" cried old Tammas, the
humorist; and, turning, climbed all in a heat on to an upturned bucket
that stood by. Whereat the puppy, emboldened by his foe's retreat,
advanced savagely to the attack, buzzing round the slippery pail like a
wasp on a windowpane, in a vain attempt to reach the old man.

Tammas stood on the top, hitching his trousers and looking down on his
assailant, the picture of mortal fear.

"'Elp! Oh, 'elp!" he bawled. "Send for the sogers! Fetch the p'lice!
For lawk-amussy's sake call him off, man!" Even Sam'l Todd, watching
the scene from the cart-shed, was tickled and burst into a loud guffaw,
heartily backed by 'Enry and oor Job. While M'Adam remarked: "Ye're
fitter for a stage than a stable-bucket, Mr. Thornton."

"How didst come by him?" asked Tammas, nodding at the puppy.

"Found him," the little man replied, sucking his twig. "Found him in
ma stockin' on ma birthday. A present from ma leetle David for his auld
dad, I doot."

"So do I," said Tammas, and was seized with sudden spasm of seemingly
causeless merriment. For looking up as M'Adam was speaking, he had
caught a glimpse of a boy's fair head, peering cautiously round the
cow-shed, and, behind, the flutter of short petticoats. They disappeared
as silently as they had come; and two small figures, just returned from
school, glided away and sought shelter in the friendly darkness of a
coal-hole.

"Coom awa', Maggie, coom awa'! 'Tis th' owd un, 'isself," whispered a
disrespectful voice.

M'Adam looked round suspiciously.

"What's that?" he asked sharply.

At the moment, however, Mrs. Moore put her head out of the kitchen
window.

"Coom thy ways in, Mister M'Adam, and tak' a soop o' tea," she called
hospitably.

"Thank ye kindly, Mrs. Moore, I will," he answered, politely for him.
And this one good thing must be allowed of Adam M'Adam: that, if there
was only one woman of whom he was ever known to speak well, there was
also only one, in the whole course of his life, against whom he ever
insinuated evil--and that was years afterward, when men said his brain
was sapped. Flouts and jeers he had for every man, but a woman, good or
bad, was sacred to him. For the sex that had given him his mother and
his wife he had that sentiment of tender reverence which, if a man still
preserve, he cannot be altogether bad. As he turned into the house he
looked back at Red Wull.

"Ay, we may leave him," he said. "That is, gin ye're no afraid, Mr.
Thor