Tails to Wag (22 page)

“Upon my honor and word, Mrs. Yeates, my dear, we have the hunt to ourselves!” said Mrs. Knox to the panting Philippa, as they pounded along the road. “Johnny, d'ye see the fox?”

“I do, ma'am!” shrieked Johnny, who possessed the usual field-glass vision bestowed upon his kind. “Look at him over-right us on the hill above! Hi! The spotty dog have him! No, he's gone from him!
Givar out o' that!
” This to the donkey, with blows that sounded like the beating of carpets, and produced rather more dust.

They had left Aussolas some half a mile behind, when, from a strip of wood on their right, the fox suddenly slipped over the bank on to the road just ahead of them, ran up it for a few yards and whisked in at a small entrance gate, with the three couple of hounds yelling on a red-hot scent, not thirty yards behind. The bath-chair party whirled in at their heels, Philippa and the donkey considerably blown, Johnny scarlet through his freckles, but as fresh as paint, the old lady blind and deaf to all things save the chase. The hounds went raging through the shrubs beside the drive, and away down a grassy slope toward a shallow glen, in the bottom of which ran a little stream, and after them over the grass bumped the bath-chair. At the stream they turned sharply and ran up the glen toward the avenue, which crossed it by means of a rough stone viaduct.

“'Pon me conscience, he's into the old culvert!” exclaimed Mrs. Knox; “there was one of my hounds choked there once, long ago! Beat on the donkey, Johnny!”

At this juncture Philippa's narrative again becomes incoherent, not to say breathless. She is, however, positive that it was somewhere about here that the upset of the bath-chair occurred, but she cannot be clear as to whether she picked up the donkey or Mrs. Knox, or whether she herself was picked up by Johnny while Mrs. Knox picked up the donkey. From my knowledge of Mrs. Knox I should say she picked up herself and no one else. At all events, the next salient point is the palpitating moment when Mrs. Knox, Johnny, and Philippa successively applying an eye to the opening of the culvert by which the stream trickled under the viaduct, while five dripping hounds bayed and leaped around them, discovered by more senses than that of sight that the fox was in it, and furthermore that one of the hounds was in it, too.

“There's a sthrong grating before him at the far end,” said Johnny, his head in at the mouth of the hole, his voice sounding as if he were talking into a jug, “the two of them's fighting in it; they'll be choked surely!”

“Then don't stand gabbling there, you little fool, but get in and pull the hound out!” exclaimed Mrs. Knox, who was balancing herself on a stone in the stream.

“I'd be in dread, ma'am,” whined Johnny.

“Balderdash!” said the implacable Mrs. Knox. “In with you!”

I understand that Philippa assisted Johnny into the culvert, and presume it was in so doing that she acquired the two Robinson Crusoe bare footprints which decorated her jacket when I next met her.

“Have you go hold of him yet, Johnny?” cried Mrs. Knox up the culvert.

“I have, ma'am, by the tail,” responded Johnny's voice, sepulchral in the depths.

“Can you stir him, Johnny?”

“I cannot, ma'am, and the wather is rising in it.”

“Well, please God, they'll not open the mill dam!” remarked Mrs. Knox philosophically to Philippa, as she caught hold of Johnny's dirty ankles. “Hold on to the tail, Johnny!”

She hauled, with, as might be expected, no appreciable result. “Run, my dear, and look for somebody, and we'll have that fox yet!”

Philippa ran, whither she knew not, pursued by fearful visions of bursting mill dams, and maddened foxes at bay. As she sped up the avenue she heard voices, robust male voices, in a shrubbery, and made for them. Advancing along an embowered walk toward her was what she took for one wild instant to be a funeral; a second glance showed her that it was a party of clergymen of all ages, walking by twos and threes in the dappled shade of the over-arching trees. Obviously she had intruded her sacrilegious presence into a Clerical Meeting. She acknowledges that at this awe-inspiring spectacle she faltered, but the thought of Johnny, the hound, and the fox, suffocating, possibly drowning together in the culvert, nerved her. She does not remember what she said or how she said it, but I fancy she must have conveyed to them the impression that old Mrs. Knox was being drowned, as she immediately found herself heading a charge of the Irish Church toward the scene of disaster.

Fate has not always used me well, but on this occasion it was mercifully decreed that I and the other members of the hunt should be privileged to arrive in time to see my wife and her rescue party precipitating themselves down the glen.

“Holy Biddy!” ejaculated Flurry, “is she running a paper-chase with all the parsons? But look! For pity's sake will you look at my grandmother and my Uncle Eustace?”

Mrs. Knox and her sworn enemy the old clergyman, whom I had met at dinner the night before, were standing, apparently in the stream, tugging at two bare legs that projected from a hole in the viaduct, and arguing at the top of their voices. The bath-chair lay on its side with the donkey grazing beside it, on the bank a stout Archdeacon was tendering advice, and the hounds danced and howled round the entire group.

“I tell you, Eliza, you had better let the Archdeacon try,” thundered Mr. Hamilton.

“Then I tell you I will not!” vociferated Mrs. Knox, with a tug at the end of the sentence that elicited a subterranean lament from Johnny. “Now who was right about the second grating? I told you so twenty years ago!”

Exactly as Philippa and her rescue party arrived, the efforts of Mrs. Knox and her brother-in-law triumphed. The struggling, sopping form of Johnny was slowly drawn from the hole, drenched, speechless, but clinging to the stern of a hound, who, in its turn, had its jaws fast in the hindquarters of a limp, yellow cub.

“Oh, it's dead!” wailed Philippa, “I
did
think I should have been in time to save it!”

“Well, if that doesn't beat all!” said Dr. Hickey.

Bob, Son of Battle

Alfred Ollivant

I

The sun was hiding behind the Pike. Over the lowlands the feathery breath of night hovered still. And the hillside was shivering in the chillness of dawn.

Down on the silvery sward beside the Stony Bottom there lay the ruffled body of a dead sheep. All about the victim the dewy ground was dark and patchy like disheveled velvet; bracken trampled down; stones displaced as though by straggling feet; and the whole spotted with the all-pervading red.

A score yards up the hill, in a writhing confusion of red and gray, two dogs at death-grips. While yet higher, a pack of wild-eyed hill-sheep watched, fascinated, the bloody drama.

The fight raged. Red and gray, blood-spattered, murderous-eyed; the crimson froth dripping from their jaws; now rearing high with arching crests and wrestling paws; now rolling over in tumbling, tossing, worrying disorder—the two fought out their blood-feud.

Above, the close-packed flock huddled and stamped, ever edging nearer to watch the issue. Just so must the women of Rome have craned round the arenas to see two men striving in death-struggle.

The first cold flicker of dawn stole across the green. The red eye of the morning peered aghast over the shoulder of the Pike. And from the sleeping dale there arose the yodling of a man driving his cattle home.

Day was upon them.

James Moore was waked by a little whimpering cry beneath his window. He leapt out of bed and rushed to look; for well he knew 'twas not for nothing that the old dog was calling.

“Lord o' mercy! whativer's come to yo', Owd Un?” he cried in anguish. And, indeed, his favourite, wardaubed almost past recognition, presented a pitiful spectacle.

In a moment the Master was downstairs and out, examining him.

“Poor old lad, yo' have caught it this time!” he cried. There was a ragged tear on the dog's cheek; a deep gash in his throat from which the blood still welled, staining the white escutcheon on his chest; while head and neck were clotted with the red.

Hastily the Master summoned Maggie. After her, Andrew came hurrying down. And a little later a tiny, night-clad, naked-footed figure appeared in the door, wide-eyed, and then fled, screaming.

They doctored the old warrior on the table in the kitchen. Maggie tenderly washed his wounds and dressed them with gentle, pitying fingers; and he stood all the while grateful yet fidgeting, looking up into his master's face as if imploring to be gone.

“He mun a had a rare tussle wi' some one—eh, dad?” said the girl, as she worked.

“Ay; and wi' whom? 'Twasn't for nowt he got fightin', I war'nt. Nay; he's a tale to tell, has Th' Owd Un, and—Ah-h-h! I thowt as much. Look 'ee!” For bathing the bloody jaws, he had come upon a cluster of tawny red hair, hiding in the corners of the lips.

The secret was out. Those few hairs told their own accusing tale. To but one creature in the Daleland could they belong—“The Tailless Tyke.”

“He mun a bin trespassin'!” cried Andrew.

“Ay, and up to some o' his bloody work, I'll lay my life,” the Master answered. “But Th' Owd Un shall show us.”

The old dog's hurts proved less severe than had at first seemed possible. His good gray coat, forest-thick about his throat, had never served him in such good stead. And at length, the wounds washed and sewn up, he jumped down all in a hurry from the table and made for the door.

“Noo, owd lad, yo' may show us,” said the Master, and, with Andrew, hurried after him down the hill, along the stream, and over Langholm How. And as they neared the Stony Bottom, the sheep, herding in groups, raised frightened heads to stare.

Of a sudden a cloud of poisonous flies rose, buzzing, up before them; and there in a dimple of the ground lay a murdered sheep. Deserted by its comrades, the glazed eyes staring helplessly upward, the throat horribly worried, it slept its last sleep.

The matter was plain to see. At last the Black Killer had visited Kenmuir.

“I guessed as much,” said the Master, standing over the mangled body. “Well, it's the worst night's work ever the Killer done. I reck'n Th'Owd Un come on him while he was at it; and then they fought. And, ma word it mun ha' ben a fight too.” For all around were traces of that terrible struggle: the earth torn up and tossed, bracken uprooted, and throughout little dabs of wool and tufts of tawny hair, mingling with dark-stained iron-gray wisps.

James Moore walked slowly over the battlefield, stooping down as though he were gleaning. And gleaning he was.

A long time he bent so, and at length raised himself.

“The Killer has killed his last,” he muttered; “Red Wull has run his course.” Then, turning to Andrew: “Run yo' home, lad, and fetch the men to carry yon away,” pointing to the carcass. “And Bob, lad, yo've done your work for to-day, and right well too; go yo' home wi' him. I'm off to see to this!”

He turned and crossed the Stony Bottom. His face was set like a rock. At length the proof was in his hand. Once and for all the hill-country should be rid of its scourge.

As he stalked up the hill, a dark head appeared at his knee. Two big gray eyes, half doubting, half penitent, wholly wistful, looked up at him, and a silvery brush signalled a mute request.

“Eh, Owd Un, but yo' should ha' gone wi' Andrew,” the Master said. “Hooiver, as yo' are here, come along.” And he strode away up the hill, gaunt and menacing, with the gray dog at his heels.

As they approached the house, M'Adam was standing in the door, sucking his eternal twig. James Moore eyed him closely as he came, but the sour face framed in the door betrayed nothing. Sarcasm, ­surprise, ­challenge, were all writ there, plain to read; but no guilty consciousness of the other's errand, no storm of passion to hide a failing heart. If it was acting it was splendidly done.

As man and dog passed through the gap in the hedge, the expression of the little man's face changed again. He started forward.

“James Moore, as I live!” he cried, and advanced with both hands extended, as though welcoming a long-lost brother. “Deed and it's a weary while sin' ye've honoured ma puir hoose.” And, in fact, it was nigh twenty years. “I tak'it gey kind in ye to look in on a lonely auld man. Come ben and let's ha'a crack. James Moore kens weel hoo welcome he aye is in ma bit biggin'.”

The Master ignored the greeting.

“One o' ma sheep been killed back o' t' Dyke,” he announced shortly, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

“The Killer?”

“The Killer.”

The cordiality beaming in every wrinkle of the little man's face was absorbed in a wondering interest: and that again gave place to sorrowful sympathy.

“Dear, dear! it's come to that, has it—at last?” he said gently, and his eyes wandered to the gray dog and dwelt mournfully upon him. “Man, I'm sorry

—I canna tell ye I'm surprised. Masel', I kent it all alang. But gin Adam M'Adam had tell't, ye'd no ha' believed him. Weel, weel, he's lived his life, gin ony dog iver did; and noo he maun gang where he's sent a many before him. Puir mon! puir tyke!” He heaved a sigh, profoundly melancholy, tenderly sympathetic. Then, brightening up a little: “Ye'll ha' come for the gun?”

James Moore listened to his harangue at first puzzled. Then he caught the other's meaning, and his eyes flashed.

“Ye fool, M'Adam! Did ye hear iver tell o' a sheep-dog worryin' his master's sheep?”

The little man was smiling and suave again now, rubbing his hands softly together.

“Ye're right, I never did. But your dog is not as ither dogs—‘There's none like him—none,' I've heard ye say so yersel, mony a time. An' I'm wi' ye. There's none like him—for devilment.” His voice began to quiver and his face to blaze. “It's his cursed cunning that's deceived ivery one but me—whelp o' Satan that he is!” He shouldered up to his tall adversary. “If not him, wha else had done it?” he asked, looking up into the other's face as if daring him to speak.

The Master's shaggy eyebrows lowered. He towered above the other like the Muir Pike above its surrounding hills.

“Wha, ye ask?” he replied coldly, “and I answer you. Your Red Wull, M'Adam, your Red Wull. It's your Wull's the Black Killer! It's your Wull's bin the plague o' the land these months past! It's your Wull's killed ma sheep back o' yon!”

At that all the little man's affected good-humour fled.

“Ye lee, mon! ye lee!” he cried in a dreadful scream, dancing up to his antagonist. “I knoo hoo 'twad be. I said so. I see what ye're at. Ye've found at last—blind that ye've been!—that it's yer ain hell's tyke that's the Killer; and noo ye think by yer leein' impitations to throw the blame on ma Wullie. Ye rob me o' ma Cup, ye rob me o' ma son, ye wrang me in ilka thing; there's but ae thing left me—Wullie. And noo ye're set on takin' him awa'. But ye shall not—I'll kill ye first!”

He was all a-shake, bobbing up and down like a stopper in a soda-water bottle, and almost sobbing.

“Ha' ye no wranged me enough wi' oot that? Ye lang-leggit liar, wi' yer skulkin murderin' tyke!” he cried. “Ye say it's Wullie. Where's yer proof?”—and he snapped his fingers in the other's face.

The Master was now as calm as his foe was passionate. “Where?” he replied sternly; “why, there!” holding out his right hand. “Yon's proof enough to hang a hunner'd.” For lying in his broad palm was a little bundle of that damning red hair.

“Where?”

“There!”

“Let's see it!” The little man bent to look closer.

“There's for yer proof!” he cried, and spat deliberately down into the other's naked palm. Then he stood back, facing his enemy in a manner to have done credit to a nobler deed.

James Moore strode forward. It looked as if he was about to make an end of his miserable adversary, so strongly was he moved. His chest heaved, and the blue eyes blazed. But just as one had thought to see him take his foe in the hollow of his hand and crush him, who should come stalking round the corner of the house but the Tailless Tyke.

A droll spectacle he made, laughable even at that moment. He limped sorely, his head and neck

were swathed in bandages, and beneath their ragged fringe the little eyes gleamed out fiery and bloodshot.

Round the corner he came, unaware of strangers; then straightway recognizing his visitors, halted abruptly. His hackles ran up, each individual hair stood on end till his whole body resembled a new-shorn wheat-field; and a snarl, like a rusty brake shoved hard down, escaped from between his teeth. Then he trotted heavily forward, his head sinking low and lower as he came.

And Owd Bob, eager to take up the gage of battle, advanced, glad and gallant, to meet him. Daintily he picked his way across the yard, head and tail erect, perfectly self-contained. Only the long gray hair about his neck stood up like the ruff of a lady of the court of Queen Elizabeth.

But the war-worn warriors were not to be allowed their will.

“Wullie, Wullie, wad ye!” cried the little man.

“Bob, lad, coom in!” called the other. Then he turned and looked down at the man beside him, contempt flaunting in every feature.

“Well?” he said shortly.

M'Adam's hands were opening and shutting; his face was quite white beneath the tan; but he spoke calmly.

“I'll tell ye the whole story, and it's the truth,” he said slowly. “I was up there the morn”—pointing to the window above—“and I see Wullie crouchin' down alangside the Stony Bottom. (Ye ken he has the run o ma land o' neets, the same as your dog.) In a minnit I see anither dog squatterin' alang on your side the Bottom. He creeps up to the sheep on th' hillside, chases 'em, and doons one. The sun was risen by then, and I see the dog clear as I see you noo. It was that dog there—I swear it!” His voice rose as he spoke, and he pointed an accusing finger at Owd Bob.

“Noo, Wullie! thinks I. And afore ye could clap yer hands, Wullie was over the Bottom and on to him as he gorged—the bloody-minded murderer! They fought and fought—I could hear the roarin' a't where I stood. I watched till I could watch nae langer, and, all in a sweat, I rin doon the stairs and oot. When I got there, there was yer tyke makin' fu' split for Kenmuir, and Wullie comin' up the hill to me. It's God's truth, I'm tellin' ye. Tak' him hame, James Moore, and let his dinner be an ounce o' lead. 'Twill be the best day's work iver ye done.”

The little man must be lying—lying palpably. Yet he spoke with an earnestness, a seeming belief in his own story, that might have convinced one who knew him less well. But the Master only looked down on him with a great scorn.

“It's Monday to-day,” he said coldly. “I gie yo' till Saturday. If yo've not done your duty by then—and well you know what 'tis—I shall come do it for ye. Ony gate, I shall come and see. I'll remind ye agin o' Thursday—yo'll be at the Manor dinner, I suppose. Noo I've warned yo,' and you know best whether I'm in earnest or no. Boy, lad!”