“Will you come home with me and have it now, or stay here with him and wait till you get it?” he asked the boy.
“McAdam, I’d like you to—”
“None of that, James Moore.—David, what do you say?”
David looked up into his protector’s face.
“You’d best go with your father, lad,” said the Master at last, in a low voice. The boy hesitated, and clung tighter to the protective arm; then he walked slowly to his father.
A bitter smile spread over the little man’s face as he noted this new test of the boy’s obedience to the other man.
“To obey his friend, he denies himself the pleasure of disobeying his father,” he muttered. “Noble!” Then he turned homeward, and the boy followed in his footsteps.
James Moore and the gray dog stood looking after them.
“I know you won’t take out your anger against me on the boy’s head, McAdam,” he called, almost pleading.
“I’ll do my duty quite fairly, thank you, James Moore,” the little man cried back, never turning.
Father and son walked away, one behind the other, like a man and his dog, and not a word was said between them. Across the Stony Bottom, Red Wull, scowling with bared teeth at David, joined them. Together the three went up the hill to the Grange.
In the kitchen McAdam turned.
“Now, I’m going to give you the grandest thrashing you ever dreamed of. Take off your coat!”
The boy obeyed, and stood up in his thin shirt, his face as white and still as a statue’s. Red Wull seated himself on his haunches close by, his ears pricked, licking his lips, all attention.
The little man bent the long, supple stick of ash-wood back and forth in his hands and raised it. But the expression on the boy’s face stopped his arm.
“Say you’re sorry and I’ll let you off easy.”
“I won’t.”
“One more chance—your last! Say you’re ashamed of yourself!”
“I’m not.”
The little man brandished his cruel, white weapon, and Red Wull shifted a little to obtain a better view.
“Get on with it,” ordered David angrily.
The little man raised the stick again and— threw it into the farthest corner of the room.
It fell with a rattle on the floor, and McAdam turned away.
“You’re the most pitiful son a man ever had,” he cried brokenly. “If a man’s son doesn’t stick by him, who will?—no one. You’re undutiful, you’re disrespectful, you’re most everything you shouldn’t be; there’s only one thing I thought you were not—a coward. And as to that, you don’t have enough spirit to say you’re sorry, when God knows you might be. I can’t thrash you today. But you won’t go to school anymore. I send you there to learn. You won’t learn—you’ve learned nothing except disobedience to me—you will stay at home and work.”
His father’s rare emotion, his broken voice and wretched expression, moved David as all the taunts and whiplashes had failed to do. His conscience pained him. For the first time in his life, it dimly dawned on him that perhaps his father, too, had reason to complain; that perhaps he was not a good son.
He half turned.
“Father—”
“Get out of my sight!” McAdam cried.
And the boy turned and went.
CHAPTER 6
A Licking or a Lie
FROM THEN on, David buckled down to his chores at home, and in one respect only, father and son resembled each other—they were both hard workers. A drunkard McAdam might be, but not a lazy man.
The boy worked at the Grange with tireless, resolute energy; yet he could never satisfy his father.
The little man would stand with a sneer on his face and his thin lips contemptuously curled, and mock the boy’s brave labors.
“Isn’t he a grand worker, Wullie? ’Tis a pleasure to watch him, his hands in his pockets, his eyes turned up toward the heavens!” he would say, as the boy snatched a hard-earned moment’s rest. “You and I, Wullie, we’ll break ourselves slaving for him while he looks on and laughs.”
And so it went, the whole day through, week in, week out; till the boy was sick with weariness of it all.
In his darkest hours, David sometimes thought of running away. He was miserably alone in the cold heart of the world. The very fact that he was the son of his father isolated him in the Daleland. Quiet and reserved by nature, he did not have a single friend outside Kenmuir. And it was only the thought of his friends there that stopped him. He could not bring himself to leave them; they were all he had in the world.
So he worked on at the Grange, miserably, stubbornly, enduring his father’s blows and taunts alike in burning silence. But every evening, when work was done, he walked away to his other home beyond the Stony Bottom. And on Sundays and holidays—for he took these days without asking, as his by rights—he would spend the whole day, from the time the cock crowed until the sun went down, at Kenmuir. In this one matter, the boy held firm. Nothing his father could say or do would break him of the habit. He endured everything with white-lipped, silent doggedness, and kept to his way.
Once he was past the Stony Bottom, he cast his troubles behind him with a courage that did him honor. Of all the people at Kenmuir, only two ever imagined the whole depth of his unhappiness, and this was not because of anything David said. James Moore suspected some part of it, because he knew more about McAdam than the others did. And Owd Bob knew it better than anyone. He could tell it from the touch of the boy’s hand on his head; and the story was writ large on his face for a dog to read. And he would follow the boy about with a sympathy in his sad gray eyes that was greater than words.
David might well compare his gray friend at Kenmuir with that other one at the Grange.
The Tailless Tyke had now grown into an immense dog, with heavy muscles and huge bones. A great bull head; his lower jaw stuck out beyond the upper, square and long and terrible; his eyes were a vicious, gleaming yellow; his ears cropped; and his expression utterly savage. His coat was a tawny, lion-like yellow, short, rough, and dense; and his back, running up from shoulder to hips, ended abruptly in the knob-like tail. He looked like the devil in a dog’s hell. And his reputation was as bad as his looks. He never attacked unless provoked; but he never ignored a challenge, and he was greedy for insults. Already he had nearly killed Rob Saunderson’s collie, Shep; Jem Burton’s dog, Monkey, ran headlong at the sound of his approach; and he had even fought one round with that fearful trio, the Vexer, Venus, and Van Tromp.
Nor, when it came to fighting, did he limit himself to his own kind. His huge strength and invincible courage made him a match for almost anything that moved. Long Kirby once threatened him with a broomstick; the blacksmith never did it again. While in the Border Ram, he attacked Big Bell, one of the guards of the Squire’s forest, with such murderous fury that it took all the men in the room to pull him off.
More than once, he and Owd Bob had tried to wipe out memories of past encounters; and of all his fights, these were the only ones that Red Wull himself provoked. As yet, however, though they dashed in and out for a moment, looking for that deadly grip on the throat, the value of which they both knew so well, James Moore had always found the chance to intervene.
“That’s right, hide him behind yer petticoats,” sneered McAdam on one of these occasions.
“Hide? He won’t be the one that I’ll hide, I warn you, McAdam,” the Master answered grimly, as he stood twirling his good oak stick between the would-be fighters. At which there was a loud laugh at the little man’s expense.
It seemed there were to be other areas in which the two dogs were rivals, besides their memories. For in all of the Daleland, when it came to Red Wull’s actual business, the handling of sheep, it was becoming clear that he would be second to none but the Gray Dog of Kenmuir. And McAdam was patient and painstaking in the training of his Wullie, so much so that David was astonished. It would have been touching, if it had not been so unnatural, cons
idering his treatment of his own son, to watch the tender care with which the little man molded the dog beneath his hands. After a promising display from Red Wull, he would stand rubbing his palms together, as nearly content as he ever was.
“Well done, Wullie! Well done. Wait a little longer and we’ll show ’em a thing or two, you and I, Wullie.
‘The warld’s wrack we share o’t,
The warstle and the care o’t.’
(The wreck of the world—we share in it,
The struggle and the care of it.)
“For it’s you and I alone, lad.” And the dog would trot up to him, place his great forepaws on his shoulders, and stand thus with his great head higher than his master’s, his ears back, his stump of a tail vibrating.
You saw them at their best when they were thus together, each displaying his one soft side to the other.
From the very first, David and Red Wull were open enemies: under the circumstances, indeed, nothing else was possible. Sometimes the great dog would follow on the boy’s heels with surly, greedy eyes, never leaving him from sunrise to sundown, until David could hardly stop himself from leaping at the dog.
So matters went on for a never-ending year. Then there came a climax.
One evening, on a day throughout which Red Wull had trailed behind him in this hungry way, David, his work finished, went to pick up his coat, which he had left nearby. On it was lying Red Wull.
“Get off my coat!” the boy ordered angrily, marching up. But the huge dog did not stir: he lifted his upper lip to show a fence of even white teeth, and seemed to sink even lower in the ground; his head on his paws, his eyes in his forehead.
“Come and take it!” he seemed to be saying.
Now, what David had endured that day, between master and dog, was almost more than he could bear.
“Oh you won’t, won’t you, you brute!” he shouted, and bending, snatched a corner of the coat and tried to jerk it away. At that, Red Wull rose shivering to his feet, and with a low gurgle sprang at the boy.
Quick as a flash, David dodged, bent, and picked up an ugly stake that lay at his feet. Spinning around, all in a moment, he swung the stake and struck the dog hard on the side of the head. Dazed from the blow, the big dog fell; then, recovering himself, with a terrible, deep roar he sprang again. At this point it would have gone badly for the boy, even though he was a well-grown, muscular young giant. For Red Wull was now in the first bloom of that great strength which afterwards was to earn him undying fame in the land.
As it happened, however, McAdam had been watching the scene from the kitchen. And now he came hurrying out of the house, shrieking commands and curses at the two fighters. As Red Wull sprang, the little man stepped between them, his head back and his eyes flashing. His small body received the full shock of the charge. He staggered, but recovered, and in a firm voice ordered the dog to heel.
Then he turned on David, seized the stake from his hand, and began furiously beating the boy.
“I’ll teach ye to strike—a poor—dumb—harmless—creature, ye—cruel—cruel—lad!” he cried. “How dare you strike—my—Wullie? your—father’s—Wullie? Adam—McAdam’s—Red Wull?” He was panting from his exertions, and his eyes were blazing. “I put up as best I can with all kinds of disrespect to myself; but when it comes to my poor Wullie, I cannot endure it. Have you no heart?” he asked, unconscious of the irony of the question.
“As much as some, I reckon,” David muttered.
“Eh, what’s that? What did you say?”
“You may thrash me till you’re blind; and you say it’s no more than your duty; but if anyone dares so much as to look at your Wullie, you’re mad,” the boy answered bitterly. And with that he turned away defiantly and openly in the direction of Kenmuir.
McAdam took a step forward, and then stopped.
“I’ll see ye again, my lad, this evening,” he cried with cruel meaning.
“I doubt but you’ll be too drunk to see anything at all—except, maybe, your bottle,” the boy shouted back; and swaggered down the hill.
◆ ◆ ◆
At Kenmuir that night, the particular, noticeable kindness of Elizabeth Moore was too much for the overstrung lad. Deeply affected by the contrast of her sweet motherliness, he burst into a storm of abuse against his father, his home, his life—everything.
“Don’t, Davie. Don’t, dearie!” cried Mrs. Moore, much distressed. And taking him into her arms, she talked to the great, sobbing boy as though he were a child. At length he lifted his face and looked up; and, seeing the exhausted, pale face of his dear comforter, was struck with tender remorse that he had given way and pained her; she looked so frail and thin herself.
He mastered himself with an effort, and for the rest of the evening was his usual cheery self. He teased Maggie till she cried; he joked with stolid little Andrew; and bantered with Sammel Todd until the usually peaceful man threatened to bash his nose in.
Yet it was with a feeling of tightness in his throat that, later, he headed down the slope for home. James Moore and Parson Leggy went with him to the bridge over the Wastrel, and stood for a while watching as he disappeared into the summer night.
“He’s a good lad,” said the Master, half to himself.
“Yes,” the parson answered. “I always thought there was good in the boy, if only his father would give him a chance. And look at the way Owd Bob there follows him. There’s not another soul outside Kenmuir he would do that for.”
“Yes, sir,” said the Master. “Bob knows a man when he sees one.”
“He does,” agreed the other. “And by the way, James, they’re saying in the village that you’ve decided not to run him for the Cup. Is that so?”
The Master nodded.
“It is, sir. They’re all wild for me to do it, but I must oppose them. They say he’s reached his prime—and so he has, in his body, but not in his brain. And a sheepdog, unlike other dogs, is not at his best till his brain is at its best—and that takes a while to develop, same as in a man, I reckon.”
“Well, well,” said the parson, trotting out a favorite phrase of his, “to wait is to win—to wait is to win.”
◆ ◆ ◆
David slipped up into his room and into bed—unseen, he hoped. Alone in the darkness, he allowed himself the rare relief of tears; and at length fell asleep. He awoke to find his father standing at his bedside. The little man held a spindly homemade candle in his hand, and it lit his pale face in crude black and white. In the doorway, dimly outlined, was the large figure of Red Wull.
“Where have ye been all day?” the little man asked. Then, looking down at the white tear-stained face beneath him, he added hurriedly: “If ye choose to lie, I’ll believe ye.”
David was out of bed and standing up in his nightshirt. He looked at his father with contempt.
“I’ve been at Kenmuir. I won’t lie for you or your sort,” he said proudly.
The little man shrugged his shoulders.
“‘Tell a lie and stick to it,’ is my rule, and a good one, too, in honest England. I, for one, will not think any the worse of ye if your memory plays tricks on you.”
“Do ye think I care at all what ye think of me?” the boy asked brutally. “No; there’s enough liars in this family without me.”
The candle trembled and was still again.
“A licking or a lie—take yer choice!”
The boy looked scornfully down on his father. Standing on his naked feet, he already towered half a head above the other and was twice the man.
“Do you think I’m afraid of a thrashing from you? Good gracious me!” he sneered. “Why, I’d just as soon let old Gramma Maddow beat me, for all I care.”
A hint about his small size was sure to provoke the man’s anger, like putting a lit match to gunpowder.
“Ye must be cold, standin’ there like that. Run down and fetch our little friend”—he meant a certain strap that hung in the kitchen. “I’ll see if I can warm ye.”
&
nbsp; David turned and stumbled down the unlit, narrow stairs. The hard, cold boards struck like death against his naked feet. At his heels followed Red Wull, his hot breath fanning the boy’s bare legs.
So into the kitchen and back up the stairs, and Red Wull always following.
“I won’t despair, yet, of teaching ye the fifth commandment, to honor thy father, though I kill myself doing it!” cried the little man, seizing the strap from the boy’s numb grasp.
◆ ◆ ◆
When it was over, McAdam turned away, breathless. At the threshold of the room he stopped and looked around, a dimly lit, devilish little figure, framed in the door; while from the blackness behind, Red Wull’s eyes gleamed yellow.
Glancing back, the little man caught sight of such an expression on David’s face that for once he was afraid. He banged the door and hobbled quickly down the stairs.
CHAPTER 7
The White Winter
McADAM, in his sober moments at least, never touched David again; instead, he devoted himself to the more agreeable exercise of lashing him with his tongue. And he was wise to restrain himself; for David, who was already nearly a head taller, and handsome and strong in proportion, could have, if he wished, taken his father in the hollow of his hand and crumpled him like a dry leaf. Moreover, with his tongue, at least, the little man enjoyed the noble pleasure of making the boy wince. And so the war was carried on just as spitefully.
Meanwhile, another summer was passing away, and every day brought fresh proofs of the superior prowess of Owd Bob. Tammas, whose supply of stories about Rex, son of Rally, had, after forty years of repetition, become a little dull even to the loyal ears of old Jonas, found no lack of new material now. In the local taverns, the Dalesman’s Daughter in Silverdale and the Border Ram at Grammoch-town, a fresh tale was passed around each market day, week after week. Men told how the gray dog had outdone Gypsy Jack, such an expert “sheep-sneak”; how Owd Bob had slipped into the very center of Londesley’s flock and separated out a shearling (a year-old sheep that has been sheared once) that belonged to Kenmuir; and a thousand stories of the same sort.
Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle Page 5