Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle

by Alfred Ollivant

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” warned the Master.

  “But I will!” yelled McAdam; and, darting forward as the gate swung shut, struck furiously at the dog.

  He missed, and the gray dog charged at him like a mail-train.

  “Hi! James Moore—” but over he went like a toppled wheelbarrow, while the old dog turned again, raced at the gate, flew over it magnificently, and galloped up the lane after his master.

  At McAdam’s yell, James Moore had turned.

  “Served yo’ right!” he called back. “He’ll teach ye yet that it’s not wise to get in the way of a gray dog or his sheep. It’s not the first time he’s knocked ye over, I’m thinkin’!”

  The little man raised himself painfully onto his elbow and crawled toward the gate. The Master, up the lane, could hear him cursing as he dragged himself along. Another moment, and a head was poked through the bars of the gate, and a devilish little face looked after him.

  “Knocked me down, by God he did!” the little man cried passionately. “I owed ye both something before this, and now, by God, I owe ye something more. And mind ye, Adam McAdam pays what he owes!”

  “I’ve heard the opposite,” the Master replied calmly, and turned away up the lane toward the Marches.

  CHAPTER 24

  A Shot in the Night

  IT WAS only three short weeks before Cup Day when, one afternoon, Jim Mason brought a letter to Kenmuir. James Moore opened it as the postman lingered in the doorway.

  It was from Long Kirby—still in hiding—begging him for mercy’s sake to keep Owd Bob safe inside at night; at least until after the great event was over. For Kirby knew, as did every Dalesman, that the old dog slept in the entryway, between the two doors of the house, and that the outer door was only loosely closed by a chain, so that the ever-watchful guardian could slip in and out and go his rounds at any moment of the night.

  This was how the blacksmith ended his poorly spelled note: “Look out for McAdam i tell you i know hell tri to git the old wun before cup day—ef he cant git you. if the ole dog is beat i’m a ruined man i say so for the luv o God keep yer eyes peeld.”

  The Master read the letter and handed it to the postman, who studied it carefully.

  “I tell you what,” said Jim at last, speaking with a seriousness that made the other man stare, “I wish you’d do what he asks you: keep the Owd One in at night, I mean, just for now.”

  The Master shook his head and laughed, tearing the letter to pieces.

  “Nay,” he said; “McAdam or no McAdam, Cup or no Cup, the Owd One has the run of my land same as he’s had since he was a puppy. Why, Jim, the first night I shut him up, that’ll be the night the Killer comes, I’ll bet.”

  The postman turned away, discouraged, and the Master stood looking after him, wondering what had happened lately to his friend, who used to be so cheerful.

  Those two were not the only warnings James Moore received. During the weeks just before the Trials, the danger signal was sounded over and over beneath his nose.

  Twice did Watch, the black mongrel chained in the straw-yard, sound a bold challenge on the night air. Twice did the Master, with lantern, Sammel, and Owd Bob, go out and search every hole and corner on the place—and find nothing. One of the dairy-maids quit her job, swearing that the farm was haunted; that several times in the early morning, she had seen an evil spirit flitting down the slope to the Wastrel—a sure sign, Sammel declared, that someone in the house was about to die. And one time a sheep-shearer, coming up from the village, told how he had seen, in the half-light of dawn, a ghostly little figure, thin and nervous, stealing silently from tree to tree in the grove of larches by the lane. The Master, however, irritated by these constant alarms, chose not to believe the story.

  “One thing I’m certain of,” he said. “Not a creature moves on Kenmuir at night without the Owd One knowing about it.”

  Yet, even as he said it, a little man with tired eyes, wet and dirty, smeared with dew and dust, was limping in at the door of a house barely a mile away. “No luck, Wullie, curse it!” he cried, throwing himself into a chair and speaking to someone who was not there—“no luck. And yet I’m as sure of it as I am that there’s a God in heaven.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  McAdam had turned into an old man, in the last few months. Though he was hardly over fifty, he looked as though he had come to the end of his life. His thin hair was completely white, his body was shrunken and stooped, and his thin hand shook like the leaves on an aspen as it groped its way to the familiar bottle.

  In another way, too, he was different. In the old days, whatever his faults, he had been the hardest-working man in the countryside. At all hours, in all weathers, you might have seen him with his gigantic companion tending to his business. Now all that had changed: he never put his hand to the plow to turn the soil, and with no one to help him, the fields were completely uncared-for; so that men said that, for sure, there would be a farm for rent on the March Mere Estate by the time autumn came.

  Instead of working, the little man sat all day in the kitchen at home, brooding about the injuries people had done to him, and planning vengeance. He even stopped going to the Sylvester Arms, but instead stayed where he was with his dog and his bottle. Only when the curtain of night had come down to cover him, would he slip out and away on a mysterious errand, leaving even Red Wull behind.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  So the time glided on, till the Sunday before the Trials came around.

  All that day, McAdam sat in his kitchen, drinking, muttering, scheming revenge.

  “Curse it, Wullie! curse it! The time’s slippin’—slippin’—slippin’ away! Next Thursday—only three days more! and I don’t have the proof—I don’t have the proof!”—and he rocked back and forth, biting his nails in the agony of his helplessness.

  All day long, he never moved. Long after sunset he still sat there; long after dark had blotted out the features of the room.

  “They’re all against us, Wullie. It’s you and I alone, lad. McAdam’s to be beaten somehow, anyhow; and Moore’s to win. So they’ve settled it, and so it will be—unless, Wullie, unless—but curse it! I don’t have the proof!”—and he hammered the table before him and stamped on the floor.

  At midnight he stood up, a mad, desperate plan looming in his muddled brain.

  “I swore I’d pay him back, Wullie, and I will. Though I may hang for it I’ll get even with him. I don’t have the proof, but I know—I know!” He groped his way to the mantelpiece with blind eyes and a reeling brain. Reaching up with fumbling hands, he took down the old gun from above the fireplace.

  “Wullie,” he whispered, chuckling hideously, “Wullie, come on! You and I—he, he!” But the Tailless Tyke was not there. At nightfall he had silently padded out of the house on business only he knew about. So his master crept out of the room alone—on tiptoe, still chuckling.

  The cool night air refreshed him, and he walked silently along, his quaint old weapon over his shoulder: down the hill; across the Bottom; around the Pike; till he reached the plank-bridge over the Wastrel.

  He crossed it safely, for the kindly spirit that looks after drunkards was placing his footsteps for him. Then he went quietly up the slope like a hunter stalking his prey.

  Having arrived at the gate, he raised himself cautiously and peered over into the moonlit yard. There was no sign or sound of a living creature. The little gray house slept peacefully in the shadow of the Pike, all unaware of the man with murder in his heart who was slowly and with great effort climbing to the top of the yard-gate.

  The door to the entryway was wide open, the chain hanging limply down, unused; and the little man could see, inside, the moon shining on the iron nail heads of the inner door, and the blanket of the one who should have been sleeping there, and was not.

  “He’s not there, Wullie! He’s not there!” He jumped down from the gate. He abandoned all caution and staggered recklessly across the yard. He was drunk, and d
izzy, and ready for battle. His veins were flushed with the fever of the victory that he was sure would be his. At last, he would be paid back for the injuries he had suffered for so many years.

  Another moment, and he was in front of the good oak door, battering it madly with the butt of his gun, yelling, dancing, screaming vengeance.

  “Where is he? What’s he up to? Come and tell me that, James Moore! Come down, I say, ye coward! Come and meet me like a man!”

  “‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,

  Scots wham Bruce has aften led—

  Welcome to your gory bed

  Or to victorie!’”

  (Scots who have with Wallace bled!

  Scots whom Bruce has often led!

  Welcome to your gory bed

  Or to victory!)

  The soft moonlight streamed down on the white-haired madman thundering at the door, screaming his war-song.

  The quiet farmyard, startled from its sleep, awoke in an uproar. Cattle shifted in their stalls; horses whinnied; fowl chattered, stirred up by the din and the dull thudding of the blows: and above the rest, loud and piercing, the shrill cry of a terrified child.

  Maggie, wakened from a vivid dream of David chasing the police, hurried to put a shawl around her, and in a minute had the baby in her arms and was comforting her—vaguely fearing all the while that the police were after David.

  James Moore flung open a window, and, leaning out, looked down on the wild-haired, rumpled figure below him.

  McAdam heard the noise, looked up, and saw his enemy. He immediately stopped his attack on the door, and, running beneath the window, shook his weapon up at the man.

  “There ye are, are ye? Curse ye for a coward! Curse ye for a liar! Come down, I say, James Moore! Come down—I dare ye to do it! Once and for all, let’s settle our account.”

  The Master, looking down from above, thought that at last the little man had lost his mind.

  “What is it yo’ want?” he asked, as calmly as he could, hoping to gain time.

  “What is it I want?” screamed the madman. “Listen to him! He crosses me in everything; he plots against me; he robs me of my Cup; he sets my son against me and goads him on to murder me! And in the end he—”

  “Come, then, come! I’ll—”

  “Give me back the Cup ye stole, James Moore! Give me back my son that ye’ve took from me! And there’s another thing. What’s yer gray dog up to? Where’s yer—”

  The Master interrupted again:

  “I’ll come down and talk things over with you,” he said soothingly. But before he could withdraw, McAdam had jerked his weapon to his shoulder and aimed it full at his enemy’s head.

  The threatened man looked down the gun’s great quivering mouth, completely unmoved.

  “You must hold it steadier, little man, if you want to hit your target!” he said grimly. “There, I’ll come help you!” He drew back slowly; and all the time was wondering where the gray dog was.

  In another moment he was downstairs, undoing the bolts and bars of the door. On the other side stood McAdam, his blunderbuss at his shoulder, his finger trembling on the trigger, waiting.

  “Master! Stop, or he’ll kill you!” roared a voice from the loft on the other side of the yard.

  “Father, Father! Get back!” screamed Maggie, who saw it all from the window above the door.

  Their cries were too late. The blunderbuss went off with a roar, belching out a storm of sparks and smoke. The shot peppered the door like hail, and the whole yard seemed for a moment to be wrapped in flame.

  “Aw! Oh! My God! I’m wounded! I’m a goner! I’m shot! Help! Murder! Eh! Oh!” bellowed a lusty voice—and it was not James Moore’s.

  The little man, the cause of the uproar, lay quite still on the ground, with another figure looming over him. As he had stood, his finger on the trigger, waiting for that last bolt to be drawn, a gray form, leaping from out of the blue, had suddenly and silently attacked him from behind, and jerked him backward to the ground. With the shock of the fall, the blunderbuss had gone off.

  The last bolt was thrown back with a clatter, and the Master came out. With a glance he took in the whole scene: the fallen man; the gray dog; the still-smoking weapon.

  “So it was you, was it, Bob lad?” he said. “I was wondering where you were. You came just at the right moment, as you always do!” Then, in a loud voice, addressing the darkness: “You’re not hurt, Sammel Todd—I can tell that by yer noise; it was only the shot off the door that warmed ye. Come down now and give me a hand.”

  He walked up to McAdam, who still lay gasping on the ground. The shock of the fall and recoil of the weapon had knocked the breath out of the little man’s body; beyond that he was barely hurt.

  The Master stood over his fallen enemy and looked sternly down at him.

  “I’ve put up with more from you, McAdam, than I would from any other man,” he said. “But this is too much—coming here at night with a loaded gun, scaring the women and children out of their minds, and I can’t help thinking you meant even worse. If you were half a man, I’d give you the finest beating you ever had in yer life. But, as you know well, I could no more hit you than I could a woman. Why you’ve got it in for me, you know best. I never did you or any other man any harm. As for the Cup, I’ve got it and I’m going to do my best to keep it—it’s for you to win it from me if you can on Thursday. As for what you say about David, you know it’s a lie. And as for what you’re trying to tell me with your hints and your mysteries, I have no more idea than an unborn baby. Now I’m going to lock you up, you’re not safe out and about. I’m thinking I’ll have to hand ye over to the police.”

  With the help of Sammel, he half dragged, half carried the stunned little man across the yard, and shoved him into a little room half underground, at the far end of the row of farm buildings, used for storing coal.

  “You think it over on that side of the door, my lad,” called the Master grimly, as he turned the key in the lock, “and I’ll do the same on this side.” And with that he went back to bed.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Early in the morning, he went to release his prisoner. But he was a minute too late. For scuttling down the slope and away was a figure black with coal dust, unsteady on his feet, his white hair blowing in the wind. The little man had broken off a wood hatch that covered a manhole in the wall of his prison-house, squeezed his small body through, and so escaped.

  “It’s probably just as well,” thought the Master, watching the flying figure. Then, “Bob, lad!” he called; for the gray dog, ears back, tail streaming, was hurtling down the slope after the runaway.

  On the bridge, McAdam turned, and, seeing the dog nearly upon him, screamed, missed his footing, and fell with a loud splash into the stream—in almost the same spot in which, years before, he had plunged in order to save Red Wull.

  On the bridge, Owd Bob stopped short and looked down at the man struggling in the water below. He made a move as though to leap in and rescue his enemy; then, seeing it was unnecessary, turned and trotted back to his master.

  “You only did right, I’m thinking,” said the Master. “Like as not he came here planning to make an end of you. Well, after Thursday, I pray God we’ll have peace. It’s getting beyond a joke.” The two turned back into the yard.

  But down below them, along the edge of the stream, for the second time in this story, a little dripping figure was tottering toward home. The little man was crying—the hot tears mingling on his cheeks with the undried waters of the Wastrel—crying with rage, shame, and exhaustion.

  CHAPTER 25

  The Shepherds’ Trophy

  CUP DAY.

  It dawned calm and beautiful, with not a cloud on the horizon, not a threat of storm in the air; just the sort of day on which the Shepherds’ Trophy must be won for good.

  And a fortunate thing it was. For never since the founding of the Dale Trials had such a crowd gathered on the north bank of the Silver Lea. From the Highlands they
came; from the far Campbell country; from the Peak; from Yorkshire, “the county of many acres.” From all along the silvery water of the Solway to the north they came, gathering in that quiet corner of the earth to see the famous Gray Dog of Kenmuir fight his last great battle for the Shepherds’ Trophy.

  By noon, the bleak and rocky Scaur looked down on such a gathering as it had never seen before. The paddock at the back of the Dalesman’s Daughter was packed with a tumultuous, chattering crowd: lively groups of farmers; clusters of solid countryfolk; sharp-faced townspeople; loud-voiced bookmakers; giggling girls; amorous boys—thrown together like toys in a bath of sawdust; while here and there, on the edges of the crowd, stood a lonely man and wise-faced dog, who had come from far away to take his proud title from the best sheepdog in the North.

  At the back of the enclosure were parked an impressive range of carts and carriages, as different from one another in quality and kind as their owners. There was the Squire’s gracefully curving landau rubbing axle-boxes with Jem Burton’s modest donkey cart; and there was Viscount Birdsaye’s flaring barouche side by side with the red-wheeled wagon of Kenmuir.

  In that wagon, Maggie, sad and sweet in her simple summer dress, leaned over to talk to Lady Eleanour; while golden-haired little Anne, delighted with the milling crowd, trotted around the wagon, waving to her friends and shouting from joy.

  Thick as flies clustered that colorful mass of people on the north bank of the Silver Lea, while on the other side of the stream was a little group of judges, inspecting the racecourse.

  This was the course that every dog would have to run: the three sheep must first be found in the big fenced enclosure to the right of the starting flag; then they must be taken up the slope and away from the spectators; around a flag and slantwise down the hill again; through a gap in the wall; along the hillside, parallel to the Silver Lea; sharply to the left through a pair of flags—the most difficult turn of them all; then down the slope to the pen, which was set up close to the bridge over the stream.