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Page 54
From a window he dropped his books and his crutches over the
wall. Then, by clasping his arms around a broken shaft that
blocked the casement, he swung himself out, and scrambled down
into an enclosed vault yard. There he kept hidden Mistress
Jeanie's milking stool for a seat; and a table-tomb served as
well, for the laddie to do his sums upon, as it had for the
tearful signing of the Covenant more than two hundred years
before. Bobby, as host, greeted Tammy with cordial friskings and
waggings, saw him settled to his tasks, and then went briskly
about his own interrupted business of searching out marauders.
Many a spring dawn the quiet little boy and the swift and silent
little dog had the shadowy garden all to themselves, and it was
for them the song-thrushes and skylarks gave their choicest
concerts.
On that mid-April morning, when the rising sun gilded the Castle
turrets and flashed back from the many beautiful windows of
Heriot's Hospital, Tammy bundled his books under the table-tomb
of Mistress Jean Grant, went over to the rear of the Guildhall at
the top of the Row, and threw a handful of gravel up to Ailie's
window. Because of a grandmither, Ailie, too, dwelt on a low
level. Her eager little face, lighted by sleep-dazzled blue eyes,
popped out with the surprising suddenness of the manikins in a
Punch-and-Judy show.
"In juist ane meenit, Tammy," she whispered, "no' to wauken the
grandmither." It was in so very short a minute that the lassie
climbed out onto the classic pediment of a tomb and dropped into
the kirkyard that her toilet was uncompleted. Tammy buttoned her
washed-out cotton gown at the back, and she sat on a slab to lace
her shoes. If the fun of giving Bobby his bath was to be enjoyed
to the full there must be no unnecessary delay. This
consideration led Tammy to observe:
"Ye're no' needin' to comb yer hair, Ailie. It leuks bonny
eneugh."
In truth, Ailie was one of those fortunate lassies whose crinkly,
gold-brown mop really looked best when in some disorder; and of
that advantage the little maid was well aware.
"I ken a' that, Tammy. I aye gie it a lick or twa wi' a comb the
nicht afore. Ca' the wee doggie."
Bobby fully understood that he was wanted for some serious
purpose, but it was a fresh morning of dew and he, apparently,
was in the highest of spirits. So he gave Ailie a chase over the
sparkling grass and under the showery shrubbery. When he dropped
at last on Auld Jock's grave Tammy captured him. The little dog
could always be caught there, in a caressable state of exhaustion
or meditation, for, sooner or later, he returned to the spot from
every bit of work or play. No one would have known it for a place
of burial at all. Mr. Brown knew it only by the rose bush at its
head and by Bobby's haunting it, for the mound had sunk to the
general level of the terrace on which it lay, and spreading
crocuses poked their purple and gold noses through the crisp
spring turf. But for the wee, guardian dog the man who lay
beneath had long lost what little identity he had ever possessed.
Now, as the three lay there, the lassie as flushed and damp as
some water-nymph, Bobby panting and submitting to a petting,
Tammy took the little dog's muzzle between his thin hands, parted
the veil, and looked into the soft brown eyes.
"Leak, Ailie, Bobby's wantin' somethin', an' is juist haudin'
'imsel'."
It was true. For all his gaiety in play and his energy at work
Bobby's eyes had ever a patient, wistful look, not unlike the
crippled laddie's. Ah, who can say that it did not require as
much courage and gallant bravado on the part of that small,
bereft creature to enable him to live at all, as it did for Tammy
to face his handicapped life and "no' to remember 'is bad legs"?
In the bath on the rear steps of the lodge Bobby swam and
splashed, and scattered foam with his excited tail. He would not
stand still to be groomed, but wriggled and twisted and leaped
upon the children, putting his shaggy wet paws roguishly in their
faces. But he stood there at last, after the jolliest romp, in
which the old kirkyard rang with laughter, and oh! so bonny, in
his rippling coat of dark silver. No sooner was he released than
he dashed around the kirk and back again, bringing his latest
bone in his mouth. To his scratching on the stone sill, for he
had been taught not to scratch on the panel, the door was opened
by snod and smiling Mistress Jeanie, who invited these slum
bairns into such a cozy, spotless kitchen as was not possible in
the tenements. Mr. Brown sat by the hearth, bundled in blue and
white blankets of wonderfully blocked country weaving. Bobby put
his fore paws on the caretaker's chair and laid his precious bone
in the man's lap.
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