On these occasions David vied with Tammas in facetiousness at his father's expense.
"Good on yo', little un!" he roared from behind a wall, on one such occurence.
"Bain't he a runner, neither?" yelled Tammas, not to be outdone.
"See un skip it--ho! ho!"
"Look to his knees a-wamblin'!" from the Jon, I'd wear petticoats."As he spoke, a swinging box on the ear nearly knocked the young reprobate down.
"D'yo' think God gave you a dad for you to jeer at? Y'ought to be ashamed o' yo'self. Serve yo' right if he does thrash yo' when yo' get home." And David, turning round, found James Moore close behind him, his heavy eyebrows lowering over his eyes.
Luckily, M'Adam had not distinguished his ?Ofl's voice among the others. But David Iearcd he had; for on the following morning the little man said to him:
"David, ye'll come hame immediately after school to-day.""Will I?" said David pertly.
''Ye will.
"Why?"
"Because I tell ye to, ma lad"; and that was all the reason he would give. Had he told the simple fact that he wanted help to drench a "husking" ewe, things might have gone differently. As it was, David turned away defiantly down the hill.
The afternoon wore on. Schooltime was long over; still there was no David.
The little man waited at the door of the Grange, fuming, hopping from one leg to the other, talking to Red Wull, who lay at his feet, his head on his paws, like a tiger waiting for his prey.
At length he could restrain himself no longer; and started running down the bill, his heart burning with indignation.
"Wait till we lay hands on ye, ma lad," he muttered as he ran.
"We'll warm ye, we'll teach ye."
At the edge of the Stony Bottom he, as always, left Red Wull.
Crossing it himself, and rounding Langholm How, he espied James Moore, David, and Owd Bob walking away from him and in the direction of Kenmuir. The gray dog and David were playing together. wrestling, racing, and rolling. The boy had never a thought for his father.
The little man ran up behind them, unseen and unheard, his feet softly pattering on the grass. His hand had fallen on David's shoulder before the boy had guessed his approach.
"Did I bid ye come hame after school, David?" he asked, concealing his heat beneath a suspicious suavity.
"Maybe. Did I say I would come?"
The pertness of tone and words, alike, fanned his father's resentment into a blaze. In a burst of passion he lunged forward at the boy with his stick. But as he smote, a gray whirlwind struck him fair on the chest, and he fell like a snapped stake, and lay, half stunned, with a dark muzzle an inch from his throat.
"Git back, Bob!" shouted James Moore, hurrying up. "Git back, Itell yo'!" He bent over the prostrate figure, propping it up anxiously. "Are yo' hurt, M'Adam? Eh, A stranger might well have mistaken the identity of the boy's father. For he stood now, holding the Master's arm; while a few paces above them was the little man, pale but determined, the expression on his face betraying his consciousness of the irony of the situation.
"Will ye come hame wi' me and have it noo, or stop wi' him and wait till ye get it?" he asked the boy.
"M'Adam, I'd like yo' to--"
"None o' that, James Moore.--David, what d'ye say?"David looked up into his protector's face. "Yo'd best go wi' your feyther, lad," said the Master at last, thickly. The boy hesitated, and clung tighter to the shielding arm; then he walked slowly over to his father.
A bitter smile spread over the little man's face as he marked this new test ci? the boy's obedience to the other.
"To obey his frien' he foregoes the pleasure o' disobeyin' his father," he muttered. "Noble!" Then he turned homeward, and the boy followed in his footsteps.
James Moore and the gray dog stood looking after them.
"I know yo'll not pay off yer spite agin me on the lad's head, M'Adam," he called, almost appealingly.
"I'll do ma duty, thank ye, James Moore, wi'oot respect o' persons,"the little man cried back, never turning.
Father and son walked away, one behind the other, like a man and his dog, and there was no word said between them. Across the Stony Bottom, Red Wull, scowling with bared teeth at David, joined them. Together the three went up the bill to the Grange.
In the kitchen M'Adam turned.
"Noo, I'm gaein' to gie ye the gran'est thrashin' ye iver dreamed of.
Tak' aff yer coat!"
The boy obeyed, and stood up in his thin shirt, his face white and set as a statue's. Red Wull seated himself on his haunches close by, his ears pricked, licking his lips, all attention.
The little man suppled the great ash-plant in his hands and raised it. But the expression on the boy's face arrested his arm.
"Say ye're sorry and I'll let yer a.ff easy.""I'll not."
"One mair chance--yer last! Say yer 'shamed o' yerself'!""I'm not."
The little man brandished his cruel, white weapon, and Red Wull shifted a little to obtain a better view.
"Git on wi' it," ordered David angrily.
The little man raised the stick again and-- threw it into the farthest corner of the room.
It fell with a rattle on the floor, and M'Adam turned away.
"Ye're the pitifulest son iver a man had," he cried brokenly. "Gin a man's son dinna haud to him, wha can he expect to?--no one. Ye're ondootiful, ye're disrespectfu', ye're maist ilka thing ye shouldna be; there's but ae thing I thocht ye were not--a coward. And as to that, ye've no the pluck to sa)ye're sorry when, God knows, ye might be. I canna thrash ye this day. But ye shall gae nae mair to school. I send ye there to learn. Ye'll not learn--ye've learnt naethin' except disobedience to me-ye shall stop at hame and work."His father's rare emotion, his broken voice and working face, moved David as all the stripes and jeers had failed to do. His conscience smote him. For the first time in his life it dimly dawned on him that, perhaps, his father, too, had some ground for complaint; that, perhaps, he was not a good son.
He half turned.
"Feyther--"
"Git oot o' ma sight!" M'Adam cried.
And the boy turned and went.
