k and, with a last grip of Glenormiston's hand, set off
across the bridge. To the landlord the world seemed a brave place to be
living in, the fabric of earth and sky and human society to be woven of
kindness. Having urgent business of buying supplies in the markets at
Broughton and Lauriston, Mr. Traill put Bobby inside the kirkyard gate
and hurried away to get into his everyday clothing. After dinner, or
tea, he promised himself the pleasure of an hour at the lodge, to tell
Mr. Brown the wonderful news, and to show him Bobby's braw collar.

When, finally, he was left alone, Bobby trotted around the kirk, to
assure himself that Auld Jock's grave was unmolested. There he turned
on his back, squirmed and rocked on the crocuses, and tugged at the
unaccustomed collar. His inverted struggles, low growlings and furry
contortions set the wrens to scolding and the redbreasts to making
nervous inquiries. Much nestbuilding, tuneful courtship, and masculine
blustering was going on, and there was little police duty for Bobby.
After a time he sat up on the table-tomb, pensively. With Mr. Brown
confined, to the lodge, and Mistress Jeanie in close attendance upon him
there, the kirkyard was a lonely place for a sociable little dog; and
a soft, spring day given over to brooding beside a beloved grave, was
quite too heart-breaking a thing to contemplate. Just for cheerful
occupation Bobby had another tussle with the collar. He pulled it so far
under his thatch that no one could have guessed that he had a collar on
at all, when he suddenly righted himself and scampered away to the gate.

The music grew louder and came nearer. The first of the route-marching
that the Castle garrison practiced on occasional, bright spring
mornings was always a delightful surprise to the small boys and dogs
of Edinburgh. Usually the soldiers went down High Street and out to
Portobello on the sea. 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.