To Bobby's delight Auld Jock sat up and blinked his eyes. The old eyes were brighter, the grizzled face redder than was natural, but such matters were quite outside of the little dog's ken. It was a dazed moment before the man remembered that Bobby should not be there. He frowned down at the excited little creature, who was wagging satisfaction from his nose-tip to the end of his crested tail, in a puzzled effort to remember why.
“Eh, Bobby!” His tone was one of vague reproof. “Nae doot ye're fair satisfied wi' yer ainsel'.”
Bobby's feathered tail drooped, but it still quivered, all ready to wag again at the slightest encouragement. Auld Jock stared at him stupidly, his dizzy head in his hands. A very tired, very draggled little dog, Bobby dropped beside his master, panting, subdued by the reproach, but happy. His soft eyes, veiled by the silvery fringe that fell from his high forehead, were deep brown pools of affection. Auld Jock forgot, by and by, that Bobby should not be there, and felt only the comfort of his companionship.
“Weel, Bobby,” he began again, uncertainly. And then, because his Scotch peasant reticence had been quite broken down by Bobby's shameless devotion, so that he told the little dog many things that he cannily concealed from human kind, he confided the strange weakness and dizziness in the head that had overtaken him: “Auld Jock is juist fair silly the day, bonny wee laddie.”
Down came a shaking, hot old hand in a rough caress, and up a gallant young tail to wave like a banner. All was right with the little dog's world again. But it was plain, even to Bobby, that something had gone wrong with Auld Jock. It was the man who wore the air of a culprit. A Scotch laborer does not lightly confess to feeling “fair silly,” nor sleep away the busy hours of daylight. The old man was puzzled and humiliated by this discreditable thing. A human friend would have understood his plight, led the fevered man out of that bleak and fetid cul-de-sac, tucked him into a warm bed, comforted him with a hot drink, and then gone swiftly for skilled help. Bobby knew only that his master had unusual need of love.
Very, very early a dog learns that life is not as simple a matter to his master as it is to himself. There are times when he reads trouble, that he cannot help or understand, in the man's eye and voice. Then he can only look his love and loyalty, wistfully, as if he felt his own shortcoming in the matter of speech. And if the trouble is so great that the master forgets to eat his dinner; forgets, also, the needs of his faithful little friend, it is the dog's dear privilege to bear neglect and hunger without complaint. Therefore, when Auld Jock lay down again and sank, almost at once, into sodden sleep, Bobby snuggled in the hollow of his master's arm and nuzzled his nose in his master's neck.
II.
While the bells played “There Grows a Bonny Briarbush in Our Kale Yard,” Auld Jock and Bobby slept. They slept while the tavern emptied itself of noisy guests and clattering crockery was washed at the dingy, gas-lighted windows that overlooked the cockpit. They slept while the cold fell with the falling day and the mist was whipped into driving rain. Almost a cave, between shelving rock and house wall, a gust of wind still found its way in now and then. At a splash of rain Auld Jock stirred uneasily in his sleep. Bobby merely sniffed the freshened air with pleasure and curled himself up for another nap.
No rain could wet Bobby. Under his rough outer coat, that was parted along the back as neatly as the thatch along a cottage ridge-pole, was a dense, woolly fleece that defied wind and rain, snow and sleet to penetrate. He could not know that nature had not been as generous in protecting his master against the weather. Although of a subarctic breed, fitted to live shelterless if need be, and to earn his living by native wit, Bobby had the beauty, the grace, and the charming manners of a lady's pet. In a litter of prick-eared, wire-haired puppies Bobby was a “sport.”