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Page 43
"No' ony laddie could gang a' the way up an' come doon wi' 'is
heid no' broken. Bobby couldna do it, an' he's mair like a wild
fox than an ordinar' dog. Noo, we're the Light Brigade at
Balaklava. Chairge!"
The Crimean War was then a recent event. Heroes of Sebastopol
answered the summons of drum and bugle in the Castle and fired
the hearts of Edinburgh youth. Cannon all around them, and
"theirs not to reason why," this little band stormed out
Queensferry Street and went down, hand under hand, into the fairy
underworld of Leith Water.
All its short way down from the Pentlands to the sea, the Water
of Leith was then a foaming little river of mills, twisting at
the bottom of a gorge. One cliff-like wall or the other lay to
the sun all day, so that the way was lined with a profusion of
every wild thing that turns green and blooms in the Lowlands of
Scotland. And it was filled to the brim with bird song and water
babble.
A crowd of laddies had only to go inland up this gorge to find
wild and tame bloom enough to bury "Jinglin' Geordie" all over
again every year. But adventure was to be had in greater variety
by dropping seaward with the bickering brown water. These waded
along the shallow margin, walked on shelving sands of gold, and,
where the channel was filled, they clung to the rocks and picked
their way along dripping ledges. Bobby missed no chance to swim.
If he could scramble over rough ground like a squirrel or a fox,
he could swim like an otter. Swept over the low dam at Dean
village, where a cup-like valley was formed, he tumbled over and
over in the spray and was all but drowned. As soon as he got his
breath and his bearings he struck out frantically for the bank,
shook the foam from his eyes and ears, and barked indignantly at
the saucy fall. The white miller in the doorway of the
gray-stone, red-roofed mill laughed, and anxious children ran
down from a knot of storybook cottages and gay dooryards. "I'll
gie ye ten shullin's for the sperity bit dog," the miller
shouted, above the clatter of the' wheel and the swish of the
dam.
"He isna oor ain dog," Geordie called back. "But he wullna droon.
He's got a gude heid to 'im, an' wullna be sic a bittie fule
anither time."
Indeed he had a good head on him! Bobby never needed a second
lesson. At Silver Mills and Canon Mills he came out and trotted
warily around the dam. Where the gorge widened to a valley toward
the sea they all climbed up to Leith Walk, that ran to the
harbor, and came out to a wonder-world of water-craft anchored in
the Firth. Each boy picked out his ship to go adventuring.
"I'm gangin' to Norway!"
Geordie was scornful. "Hoots, ye tame pussies. Ye're fleid o'
gettin' yer feet wat. I'll be rinnin' aff to be a pirate. Come
awa' doon."
They followed the leader along shore and boarded an abandoned
and evil-smelling fishingboat. There they ran up a ragged jacket
for a black flag. But sailing a stranded craft palled presently.
"Nae, I'm gangin' to be a Crusoe. Preserve me! If there's no' a
futprint i' the sand Bobby's ma sma' man Friday."
Away they ran southward to find a castaway's shelter in a hollow
on the golf links. Soon this was transformed into a wrecker's
den, and then into the hiding-place of a harried Covenanter
fleeing religious persecution. Daring things to do swarmed in
upon their minds, for Edinburgh laddies live in a city of
romantic history, of soldiers, of near-by mountains, and of sea
rovings. No adventure served them five minutes, and Bobby was in
every one. Ah, lucky Bobby, to have such gay playfellows on a
sunny afternoon and under foot the open country!
And fortunate laddies to have such a merry rascal of a wee dog
with them! To the mile they ran, Bobby went five, scampering in
wide circles and barking and louping at butterflies and
whaups. He made a detour to the right to yelp saucily at the
red-coated sentry who paced before the Gothic gateway to the
deserted Palace of Holyrood, and as far to the left to harry the
hoofs of a regiment of cavalry drilling before the barracks at
Piershill. He raced on ahead and swam out to scatter the fleet
of swan sailing or the blue mirror of Duddingston Loch.
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