Part 27 (2/2)

Since that day, two years before, when the boy had been an instrument in the taking of the Cup from him, father and son had been like two vessels charged with electricity, contact between which might result at any moment in a shock and a flash. This was the outcome not of a moment, but of years.

Of late the contest had raged markedly fierce; for M'Adam noticed his son's more frequent presence at home, and commented on the fact in his usual spirit of playful raillery.

”What's come to ye, David?” he asked one day. ”Yer auld dad's head is nigh turned wi' yer condescension. Is James Moore feared ye'll steal the Cup fra him, as ye stole it from me, that he'll not ha' ye at Kenmuir?

or what is it?”

”I thought I could maybe keep an eye on the Killer gin I stayed here,”

David answered, leering at Red Wull.

”Ye'd do better at Kenmuir--eh, Wullie!” the little man replied.

”Nay,” the other answered, ”he'll not go to Kenmuir. There's Th' Owd Un to see to him there o' nights.”

The little man whipped round.

”Are ye so sure he is there o' nights, ma lad?” he asked with slow significance.

”He was there when some one--I dinna say who, though I have ma thoughts--tried to poison him,” sneered the boy, mimicking his father's manner.

M'Adam shook his head.

”If he was poisoned, and noo I think aiblins he was, he didna pick it up at Kenmuir, I tell ye that,” he said, and marched out of the room.

In the mean time the Black Killer pursued his b.l.o.o.d.y trade unchecked.

The public, always greedy of a new sensation, took up the matter.

In several of the great dailies, articles on the ”Agrarian Outrages”

appeared, followed by lengthy correspondence. Controversy raged high; each correspondent had his own theory and his own solution of the problem; and each waxed indignant as his were discarded for another's.

The Terror had reigned already two months when, with the advent of the lambing-time, matters took a yet more serious aspect.

It was bad enough to lose one sheep, often the finest in the pack; but the hunting of a flock at a critical moment, which was incidental to the slaughter of the one, the scaring of these woolly mothers-about-to-be almost out of their fleeces, spelt for the small farmers something akin to ruin, for the bigger ones a loss hardly bearable.

Such a woful season had never been known; loud were the curses, deep the vows of revenge. Many a shepherd at that time patrolled all night through with his dogs, only to find in the morning that the Killer had slipped him and havocked in some secluded portion of his beat.

It was heartrending work; and all the more so in that, though his incrimination seemed as far off as ever, there was still the same positiveness as to the culprit's ident.i.ty.

Long Kirby, indeed, greatly daring, went so far on one occasion as to say to the little man: ”And d'yo' reck'n the Killer is a sheep-dog, M'Adam?”

”I do,” the little man replied with conviction.

”And that he'll spare his own sheep?”

”Niver a doubt of it.”

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