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Page 82
"The story of Greyfriars Bobby is quite the most complete and
remarkable ever recorded in dog annals. His lifetime of devotion
has been witnessed by thousands, and honored publicly, by your own
Lord Provost, with the freedom of the city, a thing that, I
believe, has no precedent. All the endearing qualities of the dog
reach their height in this loyal and lovable Highland terrier; and
he seems to have brought out the best qualities of the people who
have known him. Indeed, for fourteen years hundreds of disinherited
children have been made kinder and happier by knowing Bobby's story
and having that little dog to love."
She stopped in some embarrassment, seeing how she had let herself
go, in this warm championship, and then she added:
"Bobby does not need a monument, but I think we need one of him,
that future generations may never forget what the love of a dog may
mean, to himself and to us."
The Grand Leddy must have won her plea, then and there, but for the
fact that the matter of erecting a monument of a public character
anywhere in the city had to come up before the Burgh council. In
that body the stubborn opposition of a few members unexpectedly
developed, and, in spite of popular sympathy with the proposal, the
plan was rejected. Permission was given, however, for Lady
Burdett-Coutts to put up a suitable memorial to Bobby at the end of
George IV Bridge, and opposite the main gateway to the kirkyard.
For such a public place a tomb was unsuitable. What form the
memorial was to take was not decided upon until, because of two
chance happenings of one morning, the form of it bloomed like a
flower in the soul of the Grand Leddy. She had come down to the
kirkyard to watch the artist at work. Morning after morning he had
sketched there. He had drawn Bobby lying down, his nose on his
paws, asleep on the grave. He had drawn him sitting upon the
table-tomb, and standing in the begging attitude in which he was so
irresistible. But with every sketch he was dissatisfied.
Bobby was a trying and deceptive subject. He had the air of
curiosity and gaiety of other terriers. He saw no sense at all in
keeping still, with his muzzle tipped up or down, and his tail held
just so. He brushed all that unreasonable man's suggestions aside
as quite unworthy of consideration. Besides, he had the liveliest
interest in the astonishing little dog that grew and disappeared,
and came back, in some new attitude, on the canvas. He scraped
acquaintance with it once or twice to the damage of fresh
brush-work. He was always jumping from his pose and running around
the easel to see how the latest dog was coming on.
After a number of mornings Bobby lost interest in the man and his
occupation and went about his ordinary routine of life as if the
artist was not there at all. One morning the wee terrier was found
sitting on the table-tomb, on his haunches, looking up toward the
Castle, where clouds and birds were blown around the sun-gilded
battlements.
His attitude might have meant anything or nothing, for the man who
looked at him from above could not see his expression. And all at
once he realized that to see Bobby a human being must get down to
his level. To the scandal of the children, he lay on his back on
the grass and did nothing at all but look up at Bobby until the
little dog moved. Then he set the wee Highlander up on an
altar-topped shaft just above the level of the human eye.
Indifferent at the moment as to what was done to him, Bobby
continued to gaze up and out, wistfully and patiently, upon this
masterless world. As plainly as a little dog could speak, Bobby
said:
"I hae bided lang an' lanely. Hoo lang hae I still to bide? An'
syne, wull I be gangin' to Auld Jock?"
The Grand Leddy saw that at once, and tears started to her eyes
when she came in to find the artist sketching with feverish
rapidity. She confessed that she had looked into Bobby's eyes, but
she had never truly seen that mourning little creature before. He
had only to be set up so, in bronze, and looking through the
kirkyard gate, to tell his own story to the most careless passerby.
The image of the simple memorial was clear in her mind, and it
seemed unlikely that anything could be added to it, when she left
the kirkyard.
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