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Page 36
"Doon wi' ye!" was the gruff order. Bobby turned around and
around on the hearth, like some little wild dog making a bed in
the jungle, before he obeyed. He kept very still during the
reading of a chapter and the singing of a Psalm, as he had been
taught to do at the farm by many a reminder from Auld Jock's
boot. And he kept away from the breakfast-table, although the
walls of his stomach were collapsed as flat as the sides of an
empty pocket.
It was such a clean, shining little kitchen, with the scoured
deal table, chairs and cupboard, and the firelight from the grate
winked so on pewter mugs, copper kettle, willow-patterned plates
and diamond panes, that Bobby blinked too. Flowers bloomed in
pots on the casement sills, and a little brown skylark sang,
fluttering as if it would soar, in a gilded cage. After the
morning meal Mr. Brown lighted his pipe and put on his bonnet to
go out again, when he bethought him that Bobby might be needing
something to eat.
"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.
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