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Page 51
"It's no' his day to sit as magistrate, and he's no' like to go
unless it's a fair sairious matter."
"Ay, it is, laddie. It's a matter of life and death, I'm
thinking!" He smiled grimly, as it entered his head that he might
be driven to do violence to that meddling policeman. The yellow
gas-light gave his face such a sardonic aspect that Sandy turned
pale.
"Wha's death, man?"
Mr. Traill kept his own counsel, but at the door he turned:
"You'll no' be remembering the bittie terrier that lived in the
kirkyard?"
The light of boyhood days broke in Sandy's grin. "Ay, I'll no' be
forgetting the sonsie tyke. He was a deil of a dog to tak' on a
holiday. Is he still faithfu' to his dead master?"
"He is that; and for his faithfu'ness he's like to be dead
himsel'. The police are takin' up masterless dogs an' putting
them out o' the way. I'll mak' a gude fight for Bobby in the
Burgh court."
"I'll fight with you, man." The spirit of the McGregor clan,
though much diluted and subdued by town living, brought Sandy
down from a three-legged stool. He called another clerk to take
his place, and made off to find the Lord Provost, powerful friend
of hameless dogs. Mr. Traill hastened down to the Royal Exchange,
below St. Giles and on the northern side of High Street.
Less than a century old, this municipal building was modern among
ancient rookeries. To High Street it presented a classic front of
four stories, recessed by flanking wings, around three sides of a
quadrangular courtyard. Near the entrance there was a row of
barber shops and coffee-rooms. Any one having business with the
city offices went through a corridor between these places of
small trade to the stairway court behind them. On the floor
above, one had to inquire of some uniformed attendant in which of
the oaken, ante-roomed halls the Burgh court was sitting. And by
the time one got there all the pride of civic history of the
ancient royal Burgh, as set forth in portrait and statue and a
museum of antiquities, was apt to take the lime out of the
backbone of a man less courageous than Mr. Traill. What a car of
juggernaut to roll over one, small, masterless terrier!
But presently the landlord found himself on his feet, and not so
ill at ease. A Scottish court, high or low, civil or criminal,
had a flavor all its own. Law points were threshed over with
gusto, but counsel, client, and witness gained many a point by
ready wit, and there was no lack of dry humor from the bench.
About the Burgh court, for all its stately setting, there was
little formality. The magistrate of the day sat behind a tall
desk, with a clerk of record at his elbow, and the officer gave
his testimony briefly: Edinburgh being quite overrun by stray and
unlicensed dogs, orders had recently been given the Burgh police
to report such animals. In Mr. Traill's place he had seen a small
terrier that appeared to be at home there; and, indeed, on the
dog's going out, Mr. Traill had called a servant lassie to fetch
a bone, and to open the door for him. He noticed that the animal
wore no collar, and felt it his duty to report the matter.
By the time Mr. Traill was called to answer to the charge a
number of curious idlers had gathered on the back benches. He
admitted his name and address, but denied that he either owned or
was harboring a dog. The magistrate fixed a cold eye upon him,
and asked if he meant to contradict the testimony of the officer.
"Nae, your Honor; and he might have seen the same thing ony
week-day of the past eight and a half years. But the bit terrier
is no' my ain dog." Suddenly, the memory of the stormy night, the
sick old man and the pathos of his renunciation of the only
beating heart in the world that loved him--"Bobby isna ma ain
dog!" swept over the remorseful landlord. He was filled with a
fierce championship of the wee Highlander, whose loyalty to that
dead master had brought him to this strait.
To the magistrate Mr. Traill's tossed-up head had the effect of
defiance, and brought a sharp rebuke. "Don't split hairs, Mr.
Traill. You are wasting the time of the court. You admit feeding
the dog. Who is his master and where does he sleep?"
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