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Page 73
As Bobby did not stir, the robin fluttered down, studied him from
all sides, made polite inquiries that were not answered, and
concluded that it would be quite safe to take a silver hair for
nest lining. Then, startled by the animal warmth or by a faint,
breathing movement, it dropped the shining trophy and flew away in
a shrill panic. At that, all the birds set up such an excited
crying that they waked Tammy.
From the rude loophole of a window that projected from the old
Cunzie Neuk, the crippled laddie could see only the shadowy tombs
and the long gray wall of the two kirks, through the sunny haze.
But he dropped his crutches over, and climbed out onto the vault.
Never before had Bobby failed to hear that well-known
tap-tap-tapping on the graveled path, nor failed to trot down to
meet it with friskings of welcome. But now he lay very still, even
when a pair of frail arms tried to lift his dead weight to a
heaving breast, and Tammy's cry of woe rang through the kirkyard.
In a moment Ailie and Mistress Jeanie were in the wet grass beside
them, half a hundred casements flew open, and the piping voices of
tenement bairns cried-down:
"Did the bittie doggie come hame?"
Oh yes, the bittie doggie had come hame, indeed, but down such
perilous heights as none of them dreamed; and now in what a woeful
plight!
Some murmur of the excitement reached an open dormer of the Temple
tenements, where Geordie Ross had slept with one ear of the born
doctor open. Snatching up a case of first aids to the injured, he
ran down the twisting stairs to the Grassmarket, up to the gate,
and around the kirk, to find a huddled group of women and children
weeping over a limp little bundle of a senseless dog. He thrust a
bottle of hartshorn under the black muzzle, and with a start and a
moan Bobby came back to consciousness.
"Lay him down flat and stop your havers," ordered the
business-like, embryo medicine man. "Bobby's no' dead. Laddie,
you're a braw soldier for holding your ain feelings, so just hold
the wee dog's head." Then, in the reassuring dialect: "Hoots,
Bobby, open the bit mou' noo, an' tak' the medicine like a mannie!"
Down the tiny red cavern of a throat Geordie poured a dose that
galvanized the small creature into life.
"Noo, then, loup, ye bonny rascal!"
Bobby did his best to jump at Geordie's bidding. He was so glad to
be at home and to see all these familiar faces of love that he
lifted himself on his fore paws, and his happy heart almost put the
power to loup into his hind legs. But when he tried to stand up he
cried out with the pains and sank down again, with an apologetic
and shamefaced look that was worthy of Auld Jock himself. Geordie
sobered on the instant.
"Weel, now, he's been hurt. We'll just have to see what ails the
sonsie doggie." He ran his hand down the parting in the thatch to
discover if the spine had been injured. When he suddenly pinched
the ball of a hind toe Bobby promptly resented it by jerking his
head around and looking at him reproachfully. The bairns were
indignant, too, but Geordie grinned cheerfully and said: "He's no'
paralyzed, at ony rate." He turned as footsteps were heard coming
hastily around the kirk.
"A gude morning to you, Mr. Traill. Bobby may have been run over by
a cart and got internal injuries, but I'm thinking it's just
sprains and bruises from a bad fall. He was in a state of collapse,
and his claws are as broken and his toes as torn as if he had come
down Castle Rock."
This was such an extravagant surmise that even the anxious landlord
smiled. Then he said, drily:
"You're a braw laddie, Geordie, and gudehearted, but you're no' a
doctor yet, and, with your leave, I'll have my ain medical man tak'
a look at Bobby."
"Ay, I would," Geordie agreed, cordially. "It's worth four
shullings to have your mind at ease, man. I'll just go up to the
lodge and get a warm bath ready, to tak' the stiffness out of his
muscles, and brew a tea from an herb that wee wild creatures know
all about and aye hunt for when they're ailing."
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