“Hoo muckle siller are they wantin’?”

“Seven shullings.  Gude day, lassie; I’m fair late.”  Sandy was not really alarmed about Bobby since the resourceful Mr. Traill had taken up his cause, and he had no idea of the panic of grief and fright that overwhelmed this forlorn child.

Seven shullings!  It was an enormous sum to the tenement bairn, whose half-blind grandmither knitted and knitted in a dimly lighted room, and hoarded halfpennies and farthings to save herself from pauper burial.  Seven shullings would pay a month’s rent for any one of the crowded rooms in which a family lived.  Ailie herself, an untrained lassie who scarcely knew the use of a toasting-fork, was overpaid by generous Mr. Traill at sixpence a day.  Seven shullings to permit one little dog to live!  It did not occur to Ailie that this was a sum Mr. Traill could easily pay.  No’ onybody at all had seven shullings all at once!  But, oh! everybody had pennies and halfpennies and farthings, and she and Tammy together had a sixpence.

Darting back to the gate, to catch the laddie before he could be off to school, she ran straight into the policeman, who stood with his hand on the wicket.  He eyed her sharply.

“Eh, lassie, I was gangin’ to spier at the lodge, gin there’s a bit dog leevin’ i’ the kirkyaird.”

“I—­I—­dinna ken.”  Her voice was unmanageable.  She had left to her only the tenement-bred instinct of concealment of any and all facts from an officer of the law.

“Ye dinna ken!  Maister Traill said i’ the coort a’ the bairns aboot kenned the dog.  Was he leein’?”

The question stung her into angry admission.  “He wadna be leein’.  But—­but—­the bittie—­dog—­isna here noo.”

“Syne, whaur is he?  Oot wi’ it!”

“I—­dinna—­ken!” She cowered in abject fear against the wall.  She could not know that this officer was suffering a bad attack of shame for his shabby part in the affair.  Satisfied that the little dog really did live in the kirkyard, he turned back to the bridge.  When Tammy came out presently he found Ailie crumpled up in a limp little heap in the gateway alcove.  In a moment the tale of Bobby’s peril was told.  The laddie dropped his books and his crutches on the pavement, and his head in his helpless arms, and cried.  He had small faith in Ailie’s suddenly conceived plan to collect the seven shullings among the dwellers in the tenements.

“Do ye ken hoo muckle siller seven shullin’s wad be?  It’s auchty-fower pennies, a hundred an’ saxty-aucht ha’pennies an’—­ an’—­I canna think hoo mony farthings.”

“I dinna care a bittie bit.  There’s mair folk aroond the kirkyaird than there’s farthings i’ twa, three times seven shullin’s.  An’ maist ilka body kens Bobby.  An’ we hae a saxpence atween us noo.”

“Maister Brown wad gie us anither saxpence gin he had ane,” Tammy suggested, wistfully.

“Nae, he’s fair ill.  Gin he doesna keep canny it wull gang to ’is heart.  He’d be aff ’is heid, aboot Bobby.  Oh, Tammy, Maister Traill gaed to gie ‘im up!  He was wearin’ a’ ‘is gude claes an’ a lang face, to gang to Bobby’s buryin’.”