Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 13, 2025
Through the heather the two swung, the Master thinking now with a smile of David and Maggie; wondering what M'Adam had meant; musing with a frown on the Killer; pondering on his identity for he was half of David's opinion as to Red Wull's innocence; and thanking his stars that so far Kenmuir had escaped, a piece of luck he attributed entirely to the vigilance of Th' Owd Un, who, sleeping in the porch, slipped out at all hours and went his rounds, warding off danger.
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.
At length his merriment grew so boisterous that she looked up, saw him, and, straightway rising to her feet, crossed the room and shut the door; tendering her unspoken rebuke with such a sweet dignity that he slunk away for once decently ashamed. And the incident served to add point to his hostility. Consequently he was seldom at Kenmuir, and more often at home, quarrelling with his father.
"Yo' may well say that," cried Tammas 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."
For one reason he was truly glad of the altered condition of affairs; he believed that, for the nonce, at least his father had abandoned any ill designs he might have cherished against James Moore; those sneaking visits to Kenmuir were, he hoped, discontinued. Yet Maggie Moore, had she been on speaking terms with him, could have undeceived him.
"I'd mind Kenmuir, d'ye see, Kirby?" It was about the middle of the lambing-time, when the Killer was working his worst, that the Dalesmen had a lurid glimpse of Adam M'Adam as he might be were he wounded through his Wullie. Thus it came about: It was market-day in Grammoch-town, and in the Border Ram old Rob Saunderson was the centre of interest.
For when the Master had reached home that night, he had found the old dog already there; and he must have wrenched his foot in the pursuit or run a thorn into it, for he was very lame. Whereat, when it was reported at the Sylvester Arms, M'Adam winked at Red Wull and muttered, "Ah, forty foot is an ugly tumble." A week later the little man called at Kenmuir.
Then, leaning forward in his chair and glaring at the girl, "Ay, and mair than that! The night the lad set on me he cam'" with hissing emphasis "straight from Kenmuir!" He paused and stared at her intently, and she was still dumb before him. "Gin I'd ben killed, Wullie'd ha' bin disqualified from competin' for the Cup. With Adam M'Adam's Red Wull oot o' the way noo d'ye see? Noo d'ye onderstan'?"
Many a man would lose more than he cared to contemplate were Th' Owd Un beat. But he'd not be! Nay; owd, indeed, he was two years older than his great rival; there were a hundred risks, a hundred chances; still: "What's the odds agin Owd Bob o' Kenmuir? I'm takin' 'em. Who'll lay agin Th' Owd Un?"
Within a hand's cast of the avengers of blood humped the black boulder. On the border of its shadow lay a dead sheep; and standing beside the body, his coat all ruffled by the hand of the storm Owd Bob Owd Bob o' Kenmuir. Then the light went in, and darkness covered the land. IT was Owd Bob. There could be no mistaking. In the wide world there was but one Owd Bob o' Kenmuir.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking