Bob, Son of Battle Part 23

"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 flas.h.i.+ng 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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, la.s.s. 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, la.s.s," 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 att.i.tude 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 sc.r.a.ppety bit. Noo, rin whoam." And the little man slunk silently away.