Bob, Son of Battle Part 7

David was now the only link between the two farms. Despite his father's angry commands, the boy clung to his intimacy with the Moores with a doggedness that no thrashing could overcome. Not a minute of the day when out of school, holidays and Sundays included, but was pa.s.sed at Kenmuir. It was not till late at night that he would sneak back to the Grange, and creep quietly up to his tiny bare room in the roof--not supperless, indeed, motherly Mrs. Moore had seen to that. And there he would lie awake and listen with a fierce contempt as his father, hours later, lurched into the kitchen below, lilting liquorishly:

"We are na fou, we're nae that fou, But just a drappie in our e'e; The c.o.c.k may craw, the day may daw', And ay we'll taste the barley bree!"

And in the morning the boy would slip quietly out of the house while his father still slept; only Red Wull would thrust out his savage head as the lad pa.s.sed, and snarl hungrily.

Sometimes father and son would go thus for weeks without sight of one another. And that was David's aim--to escape attention. It was only his cunning at this game of evasion that saved him a thrashing.

The little man seemed devoid of all natural affection for his son. He lavished the whole fondness of which his small nature appeared capable on the Tailless Tyke, for so the Dalesmen called Red Wull. And the dog he treated with a careful tenderness that made David smile bitterly.

The little man and his dog were as alike morally as physically they were contrasted. Each owed a grudge against the world and was determined to pay it. Each was an Ishmael among his kind.

You saw them thus, standing apart, leper-like, in the turmoil of life; and it came quite as a revelation to happen upon them in some quiet spot of nights, playing together, each wrapped in the game, innocent, tender, forgetful of the hostile world.

The two were never separated except only when M'Adam came home by the path across Kenmuir. After that first misadventure he never allowed his friend to accompany him on the journey through the enemy's country; for well he knew that sheep-dogs have long memories.

To the stile in the lane, then, Red Wull would follow him. There he would stand, his great head poked through the bars, watching his master out of sight; and then would turn and trot, self-reliant and defiant, st.u.r.dy and surly, down the very centre of the road through the village--no playing, no enticing away, and woe to that man or dog who tried to stay him in his course! And so on, past Mother Ross's shop, past the Sylvester Arms, to the right by Kirby's smithy, over the Wastrel by the Haughs, to await his master at the edge of the Stony Bottom.

The little man, when thus crossing Kenmuir, often met Owd Bob, who had the free run of the farm. On these occasions he pa.s.sed discreetly by; for, though he was no coward, yet it is bad, single-handed, to attack a Gray Dog of Kenmuir; while the dog trotted soberly on his way, only a steely glint in the big gray eyes betraying his knowledge of the presence of his foe. As surely, however, as the little man, in his desire to spy out the nakedness of the land, strayed off the public path, so surely a gray figure, seeming to spring from out the blue, would come fiercely, silently driving down on him; and he would turn and run for his life, amid the uproarious jeers of any of the farm-hands who were witness to the encounter.

On these occasions David vied with Tammas in facetiousness at his father's expense.

"Good on yo', little un!" he roared from behind a wall, on one such occurrence.

"Bain't he a runner, neither?" yelled Tammas, not to be outdone.

"See un skip it--ho! ho! Look to his knees a-wamblin'! from the undutiful son in ecstasy. An' I'd knees like yon, I'd wear petticoats."

As he spoke, a swinging box on the ear nearly knocked the young reprobate down.

"D'yo' think G.o.d gave you a dad for you to jeer at? Y'ought to be ashamed o' yo'self. Serve yo' right if he does thrash yo' when yo' get home." And David, turning round, found James Moore close behind him, his heavy eyebrows lowering over his eyes.

Luckily, M'Adam had not distinguished his son's voice among the others.

But David feared he had; for on the following morning the little man said to him:

"David, ye'll come hame immediately after school to-day."

"Will I?" said David pertly.

''Ye will.

"Why?"

"Because I tell ye to, ma lad"; and that was all the reason he would give. Had he told the simple fact that he wanted help to drench a "husking" ewe, things might have gone differently. As it was, David turned away defiantly down the hill.

The afternoon wore on. Schooltime was long over; still there was no David.

The little man waited at the door of the Grange, fuming, hopping from one leg to the other, talking to Red Wull, who lay at his feet, his head on his paws, like a tiger waiting for his prey.

At length he could restrain himself no longer; and started running down the hill, his heart burning with indignation.

"Wait till we lay hands on ye, ma lad," he muttered as he ran. "We'll warm ye, we'll teach ye."

At the edge of the Stony Bottom he, as always, left Red Wull. Crossing it himself, and rounding Langholm How, he espied James Moore, David, and Owd Bob walking away from him and in the direction of Kenmuir. The gray dog and David were playing together, wrestling, racing, and rolling. The boy had never a thought for his father.

The little man ran up behind them, unseen and unheard, his feet softly pattering on the gra.s.s. His hand had fallen on David's shoulder before the boy had guessed his approach.

"Did I bid ye come hame after school, David?" he asked, concealing his heat beneath a suspicious suavity.

"Maybe. Did I say I would come?"

The pertness of tone and words, alike, fanned his father's resentment into a blaze. In a burst of pa.s.sion he lunged forward at the boy with his stick. But as he smote, a gray whirlwind struck him fair on the chest, and he fell like a snapped stake, and lay, half stunned, with a dark muzzle an inch from his throat.

"Git back, Bob!" shouted James Moore, hurrying up. "Git back, I tell yo'!" He bent over the prostrate figure, propping it up anxiously.

"Are yo' hurt, M'Adam? Eh, but I am sorry. He thought yo' were going for to strike the lad."

David had now run up, and he, too, bent over his father with a very scared face.

"Are yo' hurt, feyther?" he asked, his voice trembling.

The little man rose unsteadily to his feet and shook off his supporters.

His face was twitching, and he stood, all dust-begrimed, looking at his son.

"Ye're content, aiblins, noo ye've seen yer father's gray head bowed in the dust," he said.

"'Twas an accident," pleaded James Moore. "But I _am_ sorry. He thought yo' were goin' to beat the lad."

"So I was--so I will."

"If ony's beat it should be ma Bob here tho' he n.o.b'but thought he was doin' right. An' yo' were aff the path."

The little man looked at his enemy, a sneer on his face.

"Ye canna thrash him for doin' what ye bid him. Set yer dog on me, if ye will, but dinna beat him when he does yer biddin'!"

"I did not set him on yo', as you know," the Master replied warmly.

M'Adam shrugged his shoulders.

"I'll no argie wi' ye, James Moore," he said. "I'll leave you and what ye call yer conscience to settle that. My business is not wi'

you.--David!" turning to his son.

A stranger might well have mistaken the ident.i.ty of the boy's father.

For he stood now, holding the Master's arm; while a few paces above them was the little man, pale but determined, the expression on his face betraying his consciousness of the irony of the situation.

"Will ye come hame wi' me and have it noo, or stop wi' him and wait till ye get it?" he asked the boy.

"M'Adam, I'd like yo' to--"