Bob, Son of Battle, Alfred Ollivant [graded readers txt] 📗

Is he no a gran’ worker, Wullie? ‘Tis a pleasure to watch him, his hands in his pockets, his eyes turned heavenward!” as the boy snatched a hard-earned moment’s rest. “You and I, Wullie, we’ll brak’ oorsel’s slavin’ for him while he looks on and laffs.”

And so on, the whole day through, week in, week out; till he sickened with weariness of it all.

In his darkest hours David thought sometimes to run away. He was miserably alone on the cold bosom of the world. The very fact that he was the son of his father isolated him in the Daleland. Naturally of a reserved disposition, he had no single friend outside Kenmuir. And it was only the thought of his friends there that witheld him. He could not bring himself to part from them; they were all he had in the world.

So he worked on at the Grange, miserably, doggedly, taking blows and abuse alike in burning silence. But every evening, when work was ended, he stepped off to his other home beyond the Stony Bottom. And on Sundays and holidays—for of these latter he took, unasking, what he knew to be his due— all day long, from cock-crowing to the going down of the sun, he would pass at Kenmuir. In this one matter the hoy was invincibly stubborn. Nothing his father could say or do sufficed to break him of the habit. He endured everything with white-lipped, silent doggedness, and still held on his way.

Once past the Stony Bottom, he threw his troubles behind him with a courage that did him honor. Of all the people at Kenmuir two only ever dreamed the whole depth of his unhappiness, and that not through David. James Moore suspected something of it all, for he knew more of M’Adam than did the others. While Owd Bob knew it as did no one else. He could tell it from the touch of the boy’s hand on his head; and the story was writ large upon his face for a dog to read. And he would follow the lad about with a compassion in his sad gray eyes greater than words.

David might well compare his gray friend at Kenmuir with that other at the Grange.

The Tailless Tyke had now grown into an immense dog, heavy of muscle and huge of bone. A great bull head; undershot jaw, square and lengthy and terrible; vicious, yellow-gleaming eyes; cropped ears; and an expression incomparably savage. His coat was a tawny, lion-like yellow, short, harsh, dense; and his back, running up from shoulder to loins, ended abruptly in the knob-like tail. He looked like the devil of a dogs’ hell. And his reputation was as bad as his looks. He never attacked unprovoked; but a challenge was never ignored, and he was greedy of insults. Already he had nigh killed Rob Saunderson’s collie, Shep; Jem Burton’s Monkey fled incontinently at the sound of his approach; while he had even fought a round with that redoubtable trio, the Vexer, Venus, and Van Tromp.

Nor, in the matter of war, did he confine himself to his own kind. His huge strength and indomitable courage made him the match of almost anything that moved. Long Kirby once threatened him with a broomstick; the smith never did it again. While in the Border Ram he attacked Big Bell, the Squire’s underkeeper, with such murderous fury that it took all the men in the room to pull han off.

More than once had he and Owd Bob essayed to wipe out mutual memories, Red Wull, in this case only, the aggressor. As yet, however, while they fenced a moment for that deadly throat-grip, the value of which each knew so well, James Moore had always seized the chance to intervene.

“That’s right, hide him ahint yer petticoats,” sneered M’Adam on one of these occasions.

“Hide? It’ll not be him I’ll hide, I warn you, M’Adam,” the Master answered grimly, as he stood, twirling his good oak stick between the would-be duellists. Whereat there was a loud laugh at the little man’s expense.

It seemed as if there were to be other points of rivalry between the two than memories. For, in the matter of his own business—the handling of sheep—Red Wull bid fair to be second only throughout the Daleland to the Gray Dog of Kenmuir. And M’Adam was patient and painstaking in the training of his Wullie in a manner to astonish David. It would have been touching, had it not been so unnatural in view of his treatment of his own blood, to watch the tender carefulness with which the little man moulded the dog beneath his hands. After a promising display he would stand, rubbing his palms together, as near content as ever he was.

“Weel done, Wullie! Weel done. Bide a wee and we’ll show ‘em a thing or two, you and I, Wullie.

“‘The wand’s wrack we share o’t, The warstie and the care o’t.’

For it’s you and I alane, lad.” And the dog would trot up to him, place his great forepaws on his shoulders, and stand thus with his great head overtopping his master’s, his ears back, and stump tail vibrating.

You saw them at their best when thus together, displaying each 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 lad’s heels with surly, greedy eyes, never leaving him from sunrise to sundown, till David could hardly hold his hands.

So matters went on for a never-ending year. Then there came a climax.

One evening, on a day throughout which Red Wull had dogged him thus hungrily, David, his work finished, went to pick up his coat, which he had left hard by. On it lay Red Wull.

“Git off ma coat!” the boy ordered angrily. marching up. But the great dog never stirred: he lifted a lip to show a fence of white, even teeth, and seemed to sink lower in the ground; his head on his paws, his eyes in his forehead.

“Come and take it!” he seemed to say.

Now what, between master and dog, David had endured almost more than he could bear that day.

“Yo’ won’t, won’t yo’, girt brute!” he shouted, and bending, snatched a corner of the coat and attempted to jerk it away. At that, Red Wull rose, shivering, to his feet, and with a low gurgle sprang at the boy.

David, quick as a flash, dodged, bent, and picked up an ugly stake, lying at his feet. Swinging round, all in a moment, he dealt his antagonist a mighty buffet on the side of the head. Dazed with the blow, the great dog fell; then, recovering himself, with a terrible, deep roar he sprang again. Then it must have gone hard with the boy, fine-grown, muscular young giant though he was. For Red Wull was now in the first bloom of that great strength which earned him afterward an undying notoriety in the land.

As it chanced, however, M’Adam had watched the scene from the kitchen. And now he came hurrying out of the house, shrieking commands and curses at the combatants. As Red Wull sprang, he interposed between the two, head back and eyes flashing. His small person received the full shock of the charge. He staggered, but recovered, and in an imperative voice ordered the dog to heel.

Then he turned on David, seized the stake from his hand, and began furiously belaboring the boy.

“I’ll teach ye to strike—a puir—dumb—harrnless—creetur, ye—cruel— cruel–lad!” he cried. “Hoo daur ye strike—ma–-Wullie? yer— father’s–-Wullie? Adam—M ‘Adam’s—Red Wull?” He was panting from his exertions, and his eyes were blazing. “I pit up as best I can wi’ all manner o’ disrespect to masel’; but when it comes to takin’ ma puir Wullie, I cantia thole it. Ha’ ye no heart?” he asked, unconscious of the irony of the question.

“As much as some, I reck’n,” David muttered.

“Eh, what’s that? What d’ye say?”

“Ye may thrash me till ye’re blind; and it’s nob’but yer duty; but if only one daurs so much as to look at yer Wullie ye’re mad,” the boy answered bitterly. And with that he turned away defiantly and openly in the direction of Kenmuir.

M’Adam made a step forward, and then stopped.

“I’ll see ye agin, ma lad, this evenin’,” he cried with cruel significance.

“I doot but yo’il be too drunk to see owt— except, ‘appen, your bottle,” the boy shouted back; and swaggered down the hill.

At Kenmuir that night the marked and particular kindness of Elizabeth Moore was too much for the overstrung lad. Overcome by the contrast of her sweet motherliness, he burst into a storm of invective against his father, his home, his life—everything.

“Don’t ‘ee, Davie, don’t ‘ee, deane!” cried Mrs. Moore, much distressed. And taking him to her 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 white, wan countenance of his dear comforter, was struck with tender remorse that he had given way and pained her, who 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 into tears; chaffed stolid little Andrew; and bantered Sam’l Todd until that generally impassive man threatened to bash his snout for him.

Yet it was with a great swallowing at his throat that, later, he turned down the slope for home.

James Moore and Parson Leggy accompanied him to the bridge over the Wastrel, and stood a while watching as he disappeared into the summer night.

“Yon’s a good lad,” said the Master half to himself.

“Yes,” the parson replied ; “I always thought there was good in the boy, if only his father’d give him a chance. And look at the way Owd Bob there follows him. There’s not another soul outside Kenmuir he’d do that for.”

“Ay, sir,” said the Master. “Bob knows a mon when he sees one.”

“He does,” acquiesced the other. “And by the by, James, the talk in the village is that you’ve settled not to run him for the Cup. Is, that so?”

The Master nodded.

“It is, sir. They’re all mad I should, but I mun cross ‘em. They say he’s reached his prime—and so he has o’ his body, but not o’ 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 developin’, same as in a mon, I reck’n.”

“Well, well,” said the parson, pulling out a favorite phrase, “waiting’s winning—waiting’s winning.”

David slipped up into his room and into bed unseen, he hoped. Alone with 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 feeble dip-candle in his hand, which lit his sallow face in crude black and white. In the doorway, dimly outlined, was the great figure of Red Wull.

“Whaur ha’ ye been the day?” the little man asked. Then, looking down on the white stained face beneath him, he added hurriedly: “If ye like to lie, I’ll believe ye.”

David was out of bed and standing up in his night-shirt. He looked at his father contemptuously.

“I ha’ bin at Kenmuir. I’ll not lie for yo’ ur your likes,” he said proudly.

The little man shrugged his shoulders.

” ‘Tell a lee and stick to it,‘is my rule, and. a good one, too, in honest England. I for one ‘II no think ony the worse o’ ye if yer memory plays yer false.”

“D’yo’ think I care a kick what yo’ think o’ me?”