The wrens fluffed themselves, scolded it, and told it to get up.The blue titmice flew over it in a flock again and again, with much sweet gossiping, but they did not venture nearer.A redbreast lighted on the rose bush that marked Auld Jock's grave, cocked its head knowingly, and warbled a little song, as much as to say: "If it's alive that will wake it up."As Bobby did not stir, the robin fluttered down, studied him from all sides, made polite inquiries that were not answered, and concluded that it would be quite safe to take a silver hair for nest lining.Then, startled by the animal warmth or by a faint, breathing movement, it dropped the shining trophy and flew away in a shrill panic.At that, all the birds set up such an excited crying that they waked Tammy.
From the rude loophole of a window that projected from the old Cunzie Neuk, the crippled laddie could see only the shadowy tombs and the long gray wall of the two kirks, through the sunny haze.But he dropped his crutches over, and climbed out onto the vault.Never before had Bobby failed to hear that well-known tap-tap-tapping on the graveled path, nor failed to trot down to meet it with friskings of welcome.But now he lay very still, even when a pair of frail arms tried to lift his dead weight to a heaving breast, and Tammy's cry of woe rang through the kirkyard.In a moment Ailie and Mistress Jeanie were in the wet grass beside them, half a hundred casements flew open, and the piping voices of tenement bairns cried-down:
"Did the bittie doggie come hame?"
Oh yes, the bittie doggie had come hame, indeed, but down such perilous heights as none of them dreamed; and now in what a woeful plight!
Some murmur of the excitement reached an open dormer of the Temple tenements, where Geordie Ross had slept with one ear of the born doctor open.Snatching up a case of first aids to the injured, he ran down the twisting stairs to the Grassmarket, up to the gate, and around the kirk, to find a huddled group of women and children weeping over a limp little bundle of a senseless dog.He thrust a bottle of hartshorn under the black muzzle, and with a start and a moan Bobby came back to consciousness.
"Lay him down flat and stop your havers," ordered the business-like, embryo medicine man."Bobby's no' dead.Laddie, you're a braw soldier for holding your ain feelings, so just hold the wee dog's head." Then, in the reassuring dialect: "Hoots, Bobby, open the bit mou' noo, an' tak' the medicine like a mannie!" Down the tiny red cavern of a throat Geordie poured a dose that galvanized the small creature into life.
"Noo, then, loup, ye bonny rascal!"
Bobby did his best to jump at Geordie's bidding.He was so glad to be at home and to see all these familiar faces of love that he lifted himself on his fore paws, and his happy heart almost put the power to loup into his hind legs.But when he tried to stand up he cried out with the pains and sank down again, with an apologetic and shamefaced look that was worthy of Auld Jock himself.
Geordie sobered on the instant.
"Weel, now, he's been hurt.We'll just have to see what ails the sonsie doggie." He ran his hand down the parting in the thatch to discover if the spine had been injured.When he suddenly pinched the ball of a hind toe Bobby promptly resented it by jerking his head around and looking at him reproachfully.The bairns were indignant, too, but Geordie grinned cheerfully and said: "He's no' paralyzed, at ony rate." He turned as footsteps were heard coming hastily around the kirk.
"A gude morning to you, Mr.Traill.Bobby may have been run over by a cart and got internal injuries, but I'm thinking it's just sprains and bruises from a bad fall.He was in a state of collapse, and his claws are as broken and his toes as torn as if he had come down Castle Rock."This was such an extravagant surmise that even the anxious landlord smiled.
Then he said, drily:
"You're a braw laddie, Geordie, and gudehearted, but you're no' a doctor yet, and, with your leave, I'll have my ain medical man tak' a look at Bobby.""Ay, I would," Geordie agreed, cordially."It's worth four shullings to have your mind at ease, man.I'll just go up to the lodge and get a warm bath ready, to tak' the stiffness out of his muscles, and brew a tea from an herb that wee wild creatures know all about and aye hunt for when they're ailing."Geordie went away gaily, to take disorder and evil smells into Mistress Jeanie's shining kitchen.
No sooner had the medical student gone up to the lodge, and the children had been persuaded to go home to watch the proceedings anxiously from the amphitheater of the tenement windows, than the kirkyard gate was slammed back noisily by a man in a hurry.It was the sergeant who, in the splendor of full uniform, dropped in the wet grass beside Bobby.
"Lush! The sma' dog got hame, an' is still leevin'.Noo, God forgie me--""Eh, man, what had you to do with Bobby's misadventure?"Mr.Traill fixed an accusing eye on the soldier, remembering suddenly his laughing threat to kidnap Bobby.The story came out in a flood of remorseful words, from Bobby's following of the troops so gaily into the Castle to his desperate escape over the precipice.
"Noo," he said, humbly, "gin it wad be ony satisfaction to ye, I'll gang up to the Castle an' put on fatigue dress, no' to disgrace the unifarm o' her Maijesty, an' let ye tak' me oot on the Burghmuir an' gie me a gude lickin'."Mr.Traill shrugged his shoulders."Naething would satisfy me, man, but to get behind you and kick you over the Firth into the Kingdom of Fife."He turned an angry back on the sergeant and helped Geordie lift Bobby onto Mrs.Brown's braided hearth-rug and carry the improvised litter up to the lodge.In the kitchen the little dog was lowered into a hot bath, dried, and rubbed with liniments under his fleece.After his lacerated feet had been cleaned and dressed with healing ointments and tied up, Bobby was wrapped in Mistress Jeanie's best flannel petticoat and laid on the hearth-rug, a very comfortable wee dog, who enjoyed his breakfast of broth and porridge.
