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Page 29
Bobby had not gone this way homeward before, and was puzzled by
the smell of prosperous little shops, and by the park-like odors
from college campuses to the east, and from the well-kept
residence park of George Square. But when the cart rattled across
Lauriston Place he picked up the familiar scents of milk and wool
from the cattle and sheep market, and then of cottage dooryards,
of turned furrows and of farmsteads.
The earth wears ever a threefold garment of beauty. The human
person usually manages to miss nearly everything but the
appearance of things. A few of us are so fortunate as to have
ears attuned to the harmonies woven on the wind by trees and
birds and water; but the tricky weft of odors that lies closest
of all, enfolding the very bosom of the earth, escapes us. A
little dog, traveling with his nose low, lives in another stratum
of the world, and experiences other pleasures than his master.
He has excitements that he does his best to share, and that send
him flying in pursuit of phantom clues.
From the top of the Burghmuir it was easy going to Bobby. The
snow had gone off in a thaw, releasing a multitude of autumnal
aromas. There was a smell of birch and beech buds sealed up in
gum, of berries clotted on the rowan-trees, and of balsam and
spice from plantations of Highland firs and larches. The babbling
water of the burn was scented with the dead bracken of glens down
which it foamed. Even the leafless hedges had their woody odors,
and stone dykes their musty smell of decaying mosses and lichens.
Bobby knew the pause at the toll-bar in the valley, and the mixed
odors of many passing horses and men, there. He knew the smells
of poultry and cheese at a dairy-farm; of hunting dogs and
riding-leathers at a sportsman's trysting inn, and of grist and
polluted water at a mill. And after passing the hilltop toll-bar
of Fairmilehead, dipping across a narrow valley and rounding the
base of a sentinel peak, many tame odors were left behind. At the
buildings of the large, scattered farms there were smells of
sheep, and dogs and barn yards. But, for the most part, after the
road began to climb over a high shoulder of the range, there was
just one wild tang of heather and gorse and fern, tingling with
salt air from the German Ocean.
When they reached Cauldbrae farm, high up on the slope, it was
entirely dark. Lights in the small, deep-set windows gave the
outlines of a low, steep-roofed, stone farm-house. Out of the
darkness a little wind blown figure of a lassie
fled down the brae to meet the cart, and an eager little voice,
as clear as a hill-bird's piping, cried out:
"Hae ye got ma ain Bobby, faither?"
"Ay, lassie, I fetched 'im hame," the farmer roared back, in his
big voice.
Then the cart was stopped for the wee maid to scramble up over a
wheel, and there were sweet little sounds of kissing and muffled
little cuddlings under the warm plaid. When these soft
endearments had been attended to there was time for another
yearning.
"May I haud wee Bobby, faither?"
"Nae, lassie, a bonny bit bairnie couldna haud 'im in 'er sma'
airms. Bobby's a' for gangin' awa' to leev in a grand kirkyaird
wi' Auld Jock."
A little gasp, and a wee sob, and an awed question: "Is gude
Auld Jock deid, daddy?"
Bobby heard it and answered with a mournful howl. The lassie
snuggled closer to the warm, beating heart, hid her eyes in the
rough plaid, and cried for Auld Jock and for the grieving little
dog.
"Niest to faither an' mither an' big brither Wattie I lo'e Auld
Jock an' Bobby." The bairnie's voice was smothered in the
plaidie. Because it was dark and none were by to see, the
reticent Scot could overflow in tender speech. His arm tightened
around this one little ewe lamb of the human fold on cold slope
farm. He comforted the child by telling her how they would mak'
it up to Bobby, and how very soon a wee dog forgets the keenest
sorrow and is happy again.
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