Ah! here was a warm place in a cold world for Bobby.Asoft-hearted little mistress and merry playmate was here, generous food, and human society of a kind that was very much to a little farm dog's liking.Here was freedom--wide moors to delight his scampering legs, adventures with rabbits, foxes, hares and moor-fowl, and great spaces where no one's ears would be offended by his loudest, longest barking.Besides, Auld Jock had said, with his last breath, "Gang--awa'--hame--laddie!" It is not to be supposed Bobby had forgotten that, since he remembered and obeyed every other order of that beloved voice.But there, self-interest, love of liberty, and the instinct of obedience, even, sank into the abysses of the little creature's mind.Up to the top rose the overmastering necessity of guarding the bit of sacred earth that covered his master.
The byre was no sooner locked than Bobby began, in the pitch darkness, to explore the walls.The single promise of escape that was offered was an inch-wide crack under the door, where the flooring stopped short and exposed a strip of earth.That would have appalled any but a desperate little dog.The crack was so small as to admit but one paw, at first, and the earth was packed as hard as wood by generations of trampling cattle.
There he began to dig.He came of a breed of dogs used by farmers and hunters to dig small, burrowing animals out of holes, a breed whose courage and persistence know no limit.He dug patiently, steadily, hour after hour, enlarging the hole by inches.Now and then he had to stop to rest.When he was able to use both forepaws he made encouraging progress; but when he had to reach under the door, quite the length of his stretched legs, and drag every bit of earth back into the byre, the task must have been impossible to any little creature not urged by utter misery.But Skye terriers have been known to labor with such fury that they have perished of their own exertions.Bobby's nose sniffed liberty long before he could squeeze his weasel-like body through the tunnel.His back bruised and strained by the struggle through a hole too small, he stood, trembling with exhaustion, in the windy dawn.
An opening door, a barking sheep-dog, the shuffle of the moving flock, were signs that the farm day was beginning, although all the stars had not faded out of the sky.A little flying shadow, Bobby slipped out of the cow-yard, past the farm-house, and literally tumbled down the brae.From one level to another he dropped, several hundred feet in a very few minutes, and from the clear air of the breezy hilltop to a nether world that was buried fathoms deep in a sea-fog as white as milk.
Hidden in a deep fold of the spreading skirts of the range, and some distance from the road, lay a pool, made by damming a burn, and used, in the shearing season, for washing sheep.Surrounded by brushy woods, and very damp and dark, at other seasons it was deserted.Bobby found this secluded place with his nose, curled up under a hazel thicket and fell sound asleep.And while he slept, a nipping wind from the far, northern Highlands swooped down on the mist and sent it flying out to sea.The Lowlands cleared like magic.From the high point where Bobby lay the road could be seen to fall, by short rises and long descents, all the way to Edinburgh.From its crested ridge and flanking hills the city trailed a dusky banner of smoke out over the fishing fleet in the Firth.
A little dog cannot see such distant views.Bobby could only read and follow the guide-posts of odors along the way.He had begun the ascent to the toll-bar when he heard the clatter of a cart and the pounding of hoofs behind him.He did not wait to learn if this was the Cauldbrae farmer in pursuit.Certain knowledge on that point was only to be gained at his peril.He sprang into the shelter of a stone wall, scrambled over it, worked his way along it a short distance, and disappeared into a brambly path that skirted a burn in a woody dell.
