Part 28 (2/2)
”I've put a sight of money into this flock of sheep,” he declared.
”More'n I could reely afford. An' I've been readin' up on sheep, too. I've been readin' that the worst en'my to sheep is 'pred'tory dogs.' An' if that big dog of your'n ain't 'pred'tory,' then I never seen one that was. So I'm warnin' you, fair----”
”If your sheep come to any harm, Mr. Romaine,” returned the Mistress, again forestalling an untactful outbreak from her husband, ”I'll guarantee Lad will have nothing to do with it.”
”An' I'll guarantee to have him shot an' have you folks up in court, if he does,” chivalrously retorted Mr. t.i.tus Romaine.
With which exchange of goodfellows.h.i.+p, the two groups parted, Romaine returning to his scattered sheep, while the Mistress, Lad at her heels, lured the Master away from the field of encounter. The Master was fuming.
”Here's where good old Mr. Trouble drops in on us for a nice long visit!” he grumbled, as they moved homeward. ”I can see how it is going to turn out. Because a few stray curs have chased or killed sheep, now and then, every decent dog is under suspicion as a sheep-killer. If one of Romaine's wethers gets a scratch on its leg, from a bramble, Lad will be blamed. If one of the mongrels from over in the village should chase his sheep, Lad will be accused. And we'll be in the first 'neighborhood squabble' of our lives.”
The Master spoke with a pessimism his wife did not share, and which he, himself, did not really believe. The folk at The Place had always lived in goodfellows.h.i.+p and peace with their few rural neighbors, as well as with the several hundred inhabitants of the mile-distant village, across the lake. And, though livestock is the foundation of ninety rustic feuds out of ninety-one, the dogs of The Place had never involved their owners in any such row.
Yet, barely three days later, t.i.tus Romaine bore down upon The Place, before breakfast, breathing threatenings and complaining of slaughter.
He was waiting on the veranda in blasphemous converse with The Place's foreman, when the Master came out. At t.i.tus's heels stood his ”hired man”--a huge and sullen person named Schwartz, who possessed a scarce-conquered accent that fitted the name.
”Well!” orated Romaine, in glum greeting, as he sighted the Master.
”Well, I guessed right! He done it, after all! He done it. We all but caught him, red-handed. Got away with four of my best sheep!
Four of 'em. The cur!”
”What are you talking about?” demanded the Master, as the Mistress, drawn by the visitor's plangent tones, joined the veranda-group.
”'Bout that ugly big dog of your'n!” answered Romaine. ”I knew what he'd do, if he got the chance. I knew it, when I saw him runnin' my poor sheep, last week. I warned you then. The two of you. An' now he's done it!”
”Done what?” insisted the Master, impatient of the man's noise and fury.
”What dog?” asked the Mistress, at the same time.
”Are you talking about Lad? If you are----”
”I'm talkin' about your big brown collie cur!” snorted t.i.tus. ”He's gone an' killed four of my best sheep. Did it in the night an' early this mornin'. My man here caught him at the last of 'em, an' drove him off, just as he was finis.h.i.+n' the poor critter. He got away with the rest of 'em.”
”Nonsense!” denied the Master. ”You're talking rot. Lad wouldn't touch a sheep. And----”
”That's what all folks say when their dogs or their children is charged with doin' wrong!” scoffed Romaine. ”But this time it won't do no good to----”
”You say this happened last night?” interposed the Mistress.
”Yes, it did. Last night an' early in the mornin', too. Schwartz, here----”
”But Lad sleeps in the house, every night,” objected the Mistress. ”He sleeps under the piano, in the music room. He has slept there every night since he was a puppy. The maid who dusts the downstairs rooms before breakfast lets him out, when she begins work. So he----”
”Bolster it up any way you like!” broke in Romaine. ”He was out last night, all right. An' early this morning, too.”
”How early?” questioned the Master.
”Five o'clock,” volunteered Schwartz, speaking up, from behind his employer. ”I know, because that's the time I get up. I went out, first thing, to open the barnyard gate and drive the sheep to the pasture. First thing I saw was that big dog growling over a sheep he'd just killed. He saw me, and he wiggled out through the barnyard bars--same way he had got in. Then I counted the sheep. One was dead,--the one he had just killed--and three were gone. We've been looking for their bodies ever since, and we can't find them.”
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