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Page 5
On the stone gate pillar was a notice in plain English that no
dogs were permitted in Greyfriars. As well as if he could read,
Bobby knew that the kirkyard was forbidden ground. He had learned
that by bitter experience. Once, when the little wicket gate that
held the two tall leaves ajar by day, chanced to be open, he had
joyously chased a cat across the graves and over the western wall
onto the broad green lawn of Heriot's Hospital.
There the little dog's escapade bred other mischief, for Heriot's
Hospital was not a hospital at all, in the modern English sense
of being a refuge for the sick. Built and christened in a day
when a Stuart king reigned in Holyrood Palace, and French was
spoken in the Scottish court, Heriot's was a splendid pile of a
charity school, all towers and battlements, and cheerful color,
and countless beautiful windows. Endowed by a beruffed and
doubleted goldsmith, "Jinglin' Geordie" Heriot, who had "nae
brave laddie o' his ain," it was devoted to the care and
education of "puir orphan an' faderless boys." There it had stood
for more than two centuries, in a spacious park, like the
country-seat of a Lowland laird, but hemmed in by sordid markets
and swarming slums. The region round about furnished an unfailing
supply of "puir orphan an' faderless boys" who were as
light-hearted and irresponsible as Bobby.
Hundreds of the Heriot laddies were out in the noon recess,
playing cricket and leap-frog, when Bobby chased that unlucky cat
over the kirkyard wall. He could go no farther himself, but the
laddies took up the pursuit, yelling like Highland clans of old
in a foray across the border. The unholy din disturbed the sacred
peace of the kirkyard. Bobby dashed back, barking furiously, in
pure exuberance of spirits. He tumbled gaily over grassy
hummocks, frisked saucily around terrifying old mausoleums,
wriggled under the most enticing of low-set table tombs and
sprawled, exhausted, but still happy and noisy, at Auld Jock's
feet.
It was a scandalous thing to happen in any kirkyard! The angry
caretaker was instantly out of his little stone lodge by the gate
and taking Auld Jock sharply to task for Bobby's misbehavior.
The pious old shepherd, shocked himself and publicly disgraced,
stood, bonnet in hand, humbly apologetic. Seeing that his master
was getting the worst of it, Bobby rushed into the fray, an
animated little muff of pluck and fury, and nipped the
caretaker's shins. There was a howl of pain, and a "maist michty"
word that made the ancient tombs stand aghast. Master and dog
were hustled outside the gate and into a rabble of jeering slum
gamin.
What a to-do about a miserable cat! To Bobby there was no logic
at all in the denouement to this swift, exciting drama. But he
understood Auld Jock's shame and displeasure perfectly.
Good-tempered as he was gay and clever, the little dog took his
punishment meekly, and he remembered it. Thereafter, he passed
the kirk yard gate decorously. If he saw a cat that needed
harrying he merely licked his little red chops--the outward sign
of a desperate self-control. And, a true sport, he bore no malice
toward the caretaker.
During that first summer of his life Bobby learned many things.
He learned that he might chase rabbits, squirrels and moor-fowl,
and sea-gulls and whaups that came up to feed in plowed fields.
Rats and mice around byre and dairy were legitimate prey; but he
learned that he must not annoy sheep and sheep-dogs, nor cattle,
horses and chickens. And he discovered that, unless he hung close
to Auld Jock's heels, his freedom was in danger from a wee lassie
who adored him. He was no lady's lap-dog. From the bairnie's soft
cosseting he aye fled to Auld Jock and the rough hospitality of
the sheep fold. Being exact opposites in temperaments, but alike
in tastes, Bobby and Auld Jock were inseparable. In the quiet
corner of Mr. Traill's crowded dining-room they spent the one
idle hour of the week together, happily. Bobby had the leavings
of a herring or haddie, for a rough little Skye will eat anything
from smoked fish to moor-fowl eggs, and he had the tidbit of a
farthing bone to worry at his leisure. Auld Jock smoked his cutty
pipe, gazed at the fire or into the kirk-yard, and meditated on
nothing in particular.
In some strange way that no dog could understand, Bobby had been
separated from Auld Jock that November morning. The tenant of
Cauldbrae farm had driven the cart in, himself, and that was
unusual. Immediately he had driven out again, leaving Auld Jock
behind, and that was quite outside Bobby's brief experience of
life. Beguiled to the lofty and coveted driver's seat where, with
lolling tongue, he could view this interesting world between the
horse's ears, Bobby had been spirited out of the city and carried
all the way down and up to the hilltop toll-bar of Fairmilehead.
It could not occur to his loyal little heart that this treachery
was planned nor, stanch little democrat that he was, that the
farmer was really his owner, and that he could not follow a
humbler master of his own choosing. He might have been carried to
the distant farm, and shut safely in the byre with the cows for
the night, but for an incautious remark of the farmer. With the
first scent of the native heather the horse quickened his pace,
and, at sight of the purple slopes of the Pentlands looming
homeward, a fond thought at the back of the man's mind very
naturally took shape in speech.
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