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.”