Eleanor Atkinson

“ Bobby did not know when the bridge-approach was passed; and then, on Castle Hill, he was in an unknown region. There the street widened to the great square of the esplanade. The cavalry wheeled and dashed down High Street, but the infantry marched on and up, over the sounding drawbridge that spanned a dry moat of the Middle Ages, and through a deep-arched gateway of masonry.
The outer gate to the Castle was wider than the opening into many an Edinburgh wynd; but Bobby stopped, uncertain as to where this narrow roadway, that curved upward to the right, might lead. ”

“ Up, up it toiled, for two weary miles, to the hilltop toll-bar of Fairmilehead, and there the sounds and smells that made it different from other roads began.
Five miles out of the city the halt was called, and the soldiers flung themselves on the slope. Many experiences of route-marching had taught Bobby that there was an interval of rest before the return, so, with his nose to the ground, he started up the brae on a pilgrimage to old shrines, just as in his puppyhood days, at Auld Jock's heels, there was much shouting of men, barking of collies, and bleating of sheep all the way up. ”

“ On the women whom Lincoln had known and loved—his mother, his stepmother, and his sister—pioneer life had laid those pitiless burdens that filled so many early, forlorn graves. Ann’s fostered youth and unclouded eyes must have seemed to him a blessed miracle; filled him with determination so to cherish his own when love should crown his manhood.
The regular boarders at the tavern were a part of that patriarchal family—Ann’s lover McNeill, Lincoln, and others. ”

“ When Bobby lay down on Auld Jock's grave, pellets of frozen snow were falling and the air had hardened toward frost.
VI.
Sleep alone goes far to revive a little dog, and fasting sharpens the wits. Bobby was so tired that he slept soundly, but so hungry that he woke early, and instantly alert to his situation. It was so very early of a dark winter morning that not even the sparrows were out foraging in the kirkyard for dry seeds. The drum and bugle had not been sounded from the Castle when the milk and dustman's carts began to clatter over the frozen streets. ”

“ Lincoln had one anguished hour with her in a brief return to consciousness. It was in the living-room of a pioneer log-cabin, untouched by grace or beauty; homely, useful things about them, the light on her face coming through a clapboard door open to the sun and wind of an unspoiled landscape. The houses of the wealthiest farmers were seldom more than two big rooms and a sleeping loft, and privacy the rarest, most difficult privilege. ”

“ For, all at once, in the very strangest place, in the very strangest way, Bobby came upon Auld Jock. A rat scurrying out from a foul and narrow passage that gave to the rear of the White Hart Inn, pointed the little dog to a nook hitherto undiscovered by his curious nose. Hidden away between the noisy tavern and the grim, island crag was the old cock-fighting pit of a ruder day. There, in a broken-down carrier's cart, abandoned among the nameless abominations of publichouse refuse, Auld Jock lay huddled in his greatcoat of hodden gray and his shepherd's plaid. ”

“ They sing not only of dead loves, but of deathless love, and they contract the heart of youth with no fear of bereavement. Young love is always secure, thrice ringed around with protecting spells and enchantment; death an alien thing in some distant star. The banks of the Sangamon bloomed fresh and fair that golden summer, the meadow-lark sang unreproached, the flowing of the river accompanied only dreams of fuller life. ”

“ Bobby had not gone this way homeward before, and was puzzled by the smell of prosperous little shops, and by the park-like odors from college campuses to the east, and from the well-kept residence park of George Square. But when the cart rattled across Lauriston Place he picked up the familiar scents of milk and wool from the cattle and sheep market, and then of cottage dooryards, of turned furrows and of farmsteads.
The earth wears ever a threefold garment of beauty. The human person usually manages to miss nearly everything but the appearance of things. ”

“ A human friend would have resented the idea of such base desertion and sulked. But in a little dog's heart of trust there is no room for suspicion. The thought simply lent wings to Bobby's tired feet. As the market-place emptied he chased at the heels of laggards, up the crescent-shaped rise of Candlemakers Row, and straight on to the familiar dining-rooms. Through the forest of table and chair and human legs he made his way to the back, to find a soldier from the Castle, in smart red coat and polished boots, lounging in Auld Jock's inglenook. ”

“ What searching self-revelations by which youth leads love back through an uncompanioned past, finding there old experiences, trivial and forgotten until love touches and transforms them. Life suddenly becomes spacious and richly furnished. Lincoln’s old ties of affection were Ann’s now, dear and familiar; his old griefs. In tender retrospect she shared that tragic mystery of his childhood, his mother’s early death. ”

“ But a regiment of tough and wiry Highlanders often took, by preference, the mounting road to the Pentlands to get a whiff of heather in their nostrils.
On they came, band playing, colors flying, feet moving in unison with a march, across the viaduct bridge into Greyfriars Place. Bobby was up on the wicket, his small, energetic body quivering with excitement from his muzzle to his tail. If Mr. Traill had been there he would surely have caught the infection, thrown care to this sweet April breeze for once, and taken the wee terrier for a run on the Pentland braes. ”

“ So Lincoln’s mother had dwindled to an early grave, lacking nourishment for the spirit. Courtship, even, was elemental, robbed of its hours of irresponsible idleness, its faery realm of romance. To see anyone rise above the hard, external facts of life touched the imagination of the dullest. In his public aspect a large part of Lincoln’s power, at this time, was that he expressed visibly community aspirations that still lay dormant and unrecognized. Now, he and Ann expressed the capacities of love of the disinherited. ”

“ After an hour's hard run back over the dipping and rising country road and a long quarter circuit of the city, Bobby found the high-walled, winding way into the west end of the Grassmarket. To a human being afoot there was a shorter cut, but the little dog could only retrace the familiar route of the farm carts. It was a notable feat for a small creature whose tufted legs were not more than six inches in length, whose thatch of long hair almost swept the roadway and caught at every burr and bramble, and who was still so young that his nose could not be said to be educated. ”

“ There was the smell of furry rodents, of nesting birds, of gushing springs, of the earth itself, and something more ancient still, as of burned-out fires in the Huge mass of trap-rock.
Everything warned Bobby to lie still in safety until morning and the world was restored to its normal aspects. But ah! in the highest type of man and dog, self-sacrifice, and not self-preservation, is the first law. A deserted grave cried to him across the void, the anguish of protecting love urged him on to take perilous chances. ”

“ Nothing ever belonged to the man but his scant earnings. Wifeless, cotless, bairnless, he had slept, since early boyhood, under strange roofs, eaten the bread of the hireling, and sat dumb at other men's firesides. If he had another name it had been forgotten. In youth he was Jock; in age, Auld Jock.
In his sixty-third summer there was a belated blooming in Auld Jock's soul. Out of some miraculous caprice Bobby lavished on him a riotous affection. Then up out of the man's subconscious memory came words learned from the lips of a long-forgotten mother. ”