“A gude nicht to ye, Bobby.”

XII.

In one thing Mr. Traill had been mistaken:  the grand folk did not forget Bobby.  At the end of five years the leal Highlander was not only still remembered, but he had become a local celebrity.

Had the grave of his haunting been on the Pentlands or in one of the outlying cemeteries of the city Bobby must have been known to few of his generation, and to fame not at all.  But among churchyards Greyfriars was distinguished.  One of the historic show-places of Edinburgh, and in the very heart of the Old Town, it was never missed by the most hurried tourist, seldom left unvisited, from year to year, by the oldest resident.  Names on its old tombs had come to mean nothing to those who read them, except as they recalled memorable records of love, of inspiration, of courage, of self-sacrifice.  And this being so, it touched the imagination to see, among the marbles that crumbled toward the dust below, a living embodiment of affection and fidelity.  Indeed, it came to be remarked, as it is remarked to-day, although four decades have gone by, that no other spot in Greyfriars was so much cared for as the grave of a man of whom nothing was known except that the life and love of a little dog was consecrated to his memory.

At almost any hour Bobby might be found there.  As he grew older he became less and less willing to be long absent, and he got much of his exercise by nosing about among the neighboring thorns.  In fair weather he took his frequent naps on the turf above his master, or he sat on the fallen table-tomb in the sun.  On foul days he watched the grave from under the slab, and to that spot he returned from every skirmish against the enemy.  Visitors stopped to speak to him.  Favored ones were permitted to read the inscription on his collar and to pat his head.  It seemed, therefore, the most natural thing in the world when the greatest lady in England, beside the Queen, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, came all the way from London to see Bobby.

Except that it was the first Monday in June, and Founder’s Day at Heriot’s Hospital, it was like any other day of useful work, innocent pleasure, and dreaming dozes on Auld Jock’s grave to wee Bobby.  As years go, the shaggy little Skye was an old dog, but he was not feeble or blind or unhappy.  A terrier, as a rule, does not live as long as more sluggish breeds of dogs, but, active to the very end, he literally wears himself out tearing around, and then goes, little soldier, very suddenly, dying gallantly with his boots on.

In the very early mornings of the northern summer Bobby woke with the birds, a long time before the reveille was sounded from the Castle.  He scampered down to the circling street of tombs at once, and not until the last prowler had been dispatched, or frightened into his burrow, did he return for a brief nap on Auld Jock’s grave.