"What'll ye gie 'im, Jeanie? At the laird's, noo, the terriers were aye fed wi' bits o' livers an' cheese an' moor fowls' eggs, an' sic-like, fried.""Havers, Jamie, it's no' releegious to feed a dog better than puir bairns.He'll do fair weel wi' table-scraps."She set down a plate with a spoonful of porridge on it, a cold potato, some bread crusts, and the leavings of a broiled caller herrin'.It was a generous breakfast for so small a dog, but Bobby had been without food for quite forty hours, and had done an amazing amount of work in the meantime.When he had eaten all of it, he was still hungry.As a polite hint, he polished the empty plate with his pink tongue and looked up expectantly; but the best-intentioned people, if they have had little to do with dogs, cannot read such signs.
"Ye needna lick the posies aff," the wifie said, good humoredly, as she picked the plate up to wash it.She thought to put down a tin basin of water.Bobby lapped a' it so eagerly, yet so daintily, that she added: "He's a weel-broucht-up tyke, Jamie.""He is so.Noo, we'll see hoo weel he can leuk." In a shamefaced way he fetched from a tool-box a long-forgotten, strong little currycomb, such as is used on shaggy Shetland ponies.With that he proceeded to give Bobby such a grooming as he had never had before.It was a painful operation, for his thatch was a stubborn mat of crisp waves and knotty tangles to his plumy tail and down to his feathered toes.He braced himself and took the punishment without a whimper, and when it was done he stood cascaded with dark-silver ripples nearly to the floor.
"The bonny wee!" cried Mistress Jeanie."I canna tak' ma twa een aff o' 'im.""Ay, he's bonny by the ordinar'.It wad be grand, noo, gin the meenister'd fancy 'im an' tak' 'im into the manse."The wifie considered this ruefully."Jamie, I was wishin' ye didna hae to--"But what she wished he did not have to do, Mr.Brown did not stop to hear.He suddenly clapped his bonnet on his head and went out.
He had an urgent errand on High Street, to buy grass and flower seeds and tools that would certainly be needed in April.It took him an hour or more of shrewd looking about for the best bargains, in a swarm of little barnacle and cellar shops, to spend a few of the kirk's shillings.When he found himself, to his disgust, looking at a nail studded collar for a little dog he called himself a "doited auld fule," and tramped back across the bridge.
At the kirkyard gate he stopped and read the notice through twice: "No dogs permitted." That was as plain as "Thou shalt not." To the pious caretaker and trained servant it was the eleventh commandment.He shook his head, sighed, and went in to dinner.Bobby was not in the house, and the master of it avoided inquiring for him.He also avoided the wifie's wistful eye, and he busied himself inside the two kirks all the afternoon.
Because he was in the kirks, and the beautiful memorial windows of stained glass were not for the purpose of looking out, he did not see a dramatic incident that occurred in the kirkyard after three o'clock in the afternoon.The prelude to it really began with the report of the timegun at one.Bobby had insisted upon being let out of the lodge kitchen, and had spent the morning near Auld Jock's grave and in nosing about neighboring slabs and thorn bushes.When the time-gun boomed he trotted to the gate quite openly and waited there inside the wicket.
In such nipping weather there were no visitors to the kirkyard and the gate was not opened.The music bells ran the gamut of old Scotch airs and ceased, while he sat there and waited patiently.
Once a man stopped to look at the little dog, and Bobby promptly jumped on the wicket, plainly begging to have it unlatched.But the passer-by decided that some lady had left her pet behind, and would return for him.So he patted the attractive little Highlander on the head and went on about his business.
Discouraged by the unpromising outlook for dinner that day, Bobby went slowly back to the grave.Twice afterward he made hopeful pilgrimages to the gate.For diversion he fell noiselessly upon a prowling cat and chased it out of the kirkyard.At last he sat upon the table-tomb.He had escaped notice from the tenements all the morning because the view from most of the windows was blocked by washings, hung out and dripping, then freezing and clapping against the old tombs.It was half-past three o'clock when a tiny, wizened face popped out of one of the rude little windows in the decayed Cunzie Neuk at the bottom of Candlemakers Row.
Crippled Tammy Barr called out in shrill excitement"Ailie! O-o-oh, Ailie Lindsey, there's the wee doggie!""Whaur?" The lassie's elfin face looked out from a low, rear window of the Candlemakers' Guildhall at the top of the Row.
"On the stane by the kirk wa'."
"I see 'im noo.Isna he bonny? I wish Bobby could bide i' the kirkyaird, but they wadna let 'im.Tammy, gin ye tak' 'im up to Maister Traill, he'll gie ye the shullin'!""I couldna tak' 'im by ma lane," was the pathetic confession.
"Wad ye gang wi' me, Ailie? Ye could drap ower an' catch 'im, an'
I could come by the gate.Faither made me some grand crutches frae an' auld chair back."Tears suddenly drowned the lassie's blue eyes and ran down her pinched little cheeks."Nae, I couldna gang.I haena ony shoon to ma feet.""It's no' so cauld.Gin I had twa guile feet I could gang the bit way wi'oot shoon.""I ken it isna so cauld," Ailie admitted, "but for a lassie it's no' respectable to gang to a grand place barefeeted."That was undeniable, and the eager children fell silent and tearful.But oh, necessity is the mother of makeshifts among the poor! Suddenly Ailie cried: "Bide a meenit, Tammy," and vanished.
Presently she was back, with the difficulty overcome."Grannie says I can wear her shoon.She doesna wear 'em i' the hoose, ava.""I'll gie ye a saxpence, Ailie," offered Tammy.
