"I daur ye to gang up!" was all that was necessary to set any group of youngsters to scaling the precipice.By every tree and ledge, by every cranny and point of rock, stoutly rooted hazel and thorn bush and clump of gorse, they climbed.These laddies went up a quarter or a third of the way to the grim ramparts and came cautiously down again.Bobby scrambled higher, tumbled back more recklessly and fell, head over heels and upside down, on the daisied turf.He righted himself at once, and yelped in sharp protest.Then he sniffed and busied himself with pretenses, in the elaborate unconcern with which a little dog denies anything discreditable.There were legends of daring youth having climbed this war-like cliff and laying hands on the fortress wall, but Geordie expressed a popular feeling in declaring these tales "a'
lees."
"No' ony laddie could gang a' the way up an' come doon wi' 'is heid no' broken.Bobby couldna do it, an' he's mair like a wild fox than an ordinar' dog.Noo, we're the Light Brigade at Balaklava.Chairge!"The Crimean War was then a recent event.Heroes of Sebastopol answered the summons of drum and bugle in the Castle and fired the hearts of Edinburgh youth.Cannon all around them, and "theirs not to reason why," this little band stormed out Queensferry Street and went down, hand under hand, into the fairy underworld of Leith Water.
All its short way down from the Pentlands to the sea, the Water of Leith was then a foaming little river of mills, twisting at the bottom of a gorge.One cliff-like wall or the other lay to the sun all day, so that the way was lined with a profusion of every wild thing that turns green and blooms in the Lowlands of Scotland.And it was filled to the brim with bird song and water babble.
A crowd of laddies had only to go inland up this gorge to find wild and tame bloom enough to bury "Jinglin' Geordie" all over again every year.But adventure was to be had in greater variety by dropping seaward with the bickering brown water.These waded along the shallow margin, walked on shelving sands of gold, and, where the channel was filled, they clung to the rocks and picked their way along dripping ledges.Bobby missed no chance to swim.
If he could scramble over rough ground like a squirrel or a fox, he could swim like an otter.Swept over the low dam at Dean village, where a cup-like valley was formed, he tumbled over and over in the spray and was all but drowned.As soon as he got his breath and his bearings he struck out frantically for the bank, shook the foam from his eyes and ears, and barked indignantly at the saucy fall.The white miller in the doorway of the gray-stone, red-roofed mill laughed, and anxious children ran down from a knot of storybook cottages and gay dooryards."I'll gie ye ten shullin's for the sperity bit dog," the miller shouted, above the clatter of the' wheel and the swish of the dam.
"He isna oor ain dog," Geordie called back."But he wullna droon.
He's got a gude heid to 'im, an' wullna be sic a bittie fule anither time."Indeed he had a good head on him! Bobby never needed a second lesson.At Silver Mills and Canon Mills he came out and trotted warily around the dam.Where the gorge widened to a valley toward the sea they all climbed up to Leith Walk, that ran to the harbor, and came out to a wonder-world of water-craft anchored in the Firth.Each boy picked out his ship to go adventuring.
"I'm gangin' to Norway!"
Geordie was scornful."Hoots, ye tame pussies.Ye're fleid o'
gettin' yer feet wat.I'll be rinnin' aff to be a pirate.Come awa' doon."They followed.the leader along shore and boarded an abandoned and evil-smelling fishingboat.There they ran up a ragged jacket for a black flag.But sailing a stranded craft palled presently.
"Nae, I'm gangin' to be a Crusoe.Preserve me! If there's no' a futprint i' the sand Bobby's ma sma' man Friday."Away they ran southward to find a castaway's shelter in a hollow on the golf links.Soon this was transformed into a wrecker's den, and then into the hiding-place of a harried Covenanter fleeing religious persecution.Daring things to do swarmed in upon their minds, for Edinburgh laddies live in a city of romantic history, of soldiers, of near-by mountains, and of sea rovings.No adventure served them five minutes, and Bobby was in every one.Ah, lucky Bobby, to have such gay playfellows on a sunny afternoon and under foot the open country!
And fortunate laddies to have such a merry rascal of a wee dog with them! To the mile they ran, Bobby went five, scampering in wide circles and barking and louping at butterflies and whaups.He made a detour to the right to yelp saucily at the red-coated sentry who paced before the Gothic gateway to the deserted Palace of Holyrood, and as far to the left to harry the hoofs of a regiment of cavalry drilling before the barracks at Piershill.He raced on ahead and swam out to scatter the fleet of swan sailing or the blue mirror of Duddingston Loch.
The tired boys lay blissfully up the sunny side of Arthur's Seat in a thicket of hazel while Geordie carried out a daring plan for which privacy was needed.Bobby was solemnly arraigned before a court on the charge of being a seditious Covenanting meenister, and was required to take the oath of loyalty to English King and Church on pain of being hanged in the Grassmarket.The oath had been duly written out on paper and greased with mutton tallow to make it more palatable.Bobby licked the fat off with relish.
Then he took the paper between his sharp little teeth and merrily tore it to shreds.And, having finished it, he barked cheerful defiance at the court.The lads came near rolling down the slope with laughter, and they gave three cheers for the little hero.
