“David, ye will take the Cheviot flock over to Grammoch-town at once.”
David answered rudely:
“You must take ’em yourself, if you wish ’em to go today.”
“Na,” the little man answered; “Wullie and me, we’re busy. Ye’re to take ’em, I tell ye.”
“I won’t,” David replied. “If they wait for me, they wait till Monday,” and with that he left the room.
“I see what it is,” his father called after him; “she’s meeting ye secretly at Kenmuir. Oh, ye lusty boy, David!”
“You mind your business; I’ll mind mine,” the boy answered angrily.
Now it happened that on the day before, Maggie had given him a photograph of herself, or, rather, David had taken it and Maggie had objected. As he left the room now, it dropped from his pocket. He failed to notice his loss, but as soon as he was gone, McAdam pounced on it.
“He, he, Wullie! What’s this?” he chuckled, holding the photograph to his face. “He, he! It’s the wicked woman herself, I warrant; it’s the Jezebel!”
He peered into the picture.
“She knows what’s what, I’ll swear, Wullie. See her eyes—so soft and sad; and her lips—such lips, Wullie!” He held the picture down for the great dog to see: then walked out of the room, still snickering and snapping the face insanely under its cardboard chin.
Outside the house he collided against David. The boy had missed his treasure and was hurrying back for it.
“What’ve you got there?” he asked suspiciously.
“Only the picture of some lusty queen,” his father answered, snapping away at the lifeless chin.
“Give it to me!” David ordered fiercely. “It’s mine.”
“Na, na,” the little man replied. “It’s not for such quiet, sober lads as dear David to have any dealings with ladies such as this.”
“Give it to me, I tell ye, or I’ll take it!” the boy shouted.
“Na, na; it’s my duty as yer dad to keep ye from such wicked loose women.” He turned, still smiling, to Red Wull.
“There ye are, Wullie!” He threw the photograph to the dog. “Tear her, Wullie, the evil Jezebel!”
The Tailless Tyke sprang on the picture, placed one big paw in the very center of the face, forcing it into the mud, and tore a corner off; then he chewed the scrap with oily, slobbering greed, dropped it, and tore a fresh piece.
David dashed forward.
“Touch it, if you dare, you brute!” he yelled; but his father seized him and held him back.
“‘And the dogs of the street,’” he quoted, from the story in the Bible that tells of the wicked Jezebel’s violent death.
David turned furiously on him.
“I’ve half a mind to break every bone in your body!” he shouted, “robbing me of what’s mine and throwing it to that black brute!”
“Hush, David, hush!” soothed the little man. “It was only for your own good that your old dad did it. It was your own good that he had in his heart, as he always has. Run off with you now to Kenmuir. She’ll make it up to ye, I’m sure. She’s quite free with her favors, I hear. You have only to whistle and she’ll come.”
David seized his father by the shoulder.
“If you give me much more of your sauce . . .” he roared.
“Sauce, Wullie,” the little man echoed in a gentle voice.
“. . . I’ll twist your neck for you!”
“He’ll twist my neck for me.”
“I’ll go away for good, I warn yo’, and leave you and yer Wullie on yer own.”
The little man began to whimper.
“It’ll break yer old dad’s heart, lad,” he said.
“Nay; yo’ve got none. But ’twill ruin you, please God. For yo’ and yer Wullie will never get a soul to work for you—ye cheese-paring, foul-mouthed miser.”
The little man burst into an agony of sham tears, rocking to and fro, his face in his hands.
“Oh, woe is me, Wullie! D’ye hear him? He’s goin’ to leave us—the son of my heart! My Benjamin! My little Davie! He’s goin’ away!”
David turned away down the hill; and McAdam lifted his grieving face and waved a hand at him.
“‘Adieu, dear amiable youth!’” he cried in a broken voice, quoting again; and immediately went back to sobbing.
Halfway down to the Stony Bottom, David turned.
“I’ll give yo’ a word o’ warning,” he shouted back. “I’d advise you to keep a closer eye on what yer Wullie’s doing, especially at night, or you might wake to a surprise one morning.”
In an instant the little man stopped his fooling.
“And why is that?” he asked, following David down the hill.
“I’ll tell you. When I woke this morning I walked to the window, and what d’ye think I see? Why, yer Wullie galloping like a good one up from the Bottom, all foaming at the mouth, too, and splashed with red, as if he’d come from the Screes. What had he been up to, I’d like to know?”
“What should he be doing,” the little man answered, “but keepin’ an eye on the stock? And that when the Killer might be out.”
David laughed harshly.
“Ay, the Killer was out, I’ll guarantee, and you may hear about it before this evening, my man,” and with that he turned away again.
◆ ◆ ◆
As he had predicted, David found Maggie alone. But in the heat of his indignation against his father, he seemed to have forgotten his original plan, and instead poured his latest troubles into the girl’s sympathetic ear.
“There’s only one man in the world he wishes more harm to than me,” he was saying. It was late in the afternoon, and he was still complaining bitterly about his father and his fate. Maggie sat in her father’s chair by the fire, knitting; while he lounged on the kitchen table, swinging his long legs.
“And who may that be?” the girl asked.
“Why, Mr. Moore, to be sure, and the Owd One, too. He’d do either of them harm if he could.”
“But why, David?” she asked anxiously. “I’m sure dad never hurt him, or any other man for that matter.”
David nodded toward the Dale Cup resting on the mantelpiece in silvery majesty.
“It’s that that has done it,” he said. “And if the Owd One wins again, as win he will, bless him! why, look out for ‘me and my Wullie’; that’s all.”
Maggie shuddered, and thought of the face at the window.
“‘Me and my Wullie,’” David went on; “I’ve had about as much of them as I can swallow. It’s always the same—‘Me and my Wullie,’ and ‘Wullie and me,’ as if I never put my hand to a bit of work! Ugh!”—he made a motion of passionate disgust—“the two of ’em are like to drive me mad. I could strike the one and strangle the other,” and he rattled his heels angrily together.
“Hush, David,” interrupted the girl; “you mustn’t speak that way about yer dad; it’s against the commandments.”
“It’s not against human nature,” he snapped in answer. “Why, it was only yesterday morning he says in his nasty way, ‘David, my grand fellow, how ye work! ye astonish me!’ And on my word, Maggie”—there were tears in the great boy’s eyes—“my back was nearly broke with laboring. And the Terror, he stands by and shows his teeth, and looks at me as much as to say, ‘Some day, by the grace of goodness, I’ll have my teeth in your throat, young man.’”
Maggie’s knitting dropped into her lap and she looked up, her soft eyes for once flashing.
“It’s cruel, David; so it is!” she cried. “I wonder you stay with him. If he treated me that way, I wouldn’t stay another minute. If it meant going to the Poor Folks’ Home, I’d go,” and she looked as if she meant it.
David jumped off the table.
“Have you never guessed why I stay, lass, and me so happy at home?” he asked eagerly.
Maggie looked down again.
“How should I know?” she asked innocently.
“Nor care, neither, I suppose,” he said r
eproachfully. “Yo’ want me to go and leave yo’, and go right away; I see how it is. You wouldn’t mind, not you, if you was never to see poor David again. I never thought you really liked me, Maggie; and now I know it.”
“You silly lad,” the girl murmured, knitting steadily on.
“Then you do,” he cried, triumphant. “I knew you did.” He came close to her chair, his face clouded with eager anxiety.
“But do you like me more than just liking, Maggie? Do you?” he bent and whispered in the little ear.
The girl cuddled over her work so that he could not see her face.
“If you won’t tell me, you can show me,” he coaxed her. “There’s other things besides words.”
He stood before her, one hand on the chair back on either side. She sat thus, caged between his arms, with drooping eyes and rosy color.
“Not so close, David, please,” she begged, fidgeting uneasily; but he paid no attention.
“Do move away a bit,” she implored.
“Not till you’ve showed me,” he said stubbornly.
“I cannot, Davie,” she cried with laughing impatience.
“Yes, you can, lass.”
“Take your hands away, then.”
“Nay; not till you’ve showed me.”
A pause.
“Do please, Davie,” she begged.
And—
“Do please,” he pleaded.
She tilted her face in invitation, but her eyes were still down.
“It’s no use, Davie.”
“Yes ’tis,” he coaxed.
“Never.”
“Please.”
A long pause.
“Well, then—” She looked up, at last, shy, trustful, happy; and the sweet lips were tilted farther to meet his.
And that is how they were, in the pose of a pair of lovers, when a low, dreamy voice broke in on them—
“‘A dear-lov’d lad, convenience snug,
A treacherous inclination.’
“Oh, Wullie, I wish you were here!”
It was little McAdam. He was leaning in at the open window, grinning offensively at the young couple, his eyes squinting, an evil expression on his face.
“The crucial moment! And I interfere! David, you’ll never forgive me.”
The boy jumped around with a curse; and Maggie, her face flaming, leapt to her feet. The tone, the words, the look of the little man at the window were all unbearable.
“By thunder! I’ll teach you to come spying on me!” roared David. Above him on the mantelpiece blazed the Shepherds’ Trophy. Searching for any weapon, in his fury, he reached up a hand for it.
“Ay, give it back to me. Ye robbed me of it,” the little man cried, holding out his arms as if to receive it.
“Don’t, David,” pleaded Maggie, putting a hand on her lover’s arm to hold him back.
“By the Lord! I’ll give him something!” yelled the boy. Nearby, there stood a pail of soapy water. He seized it, swung it, and hurled its contents at the leering face in the window.
The little man stepped back hastily, but the dirty stream of water caught him and soaked him through. The bucket followed, struck him full on the chest, and rolled him over in the mud. After it, with a rush, came David.
“I’ll let you know, spying on me!” he yelled. “I’ll—” Maggie, whose face was now as white as it had been crimson, clung to him, getting in his way.
“Don’t, David, don’t!” she begged. “He’s your own dad.”
“I’ll dad him! I’ll teach him!” roared David, halfway through the window.
At that moment, Sammel Todd came stumbling furiously around the corner, closely followed by Henry and Our Job.
“Is he dead?” shouted Sammel, seeing the form on the ground.
“Ho, ho!” chimed the other two.
They picked up the wet and muddy little man and hurried him out of the yard like a thief, one man on either side of him and one man behind.
As they forced him through the gate, he struggled to turn around.
“By Him that made ye! ye shall pay for this, David McAdam, you and yer—”
But Sammel’s big hand came down on his mouth, and he was carried away before that last evil word could come into being.
CHAPTER 21
Horror of Darkness
IT WAS long past dark, that night, when McAdam staggered home.
All that evening at the Sylvester Arms, his curses against David had made even the hardest of the men shudder. James Moore, Owd Bob, and the Dale Cup were for once forgotten as, in his passion, he swore at his son.
The Dalesmen gathered fearfully away from the dripping little madman. Although usually the sorts of outbursts they were hearing were not enough to silence them, on this evening they were speechless before him; only now and then did they send a quick, secret glance in his direction, as though they were about to carry out some bold action aimed at him. But McAdam noticed nothing, suspected nothing.
When at last he lurched into the kitchen of the Grange, there was no light, and the fire burned low. So dark was the room that he did not see the white ribbon of paper pinned to the table.
The little man sat down heavily, his clothes still sodden, and went back to his endless damnation.
“I’ve endured more from him, Wullie, than Adam McAdam ever thought to endure from any man. And now it’s past bearing. He struck me, Wullie! Struck his own father. Ye saw it yerself, Wullie. Na, ye weren’t there. Oh, if only ye had been, Wullie! Him and his missie! But I’ll force him to know Adam McAdam. I’ll stand no more of it!”
He sprang to his feet and, reaching up with trembling hands, pulled down the old bell-mouthed blunderbuss that hung above the mantelpiece.
“We’ll make an end to it, Wullie, so we will, once and for all!” And he banged the weapon down upon the table. It lay right across that slip of quiet, accusing paper, yet the little man did not see it.
Sitting down again, he prepared to wait. His hand groped for the pocket of his coat, and he tenderly fingered a small stone bottle, his beloved companion during all these years alone. He pulled it out, uncorked it, and took a long drink; then placed it on the table next to him.
Gradually the gray head lolled to one side; the wrinkled hand dropped and hung limply down, the fingertips brushing the floor; and he dozed off into a heavy sleep, while Red Wull watched at his feet.
It was not till an hour later that David returned home.
As he drew near the lightless house, which stood in the darkness like a body from which the spirit has flown away, he could not help contrasting this dreary home of his with the bright kitchen and cheerful faces he had left.
Entering the house, he felt his way to the kitchen door and opened it; then struck a match and stood in the doorway looking in.
“Not home, is he?” he muttered, the tiny light above his head. “Wet inside as well as out, by now, I’ll bet. By gum! it was a lucky thing for him I didn’t get my hands on him this evening. I could have killed him.” He held the match above his head.
Two yellow eyes, glowing in the dark like two smoky quartz stones from the Cairngorm mountains, and a small dim figure bunched up in a chair, told him his guess was wrong. Many a time he had seen his father like this before, and now he muttered scornfully:
“Drunk; the little lout! Sleepin’ it off, I imagine.”
Then he saw his mistake. The hand that hung above the floor twitched and was still again.
There was a clammy silence. A mouse, hearing nothing and thinking it was safe to come out, scuttled across the hearth. One mighty paw lightly moved; a lightning tap, and the tiny beast lay dead.
Again that hollow stillness: no sound, no movement; only those two unwinking eyes fixed steadily on him.
At last, a small voice from the fireside broke the quiet.
“Drunk—the—little—lout!”
Again a clammy silence, and a pause as long as a lifetime.
“I thought you were sleepin’,” said David
at last, lamely.
“Ay, so ye said. ‘Sleepin’ it off’; I heard ye.” Then, still in the same small voice, now quivering a little. “Would ye be so kind, sir, as to light the lamp? Or, d’ye think, Wullie, that would be soiling his dainty fingers? They’re more used, I’m told, to danderin’ with the bonnie brown hair of his—”
“I’ll not have ye talk of my Maggie so,” the boy interrupted passionately.
“His Maggie, did ye hear that, Wullie? His! I thought it would soon get that far.”
“Take care, dad! I’ll stand but little more,” the boy warned him in a choking voice; and he began to trim the wick of the lamp with trembling fingers.
McAdam then spoke to Red Wull.
“I suppose no man ever had such a son as him, Wullie. Ye know what I’ve done for him, and ye know how he’s repaid it. He’s set himself against me; he’s said bad things about me; he’s robbed me of my Cup; last of all, he struck me—struck me in front of them all. We’ve worked hard for him, you and I, Wullie; we’ve slaved to keep him in house and home, and he’s spent his time, all the while, in riotous living, carousing at Kenmuir, amusing himself with his—” He broke off short. The lamp was lit, and the strip of paper, pinned to the table, naked and glaring, caught his eye.
“What’s this?” he muttered; and loosened the nail that clamped it down.
This is what he read:
“Adam Mackadam yer warned to make an end to yer Red Wull will be best for him and the Sheep. This is the first yoll have two more the third will be the last? †”
It was written in pencil, and the only signature was a dagger, crudely drawn in red.
McAdam read the paper once, twice, three times. As he slowly understood its meaning, the blood faded from his face. He stared at it and went on staring, with whitening face and pursed lips. Then he shot a glance at David’s broad back.
“What d’ye know about this, David?” he asked, finally, in a dry, thin voice, reaching forward in his chair.
“About what?”
“About this”—holding up the slip. “And I’d be pleased to have the truth, for once.”
David turned, picked up the paper, read it, and laughed harshly.
Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle Page 16
