What a man this must be—­thought I—­to whom my tremendous hero turns tail.  The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from his neck, and I eagerly told him the story, which Bob and I always thought, and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter alone were worthy to rehearse.  The severe little man was mitigated, and condescended to say, “Rab, my man, puir Rabbie,”—­whereupon the stump of a tail rose up, the ears were cocked, the eyes filled, and were comforted; the two friends were reconciled.  “Hupp!” and a stroke of the whip were given to Jess; and off went the three.

Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we had not much of a tea) in the back-green of his house in Melville Street, No. 17, with considerable gravity and silence; and being at the time in the Iliad, and, like all boys, Trojans, we called him Hector of course.

* * * * *

Six years have passed—­a long time for a boy and a dog:  Bob Ainslie is off to the wars; I am a medical student and clerk at Minto House Hospital.

Rab I saw almost every week, on the Wednesday and we had much pleasant intimacy.  I found the way to his heart by frequent scratching of his huge head, and an occasional bone.  When I did not notice him he would plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that butt of a tail, and looking up, with his head a little to one side.  His master I occasionally saw; he used to call me “Maister John,” but was laconic as any Spartan.

One fine October afternoon, I was leaving the hospital when I saw the large gate open, and in walked Rab, with that great and easy saunter of his.  He looked as if taking general possession of the place; like the Duke of Wellington entering a subdued city, satiated with victory and peace.  After him came Jess, now white from age, with her cart; and in it a woman, carefully wrapped up—­the carrier leading the horse anxiously, and looking back.  When he saw me, James (for his name was James Noble) made a curt and grotesque “boo,” and said, “Maister John, this is the mistress; she’s got a trouble in her breest—­some kind o’ an income we’re thinkin’.”

By this time I saw the woman’s face; she was sitting on a sack filled with straw, her husband’s plaid round her, and his big-coat with its large white metal buttons over her feet.

I never saw a more unforgettable face—­pale, serious, lonely, delicate, sweet, without being at all what we call fine.  She looked sixty, and had on a mutch, white as snow, with its black ribbon; her silvery, smooth hair setting off her dark-gray eyes—­eyes such as one sees only twice or thrice in a lifetime, full of suffering, full also of the overcoming of it:  her eyebrows black and delicate, and her mouth firm, patient, and contented, which few mouths ever are.