For such a public place a tomb was unsuitable.  What form the memorial was to take was not decided upon until, because of two chance happenings of one morning, the form of it bloomed like a flower in the soul of the Grand Leddy.  She had come down to the kirkyard to watch the artist at work.  Morning after morning he had sketched there.  He had drawn Bobby lying down, his nose on his paws, asleep on the grave.  He had drawn him sitting upon the table-tomb, and standing in the begging attitude in which he was so irresistible.  But with every sketch he was dissatisfied.

Bobby was a trying and deceptive subject.  He had the air of curiosity and gaiety of other terriers.  He saw no sense at all in keeping still, with his muzzle tipped up or down, and his tail held just so.  He brushed all that unreasonable man’s suggestions aside as quite unworthy of consideration.  Besides, he had the liveliest interest in the astonishing little dog that grew and disappeared, and came back, in some new attitude, on the canvas.  He scraped acquaintance with it once or twice to the damage of fresh brush-work.  He was always jumping from his pose and running around the easel to see how the latest dog was coming on.

After a number of mornings Bobby lost interest in the man and his occupation and went about his ordinary routine of life as if the artist was not there at all.  One morning the wee terrier was found sitting on the table-tomb, on his haunches, looking up toward the Castle, where clouds and birds were blown around the sun-gilded battlements.

His attitude might have meant anything or nothing, for the man who looked at him from above could not see his expression.  And all at once he realized that to see Bobby a human being must get down to his level.  To the scandal of the children, he lay on his back on the grass and did nothing at all but look up at Bobby until the little dog moved.  Then he set the wee Highlander up on an altar-topped shaft just above the level of the human eye.  Indifferent at the moment as to what was done to him, Bobby continued to gaze up and out, wistfully and patiently, upon this masterless world.  As plainly as a little dog could speak, Bobby said: 

“I hae bided lang an’ lanely.  Hoo lang hae I still to bide?  An’ syne, wull I be gangin’ to Auld Jock?”

The Grand Leddy saw that at once, and tears started to her eyes when she came in to find the artist sketching with feverish rapidity.  She confessed that she had looked into Bobby’s eyes, but she had never truly seen that mourning little creature before.  He had only to be set up so, in bronze, and looking through the kirkyard gate, to tell his own story to the most careless passerby.  The image of the simple memorial was clear in her mind, and it seemed unlikely that anything could be added to it, when she left the kirkyard.