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Page 60
"Are you thinking he would be reconciled to be anywhere away from
that grave? Look, man!"
"Lord forgive me! I aye thought the wee doggie happy enough."
After a moment the two men went down the gallery stairs in
silence. Bobby dropped from the bench and fell into a subdued
trot at their heels. As they left the cathedral by the door that
led into High Street Glenormiston remarked, with a mysterious
smile:
"I'm thinking Edinburgh can do better by wee Bobby than to banish
him to the Castle. But wait a bit, man. A kirk is not the place
for settling a small dog's affairs."
The Lord Provost led the way westward along the cathedral's
front. On High Street, St. Giles had three doorways. The middle
door then gave admittance to the police office; the western
opened into the Little Kirk, popularly known as Haddo's Hole. It
was into this bare, whitewashed chapel that Glenormiston turned
to get some restoration drawings he had left on the pulpit. He
was explaining them to Mr. Traill when he was interrupted by a
murmur and a shuffle, as of many voices and feet, and an odd
tap-tap-tapping in the vestibule.
Of all the doorways on the north and south fronts of St. Giles
the one to the Little Kirk was nearest the end of George IV
Bridge. Confused by the vast size and imposing architecture of
the old cathedral, these slum children, in search of the police
office, went no farther, but ventured timidly into the open
vestibule of Haddo's Hole. Any doubts they might have had about
this being the right place were soon dispelled. Bobby heard them
and darted out to investigate. And suddenly they were all inside,
overwrought Ailie on the floor, clasping the little dog and
crying hysterically.
"Bobby's no' deid! Bobby's no' deid! Oh, Maister Traill, ye
wullna hae to gie 'im up to the police! Tammy's got the seven
shullin's in 'is bonnet!"
And there was small Tammy, crutches dropped and pouring that
offering of love and mercy out at the foot of an altar in old St.
Giles. Such an astonishing pile of copper coins it was, that it
looked to the landlord like the loot of some shopkeeper's change
drawer.
"Eh, puir laddie, whaur did ye get it a' noo?" he asked, gravely.
Tammy was very self-possessed and proud. "The bairnies aroond the
kirkyaird gie'd it to pay the police no' to mak' Bobby be deid."
Mr. Traill flashed a glance at Glenormiston. It was a look at
once of triumph and of humility over the Herculean deed of these
disinherited children. But the Lord Provost was gazing at that
crowd of pale bairns, products of the Old Town's ancient slums,
and feeling, in his own person, the civic shame of it. And he was
thinking, thinking, that he must hasten that other project
nearest his heart, of knocking holes in solid rows of foul
cliffs, in the Cowgate, on High Street, and around Greyfriars. It
was an incredible thing that such a flower of affection should
have bloomed so sweetly in such sunless cells. And it was a new
gospel, at that time, that a dog or a horse or a bird might have
its mission in this world of making people kinder and happier.
They were all down on the floor, in the space before the altar,
unwashed, uncombed, unconscious of the dirty rags that scarce
covered them; quite happy and self-forgetful in the charming
friskings and friendly lollings of the well-fed, carefully
groomed, beautiful little dog. Ailie, still so excited that she
forgot to be shy, put Bobby through his pretty tricks. He rolled
over and over, he jumped, he danced to Tammy's whistling of
"Bonnie Dundee," he walked on his hind legs and louped at a
bonnet, he begged, he lifted his short shagged paw and shook
hands. Then he sniffed at the heap of coins, looked up
inquiringly at Mr. Traill, and, concluding that here was some
property to be guarded, stood by the "siller" as stanchly as a
soldier. It was just pure pleasure to watch him.
Very suddenly the Lord Provost changed his mind. A sacred kirk
was the very best place of all to settle this little dog's
affairs. The offering of these children could not be refused. It
should lie there, below the altar, and be consecrated to some
other blessed work; and he would do now and here what he had
meant to do elsewhere and in a quite different way. He lifted
Bobby to the pulpit so that all might see him, and he spoke so
that all might understand.
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