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. With the first hint of dawn stout fishwives, who had
tramped all the way in from the piers of Newhaven with heavily laden
creels on their heads, were lustily crying their "caller herrin'."
Soon fagot men began to call up the courts of tenements, where fuel was
bought by the scant bundle: "Are ye cauld?"

Many a human waif in the tall buildings about the lower end of
Greyfriars kirkyard was cold, even in bed, but, in his thick underjacket
of fleece, Bobby was as warm as a plate of breakfast toast. With a
vigorous shaking he broke and scattered the crust of snow that burdened
his shaggy thatch. Then he lay down on the grave again, with his nose
on his paws. Urgent matters occupied the little dog's mind. To deal with
these affairs he had the long head of the canniest Scot, wide and high
between the ears, and a muzzle as determined as a little steel trap.
Small and forlorn as he was, courage, resource and purpose marked him.

As soon as the door of the caretaker's lodge opened he would have to
creep under the fallen slab again. To lie in such a cramped position,
hour after hour, day after day, was enough to break the spirit of any
warm blooded creature that lives. It was an exquisite form of torture
not long to be endured. And to get his single meal a day at Mr. Traill's
place Bobby had to watch for the chance opening of the wicket to slip in
and out like a thief. The furtive life is not only perilous, it outrages
every feeling of an honest dog. It is hard for him to live at all
without the approval and the cordial consent of men. The human order
hostile, he quickly loses his self-respect and drops to the pariah
class. Already wee Bobby had the look of the neglected. His pretty coat
was dirty and unkempt. In his run across country, leaves, twigs and
burrs had become entangled in his long hair, and his legs and underparts
were caked with mire.

Instinctively any dog struggles to escape the fate of the outcast. By
ev