"Oh, Bobby! hae ye come hame? Mither, here's ma ain wee Bobby!" For she had never given up the hope that this adored little pet would some day return to her.
"Havers, lassie, ye're aye seein' Bobby i' ilka Hielan' terrier, an' there's mony o' them aboot."The gude-wife looked from an attic window in the steep gable, and then hurried down."Weel, noo, ye're richt, Elsie.He wad be comin' wi' the regiment frae the Castle.Bittie doggies an' laddies are fair daft aboot the soldiers.Ay, he's bonny, an' weel cared for, by the ordinar'.I wonder gin he's still leevin' i' the grand auld kirkyaird."Wary of her remembered endearments, Bobby kept a safe distance from the maidie, but he sat up and lolled his tongue, quite willing to pay her a friendly visit.From that she came to a wrong conclusion: "Sin' he cam' o' his ain accord he's like to bide." Her eyes were blue stars.
"I wadna be coontin' on that, lassie.An' I wadna speck a door on 'im anither time.Grin he wanted to get oot he'd dig aneath a floor o' stane.Leuk at that, noo! The bonny wee is greetin' for Auld Jock."It was true, for, on entering the kitchen, Bobby went straight to the bench in the corner and lay down flat under it.Elsie sat beside him, just as she had done of old.Her eyes overflowed so in sympathy that the mother was quite distracted.This would not do at all.
"Lassie, are ye no' rememberin' Bobby was fair fond o' moor-hens' eggs fried wi' bits o' cheese? He wullna be gettin' thae things; an' it wad be maist michty, noo, gin ye couldna win the bittie dog awa' frae the reekie auld toon.
Gang oot wi' 'im an' rin on the brae an' bid 'im find the nests aneath the whins."In a moment they were out on the heather, and it seemed, indeed, as if Bobby might be won.He frisked and barked at Elsie's heels, chased rabbits and flushed the grouse; and when he ran into a peat-darkened tarp, rimmed with moss, he had such a cold and splashy swim as quite to give a little dog a distaste for warm, soapy water in a claes tub.He shook and ran himself dry, and he raced the laughing child until they both dropped panting on the wind-rippled heath.Then he hunted on the ground under the gorse for those nests that had a dozen or more eggs in them.He took just one from each in his mouth, as Auld Jock had taught him to do.On the kitchen hearth he ate the savory meal with much satisfaction and polite waggings.But when the bugle sounded from below to form ranks, he pricked his drop ears and started for the door.
Before he knew what had happened he was inside the poultry-house.In another instant he was digging frantically in the soft earth under the door.When the lassie lay down across the crack he stopped digging, in consternation.His sense of smell told him what it was that shut out the strip of light; and a bairn's soft body is not a proper object of attack for a little dog, no matter how desperate the emergency.There was no time to be lost, for the drums began to beat the march.Having to get out very quickly, Bobby did a forbidden thing: swiftly and noisily he dashed around the dark place, and there arose such wild squawkings and rushings of wings as to bring the gude-wife out of the house in alarm.
"Lassie, I canna hae the bittie dog in wi the broodin' chuckies!"She flung the door wide.Bobby shot through, and into Elsie's outstretched arms.She held to him desperately, while he twisted and struggled and strained away; and presently something shining worked into view, through the disordered thatch about his neck.The mother had come to the help of the child, and it was she who read the inscription on the brazen plate aloud.
"Preserve us a'! Lassie, he's been tak'n by the Laird Provost an' gien the name o' the auld kirkyaird.He's an ower grand doggie.Ma puir bairnie, dinna greet so sair!" For the little girl suddenly released the wee Highlander and sobbed on her mother's shoulder.
"He isna ma ain Bobby ony mair!" She "couldna thole" to watch him as he tumbled down the brae.
On the outward march, among the many dogs and laddies that had followed the soldiers, Bobby escaped notice.But most of these had gone adventuring in Swanston Dell, to return to the city by the gorge of Leith Water.Now, traveling three miles to the soldiers' one, scampering in wide circles over the fields, swimming burns, scrambling under hedges, chasing whaups into piping cries, barking and louping in pure exuberance of spirits, many eyes looked upon him admiringly, and discontented mouths turned upward at the corners.It is not the least of a little dog's missions in life to communicate his own irresponsible gaiety to men.
If the return had been over George IV Bridge Bobby would, no doubt, have dropped behind at Mr.Traill's or at the kirkyard.But on the Burghmuir the troops swung eastward until they rounded Arthur's Seat and met the cavalry drilling before the barracks at Piershill.Such pretty maneuvering of horse and foot took place below Holyrood Palace as quite to enrapture a terrier.
When the infantry marched up the Canongate and High Street, the mounted men following and the bands playing at full blast, the ancient thoroughfare was quickly lined with cheering crowds, and faces looked down from ten tiers of windows on a beautiful spectacle.Bobby did not know when the bridge-approach was passed; and then, on Castle Hill, he was in an unknown region.There the street widened to the great square of the esplanade.The cavalry wheeled and dashed down High Street, but the infantry marched on and up, over the sounding drawbridge that spanned a dry moat of the Middle Ages, and through a deep-arched gateway of masonry.
