As has been said, Rob had no wish to kill the bull, nor did he wish to maim or seriously injure him. As he used to avow, he wanted to give him 'a drilling.' He now began operations. With a swing of the arm, he brought down the knob of the cudgel with a smart blow on the head of the animal, saying at the same time: 'Tak' that for frightening our Jenny.' And so on he went, raining down blows on the head and shoulders, always repeating: 'Tak' that, and that, for frightening our Jenny. I'll learn you no to be sae ready crossing the river and running after people.' The bull perhaps did not understand the full force of Rob's meaning; but he knew he was overpowered in a way to bring down his pride.

'Hit him on the horns, Rob,' cried Sandy Clapperton. 'He'll no like that.'

Rob was not a cruel boy. He had true courage and generosity, and would not take a mean advantage of his enemy. He accordingly did not feel inclined to strike the bull on the horns, for he might have broken or dislodged one of these appendages, and damaged the beast past recovery. So he continued to beat him in a manner to be painful and mortifying without being absolutely injurious. It was amazing how this untutored country lad knew the exact length he might reasonably go. There was in it no small degree of intuitive common-sense. Swimming about in a lumbering way, the Eshiely bull was for the first time made amenable to discipline. By the persuasive agency of the walking-stick, he was constrained to swim in a kind of circle, as if performing in a piece of horsemanship at a circus. It was important never to let him get so near the land on either side as to find a footing. He was kept as nearly as possible in the middle of the pool, round about and round about, beaten with the oak stick all the way, and told by Rob that he was punished as a mean-spirited wretch for running after and frightening little girls.

The whole thing was a pretty piece of rude play. Rob was a moral disciplinarian. Out of his own conceptions of rectitude, he did that which the public at large ought long since to have done in a regular and legal manner. The Eshiely bull ought to have been suppressed as being a nuisance, almost as dangerous to the community as a wild beast. Nobody interfered to any good effect. The proprietor of the animal was one of those miserably selfish individuals who, minding only their own interest, are indifferent to the rights of others. He had been frequently told of the alarm caused in the neighbourhood by the bull, but treated the matter as of small consequence. If the bull annoyed or killed anybody, what did he care? People should keep out of its way. As a self-constituted minister of justice, Rob Graham, after a droll fashion, settled the business. By dint of his grandfather's stick he brought the bull to its senses, forced it to see the error of its ways.

The play lasted about half-an-hour. During that time, in its gyrations in the water, Rob gave the bull what he considered a proper chastisement. Reduced to extremity, it had no heart to prosecute the war. It was fain to get back to its own side of the water. Rob indulged it in this laudable desire, for he thought he had humiliated it sufficiently. He let it make for the north side of the river. Just as its fore-feet touched the ground, he gave it a parting thwack which it was likely to remember. And dropping off at the tail, he bade the bull good-morning. The beast staggered away in an exhausted and dazed condition to whence it came, with its tail between its legs, and cowed in a way that never bull was before. Having done his duty, Rob swam across to the southern bank, with his grandfather's stick in his teeth, and was congratulated on his gallantry by his juvenile companions, as also by the miller in his dusty garments, and two or three other spectators who had collected at the spot.

From that day forward the Eshiely bull never crossed the river, nor did he run impetuously to attack strangers passing on the highway. The nonsense was taken out of him. As the Peebles folk said, in their old-fashioned vernacular, he had got 'a staw'—meaning an effectual surfeit. The proprietor of the bull affected to be angry at the way the animal had been treated; but was only laughed at. The thing was too ludicrous to be taken up seriously.

Were this a romance, we should describe Rob Graham as going abroad, and like another Clive, distinguishing himself in the public service. But all we have to relate is a simple country story, as events are recalled by memory. Rob's extraordinary feat in taming the Eshiely bull, and adroitly suppressing a gross local evil, met with no public acknowledgment. He moved in too obscure a sphere to be complimented. Rob, however, never boasted of his exploit, nor did he care for its being mentioned. The incident is long since forgotten; perhaps not remembered by a single person alive but the present narrator. As far as we have heard, Rob Graham, who might be designated the 'gallant Graham,' dropped into the position of a ploughman, from which he rose by his industry and intelligence, to be a grieve or land-steward in the neighbourhood. Unlearned, yet sagacious; valiant, yet docile; humble, yet manly and independent, Rob might be accepted as a specimen of those 'hardy sons of toil' spoken of feelingly by Burns in melodious verse, and of whom the poet himself is recognised as having been an illustrious example.

'Bonny Jenny Graham,' Rob's sister, is said to have been married to a farmer in the west country, and this is all we can tell of the gem of the old burgh school, the 'Flower of Kailzie.'

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Peg-top and marbles.