“Still, it would be better if he belonged to some one master.  Everybody’s dog is nobody’s dog,” the minister insisted.  “I wish you could attach him to you, Mr. Traill.”

“Ay, it’s a disappointment to me that he’ll no’ bide with me.  Perhaps, in time—­”

“It’s nae use, ava,” Mr. Brown interrupted, and he related the incident of the evening before.  “He’s cheerfu’ eneugh maist o’ the time, an’ likes to be wi’ the laddies as weel as ony dog, but he isna forgettin’ Auld Jock.  The wee doggie cam’ again to ’is maister’s buryin’.  Man, ye ne’er saw the like o’ it.  The wifie found ‘im flattened oot to a furry door-mat, an’ greetin’ to brak ’is heart.”

“It’s a remarkable story; and he’s a beautiful little dog, and a leal one.”  The minister stooped and patted Bobby, and he was thoughtful all the way to the gate.

“The matter need not be brought up in any formal way.  I will speak to the elders and deacons about it privately, and refer those wanting details to you, Mr. Traill.  Mr. Brown,” he called to the caretaker who stood in the lodge door, “it cannot be pleasing to God to see the little creature restrained.  Give Bobby his liberty on the Sabbath.”

VIII.

It was more than eight years after Auld Jock fled from the threat of a doctor that Mr. Traill’s prediction, that his tongue would get him into trouble with the magistrates, was fulfilled; and then it was because of the least-considered slip in speaking to a boyhood friend who happened to be a Burgh policeman.

Many things had tried the landlord of Ye Olde Greyfriars Dining-Rooms.  After a series of soft April days, in which lilacs budded and birds sang in the kirkyard, squalls of wind and rain came up out of the sea-roaring east.  The smoky old town of Edinburgh was so shaken and beaten upon and icily drenched that rattling finials and tiles were torn from ancient gables and whirled abroad.  Rheumatic pains were driven into the joints of the elderly.  Mr. Brown took to his bed in the lodge, and Mr. Traill was touchy in his temper.

A sensitive little dog learns to read the human barometer with a degree of accuracy rarely attained by fellowmen and, in times of low pressure, wisely effaces himself.  His rough thatch streaming, Bobby trotted in blithely for his dinner, ate it under the settle, shook himself dry, and dozed half the afternoon.

To the casual observer the wee terrier was no older than when his master died.  As swift of foot and as sound of wind as he had ever been, he could tear across country at the heels of a new generation of Heriot laddies and be as fresh as a daisy at nightfall.  Silvery gray all over, the whitening hairs on his face and tufted feet were not visible.  His hazel-brown eyes were still as bright and soft and deep as the sunniest pools of Leith Water.  It was only when he opened his mouth for a tiny, pink cavern of a yawn that the points of his teeth could be seen to be wearing down; and his after-dinner nap was more prolonged than of old.  At such times Mr. Traill recalled that the longest life of a dog is no more than a fifth of the length of days allotted to man.