“Do you happen to care for Edinburgh antiquities, Mr. Traill? Reformation piety made sad havoc of art everywhere. Man, come here!”
Down into the lime dust the Lord Provost and the landlord went, in their good black clothes, for a glimpse of a bit of sculpturing on a tomb that had been walled in to make a passage. A loose brick removed, behind and above it, the sun flashed through fragments of emerald and ruby glass of a saint's robe, in a bricked up window. Such buried and forgotten treasure, Glenormiston explained, filled the entire south transept. In the High Kirk, that then filled the eastern end of the cathedral, they went up a cheap wooden stairway, to the pew-filled gallery that was built into the old choir, and sat down. Mr. Traill's eyes sparkled. Glenormiston was a man after his own heart, and they were getting along famously; but, oh! it began to seem more and more unlikely that a Lord Provost, who was concerned about such braw things as the restoration of the old cathedral and letting the sun into the ancient tenements, should be much interested in a small, masterless dog.
“Man, auld John Knox will turn over in his bit grave in Parliament Close if you put a 'kist o' whustles' in St. Giles.” Mr. Traill laughed.
“I admit I might have stopped short of the organ but for the courageous example of Doctor Lee in Greyfriars. It was from him that I had a quite extravagant account of this wee, leal Highlander a few years ago. I have aye meant to go to see him; but I'm a busy man and the matter passed out of mind. Mr. Traill, I'm your sadly needed witness: I heard you from the doorway of the court-room, and I sent up a note confirming your story and asking, as a courtesy, that the case be turned over to me for some exceptional disposal. Would you mind telling another man the tale that so moved Doctor Lee? I've aye had a fondness for the human document.”
So there, above the pulpit of the High Kirk of St. Giles, the tale was told again, so strangely did this little dog's life come to be linked with the highest and lowest, the proudest and humblest in the Scottish capital. Now, at mention of Auld Jock, Bobby put his shagged paws up inquiringly on the edge of the pew, so that Mr. Traill lifted him. He lay down flat between the two men, with his nose on his paws, and his little tousled head under the Lord Provost's hand.
Auld Jock lived again in that recital. Glenormiston, coming from the country of the Ettrick shepherd, knew such lonely figures, and the pathos of old age and waning powers that drove them in to the poor quarters of towns. There was pictured the stormy night and the simple old man who sought food and shelter, with the devoted little dog that “wasna 'is ain.” Sick unto death he was, and full of ignorant prejudices and fears that needed wise handling. And there was the well-meaning landlord's blunder, humbly confessed, and the obscure and tragic result of it, in a foul and swarming rookery “juist aff the Coogate.”
“Man, it was Bobby that told me of his master's condition. He begged me to help Auld Jock, and what did I do but let my fule tongue wag about doctors. I nae more than turned my back than the auld body was awa' to his meeserable death. It has aye eased my conscience a bit to feed the dog.”
“That's not the only reason why you have fed him.” There was a twinkle in the Lord Provost's eye, and Mr. Traill blushed.
“Weel, I'll admit to you that I'm fair fulish about Bobby. Man, I've courted that sma' terrier for eight and a half years. He's as polite and friendly as the deil, but he'll have naething to do with me or with onybody. I wonder the intelligent bit doesn't bite me for the ill turn I did his master.”
Then there was the story of Bobby's devotion to Auld Jock's memory to be told—the days when he faced starvation rather than desert that grave, the days when he lay cramped under the fallen table-tomb, and his repeated, dramatic escapes from the Pentland farm. His never broken silence in the kirkyard was only to be explained by the unforgotten orders of his dead master. His intelligent effort to make himself useful to the caretaker had won indulgence. His ready obedience, good temper, high spirits and friendliness had made him the special pet of the tenement children and the Heriot laddies. At the very last Mr. Traill repeated the talk he had had with the non-commissioned officer from the Castle, and confessed his own fear of some forlorn end for Bobby. It was true he was nobody's dog; and he was fascinated by soldiers and military music, and so, perhaps—