|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 62
"Ay, that wull do fair weel." The collar had come back to him by
this time, and the Lord Provost buckled it securely about Bobby's
neck.
X.
The music of bagpipe, fife and drum brought them all out of
Haddo's Hole into High Street. It was the hour of the morning
drill, and the soldiers were marching out of the Castle. From the
front of St. Giles, that jutted into the steep thoroughfare, they
could look up to where the street widened to the esplanade on
Castle Hill. Rank after rank of scarlet coats, swinging kilts and
sporrans, and plumed bonnets appeared. The sun flashed back from
rifle barrels and bayonets and from countless bright buttons.
A number of the older laddies ran up the climbing street. Mr.
Traill called Bobby back and, with a last grip of Glenormiston's
hand, set off across the bridge. To the landlord the world seemed
a brave place to be living in, the fabric of earth and sky and
human society to be woven of kindness. Having urgent business of
buying supplies in the markets at Broughton and Lauriston, Mr.
Traill put Bobby inside the kirkyard gate and hurried away to get
into his everyday clothing. After dinner, or tea, he promised
himself the pleasure of an hour at the lodge, to tell Mr. Brown
the wonderful news, and to show him Bobby's braw collar.
When, finally, he was left alone, Bobby trotted around the kirk,
to assure himself that Auld Jock's grave was unmolested. There he
turned on his back, squirmed and rocked on the crocuses, and
tugged at the unaccustomed collar. His inverted struggles, low
growlings and furry contortions set the wrens to scolding and the
redbreasts to making nervous inquiries. Much nestbuilding,
tuneful courtship, and masculine blustering was going on, and
there was little police duty for Bobby. After a time he sat up on
the table-tomb, pensively. With Mr. Brown confined, to the lodge,
and Mistress Jeanie in close attendance upon him there, the
kirkyard was a lonely place for a sociable little dog; and a
soft, spring day given over to brooding beside a beloved grave,
was quite too heart-breaking a thing to contemplate. Just for
cheerful occupation Bobby had another tussle with the collar. He
pulled it so far under his thatch that no one could have guessed
that he had a collar on at all, when he suddenly righted himself
and scampered away to the gate.
The music grew louder and came nearer. The first of the
route-marching that the Castle garrison practiced on occasional,
bright spring mornings was always a delightful surprise to the
small boys and dogs of Edinburgh. Usually the soldiers went down
High Street and out to Portobello on the sea. But a regiment of
tough and wiry Highlanders often took, by preference, the
mounting road to the Pentlands to get a whiff of heather in their
nostrils.
On they came, band playing, colors flying, feet moving in unison
with a march, across the viaduct bridge into Greyfriars Place.
Bobby was up on the wicket, his small, energetic body quivering
with excitement from his muzzle to his tail. If Mr. Traill had
been there he would surely have caught the infection, thrown care
to this sweet April breeze for once, and taken the wee terrier
for a run on the Pentland braes. The temptation was going by when
a preoccupied lady, with a sheaf of Easter lilies on her sable
arm, opened the wicket. Her ample Victorian skirts swept right
over the little dog, and when he emerged there was the gate
slightly ajar. Widening the aperture with nose and paws, Bobby
was off, skirmishing at large on the rear and flanks of the
troops, down the Burghmuir.
It may never have happened, in the years since Auld Jock died and
the farmer of Cauldbrae gave up trying to keep him on the hills,
that Bobby, had gone so far back on this once familiar road; and
he may not have recognized it at first, for the highways around
Edinburgh were everywhere much alike. This one alone began to
climb again. Up, up it toiled, for two weary miles, to the
hilltop toll-bar of Fairmilehead, and there the sounds and smells
that made it different from other roads began.
Five miles out of the city the halt was called, and the soldiers
flung themselves on the slope. Many experiences of route-marching
had taught Bobby that there was an interval of rest before the
return, so, with his nose to the ground, he started up the brae on
a pilgrimage to old shrines, just as in his puppyhood days, at Auld
Jock's heels, there was much shouting of men, barking of collies,
and bleating of sheep all the way up. Once he had to leave the road
until a driven flock had passed. Behind the sheep walked an old
laborer in hodden-gray, woolen bonnet, and shepherd's two-fold
plaid, with a lamb in the pouch of it. Bobby trembled at the
apparition, sniffed at the hob-nailed boots, and then, with drooped
head and tail, trotted on up the slope.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|