Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle

by Alfred Ollivant

  “You can never tell,” said Sammel, appearing on the scene, pig-bucket in hand. “I doubt you’ll ever see your dog again, mister.” He turned sorrowfully to McAdam.

  That little man, all disheveled, and with the sweat standing out on his face, came hurrying from the cow shed and danced up to the Master.

  “I’ve been robbed—robbed, I tell you!” he cried recklessly. “My little Wull’s been stolen while I was at your house, James Moore!”

  “You mustn’t say that, my man. No robbing at Kenmuir,” the Master answered sternly.

  “Then where is he? It’s for you to say.”

  “I’ve my own idea, I have,” Sammel announced just then, holding the pig-bucket up in the air.

  McAdam turned on him.

  “What, man? What is it?”

  “I doubt you’ll ever see your dog again, mister,” Sammel repeated, as if he were supplying the key to the mystery.

  “Now, Sammel, if you know anything, tell it,” ordered his master.

  Sammel grunted sulkily.

  “Where’s our Bob, then?” he asked.

  At that, McAdam turned on the Master.

  “That’s it, no doubt. It’s your gray dog, James Moore, yer blasted dog. I might have known it”—and he let fly a volley of foul words.

  “Swearing will not find him,” said the Master coldly. “Now, Sammel.”

  The big man shifted his feet and looked mournfully at McAdam.

  “It was, maybe, half an hour ago when I saw our Bob going out of the yard with the little yellow tyke in his mouth. In a minute I looked again—and there! the little yellow one was gone, and our Bob was sitting and licking his chops. Gone forever, I do suppose. Ah, you may well have a fit, Tammas Thornton!” For the old man was rolling around the yard, bent double with laughter.

  McAdam turned on the Master, resigned and despairing.

  “Man, Moore,” he cried piteously, “it’s your gray dog that has murdered my little Wull! You heard it from your own man.”

  “Nonsense,” said the Master encouragingly. “It has only wandered off somewhere.”

  Sammel tossed his head and snorted.

  “Come, then, and I’ll show you,” he said, and led the way out of the yard. And there below them on the slope that led down to the stream, sitting like a judge at the court of law, was our Bob.

  Immediately, Sammel, who was usually as solemn as old Ross, the church warden, burst into loud laughter. “Why is he sitting so still, do you think? Ho, ho! See him licking his chops—ha, ha!”—and he roared again, while in the distance you could hear the chuckling of Henry and Our Job.

  At the sight, McAdam burst into a storm of passionate cursing, and would have rushed at the dog if James Moore had not held him back by force.

  “Bob, lad,” called the Master, “come here!”

  But even as he spoke, the gray dog cocked his ears, listened a moment, and then shot down the slope. At the same moment, Tammas called out: “There he is! There’s the yellow tyke over there, coming out of the drain! You see, Sammel!” And there, indeed, on the slope below them, a little angry, smutty-faced figure was crawling out of a rabbit-burrow.

  “You murdering devil, how dare you touch my Wullie?” yelled McAdam, and, breaking away, ran madly after him down the hill; for the gray dog had picked up the puppy as easily as a swallow snatches a bug in mid-air, and was racing on, his captive in his mouth, toward the stream.

  Behind them hurried James Moore and Sammel, wondering what the outcome of this comedy would be, and after them toddled old Tammas, chuckling. Meanwhile, a little cluster of heads had appeared above the wall of the yard: it was Henry, Old Job, Maggie and David, and Violet Thornton, the dairy-maid.

  Straight onto the plank-bridge galloped Owd Bob. In the middle he halted, leaned over, and dropped his prisoner, who fell with a cool plop into the running water beneath.

  In another moment, McAdam had reached the bank of the stream. In he plunged, splashing and cursing, and seized the struggling puppy; then waded back, the waters surging around his waist, with Red Wull, limp as a wet rag, in his hand. The little man’s hair was dripping, for his cap was gone; his clothes clung to him, revealing how miserably thin his body was; and his eyes blazed like hot ashes in his wet face.

  He sprang onto the bank, and, beside himself with passion, rushed at Owd Bob.

  “Curse you for a—”

  “Stand back, or you’ll have him at your throat!” shouted the Master, running hard toward him. “Stand back, I say, you fool!” And, when the little man kept on charging forward, he reached out his hand and hurled him back; at the same moment, bending, he buried the other hand deep in Owd Bob’s shaggy neck. It was only just in time; for if ever a pair of gray eyes gleamed with the fierce desire for a fight, the young dog’s eyes were those gray eyes, as McAdam came toward him.

  The little man staggered, tottered, and fell heavily. At the shock, the blood gushed from his nose, and, mixing with the water on his face, ran down in washy red streams, dripping off his chin; while Red Wull, who had been jerked from his grasp, was thrown far off, and lay motionless.

  “Curse you!” McAdam screamed, his face dead white except for the red around his jaw. “Curse you for a cowardly Englishman!” and, struggling to his feet, he lunged toward the Master.

  But Sammel put the great bulk of his body between the two.

  “Easy, little man,” he said calmly, gazing at the small fury before him with mournful interest. “Eh, you’re a little spitfire, you are!”

  James Moore stood breathing deeply, his hand still buried in Owd Bob’s coat.

  “If you had touched him,” he explained, “I couldn’t have stopped him. He’d have mauled you before I could have got him off you. They’re hard to hold, the Gray Dogs, when they’re roused.”

  “Ay, my word, they are!” agreed Tammas, speaking from his experience of sixty years. “Once they’re on you, you cannot get them off.”

  The little man turned away.

  “You’re all against me,” he said, and his voice shook. He was a pitiful figure, standing there with the water dripping off him. A red stream ran slowly from his chin; his head was bare, and his features were moving in agitation.

  James Moore stood watching him with some pity and some contempt. Behind them was Tammas, enjoying the scene. Sammel gazed at them all with a serene melancholy.

  McAdam turned away and bent over Red Wull, who still lay like a dead thing. As his master handled him, the button-like tail quivered feebly; he opened his eyes, looked about him, snarled faintly, and glared with devilish hatred at the gray dog and the group with him.

  The little man picked him up, stroking him tenderly. Then he turned away and stepped onto the plank-bridge. Halfway across, he stopped. It rattled beneath him, for he was still trembling like a man in a violent fever.

  “Man, Moore!” he called, trying to quiet the disturbance in his voice—“I would shoot that dog.”

  Once he was across the bridge, he turned again.

  “Man, Moore!” he called and paused. “You won’t forget this day.” And with that, the blood flared up a dull crimson in his white face.

  Part Two

  The Little Man

  CHAPTER 5

  A Man’s Son

  THE STORM had long threatened, and now that it had burst, McAdam gave free rein to his bitter hatred of James Moore.

  The two often met. For the little man often returned home from the village along the path across Kenmuir. It was out of his way, but he preferred it, in order to annoy his enemy and keep an eye on his doings.

  He haunted Kenmuir like its evil spirit. His sickly pale face was perpetually turning up at odd moments. When Kenmuir Queen, the prize short-horn heifer, gave birth to a calf unexpectedly and alone in the hollow by the lane, Tammas and the Master, summoned hurriedly by Owd Bob, came running up to find the little man leaning against the steps over the fence, shaking with silent laughter. On another day, poor old Staggy, still bold and adventu
rous though feeble-minded with age, took a fall while scrambling over the steep banks of the Stony Bottom. There he lay for hours, unnoticed and kicking, until, when he was nearly exhausted, James Moore and Owd Bob at last came upon him. But McAdam was there before them. Standing on the far bank with Red Wull by his side, he called across the gully with a pretense of concern: “He’s been like that since last night.” Often James Moore, despite all his great strength of character, could barely control himself.

  There were two attempts to patch up the feud. Jim Mason, who went about in the world trying to do good, tried in his shy way to set things right. But McAdam and his Red Wull between them soon shut him and Betsy up.

  “You look after your letters and your telegrams, Mr. Poacher-Mailman. Ay, I saw them both: the one down by the Haughs, the other in the Bottom. And there’s Wullie, the fanciful child, having a great game with Betsy.” There, indeed, lay the faithful Betsy, on her back pleading for mercy, her paws up, her throat exposed, while Red Wull, now a very large puppy, stood over her, his habitually evil expression intensified into a fiendish grin, as, with wrinkled muzzle and savage wheeze, he waited for her to move so that he would have an excuse to pin her down: “Wullie, let the lady alone—you’ve had your dinner.”

  The minister, Parson Leggy, was the other who attempted to play the role of peace-maker; for he hated to see the two most important members of his tiny parish on bad terms with each other. First he addressed James Moore on the subject; but that man of few words cut him short with, “I have nothing against the little man,” and would say no more. And, indeed, he had not been the one who started the quarrel.

  As for the parson’s conversation with McAdam, it is enough to say here that, in the end, the angry old minister would certainly have attacked his mocking opponent if Cyril Gilbraith had not held him back by force.

  And after that, the feud was left to take its own course with no attempt to stop it.

  David was now the only link between the two farms. Despite his father’s angry commands, the boy clung to his close friendship with the Moores with a stubbornness that no amount of beating could conquer. Every minute of the day, when he was out of school, and on holidays and Sundays as well, he spent at Kenmuir. It was not until late at night that he would sneak back to his home, the Grange, and creep quietly up to his tiny bare room under the roof—not without his supper, indeed, since the motherly Mrs. Moore had taken care of that. And there he would lie awake and listen with fierce contempt as his father, hours later, staggered into the kitchen below, drunkenly singing a verse from a song by his favorite Robert Burns:

  We are na fou, we’re nae that fou

  But just a drappie in our e’e;

  The cock may craw, the day may daw’,

  And ay we’ll taste the barley bree!

  (We’re not so full—ay, not at all,

  We’ve just a sparkle in our eye;

  The day may dawn, the cock may crow,

  And still we’ll taste the barley brew!”)

  And in the morning, the boy would slip quietly out of the house while his father was still asleep; only Red Wull would thrust out his savage head as the boy passed, and snarl hungrily.

  In this way, father and son would sometimes go for weeks without seeing each other. And that was David’s purpose—to avoid attention. It was only because he was clever at this game of keeping out of his father’s way that he escaped being beaten.

  The little man seemed to have no natural affection for his son. He lavished all the fondness in his small nature on the Tailless Tyke—as Red Wull was called by the Dalesmen. And he treated the dog with a careful tenderness that made David smile bitterly.

  The little man and his dog were as alike morally as they were different physically. Each held a grudge against the world and was determined to pay it back. Each was like Ishmael, the son of Hagar, an outcast among his fellows.

  You saw them this way, standing apart, like lepers, in the turmoil of life; and it was quite a revelation to come upon them by chance in some quiet spot at night, playing together, each wrapped up in the game, innocent, tender, forgetful of the hostile world.

  The two were never separated except when McAdam 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 he knew well that sheep dogs have long memories.

  As far as the stile in the lane, then, that little set of steps that led up and over the fence, Red Wull would follow him. There he would stand, his great head poked through the rails, watching his master till he was out of sight; and then he would turn and trot, self-reliant and defiant, sturdy and surly, down the very center of the road through the village—no playing, no tempting away, and woe to man or dog who tried to stop him as he went! And on, past Mother Ross’s shop, past the Sylvester Arms, to the right by Kirby’s blacksmith shop, over the Wastrel by the Haughs, to wait for 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 passed discreetly by; for, though he was no coward, it is a bad idea to attack a Gray Dog of Kenmuir single-handedly. As for the dog, he trotted soberly on his way, only a steely glint in the big gray eyes betraying his knowledge of the presence of his enemy. If ever, however, the little man, in his desire to spy over the bare land, wandered off the public path, a gray figure that seemed to spring out of the blue would come fiercely, silently racing down on him; and he would turn and run for his life, amid the uproarious jeers of any of the farmhands who had witnessed the encounter.

  On these occasions, David was just as full of mockery as Tammas, at his father’s expense.

  “Good for you, little one!” he roared from behind a wall, on one occasion.

  “Isn’t he quick on his feet, now?” yelled Tammas, not to be outdone. “Look at him fly along—ho, ho!”

  “See how his knees wobble!” said the undutiful son, delighted. “If I had knees like him, I’d wear petticoats.” As he spoke, a swinging punch on his ear nearly knocked the young scamp down.

  “D’you think God gave you a dad for you to jeer at? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. It’ll serve you right if he does thrash you when you get home.” And David, turning around, found James Moore close behind him, his heavy eyebrows lowering over his eyes.

  Luckily, McAdam had not heard his son’s voice among the others. But David was afraid that he had; for on the following morning, the little man said to him:

  “David, you will come home immediately after school today.”

  “Will I?” said David rudely.

  “You will.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I tell you to, my lad”; and that was all the reason he would give. Had he told the simple fact that he wanted help in giving a dose of medicine to a ewe with a bad cough, things might have gone differently. As it was, David turned away defiantly down the hill.

  The afternoon wore on. School time 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 last he could restrain himself no longer, and he set off running down the hill, his heart burning with indignation.

  “Wait till we lay hands on you, my lad,” he muttered as he ran. “We’ll warm you, we’ll teach you.”

  At the edge of the Stony Bottom he left Red Wull, as always. Crossing it himself, and rounding Langholm Hollow, he caught sight of James Moore, David, and Owd Bob walking away from him in the direction of Kenmuir. The gray dog and David were playing together, wrestling, racing, and rolling. The boy hadn’t a thought for his father.

  The little man ran up behind them, unseen and unheard, his feet softly pattering on the grass. His hand had fallen on David’s shoulder before the boy guessed he was approaching.

  “Did I tell you to co
me home after school, David?” he asked, concealing his anger beneath a suspiciously smooth and polite tone.

  “Maybe. Did I say I would come?”

  The rudeness of his tone and words both fanned his father’s ill will into a blaze of anger. In a burst of passion he lunged forward at the boy with his stick. But as he hit him, a gray whirlwind struck him squarely on the chest, and he fell like a snapped stick and lay, half stunned, with a dark muzzle an inch from his throat.

  “Get back, Bob!” shouted James Moore, hurrying up. “Get back, I tell you!” He bent over the figure lying flat on the ground, and propped him up anxiously. “Are you hurt, McAdam? Eh, I am sorry. He thought you were going to strike the lad.”

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

  “Are you hurt, father?” he asked, his voice trembling.

  The little man rose unsteadily to his feet and shook off the other two as they tried to hold him up. His face was twitching, and he stood, covered in dust, looking at his son.

  “Perhaps you’re content, now that you’ve seen your father’s gray head bowed in the dust,” he said.

  “It was an accident,” pleaded James Moore. “But I am sorry. He thought you were going to beat the lad.”

  “I was—and I will.”

  “If anyone is to be beaten, it should be my Bob here, though he only thought he was doing right. And you were off the path.”

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

  “You can’t thrash him for doing what you tell him to do. You may set your dog on me, if you will, but don’t beat him when he does what you ask!”

  “I did not set him on you, as you know,” the Master replied with some emotion.

  McAdam shrugged his shoulders.

  “I won’t argue with you, James Moore,” he said. “I’ll leave you and what you call your conscience to settle that. My business is not with you.—David!” he said, turning to his son.

  A stranger might well have been confused as to which man was the boy’s father. For David 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 revealing his awareness of the strangeness of the situation.