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Updated: May 25, 2025
There was hardly a man in the land, from Langholm How to the market-cross in Grammoch-town, but had at one time known its sting, endured it in silence for they are slow of speech, these men of the fells and meres and was nursing his resentment till a day should bring that chance which always comes.
Whereat M'Adam was taken with a fit of internal spasms, rubbing his knees and cackling insanely for a half-hour afterward. And as for the luck of the Grange well, there was a reason for that too, so the Dalesmen said. Though the area of crime stretched from the Black Water to Grammoch-town, twenty-odd miles, there was never a sign of the perpetrator.
Therefore, when, as he was breaking off at noon, his father turned to him and said abruptly: "David, ye're to tak' the Cheviot lot o'er to Grammoch-town at once," he answered shortly: "Yo' mun tak' 'em yo'sel', if yo' wish 'em to go to-day." "Na," the little man answered; "Wullie and me, we're busy. Ye're to tak' 'em, I tell ye." "I'll not," David replied.
At length on this day, James Moore, leaving the old dog behind him, had gone over to Grammoch-town to consult Dingley, the vet. On his way home he met Jim Mason with Gyp, the faithful Betsy's unworthy successor, at the Dalesman's Daughter. Together they started for the long tramp home over the Marches. And that journey is marked with a red stone in this story.
After the first glance, however, the farmers paid him little heed, clustering round the publican at the farther end of the room to hear the latest story of Owd Bob. It appeared that a week previously, James Moore with a pack of sheep had met the new Grammoch-town butcher at the Dalesmen's Daughter. A bargain concluded, the butcher started with the flock for home.
Tammas, whose stock of yarns anent Rex son of Rally had after forty years' hard wear begun to pall on the loyal ears of even old Jonas, found no lack of new material now. In the Dalesman's Daughter in Silverdale and in the Border Ram at Grammoch-town, each succeeding market day brought some fresh tale.
Only once was he spurred into reply. It was in the tap-room of the Dalesman's Daughter on the occasion of the big spring fair in Grammoch-town, when there was a goodly gathering of farmers and their dogs in the room. M'Adam was standing at the fireplace with Red Wull at his side.
Coming on M'Adam and Red Wull as he was driving into Grammoch-town, he leant over and with his thong dealt the dog a terrible sword-like slash that raised an angry ridge of red from hip to shoulder; and was twenty yards down the road before the little man's shrill curse reached his ear, drowned in a hideous bellow.
Cup Day is always a general holiday in the Daleland, and every soul crowds over to Silverdale. Shops were shut; special trains ran in to Grammoch-town; and the road from the little town was dazed with char-a-bancs, brakes, wagonettes, carriages, carts, foot-passengers, wending toward the Dalesman's Daughter.
"Then why don't yo' go and tell him so, yo' muckle liar?" roared Tammas at last, enraged to madness. "I will!" said M'Adam. And he did. It was on the day preceding the great summer sheep fair at Grammoch-town that he fulfilled his vow. That is always a big field-day at Kenmuir; and on this occasion James Moore and Owd Bob had been up and working on the Pike from the rising of the sun.
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