Greyfriars Bobby Part 18

The guard stopped, presented arms to this small, peremptory terrier, and inquired facetiously if he had a pa.s.s. Bobby bristled and yelped indignantly. The soldier grinned with amus.e.m.e.nt. Sentinel duty was lonesome business, and any diversion a relief. In a guardhouse asleep when Bobby came into the Castle, he had not seen the little dog before and knew nothing about him. He might be the property of one of the regiment ladies. Without orders he dared not let Bobby out. A furious and futile onslaught on the gate he met with a jocose feint of his bayonet. Tiring of the play, presently, the soldier turned his back and paced to the end of his beat.

Bobby stopped barking in sheer astonishment. He gazed after the stiff, retreating back, in frightened disbelief that he was not to be let out.

He attacked the stone under the barrier, but quickly discovered its unyielding nature. Then he howled until the sentinel came back, but when the man went by without looking at him he uttered a whimpering cry and fled upward. The roadway was dark and the dusk was gathering on the citadel when Bobby dashed across the summit and down into the brightly lighted square of the Palace Yard.

The gas-lamps were being lighted on the bridge, and Mr. Traill was getting into his streetcoat for his call on Mr. Brown when Tammy put his head in at the door of the restaurant. The crippled laddie had a warm, uplifted look, for Love had touched the sordid things of life, and a miracle had bloomed for the tenement dwellers around Greyfriars.

"Maister Traill, Mrs. Brown says wull ye please send Bobby hame. Her gude-mon's frettin' for 'im; an' syne, a' the folk aroond the kirkyaird hae come to the gate to see the bittie dog's braw collar. They wullna believe the Laird Provost gied it to 'im for a chairm gin they dinna see it wi' their gin een."

"Why, mannie, Bobby's no' here. He must be in the kirkyard."

"Nae, he isna. I ca'ed, an' Ailie keeked in ilka place amang the stanes."

They stared at each other, the landlord serious, the laddie's lip trembling. Mr. Traill had not returned from his numerous errands about the city until the middle of the afternoon. He thought, of course, that Bobby had been in for his dinner, as usual, and had returned to the kirkyard. It appeared, now, that no one about the diningrooms had seen the little dog. Everybody had thought that Mr. Traill had taken Bobby with him. He hurried down to the gate to find Mistress Jeanie at the wicket, and a crowd of tenement women and children in the alcove and ma.s.sed down Candlemakers Row. Alarm spread like a contagion. In eight years and more Bobby had not been outside the kirkyard gate after the sunset bugle. Mrs. Brown turned pale.

"Dinna say the bittie dog's lost, Maister Traill. It wad gang to the heart o' ma gudemon."

"Havers, woman, he's no' lost." Mr. Traill spoke stoutly enough. "Just go up to the lodge and tell Mr. Brown I'm--weel, I'll just attend to that sma' matter my ainsel'." With that he took a gay face and a set-up air into the lodge to meet Mr. Brown's glowering eye.

"Whaur's the dog, man? I've been deaved aboot 'im a' the day, but I haena seen the sonsie rascal nor the braw collar the Laird Provost gied 'im. An' syne, wi' the folk comin' to spier for 'im an' swarmin' ower the kirkyaird, ye'd think a warlock was aboot. Bobby isna your dog--"

"Haud yoursel', man. Bobby's a famous dog, with the freedom of Edinburgh given to him, and naething will do but Glenormiston must show him to a company o' grand folk at his bit country place. He's sending in a cart by a groom, and I'm to tak' Bobby out and fetch him hame after a braw dinner on gowd plate. The bairns meant weel, but they could no' give Bobby a was.h.i.+ng fit for a veesit with the n.o.beelity. I had to tak' him to a barber for a shampoo."

Mr. Brown roared with laughter. "Man, ye hae mair fule notions i' yer heid. Ye'll hae to pay a shullin' or twa to a barber, an' Bobby'll be sae set up there'll be nae leevin' wi' 'im. Sit ye doon an' tell me aboot the collar, man."

"I can no' stop now to wag my tongue. Here's the gude-wife. I'll just help her get you awa' to your bed."

It was dark when he returned to the gate, and the Castle wore its luminous crown. The lights from the street lamps flickered on the up-turned, anxious faces. Some of the children had begun to weep. Women offered loud suggestions. There were surmises that Bobby had been run over by a cart in the street, and angry conjectures that he had been stolen. Then Ailie wailed:

"Oh, Maister Traill, the bittie dog's deid!"

"Havers, la.s.sie! I'm ashamed o' ye for a fulish bairn. Bobby's no' deid.

Nae doot he's amang the stanes i' the kirkyaird. He's aye scramblin'

aboot for vermin an' p.u.s.s.ies, an' may hae hurt himsel', an' ye a' ken the bonny wee wadna cry oot i' the kirkyaird. Noo, get to wark, an'

dinna stand there greetin' an' waggin' yer tongues. The mithers an'

bairns maun juist gang hame an' stap their havers, an' licht a' the candles an' cruisey lamps i' their hames, an' set them i' the windows aboon the kirkyaird. Greyfriars is murky by the ordinar', an' ye couldna find a coo there wi'oot the lichts."

The crowd suddenly melted away, so eager were they all to have a hand in helping to find the community pet. Then Mr. Traill turned to the boys.

"Hoo mony o' ye laddies hae the bull's-eye lanterns?"

Ah! not many in the old buildings around the kirkyard. These j.a.panned tin aids to dark adventures on the golf links on autumn nights cost a sixpence and consumed candles. Geordie Ross and Sandy McGregor, coming up arm in arm, knew of other students and clerks who still had these cherished toys of boyhood. With these heroes in the lead a score or more of laddies swarmed into the kirkyard.

The tenements were lighted up as they had not been since n.o.bles held routs and b.a.l.l.s there. Enough candles and oil were going up in smoke to pay for wee Bobby's license all over again, and enough love shone in pallid little faces that peered into the dusk to light the darkest corner in the heart of the world. Rays from the bull's-eyes were thrown into every nook and cranny. Very small laddies insinuated themselves into the narrowest places. They climbed upon high vaults and let themselves down in last year's burdocks and tangled vines. It was all done in silence, only Mr. Traill speaking at all. He went everywhere with the searchers, and called:

"Whaur are ye, Bobby? Come awa' oot, laddie!"

But no gleaming ghost of a tousled dog was conjured by the voice of affection. The tiniest scratching or lowest moaning could have been heard, for the warm spring evening was very still, and there were, as yet, few leaves to rustle. Sleepy birds complained at being disturbed on their perches, and rodents could be heard scampering along their runways. The entire kirkyard was explored, then the interior of the two kirks. Mr. Traill went up to the lodge for the keys, saying, optimistically, that a s.e.xton might unwittingly have locked Bobby in.

Young men with lanterns went through the courts of the tenements, around the Gra.s.smarket, and under the arches of the bridge. Laddies dropped from the wall and hunted over Heriot's Hospital grounds to Lauriston market. Tammy, poignantly conscious of being of no practical use, sat on Auld Jock's grave, firm in the conviction that Bobby would return to that spot his ainsel' And Ailie, being only a maid, whose portion it was to wait and weep, lay across the window-sill, on the pediment of the tomb, a limp little figure of woe.

Mr. Traill's heart was full of misgiving. Nothing but death or stone walls could keep that little creature from this beloved grave. But, in thinking of stone walls, he never once thought of the Castle. Away over to the east, in Broughton market, when the garrison marched away and at Lauriston when they returned, Mr. Traill did not know that the soldiers had been out of the city. Busy in the lodge Mistress Jeanie had not seen them go by the kirkyard, and no one else, except Mr. Brown, knew the fascination that military uniforms, marching and music had for wee Bobby. A fog began to drift in from the sea. Suddenly the gra.s.s was sheeted and the tombs blurred. A curtain of gauze seemed to be hung before the lighted tenements. The Castle head vanished, and the sounds of the drum and bugle of the tattoo came down m.u.f.fled, as if through layers of wool. The lights of the bull's-eyes were ruddy discs that cast no rays. Then these were smeared out to phosph.o.r.escent glows, like the "s.p.u.n.kies" that everybody in Scotland knew came out to dance in old kirkyards.

It was no' canny. In the smother of the fog some of the little boys were lost, and cried out. Mr. Traill got them up to the gate and sent them home in bands, under the escort of the students. Mistress Jeanie was out by the wicket. Mr. Brown was asleep, and she "couldna thole it to sit there snug." When a fog-horn moaned from the Firth she broke into sobbing. Mr. Traill comforted her as best he could by telling her a dozen plans for the morning. By feeling along the wall he got her to the lodge, and himself up to his cozy dining-rooms.

For the first time since Queen Mary the gate of the historic garden of the Greyfriars was left on the latch. And it was so that a little dog, coming home in the night might not be shut out.

XI.

It was more than two hours after he left Bobby in Queen Margaret's Chapel that the sergeant turned into the officers' mess-room and tried to get an orderly to take a message to the captain who had noticed the little dog in the barracks. He wished to report that Bobby could not be found, and to be excused to continue the search.

He had to wait by the door while the toast to her Majesty was proposed and the band in the screened gallery broke into "G.o.d Save the Queen"; and when the music stopped the bandmaster came in for the usual compliments.

The evening was so warm and still, although it was only mid-April, that a gla.s.s-paneled door, opening on the terrace, was set ajar for air. In the confusion of movement and talk no one noticed a little black mop of a muzzle that was poked through the aperture. From the outer darkness Bobby looked in on the score or more of men doubtfully, ready for instant disappearance on the slightest alarm. Desperate was the emergency, forlorn the hope that had brought him there. At every turn his efforts to escape from the Castle had been baffled. He had been imprisoned by drummer boys and young recruits in the gymnasium, detained in the hospital, captured in the canteen.

Bobby went through all his pretty tricks for the lads, and then begged to be let go. Laughed at, romped with, dragged back, thrown into the swimming-pool, expected to play and perform for them, he rebelled at last. He scarred the door with his claws, and he howled so dismally that, hearing an orderly corporal coming, they turned him out in a rough haste that terrified him. In the old Banqueting Hall on the Palace Yard, that was used as a hospital and dispensary, he went through that travesty of joy again, in hope of the reward.

Sharply rebuked and put out of the hospital, at last, because of his destructive clawing and mournful howling, Bobby dashed across the Palace Yard and into a crowd of good-humored soldiers who lounged in the canteen. Rising on his hind legs to beg for attention and indulgence, he was taken unaware from behind by an admiring soldier who wanted to romp with him. Quite desperate by that time, he snapped at the hand of his captor and sprang away into the first dark opening. Frightened by the man's cry of pain, and by the calls and scuffling search for him without, he slunk to the farthest corner of a dungeon of the Middle Ages, under the Royal Lodging.

When the hunt for him ceased, Bobby slipped out of hiding and made his way around the sickle-shaped ledge of rock, and under the guns of the half-moon battery, to the outer gate. Only a cat, a fox, or a low, weasel-like dog could have done it. There were many details that would have enabled the observant little creature to recognize this barrier as the place where he had come in. Certainly he attacked it with fury, and on the guards he lavished every art of appeal that he possessed. But there he was bantered, and a feint was made of shutting him up in the guard-house as a disorderly person. With a heart-broken cry he escaped his tormentors, and made his way back, under the guns, to the citadel.

His confidence in the good intentions of men shaken, Bobby took to furtive ways. Avoiding lighted buildings and voices, he sped from shadow to shadow and explored the walls of solid masonry. Again and again he returned to the postern behind the armory, but the small back gate that gave to the cliff was not opened. Once he scrambled up to a loophole in the fortifications and looked abroad at the scattered lights of the city set in the void of night. But there, indeed, his stout heart failed him.

It was not long before Bobby discovered that he was being pursued. A number of soldiers and drummer boys were out hunting for him, contritely enough, when the situation was explained by the angry sergeant. Wherever he went voices and footsteps followed. Had the sergeant gone alone and called in familiar speech, "Come awa' oot, Bobby!" he would probably have run to the man. But there were so many calls--in English, in Celtic, and in various dialects of the Lowlands--that the little dog dared not trust them. From place to place he was driven by fear, and when the calling stopped and the footsteps no longer followed, he lay for a time where he could watch the postern. A moment after he gave up the vigil there the little back gate was opened.

Desperation led him to take another chance with men. Slipping into the shadow of the old Governor's House, the headquarters of commissioned officers, on the terrace above the barracks, he lay near the open door to the mess-room, listening and watching.

The pretty ceremony of toasting the bandmaster brought all the company about the table again, and the polite pause in the conversation, on his exit, gave an opportunity for the captain to speak of Bobby before the sergeant could get his message delivered.

"Gentlemen, your indulgence for a moment, to drink another toast to a little dog that is said to have slept on his master's grave in Greyfriars churchyard for more than eight years. Sergeant Scott, of the Royal Engineers, vouches for the story and will present the hero."

The sergeant came forward then with the word that Bobby could not be found. He was somewhere in the Castle, and had made persistent and frantic efforts to get out. Prevented at every turn, and forcibly held in various places by well-meaning but blundering soldiers, he had been frightened into hiding.

Bobby heard every word, and he must have understood that he himself was under discussion. Alternately hopeful and apprehensive, he scanned each face in the room that came within range of his vision, until one arrested and drew him. Such faces, full of understanding, love and compa.s.sion for dumb animals, are to be found among men, women and children, in any company and in every corner of the world. Now, with the dog's instinct for the dog-lover, Bobby made his way about the room unnoticed, and set his short, s.h.a.gged paws up on this man's knee.

"Bless my soul, gentlemen, here's the little dog now, and a beautiful specimen of the drop-eared Skye he is. Why didn't you say that the 'bittie' dog was of the Highland breed, Sergeant? You may well believe any extravagant tale you may hear of the fidelity and affection of the Skye terrier."

And with that wee Bobby was set upon the polished table, his own silver image glimmering among the reflections of candles and old plate. He kept close under the hand of his protector, but waiting for the moment favorable to his appeal. The company crowded around with eager interest, while the man of expert knowledge and love of dogs talked about Bobby.

"You see he's a well-knit little rascal, long and low, hardy and strong.

His ancestors were bred for bolting foxes and wildcats among the rocky headlands of the subarctic islands. The intelligence, courage and devotion of dogs of this breed can scarcely be overstated. There is some far away crossing here that gives this one a greater beauty and grace and more engaging manners, making him a 'sport' among rough farm dogs--but look at the length and strength of the muzzle. He's as determined as the deil. You would have to break his neck before you could break his purpose. For love of his master he would starve, or he would leap to his death without an instant's hesitation."

All this time the man had been stroking Bobby's head and neck. Now, feeling the collar under the thatch, he slipped it out and brought the bra.s.s plate up to the light.

"Propose your toast to Greyfriars Bobby, Captain. His story is vouched for by no less a person than the Lord Provost. The 'bittie' dog seems to have won a sort of canine Victoria Cross."

The toast was drunk standing, and, a cheer given. The company pressed close to examine the collar and to shake Bobby's lifted paw. Then, thinking the moment had come, Bobby rose in the begging att.i.tude, prostrated himself before them, and uttered a pleading cry. His new friend a.s.sured him that he would be taken home.