Bob Son of Battle | Page 5

by tail. Wi' that, bull tumbles down in a hurry, turns
wi' a kind o' groan, and marches back into stall, Bob after un. And then,
dang me!"--the old man beat the ladder as he loosed off this last
titbit,--" if he doesna sit' isseif i' door like a sentrynel till 'Enry
Farewether cootn up. Hoo's that for a tyke not yet a year?"
Even Sam'l Todd was moved by the tale.
"Well done, oor Bob!" he cried.
"Good, lad!" said the Master, laying a hand on the dark head at his
knee.
"Yo' may well say that," cried Tanitnas in a kind of ecstasy. "A proper
Gray Dog, I tell yo'. Wi' the brains of a man and the way of a woman.
Ah, yo' canna beat 'em nohow, the Gray Dogs o' Kenmuir!"
The patter of cheery feet rang out on the plank-bridge over the stream
below them. Tammas glanced round.
"Here's David," he said. "Late this mornin' he be."
A fair-haired boy came spurring up the slope, his face all aglow with
the speed of his running. Straightway the young dog dashed off to meet
him with a fiery speed his sober gait belied. The two raced back
together into the yard.
"Poor lad!" said Sam'l gloomily, regarding the newcomer.
"Poor heart!" muttered Tammas. While the Master's face softened
visibly. Yet there looked little to pity in this jolly, rocking lad with the
tousle of light hair and fresh, rosy countenance.

"G'mornin', Mister Moore! Morn'n, Tammas! Morn'n, Sam'l!" he
panted as he passed; and ran on through the hay-carpeted yard, round
the corner of the stable, and into the house.
In the kitchen, a long room with red-tiled floor and latticed windows, a
woman, white-aproned and frail-faced, was bustling about her morning
business. To her skirts clung a sturdy, bare-legged boy; while at the oak
table in the centre of the room a girl with brown eyes and straggling
hair was seated before a basin of bread and milk.
"So yo've coom at last, David!" the woman cried, as the boy entered;
and, bending, greeted him with a tender, motherly salutation, which he
returned as affectionately. "I welly thowt yo'd forgot us this mornin'.
Noo sit you' doon beside oor Maggie." And soon he, too, was engaged
in a task twin to the girl's.
The two children munched away in silence, the little bare-legged boy
watching them, the while, critically. Irritated by this prolonged stare,
David at length turned on him.
"Weel, little Andrew," he said, speaking in that paternal fashion in
which one small boy loves to address another. "Weel, ma little lad,
yo'm coomin' along gradely." He leant back in his chair the better to
criticise his subject. But Andrew, like all the Moores, slow of speech,
preserved a stolid silence, sucking a chubby thumb, and regarding his
patron a thought cynically.
David resented the expression on the boy's countenance, and half rose
to his feet.
"Yo' put another face on yo', Andrew Moore," he cried threateningly,
"or I'll put it for yo'."
Maggie, however, interposed opportunely.
"Did yo' feyther beat yo' last night?" she inquired in a low voice; and
there was a shade of anxiety in the soft brown eyes.

"Nay," the boy answered; "he was a-goin' to, but he never did. Drunk,"
he added in explanation.
"What was he goin' to beat yo' for, David?" asked Mrs. Moore.
"What for? Why, for the fun o't--to see me squiggle, "the boy replied,
and laughed bitterly.
"Yo' shouldna speak so o' your dad, David," reproved the other as
severely as was in her nature.
"Dad! a fine dad! I'd dad him an I'd the chance, " the boy muttered
beneath his breath. Then, to turn the conversation:
"Us should he startin', Maggie," he said, and going to the door. "Bob!
Owd Bob, lad! Ar't coomin' along?" he called.
The gray dog came springing up like an antelope, and the three started
off for school together.
Mrs. Moore stood in the doorway, holding Andrew by the hand, and
watched the departing trio.
"'Tis a pretty pair, Master, surely," she said softly to her husband, who
came up at the moment.
"Ay, he'll be a fine lad if his feyther'll let him," the tall man answered.
"Tis a shame Mr. M'Adam should lead him such a life," the woman
continued indignantly. She laid a hand on her husband's arm, and
looked up at him coaxingly.
"Could yo' not say summat to un, Master, think 'ee? Happen he'd 'tend
to you," she pleaded. For Mrs. Moore imagined that there could be no
one but would gladly heed what James Moore, Master of Kenmuir,
might say to him. "He's not a bad un at bottom, I do believe," she
continued. "He never took on so till his missus died. Eh,