“Easy, little mon,” he said leisurely, regarding the small fury before him with mournful interest. “Eh, but thee do be a little spit-cat, surely!”
James Moore stood, breathing deep, his hand still buried in Owd Bob's coat.
“If yo'd touched him,” he explained, “I couldna ha' stopped him. He'd ha' mauled yo' afore iver I could ha' had him off. They're bad to hold, the Gray Dogs, when they're roosed.”
“Ay, ma word, that they are!” corroborated Tammas, speaking from the experience of sixty years. “Once on, yo' canna get 'em off.”
The little man turned away.
“Ye're all agin me,” he said, and his voice shook. A pitiful figure he made, standing there with the water dripping from him. A red stream was running slowly from his chin; his head was bare, and face working.
James Moore stood eyeing him with some pity and some contempt. Behind was Tammas, enjoying the scene. While Sam'l regarded them all with an impassive melancholy.
M'Adam turned and bent over Red Wull, who still lay like a dead thing. As his master handled him, the button-tail quivered feebly; he opened his eyes, looked about him, snarled faintly, and glared with devilish hate at the gray dog and the group with him.
The little man picked him up, stroking him tenderly. Then he turned away and on to the bridge. Half-way across he stopped. It rattled feverishly beneath him, for he still trembled like a palsied man.
“Man, Moore!” he called, striving to quell the agitation in his voice—“I wad shoot yon dog.”