“'Twas 'appen 'aif an hour agone, when I sees oor Bob goin' oot o' yard wi' little yaller tyke in his mouth. In a minnit I looks agin—and theer! little yaller 'un was gone, and oor Bob a-sittin' a-lickin' his chops. Gone foriver, I do reck'n. Ah, yo' may well take on, Tammas Thornton!” For the old man was rolling about the yard, bent double with merriment.
M'Adam turned on the Master with the resignation of despair.
“Man, Moore,” he cried piteously, “it's yer gray dog has murdered ma wee Wull! Ye have it from yer ain man.”
“Nonsense,” said the Master encouragingly. “'Tis but yon girt oof.”
Sam'l tossed his head and snorted.
“Coom, then, and i'll show yo',” he said, and led the way out of the yard. And there below them on the slope to the stream, sitting like Justice at the Courts of Law, was Owd Bob.
Straightway Sam'l whose humor was something of the calibre of old Ross's, the sexton, burst into horse-merriment. “Why's he sittin' so still, think 'ee? Ho! Ho! See un lickin' his chops—ha! ha!”—and he roared afresh. While from afar you could hear the distant rumbling of 'Enry and oor Job.
At the sight, M'Adam burst into a storm of passionate invective, and would have rushed on the dog had not James Moore forcibly restrained him.
“Bob, lad,” called the Master, “coom here!”
But even as he spoke, the gray dog cocked his ears, listened a moment, and then shot down the slope. At the same moment Tammas hallooed: “Theer he be! yon's yaller un coomin' oot o' drain! La, Sam'l!” And there, indeed, on the slope below them, a little angry, smutty-faced figure was crawling out of a rabbit-burrow.