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Bob, Son of Battle
Bob Son of Battle
by Alfred Ollivant
CONTENTS
PART I THE COMING OF THE TAILLESS TYKE Chapter I. The Gray Dog
Chapter II. A Son of Hagar Chapter III. Red Wull Chapter IV. First
Blood
PART II THE LITTLE MAN Chapter V. A Man's Son Chapter VI. A Licking or
a Lie Chapter VII. The White Winter Chapter VIII. M'Adam and His Coat
PART III THE SHEPHERDS' TROPHY Chapter IX. Rivals, Chapter X. Red Wull
Wins Chapter XI. Oor Bob, Chapter XII. How Red Wull Held the Bridge
Chapter XIII. The Face in the Frame
PART V OWD BOB 0' KENMUIR
PART IV THE BLACK KILLER Chapter XIV. A Mad Man Chapter XV. Death on
the Marches, Chapter XVL. The Black Killer Chapter XVII. A Mad Dog
Chapter XVIII. How the Killer was Singed Chapter XIX. Lad and Lass
Chapter XX. The Snapping of the String Chapter XXI. Horror of Darkness
Chapter XXII. A Man and a Maid Chapter XXIII. Th' Owd Un Chapter XXIV.
A Shot in the Night Chapter XXV. The Shepherds' Trophy
PART VI THE BLACK KILLER
Chapter XXVI. Red-handed Chapter XXVII. For the Defence Chapter
XXVIII. The Devil's Bowl Chapter XXIX. The Devil's Bowl Chapter XXX.
The Tailless Tyke at Bay
PART I THE COMING OF THE TAILLESS TYKE
Chapter I. THE GRAY DOG
THE sun stared brazenly down on a gray farmhouse lying, long and low
in the shadow of the Muir Pike; on the ruins of peel-tower and
barmkyn, relics of the time of raids, it looked; on ranges of
whitewashed outbuildings; on a goodly array of dark-thatched ricks.
In the stack-yard, behind the lengthy range of stables, two men were
thatching. One lay sprawling on the crest of the rick, the other stood
perched on a ladder at a lower level.
The latter, small, old, with shrewd nut-brown countenance, was Tammas
Thornton,, who had served the Moores of Kenmuir for more than half a
century. The other, on top of the stack, wrapped apparently in gloomy
meditation, was Sam'l Todd. A solid Dales-- man, he, with huge hands
and hairy arms; about his face an uncomely aureole of stiff, red hair;
and on his features, deep-seated, an expression of resolute
melancholy.
"Ay, the Gray Dogs, bless 'em!" the old man was saying. "Yo' canna
beat 'em not nohow. Known 'em ony time this sixty year, I have, and
niver knew a bad un yet. Not as I say, mind ye, as any on 'em cooms up
to Rex son o' Rally. Ah, he was a one, was Rex! We's never won Cup
since his day."
"Nor niver shall agin, yo' may depend," said the other gloomily.
Tammas clucked irritably.
"G'long, Sam'! Todd!" he cried, "Yo' niver happy onless yo' making'
yo'self miser'ble. I niver see sich a chap. Niver win agin? Why, oor
young Bob he'll mak' a right un, I tell yo', and I should know. Not as
what he'll touch Rex son o' Rally, mark ye! I'm niver saying' so,
Sam'l Todd. Ah, he was a one, was Rex! I could tell yo' a tale or two
o' Rex. I mind me boo--"
The big man interposed hurriedly.
"I've heard it afore, Tammas, I welly 'aye," he said.
Tammas paused and looked angrily up.
"Yo've heard it afore, have yo', Sam'l Todd?" he asked sharply. "And
what have yo' heard afore?"
"Yo' stories, owd lad--yo' stories o' Rex son o' Rally."
"Which on' em
"All on 'em, Tammas, all on 'em--mony a time. I'm fair sick on 'em,
Tammas, I welly am," he pleaded.
The old man gasped. He brought down his mallet with a vicious smack.
"I'll niver tell yo' a tale agin, Sam'l Todd, not if yo' was to go on
yo' bended knees for't.
Nay; it bain't no manner o' use talkin'. Niver agin, says I."
"I niver askt yo'," declared honest Sam'l. "Nor it wouldna ha' bin no
manner o' use if yo' had," said the other viciously. "I'll niver tell
yo' a tale agin if I was to live to be a hunderd."
"Yo'll not live to be a hunderd, Tammas Thornton, nor near it," said
Sam'l brutally.
"I'll live as long as some, I warrant," the old man replied with
spirit. "I'll live to see Cup back i' Kenmuir, as I said afore."
"If yo' do," the other declared with emphasis, "Sam'l Todd niver spake
a true word. Nay, nay, lad; yo're owd, yo're wambly, your time's near
run or I'm the more mistook."
"For mussy's sake hold yo' tongue, Sam'l Todd! It's clack-clack all
day--" The old man broke off suddenly, and buckled to his work with
suspicious vigor. "Mak' a show yo' bin workin', lad," he whispered.
"Here's Master and oor Bob."
As he spoke, a tall gaitered man with weather-beaten face, strong,
lean, austere, and the blue-gray eyes of the hill-country, came
striding into the yard. And trotting soberly at his heels, with the
gravest, saddest eyes ever you saw, a sheep-dog puppy.
A rare dark gray he was, his long coat, dashed here and there with
lighter touches, like a stormy sea moonlit. Upon his chest an
escutcheon of purest white, and the dome of his head showered, as it
were, with a sprinkling of snow. Perfectly compact, utterly lithe,
inimitably graceful with his airy-fairy action; a gentleman every
inch, you could not help but stare at him--Owd Bob o' Ken-muir.
At the foot of the ladder the two stopped. And the young dog, placing
his forepaws on a lower rung, looked up, slowly waving his silvery
brush.
"A proper Gray Dog!" mused Tammas, gazing down into the dark face
beneath him. "Small, yet big; light to get about on. backs o' his
sheep, yet not too light. Wi' a coat hard a-top to keep oot Daleland
weather, soft as sealskin beneath. And wi' them sorrerful eyes on him
as niver goes but wi' a good un. Amaist he minds me o' Rex son o'
Rally."
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" groaned Sam'l. But the old man heard him not.
"Did 'Enry Farewether tell yo' hoo he acted this mornin', Master?" he
inquired, addressing the man at the foot of the ladder.
"Nay," said the other, his stern eyes lighting.
"Why, 'twas this way, it seems," Tammas continued. "Young bull gets
'isseif loose. somegate and marches oot into yard, o'erturns milkpail,
and prods owd pigs i' ribs. And as he stands lookin' about un,
thinking' what he shall be up to next, oor Bob sees un 'An' what yo'
doin' here, Mr. Bull?' he seems to say, cockin' his ears and trottin'
up gay-like. Wi' that bull bloats fit to bust 'isseif, lashes wi's
tail, waggles his head, and gets agate o' chargin' 'im. But Bob leaps
oot o' way, quick as lightnin' yet cool as butter, and when he's done
his foolin drives un back agin."
"Who seed all this?" interposed Sam'l, sceptically.
" 'Enry Farewether from the loft. So there, Fat'ead!" Tammas replied,
and continued his tale. "So they goes on; bull chargin' and Bob
drivin' un back and back, hoppin' in and oot agin, quiet as a
cowcumber, yet determined. At last Mr. Bull sees it's no manner o' use
that gate, so he turns, rares up, and tries to jump wall. Nary a bit.
Young dog jumps in on un and nips him by tail. Wi' that, bull tumbles
down in a hurry, turns wi' a kind o' groan, and marches back into
stall, Bob after un. And then, dang me!"--the old man beat the ladder
as he loosed off this last titbit,--" if he doesna sit' isseif i' door
like a sentrynel till 'Enry Farewether cootn up. Hoo's that for a tyke
not yet a year?"
Even Sam'l Todd was moved by the tale.
"Well done, oor Bob!" he cried.
"Good, lad!" said the Master, laying a hand on the dark head at his
knee.
"Yo' may well say that," cried Tanitnas in a kind of ecstasy. "A
proper Gray Dog, I tell yo'. Wi' the brains of a man and the way of a
woman. Ah, yo' canna beat 'em nohow, the Gray Dogs o' Kenmuir!"
The patter of cheery feet rang out on the plank-bridge over the stream
below them. Tammas glanced round.
"Here's David," he said. "Late this mornin' he be."
A fair-haired boy came spurring up the slope, his face all aglow with
the speed of his running. Straightway the young dog dashed off to meet
him with a fiery speed his sober gait belied. The two raced back
together into the yard.
"Poor lad!" said Sam'l gloomily, regarding the newcomer.
"Poor heart!" muttered Tammas. While the Master's face softened
visibly. Yet there looked little to pity in this jolly, rocking lad
with the tousle of light hair and fresh, rosy countenance.
"G'mornin', Mister Moore! Morn'n, Tammas! Morn'n, Sam'l!" he panted as
he passed; and ran on through the hay-carpeted yard, round the corner
of the stable, and into the house.
In the kitchen, a long room with red-tiled floor and latticed windows,
a woman, white-aproned and frail-faced, was bustling about her morning
business. To her skirts clung a sturdy, bare-legged boy; while at the
oak table in the centre of the room a girl with brown eyes and
straggling hair was seated before a basin of bread and milk.
"So yo've coom at last, David!" the woman cried, as the boy entered;
and, bending, greeted him with a tender, motherly salutation, which he
returned as affectionately. "I welly thowt yo'd forgot us this
mornin'. Noo sit you' doon beside oor Maggie." And soon he, too, was
engaged in a task twin to the girl's.
The two children munched away in silence, the little bare-legged boy
watching them, the while, critically. Irritated by this prolonged
stare, David at length turned on him.
"Weel, little Andrew," he said, speaking in that paternal fashion in
which one small boy loves to address another. "Weel, ma little lad,
yo'm coomin' along gradely." He leant back in his chair the better to
criticise his subject. But Andrew, like all the Moores, slow of
speech, preserved a stolid silence, sucking a chubby thumb, and
regarding his patron a thought cynically.
David resented the expression on the boy's countenance, and half rose
to his feet.
"Yo' put another face on yo', Andrew Moore," he cried threateningly,
"or I'll put it for yo'."
Maggie, however, interposed opportunely.
"Did yo' feyther beat yo' last night?" she inquired in a low voice;
and there was a shade of anxiety in the soft brown eyes.
"Nay," the boy answered; "he was a-goin' to, but he never did. Drunk,"
he added in explanation.
"What was he goin' to beat yo' for, David?" asked Mrs. Moore.
"What for? Why, for the fun o't--to see me squiggle, "the boy replied,
and laughed bitterly.
"Yo' shouldna speak so o' your dad, David," reproved the other as
severely as was in her nature.
"Dad! a fine dad! I'd dad him an I'd the chance, " the boy muttered
beneath his breath. Then, to turn the conversation:
"Us should he startin', Maggie," he said, and going to the door. "Bob!
Owd Bob, lad! Ar't coomin' along?" he called.
The gray dog came springing up like an antelope, and the three started
off for school together.
Mrs. Moore stood in the doorway, holding Andrew by the hand, and
watched the departing trio.
"'Tis a pretty pair, Master, surely," she said softly to her husband,
who came up at the moment.
"Ay, he'll be a fine lad if his feyther'll let him," the tall man
answered.
"Tis a shame Mr. M'Adam should lead him such a life," the woman
continued indignantly. She laid a hand on her husband's arm, and
looked up at him coaxingly.
"Could yo' not say summat to un, Master, think 'ee? Happen he'd 'tend
to you," she pleaded. For Mrs. Moore imagined that there could be no
one but would gladly heed what James Moore, Master of Kenmuir, might
say to him. "He's not a bad un at bottom, I do believe," she
continued. "He never took on so till his missus died. Eh, but he was
main fond o' her."
Her husband shook his head "Nay, mother," he said "'Twould nob' but
mak' it worse for t' lad. M'Adam'd listen to no one, let alone me."
And, indeed, he was right; for the tenant of the Grange made no secret
of his animosity for his straight-going, straight-speaking neighbor.
Owd Bob, in the mean time, had escorted the children to the
larch-copse bordering on the lane which leads to the village. Now he
crept stealthily back to the yard, and established himself behind the
water-butt.
How he played and how he laughed; how he teased old Whitecap till that
gray gander all but expired of apoplexy and impotence; how he ran the
roan bull-calf, and aroused the bitter wrath of a portly sow, mother
of many, is of no account.
At last, in the midst of his merry mischief-making, a stern voice
arrested him.
"Bob, lad, I see 'tis time we lamed you yo' letters."
So the business of life began for that dog of whom the simple
farmer-folk of the Daleland still love to talk,--Bob, son of Battle,
last of the Gray Dogs of Kenmuir.