“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.”
* * * * *