leaded windows and running-up to the slope of the ceiling, was a great fireplace of native white freestone, carved into fluted columns, foliated capitals, and a flat pediment of purest classic lines.  The ballroom of a noble of Queen Mary’s day had been cut up into numerous small sleeping closets, many of them windowless, and were let to the chance lodger at threepence the night.  Here, where generations of dancing toes had been warmed, the chimney vent was bricked up, and a boxed-in shelf fitted, to serve for a bed, a seat and a table, for such as had neither time nor heart for dancing.  For the romantic history and the beauty of it, Auld Jock had no mind at all.  But, ah! he had other joy often missed by the more fortunate.

“Be canny, Bobby,” he cautioned again.

The sagacious little dog understood, and pattered about the place silently.  Exhausting it in a moment, and very plainly puzzled and bored, he sat on his haunches, yawned wide, and looked up inquiringly to his master.  Auld Jock set the jug and the candle on the floor and slipped off his boots.  He had no wish to “wauken ’is neebors.”  With nervous haste he threw back one of the windows on its hinges, reached across the wide stone ledge and brought in-wonder of wonders, in such a place a tiny earthen pot of heather!

“Is it no’ a bonny posie?” he whispered to Bobby.  With this cherished bit of the country that he had left behind him the April before in his hands, he sat down in the fireplace bed and lifted Bobby beside him.  He sniffed at the red tuft of purple bloom fondly, and his old face blossomed into smiles.  It was the secret thought of this, and of the hillward outlook from the little windows, that had ironed the lines from his face in Mr. Traill’s dining-room.  Bobby sniffed at the starved plant, too, and wagged his tail with pleasure, for a dog’s keenest memories are recorded by the nose.

Overhead, loose tiles and finials rattled in the wind, that was dying away in fitful gusts; but Auld Jock heard nothing.  In fancy he was away on the braes, in the shy sun and wild wet of April weather.  Shepherds were shouting, sheepdogs barking, ewes bleating, and a wee puppy, still unnamed, scampering at his heels in the swift, dramatic days of lambing time.  And so, presently, when the forlorn hope of the little pot had been restored to the ledge, master and dog were in tune with the open country, and began a romp such as they often had indulged in behind the byre on a quiet, Sabbath afternoon.

They had learned to play there like two well-brought-up children, in pantomime, so as not to scandalize pious countryfolk.  Now, in obedience to a gesture, a nod, a lifted eyebrow, Bobby went through all his pretty tricks, and showed how far his serious education had progressed..  He rolled over and over, begged, vaulted the low hurdle of his master’s arm, and played “deid.”  He scampered madly over imaginary pastures; ran, straight as a string, along a stone wall; scrambled under a thorny hedge; chased rabbits, and dug foxes out of holes; swam a burn, flushed feeding curlews, and “froze” beside a rat-hole.  When the excitement was at its height and the little dog was bursting with exuberance, Auld Jock forgot his caution.  Holding his bonnet just out of reach, he cried aloud: