Greyfriars Bobby Part 15

"Ilka morn he fetches 'is bit bane up, thinkin' it a braw giftie for an ill man. An' syne he veesits me twa times i' the day, juist bidin' a wee on the hearthstane, lollin' 'is tongue an' waggin' 'is tail, cheerfu'-like. Bobby has mair gude sense in 'is heid than mony a man wha comes ben the hoose, wi' a lang face, to let me ken I'm gangin' to dee.

Gin I keep snug an' canny it wullna gang to the heart. Jeanie, woman, fetch ma fife, wull ye?"

Then there were strange doings in the kirkyard lodge. James Brown "wasna gangin' to dee" before his time came, at any rate. In his youth, as under-gardener on a Highland estate, he had learned to play the piccolo flute, and lately he had revived the pastoral art of piping just because it went so well with Bobby's delighted legs. To the sonsie air of "Bonnie Dundee" Bobby hopped and stepped and louped, and he turned about on his hind feet, his s.h.a.gged fore paws drooped on his breast as daintily as the hands in the portraits of early Victorian ladies. The fire burned cheerily in the polished grate, and winked on every s.h.i.+ning thing in the room; primroses bloomed in the diamond-paned cas.e.m.e.nt; the skylark fluttered up and sang in its cage; the fife whistled as gaily as a blackbird, and the little dog danced with a comic clumsiness that made them all double up with laughter. The place was so full of brightness, and of kind and merry hearts, that there was room for nothing else. Not one of them dreamed that the shadow of the law was even then over this useful and lovable little dog's head.

A glance at the wag-at-the-wa' clock reminded Ailie that Mr. Traill might be waiting for Bobby.

Curious about the mystery, the children took the little dog down to the gate, happily. They were sobered, however, when Mr. Traill appeared, looking very grand in his Sabbath clothes. He inspected Bobby all over with anxious scrutiny, and gave each of the bairns a threepenny-bit, but he had no blithe greeting for them. Much preoccupied, he went off at once, with the animated little m.u.f.f of a dog at his heels. In truth, Mr.

Traill was thinking about how he might best plead Bobby's cause with the Lord Provost. The note that was handed him, on leaving the Burgh court the day before, had read:

"Meet me at the Regent's Tomb in St. Giles at eight o'clock in the morning, and bring the wee Highlander with you.--Glenormiston."

On the first reading the landlord's spirits had risen, out of all proportion to the cause, owing to his previous depression. But, after all, the appointment had no official character, since the Regent's Tomb in St. Giles had long been a sort of town pump for the retailing of gossip and for the transaction of trifling affairs of all sorts. The fate of this little dog was a small matter, indeed, and so it might be thought fitting, by the powers that be, that it should be decided at the Regent's Tomb rather than in the Burgh court.

To the children, who watched from the kirkyard gate until Mr. Traill and Bobby were hidden by the buildings on the bridge, it was no' canny. The busy landlord lived mostly in s.h.i.+rt-sleeves and big white ap.r.o.n, ready to lend a hand in the rush hours, and he never was known to put on his black coat and tall hat on a week-day, except to attend a funeral.

However, there was the day's work to be done. Tammy had a lesson still to get, and returned to the kirkyard, and Ailie ran up to the dining-rooms. On the step she collided with a red headed, freckle-faced young man who asked for Mr. Traill.

"He isna here." The shy la.s.sie was made almost speechless by recognizing, in this neat, well-spoken clerk, an old Heriot boy, once as poor as herself.

"Do you wark for him, la.s.sie? Weel, do you know how he cam' out in the Burgh court about the bit dog?"

There was only one "bit dog" in the world to Ailie. Wild eyed with alarm at mention of the Burgh court, in connection with that beloved little pet, she stammered: "It's--it's--no' a coort he gaed to. Maister Traill's tak'n Bobby awa' to a braw kirk."

Sandy nodded his head. "Ay, that would be the police office in St.

Giles. La.s.sie, tell Mr. Traill I sent the Lord Provost, and if he's needing a witness to ca' on Sandy McGregor."

Ailie stared after him with frightened eyes. Into her mind flashed that ominous remark of the policeman two days before: "I didna ken ye had a dog, John?" She overtook Sandy in front of the sheriff's court on the bridge.

"What--what hae the police to do wi' bittie dogs?"

"If a dog has nae master to pay for his license the police can tak' him up and put him out o' the way."

"Hoo muckle siller are they wantin'?"

"Seven shullings. Gude day, la.s.sie; I'm fair late." Sandy was not really alarmed about Bobby since the resourceful Mr. Traill had taken up his cause, and he had no idea of the panic of grief and fright that overwhelmed this forlorn child.

Seven shullings! It was an enormous sum to the tenement bairn, whose half-blind grandmither knitted and knitted in a dimly lighted room, and h.o.a.rded halfpennies and farthings to save herself from pauper burial.

Seven shullings would pay a month's rent for any one of the crowded rooms in which a family lived. Ailie herself, an untrained la.s.sie who scarcely knew the use of a toasting-fork, was overpaid by generous Mr.

Traill at sixpence a day. Seven shullings to permit one little dog to live! It did not occur to Ailie that this was a sum Mr. Traill could easily pay. No' onybody at all had seven shullings all at once! But, oh!

everybody had pennies and halfpennies and farthings, and she and Tammy together had a sixpence.

Darting back to the gate, to catch the laddie before he could be off to school, she ran straight into the policeman, who stood with his hand on the wicket. He eyed her sharply.

"Eh, la.s.sie, I was gangin' to spier at the lodge, gin there's a bit dog leevin' i' the kirkyaird."

"I--I--dinna ken." Her voice was unmanageable. She had left to her only the tenement-bred instinct of concealment of any and all facts from an officer of the law.

"Ye dinna ken! Maister Traill said i' the coort a' the bairns aboot kenned the dog. Was he leein'?"

The question stung her into angry admission. "He wadna be leein'.

But--but--the bittie--dog--isna here noo."

"Syne, whaur is he? Oot wi' it!"

"I--dinna--ken!" She cowered in abject fear against the wall. She could not know that this officer was suffering a bad attack of shame for his shabby part in the affair. Satisfied that the little dog really did live in the kirkyard, he turned back to the bridge. When Tammy came out presently he found Ailie crumpled up in a limp little heap in the gateway alcove. In a moment the tale of Bobby's peril was told. The laddie dropped his books and his crutches on the pavement, and his head in his helpless arms, and cried. He had small faith in Ailie's suddenly conceived plan to collect the seven shullings among the dwellers in the tenements.

"Do ye ken hoo muckle siller seven shullin's wad be? It's auchty-fower pennies, a hundred an' saxty-aucht ha'pennies an'--an'--I canna think hoo mony farthings."

"I dinna care a bittie bit. There's mair folk aroond the kirkyaird than there's farthings i' twa, three times seven shullin's. An' maist ilka body kens Bobby. An' we hae a saxpence atween us noo."

"Maister Brown wad gie us anither saxpence gin he had ane," Tammy suggested, wistfully.

"Nae, he's fair ill. Gin he doesna keep canny it wull gang to 'is heart.

He'd be aff 'is heid, aboot Bobby. Oh, Tammy, Maister Traill gaed to gie 'im up! He was wearin' a' 'is gude claes an' a lang face, to gang to Bobby's buryin'."

This dreadful thought spurred them to instant action. By way of mutual encouragement they went together through the sculptured doorway, that bore the arms of the ancient guild of the candlemakers on the lintel, and into the carting office on the front.

"Do ye ken Greyfriars Bobby?" Tammy asked, timidly, of the man in charge.

He glowered at the laddie and shook his head. "Havers, mannie; there's no' onybody named for an auld buryin' groond."

The children fled. There was no use at all in wasting time on folk who did not know Bobby, for it would take too long to explain him. But, alas, they soon discovered that "maist ilka body" did not know the little dog, as they had so confidently supposed. He was sure to be known only in the rooms at the rear that overlooked the kirkyard, and, as one went upward, his ident.i.ty became less and less distinct. He was such a wee, wee, canny terrier, and so many of the windows had their views constantly shut out by was.h.i.+ngs. Around the inner courts, where unkempt women brought every sort of work out to the light on the galleries and mended worthless rags, gossiped, and nursed their babies on the stairs, Bobby had sometimes been heard of, but almost never seen. Children often knew him where their elders did not. By the time Ailie and Tammy had worked swiftly down to the bottom of the Row other children began to follow them, moved by the peril of the little dog to sympathy and eager sacrifice.

"Bide a wee, Ailie!" cried one, running to overtake the la.s.sie. "Here's a penny. I was gangin' for milk for the porridge. We can do wi'oot the day."

And there was the money for the broth bone, and the farthing that would have filled the gude-man's evening pipe, and the ha'penny for the grandmither's tea. It was the world-over story of the poor helping the poor. The progress of Ailie and Tammy through the tenements was like that of the piper through Hamelin. The children gathered and gathered, and followed at their heels, until a curiously quiet mob of threescore or more crouched in the court of the old hall of the Knights of St.

John, in the Gra.s.smarket, to count the many copper coins in Tammy's woolen bonnet.

"Five shullin's, ninepence, an' a ha'penny," Tammy announced. And then, after calculation on his fingers, "It'll tak' a shullin' an' twapenny ha'penny mair."

There was a gasping breath of bitter disappointment, and one wee laddie wailed for lost Bobby. At that Ailie dashed the tears from her own eyes and sprang up, spurred to desperate effort. She would storm the all but hopeless attic chambers. Up the twisting turnpike stairs on the outer wall she ran, to where the swallows wheeled about the cornices, and she could hear the iron cross of the Knights Templars creak above the gable.

Then, all the way along a dark pa.s.sage, at one door after another, she knocked, and cried,

"Do ye ken Greyfriars Bobby?"

At some of the doors there was no answer. At others students stared out at the bairn, not in the least comprehending this wild crying. Tears of anger and despair flooded the little maid's blue eyes when she beat on the last door of the row with her doubled fist.

"Do ye ken Greyfriars Bobby? The police are gangin' to mak' 'im be deid--" As the door was flung open she broke into stormy weeping.

"Hey, la.s.sie. I know the dog. What fashes you?"

There stood a tall student, a wet towel about his head, and, behind him, the rafters of the dormer-lighted closet were as thickly hung with bunches of dried herbs from the Botanical Garden as any auld witch wife's kitchen.

"Oh, are ye kennin' 'im? Isna he bonny an' sonsie? Gie me the shullin'

an' twapenny ha' penny we're needin', so the police wullna put 'im awa'."

"Los.h.!.+ It's a license you're wanting? I wish I had as many shullings as I've had gude times with Bobby, and naething to pay for his braw company."

For this was Geordie Ross, going through the Medical College with the help of Heriot's fund that, large as it was, was never quite enough for all the poor and ambitious youths of Edinburgh. And so, although provided for in all necessary ways, his pockets were nearly as empty as of old. He could spare a sixpence if he made his dinner on a potato and a smoked herring. That he was very willing to do, once he had heard the tale, and he went with Ailie to the lodgings of other students, and demanded their siller with no explanation at all.