"Why, it's this way, I'm thinkin'," the little man replied. "Gin ye haud Shep's the guilty one I _wad_, by all manner o' means--or shootin'd be aiblins better. If not, why"--he shrugged his shoulders significantly; and having shown his hand and driven the nail well home, the little man left the meeting.
James Moore stayed to see the Parson's resolution negatived, by a large majority, and then he too quitted the hall. He had foreseen the result, and, previous to the meeting, had warned the Parson how it would be.
"Tie up!" he cried almost indignantly, as Owd Bob came galloping up to his whistle; "I think I see myself chainin' yo', owd lad, like any murderer. Why, it's yo' has kept the Killer off Kenmuir so far, I'll lay."
At the lodge-gate was M'Adam, for once without his familiar spirit, playing with the lodge-keeper's child; for the little man loved all children but his own, and was beloved of them. As the Master approached he looked up.
"Weel, Moore," he called, "and are you gaein' to tie yer dog?"
"I will if you will yours," the Master answered grimly.
"Na," the little man replied, "it's Wullie as frichts the Killer aff the Grange. That's why I've left him there noo."
"It's the same wi' me," the Master said. "He's not come to Kenmuir yet, nor he'll not so long as Th' Owd Un's loose, I reck'n."
"Loose or tied, for the matter o' that," the little man rejoined, "Kenmuir'll escape." He made the statement dogmatically, snapping his lips.
"Ha' ye no heard what they're sayin'?" the little man inquired with raised eyebrows.
"Why, that the mere repitation o' th' best sheep-dog in the North' should keep him aff. An' I guess they're reet," and he laughed shrilly as he spoke.
"Which road are ye gaein' hame?" M'Adam called after him. "Because," with a polite smile, "I'll tak' t'ither."
"I'm off by the Windy Brae," the Master answered, striding on. "Squire asked me to leave a note wi' his shepherd t'other side o' the Chair." So he headed away to the left, making for home by the route along the Silver Mere.
It is a long sweep of almost unbroken moorland, the well-called Windy Brae; sloping gently down in mile on mile of heather from the Mere Marches on the top to the fringe of the Silver Mere below. In all that waste of moor the only break is the quaint-shaped Giant's Chair, puzzle of geologists, looking as though plumped down by accident in the heathery wild. The ground rises suddenly from the uniform grade of the Brae; up it goes, ever growing steeper, until at length it runs abruptly into a sheer curtain of rock--the Fall--which rises perpendicular some forty feet, on the top of which rests that tiny grassy bowl--not twenty yards across--they call the Scoop.