cumber, yet
determined. At last Mr. Bull sees it's no manner o' use that gate, so he
turns, rares up, and tries to jump wall. Nary a bit. Young dog jumps
in on un and nips him by tail. Wi' that, bull tumbles down in a hurry,
turns wi' a kind o' groan, and marches back into stall, Bob after un.
And then, dang me!"--the old man beat the ladder as he loosed off this
last titbit,--"if he doesna sit' isseif i' door like a sentrynel till
'Enry Farewether coom up. Hoo's that for a tyke not yet a year?"

Even Sam'l Todd was moved by the tale.

"Well done, oor Bob!" he cried.

"Good, lad!" said the Master, laying a hand on the dark head at his
knee.

"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."

A fair-haired boy came spurring up the slope, his face all aglow with
the speed of his running. Straightway the young dog dashed off to
meet him with a fiery speed his sober gait belied. The two raced back
together into the yard.

"Poor lad!" said Sam'l gloomily, regarding the newcomer.

"Poor heart!" muttered Tammas. While the Master's face softened visibly.
Yet there looked little to pity in this jolly, rocking lad with the
tousle of light hair and fresh, rosy countenance.

"G'mornin', Mister Moore! Morn'n, Tammas! Morn'n, Sam'l!" he panted as
he passed; and ran on through the hay-carpeted yard, round the corner of
the stable, and into the house.

In the kitchen, a long room with red-tiled floor and latticed windows,
a woman, white-aproned and frail-faced, was bustling about her morning
business. To her skirts clung a sturdy, bare-legged boy; while at
the oak table in the centre of the room a girl with brown eyes and
straggling hair was seated before a basin of bread and milk.

"So yo've coom at last, David!" the woman cried, as the boy entered;
and, bending, greeted him with a tender, motherly salutation, which he
returned as affectionately. "I welly thowt yo'd forgot us this mornin'.
Noo sit you' doon beside oor Maggie." And soon he, too, was engaged in a
task twin to the girl's.

The two children munched away in silence, the little bare-legged boy
watching them, the while, critically. Irritated by this prolonged