Chapter 8
“I daur ye to gang up!” was all that was necessary to set any group of youngsters to scaling the precipice. By every tree and ledge, by every cranny and point of rock, stoutly rooted hazel and thorn bush and clump of gorse, they climbed. These laddies went up a quarter or a third of the way to the grim ramparts and came cautiously down again. Bobby scrambled higher, tumbled back more recklessly and fell, head over heels and upside down, on the daisied turf. He righted himself at once, and yelped in sharp protest. Then he sniffed and busied himself with pretenses, in the elaborate unconcern with which a little dog denies anything discreditable. There were legends of daring youth having climbed this war-like cliff and laying hands on the fortress wall, but Geordie expressed a popular feeling in declaring these tales “a' lees.”
“No' ony laddie could gang a' the way up an' come doon wi' 'is heid no' broken. Bobby couldna do it, an' he's mair like a wild fox than an ordinar' dog. Noo, we're the Light Brigade at Balaklava. Chairge!”
The Crimean War was then a recent event. Heroes of Sebastopol answered the summons of drum and bugle in the Castle and fired the hearts of Edinburgh youth. Cannon all around them, and “theirs not to reason why,” this little band stormed out Queensferry Street and went down, hand under hand, into the fairy underworld of Leith Water.
All its short way down from the Pentlands to the sea, the Water of Leith was then a foaming little river of mills, twisting at the bottom of a gorge. One cliff-like wall or the other lay to the sun all day, so that the way was lined with a profusion of every wild thing that turns green and blooms in the Lowlands of Scotland. And it was filled to the brim with bird song and water babble.
A crowd of laddies had only to go inland up this gorge to find wild and tame bloom enough to bury “Jinglin' Geordie” all over again every year. But adventure was to be had in greater variety by dropping seaward with the bickering brown water. These waded along the shallow margin, walked on shelving sands of gold, and, where the channel was filled, they clung to the rocks and picked their way along dripping ledges. Bobby missed no chance to swim. If he could scramble over rough ground like a squirrel or a fox, he could swim like an otter. Swept over the low dam at Dean village, where a cup-like valley was formed, he tumbled over and over in the spray and was all but drowned. As soon as he got his breath and his bearings he struck out frantically for the bank, shook the foam from his eyes and ears, and barked indignantly at the saucy fall. The white miller in the doorway of the gray-stone, red-roofed mill laughed, and anxious children ran down from a knot of storybook cottages and gay dooryards. “I'll gie ye ten shullin's for the sperity bit dog,” the miller shouted, above the clatter of the' wheel and the swish of the dam.
“He isna oor ain dog,” Geordie called back. “But he wullna droon. He's got a gude heid to 'im, an' wullna be sic a bittie fule anither time.”
Indeed he had a good head on him! Bobby never needed a second lesson. At Silver Mills and Canon Mills he came out and trotted warily around the dam. Where the gorge widened to a valley toward the sea they all climbed up to Leith Walk, that ran to the harbor, and came out to a wonder-world of water-craft anchored in the Firth. Each boy picked out his ship to go adventuring.
“I'm gangin' to Norway!”
Geordie was scornful. “Hoots, ye tame pussies. Ye're fleid o' gettin' yer feet wat. I'll be rinnin' aff to be a pirate. Come awa' doon.”
They followed the leader along shore and boarded an abandoned and evil-smelling fishingboat. There they ran up a ragged jacket for a black flag. But sailing a stranded craft palled presently.
“Nae, I'm gangin' to be a Crusoe. Preserve me! If there's no' a futprint i' the sand! Bobby's ma sma' man Friday.”
Away they ran southward to find a castaway's shelter in a hollow on the golf links. Soon this was transformed into a wrecker's den, and then into the hiding-place of a harried Covenanter fleeing religious persecution. Daring things to do swarmed in upon their minds, for Edinburgh laddies live in a city of romantic history, of soldiers, of near-by mountains, and of sea rovings. No adventure served them five minutes, and Bobby was in every one. Ah, lucky Bobby, to have such gay playfellows on a sunny afternoon and under foot the open country!
And fortunate laddies to have such a merry rascal of a wee dog with them! To the mile they ran, Bobby went five, scampering in wide circles and barking and louping at butterflies and whaups. He made a detour to the right to yelp saucily at the red-coated sentry who paced before the Gothic gateway to the deserted Palace of Holyrood, and as far to the left to harry the hoofs of a regiment of cavalry drilling before the barracks at Piershill. He raced on ahead and swam out to scatter the fleet of swan sailing or the blue mirror of Duddingston Loch.
The tired boys lay blissfully up the sunny side of Arthur's Seat in a thicket of hazel while Geordie carried out a daring plan for which privacy was needed. Bobby was solemnly arraigned before a court on the charge of being a seditious Covenanting meenister, and was required to take the oath of loyalty to English King and Church on pain of being hanged in the Grassmarket. The oath had been duly written out on paper and greased with mutton tallow to make it more palatable. Bobby licked the fat off with relish. Then he took the paper between his sharp little teeth and merrily tore it to shreds. And, having finished it, he barked cheerful defiance at the court. The lads came near rolling down the slope with laughter, and they gave three cheers for the little hero. Sandy remarked, “Ye wadna think, noo, sic a sonsie doggie wad be leevin' i' the murky auld kirkyaird.”
Bobby had learned the lay of the tipped-up and scooped-out and jumbled auld toon, and he led the way homeward along the southern outskirts of the city. He turned up Nicolson Street, that ran northward, past the University and the old infirmary. To get into Greyfriars Place from the east at that time one had to descend to the Cowgate and climb out again. Bobby darted down the first of the narrow wynds.
Suddenly he turned 'round and 'round in bewilderment, then shot through a sculptured door way, into a well-like court, and up a flight of stone stairs. The slamming of a shutter overhead shocked him to a standstill on the landing and sent him dropping slowly down again. What memories surged back to his little brain, what grief gripped his heart, as he stood trembling on a certain spot in the pavement where once a long deal box had rested!
“What ails the bittie dog?” There was something here that sobered the thoughtless boys. “Come awa', Bobby!”
At that he came obediently enough. But he trotted down the very middle of the wynd, head and tail low, and turned unheeding into the Saturday-evening roar of the Cowgate. He refused to follow them up the rise between St. Magdalen's Chapel and the eastern parapet of the bridge, but kept to his way under the middle arch into the Grassmarket. By way of Candlemakers Row he gained the kirkyard gate, and when the wicket was opened he disappeared around the church. When Bobby failed to answer calls, Mr. Brown grumbled, but went after him. The little dog submitted to his vigorous scrubbing and grooming, but he refused his supper. Without a look or a wag of the tail he was gone again.
“Noo, what hae ye done to'im? He's no' like 'is ainsel' ava.”
They had done nothing, indeed. They could only relate Bobby's strange behavior in College Wynd and the rest of the way home. Mistress Jeanie nodded her head, with the wisdom of women that is of the heart.
“Eh, Jamie, that wad be whaur 'is maister deed sax months syne.” And having said it she slipped down the slope with her knitting and sat on the mound beside the mourning little dog.
When the awe-struck lads asked for the story Mr. Brown shook his head. “Ye spier Maister Traill. He kens a' aboot it; an' syne he can talk like a beuk.”
Before they left the kirkyard the laddies walked down to Auld Jock's grave and patted Bobby on the head, and they went away thoughtfully to their scattered homes.
As on that first morning when his grief was new, Bobby woke to a Calvinistic Sabbath. There were no rattling carts or hawkers crying their wares. Steeped in sunshine, the Castle loomed golden into the blue. Tenement dwellers slept late, and then moved about quietly. Children with unwontedly clean faces came out to galleries and stairs to study their catechisms. Only the birds were unaware of the seventh day, and went about their melodious business; and flower buds opened to the sun.
In mid-morning there suddenly broke on the sweet stillness that clamor of discordant bells that made the wayfarer in Edinburgh stop his ears. All the way from Leith Harbor to the Burghmuir eight score of warring bells contended to be heard. Greyfriars alone was silent in that babblement, for it had lost tower and bell in an explosion of gunpowder. And when the din ceased at last there was a sound of military music. The Castle gates swung wide, and a kilted regiment marched down High Street playing “God Save the Queen.” When Bobby was in good spirits the marching music got into his legs and set him to dancing scandalously. The caretaker and his wifie always came around the kirk on pleasant mornings to see the bonny sight of the gay soldiers going to church.
To wee Bobby these good, comfortable, everyday friends of his must have seemed strange in their black garments and their serious Sunday faces. And, ah! the Sabbath must, indeed, have been a dull day to the little dog. He had learned that when the earliest comer clicked the wicket he must go under the table-tomb and console himself with the extra bone that Mr. Traill never failed to remember. With an hour's respite for dinner at the lodge, between the morning and afternoon services, he lay there all day. The restaurant was closed, and there was no running about for good dogs. In the early dark of winter he could come out and trot quietly about the silent, deserted place.
As soon as the crocuses pushed their green noses through the earth in the spring the congregation began to linger among the graves, for to see an old burying ground renew its life is a peculiar promise of the resurrection. By midsummer visitors were coming from afar, some even from over-sea, to read the quaint inscriptions on the old tombs, or to lay tributes of flowers on the graves of poets and religious heroes. It was not until the late end of such a day that Bobby could come out of hiding to stretch his cramped legs. Then it was that tenement children dropped from low windows, over the tombs, and ate their suppers of oat cake there in the fading light.
When Mr. Traill left the kirkyard in the bright evening of the last Sunday in May he stopped without to wait for Dr. Lee, the minister of Greyfriars auld kirk, who had been behind him to the gate. Now he was nowhere to be seen. With Bobby ever in the background of his mind, at such times of possible discovery, Mr. Traill reentered the kirkyard. The minister was sitting on the fallen slab, tall silk hat off, with Mr. Brown standing beside him, uncovered and miserable of aspect, and Bobby looking up anxiously at this new element in his fate.
“Do you think it seemly for a dog to be living in the churchyard, Mr. Brown?” The minister's voice was merely kind and inquiring, but the caretaker was in fault, and this good English was disconcerting. However, his conscience acquitted him of moral wrong, and his sturdy Scotch independence came to the rescue.
“Gin a bit dog, wha hands 'is gab, isna seemly, thae pussies are the deil's ain bairns.”
The minister lifted his hand in rebuke. “Remember the Sabbath Day. And I see no cats, Mr. Brown.”
“Ye wullna see ony as lang as the wee doggie is leevin' i' the kirkyaird. An' the vermin hae sneekit awa' the first time sin' Queen Mary's day. An' syne there's mair singin' birdies than for mony a year.”
Mr. Traill had listened, unseen. Now he came forward with a gay challenge in broad Scotch to put the all but routed caretaker at his ease.
“Doctor, I hae a queistion to spier ye. Which is mair unseemly: a weel-behavin' bittie tyke i' the kirkyaird or a scandalous organ i' the kirk?”
“Ah, Mr. Traill, I'm afraid you're a sad, irreverent young dog yourself, sir.” The minister broke into a genial laugh. “Man, you've spoiled a bit of fun I was having with Mr. Brown, who takes his duties 'sairiously.”' He sat looking down at the little dog until Bobby came up to him and stood confidingly under his caressing hand. Then he added: “I have suspected for some months that he was living in the churchyard. It is truly remarkable that an active, noisy little Skye could keep so still about it.”
At that Mr. Brown retreated to the martyrs' monument to meditate on the unministerial behavior of this minister and professor of Biblical criticism in the University. Mr. Traill, however, sat himself down on the slab for a pleasant probing into the soul of this courageous dominie, who had long been under fire for his innovations in the kirk services.
“I heard of Bobby first early in the winter, from a Bible-reader at the Medical Mission in the Cowgate, who saw the little dog's master buried. He sees many strange, sad things in his work, but nothing ever shocked him so as the lonely death of that pious old shepherd in such a picturesque den of vice and misery.”
“Ay, he went from my place, fair ill, into the storm. I never knew whaur the auld man died.”
The minister looked at Mr. Traill, struck by the note of remorse in his tone.
“The missionary returned to the churchyard to look for the dog that had refused to leave the grave. He concluded that Bobby had gone away to a new home and master, as most dogs do go sooner or later. Some weeks afterward the minister of a small church in the hills inquired for him and insisted that he was still here. This last week, at the General Assembly, I heard of the wee Highlander from several sources. The tales of his escapes from the sheep-farm have grown into a sort of Odyssey of the Pentlands. I think, perhaps, if you had not continued to feed him, Mr. Traill, he might have remained at his old home.”
“Nae, I'm no' thinking so, and I was no' willing to risk the starvation of the bonny, leal Highlander.”
Until the stars came out Mr. Traill sat there telling the story. At mention of his master's name Bobby returned to the mound and stretched himself across it. “I will go before the kirk officers, Doctor Lee, and tak' full responseebility. Mr. Brown is no' to blame. It would have tak'n a man with a heart of trap-rock to have turned the woeful bit dog out.”
“He is well cared for and is of a hardy breed, so he is not likely to suffer; but a dog, no more than a man, cannot live on bread alone. His heart hungers for love.”
“Losh!” cried Mr. Brown. “Are ye thinkin' he isna gettin' it? Oor bairns are a' oot o' the hame nest, an' ma woman, Jeanie, is fair daft aboot Bobby, aye thinkin' he'll tak' the measles. An' syne, there's a' the tenement bairns cryin' oot on 'im ilka meenit, an' ane crippled laddie he een lets fondle 'im.”
“Still, it would be better if he belonged to some one master. Everybody's dog is nobody's dog,” the minister insisted. “I wish you could attach him to you, Mr. Traill.”
“Ay, it's a disappointment to me that he'll no' bide with me. Perhaps, in time--”
“It's nae use, ava,” Mr. Brown interrupted, and he related the incident of the evening before. “He's cheerfu' eneugh maist o' the time, an' likes to be wi' the laddies as weel as ony dog, but he isna forgettin' Auld Jock. The wee doggie cam' again to 'is maister's buryin'. Man, ye ne'er saw the like o' it. The wifie found 'im flattened oot to a furry door-mat, an' greetin' to brak 'is heart.”
“It's a remarkable story; and he's a beautiful little dog, and a leal one.” The minister stooped and patted Bobby, and he was thoughtful all the way to the gate.
“The matter need not be brought up in any formal way. I will speak to the elders and deacons about it privately, and refer those wanting details to you, Mr. Traill. Mr. Brown,” he called to the caretaker who stood in the lodge door, “it cannot be pleasing to God to see the little creature restrained. Give Bobby his liberty on the Sabbath.”
VIII.
It was more than eight years after Auld Jock fled from the threat of a doctor that Mr. Traill's prediction, that his tongue would get him into trouble with the magistrates, was fulfilled; and then it was because of the least-considered slip in speaking to a boyhood friend who happened to be a Burgh policeman.
Many things had tried the landlord of Ye Olde Greyfriars Dining-Rooms. After a series of soft April days, in which lilacs budded and birds sang in the kirkyard, squalls of wind and rain came up out of the sea-roaring east. The smoky old town of Edinburgh was so shaken and beaten upon and icily drenched that rattling finials and tiles were torn from ancient gables and whirled abroad. Rheumatic pains were driven into the joints of the elderly. Mr. Brown took to his bed in the lodge, and Mr. Traill was touchy in his temper.
A sensitive little dog learns to read the human barometer with a degree of accuracy rarely attained by fellowmen and, in times of low pressure, wisely effaces himself. His rough thatch streaming, Bobby trotted in blithely for his dinner, ate it under the settle, shook himself dry, and dozed half the afternoon.
To the casual observer the wee terrier was no older than when his master died. As swift of foot and as sound of wind as he had ever been, he could tear across country at the heels of a new generation of Heriot laddies and be as fresh as a daisy at nightfall. Silvery gray all over, the whitening hairs on his face and tufted feet were not visible. His hazel-brown eyes were still as bright and soft and deep as the sunniest pools of Leith Water. It was only when he opened his mouth for a tiny, pink cavern of a yawn that the points of his teeth could be seen to be wearing down; and his after-dinner nap was more prolonged than of old. At such times Mr. Traill recalled that the longest life of a dog is no more than a fifth of the length of days allotted to man.
On that snarling April day, when only himself and the flossy ball of sleeping Skye were in the place, this thought added to Mr. Traill's discontent. There had been few guests. Those who had come in, soaked and surly, ate their dinner in silence and discomfort and took themselves away, leaving the freshly scrubbed floor as mucky as a moss-hag on the moor. Late in the afternoon a sergeant, risen from the ranks and cocky about it, came in and turned himself out of a dripping greatcoat, dapper and dry in his red tunic, pipe-clayed belt, and winking buttons. He ordered tea and toast and Dundee marmalade with an air of gay well-being that was no less than a personal affront to a man in Mr. Traill's frame of mind. Trouble brewed with the tea that Ailie Lindsey, a tall lassie of fifteen, but shy and elfish as of old, brought in on a tray from the scullery.
When this spick-and-span non-commissioned officer demanded Mr. Traill's price for the little dog that took his eye, the landlord replied curtly that Bobby was not for sale. The soldier was insolently amused.
“That's vera surprisin'. I aye thoucht an Edinburgh shopkeeper wad sell ilka thing he had, an' tak' the siller to bed wi' 'im to keep 'im snug the nicht.”
Mr. Traill returned, with brief sarcasm, that “his lairdship” had been misinformed.
“Why wull ye no' sell the bit dog?” the man insisted.
The badgered landlord turned upon him and answered at length, after the elaborate manner of a minister who lays his sermon off in sections,
“First: he's no' my dog to sell. Second: he's a dog of rare discreemination, and is no' like to tak' you for a master. Third: you soldiers aye have with you a special brand of shulling-a-day impudence. And, fourth and last, my brither: I'm no' needing your siller, and I can manage to do fair weel without your conversation.”
As this bombardment proceeded, the sergeant's jaw dropped. When it was finished he laughed heartily and slapped his knee. “Man, come an' brak bread wi' me or I'll hae to brak yer stiff neck.”
A truce was declared over a cozy pot of tea, and the two became at least temporary friends. It was such a day that the landlord would have gossiped with a gaol bird; and when a soldier who has seen years of service, much of it in strange lands, once admits a shopkeeper to equality, he can be affable and entertaining “by the ordinar'.” Mr. Traill sketched Bobby's story broadly, and to a sympathetic listener; and the soldier told the landlord of the animals that had lived and died in the Castle.
Parrots and monkeys and strange dogs and cats had been brought there by regiments returning from foreign countries and colonies. But most of the pets had been native dogs--collies, spaniels and terriers, and animals of mixed breeds and of no breed at all, but just good dogs. No one knew when the custom began, but there was an old and well-filled cemetery for the Castle pets. When a dog died a little stone was set up, with the name of the animal and the regiment to which it had belonged on it. Soldiers often went there among the tiny mounds and told stories of the virtues and taking ways of old favorites. And visitors read the names of Flora and Guy and Dandie, of Prince Charlie and Rob Roy, of Jeanie and Bruce and Wattie. It was a merry life for a dog in the Castle. He was petted and spoiled by homesick men, and when he died there were a thousand mourners at his funeral.
“Put it to the bit Skye noo. If he tak's the Queen's shullin' he belongs to the army.” The sergeant flipped a coin before Bobby, who was wagging his tail and sniffing at the military boots with his ever lively interest in soldiers.
He looked up at the tossed coin indifferently, and when it fell to the floor he let it lie. “Siller” has no meaning to a dog. His love can be purchased with nothing less than his chosen master's heart. The soldier sighed at Bobby's indifference. He introduced himself as Sergeant Scott, of the Royal Engineers, detailed from headquarters to direct the work in the Castle crafts shops. Engineers rank high in pay and in consideration, and it was no ordinary Jack of all trades who had expert knowledge of so many skilled handicrafts. Mr. Traill's respect and liking for the man increased with the passing moments.
As the sergeant departed he warned Mr. Traill, laughingly, that he meant to kidnap Bobby the very first chance he got. The Castle pet had died, and Bobby was altogether too good a dog to be wasted on a moldy auld kirkyard and thrown on a dust-cart when he came to die.
Mr. Traill resented the imputation. “He'll no' be thrown on a dust-cart!”
The door was shut on the mocking retort “Hoo do ye ken he wullna?”
And there was food for gloomy reflection. The landlord could not know, in truth, what Bobby's ultimate fate might be. But little over nine years of age, he should live only five or six years longer at most. Of his friends, Mr. Brown was ill and aging, and might have to give place to a younger man. He himself was in his prime, but he could not be certain of living longer than this hardy little dog. For the first time he realized the truth of Dr. Lee's saying that everybody's dog was nobody's dog. The tenement children held Bobby in a sort of community affection. He was the special pet of the Heriot laddies, but a class was sent into the world every year and was scattered far. Not one of all the hundreds of bairns who had known and loved this little dog could give him any real care or protection.