In an instant the little man ceased his fooling. "And why that?" he asked, following down the hill.
"I'll tell yo'. When I wak' this mornin' I walked to the window, and what d'yo' think I see? Why, your Wullie gollopin' like a good tin up from the Bottom, all foamin', too, and red-splashed, as if he'd coom from the Screes. What had he bin up to, I'd like to know?"
"What should he be doin'," the little man replied, "but havin' an eye to the stock? and that when the Killer might be oot."
"Ay, the Killer was oot, I'll go bail, and yo' may hear o't afore the evenin', ma man," and 'with that he turned away again.
As he had foreseen, David found Maggie alone. But in the heat of his indignation against his father he seemed to have forgotten his original intent, and instead poured his latest troubles into the girl's sympathetic ear.
"There's but one mon in the world he wishes worse nor me," he was saying. It was late in the afternoon, and he was still inveighing against his father and his fate. Maggie sat in her father's chair by the fire, knitting; while he lounged on the kitchen table, swinging his long legs.
"And who may that be?" the girl asked.
"Why, Mr. Moore, to be sure, and Th' Owd Un, too. He'd do either o' them a mischief if he could."
