Immediately the little dog was lost in an unexplored country.The narrow glen was musical with springs, and the low growth was undercut with a maze of rabbit runs, very distracting to a dog of a hunting breed.Bobby knew, by much journeying with Auld Jock, that running water is a natural highway.Sheep drift along the lowest level until they find an outlet down some declivity, or up some foaming steep, to new pastures.
But never before had Bobby found, above such a rustic brook, a many chimneyed and gabled house of stone, set in a walled garden and swathed in trees.Today, many would cross wide seas to look upon Swanston cottage, in whose odorous old garden a whey-faced, wistful-eyed laddie dreamed so many brave and laughing dreams.
It was only a farm-house then, fallen from a more romantic history, and it had no attraction for Bobby.He merely sniffed at dead vines of clematis, sleeping briar bushes, and very live, bright hedges of holly, rounded a corner of its wall, and ran into a group of lusty children romping on the brae, below the very prettiest, thatch roofed and hill-sheltered hamlet within many a mile of Edinboro' town.The bairns were lunching from grimy, mittened hands, gypsy fashion, life being far too short and playtime too brief for formal meals.Seeing them eating, Bobby suddenly discovered that he was hungry.He rose before a well-provided laddie and politely begged for a share of his meal.
Such an excited shouting of admiration and calling on mithers to come and see the bonny wee dog was never before heard on Swanston village green.Doors flew open and bareheaded women ran out.Then the babies had to be brought, and the' old grandfaithers and grandmithers.Everybody oh-ed and ah-ed and clapped hands, and doubled up with laughter, for, a tempting bit held playfully just out of reach, Bobby rose, again and again, jumped for it, and chased a teasing laddie.Then he bethought him to roll over and over, and to go through other winsome little tricks, as Auld Jock had taught him to do, to win the reward.All this had one quite unexpected result.A shrewd-eyed woman pounced upon Bobby and captured him.
"He's no' an ordinar' dog.Some leddy has lost her pet.I'll juist shut 'im up, an' syne she'll pay a shullin' or twa to get 'im again."With a twist and a leap Bobby was gone.He scrambled straight up the steep, thorn-clad wall of the glen, where no laddie could follow, and was over the crest.It was a narrow escape, made by terrific effort.His little heart pounding with exhaustion and alarm, he hid under a whin bush to get his breath and strength.
The sheltered dell was windless, but here a stiff breeze blew.
Suddenly shifting a point, the wind brought to the little dog's nose a whiff of the acrid coal smoke of Edinburgh three miles away.
Straight as an arrow he ran across country, over roadway and wall, plowed fields and rippling burns.He scrambled under hedges and dashed across farmsteads and cottage gardens.As he neared the city the hour bells aided him, for the Skye terrier is keen of hearing.It was growing dark when he climbed up the last bank and gained Lauriston Place.There he picked up the odors of milk and wool, and the damp smell of the kirkyard.
Now for something comforting to put into his famished little body.A night and a day of exhausting work, of anxiety and grief, had used up the last ounce of fuel.Bobby raced down Forest Road and turned the slight angle into Greyfriars Place.The lamp lighter's progress toward the bridge was marked by the double row of lamps that bloomed, one after one, on the dusk.The little dog had come to the steps of Mr.Traill's place, and lifted himself to scratch on the door, when the bugle began to blow.He dropped with the first note and dashed to the kirkyard gate.
None too soon! Mr.Brown was setting the little wicket gate inside, against the wall.In the instant his back was turned, Bobby slipped through.After nightfall, when the caretaker had made his rounds, he came out from under the fallen table-tomb of Mistress Jean Grant.
Lights appeared at the rear windows of the tenements, and families sat at supper.It was snell weather again, the sky dark with threat of snow, and the windows were all closed.But with a sharp bark beneath the lowest of them Bobby could have made his presence and his wants known.He watched the people eating, sitting wistfully about on his haunches here and there, but remaining silent.By and by there were sounds of crying babies, of crockery being washed, and the ringing of church bells far and near.Then the lights were extinguished, and huge bulks of shadow, of tenements and kirk, engulfed the kirkyard.
When Bobby lay down on Auld Jock's grave, pellets of frozen snow were falling and the air had hardened toward frost.
