The door of the porch was wide, the chain hanging limply down, unused; and the little man could see within, the moon shining on the iron studs of the inner door, and the blanket of him who should have slept there, and did not.
“He's no there, Wullie! He's no there!” He jumped down from the gate. Throwing all caution to the winds, he reeled recklessly across the yard. The drunken delirium of battle was on him. The fever of anticipated victory flushed his veins. At length he would take toll for the injuries of years.
Another moment, and he was in front of the good oak door, battering at it madly with clubbed weapon, yelling, dancing, screaming vengeance.
“Where is he? What's he at? Come and tell me that, James Moore! Come
doon, I say, ye coward! Come and meet me like a man!
Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots wham Bruce has aften led—
Welcome to your gory bed
Or to victorie!'”
The soft moonlight streamed down on the white-haired madman thundering at the door, screaming his war-song.
The quiet farmyard, startled from its sleep, awoke in an uproar. Cattle shifted in their stalls; horses whinnied; fowls chattered, aroused by the din and dull thudding of the blows: and above the rest, loud and piercing, the shrill cry of a terrified child.
Maggie, wakened from a vivid dream of David chasing the police, hurried a shawl around her, and in a minute had the baby in her arms and was comforting her—vaguely fearing the while that the police were after David.
James Moore flung open a window, and, leaning out, looked down on the dishevelled figure below him.
M'Adam heard the noise, glanced up, and saw his enemy. Straightway he ceased his attack on the door, and, running beneath the window, shook his weapon up at his foe.
“There ye are, are ye? Curse ye for a coward! curse ye for a liar! Come doon, I say, James Moore! come doon—I daur ye to it! Aince and for a' let's settle oor account.”