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Page 33
Straight as an arrow he ran across country, over roadway and
wall, plowed fields and rippling burns. He scrambled under hedges
and dashed across farmsteads and cottage gardens. As he neared
the city the hour bells aided him, for the Skye terrier is keen
of hearing. It was growing dark when he climbed up the last bank
and gained Lauriston Place. There he picked up the odors of milk
and wool, and the damp smell of the kirkyard.
Now for something comforting to put into his famished little
body. A night and a day of exhausting work, of anxiety and grief,
had used up the last ounce of fuel. Bobby raced down Forest Road
and turned the slight angle into Greyfriars Place. The lamp
lighter's progress toward the bridge was marked by the double row
of lamps that bloomed, one after one, on the dusk. The little dog
had come to the steps of Mr. Traill's place, and lifted himself
to scratch on the door, when the bugle began to blow. He dropped
with the first note and dashed to the kirkyard gate.
None too soon! Mr. Brown was setting the little wicket gate
inside, against the wall. In the instant his back was turned,
Bobby slipped through. After nightfall, when the caretaker had
made his rounds, he came out from under the fallen table-tomb of
Mistress Jean Grant.
Lights appeared at the rear windows of the tenements, and
families sat at supper. It was snell weather again, the sky dark
with threat of snow, and the windows were all closed. But with a
sharp bark beneath the lowest of them Bobby could have made his
presence and his wants known. He watched the people eating,
sitting wistfully about on his haunches here and there, but
remaining silent. By and by there were sounds of crying babies,
of crockery being washed, and the ringing of church bells far and
near. Then the lights were extinguished, and huge bulks of
shadow, of tenements and kirk, engulfed the kirkyard.
When Bobby lay down on Auld Jock's grave, pellets of frozen snow
were falling and the air had hardened toward frost.
VI.
Sleep alone goes far to revive a little dog, and fasting sharpens
the wits. Bobby was so tired that he slept soundly, but so hungry
that he woke early, and instantly alert to his situation. It was
so very early of a dark winter morning that not even the sparrows
were out foraging in the kirkyard for dry seeds. The drum and
bugle had not been sounded from the Castle when the milk and
dustman's carts began to clatter over the frozen streets. With
the first hint of dawn stout fishwives, who had tramped all the
way in from the piers of Newhaven with heavily laden creels on
their heads, were lustily crying their "caller herrin'." Soon
fagot men began to call up the courts of tenements, where fuel
was bought by the scant bundle: "Are ye cauld?"
Many a human waif in the tall buildings about the lower end of
Greyfriars kirkyard was cold, even in bed, but, in his thick
underjacket of fleece, Bobby was as warm as a plate of breakfast
toast. With a vigorous shaking he broke and scattered the crust
of snow that burdened his shaggy thatch. Then he lay down on the
grave again, with his nose on his paws. Urgent matters occupied
the little dog's mind. To deal with these affairs he had the long
head of the canniest Scot, wide and high between the ears, and a
muzzle as determined as a little steel trap. Small and forlorn as
he was, courage, resource and purpose marked him.
As soon as the door of the caretaker's lodge opened he would have
to creep under the fallen slab again. To lie in such a cramped
position, hour after hour, day after day, was enough to break the
spirit of any warm blooded creature that lives. It was an
exquisite form of torture not long to be endured. And to get his
single meal a day at Mr. Traill's place Bobby had to watch for
the chance opening of the wicket to slip in and out like a thief.
The furtive life is not only perilous, it outrages every feeling
of an honest dog. It is hard for him to live at all without the
approval and the cordial consent of men. The human order hostile,
he quickly loses his self-respect and drops to the pariah class.
Already wee Bobby had the look of the neglected. His pretty coat
was dirty and unkempt. In his run across country, leaves, twigs
and burrs had become entangled in his long hair, and his legs and
underparts were caked with mire.
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