the farmers arrived, there was one earlier. Tupper, the
first man to enter the sand-floored parlor, found M'Adam before him.

He was sitting a little forward in his chair; his thin hands rested on
his knees; and on his face was a gentle, dreamy expression such as no
man had ever seen there before. All the harsh wrinkles seemed to have
fled in the night; and the sour face, stamped deep with the bitterness
of life, was softened now, as if at length at peace.

"When I coom doon this mornin'," said Teddy Bolstock in a whisper, "I
found 'im sittin' just so. And he's nor moved nor spoke since."

"Where's th' Terror, then?" asked Tupper, awed somehow into like hushed
tones.

"In t' paddock at back," Teddy answered, "marchin' hoop and doon, hoop
and doon, for a' the world like a sentry-soger. And so he was when I
looked oot o' window when I wake."

Then Londesley entered, and after him, Ned Hoppin, Rob Saunderson, Jim
Mason, and others, each with his dog. And each man, as he came in and
saw the little lone figure for once without its huge attendant genius,
put the same question; while the dogs sniffed about the little man, as
though suspecting treachery. And all the time M'Adam sat as though
he neither heard nor saw, lost in some sweet, sad dream; so quite, so
silent, that more than one thought he slept.

After the first glance, however, the farmers paid him little heed,
clustering round the publican at the farther end of the room to hear the
latest story of Owd Bob.

It appeared that a week previously, James Moore with a pack of sheep had
met the new Grammoch-town butcher at the Dalesmen's Daughter. A bargain
concluded, the butcher started with the flock for home. As he had no
dog, the Master offered him Th' Owd Un. "And he'll pick me i' th' town
to-morrow," said he.

Now the butcher was a stranger in the land. Of course he had heard of
Owd Bob o' Kenmuir, yet it never struck him that this handsome gentleman
with the quiet, resolute manner, who handled sheep as he had never seen
them handled, was that hero--"the best sheep-dog in the North."

Certain it is that by the time the flock was penned in the enclosure
behind the shop, he coveted the dog--ay, would even offer ten pounds for
him!

Forthwith the butcher locked him up in an outhouse--summit of indignity;
resolving to make his offer on the morrow.

When the morrow came he found no dog in the outhouse, and, worse, no
sheep in the enclosure. A sprung board showe