Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle

by Alfred Ollivant

  In the North, everyone who has heard of the Muir Pike—and who has not?—has heard of the Gray Dogs of Kenmuir; everyone who has heard of the Shepherds’ Trophy—and who has not?—knows how famous the Gray Dogs are. In that country of good dogs and jealous masters, the highest place has long been held unchallenged. Whatever line may claim to come after them, the Gray Dogs are always at the very front. And there is a saying in the land: “Faithful as the Moores and their dogs.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  On the top cupboard to the right of the fireplace in the kitchen of Kenmuir lies the family Bible. At the back of it you will find a loose sheet of paper—the pedigree of the Gray Dogs; at the beginning, pasted on the inside, another sheet of paper, almost the same, long since yellowed with age—the family record of the Moores of Kenmuir.

  If you run your eye down the loose page, once, twice, and a third time, your attention will be caught by a small red cross beneath a name, and under the cross the one word: “Cup.” Lastly, opposite the name of Rex, son of Rally, are two of those proud, meaningful marks. The “cup” is the famous Dale Cup—the Champion Challenge Dale Cup, open to everyone in the world. If Rex had won it just one more time, the Shepherds’ Trophy, which many men have spent their whole lives trying to win, and failed to win, would have come to rest forever in the little gray house below the Pike.

  It was not to be, however. Comparing the two sheets of paper, you will read beneath the dog’s name a date and a sad handwritten note; and on the other page, in the handwriting of Andrew Moore’s son when he was still a boy, the name of Andrew Moore and beneath it the same date and the same note.

  On that day, young James Moore, though he was only a boy, became the master of Kenmuir.

  Past Grip and Rex and Rally, and a hundred others, at the foot of the page, you will come to that last name—Bob, son of Battle.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  From the very beginning, the young dog took to his work in a way that amazed even James Moore. For a while he watched his mother, Meg, doing her job, and that seemed to be all he needed to master the most important moves in handling sheep.

  Rarely had such fiery spirit been seen on the slopes of Muir Pike; and with it the young dog combined an unusual steadiness, an admirable patience, so that he did indeed deserve the name by which they liked to call him—“Old” Bob, or “Owd” Bob, as they said it. He worked silently, and with determination; and even in those days, he had that famous trick of persuading the sheep to do as he wished—he seemed to be as clever as any person, as Tammas had said, and at the same time as gentle as the spring sunshine.

  Parson Leggy, who was believed to be the best judge of a sheep or a sheepdog between the River Tyne, to the south, and the River Tweed, to the north, summed him up with the one word “Genius.” And James Moore himself, a cautious man, was more than pleased.

  In the village, the Dalesmen, who took a personal pride in the Gray Dogs of Kenmuir, began nodding wisely when “our” Bob was mentioned. Jim Mason, the postman, who was trusted by the villagers as completely as Parson Leggy was trusted by the wealthy landowners, declared that he had never seen such a charming and excellent young pup.

  That winter it became quite the usual thing, when they had gathered at night around the fire, in the tavern called the Sylvester Arms, with Tammas in the center, old Jonas Maddow on his right, Rob Saunderson of the Holt farm on his left, and the others surrounding them, for someone to begin with:

  “Well, and what about our Bob, Mr. Thornton?”

  To which Tammas would always reply:

  “Oh, you ask Sammel there. He’ll tell you better than I”—and would then immediately plunge into a story himself.

  And the way in which, as the story went on, Tupper of Swinsthwaite winked at Ned Hoppin of Fellsgarth, and Long Kirby, the blacksmith, poked Jem Burton, the tavern-keeper, in the ribs, and Sexton Ross said, “My word, lad!” said more than enough about what they felt.

  There was only one man who never joined in the chorus of admiration. Sitting always alone in the background, little McAdam would listen with a smile of disbelief on his sickly, yellowish face.

  “Oh, of course! The dog’s full of the devil! He’s by no means as clever as all that!” he would keep exclaiming, as Tammas told his story.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  In the Daleland you rarely see a stranger’s face. Wandering through the wild country surrounding the twin valleys at the time of this story, you might have met Parson Leggy, walking briskly along with a couple of troublesome terriers at his heels, and by his side young Cyril Gilbraith, whom he was teaching both to tie flies on a hook, for fishing trout, and to fear God; or you might have met Jim Mason, whose job was postman, but whose favorite hobby was to hunt small animals, even on private land, an honest man and a sportsman by nature, hurrying along with the mailbags on his shoulder, a rabbit in his pocket, and his faithful dog Betsy a yard behind him. Besides these, you might have come upon a quiet shepherd and a wise-faced dog; or Squire Sylvester, the large landowner in the region, making his rounds upon a sturdy cob horse; or, if you were lucky, his wife, sweet Lady Eleanour, on some errand to lend a helping hand to one of the Sylvesters’ many tenants.

  It was while the Squire’s lady was driving through the village on a visit* to Tammas’s drooling grandson—shortly after young Billy Thornton was born—that little McAdam, standing in the door of the Sylvester Arms, with a twig in his mouth and a nasty smile fading from his lips, made the remark that was never forgotten:

  “Sall!” he exclaimed, in his Scots dialect, speaking in a low, serious voice; “’tis a muckle wumman.” (Which meant: “Damn! What a fine woman!”)

  “What? What are ye saying, man?” cried old Jonas, startled out of his usual indifference.

  McAdam turned sharply on the old man.

  “I said the woman is wearing a fine hat!” he snapped.

  Although he had tried to deny it, the comment is still remembered now—a compliment born of honest admiration. Doubtless the Recording Angel did not overlook it. That one statement about the gentle lady of the manor is the only personal remark little McAdam was ever known to make that was not hurtful and unkind. And that is why it will always be remembered.

  The little Scotsman with the mean smile had lived at the Grange for many years; yet he had never grown used to the land of the English. With his shrunken little body and weak legs, surrounded by the sturdy, straight-limbed sons of the hill-country, he looked like some brown, wrinkled leaf holding its place in a galaxy of green. And just as he was different from them in his body, he was also different in his nature.

  He did not understand them, and he did not try to. The North-country character was a mystery he could not solve, even after ten years of studying them. “They doubt one half of what you say, and they let you see that they doubt it; the other half they don’t believe, and they tell you so,” he once said. And that explained his attitude toward them, and, in response, their attitude toward him.

  He was entirely alone; he was an outcast like the son of Hagar in the Bible, who was sent out into the wilderness, and he mocked those around him. His sharp, ill-natured tongue was rarely quiet, and always bitter. There was hardly a man in the land, from Langholm Hollow to the cross in the center of the Grammoch-town marketplace, who had not at one time or another been stung by it and put up with it in silence—for these men of the moors and lakes are slow to speak—and was nursing his anger until he had a chance for revenge, a chance which always comes sooner or later. And there was a round of clapping at the Sylvester Arms when, one of the few times McAdam was not in the room, Tammas neatly described the little man in that historic phrase of his: “When he’s drunk, he’s violent, and when he ain’t, he’s vicious.” Even the world-weary heart of Tammas Thornton was pleased by the applause.

  Yet it was not until his wife died that the little man showed his ill nature so freely. Now that her firm and gentle hand was no longer there to guide him, his ill nature burst into new life. And because he
was alone in the world with David as his only company, all the poison of his vicious personality was constantly turned against the boy. It was as though he believed that his fair-haired son had caused his everlasting sorrow. This was all the stranger because poor Flora McAdam had treasured the boy, during her lifetime, as though he were her very own heart. And the lad was growing up to be the very opposite of his father. Big and strong, with never an ache or an ailment in the whole of his sturdy young body; his face direct and open; while even his speech was slow and he trilled his r’s like any native Dale boy. And all of this, along with the fact that the lad was clearly more an Englishman than a Scot—yes, and was glad of it—irritated the little man, who was loyal to his native Scotland above all, so much so that he itched to fight in its defense. And then, on top of all this, David was amazingly, boldly rude to him, which would have roused the anger of even a better man than Adam McAdam.

  When his wife died, kind Elizabeth Moore had come to see him more than once, offering to help the lonely little man by doing those things in the house that his wife used to do. On the last of these visits, after she had crossed the Stony Bottom, which marks the boundary between the two farms, and made her way with some effort up the hill to the Grange, she had met McAdam in the door.

  “You must let me tidy up your things a bit for you, mister,” she had said shyly; for she was afraid of the little man.

  “Thank ye, Mrs. Moore,” he had answered with the sour smile the Dalesmen knew so well, “but ye must think I’m a woeful cripple.” And there he had stood, grinning scornfully and placing his small body in the very center of the doorway.

  Mrs. Moore had turned and gone back down the hill, puzzled and hurt at the way he had greeted her offer of help; and her husband, who was all too proud, had told her she must not make the offer again. Still, her motherly heart went out in great tenderness for the little orphan David. She knew how unhappy his life was, how his father disliked him, and what would come of that.

  And so it became the usual thing for the boy to stop in at Kenmuir every morning and trot off to the village school with Maggie Moore. And soon he came to look upon Kenmuir as his true home, and James and Elizabeth Moore as his real parents. His greatest happiness was to be away from the Grange. And the ferret-eyed little man there noticed this, was bitterly angry at it, and showed his ill humor.

  He felt that James Moore was taking away his own command of his son, and this was the main reason for his bad feeling toward Mr. Moore. He was thinking of the Master of Kenmuir when he remarked, one day, at the Arms: “I myself always prefer the good man who does not go to church, to the bad man who does. But then, as ye say, Mr. Burton, I’m a bit strange.”

  The little man’s treatment of David, which was made out to be even worse than it really was by the villagers because they were so eager to believe the worst, at last became such a scandal to the Dale that Parson Leggy decided to speak to him about it.

  Now McAdam was the person whom the minister liked least in the world. The bluff old parson, with his brusque manner and big heart, wanted nothing to do with the man, who never went to church, was always drinking liquor, and never spoke good of his neighbors. Yet he began the conversation fully determined not to allow himself to express any feelings that were not worthy of him; rather, he would appeal to the little man’s better nature.

  The conversation had not been going on for more than two minutes, however, before he knew that, although he had meant to be calm and convincing, he was quickly becoming excited and insulting.

  “You, Mr. Hornbut,” the little man was saying, “with James Moore to help you, may look after the lad’s soul—I’ll take care of his body.”

  The parson’s thick gray eyebrows lowered threateningly over his eyes.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself talking like that. Which d’you think is more important, soul or body? Shouldn’t you, his father, be the very first to care for the boy’s soul? If not, who should? Answer me, sir.”

  The little man stood smirking and sucking the twig that was always there in his mouth, entirely unmoved by the other man’s agitation.

  “Ye’re right, Mr. Hornbut, as ye always are. But my argument is this: that I get at his soul best through his little carcass.”

  The honest parson brought down his stick with an angry thud.

  “McAdam, you’re a brute—a brute!” he shouted. At which outburst the little man had a fit of silent laughter.

  “A fond dad first, a brute afterward, perhaps—he, he! Ah, Mr. Hornbut! Ye amuse me greatly, ye do indeed—” he said, and he added a line from his favorite, the Scottish poet Robert Burns—“‘my loved, my honored, much-respected friend.’”

  “If you paid as much attention to your boy’s welfare as you do to the bad poetry of that immoral farmer—”

  An angry gleam shot into the other’s eyes.

  “Do ye know what blasphemy is, Mr. Hornbut?” he asked, thrusting himself forward a step.

  For the first time in the argument, the parson thought he was about to score a point, and so he was calm.

  “I should. I think I have an example of a blasphemous man in front of me now. And do you know what impertinence is?”

  “I should. I think I have—I would say it’s what gentlemen often display if their mothers did not whip them when they were lads.”

  For a moment the parson looked as if he were about to grab his opponent and shake him.

  “McAdam,” he roared, “I won’t stand here putting up with your insolent remarks!”

  The little man turned, hurried indoors, and came running back with a chair.

  “Allow me!” he said smoothly, holding it in front of him like a hair-cutter for a customer.

  The parson turned and walked away. At the gap in the hedge he paused.

  “I’ll say only one thing more,” he called slowly. “When your wife, whom I think we all loved, lay dying in that room above you, she said to you in my presence—”

  It was McAdam’s turn to be angry. He took a step forward with burning face.

  “Once and for all, Mr. Hornbut,” he cried passionately, “understand that I’ll not have you and the likes of you lay your tongues on my wife’s memory whenever it suits ye. You can say what ye like about me—lies, sneers, insults—and I’ll say nothing. I don’t ask ye to respect me; I think ye might at least respect her, poor lass. She never harmed ye. If you cannot let her remain in peace where she lies down yonder”—he waved in the direction of the churchyard—“ye’ll not be welcome on my land. Though she is dead, she’s mine.”

  Standing in front of his house, with flushed face and big eyes, the little man looked almost noble in his indignation. And the parson, striding away down the hill, was uneasily aware that he had not won this battle.

  * It was this visit that was described in the Grammoch-town Argus (a local radical newspaper) under the headline “Alleged Wholesale Corruption by Tory Agents.” Which was why, on the following market day, the reporter Herbert Trotter, a former gentleman and Secretary of the Dale Trials, who had written the article, found himself thrown in the public horse-trough.

  CHAPTER 3

  Red Wull

  THE WINTER came and went; the season in which the lambs were born was past, and spring was already shyly kissing the land. And now that the hardest work of the year was done, and her master was well started on the new season, McAdam’s old collie, Cuttie Sark, lay down one evening and passed quietly away.

  The little black-and-tan lady, Parson Leggy used to say, had been the only thing on earth that McAdam cared for. Certainly the two had been wonderfully devoted to each other; and now, on many a market day, the Dalesmen missed the shrill, chuckling cry which told them the pair were approaching: “Well done, Cuttie Sark!”

  The little man missed her sorely, and, as was his habit, he took out his misery on David and the Dalesmen. In return, Tammas, who was skilled at inventing insults that had a good ring to them, called him, behind his back, “A venomous, virulent vipe
r!” (a highly poisonous snake)—and the men clinked their pewter mugs in approval.

  A shepherd without his dog is like a ship without a rudder to steer it by, and McAdam felt his loss in a practical way as well as in his heart. This was especially so on a day when he had to take a batch of older ewes over to richer pasture in Grammoch-town. To help him, Jem Burton had loaned him the use of his small-waisted, small-hearted greyhound, Monkey. But before they came to the top of Braithwaite Brow, which leads from the village onto the “marches,” or border country, McAdam was standing in the path with a rock in his hand, a smile on his face, and the gentlest flattery in his voice as he coaxed the dog to come to him. Master Monkey knew too much to do that. However, after he had been frolicking a while longer in the middle of the flock, a large rock, better aimed than those before it, struck him on his hip and sent him back to the Sylvester Arms with a sore tail and a subdued heart.

  In the end, McAdam would never have made his way over the sheep-filled marches alone with his ewes if it had not been for old Saunderson and Shep, who happened to overtake him on the path and helped him.

  It was in a very angry mood that he walked into the Dalesman’s Daughter in Silverdale on his way home.

  The only occupants of the taproom, as he entered, were Teddy Bolstock, the innkeeper; Jim Mason, with the faithful Betsy beneath his chair and the mailbags flung into the corner; and a long-limbed fellow, a stranger, who had the look of a drover, that is, one of those hardy and solitary men whose profession it is to drive animals to market over long, lonely distances.

  “And he comes up to Mr. Moore,” Teddy was saying, “and he says, ‘I’ll give ye twelve pound for that gray dog of yours.’ ‘Ah,’ says Moore, ‘you may give me twelve hundred and yet you’ll not get my Bob.’—Eh, Jim?”

  “He did indeed,” agreed Jim. “‘Twelve hundred,’ says he.”

  “James Moore and his dog again!” snapped McAdam. “There’s others in the world besides them two.”