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Page 41
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 kirkyaird. They couldna mak' my legs gude i'
the infairmary, but I'm gangin' to Heriot's. I'll juist hae to
airn 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 burn, 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. An' 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 pocket.
"I'm 'Jinglin' Geordie' Heriot," he announced.
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