Of tougher constitution was a small Scotch terrier that, in 1868, followed his master’s coffin to the churchyard of Old Greyfriars, Edinburgh, heedless of the notice forbidding entrance to dogs. The morning after the funeral, Bobby was found lying on the newly-made mound. He was turned out of the churchyard; but the next morning saw him upon the grave, and the next and the next. Taking pity upon the forlorn little creature, the custodian of the burial-ground gave him some food. From that time, Bobby considered himself privileged, and was constantly in and about the churchyard, only leaving it at mid-day to obtain a meal at the expense of a kind-hearted restaurant keeper; but every night was passed upon the spot holding all he had once held dear. Many were the attempts to get him to transfer his allegiance from the dead to the living; but none availed. As long as his life lasted, and it lasted four years, Bobby stayed by, or in the immediate neighbourhood of, his master’s grave. Such fidelity, unexampled even in his faithful race, deserved to be kept in remembrance; and thanks to the most munificent of Lady Bountifuls, his memory is kept green by his counterfeit presentment on a drinking-fountain of Peterhead granite erected on George the Fourth Bridge, as a ‘tribute to the affectionate fidelity of Greyfriars Bobby. In 1868, the faithful dog followed the remains of his master to Greyfriars Churchyard, and lingered near the spot until his death in 1872.’
London is not without its memorials to dogs. On the wall leading to the Irongate Stairs, near the Tower, may be read: ‘In Memory of Egypt, a favourite dog belonging to the Irongate Watermen, killed on the 4th August 1841, aged 16.
Here lies interred, beneath this spot,
A faithful dog, who should not be forgot.
Full fifteen years he watched here with care,
Contented with hard bed and harder fare.
Around the Tower he daily used to roam
In search of bits so savoury, or a bone.
A military pet he was, and in the Dock,
His rounds he always went at twelve o’clock;