before
him with mournful interest. "Eh, but thee do be a little spit-cat,
surely!"

James Moore stood, breathing deep, his hand still buried in Owd Bob's
coat.

"If yo'd touched him," he explained, "I couldna ha' stopped him. He'd
ha' mauled yo' afore iver I could ha' had him off. They're bad to hold,
the Gray Dogs, when they're roosed."

"Ay, ma word, that they are!" corroborated Tammas, speaking from the
experience of sixty years. "Once on, yo' canna get 'em off."

The little man turned away.

"Ye're all agin me," he said, and his voice shook. A pitiful figure he
made, standing there with the water dripping from him. A red stream was
running slowly from his chin; his head was bare, and face working.

James Moore stood eyeing him with some pity and some contempt. Behind
was Tammas, enjoying the scene. While Sam'l regarded them all with an
impassive melancholy.

M'Adam turned and bent over Red Wull, who still lay like a dead thing.
As his master handled him, the button-tail quivered feebly; he opened
his eyes, looked about him, snarled faintly, and glared with devilish
hate at the gray dog and the group with him.

The little man picked him up, stroking him tenderly. Then he turned away
and on to the bridge. Half-way across he stopped. It rattled feverishly
beneath him, for he still trembled like a palsied man.

"Man, Moore!" he called, striving to quell the agitation in his
voice--"I wad shoot yon dog."

Across the bridge he turned again. "Man, Moore!" he called and paused.
"Ye'll not forget this day." And with that the blood flared up a dull
crimson into his white face.

PART II THE LITTLE MAN

Chapter V. A MAN'S SON

THE storm, long threatened, having once burst, M'Adam allowed loose rein
to his bitter animosity against James Moore.

The two often met. For the little man frequently returned home from the
village by the footpath across Kenmuir. It was out of his way, but
he preferred it in order to annoy his enemy and keep a watch upon his
doings.

He haunted Kenmuir like its evil genius. His sallow face was perpetually
turning up at inopportune moments. When Kenmuir Queen, the prize
short-horn heifer, calved unexpectedly and unattended in the dip by the
lane, Tammas and the Master, summoned hurriedly by Owd Bob, came running
up to find the little man leaning against the stile, and shaking with
silent merriment. Again, poor old Staggy, daring still in his dotage,
took a fall while sc