“Hi, Master! Stop, or yo're dead!” roared a voice from the loft on the other side the yard.
“Feyther! feyther! git yo' back!” screamed Maggie, who saw it all from the window above the door.
Their cries were too late! The blunderbuss went off with a roar, belching out a storm of sparks and smoke. The shot peppered the door like hail, and the whole yard seemed for a moment wrapped in flame.
“Aw! oh! ma gummy! A'm waounded A'm a goner! A'm shot! 'Elp! Murder! Eh! Oh!” bellowed a lusty voice—and it was not James Moore's.
The little man, the cause of the uproar, lay quite still upon the ground, with another figure standing over him. As he had stood, finger on trigger, waiting for that last bolt to be drawn, a gray form, shooting whence no one knew, had suddenly and silently attacked him from behind, and jerked him backward to the ground. With the shock of the fall the blunderbuss had gone off.
The last bolt was thrown back with a clatter, and the Master emerged. In a glance he took in the whole scene: the fallen man; the gray dog; the still-smoking weapon.
“Yo', was't Bob lad?” he said. “I was wonderin' wheer yo' were. Yo' came just at the reet moment, as yo' aye do!” Then, in a loud voice, addressing the darkness: “Yo're not hurt, Sam'l Todd—I can tell that by yer noise; it was nob'but the shot off the door warmed yo'. Coom away doon and gie me a hand.”
He walked up to M'Adam, who still lay gasping on the ground. The shock of the fall and recoil of the weapon had knocked the breath out of the little man's body; beyond that he was barely hurt.
The Master stood over his fallen enemy and looked sternly down at him.
“I've put up wi' more from you, M'Adam, than I would from ony other man,” he said. “But this is too much—comin' here at night wi' loaded arms, scarin' the wimmen and childer oot o' their lives, and I can but think meanin' worse. If yo' were half a man I'd gie yo' the finest thrashin' iver yo' had in yer life. But, as yo' know well, I could no more hit yo' than I could a woman. Why yo've got this down on me yo' ken best. I niver did yo' or ony ither mon a harm. As to the Cup, I've got it and I'm goin' to do ma best to keep it—it's for yo' to win it from me if yo' can o' Thursday. As for what yo' say o' David, yo' know it's a lie. And as for what yo're drivin' at wi' yer hints and mysteries, I've no more idee than a babe unborn. Noo I'm goin' to lock yo' up, yo're not safe abroad. I'm thinkin' I'll ha' to hand ye o'er to the p'lice.”