“Ay, he’s buried four days since in Greyfriars kirkyard, and Bobby has slept every night on the auld man’s grave.”

“I’ll juist tak’ a leuk at the grave, moil, gin ye’ll hae an ee on the dog.”

Mr. Traill cautioned him not to let the caretaker know that Bobby had continued to sleep in the kirkyard, after having been put out twice.  The farmer was back in ten minutes, with a canny face that defied reading.  He lighted his short Dublin pipe and smoked it out before he spoke again.

“It’s ower grand for a puir auld shepherd body to be buried i’ Greyfriars.”

“No’ so grand as heaven, I’m thinking.”  Mr. Traill’s response was dry.

“Ay, an’ we’re a’ coontin’ on gangin’ there; but it’s a prood thing to hae yer banes put awa’ in Greyfriars, ance ye’re through wi’ ’em!”

“Nae doubt the gude auld man would rather be alive on the Pentland braes than dead in Greyfriars.”

“Ay,” the farmer admitted.  “He was fair fond o’ the hills, an’ no’ likin’ the toon.  An’, moil, he was a wonder wi’ the lambs.  He’d gang wi’ a collie ower miles o’ country in roarin’ weather, an’ he’d aye fetch the lost sheep hame.  The auld moil was nane so weel furnished i’ the heid, but bairnies and beasts were unco’ fond o’ ’im.  It wasna his fau’t that Bobby was aye at his heels.  The lassie wad ‘a’ been after’im, gin ’er mither had permeeted it.”

Mr. Traill asked him why he had let so valuable a man go, and the farmer replied at once that he was getting old and could no longer do the winter work.  To any but a Scotchman brought up near the sheep country this would have sounded hard, but Mr. Traill knew that the farmers on the wild, tipped-up moors were themselves hard pressed to meet rent and taxes.  To keep a shepherd incapacitated by age and liable to lose a flock in a snow-storm, was to invite ruin.  And presently the man showed, unwittingly, how sweet a kernel the heart may lie under the shell of sordid necessity.

“I didna ken the auld man was fair ill or he micht hae bided at the fairm an’ tak’n ’is ain time to dee at ’is ease.”

As Bobby unrolled and stretched to an awakening, the farmer got up, took him unaware and thrust him into a covered basket.  He had no intention of letting the little creature give him the slip again.  Bobby howled at the indignity, and struggled and tore at the stout wickerwork.  It went to Mr. Traill’s heart to hear him, and to see the gallant little dog so defenseless.  He talked to him through the latticed cover all the way out to the cart, telling him Auld Jock meant for him to go home.  At that beloved name, Bobby dropped to the bottom of the basket and cried in such a heartbroken way that tears stood in the landlord’s eyes, and even the farmer confessed to a sudden “cauld in ’is heid.”

“I’d gie ’im to ye, mon, gin it wasna that the bit lassie wad greet her bonny een oot gin I didna fetch ’im hame.  Nae boot the bit tyke wad ‘a’ deed gin ye hadna fed ’im.”