An opening door, a barking sheep-dog, the shuffle of the moving flock, were signs that the farm day was beginning, although all the stars had not faded out of the sky.  A little flying shadow, Bobby slipped out of the cow-yard, past the farm-house, and literally tumbled down the brae.  From one level to another he dropped, several hundred feet in a very few minutes, and from the clear air of the breezy hilltop to a nether world that was buried fathoms deep in a sea-fog as white as milk.

Hidden in a deep fold of the spreading skirts of the range, and some distance from the road, lay a pool, made by damming a burn, and used, in the shearing season, for washing sheep.  Surrounded by brushy woods, and very damp and dark, at other seasons it was deserted.  Bobby found this secluded place with his nose, curled up under a hazel thicket and fell sound asleep.  And while he slept, a nipping wind from the far, northern Highlands swooped down on the mist and sent it flying out to sea.  The Lowlands cleared like magic.  From the high point where Bobby lay the road could be seen to fall, by short rises and long descents, all the way to Edinburgh.  From its crested ridge and flanking hills the city trailed a dusky banner of smoke out over the fishing fleet in the Firth.

A little dog cannot see such distant views.  Bobby could only read and follow the guide-posts of odors along the way.  He had begun the ascent to the toll-bar when he heard the clatter of a cart and the pounding of hoofs behind him.  He did not wait to learn if this was the Cauldbrae farmer in pursuit.  Certain knowledge on that point was only to be gained at his peril.  He sprang into the shelter of a stone wall, scrambled over it, worked his way along it a short distance, and disappeared into a brambly path that skirted a burn in a woody dell.

Immediately the little dog was lost in an unexplored country.  The narrow glen was musical with springs, and the low growth was undercut with a maze of rabbit runs, very distracting to a dog of a hunting breed.  Bobby knew, by much journeying with Auld Jock, that running water is a natural highway.  Sheep drift along the lowest level until they find an outlet down some declivity, or up some foaming steep, to new pastures.

But never before had Bobby found, above such a rustic brook, a many chimneyed and gabled house of stone, set in a walled garden and swathed in trees.  Today, many would cross wide seas to look upon Swanston cottage, in whose odorous old garden a whey-faced, wistful-eyed laddie dreamed so many brave and laughing dreams.  It was only a farm-house then, fallen from a more romantic history, and it had no attraction for Bobby.  He merely sniffed at dead vines of clematis, sleeping briar bushes, and very live, bright hedges of holly, rounded a corner of its wall, and ran into a group of lusty children romping on the brae, below the very prettiest, thatch roofed and hill-sheltered hamlet within many a mile of Edinboro’ town.  The bairns were lunching from grimy, mittened hands, gypsy fashion, life being far too short and playtime too brief for formal meals.  Seeing them eating, Bobby suddenly discovered that he was hungry.  He rose before a well-provided laddie and politely begged for a share of his meal.