Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle

by Alfred Ollivant

  As he stood watching the disappearing figure, there began the slow tolling of the funeral bell, once every minute, in the little Dale church. Now it sounded close by, now far away, now loud, now muffled, and its dull chant rang out through the mist like the slow-dropping tears of a mourning world.

  McAdam listened, almost worshipfully, as the bell tolled on, the only sound in the quiet Dale. Outside, a drizzling rain was falling; the snow dribbled down the hill in muddy trickles, and the trees and roofs and windows dripped.

  And still the bell tolled on and on, calling up sad memories of an earlier time.

  It was on just such another dreary day, in just such another December, and not so many years ago, that the light had gone out of his life forever.

  The whole picture rose instantly to his eyes, as if it had been yesterday. That bell tolling on and on brought the scene surging back to him: the dismal day; the drizzle; the few mourners; little David dressed in black, his fair hair bright against his gloomy clothes, his face swollen with weeping; the Dale as quiet as though it were dead, except for the ringing of the bell; and his love had left him and gone to the happy land the hymn-books talk about.

  Red Wull, who had been watching him uneasily, now came up and shoved his muzzle into his master’s hand. The cold touch brought the little man back to earth. He shook himself, turned with a tired step away from the window, and went to the door of the house.

  He stood there looking out; and all around him the drip, drip of the thaw went on and on. The wind died down, and again the funeral bell tolled out clear and steady, determined to remind him of what was and what had been.

  With a choking gasp, the little man turned back into the house and ran up the stairs and into his room. He dropped on his knees beside the great chest in the corner and unlocked the bottom drawer, the key turning noisily in its socket.

  In the drawer he searched with feverish fingers, and at last brought out a little paper packet tied up with a stained yellow ribbon. It was the ribbon she used to weave into her soft hair on Sundays.

  Inside the packet was a cheap, heart-shaped frame, and in it a photograph.

  Up there in his room, it was too dark to see. The little man ran down the stairs, Red Wull bumping against him as he went, and hurried to the window in the kitchen.

  It was a sweet, laughing face that looked up at him from the frame, modest and yet playful, shy and yet impish—a face to gaze at and a face to love.

  As he gazed, a wintry smile, wholly tender, half tearful, stole over the little man’s face.

  “Lassie,” he whispered, and his voice was infinitely soft, “it’s been a long time since I’ve dared look at ye. But it’s not that ye’re forgotten, dearie.”

  Then he covered his eyes with his hand as though he were blinded.

  “Don’t look at me that way, lass!” he cried, and fell on his knees, kissing the picture, hugging it to him and sobbing passionately.

  Red Wull came up and pushed his face into his master’s in sympathy; but the little man shoved him roughly away, and the dog retreated into a corner, puzzled and reproachful.

  Memories swarmed back on the little man.

  It was more than ten years ago now, and yet he hardly dared to think of that last evening when she had lain so white and still in the little room above.

  “Put the child on the bed, Adam, my dearest,” she had said in a low voice. “I’ll be going in a little while now. It’s the long goodbye to you—and to him.”

  He had done what she wished and lifted David up. The tiny boy lay still a moment, looking at this white-faced mother whom he hardly recognized.

  “Mama!” he called pitifully. Then, thrusting a small, dirty hand into his pocket, he pulled out a grubby piece of candy.

  “Mama, have a sweetie—one of Davie’s sweeties!” and he held it out anxiously in his warm, plump palm, thinking it would be a certain cure for any disease.

  “Eat it for mother,” she said, smiling tenderly; and then: “Davie, my heart, I’m leaving ye.”

  The boy stopped sucking on the sweet, and looked at her, the corners of his mouth drooping sadly.

  “Ye’re not going away, mother?” he asked, his face moving. “Ye won’t leave yer little boy?”

  “Ay, laddie, away—far away. HE’s calling me.” She tried to smile; but the mother’s heart was nearly breaking.

  “Ye’ll take yer little Davie with ye, mother!” the child begged, crawling up toward her face.

  The great tears rolled freely down her pale cheeks, and McAdam, at the head of the bed, was sobbing openly.

  “Oh, my child, my child, I’m sorry to leave ye!” she cried brokenly. “Lift him up for me, Adam.”

  He placed the child in her arms; but she was too weak to hold him. So he laid the boy on his mother’s pillow; and little Davie wound his soft arms around her neck and sobbed violently.

  And the two lay thus together.

  Just before she died, Flora turned her head and whispered:

  “Adam, my dearest, ye’ll have to be mother and father both to the lad now”; and she looked at him with tender confidence in her dying eyes.

  “I will! Before God, as I stand here, I will!” he declared passionately. Then she died, and there was a look of utter peace on her face.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “Mother and father both!”

  The little man rose to his feet and flung the photograph from him. Red Wull pounced upon it; but McAdam leapt at him as he took it in his mouth.

  “Get away, ye devil!” he screamed; and, picking it up, stroked it lovingly with trembling fingers.

  “Mother and father both!”

  How had he fulfilled his love’s last wish? How!

  “Oh, God!”—and he fell on his knees at the side of the table, hugging the picture, sobbing and praying.

  Red Wull crouched fearfully in the far corner of the room, and then crept whining up to where his master knelt. But McAdam paid no attention to him, and the great dog slunk away again.

  There the little man knelt in the gloom of the winter afternoon, miserable and full of regret. His head, touched with gray, was bowed upon his arms; his hands clutched the picture; and he prayed aloud in gasping, unsteady tones.

  “Give me grace, O God! ‘Father and mother both,’ ye said, Flora—and I haven’t done it. But it isn’t too late—say it’s not, lass. Tell me there’s still time, and say ye forgive me. I’ve tried to be patient with him many and many a time. But he has angered me, and set himself against me, and hardened me against him, and ye know how I was always quick to take offense. But I’ll make it up to him—make it up to him and more. I’ll humble myself before him, and that’ll be hard enough. And I’ll be father and mother both to him. But there’s been no one to help me; and it’s been painful without ye. And—oh, but lassie, I miss ye so!”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  It was a dreary little procession that wound its way through the drizzle from Kenmuir to the little Dale Church. At the head of it walked James Moore with a stiff, angry step, and close behind him David in his small, tight coat. Last of all, as if to guide those lagging behind in the weary road, came Owd Bob.

  There was a full congregation in the tiny church now. In the Squire’s pew were Cyril Gilbraith, Muriel Sylvester, and, most noticeable, Lady Eleanour. Her slender figure was simply draped in gray, with gray fur around the neck and gray fur edging her sleeves and her jacket; her veil was lifted, and you could see the soft hair around her temples, like waves breaking on white cliffs, and her eyes big with tender sympathy as she glanced toward the pew on her right.

  For there were the mourners from Kenmuir: the Master, tall, grim, and gaunt; and beside him Maggie, trying to be calm, and little Andrew, a small version of his father.

  Alone, in the pew behind them, sat David McAdam in his father’s coat.

  The back of the church was packed with farmers from the whole March Mere Estate; friends from Silverdale and Grammoch-town; and nearly every soul in Wastrel-dale, who
had come to show their sympathy for the living and their reverence for the dead.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  At last the end came in the wet dreariness of the little churchyard, and slowly the mourners went away, until at length only the parson, the Master, and Owd Bob were left.

  The parson was speaking in rough, short tones, digging nervously at the wet ground. The Master, tall and thin, his face tense and half turned away, stood listening. By his side was Owd Bob, looking at his master’s face, a sad and thoughtful sympathy in his melancholy gray eyes; while close by, one of the parson’s terriers was nosing curiously at the wet grass.

  Suddenly, James Moore, his face still turned away, stretched out a hand. The parson stopped speaking abruptly and grasped it. Then the two men walked away quickly in opposite directions, the terrier hopping on three legs and shaking the rain off his wiry coat.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  David’s steps sounded outside. McAdam rose from his knees. The door of the house opened, and the boy’s feet shuffled in the hallway.

  “David!” the little man called in a trembling voice.

  He stood in the half-light, one hand on the table, the other clasping the picture. His eyes were bleary, his thin hair tousled, and he was shaking.

  “David,” he called again, “I’ve something I wish to say to ye!”

  The boy burst into the room. His face was stained with tears and rain; and the new black coat was wet and slimy all down the front, and on the elbows were greenish-brown, muddy spots. For on his way home, he had flung himself down in the Stony Bottom just as he was, without caring about the wet earth and his father’s coat, and, lying on his face thinking of that second mother lost to him, he had wept his heart out in a storm of grief.

  Now he stood defiantly, his hand on the door.

  “What do ye want?”

  The little man looked from him to the picture in his hand.

  “Help me, Flora—he won’t . . .” he prayed. Then, raising his eyes, he began: “I’d like to say—I’ve been thinking—I think I should tell ye—it’s not an easy thing for a man to say—”

  He broke off short. The task he had set himself was almost more than he could carry out.

  He looked at David for help. But there was no understanding at all in that white, hard face.

  “O God, it’s almost more than I can do!” the little man muttered; and the sweat stood out on his forehead. Again he began: “David, after I saw ye this afternoon stepping down the hill—”

  Again he paused. He glanced at the coat without thinking. David misunderstood the look; misunderstood the dimness in his father’s eyes; misunderstood the tremor in his voice.

  “Here it is! Take yer coat!” he cried violently; and, tearing it off, flung it down at his father’s feet. “Take it—and—curse ye.”

  He banged out of the room and ran upstairs; and, locking himself in, threw himself onto his bed and sobbed.

  Red Wull made a movement to fly at the retreating figure; then turned to his master, his stump-tail vibrating with pleasure.

  But little McAdam was looking at the wet coat now lying in a wet bundle at his feet.

  “Curse ye,” he repeated softly. “Curse ye—ye heard him, Wullie?”

  A bitter smile crept across his face. He looked again at the picture now lying crushed in his hand.

  “Ye can’t say I didn’t try; ye can’t ask me to try again,” he muttered, and slipped it into his pocket. “Never again, Wullie; not if the Queen were to ask it.”

  Then he went out into the gloom and drizzle, still smiling the same bitter smile.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  That night, when it came to closing-time at the Sylvester Arms, Jem Burton found a little gray-haired figure lying on the barroom floor. At the little man’s head lay a great dog.

  “You beast!” said the high-minded landlord of the tavern, gazing at the figure of his best customer with scorn. Then, catching sight of a photograph in the little man’s hand:

  “Oh, you’re that kind of a man, are you, you sly fellow?” he said meanly. “Give us a look at her,” and he tried to wrestle the picture out of the little man’s grasp. But at the attempt, the great dog rose and bared his teeth, with such a devilish expression on his face that the big landlord quickly retreated behind the bar.

  “The two of ye!” he shouted viciously, stamping his heels; “beasts both of ye!”

  Part Three

  The Shepherds’ Trophy

  CHAPTER 9

  Rivals

  McADAM never forgave his son. After the scene on the evening of the funeral, there could be nothing else but war between them for all time. The little man had tried to humble himself, and had been rejected; and the bitterness of defeat, when by rights he should have had victory, hurt him and bothered him like a poisoned arrow in his side.

  Yet his feeling of indignation was not against David, but against the Master of Kenmuir. He blamed his unhappiness on the effect and the influence that James Moore had on David, and therefore turned his anger on him. In public or in private, in the barroom or in the marketplace, he never grew tired of speaking against his enemy.

  “Feel the loss of his wife, you say?” he would cry out. “Oh, indeed—as much as I feel the loss of my hair. James Moore cannot feel anything, I tell you, except, maybe, a bit of bad luck to his miserable dog.”

  When the two met, as they often did, McAdam always tried to trick his enemy into saying something low and mean. But James Moore, though greatly tested, never gave way. He met the little man’s sneers with a silence that quieted him, looking down on his sharp-tongued neighbor with a scorn flashing from his blue-gray eyes that hurt the little man more than words.

  Only once was he provoked into answering. It was in the barroom of the Dalesman’s Daughter at the time of the big spring fair in Grammoch-town, when there was a large gathering of farmers and their dogs in the room.

  McAdam was standing at the fireplace with Red Wull at his side.

  “Ye play a noble game, don’t ye, James Moore,” he cried loudly across the room, “setting a son against his father, and dividing a house against itself. It’s worthy of ye, with yer churchgoing and yer psalm-singing and yer godliness.”

  The Master looked up from the far end of the room.

  “Maybe yo’re not aware, McAdam,” he said sternly, “that if it hadn’t been for me, David would have left you years ago—and it would only have served yo’ right, I’m thinking.”

  The little man was beaten at his own game, so he changed tactics.

  “Don’t shout like that, man—I have ears to hear with. Besides, ye irritate Wullie.”

  The Tailless Tyke had indeed walked forward from the fireplace and now stood, huge and hideous, in the very center of the room. There was distant thunder in his throat, a threatening look upon his face, a challenge in every wrinkle. And the Gray Dog stole gladly out from behind his master to take up the challenge to do battle.

  Immediately there was silence; tongues stopped wagging, tankards clinking. Every man and every dog was quietly gathering around those two central figures. Every one of them had wished for revenge against the Tailless Tyke; every one of them was burning to join in, once the battle began. And the two gladiators stood looking past each other, muzzle to muzzle, each with a tiny flash of teeth glinting between his lips.

  But there was to be no fight; for the twentieth time, the Master stepped in.

  “Bob, lad, come in!” he called, and, bending, grasped his favorite by the neck.

  McAdam laughed softly.

  “Wullie, Wullie, to me!” he cried. “The look of you’s enough for that gentleman.”

  “If they get to fighting, it won’t be Bob here that I’ll strike, I warn yo’, McAdam,” said the Master grimly.

  “If ye so much as touched Wullie, do ye know what I’d do, James Moore?” asked the little man very smoothly.

  “Yes—yo’d curse,” the other replied, and strode out of the room amid a roar of mocking laughter at McAdam
’s expense.

  Owd Bob had now nearly reached perfection in his art. Parson Leggy declared firmly that they had not seen a dog like him since the days of Rex, son of Rally. Among the Dalesmen, he was a hero and a favorite, his strength and skill and gentle manners winning him friends on every side. But what they liked most about him was that he was the very opposite of Red Wull.

  Almost every man in that countryside held a grudge against the ferocious savage; yet not a single one dared to act on it. Once, Long Kirby the blacksmith, full of beer and courage, had tried to pay back Red Wull. Coming upon McAdam and the dog as he was driving into Grammoch-town, Long Kirby leaned over and, with his whip, thrashed the dog a terrible sword-like slash that made an angry ridge of red from the dog’s hip to his shoulder; and Kirby was twenty yards down the road before the little man’s shrill curse reached his ear, drowned in a hideous bellow.

  Kirby stood up and whipped his colt, who, quick on his legs for such a young animal, soon settled into a steady gallop. But glancing over his shoulder, Long Kirby saw a form bounding along behind him, catching up with him as quickly as though he were walking. His face turned sickly white; he screamed; he lashed his horse; he looked back. Right beneath the tail-board of the carriage was the red devil running in the dust; while, racing a couple of hundred yards behind, on the turnpike road, was the crazed figure of McAdam.

  Long Kirby struck back and front, lashing the dog with his whip and flogging his horse forward. It was no use. Leaping like a tiger, the murderous brute flew up onto the carriage. At the shock of the great body landing, the colt was thrown violently onto his side; Kirby was tossed over the hedge; and Red Wull was pinned beneath the wreckage.

  McAdam was just in time to rush up and save a tragedy from happening.

  “I’m tempted to stick a knife into ye, Kirby,” he panted, as he bandaged the smith’s broken head.

  After that, you may be sure, the Dalesmen preferred to swallow his insults rather than to risk their lives; and their helplessness only fed their hatred until it blazed white hot.

  The working methods of the two dogs were as different as their looks. In a word, one dog forced, while the other persuaded.