I stood till they passed through the long shadow of the College, and turned up Nicolson Street.  I heard the solitary cart sound through the streets, and die away and come again; and I returned, thinking of that company going up Libberton Brae, then along Roslin Muir, the morning light touching the Pentlands and making them like on-looking ghosts, then down the hill through Auchindinny woods, past “haunted Woodhouselee;” and as daybreak came sweeping up the bleak Lammermuirs, and fell on his own door, the company would stop, and James would take the key, and lift Ailie up again, laying her on her own bed, and, having put Jess up, would return with Rab and shut the door.

James buried his wife, with his neighbors mourning, Rab inspecting the solemnity from a distance.  It was snow, and that black ragged hole would look strange in the midst of the swelling spotless cushion of white.  James looked after everything; then rather suddenly fell ill, and took to bed; was insensible when the doctor came, and soon died.  A sort of low fever was prevailing in the village, and his want of sleep, his exhaustion, and his misery made him apt to take it.  The grave was not difficult to reopen.  A fresh fall of snow had again made all things white and smooth; Rab once more looked on, and slunk home to the stable.

* * * * *

And what of Rab?  I asked for him next week of the new carrier who got the goodwill of James’s business, and was now master of Jess and her cart.  “How’s Rab?” He put me off, and said rather rudely, “What’s your business wi’ the dowg?” I was not to be so put off.  “Where’s Rab?” He, getting confused and red, and intermeddling with his hair, said, “Deed, sir, Rab’s deid.”  “Dead! what did he die of?” “Weel, sir,” said he, getting redder, “he did na exactly dee; he was killed.  I had to brain him wi’ a rack-pin; there was nae doin’ wi’ him.  He lay in the treviss wi’ the mear, and wad na come oot.  I tempit him wi’ kail and meat, but he wad tak naething, and keepit me frae feedin’ the beast, and he was aye gur gurrin’, and grup gruppin’ me by the legs.  I was laith to make awa wi’ the auld dowg, his like was na atween this and Thornhill,—­but, ’deed, sir, I could do naething else.”  I believed him.  Fit end for Rab, quick and complete.  His teeth and his friends gone, why should he keep the peace, and be civil?

VIII.  THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT[*] (1869)

[* Used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers of Bret Harte’s Works.]

BY BRET HARTE (1836-1902)