|
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 64
"Lassie, I canna hae the bittie dog in wi the broodin' chuckies!"
She flung the door wide. Bobby shot through, and into Elsie's
outstretched arms. She held to him desperately, while he twisted
and struggled and strained away; and presently something shining
worked into view, through the disordered thatch about his neck. The
mother had come to the help of the child, and it was she who read
the inscription on the brazen plate aloud.
"Preserve us a'! Lassie, he's been tak'n by the Laird Provost an'
gien the name o' the auld kirkyaird. He's an ower grand doggie. Ma
puir bairnie, dinna greet so sair!" For the little girl suddenly
released the wee Highlander and sobbed on her mother's shoulder.
"He isna ma ain Bobby ony mair!" She "couldna thole" to watch him
as he tumbled down the brae.
On the outward march, among the many dogs and laddies that had
followed the soldiers, Bobby escaped notice. But most of these had
gone adventuring in Swanston Dell, to return to the city by the
gorge of Leith Water. Now, traveling three miles to the soldiers'
one, scampering in wide circles over the fields, swimming burns,
scrambling under hedges, chasing whaups into piping cries, barking
and louping in pure exuberance of spirits, many eyes looked upon
him admiringly, and discontented mouths turned upward at the
corners. It is not the least of a little dog's missions in life to
communicate his own irresponsible gaiety to men.
If the return had been over George IV Bridge Bobby would, no doubt,
have dropped behind at Mr. Traill's or at the kirkyard. But on the
Burghmuir the troops swung eastward until they rounded Arthur's
Seat and met the cavalry drilling before the barracks at Piershill.
Such pretty maneuvering of horse and foot took place below Holyrood
Palace as quite to enrapture a terrier. When the infantry marched
up the Canongate and High Street, the mounted men following and the
bands playing at full blast, the ancient thoroughfare was quickly
lined with cheering crowds, and faces looked down from ten tiers of
windows on a beautiful spectacle. Bobby did not know when the
bridge-approach was passed; and then, on Castle Hill, he was in an
unknown region. There the street widened to the great square of the
esplanade. The cavalry wheeled and dashed down High Street, but the
infantry marched on and up, over the sounding drawbridge that
spanned a dry moat of the Middle Ages, and through a deep-arched
gateway of masonry.
The outer gate to the Castle was wider than the opening into many
an Edinburgh wynd; but Bobby stopped, uncertain as to where this
narrow roadway, that curved upward to the right, might lead. It was
not a dark fissure in a cliff of houses, but was bounded on the
outer side by a loopholed wall, and on the inner by a rocky ledge
of ascending levels. Wherever the shelf was of sufficient breadth a
battery of cannon was mounted, and such a flood of light fell from
above and flashed on polished steel and brass as to make the little
dog blink in bewilderment. And he whirled like a rotary sweeper in
the dusty road and yelped when the time-gun, in the half-moon
battery at the left of the gate and behind him, crashed and shook
the massive rock.
He barked and barked, and dashed toward the insulting clamor. The
dauntless little dog and his spirited protest were so out of
proportion to the huge offense that the guard laughed, and other
soldiers ran out of the guard houses that flanked the gate. They
would have put the noisy terrier out at once, but Bobby was off, up
the curving roadway into the Castle. The music had ceased, and the
soldiers had disappeared over the rise. Through other dark arches
of masonry he ran. On the crest were two ways to choose--the
roadway on around and past the barracks, and a flight of steps cut
steeply in the living rock of the ledge, and leading up to the
King's Bastion. Bobby took the stairs at a few bounds.
On the summit there was nothing at all beside a tiny, ancient stone
chapel with a Norman arched and sculptured doorway, and guarding it
an enormous burst cannon. But these ruins were the crown jewels of
the fortifications--their origins lost in legends--and so they were
cared for with peculiar reverence. Sergeant Scott of the Royal
Engineers himself, in fatigue-dress, was down on his knees before
St. Margaret's oratory, pulling from a crevice in the foundations a
knot of grass that was at its insidious work of time and change. As
Bobby dashed up to the citadel, still barking, the man jumped to
his feet. Then he slapped his thigh and laughed. Catching the
animated little bundle of protest the sergeant set him up for
inspection on the shattered breeching of Mons Meg.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|