Mr. Brown roared with laughter.  “Man, ye hae mair fule notions i’ yer heid.  Ye’ll hae to pay a shullin’ or twa to a barber, an’ Bobby’ll be sae set up there’ll be nae leevin’ wi’ ’im.  Sit ye doon an’ tell me aboot the collar, man.”

“I can no’ stop now to wag my tongue.  Here’s the gude-wife.  I’ll just help her get you awa’ to your bed.”

It was dark when he returned to the gate, and the Castle wore its luminous crown.  The lights from the street lamps flickered on the up-turned, anxious faces.  Some of the children had begun to weep.  Women offered loud suggestions.  There were surmises that Bobby had been run over by a cart in the street, and angry conjectures that he had been stolen.  Then Ailie wailed: 

“Oh, Maister Traill, the bittie dog’s deid!”

“Havers, lassie!  I’m ashamed o’ ye for a fulish bairn.  Bobby’s no’ deid.  Nae doot he’s amang the stanes i’ the kirkyaird.  He’s aye scramblin’ aboot for vermin an’ pussies, an’ may hae hurt himsel’, an’ ye a’ ken the bonny wee wadna cry oot i’ the kirkyaird.  Noo, get to wark, an’ dinna stand there greetin’ an’ waggin’ yer tongues.  The mithers an’ bairns maun juist gang hame an’ stap their havers, an’ licht a’ the candles an’ cruisey lamps i’ their hames, an’ set them i’ the windows aboon the kirkyaird.  Greyfriars is murky by the ordinar’, an’ ye couldna find a coo there wi’oot the lichts.”

The crowd suddenly melted away, so eager were they all to have a hand in helping to find the community pet.  Then Mr. Traill turned to the boys.

“Hoo mony o’ ye laddies hae the bull’s-eye lanterns?”

Ah! not many in the old buildings around the kirkyard.  These japanned tin aids to dark adventures on the golf links on autumn nights cost a sixpence and consumed candles.  Geordie Ross and Sandy McGregor, coming up arm in arm, knew of other students and clerks who still had these cherished toys of boyhood.  With these heroes in the lead a score or more of laddies swarmed into the kirkyard.

The tenements were lighted up as they had not been since nobles held routs and balls there.  Enough candles and oil were going up in smoke to pay for wee Bobby’s license all over again, and enough love shone in pallid little faces that peered into the dusk to light the darkest corner in the heart of the world.  Rays from the bull’s-eyes were thrown into every nook and cranny.  Very small laddies insinuated themselves into the narrowest places.  They climbed upon high vaults and let themselves down in last year’s burdocks and tangled vines.  It was all done in silence, only Mr. Traill speaking at all.  He went everywhere with the searchers, and called: 

“Whaur are ye, Bobby?  Come awa’ oot, laddie!”