life; and it came quite as a revelation to happen upon them in some
quiet spot of nights, playing together, each wrapped in the game,
innocent, tender, forgetful of the hostile world.

The two were never separated except only when M'Adam came
home by the path across Kenmuir. After that first misadventure he
never allowed his friend to accompany him on the journey through
the enemy's country; for well he knew that sheep-dogs have long
memories.

To the stile in the lane, then, Red Wull would follow him. There
he would stand, his great head poked through the bars, watching
his master out of sight; and then would turn and trot, self-reliant
and defiant, sturdy and surly, down the very centre of the road
through the village--no playing, no enticing away, and woe to that
man or dog who tried to stay him in his course! And so on, past
Mother Ross's shop, past the Sylvester Arms, to the right by
Kirby's smithy, over the Wastrel by the Haughs, to await his master
at the edge of the Stony Bottom.

The little man, when thus crossing Ken-muir, often met Owd Bob,
who had the free run of the farm. On these occasions he passed
discreetly by; for, though he was no coward, yet it is bad,
single-handed, to attack a Gray Dog of Kenmuir; while the dog
trotted soberly on his way, only a steely glint in the big gray eyes
betraying his knowledge of the presence of his foe. As surely,
however, as the little man, in his desire to spy out the nakedness of
the land, strayed off the public path, so surely a gray figure,
seeming to spring from out the blue, would come fiercely, silently
driving down on him; and he would turn and run for his life, amid