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IN no part of Edinburgh did summer come up earlier, or with
more lavish bloom, than in old Greyfriars kirkyard. Sheltered on the north
and east, it was open to the moist breezes of the southwest, and during all
the lengthening afternoons the sun lay down its slope and warmed the rear
windows of the overlooking tenements. Before the end of May the caretaker
had much ado to keep the growth in order. Vines threatened to engulf the
circling street of sepulchers in greenery and bloom, and grass to encroach
on the flower plots.
A half century ago there were no rotary lawn-mowers to cut off clover heads;
and, if there had been, one could not have been used on these dropping
terraces, so populous with slabs and so closely set with turfed mounds and
oblongs of early flowering annuals and bedding plants. Mr. Brown had to get
down on his hands and knees, with gardener’s shears, to clip the turfed
borders and banks, and take a sickle to the hummocks. Thus he could dig out
a root of dandelion with the trowel kept ever in his belt, consider the
spreading crocuses and valley lilies, whether to spare them, give a country
violet its blossoming time, and leave a screening burdock undisturbed until
fledglings were out of their nests in the shrubbery.
Mistress Jeanie often brought out a little old* milking-stool on balmy
mornings, and sat with? knitting or mending in one of the narrow aisles,, to
advise her gude-mon in small matters. Bobby trotted quietly about, sniffing
at everything with the liveliest interest, head on this side or that,
alertly. His business, learned in his first summer in Greyfriars, was to
guard the nests of foolish skylarks, song-thrushes, redbreasts and wrens,
that built low in lilac, laburnum, and flowering currant bushes, in crannies
of wall and vault, and on the ground. It cannot but be a pleasant thing to
be a wee young dog, full of life and good intentions, and to play one’s
dramatic part in making an old garden of souls tuneful with bird song. A cry
of alarm from parent or nestling was answered instantly by the tiny, tousled
policeman, and there was a prowler the less, or a skulking cat was sent
flying over tomb and wall.
His duty done, without noise or waste of energy, Bobby returned to lie in
the sun on Auld Jock’s grave. Over this beloved mound a coverlet of rustic
turf had been spread as soon as the frost was out of the ground, and a bonny
briar just planted at the head. Then it bore nature's own tribute of
flowers, for violets, buttercups, daisies and clover blossoms opened there
and, later, a spike or so of wild foxglove and a knot of heather. Robin
redbreasts and wrens foraged around Bobby, unafraid; swallows swooped down
from their mud villages, under the dizzy dormers and gables, to flush the
flies on his muzzle, and whole flocks of little blue titmice fluttered just
overhead, in their rovings from holly and laurel to newly tasseled firs and
yew-trees.
The click of the wicket gate was another sort of alarm altogether. At that
the little dog slipped under the fallen table-tomb and lay hidden there
until any strange visitor had taken himself away. Except for two more forced
returns and ingenious escapes from the sheep-farm on the Pentlands, Bobby
had lived in the kirkyard undisturbed for six months. The caretaker had
neither the heart to put him out nor the courage to face the minister and
the kirk officers with a plea for him to remain. The little dog's presence
there was known, apparently, only to Mr. Traill, to a few of the tenement
dwellers, and to the Heriot boys. If his life was clandestine in a way, it
was as regular of hour and duty and as well ordered as that of the garrison
in the Castle.
When the time-gun boomed, Bobby was let out for his midday meal at Mr.
Traill’s and for a noisy run about the neighborhood to exercise his lungs
and legs. On Wednesdays he haunted the Grassmarket, sniffing at horses,
carts and mired boots. Edinburgh had so many shaggy little Skye and Scotch
terriers that one more could go about unremarked. Bobby returned to the
kirkyard at his own good pleasure. In the evening he was given a supper of
porridge and broo, or milk, at the kitchen door of the lodge, and the nights
he spent on Auld Jock’s grave. The morning drum and bugle woke him to the
chase, and all his other hours were spent in close attendance on the labors
of the caretaker. The click of the wicket gate was the signal for instant
disappearance.
A scramble up the wall from Heriot’s Hospital grounds, or the patter of bare
feet on the gravel, however, was notice to come out and greet a friend.
Bobby was host to the disinherited children of the tenements. Now, at the
tap-tap-tapping of Tammy Barr’s crutches, he scampered up the slope, and he
suited his pace to the crippled boy's in coming down again. Tammy chose a
heap of cut grass on which to sit enthroned and play king, a grand new
crutch for a scepter, and Bobby for a courtier. At command, the little dog
rolled over and over, begged, and walked on his hind legs. He even permitted
a pair of thin little arms to come near strangling him, in an excess of
affection. Then he wagged his tail and lolled his tongue to show that he was
friendly, and trotted away about his business. Tammy took an oat-cake from
his pocket to nibble, and began a conversation with Mistress Jeanie.
“I broucht a picnic wi' me.”
“Did ye, noo? An’ hoo did ye ken aboot picnics, laddie?”
“Maister Traill was tellin’ Ailie an’ me. There’s ilka thing to mak’ a
picnic i’ the kirk-yaird. They couldna mak’ my legs gude i’ the infairmary,
but I’m gangin’ to Heriot’s. I’ll juist hae to aim ma leevin’ wi’ ma heid,
an’ no* remember aboot ma legs, ava. Is he no’ a bonny doggie?”
“Ay, he’s bonny. An* ye’re a braw laddie no’ to fash yersel’ aboot what
canna be helped.”
The wifie took his ragged jacket and mended it, dropped a tear in an
impossible hole, and a ha’penny in the one good pocket. And by and by the
pale laddie slept there among the bright graves, in the sun. After another
false alarm from the gate she asked her gude-mon, as she had asked many
times before:
“What’ll ye do, Jamie, when the meenister kens aboot Bobby, an' ca’s ye up
afore kirk sessions for brakin’ the rule?”
“We wullna cross the brig till we come to the bum, woman,” he invariably
answered, with assumed unconcern. Well he knew that the bridge might be down
and the stream in flood when he came to it. But Mr. Traill was a member of
Greyfriars auld kirk, too, and a companion in guilt, and Mr. Brown relied
not a little on the landlord’s fertile mind and daring tongue. And he relied
on useful, well-behaving Bobby to plead his own cause.
“There’s nae denyin’ the doggie is takin’ in ’is ways. He’s had twa gude
hames fair thrown at 'is heid, but the sperity bit keeps to ’is ain mind.
An1 syne he’s usefu’, an’ hauds ’is gab by the ordinar’.” He often
reinforced his inclination with some such argument.
With all their caution, discovery was always imminent. The kirkyard was long
and narrow and on rising levels, and it was cut almost across by the low
mass of the two kirks, so that many things might be going on at one end that
could not be seen from the other. On this Saturday
noon, when the Heriot boys were let out for the half-holiday, Mr. Brown kept
an eye on them until those who lived outside had dispersed. When Mistress
Jeanie tucked her knitting-needles in her belt, and went up to the lodge to
put the dinner over the fire, the caretaker went down toward Candlemakers
Row to trim the grass about the martyrs' monument. Bobby dutifully trotted
at his heels. Almost immediately a half-dozen laddies, led by Geordie Ross
and Sandy McGregor, scaled the wall from Heriot’s grounds and stepped down
into the kirkyard, that lay piled within nearly to the top. They had a
perfectly legitimate errand there, but no mission is to be approached
directly by romantic boyhood.
“Hist!” was the warning, and the innocent invaders, feeling delightfully
lawless, stole over and stormed the marble castle, where “Bluidy ” McKenzie
slept uneasily against judgment day. Light-hearted lads can do daring deeds
on a sunny day that would freeze their blood on a dark and stormy night. So
now Geordie climbed nonchalantly to a seat over the old persecutor, crossed
his stout, bare legs, filled an imaginary pipe, and rattled the three
farthings in his pockets
“I'm ‘Jinglin' Geordie’ Heriot,” he announced/
“I’ll show ye hoo a prood goldsmith ance smoked wi’ a king.”
Then, jauntily: * ‘ Sandy, gie a crack to 4 Bluidy' McKenzie’s door an’ daur
the auld homie to come oot.”
The deed was done amid breathless apprehensions, but nothing disturbed the
silence of the May noon except the lark that sprang at their feet and soared
singing into the blue. It was Sandy who presently whistled like a blackbird
to attract the attention of Bobby.
There were no blackbirds in the kirkyard, and Bobby understood the signal.
He scampered up at once and dashed around the kirk, all excitement, for he
had had many adventures with the Heriot boys at skating and hockey on
Duddings-ton Lock in the winter, and tramps over the country and out to
Leith harbor in the spring. The laddies prowled along the upper wall of the
kirks, opened and shut the wicket, to give the caretaker the idea that they
had come in decorously by the gate, and went down to ask him, with due
respect and humility, if they could take Bobby out for the afternoon. They
were going to mark the places where wild flowers might be had, to decorate
“Jinglin’ Geordie’s” portrait, statue and tomb at the school on Founder’s
Day.
Mr. Brown considered them with a glower that made the boys nudge each other
knowingly. “Saturday isna the day for ’im to be gaen aboot*. He aye has a
washin’ an’ a groomin’ to mak* ’im fit for the Sabbath. An’, by the leuk o’
ye ye’d be nane the waur for soap an’ water yei ainsel’s.”
“We’ll gie ’im ’is washin' an’ combin’ the nicht,” they volunteered,
eagerly.
“Weel, noo, he wullna hae ’is dinner till the time-gun.”
Neither would they. At that, annoyed by their persistence, Mr. Brown denied
authority.
“Ye ken weel he isna ma dog. Ye’ll hae to gang up an’ spier Maister Traill.
He’s fair daft aboot the gude-for-naethin’ tyke.”
This was understood as permission. As the boys ran up to the gate, with
Bobby at their heels, Mr. Brown called after them: “Ye fetch ’im hame wi’
the sunset bugle, an’ gin ye teach ’im ony o’ yer unmannerly ways I’ll tak’
a stick to yer breeks.”
When they returned to Mr. Traill’s place at two o’clock the landlord stood
in shirt-sleeves and apron in the open doorway with Bobby, the little dog
gripping a mutton shank in his mouth.
“Bobby must tak’ his bone down first and hide it awa’. The Sabbath in a
kirkyard is a dull day for a wee dog, so he aye gets a catechism of a bone
to mumble over.”
The landlord sighed in open envy when the laddies and the little dog tumbled
down the Row to the Grassmarket on their gypsying. His eyes sought out the
glimpse of green country on the dome of Arthur’s Seat, that loomed beyond
the University towers to the east. There are times when the heart of a boy
goes ill with the sordid duties of the man.
Straight down the length of the empty market the laddies ran, through the
crooked, fascinating haunt of horses and jockeys in the street of King’s
Stables, then northward along the fronts of quaint little handicrafts shops
that skirted Castle Crag. By turning westward into Queens-ferry Street a
very few minutes would have brought them to a bit of buried country. But
every expedition of Edinburgh lads of spirit of that day was properly begun
with challenges to scale Castle Rock from the valley park of Princes Street
Gardens on the north.
“I daur ye to gang up!” was all that was necessary to set any group of
youngsters to scaling the precipice. By every tree and ledge, by every
cranny and point of rock, stoutly rooted hazel and thorn bush and clump of
gorse, they climbed. These laddies went up a quarter or a third of the way
to the grim ramparts and cama cautiously down again. Bobby scrambled higher,
tumbled back more recklessly and fell, head ovef heels and upside down, on
the daisied turf. He righted himself at once, and yelped in sharp protest.
Then he sniffed and busied himself with pretenses, in the elaborate
unconcern with which a little dog denies anything discreditable. There were
legends of daring youth having climbed this war-like cliff and laying hands
on the fortress wall, but Geordie expressed a popular feeling in declaring
these tales “a* lees.”
“No' ony laddie could gang a* the way up an’ come doon wi' ’is heid no’
broken. Bobby couldna do it, an’ he’s mair like a wild fox than an ordinar*
dog. Noo, we’re the Light Brigade at Balaklava. Chairge!”
The Crimean War was then a recent event. Heroes of Sebastopol answered the
summons of drum and bugle in the Castle and fired the hearts of Edinburgh
youth. Cannon all around them, and “theirs not to reason why,” this little
band stormed out Queensferry Street and went down, hand under hand, into the
fairy underworld of Leith Water.
All its short way down from the Pentlands to the sea, the Water of Leith was
then a foaming little river of mills, twisting at the bottom of gorge. One
cliff-like wall or the other lay to the sun all day, so that the way was
lined with a profusion of every, wild thing that turns green and blooms in
the Lowlands of Scotland. And it was filled to the brim with bird song and
water babble.
A crowd of laddies had only to go inland up this gorge to find wild and tame
bloom enough to bury “Jinglin' Geordie” all over again every year. But
adventure was to be had in greater variety by dropping seaward with the
bickering, brown water. These waded along the shallow margin, walked on
shelving sands of gold, and, where the channel was filled, they clung to the
rocks and picked their way along dripping ledges. Bobby missed no chance to
swim. If he could scramble over rough ground like a squirrel or a fox, he
could swim like an otter. Swept over the low dam at Dean village, where a
cup-like valley was formed, he tumbled over and over in the spray and was
all but drowned. As soon as he got his breath and his bearings he struck out
frantically for the bank, shook the foam from his eyes and ears, and barked
indignantly at the saucy fall. The white miller in the doorway of the
gray-stone, red-roofed mill laughed, and anxious children ran down from a
knot of storybook cottages and gay dooryards.
“I'll gie ye ten shullin's for the sperity bit dog,” the miller shouted,
above the clatter of the wheel and the swish of the dam.
“He isna oor ain dog,” Geordie called back. “But he wullna droon. He's got a
gude heid to 'im, an' wullna be sic a bittie fule anither time.” Indeed he
had a good head on him! Bobby never needed a second lesson. At Silver Mills
and Canon Mills he came out and trotted warily around the dam. Where the
gorge widened to a valley toward the sea they all climbed up to Leith Walk,
that ran to the harbor, and came out to a wonder-world of water-craft
anchored in the Firth. Each boy picked out his ship to go adventuring.
“I’m gangin' to Norway!”
Geordie was scornful. “Hoots, ye tame pussies. Ye’re fleid o' gettin’ yer
feet wat. I’ll be rinnin’ aff to be a pirate. Come awa' doon.” They followed
the leader along shore and boarded an abandoned and evil-smelling
fishing-boat. There they ran up a ragged jacket for a black flag. But
sailing a stranded craft palled presently.
“Nae, I'm gangin' to be a Crusoe. Preserve me! If there’s no' a futprint i'
the sand! Bobby's ma sma* man Friday.”
Away they ran southward to find a castaway’s shelter in a hollow on the golf
links. Soon this was transformed into a wrecker's den, and then into the
hiding-place of a harried Covenanter fleeing religions persecution. Daring
things to do swarmed in upon their minds, for Edinburgh laddies live in a
city of romantic history, of soldiers, of near-by mountains, and of sea-rovings.
No adventure served them five minutes, and Bobby was in every one. Ah, lucky
Bobby, to have such gay playfellows on a sunny afternoon and under foot the
open country!
And fortunate laddies to have such a merry rascal of a wee dog with them! To
the mile they ran, Bobby went five, scampering in wide circles and barking
and louping at butterflies and whaups. He made a detour to the right to yelp
saucily at the red-coated sentry who paced before the Gothic gateway to the
deserted Palace of Holyrood, and as far to the left to harry the hoofs of a
regiment of cavalry drilling before the barracks at Piershill. He raced on
ahead and swam out to scatter the fleet of swan sailing on the blue mirror
of Duddingston Loch.
The tired boys lay blissfully up the sunny side of Arthur's Seat in a
thicket of hazel while Geordie carried out a daring plan for which privacy
was needed. Bobby was solemnly arraigned before a court on the charge of
being a seditious Covenanting meenister, and was required to take the oath
of loyalty to English King and Church on pain of being hanged in the
Grassmarket. The oath had been duly written out on paper and greased with
mutton tallow to make it more palatable. Bobby licked the fat off with
relish. Then he took the paper between his sharp little teeth and merrily
tore it to shreds. And, having finished it, he barked cheerful defiance at
the court. The lads came near rolling down the slope with laughter, and they
gave three cheers for the little hero. Sandy remarked:
“Ye wadna think, noo, sic a sonsie doggie wad be leevin’ i' the murky auld
kirkyaird.”
Bobby had learned the lay of the tipped-up and scooped-out and jumbled auld
toon, and he led the way homeward along the southern outskirts of the city.
He turned up Nicolson Street, that ran northward, past the University and
the old infirmary. To get into Greyfriars Place from the east at that time
one had to descend to the Cowgate and climb out again. Bobby darted down the
first of the narrow wynds.
Suddenly he turned ’round and 'round in bewilderment, then shot through a
sculptured doorway, into a well-like court, and up a flight of stone stairs.
The slamming of a shutter overhead shocked him to a standstill on the
landing and sent him dropping slowly down again. What memories surged back
to his little brain, what grief gripped his heart, as he stood trembling on
a certain spot in the pavement where once a long deal box had rested!
“What ails the bittie dog?” There was something here that sobered the
thoughtless boys.
Come awa’, Bobby!’
At that he came obediently enough. But he trotted down the very middle of
the wynd, head and tail low, and turned unheeding into the Saturday-evening
roar of the Cowgate. He refused to follow them up the rise between St.
Magdalen’s Chapel and the eastern parapet of the bridge, but kept to his way
under the middle arch into the Grassmarket. By way of Candle-makers Row he
gained the kirkyard gate, and when the wicket was opened he disappeared
around the church. When Bobby failed to answer calls, Mr. Brown grumbled,
but went after him. The little dog submitted to his vigorous scrubbing and
grooming, but he refused his supper. Without a look or a wag of the tail he
was gone again.
“Noo, what hae ye done to ’im? He’s no’ like 'is ainser ava.”
They had done nothing, indeed. They could only relate Bobby’s strange
behavior in College Wynd and the rest of the way home. Mistress Jeanie
nodded her head, with the wisdom of women that is of the heart.
“Eh, Jamie, that wad be whaur 'is maister deed sax months syne." And having
said it she slipped down the slope with her knitting and sat on the mound
beside the mourning little dog.
When the awe-struck lads, asked for the story Mr. Brown shook his head. “Ye
spier Maister Traill. He kens a' aboot it; an' syne he can talk like a beuk."
Before they left the kirkyard the laddies walked down to Auld Jock's grave
and patted Bobby on the head, and they went away thoughtfully to their
scattered homes.
As on that first morning when his grief was new, Bobby woke to a Calvinistic
Sabbath. There were no rattling carts or hawkers crying their wares. Steeped
in sunshine, the Castle loomed golden into the blue. Tenement dwellers slept
late, and then moved about quietly. Children with unwontedly clean faces
came out to galleries and stairs to study their catechisms. Only the birds
were unaware of the seventh day, and went about their melodious business;
and flower buds opened to the sun.
In mid-morning there suddenly broke on the sweet stillness that clamor of
discordant bells that made the wayfarer in Edinburgh stop his ears. All the
way from Leith Harbor to the Burghmuir eight score of warring bells
contended to be heard. Greyfriars alone was silent in that babblement, for
it had lost tower and bell in an explosion of gunpowder. And when the din
ceased at last there was a sound o> military music. The Castle gates swung
w^e, and a kilted regiment marched down High Street playing “God Save the
Queen.” When Bobby was in good spirits the marching music got into his legs
and set him to dancing scandalously. The caretaker and his wifie always came
around the kirk on pleasant mornings to see the bonny sight of the gay
soldiers going to church.
To wee Bobby these good, comfortable, everyday friends of his must have
seemed strange in their black garments and their serious Sunday faces. And,
ah! the Sabbath must, indeed, have been a dull day to the little dog. He had
learned that when the earliest comer clicked the wicket he must go under the
table-tomb and console himself with the extra bone that Mr. Traill never
failed to remember. With an hour's respite for dinner at the lodge, between
the morning and afternoon services, he lay there all day. The restaurant was
closed, and there was no running about for good dogs. In the early dark of
wintef he could come out and trot quietly about tho silent, deserted place.
As soon as the crocuses pushed their green noses through the earth in the
spring the congregation began to linger among the graves, for to see aii.
old burying-ground renew its life is a peculiar promise of the resurrection.
By midsummer visitors were coming from afar, some even from over-sea, to
read the quaint inscription on the old tombs, or to lay tributes of flowers
on the graves of poets and religious heroes. It was not until the late end
of such a day that Bobby could come out of hiding to stretch his cramped
legs. Then it was that tenement children dropped from low windows, over the
tombs, and ate their suppers of oat-cake there in the fading light.
When Mr. Traill left the kirkyard in the bright evening of the last Sunday
in May he stopped without to wait for Dr. Lee, the minister of Greyfriars
auld kirk, who had been behind him to the gate. Now he was nowhere to be
seen. With Bobby ever in the background of his mind, at such times of
possible discovery, Mr. Traill reentered the kirkyard. The minister was
sitting on the fallen slab, tall silk hat off, with Mr. Brown standing
beside him, uncovered and miserable of aspect, and Bobby looking up
anxiously at this new element in his fate.
“Do you think it seemly for a dog to be living in the churchyard, Mr.
Brown?" The minister's voice was merely kind and inquiring, but the
caretaker was in fault, and this good English was disconcerting. However,
his conscience acquitted him of moral wrong, and his sturdy Scotch
independence came to the rescue.
“Gin a bit dog, wha hauds 'is gab, isna seemly, thae pussies are the deil’s
ain bairns."
The minister lifted his hand in rebuke. “Remember the Sabbath Day. And I see
no cats, Mr. Brown."
“Ye wullna see ony as lang as the wee doggie is leevin' i' the kirkyaird.
An’ the vermin hae sneekit awa' the first time sin' Queen Mary's day. An'
syne there's mair singin' birdies than for mony a year."
Mr. Traill had listened, unseen. Now he came forward with a gay challenge in
broad Scotch to put the all but routed caretaker at his case.
“Doctor, I hae a queistion to spier ye. Which is mair unseemly: a
weel-behavin' bittie tyke i' the kirkyaird or a scandalous organ i' the kirk?"
“Ah, Mr. Traill, I'm afraid you're a sad, irreverent young dog yourself,
sir." The minister broke into a genial laugh. "Man, you've spoiled a bit of
fun I was having with Mr. Brown, who takes his duties ‘sairiously.’ ” He sat
looking down at the little dog until Bobby came up to him and stood
confidingly under his caressing hand. Then he added: “I have suspected for
some months that he was living in the churchyard. It is truly remarkable
that an active, noisy little Skye could keep so still about it.” At that Mr.
Brown retreated to the martyrs’ monument to meditate on the unministerial
behavior of this minister and professor of Biblical criticism in the
University. Mr. Traill, however, sat himself down on the slab for a pleasant
probing into the soul of this courageous dominie, who had long been under
fire for his innovations in the kirk services.
"I heard of Bobby first early in the winter, from a Bible-reader at the
Medical Mission in the Cowgate, who saw the little dog’s master buried. He
sees many strange, sad things in his work, but nothing ever shocked him so
as the lonely death of that pious old shepherd in such a picturesque den of
vice and misery.”
“Ay, he went from my place, fair ill, into the storm. I never knew whaur the
auld man died.” The minister looked at Mr. Traill, struck by the note of
remorse in his tone.
“The missionary returned to the churchyard to look for the dog that had
refused to leave the grave. He concluded that Bobby had gone away to a new
home and master, as most dogs do go sooner or later. Some weeks afterward
the minister of a small church in the hills inquired for him and insisted
that he was still here. This last week, at the General Assembly, I heard of
the wee Highlander from several sources. The tales of his escapes from the
sheep-farm have grown into a sort of Odyssey of the Pentlands. I think,
perhaps, if you had not continued to feed him, Mr. Traill, he might have
remained at his old home.
“Nae, I’m no’ thinking so, and I was no’ willing to risk the starvation of
the bonny, leal Highlander.”
Until the stars came out Mr. Traill sat there telling the story. At mention
of his master’s name Bobby returned to the mound and stretched himself
across it. “I will go before the kirk officers, Doctor Lee, and tak’ full
responseebility. Mr. Brown is no’ to blame. It would have tak’n a man with a
heart of trap-rock to have turned the woeful bit dog out.”
“He is well cared for and is of a hardy breed, so he is not likely to
suffer; but a dog, no more than a man, cannot live on bread alone. His heart
hungers for love.”
“Loshf” cried Mr. Brown. “Are ye thinkm* he isna gettin’ it ? Oor bairns are
a' oot o* the hame nest, an* ma woman, Jeanie, is fair daft aboot Bobby, aye
thinkin’ he’ll tak' the measles. An1 syne, there’s a* the tenement bairns
cry in’ oot on ’im ilka meenit, an’ ane crippled laddie he e’en lets fondle
’im.”
“Still, it would be better if he belonged to some one master. Everybody’s
dog is nobody’s dog,” the minister insisted. “I wish you could attach him to
you, Mr. Traill.”
“Ay, it’s a disappointment to me that he’ll no* bide with me. Perhaps, in
time—”
“It’s nae use, ava,” Mr. Brown interrupted, and he related the incident of
the evening before. “He’s cheerfu’ eneugh maist o’ the time, an’ likes to be
wi’ the laddies as weel as ony dog, but he isna forgettin’ Auld Jock. The
wee doggie cam’ again to ’is maister’s buryin’. Man, ye ne’er saw the like
o’ it. The wifie found ’im flattened oot to a furry door-mat, an’ greetin’
to brak ’is heart.”
“It’s a remarkable story; and he’s a beautiful little dog, and a leal one.”
The minister stooped and patted Bobby, and he was thoughtful all the way to
the gate.
“The matter need not be brought up in any formal way. I will speak to the
elders and deacons about it privately, and refer those wanting details to
you, Mr. Traill. Mr. Brown,'1 he called to the caretaker who stood in the
lodge door, “it cannot be pleasing to God to see the little creature
restraint Give Bobby his liberty on the Sabbath." |
