THE spring was passing, marked throughout with the bloody trail of the Killer. The adventure in the Scoop scared him for a while into innocuousness; then he resumed his game again with redoubled zest. It seemed likely he would harry the district till some lucky accident carried him off, for all chance there was of arresting him.
You could still hear nightly in the Sylvester Arms and elsewhere the assertion, delivered with the same dogmatic certainty as of old, “It's the Terror, I tell yo'!” and that irritating, inevitable reply: “Ay; but wheer's the proof?” While often, at the same moment, in a house not far away, a little lonely man was sitting before a low-burnt fire, rocking to and fro, biting his nails, and muttering to the great dog whose head lay between his knees: “If we had but the proof, Wullie! if we had but the proof! I'd give ma right hand aff my arm gin we had the proof to-morrow.”
Long Kirby, who was always for war when some one else was to do the fighting, suggested that David should be requested, in the name of the Dalesmen, to tell M'Adam that he must make an end to Red Wull. But Jim Mason quashed the proposal, remarking truly enough that there was too much bad blood as it was between father and son; while Tammas proposed with a sneer that the smith should be his own agent in the matter.
Whether it was this remark of Tammas's which stung the big man into action, or whether it was that the intensity of his hate gave him unusual courage, anyhow, a few days later, M'Adam caught him lurking in the granary of the Grange.
The little man may not have guessed his murderous intent; yet the blacksmith's white-faced terror, as he crouched away in the darkest corner, could hardly have escaped remark; though—and Kirby may thank his stars for it—the treacherous gleam of a gun-barrel, ill-concealed behind him, did.
“Hullo, Kirby!” said M'Adam cordially, “ye'll stay the night wi' me?” And the next thing the big man heard was a giggle on the far side the door, lost in the clank of padlock and rattle of chain. Then—through a crack—“Good-night to ye. Hope ye'll be comfie.” And there he stayed that night, the following day and next night—thirty-six hours in all, with swedes for his hunger and the dew off the thatch for his thirst.
Meanwhile the struggle between David and his father seemed coming to a head. The little man's tongue wagged more bitterly than ever; now it was never at rest—searching out sores, stinging, piercing.
Worst of all, he was continually dropping innuendoes, seemingly innocent enough, yet with a world of subtile meaning at their back, respecting Maggie. The leer and wink with which, when David came home from Kenmuir at nights, he would ask the simple question, “And was she kind, David—eh, eh?” made the boy's blood boil within him.
And the more effective the little man saw his shots to be, the more persistently he plied them. And David retaliated in kind. It was a war of reprisals. There was no peace; there were no truces in which to bury the dead before the opponents set to slaying others. And every day brought the combatants nearer to that final struggle, the issue of which neither cared to contemplate.
There came a Saturday, toward the end of the spring, long to be remembered by more than David in the Dale.
For that young man the day started sensationally. Rising before cock-crow, and going to the window, the first thing he saw in the misty dawn was the gaunt, gigantic figure of Red Wull, hounding up the hill from the Stony Bottom; and in an instant his faith was shaken to its foundation.
The dog was travelling up at a long, slouching trot; and as he rapidly approached the house, David saw that his flanks were all splashed with red mud, his tongue out, and the foam dripping from his jaws, as though he had come far and fast.
He slunk up to the house, leapt on to the sill of the unused back-kitchen, some five feet from the ground, pushed with his paw at the cranky old hatchment, which was its only covering; and, in a second, the boy, straining out of the window the better to see, heard the rattle of the boards as the dog dropped within the house.
For the moment, excited as he was, David held his peace. Even the Black Killer took only second place in his thoughts that morning. For this was to be a momentous day for him.
That afternoon James Moore and Andrew would, he knew, be over at Grammoch-town, and, his work finished for the day, he was resolved to tackle Maggie and decide his fate. If she would have him—well, he would go next morning and thank God for it, kneeling beside her in the tiny village church; if not, he would leave the Grange and all its unhappiness behind, and straightway plunge out into the world.
All through a week of stern work he had looked forward to this hard-won half-holiday. Therefore, when, as he was breaking off at noon, his father turned to him and said abruptly:
“David, ye're to tak' the Cheviot lot o'er to Grammoch-town at once,” he answered shortly:
“Yo' mun tak' 'em yo'sel', if yo' wish 'em to go to-day.”
“Na,” the little man answered; “Wullie and me, we're busy. Ye're to tak' 'em, I tell ye.”
“I'll not,” David replied. “If they wait for me, they wait till Monday,” and with that he left the room.
“I see what 'tis,” his father called after him; “she's give ye a tryst at Kenmuir. Oh, ye randy David!”
“Yo' tend yo' business; I'll tend mine,” the boy answered hotly.
Now it happened that on the previous day Maggie had given him a photograph of herself, or, rather, David had taken it and Maggie had demurred. As he left the room it dropped from his pocket. He failed to notice his loss, but directly he was gone M'Adam pounced on it.
“He! he! Wullie, what's this?” he giggled, holding the photograph into his face. “He! he! it's the jade hersel', I war'nt; it's Jezebel!”
He peered into the picture.
“She kens what's what, I'll tak' oath, Wullie. See her eyes—sae saft and languishin'; and her lips—such lips, Wullie!” He held the picture down for the great dog to see: then walked out of the room, still sniggering, and chucking the face insanely beneath its cardboard chin.
Outside the house he collided against David. The boy had missed his treasure and was hurrying back for it.
“What yo' got theer?” he asked suspiciously.
“Only the pictur' o' some randy quean,” his father answered, chucking away at the inanimate chin.
“Gie it me!” David ordered fiercely. “It's mine.”
“Na, na,” the little man replied. “It's no for sic douce lads as dear David to ha' ony touch wi' leddies sic as this.”
“Gie it me, I tell ye, or I'll tak' it!” the boy shouted.
“Na, na; it's ma duty as yer dad to keep ye from sic limmers.” He turned, still smiling, to Red Wull.
“There ye are, Wullie!” He threw the photograph to the dog. “Tear her, Wullie, the Jezebel!”
The Tailless Tyke sprang on the picture, placed one big paw in the very centre of the face, forcing it into the muck, and tore a corner off; then he chewed the scrap with unctious, slobbering gluttony, dropped it, and tore a fresh piece.
David dashed forward.
“Touch it, if ye daur, ye brute!” he yelled; but his father seized him and held him back.
“'And the dogs o' the street,'” he quoted. David turned furiously on him.
“I've half a mind to brak' ivery bone in yer body!” he shouted, “robbin' me o' what's mine and throwin' it to yon black brute!”
“Whist, David, whist!” soothed the little man. “Twas but for yer ain good yer auld dad did it. 'Twas that he had at heart as he aye has. Rin aff wi' ye noo to Kenmuir. She'll mak' it up to ye, I war'nt. She's leeberal wi' her favors, I hear. Ye've but to whistle and she'll come.”
David seized his father by the shoulder.
“An' yo' gie me much more o' your sauce,” he roared.
“Sauce, Wullie,” the little man echoed in a gentle voice.
“I'll twist yer neck for yo'!”
“He'll twist my neck for me.”
“I'll gang reet awa', I warn yo', and leave you and yer Wullie to yer lone.”
The little man began to whimper.
“It'll brak' yer auld dad's heart, lad,” he said.
“Nay; yo've got none. But 'twill ruin yo', please God. For yo' and yer Wullie'll get ne'er a soul to work for yo'—yo' cheeseparin', dirty-tongued Jew.”
The little man burst into an agony of affected tears, rocking to and fro, his face in his hands.
“Waesucks, Wullue! d'ye hear him? He is gaein' to leave us—the son o' my bosom! my Benjamin! my little Davie! he's gaein' awa'!”
David turned away down the hill; and M'Adam lifted his stricken face and waved a hand at him.
“'Adieu, dear amiable youth!'” he cried in broken voice; and straightway set to sobbing again.
Half-way down to the Stony Bottom David turned.
“I'll gie yo' a word o' warnin',” he shouted back. “I'd advise yo' to keep a closer eye to yer Wullie's goings on, 'specially o' nights, or happen yo'll wake to a surprise one mornin'.”
In an instant the little man ceased his fooling.
“And why that?” he asked, following down the hill.
“I'll tell yo'. When I wak' this mornin' I walked to the window, and what d'yo' think I see? Why, your Wullie gollopin' like a good un up from the Bottom, all foamin', too, and red-splashed, as if he'd coom from the Screes. What had he bin up to, I'd like to know?”
“What should he be doin',” the little man replied, “but havin' an eye to the stock? and that when the Killer might be oot.”
David laughed harshly.
“Ay, the Killer was oot, I'll go bail, and yo' may hear o't afore the evenin', ma man,” and with that he turned away again.
As he had foreseen, David found Maggie alone. But in the heat of his indignation against his father he seemed to have forgotten his original intent, and instead poured his latest troubles into the girl's sympathetic ear.
“There's but one mon in the world he wishes worse nor me,” he was saying. It was late in the afternoon, and he was still inveighing against his father and his fate. Maggie sat in her father's chair by the fire, knitting; while he lounged on the kitchen table, swinging his long legs.
“And who may that be?” the girl asked.
“Why, Mr. Moore, to be sure, and Th' Owd Un, too. He'd do either o' them a mischief if he could.”
“But why, David?” she asked anxiously. “I'm sure dad niver hurt him, or ony ither mon for the matter o' that.”
David nodded toward the Dale Cup which rested on the mantelpiece in silvery majesty.
“It's yon done it,” he said. “And if Th' Owd Un wins agin, as win he will, bless him! why, look out for 'me and ma Wullie'; that's all.”
Maggie shuddered, and thought of the face at the window.
“'Me and ma Wullie,'” David continued; “I've had about as much of them as I can swaller. It's aye the same—'Me and ma Wullie,' and 'Wullie and me,' as if I never put ma hand to a stroke! Ugh!”—he made a gesture of passionate disgust—“the two on 'em fair madden me. I could strike the one and throttle t'other,” and he rattled his heels angrily together.
“Hush, David,” interposed the girl; “yo' munna speak so o' your dad; it's agin the commandments.”
“'Tain't agin human nature,” he snapped in answer. “Why, 'twas nob'but yester' morn' he says in his nasty way, 'David, ma gran' fellow, hoo ye work! ye 'stonish me!' And on ma word, Maggie”—there were tears in the great boy's eyes—“ma back was nigh broke wi' toilin'. And the Terror, he stands by and shows his teeth, and looks at me as much as to say, 'Some day, by the grace o' goodness, I'll ha' my teeth in your throat, young mon.'”
Maggie's knitting dropped into her lap and she looked up, her soft eyes for once flashing.
“It's cruel, David; so 'tis!” she cried. “I wonder yo' bide wi' him. If he treated me so, I'd no stay anither minute. If it meant the House for me I'd go,” and she looked as if she meant it.
David jumped off the table.
“Han' yo' niver guessed why I stop, lass, and me so happy at home?” he asked eagerly.
Maggie's eyes dropped again.
“Hoo should I know?” she asked innocently.
“Nor care, neither, I s'pose,” he said in reproachful accents. “Yo' want me me to go and leave yo', and go reet awa'; I see hoo 'tis. Yo' wouldna mind, not yo', if yo' was niver to see pore David agin. I niver thowt yo' welly like me, Maggie; and noo I know it.”
“Yo' silly lad,” the girl murmured, knitting steadfastly.
“Then yo' do,” he cried, triumphant, “I knew yo' did.” He approached close to her chair, his face clouded with eager anxiety.
“But d'yo' like me more'n justlikin'', Maggie? d'yo',” he bent and whispered in the little ear.
The girl cuddled over her work so that he could not see her face.
“If yo' won't tell me yo' can show me,” he coaxed. “There's other things besides words.”
He stood before her, one hand on the chair-back on either side. She sat thus, caged between his arms, with drooping eyes and heightened color.
“Not so close, David, please,” she begged, fidgeting uneasily; but the request was unheeded.
“Do'ee move away a wee,” she implored.
“Not till yo've showed me,” he said, relentless.
“I canna, Davie,” she cried with laughing, petulance.
“Yes, yo' can, lass.”
“Tak' your hands away, then.”
“Nay; not till yo've showed me.”
A pause.
“Do'ee, Davie,” she supplicated.
And—
“Do'ee,” he pleaded.
She tilted her face provokingly, but her eyes were still down.
“It's no manner o' use, Davie.”
“Iss, 'tis,” he coaxed.
“Niver.”
“Please.”
A lengthy pause.
“Well, then—” She looked up, at last, shy, trustful, happy; and the sweet lips were tilted further to meet his.
And thus they were situated, lover-like, when a low, rapt voice broke inon them,—'A dear-lov'd lad, convenience snug,A treacherous inclination.'
“Oh, Wullie, I wush you were here!”
It was little M'Adam. He was leaning in at the open window, leering at the young couple, his eyes puckered, an evil expression on his face.
“The creetical moment! and I interfere! David, ye'll never forgie me.”
The boy jumped round with an oath; and Maggie, her face flaming, started to her feet. The tone, the words, the look of the little man at the window were alike insufferable.
“By thunder! I'll teach yo' to come spyin' on me!” roared David. Above him on the mantelpiece blazed the Shepherds' Trophy. Searching any missile in his fury, he reached up a hand for it.
“Ay, gie it me back, Ye robbed me o't,” the little man cried, holding out his arms as if to receive it.
“Dinna, David,” pleaded Maggie, with restraining hand on her lover's arm.
“By the Lord! I'll give him something!” yelled the boy. Close by there stood a pail of soapy water. He seized it, swung it, and slashed its contents at the leering face in the window.
The little man started back, but the dirty torrent caught him and soused him through. The bucket followed, struck him full on the chest, and rolled him over in the mud. After it with a rush came David.
“I'll let yo' know, spyin' on me!” he yelled. “I'll—”
Maggie, whose face was as white now as it had been crimson, clung to him, hampering him.
“Dinna, David, dinna!” she implored. “He's yer ain dad.”
“I'll dad him! I'll learn him!” roared David half through the window.
At the moment Sam'l Todd came floundering furiously round the corner, closely followed by 'Enry and oor Job.
“Is he dead?” shouted Sam'l seeing the prostrate form.
“Ho! ho!” went the other two.
They picked up the draggled little man and hustled him out of the yard like a thief, a man on either side and a man behind.
As they forced him through the gate, he struggled round.
“By Him that made ye! ye shall pay for this, David M'Adam, you and yer—”
But Sam'l's big hand descended on his mouth, and he was borne away before that last ill word had flitted into being.
IT was long past dark that night when M'Adam staggered home.
All that evening at the Sylvester Arms his imprecations against David had made even the hardest shudder. James Moore, Owd Bob, and the Dale Cup were for once forgotten as, in his passion, he cursed his son.
The Dalesmen gathered fearfully away from the little dripping madman. For once these men, whom, as a rule, no such geyser outbursts could quell, were dumb before him; only now and then shooting furtive glances in his direction, as though on the brink of some daring enterprise of which he was the objective. But M'Adam noticed nothing, suspected nothing.
When, at length, he lurched into the kitchen of the Grange, there was no light and the fire burnt low. So dark was the room that a white riband of paper pinned on to the table escaped his remark.
The little man sat down heavily, his clothes still sodden, and resumed his tireless anathema.
“I've tholed mair fra him, Wullie, than Adam M'Adam ever thocht to thole from ony man. And noo it's gane past bearin'. He struck me, Wullie! struck his ain father. Ye see it yersel', Wullie. Na, ye werena there. Oh, gin ye had but bin, Wullie! Him and his madam! But I'll gar him ken Adam M'Adam. I'll stan' nae mair!”
He sprang to his feet and, reaching up with trembling hands, pulled down the old bell-mouthed blunderbuss that hung above the mantelpiece.
“We'll mak' an end to't, Wullie, so we will, aince and for a'!” And he banged the weapon down upon the table. It lay right athwart that slip of still condemning paper, yet the little man saw it not.
Resuming his seat, he prepared to wait. His hand sought the pocket of his coat, and fingered tenderly a small stone bottle, the fond companion of his widowhood. He pulled it out, uncorked it, and took a long pull; then placed it on the table by his side.
Gradually the gray head lolled; the shrivelled hand dropped and hung limply down, the finger-tips brushing the floor; and he dozed off into a heavy sleep, while Red Wull watched at his feet.
It was not till an hour later that David returned home.
As he approached the lightless house, standing in the darkness like a body with the spirit fled, he could but contrast this dreary home of his with the bright kitchen and cheery faces he had left.
Entering the house, he groped to the kitchen door and opened it; then struck a match and stood in the doorway peering in.
“Not home, bain't he?” he muttered, the tiny light above his head. “Wet inside as well as oot by noo, I'll lay. By gum! but 'twas a lucky thing for him I didna get ma hand on him this evenin'. I could ha' killed him.” He held the match above his head.
Two yellow eyes, glowing in the darkness like cairngorms, and a small dim figure bunched up in a chair, told him his surmise was wrong. Many a time had he seen his father in such case before, and now he muttered contemptuously:
“Drunk; the leetle swab! Sleepin' it off, I reck'n.”
Then he saw his mistake. The hand that hung above the floor twitched and was still again.
There was a clammy silence. A mouse, emboldened by the quiet, scuttled across the hearth. One mighty paw lightly moved; a lightning tap, and the tiny beast lay dead.
Again that hollow stillness: no sound, no movement; only those two unwinking eyes fixed on him immovable.
At length a small voice from the fireside broke the quiet.
“Drunk—the—leetle—swab!”
Again a clammy silence, and a life-long pause.
“I thowt yo' was sleepin',” said David, at length, lamely.
“Ay, so ye said. 'Sleepin' it aff'; I heard ye.” Then, still in the same small voice, now quivering imperceptibly, “Wad ye obleege me, sir, by leetin' the lamp? Or, d'ye think, Wullie, 'twad be soilin' his dainty fingers? They're mair used, I'm told, to danderin' with the bonnie brown hair o' his—”
“I'll not ha' ye talk o' ma Maggie so,” interposed the boy passionately.
“HisMaggie, mark ye, Wullie—his! I thocht 'twad soon get that far.”
“Tak' care, dad! I'll stan' but little more,” the boy warned him in choking voice; and began to trim the lamp with trembling fingers.
M'Adam forthwith addressed himself to Red Wull.
“I suppose no man iver had sic a son as him, Wullie. Ye ken what I've done for him, an' ye ken hoo he's repaid it. He's set himsel' agin me; he's misca'd me; he's robbed me o' ma Cup; last of all, he struck me—struck me afore them a'. We've toiled for him, you and I, Wullie; we've slaved to keep him in hoose an' hame, an' he's passed his time, the while, in riotous leevin', carousin' at Kenmuir, amusin' himself' wi' his—” He broke off short. The lamp was lit, and the strip of paper, pinned on to the table, naked and glaring, caught his eye.
“What's this?” he muttered; and unloosed the nail that clamped it down.
This is what he read:
“Adam Mackadam yer warned to mak' an end to yer Red Wull will be best for him and the Sheep. This is the first yo'll have two more the third will be the last—”
It was written in pencil, and the only signature was a dagger, rudely lined in red.
M'Adam read the paper once, twice, thrice. As he slowly assimilated its meaning, the blood faded from his face. He stared at it and still stared, with whitening face and pursed lips. Then he stole a glance at David's broad back.
“What d'ye ken o' this, David?” he asked, at length, in a dry thin voice, reaching forward in his chair.
“O' what?”
“O' this,” holding up the slip. “And ye'el obleege me by the truth for once.”
David turned, took up the paper, read it, and laughed harshly.
“It's coom to this, has it?” he said, still laughing, and yet with blanching face.
“Ye ken what it means. I daresay ye pit it there; aiblins writ it. Ye'll explain it.” The little man spoke in the same small, even voice, and his eyes never moved off his son's face.
“I've heard naethin'.... I'd like the truth, David, if ye can tell it.”
The boy smiled a forced, unnatural smile, looking from his father to the paper in his hand.
“Yo' shall have it, but yo'll not like it. It's this: Tupper lost a sheep to the Killer last night.”
“And what if he did?” The little man rose smoothly to his feet. Each noticed the others' face—dead-white.
“Why, he—lost—it—on—Wheer d'yo' think?” He drawled the words out, dwelling almost lovingly on each.
“Where?”
“On—the—Red—Screes.”
The crash was coming—inevitable now. David knew it, knew that nothing could avert it, and braced himself to meet it. The smile had fled from his face, and his breath fluttered in his throat like the wind before a thunderstorm.
“What of it?” The little man's voice was calm as a summer sea.
“Why, your Wullie—as I told yo'—was on the Screes last night.”
“Go on, David.”
“And this,” holding up the paper, “tells you that they ken as I ken noo, as maist o' them ha' kent this mony a day, that your Wullie, Red Wull—the Terror—”
“Go on.”
“Is—”
“Yes.”
“The Black Killer.”
It was spoken.
The frayed string was snapped at last. The little man's hand flashed to the bottle that stood before him.
“Ye—liar!” he shrieked, and threw it with all his strength at the boy's head. David dodged and ducked, and the bottle hurtled over his shoulder.
Crash! it whizzed into the lamp behind, and broke on the wall beyond, its contents trickling down the wall to the floor.
For a moment, darkness. Then the spirits met the lamp's smouldering wick and blazed into flame.
By the sudden light David saw his father on the far side the table, pointing with crooked forefinger. By his side Red Wull was standing alert, hackles up, yellow fangs bared, eyes lurid; and, at his feet, the wee brown mouse lay still and lifeless.
“Oot o' ma hoose! Back to Kenmuir! Back to yer ——” The unpardonable word, unmistakable, hovered for a second on his lips like some foul bubble, and never burst.
“No mither this time!” panted David, racing round the table.
“Wullie!”
The Terror leapt to the attack; but David overturned the table as he ran, the blunderbuss crashing to the floor; it fell, opposing a momentary barrier in the dog's path.
“Stan' off, ye—!” screeched the little man, seizing a chair in both hands; “stan' off, or I'll brain ye!”
But David was on him.
“Wullie, Wullie, to me!”
Again the Terror came with a roar like the sea. But David, with a mighty kick catching him full on the jaw, repelled the attack.
Then he gripped his father round the waist and lifted him from the ground. The little man, struggling in those iron arms, screamed, cursed, and battered at the face above him, kicking and biting in his frenzy.
“The Killer! wad ye ken wha's the Killer? Go and ask 'em at Kenmuir! Ask yer ——”
David swayed slightly, crushing the body in his arms till it seemed every rib must break; then hurled it from him with all the might of passion. The little man fell with a crash and a groan.
The blaze in the corner flared, flickered, and died. There was hell-black darkness, and silence of the dead.
David stood against the wall, panting, every nerve tightstrung as the hawser of a straining ship.
In the corner lay the body of his father, limp and still; and in the room one other living thing was moving.
He clung close to the wall, pressing it with wet hands. The horror of it all, the darkness, the man in the corner, that moving something, petrified him.
“Feyther!” he whispered.
There was no reply. A chair creaked at an invisible touch. Something was creeping, stealing, crawling closer.
David was afraid.
“Feyther!” he whispered in hoarse agony, “are yo' hurt?”
The words were stifled in his throat. A chair overturned with a crash; a great body struck him on the chest; a hot, pestilent breath volleyed in his face, and wolfish teeth were reaching for his throat.
“Come on, Killer!” he screamed.
The horror of suspense was past. It had come, and with it he was himself again.
Back, back, back, along the wall he was borne. His hands entwined themselves around a hairy throat; he forced the great head with its horrid lightsome eyes from him; he braced himself for the effort, lifted the huge body at his breast, and heaved it from him. It struck the wall and fell with a soft thud.
As he recoiled a hand clutched his ankle and sought to trip him. David kicked back and down with all his strength. There was one awful groan, and he staggered against the door and out.
There he paused, leaning against the wall to' breathe.
He struck a match and lifted his foot to see where the hand had clutched him.
God! there was blood on his heel.
Then a great fear laid hold on him. A cry was suffocated in his breast by the panting of his heart.
He crept back to the kitchen door and listened.
Not a sound.
Fearfully he opened it a crack.
Silence of the tomb.
He banged it to. It opened behind him, and the fact lent wings to his feet.
He turned and plunged out into the night, and ran through the blackness for his life. And a great owl swooped softly by and hooted mockingly:
“For your life! for your life! for your life!”
IN the village even the Black Killer and the murder on the Screes were forgotten in this new sensation. The mystery in which the affair was wrapped, and the ignorance as to all its details, served to whet the general interest. There had been a fight; M'Adam and the Terror had been mauled; and David had disappeared—those were the facts. But what was the origin of the affray no one could say.
One or two of the Dalesmen had, indeed, a shrewd suspicion. Tupper looked guilty; Jem Burton muttered, “I knoo hoo 'twould be”; while as for Long Kirby, he vanished entirely, not to reappear till three months had sped.
Injured as he had been, M'Adam was yet sufficiently recovered to appear in the Sylvester Arms on the Saturday following the battle. He entered the tap-room silently with never a word to a soul; one arm was in a sling and his head bandaged. He eyed every man present critically; and all, except Tammas, who was brazen, and Jim Mason, who was innocent, fidgeted beneath the stare. Maybe it was well for Long Kirby he was not there.
“Onythin' the matter?” asked Jem, at length, rather lamely, in view of the plain evidences of battle.
“Na, na; naethin' oot o' the ordinar',” the little man replied, giggling. “Only David set on me, and me sleepin'. And,” with a shrug, “here I am noo.” He sat down, wagging his bandaged head and grinning. “Ye see he's sae playfu', is Davie. He wangs ye o'er the head wi' a chair, kicks ye in the jaw, stamps on yer wame, and all as merry as May.” And nothing further could they get from him, except that if David reappeared it was his firm resolve to hand him over to the police for attempted parricide.
“'Brutal assault on an auld man by his son!' 'Twill look well in the Argus; he! he! They couldna let him aff under two years, I'm thinkin'.”
M'Adam's version of the affair was received with quiet incredulity. The general verdict was that he had brought his punishment entirely on his own head. Tammas, indeed, who was always rude when he was not witty, and, in fact, the difference between the two things is only one of degree, told him straight: “It served yo' well reet. An' I nob'but wish he'd made an end to yo'.”
“He did his best, puir lad,” M'Adam reminded him gently.
“We've had enough o' yo',” continued the uncompromising old man. “I'm fair grieved he didna slice yer throat while he was at it.”
At that M'Adam raised his eyebrows, stared, and then broke into a low whistle.
“That's it, is it?” he muttered, as though a new light was dawning on him. “Ah, noo I see.”
The days passed on. There was still no news of the missing one, and Maggie's face became pitifully white and haggard.
Of course she did not believe that David had attempted to murder his father, desperately tried as she knew he had been. Still, it was a terrible thought to her that he might at any moment be arrested; and her girlish imagination was perpetually conjuring up horrid pictures of a trial, conviction, and the things that followed.
Then Sam'l started a wild theory that the little man had murdered his son, and thrown the mangled body down the dry well at the Grange. The story was, of course, preposterous, and, coming from such a source, might well have been discarded with the ridicule it deserved. Yet it served to set the cap on the girl's fears; and she resolved, at whatever cost, to visit the Grange, beard M'Adam, and discover whether he could not or would not allay her gnawing apprehension.
Her intent she concealed from her father, knowing well that were she to reveal it to him, he would gently but firmly forbid the attempt; and on an afternoon some fortnight after David's disappearance, choosing her opportunity, she picked up a shawl, threw it over her head, and fled with palpitating heart out of the farm and down the slope to the Wastrel.
The little plank-bridge rattled as she tripped across it; and she fled faster lest any one should have heard and come to look. And, indeed, at the moment it rattled again behind her, and she started guiltily round. It proved, however, to be only Owd Bob, sweeping after, and she was glad.
“Comin' wi' me, lad?” she asked as the old dog cantered up, thankful to have that gray protector with her.
Round Langholm now fled the two conspirators; over the summer-clad lower slopes of the Pike, until, at length, they reached the Stony Bottom. Down the bramble-covered bank of the ravine the girl slid; picked her way from stone to stone across the streamlet tinkling in that rocky bed; and scrambled up the opposite bank.
At the top she halted and looked back. The smoke from Kenmuir was winding slowly up against the sky; to her right the low gray cottages of the village cuddled in the bosom of the Dale; far away over the Marches towered the gaunt Scaur; before her rolled the swelling slopes of the Muir Pike; while behind—she glanced timidly over her shoulder—was the hill, at the top of which squatted the Grange, lifeless, cold, scowling.
Her heart failed her. In her whole life she had never spoken to M'Adam. Yet she knew him well enough from all David's accounts—ay, and hated him for David's sake. She hated him and feared him, too; feared him mortally—this terrible little man. And, with a shudder, she recalled the dim face at the window, and thought of his notorious hatred of her father. But even M'Adam could hardly harm a girl coming, broken-hearted, to seek her lover. Besides, was not Owd Bob with her?
And, turning, she saw the old dog standing a little way up the hill, looking back at her as though he wondered why she waited. “Am I not enough?” the faithful gray eyes seemed to say.
“Lad, I'm fear'd,” was her answer to the unspoken question.
Yet that look determined her. She clenched her little teeth, drew the shawl about her, and set off running up the hill.
Soon the run dwindled to a walk, the walk to a crawl, and the crawl to a halt. Her breath was coming painfully, and her heart pattered against her side like the beatings of an imprisoned bird. Again her gray guardian looked up, encouraging her forward.
“Keep close, lad,” she whispered, starting forward afresh. And the old dog ranged up beside her, shoving into her skirt, as though to let her feel his presence.
So they reached the top of the hill; and the house stood before them, grim, unfriendly.
The girl's face was now quite white, yet set; the resemblance to her father was plain to see. With lips compressed and breath quick-coming, she crossed the threshold, treading softly as though in a house of the dead. There she paused and lifted a warning finger at her companion, bidding him halt without; then she turned to the door on the left of the entrance and tapped.
She listened, her head buried in the shawl, close to the wood panelling. There was no answer; she could only hear the drumming of her heart.
She knocked again. From within came the scraping of a chair cautiously shoved back, followed by a deep-mouthed cavernous growl.
Her heart stood still, but she turned the handle and entered, leaving a crack open behind.
On the far side the room a little man was sitting. His head was swathed in dirty bandages, and a bottle was on the table beside him. He was leaning forward; his face was gray, and there was a stare of naked horror in his eyes. One hand grasped the great dog who stood at his side, with yellow teeth glinting, and muzzle hideously wrinkled; with the other he pointed a palsied finger at her.
“Ma God! wha are ye?” he cried hoarsely.
The girl stood hard against the door, her fingers still on the handle; trembling like an aspen at the sight of that uncannie pair.
That look in the little man's eyes petrified her: the swollen pupils; lashless lids, yawning wide; the broken range of teeth in that gaping mouth, froze her very soul. Rumors of the man's insanity tided back on her memory.
“I'm—I—” the words came in trembling gasps.
At the first utterance, however, the little man's hand dropped; he leant back in his chair and gave a soul-bursting sigh of relief.
No woman had crossed that threshold since his wife died; and, for a moment, when first the girl had entered silent-footed, aroused from dreaming of the long ago, he had thought this shawl-clad figure with the pale face and peeping hair no earthly visitor; the spirit, rather, of one he had loved long since and lost, come to reproach him with a broken troth.
“Speak up, I canna hear,” he said, in tones mild compared with those last wild words.
“I—I'm Maggie Moore,” the girl quavered.
“Moore! Maggie Moore, d'ye say?” he cried, half rising from his chair, a flush of color sweeping across his face, “the dochter o' James Moore?” He paused for an answer, glowering at her; and she shrank, trembling, against the door.
The little man leant back in his chair. Gradually a grim smile crept across his countenance.
“Weel, Maggie Moore,” he said, halfamused, “ony gate ye're a good plucked un.” And his wizened countenance looked at her almost kindly from beneath its dirty crown of bandages.
At that the girl's courage returned with a rush. After all this little man was not so very terrible. Perhaps he would be kind. And in the relief of the moment, the blood swept back into her face.
There was not to be peace yet, however. The blush was still hot upon her cheeks, when she caught the patter of soft steps in the passage without. A dark muzzle flecked with gray pushed in at the crack of the door; two anxious gray eyes followed.
Before she could wave him back, Red Wull had marked the intruder. With a roar he tore himself from his master's restraining hand, and dashed across the room.
“Back, Bob!” screamed Maggie, and the dark head withdrew. The door slammed with a crash as the great dog flung himself against it, and Maggie was hurled, breathless and white-faced, into a corner.
M'Adam was on his feet, pointing with a shrivelled finger, his face diabolical.
“Did you bring him? did you bringthatto ma door?”
Maggie huddled in the corner in a palsy of trepidation. Her eyes gleamed big and black in the white face peering from the shawl.
Red Wull was now beside her snarling horribly. With nose to the bottom of the door and busy paws he was trying to get out; while, on the other side, Owd Bob, snuffling also at the crack, scratched and pleaded to get in. Only two miserable wooden inches separated the pair.
“I brought him to protect me. I—I was afraid.”
M'Adam sat down and laughed abruptly.
“Afraid! I wonder ye were na afraid to bring him here. It's the first time iver he's set foot on ma land, and 't had best be the last” He turned to the great dog. “Wullie, Wullie, wad ye?” he called. “Come here. Lay ye doon—so—under ma chair—good lad. Noo's no the time to settle wi' him”—nodding toward the door. “We can wait for that, Wullie; we can wait.” Then, turning to Maggie, “Gin ye want him to mak' a show at the Trials two months hence, he'd best not come here agin. Gin he does, he'll no leave ma land alive; Wullie'll see to that. Noo, what is 't ye want o'me?”
The girl in the corner, scared almost out of her senses by this last occurrence, remained dumb.
M'Adam marked her hesitation, and grinned sardonically.
“I see hoo 'tis,” said he; “yer dad's sent ye. Aince before he wanted somethin' o' me, and did he come to fetch it himself like a man? Not he. He sent the son to rob the father.” Then, leaning forward in his chair and glaring at the girl, “Ay, and mair than that! The night the lad set on me he cam'”—with hissing emphasis—“straight from Kenmuir!” He paused and stared at her intently, and she was still dumb before him. “Gin I'd ben killed, Wullie'd ha' bin disqualified from competin' for the Cup. With Adam M'Adam's Red Wull oot o' the way—noo d'ye see? Noo d'ye onderstan'?”
She did not, and he saw it and was satisfied. What he had been saying she neither knew nor cared. She only remembered the object of her mission; she only saw before her the father of the man she loved; and a wave of emotion surged up in her breast.
She advanced timidly toward him, holding out her hands.
“Eh, Mr. M'Adam,” she pleaded, “I come to ask ye after David.” The shawl had slipped from her head, and lay loose upon her shoulders; and she stood before him with her sad face, her pretty hair all tossed, and her eyes big with unshed tears—a touching suppliant.
“Will ye no tell me wheer he is? I'd not ask it, I'd not trouble yo', but I've bin waitin' a waefu' while, it seems, and I'm wearyin' for news o' him.”
The little man looked at her curiously. “Ah, noo I mind me,”—this to himself. “You' the lass as is thinkin' o' marryin' him?”
“We're promised,” the girl answered simply.
“Weel,” the other remarked, “as I said afore, ye're a good plucked un.” Then, in a tone in which, despite the cynicism, a certain indefinable sadness was blended, “Gin he mak's you as good husband as he mad' son to me, ye'll ha' made a maist remairkable match, my dear.”
Maggie fired in a moment.
“A good feyther makes a good son,” she answered almost pertly; and then, with infinite tenderness, “and I'm prayin' a good wife'll make a good husband.”
He smiled scoffingly.
“I'm feared that'll no help ye much,” he said.
But the girl never heeded this last sneer, so set was she on her purpose. She had heard of the one tender place in the heart of this little man with the tired face and mocking tongue, and she resolved to attain her end by appealing to it.
“Yo' loved a lass yo'sel' aince, Mr. M'Adam,” she said. “Hoo would yo' ha' felt had she gone away and left yo'? Yo'd ha' bin mad; yo' know yo' would. And, Mr. M'Adam, I love the lad yer wife loved.” She was kneeling at his feet now with both hands on his knees, looking up at him. Her sad face and quivering lips pleaded for her more eloquently than any words.
The little man was visibly touched.
“Ay, ay, lass, that's enough,” he said, trying to avoid those big beseeching eyes which would not be avoided.
“Will ye no tell me?” she pleaded.
“I canna tell ye, lass, for why, I dinna ken,” he answered querulously. In truth, he was moved to the heart by her misery.
The girl's last hopes were dashed. She had played her last card and failed. She had clung with the fervor of despair to this last resource, and now it was torn from her. She had hoped, and now there was no hope. In the anguish of her disappointment she remembered that this was the man who, by his persistent cruelty, had driven her love into exile.
She rose to her feet and stood back.
“Nor ken, nor care!” she cried bitterly.
At the words all the softness fled from the little man's face.
“Ye do me a wrang, lass; ye do indeed,” he said, looking up at her with an assumed ingenuousness which, had she known him better, would have warned her to beware. “Gin I kent where the lad was I'd be the vairy first to let you, and the p'lice, ken it too; eh, Wullie! he! he!” He chuckled at his wit and rubbed his knees, regardless of the contempt blazing in the girl's face.
“I canna tell ye where he is now, but ye'd aiblins care to hear o' when I saw him last.” He turned his chair the better to address her.
“Twas like so: I was sittin' in this vairy chair it was, asleep, when he crep' up behind an' lep' on ma back. I knew naethin' o't till I found masel' on the floor an' him kneelin' on me. I saw by the look on him he was set on finishin' me, so I said—”
The girl waved her hand at him, superbly disdainful.
“Yo' ken yo're lyin', ivery word o't,” she cried.
The little man hitched his trousers, crossed his legs, and yawned.
“An honest lee for an honest purpose is a matter ony man may be proud of, as you'll ken by the time you're my years, ma lass.”
The girl slowly crossed the room. At the door she turned.
“Then ye'll no tell me wheer he is?” she asked with a heart-breaking trill in her voice.
“On ma word, lass, I dinna ken,” he cried, half passionately.
“On your word, Mr. M'Adam” she said with a quiet scorn in her voice that might have stung Iscariot.
The little man spun round in his chair, an angry red dyeing his cheeks. In another moment he was suave and smiling again.
“I canna tell ye where he is noo,” he said, unctuously; “but aiblins, I could let ye know where he's gaein' to.”
“Can yo'? will yo'?” cried the simple girl all unsuspecting. In a moment she was across the room and at his knees.
“Closer, and I'll whisper.” The little ear, peeping from its nest of brown, was tremblingly approached to his lips. The little man lent forward and whispered one short, sharp word, then sat back, grinning, to watch the effect of his disclosure.
He had his revenge, an unworthy revenge on such a victim. And, watching the girl's face, the cruel disappointment merging in the heat of her indignation, he had yet enough nobility to regret his triumph.
She sprang from him as though he were unclean.
“An' yo' his father!” she cried, in burning tones.
She crossed the room, and at the door paused. Her face was white again and she was quite composed.
“If David did strike you, you drove him to it,” she said, speaking in calm, gentle accents. “Yo' know, none so well, whether yo've bin a good feyther to him, and him no mither, poor laddie! Whether yo've bin to him what she'd ha' had yo' be. Ask yer conscience, Mr. M'Adam. An' if he was a wee aggravatin' at times, had he no reason? He'd a heavy cross to bear, had David, and yo' know best if yo' helped to ease it for him.”
The little man pointed to the door; but the girl paid no heed.
“D'yo' think when yo' were cruel to him, jeerin' and fleerin', he never felt it, because he was too proud to show ye? He'd a big saft heart, had David, beneath the varnish. Mony's the time when mither was alive, I've seen him throw himsel' into her arms, sobbin', and cry, 'Eh, if I had but mither! 'Twas different when mither was alive; he was kinder to me then. An' noo I've no one; I'm alone.' An' he'd sob and sob in mither's arms, and she, weepin' hersel', would comfort him, while he, wee laddie, would no be comforted, cryin' broken-like, 'There's none to care for me noo; I'm alone. Mither's left me and eh! I'm prayin' to be wi' her!'”
The clear, girlish voice shook. M'Adam, sitting with face averted, waved to her, mutely ordering her to be gone. But she held on, gentle, sorrowful, relentless.
“An' what'll yo' say to his mither when yo meet her, as yo' must soon noo, and she asks yo', 'An what o' David? What o' th' lad I left wi' yo', Adam, to guard and keep for me, faithful and true, till this Day?' And then yo'll ha' to speak the truth, God's truth; and yo'll ha' to answer, 'Sin' the day yo' left me I niver said a kind word to the lad. I niver bore wi' him, and niver tried to. And in the end I drove him by persecution to try and murder me.' Then maybe she'll look at yo'—yo' best ken hoo—and she'll say, 'Adam, Adam! is this what I deserved fra yo'?'”
The gentle, implacable voice ceased. The girl turned and slipped softly out of the room; and M'Adam was left alone to his thoughts and his dead wife's memory.
“Mither and father, baith! Mither and father, baith!” rang remorselessly in his ears.