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Page 63
Men and dogs were all out on the billowy pastures, and the
farm-house of Cauldbrae lay on the level terrace, seemingly
deserted and steeped in memories. A few moments before, a tall
lassie had come out to listen to the military music. A couple of
hundred feet below, the coats of the soldiers looked to her like
poppies scattered on the heather. At the top of the brae the wind
was blowing a cold gale, so the maidie went up again, and around to
a bit of tangled garden on the sheltered side of the house. The
"wee lassie Elsie" was still a bairn in short skirts and braids,
who lavished her soft heart, as yet, on briar bushes and daisies.
Bobby made a tour of the sheepfold, the cowyard and byre, and he
lingered behind the byre, where Auld Jock had played with him on
Sabbath afternoons. He inspected the dairy, and the poultry-house
where hens were sitting on their nests. By and by he trotted around
the house and came upon the lassie, busily clearing winter rubbish
from her posie bed. A dog changes very little in appearance, but in
eight and a half years a child grows into a different person
altogether. Bobby barked politely to let this strange lassie know
that he was there. In the next instant he knew her, for she whirled
about and, in a kind of glad wonder, cried out:
"Oh, Bobby! hae ye come hame? Mither, here's ma ain wee Bobby!" For
she had never given up the hope that this adored little pet would
some day return to her.
"Havers, lassie, ye're aye seein' Bobby i' ilka Hielan' terrier,
an' there's mony o' them aboot."
The gude-wife looked from an attic window in the steep gable, and
then hurried down. "Weel, noo, ye're richt, Elsie. He wad be comin'
wi' the regiment frae the Castle. Bittie doggies an' laddies are
fair daft aboot the soldiers. Ay, he's bonny, an' weel cared for,
by the ordinar'. I wonder gin he's still leevin' i' the grand auld
kirkyaird."
Wary of her remembered endearments, Bobby kept a safe distance from
the maidie, but he sat up and lolled his tongue, quite willing to
pay her a friendly visit. From that she came to a wrong conclusion:
"Sin' he cam' o' his ain accord he's like to bide." Her eyes were
blue stars.
"I wadna be coontin' on that, lassie. An' I wadna speck a door on
'im anither time. Grin he wanted to get oot he'd dig aneath a floor
o' stane. Leuk at that, noo! The bonny wee is greetin' for Auld
Jock."
It was true, for, on entering the kitchen, Bobby went straight to
the bench in the corner and lay down flat under it. Elsie sat
beside him, just as she had done of old. Her eyes overflowed so in
sympathy that the mother was quite distracted. This would not do at
all.
"Lassie, are ye no' rememberin' Bobby was fair fond o' moor-hens'
eggs fried wi' bits o' cheese? He wullna be gettin' thae things;
an' it wad be maist michty, noo, gin ye couldna win the bittie dog
awa' frae the reekie auld toon. Gang oot wi' 'im an' rin on the
brae an' bid 'im find the nests aneath the whins."
In a moment they were out on the heather, and it seemed, indeed, as
if Bobby might be won. He frisked and barked at Elsie's heels,
chased rabbits and flushed the grouse; and when he ran into a
peat-darkened tarp, rimmed with moss, he had such a cold and
splashy swim as quite to give a little dog a distaste for warm,
soapy water in a claes tub. He shook and ran himself dry, and he
raced the laughing child until they both dropped panting on the
wind-rippled heath. Then he hunted on the ground under the gorse
for those nests that had a dozen or more eggs in them. He took just
one from each in his mouth, as Auld Jock had taught him to do. On
the kitchen hearth he ate the savory meal with much satisfaction
and polite waggings. But when the bugle sounded from below to form
ranks, he pricked his drop ears and started for the door.
Before he knew what had happened he was inside the poultry-house.
In another instant he was digging frantically in the soft earth
under the door. When the lassie lay down across the crack he
stopped digging, in consternation. His sense of smell told him what
it was that shut out the strip of light; and a bairn's soft body is
not a proper object of attack for a little dog, no matter how
desperate the emergency. There was no time to be lost, for the
drums began to beat the march. Having to get out very quickly,
Bobby did a forbidden thing: swiftly and noisily he dashed around
the dark place, and there arose such wild squawkings and rushings
of wings as to bring the gude-wife out of the house in alarm.
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