*N.B.--You may see the dent in the Cup's white sides to this day. * * * * * When, late that night, M'Adam returned home, the Cup was gone. Down on his hands and knees he traced out its path, plain to see, where it had rolled along the dusty floor. Beyond that there was no sign. At first he was too much overcome to speak. Then he raved round the room like a derelict ship, Red Wull following uneasily behind. He cursed; he blasphemed; he screamed and beat the walls with feverish hands. A stranger, passing, might well have thought this was a private Bedlam. At last, exhausted, he sat down and cried. “It's David, Wullie, ye may depend; David that's robbed his father's hoose. Oh, it's a grand thing to ha' a dutiful son!”--and he bowed his gray head in his hands. David, indeed, it was. He had come back to the Grange during his father's absence, and, taking the Cup from its grimy bed, had marched it away to its rightful home. For that evening at Kenmuir, James Moore had said to him: “David, your father's not sent the Cup. I shall come and fetch it to-morrow.” And David knew he meant it. Therefore, in order to save a collision between his father and his friend--a collision the issue of which he dared hardly contemplate, knowing, as he did, the unalterable determination of the one and the lunatic passion of the other--the boy had resolved to fetch the Cup himself, then and there, in the teeth, if needs be, of his father and the Tailless Tyke. And he had done it. When he reached home that night he marched, contrary to his wont, straight into the kitchen. There sat his father facing the door, awaiting him, his hands upon his knees. For once the little man was alone; and David, brave though he was, thanked heaven devoutly that Red Wull was elsewhere. For a while father and son kept silence, watching one another like two fencers. “'Twas you as took ma Cup?” asked the little man at last, leaning forward in his chair. “'Twas me as took Mr. Moore's Cup,” the boy replied. “I thowt yo' mun ha' done wi' it--I found it all bashed upon the floor.” “You took it--pit up to it, nae doot, by James Moore.” David made a gesture of dissent. “Ay, by James Moore,” his father continued. “He dursena come hissel' for his ill-gotten spoils, so he sent the son to rob the father. The coward!”--his whole frame shook with passion. “I'd ha' thocht James Moore'd ha' bin man enough to come himself for what he wanted. I see noo I did him a wrang--I misjudged him. I kent him a heepocrite; ain o' yer unco gudes; a man as looks one thing, says anither, and does a third; and noo I ken he's a coward. He's fear'd o' me, sic as I am, five foot twa in ma stockin's.” He rose from his chair and drew himself up to his full height. “Mr. Moore had nowt to do wi' it,” David persisted. “Ye're lyin'. James Moore pit ye to it.” “I tell yo' he did not.”