Bob, Son of Battle
Page 17
Chapter XVII. A MAD DOG
DAVID and Maggie, meanwhile, were drifting further and further apart. Henow thought the girl took too much upon herself; that this assumption ofthe woman and the mother was overdone. Once, on a Sunday, he caught herhearing Andrew his catechism. He watched the performance through a crackin the door, and listened, giggling, to her simple teaching. At lengthhis merriment grew so boisterous that she looked up, saw him, and,straightway rising to her feet, crossed the room and shut the door;tendering her unspoken rebuke with such a sweet dignity that he slunkaway for once decently ashamed. And the incident served to add point tohis hostility.
Consequently he was seldom at Kenmuir, and more often at home,quarrelling with his father.
Since that day, two years before, when the boy had been an instrument inthe taking of the Cup from him, father and son had been like two vesselscharged with electricity, contact between which might result at anymoment in a shock and a flash. This was the outcome not of a moment, butof years.
Of late the contest had raged markedly fierce; for M'Adam noticed hisson's more frequent presence at home, and commented on the fact in hisusual spirit of playful raillery.
"What's come to ye, David?" he asked one day. "Yer auld dad's head isnigh turned wi' yer condescension. Is James Moore feared ye'll steal theCup fra him, as ye stole it from me, that he'll not ha' ye at Kenmuir?or what is it?"
"I thought I could maybe keep an eye on the Killer gin I stayed here,"David answered, leering at Red Wull.
"Ye'd do better at Kenmuir--eh, Wullie!" the little man replied.
"Nay," the other answered, "he'll not go to Kenmuir. There's Th' Owd Unto see to him there o' nights."
The little man whipped round.
"Are ye so sure he is there o' nights, ma lad?" he asked with slowsignificance.
"He was there when some one--I dinna say who, though I have mathoughts--tried to poison him," sneered the boy, mimicking his father'smanner.
M'Adam shook his head.
"If he was poisoned, and noo I think aiblins he was, he didna pick it upat Kenmuir, I tell ye that," he said, and marched out of the room.
In the mean time the Black Killer pursued his bloody trade unchecked.The public, always greedy of a new sensation, took up the matter.In several of the great dailies, articles on the "Agrarian Outrages"appeared, followed by lengthy correspondence. Controversy raged high;each correspondent had his own theory and his own solution of theproblem; and each waxed indignant as his were discarded for another's.
The Terror had reigned already two months when, with the advent of thelambing-time, matters took a yet more serious aspect.
It was bad enough to lose one sheep, often the finest in the pack; butthe hunting of a flock at a critical moment, which was incidental to theslaughter of the one, the scaring of these woolly mothers-about-to-bealmost out of their fleeces, spelt for the small farmers something akinto ruin, for the bigger ones a loss hardly bearable.
Such a woful season had never been known; loud were the curses, deepthe vows of revenge. Many a shepherd at that time patrolled all nightthrough with his dogs, only to find in the morning that the Killer hadslipped him and havocked in some secluded portion of his beat.
It was heartrending work; and all the more so in that, though hisincrimination seemed as far off as ever, there was still the samepositiveness as to the culprit's identity.
Long Kirby, indeed, greatly daring, went so far on one occasion as tosay to the little man: "And d'yo' reck'n the Killer is a sheep-dog,M'Adam?"
"I do," the little man replied with conviction.
"And that he'll spare his own sheep?"
"Niver a doubt of it."
"Then," said the smith with a nervous cackle, "it must lie between youand Tupper and Saunderson."
The little man leant forward and tapped the other on the arm.
"Or Kenmuir, ma friend," he said. "Ye've forgot Kenmuir."
"So I have," laughed the smith, "so I have."
"Then I'd not anither time," the other continued, still tapping. "I'dmind Kenmuir, d'ye see, Kirby?"
* * * * *
It was about the middle of the lambing-time, when the Killer was workinghis worst, that the Dalesmen had a lurid glimpse of Adam M'Adam as hemight be were he wounded through his Wullie.
Thus it came about: It was market-day in Grammoch-town, and in theBorder Ram old Rob Saunderson was the centre of interest. For on theprevious night Rob, who till then had escaped unscathed, had lost asheep to the Killer: and--far worse--his flock of Herdwicks, heavy inlamb, had been galloped with disastrous consequences.
The old man, with tears in his eyes, was telling how on four nights thatweek he had been up with Shep to guard against mishap; and on the fifth,worn out with his double labor, had fallen asleep at his post. Buta very little while he slumbered; yet when, in the dawn, he woke andhurried on his rounds, he quickly came upon a mangled sheep and thepitiful relic of his flock. A relic, indeed! For all about were coldwee lambkins and their mothers, dead and dying of exhaustion and theirunripe travail--a slaughter of the innocents.
The Dalesmen were clustered round the old shepherd, listening withlowering countenances, when a dark gray head peered in at the door andtwo wistful eyes dwelt for a moment on the speaker.
"Talk o' the devil!" muttered M'Adam, but no man heard him. For RedWull, too, had seen that sad face, and, rising from his master's feet,had leapt with a roar at his enemy, toppling Jim Mason like a ninepin inthe fury of his charge.
In a second every dog in the room, from the battered Venus to Tupper'sbig Rasper, was on his feet, bristling to have at the tyrant and wipeout past injuries, if the gray dog would but lead the dance.
It was not to be, however. For Long Kirby was standing at the door witha cup of hot coffee in his hand. Barely had he greeted the gray dogwith--
"Ullo, Owd Un!" when hoarse yells of "'Ware, lad! The Terror!" mingledwith Red Wull's roar.
Half turning, he saw the great dog bounding to the attack. Straightwayhe flung the boiling contents of his cup full in that rage-wrackedcountenance. The burning liquid swished against the huge bull-head.Blinding, bubbling, scalding, it did its fell work well; nothing escapedthat merciless torrent. With a cry of agony, half bellow, half howl,Red Wull checked in his charge. From without the door was banged to; andagain the duel was postponed. While within the tap-room a huddle of menand dogs were left alone with a mad man and a madder brute.
Blind, demented, agonized, the Tailless Tyke thundered about the littleroom gnashing, snapping, oversetting; men, tables, chairs swirled offtheir legs as though they had been dolls. He spun round like a monstrousteetotum; he banged his tortured head against the wall; he burrowedinto the unyielding floor. And all the while M'Adam pattered after him,laying hands upon him only to be flung aside as a terrier flings a rat.Now up, now down again, now tossed into a corner, now dragged uponthe floor, yet always following on and crying in supplicating tones,"Wullie, Wullie, let me to ye! let yer man ease ye!" and then, witha scream and a murderous glance, "By ----, Kirby, I'll deal wi' youlater!"
The uproar was like hell let loose. You could hear the noise of oathsand blows, as the men fought for the door, a half-mile away. And aboveit the horrid bellowing and the screaming of that shrill voice.
Long Kirby was the first man out of that murder-hole; and after himthe others toppled one by one--men and dogs jostling one another inthe frenzy of their fear. Big Bell, Londesley, Tupper, Hoppin, TeddyBolstock, white-faced and trembling; and old Saunderson they pulled outby his heels. Then the door was shut with a clang, and the little manand mad dog were left alone.
In the street was already a big-eyed crowd, attracted by the uproar;while at the door was James Moore, seeking entrance. "Happen I couldlend the little mon a hand," said he; but they withheld him forcibly.
Inside was pandemonium: bangings like the doors of hell; the bellowingof that great voice; the patter of little feet; the slithering of abody on the floo
r; and always that shrill, beseeching prayer, "Wullie,Wullie, let me to ye!" and, in a scream, "By ----, Kirby, I'll be wi' yesoon!"
Jim Mason it was who turned, at length, to the smith and whispered,"Kirby, lad, yo'd best skip it."
The big man obeyed and ran. The stamp-stamp of his feet on the hard roadrang above the turmoil. As the long legs vanished round the corner andthe sound of the fugitive died away, a panic seized the listening crowd.
A woman shrieked; a girl fainted; and in two minutes the street was asnaked of men as the steppes of Russia in winter: here a white face at awindow; there a door ajar; and peering round a far corner a frightenedboy. One man only scorned to run. Alone, James Moore stalked down thecentre of the road, slow and calm, Owd Bob trotting at his heels.
It was a long half-hour before the door of the inn burst open, andM'Adam came out with a run, flinging the door behind him.
He rushed into the middle of the road; his sleeves were rolled atthe wrist like a surgeon's; and in his right hand was a black-handledjack-knife.
"Noo, by ----!" he cried in a terrible voice, "where is he?"
He looked up and down the road, darting his fiery glances everywhere;and his face was whiter than his hair.
Then he turned and hunted madly down the whole length of the High,nosing like a weasel in every cranny, stabbing at the air as he went,and screaming, "By ----, Kirby, wait till I get ye!"