Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle

by Alfred Ollivant

  In the distance, there was a low tumbling like heavy carts rolling over the floor of heaven. All around, the wind sounded hollow like a mighty blade sweeping across the wheat. The air was heavy with a leaden blackness—no glimmer of light anywhere; and as they began climbing the Pass, they reached out blind hands to feel along the rock face.

  A cool wet mist, coming inland from the sea, descended around them. A few big raindrops splashed heavily down. The wind rose with a leap and roared past them up the rocky track. And the water-gates of heaven were flung wide open.

  Wet and tired, they battled on; thinking sometimes of the cozy parlor behind them; sometimes of the home in front; wondering whether Maggie, in complete disobedience of her father’s orders, would be waiting up to welcome them home; or whether only Owd Bob would come out to meet them.

  The wind shot rapidly past them like rounds of gunfire. The rain stormed at them from above; spat at them from the rock face; and leapt up at them from their feet.

  Once, they stopped for a moment, finding a miserable bit of shelter in a crevice in the rock.

  “It’s a Black Killer’s night,” panted the Master. “I’ll bet he’s out.”

  “Ay,” the boy gasped, “I bet he is.”

  Up and up they climbed through the blackness, blind and knocked about by the wind. The eternal thunder of the rain was all around them; the uproar of the gale above; and far beneath, the roar of angry waters.

  Once, in a quiet moment in the storm, the Master turned and looked back into the blackness along the path they had come.

  “Did ye hear anything?” he roared above the muffled moaning of the wind.

  “Nay!” Andrew shouted back.

  “I thought I heard a step!” the Master cried, peering down. But he could see nothing.

  Then the wind leaped to life again like a giant from his sleep, drowning all sound with its hurricane voice; and they turned and set off again.

  Coming near the summit, the Master turned once more.

  “There it was again!” he called; but his words were swept away on the storm; and they started walking again.

  Every now and then the moon gleamed down through the storm-tossed sky. Then they could see the wet wall above them, with the water tumbling down its steep face; and far below, in the roaring channel of the Pass, a brown-stained torrent. Hardly, however, had they time to glance around when a mass of cloud would hurry jealously up, and all would again be blackness and noise.

  At length, nearly exhausted, they came over the top of the last and steepest part of the Pass, and emerged into the Devil’s Bowl. There, overcome by that last effort, they flung themselves down on the soaking ground to catch their breath.

  Behind them, the wind rushed with a gloomy roar up the funnel of the Pass. It screamed above them like ten million devils on horseback; and exploded out onto the wild Marches beyond.

  As they lay there, still panting, the moon gleamed down in a moment of kindness. In front, through the lashing rain, they could make out the little hills that squat like witches around the Devil’s Bowl; and lying in the heart of it was the Lone Tarn, its white waters, usually so still, now plowed into a thousand furrows.

  The Master raised his head and craned forward at the ghostly scene. Suddenly he raised himself up onto his arms and stayed motionless awhile. Then he dropped as though dead, forcing Andrew down with an iron hand.

  “Lad, did you see?” he whispered.

  “Nay; what was it?” the boy answered, startled by his father’s tone.

  “There!”

  But as the Master pointed forward, a blur of cloud came across and all was dark. Quickly it passed; and again the lantern of the night shone down. And Andrew, looking with all his eyes, saw indeed.

  There, in front, by the rumpled waters of the Tarn, packed in a solid mass, with every head turned in the same direction, was a flock of sheep. They were motionless, transfixed, staring with horror-bulging eyes. A column of steam rose from their warm bodies into the rain-pierced air. Panting and trembling, yet they stood with their backs to the water, as though determined to defend themselves to the death. Beyond them, less than fifty yards away, crouched a hump-backed boulder, casting a long, misshapen shadow in the moonlight. And beneath it were two black objects, one still struggling weakly.

  “The Killer!” gasped the boy, and, all ablaze with excitement, began plunging forward.

  “Steady, lad, steady!” urged his father, dropping a hand on the boy’s shoulder to hold him back.

  Above them, a huddle of clouds flung furiously across the night, and the moon was hidden.

  “Follow me, lad!” ordered the Master, and began to crawl silently forward. As quietly, Andrew came after him. And over the soaked ground they crept, one behind the other, like two night-hawks on some foul errand.

  On they crawled, lying on their bellies during the blinks of moonlight, and stealing forward in the dark; until, at last, the swish of the rain on the waters of the Tarn, and the panting of the flock in front, warned them they were near.

  They crept around the trembling pack, passing so close as to brush against the flanks of the sheep; and yet unnoticed, for the sheep were engrossed in the tragedy occurring before them. Only, when the moon was covered, Andrew could hear them huddling and stamping in the darkness. And again, as it shone out, fearfully they edged closer to watch the bloody drama.

  Along the edge of the Tarn the two crept. And still the gracious moon hid their approach, and the drunken, riotous wind drowned out the noise of their coming.

  So they stole on, on hands and knees, with hearts dismayed and fluttering breath; until, suddenly, in a pause of the wind, they could hear, right before them, the smack and slobber of bloody lips, mouthing their bloody meal.

  “Say thy prayers, Red Wull. Thy last minute has come!” muttered the Master, rising to his knees. Then, in Andrew’s ear: “When I rush, lad, follow!” for he thought, when the moon shone out again, to jump in on the great dog, and, surprising him as he lay gorged and unsuspicious, to deal him one terrible sweeping blow, and put an end, forever, to the lawless doings of the Tailless Tyke.

  The moon flung off its veil of cloud. White and cold, it stared down into the Devil’s Bowl; on murderer and murdered.

  Within a hand’s reach of the two men as they crept forward bent on revenge, rose the black boulder. On the edge of its shadow lay a dead sheep; and standing beside the body, his coat all ruffled by the hand of the storm was—Owd Bob—Owd Bob of Kenmuir.

  Then the light vanished, and darkness covered the land.

  CHAPTER 29

  The Devil’s Bowl

  IT WAS Owd Bob. There could be no mistake. In the whole, wide word there was only one Owd Bob of Kenmuir. The silver moon gleamed down on the dark head and rough gray coat, and lit the patch of white on his chest.

  And in the darkness James Moore was lying with his face pressed downward so that he would not see.

  Once he raised himself on his arms; his eyes were shut and his face uplifted, like a blind man praying. He passed a tired hand across his forehead; his head dropped again; and he moaned and moaned like a man in everlasting pain.

  Then the darkness lifted a moment, and he took a quick, secret glance, like a murderer’s glance at the gallows where he will be hanged, at the scene in front of him.

  It was no dream; clear and cruel in the moonlight was the humpbacked boulder; the dead sheep; and that gray figure, beautiful, motionless, damned for all eternity.

  The Master turned his face and looked at Andrew, a dumb, pitiful prayer in his eyes; but in the boy’s white, horror-stricken face there was no comfort to be found. Then his head drooped down again, and the strong man was whimpering.

  “He, he, he! Excuse me for laughing, Mr. Moore—he, he, he!”

  A little man, all wet and shrunk, sat hunching on a mound above them, rocking his shriveled form to and fro in his fits of merriment.

  “Ye rascal—he, he! Ye rogue—he, he!” and he shook his fist in fun
at the gray dog, who paid no attention. “I owe ye another grudge for this—you’ve beaten me to it”—and he leaned back and shook this way and that in his laughter.

  The man below him rose heavily to his feet, and stumbled toward the little mocking man, his great figure swaying from side to side as though in a blind fever, still moaning as he went. And there was something on his face that no man can mistake. Though he was only a boy, Andrew recognized it.

  “Father! Father! Don’t!” he begged, running after his father and laying helpless hands on him.

  But the strong man shook him off like a fly, and rolled on, swaying and groaning, with that awful expression plain to see in the moonlight.

  In front, the little man squatted in the rain, still bowed over; and had no idea of running away.

  “Come on, James Moore! Come on!” he laughed, evil joy in his voice; and something gleamed bright in his right hand, and was hidden again. “I’ve been waiting for this a long time now. Come on!”

  Then, in the dreadful lonesomeness of the Devil’s Bowl on that night, something worse than sheep-murder would have been committed; but all of a sudden, there sounded the splash of a man’s foot falling heavily behind; a hand like a falling tree struck the Master on the shoulder; and a voice roared above the noise of the storm:

  “Mr. Moore! Look, man! Look!”

  The Master tried to shake off that grasp; but it pinned him where he stood, immovable.

  “Look, I tell you!” cried that great voice again.

  A hand pushed past him and pointed; and grimly he turned, ignoring the figure at his side, and looked.

  The wind had dropped as suddenly as it had risen; the little man on the mound had stopped laughing; Andrew’s sobs were hushed; and in the background, the huddled flock edged closer. The world hung balanced on the pinpoint of the moment. Every eye was turned in one direction.

  With dull, uncomprehending gaze James Moore stared as he was told. There was the gray dog alone in the moonlight, still paying no attention to the witnesses; there was the murdered sheep, lying half in and half out of that twisted shadow; and there was the humpbacked boulder.

  He stared into the shadow, and still stared. Then he started as though struck. The shadow of the boulder had moved!

  Motionless, with head forward and bulging eyes, he gazed.

  Ay, ay, ay; he was sure of it—a huge dim outline, as though of a lion crouched on the ground, in the very thickest of the blackness.

  At that he was seized with such a fit of trembling that he would surely have fallen if it hadn’t been for the strong arm around his waist.

  That crouching figure grew clearer every moment; till at last they could plainly see the line of arching underbelly, the crest as thick as a stallion’s, the massive, wagging head. There was no mistake this time. There he lay in the deepest black, gigantic, lolling in his horrid pleasure—the Black Killer!

  And they watched him at his feast. Now he burrowed into the spongy flesh; now he turned to lap the dark pool of blood that glittered in the moonlight beside him like red wine in a silver cup. Now lifting his head, he snapped irritably at the raindrops, and the moon caught his wicked, rolling eye and the red shreds of flesh dripping from his jaw. And again, raising his great mouth as if about to howl, he let the delicious nectar trickle down his throat and delight his palate.

  So he went on, all unsuspicious, wisely nodding in slow-mouthed gluttony. And in the stillness, between the gusts of wind, they could hear the smacking of his lips.

  While all the time the gray dog stood before him, motionless, as though carved in stone.

  At last, as the murderer rolled his great head from side to side, he saw that still figure. At the sight, he leaped back, alarmed. Then with a deep-mouthed roar that shook the waters of the Tarn, he was up and across his victim with teeth bared, his coat standing straight up in wet, rigid furrows from his head to his tail.

  So the two stood, face to face, with maybe a yard of rain-pierced air between them.

  The wind hushed its sighing to listen. The moon stared down, white and speechless. Away at the back, the sheep edged closer. While, except for the everlasting thunder of the rain, there was complete silence.

  It seemed an age that they waited like that. Then a voice, clear yet low and far away, like a bugle in a distant city, broke the stillness.

  “Eh, Wullie!” it said.

  There was no anger in the tone, only a terrible blame; it was the sound of the man’s heart breaking.

  At the call, the great dog leapt around, snarling in hideous passion. He saw the small, familiar figure, clear against the tumbling sky; and for the only time in his life, Red Wull was afraid.

  His blood-enemy was forgotten; the dead sheep was forgotten; everything was sunk in the agony of that moment. He crouched in fear upon the ground, and a cry like that of a lost soul was forced from him; it rose on the still night air and floated, wailing, away; and the white waters of the Tarn trembled in cold pity; out of the lonely hollow; over the dismal Marches; into the night.

  On the mound above stood his master. The little man’s white hair was bared to the night wind; the rain trickled down his face; and his hands were folded behind his back. He stood there, looking down into the hollow below him, as a man may stand at the grave of his lately buried wife. And there was an expression on his face that I cannot describe.

  “Wullie, Wullie, to me!” he cried at last; and his voice sounded weak and far away, like a distant memory.

  At that, the huge brute came crawling toward him on his belly, whimpering as he came, very pitiful in his suffering. He knew what was going to happen to him, as every sheepdog knows it. That was not what troubled him. His pain, his unbearable pain, was that this man, his friend and father, who had trusted him, should have discovered him in his sin.

  He crept up to his master’s feet; and the little man never moved.

  “Wullie—my Wullie!” he said very gently. “They’ve always been against me—and now you! A man’s mother—a man’s wife—a man’s dog! They’re all I ever had; and now one of the three has turned against me! Indeed I am alone!”

  At that, the great dog raised himself, and placing his forepaws on his master’s chest tenderly, for fear that he should hurt the man who was already hurt beyond healing, stood towering above him; while the little man laid his two cold hands on the dog’s shoulders.

  So they stood, looking at each other, like a man and his love.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  At McAdam’s word, Owd Bob looked up, and for the first time saw his master.

  He did not seem at all startled, but trotted over to him. There was nothing fearful in the way he held himself, no haunting blood-guilt in the true gray eyes which never told a lie, which never, dog-like, failed to look you in the face. Yet his tail was down, and, as he stopped at his master’s feet, he was quivering. For he, too, knew, and was moved.

  For weeks he had tracked the Killer; for weeks he had followed him as he crossed Kenmuir, on his way to perform his bloody acts; yet always he had lost him on the Marches. Now, at last, he had hunted him down. Yet his heart went out to his enemy in his suffering.

  “I thought it was you, lad,” the Master whispered, his hand on the dark head at his knee—“I thought it was you!”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Rooted to the ground, the three watched the scene between McAdam and his Wull.

  In the end, the Master had tears in his eyes; Andrew was crying; and David had turned his back.

  At last, silent, they moved away.

  “Had I—should I go to him?” asked David hoarsely, nodding toward his father.

  “Nay, nay, lad,” the Master answered. “That’s not a matter for a man’s friends.”

  So they walked out of the Devil’s Bowl, and left those two alone together.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  A little later, as they walked along, James Moore heard the sound of lightly pattering, uneven footsteps behind.

  He stopped, and the other two
went on.

  “Man,” a voice whispered, and a face, white and pitiful, like a mother’s begging for her child, looked into his—“Man, you won’t tell them? I wouldn’t want ’em to know it was my Wullie. Think if it had been yer own dog.”

  “You may trust me!” the other answered, his voice choking.

  The little man stretched out a trembling hand.

  “Give us yer hand on it. And G-God bless ye, James Moore!”

  So these two shook hands in the moonlight, with no one to witness it but the God who made them.

  And that is why the mystery of the Black Killer is still unsolved in the Daleland. Many have guessed; but besides those three, only one other knows—knows now which of those two that he saw upon a summer night was the guilty one, and which the innocent. And Postie Jim tells no man.

  CHAPTER 30

  The Tailless Tyke at Bay

  ON THE following morning, there was a sheep auction at the Dalesman’s Daughter.

  Though many of the farmers arrived early, there was one man even earlier. Tupper, the first to enter the sand-floored parlor, found McAdam there before him.

  He was sitting a little forward in his chair; his thin hands rested on his knees; and on his face was a gentle, dreamy expression such as no man had ever seen there before. All the harsh wrinkles seemed to have disappeared in the night; and the sour face, stamped deep with the bitterness of life, was softened now, as if finally at peace.

  “When I came down this morning,” said Teddy Bolstock in a whisper, “I found him sitting just so. And he hasn’t moved or spoke since.”

  “Where’s the Terror, then?” asked Tupper, awed somehow into speaking quietly too.

  “In the paddock out back,” Teddy answered, “marching up and down, up and down, for all the world like a sentry soldier. And so he was when I looked out the window when I woke up.”