Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle

by Alfred Ollivant

  His enemies said the Tailless Tyke was rough; not even Tammas denied that he was ready and willing. His brain was as big as his body, and he used them both to good purpose. “As quick as a cat, with the heart of a lion and the temper of the devil himself,” was how Parson Leggy described him.

  What could be done using pure determination, Red Wull could do; but to make something happen by doing nothing—the highest of all strategies—was not his way. In situations where the most delicate handling of the sheep was required, where the slightest sign of any emotion other than calm indifference was ruinous, when the sheep were restless, when the singing of the wind filled them with a sense of looming disaster, when the air seemed charged with invisible panic, when one wrong motion would have spelled catastrophe—in those situations Owd Bob o’ Kenmuir was the best.

  People still tell how, when the Squire’s new threshing machine went running out of control in Grammoch-town, and for some minutes the market square was a wild sea of cursing men, yelping dogs, and stampeding sheep, only one flock stood by the bullring as calm as a mill pond, watching the riot almost with indifference. And in front, sitting between them and the storm, was a quiet gray dog, his mouth stretched in a wide yawn: to yawn, at that moment, was to win, and he won.

  When the worst of the uproar was over, many men glanced with a look of triumph first at that one quiet flock, and then at McAdam, as he waded through his own disorder of huddling sheep.

  “And where’s your Wullie now?” asked Tupper scornfully.

  “Well,” the little man answered with a sly smile, “at this minute he’s killing your Rasper down by the pump.” Which was indeed true; for big blue Rasper had interfered with the great dog as he did his duty, and was now paying the price.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Spring turned into summer; and the excitement over the coming Sheep Trials, when at last the two rivals would be pitted against each other, reached a height that old Jonas Maddox could hardly remember in all his eighty years.

  Almost every night, down in the Sylvester Arms, McAdam would get into a fight with Tammas Thornton, spokesman of the Dalesmen. The two had many a long-drawn-out quarrel as to the respective merits of the red dog and the gray, and their chances of winning the Cup. In these duels, Tammas was usually defeated. His temper would get the better of his wisdom; and he would change from skeptical debater to hot-tongued defender of the gray dog.

  During these contests, the other men would usually maintain a strict silence. Only when their champion was being beaten, and it was time for the strength of their voices to conquer the strength of McAdam’s arguments, would they join in heartily and roar the little man down, for all the world like the gentlemen who rule the British Empire at Westminster, the seat of government in London.

  Tammas was an easy target for McAdam to provoke, but David was easier. When the insults were directed at himself, the boy put up with them calmly, for he was used to them. But a poisonous dart shot against his friends at Kenmuir never failed to rouse him. And the little man showed an amazing talent for making up clever lies about James Moore.

  “I hear,” said he, one evening, sitting in the kitchen, sucking his twig; “I hear that James Moore is goin’ to git married again.”

  “You’re hearin’ lies—or more likely telling them,” David answered curtly. For he now treated his father with contemptuous indifference.

  “Seven months since his wife died,” the little man continued thoughtfully. “Well, I’m only surprised he’s waited this long. Bury one, take another—that’s James Moore.”

  David burst angrily out of the room.

  “Goin’ to ask him if it’s true?” called his father after him. “Good luck to ye—and to him.”

  David now had a new interest at Kenmuir. He now found Maggie endlessly fascinating as a subject of study. After her mother died, the girl had taken over the management of Kenmuir; and gallantly she played her part, whether in tenderly mothering the baby, little Anne, or in the more serious matters of household work. She did her duty, young though she was, with a surprising, old-fashioned womanliness that won many a smile of approval from her father, and caused David’s eyes to open with astonishment.

  And he soon discovered that Maggie, mistress of Kenmuir, was a different person from his former playmate and servant.

  The happy days when his size and strength won out over her, even when he was wrong, were gone and would never return. David often missed them, especially when, in an argument, Maggie with her quick answers and teasing eyes chased him, sulky and defeated, off the battlefield. The two were always squabbling now. In the good old days, he remembered bitterly, squabbles between them were unknown. He had never allowed them; any attempt on Maggie’s part to think or act independently was sternly quashed, as though they were still living in the Middle Ages. She had to follow wherever he led—“My word!” he would say.

  Now she was the mistress where he had been the master; she commanded, he obeyed. As a result, they were always at war. And yet he would sit for hours in the kitchen and watch her, as she went about her business, with solemn, interested eyes, half in admiration, half in amusement. In the end, Maggie always turned on him with a little laugh that was touched with irritation.

  “Haven’t you got anything better to do than that—to look at me?” she asked one Saturday about a month before Cup Day.

  “No, I haven’t,” the pert fellow answered.

  “Then I wish you had. It makes me quite jumpy having you watching me that way, like a cat watching a mouse.”

  “Don’t you trouble yourself on my account, my girl,” he answered calmly.

  “Your girl indeed!” she cried, tossing her head.

  “Ay, or will be,” he muttered.

  “What’s that?” she cried, springing around toward him, a flush of color on her face.

  “Nothing, my lassie. You’ll know as soon as I want you to, you may be sure, and no sooner.”

  The girl went back to her baking, half angry, half suspicious.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Mr. McAdam,” she said.

  “Don’t you, Mrs. McA—”

  The rest was lost in the crash of a falling plate; at which David laughed quietly, and asked if he should help pick up the pieces.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  That same evening, at the Sylvester Arms, an announcement was made that knocked the breath out of its hearers.

  In the debate that night on the fast-approaching Dale Trials and the abilities of the red dog compared to those of the gray, McAdam on one side and Tammas, backed by Long Kirby and the rest, on the other, had pounded each other with more than usual vigor. The quarrel rose to fever heat; argument was followed by insult; and again and again, the little man was hooted into silence.

  “It’s easy to laugh,” he cried at last, “but ye’ll laugh out of the other side of yer ugly faces on Cup Day.”

  “Will we indeed? We’ll see,” came the mocking chorus of voices.

  “We’ll whip ye till ye’re deaf, dumb, and blind, Wullie and I.”

  “Yo’ won’t!”

  “We will!”

  The voices were rising like the east wind in March.

  “You won’t, and for a very good reason too,” Tammas declared loudly and solemnly.

  “Give us yer reason, ye great liar,” cried the little man, turning on him.

  “Because—” began Jim Mason and stopped to rub his nose.

  “You hold your tongue, Jim,” advised Rob Saunderson.

  “Because—” This time it was Tammas who paused.

  “Git on with it, ye stammering stirk!” cried McAdam. “Why?”

  “Because—Owd Bob isn’t goin’ to run.”

  Tammas sat back in his chair.

  “What!” screamed the little man, lunging forward.

  “What’s that!” bellowed Long Kirby, leaping to his feet.

  “Man, say it again!” shouted Rob.

  “What’s the crazy old bean telling us?” cried Liz Burton.r />
  “Knock ’im on the head!” shouts Tupper.

  “Strike ’im in the eye!” says Ned Hoppin.

  They jostled around the old man’s chair: McAdam in front; Jem Burton and Long Kirby leaning over his shoulder; Liz behind her father; Saunderson and Tubber tackling him on either side; while the rest peered and elbowed in the rear.

  The announcement had fallen like a thunderbolt among them.

  Tammas looked slowly up at the little mob of eager faces above him. In his expression was a mixture of pride at the sensation caused by his news and genuine sorrow over what he had told them.

  “Ay, you may well pay attention, all of you. It’s enough to make the dead listen. I say again: We shall not run our Bob in the Cup. And you may guess why. It isn’t every man, Mr. McAdam, that would put aside his chance of the Cup, especially when it would practically be handed to him”—McAdam’s tongue was in his cheek—“and a sure thing,” the old man continued warmly, “out o’ respect for his wife’s memory.”

  The news was received in utter silence. The shock of the surprise, together with the bitterness of the disappointment, froze the slow tongues of his listeners.

  Only one small voice broke the stillness—it was McAdam.

  “Oh, what a tender-hearted man! He should get his rent reduced for such a display of the proper spirit. I’ll remind Mr. Hornbut to let old Sylvester know about it.”

  Which he did, and would have got a beating for his trouble if Cyril Gilbraith had not thrown him out of the parsonage before the angry minister could lay hands upon him.

  CHAPTER 10

  Red Wull Wins

  TAMMAS had simply told the sad truth. Owd Bob was not going to run for the cup. And this decision, which denied him something he wanted, speaks more for James Moore’s love of his lost wife than many an impressive stone monument.

  To the people of the Daleland, from the Black Water to the market cross in Grammoch-town, the news came with the shock of a sudden blow. They had set their hearts on the Gray Dog’s success; and had felt serenely confident of his victory. But the most painful part of it was this: that now the Tailless Tyke might well win.

  McAdam, on the other hand, was plunged into a fervor of delight at the news. For to win the Shepherds’ Trophy was the goal of his ambition. David now meant less than nothing to the lonely little man, while Red Wull meant everything to him. And to have that name handed down through the generations, gallantly holding its place among the names of the most famous sheepdogs of all time, was his heart’s desire.

  As Cup Day drew near, the little man’s delicate nature was strained to the highest pitch of nervousness, and he was tossed on a sea of worry. His hopes and fears ebbed and flowed with the tide of each moment. His moods were as undependable as the winds of March; and his state of mind was always changing. At one minute he paced up and down the kitchen, his face already flushed with the glow of victory, chanting the patriotic Scottish battle-song:

  “Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled!”

  (Scots who have with Wallace bled!)

  At the next minute, he was bent over the table, his head buried in his hands, his whole body shaking, as he cried in a choking voice: “Eh, Wullie, Wullie, they’re all against us.”

  David found that living with his father was now like living with an unfriendly wasp. Though he pretended to be indifferent to his father’s changeable moods, they tormented him almost to madness, and he fled at every moment to Kenmuir; for, as he told Maggie, “I’d rather put up with your airs and impertinence, miss, than with him, woman that he be!”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  At last the great day came. Fears, hopes, doubts, dismays, all scattered in the presence of the reality.

  Cup Day is always a general holiday in the Daleland, and every soul crowds over to Silverdale. Shops were shut; special trains ran in to Grammoch-town; and the road leading out from the little town was a confusion of carriages, wagons, and carts of all kinds, as well as people on foot, all making their way toward the Dalesman’s Daughter. And soon the paddock below that little inn was humming with the crowd of sportsmen and spectators who had come to see the battle for the Shepherd’s Trophy.

  There, very noticeable with its red body and yellow wheels, was the great Kenmuir wagon. Many people were gazing at the handsome young pair who stood in it, so conspicuous yet unaware, above the crowd: Maggie, looking as sweet and fresh as a mountain flower in her simple printed cotton dress; while David’s fair face was all gloomy, his forehead creased.

  In front of the wagon was a black cluster of Dalesmen, discussing McAdam’s chances. In the center was Tammas voicing his opinions. If you had walked by, close to the group, you might have heard: “A man, did you say, Mr. Maddox? An ape, I call him”; or: “A dog? More like a hog, I tell you.” Surrounding the old man were Jonas, Henry, and Our Job, Jem Burton, Rob Saunderson, Tupper, Jim Mason, Hoppin, and others; while on the edge of the group stood Sammel Todd predicting rain and McAdam’s victory. Nearby, Bessie Bolstock, who was rumored to have a soft spot for David, giggled spitefully at the pair in the Kenmuir wagon, and sang:

  “Let a lad alone, lass,

  Let a lad a-be.”

  While her father, Teddy, dodged in and out among the crowd with tray and glasses: for Cup Day was the great day of the year for him.

  Past the group of Dalesmen and on all sides was a mass of bobbing heads—Scots, Northerners, Yorkshiremen, Welshmen. To the right and left, a long line of carriages and carts of all kinds, from the Squire’s low-bellied landau and Viscount Birdsaye’s gorgeous long-bodied barouche to Liz Burton’s three-legged donkey-cart with little Mrs. Burton, the twins, young Jake (who should have walked), and Monkey (ditto) packed away inside. Beyond the Silver Lea, the gaunt Scaur raised its rugged peak, and the Pass, stretching out along the side of it, shone white in the sunshine.

  At the back of the carriages were booths containing games in which you threw a ball at a row of coconuts on a shelf, or tried to knock the pipe out of the mouth of a scarecrow called Aunt Sally, and shows, and stools on which the bookies sat taking bets on the dogs, and all the busy throng of such a contest. Here Master Launcelot Bilks and Jacky Sylvester were fighting; Cyril Gilbraith was offering to challenge the professional boxing man; Long Kirby was betting against Red Wull while the odds were good; and Liz Burton and young Ned Hoppin were being photographed together, while Melia Ross in the background was pretending she didn’t care.

  Across the stream, on the far bank, was a little cluster of men and dogs, and everyone was watching them.

  The Juvenile Stakes had been run and won; Londesley’s Lassie had triumphed in the Locals; and the fight for the Shepherds’ Trophy was about to begin.

  “You’re not lookin’ at me now,” whispered Maggie to the silent boy by her side.

  “No; and never wish to again,” David answered roughly. He was looking over the heads of the crowd in front to a place where, beyond the Silver Lea, a group of shepherds and their dogs were gathered, while standing apart from the rest, by himself as always, was the bent figure of his father, and beside him the Tailless Tyke.

  “Don’t you want your father to win?” asked Maggie softly, following his gaze.

  “I’m praying he’ll be beaten,” the boy answered moodily.

  “Oh, Davie, how can you?” cried the girl, shocked.

  “It’s easy to say, ‘Oh, David,’” he snapped. “But if you lived with them two”—he nodded toward the stream—“maybe you’d understand a bit. . . . ‘Oh, David,’ indeed! Honestly!”

  “I know, lad,” she said tenderly; and he grew calmer.

  “He’d give his right hand for his blessed Wullie to win; I’d give my right arm to see him lose . . . And our Bob there all the while”—he nodded to the far left of the line, where James Moore stood with Owd Bob, Parson Leggy and the Squire.

  When at last Red Wull came out to run his course, he worked with the savage dash that was always his own special way. His method was his own; but the work w
as admirably well done.

  “Keeps right on the back of his sheep,” said the parson, watching intently. “Strange thing they don’t scatter!” But they didn’t. There was no waiting, no coaxing; he drove them straight on with a cunning that was almost devilish. He brought his sheep along at a terrific pace, never missing a turn, never hesitating, never straying from the course. And the crowd applauded, for the crowd loves a dashing display. While little McAdam, hopping nimbly about, his face blazing with excitement, handled dog and sheep with a masterly precision that compelled the admiration even of his enemies.

  “McAdam wins!” roared a bookie, giving the odds for those who had placed bets: “Twelve to one against the field!”

  “He wins, dang him!” said David quietly.

  “Wull wins!” said the parson, shutting his lips.

  “And deserves to!” said James Moore.

  “Wull wins!” softly cried the crowd.

  “We don’t!” said Sammel gloomily.

  And in the end, Red Wull did win; and no one but Tammas, who was so fixed in his opinion, and Long Kirby, who had lost a good deal of his wife’s money and a little of his own betting on the outcome, protested the fairness of the verdict.

  The win was greeted with little enthusiasm. At first there was a faint cheering; but it sounded like the echo of an echo, and soon died away. To produce loud and long applause, there must be money behind it, or a few roaring fanatics to start it off and keep it going. Here, there was neither; only ugly stories, mean remarks, on all sides. And, as always happens, the hundreds who did not know McAdam or Red Wull followed the example of those who said they did.

  McAdam could not help seeing the lack of enthusiasm as he pushed his way through the crowd toward the tent where the committee sat. Not a single voice honored him as the winner; not a single friendly hand patted his shoulder in congratulation. Broad backs were turned; contemptuous glances were aimed at him; spiteful remarks were fired off. Only the people who were not from the area looked curiously at the little bent figure with the glowing face, and shrank back at the size and savage appearance of the great dog at his heels.