"You mind yer letters and yer wires, Mr. Poacher-Postman. Ay, I
saw 'em baith: th' am doon by the Haughs, t'ither in the Bottom.
And there's Wullie, the humorsome chiel, havin' a rare game wi'
Betsy." There, indeed, lay the faithful Betsy, suppliant on her back,
paws up, throat exposed, while Red Wull, now a great-grown
puppy, stood over her, his habitually evil expression intensified
into a fiendish grin, as with wrinkled muzzle and savage wheeze
he waited for a movement as a pretext to pin: "Wullie, let the leddy
be--ye've had yer dinner."

Parson Leggy was the other would-be mediator; for he hated to see
the two principal parishioners of his tiny cure at enmity. First he
tackled James Moore on the subject; but that laconic person cut
him short with, "I've nowt agin the little mon," and would say no
more. And, indeed, the quarrel was none of his making.

Of the parson's interview with M'Adam, it is .enough to say here
that, in the end, the angry old minister would of a surety have
assaulted his mocking adversary had not Cyril Gilbraith forcibly
withheld him.

And after that the vendetta must take its course unchecked.

David was now the only link between the two farms. Despite his
father's angry commands, the boy clung to his intimacy with the
Moores with a doggedness that no thrashing could overcome. Not
a minute of the day when out of school, holidays and Sundays
included, but was passed at Kenmuir. it was not till late at night
that he would sneak back to the Grange, and creep quietly up to his