ppie in our e'e;
The cock may craw, the day may daw',
And ay we'll taste the barley bree!"

And in the morning the boy would slip quietly out of the house while his
father still slept; only Red Wull would thrust out his savage head as
the lad passed, and snarl hungrily.

Sometimes father and son would go thus for weeks without sight of one
another. And that was David's aim--to escape attention. It was only his
cunning at this game of evasion that saved him a thrashing.

The little man seemed devoid of all natural affection for his son. He
lavished the whole fondness of which his small nature appeared capable
on the Tailless Tyke, for so the Dalesmen called Red Wull. And the dog
he treated with a careful tenderness that made David smile bitterly.

The little man and his dog were as alike morally as physically they were
contrasted. Each owed a grudge against the world and was determined to
pay it. Each was an Ishmael among his kind.

You saw them thus, standing apart, leper-like, in the turmoil of life;
and it came quite as a revelation to happen upon them in some quiet spot
of nights, playing together, each wrapped in the game, innocent, tender,
forgetful of the hostile world.

The two were never separated except only when M'Adam came home by the
path across Kenmuir. After that first misadventure he never allowed his
friend to accompany him on the journey through the enemy's country; for
well he knew that sheep-dogs have long memories.

To the stile in the lane, then, Red Wull would follow him. There he
would stand, his great head poked through the bars, watching his master
out of sight; and then would turn and trot, self-reliant and defiant,
sturdy and surly, down the very centre of the road through the
village--no playing, no enticing away, and woe to that man or dog who
tried to stay him in his course! And so on, past Mother Ross's shop,
past the Sylvester Arms, to the right by Kirby's smithy, over the
Wastrel by the Haughs, to await his master at the edge of the Stony
Bottom.

The little man, when thus crossing Kenmuir, often met Owd Bob, who had
the free run of the farm. On these occasions he passed discreetly by;
for, though he was no coward, yet it is bad, single-handed, to attack
a Gray Dog of Kenmuir; while the dog trotted soberly on his way, only
a steely glint in the big gray eyes betraying his knowledge of the
presence of his foe. As surely, however, as the little man, in his
desire to spy