The dust flew bravely from their jackets, until the noise resembled the quick, irregular beating of carpets more than anything else. But, after all, not very much harm was done, and their clothes could hardly have been damaged by half a dozen Waterloos. It was like to be a drawn battle, for neither combatant would give in. All Cleg's activity and waspishness was met and held by the country boy with dogged persistency and massive rustic strength. Cleg was lissom as a willow wand, Kit tough and sturdy as an oak bough. And if Cleg avoided the most blows, he felt more severely those which did get home. Thus, not unequally, the battle raged, till the noise of it passed all restraint. John McWalter of Loch Spellanderie was making his evening rounds. As he went into the barn he heard a tremendous disturbance at the back among his last year's corn-stacks. He listened eagerly, standing on one foot to do it. The riot was exceedingly mysterious. Very cautiously he opened the top half of the barn door and peered through. It might be an ill-set tinker come to steal corn. John McWalter had Tweed and Tyke with him, and they frisked their tails and gave each a little muffled bark to intimate that they should much like to join in the fray. John McWalter was not used to facing difficult positions on his own responsibility, so quite as cautiously he slipped back again through the barn, and crossed the yard to the house. His wife was actively engaged scolding Vara for wasting too much hot water in cleaning the supper bowls. This happened every evening, and Vara did not greatly mind. It saved her from being faulted for something new. "Ye lazy, guid-for-naething!" Mrs. McWalter was saying, "I wonder what for my daft sister at Netherby sent a useless, handless, upsetting monkey like you to a decent house—a besom that will neither work nor yet learn——" At this moment John McWalter put his head within the door. "There's twa ill-set loons killin' yin anither ahint the barn!" he said. "What's that gotten to do wi' it, guidman," replied his wife. "Guid life! Ye cry in that sudden I thought it was twa o' the kye hornin' yin anither. But what care I for loons? Juist e'en let them kill yin anither. There ower great plenty o' them aboot Loch Spellanderie at ony rate! Ill plants o' a graceless stock. Never was a McWalter yet worth his brose!" "But," said her husband, "it's Kit Kennedy fechtin' wi' a stranger loon that I never saw afore! And I dinna believe he has foddered the horse!" Mistress McWalter snatched up the poker. "Him," she cried, "the idle, regairdless hound, what can the like o' him be thinkin' aboot? I'll learn him. Gin he gets himsel' killed fechting wi' tinklers for his ain pleesure, wha is to look the sheep and bring in the kye in the mornin'? And the morn kirnin' day too!"