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.”