waggin' 'is tail, cheerfu'-like.Bobby has mair gude sense in 'is heid than mony a man wha comes ben the hoose, wi' a lang face, to let me ken I'm gangin' to dee.Gin I keep snug an' canny it wullna gang to the heart.Jeanie, woman, fetch ma fife, wull ye?"Then there were strange doings in the kirkyard lodge.James Brown "wasna gangin' to dee" before his time came, at any rate.In his youth, as under-gardener on a Highland estate, he had learned to play the piccolo flute, and lately he had revived the pastoral art of piping just because it went so well with Bobby's delighted legs.To the sonsie air of "Bonnie Dundee" Bobby hopped and stepped and louped, and he turned about on his hind feet, his shagged fore paws drooped on his breast as daintily as the hands in the portraits of early Victorian ladies.The fire burned cheerily in the polished grate, and winked on every shining thing in the room; primroses bloomed in the diamond-paned casement; the skylark fluttered up and sang in its cage; the fife whistled as gaily as a blackbird, and the little dog danced with a comic clumsiness that made them all double up with laughter.The place was so full of brightness, and of kind and merry hearts, that there was room for nothing else.Not one of them dreamed that the shadow of the law was even then over this useful and lovable little dog's head.
A glance at the wag-at-the-wa' clock reminded Ailie that Mr.
Traill might be waiting for Bobby.
Curious about the mystery, the children took the little dog down to the gate, happily.They were sobered, however, when Mr.Traill appeared, looking very grand in his Sabbath clothes.He inspected Bobby all over with anxious scrutiny, and gave each of the bairns a threepenny-bit, but he had no blithe greeting for them.Much preoccupied, he went off at once, with the animated little muff of a dog at his heels.In truth, Mr.Traill was thinking about how he might best plead Bobby's cause with the Lord Provost.The note that was handed him, on leaving the Burgh court the day before, had read:
"Meet me at the Regent's Tomb in St.Giles at eight o'clock in the morning, and bring the wee Highlander with you.--Glenormiston."On the first reading the landlord's spirits had risen, out of all proportion to the cause, owing to his previous depression.But, after all, the appointment had no official character, since the Regent's Tomb in St.Giles had long been a sort of town pump for the retailing of gossip and for the transaction of trifling affairs of all sorts.The fate of this little dog was a small matter, indeed, and so it might be thought fitting, by the powers that be, that it should be decided at the Regent's Tomb rather than in the Burgh court.
To the children, who watched from the kirkyard gate until Mr.
Traill and Bobby were hidden by the buildings on the bridge, it was no' canny.The busy landlord lived mostly in shirt-sleeves and big white apron, ready to lend a hand in the rush hours, and he never was known to put on his black coat and tall hat on a week-day, except to attend a funeral.However, there was the day's work to be done.Tammy had a lesson still to get, and returned to the kirkyard, and Ailie ran up to the dining-rooms.
On the step she collided with a red headed, freckle-faced young man who asked for Mr.Traill.
"He isna here." The shy lassie was made almost speechless by recognizing, in this neat, well-spoken clerk, an old Heriot boy, once as poor as herself.
"Do you wark for him, lassie? Weel, do you know how he cam' out in the Burgh court about the bit dog?"There was only one "bit dog" in the world to Ailie.Wild eyed with alarm at mention of the Burgh court, in connection with that beloved little pet, she stammered: "It's--it's--no' a coort he gaed to.Maister Traill's tak'n Bobby awa' to a braw kirk."Sandy nodded his head."Ay, that would be the police office in St.Giles.Lassie, tell Mr.Traill I sent the Lord Provost, and if he's needing a witness to ca' on Sandy McGregor."Ailie stared after him with frightened eyes.Into her mind flashed that ominous remark of the policeman two days before: "Ididna ken ye had a dog, John?" She overtook Sandy in front of the sheriff's court on the bridge.
"What--what hae the police to do wi' bittie dogs?""If a dog has nae master to pay for his license the police can tak' him up and put him out o' the way.""Hoo muckle siller are they wantin'?""Seven shullings.Gude day, lassie; I'm fair late." Sandy was not really alarmed about Bobby since the resourceful Mr.Traill had taken up his cause, and he had no idea of the panic of grief and fright that overwhelmed this forlorn child.
Seven shullings! It was an enormous sum to the tenement bairn, whose half-blind grandmither knitted and knitted in a dimly lighted room, and hoarded halfpennies and farthings to save herself from pauper burial.Seven shullings would pay a month's rent for any one of the crowded rooms in which a family lived.
Ailie herself, an untrained lassie who scarcely knew the use of a toasting-fork, was overpaid by generous Mr.Traill at sixpence a day.Seven shullings to permit one little dog to live! It did not occur to Ailie that this was a sum Mr.Traill could easily pay.No' onybody at all had seven shullings all at once! But, oh!
everybody had pennies and halfpennies and farthings, and she and Tammy together had a sixpence.
Darting back to the gate, to catch the laddie before he could be off to school, she ran straight into the policeman, who stood with his hand on the wicket.He eyed her sharply.
"Eh, lassie, I was gangin' to spier at the lodge, gin there's a bit dog leevin' i' the kirkyaird.""I--I--dinna ken." Her voice was unmanageable.She had left to her only the tenement-bred instinct of concealment of any and all facts from an officer of the law.
"Ye dinna ken! Maister Traill said i' the coort a' the bairns aboot kenned the dog.Was he leein'?"The question stung her into angry admission."He wadna be leein'.
But--but--the bittie--dog--isna here noo.""Syne, whaur is he? Oot wi' it!"
