Once Sam'l Todd caught the little man fairly, skulking away in the woodshed. Sam'l took him up bodily and carried him down the slope to the Wastrel, shaking him gently as he went.
Across the stream he put him on his feet.
"If I catches yo' cadgerin' aroun' the farm agin, little mon," he admonished, holding up a warning finger; "I'll tak' yo' and drap yo' in t' Sheep-wash, I warn yo' fair. I'd ha' done it noo an' yo'd bin a bigger and a younger mon. But theer! yo'm sic a scrappety bit. Noo, nfl whoam." And the little man slunk silently away.
For a time he appeared there no more. Then, one evening when it was almost dark, James Moore, going the round of the outbuildings, felt Owd Bob stiffen against his side.
and, dropping his hand on the old dog's neck felt a ruff of rising hair beneath it.
"Steady, lad, steady," he whispered; "what is 't?" He peered forward into the gloom; and at length discerned a little familiar figure huddled away in the crevice between two stacks.
"It's yo, is it, M'Adam?" he said, and, bending, seized a wisp of Owd Bob's coat in a grip like a vice.
Then, in a great voice, moved to rare anger. "Oot o' this afore I do ye a hurt, ye meeserable spyin' creeturt" he roared. "Yo' mun wait. till dark cooms to hide yo', yo' coward, afore yo daur coom crawlin' aboot ma hoose, frightenin' the women-folk and up to yer devilments. If yo've owt to say to me, coom like a mon in the open day. Noo git aff wi' yo', afore I lay hands to yo'!"
