference.
+
+“Seven months sin' his wife died,” the little man continued
+meditatively. “Weel, I'm on'y 'stonished he's waited sae lang. Ain
+buried, anither come on--that's James Moore.”
+
+David burst angrily out of the room.
+
+“Gaein' to ask him if it's true?” called his father after him. “Gude
+luck to ye--and him.”
+
+David had now a new interest at Kenmuir. In Maggie he found an endless
+source of study. On the death of her mother the girl had taken up the
+reins of government at Kenmuir; and gallantly she played her part,
+whether in tenderly mothering the baby, wee Anne, or in the sterner
+matters of household work. She did her duty, young though she was,
+with a surprising, old-fashioned womanliness that won many a smile
+of approval from her father, and caused David's eyes to open with
+astonishment.
+
+And he soon discovered that Maggie, mistress of Kenmuir, was another
+person from his erstwhile playfellow and servant.
+
+The happy days when might ruled right were gone, never to be recalled.
+David often regretted them, especially when in a conflict of tongues,
+Maggie, with her quick answers and teasing eyes, was driving him sulky
+and vanquished from the field. The two were perpetually squabbling now.
+In the good old days, he remembered bitterly, squabbles between them
+were unknown. He had never permitted them; any attempt at independent
+thought or action was as sternly quelled as in the Middle Ages. She must
+follow where he led on--“Ma word!”
+
+Now she was mistress where he had been master; hers was to command, his
+to obey. In consequence they were perpetually at war. And yet he would
+sit for hours in the kitchen and watch her, as she went about her
+business, with solemn, interested eyes, half of admiration, half of
+amusement. In the end Maggie always turned on him with a little laugh
+touched with irritation.
+
+“Han't yo' got nothin' better'n that to do, nor lookin' at me?” she
+asked one Saturday about a month before Cup Day.
+
+“No, I han't,” the pert fellow rejoined.
+
+“Then I wish yo' had. It mak's me fair jumpety yo' watchin' me so like
+ony cat a mouse.”
+
+“Niver yo' fash yo'sel' account o' me, ma wench,” he answered calmly.
+
+“Yo' wench, indeed!” she cried, tossing her head.
+
+“Ay, or will be,” he muttered.
+
+“What's that?” she cried, springing round, a flush of color on her face.
+
+“Nowt, my dear. Yo'll know so soon as I want yo' to, yo' may be sure,
+and no sooner.”
+
+The girl resumed her baking, half angry, half suspicious.
+
+“I dunno' what yo' mean, Mr. M'Adam,” she said.
+
+“Don't yo', Mrs. M'A----”
+
+The rest was lost in the crash of a falling plate; whereat David laughed
+quietly, and asked if he should help pick up the bits.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the same evening at the Sylvester Arms an announcement was made that
+knocked the breath out of its hearers.
+
+In the debate that night on the fast-approaching Dale Trials and the
+relative abilities of red and gray, M'Adam on the one side, and Tammas,
+backed by Long Kirby and the rest, on the other, had cudgelled each
+other with more than usual vigor. The controversy rose to fever-heat;
+abuse succeeded argument; and the little man again and again was hooted
+into silence.
+
+“It's easy laffin',” he cried at last, “but ye'll laff t'ither side o'
+yer ugly faces on Cup Day.”
+
+“Will us, indeed? Us'll see,” came the derisive chorus.
+
+“We'll whip ye till ye're deaf, dumb, and blind, Wullie and I.”
+
+''Yo'll not!''
+
+“We will!”
+
+The voices were rising like the east wind in March.
+
+“Yo'll not, and for a very good reason too,” asseverated Tammas loudly.
+
+“Gie us yer reason, ye muckle liar,” cried the little man, turning on
+him.
+
+“Becos----” began Jim Mason and stopped to rub his nose.
+
+“Yo' 'old yo' noise, Jim,” recommended Rob Saunderson.
+
+“Becos----” it was Tammas this time who paused.
+
+“Git on wi' it, ye stammerin' stirk!” cried M'Adam. “Why?”
+
+“Becos--Owd Bob'll not rin.”
+
+Tammas sat back in his chair.
+
+“What!” screamed the little man, thrusting forward.
+
+“What's that!” yelled Long Kirby, leaping to his feet.
+
+“Mon, say it agin!” shouted Rob.
+
+“What's owd addled eggs tellin'?” cried Liz Burton.
+
+“Dang his 'ead for him!” shouts Tupper.
+
+“Fill his eye!” says Ned Hoppin.
+
+They jostled round the old man's chair: M'Adam in front; Jem Burton and
+Long Kirby leaning over his shoulder; Liz behind her father; Saunderson
+and Tupper tackling him on either side; while the rest peered and
+elbowed in the rear.
+
+The announcement had fallen like a thunderbolt among them.
+
+Tammas looked slowly up at the little mob of eager faces above him.
+Pride at the sensation caused by his news struggled in his countenance
+with genuine sorrow for the matter of it.
+
+“Ay, yo' may well 'earken all on yo'. Tis enough to mak' the deadies
+listen. I says agin: We's'll no rin oor Bob fot' Cup. And yo' may guess
+why. Bain't every mon, Mr. M'Adam, as'd pit aside his chanst o' the Cup,
+and that 'maist a gift for him”--M'Adam's tongue was in his cheek--“and
+it a certainty,” the old man continued warmly, “oot o' respect for his
+wife's memory.”
+
+The news was received in utter silence. The shock of the surprise,
+coupled with the bitterness of the disappointment, froze the slow
+tongues of his listeners.
+
+Only one small voice broke the stillness.
+
+“Oh, the feelin' man! He should git a reduction o' rent for sic a
+display o' proper speerit. I'll mind Mr. Hornbut to let auld Sylvester
+ken o't.”
+
+Which he did, and would have got a thrashing for his pains had not Cyril
+Gilbraith thrown him out of the parsonage before the angry cleric could
+lay hands upon him.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X. RED WULL WINS
+
+
+TAMMAS had but told the melancholy truth. Owd Bob was not to run for the
+cup. And this self-denying ordinance speaks more for James Moore's love
+of his lost wife than many a lordly cenotaph.
+
+To the people of the Daleland, from the Black Water to the market-cross
+in Grammoch-town, the news came with the shock of a sudden blow. They
+had set their hearts on the Gray Dog's success; and had felt serenely
+confident of his victory. But the sting of the matter lay in this: that
+now the Tailless Tyke might well win.
+
+M'Adam, on the other hand, was plunged into a fervor of delight at the
+news. For to win the Shepherds' Trophy was the goal of his ambition.
+David was now less than nothing to the lonely little man, Red Wull
+everything to him. And to have that name handed down to posterity,
+gallantly holding its place among those of the most famous sheep-dogs of
+all time, was his heart's desire.
+
+As Cup Day drew near, the little man, his fine-drawn temperament
+strung to the highest pitch of nervousness, was tossed on a sea of
+apprehension. His hopes and fears ebbed and flowed on the tide of the
+moment. His moods were as uncertain as the winds in March; and there was
+no dependence on his humor for a unit of time. At one minute he paced up
+and down the kitchen, his face already flushed with the glow of victory,
+chanting:
+
+“Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled!”
+
+At the next he was down at the table, his head buried in his hands, his
+whole figure shaking, as he cried in choking voice: “Eh, Wullie, Wullie,
+they're all agin us.”
+
+David found that life with his father now was life with an unamiable
+hornet. Careless as he affected to be of his father's vagaries, he was
+tried almost to madness, and fled away at every moment to Kenmuir; for,
+as he told Maggie, “I'd sooner put up wi' your h'airs and h'imperences,
+miss, than wi' him, the wemon that he be!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At length the great day came. Fears, hopes, doubts, dismays, all
+dispersed in the presence of the reality.
+
+Cup Day is always a general holiday in the Daleland, and every soul
+crowds over to Silverdale. Shops were shut; special trains ran in
+to Grammoch-town; and the road from the little town was dazed with
+char-a-bancs, brakes, wagonettes, carriages, carts, foot-passengers,
+wending toward the Dalesman's Daughter.
+
+And soon the paddock below that little inn was humming with the crowd
+of sportsmen and spectators come to see the battle for the Shepherd's
+Trophy.
+
+There, very noticeable with its red body and yellow wheels, was the
+great Kenmuir wagon. Many an eye was directed on the handsome young pair
+who stood in it, conspicuous and unconscious, above the crowd: Maggie,
+looking in her simple print frock as sweet and fresh as any mountain
+flower; while David's fair face was all gloomy and his brows knit.
+
+In front of the wagon was a black cluster of Dalesmen, discussing
+M'Adam's chances. In the centre was Tammas holding forth. Had you passed
+close to the group you might have heard: “A man, d'yo say, Mr. Maddox? A
+h'ape, I call him”; or: “A dog? more like an 'og, I tell yo'.” Round the
+old orator were Jonas, 'Enry, and oor Job, Jem Burton, Rob Saunderson,
+Tupper, Jim Mason, Hoppin, and others; while on the outskirts stood
+Sam'l Todd prophesying rain and M'Adam's victory. Close at hand Bessie
+Bolstock, who was reputed to have designs on David, was giggling
+spitefully at the pair in the Kenmuir wagon, and singing:
+
+“Let a lad aloan, lass, Let a lad a-be.”
+
+While her father, Teddy, dodged in and out among the crowd with tray and
+glasses: for Cup Day was the great day of the year for him.
+
+Past the group of Dalesmen and on all sides was a mass of bobbing
+heads--Scots, Northerners, Yorkshiremen, Taffies. To right and left
+a long array of carriages and carts, ranging from the squire's quiet
+landau and Viscount Birdsaye's gorgeous barouche to Liz Burton's
+three-legged moke-cart with little Mrs. Burton, the twins, young Jake
+(who should have walked), and Monkey (ditto) packed away inside. Beyond
+the Silver Lea the gaunt Scaur raised its craggy peak, and the Pass,
+trending along its side, shone white in the sunshine.
+
+At the back of the carriages were booths, cocoanut-shies, Aunt Sallies,
+shows, bookmakers' stools, and all the panoply of such a meeting.
+Here Master Launcelot Bilks and Jacky Sylvester were fighting; Cyril
+Gilbraith was offering to take on the boxing man; Long Kirby was
+snapping up the odds against Red Wull; and Liz Burton and young Ned
+Hoppin were being photographed together, while Melia Ross in the
+background was pretending she didn't care.
+
+On the far bank of the stream was a little bevy of men and dogs,
+observed of all.
+
+The Juvenile Stakes had been run and won; Londesley's Lassie had carried
+off the Locals; and the fight for the Shepherds' Trophy was about to
+begin.
+
+“Yo're not lookin' at me noo,” whispered Maggie to the silent boy by her
+side.
+
+“Nay; nor niver don't wush to agin.” David answered roughly. His gaze
+was directed over the array of heads in front to where, beyond the
+Silver Lea, a group of shepherds and their dogs was clustered. While
+standing apart from the rest, in characteristic isolation, was the bent
+figure of his father, and beside him the Tailless Tyke.
+
+“Doest'o not want yo' feyther to win?” asked Maggie softly, following
+his gaze.
+
+“I'm prayin' he'll be beat,” the boy answered moodily.
+
+“Eh, Davie, hoo can ye?” cried the girl, shocked.
+
+“It's easy to say, 'Eh, David,'” he snapped. “But if yo' lived along
+o' them two “--he nodded toward the stream--“'appen yo'd understand a
+bit.... 'Eh, David,' indeed! I never did!”
+
+“I know it, lad,” she said tenderly; and he was appeased.
+
+“He'd give his right hand for his bless'd Wullie to win; I'd give me
+right arm to see him beat.... And oor Bob there all the while,”--he
+nodded to the far left of the line, where stood James Moore and Owd Bob,
+with Parson Leggy and the Squire.
+
+When at length Red Wull came out to run his course, he worked with the
+savage dash that always characterized him. His method was his own; but
+the work was admirably done.
+
+“Keeps right on the back of his sheep,” said the parson, watching
+intently. “Strange thing they don't break!” But they didn't. There was
+no waiting, no coaxing; it was drive and devilry all through. He
+brought his sheep along at a terrific rate, never missing a turn, never
+faltering, never running out. And the crowd applauded, for the crowd
+loves a dashing display. While little M'Adam, hopping agilely about,
+his face ablaze with excitement, handled dog and sheep with a masterly
+precision that compelled the admiration even of his enemies.
+
+“M'Adam wins!” roared a bookmaker. “Twelve to one agin the field!”
+
+“He wins, dang him!” said David, low.
+
+“Wull wins!” said the parson, shutting his lips.
+
+“And deserves too!” said James Moore.
+
+“Wull wins!” softly cried the crowd.
+
+“We don't!” said Sam'l gloomily.
+
+And in the end Red Wull did Win; and there were none save Tammas, the
+bigot, and Long Kirby, who had lost a good deal of his wife's money and
+a little of his own, to challenge the justice of the verdict.
+
+The win had but a chilling reception. At first there was faint cheering;
+but it sounded like the echo of an echo, and soon died of inanition.
+To get up an ovation, there must be money at the back, or a few roaring
+fanatics to lead the dance. Here there was neither; ugly stories,
+disparaging remarks, on every hand. And the hundreds who did not know
+took their tone, as always, from those who said they did.
+
+M'Adam could but remark the absence of enthusiasm as he pushed up
+through the throng toward the committee tent. No single voice hailed
+him victor; no friendly hand smote its congratulations. Broad backs were
+turned; contemptuous glances levelled; spiteful remarks shot. Only the
+foreign element looked curiously at the little bent figure with the
+glowing face, and shrank back at the size and savage aspect of the great
+dog at his heels.
+
+But what cared he? His Wullie was acknowledged champion, the best
+sheep-dog of the year; and the little man was happy. They could turn
+their backs on him; but they could not alter that; and he could afford
+to be indifferent. “They dinna like it, lad--he! he! But they'll e'en
+ha' to thole it. Ye've won it, Wullie--won it fair.”
+
+He elbowed through the press, making for the rope-guarded inclosure in
+front of the committee tent, round which the people were now packing. In
+the door of the tent stood the secretary, various stewards, and members
+of the committee. In front, alone in the roped-off space, was Lady
+Eleanour, fragile, dainty, graceful, waiting with a smile upon her face
+to receive the winner. And on a table beside her, naked and dignified,
+the Shepherd's Trophy.
+
+There it stood, kingly and impressive; its fair white sides inscribed
+with many names; cradled in three shepherds' crooks; and on the top, as
+if to guard the Cup's contents, an exquisitely carved collie's head. The
+Shepherds' Trophy, the goal of his life's race, and many another man's.
+
+He climbed over the rope, followed by Red Wull, and took off his hat
+with almost courtly deference to the fair lady before him.
+
+As he walked up to the table on which the Cup stood, a shrill voice,
+easily recognizable, broke the silence.
+
+“You'd like it better if 'twas full and yo' could swim in it, you and
+yer Wullie,” it called. Whereat the crowd giggled, and Lady Eleanour
+looked indignant.
+
+The little man turned.
+
+“I'll mind drink yer health, Mr. Thornton, never fear, though I ken ye'd
+prefaire to drink yer ain,” he said. At which the crowd giggled afresh;
+and a gray head at the back, which had hoped itself unrecognized,
+disappeared suddenly.
+
+The little man stood there in the stillness, sourly smiling, his face
+still wet from his exertions; while the Tailless Tyke at his side
+fronted defiantly the serried ring of onlookers, a white fence of teeth
+faintly visible between his lips.
+
+Lady Eleanour looked uneasy. Usually the lucky winner was unable to
+hear her little speech, as she gave the Cup away, so deafening was the
+applause. Now there was utter silence. She glanced up at the crowd, but
+there was no response to her unspoken appeal in that forest of hostile
+faces. And her gentle heart bled for the forlorn little man before her.
+To make it up she smiled on him so sweetly as to more than compensate
+him.
+
+“I'm sure you deserve your success, Mr. M'Adam,” she said. “You and Red
+Wull there worked splendidly--everybody says so.”
+
+“I've heard naethin' o't,” the little man answered dryly. At which some
+one in the crowd sniggered.
+
+“And we all know what a grand dog he is; though”--with a reproving smile
+as she glanced at Red Wull's square, truncated stern--“he's not very
+polite.”
+
+“His heart is good, your Leddyship, if his manners are not,” M'Adam
+answered, smiling.
+
+“Liar!” came a loud voice in the silence. Lady Eleanour looked up, hot
+with indignation, and half rose from her seat. But M'Adam merely smiled.
+
+“Wullie, turn and mak' yer bow to the leddy,” he said. “They'll no hurt
+us noo we're up; it's when we're doon they'll flock like corbies to the
+carrion.”
+
+At that Red Wull walked up to Lady Eleanour, faintly wagging his tail;
+and she put her hand on his huge bull head and said, “Dear old Ugly!” at
+which the crowd cheered in earnest.
+
+After that, for some moments, the only sound was the gentle ripple of
+the good lady's voice and the little man's caustic replies.
+
+“Why, last winter the country was full of Red Wull's doings and yours.
+It was always M'Adam and his Red Wull have done this and that and the
+other. I declare I got quite tired of you both, I heard such a lot about
+you.”
+
+The little man, cap in hand, smiled, blushed and looked genuinely
+pleased.
+
+“And when it wasn't you it was Mr. Moore and Owd Bob.”
+
+“Owd Bob, bless him!” called a stentorian voice. “There cheers for oor
+Bob!”
+
+“'Ip! 'ip! 'ooray!” It was taken up gallantly, and cast from mouth
+to mouth; and strangers, though they did not understand, caught the
+contagion and cheered too; and the uproar continued for some minutes.
+
+When it was ended Lady Eleanour was standing up, a faint flush on her
+cheeks and her eyes flashing dangerously, like a queen at bay.
+
+“Yes,” she cried, and her clear voice thrilled through the air like a
+trumpet. “Yes; and now three cheers for Mr. M'Adam and his Red Wull!
+Hip! hip--”
+
+“Hooray!” A little knowt of stalwarts at the back--James Moore,
+Parson Leggy, Jim Mason, and you may be sure in heart, at least, Owd
+Bob--responded to the call right lustily. The crowd joined in; and, once
+off, cheered and cheered again.
+
+“Three cheers more for Mr. M'Adam!”
+
+But the little man waved to them.
+
+“Dinna be bigger heepocrites than ye can help,” he said. “Ye've done
+enough for one day, and thank ye for it.”
+
+Then Lady Eleanour handed him the Cup.
+
+“Mr. M'Adam, I present you with the Champion Challenge Dale Cup, open to
+all comers. Keep it, guard it, love it as your own, and win it again if
+you can. Twice more and it's yours, you know, and it will stop forever
+beneath the shadow of the Pike. And the right place for it, say I--the
+Dale Cup for Dalesmen.”
+
+The little man took the Cup tenderly.
+
+“It shall no leave the Estate or ma hoose, yer Leddyship, gin Wullie and
+I can help it,” he said emphatically.
+
+Lady Eleanour retreated into the tent, and the crowd swarmed over the
+ropes and round the little man, who held the Cup beneath his arm.
+
+Long Kirby laid irreverent hands upon it.
+
+“Dinna finger it!” ordered M'Adam.
+
+“Shall!''
+
+“Shan't! Wullie, keep him aff.” Which the great dog proceeded to do amid
+the laughter of the onlookers.
+
+Among the last, James Moore was borne past the little man. At sight of
+him, M'Adam's face assumed an expression of intense concern.
+
+“Man, Moore!” he cried, peering forward as though in alarm; “man, Moore,
+ye're green--positeevely verdant. Are ye in pain?” Then, catching sight
+of Owd Bob, he started back in affected horror.
+
+“And, ma certes! so's yer dog! Yer dog as was gray is green. Oh, guid
+life! “--and he made as though about to fall fainting to the ground.
+
+Then, in bantering tones: “Ah, but ye shouldna covet ----”
+
+“He'll ha' no need to covet it long, I can tell yo',” interposed
+Tammas's shrill accents.
+
+“And why for no?”
+
+“Becos next year he'll win it fra yo'. Oor Bob'll win it, little mon.
+Why? thot's why.”
+
+The retort was greeted with a yell of applause from the sprinkling of
+Dalesmen in the crowd.
+
+But M'Adam swaggered away into the tent, his head up, the Cup beneath
+his arm, and Red Wull guarding his rear.
+
+“First of a' ye'll ha' to beat Adam M'Adam and his Red Wull!” he cried
+back proudly.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI. OOR BOB
+
+
+M'ADAM'S pride in the great Cup that now graced his kitchen was supreme.
+It stood alone in the very centre of the mantelpiece, just below the old
+bell-mouthed blunderbuss that hung upon the wall. The only ornament in
+the bare room, it shone out in its silvery chastity like the moon in a
+gloomy sky.
+
+For once the little man was content. Since his mother's death David had
+never known such peace. It was not that his father became actively kind;
+rather that he forgot to be actively unkind.
+
+“Not as I care a brazen button one way or t'ither,” the boy informed
+Maggie.
+
+“Then yo' should,” that proper little person replied.
+
+M'Adam was, indeed, a changed being. He forgot to curse James Moore; he
+forgot to sneer at Owd Bob; he rarely visited the Sylvester Arms, to the
+detriment of Jem Burton's pocket and temper; and he was never drunk.
+
+“Soaks 'isseif at home, instead,” suggested Tammas, the prejudiced. But
+the accusation was untrue.
+
+“Too drunk to git so far,” said Long Kirby, kindly man.
+
+“I reck'n the Cup is kind o' company to him,” said Jim Mason. “Happen
+it's lonesomeness as drives him here so much.” And happen you were
+right, charitable Jim.
+
+“Best mak' maist on it while he has it, 'cos he'll not have it for
+long,” Tammas remarked amid applause.
+
+Even Parson Leggy allowed--rather reluctantly, indeed, for he was but
+human--that the little man was changed wonderfully for the better.
+
+“But I am afraid it may not last,” he said. “We shall see what happens
+when Owd Bob beats him for the Cup, as he certainly will. That'll be the
+critical moment.”
+
+As things were, the little man spent all his spare moments with the Cup
+between his knees, burnishing it and crooning to Wullie:
+
+     “I never saw a fairer,
+     I never lo'ed a dearer,
+     And neist my heart I'll wear her,
+     For fear my jewel tine.”
+
+“There, Wullie! look at her! is she no bonnie? She shines like a
+twinkle--twinkle in the sky.” And he would hold it out at arm's length,
+his head cocked sideways the better to scan its bright beauties.
+
+The little man was very jealous for his treasure. David might not touch
+it; might not smoke in the kitchen lest the fumes should tarnish its
+glory; while if he approached too closely he was ordered abruptly away.
+
+“As if I wanted to touch his nasty Cup!” he complained to Maggie. “I'd
+sooner ony day--”
+
+“Hands aff, Mr. David, immediate!” she cried indignantly. “'Pertinence,
+indeed!” as she tossed her head clear of the big fingers that were
+fondling her pretty hair.
+
+So it was that M'Adam, on coming quietly into the kitchen one day,
+was consumed with angry resentment to find David actually handling
+the object of his reverence; and the manner of his doing it added a
+thousandfold to the offence.
+
+The boy was lolling indolently against the mantelpiece, his fair head
+shoved right into the Cup, his breath dimming its lustre, and his two
+hands, big and dirty, slowly revolving it before his eyes.
+
+Bursting with indignation, the little man crept up behind the boy. David
+was reading through the long list of winners.
+
+“Theer's the first on 'em,” he muttered, shooting out his tongue to
+indicate the locality: “'Andrew Moore's Rough, 178--.' And theer agin--'
+James Moore's Pinch, 179--.' And agin--'Beck, 182--.' Ah, and theer's
+'im Tammas tells on! 'Rex, 183--,' and Rex, 183--.' Ay, but he was a
+rare un by all tell-in's! If he'd nob'but won but onst agin! Ah, and
+theer's none like the Gray Dogs--they all says that, and I say so
+masel'; none like the Gray Dogs o' Kenmuir, bless 'em! And we'll win
+agin too--” he broke off short; his eye had travelled down to the last
+name on the list.
+
+“'M'Adam's Wull'!” he read with unspeakable contempt, and put his great
+thumb across the name as though to wipe it out. “'M'Adam's Wull'! Goo'
+gracious sakes! P-hg-h-r-r! “--and he made a motion as though to spit
+upon the ground.
+
+But a little shoulder was into his side, two small fists were beating
+at his chest, and a shrill voice was yelling: “Devil! devil! stan'
+awa'!”--and he was tumbled precipitately away from the mantelpiece, and
+brought up abruptly against the side-wall.
+
+The precious Cup swayed on its ebony stand, the boy's hands, rudely
+withdrawn, almost overthrowing it. But the little man's first impulse,
+cursing and screaming though he was, was to steady it.
+
+“'M'Adam's Wull'! I wish he was here to teach ye, ye snod-faced,
+ox-limbed profleegit!” he cried, standing in front of the Cup, his eyes
+blazing.
+
+“Ay, 'M'Adam's Wull'! And why not 'M'Adam's Wull'? Ha' ye ony objections
+to the name?”
+
+“I didn't know yo' was theer,” said David, a thought sheepishly.
+
+“Na; or ye'd not ha' said it.”
+
+“I'd ha' thought it, though,” muttered the boy.
+
+Luckily, however, his father did not hear. He stretched his hands up
+tenderly for the Cup, lifted it down, and began reverently to polish the
+dimmed sides with his handkerchief.
+
+“Ye're thinkin', nae doot,” he cried, casting up a vicious glance at
+David, “that Wullie's no gude enough to ha' his name alangside o'
+they cursed Gray Dogs. Are ye no? Let's ha' the truth for aince--for a
+diversion.”
+
+“Reck'n he's good enough if there's none better,” David replied
+dispassionately.
+
+“And wha should there be better? Tell me that, ye muckle gowk.”
+
+David smiled.
+
+“Eh, but that'd be long tellin', he said.
+
+“And what wad ye mean by that?” his father cried.
+
+“Nay; I was but thinkin' that Mr. Moore's Bob'll look gradely writ under
+yon.” He pointed to the vacant space below Red Wull's name.
+
+The little man put the Cup back on its pedestal with hurried hands. The
+handkerchief dropped unconsidered to the floor; he turned and sprang
+furiously at the boy, who stood against the wall, still smiling; and,
+seizing him by the collar of his coat, shook him to and fro with fiery
+energy.
+
+“So ye're hopin', prayin', nae doot, that James Moore--curse him!--will
+win ma Cup awa' from me, yer ain dad. I wonder ye're no 'shamed to crass
+ma door! Ye live on me; ye suck ma blood, ye foul-mouthed leech. Wullie
+and me brak' oorsel's to keep ye in hoose and hame--and what's yer
+gratitude? Ye plot to rob us of oor rights.”
+
+He dropped the boy's coat and stood back.
+
+“No rights about it,” said David, still keeping his temper.
+
+“If I win is it no ma right as muckle as ony Englishman's?”
+
+Red Wull, who had heard the rising voices, came trotting in, scowled at
+David, and took his stand beside his master.
+
+“Ah, _if_ yo' win it,” said David, with significant emphasis on the
+conjunction.
+
+“And wha's to beat us?”
+
+David looked at his father in well-affected surprise.
+
+“I tell yo' Owd Bob's rinin',” he answered.
+
+“And what if he is?” the other cried.
+
+“Why, even yo' should know so much,” the boy sneered.
+
+The little man could not fail to understand.
+
+“So that's it!” he said. Then, in a scream, with one finger pointing to
+the great dog: “And what o' him? What'll ma Wullie be doin' the while?
+Tell me that, and ha' a care! Mind ye, he stan's here hearkenin'!” And,
+indeed, the Tailless Tyke was bristling for battle.
+
+David did not like the look of things; and edged away toward the door.
+
+“What'll Wullie be doin', ye chicken-hearted brock?” his father cried.
+
+“Im?” said the boy, now close on the door. “Im!” he said, with a slow
+contempt that made the red bristles quiver on the dog's neck. “Lookin'
+on, I should think--lookin' on. What else is he fit for? I tell yo' oor
+Bob--”
+
+“--'Oor Bob'!” screamed the little man darting forward. “'Oor Bob'! Hark
+to him. I'll 'oor--' At him, Wullie! at him!”
+
+But the Tailless Tyke needed no encouragement. With a harsh roar he
+sprang through the air, only to crash against the closing door!
+
+The outer door banged, and in another second a mocking finger tapped on
+the windowpane.
+
+“Better luck to the two on yo' next time!” laughed a scornful voice; and
+David ran down the hill toward Kenmuir.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII. HOW RED WULL HELD THE BRIDGE
+
+
+FROM that hour the fire of M'Adam's jealousy blazed into a mighty flame.
+The winning of the Dale Cup had become a mania with him. He had won it
+once, and would again despite all the Moores, all the Gray Dogs, all the
+undutiful sons in existence; on that point he was resolved. The fact of
+his having tasted the joys of victory served to whet his desire. And now
+he felt he could never be happy till the Cup was his own--won outright.
+
+At home David might barely enter the room There the trophy stood.
+
+“I'll not ha' ye touch ma Cup, ye dirty-fingered, ill-begotten wastrel.
+Wullie and me won it--you'd naught to do wi' it. Go you to James Moore
+and James Moore's dog.”
+
+“Ay, and shall I tak' Cup wi' me? or will ye bide till it's took from
+ye?”
+
+So the two went on; and every day the tension approached nearer
+breaking-point.
+
+In the Dale the little man met with no sympathy. The hearts of the
+Dalesmen were to a man with Owd Bob and his master.
+
+Whereas once at the Sylvester Arms his shrill, ill tongue had been
+rarely still, now he maintained a sullen silence; Jem Burton, at least,
+had no cause of complaint. Crouched away in a corner, with Red Wull
+beside him, the little man would sit watching and listening as the
+Dalesmen talked of Owd Bob's doings, his staunchness, sagacity, and
+coming victory.
+
+Sometimes he could restrain himself no longer. Then he would spring
+to his feet, and stand, a little swaying figure, and denounce them
+passionately in almost pathetic eloquence. These orations always
+concluded in set fashion.
+
+“Ye're all agin us!” the little man would cry in quivering voice.
+
+“We are that,” Tammas would answer complacently.
+
+“Fair means or foul, ye're content sae lang as Wullie and me are beat.
+I wonder ye dinna poison him--a little arsenic, and the way's clear for
+your Bob.”
+
+“'The way is clear enough wi'oot that,” from Tammas caustically.
+
+Then a lengthy silence, only broken by that exceeding bitter cry: “Eh,
+Wullie, Wullie, they're all agin us!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And always the rivals--red and gray--went about seeking their
+opportunity. But the Master, with his commanding presence and stern
+eyes, was ever ready for them. Toward the end, M'Adam, silent and
+sneering, would secretly urge on Red Wull to the attack; until, one day
+in Grammoch-town, James Moore turned on him, his blue eyes glittering.
+“D'yo' think, yo' little fule,” he cried in that hard voice of his,
+“that onst they got set we should iver git either of them off alive?” It
+seemed to strike the little man as a novel idea; for, from that moment,
+he was ever the first in his feverish endeavors to oppose his small
+form, buffer-like, between the would-be combatants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Curse as M'Adam might, threaten as he might, when the time came Owd Bob
+won.
+
+The styles of the rivals were well contrasted: the patience, the
+insinuating eloquence, combined with the splendid dash, of the one; and
+the fierce, driving fury of the other.
+
+The issue was never in doubt. It may have been that the temper of the
+Tailless Tyke gave in the time of trial; it may have been that his sheep
+were wild, as M'Adam declared; certainly not, as the little man alleged
+in choking voice, that they had been chosen and purposely set aside to
+ruin his chance. Certain it is that his tactics scared them hopelessly:
+and he never had them in hand.
+
+Act for Owd Bob, his dropping, his driving, his penning, aroused the
+loud-tongued admiration of crowd and competitors alike. He was patient
+yet persistent, quiet yet firm, and seemed to coax his charges in the
+right way in that inimitable manner of his own.
+
+When, at length, the verdict was given, and it was known that, after
+an interval of half a century, the Shepherds' Trophy was won again by a
+Gray Dog of Kenmuir, there was such a scene as has been rarely witnessed
+on the slope behind the Dalesman's Daughter.
+
+Great fists were slapped on mighty backs; great feet were stamped on the
+sun-dried banks of the Silver Lea; stalwart lungs were strained to their
+uttermost capacity; and roars of “Moore!” “Owd Bob o' Kenmuir!” “The
+Gray Dogs!” thundered up the hillside, and were flung, thundering, back.
+
+Even James Moore was visibly moved as he worked his way through the
+cheering mob; and Owd Bob, trotting alongside him in quiet dignity,
+seemed to wave his silvery brush in acknowledgment.
+
+Master Jacky Sylvester alternately turned cart-wheels and felled the
+Hon. Launcelot Bilks to the ground. Lady Eleanour, her cheeks flushed
+with pleasure, waved her parasol, and attempted to restrain her son's
+exuberance. Parson Leggy danced an unclerical jig, and shook hands with
+the squire till both those fine old gentlemen were purple in the face.
+Long Kirby selected a small man in the crowd, and bashed his hat down
+over his eyes. While Tammas, Rob Saunderson, Tupper, Hoppin, Londesley,
+and the rest joined hands and went raving round like so many giddy
+girls.
+
+Of them all, however, none was so uproarious in the mad heat of his
+enthusiasm as David M'Adam. He stood in the Kenmuir wagon beside Maggie,
+a conspicuous figure above the crowd, as he roared in hoarse ecstasy:
+
+“Weel done, oor Bob! Weel done, Mr. Moore! Yo've knocked him! Knock him
+agin! Owd Bob o' Kenmuir! Moore! Moore o' Kenmuir! Hip! Hip!” until the
+noisy young giant attracted such attention in his boisterous delight
+that Maggie had to lay a hand upon his arm to restrain his violence.
+
+Alone, on the far bank of the stream, stood the vanquished pair.
+
+The little man was trembling slightly; his face was still hot from his
+exertions; and as he listened to the ovation accorded to his conqueror,
+there was a piteous set grin upon his face. In front stood the defeated
+dog, his lips wrinkling and hackles rising, as he, too, saw and heard
+and understood.
+
+“It's a gran' thing to ha' a dutiful son. Wullie,” the little man
+whispered, watching David's waving figure. “He's happy--and so are they
+a'--not sae much that James Moore has won, as that you and I are beat.”
+
+Then, breaking down for a moment:
+
+“Eh, Wullie, Wullie! They're all agin us. It's you and I alane, lad.”
+
+Again, seeing the squire followed by Parson Leggy, Viscount Birdsaye,
+and others of the gentry, forcing their way through the press to shake
+hands with the victor, he continued:
+
+“It's good to be in wi' the quality, Wullie. Niver mak' a friend of a
+man beneath ye in rank, nor an enemy of a man aboon ye: that's a soond
+principle, Wullie, if ye'd get on in honest England.”
+
+He stood there, alone with his dog, watching the crowd on the far slope
+as it surged upward in the direction of the committee tent. Only when
+the black mass had packed itself in solid phalanges about that
+ring, inside which, just a year ago, he had stood in very different
+circumstances, and was at length still, a wintry smile played for a
+moment about his lips. He laughed a mirthless laugh.
+
+     “Bide a wee, Wullie--he! he! Bide a wee.
+     'The best-laid schemes o' mice and men
+     Gang aft agley.'”
+
+As he spoke, there came down to him, above the tumult, a faint cry of
+mingled surprise and anger. The cheering ceased abruptly. There was
+silence; then there burst on the stillness a hurricane of indignation.
+
+The crowd surged forward, then turned. Every eye was directed across the
+stream. A hundred damning fingers pointed at the solitary figure there.
+There were hoarse yells of: “There he be Yon's him! What's he done wi'
+it? Thief! Throttle him!”
+
+The mob came lumbering down the slope like one man, thundering their
+imprecations on a thousand throats. They looked dangerous, and their
+wrath was stimulated by the knot of angry Dalesmen who led the van.
+There was more than one white face among the women at the top of the
+slope as they watched the crowd blundering blindly down the hill. There
+were more men than Parson Leggy, the squire, James Moore, and the local
+constables in the thick of it all, striving frantically with voice and
+gesture, ay, and stick too, to stem the advance.
+
+It was useless; on the dark wave rolled, irresistible.
+
+On the far bank stood the little man, motionless, awaiting them with a
+grin upon his face. And a little farther in front was the Tailless Tyke,
+his back and neck like a new-shorn wheat-field, as he rumbled a vast
+challenge.
+
+“Come on, gentlemen!” the little man cried. “Come on! I'll bide for ye,
+never fear. Ye're a thousand to one and a dog. It's the odds ye like,
+Englishmen a'.”
+
+And the mob, with murder in its throat, accepted the invitation and came
+on.
+
+At the moment, however, from the slope above, clear above the tramp of
+the multitude, a great voice bellowed: “Way! Way! Way for Mr. Trotter!”
+ The advancing host checked and opened out; and the secretary of the
+meeting bundled through.
+
+He was a small, fat man, fussy at any time, and perpetually perspiring.
+Now his face was crimson with rage and running; he gesticulated wildly;
+vague words bubbled forth, as his short legs twinkled down the slope.
+
+The crowd paused to admire. Some one shouted a witticism, and the crowd
+laughed. For the moment the situation was saved.
+
+The fat secretary hurried on down the slope, unheeding of any insult but
+the one. He bounced over the plank-bridge: and as he came closer, M'Adam
+saw that in each hand brandished a brick.
+
+“Hoots, man! dinna throw!” he cried, making a feint as though to turn in
+sudden terror.
+
+“What's this? What's this?” gasped the secretary, waving his arms.
+
+“Bricks, 'twad seem,” the other answered, staying his flight.
+
+The secretary puffed up like a pudding in a hurry.
+
+“Where's the Cup? Champion, Challenge, etc.,” he jerked out. “Mind, sir,
+you're responsible! wholly responsible! Dents, damages, delays! What's
+it all mean, sir? These--these monstrous creations “--he brandished the
+bricks, and M'Adam started back--“wrapped, as I live, in straw, sir, in
+the Cup case, sir! the Cup case! No Cup! Infamous! Disgraceful! Insult
+me--meeting--committee--every one! What's it mean, sir?” He paused to
+pant, his body filling and emptying like a bladder.
+
+M'Adam approached him with one eye on the crowd, which was heaving
+forward again, threatening still, but sullen and silent.
+
+“I pit 'em there,” he whispered; and drew back to watch the effect of
+his disclosure.
+
+The secretary gasped.
+
+“You--you not only do this--amazing thing--these monstrosities”--he
+hurled the bricks furiously on the unoffending ground--“but you dare to
+tell me so!”
+
+The little man smiled.
+
+“'Do wrang and conceal it, do right and confess it,' that's Englishmen's
+motto, and mine, as a rule; but this time I had ma reasons.”
+
+“Reasons, sir! No reasons can justify such an extraordinary breach of
+all the--the decencies. Reasons? the reasons of a maniac. Not to say
+more, sir. Fraudulent detention--fraudulent, I say, sir! What were your
+precious reasons?”
+
+The mob with Tammas and Long Kirby at their head had now well nigh
+reached the plank-bridge. They still looked dangerous, and there were
+isolated cries of:
+
+“Duck him!”
+
+“Chuck him in!”
+
+“An' the dog!”
+
+“Wi' one o' they bricks about their necks!”
+
+“There are my reasons!” said M'Adam, pointing to the forest of menacing
+faces. “Ye see I'm no beloved amang yonder gentlemen, and”--in a stage
+whisper in the other's ear--“I thocht maybe I'd be 'tacked on the road.”
+
+Tammas foremost of the crowd, had now his foot upon the first plank.
+
+“Ye robber! ye thief! Wait till we set hands on ye, you and yer
+gorilla!” he called.
+
+M'Adam half turned.
+
+“Wullie,” he said quietly, “keep the bridge.”
+
+At the order the Tailless Tyke shot gladly forward, and the leaders on
+the bridge as hastily back. The dog galloped on to the rattling plank,
+took his post fair and square in the centre of the narrow way, and stood
+facing the hostile crew like Cerberus guarding the gates of hell: his
+bull-head was thrust forward, hackles up, teeth glinting, and a distant
+rumbling in his throat, as though daring them to come on.
+
+“Yo' first, ole lad!” said Tammas, hopping agilely behind Long Kirby.
+
+“Nay; the old uns lead!” cried the big smith, his face gray-white. He
+wrenched round, pinned the old man by the arms, and held him forcibly
+before him as a covering shield. There ensued an unseemly struggle
+betwixt the two valiants, Tammas bellowing and kicking in the throes of
+mortal fear.
+
+“Jim Mason'll show us,” he suggested at last.
+
+“Nay,” said honest Jim; “I'm fear'd.” He could say it with impunity; for
+the pluck of Postie Jim was a matter long past dispute.
+
+Then Jem Burton'd go first?
+
+Nay; Jem had a lovin' wife and dear little kids at 'ome.
+
+Then Big Bell?
+
+Big Bell'd see 'isseif further first.
+
+A tall figure came forcing through the crowd, his face a little paler
+than its wont, and a formidable knob-kerry in his hand.
+
+“I'm goin'!” said David.
+
+“But yo're not,” answered burly Sam'l, gripping the boy from behind with
+arms like the roots of an oak. “Your time'll coom soon enough by the
+look on yo' wi' niver no hurry.”
+
+And the sense of the Dalesmen was with the big man; for, as old Rob
+Saunderson said:
+
+“I reck'n he'd liefer claw on to your throat, lad, nor ony o' oors.”
+
+As there was no one forthcoming to claim the honor of the lead, Tammas
+came forward with cunning counsel.
+
+“Tell yo' what, lads, we'd best let 'em as don't know nowt at all aboot
+him go first. And onst they're on, mind, we winna let 'em off; but keep
+a-shovin' and a-bovin 'on 'em forra'd. _Then_ us'll foller.”
+
+By this time there was a little naked space of green round the
+bridge-head, like a fairy circle, into which the uninitiated might not
+penetrate. Round this the mob hedged: the Dalesmen in front, striving
+knavishly back and bawling to those behind to leggo that shovin'; and
+these latter urging valorously forward, yelling jeers and contumely at
+the front rank. “Come on! 'O's afraid? Lerrus through to 'em, then,
+ye Royal Stan'-backs!”--for well they knew the impossibility of their
+demand.
+
+And as they wedged and jostled thus, there stole out from their midst as
+gallant a champion as ever trod the grass. He trotted out into the
+ring, the observed of all, and paused to gaze at the gaunt figure on the
+bridge. The sun lit the sprinkling of snow on the dome of his head; one
+forepaw was off the ground; and he stood there, royally alert, scanning
+his antagonist.
+
+“Th' Owd Un!” went up in a roar fit to split the air as the hero of the
+day was recognized. And the Dalesmen gave a pace forward spontaneously
+as the gray knight-errant stole across the green.
+
+“Oor Bob'll fetch him!” they roared, their blood leaping to fever heat,
+and gripped their sticks, determined in stern reality to follow now.
+
+The gray champion trotted up on to the bridge, and paused again, the
+long hair about his neck rising like a ruff, and a strange glint in his
+eyes; and the holder of the bridge never moved. Red and Gray stood thus,
+face to face: the one gay yet resolute, the other motionless, his great
+head slowly sinking between his forelegs, seemingly petrified.
+
+There was no shouting now: it was time for deeds, not words. Only, above
+the stillness, came a sound from the bridge like the snore of a giant in
+his sleep, and blending, with it, a low, deep, purring thunder like some
+monster cat well pleased.
+
+“Wullie,” came a solitary voice from the far side, “keep the bridge!”
+
+One ear went back, one ear was still forward; the great head was low and
+lower between his forelegs and the glowing eyes rolled upward so that
+the watchers could see the murderous white.
+
+Forward the gray dog stepped.
+
+Then, for the second time that afternoon, a voice, stern and hard, came
+ringing down from the slope above over the heads of the many.
+
+“Bob, lad, coom back!”
+
+“He! he! I thocht that was comin',” sneered the small voice over the
+stream.
+
+The gray dog heard, and checked.
+
+“Bob, lad, coom in, I say!”
+
+At that he swung round and marched slowly back, gallant as he had come,
+dignified still in his mortification.
+
+And Red Wull threw back his head and bellowed a paean of
+victory--challenge, triumph, scorn, all blended in that bull-like,
+blood-chilling blare.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the mean time, M'Adam and the secretary had concluded their business.
+It had been settled that the Cup was to be delivered over to James Moore
+not later than the following Saturday.
+
+“Saturday, see! at the latest!” the secretary cried as he turned and
+trotted off.
+
+“Mr. Trotter,” M'Adam called after him. “I'm sorry, but ye maun bide
+this side the Lea till I've reached the foot o' the Pass. Gin they
+gentlemen”--nodding toward the crowd--“should set hands on me, why--”
+ and he shrugged his shoulders significantly. “Forbye, Wullie's keepin'
+the bridge.”
+
+With that the little man strolled off leisurely; now dallying to pick a
+flower, now to wave a mocking hand at the furious mob, and so slowly on
+to the foot of the Muirk Muir Pass.
+
+There he turned and whistled that shrill peculiar note.
+
+“Wullie, Wullie, to me!” he called.
+
+At that, with one last threat thrown at the' thousand souls he had held
+at bay for thirty minutes, the Tailless Tyke swung about and galloped
+after his lord.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII. THE FACE IN THE FRAME
+
+
+ALL Friday M'Adam never left the kitchen. He sat opposite the Cup, in a
+coma, as it were; and Red Wull lay motionless at his feet.
+
+Saturday came, and still the two never budged. Toward the evening
+the little man rose, all in a tremble, and took the Cup down from the
+mantelpiece; then he sat down again with it in his arms.
+
+“Eh, Wullie, Wullie, is it a dream? Ha' they took her fra us? Eh, but
+it's you and I alane, lad.”
+
+He hugged it to him, crying silently, and rocking to and fro like a
+mother with a dying child. And Red Wull sat up on his haunches, and
+weaved from side to side in sympathy.
+
+As the dark was falling, David looked in.
+
+At the sound of the opening door the little man swung round noiselessly,
+the Cup nursed in his arms, and glared, sullen and suspicious, at the
+boy; yet seemed not to recognize him. In the half-light David could see
+the tears coursing down the little wizened face.
+
+“'Pon ma life, he's gaein' daft!” was his comment as he turned away to
+Kenmuir. And again the mourners were left alone.
+
+“A few hours noo, Wullie,” the little man wailed, “and she'll be gane.
+We won her, Wullie, you and I, won her fair: she's lit the hoose for
+us; she's softened a' for us--and God kens we needed it; she was the ae
+thing we had to look to and love. And noo they're takin' her awa', and
+'twill be night agin. We've cherished her, we've garnished her, we've
+loved her like oor ain; and noo she maun gang to strangers who know her
+not.”
+
+He rose to his feet, and the great dog rose with him. His voice
+heightened to a scream, and he swayed with the Cup in his arms till it
+seemed he must fall.
+
+“Did they win her fair, Wullie? Na; they plotted, they conspired, they
+worked ilka ain o' them agin us, and they beat us. Ay, and noo they're
+robbin' us--robbin' us! But they shallna ha' her. Oor's or naebody's,
+Wullie! We'll finish her sooner nor that.”
+
+He banged the Cup down on the table and rushed madly out of the room,
+Red Wull at his heels. In a moment he came running back, brandishing a
+great axe about his head.
+
+“Come on, Wullie!” he cried. “'Scots wha hae'! Noo's the day and noo's
+the hour! Come on!”
+
+On the table before him, serene and beautiful, stood the target of his
+madness. The little man ran at it, swinging his murderous weapon like a
+flail.
+
+“Oor's or naebody's Wullie! Come on! 'Lay the proud usurpers low'!” He
+aimed a mighty buffet; and the Shepherds' Trophy--the Shepherds' Trophy
+which had won through the hardships of a hundred years--was almost gone.
+It seemed to quiver as the blow fell. But the cruel steel missed, and
+the axe-head sank into the wood, clean and deep, like a spade in snow.
+
+Red Wull had leapt on to the table, and in his cavernous voice was
+grumbling a chorus to his master's yells. The little man danced up and
+down, tugging and straining at the axe-handle.
+
+     “You and I, Wullie!
+     'Tyrants fall in every foe!
+     Liberty's in every blow!'”
+
+The axe-head was as immoveable as the Muir Pike.
+
+     “'Let us do or die!'”
+
+The shaft snapped, and the little man tottered back. Red Wull jumped
+down from the table, and, in doing so, brushed against the Cup. It
+toppled* over on to the floor, and rolled tinkling away in the dust.
+And the little man fled madly out of the house, still screaming his
+war-song.
+
+     *N.B.--You may see the dent in the Cup's white sides to this
+     day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When, late that night, M'Adam returned home, the Cup was gone. Down on
+his hands and knees he traced out its path, plain to see, where it had
+rolled along the dusty floor. Beyond that there was no sign.
+
+At first he was too much overcome to speak. Then he raved round the room
+like a derelict ship, Red Wull following uneasily behind. He cursed;
+he blasphemed; he screamed and beat the walls with feverish hands. A
+stranger, passing, might well have thought this was a private Bedlam. At
+last, exhausted, he sat down and cried.
+
+“It's David, Wullie, ye may depend; David that's robbed his father's
+hoose. Oh, it's a grand thing to ha' a dutiful son!”--and he bowed his
+gray head in his hands.
+
+David, indeed, it was. He had come back to the Grange during his
+father's absence, and, taking the Cup from its grimy bed, had marched it
+away to its rightful home. For that evening at Kenmuir, James Moore had
+said to him:
+
+“David, your father's not sent the Cup. I shall come and fetch it
+to-morrow.” And David knew he meant it. Therefore, in order to save a
+collision between his father and his friend--a collision the issue of
+which he dared hardly contemplate, knowing, as he did, the unalterable
+determination of the one and the lunatic passion of the other--the boy
+had resolved to fetch the Cup himself, then and there, in the teeth, if
+needs be, of his father and the Tailless Tyke. And he had done it.
+
+When he reached home that night he marched, contrary to his wont,
+straight into the kitchen.
+
+There sat his father facing the door, awaiting him, his hands upon his
+knees. For once the little man was alone; and David, brave though he
+was, thanked heaven devoutly that Red Wull was elsewhere.
+
+For a while father and son kept silence, watching one another like two
+fencers.
+
+“'Twas you as took ma Cup?” asked the little man at last, leaning
+forward in his chair.
+
+“'Twas me as took Mr. Moore's Cup,” the boy replied. “I thowt yo' mun
+ha' done wi' it--I found it all bashed upon the floor.”
+
+“You took it--pit up to it, nae doot, by James Moore.”
+
+David made a gesture of dissent.
+
+“Ay, by James Moore,” his father continued. “He dursena come hissel'
+for his ill-gotten spoils, so he sent the son to rob the father. The
+coward!”--his whole frame shook with passion. “I'd ha' thocht James
+Moore'd ha' bin man enough to come himself for what he wanted. I see noo
+I did him a wrang--I misjudged him. I kent him a heepocrite; ain o' yer
+unco gudes; a man as looks one thing, says anither, and does a third;
+and noo I ken he's a coward. He's fear'd o' me, sic as I am, five foot
+twa in ma stockin's.” He rose from his chair and drew himself up to his
+full height.
+
+“Mr. Moore had nowt to do wi' it,” David persisted.
+
+“Ye're lyin'. James Moore pit ye to it.”
+
+“I tell yo' he did not.”
+
+“Ye'd ha' bin willin' enough wi'oot him, if ye'd thocht o't, I grant ye.
+But ye've no the wits. All there is o' ye has gane to mak' yer muckle
+body. Hooiver, that's no matter. I'll settle wi' James Moore anither
+time. I'll settle wi' you noo, David M'Adam.”
+
+He paused, and looked the boy over from bead to foot.
+
+“So, ye're not only an idler! a wastrel! a liar!”--he spat the words
+out. “Ye're--God help ye--a thief!”
+
+“I'm no thief!” the boy returned hotly. “I did but give to a mon what ma
+feyther--shame on him!--wrongfully kept from him.”
+
+“Wrangfully?” cried the little man, advancing with burning face.
+
+“'Twas honorably done, keepin' what wasna your'n to keep! Holdin' back
+his rights from a man! Ay, if ony one's the thief, it's not me: it's
+you, I say, you!”--and he looked his father in the face with flashing
+eyes.
+
+“I'm the thief, am I?” cried the other, incoherent with passion. “Though
+ye're three times ma size, I'll teach ma son to speak so to me.”
+
+The old strap, now long disused, hung in the chimney corner. As he spoke
+the little man sprang back, ripped it from the wall, and, almost before
+David realized what he was at, had brought it down with a savage slash
+across his son's shoulders; and as he smote he whistled a shrill,
+imperative note:
+
+“Wullie, Wullie, to me!”
+
+David felt the blow through his coat like a bar of hot iron laid across
+his back. His passion seethed within him; every vein throbbed; every
+nerve quivered. In a minute he would wipe out, once and for all, the
+score of years; for the moment, however, there was urgent business on
+hand. For outside he could hear the quick patter of feet hard-galloping,
+and the scurry of a huge creature racing madly to a call.
+
+With a bound he sprang at the open door; and again the strap came
+lashing down, and a wild voice:
+
+“Quick, Wullie! For God's sake, quick!”
+
+David slammed the door to. It shut with a rasping snap; and at the same
+moment a great body from without thundered against it with terrific
+violence, and a deep voice roared like the sea when thwarted of its
+prey.
+
+“Too late, agin!” said David, breathing hard; and shot the bolt home
+with a clang. Then he turned on his father.
+
+“Noo,” said he, “man to man!”
+
+“Ay,” cried the other, “father to son!”
+
+The little man half turned and leapt at the old musketoon hanging on the
+wall. He missed it, turned again, and struck with the strap full at
+the other's face. David caught the falling arm at the wrist, hitting it
+aside with such tremendous force that the bone all but snapped. Then
+he smote his father a terrible blow on the chest, and the little man
+staggered back, gasping, into the corner; while the strap dropped from
+his numbed fingers.
+
+Outside Red Wull whined and scratched; but the two men paid no heed.
+
+David strode forward; there was murder in his face. The little man
+saw it: his time was come; but his bitterest foe never impugned Adam
+M'Adam's courage.
+
+He stood huddled in the corner, all dishevelled, nursing one arm with
+the other, entirely unafraid.
+
+“Mind, David,” he said, quite calm, “murder 'twill be, not
+manslaughter.”
+
+“Murder 'twill be,” the boy answered, in thick, low voice, and was
+across the room.
+
+Outside Red Wull banged and clawed high up on the door with impotent
+pats.
+
+The little man suddenly slipped his hand in his pocket, pulled out
+something, and flung it. The missile pattered on his son's face like a
+rain-drop on a charging bull, and David smiled as he came on. It dropped
+softly on the table at his side; he looked down and--it was the face of
+his mother which gazed up at him!
+
+“Mither!” he sobbed, stopping short. “Mither! Ma God, ye saved him--and
+me!”
+
+He stood there, utterly unhinged, shaking and whimpering.
+
+It was some minutes before he pulled himself together; then he walked to
+the wall, took down a pair of shears, and seated himself at the table,
+still trembling. Near him lay the miniature, all torn and crumpled, and
+beside it the deep-buried axe-head.
+
+He picked up the strap and began cutting it into little pieces.
+
+“There! and there! and there!” he said with each snip. “An' ye hit me
+agin there may be no mither to save ye.”
+
+M'Adam stood huddling in the corner. He shook like an aspen leaf; his
+eyes blazed in his white face; and he still nursed one arm with the
+other.
+
+“Honor yer father,” he quoted in small, low voice.
+
+
+
+
+PART IV THE BLACK KILLER
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV. A MAD MAN
+
+
+TAMMAS is on his feet in the tap-room of the Arms, brandishing a pewter
+mug.
+
+“Gen'lemen!” he cries, his old face flushed; “I gie you a toast. Stan'
+oop!”
+
+The knot of Dalesmen round the fire rises like one. The old man waves
+his mug before him, reckless of the good ale that drips on to the floor.
+
+“The best sheep-dog i' th' North--Owd Bob o' Kenmuir!” he cries. In an
+instant there is uproar: the merry applause of clinking pewters; the
+stamping of feet; the rattle of sticks. Rob Saunderson and old Jonas
+are cheering with the best; Tupper and Ned Hoppin are bellowing in one
+another's ears; Long Kirby and Jem Burton are thumping each other on
+the back; even Sam'l Todd and Sexton Ross are roused from their habitual
+melancholy.
+
+“Here's to Th' Owd Un! Here's to oor Bob!” yell stentorian voices; while
+Rob Saunderson has jumped on to a chair.
+
+“Wi' the best sheep-dog i' th' North I gie yo' the Shepherd's
+Trophy!--won outreet as will be!” he cries. Instantly the clamor
+redoubles.
+
+“The Dale Cup and Th' Owd Un! The Trophy and oor Bob! 'Ip, 'ip, for
+the gray dogs! 'Ip, 'ip, for the best sheep-dog as ever was or will be!
+'Ooray, 'ooray!”
+
+It is some minutes before the noise subsides; and slowly the enthusiasts
+resume their seats with hoarse throats and red faces.
+
+“Gentlemen a'!”
+
+A little unconsidered man is standing up at the back of the room. His
+face is aflame, and his hands twitch spasmodically; and, in front, with
+hackles up and eyes gleaming, is a huge, bull-like dog.
+
+“Noo,” cries the little man, “I daur ye to repeat that lie!”
+
+“Lie!” screams Tammas; “lie! I'll gie 'im lie! Lemme at im', I say!”
+
+The old man in his fury is half over the surrounding ring of chairs
+before Jim Mason on the one hand and Jonas Maddox on the other can pull
+him back.
+
+“Coom, Mr. Thornton,” soothes the octogenarian, “let un be. Yo' surely
+bain't angered by the likes o' 'im!”--and he jerks contemptuously toward
+the solitary figure at his back.
+
+Tammas resumes his seat unwillingly.
+
+The little man in the far corner of the room remains silent, waiting
+for his challenge to be taken up. It is in vain. And as he looks at the
+range of broad, impassive backs turned on him, he smiles bitterly.
+
+“They dursen't Wullie, not a man of them a'!” he cries.
+“They're one--two--three--four--eleven to one, Wullie, and yet
+they dursen't. Eleven of them, and every man a coward! Long
+Kirby--Thornton--Tupper--Todd--Hoppin--Ross--Burton--and the rest, and
+not one but's a bigger man nor me, and yet--Weel, we might ha' kent it.
+We should ha' kent Englishmen by noo. They're aye the same and aye have
+bin. They tell lies, black lies--”
+
+Tammas is again half out his chair and, only forcibly restrained by the
+men on either hand.
+
+“--and then they ha' na the courage to stan' by 'em. Ye're English,
+ivery man o' ye, to yer marrow.”
+
+The little man's voice rises as he speaks. He seizes the tankard from
+the table at his side.
+
+“Englishmen!” he cries, waving it before him. “Here's a health! The best
+sheep-dog as iver penned a flock--Adam M'Adam's Red Wull!”
+
+He pauses, the pewter at his lips, and looks at his audience with
+flashing eyes. There is no response from them.
+
+“Wullie, here's to you!” he cries. “Luck and life to ye, ma trusty fier!
+Death and defeat to yer enemies!”
+
+     “'The warld's warld's wrack we share o't,
+     The warstle and the care o't;”
+
+He raises the tankard and drains it to its uttermost dreg.
+
+Then drawing himself up, he addresses his audience once more:
+
+“An' noo I'll warn ye aince and for a', and ye may tell James Moore I
+said it: He may plot agin us, Wullie and me; he may threaten us; he may
+win the Cup outright for his muckle favorite; but there was niver a man
+or dog yet as did Adam M'Adam and his Red Wull a hurt but in the end he
+wush't his mither hadna borne him.”
+
+A little later, and he walks out of the inn, the Tailless Tyke at his
+heels.
+
+After he is gone it is Rob Saunderson who says: “The little mon's mad;
+he'll stop at nothin”; and Tammas who answers:
+
+“Nay; not even murder.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The little man had aged much of late. His hair was quite white, his eyes
+unnaturally bright, and his hands were never still, as though he were in
+everlasting pain. He looked the picture of disease.
+
+After Owd Bob's second victory he had become morose and untalkative. At
+home he often sat silent for hours together, drinking and glaring at the
+place where the Cup had been. Sometimes he talked in low, eerie voice to
+Red Wull; and on two occasions, David, turning, suddenly, had caught his
+father glowering stealthily at him with such an expression on his face
+as chilled the boy's blood. The two never spoke now; and David held this
+silent, deadly enmity far worse than the old-time perpetual warfare.
+
+It was the same at the Sylvester Arms. The little man sat alone with Red
+Wull, exchanging words with no man, drinking steadily, brooding over his
+wrongs, only now and again galvanized into sudden action.
+
+Other people than Tammas Thornton came to the conclusion that M'Adam
+would stop at nothing in the undoing of James Moore or the gray dog.
+They said drink and disappointment had turned his head; that he was mad
+and dangerous. And on New Year's day matters seemed coming to a crisis;
+for it was reported that in the gloom of a snowy evening he had drawn
+a knife on the Master in the High Street, but slipped before he could
+accomplish his fell purpose.
+
+Most of them all, David was haunted with an ever-present anxiety as to
+the little man's intentions. The boy even went so far as to warn his
+friend against his father. But the Master only smiled grimly.
+
+“Thank ye, lad,” he said. “But I reck'n we can 'fend for oorsel's, Bob
+and I. Eh, Owd Un?”
+
+Anxious as David might be, he was not so anxious as to be above taking
+a mean advantage of this state of strained apprehension to work on
+Maggie's fears.
+
+One evening he was escorting her home from church, when, just before
+they reached the larch copse: “Goo' sakes! What's that?” he ejaculated
+in horror-laden accents, starting back.
+
+“What, Davie?” cried the girl, shrinking up to him all in a tremble.
+
+“Couldna say for sure. It mought be owt, or agin it mought be nowt. But
+yo' grip my arm, I'll grip yo' waist.”
+
+Maggie demurred.
+
+“Canst see onythin'?” she asked, still in a flutter.
+
+“Be'ind the 'edge.”
+
+“Wheer?”
+
+“Theer! “--pointing vaguely.
+
+“I canna see nowt.”
+
+“Why, theer, lass. Can yo' not see? Then yo' pit your head along o'
+mine--so--closer--closer.” Then, in aggrieved tones: “Whativer is the
+matter wi' yo', wench? I might be a leprosy.”
+
+But the girl was walking away with her head high as the snow-capped
+Pike.
+
+“So long as I live, David M'Adam,” she cried, “I'll niver go to church
+wi' you agin!”
+
+“Iss, but you will though--onst,” he answered low.
+
+Maggie whisked round in a flash, superbly indignant.
+
+“What d'yo' mean, sir-r-r?”
+
+“Yo' know what I mean, lass,” he replied sheepish and shuffling before
+her queenly anger.
+
+She looked him up and down, and down and up again.
+
+“I'll niver speak to you agin, Mr. M'Adam,” she cried; “not if it was
+ever so--Nay, I'll walk home by myself, thank you. I'll ha' nowt to do
+wi' you.”
+
+So the two must return to Kenmuir, one behind the other, like a lady and
+her footman.
+
+David's audacity had more than once already all but caused a rupture
+between the pair. And the occurrence behind the hedge set the cap on his
+impertinences. That was past enduring and Maggie by her bearing let him
+know it.
+
+David tolerated the girl's new attitude for exactly twelve minutes by
+the kitchen clock. Then: “Sulk wi' me, indeed! I'll teach her!” and he
+marched out of the door, “Niver to cross it agin, ma word!”
+
+Afterward, however, he relented so far as to continue his visits as
+before; but he made it clear that he only came to see the Master and
+hear of Owd Bob's doings. On these occasions he loved best to sit on the
+window-sill outside the kitchen, and talk and chaff with Tammas and the
+men in the yard, feigning an uneasy bashfulness when reference made to
+Bessie Bolstock. And after sitting thus for some time, he would half
+turn, look over his shoulder, and remark in indifferent tones to the
+girl within: “Oh, good-evenin'! I forgot yo', “--and then resume his
+conversation. While the girl within, her face a little pinker, her
+lips a little tighter, and her chin a little higher, would go about her
+business, pretending neither to hear nor care.
+
+The suspicions that M'Adam nourished dark designs against James Moore
+were somewhat confirmed in that, on several occasions in the bitter
+dusks of January afternoons, a little insidious figure was reported to
+have been seen lurking among the farm-buildings of Kenmuir.
+
+Once Sam'l Todd caught the little man fairly, skulking away in the
+woodshed. Sam'l took him up bodily and carried him down the slope to the
+Wastrel, shaking him gently as he went.
+
+Across the stream he put him on his feet.
+
+“If I catches yo' cadgerin' aroun' the farm agin, little mon,” he
+admonished, holding up a warning finger; “I'll tak' yo' and drap yo'
+in t' Sheep-wash, I warn yo' fair. I'd ha' done it noo an' yo'd bin a
+bigger and a younger mon. But theer! yo'm sic a scrappety bit. Noo, rin
+whoam.” And the little man slunk silently away.
+
+For a time he appeared there no more. Then, one evening when it was
+almost dark, James Moore, going the round of the outbuildings, felt Owd
+Bob stiffen against his side.
+
+“What's oop, lad” he whispered, halting; and, dropping his hand on the
+old dog's neck felt a ruff of rising hair beneath it.
+
+“Steady, lad, steady,” he whispered; “what is 't?” He peered forward
+into the gloom; and at length discerned a little familiar figure huddled
+away in the crevice between two stacks.
+
+“It's yo, is it, M'Adam?” he said, and, bending, seized a wisp of Owd
+Bob's coat in a grip like a vice.
+
+Then, in a great voice, moved to rare anger:
+
+“Oot o' this afore I do ye a hurt, ye meeserable spyin' creetur” he
+roared. “Yo' mun wait till dark cooms to hide yo', yo' coward, afore yo
+daur coom crawlin' aboot ma hoose, frightenin' the women-folk and up to
+yer devilments. If yo've owt to say to me, coom like a mon in the open
+day. Noo git aff wi' yo', afore I lay hands to yo'!”
+
+He stood there in the dusk, tall and mighty, a terrible figure, one hand
+pointing to the gate, the other still grasping the gray dog.
+
+The little man scuttled away in the half-light, and out of the yard.
+
+On the plank-bridge he turned and shook his fist at the darkening house.
+
+“Curse ye, James Moore!” he sobbed, “I'll be even wi' ye yet.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV. DEATH ON THE MARCHES
+
+
+ON the top of this there followed an attempt to poison Th' Owd Un. At
+least there was no other accounting for the affair.
+
+In the dead of a long-remembered night James Moore was waked by a low
+moaning beneath his room. He leapt out of bed and ran to the window to
+see his favorite dragging about the moonlit yard, the dark head
+down, the proud tail for once lowered, the lithe limbs wooden, heavy,
+unnatural--altogether pitiful.
+
+In a moment he was downstairs and out to his friend's assistance.
+“Whativer is't, Owd Un?” he cried in anguish.
+
+At the sound of that dear voice the old dog tried to struggle to him,
+could not, and fell, whimpering.
+
+In a second the Master was with him, examining him tenderly, and crying
+for Sam'l, who slept above the stables.
+
+There was every symptom of foul play: the tongue was swollen and almost
+black; the breathing labored; the body twitched horribly; and the soft
+gray eyes all bloodshot and straining in agony.
+
+With the aid of Sam'l and Maggie, drenching first and stimulants after,
+the Master pulled him around for the moment. And soon Jim Mason and
+Parson Leggy, hurriedly summoned, came running hot-foot to the rescue.
+
+Prompt and stringent measures saved the victim--but only just. For a
+time the best sheep-dog in the North was pawing at the Gate of Death. In
+the end, as the gray dawn broke, the danger passed.
+
+The attempt to get at him, if attempt it was, aroused passionate
+indignation in the countryside. It seemed the culminating-point of the
+excitement long bubbling.
+
+There were no traces of the culprit; not a vestige to lead to
+incrimination, so cunningly had the criminal accomplished his foul task.
+But as to the perpetrator, if there where no proofs there were yet fewer
+doubts.
+
+At the Sylvester Arms, Long Kirby asked M'Adam point-blank for his
+explanation of the matter.
+
+“Hoo do I 'count for it?” the little man cried. “I dinna 'count for it
+ava.”
+
+“Then hoo did it happen?” asked Tammas with asperity.
+
+“I dinna believe it did happen,” the little man replied. “It's a lee
+o' James Moore's--a characteristic lee.” Whereon they chucked him out
+incontinently; for the Terror for once was elsewhere.
+
+Now that afternoon is to be remembered for threefold causes. Firstly,
+because, as has been said, M'Adam was alone. Secondly, because, a few
+minutes after his ejectment, the window of the tap-room was thrown open
+from without, and the little man looked in. He spoke no word, but those
+dim, smouldering eyes of his wandered from face to face, resting for
+a second on each, as if to burn them on his memory. “I'll remember ye,
+gentlemen,” he said at length quietly, shut the window, and was gone.
+
+Thirdly, for a reason now to be told.
+
+Though ten days had elapsed since the attempt on him, the gray dog had
+never been his old self since. He had attacks of shivering; his vitality
+seemed sapped; he tired easily, and, great heart, would never own it.
+At length on this day, James Moore, leaving the old dog behind him, had
+gone over to Grammoch-town to consult Dingley, the vet. On his way home
+he met Jim Mason with Gyp, the faithful Betsy's unworthy successor, at
+the Dalesman's Daughter. Together they started for the long tramp home
+over the Marches. And that journey is marked with a red stone in this
+story.
+
+All day long the hills had been bathed in impenetrable fog. Throughout
+there had been an accompanying drizzle; and in the distance the wind
+had moaned a storm-menace. To the darkness of the day was added the
+sombreness of falling night as the three began the ascent of the
+Murk Muir Pass. By the time they emerged into the Devil's Bowl it was
+altogether black and blind. But the threat of wind had passed, leaving
+utter stillness; and they could hear the splash of an otter on the far
+side of the Lone Tarn as they skirted that gloomy water's edge. When at
+length the last steep rise on to the Marches had been topped, a breath
+of soft air smote them lightly, and the curtain of fog began drifting
+away.
+
+The two men swung steadily through the heather with that reaching stride
+the birthright of moor-men and highlanders. They talked but little,
+for such was their nature: a word or two on sheep and the approaching
+lambing-time; thence on to the coming Trials; the Shepherds' Trophy;
+Owd Bob and the attempt on him; and from that to M'Adam and the Tailless
+Tyke.
+
+“D'yo' reck'n M'Adam had a hand in't?” the postman was asking.
+
+“Nay; there's no proof.”
+
+“Ceptin' he's mad to get shut o' Th' Owd Un afore Cup Day.”
+
+“Im or me--it mak's no differ. For a dog is disqualified from competing
+for the Trophy who has changed hands during the six months prior to the
+meeting. And this holds good though the change be only from father to
+son on the decease of the former.”
+
+Jim looked up inquiringly at his companion.
+
+“D'yo' think it'll coom to that?” he asked.
+
+“What?”
+
+“Why--murder.”
+
+“Not if I can help it,” the other answered grimly.
+
+The fog had cleared away by now, and the moon was up. To their right,
+on the crest of a rise some two hundred yards away, a low wood stood out
+black against the sky. As they passed it, a blackbird rose up screaming,
+and a brace of wood-pigeons winged noisily away.
+
+“Hullo! hark to the yammerin'!” muttered Jim, stopping; “and at this
+time o' night too!”
+
+Some rabbits, playing in the moonlight on the outskirts of the wood, sat
+up, listened, and hopped back into security. At the same moment a big
+hill-fox slunk out of the covert. He stole a pace forward and halted,
+listening with one ear back and one pad raised; then cantered silently
+away in the gloom, passing close to the two men and yet not observing
+them.
+
+“What's up, I wonder?” mused the postman.
+
+“The fox set 'em clackerin', I reck'n,” said the Master.
+
+“Not he; he was scared 'maist oot o' his skin,” the other answered. Then
+in tones of suppressed excitement, with his hands on James Moore's arm:
+“And, look'ee, theer's ma Gyp a-beckonin' on us!”
+
+There, indeed, on the crest of the rise beside the wood, was the
+little lurcher, now looking back at his master, now creeping stealthily
+forward.
+
+“Ma word! theer's summat wrong yonder!” cried Jim, and jerked the
+post-bags off his shoulder. “Coom on, Master! “--and he set off running
+toward the dog; while James Moore, himself excited now, followed with an
+agility that belied his years.
+
+Some score yards from the lower edge of the spinney, upon the farther
+side of the ridge, a tiny beck babbled through its bed of peat. The
+two men, as they topped the rise, noticed a flock of black-faced
+mountain-sheep clustered in the dip 'twixt wood and stream. They stood
+martialled in close array, facing half toward the wood, half toward
+the newcomers, heads up, eyes glaring, handsome as sheep only look when
+scared.
+
+On the crest of the ridge the two men halted beside Gyp. The postman
+stood with his head a little forward, listening intently. Then he
+dropped in the heather like a dead man, pulling the other with him.
+
+“Doon, mon!” he whispered, clutching at Gyp with his spare hand.
+
+“What is't, Jim?” asked the Master, now thoroughly roused.
+
+“Summat movin' i' th' wood,” the other whispered, listening
+weasel-eared.
+
+So they lay motionless for a while; but there came no sound from the
+copse.
+
+“'Appen 'twas nowt,” the postman at length allowed, peering cautiously
+about. “And yet I thowt--I dunno reetly what I thowt.”
+
+Then, starting to his knees with a hoarse cry of terror: “Save us!
+what's yon theer?”
+
+Then for the first time the Master raised his head and noticed, lying in
+the gloom between them and the array of sheep, a still, white heap.
+
+James Moore was a man of deeds, not words.
+
+“It's past waitin'!” he said, and sprang forward, his heart in his
+mouth.
+
+The sheep stamped and shuffled as he came, and yet did not break.
+
+“Ah, thanks be!” he cried, dropping beside the motionless body; “it's
+nob'but a sheep.” As he spoke his hands wandered deftly over the
+carcase. “But what's this?” he called. “Stout* she was as me. Look at
+her fleece--crisp, close, strong; feel the flesh--firm as a rock. And
+ne'er a bone broke, ne're a scrat on her body a pin could mak'. As
+healthy as a mon--and yet dead as mutton!”
+
+     *N.B. Stout--Hearty.
+
+Jim, still trembling from the horror of his fear, came up, and knelt
+beside his friend. “Ah, but there's bin devilry in this!” he said; “I
+reck'ned they sheep had bin badly skeared, and not so long agone.”
+
+“Sheep-murder, sure enough!” the other answered. “No fox's doin'--a
+girt-grown two-shear as could 'maist knock a h'ox.”
+
+Jim's hands travelled from the body to the dead creature's throat. He
+screamed.
+
+“By gob, Master! look 'ee theer!” He held his hand up in the moonlight,
+and it dripped red. “And warm yet! warm!”
+
+“Tear some bracken, Jim!” ordered the other, “and set alight. We mun see
+to this.”
+
+The postman did as bid. For a moment the fern smouldered and smoked,
+then the flame ran crackling along and shot up in the darkness,
+weirdly lighting the scene: to the right the low wood, a block of solid
+blackness against the sky; in front the wall of sheep, staring out of
+the gloom with bright eyes; and as centre-piece that still, white body,
+with the kneeling men and lurcher sniffing tentatively round.
+
+The victim was subjected to a critical examination. The throat, and that
+only, had been hideously mauled; from the raw wounds the flesh hung in
+horrid shreds; on the ground all about were little pitiful dabs of
+wool, wrenched off apparently in a struggle; and, crawling among the
+fern-roots, a snake-like track of red led down to the stream.
+
+“A dog's doin', and no mistakin' thot,” said Jim at length, after a
+minute inspection.
+
+“Ay,” declared the Master with slow emphasis, “and a sheep-dog's too,
+and an old un's, or I'm no shepherd.”
+
+The postman looked up.
+
+“Why thot?” he asked, puzzled.
+
+“Becos,” the Master answered, “'im as did this killed for blood--and for
+blood only. If had bin ony other dog--greyhound, bull, tarrier, or even
+a young sheep-dog--d'yo' think he'd ha' stopped wi' the one? Not he;
+he'd ha' gone through 'em, and be runnin' 'em as like as not yet,
+nippin' 'em, pullin' 'em down, till he'd maybe killed the half. But 'im
+as did this killed for blood, I say. He got it--killed just the one, and
+nary touched the others, d'yo 'see, Jim?”
+
+The postman whistled, long and low.
+
+“It's just what owd Wrottesley'd tell on,” he said. “I never nob'but
+half believed him then--I do now though. D'yo' mind what th' owd lad'd
+tell, Master?”
+
+James Moore nodded.
+
+“Thot's it. I've never seen the like afore myself, but I've heard ma
+grandad speak o't mony's the time. An owd dog'll git the cravin' for
+sheep's blood on him, just the same as a mon does for the drink; he
+creeps oot o' nights, gallops afar, hunts his sheep, downs 'er, and
+satisfies the cravin'. And he nary kills but the one, they say, for he
+knows the value o' sheep same as you and me. He has his gallop, quenches
+the thirst, and then he's for home, maybe a score mile away, and no one
+the wiser i' th' mornin'. And so on, till he cooms to a bloody death,
+the murderin' traitor.”
+
+“If he does!” said Jim.
+
+“And he does, they say, nigh always. For he gets bolder and bolder wi'
+not bein' caught, until one fine night a bullet lets light into him. And
+some mon gets knocked nigh endways when they bring his best tyke home i'
+th' mornin', dead, wi' the sheep's wool yet stickin' in his mouth.”
+
+The postman whistled again.
+
+“It's what owd Wrottesley'd tell on to a tick. And he'd say, if ye
+mind, Master, as hoo the dog'd niver kill his master's sheep--kind o'
+conscience-like.”
+
+“Ay, I've heard that,” said the Master. “Queer too, and 'im bein' such a
+bad un!”
+
+Jim Mason rose slowly from his knees.
+
+“Ma word,” he said, “I wish Th' Owd Un was here. He'd 'appen show us
+summat!”
+
+“I nob'but wish he was, pore owd lad!” said the Master.
+
+As he spoke there was a crash in the wood above them; a sound as of some
+big body bursting furiously through brushwood.
+
+The two men rushed to the top of the rise. In the darkness they could
+see nothing; only, standing still and holding their breaths, they could
+hear the faint sound, ever growing fainter, of some creature splashing
+in a hasty gallop over the wet moors.
+
+“Yon's him! Yon's no fox, I'll tak' oath. And a main big un, too, hark
+to him!” cried Jim. Then to Gyp, who had rushed off in hot pursuit:
+“Coom back, chunk-'ead. What's use o' you agin a gallopin' potamus?”
+
+Gradually the sounds died away and away, and were no more.
+
+“Thot's 'im, the devil!” said the Master at length.
+
+“Nay; the devil has a tail, they do say,” replied Jim thoughtfully. For
+already the light of suspicion was focusing its red glare.
+
+“Noo I reck'n we're in for bloody times amang the sheep for a while,”
+ said the Master, as Jim picked up his bags.
+
+“Better a sheep nor a mon,” answered the postman, still harping on the
+old theme.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI. THE BLACK KILLER
+
+
+THAT, as James Moore had predicted, was the first only of a long
+succession of such solitary crimes.
+
+Those who have not lived in a desolate country like that about the
+Muir Pike, where sheep are paramount and every other man engaged in the
+profession pastoral, can barely imagine the sensation aroused. In market
+place, tavern, or cottage, the subject of conversation was always the
+latest sheep-murder and the yet-undetected criminal.
+
+Sometimes there would be a lull, and the shepherds would begin to
+breathe more freely. Then there would come a stormy night, when the
+heavens were veiled in the cloak of crime, and the wind moaned fitfully
+over meres and marches, and another victim would be added to the
+lengthening list.
+
+It was always such black nights, nights of wind and weather, when no man
+would be abroad, that the murderer chose for his bloody work; and that
+was how he became known from the Red Screes to the Muir Pike as the
+Black Killer. In the Daleland they still call a wild, wet night “A Black
+Killer's night:” for they say: “His ghaist'll be oot the night.”
+
+There was hardly a farm in the countryside but was marked with the seal
+of blood. Kenmuir escaped, and the Grange; Rob Saunderson at the Holt,
+and Tupper at Swinsthwaite; and they were about the only lucky ones.
+
+As for Kenmuir, Tammas declared with a certain grim pride: “He knows
+better'n to coom wheer Th' Owd Un be.” Whereat M'Adam was taken with a
+fit of internal spasms, rubbing his knees and cackling insanely for a
+half-hour afterward. And as for the luck of the Grange--well, there was
+a reason for that too, so the Dalesmen said.
+
+Though the area of crime stretched from the Black Water to
+Grammoch-town, twenty-odd miles, there was never a sign of the
+perpetrator. The Killer did his bloody work with a thoroughness and a
+devilish cunning that defied detection.
+
+It was plain that each murder might be set down to the same agency. Each
+was stamped with the same unmistakable sign-manual: one sheep killed,
+its throat torn into red ribands, and the others untouched.
+
+It was at the instigation of Parson Leggy that the squire imported a
+bloodhound to track the Killer to his doom. Set on at a fresh killed
+carcase at the One Tree Knowe, he carried the line a distance in the
+direction of the Muir Pike; then was thrown out by a little bustling
+beck, and never acknowledged the scent again. Afterward he became
+unmanageable, and could be no further utilized. Then there was talk of
+inducing Tommy Dobson and his pack to come over from Eskdale, but
+that came to nothing. The Master of the Border Hunt lent a couple of
+foxhounds, who effected nothing; and there were a hundred other attempts
+and as many failures. Jim Mason set a cunning trap or two and caught his
+own bob-tailed tortoise-shell and a terrible wigging from his missus;
+Ned Hoppin sat up with a gun two nights over a new slain victim and
+Londesley of the Home Farm poisoned a carcase. But the Killer never
+returned to the kill, and went about in the midst of the all, carrying
+on his infamous traffic and laughing up his sleeve.
+
+In the meanwhile the Dalesmen raged and swore vengeance; their
+impotence, their unsuccess, and their losses heating their wrath to
+madness. And the bitterest sting of it all lay in this; that though they
+could not detect him, they were nigh to positive as to the culprit.
+
+Many a time was the Black Killer named in low-voiced conclave; many a
+time did Long Kirby, as he stood in the Border Ram and watched M'Adam
+and the Terror walking down the High, nudge Jim Mason and whisper:
+
+“Theer's the Killer--oneasy be his grave!” To which practical Jim always
+made the same retort:
+
+“Ay, theer's the Killer; but wheer's the proof?”
+
+And therein lay the crux. There was scarcely a man in the countryside
+who doubted the guilt of the Tailless Tyke; but, as Jim said, where
+was the proof? They could but point to his well-won nickname; his evil
+notoriety; say that, magnificent sheep-dog as he was, he was known even
+in his work as a rough handler of stock; and lastly remark significantly
+that the grange was one of the few farms that had so far escaped
+unscathed. For with the belief that the Black Killer was a sheep-dog
+they held it as an article of faith that he would in honour spare his
+master's flock.
+
+There may, indeed, have been prejudice in their judgement. For each has
+his private grudge against the Terror; and nigh every man bore on his
+own person, or his clothes, or on the body of his dog, the mark of that
+huge savage.
+
+Proof?
+
+“Why, he near killed ma Lassie!” cries Londesley.
+
+“And he did kill the Wexer!”
+
+“And Wan Tromp!”
+
+“And see pore old Wenus!” says John Swan, and pulls out that fair
+Amazon, battered almost past recognition, but a warrioress still.
+
+“That's Red Wull--bloody be his end!”
+
+“And he laid ma Rasper by for nigh three weeks!” continues Tupper,
+pointing to the yet-unhealed scars on the neck of the big bobtail. “See
+thisey--his work.”
+
+“And look here!” cries Saunderson, exposing a ragged wound in Shep's
+throat; “thot's the Terror--black be his fa'!”
+
+“Ay,” says Long Kirby with an oath; “the tykes love him nigh as much as
+we do.”
+
+“Yes,” says Tammas. “Yo' jest watch!”
+
+The old man slips out of the tap-room; and in another moment from the
+road without comes a heavy, regular pat-pat-pat, as of some big creature
+approaching, and, blending with the sound, little shuffling footsteps.
+
+In an instant every dog in the room has risen to his feet and stands
+staring at the door with sullen, glowing eyes; lips wrinkling, bristles
+rising, throats rumbling.
+
+An unsteady hand fumbles at the door; a reedy voice calls, “Wullie, come
+here!” and the dogs move away, surly to either side of the fireplace,
+tails down, ears back, grumbling still; the picture of cowed passion.
+Then the door opens; Tammas enters, grinning; and each, after a moment's
+scrutiny, resumes his former position before the fire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile over M'Adam, seemingly all unsuspicious of these suspicions,
+a change had come. Whether it was that for the time he heard less of the
+best sheep-dog in the North, or for some more occult reason, certain it
+is that he became his old self. His tongue wagged as gayly and bitterly
+as ever, and hardly a night passed but he infuriated Tammas almost to
+blows with his innuendoes and insidious sarcasms.
+
+Old Jonas Maddox, one evening at the Sylvester Arms, inquired of him
+what his notion was as to the identity of the Killer.
+
+“I hae ma suspicions, Mr. Maddox; I hae ma suspicions,” the little man
+replied, cunningly wagging his head and giggling. But more than that
+they could not elicit from him. A week later, however, to the question:
+
+“And what are yo' thinkin' o' this black Killer, Mr. M'adam?”
+
+“Why _black?_” the little man asked earnestly; “why _black_ mair than
+white--or _gray_ we'll say?” Luckily for him, however, the Dalesmen are
+slow of wit as of speech.
+
+David, too, marked the difference in his father, who nagged at him now
+and then with all the old spirit. At first he rejoiced in then change,
+preferring his outward and open warfare to that aforetime stealthy
+enmity. But soon he almost wished the other back; for the older he grew
+the more difficult did he find it to endure calmly these everlasting
+bickerings.
+
+For one reason he was truly glad of the altered condition of affairs; he
+believed that, for the nonce, at least his father had abandoned any
+ill designs he might have cherished against James Moore; those sneaking
+visits to Kenmuir were, he hoped, discontinued.
+
+Yet Maggie Moore, had she been on speaking terms with him, could have
+undeceived him. For, one night, when alone in the kitchen, on suddenly
+looking up, she had seen to her horror a dim, moonlike face glued
+against the windowpane. In the first mad panic of the moment she almost
+screamed, and dropped her work; then--a true Moore--controlled herself
+and sat feigning to work, yet watching all the while.
+
+It was M'Adam, she recognized that: the face pale in its framework
+of black; the hair lying dank and dark on his forehead; and the white
+eyelids blinking, slow, regular, horrible. She thought of the stories
+she had heard of his sworn vengeance on her father, and her heart stood
+still, though she never moved. At length with a gasp of relief she
+discerned that the eyes were not directed on her. Stealthily following
+their gaze, she saw they rested on the Shepherds' Trophy; and on the Cup
+they remained fixed, immovable, while she sat motionless and watched.
+
+An hour, it seemed to her, elapsed before they shifted their direction,
+and wandered round the room. For a second they dwelt upon her; then the
+face withdrew into the night.
+
+Maggie told no one what she had seen. Knowing well how terrible her
+father was in his anger, she deemed it wiser to keep silence. While as
+for David M'Adam, she would never speak to him again!
+
+And not for a moment did that young man surmise whence his father came
+when, on the night in question, M'Adam returned to the Grange, chuckling
+to himself. David was growing of late accustomed to these fits of
+silent, unprovoked merriment; and when his father began giggling and
+muttering to Red Wull, at first he paid no heed.
+
+“He! he! Wullie. Aiblins we'll beat him yet. There's many a slip
+twixt Cup and lip--eh, Wullie, he! he!” And he made allusion to the
+flourishing of the wicked and their fall; ending always with the same
+refrain: “He! he! Wullie. Aiblins we'll beat him yet.”
+
+In this strain he continued until David, his patience exhausted, asked
+roughly:
+
+“What is't yo' mumblin' aboot? Wha is it yo'll beat, you and yer
+Wullie?”
+
+The lad's tone was as contemptuous as his words. Long ago he had cast
+aside any semblance of respect for his father.
+
+M'Adam only rubbed his knees and giggled.
+
+“Hark to the dear lad, Wullie! Listen hoo pleasantly he addresses his
+auld dad!” Then turning on his son, and leering at him: “What is it,
+ye ask? Wha should it be but the Black Killer? Wha else is there I'd be
+wushin' to hurt?”
+
+“The Black Killer!” echoed the boy, and looked at his father in
+amazement.
+
+Now David was almost the only man in Wastrel-dale who denied Red Wull's
+identity with the Killer. “Nay,” he said once; “he'd kill me, given half
+a chance, but a sheep--no.” Yet, though himself of this opinion, he knew
+well what the talk was, and was astonished accordingly at his father's
+remark.
+
+“The Black Killer, is it? What d'you know o' the Killer?” he inquired.
+
+“Why _black_, I wad ken? Why _black?_” the little man asked, leaning
+forward in his chair.
+
+Now David, though repudiating in the village Red Wull's complicity
+with the crimes, at home was never so happy as when casting cunning
+innuendoes to that effect.
+
+“What would you have him then?” he asked. “Red, yaller, muck-dirt
+colour?”--and he stared significantly at the Tailless Tyke, who was
+lying at his master's feet. The little man ceased rubbing his knees and
+eyed the boy. David shifted uneasily beneath that dim, persistent stare.
+
+“Well?” he said at length gruffly.
+
+The little man giggled, and his two thin hands took up their task again.
+
+“Aiblins his puir auld doited fool of a dad kens mair than the dear lad
+thinks for, ay, or wushes--eh, Wullie, he! he!”
+
+“Then what is it you do know, or think yo' know?” David asked irritably.
+
+The little man nodded and chuckled.
+
+“Naethin' ava, laddie, naethin' worth the mention. Only aiblins the
+Killer'll be caught afore sae lang.”
+
+David smiled incredulously, wagging his head in offensive scepticism.
+
+“Yo'll catch him yo'self, I s'pose, you and yer Wullie? Tak' a chair on
+to the Marches, whistle a while, and when the Killer comes, why! pit a
+pinch o' salt upon his tail--if he had one.”
+
+At the last words, heavily punctuated by the speaker, the little man
+stopped his rubbing as though shot.
+
+“What wad ye mean by that?” he asked softly.
+
+“What wad I?” the boy replied.
+
+“I dinna ken for sure,” the little man answered; “and it's aiblins just
+as well for you, dear lad”--in fawning accents--“that I dinna.” He
+began rubbing and giggling afresh. “It's a gran' thing, Wullie, to ha'
+a dutiful son; a shairp lad wha has no silly sens o' shame aboot
+sharpenin' his wits at his auld dad's expense. And yet, despite
+oor facetious lad there, aiblins we will ha' a hand in the Killer's
+catchin', you and I, Wullie--he! he!” And the great dog at his feet
+wagged his stump tail in reply.
+
+David rose from his chair and walked across the room to where his father
+sat.
+
+“If yo' know sic a mighty heap,” he shouted, “happen you'll just tell me
+what yo' do know!”
+
+M'Adam stopped stroking Red Wull's massive head, and looked up.
+
+“Tell ye? Ay, wha should I tell if not ma dear David? Tell? Ay, I'll
+tell ye this”--with a sudden snarl of bitterness--“That you'd be the
+vairy last person I wad tell.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII. A MAD DOG
+
+
+DAVID and Maggie, meanwhile, were drifting further and further apart. He
+now thought the girl took too much upon herself; that this assumption of
+the woman and the mother was overdone. Once, on a Sunday, he caught her
+hearing Andrew his catechism. He watched the performance through a crack
+in the door, and listened, giggling, to her simple teaching. At length
+his merriment grew so boisterous that she looked up, saw him, and,
+straightway rising to her feet, crossed the room and shut the door;
+tendering her unspoken rebuke with such a sweet dignity that he slunk
+away for once decently ashamed. And the incident served to add point to
+his hostility.
+
+Consequently he was seldom at Kenmuir, and more often at home,
+quarrelling with his father.
+
+Since that day, two years before, when the boy had been an instrument in
+the taking of the Cup from him, father and son had been like two vessels
+charged with electricity, contact between which might result at any
+moment in a shock and a flash. This was the outcome not of a moment, but
+of years.
+
+Of late the contest had raged markedly fierce; for M'Adam noticed his
+son's more frequent presence at home, and commented on the fact in his
+usual spirit of playful raillery.
+
+“What's come to ye, David?” he asked one day. “Yer auld dad's head is
+nigh turned wi' yer condescension. Is James Moore feared ye'll steal the
+Cup fra him, as ye stole it from me, that he'll not ha' ye at Kenmuir?
+or what is it?”
+
+“I thought I could maybe keep an eye on the Killer gin I stayed here,”
+ David answered, leering at Red Wull.
+
+“Ye'd do better at Kenmuir--eh, Wullie!” the little man replied.
+
+“Nay,” the other answered, “he'll not go to Kenmuir. There's Th' Owd Un
+to see to him there o' nights.”
+
+The little man whipped round.
+
+“Are ye so sure he is there o' nights, ma lad?” he asked with slow
+significance.
+
+“He was there when some one--I dinna say who, though I have ma
+thoughts--tried to poison him,” sneered the boy, mimicking his father's
+manner.
+
+M'Adam shook his head.
+
+“If he was poisoned, and noo I think aiblins he was, he didna pick it up
+at Kenmuir, I tell ye that,” he said, and marched out of the room.
+
+In the mean time the Black Killer pursued his bloody trade unchecked.
+The public, always greedy of a new sensation, took up the matter.
+In several of the great dailies, articles on the “Agrarian Outrages”
+ appeared, followed by lengthy correspondence. Controversy raged high;
+each correspondent had his own theory and his own solution of the
+problem; and each waxed indignant as his were discarded for another's.
+
+The Terror had reigned already two months when, with the advent of the
+lambing-time, matters took a yet more serious aspect.
+
+It was bad enough to lose one sheep, often the finest in the pack; but
+the hunting of a flock at a critical moment, which was incidental to the
+slaughter of the one, the scaring of these woolly mothers-about-to-be
+almost out of their fleeces, spelt for the small farmers something akin
+to ruin, for the bigger ones a loss hardly bearable.
+
+Such a woful season had never been known; loud were the curses, deep
+the vows of revenge. Many a shepherd at that time patrolled all night
+through with his dogs, only to find in the morning that the Killer had
+slipped him and havocked in some secluded portion of his beat.
+
+It was heartrending work; and all the more so in that, though his
+incrimination seemed as far off as ever, there was still the same
+positiveness as to the culprit's identity.
+
+Long Kirby, indeed, greatly daring, went so far on one occasion as to
+say to the little man: “And d'yo' reck'n the Killer is a sheep-dog,
+M'Adam?”
+
+“I do,” the little man replied with conviction.
+
+“And that he'll spare his own sheep?”
+
+“Niver a doubt of it.”
+
+“Then,” said the smith with a nervous cackle, “it must lie between you
+and Tupper and Saunderson.”
+
+The little man leant forward and tapped the other on the arm.
+
+“Or Kenmuir, ma friend,” he said. “Ye've forgot Kenmuir.”
+
+“So I have,” laughed the smith, “so I have.”
+
+“Then I'd not anither time,” the other continued, still tapping. “I'd
+mind Kenmuir, d'ye see, Kirby?”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was about the middle of the lambing-time, when the Killer was working
+his worst, that the Dalesmen had a lurid glimpse of Adam M'Adam as he
+might be were he wounded through his Wullie.
+
+Thus it came about: It was market-day in Grammoch-town, and in the
+Border Ram old Rob Saunderson was the centre of interest. For on the
+previous night Rob, who till then had escaped unscathed, had lost a
+sheep to the Killer: and--far worse--his flock of Herdwicks, heavy in
+lamb, had been galloped with disastrous consequences.
+
+The old man, with tears in his eyes, was telling how on four nights that
+week he had been up with Shep to guard against mishap; and on the fifth,
+worn out with his double labor, had fallen asleep at his post. But
+a very little while he slumbered; yet when, in the dawn, he woke and
+hurried on his rounds, he quickly came upon a mangled sheep and the
+pitiful relic of his flock. A relic, indeed! For all about were cold
+wee lambkins and their mothers, dead and dying of exhaustion and their
+unripe travail--a slaughter of the innocents.
+
+The Dalesmen were clustered round the old shepherd, listening with
+lowering countenances, when a dark gray head peered in at the door and
+two wistful eyes dwelt for a moment on the speaker.
+
+“Talk o' the devil!” muttered M'Adam, but no man heard him. For Red
+Wull, too, had seen that sad face, and, rising from his master's feet,
+had leapt with a roar at his enemy, toppling Jim Mason like a ninepin in
+the fury of his charge.
+
+In a second every dog in the room, from the battered Venus to Tupper's
+big Rasper, was on his feet, bristling to have at the tyrant and wipe
+out past injuries, if the gray dog would but lead the dance.
+
+It was not to be, however. For Long Kirby was standing at the door with
+a cup of hot coffee in his hand. Barely had he greeted the gray dog
+with--
+
+“Ullo, Owd Un!” when hoarse yells of “'Ware, lad! The Terror!” mingled
+with Red Wull's roar.
+
+Half turning, he saw the great dog bounding to the attack. Straightway
+he flung the boiling contents of his cup full in that rage-wracked
+countenance. The burning liquid swished against the huge bull-head.
+Blinding, bubbling, scalding, it did its fell work well; nothing escaped
+that merciless torrent. With a cry of agony, half bellow, half howl,
+Red Wull checked in his charge. From without the door was banged to; and
+again the duel was postponed. While within the tap-room a huddle of men
+and dogs were left alone with a mad man and a madder brute.
+
+Blind, demented, agonized, the Tailless Tyke thundered about the little
+room gnashing, snapping, oversetting; men, tables, chairs swirled off
+their legs as though they had been dolls. He spun round like a monstrous
+teetotum; he banged his tortured head against the wall; he burrowed
+into the unyielding floor. And all the while M'Adam pattered after him,
+laying hands upon him only to be flung aside as a terrier flings a rat.
+Now up, now down again, now tossed into a corner, now dragged upon
+the floor, yet always following on and crying in supplicating tones,
+“Wullie, Wullie, let me to ye! let yer man ease ye!” and then, with
+a scream and a murderous glance, “By ----, Kirby, I'll deal wi' you
+later!”
+
+The uproar was like hell let loose. You could hear the noise of oaths
+and blows, as the men fought for the door, a half-mile away. And above
+it the horrid bellowing and the screaming of that shrill voice.
+
+Long Kirby was the first man out of that murder-hole; and after him
+the others toppled one by one--men and dogs jostling one another in
+the frenzy of their fear. Big Bell, Londesley, Tupper, Hoppin, Teddy
+Bolstock, white-faced and trembling; and old Saunderson they pulled out
+by his heels. Then the door was shut with a clang, and the little man
+and mad dog were left alone.
+
+In the street was already a big-eyed crowd, attracted by the uproar;
+while at the door was James Moore, seeking entrance. “Happen I could
+lend the little mon a hand,” said he; but they withheld him forcibly.
+
+Inside was pandemonium: bangings like the doors of hell; the bellowing
+of that great voice; the patter of little feet; the slithering of a
+body on the floor; and always that shrill, beseeching prayer, “Wullie,
+Wullie, let me to ye!” and, in a scream, “By ----, Kirby, I'll be wi' ye
+soon!”
+
+Jim Mason it was who turned, at length, to the smith and whispered,
+“Kirby, lad, yo'd best skip it.”
+
+The big man obeyed and ran. The stamp-stamp of his feet on the hard road
+rang above the turmoil. As the long legs vanished round the corner and
+the sound of the fugitive died away, a panic seized the listening crowd.
+
+A woman shrieked; a girl fainted; and in two minutes the street was as
+naked of men as the steppes of Russia in winter: here a white face at a
+window; there a door ajar; and peering round a far corner a frightened
+boy. One man only scorned to run. Alone, James Moore stalked down the
+centre of the road, slow and calm, Owd Bob trotting at his heels.
+
+It was a long half-hour before the door of the inn burst open, and
+M'Adam came out with a run, flinging the door behind him.
+
+He rushed into the middle of the road; his sleeves were rolled at
+the wrist like a surgeon's; and in his right hand was a black-handled
+jack-knife.
+
+“Noo, by ----!” he cried in a terrible voice, “where is he?”
+
+He looked up and down the road, darting his fiery glances everywhere;
+and his face was whiter than his hair.
+
+Then he turned and hunted madly down the whole length of the High,
+nosing like a weasel in every cranny, stabbing at the air as he went,
+and screaming, “By ----, Kirby, wait till I get ye!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII. HOW THE KILLER WAS SINGED
+
+
+No further harm came of the incident; but it served as a healthy
+object-lesson for the Dalesmen.
+
+A coincidence it may have been, but, as a fact, for the fortnight
+succeeding Kirby's exploit there was a lull in the crimes. There
+followed, as though to make amends, the seven days still remembered in
+the Daleland as the Bloody Week.
+
+On the Sunday the Squire lost a Cheviot ewe, killed not a hundred yards
+from the Manor wall. On the Monday a farm on the Black Water was marked
+with the red cross. On Tuesday--a black night--Tupper at Swinsthwaite
+came upon the murderer at his work; he fired into the darkness without
+effect; and the Killer escaped with a scaring. On the following night
+Viscount Birdsaye lost a shearling ram, for which he was reported to
+have paid a fabulous sum. Thursday was the one blank night of the week.
+On Friday Tupper was again visited and punished heavily, as though in
+revenge for that shot.
+
+On the Saturday afternoon a big meeting was held at the Manor to discuss
+measures. The Squire presided; gentlemen and magistrates were there in
+numbers, and every farmer in the country-side.
+
+To start the proceedings the Special Commissioner read a futile letter
+from the Board of Agriculture. After him Viscount Birdsaye rose and
+proposed that a reward more suitable to the seriousness of the case
+than the paltry 5 pounds of the Police should be offered, and backed his
+proposal with a 25 pound cheque. Several others spoke, and, last of all,
+Parson Leggy rose.
+
+He briefly summarized the history of the crimes; reiterated his belief
+that a sheep-dog was the criminal; declared that nothing had occurred
+to shake his conviction; and concluded by offering a remedy for their
+consideration. Simple it was, so he said, to laughableness; yet, if
+their surmise was correct, it would serve as an effectual preventive if
+not cure, and would at least give them time to turn round. He paused.
+
+“My suggestion is: That every man-jack of you who owns a sheep-dog ties
+him up at night.”
+
+The farmers were given half an hour to consider the proposal, and
+clustered in knots talking it over. Many an eye was directed on M'Adam;
+but that little man appeared all unconscious.
+
+“Weel, Mr. Saunderson,” he was saying in, shrill accents, “and shall ye
+tie Shep?”
+
+“What d'yo' think?” asked Rob, eying the man at whom the measure was
+aimed.
+
+“Why, it's this way, I'm thinkin',” the little man replied. “Gin ye haud
+Shep's the guilty one I _wad_, by all manner o' means--or shootin'd be
+aiblins better. If not, why”--he shrugged his shoulders significantly;
+and having shown his hand and driven the nail well home, the little man
+left the meeting.
+
+James Moore stayed to see the Parson's resolution negatived, by a large
+majority, and then he too quitted the hall. He had foreseen the result,
+and, previous to the meeting, had warned the Parson how it would be.
+
+“Tie up!” he cried almost indignantly, as Owd Bob came galloping up
+to his whistle; “I think I see myself chainin' yo', owd lad, like any
+murderer. Why, it's yo' has kept the Killer off Kenmuir so far, I'll
+lay.”
+
+At the lodge-gate was M'Adam, for once without his familiar spirit,
+playing with the lodge-keeper's child; for the little man loved all
+children but his own, and was beloved of them. As the Master approached
+he looked up.
+
+“Weel, Moore,” he called, “and are you gaein' to tie yer dog?”
+
+“I will if you will yours,” the Master answered grimly.
+
+“Na,” the little man replied, “it's Wullie as frichts the Killer aff the
+Grange. That's why I've left him there noo.”
+
+“It's the same wi' me,” the Master said. “He's not come to Kenmuir yet,
+nor he'll not so long as Th' Owd Un's loose, I reck'n.”
+
+“Loose or tied, for the matter o' that,” the little man rejoined,
+“Kenmuir'll escape.” He made the statement dogmatically, snapping his
+lips.
+
+The Master frowned.
+
+“Why that?” he asked.
+
+“Ha' ye no heard what they're sayin'?” the little man inquired with
+raised eyebrows.
+
+“Nay; what?”
+
+“Why, that the mere repitation o' th' best sheep-dog in the North'
+should keep him aff. An' I guess they're reet,” and he laughed shrilly
+as he spoke.
+
+The Master passed on, puzzled.
+
+“Which road are ye gaein' hame?” M'Adam called after him. “Because,”
+ with a polite smile, “I'll tak' t'ither.”
+
+“I'm off by the Windy Brae,” the Master answered, striding on. “Squire
+asked me to leave a note wi' his shepherd t'other side o' the Chair.”
+ So he headed away to the left, making for home by the route along the
+Silver Mere.
+
+It is a long sweep of almost unbroken moorland, the well-called Windy
+Brae; sloping gently down in mile on mile of heather from the Mere
+Marches on the top to the fringe of the Silver Mere below. In all that
+waste of moor the only break is the quaint-shaped Giant's Chair,
+puzzle of geologists, looking as though plumped down by accident in the
+heathery wild. The ground rises suddenly from the uniform grade of the
+Brae; up it goes, ever growing steeper, until at length it runs abruptly
+into a sheer curtain of rock--the Fall--which rises perpendicular some
+forty feet, on the top of which rests that tiny grassy bowl--not twenty
+yards across--they call the Scoop.
+
+The Scoop forms the seat of the Chair and reposes on its collar of rock,
+cool and green and out of the world, like wine in a metal cup; in front
+is the forty-foot Fall; behind, rising sheer again, the wall of rock
+which makes the back of the Chair. Inaccessible from above, the only
+means of entrance to that little dell are two narrow sheep-tracks, which
+crawl dangerously up between the sheer wall on the one hand and the
+sheer Fall on the other, entering it at opposite sides.
+
+It stands out clear-cut from the gradual incline, that peculiar
+eminence; yet as the Master and Owd Bob debouched on to the Brae it was
+already invisible in the darkening night.
+
+Through the heather the two swung, the Master thinking now with a smile
+of David and Maggie; wondering what M'Adam had meant; musing with a
+frown on the Killer; pondering on his identity--for he was half of
+David's opinion as to Red Wull's innocence; and thanking his stars that
+so far Kenmuir had escaped, a piece of luck he attributed entirely to
+the vigilance of Th' Owd Un, who, sleeping in the porch, slipped out at
+all hours and went his rounds, warding off danger. And at the thought
+he looked down for the dark head which should be travelling at his knee;
+yet could not see it, so thick hung the pall of night.
+
+So he brushed his way along, and ever the night grew blacker; until,
+from the swell of the ground beneath his feet, he knew himself skirting
+the Giant's Chair.
+
+Now as he sped along the foot of the rise, of a sudden there burst
+on his ear the myriad patter of galloping feet. He turned, and at the
+second a swirl of sheep almost bore him down. It was velvet-black,
+and they fled furiously by, yet he dimly discovered, driving at their
+trails, a vague hound-like form.
+
+“The Killer, by thunder!” he ejaculated, and, startled though he was,
+struck down at that last pursuing shape, to miss and almost fall.
+
+“Bob, lad!” he cried, “follow on!” and swung round; but in the darkness
+could not see if the gray dog had obeyed.
+
+The chase swept on into the night, and, far above him on the hill-side,
+he could now hear the rattle of the flying feet. He started hotly in
+pursuit, and then, recognizing the futility of following where he
+could not see his hand, desisted. So he stood motionless, listening
+and peering into the blackness, hoping Th' Owd Un was on the villain's
+heels.
+
+He prayed for the moon; and, as though in answer, the lantern of the
+night shone out and lit the dour face of the Chair above him. He shot a
+glance at his feet; and thanked heaven on finding the gray dog was not
+beside him.
+
+Then he looked up. The sheep had broken, and were scattered over the
+steep hill-side, still galloping madly. In the rout one pair of darting
+figures caught and held his gaze: the foremost dodging, twisting,
+speeding upward, the hinder hard on the leader's heels, swift,
+remorseless, never changing. He looked for a third pursuing form; but
+none could he discern.
+
+“He mun ha' missed him in the dark,” the Master muttered, the sweat
+standing on his brow, as he strained his eyes upward.
+
+Higher and higher sped those two dark specks, far out-topping the
+scattered remnant of the flock. Up and up, until of a sudden the sheer
+Fall dropped its relentless barrier in the path of the fugitive. Away,
+scudding along the foot of the rock-wall struck the familiar track
+leading to the Scoop, and up it, bleating pitifully, nigh spent, the
+Killer hard on her now.
+
+“He'll doon her in the Scoop!” cried the Master hoarsely, following
+with fascinated eyes. “Owd Un! Owd Un! wheer iver are yo' gotten to?” he
+called in agony; but no Owd Un made reply.
+
+As they reached the summit, just as he had prophesied, the two black
+dots were one; and down they rolled together into the hollow of the
+Scoop, out of the Master's ken. At the same instant the moon, as though
+loth to watch the last act of the bloody play, veiled her face.
+
+It was his chance. “Noo!”--and up the hillside he sped like a young man,
+girding his loins for the struggle. The slope grew steep and steeper;
+but on and on he held in the darkness, gasping painfully, yet running
+still, until the face of the Fall blocked his way too.
+
+There he paused a moment, and whistled a low call. Could he but dispatch
+the old dog up the one path to the Scoop, while he took the other, the
+murderer's one road to safety would be blocked.
+
+He waited, all expectant; but no cold muzzle was shoved into his hand.
+Again he whistled. A pebble from above almost dropped on him, as if the
+criminal up there had moved to the brink of the Fall to listen; and he
+dared no more.
+
+He waited till all was still again, then crept, cat-like, along the
+rock-foot, and hit, at length, the track up which a while before had
+fled Killer and victim. Up that ragged way he crawled on hands and
+knees. The perspiration rolled off his face; one elbow brushed the rock
+perpetually; one hand plunged ever and anon into that naked emptiness on
+the other side.
+
+He prayed that the moon might keep in but a little longer; that his feet
+might be saved from falling, where a slip might well mean death, certain
+destruction to any chance of success. He cursed his luck that Th' Owd Un
+had somehow missed him in the dark; for now he must trust to chance, his
+own great strength, and his good oak stick. And as he climbed, he laid
+his plan: to rush in on the Killer as he still gorged and grapple
+with him. If in the darkness he missed--and in that narrow arena the
+contingency was improbable--the murderer might still, in the panic of
+the moment, forget the one path to safety and leap over the Fall to his
+destruction.
+
+At length he reached the summit and paused to draw breath. The
+black void before him was the Scoop, and in its bosom--not ten yards
+away--must be lying the Killer and the killed.
+
+He crouched against the wet rock-face and listened. In that dark
+silence, poised 'twixt heaven and earth, he seemed a million miles apart
+from living soul.
+
+No sound, and yet the murderer must be there. Ay, there was the tinkle
+of a dislodged stone; and again, the tread of stealthy feet.
+
+The Killer was moving; alarmed; was off.
+
+Quick!
+
+He rose to his full height; gathered himself, and leapt.
+
+Something collided with him as he sprang; something wrestled madly with
+him; something wrenched from beneath him; and in a clap he heard
+the thud of a body striking ground far below, and the slithering and
+splattering of some creature speeding furiously down the hill-side and
+away.
+
+“Who the blazes?” roared he.
+
+“What the devil?” screamed a little voice.
+
+The moon shone out.
+
+“Moore!”
+
+“M'Adam!”
+
+And there they were still struggling over the body of a dead sheep.
+
+In a second they had disengaged and rushed to the edge of the Fall. In
+the quiet they could still hear the scrambling hurry of the fugitive far
+below them. Nothing was to be seen, however, save an array of startled
+sheep on the hill-side, mute witnesses of the murderer's escape.
+
+The two men turned and eyed each other; the one grim, the other
+sardonic: both dishevelled and suspicious.
+
+“Well?''
+
+“Weel?”
+
+A pause and, careful scrutiny.
+
+“There's blood on your coat.”
+
+“And on yours.”
+
+Together they walked hack into the little moonlit hollow. There lay the
+murdered sheep in a pool of blood. Plain it was to see whence the marks
+on their coats came. M'Adam touched the victim's head with his foot. The
+movement exposed its throat. With a shudder he replaced it as it was.
+
+The two men stood back and eyed one another.
+
+“What are yo' doin' here?”
+
+“After the Killer. What are you?”
+
+“After the Killer?”
+
+“Hoo did you come?”
+
+“Up this path,” pointing to the one behind him. “Hoo did you?”
+
+“Up this.”
+
+Silence; then again:
+
+“I'd ha' had him but for yo'.”
+
+“I did have him, but ye tore me aff,”
+
+A pause again.
+
+“Where's yer gray dog?” This time the challenge was unmistakable.
+
+“I sent him after the Killer. Wheer's your Red Wull?”
+
+“At hame, as I tell't ye before.”
+
+“Yo' mean yo' left him there?” M'Adam's fingers twitched.
+
+“He's where I left him.”
+
+James Moore shrugged his shoulders. And the other began:
+
+“When did yer dog leave ye?”
+
+“When the Killer came past.”
+
+“Ye wad say ye missed him then?”
+
+“I say what I mean.”
+
+“Ye say he went after the Killer. Noo the Killer was here,” pointing to
+the dead sheep. “Was your dog here, too?”
+
+“If he had been he'd been here still.”
+
+“Onless he went over the Fall!”
+
+“That was the Killer, yo' fule.”
+
+“Or your dog.”
+
+“There was only _one_ beneath me. I felt him.”
+
+“Just so,” said M'Adam, and laughed. The other's brow contracted.
+
+“An' that was a big un,” he said slowly. The little man stopped his
+cackling.
+
+“There ye lie,” he said, smoothly. “He was small.”
+
+They looked one another full in the eyes.
+
+“That's a matter of opinion,” said the Master.
+
+“It's a matter of fact,” said the other.
+
+The two stared at one another, silent and stern, each trying to fathom
+the other's soul; then they turned again to the brink of the Fall.
+Beneath them, plain to see, was the splash and furrow in the shingle
+marking the Killer's line of retreat. They looked at one another again,
+and then each departed the way he had come to give his version of the
+story.
+
+“'If Th' Owd Un had kept wi' me, I should ha' had him.”
+
+And--
+
+“I tell ye I did have him, but James Moore pulled me aff. Strange, too,
+his dog not bein' wi' him!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX. LAD AND LASS
+
+
+AN immense sensation this affair of the Scoop created in the Daleland.
+It spurred the Dalesmen into fresh endeavors. James Moore and M'Adam
+were examined and re-examined as to the minutest details of the matter.
+The whole country-side was placarded with huge bills, offering 100
+pounds reward for the capture of the criminal dead or alive. While the
+vigilance of the watchers was such that in a single week they bagged a
+donkey, an old woman, and two amateur detectives.
+
+In Wastrel-dale the near escape of the Killer, the collision between
+James Moore and Adam, and Owd Bob's unsuccess, who was not wont to fail,
+aroused intense excitement, with which was mingled a certain anxiety as
+to their favorite.
+
+For when the Master had reached home that night, he had found the old
+dog already there; and he must have wrenched his foot in the pursuit or
+run a thorn into it, for he was very lame. Whereat, when it was reported
+at the Sylvester Arms, M'Adam winked at Red Wull and muttered, “Ah,
+forty foot is an ugly tumble.”
+
+A week later the little man called at Kenmuir. As he entered the yard,
+David was standing outside the kitchen window, looking very glum and
+miserable. On seeing his father, however, the boy started forward, all
+alert.
+
+“What d'yo' want here?” he cried roughly.
+
+“Same as you, dear lad,” the little man giggled, advancing. “I come on a
+visit.”
+
+“Your visits to Kenmuir are usually paid by night, so I've heard,” David
+sneered.
+
+The little man affected not to hear.
+
+“So they dinna allow ye indoors wi' the Cup,” he laughed. “They know yer
+little ways then, David.”
+
+“Nay, I'm not wanted in there,” David answered bitterly, but not so loud
+that his father could hear. Maggie within the kitchen heard, however,
+but paid no heed; for her heart was hard against the boy, who of late,
+though he never addressed her, had made himself as unpleasant in a
+thousand little ways as only David M'Adam could.
+
+At that moment the Master came stalking into the yard, Owd Bob
+preceding him; and as the old dog recognized his visitor he bristled
+involuntarily.
+
+At the sight of the Master M'Adam hurried forward.
+
+“I did but come to ask after the tyke,” he said, “Is he gettin' over his
+lameness?”
+
+James Moore looked surprised; then his stern face relaxed into a cordial
+smile. Such generous anxiety as to the welfare of Red Wull's rival was a
+wholly new characteristic in the little man.
+
+“I tak' it kind in yo', M'Adam,” he said, “to come and inquire.”
+
+“Is the thorn oot?” asked the little man with eager interest, shooting
+his head forward to stare closely at the other.
+
+“It came oot last night wi' the poulticin',” the Master answered,
+returning the other's gaze, calm and steady.
+
+“I'm glad o' that,” said the little man, still staring. But his yellow,
+grinning face said as plain words, “What a liar ye are, James Moore.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The days passed on. His father's taunts and gibes, always becoming more
+bitter, drove David almost to distraction.
+
+He longed to make it up with Maggie; he longed for that tender sympathy
+which the girl had always extended to him when his troubles with his
+father were heavy on him. The quarrel had lasted for months now, and
+he was well weary of it, and utterly ashamed. For, at least, he had the
+good grace to acknowledge that no one was to blame but himself; and that
+it had been fostered solely by his ugly pride.
+
+At length he could endure it no longer, and determined to go to the
+girl and ask forgiveness. It would be a bitter ordeal to him; always
+unwilling to acknowledge a fault, even to himself, how much harder would
+it be to confess it to this strip of a girl. For a time he thought it
+was almost more than he could do. Yet, like his father, once set upon
+a course, nothing could divert him. So, after a week of doubts and
+determinations, of cowardice and courage, he pulled himself together and
+off he set.
+
+An hour it took him from the Grange to the bridge over the Wastrel--an
+hour which had wont to be a quarter. Now, as he walked on up the slope
+from the stream, very slowly, heartening himself for his penance, he was
+aware of a strange disturbance in the yard above him: the noisy cackling
+of hens, the snorting of pigs disturbed, and above the rest the cry of a
+little child ringing out in shrill distress.
+
+He set to running, and sped up the slope as fast as his long legs would
+carry him. As he took the gate in his stride, he saw the white-clad
+figure of Wee Anne fleeing with unsteady, toddling steps, her fair hair
+streaming out behind, and one bare arm striking wildly back at a great
+pursuing sow.
+
+David shouted as he cleared the gate, but the brute paid no heed, and
+was almost touching the fugitive when Owd Bob came galloping round the
+corner, and in a second had flashed between pursuer and pursued. So
+close were the two that as he swung round on the startled sow, his tail
+brushed the baby to the ground; and there she lay kicking fat legs to
+heaven and calling on all her gods.
+
+David, leaving the old dog to secure the warrior pig, ran round to her;
+but he was anticipated. The whole matter had barely occupied a minute's
+time; and Maggie, rushing from the kitchen, now had the child in her
+arms and was hurrying back with her to the house.
+
+“Eh, ma pet, are yo' hurted, dearie?” David could hear her asking
+tearfully, as he crossed the yard and established himself in the door.
+
+“Well,” said he, in bantering tones, “yo'm a nice wench to ha' charge o'
+oor Annie!”
+
+It was a sore subject with the girl, and well he knew it. Wee Anne, that
+golden-haired imp of mischief, was forever evading her sister-mother's
+eye and attempting to immolate herself. More than once she had only been
+saved from serious hurt by the watchful devotion of Owd Bob, who always
+found time, despite his many labors, to keep a guardian eye on his
+well-loved lassie. In the previous winter she had been lost on a bitter
+night on the Muir Pike; once she had climbed into a field with the
+Highland bull, and barely escaped with her life, while the gray dog held
+the brute in check; but a little while before she had been rescued from
+drowning by the Tailless Tyke; there had been numerous other mischances;
+and now the present mishap. But the girl paid no heed to her tormentor
+in her joy at finding the child all unhurt.
+
+“Theer! yo' bain't so much as scratted, ma precious, is yo'?” she cried.
+“Rin oot agin, then,” and the baby toddled joyfully away.
+
+Maggie rose to her feet and stood with face averted. David's eyes dwelt
+lovingly upon her, admiring the pose of the neat head with its thatch of
+pretty brown hair; the slim figure, and slender ankles, peeping modestly
+from beneath her print frock.
+
+“Ma word! if yo' dad should hear tell o' hoo his Anne--” he broke off
+into a long-drawn whistle.
+
+Maggie kept silence; but her lips quivered, and the flush deepened on
+her cheek.
+
+“I'm fear'd I'll ha' to tell him,” the boy continued, “'Tis but ma
+duty.”
+
+“Yo' may tell wham yo' like what yo' like,” the girl replied coldly; yet
+there was a tremor in her voice.
+
+“First yo' throws her in the stream,” David went on remorselessly; “then
+yo' chucks her to the pig, and if it had not bin for me--”
+
+“Yo', indeed!” she broke in contemptuously. “Yo'! 'twas Owd Bob reskied
+her. Yo'd nowt' to do wi' it, 'cept lookin' on--'bout what yo're fit
+for.”
+
+“I tell yo',” David pursued stubbornly, “an it had not bin for me yo'
+wouldn't have no sister by noo. She'd be lyin', she would, pore little
+lass, cold as ice, pore mite, wi' no breath in her. An' when yo' dad
+coom home there'd be no Wee Anne to rin to him, and climb on his knee,
+and yammer to him, and beat his face. An he'd say, 'What's gotten to oor
+Annie, as I left wi' yo'?' And then yo'd have to tell him, 'I never took
+no manner o' fash after her, dad; d'reckly yo' back was turned, I--'”
+
+The girl sat down, buried her face in her apron, and indulged in the
+rare luxury of tears.
+
+“Yo're the cruellest mon as iver was, David M'Adam,” she sobbed, rocking
+to and fro.
+
+He was at her side in a moment, tenderly bending over her.
+
+“Eh, Maggie, but I am sorry, lass--”
+
+She wrenched away from beneath his hands.
+
+“I hate yo',” she cried passionately.
+
+He gently removed her hands from before her tear-stained face.
+
+“I was nob'but laffin', Maggie,” he pleaded; “say yo' forgie me.”
+
+“I don't,” she cried, struggling. “I think yo're the hatefullest lad as
+iver lived.”
+
+The moment was critical; it was a time for heroic measures.
+
+“No, yo' don't, lass,” he remonstrated; and, releasing her wrists,
+lifted the little drooping face, wet as it was, like the earth after
+a spring shower, and, holding it between his two big hands, kissed it
+twice.
+
+“Yo' coward!” she cried, a flood of warm red crimsoning her cheeks; and
+she struggled vainly to be free.
+
+“Yo' used to let me,” he reminded her in aggrieved tones.
+
+“I niver did!” she cried, more indignant than truthful.
+
+“Yes, yo' did, when we was little uns; that is, yo' was allus for
+kissin' and I was allus agin it. And noo,” with whole-souled bitterness,
+“I mayn't so much as keek at yo' over a stone wall.”
+
+However that might be, he was keeking at her from closer range now; and
+in that position--for he held her firmly still--she could not help
+but keek back. He looked so handsome--humble for once; penitent yet
+reproachful; his own eyes a little moist; and, withal, his old audacious
+self--that, despite herself, her anger grew less hot.
+
+“Say yo' forgie me and I'll let yo' go.”
+
+“I don't, nor niver shall,” she answered firmly; but there was less
+conviction in her heart than voice.
+
+“Iss yo' do, lass,” he coaxed, and kissed her again.
+
+She struggled faintly.
+
+“Hoo daur yo'?” she cried through her tears. But he was not to be moved.
+
+“Will yo' noo?” he asked.
+
+She remained dumb, and he kissed her again.
+
+“Impidence!” she cried.
+
+“Ay,” said he, closing her mouth.
+
+“I wonder at ye, Davie!” she said, surrendering.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After that Maggie must needs give in; and it was well understood, though
+nothing definite had been said, that the boy and girl were courting. And
+in the Dale the unanimous opinion was that the young couple would make
+“a gradely pair, surely.”
+
+M'Adam was the last person to hear the news, long after it had been
+common knowledge in the village. It was in the Sylvester Arms he first
+heard it, and straightway fell into one of those foaming frenzies
+characteristic of him.
+
+“The dochter o' Moore o' Kenmuir, d'ye say? sic a dochter o' sic a man!
+The dochter o' th' one man in the warld that's harmed me aboon the rest!
+I'd no ha' believed it gin ye'd no tell't me. Oh, David, David! I'd no
+ha' thocht it even o' you, ill son as ye've aye bin to me. I think he
+might ha' waited till his auld dad was gone, and he'd no had to wait
+lang the noo.” Then the little man sat down and burst into tears.
+Gradually, however, he resigned himself, and the more readily when he
+realized that David by his act had exposed a fresh wound into which he
+might plunge his barbed shafts. And he availed himself to the full
+of his new opportunities. Often and often David was sore pressed to
+restrain himself.
+
+“Is't true what they're sayin' that Maggie Moore's nae better than she
+should be?” the little man asked one evening with anxious interest.
+
+“They're not sayin' so, and if they were 'twad be a lie,” the boy
+answered angrily.
+
+M'Adam leant back in his chair and nodded his head.
+
+“Ay, they tell't me that gin ony man knew 'twad be David M'Adam.”
+
+David strode across the room.
+
+“No, no mair o' that,” he shouted. “Y'ought to be 'shamed, an owd mon
+like you, to speak so o' a lass.” The little man edged close up to his
+son, and looked up into the fair flushed face towering above him.
+
+“David,” he said in smooth soft tones, “I'm 'stonished ye dinna strike
+yen auld dad.” He stood with his hands clasped behind his back as if
+daring the young giant to raise a finger against him. “Ye maist might
+noo,” he continued suavely. “Ye maun be sax inches taller, and a good
+four stane heavier. Hooiver, aiblins ye're wise to wait. Anither year
+twa I'll be an auld man, as ye say, and feebler, and Wullie here'll be
+gettin' on, while you'll be in the prime o' yer strength. Then I think
+ye might hit me wi' safety to your person, and honor to yourself.”
+
+He took a pace back, smiling.
+
+“Feyther,” said David, huskily, “one day yo'll drive me too far.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX. THE SNAPPING OF THE STRING
+
+
+THE spring was passing, marked throughout with the bloody trail of
+the Killer. The adventure in the Scoop scared him for a while into
+innocuousness; then he resumed his game again with redoubled zest.
+It seemed likely he would harry the district till some lucky accident
+carried him off, for all chance there was of arresting him.
+
+You could still hear nightly in the Sylvester Arms and elsewhere the
+assertion, delivered with the same dogmatic certainty as of old, “It's
+the Terror, I tell yo'!” and that irritating, inevitable reply: “Ay; but
+wheer's the proof?” While often, at the same moment, in a house not far
+away, a little lonely man was sitting before a low-burnt fire, rocking
+to and fro, biting his nails, and muttering to the great dog whose head
+lay between his knees: “If we had but the proof, Wullie! if we had
+but the proof! I'd give ma right hand aff my arm gin we had the proof
+to-morrow.”
+
+Long Kirby, who was always for war when some one else was to do the
+fighting, suggested that David should be requested, in the name of the
+Dalesmen, to tell M'Adam that he must make an end to Red Wull. But Jim
+Mason quashed the proposal, remarking truly enough that there was too
+much bad blood as it was between father and son; while Tammas proposed
+with a sneer that the smith should be his own agent in the matter.
+
+Whether it was this remark of Tammas's which stung the big man into
+action, or whether it was that the intensity of his hate gave him
+unusual courage, anyhow, a few days later, M'Adam caught him lurking in
+the granary of the Grange.
+
+The little man may not have guessed his murderous intent; yet the
+blacksmith's white-faced terror, as he crouched away in the darkest
+corner, could hardly have escaped remark; though--and Kirby may thank
+his stars for it--the treacherous gleam of a gun-barrel, ill-concealed
+behind him, did.
+
+“Hullo, Kirby!” said M'Adam cordially, “ye'll stay the night wi' me?”
+ And the next thing the big man heard was a giggle on the far side the
+door, lost in the clank of padlock and rattle of chain. Then--through
+a crack--“Good-night to ye. Hope ye'll be comfie.” And there he stayed
+that night, the following day and next night--thirty-six hours in all,
+with swedes for his hunger and the dew off the thatch for his thirst.
+
+Meanwhile the struggle between David and his father seemed coming to a
+head. The little man's tongue wagged more bitterly than ever; now it was
+never at rest--searching out sores, stinging, piercing.
+
+Worst of all, he was continually dropping innuendoes, seemingly innocent
+enough, yet with a world of subtile meaning at their back, respecting
+Maggie. The leer and wink with which, when David came home from
+Kenmuir at nights, he would ask the simple question, “And was she kind,
+David--eh, eh?” made the boy's blood boil within him.
+
+And the more effective the little man saw his shots to be, the more
+persistently he plied them. And David retaliated in kind. It was a war
+of reprisals. There was no peace; there were no truces in which to
+bury the dead before the opponents set to slaying others. And every day
+brought the combatants nearer to that final struggle, the issue of which
+neither cared to contemplate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There came a Saturday, toward the end of the spring, long to be
+remembered by more than David in the Dale.
+
+For that young man the day started sensationally. Rising before
+cock-crow, and going to the window, the first thing he saw in the misty
+dawn was the gaunt, gigantic figure of Red Wull, hounding up the hill
+from the Stony Bottom; and in an instant his faith was shaken to its
+foundation.
+
+The dog was travelling up at a long, slouching trot; and as he rapidly
+approached the house, David saw that his flanks were all splashed with
+red mud, his tongue out, and the foam dripping from his jaws, as though
+he had come far and fast.
+
+He slunk up to the house, leapt on to the sill of the unused
+back-kitchen, some five feet from the ground, pushed with his paw at the
+cranky old hatchment, which was its only covering; and, in a second, the
+boy, straining out of the window the better to see, heard the rattle of
+the boards as the dog dropped within the house.
+
+For the moment, excited as he was, David held his peace. Even the Black
+Killer took only second place in his thoughts that morning. For this was
+to be a momentous day for him.
+
+That afternoon James Moore and Andrew would, he knew, be over at
+Grammoch-town, and, his work finished for the day, he was resolved to
+tackle Maggie and decide his fate. If she would have him--well, he would
+go next morning and thank God for it, kneeling beside her in the
+tiny village church; if not, he would leave the Grange and all its
+unhappiness behind, and straightway plunge out into the world.
+
+All through a week of stern work he had looked forward to this hard-won
+half-holiday. Therefore, when, as he was breaking off at noon, his
+father turned to him and said abruptly:
+
+“David, ye're to tak' the Cheviot lot o'er to Grammoch-town at once,” he
+answered shortly:
+
+“Yo' mun tak' 'em yo'sel', if yo' wish 'em to go to-day.”
+
+“Na,” the little man answered; “Wullie and me, we're busy. Ye're to tak'
+'em, I tell ye.”
+
+“I'll not,” David replied. “If they wait for me, they wait till Monday,”
+ and with that he left the room.
+
+“I see what 'tis,” his father called after him; “she's give ye a tryst
+at Kenmuir. Oh, ye randy David!”
+
+“Yo' tend yo' business; I'll tend mine,” the boy answered hotly.
+
+Now it happened that on the previous day Maggie had given him a
+photograph of herself, or, rather, David had taken it and Maggie had
+demurred. As he left the room it dropped from his pocket. He failed to
+notice his loss, but directly he was gone M'Adam pounced on it.
+
+“He! he! Wullie, what's this?” he giggled, holding the photograph into
+his face. “He! he! it's the jade hersel', I war'nt; it's Jezebel!”
+
+He peered into the picture.
+
+“She kens what's what, I'll tak' oath, Wullie. See her eyes--sae saft
+and languishin'; and her lips--such lips, Wullie!” He held the picture
+down for the great dog to see: then walked out of the room, still
+sniggering, and chucking the face insanely beneath its cardboard chin.
+
+Outside the house he collided against David. The boy had missed his
+treasure and was hurrying back for it.
+
+“What yo' got theer?” he asked suspiciously.
+
+“Only the pictur' o' some randy quean,” his father answered, chucking
+away at the inanimate chin.
+
+“Gie it me!” David ordered fiercely. “It's mine.”
+
+“Na, na,” the little man replied. “It's no for sic douce lads as dear
+David to ha' ony touch wi' leddies sic as this.”
+
+“Gie it me, I tell ye, or I'll tak' it!” the boy shouted.
+
+“Na, na; it's ma duty as yer dad to keep ye from sic limmers.” He
+turned, still smiling, to Red Wull.
+
+“There ye are, Wullie!” He threw the photograph to the dog. “Tear her,
+Wullie, the Jezebel!”
+
+The Tailless Tyke sprang on the picture, placed one big paw in the very
+centre of the face, forcing it into the muck, and tore a corner off;
+then he chewed the scrap with unctious, slobbering gluttony, dropped it,
+and tore a fresh piece.
+
+David dashed forward.
+
+“Touch it, if ye daur, ye brute!” he yelled; but his father seized him
+and held him back.
+
+“'And the dogs o' the street,'” he quoted. David turned furiously on
+him.
+
+“I've half a mind to brak' ivery bone in yer body!” he shouted, “robbin'
+me o' what's mine and throwin' it to yon black brute!”
+
+“Whist, David, whist!” soothed the little man. “Twas but for yer ain
+good yer auld dad did it. 'Twas that he had at heart as he aye has.
+Rin aff wi' ye noo to Kenmuir. She'll mak' it up to ye, I war'nt. She's
+leeberal wi' her favors, I hear. Ye've but to whistle and she'll come.”
+
+David seized his father by the shoulder.
+
+“An' yo' gie me much more o' your sauce,” he roared.
+
+“Sauce, Wullie,” the little man echoed in a gentle voice.
+
+“I'll twist yer neck for yo'!”
+
+“He'll twist my neck for me.”
+
+“I'll gang reet awa', I warn yo', and leave you and yer Wullie to yer
+lone.”
+
+The little man began to whimper.
+
+“It'll brak' yer auld dad's heart, lad,” he said.
+
+“Nay; yo've got none. But 'twill ruin yo', please God. For yo' and
+yer Wullie'll get ne'er a soul to work for yo'--yo' cheeseparin',
+dirty-tongued Jew.”
+
+The little man burst into an agony of affected tears, rocking to and
+fro, his face in his hands.
+
+“Waesucks, Wullue! d'ye hear him? He is gaein' to leave us--the son o'
+my bosom! my Benjamin! my little Davie! he's gaein' awa'!”
+
+David turned away down the hill; and M'Adam lifted his stricken face and
+waved a hand at him.
+
+“'Adieu, dear amiable youth!'” he cried in broken voice; and straightway
+set to sobbing again.
+
+Half-way down to the Stony Bottom David turned.
+
+“I'll gie yo' a word o' warnin',” he shouted back. “I'd advise yo' to
+keep a closer eye to yer Wullie's goings on, 'specially o' nights, or
+happen yo'll wake to a surprise one mornin'.”
+
+In an instant the little man ceased his fooling.
+
+“And why that?” he asked, following down the hill.
+
+“I'll tell yo'. When I wak' this mornin' I walked to the window, and
+what d'yo' think I see? Why, your Wullie gollopin' like a good un up
+from the Bottom, all foamin', too, and red-splashed, as if he'd coom
+from the Screes. What had he bin up to, I'd like to know?”
+
+“What should he be doin',” the little man replied, “but havin' an eye to
+the stock? and that when the Killer might be oot.”
+
+David laughed harshly.
+
+“Ay, the Killer was oot, I'll go bail, and yo' may hear o't afore the
+evenin', ma man,” and with that he turned away again.
+
+As he had foreseen, David found Maggie alone. But in the heat of his
+indignation against his father he seemed to have forgotten his
+original intent, and instead poured his latest troubles into the girl's
+sympathetic ear.
+
+“There's but one mon in the world he wishes worse nor me,” he was
+saying. It was late in the afternoon, and he was still inveighing
+against his father and his fate. Maggie sat in her father's chair by the
+fire, knitting; while he lounged on the kitchen table, swinging his long
+legs.
+
+“And who may that be?” the girl asked.
+
+“Why, Mr. Moore, to be sure, and Th' Owd Un, too. He'd do either o' them
+a mischief if he could.”
+
+“But why, David?” she asked anxiously. “I'm sure dad niver hurt him, or
+ony ither mon for the matter o' that.”
+
+David nodded toward the Dale Cup which rested on the mantelpiece in
+silvery majesty.
+
+“It's yon done it,” he said. “And if Th' Owd Un wins agin, as win he
+will, bless him! why, look out for 'me and ma Wullie'; that's all.”
+
+Maggie shuddered, and thought of the face at the window.
+
+“'Me and ma Wullie,'” David continued; “I've had about as much of them
+as I can swaller. It's aye the same--'Me and ma Wullie,' and 'Wullie and
+me,' as if I never put ma hand to a stroke! Ugh!”--he made a gesture of
+passionate disgust--“the two on 'em fair madden me. I could strike the
+one and throttle t'other,” and he rattled his heels angrily together.
+
+“Hush, David,” interposed the girl; “yo' munna speak so o' your dad;
+it's agin the commandments.”
+
+“'Tain't agin human nature,” he snapped in answer. “Why, 'twas nob'but
+yester' morn' he says in his nasty way, 'David, ma gran' fellow, hoo ye
+work! ye 'stonish me!' And on ma word, Maggie”--there were tears in the
+great boy's eyes--“ma back was nigh broke wi' toilin'. And the Terror,
+he stands by and shows his teeth, and looks at me as much as to say,
+'Some day, by the grace o' goodness, I'll ha' my teeth in your throat,
+young mon.'”
+
+Maggie's knitting dropped into her lap and she looked up, her soft eyes
+for once flashing.
+
+“It's cruel, David; so 'tis!” she cried. “I wonder yo' bide wi' him. If
+he treated me so, I'd no stay anither minute. If it meant the House for
+me I'd go,” and she looked as if she meant it.
+
+David jumped off the table.
+
+“Han' yo' niver guessed why I stop, lass, and me so happy at home?” he
+asked eagerly.
+
+Maggie's eyes dropped again.
+
+“Hoo should I know?” she asked innocently.
+
+“Nor care, neither, I s'pose,” he said in reproachful accents. “Yo' want
+me me to go and leave yo', and go reet awa'; I see hoo 'tis. Yo' wouldna
+mind, not yo', if yo' was niver to see pore David agin. I niver thowt
+yo' welly like me, Maggie; and noo I know it.”
+
+“Yo' silly lad,” the girl murmured, knitting steadfastly.
+
+“Then yo' do,” he cried, triumphant, “I knew yo' did.” He approached
+close to her chair, his face clouded with eager anxiety.
+
+“But d'yo' like me more'n just _likin'_, Maggie? d'yo',” he bent and
+whispered in the little ear.
+
+The girl cuddled over her work so that he could not see her face.
+
+“If yo' won't tell me yo' can show me,” he coaxed. “There's other things
+besides words.”
+
+He stood before her, one hand on the chair-back on either side. She sat
+thus, caged between his arms, with drooping eyes and heightened color.
+
+“Not so close, David, please,” she begged, fidgeting uneasily; but the
+request was unheeded.
+
+“Do'ee move away a wee,” she implored.
+
+“Not till yo've showed me,” he said, relentless.
+
+“I canna, Davie,” she cried with laughing, petulance.
+
+“Yes, yo' can, lass.”
+
+“Tak' your hands away, then.”
+
+“Nay; not till yo've showed me.”
+
+A pause.
+
+“Do'ee, Davie,” she supplicated.
+
+And--
+
+“Do'ee,” he pleaded.
+
+She tilted her face provokingly, but her eyes were still down.
+
+“It's no manner o' use, Davie.”
+
+“Iss, 'tis,” he coaxed.
+
+“Niver.”
+
+“Please.”
+
+A lengthy pause.
+
+“Well, then--” She looked up, at last, shy, trustful, happy; and the
+sweet lips were tilted further to meet his.
+
+And thus they were situated, lover-like, when a low, rapt voice broke in
+on them,--
+
+ 'A dear-lov'd lad, convenience snug,
+A treacherous inclination.'
+
+“Oh, Wullie, I wush you were here!”
+
+It was little M'Adam. He was leaning in at the open window, leering at
+the young couple, his eyes puckered, an evil expression on his face.
+
+“The creetical moment! and I interfere! David, ye'll never forgie me.”
+
+The boy jumped round with an oath; and Maggie, her face flaming, started
+to her feet. The tone, the words, the look of the little man at the
+window were alike insufferable.
+
+“By thunder! I'll teach yo' to come spyin' on me!” roared David. Above
+him on the mantelpiece blazed the Shepherds' Trophy. Searching any
+missile in his fury, he reached up a hand for it.
+
+“Ay, gie it me back, Ye robbed me o't,” the little man cried, holding
+out his arms as if to receive it.
+
+“Dinna, David,” pleaded Maggie, with restraining hand on her lover's
+arm.
+
+“By the Lord! I'll give him something!” yelled the boy. Close by there
+stood a pail of soapy water. He seized it, swung it, and slashed its
+contents at the leering face in the window.
+
+The little man started back, but the dirty torrent caught him and soused
+him through. The bucket followed, struck him full on the chest, and
+rolled him over in the mud. After it with a rush came David.
+
+“I'll let yo' know, spyin' on me!” he yelled. “I'll--”
+
+Maggie, whose face was as white now as it had been crimson, clung to
+him, hampering him.
+
+“Dinna, David, dinna!” she implored. “He's yer ain dad.”
+
+“I'll dad him! I'll learn him!” roared David half through the window.
+
+At the moment Sam'l Todd came floundering furiously round the corner,
+closely followed by 'Enry and oor Job.
+
+“Is he dead?” shouted Sam'l seeing the prostrate form.
+
+“Ho! ho!” went the other two.
+
+They picked up the draggled little man and hustled him out of the yard
+like a thief, a man on either side and a man behind.
+
+As they forced him through the gate, he struggled round.
+
+“By Him that made ye! ye shall pay for this, David M'Adam, you and
+yer--”
+
+But Sam'l's big hand descended on his mouth, and he was borne away
+before that last ill word had flitted into being.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI. HORROR OF DARKNESS
+
+
+IT was long past dark that night when M'Adam staggered home.
+
+All that evening at the Sylvester Arms his imprecations against David
+had made even the hardest shudder. James Moore, Owd Bob, and the Dale
+Cup were for once forgotten as, in his passion, he cursed his son.
+
+The Dalesmen gathered fearfully away from the little dripping madman.
+For once these men, whom, as a rule, no such geyser outbursts could
+quell, were dumb before him; only now and then shooting furtive glances
+in his direction, as though on the brink of some daring enterprise
+of which he was the objective. But M'Adam noticed nothing, suspected
+nothing.
+
+When, at length, he lurched into the kitchen of the Grange, there was no
+light and the fire burnt low. So dark was the room that a white riband
+of paper pinned on to the table escaped his remark.
+
+The little man sat down heavily, his clothes still sodden, and resumed
+his tireless anathema.
+
+“I've tholed mair fra him, Wullie, than Adam M'Adam ever thocht to thole
+from ony man. And noo it's gane past bearin'. He struck me, Wullie!
+struck his ain father. Ye see it yersel', Wullie. Na, ye werena there.
+Oh, gin ye had but bin, Wullie! Him and his madam! But I'll gar him ken
+Adam M'Adam. I'll stan' nae mair!”
+
+He sprang to his feet and, reaching up with trembling hands, pulled down
+the old bell-mouthed blunderbuss that hung above the mantelpiece.
+
+“We'll mak' an end to't, Wullie, so we will, aince and for a'!” And he
+banged the weapon down upon the table. It lay right athwart that slip of
+still condemning paper, yet the little man saw it not.
+
+Resuming his seat, he prepared to wait. His hand sought the pocket of
+his coat, and fingered tenderly a small stone bottle, the fond companion
+of his widowhood. He pulled it out, uncorked it, and took a long pull;
+then placed it on the table by his side.
+
+Gradually the gray head lolled; the shrivelled hand dropped and hung
+limply down, the finger-tips brushing the floor; and he dozed off into a
+heavy sleep, while Red Wull watched at his feet.
+
+It was not till an hour later that David returned home.
+
+As he approached the lightless house, standing in the darkness like a
+body with the spirit fled, he could but contrast this dreary home of his
+with the bright kitchen and cheery faces he had left.
+
+Entering the house, he groped to the kitchen door and opened it; then
+struck a match and stood in the doorway peering in.
+
+“Not home, bain't he?” he muttered, the tiny light above his head. “Wet
+inside as well as oot by noo, I'll lay. By gum! but 'twas a lucky thing
+for him I didna get ma hand on him this evenin'. I could ha' killed
+him.” He held the match above his head.
+
+Two yellow eyes, glowing in the darkness like cairngorms, and a small
+dim figure bunched up in a chair, told him his surmise was wrong. Many
+a time had he seen his father in such case before, and now he muttered
+contemptuously:
+
+“Drunk; the leetle swab! Sleepin' it off, I reck'n.”
+
+Then he saw his mistake. The hand that hung above the floor twitched and
+was still again.
+
+There was a clammy silence. A mouse, emboldened by the quiet, scuttled
+across the hearth. One mighty paw lightly moved; a lightning tap, and
+the tiny beast lay dead.
+
+Again that hollow stillness: no sound, no movement; only those two
+unwinking eyes fixed on him immovable.
+
+At length a small voice from the fireside broke the quiet.
+
+“Drunk--the--leetle--swab!”
+
+Again a clammy silence, and a life-long pause.
+
+“I thowt yo' was sleepin',” said David, at length, lamely.
+
+“Ay, so ye said. 'Sleepin' it aff'; I heard ye.” Then, still in the same
+small voice, now quivering imperceptibly, “Wad ye obleege me, sir, by
+leetin' the lamp? Or, d'ye think, Wullie, 'twad be soilin' his dainty
+fingers? They're mair used, I'm told, to danderin' with the bonnie brown
+hair o' his--”
+
+“I'll not ha' ye talk o' ma Maggie so,” interposed the boy passionately.
+
+“_His_ Maggie, mark ye, Wullie--_his_! I thocht 'twad soon get that
+far.”
+
+“Tak' care, dad! I'll stan' but little more,” the boy warned him in
+choking voice; and began to trim the lamp with trembling fingers.
+
+M'Adam forthwith addressed himself to Red Wull.
+
+“I suppose no man iver had sic a son as him, Wullie. Ye ken what I've
+done for him, an' ye ken hoo he's repaid it. He's set himsel' agin
+me; he's misca'd me; he's robbed me o' ma Cup; last of all, he struck
+me--struck me afore them a'. We've toiled for him, you and I, Wullie;
+we've slaved to keep him in hoose an' hame, an' he's passed his time,
+the while, in riotous leevin', carousin' at Kenmuir, amusin' himself'
+wi' his--” He broke off short. The lamp was lit, and the strip of paper,
+pinned on to the table, naked and glaring, caught his eye.
+
+“What's this?” he muttered; and unloosed the nail that clamped it down.
+
+This is what he read:
+
+“Adam Mackadam yer warned to mak' an end to yer Red Wull will be best
+for him and the Sheep. This is the first yo'll have two more the third
+will be the last--”
+
+It was written in pencil, and the only signature was a dagger, rudely
+lined in red.
+
+M'Adam read the paper once, twice, thrice. As he slowly assimilated
+its meaning, the blood faded from his face. He stared at it and still
+stared, with whitening face and pursed lips. Then he stole a glance at
+David's broad back.
+
+“What d'ye ken o' this, David?” he asked, at length, in a dry thin
+voice, reaching forward in his chair.
+
+“O' what?”
+
+“O' this,” holding up the slip. “And ye'el obleege me by the truth for
+once.”
+
+David turned, took up the paper, read it, and laughed harshly.
+
+“It's coom to this, has it?” he said, still laughing, and yet with
+blanching face.
+
+“Ye ken what it means. I daresay ye pit it there; aiblins writ it. Ye'll
+explain it.” The little man spoke in the same small, even voice, and his
+eyes never moved off his son's face.
+
+“I've heard naethin'.... I'd like the truth, David, if ye can tell it.”
+
+The boy smiled a forced, unnatural smile, looking from his father to the
+paper in his hand.
+
+“Yo' shall have it, but yo'll not like it. It's this: Tupper lost a
+sheep to the Killer last night.”
+
+“And what if he did?” The little man rose smoothly to his feet. Each
+noticed the others' face--dead-white.
+
+“Why, he--lost--it--on--Wheer d'yo' think?” He drawled the words out,
+dwelling almost lovingly on each.
+
+“Where?”
+
+“On--the--Red--Screes.”
+
+The crash was coming--inevitable now. David knew it, knew that nothing
+could avert it, and braced himself to meet it. The smile had fled from
+his face, and his breath fluttered in his throat like the wind before a
+thunderstorm.
+
+“What of it?” The little man's voice was calm as a summer sea.
+
+“Why, your Wullie--as I told yo'--was on the Screes last night.”
+
+“Go on, David.”
+
+“And this,” holding up the paper, “tells you that they ken as I ken
+noo, as maist o' them ha' kent this mony a day, that your Wullie, Red
+Wull--the Terror--”
+
+“Go on.”
+
+“Is--”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“The Black Killer.”
+
+It was spoken.
+
+The frayed string was snapped at last. The little man's hand flashed to
+the bottle that stood before him.
+
+“Ye--liar!” he shrieked, and threw it with all his strength at the boy's
+head. David dodged and ducked, and the bottle hurtled over his shoulder.
+
+Crash! it whizzed into the lamp behind, and broke on the wall beyond,
+its contents trickling down the wall to the floor.
+
+For a moment, darkness. Then the spirits met the lamp's smouldering wick
+and blazed into flame.
+
+By the sudden light David saw his father on the far side the table,
+pointing with crooked forefinger. By his side Red Wull was standing
+alert, hackles up, yellow fangs bared, eyes lurid; and, at his feet, the
+wee brown mouse lay still and lifeless.
+
+“Oot o' ma hoose! Back to Kenmuir! Back to yer ----” The unpardonable
+word, unmistakable, hovered for a second on his lips like some foul
+bubble, and never burst.
+
+“No mither this time!” panted David, racing round the table.
+
+“Wullie!”
+
+The Terror leapt to the attack; but David overturned the table as
+he ran, the blunderbuss crashing to the floor; it fell, opposing a
+momentary barrier in the dog's path.
+
+“Stan' off, ye--!” screeched the little man, seizing a chair in both
+hands; “stan' off, or I'll brain ye!”
+
+But David was on him.
+
+“Wullie, Wullie, to me!”
+
+Again the Terror came with a roar like the sea. But David, with a mighty
+kick catching him full on the jaw, repelled the attack.
+
+Then he gripped his father round the waist and lifted him from the
+ground. The little man, struggling in those iron arms, screamed, cursed,
+and battered at the face above him, kicking and biting in his frenzy.
+
+“The Killer! wad ye ken wha's the Killer? Go and ask 'em at Kenmuir! Ask
+yer ----”
+
+David swayed slightly, crushing the body in his arms till it seemed
+every rib must break; then hurled it from him with all the might of
+passion. The little man fell with a crash and a groan.
+
+The blaze in the corner flared, flickered, and died. There was
+hell-black darkness, and silence of the dead.
+
+David stood against the wall, panting, every nerve tightstrung as the
+hawser of a straining ship.
+
+In the corner lay the body of his father, limp and still; and in the
+room one other living thing was moving.
+
+He clung close to the wall, pressing it with wet hands. The horror of
+it all, the darkness, the man in the corner, that moving something,
+petrified him.
+
+“Feyther!” he whispered.
+
+There was no reply. A chair creaked at an invisible touch. Something was
+creeping, stealing, crawling closer.
+
+David was afraid.
+
+“Feyther!” he whispered in hoarse agony, “are yo' hurt?”
+
+The words were stifled in his throat. A chair overturned with a crash; a
+great body struck him on the chest; a hot, pestilent breath volleyed in
+his face, and wolfish teeth were reaching for his throat.
+
+“Come on, Killer!” he screamed.
+
+The horror of suspense was past. It had come, and with it he was himself
+again.
+
+Back, back, back, along the wall he was borne. His hands entwined
+themselves around a hairy throat; he forced the great head with its
+horrid lightsome eyes from him; he braced himself for the effort, lifted
+the huge body at his breast, and heaved it from him. It struck the wall
+and fell with a soft thud.
+
+As he recoiled a hand clutched his ankle and sought to trip him. David
+kicked back and down with all his strength. There was one awful groan,
+and he staggered against the door and out.
+
+There he paused, leaning against the wall to' breathe.
+
+He struck a match and lifted his foot to see where the hand had clutched
+him.
+
+God! there was blood on his heel.
+
+Then a great fear laid hold on him. A cry was suffocated in his breast
+by the panting of his heart.
+
+He crept back to the kitchen door and listened.
+
+Not a sound.
+
+Fearfully he opened it a crack.
+
+Silence of the tomb.
+
+He banged it to. It opened behind him, and the fact lent wings to his
+feet.
+
+He turned and plunged out into the night, and ran through the blackness
+for his life. And a great owl swooped softly by and hooted mockingly:
+
+“For your life! for your life! for your life!”
+
+
+
+
+PART V OWD BOB O' KENMUIR
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII A MAN AND A MAID
+
+
+IN the village even the Black Killer and the murder on the Screes were
+forgotten in this new sensation. The mystery in which the affair was
+wrapped, and the ignorance as to all its details, served to whet the
+general interest. There had been a fight; M'Adam and the Terror had been
+mauled; and David had disappeared--those were the facts. But what was
+the origin of the affray no one could say.
+
+One or two of the Dalesmen had, indeed, a shrewd suspicion. Tupper
+looked guilty; Jem Burton muttered, “I knoo hoo 'twould be”; while as
+for Long Kirby, he vanished entirely, not to reappear till three months
+had sped.
+
+Injured as he had been, M'Adam was yet sufficiently recovered to appear
+in the Sylvester Arms on the Saturday following the battle. He entered
+the tap-room silently with never a word to a soul; one arm was in a
+sling and his head bandaged. He eyed every man present critically; and
+all, except Tammas, who was brazen, and Jim Mason, who was innocent,
+fidgeted beneath the stare. Maybe it was well for Long Kirby he was not
+there.
+
+“Onythin' the matter?” asked Jem, at length, rather lamely, in view of
+the plain evidences of battle.
+
+“Na, na; naethin' oot o' the ordinar',” the little man replied,
+giggling. “Only David set on me, and me sleepin'. And,” with a shrug,
+“here I am noo.” He sat down, wagging his bandaged head and grinning.
+“Ye see he's sae playfu', is Davie. He wangs ye o'er the head wi' a
+chair, kicks ye in the jaw, stamps on yer wame, and all as merry as
+May.” And nothing further could they get from him, except that if David
+reappeared it was his firm resolve to hand him over to the police for
+attempted parricide.
+
+“'Brutal assault on an auld man by his son!' 'Twill look well in the
+Argus; he! he! They couldna let him aff under two years, I'm thinkin'.”
+
+M'Adam's version of the affair was received with quiet incredulity. The
+general verdict was that he had brought his punishment entirely on his
+own head. Tammas, indeed, who was always rude when he was not witty,
+and, in fact, the difference between the two things is only one of
+degree, told him straight: “It served yo' well reet. An' I nob'but wish
+he'd made an end to yo'.”
+
+“He did his best, puir lad,” M'Adam reminded him gently.
+
+“We've had enough o' yo',” continued the uncompromising old man. “I'm
+fair grieved he didna slice yer throat while he was at it.”
+
+At that M'Adam raised his eyebrows, stared, and then broke into a low
+whistle.
+
+“That's it, is it?” he muttered, as though a new light was dawning on
+him. “Ah, noo I see.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The days passed on. There was still no news of the missing one, and
+Maggie's face became pitifully white and haggard.
+
+Of course she did not believe that David had attempted to murder his
+father, desperately tried as she knew he had been. Still, it was a
+terrible thought to her that he might at any moment be arrested; and her
+girlish imagination was perpetually conjuring up horrid pictures of a
+trial, conviction, and the things that followed.
+
+Then Sam'l started a wild theory that the little man had murdered his
+son, and thrown the mangled body down the dry well at the Grange. The
+story was, of course, preposterous, and, coming from such a source,
+might well have been discarded with the ridicule it deserved. Yet it
+served to set the cap on the girl's fears; and she resolved, at whatever
+cost, to visit the Grange, beard M'Adam, and discover whether he could
+not or would not allay her gnawing apprehension.
+
+Her intent she concealed from her father, knowing well that were she to
+reveal it to him, he would gently but firmly forbid the attempt; and on
+an afternoon some fortnight after David's disappearance, choosing her
+opportunity, she picked up a shawl, threw it over her head, and fled
+with palpitating heart out of the farm and down the slope to the
+Wastrel.
+
+The little plank-bridge rattled as she tripped across it; and she fled
+faster lest any one should have heard and come to look. And, indeed, at
+the moment it rattled again behind her, and she started guiltily round.
+It proved, however, to be only Owd Bob, sweeping after, and she was
+glad.
+
+“Comin' wi' me, lad?” she asked as the old dog cantered up, thankful to
+have that gray protector with her.
+
+Round Langholm now fled the two conspirators; over the summer-clad lower
+slopes of the Pike, until, at length, they reached the Stony Bottom.
+Down the bramble-covered bank of the ravine the girl slid; picked her
+way from stone to stone across the streamlet tinkling in that rocky bed;
+and scrambled up the opposite bank.
+
+At the top she halted and looked back. The smoke from Kenmuir was
+winding slowly up against the sky; to her right the low gray cottages of
+the village cuddled in the bosom of the Dale; far away over the Marches
+towered the gaunt Scaur; before her rolled the swelling slopes of the
+Muir Pike; while behind--she glanced timidly over her shoulder--was the
+hill, at the top of which squatted the Grange, lifeless, cold, scowling.
+
+Her heart failed her. In her whole life she had never spoken to M'Adam.
+Yet she knew him well enough from all David's accounts--ay, and hated
+him for David's sake. She hated him and feared him, too; feared him
+mortally--this terrible little man. And, with a shudder, she recalled
+the dim face at the window, and thought of his notorious hatred of her
+father. But even M'Adam could hardly harm a girl coming, broken-hearted,
+to seek her lover. Besides, was not Owd Bob with her?
+
+And, turning, she saw the old dog standing a little way up the hill,
+looking back at her as though he wondered why she waited. “Am I not
+enough?” the faithful gray eyes seemed to say.
+
+“Lad, I'm fear'd,” was her answer to the unspoken question.
+
+Yet that look determined her. She clenched her little teeth, drew the
+shawl about her, and set off running up the hill.
+
+Soon the run dwindled to a walk, the walk to a crawl, and the crawl to
+a halt. Her breath was coming painfully, and her heart pattered against
+her side like the beatings of an imprisoned bird. Again her gray
+guardian looked up, encouraging her forward.
+
+“Keep close, lad,” she whispered, starting forward afresh. And the old
+dog ranged up beside her, shoving into her skirt, as though to let her
+feel his presence.
+
+So they reached the top of the hill; and the house stood before them,
+grim, unfriendly.
+
+The girl's face was now quite white, yet set; the resemblance to her
+father was plain to see. With lips compressed and breath quick-coming,
+she crossed the threshold, treading softly as though in a house of the
+dead. There she paused and lifted a warning finger at her companion,
+bidding him halt without; then she turned to the door on the left of the
+entrance and tapped.
+
+She listened, her head buried in the shawl, close to the wood panelling.
+There was no answer; she could only hear the drumming of her heart.
+
+She knocked again. From within came the scraping of a chair cautiously
+shoved back, followed by a deep-mouthed cavernous growl.
+
+Her heart stood still, but she turned the handle and entered, leaving a
+crack open behind.
+
+On the far side the room a little man was sitting. His head was swathed
+in dirty bandages, and a bottle was on the table beside him. He was
+leaning forward; his face was gray, and there was a stare of naked
+horror in his eyes. One hand grasped the great dog who stood at his
+side, with yellow teeth glinting, and muzzle hideously wrinkled; with
+the other he pointed a palsied finger at her.
+
+“Ma God! wha are ye?” he cried hoarsely.
+
+The girl stood hard against the door, her fingers still on the handle;
+trembling like an aspen at the sight of that uncannie pair.
+
+That look in the little man's eyes petrified her: the swollen pupils;
+lashless lids, yawning wide; the broken range of teeth in that gaping
+mouth, froze her very soul. Rumors of the man's insanity tided back on
+her memory.
+
+“I'm--I--” the words came in trembling gasps.
+
+At the first utterance, however, the little man's hand dropped; he leant
+back in his chair and gave a soul-bursting sigh of relief.
+
+No woman had crossed that threshold since his wife died; and, for a
+moment, when first the girl had entered silent-footed, aroused from
+dreaming of the long ago, he had thought this shawl-clad figure with the
+pale face and peeping hair no earthly visitor; the spirit, rather, of
+one he had loved long since and lost, come to reproach him with a broken
+troth.
+
+“Speak up, I canna hear,” he said, in tones mild compared with those
+last wild words.
+
+“I--I'm Maggie Moore,” the girl quavered.
+
+“Moore! Maggie Moore, d'ye say?” he cried, half rising from his chair,
+a flush of color sweeping across his face, “the dochter o' James Moore?”
+ He paused for an answer, glowering at her; and she shrank, trembling,
+against the door.
+
+The little man leant back in his chair. Gradually a grim smile crept
+across his countenance.
+
+“Weel, Maggie Moore,” he said, halfamused, “ony gate ye're a good
+plucked un.” And his wizened countenance looked at her almost kindly
+from beneath its dirty crown of bandages.
+
+At that the girl's courage returned with a rush. After all this little
+man was not so very terrible. Perhaps he would be kind. And in the
+relief of the moment, the blood swept back into her face.
+
+There was not to be peace yet, however. The blush was still hot upon her
+cheeks, when she caught the patter of soft steps in the passage without.
+A dark muzzle flecked with gray pushed in at the crack of the door; two
+anxious gray eyes followed.
+
+Before she could wave him back, Red Wull had marked the intruder. With
+a roar he tore himself from his master's restraining hand, and dashed
+across the room.
+
+“Back, Bob!” screamed Maggie, and the dark head withdrew. The door
+slammed with a crash as the great dog flung himself against it, and
+Maggie was hurled, breathless and white-faced, into a corner.
+
+M'Adam was on his feet, pointing with a shrivelled finger, his face
+diabolical.
+
+“Did you bring him? did you bring _that_ to ma door?”
+
+Maggie huddled in the corner in a palsy of trepidation. Her eyes gleamed
+big and black in the white face peering from the shawl.
+
+Red Wull was now beside her snarling horribly. With nose to the bottom
+of the door and busy paws he was trying to get out; while, on the other
+side, Owd Bob, snuffling also at the crack, scratched and pleaded to get
+in. Only two miserable wooden inches separated the pair.
+
+“I brought him to protect me. I--I was afraid.”
+
+M'Adam sat down and laughed abruptly.
+
+“Afraid! I wonder ye were na afraid to bring him here. It's the first
+time iver he's set foot on ma land, and 't had best be the last” He
+turned to the great dog. “Wullie, Wullie, wad ye?” he called. “Come
+here. Lay ye doon--so--under ma chair--good lad. Noo's no the time to
+settle wi' him”--nodding toward the door. “We can wait for that, Wullie;
+we can wait.” Then, turning to Maggie, “Gin ye want him to mak' a show
+at the Trials two months hence, he'd best not come here agin. Gin he
+does, he'll no leave ma land alive; Wullie'll see to that. Noo, what is
+'t ye want o'me?”
+
+The girl in the corner, scared almost out of her senses by this last
+occurrence, remained dumb.
+
+M'Adam marked her hesitation, and grinned sardonically.
+
+“I see hoo 'tis,” said he; “yer dad's sent ye. Aince before he wanted
+somethin' o' me, and did he come to fetch it himself like a man? Not he.
+He sent the son to rob the father.” Then, leaning forward in his chair
+and glaring at the girl, “Ay, and mair than that! The night the lad
+set on me he cam'”--with hissing emphasis--“straight from Kenmuir!” He
+paused and stared at her intently, and she was still dumb before him.
+“Gin I'd ben killed, Wullie'd ha' bin disqualified from competin' for
+the Cup. With Adam M'Adam's Red Wull oot o' the way--noo d'ye see? Noo
+d'ye onderstan'?”
+
+She did not, and he saw it and was satisfied. What he had been saying
+she neither knew nor cared. She only remembered the object of her
+mission; she only saw before her the father of the man she loved; and a
+wave of emotion surged up in her breast.
+
+She advanced timidly toward him, holding out her hands.
+
+“Eh, Mr. M'Adam,” she pleaded, “I come to ask ye after David.” The shawl
+had slipped from her head, and lay loose upon her shoulders; and she
+stood before him with her sad face, her pretty hair all tossed, and her
+eyes big with unshed tears--a touching suppliant.
+
+“Will ye no tell me wheer he is? I'd not ask it, I'd not trouble yo',
+but I've bin waitin' a waefu' while, it seems, and I'm wearyin' for news
+o' him.”
+
+The little man looked at her curiously. “Ah, noo I mind me,”--this to
+himself. “You' the lass as is thinkin' o' marryin' him?”
+
+“We're promised,” the girl answered simply.
+
+“Weel,” the other remarked, “as I said afore, ye're a good plucked un.”
+ Then, in a tone in which, despite the cynicism, a certain indefinable
+sadness was blended, “Gin he mak's you as good husband as he mad' son to
+me, ye'll ha' made a maist remairkable match, my dear.”
+
+Maggie fired in a moment.
+
+“A good feyther makes a good son,” she answered almost pertly; and then,
+with infinite tenderness, “and I'm prayin' a good wife'll make a good
+husband.”
+
+He smiled scoffingly.
+
+“I'm feared that'll no help ye much,” he said.
+
+But the girl never heeded this last sneer, so set was she on her
+purpose. She had heard of the one tender place in the heart of this
+little man with the tired face and mocking tongue, and she resolved to
+attain her end by appealing to it.
+
+“Yo' loved a lass yo'sel' aince, Mr. M'Adam,” she said. “Hoo would yo'
+ha' felt had she gone away and left yo'? Yo'd ha' bin mad; yo' know yo'
+would. And, Mr. M'Adam, I love the lad yer wife loved.” She was kneeling
+at his feet now with both hands on his knees, looking up at him. Her sad
+face and quivering lips pleaded for her more eloquently than any words.
+
+The little man was visibly touched.
+
+“Ay, ay, lass, that's enough,” he said, trying to avoid those big
+beseeching eyes which would not be avoided.
+
+“Will ye no tell me?” she pleaded.
+
+“I canna tell ye, lass, for why, I dinna ken,” he answered querulously.
+In truth, he was moved to the heart by her misery.
+
+The girl's last hopes were dashed. She had played her last card and
+failed. She had clung with the fervor of despair to this last resource,
+and now it was torn from her. She had hoped, and now there was no hope.
+In the anguish of her disappointment she remembered that this was the
+man who, by his persistent cruelty, had driven her love into exile.
+
+She rose to her feet and stood back.
+
+“Nor ken, nor care!” she cried bitterly.
+
+At the words all the softness fled from the little man's face.
+
+“Ye do me a wrang, lass; ye do indeed,” he said, looking up at her with
+an assumed ingenuousness which, had she known him better, would have
+warned her to beware. “Gin I kent where the lad was I'd be the vairy
+first to let you, and the p'lice, ken it too; eh, Wullie! he! he!” He
+chuckled at his wit and rubbed his knees, regardless of the contempt
+blazing in the girl's face.
+
+“I canna tell ye where he is now, but ye'd aiblins care to hear o' when
+I saw him last.” He turned his chair the better to address her.
+
+“Twas like so: I was sittin' in this vairy chair it was, asleep, when
+he crep' up behind an' lep' on ma back. I knew naethin' o't till I found
+masel' on the floor an' him kneelin' on me. I saw by the look on him he
+was set on finishin' me, so I said--”
+
+The girl waved her hand at him, superbly disdainful.
+
+“Yo' ken yo're lyin', ivery word o't,” she cried.
+
+The little man hitched his trousers, crossed his legs, and yawned.
+
+“An honest lee for an honest purpose is a matter ony man may be proud
+of, as you'll ken by the time you're my years, ma lass.”
+
+The girl slowly crossed the room. At the door she turned.
+
+“Then ye'll no tell me wheer he is?” she asked with a heart-breaking
+trill in her voice.
+
+“On ma word, lass, I dinna ken,” he cried, half passionately.
+
+“On your word, Mr. M'Adam” she said with a quiet scorn in her voice that
+might have stung Iscariot.
+
+The little man spun round in his chair, an angry red dyeing his cheeks.
+In another moment he was suave and smiling again.
+
+“I canna tell ye where he is noo,” he said, unctuously; “but aiblins, I
+could let ye know where he's gaein' to.”
+
+“Can yo'? will yo'?” cried the simple girl all unsuspecting. In a moment
+she was across the room and at his knees.
+
+“Closer, and I'll whisper.” The little ear, peeping from its nest of
+brown, was tremblingly approached to his lips. The little man lent
+forward and whispered one short, sharp word, then sat back, grinning, to
+watch the effect of his disclosure.
+
+He had his revenge, an unworthy revenge on such a victim. And, watching
+the girl's face, the cruel disappointment merging in the heat of her
+indignation, he had yet enough nobility to regret his triumph.
+
+She sprang from him as though he were unclean.
+
+“An' yo' his father!” she cried, in burning tones.
+
+She crossed the room, and at the door paused. Her face was white again
+and she was quite composed.
+
+“If David did strike you, you drove him to it,” she said, speaking in
+calm, gentle accents. “Yo' know, none so well, whether yo've bin a good
+feyther to him, and him no mither, poor laddie! Whether yo've bin to him
+what she'd ha' had yo' be. Ask yer conscience, Mr. M'Adam. An' if he
+was a wee aggravatin' at times, had he no reason? He'd a heavy cross to
+bear, had David, and yo' know best if yo' helped to ease it for him.”
+
+The little man pointed to the door; but the girl paid no heed.
+
+“D'yo' think when yo' were cruel to him, jeerin' and fleerin', he never
+felt it, because he was too proud to show ye? He'd a big saft heart, had
+David, beneath the varnish. Mony's the time when mither was alive, I've
+seen him throw himsel' into her arms, sobbin', and cry, 'Eh, if I had
+but mither! 'Twas different when mither was alive; he was kinder to me
+then. An' noo I've no one; I'm alone.' An' he'd sob and sob in mither's
+arms, and she, weepin' hersel', would comfort him, while he, wee laddie,
+would no be comforted, cryin' broken-like, 'There's none to care for me
+noo; I'm alone. Mither's left me and eh! I'm prayin' to be wi' her!'”
+
+The clear, girlish voice shook. M'Adam, sitting with face averted,
+waved to her, mutely ordering her to be gone. But she held on, gentle,
+sorrowful, relentless.
+
+“An' what'll yo' say to his mither when yo meet her, as yo' must soon
+noo, and she asks yo', 'An what o' David? What o' th' lad I left wi'
+yo', Adam, to guard and keep for me, faithful and true, till this Day?'
+And then yo'll ha' to speak the truth, God's truth; and yo'll ha' to
+answer, 'Sin' the day yo' left me I niver said a kind word to the lad.
+I niver bore wi' him, and niver tried to. And in the end I drove him by
+persecution to try and murder me.' Then maybe she'll look at yo'--yo'
+best ken hoo--and she'll say, 'Adam, Adam! is this what I deserved fra
+yo'?'”
+
+The gentle, implacable voice ceased. The girl turned and slipped softly
+out of the room; and M'Adam was left alone to his thoughts and his dead
+wife's memory.
+
+“Mither and father, baith! Mither and father, baith!” rang remorselessly
+in his ears.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII TH' OWD UN
+
+
+THE Black Killer still cursed the land. Sometimes there would be a
+cessation in the crimes; then a shepherd, going his rounds, would notice
+his sheep herding together, packing in unaccustomed squares; a raven,
+gorged to the crop, would rise before him and flap wearily away, and he
+would come upon the murderer's latest victim.
+
+The Dalesmen were in despair, so utterly futile had their efforts been.
+There was no proof; no hope, no apparent probability that the end was
+near. As for the Tailless Tyke, the only piece of evidence against him
+had flown with David, who, as it chanced, had divulged what he had seen
+to no man.
+
+The 100 pound reward offered had brought no issue. The police had done
+nothing. The Special Commissioner had been equally successful. After
+the affair in the Scoop the Killer never ran a risk, yet never missed a
+chance.
+
+Then, as a last resource, Jim Mason made his attempt. He took a holiday
+from his duties and disappeared into the wilderness. Three days and
+three nights no man saw him.
+
+On the morning of the fourth he reappeared, haggard, unkempt, a furtive
+look haunting his eyes, sullen for once, irritable, who had never been
+irritable before--to confess his failure. Cross-examined further, he
+answered with unaccustomed fierceness: “I seed nowt, I tell ye. Who's
+the liar as said I did?”
+
+But that night his missus heard him in his sleep conning over something
+to himself in slow, fearful whisper, “Two on 'em; one ahint t'other. The
+first big--bull-like; t'ither--” At which point Mrs. Mason smote him a
+smashing blow in the ribs, and he woke in a sweat, crying terribly, “Who
+said I seed--”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The days were slipping away; the summer was hot upon the land, and with
+it the Black Killer was forgotten; David was forgotten; everything
+sank into oblivion before the all-absorbing interest of the coming Dale
+trials.
+
+The long-anticipated battle for the Shepherds' Trophy was looming close;
+soon everything that hung upon the issue of that struggle would be
+decided finally. For ever the justice of Th' Owd Un' claim to his
+proud title would be settled. If he won, he won outright--a thing
+unprecedented in the annals of the Cup; if he won, the place of Owd Bob
+o' Kenmuir as first in his profession was assured for all time. Above
+all, it was the last event in the six years' struggle 'twixt Red and
+Gray It was the last time those two great rivals would meet in battle.
+The supremacy of one would be decided once and for all. For win or lose,
+it was the last public appearance of the Gray Dog of Kenmuir.
+
+And as every hour brought the great day nearer, nothing else was talked
+of in the country-side. The heat of the Dalesmen's enthusiasm was only
+intensified by the fever of their apprehension. Many a man would lose
+more than he cared to contemplate were Th' Owd Un beat. But he'd not be!
+Nay; owd, indeed, he was--two years older than his great rival; there
+were a hundred risks, a hundred chances; still: “What's the odds agin
+Owd Bob o' Kenmuir? I'm takin' 'em. Who'll lay agin Th' Owd Un?”
+
+And with the air saturated with this perpetual talk of the old dog,
+these everlasting references to his certain victory; his ears drumming
+with the often boast that the gray dog was the best in the North,
+M'Adam became the silent, ill-designing man of six months since--morose,
+brooding, suspicious, muttering of conspiracy, plotting revenge.
+
+The scenes at the Sylvester Arms were replicas of those of previous
+years. Usually the little man sat isolated in a far corner, silent
+and glowering, with Red Wull at his feet. Now and then he burst into
+a paroxysm of insane giggling, slapping his thigh, and muttering,
+“Ay, it's likely they'll beat us, Wullie. Yet aiblins there's a wee
+somethin'--a somethin' we ken and they dinna, Wullie,--eh! Wullie, he!
+he!” And sometimes he would leap to his feet and address his pot-house
+audience, appealing to them passionately, satirically, tearfully, as the
+mood might be on him; and his theme was always the same: James Moore,
+Owd Bob, the Cup, and the plots agin him and his Wullie; and always he
+concluded with that hint of the surprise to come.
+
+Meantime, there was no news of David; he had gone as utterly as a ship
+foundered in mid-Atlantic. Some said he'd 'listed; some, that he'd gone
+to sea. And “So he 'as,” corroborated Sam'l, “floatin', 'eels uppards.”
+
+With no gleam of consolation, Maggie's misery was such as to rouse
+compassion in all hearts. She went no longer blithely singing about
+her work; and all the springiness had fled from her gait. The people of
+Kenmuir vied with one another in their attempts to console their young
+mistress.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Maggie was not the only one in whose life David's absence had created
+a void. Last as he would have been to own it, M'Adam felt acutely the
+boy's loss. It may have been he missed the ever-present butt; it may
+have been a nobler feeling. Alone with Red Wull, too late he felt his
+loneliness. Sometimes, sitting in the kitchen by himself, thinking of
+the past, he experienced sharp pangs of remorse; and this was all the
+more the case after Maggie's visit. Subsequent to that day the little
+man, to do him justice, was never known to hint by word or look an ill
+thing of his enemy's daughter. Once, indeed, when Melia Ross was drawing
+on a dirty imagination with Maggie for subject, M'Adam shut her up with:
+“Ye're a maist amazin' big liar, Melia Ross.”
+
+Yet, though for the daughter he had now no evil thought, his hatred for
+the father had never been so uncompromising.
+
+He grew reckless in his assertions. His life was one long threat against
+James Moore's. Now he openly stated his conviction that, on the eventful
+night of the fight, James Moore, with object easily discernible, had
+egged David on to murder him.
+
+“Then why don't yo' go and tell him so, yo' muckle liar?” roared Tammas
+at last, enraged to madness.
+
+“I will!” said M'Adam. And he did.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was on the day preceding the great summer sheep fair at Grammoch-town
+that he fulfilled his vow.
+
+That is always a big field-day at Kenmuir; and on this occasion James
+Moore and Owd Bob had been up and working on the Pike from the rising of
+the sun. Throughout the straggling lands of Kenmuir the Master went
+with his untiring adjutant, rounding up, cutting out, drafting. It was
+already noon when the flock started from the yard.
+
+On the gate by the stile, as the party came up, sat M'Adam.
+
+“I've a word to say to you, James Moore,” he announced, as the Master
+approached.
+
+“Say it then, and quick. I've no time to stand gossipin' here, if yo'
+have,” said the Master.
+
+M'Adam strained forward till he nearly toppled off the gate.
+
+“Queer thing, James Moore, you should be the only one to escape this
+Killer.”
+
+“Yo' forget yoursel', M'Adam.”
+
+“Ay, there's me,” acquiesced the little man. “But you--hoo d'yo' 'count
+for _your_ luck?”
+
+James Moore swung round and pointed proudly at the gray dog, now
+patrolling round the flock.
+
+“There's my luck!” he said.
+
+M'Adam laughed unpleasantly.
+
+“So I thought,” he said, “so I thought! And I s'pose ye're thinkin' that
+yer luck,” nodding at the gray dog, “will win you the Cup for certain a
+month hence.”
+
+“I hope so!” said the Master.
+
+“Strange if he should not after all,” mused the little man.
+
+James Moore eyed him suspiciously. “What d'yo' mean?” he asked sternly.
+M'Adam shrugged his shoulders. “There's mony a slip 'twixt Cup and lip,
+that's a'. I was thinkin' some mischance might come to him.”
+
+The Master's eyes flashed dangerously. He recalled the many rumors he
+had heard, and the attempt on the old dog early in the year.
+
+“I canna think ony one would be coward enough to murder him,” he said,
+drawing himself up.
+
+M'Adam leant forward. There was a nasty glitter in his eye, and his face
+was all a-tremble.
+
+“Ye'd no think ony one 'd be cooard enough to set the son to murder the
+father. Yet some one did--set the lad on to 'sassinate me. He failed at
+me, and next, I suppose, he'll try at Wullie!” There was a flush on
+the sallow face, and a vindictive ring in the thin voice. “One way or
+t'ither, fair or foul, Wullie or me, ain or baith, has got to go afore
+Cup Day, eh, James Moore! eh?”
+
+The Master put his hand on the latch of the gate, “That'll do, M'Adam,”
+ he said. “I'll stop to hear no more, else I might get angry wi' yo'. Noo
+git off this gate, yo're trespassin' as 'tis.”
+
+He shook the gate. M'Adam tumbled off, and went sprawling into the sheep
+clustered below. Picking himself up, he dashed on through the flock,
+waving his arms, kicking fantastically, and scattering confusion
+everywhere.
+
+“Just wait till I'm thro' wi' 'em, will yo'?” shouted the Master, seeing
+the danger.
+
+It was a request which, according to the etiquette of shepherding, one
+man was bound to grant another. But M'Adam rushed on regardless, dancing
+and gesticulating. Save for the lightning vigilance of Owd Bob, the
+flock must have broken.
+
+“I think yo' might ha' waited!” remonstrated the Master, as the little
+man burst his way through.
+
+“Noo, I've forgot somethin'!” the other cried, and back he started as he
+had gone.
+
+It was more than human nature could tolerate.
+
+“Bob, keep him off!”
+
+A flash of teeth; a blaze of gray eyes; and the old dog had leapt
+forward to oppose the little man's advance.
+
+“Shift oot o' ma light!” cried he, striving to dash past.
+
+“Hold him, lad!”
+
+And hold him the old dog did, while his master opened the gate and put
+the flock through, the opponents dodging in front of one another like
+opposing three-quarter-backs at the Rugby game.
+
+“Oot o' ma path, or I'll strike!” shouted the little man in a fury, as
+the last sheep passed through the gate.
+
+“I'd not,” warned the Master.
+
+“But I will!” yelled M'Adam; and, darting forward as the gate swung to,
+struck furiously at his opponent.
+
+He missed, and the gray dog charged at him like a mail-train.
+
+“Hi! James Moore--” but over he went like a toppled wheelbarrow, while
+the old dog turned again, raced at the gate, took it magnificently in
+his stride, and galloped up the lane after his master.
+
+At M'Adam's yell, James Moore had turned.
+
+“Served yo' properly!” he called back. “He'll larn ye yet it's not wise
+to tamper wi' a gray dog or his sheep. Not the first time he's downed
+ye, I'm thinkin'!”
+
+The little man raised himself painfully to his elbow and crawled toward
+the gate. The Master, up the lane, could hear him cursing as he dragged
+himself. Another moment, and a head was poked through the bars of the
+gate, and a devilish little face looked after him.
+
+“Downed me, by--, he did!” the little man cried passionately. “I owed ye
+baith somethin' before this, and noo, by ----, I owe ye somethin' more.
+An' mind ye, Adam M'Adam pays his debts!”
+
+“I've heard the contrary,” the Master replied drily, and turned away up
+the lane toward the Marches.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV A SHOT IN THE NIGHT
+
+
+IT was only three short weeks before Cup Day that one afternoon Jim
+Mason brought a letter to Kenmuir. James Moore opened it as the postman
+still stood in the door.
+
+It was from Long Kirby--still in retirement--begging him for mercy's
+sake to keep Owd Bob safe within doors at nights; at all events till
+after the great event was over. For Kirby knew, as did every Dalesman,
+that the old dog slept in the porch, between the two doors of the house,
+of which the outer was only loosely closed by a chain, so that the
+ever-watchful guardian might slip in and out and go his rounds at any
+moment of the night.
+
+This was how the smith concluded his ill-spelt note: “Look out for
+M'Adam i tell you i _know_ hel tri at thowd un afore cup day--failin im
+you if the ole dog's bete i'm a ruined man i say so for the luv o' God
+keep yer eyes wide.”
+
+The Master read the letter, and handed it to the postman, who perused it
+carefully.
+
+“I tell yo' what,” said Jim at length, speaking with an earnestness that
+made the other stare, “I wish yo'd do what he asks yo': keep Th' Owd Un
+in o' nights, I mean, just for the present.”
+
+The Master shook his head and laughed, tearing the letter to pieces.
+
+“Nay,” said he; “M'Adam or no M'Adam, Cup or no Cup, Th' Owd Un has the
+run o' ma land same as he's had since a puppy. Why, Jim, the first night
+I shut him up that night the Killer comes, I'll lay.”
+
+The postman turned wearily away, and the Master stood looking after him,
+wondering what had come of late to his former cheery friend.
+
+Those two were not the only warnings James Moore received. During
+the weeks immediately preceding the Trials, the danger signal was
+perpetually flaunted beneath his nose.
+
+Twice did Watch, the black cross-bred chained in the straw-yard, hurl a
+brazen challenge on the night air. Twice did the Master, with lantern,
+Sam'l and Owd Bob, sally forth and search every hole and corner on the
+premises--to find nothing. One of the dairy-maids gave notice, avowing
+that the farm was haunted; that, on several occasions in the early
+morning, she had seen a bogie flitting down the slope to the Wastrel--a
+sure portent, Sam'l declared, of an approaching death in the house.
+While once a shearer, coming up from the village, reported having seen,
+in the twilight of dawn, a little ghostly figure, haggard and startled,
+stealing silently from tree to tree in the larch-copse by the lane. The
+Master, however, irritated by these constant alarms, dismissed the story
+summarily.
+
+“One thing I'm sartin o',” said he. “There's not a critter moves on
+Kenmuir at nights but Th' Owd Un knows it.”
+
+Yet, even as he said it, a little man, draggled, weary-eyed, smeared
+with dew and dust, was limping in at the door of a house barely a mile
+away. “Nae luck, Wullie, curse it!” he cried, throwing himself into a
+chair, and addressing some one who was not there--“nae luck. An' yet I'm
+sure o't as I am that there's a God in heaven.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+M'Adam had become an old man of late. But little more than fifty, yet he
+looked to have reached man's allotted years. His sparse hair was quite
+white; his body shrunk and bowed; and his thin hand shook like an aspen
+as it groped to the familiar bottle.
+
+In another matter, too, he was altogether changed. Formerly, whatever
+his faults, there had been no harder-working man in the country-side.
+At all hours, in all weathers, you might have seen him with his gigantic
+attendant going his rounds. Now all that was different: he never put his
+hand to the plough, and with none to help him the land was left wholly
+untended; so that men said that, of a surety, there would be a farm to
+let on the March Mere Estate come Michaelmas.
+
+Instead of working, the little man sat all day in the kitchen at home,
+brooding over his wrongs, and brewing vengeance. Even the Sylvester
+Arms knew him no more; for he stayed where he was with his dog and his
+bottle. Only, when the shroud of night had come down to cover him,
+he slipped out and away on some errand on which not even Red Wull
+accompanied him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So the time glided on, till the Sunday before the Trials came round.
+
+All that day M'Adam sat in his kitchen, drinking, muttering, hatching
+revenge.
+
+“Curse it, Wullie! curse it! The time's slippin'--slippin'--slippin'!
+Thursday next--but three days mair! and I haena the proof--I haena the
+proof!”--and he rocked to and fro, biting his nails in the agony of his
+impotence.
+
+All day long he never moved. Long after sunset he sat on; long after
+dark had eliminated the features of the room.
+
+“They're all agin us, Wullie. It's you and I alane, lad. M'Adam's to be
+beat somehow, onyhow; and Moore's to win. So they've settled it, and
+so 'twill be--onless, Wullie, onless--but curse it! I've no the
+proof!”--and he hammered the table before him and stamped on the floor.
+
+At midnight he arose, a mad, desperate plan looming through his fuddled
+brain.
+
+“I swore I'd pay him, Wullie, and I will. If I hang for it I'll be even
+wi' him. I haena the proof, but I _know_--I _know_!” He groped his way
+to the mantel piece with blind eyes and swirling brain. Reaching up
+with fumbling hands, he took down the old blunderbuss from above the
+fireplace.
+
+“Wullie,” he whispered, chuckling hideously, “Wullie, come on! You and
+I--he! he!” But the Tailless Tyke was not there. At nightfall he had
+slouched silently out of the house on business he best wot of. So his
+master crept out of the room alone--on tiptoe, still chuckling.
+
+The cool night air refreshed him, and he stepped stealthily along,
+his quaint weapon over his shoulder: down the hill; across the Bottom;
+skirting the Pike; till he reached the plank-bridge over the Wastrel.
+
+He crossed it safely, that Providence whose care is drunkards placing
+his footsteps. Then he stole up the slope like a hunter stalking his
+prey.
+
+Arrived at the gate, he raised himself cautiously, and peered over into
+the moonlit yard. There was no sign or sound of living creature. The
+little gray house slept peacefully in the shadow of the Pike, all
+unaware of the man with murder in his heart laboriously climbing the
+yard-gate.
+
+The door of the porch was wide, the chain hanging limply down, unused;
+and the little man could see within, the moon shining on the iron studs
+of the inner door, and the blanket of him who should have slept there,
+and did not.
+
+“He's no there, Wullie! He's no there!” He jumped down from the gate.
+Throwing all caution to the winds, he reeled recklessly across the yard.
+The drunken delirium of battle was on him. The fever of anticipated
+victory flushed his veins. At length he would take toll for the injuries
+of years.
+
+Another moment, and he was in front of the good oak door, battering at
+it madly with clubbed weapon, yelling, dancing, screaming vengeance.
+
+“Where is he? What's he at? Come and tell me that, James Moore! Come
+doon, I say, ye coward! Come and meet me like a man!
+
+     Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
+     Scots wham Bruce has aften led--
+     Welcome to your gory bed
+     Or to victorie!'”
+
+The soft moonlight streamed down on the white-haired madman thundering
+at the door, screaming his war-song.
+
+The quiet farmyard, startled from its sleep, awoke in an uproar. Cattle
+shifted in their stalls; horses whinnied; fowls chattered, aroused by
+the din and dull thudding of the blows: and above the rest, loud and
+piercing, the shrill cry of a terrified child.
+
+Maggie, wakened from a vivid dream of David chasing the police, hurried
+a shawl around her, and in a minute had the baby in her arms and was
+comforting her--vaguely fearing the while that the police were after
+David.
+
+James Moore flung open a window, and, leaning out, looked down on the
+dishevelled figure below him.
+
+M'Adam heard the noise, glanced up, and saw his enemy. Straightway he
+ceased his attack on the door, and, running beneath the window, shook
+his weapon up at his foe.
+
+“There ye are, are ye? Curse ye for a coward! curse ye for a liar! Come
+doon, I say, James Moore! come doon--I daur ye to it! Aince and for a'
+let's settle oor account.”
+
+The Master, looking down from above, thought that at length the little
+man's brain had gone.
+
+“What is't yo' want?” he asked, as calmly as he could, hoping to gain
+time.
+
+“What is't I want?” screamed the madman. “Hark to him! He crosses me in
+ilka thing; he plots agin me; he robs me o' ma Cup; he sets ma son agin
+me and pits him on to murder me! And in the end he--”
+
+“Coom, then, coom! I'll--”
+
+“Gie me back the Cup ye stole, James Moore! Gie me back ma son ye've
+took from me! And there's anither thing. What's yer gray dog doin'?
+Where's yer--”
+
+The Master interposed again:
+
+“I'll coom doon and talk things over wi' yo'.” he said soothingly. But
+before he could withdraw, M'Adam had jerked his weapon to his shoulder
+and aimed it full at his enemy's head.
+
+The threatened man looked down the gun's great quivering mouth, wholly
+unmoved.
+
+“Yo' mon hold it steadier, little mon, if yo'd hit!” he said grimly.
+“There, I'll coom help yo'!” He withdrew slowly; and all the time was
+wondering where the gray dog was.
+
+In another moment he was downstairs, undoing the bolts and bars of the
+door. On the other side stood M'Adam, his blunderbuss at his shoulder,
+his finger trembling on the trigger, waiting.
+
+“Hi, Master! Stop, or yo're dead!” roared a voice from the loft on the
+other side the yard.
+
+“Feyther! feyther! git yo' back!” screamed Maggie, who saw it all from
+the window above the door.
+
+Their cries were too late! The blunderbuss went off with a roar,
+belching out a storm of sparks and smoke. The shot peppered the door
+like hail, and the whole yard seemed for a moment wrapped in flame.
+
+“Aw! oh! ma gummy! A'm waounded A'm a goner! A'm shot! 'Elp! Murder! Eh!
+Oh!” bellowed a lusty voice--and it was not James Moore's.
+
+The little man, the cause of the uproar, lay quite still upon the
+ground, with another figure standing over him. As he had stood, finger
+on trigger, waiting for that last bolt to be drawn, a gray form,
+shooting whence no one knew, had suddenly and silently attacked him from
+behind, and jerked him backward to the ground. With the shock of the
+fall the blunderbuss had gone off.
+
+The last bolt was thrown back with a clatter, and the Master emerged. In
+a glance he took in the whole scene: the fallen man; the gray dog; the
+still-smoking weapon.
+
+“Yo', was't Bob lad?” he said. “I was wonderin' wheer yo' were. Yo'
+came just at the reet moment, as yo' aye do!” Then, in a loud voice,
+addressing the darkness: “Yo're not hurt, Sam'l Todd--I can tell that
+by yer noise; it was nob'but the shot off the door warmed yo'. Coom away
+doon and gie me a hand.”
+
+He walked up to M'Adam, who still lay gasping on the ground. The shock
+of the fall and recoil of the weapon had knocked the breath out of the
+little man's body; beyond that he was barely hurt.
+
+The Master stood over his fallen enemy and looked sternly down at him.
+
+“I've put up wi' more from you, M'Adam, than I would from ony other
+man,” he said. “But this is too much--comin' here at night wi' loaded
+arms, scarin' the wimmen and childer oot o' their lives, and I can
+but think meanin' worse. If yo' were half a man I'd gie yo' the finest
+thrashin' iver yo' had in yer life. But, as yo' know well, I could no
+more hit yo' than I could a woman. Why yo've got this down on me yo' ken
+best. I niver did yo' or ony ither mon a harm. As to the Cup, I've got
+it and I'm goin' to do ma best to keep it--it's for yo' to win it from
+me if yo' can o' Thursday. As for what yo' say o' David, yo' know it's a
+lie. And as for what yo're drivin' at wi' yer hints and mysteries, I've
+no more idee than a babe unborn. Noo I'm goin' to lock yo' up, yo're not
+safe abroad. I'm thinkin' I'll ha' to hand ye o'er to the p'lice.”
+
+With the help of Sam'l he half dragged, half supported the
+stunned little man across the yard; and shoved him into a tiny
+semi-subterraneous room, used for the storage of coal, at the end of the
+farm-buildings.
+
+“Yo' think it over that side, ma lad,” called the Master grimly, as he
+turned the key, “and I will this.” And with that he retired to bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Early in the morning he went to release his prisoner. But he was a
+minute too late. For scuttling down the slope and away was a little
+black-begrimed, tottering figure with white hair blowing in the wind.
+The little man had broken away a wooden hatchment which covered a
+manhole in the wall of his prison-house, squeezed his small body
+through, and so escaped.
+
+“Happen it's as well,” thought the Master, watching the flying figure.
+Then, “Hi, Bob, lad!” he called; for the gray dog, ears back, tail
+streaming, was hurling down the slope after the fugitive.
+
+On the bridge M'Adam turned, and, seeing his pursuer hot upon him,
+screamed, missed his footing, and fell with a loud splash into the
+stream--almost in that identical spot into which, years before, he had
+plunged voluntarily to save Red Wull.
+
+On the bridge Owd Bob halted and looked down at the man struggling in
+the water below. He made a half move as though to leap in to the rescue
+of his enemy; then, seeing it was unnecessary, turned and trotted back
+to his master.
+
+“Yo' nob'but served him right, I'm thinkin',” said the Master. “Like
+as not he came here wi' the intent to mak' an end to yo.' Well, after
+Thursday, I pray God we'll ha' peace. It's gettin' above a joke.” The
+two turned back into the yard.
+
+But down below them, along the edge of the stream, for the second time
+in this story, a little dripping figure was tottering homeward. The
+little man was crying--the hot tears mingling on his cheeks with
+the undried waters of the Wastrel--crying with rage, mortification,
+weariness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV THE SHEPHERDS' TROPHY
+
+Cup Day.
+
+
+It broke calm and beautiful, no cloud on the horizon, no threat of storm
+in the air; a fitting day on which the Shepherds' Trophy must be won
+outright.
+
+And well it was so. For never since the founding of the Dale Trials had
+such a concourse been gathered together on the North bank of the Silver
+Lea. From the Highlands they came; from the far Campbell country; from
+the Peak; from the county of many acres; from all along the silver
+fringes of the Solway; assembling in that quiet corner of the earth to
+see the famous Gray Dog of Kenmuir fight his last great battle for the
+Shepherds' Trophy.
+
+By noon the gaunt Scaur looked down on such a gathering as it had never
+seen. The paddock at the back of the Dalesman's Daughter was packed with
+a clammering, chattering multitude: animated groups of farmers; bevies
+of solid rustics; sharp-faced townsmen; loud-voiced bookmakers; giggling
+girls; amorous boys,--thrown together like toys in a sawdust bath;
+whilst here and there, on the outskirts of the crowd, a lonely man and
+wise-faced dog, come from afar to wrest his proud title from the best
+sheep-dog in the North.
+
+At the back of the enclosure was drawn up a formidable array of carts
+and carriages, varying as much in quality and character as did their
+owners. There was the squire's landau rubbing axle-boxes with Jem
+Burton's modest moke-cart; and there Viscount Birdsaye's flaring
+barouche side by side with the red-wheeled wagon of Kenmuir.
+
+In the latter, Maggie, sad and sweet in her simple summer garb, leant
+over to talk to Lady Eleanour; while golden-haired wee Anne, delighted
+with the surging crowd around, trotted about the wagon, waving to her
+friends, and shouting from very joyousness.
+
+Thick as flies clustered that motley assembly on the north bank of the
+Silver Lea. While on the other side the stream was a little group of
+judges, inspecting the course.
+
+The line laid out ran thus: the sheep must first be found in the big
+enclosure to the right of the starting flag; then up the slope and away
+from the spectators; around a flag and obliquely down the hill again;
+through a gap in the wall; along the hillside, parrallel to the Silver
+Lea; abruptly to the left through a pair of flags--the trickiest turn of
+them all; then down the slope to the pen, which was set up close to the
+bridge over the stream.
+
+The proceedings began with the Local Stakes, won by Rob Saunderson's
+veteran, Shep. There followed the Open Juveniles, carried off by Ned
+Hoppin's young dog. It was late in the afternoon when, at length, the
+great event of the meeting was reached.
+
+In the enclosure behind the Dalesman's Daughter the clamor of the crowd
+increased tenfold, and the yells of the bookmakers were redoubled.
+
+“Walk up, gen'lemen, walk up! the ole firm! Rasper? Yessir--twenty to
+one bar two! Twenty to one bar two! Bob? What price, Bob? Even money,
+sir--no, not a penny longer, couldn't do it! Red Wull? 'oo says Red
+Wull?”
+
+On the far side the stream is clustered about the starting flag the
+finest array of sheep-dogs ever seen together.
+
+“I've never seen such a field, and I've seen fifty,” is Parson Leggy's
+verdict.
+
+There, beside the tall form of his master, stands Owd Bob o' Kenmuir,
+the observed of all. His silvery brush fans the air, and he holds his
+dark head high as he scans his challengers, proudly conscious that
+to-day will make or mar his fame. Below him, the mean-looking,
+smooth-coated black dog is the unbeaten Pip, winner of the renowned
+Cambrian Stakes at Llangollen--as many think the best of all the good
+dogs that have come from sheep-dotted Wales. Beside him that handsome
+sable collie, with the tremendous coat and slash of white on throat
+and face, is the famous MacCallum More, fresh from his victory at the
+Highland meeting. The cobby, brown dog, seeming of many breeds, is from
+the land o' the Tykes--Merry, on whom the Yorkshiremen are laying as
+though they loved him. And Jess, the wiry black-and-tan, is the favorite
+of the men of of the Derwent and Dove. Tupper's big blue Rasper is
+there; Londesley's Lassie; and many more--too many to mention: big and
+small, grand and mean, smooth and rough--and not a bad dog there.
+
+And alone, his back to the others, stands a little bowed, conspicuous
+figure--Adam M'Adam; while the great dog beside him, a hideous
+incarnation of scowling defiance, is Red Wull, the Terror o' the Border.
+
+The Tailless Tyke had already run up his fighting colors. For MacCallum
+More, going up to examine this forlorn great adversary, had conceived
+for him a violent antipathy, and, straightway, had spun at him with
+all the fury of the Highland cateran, who attacks first and explains
+afterward. Red Wull, forthwith, had turned on him with savage, silent
+gluttony; bob-tailed Rasper was racing up to join in the attack; and in
+another second the three would have been locked inseparably--but just in
+time M'Adam intervened. One of the judges came hurrying up.
+
+“Mr. M'Adam,” he cried angrily, “if that brute of yours gets fighting
+again, hang me if I don't disqualify him! Only last year at the Trials
+he killed the young Cossack dog.”
+
+A dull flash of passion swept across M'Adam's face. “Come here,
+Wullie!” he called. “Gin yon Hielant tyke attacks ye agin, ye're to be
+disqualified.”
+
+He was unheeded. The battle for the Cup had begun--little Pip leading
+the dance.
+
+On the opposite slope the babel had subsided now. Hucksters left their
+wares, and bookmakers their stools, to watch the struggle. Every eye
+was intent on the moving figures of man and dog and three sheep over the
+stream.
+
+One after one the competitors ran their course and penned their
+sheep--there was no single failure. And all received their just meed of
+applause, save only Adam M'Adam's Red Wull.
+
+Last of all, when Owd Bob trotted out to uphold his title, there went up
+such a shout as made Maggie's wan cheeks to blush with pleasure, and wee
+Anne to scream right lustily.
+
+His was an incomparable exhibition. Sheep should be humored rather than
+hurried; coaxed, rather than coerced. And that sheep-dog has attained
+the summit of his art who subdues his own personality and leads his
+sheep in pretending to be led. Well might the bosoms of the Dalesmen
+swell with pride as they watched their favorite at his work; well might
+Tammas pull out that hackneyed phrase, “The brains of a mon and the way
+of a woman”; well might the crowd bawl their enthusiasm, and Long Kirby
+puff his cheeks and rattle the money in his trouser pockets.
+
+But of this part it is enough to say that Pip, Owd Bob, and Red Wull
+were selected to fight out the struggle afresh.
+
+The course was altered and stiffened. On the far side the stream it
+remained as before; up the slope; round a flag; down the hill again;
+through the gap in the wall; along the hillside; down through the two
+flags; turn; and to the stream again. But the pen was removed from its
+former position, carried over the bridge, up the near slope, and the
+hurdles put together at the very foot of the spectators.
+
+The sheep had to be driven over the plank bridge, and the penning done
+beneath the very nose of the crowd. A stiff course, if ever there was
+one; and the time allowed, ten short minutes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The spectators hustled and elbowed in their endeavors to obtain a
+good position. And well they might; for about to begin was the finest
+exhibition of sheep-handling any man there was ever to behold.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Evan Jones and Little Pip led off.
+
+Those two, who had won on many a hard-fought field, worked together
+as they had never worked before. Smooth and swift, like a yacht in
+Southampton Water; round the flag, through the gap, they brought their
+sheep. Down between the two flags--accomplishing right well that awkward
+turn; and back to the bridge.
+
+There they stopped: the sheep would not face that narrow way. Once,
+twice, and again, they broke; and each time the gallant little Pip, his
+tongue out and tail quivering, brought them back to the bridge-head.
+
+At length one faced it; then another, and--it was too late. Time was up.
+The judges signalled; and the Welshman called off his dog and withdrew.
+
+Out of sight of mortal eye, in a dip of the ground, Evan Jones sat down
+and took the small dark head between his knees--and you may be sure the
+dog's heart was heavy as the man's. “We did our pest, Pip,” he cried
+brokenly, “but we're peat--the first time ever we've been!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No time to dally.
+
+James Moore and Owd Bob were off on their last run.
+
+No applause this time; not a voice was raised; anxious faces; twitching
+fingers; the whole crowd tense as a stretched wire. A false turn, a
+wilful sheep, a cantankerous judge, and the gray dog would be beat. And
+not a man there but knew it.
+
+Yet over the stream master and dog went about their business never
+so quiet, never so collected; for all the world as though they were
+rounding up a flock on the Muir Pike.
+
+The old dog found his sheep in a twinkling and a wild, scared trio they
+proved. Rounding the first flag, one bright-eyed wether made a dash
+for the open. He was quick; but the gray dog was quicker: a splendid
+recover, and a sound like a sob from the watchers on the hill.
+
+Down the slope they came for the gap in the wall. A little below the
+opening, James Moore took his stand to stop and turn them; while a
+distance behind his sheep loitered Owd Bob, seeming to follow rather
+than drive, yet watchful of every movement and anticipating it. On he
+came, one eye on his master, the other on his sheep; never hurrying
+them, never flurrying them, yet bringing them rapidly along.
+
+No word was spoken; barely a gesture made; yet they worked, master and
+dog, like one divided.
+
+Through the gap, along the hill parallel to the spectators, playing into
+one another's hands like men at polo.
+
+A wide sweep for the turn at the flags, and the sheep wheeled as though
+at the word of command, dropped through them, and travelled rapidly for
+the bridge.
+
+“Steady!” whispered the crowd.
+
+“Steady, man!” muttered Parson Leggy.
+
+“Hold 'em, for God's sake!” croaked Kirby huskily. “D--n! I knew it! I
+saw it coming!”
+
+The pace down the hill had grown quicker--too quick. Close on the bridge
+the three sheep made an effort to break. A dash--and two were checked;
+but the third went away like the wind, and after him Owd Bob, a gray
+streak against the green.
+
+Tammas was cursing silently; Kirby was white to the lips; and in the
+stillness you could plainly hear the Dalesmen's sobbing breath, as it
+fluttered in their throats.
+
+“Gallop! they say he's old and slow!” muttered the Parson. “Dash! Look
+at that!” For the gray dog, racing like the Nor'easter over the sea, had
+already retrieved the fugitive.
+
+Man and dog were coaxing the three a step at a time toward the bridge.
+
+One ventured--the others followed.
+
+In the middle the leader stopped and tried to turn--and time was flying,
+flying, and the penning alone must take minutes. Many a man's hand was
+at his watch, but no one could take his eyes off the group below him to
+look.
+
+“We're beat! I've won bet, Tammas!” groaned Sam'l. (The two had a
+long-standing wager on the matter.) “I allus knoo hoo 'twould be. I
+allus told yo' th' owd tyke--”
+
+Then breaking into a bellow, his honest face crimson with enthusiasm:
+“Coom on, Master! Good for yo', Owd Un! Yon's the style!”
+
+For the gray dog had leapt on the back of the hindmost sheep; it had
+surged forward against the next, and they were over, and making up the
+slope amidst a thunder of applause.
+
+At the pen it was a sight to see shepherd and dog working together.
+The Master, his face stern and a little whiter than its wont, casting
+forward with both hands, herding the sheep in; the gray dog, his eyes
+big and bright, dropping to hand; crawling and creeping, closer and
+closer.
+
+“They're in!--Nay--Ay--dang me! Stop 'er! Good, Owd Un! Ah-h-h, they're
+in!” And the last sheep reluctantly passed through--on the stroke of
+time.
+
+A roar went up from the crowd; Maggie's white face turned pink; and
+the Dalesmen mopped their wet brows. The mob surged forward, but the
+stewards held them back.
+
+“Back, please! Don't encroach! M'Adam's to come!”
+
+From the far bank the little man watched the scene. His coat and cap
+were off, and his hair gleamed white in the sun; his sleeves were rolled
+up; and his face was twitching but set as he stood--ready.
+
+The hubbub over the stream at length subsided. One of the judges nodded
+to him.
+
+“Noo, Wullie--noo or niver!--'Scots wha hae'! “--and they were off.
+
+“Back, gentlemen! back! He's off--he's coming! M'Adam's coming!”
+
+They might well shout and push; for the great dog was on to his sheep
+before they knew it; and they went away with a rush, with him right on
+their backs. Up the slope they swept and round the first flag, already
+galloping. Down the hill for the gap, and M'Adam was flying ahead to
+turn them. But they passed him like a hurricane, and Red Wull was in
+front with a rush and turned them alone.
+
+“M'Adam wins! Five to four M'Adam! I lay agin Owd Bob!” rang out a clear
+voice in the silence.
+
+Through the gap they rattled, ears back, feet twinkling like the wings
+of driven grouse.
+
+“He's lost 'em! They'll break! They're away!” was the cry.
+
+Sam'l was half up the wheel of the Kenmuir wagon; every man was on his
+toes; ladies were standing in their carriages; even Jim Mason's face
+flushed with momentary excitement.
+
+The sheep were tearing along the hillside, all together, like a white
+scud. After them, galloping like a Waterloo winner, raced Red Wull. And
+last of all, leaping over the ground like a demoniac, making not for the
+two flags, but the plank-bridge, the white-haired figure of M'Adam.
+
+“He's beat! The Killer's beat!” roared a strident voice.
+
+“M'Adam wins! Five to four M'Adam! I lay agin Owd Bob!” rang out the
+clear reply.
+
+Red Wull was now racing parallel to the fugitives and above them. All
+four were travelling at a terrific rate; while the two flags were barely
+twenty yards in front, below the line of flight and almost parallel to
+it. To effect the turn a change of direction must be made almost through
+a right angle.
+
+“He's beat! he's beat! M'Adam's beat! Can't make it nohow!” was the
+roar.
+
+From over the stream a yell--“Turn 'em, Wullie!”
+
+At the word the great dog swerved down on the flying three. They turned,
+still at the gallop, like a troop of cavalry, and dropped, clean and
+neat, between the flags; and down to the stream they rattled, passing
+M'Adam on the way as though he was standing.
+
+“Weel done, Wullie!” came the scream from the far bank; and from the
+crowd went up an involuntary burst of applause.
+
+“Ma word!
+
+“Did yo' see that?”
+
+“By gob!”
+
+It was a turn, indeed, of which the smartest team in the galloping
+horse-gunners might well have been proud. A shade later, and they must
+have overshot the mark; a shade sooner, and a miss.
+
+“He's not been two minutes so far. We're beaten--don't you think so,
+Uncle Leggy?” asked Muriel Sylvester, looking up piteously into the
+parson's face.
+
+“It's not what I think, my dear; it's what the judges think,” the parson
+replied; and what he thought their verdict would be was plainly writ on
+his face for all to read.
+
+Right on to the centre of the bridge the leading sheep galloped
+and--stopped abruptly.
+
+Up above in the crowd there was utter silence; staring eyes; rigid
+fingers. The sweat was dripping off Long Kirby's face; and, at the
+back, a green-coated bookmaker slipped his note-book in his pocket, and
+glanced behind him. James Moore, standing in front of them all, was the
+calmest there.
+
+Red Wull was not to be denied. Like his forerunner he leapt on the back
+of the hindmost sheep. But the red dog was heavy where the gray was
+light. The sheep staggered, slipped, and fell.
+
+Almost before it had touched the water, M'Adam, his face afire and eyes
+flaming, was in the stream. In a second he had hold of the struggling
+creature, and, with an almost superhuman effort, had half thrown, half
+shoved it on to the bank.
+
+Again a tribute of admiration, led by James Moore.
+
+The little man scrambled, panting, on to the bank and raced after sheep
+and dog. His face was white beneath the perspiration; his breath came in
+quavering gasps; his trousers were wet and clinging to his legs; he was
+trembling in every limb, and yet indomitable.
+
+They were up to the pen, and the last wrestle began. The crowd, silent
+and motionless, craned forward to watch the uncanny, white-haired little
+man and the huge dog, working so close below them. M'Adam's face was
+white; his eyes staring, unnaturally bright; his bent body projected
+forward; and he tapped with his stick on the ground like a blind man,
+coaxing the sheep in. And the Tailless Tyke, his tongue out and flanks
+heaving, crept and crawled and worked up to the opening, patient as he
+had never been before.
+
+They were in at last.
+
+There was a lukewarm, half-hearted cheer; then silence.
+
+Exhausted and trembling, the little man leant against the pen, one
+hand on it; while Red Wull, his flanks still heaving, gently licked the
+other. Quite close stood James Moore and the gray dog; above was the
+black wall of people, utterly still; below, the judges comparing notes.
+In the silence you could almost hear the panting of the crowd.
+
+Then one of the judges went up to James Moore and shook him by the hand.
+
+The gray dog had won. Owd Bob o' Kenmuir had won the Shepherds' Trophy
+outright.
+
+A second's palpitating silence; a woman's hysterical laugh--and
+a deep-mouthed bellow rent the expectant air: shouts, screams,
+hat-tossings, back-clappings blending in a din that made the
+many-winding waters of the Silver Lea quiver and quiver again.
+
+Owd Bob o' Kenmuir had won the Shepherds' Trophy outright.
+
+Maggie's face flushed a scarlet hue. Wee Anne flung fat arms toward
+her triumphant Bob, and screamed with the best. Squire and parson, each
+red-cheeked, were boisterously shaking hands. Long Kirby, who had not
+prayed for thirty years, ejaculated with heartfelt earnestness, “Thank
+God!” Sam'l Todd bellowed in Tammas's ear, and almost slew him with his
+mighty buffets. Among the Dalesmen some laughed like drunken men; some
+cried like children; all joined in that roaring song of victory.
+
+To little M 'Adam, standing with his back to the crowd, that storm of
+cheering came as the first announcement of defeat.
+
+A wintry smile, like the sun over a March sea, crept across his face.
+
+“We might a kent it, Wullie,” he muttered, soft and low. The tension
+loosed, the battle lost, the little man almost broke down. There were
+red dabs of color in his face; his eyes were big; his lips pitifully
+quivering; he was near to sobbing.
+
+An old man--utterly alone he had staked his all on a throw--and lost.
+
+Lady Eleanour marked the forlorn little figure, standing solitary on the
+fringe of the uproarious mob. She noticed the expression on his face;
+and her tender heart went out to the lone man in his defeat.
+
+She went up to him and laid a hand upon his arm.
+
+“Mr. M'Adam,” she said timidly, “won't you come and sit down in the
+tent? You look _so_ tired! I can find you a corner where no one shall
+disturb you.”
+
+The little man wrenched roughly away. The unexpected kindness, coming
+at that moment, was almost too much for him. A few paces off he turned
+again.
+
+“It's reel kind o' yer ladyship,” he said huskily; and tottered away to
+be alone with Red Wull.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile the victors stood like rocks in the tideway. About them surged
+a continually changing throng, shaking the man's hand, patting the dog.
+
+Maggie had carried wee Anne to tender her congratulations; Long Kirby
+had come; Tammas, Saunderson, Hoppin, Tupper, Londesley--all but Jim
+Mason; and now, elbowing through the press, came squire and parson.
+
+“Well done, James! well done, indeed! Knew you'd win! told you so eh,
+eh!” Then facetiously to Owd Bob: “Knew you would, Robert, old man!
+Ought to Robert the Dev--musn't be a naughty boy--eh, eh!”
+
+“The first time ever the Dale Cup's been won outright!” said the Parson,
+“and I daresay it never will again. And I think Kenmuir's the very
+fittest place for its final home, and a Gray Dog of Kenmuir for its
+winner.”
+
+“Oh, by the by!” burst in the squire. “I've fixed the Manor dinner for
+to-day fortnight, James. Tell Saunderson and Tupper, will you? Want all
+the tenants there.” He disappeared into the crowd, but in a minute had
+fought his way back. “I'd forgotten something!” he shouted. “Tell your
+Maggie perhaps you'll have news for her after it eh! eh!” and he was
+gone again.
+
+Last of all, James Moore was aware of a white, blotchy, grinning face at
+his elbow.
+
+“I maun congratulate ye, Mr. Moore. Ye've beat us--you and the
+gentlemen--judges.”
+
+“'Twas a close thing, M'Adam,” the other answered. “An' yo' made a gran'
+fight. In ma life I niver saw a finer turn than yours by the two flags
+yonder. I hope yo' bear no malice.”
+
+“Malice! Me? Is it likely? Na, na. 'Do onto ivery man as he does onto
+you--and somethin' over,' that's my motter. I owe ye mony a good turn,
+which I'll pay ye yet. Na, na; there's nae good fechtin' agin fate--and
+the judges. Weel, I wush you well o' yer victory. Aiblins' twill be oor
+turn next.”
+
+Then a rush, headed by Sam'l, roughly hustled the one away and bore the
+other off on its shoulders in boisterous triumph.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In giving the Cup away, Lady Eleanour made a prettier speech than ever.
+Yet all the while she was haunted by a white, miserable face; and all
+the while she was conscious of two black moving dots in the Murk Muir
+Pass opposite her--solitary, desolate, a contrast to the huzzaing crowd
+around.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That is how the champion challenge Dale Cup, the world-known Shepherds'
+Trophy, came to wander no more; won outright by the last of the Gray
+Dogs of Kenmuir--Owd Bob.
+
+Why he was the last of the Gray Dogs is now to be told.
+
+
+
+
+PART VI THE BLACK KILLER
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI RED-HANDED
+
+
+THE SUN was hiding behind the Pike. Over the lowlands the feathery
+breath of night hovered still. And the hillside was shivering in the
+chillness of dawn.
+
+Down on the silvery sward beside the Stony Bottom there lay the ruffled
+body of a dead sheep. All about the victim the dewy ground was dark and
+patchy like dishevelled velvet; bracken trampled down; stones
+displaced as though by straggling feet; and the whole spotted with the
+all-pervading red.
+
+A score yards up the hill, in a writhing confusion of red and gray, two
+dogs at death-grips. While yet higher, a pack of wild-eyed hill-sheep
+watched, fascinated, the bloody drama.
+
+The fight raged. Red and gray, blood-spattered, murderous-eyed; the
+crimson froth dripping from their jaws; now rearing high with arching
+crests and wrestling paws; now rolling over in tumbling, tossing,
+worrying disorder--the two fought out their blood-feud.
+
+Above, the close-packed flock huddled and stamped, ever edging nearer
+to watch the issue. Just so must the women of Rome have craned round the
+arenas to see two men striving in death-struggle.
+
+The first cold flicker of dawn stole across the green. The red eye of
+the morning peered aghast over the shoulder of the Pike. And from the
+sleeping dale there arose the yodling of a man driving his cattle home.
+
+Day was upon them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+James Moore was waked by a little whimpering cry beneath his window.
+He leapt out of bed and rushed to look; for well he knew 'twas not for
+nothing that the old dog was calling.
+
+“Lord o' mercy! whativer's come to yo', Owd Un?” he cried in anguish.
+And, indeed, his favorite, war-daubed almost past recognition, presented
+a pitiful spectacle.
+
+In a moment the Master was downstairs and out, examining him.
+
+“Poor old lad, yo' have caught it this time!” he cried. There was a
+ragged tear on the dog's cheek; a deep gash in his throat from which the
+blood still welled, staining the white escutcheon on his chest; while
+head and neck were clotted with the red.
+
+Hastily the Master summoned Maggie. After her, Andrew came hurrying
+down. And a little later a tiny, night-clad, naked-footed figure
+appeared in the door, wide-eyed, and then fled, screaming.
+
+They doctored the old warrior on the table in the kitchen. Maggie
+tenderly washed his wounds, and dressed them with gentle, pitying
+fingers; and he stood all the while grateful yet fidgeting, looking up
+into his master's face as if imploring to be gone.
+
+“He mun a had a rare tussle wi' some one--eh, dad?” said the girl, as
+she worked.
+
+“Ay; and wi' whom? 'Twasn't for nowt he got fightin', I war'nt. Nay;
+he's a tale to tell, has The Owd Un, and--A h-h-h! I thowt as much. Look
+'ee!” For bathing the bloody jaws, he had come upon a cluster of tawny
+red hair, hiding in the corners of the lips.
+
+The secret was out. Those few hairs told their own accusing tale. To but
+one creature in the Daleland could they belong--“Th' Tailless Tyke.”
+
+“He mun a bin trespassin'!” cried Andrew.
+
+“Ay, and up to some o' his bloody work, I'll lay my life,” the Master
+answered. “But Th' Owd Un shall show us.”
+
+The old dog's hurts proved less severe than had at first seemed
+possible. His good gray coat, forest-thick about his throat, had never
+served him in such good stead. And at length, the wounds washed and sewn
+up, he jumped down all in a hurry from the table and made for the door.
+
+“Noo, owd lad, yo' may show us,” said the Master, and, with Andrew,
+hurried after him down the hill, along the stream, and over Langholm
+How. And as they neared the Stony Bottom, the sheep, herding in groups,
+raised frightened heads to stare.
+
+Of a sudden a cloud of poisonous flies rose, buzzing, up before them;
+and there in a dimple of the ground lay a murdered sheep. Deserted by
+its comrades, the glazed eyes staring helplessly upward, the throat
+horribly worried, it slept its last sleep.
+
+The matter was plain to see. At last the Black Killer had visited
+Kenmuir.
+
+“I guessed as much,” said the Master, standing over the mangled body.
+“Well, it's the worst night's work ever the Killer done. I reck'n Th'
+Owd Un come on him while he was at it; and then they fought. And, ma
+word! it munn ha' bin a fight too.” For all around were traces of that
+terrible struggle: the earth torn up and tossed, bracken uprooted, and
+throughout little dabs of wool and tufts of tawny hair, mingling with
+dark-stained iron-gray wisps.
+
+James Moore walked slowly over the battlefield, stooping down as though
+he were gleaning. And gleaning he was.
+
+A long time he bent so, and at length raised himself.
+
+“The Killer has killed his last,” he muttered; “Red Wull has run his
+course.” Then, turning to Andrew: “Run yo' home, lad, and fetch the men
+to carry yon away,” pointing to the carcass, “And Bob, lad, yo 'ye done
+your work for to-day, and right well too; go yo' home wi' him. I'm off
+to see to this!”
+
+He turned and crossed the Stony Bottom. His face was set like a rock.
+At length the proof was in his hand. Once and for all the hill-country
+should be rid of its scourge.
+
+As he stalked up the hill, a dark head appeared at his knee. Two big
+grey eyes; half doubting, half penitent, wholly wistful, looked up at
+him, and a silvery brush signalled a mute request.
+
+“Eh, Owd Un, but yo' should ha' gone wi' Andrew,” the Master said.
+“Hooiver, as yo' are here, come along.” And he strode away up the hill,
+gaunt and menacing, with the gray dog at his heels.
+
+As they approached the house, M'Adam was standing in the door, sucking
+his eternal twig. James Moore eyed him closely as he came, but the sour
+face framed in the door betrayed nothing. Sarcasm, surprise, challenge,
+were all writ there, plain to read; but no guilty consciousness of the
+other's errand, no storm of passion to hide a failing heart. If it was
+acting it was splendidly done.
+
+As man and dog passed through the gap in the hedge, the expression on
+the little man's face changed again. He started forward.
+
+“James Moore, as I live!” he cried, and advanced with both hands
+extended, as though welcoming a long-lost brother. “'Deed and it's a
+weary while sin' ye've honored ma puir hoose.” And, in fact, it was nigh
+twenty years. “I tak' it gey kind in ye to look in on a lonely auld man.
+Come ben and let's ha' a crack. James Moore kens weel hoo welcome he aye
+is in ma bit biggin'.”
+
+The Master ignored the greeting.
+
+“One o' ma sheep been killed back o' t' Dyke,” he announced shortly,
+jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
+
+“The Killer?”
+
+“The Killer.”
+
+The cordiality beaming in every wrinkle of the little man's face was
+absorbed in a wondering interest; and that again gave place to sorrowful
+sympathy.
+
+“Dear, dear! it's come to that, has it--at last?” he said gently, and
+his eyes wandered to the gray dog and dwelt mournfully upon him. “Man,
+I'm sorry--I canna tell ye I'm surprised. Masel', I kent it all alang.
+But gin Adam M'Adam had tell't ye, no ha' believed him. Weel, weel, he's
+lived his life, gin ony dog iver did; and noo he maun gang where
+he's sent a many before him. Puir mon! puir tyke!” He heaved a sigh,
+profoundly melancholy, tenderly sympathetic. Then, brightening up a
+little: “Ye'll ha' come for the gun?”
+
+James Moore listened to this harangue at first puzzled. Then he caught
+the other's meaning, and his eyes flashed.
+
+“Ye fool, M'Adam! did ye hear iver tell o' a sheep-dog worryin' his
+master's sheep?”
+
+The little man was smiling and suave again now, rubbing his hands softly
+together.
+
+“Ye're right, I never did. But your dog is not as ither dogs--'There's
+none like him--none,' I've heard ye say so yersel, mony a time. An' I'm
+wi' ye. There's none like him--for devilment.” His voice began to quiver
+and his face to blaze. “It's his cursed cunning that's deceived ivery
+one but me--whelp o' Satan that he is!” He shouldered up to his tall
+adversary. “If not him, wha else had done it?” he asked, looking, up
+into the other's face as if daring him to speak.
+
+The Master's shaggy eyebrows lowered. He towered above the other like
+the Muir Pike above its surrounding hills.
+
+“Wha, ye ask?” he replied coldly, “and I answer you. Your Red Wull,
+M'Adam, your Red Wull. It's your Wull's the Black Killer! It's your
+Wull's bin the plague o' the land these months past! It's your Wull's
+killed ma sheep back o'yon!”
+
+At that all the little man's affected good-humor fled.
+
+“Ye lee, mon! ye lee!” he cried in a dreadful scream, dancing up to his
+antagonist. “I knoo hoo 'twad be. I said so. I see what ye're at. Ye've
+found at last--blind that ye've been!--that it's yer ain hell's tyke
+that's the Killer; and noo ye think by yer leein' impitations to throw
+the blame on ma Wullie. Ye rob me o' ma Cup, ye rob me o' ma son, ye
+wrang me in ilka thing; there's but ae thing left me--Wullie. And noo
+ye're set on takin' him awa'. But ye shall not--I'll kill ye first!”
+
+He was all a-shake, bobbing up and down like a stopper in a soda-water
+bottle, and almost sobbing.
+
+“Ha' ye no wranged me enough wi' oo that? Ye lang-leggit liar, wi' yer
+skulkin murderin' tyke!” he cried. “Ye say it's Wullie. Where's yer
+proof?”--and he snapped his fingers in the other's face.
+
+The Master was now as calm as his foe was passionate. “Where?” he
+replied sternly; “why, there!” holding out his right hand. “Yon's proof
+enough to hang a hunner'd.” For lying in his broad palm was a little
+bundle of that damning red hair.
+
+“Where?”
+
+“There!”
+
+“Let's see it!” The little man bent to look closer.
+
+“There's for yer proof!” he cried, and spat deliberately down into the
+other's naked palm. Then he stood back, facing his enemy in a manner to
+have done credit to a nobler deed.
+
+James Moore strode forward. It looked as if he was about to make an end
+of his miserable adversary, so strongly was he moved. His chest heaved,
+and the blue eyes blazed. But just as one had thought to see him
+take his foe in the hollow of his hand and crush him, who should come
+stalking round the corner of the house but the Tailless Tyke?
+
+A droll spectacle he made, laughable even at that moment. He limped
+sorely, his head and neck were swathed in bandages, and beneath their
+ragged fringe the little eyes gleamed out fiery and bloodshot.
+
+Round the corner he came, unaware of strangers; then straightway
+recognizing his visitors, halted abruptly. His hackles ran up, each
+individual hair stood on end till his whole body resembled a new-shorn
+wheat-field; and a snarl, like a rusty brake shoved hard down escaped
+from between his teeth. Then he trotted heavily forward, his head
+sinking low and lower as he came.
+
+And Owd Bob, eager to take up the gage of battle, advanced, glad and
+gallant, to meet him. Daintily he picked his way across the yard, head
+and tail erect, perfectly self-contained. Only the long gray hair
+about his neck stood up like the ruff of a lady of the court of Queen
+Elizabeth.
+
+But the war-worn warriors were not to be allowed their will.
+
+“Wullie, Wullie, wad ye!” cried the little man.
+
+“Bob, lad, coom in!” called the other. Then he turned and looked down at
+the man beside him, contempt flaunting in every feature.
+
+“Well?” he said shortly.
+
+M'Adam's hands were opening and shutting; his face was quite white
+beneath the tan; but he spoke calmly.
+
+“I'll tell ye the whole story, and it's the truth,” he said slowly. “I
+was up there the morn”--pointing to the window above--“and I see Wullie
+crouchin' down alangside the Stony Bottom. (Ye ken he has the run o'
+ma land o' neets, the same as your dog.) In a minnit I see anither dog
+squatterin' alang on your side the Bottom. He creeps up to the sheep on
+th' hillside, chases 'em, and doons one. The sun was risen by then, and
+I see the dog clear as I see you noo. It was that dog there--I swear
+it!” His voice rose as he spoke, and he pointed an accusing finger at
+Owd Bob.
+
+“Noo, Wullie! thinks I. And afore ye could clap yer hands, Wullie was
+over the Bottom and on to him as he gorged--the bloody-minded murderer!
+They fought and fought--I could hear the roarin' a't where I stood. I
+watched till I could watch nae langer, and, all in a sweat, I rin doon
+the stairs and oot. When I got there, there was yer tyke makin' fu'
+split for Kenmuir, and Wullie comin' up the hill to me. It's God's
+truth, I'm tellin' ye. Tak' him hame, James Moore, and let his dinner be
+an ounce o' lead. 'Twill be the best day's work iver ye done.”
+
+The little man must be lying--lying palpably. Yet he spoke with
+an earnestness, a seeming belief in his own story, that might have
+convinced one who knew him less well. But the Master only looked down on
+him with a great scorn.
+
+“It's Monday to-day,” he said coldly. “I gie yo' till Saturday. If yo've
+not done your duty by then--and well you know what 'tis--I shall come
+do it for ye. Ony gate, I shall come and see. I'll remind ye agin o'
+Thursday--yo'll be at the Manor dinner, I suppose. Noo I've warned yo',
+and you know best whether I'm in earnest or no. Bob, lad!”
+
+He turned away, but turned again.
+
+“I'm sorry for ye, but I've ma duty to do--so've you. Till Saturday I
+shall breathe no word to ony soul o' this business, so that if you see
+good to put him oot o' the way wi'oot bother, no one need iver know as
+hoo Adam M'Adam's Red Wull was the Black Killer.”
+
+He turned away for the second time. But the little man sprang after him,
+and clutched him by the arm.
+
+“Look ye here, James Moore!” he cried in thick, shaky, horrible voice.
+“Ye're big, I'm sma'; ye're strang, I'm weak; ye've ivery one to your
+back, I've niver a one; you tell your story, and they'll believe ye--for
+you gae to church; I'll tell mine, and they'll think I lie--for I dinna.
+But a word in your ear! If iver agin I catch ye on ma land, by--!”--he
+swore a great oath--“I'll no spare ye. You ken best if I'm in earnest or
+no.” And his face was dreadful to see in its hideous determinedness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII FOR THE DEFENCE
+
+
+THAT night a vague story was whispered In the Sylvester Arms. But
+Tammas, on being interrogated, pursed his lips and said: “Nay, I'm sworn
+to say nowt.” Which was the old man's way of putting that he knew nowt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On Thursday morning, James Moore and Andrew came down arrayed in all
+their best. It was the day of the squire's annual dinner to his tenants.
+
+The two, however, were not allowed to start upon their way until they
+had undergone a critical inspection by Maggie; for the girl liked her
+mankind to do honor to Kenmuir on these occasions. So she brushed
+up Andrew, tied his scarf, saw his boots and hands were clean, and
+titivated him generally till she had converted the ungainly hobbledehoy
+into a thoroughly “likely young mon.”
+
+And all the while she was thinking of that other boy for whom on such
+gala days she had been wont to perform like offices. And her father,
+marking the tears in her eyes, and mindful of the squire's mysterious
+hint, said gently:
+
+“Cheer up, lass. Happen I'll ha' news for you the night!”
+
+The girl nodded, and smiled wanly.
+
+“Happen so, dad,” she said. But in her heart she doubted.
+
+Nevertheless it was with a cheerful countenance that, a little later,
+she stood in the door with wee Anne and Owd Bob and waved the travellers
+Godspeed; while the golden-haired lassie, fiercely gripping the old
+dog's tail with one hand and her sister with the other, screamed them a
+wordless farewell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sun had reached its highest when the two wayfarers passed through
+the gray portals of the Manor.
+
+In the stately entrance hall, imposing with all the evidences of a long
+and honorable line, were gathered now the many tenants throughout the
+wide March Mere Estate. Weather-beaten, rent-paying sons of the soil;
+most of them native-born, many of them like James Moore, whose fathers
+had for generations owned and farmed the land they now leased at the
+hands of the Sylvesters--there in the old hall they were assembled,
+a mighty host. And apart from the others, standing as though in irony
+beneath the frown of one of those steel-clad warriors who held the door,
+was little M'Adam, puny always, paltry now, mocking his manhood.
+
+The door at the far end of the hall opened, and the squire entered,
+beaming on every one.
+
+“Here you are--eh, eh! How are you all? Glad to see ye! Good-day, James!
+Good-day, Saunderson! Good-day to you all! Bringin' a friend with me eh,
+eh!” and he stood aside to let by his agent, Parson Leggy, and last of
+all, shy and blushing, a fair-haired young giant.
+
+“If it bain't David!” was the cry. “Eh, lad, we's fain to see yo'! And
+yo'm lookin' stout, surely!” And they thronged about the boy, shaking
+him by the hand, and asking him his story.
+
+'Twas but a simple tale. After his flight on the eventful night he had
+gone south, drovering. He had written to Maggie, and been surprised and
+hurt to receive no reply. In vain he had waited, and too proud to write
+again, had remained ignorant of his father's recovery, neither caring
+nor daring to return. Then by mere chance, he had met the squire at the
+York cattle-show; and that kind man, who knew his story, had eased his
+fears and obtained from him a promise to return as soon as the term of
+his engagement had expired. And there he was.
+
+The Dalesmen gathered round the boy, listening to his tale, and in
+return telling him the home news, and chaffing him about Maggie.
+
+Of all the people present, only one seemed unmoved, and that was M'Adam.
+When first David had entered he had started forward, a flush of color
+warming his thin cheeks; but no one had noticed his emotion; and now,
+back again beneath his armor, he watched the scene, a sour smile playing
+about his lips.
+
+“I think the lad might ha' the grace to come and say he's sorry for
+'temptin' to murder me. Hooiver”--with a characteristic shrug--“I
+suppose I'm onraisonable.”
+
+Then the gong rang out its summons, and the squire led the way into the
+great dining-hall. At the one end of the long table, heavy with all the
+solid delicacies of such a feast, he took his seat with the Master of
+Kenmuir upon his right. At the other end was Parson Leggy. While down
+the sides the stalwart Dalesmen were arrayed, with M'Adam a little lost
+figure in the centre.
+
+At first they talked but little, awed like children: knives plied,
+glasses tinkled, the carvers had all their work, only the tongues were
+at rest. But the squire's ringing laugh and the parson's cheery tones
+soon put them at their ease; and a babel of voices rose and waxed.
+
+Of them all, only M'Adam sat silent. He talked to no man, and you may
+be sure no one talked to him. His hand crept oftener to his glass than
+plate, till the sallow face began to flush, and the dim eyes to grow
+unnaturally bright.
+
+Toward the end of the meal there was loud tapping on the table, calls
+for silence, and men pushed back their chairs. The squire was on his
+feet to make his annual speech.
+
+He started by telling them how glad he was to see them there. He made
+an allusion to Owd Bob and the Shepherds' Trophy which was heartily
+applauded. He touched on the Black Killer, and said he had a remedy
+to propose: that Th' Owd Un should be set upon the criminal's track--a
+suggestion which was received with enthusiasm, while M'Adam's cackling
+laugh could be heard high above the rest.
+
+From that he dwelt upon the existing condition of agriculture, the
+depression in which he attributed to the late Radical Government. He
+said that now with the Conservatives in office, and a ministry composed
+of “honorable men and gentlemen,” he felt convinced that things would
+brighten. The Radicals' one ambition was to set class against class,
+landlord against tenant. Well, during the last five hundred years, the
+Sylvesters had rarely been--he was sorry to have to confess it--good men
+(laughter and dissent); but he never yet heard of the Sylvester--though
+he shouldn't say it--who was a bad landlord (loud applause).
+
+This was a free country, and any tenant of his who was not content (a
+voice, “'Oo says we bain't?”)--“thank you, thank you!”--well, there was
+room for him outside. (Cheers.) He thanked God from the bottom of his
+heart that, during the forty years he had been responsible for the
+March Mere Estate, there had never been any friction between him and his
+people (cheers), and he didn't think there ever would be. (Loud cheers.)
+
+“Thank you, thank you!” And his motto was, “Shun a Radical as you do the
+devil!”--and he was very glad to see them all there--very glad; and he
+wished to give them a toast, “The Queen! God bless her!” and--wait a
+minute!--with her Majesty's name to couple--he was sure that gracious
+lady would wish it--that of “Owd Bob o' Kenmuir!” Then he sat down
+abruptly amid thundering applause.
+
+The toasts duly honoured, James Moore, by prescriptive right as Master
+of Kenmuir, rose to answer.
+
+He began by saying that he spoke “as representing all the tenants,”--but
+he was interrupted.
+
+“Na,” came a shrill voice from half-way down the table. “Yell except me,
+James Moore. I'd as lief be represented by Judas!”
+
+There were cries of “Hold ye gab, little mon!” and the squire's voice,
+“That'll do, Mr. M'Adam!”
+
+The little man restrained his tongue, but his eyes gleamed like a
+ferret's; and the Master continued his speech.
+
+He spoke briefly and to the point, in short phrases. And all the while
+M'Adam kept up a low-voiced, running commentary. At length he could
+control himself no longer. Half rising from his chair, he leant forward
+with hot face and burning eyes, and cried: “Sit doon, James Moore! Hoo
+daur ye stan' there like an honest man, ye whitewashed sepulchre? Sit
+doon, I say, or”--threateningly--“wad ye hae me come to ye?”
+
+At that the Dalesmen laughed uproariously, and even the Master's grim
+face relaxed. But the squire's voice rang out sharp and stern.
+
+“Keep silence and sit down, Mr. M'Adam! D'you hear me, sir? If I have to
+speak to you again it will be to order you to leave the room.”
+
+The little man obeyed, sullen and vengeful, like a beaten cat.
+
+The Master concluded his speech by calling on all present to give three
+cheers for the squire, her ladyship, and the young ladies.
+
+The call was responded to enthusiastically, every man standing. Just as
+the noise was at its zenith, Lady Eleanour herself, with her two fair
+daughters, glided into the gallery at the end of the hall; whereat the
+cheering became deafening.
+
+Slowly the clamor subsided. One by one the tenants sat down. At length
+there was left standing only one solitary figure--M 'Adam.
+
+His face was set, and he gripped the chair in front of him with thin,
+nervous hands.
+
+“Mr. Sylvester,” he began in low yet clear voice, “ye said this is a
+free country and we're a' free men. And that bein' so, I'll tak' the
+liberty, wi' yer permission, to say a word. It's maybe the last time
+I'll be wi' ye, so I hope ye'll listen to me.”
+
+The Dalesmen looked surprised, and the squire uneasy. Nevertheless he
+nodded assent.
+
+The little man straightened himself. His face was tense as though
+strung up to a high resolve. All the passion had fled from it, all
+the bitterness was gone; and left behind was a strange, enobling
+earnestness. Standing there in the silence of that great hall, with
+every eye upon him, he looked like some prisoner at the bar about to
+plead for his life.
+
+“Gentlemen,” he began, “I've bin amang ye noo a score years, and I can
+truly say there's not a man in this room I can ca' 'Friend.'” He looked
+along the ranks of upturned faces. “Ay, David, I see ye, and you, Mr.
+Hornbut, and you, Mr. Sylvester--ilka one o' you, and not one as'd back
+me like a comrade gin a trouble came upon me.” There was no rebuke in
+the grave little voice--it merely stated a hard fact.
+
+“There's I doot no one amang ye but has some one--friend or blood--wham
+he can turn to when things are sair wi' him. I've no one.
+
+“'I bear alane my lade o' care'--alane wi' Wullie, who stands to me,
+blaw or snaw, rain or shine. And whiles I'm feared he'll be took from
+me.” He spoke this last half to himself, a grieved, puzzled expression
+on his face, as though lately he had dreamed some ill dream.
+
+“Forbye Wuilie, I've no friend on God's earth. And, mind ye, a bad man
+aften mak's a good friend--but ye've never given me the chance. It's a
+sair thing that, gentlemen, to ha' to fight the battle o' life alane: no
+one to pat ye on th' back, no one to say 'Weel done.' It hardly gies
+a man a chance. For gin he does try and yet fails, men never mind the
+tryin', they only mark the failin'.”
+
+“I dinna blame ye. There's somethin' bred in me, it seems, as sets ivery
+one agin me. It's the same wi' Wullie and the tykes--they're doon on him
+same as men are on me. I suppose we was made so. Sin' I was a lad it's
+aye bin the same. From school days I've had ivery one agin me.”
+
+“In ma life I've had three fiends. Ma mither--and she went; then ma
+wife”--he gave a great swallow--“and she's awa'; and I may say they're
+the only two human bein's as ha' lived on God's earth in ma time that
+iver tried to bear wi' me;--and Wullie. A man's mither--a man's wife--a
+man's dog! it's aften a' he has in this warld; and the more he prizes
+them the more like they are to be took from him.” The little earnest
+voice shook, and the dim eyes puckered and filled.
+
+“Sin' I've bin amang ye--twenty-odd years--can any man here mind
+speakin' any word that wasna ill to me?” He paused; there was no reply.
+
+“I'll tell ye. All the time I've lived here I've had one kindly word
+spoke to me, and that a fortnight gone, and not by a man then--by her
+ladyship, God bless her!” He glanced up into the gallery. There was
+no one visible there; but a curtain at one end shook as though it were
+sobbing.
+
+“Weel, I'm thinkin' we'll be gaein' in a wee while noo, Wullie and me,
+alane and thegither, as we've aye done. And it's time we went. Ye've had
+enough o' us, and it's no for me to blame ye. And when I'm gone what'll
+ye say o' me? 'He was a drunkard.' I am. 'He was a sinner.' I am. 'He
+was ilka thing he shouldna be.' I am. 'We're glad he's gone.' That's
+what ye'll say o' me. And it's but ma deserts.”
+
+The gentle, condemning voice ceased, and began again.
+
+“That's what I am. Gin things had been differ', aiblins I'd ha' bin
+differ'. D'ye ken Robbie Burns? That's a man I've read, and read, and
+read. D'ye ken why I love him as some o' you do yer Bibles? Because
+there's a humanity about him. A weak man hissel', aye slippin',
+slippin', slippin', and tryin' to haud up; sorrowin' ae minute, sinnin'
+the next; doin' ill deeds and wishin' 'em undone--just a plain human
+man, a sinner. And that's why I'm thinkin he's tender for us as is like
+him. _He understood._ It's what he wrote--after ain o' his tumbles, I'm
+thinkin'--that I was goin' to tell ye:
+
+     'Then gently scan yer brother man,
+     Still gentler sister woman,
+     Though they may gang a kennin' wrang,
+     To step aside is human'--
+
+the doctrine o' Charity. Gie him his chance, says Robbie, though he be
+a sinner. Mony a mon'd be differ', mony bad'd be gude, gin they had but
+their chance. Gie 'em their chance, says he; and I'm wi' him. As 'tis,
+ye see me here--a bad man wi' still a streak o' good in him. Gin I'd had
+ma chance, aiblins 'twad be--a good man wi' just a spice o' the devil in
+him. A' the differ' betune what is and what might ha' bin.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII THE DEVIL'S BOWL
+
+
+HE sat down. In the great hall there was silence, save for a tiny sound
+from the gallery like a sob suppressed.
+
+The squire rose hurriedly and left the room. After him, one by one,
+trailed the tenants. At length, two only remained--M'Adam, sitting
+solitary with a long array of empty chairs on either hand; and, at the
+far end of the table, Parson Leggy, stern, upright, motionless.
+
+When the last man had left the room the parson rose, and with lips
+tight-set strode across the silent hall.
+
+“M'Adam,” he said rapidly and almost roughly, “I've listened to
+what you've said, as I think we all have, with a sore heart. You hit
+hard--but I think you were right. And if I've not done my duty by you as
+I ought--and I fear I've not--it's now my duty as God's minister to be
+the first to say I'm sorry.” And it was evident from his face what an
+effort the words cost him.
+
+The little man tilted back his chair, and raised his head.
+
+It was the old M'Adam who looked up. The thin lips were curled; a grin
+was crawling across the mocking face; and he wagged his head gently, as
+he looked at the speaker through the slits of his half-closed eyes.
+
+“Mr. Hornbut, I believe ye thocht me in earnest, 'deed and I do!” He
+leaned back in his chair and laughed softly. “Ye swallered it all
+down like best butter. Dear, dear! to think o' that!” Then, stretching
+forward:
+
+“Mr. Hornbut, I was playin' wi' ye.”
+
+The parson's face, as he listened, was ugly to watch. He shot out a hand
+and grabbed the scoffer by his coat; then dropped it again and turned
+abruptly away.
+
+As he passed through the door a little sneering voice called after him:
+
+“Mr. Hornbut, I ask ye hoo you, a minister o' the Church of England,
+can reconcile it to yer conscience to think--though it be but for a
+minute--that there can be ony good in a man and him no churchgoer? Sir,
+ye're a heretic--not to say a heathen!” He sniggered to himself, and his
+hand crept to a half-emptied wine decanter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour later, James Moore, his business with the squire completed,
+passed through the hall on his way out. Its only occupant was now
+M'Adam, and the Master walked straight up to his enemy.
+
+“M'Adam,” he said gruffly, holding out a sinewy hand, “I'd like to
+say--”
+
+The little man knocked aside the token of friendship.
+
+“Na, na. No cant, if ye please, James Moore. That'll aiblins go doon
+wi' the parsons, but not wi' me. I ken you and you ken me, and all the
+whitewash i' th' warld'll no deceive us.”
+
+The Master turned away, and his face was hard as the nether millstone.
+But the little man pursued him.
+
+“I was nigh forgettin',” he said. “I've a surprise for ye, James Moore.
+But I hear it's yer birthday on Sunday, and I'll keep it till then--he!
+he!”
+
+“Ye'll see me before Sunday, M'Adam,” the other answered. “On Saturday,
+as I told yo', I'm comin' to see if yo've done yer duty.”
+
+“Whether ye come, James Moore, is your business. Whether ye'll iver go,
+once there, I'll mak' mine. I've warned ye twice noo--” and the little
+man laughed that harsh, cackling laugh of his.
+
+At the door of the hall the Master met David. “Noo, lad, yo're comin'
+along wi' Andrew and me,” he said; “Maggie'll niver forgie us if we
+dinna bring yo' home wi' us.”
+
+“Thank you kindly, Mr. Moore,” the boy replied. “I've to see squire
+first; and then yo' may be sure I'll be after you.”
+
+The Master faltered a moment.
+
+“David, ha'n yo' spoke to yer father yet?” he asked in low voice. “Yo'
+should, lad.”
+
+The boy made a gesture of dissent.
+
+“I canna,” he said petulantly.
+
+“I would, lad,” the other advised. “An' yo' don't yo' may be sorry
+after.”
+
+As he turned away he heard the boy's steps, dull and sodden, as he
+crossed the hall; and then a thin, would-be cordial voice in the
+emptiness:
+
+“I declar' if 'tisna David! The return o' the Prodeegal--he! he! So
+ye've seen yer auld dad at last, and the last; the proper place, say
+ye, for yen father--he! he! Eh, lad, but I'm blithe to see ye. D'ye mind
+when we was last thegither? Ye was kneelin' on ma chest: 'Your time's
+come, dad,' says you, and wangs me o'er the face--he! he! I mind it as
+if 'twas yesterday. Weel, weel, we'll say nae mair about it. Boys will
+be boys. Sons will be sons. Accidents will happen. And if at first ye
+don't succeed, why, try, try again--he! he!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dusk was merging into darkness when the Master and Andrew reached the
+Dalesman's Daughter. It had been long dark when they emerged from the
+cosy parlor of the inn and plunged out into the night.
+
+As they crossed the Silver Lea and trudged over that familiar ground,
+where a fortnight since had been fought out the battle of the Cup, the
+wind fluttered past them in spasmodic gasps.
+
+“There 's trouble in the wind,” said the Master.
+
+“Ay,” answered his laconic son.
+
+All day there had been no breath of air, and the sky dangerously blue.
+But now a world of black was surging up from the horizon, smothering the
+star-lit night; and small dark clouds, like puffs of smoke, detaching
+themselves from the main body, were driving tempestuously forward--the
+vanguard of the storm.
+
+In the distance was a low rumbling like heavy tumbrils on the floor of
+heaven. All about, the wind sounded hollow like a mighty scythe on corn.
+The air was oppressed with a leaden blackness--no glimmer of light on
+any hand; and as they began the ascent of the Pass they reached out
+blind hands to feel along the rock-face.
+
+A sea-fret, cool and wetting, fell. A few big rain-drops splashed
+heavily down. The wind rose with a leap and roared past them up the
+rocky track. And the water-gates of heaven were flung wide.
+
+Wet and weary, they battled on; thinking sometimes of the cosy parlor
+behind; sometimes of the home in front; wondering whether Maggie, in
+flat contradiction of her father's orders, would be up to welcome them;
+or whether only Owd Bob would come out to meet them.
+
+The wind volleyed past them like salvoes of artillery. The rain stormed
+at them from above; spat at them from the rock-face; and leapt up at
+them from their feet.
+
+Once they halted for a moment, finding a miserable shelter in a crevice
+of the rock.
+
+“It's a Black Killer's night,” panted the Master. “I reck'n he's oot.”
+
+“Ay,” the boy gasped, “reck'n he is.” Up and up they climbed through the
+blackness, blind and buffeted. The eternal thunder of the rain was all
+about them; the clamor of the gale above; and far beneath, the roar of
+angry waters.
+
+Once, in a lull in the storm, the Master turned and looked back into the
+blackness along the path they had come.
+
+“Did ye hear onythin'?” he roared above the muffled soughing of the
+wind.
+
+“Nay!” Andrew shouted back.
+
+“I thowt I heard a step!” the Master cried, peering down. But nothing
+could he see.
+
+Then the wind leaped to life again like a giant from his sleep, drowning
+all sound with its hurricane voice; and they turned and bent to their
+task again.
+
+Nearing the summit, the Master turned once more.
+
+“There it was again!” he called; but his words were swept away on the
+storm; and they buckled to the struggle afresh.
+
+Ever and anon the moon gleamed down through the riot of tossing sky.
+Then they could see the wet wall above them, with the water tumbling
+down its sheer face; and far below, in the roaring gutter of the Pass a
+brown-stained torrent. Hardly, however, had they time to glance around
+when a mass of cloud would hurry jealously up, and all again was
+blackness and noise.
+
+At length, nigh spent, they topped the last and steepest pitch of the
+Pass, and emerged into the Devil's Bowl. There, overcome with their
+exertions, they flung themselves on to the soaking ground to draw
+breath.
+
+Behind them, the wind rushed with a sullen roar up the funnel of the
+Pass. It screamed above them as though ten million devils were a-horse;
+and blurted out on to the wild Marches beyond.
+
+As they lay there, still panting, the moon gleamed down in momentary
+graciousness. In front, through the lashing rain, they could discern the
+hillocks that squat, hag-like, round the Devil's Bowl; and lying in its
+bosom, its white waters, usually so still, ploughed now into a thousand
+furrows, the Lone Tarn.
+
+The Master raised his head and craned forward at the ghostly scene. Of
+a sudden he reared himself on to his arms, and stayed motionless awhile.
+Then he dropped as though dead, forcing down Andrew with an iron hand.
+
+“Lad, did'st see?” he whispered.
+
+“Nay; what was't?” the boy replied, roused by his father's tone.
+
+“There!”
+
+But as the Master pointed forward, a blur of cloud intervened and all
+was dark. Quickly it passed; and again the lantern of the night shone
+down. And Andrew, looking with all his eyes, saw indeed.
+
+There, in front, by the fretting waters of the Tarn, packed in a solid
+phalanx, with every head turned in the same direction, was a flock of
+sheep. They were motionless, all-intent, staring with horror-bulging
+eyes. A column of steam rose from their bodies into the rain-pierced
+air. Panting and palpitating, yet they stood with their backs to the
+water, as though determined to sell their lives dearly. Beyond them,
+not fifty yards away, crouched a humpbacked boulder, casting a long,
+misshapen shadow in the moonlight. And beneath it were two black
+objects, one still struggling feebly.
+
+“The Killer!” gasped the boy, and, all ablaze with excitement, began
+forging forward.
+
+“Steady, lad, steady!” urged his father, dropping a restraining hand on
+the boy's shoulder.
+
+Above them a huddle of clouds flung in furious rout across the night,
+and the moon was veiled.
+
+“Follow, lad!” ordered the Master, and began to crawl silently forward.
+As stealthily Andrew pursued. And over the sodden ground they crept, one
+behind the other, like two' night-hawks on some foul errand.
+
+On they crawled, lying prone during the blinks of moon, stealing forward
+in the dark; till, at length, the swish of the rain on the waters of the
+Tarn, and the sobbing of the flock in front, warned them they were near.
+
+They skirted the trembling pack, passing so close as to brush against
+the flanking sheep; and yet unnoticed, for the sheep were soul-absorbed
+in the tragedy in front. Only, when the moon was in, Andrew could hear
+them huddling and stamping in the darkness. And again, as it shone out,
+fearfully they edged closer to watch the bloody play.
+
+Along the Tarn edge the two crept. And still the gracious moon hid their
+approach, and the drunken wind drowned with its revelry the sound of
+their coming.
+
+So they stole on, on hands and knees, with hearts aghast and fluttering
+breath; until, of a sudden, in a lull of wind, they could hear, right
+before them, the smack and slobber of bloody lips, chewing their bloody
+meal.
+
+“Say thy prayers, Red Wull. Thy last minute's come!” muttered the
+Master, rising to his knees. Then, in Andrew's ear: “When I rush, lad,
+follow!” For he thought, when the moon rose, to jump in on the great
+dog, and, surprising him as he lay gorged and unsuspicious, to deal him
+one terrible swashing blow, and end forever the lawless doings of the
+Tailless Tyke.
+
+The moon flung off its veil of cloud. White and cold, it stared down
+into the Devil's Bowl; on murderer and murdered.
+
+Within a hand's cast of the avengers of blood humped the black boulder.
+On the border of its shadow lay a dead sheep; and standing beside the
+body, his coat all ruffled by the hand of the storm--Owd Bob--Owd Bob o'
+Kenmuir.
+
+Then the light went in, and darkness covered the land.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIX THE DEVIL'S BOWL
+
+
+IT was Owd Bob. There could be no mistaking. In the wide world there
+was but one Owd Bob o' Kenmuir. The silver moon gleamed down on the dark
+head and rough gray coat, and lit the white escutcheon on his chest.
+
+And in the darkness James Moore was lying with his face pressed downward
+that he might not see.
+
+Once he raised himself on his arms; his eyes were shut and face
+uplifted, like a blind man praying. He passed a weary hand across his
+brow; his head dropped again; and he moaned and moaned like a man in
+everlasting pain.
+
+Then the darkness lifted a moment, and he stole a furtive glance, like a
+murderer's at the gallows-tree, at the scene in front.
+
+It was no dream; clear and cruel in the moonlight the humpbacked
+boulder; the dead sheep; and that gray figure, beautiful, motionless,
+damned for all eternity.
+
+The Master turned his face and looked at Andrew, a dumb, pitiful
+entreaty in his eyes; but in the boy's white, horror-stricken
+countenance was no comfort. Then his head lolled down again, and the
+strong man was whimpering.
+
+“He! he! he! 'Scuse ma laffin', Mr. Moore--he! he! he!”
+
+A little man, all wet and shrunk, sat hunching on a mound above them,
+rocking his shrivelled form to and fro in the agony of his merriment.
+
+“Ye raskil--he! he! Ye rogue--he! he!” and he shook his fist waggishly
+at the unconscious gray dog. “I owe ye anither grudge for this--ye've
+anteecipated me”--and he leant back and shook this way and that in
+convulsive mirth.
+
+The man below him rose heavily to his feet, and tumbled toward the
+mocker, his great figure swaying from side to side as though in blind
+delirium, moaning still as he went. And there was that on his face which
+no man can mistake. Boy that he was, Andrew knew it.
+
+“Feyther! feyther! do'ee not!” he pleaded, running after his father and
+laying impotent hands on him.
+
+But the strong man shook him off like a fly, and rolled on, swaying and
+groaning, with that awful expression plain to see in the moonlight.
+
+In front the little man squatted in the rain, bowed double still; and
+took no thought to flee.
+
+“Come on, James Moore! Come on!” he laughed, malignant joy in his voice;
+and something gleamed bright in his right hand, and was hid again. “I've
+bin waitin' this a weary while noo. Come on!”
+
+Then had there been done something worse than sheep-murder in the
+dreadful lonesomeness of the Devil's Bowl upon that night; but of
+a sudden, there sounded the splash of a man's foot, falling heavily
+behind; a hand like a falling tree smote the Master on the shoulder; and
+a voice roared above the noise of the storm:
+
+“Mr. Moore! Look, man! look!”
+
+The Master tried to shake off that detaining grasp; but it pinned him
+where he was, immovable.
+
+“Look, I tell yo'!” cried that great voice again.
+
+A hand pushed past him and pointed; and sullenly he turned, ignoring the
+figure at his side, and looked.
+
+The wind had dropped suddenly as it had risen; the little man on the
+mound had ceased to chuckle; Andrew's sobs were hushed; and in the
+background the huddled flock edged closer. The world hung balanced on
+the pinpoint of the moment. Every eye was in the one direction.
+
+With dull, uncomprehending gaze James Moore stared as bidden. There was
+the gray dog naked in the moonlight, heedless still of any witnesses;
+there the murdered sheep, lying within and without that distorted shade;
+and there the humpbacked boulder.
+
+He stared into the shadow, and still stared.
+
+Then he started as though struck. The shadow of the boulder had moved!
+
+Motionless, with head shot forward and bulging eyes, he gazed.
+
+Ay, ay, ay; he was sure of it--a huge dim outline as of a lion
+_couchant_, in the very thickest of the blackness.
+
+At that he was seized with such a palsy of trembling that he must have
+fallen but for the strong arm about his waist.
+
+Clearer every moment grew that crouching figure; till at length they
+plainly could discern the line of arching loins, the crest, thick as a
+stallion's, the massive, wagging head. No mistake this time. There he
+lay in the deepest black, gigantic, revelling in his horrid debauch--the
+Black Killer!
+
+And they watched him at his feast. Now he burrowed into the spongy
+flesh; now turned to lap the dark pool which glittered in the moonlight
+at his side like claret in a silver cup. Now lifting his head, he
+snapped irritably at the rain-drops, and the moon caught his wicked,
+rolling eye and the red shreds of flesh dripping from his jaw. And
+again, raising his great muzzle as if about to howl, he let the
+delicious nectar trickle down his throat and ravish his palate.
+
+So he went on, all unsuspicious, wisely nodding in slow-mouthed
+gluttony. And in the stillness, between the claps of wind, they could
+hear the smacking of his lips.
+
+While all the time the gray dog stood before him, motionless, as though
+carved in stone.
+
+At last, as the murderer rolled his great head from side to side, he saw
+that still figure. At the sight he leaped back, dismayed. Then with a
+deep-mouthed roar that shook the waters of the Tarn he was up and across
+his victim with fangs bared, his coat standing erect in wet, rigid
+furrows from topknot to tail.
+
+So the two stood, face to face, with perhaps a yard of rain-pierced air
+between them.
+
+The wind hushed its sighing to listen. The moon stared down, white
+and dumb. Away at the back the sheep edged closer. While save for the
+everlasting thunder of the rain, there was utter stillness.
+
+An age, it seemed, they waited so. Then a voice, clear yet low and far
+away, like a bugle in a distant city, broke the silence.
+
+“Eh, Wullie!” it said.
+
+There was no anger in the tones, only an incomparable reproach; the
+sound of the cracking of a man's heart.
+
+At the call the great dog leapt round, snarling in hideous passion. He
+saw the small, familiar figure, clear-cut against the tumbling sky; and
+for the only time in his life Red Wull was afraid.
+
+His blood-foe was forgotten; the dead sheep was forgotten; everything
+was sunk in the agony of that moment. He cowered upon the ground, and
+a cry like that of a lost soul was wrung from him; it rose on the still
+night air and floated, wailing, away; and the white waters of the Tarn
+thrilled in cold pity; out of the lonely hollow; over the desolate
+Marches; into the night.
+
+On the mound above stood his master. The little man's white hair was
+bared to the night wind; the rain trickled down his face; and his hands
+were folded behind his back. He stood there, looking down into the dell
+below him, as a man may stand at the tomb of his lately buried wife. And
+there was such an expression on his face as I cannot describe.
+
+“Wullie, Wullie, to me!” he cried at length; and his voice sounded weak
+and far, like a distant memory.
+
+At that, the huge brute came crawling toward him on his belly,
+whimpering as he came, very pitiful in his distress. He knew his fate as
+every sheep-dog knows it. That troubled him not. His pain, insufferable,
+was that this, his friend and father, who had trusted him, should have
+found him in his sin.
+
+So he crept up to his master's feet; and the little man never moved.
+
+“Wullie--ma Wullie!” he said very gently. “They've aye bin agin me--and
+noo you! A man's mither--a man's wife--a man's dog! they're all I've
+iver had; and noo ain o' they three has turned agin me! Indeed I am
+alone!”
+
+At that the great dog raised himself, and placing his forepaws on his
+master's chest tenderly, lest he should hurt him who was already hurt
+past healing, stood towering above him; while the little man laid his
+two colds hands on the dog's shoulders.
+
+So they stood, looking at one another, like a man and his love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At M'Adam's word, Owd Bob looked up, and for the first time saw his
+master.
+
+He seemed in nowise startled, but trotted over to him. There was nothing
+fearful in his carriage, no haunting blood-guiltiness in the true gray
+eyes which never told a lie, which never, dog-like, failed to look you
+in the face. Yet his tail was low, and, as he stopped at his master's
+feet, he was quivering. For he, too, knew, and was not unmoved.
+
+For weeks he had tracked the Killer; for weeks he had followed him as he
+crossed Kenmuir, bound on his bloody errands; yet always had lost him on
+the Marches. Now, at last, he had run him to ground. Yet his heart went
+out to his enemy in his distress.
+
+“I thowt t'had been yo', lad,” the Master whispered, his hand on the
+dark head at his knee--“I thowt t'had bin yo'!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rooted to the ground, the three watched the scene between M'Adam and his
+Wull.
+
+In the end the Master was whimpering; Andrew crying; and David turned
+his back.
+
+At length, silent, they moved away.
+
+“Had I--should I go to him” asked David hoarsely, nodding toward his
+father.
+
+“Nay, nay, lad,” the Master replied. “Yon's not a matter for a mon's
+friends.”
+
+So they marched out of the Devil's Bowl, and left those two alone
+together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little later, as they trampled along, James Moore heard little
+pattering, staggering footsteps behind.
+
+He stopped, and the other two went on.
+
+“Man,” a voice whispered, and a face, white and pitiful, like a mother's
+pleading for her child, looked into his--“Man, ye'll no tell them a' I'd
+no like 'em to ken 'twas ma Wullie. Think an 't had bin yer ain dog.”
+
+“You may trust me!” the other answered thickly.
+
+The little man stretched out a palsied hand.
+
+“Gie us yer hand on't. And G-God bless ye, James Moore!”
+
+So these two shook hands in the moonlight, with none to witness it but
+the God who made them.
+
+And that is why the mystery of the Black Killer is yet unsolved in
+the Daleland. Many have surmised; besides those three only one other
+knows--knows now which of those two he saw upon a summer night was the
+guilty, which the innocent. And Postie Jim tells no man.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXX. THE TAILLESS TYKE AT BAY
+
+
+ON the following morning there was a sheep-auction at the Dalesman's
+Daughter.
+
+Early as many of the farmers arrived, there was one earlier. Tupper, the
+first man to enter the sand-floored parlor, found M'Adam before him.
+
+He was sitting a little forward in his chair; his thin hands rested on
+his knees; and on his face was a gentle, dreamy expression such as no
+man had ever seen there before. All the harsh wrinkles seemed to have
+fled in the night; and the sour face, stamped deep with the bitterness
+of life, was softened now, as if at length at peace.
+
+“When I coom doon this mornin',” said Teddy Bolstock in a whisper, “I
+found 'im sittin' just so. And he's nor moved nor spoke since.”
+
+“Where's th' Terror, then?” asked Tupper, awed somehow into like hushed
+tones.
+
+“In t' paddock at back,” Teddy answered, “marchin' hoop and doon, hoop
+and doon, for a' the world like a sentry-soger. And so he was when I
+looked oot o' window when I wake.”
+
+Then Londesley entered, and after him, Ned Hoppin, Rob Saunderson, Jim
+Mason, and others, each with his dog. And each man, as he came in and
+saw the little lone figure for once without its huge attendant genius,
+put the same question; while the dogs sniffed about the little man, as
+though suspecting treachery. And all the time M'Adam sat as though
+he neither heard nor saw, lost in some sweet, sad dream; so quite, so
+silent, that more than one thought he slept.
+
+After the first glance, however, the farmers paid him little heed,
+clustering round the publican at the farther end of the room to hear the
+latest story of Owd Bob.
+
+It appeared that a week previously, James Moore with a pack of sheep had
+met the new Grammoch-town butcher at the Dalesmen's Daughter. A bargain
+concluded, the butcher started with the flock for home. As he had no
+dog, the Master offered him Th' Owd Un. “And he'll pick me i' th' town
+to-morrow,” said he.
+
+Now the butcher was a stranger in the land. Of course he had heard of
+Owd Bob o' Kenmuir, yet it never struck him that this handsome gentleman
+with the quiet, resolute manner, who handled sheep as he had never seen
+them handled, was that hero--“the best sheep-dog in the North.”
+
+Certain it is that by the time the flock was penned in the enclosure
+behind the shop, he coveted the dog--ay, would even offer ten pounds for
+him!
+
+Forthwith the butcher locked him up in an outhouse--summit of indignity;
+resolving to make his offer on the morrow.
+
+When the morrow came he found no dog in the outhouse, and, worse, no
+sheep in the enclosure. A sprung board showed the way of escape of the
+one, and a displaced hurdle that of the other. And as he was making the
+discovery, a gray dog and a flock of sheep, travelling along the road
+toward the Dalesman's Daughter, met the Master.
+
+From the first, Owd Bob had mistrusted the man. The attempt to confine
+him set the seal on his suspicions. His master's sheep were not for such
+a rogue; and he worked his own way out and took the sheep along with
+him.
+
+The story was told to a running chorus of--“Ma word! Good, Owd Un!--Ho!
+ho! did he thot?”
+
+Of them all, only M'Adam sat strangely silent.
+
+Rob Saunderson, always glad to draw the little man, remarked it.
+
+“And what d'yo' think o' that, Mr. M'Adam, for a wunnerfu' story of a
+wunnerfu' tyke?” he asked.
+
+“It's a gude tale, a vera gude tale,” the little man answered dreamily.
+“And James Moore didna invent it; he had it from the Christmas number
+o' the _Flock-keeper_ in saxty.” (On the following Sunday, old Rob, from
+sheer curiosity, reached down from his shelf the specified number of the
+paper. To his amazement he found the little man was right. There was the
+story almost identically. None the less is it also true of Owd Bob o'
+Kenmuir.)
+
+“Ay, ay,” the little man continued, “and in a day or two James Moore'll
+ha' anither tale to tell ye--a better tale, ye'll think it--mair
+laffable. And yet--ay---no---I'll no believe it! I niver loved James
+Moore, but I think, as Mr. Hornbut aince said, he'd rather die than lie.
+Owd Bob o' Kenmuir!” he continued in a whisper. “Up till the end I canna
+shake him aff. Hafflins I think that where I'm gaein' to there'll be
+gray dogs sneakin' around me in the twilight. And they're aye behind and
+behind, and I canna, canna--”
+
+Teddy Bolstock interrupted, lifting his hand for silence.
+
+“D'yo' hear thot?--Thunder!”
+
+They listened; and from without came a gurgling, jarring roar, horrible
+to hear.
+
+“It's comin' nearer!”
+
+“Nay, it's goin' away!”
+
+“No thunder thot!”
+
+“More like the Lea in flood. And yet--Eh, Mr. M'Adam, what is it?”
+
+The little man had moved at last. He was on his feet, staring about him,
+wild-eyed.
+
+“Where's yer dogs?” he almost screamed.
+
+“Here's ma--Nay, by thunder! but he's not!” was the astonished cry.
+
+In the interest of the story no man had noticed that his dog had risen
+from his side; no one had noticed a file of shaggy figures creeping out
+of the room.
+
+“I tell ye it's the tykes! I tell ye it's the tykes! They're on ma
+Wullie--fifty to one they're on him! My God! My God! And me not there!
+Wullie, Wullie! “--in a scream--“I'm wi' ye!”
+
+At the same moment Bessie Boistock rushed in, white-faced.
+
+“Hi! Feyther! Mr. Saunderson! all o' you! T'tykes fightin' mad! Hark!”
+
+There was no time for that. Each man seized his stick and rushed for the
+door; and M'Adam led them all.
+
+A rare thing it was for M'Adam and Red Wull to be apart. So rare, that
+others besides the men in that little tap-room noticed it.
+
+Saunderson's old Shep walked quietly to the back door of the house and
+looked out.
+
+There on the slope below him he saw what he sought, stalking up and
+down, gaunt and grim, like a lion at feeding-time. And as the old dog
+watched, his tail was gently swaying as though he were well pleased.
+
+He walked back into the tap-room just as Teddy began his tale. Twice
+he made the round of the room, silent-footed. From dog to dog he went,
+stopping at each as though urging him on to some great enterprise. Then
+he made for the door again, looking back to see if any followed.
+
+One by one the others rose and trailed out after him: big blue Rasper,
+Londesley's Lassie, Ned Hoppin's young dog; Grip and Grapple, the
+publican's bull-terriers; Jim Mason's Gyp, foolish and flirting even
+now; others there were; and last of all, waddling heavily in the rear,
+that scarred Amazon, the Venus.
+
+Out of the house they pattered, silent and unseen, with murder in their
+hearts. At last they had found their enemy alone. And slowly, in a black
+cloud, like the shadow of death, they dropped down the slope upon him.
+
+And he saw them coming, knew their errand--as who should better than the
+Terror of the Border?--and was glad. Death it might be, and such an
+one as he would wish to die--at least distraction from that long-drawn,
+haunting pain. And he smiled grimly as he looked at the approaching
+crowd, and saw there was not one there but he had humbled in his time.
+
+He ceased his restless pacing, and awaited them. His great head was high
+as he scanned them contemptuously, daring them to come on.
+
+And on they came, marching slow and silent like soldiers at a funeral:
+young and old; bob-tailed and bull; terrier and collie; flocking like
+vultures to the dead. And the Venus, heavy with years, rolled after them
+on her bandy legs panting in her hurry lest she should be late. For had
+she not the blood of her blood to avenge?
+
+So they came about him, slow, certain, murderous, opening out to cut
+him off on every side. There was no need. He never thought to move. Long
+odds 'twould be--crushingly heavy; yet he loved them for it, and was
+trembling already with the glory of the coming fight.
+
+They were up to him now; the sheep-dogs walking round him on their toes,
+stiff and short like cats on coals; their hacks a little humped; heads
+averted; yet eying him askance.
+
+And he remained stock-still nor looked at them. His great chin was
+cocked, and his muzzle wrinkled in a dreadful grin. As he stood there,
+shivering a little, his eyes rolling back, his breath grating in his
+throat to set every bristle on end, he looked a devil indeed.
+
+The Venus ranged alongside him. No preliminary stage for her; she never
+walked where she could stand, or stood where she could lie. But stand
+she must now, breathing hard through her nose, never taking her eyes off
+that pad she had marked for her own. Close beside her were crop-eared
+Grip and Grapple, looking up at the line above them where hairy neck and
+shoulder joined. Behind was big Rasper, and close to him Lassie. Of the
+others, each had marked his place, each taken up his post.
+
+Last of all, old Shep took his stand full in front of his enemy, their
+shoulders almost rubbing, head past head.
+
+So the two stood a moment, as though they were whispering; each
+diabolical, each rolling back his eyes to watch the other. While from
+the little mob there rose a snarling, bubbling snore, like some giant
+wheezing in his sleep.
+
+Then like lightning each struck. Rearing high, they wrestled with
+striving paws and the expression of fiends incarnate. Down they went,
+Shep underneath, and the great dog with a dozen of these wolves of hell
+upon him. Rasper, devilish, was riding on his back; the Venus--well for
+him!--had struck and missed; but Grip and Grapple had their hold; and
+the others, like leaping demoniacs, were plunging into the whirlpool
+vortex of the fight.
+
+And there, where a fortnight before he had fought and lost the battle of
+the Cup, Red Wull now battled for his life.
+
+Long odds! But what cared he? The long-drawn agony of the night was
+drowned in that glorious delirium. The hate of years came bubbling
+forth. In that supreme moment he would avenge his wrongs. And he went in
+to fight, revelling like a giant in the red lust of killing.
+
+Long odds! Never before had he faced such a galaxy of foes. His one
+chance lay in quickness: to prevent the swarming crew getting their hold
+till at least he had diminished their numbers.
+
+Then it was a sight to see the great brute, huge as a bull-calf, strong
+as a bull, rolling over and over and up again, quick as a kitten;
+leaping here, striking there; shaking himself free; swinging his
+quarters; fighting with feet and body and teeth--every inch of him at
+war. More than once he broke right through the mob; only to turn again
+and face it. No flight for him; nor thought of it.
+
+Up and down the slope the dark mass tossed, like some hulk the sport
+of the waves. Black and white, sable and gray, worrying at that great
+centre-piece. Up and down, roaming wide, leaving everywhere a trail of
+red.
+
+Gyp he had pinned and hurled over his shoulder. Grip followed; he shook
+her till she rattled, then flung her afar; and she fell with a horrid
+thud, not to rise. While Grapple, the death to avenge, hung tighter. In
+a scarlet, soaking patch of the ground lay Big Bell's lurcher, doubled
+up in a dreadful ball. And Hoppin's young dog, who three hours before
+had been the children's tender playmate, now fiendish to look on,
+dragged after the huddle up the hill. Back the mob rolled on her. When
+it was passed, she lay quite still, grinning; a handful of tawny hair
+and flesh in her dead mouth.
+
+So they fought on. And ever and anon a great figure rose up from the
+heaving inferno all around; rearing to his full height, his head ragged
+and bleeding, the red foam dripping from his jaws. Thus he would appear
+momentarily, like some dark rock amid a raging sea; and down he would go
+again.
+
+Silent now they fought, dumb and determined. Only you might have heard
+the rend and rip of tearing flesh; a hoarse gurgle as some dog went
+down; the panting of dry throats; and now and then a sob from that
+central figure. For he was fighting for his life. The Terror of the
+Border was at bay.
+
+All who meant it were on him now. The Venus, blinded with blood, had her
+hold at last; and never but once in a long life of battles had she let
+go; Rasper, his breath coming in rattles, had him horribly by the loins;
+while a dozen other devils with red eyes and wrinkled nostrils clung
+still.
+
+Long odds! And down he went, smothered beneath the weight of numbers,
+yet struggled up again. His great head was torn and dripping; his eyes a
+gleam of rolling red and white; the little tail stern and stiff like
+the gallant stump of a flagstaff shot away. He was desperate, but
+indomitable; and he sobbed as he fought doggedly on.
+
+Long odds! It could not last. And down he went at length, silent
+still--never a cry should they wring from him in his agony; the Venus
+glued to that mangled pad; Rasper beneath him now; three at his throat;
+two at his ears; a crowd on flanks and body.
+
+The Terror of the Border was down at last!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Wullie, ma Wullie!” screamed M'Adam, bounding down the slope a crook's
+length in front of the rest. “Wullie! Wullie! to me!”
+
+At the shrill cry the huddle below was convulsed. It heaved and swelled
+and dragged to and fro, like the sea lashed into life by some dying
+leviathan.
+
+A gigantic figure, tawny and red, fought its way to the surface. A great
+tossing head, bloody past recognition, flung out from the ruck. One
+quick glance he shot from his ragged eyes at the little flying form in
+front; then with a roar like a waterfall plunged toward it, shaking off
+the bloody leeches as he went.
+
+“Wullie! Wullie! I'm wi' ye!” cried that little voice, now so near.
+
+Through--through--through!--an incomparable effort and his last. They
+hung to his throat, they clung to his muzzle, they were round and about
+him. And down he went again with a sob and a little suffocating cry,
+shooting up at his master one quick, beseeching glance as the sea of
+blood closed over him--worrying, smothering, tearing, like foxhounds at
+the kill.
+
+They left the dead and pulled away the living. And it was no light task,
+for the pack were mad for blood.
+
+At the bottom of the wet mess of hair and red and flesh was old Shep,
+stone-dead. And as Saunderson pulled the body out, his face was working;
+for no man can lose in a crack the friend of a dozen years, and remain
+unmoved.
+
+The Venus lay there, her teeth clenched still in death; smiling that her
+vengeance was achieved. Big Rasper, blue no longer, was gasping out his
+life. Two more came crawling out to find a quiet spot where they might
+lay them down to die. Before the night had fallen another had gone to
+his account. While not a dog who fought upon that day but carried the
+scars of it with him to his grave.
+
+The Terror o' th' Border, terrible in his life, like Samson, was yet
+more terrible in his dying.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Down at the bottom lay that which once had been Adam M'Adam's Red Wull.
+
+At the sight the little man neither raved nor swore: it was past that
+for him. He sat down, heedless of the soaking ground, and took the
+mangled head in his lap very tenderly.
+
+“They've done ye at last, Wullie--they've done ye at last,” he said
+quietly; unalterably convinced that the attack had been organized while
+he was detained in the tap-room.
+
+On hearing the loved little voice, the dog gave one weary wag of his
+stump-tail. And with that the Tailless Tyke, Adam M'Adam's Red Wull, the
+Black Killer, went to his long home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One by one the Dalesmen took away their dead, and the little man was
+left alone with the body of his last friend.
+
+Dry-eyed he sat there, nursing the dead dog's head; hour after
+hour--alone--crooning to himself:
+
+     “'Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought,
+     An' wi' the weary warl' fought!
+     An'  mony an anxious day I thought
+     We wad be beat.'
+
+An' noo we are, Wullie--noo we are!”
+
+So he went on, repeating the lines over and over again, always with the
+same sad termination.
+
+“A man's mither--a man's wife--a man's dog! They three are a' little
+M'Adam iver had to back him! D'ye mind the auld mither, Wullie? And her,
+'Niver be down-hearted, Adam; ye've aye got yer mither,' And ae day I
+had not. And Flora, Wullie (ye remember Flora, Wullie? Na, na; ye'd
+not) wi' her laffin' daffin' manner, cryin' to one: 'Adam, ye say ye're
+alane. But ye've me--is that no enough for ony man?' And God kens
+it was--while it lasted!” He broke down and sobbed a while. “And you
+Wullie--and you! the only man friend iver I had!” He sought the dog's
+bloody paw with his right hand.
+
+     “'An' here's a hand, my trusty fier,
+     An gie's a hand o' thine;
+     An'  we'll tak' a right guid willie-waught,
+     For auld lang syne.'”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He sat there, muttering, and stroking the poor head upon his lap,
+bending over it, like a mother over a sick child.
+
+“They've done ye at last, lad--done ye sair. And noo I'm thinkin'
+they'll no rest content till I'm gone. And oh, Wullie!”--he bent down
+and whispered--“I dreamed sic an awfu' thing--that ma Wullie--but there!
+'twas but a dream.”
+
+So he sat on, crooning to the dead dog; and no man approached him. Only
+Bessie of the inn watched the little lone figure from afar.
+
+It was long past noon when at length he rose, laying the dog's head
+reverently down, and tottered away toward that bridge which once the
+dead thing on the slope had held against a thousand.
+
+He crossed it and turned; there was a look upon his face, half hopeful,
+half fearful, very piteous to see.
+
+“Wullie, Wullie, to me!” he cried; only the accents, formerly so fiery,
+were now weak as a dying man's.
+
+A while he waited in vain.
+
+“Are ye no comin', Wullie?” he asked at length in quavering tones.
+“Ye've not used to leave me.”
+
+He walked away a pace, then turned again and whistled that shrill, sharp
+call, only now it sounded like a broken echo of itself.
+
+“Come to me, Wullie!” he implored, very pitifully. “'Tis the first time
+iver I kent ye not come and me whistlin'. What ails ye, lad?”
+
+He recrossed the bridge, walking blindly like a sobbing child; and yet
+dry-eyed.
+
+Over the dead body he stooped.
+
+“What ails ye, Wullie?” he asked again. “Will you, too, leave me?”
+
+Then Bessie, watching fearfully, saw him bend, sling the great body on
+his back, and stagger away.
+
+Limp and hideous, the carcase hung down from the little man's shoulders.
+The huge head, with grim, wide eyes and lolling tongue, jolted and
+swagged with the motion, seeming to grin a ghastly defiance at the world
+it had left. And the last Bessie saw of them was that bloody, rolling
+head, with the puny legs staggering beneath their load, as the two
+passed out of the world's ken.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the Devil's Bowl, next day, they found the pair: Adam M'Adam and his
+Red Wull, face to face; dead, not divided; each, save for the other,
+alone. The dog, his saturnine expression glazed and ghastly in the
+fixedness of death, propped up against that humpbacked boulder beneath
+which, a while before, the Black Killer had dreed his weird; and, close
+by, his master lying on his back, his dim dead eyes staring up at the
+heaven, one hand still clasping a crumpled photograph; the weary body
+at rest at last, the mocking face--mocking no longer--alight with a
+whole-souled, transfiguring happiness.
+
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT
+
+
+Adam M'Adam and his Red Wull lie buried together: one just within, the
+other just without, the consecrated pale.
+
+The only mourners at the funeral were David, James Moore, Maggie, and a
+gray dog peering through the lych-gate.
+
+During the service a carriage stopped at the churchyard, and a lady with
+a stately figure and a gentle face stepped out and came across the grass
+to pay a last tribute to the dead. And Lady Eleanour, as she joined
+the little group about the grave, seemed to notice a more than usual
+solemnity in the parson's voice as he intoned: “Earth to earth--ashes
+to ashes--dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to
+eternal life.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When you wander in the gray hill-country of the North, in the loneliest
+corner of that lonely land you may chance upon a low farmhouse, lying in
+the shadow of the Muir Pike.
+
+Entering, a tall old man comes out to greet you--the Master of Kenmuir.
+His shoulders are bent now; the hair that was so dark is frosted; but
+the blue-gray eyes look you as proudly in the face as of yore.
+
+And while the girl with the glory of yellow hair is preparing food for
+you--they are hospitable to a fault, these Northerners--you will notice
+on the mantelpiece, standing solitary, a massive silver cup, dented.
+
+That is the world-known Shepherds' Trophy, won outright, as the old man
+will tell you, by Owd Bob, last and best of the Gray Dogs of Kenmuir.
+The last because he is the best; because once, for a long-drawn unit of
+time, James Moore had thought him to be the worst.
+
+When at length you take your leave, the old man accompanies you to the
+top of the slope to point you your way.
+
+“Yo' cross the stream; over Langholm How, yonder; past the Bottom; and
+oop th' hill on far side. Yo'll come on th' house o' top. And happen
+yo'll meet Th' Owd Un on the road. Good-day to you, sir, good-day.”
+
+So you go as he has bidden you; across the stream, skirting the How,
+over the gulf and up the hill again.
+
+On the way, as the Master has foretold, you come upon an old gray dog,
+trotting soberly along. Th' Owd Un, indeed, seems to spend the evening
+of his life going thus between Kenmuir and the Grange. The black muzzle
+is almost white now; the gait, formerly so smooth and strong, is stiff
+and slow; venerable, indeed, is he of whom men still talk as the best
+sheep-dog in the North.
+
+As he passes, he pauses to scan you. The noble head is high, and one
+foot raised; and you look into two big gray eyes such as you have never
+seen before--soft, a little dim, and infinitely sad.
+
+That is Owd Bob o' Kenmuir, of whom the tales are many as the flowers on
+the May. With him dies the last of the immortal line of the Gray Dogs of
+Kenmuir.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You travel on up the bill, something pensive, and knock at the door of
+the house on the top.
+
+A woman, comely with the inevitable comeliness of motherhood, opens to
+you. And nestling in her arms is a little boy with golden hair and happy
+face, like one of Correggio's cherubs.
+
+You ask the child his name. He kicks and crows, and looks up at his
+mother; and in the end lisps roguishly, as if it was the merriest joke
+in all this merry world, “Adum Mataddum.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bob, Son of Battle, by Alfred Ollivant
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOB, SON OF BATTLE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 2795-0.txt or 2795-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/9/2795/
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
+of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.