to
cell.

Auld Jock glowered down at Bobby with frightened eyes. In the winters he
had lodged there he had lived unmolested only because he had managed to
escape notice. Timid old country body that he was, he could not "fecht
it oot" with the thieves and beggars and drunkards of the Cowgate. By
and by the brawling died down. In the double row of little dens this one
alone was silent, and the offending dog was not located.

But when the danger was past, Auld Jock's heart was pounding in his
chest. His legs gave way under him, when he got up to fetch the candle
from near the door and set it on a projecting brick in the fireplace.
By its light he began to read in a small pocket Bible the Psalm that had
always fascinated him because he had never been able to understand it.

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want."

So far it was plain and comforting. "He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters."

Nae, the pastures were brown, or purple and yellow with heather and
gorse. Rocks cropped out everywhere, and the peaty tarps were mostly
bleak and frozen. The broad Firth was ever ebbing and flowing with the
restless sea, and the burns bickering down the glens. The minister of
the little hill kirk had said once that in England the pastures were
green and the lakes still and bright; but that was a fey, foreign
country to which Auld Jock had no desire to go. He wondered, wistfully,
if he would feel at home in God's heaven, and if there would be room
in that lush silence for a noisy little dog, as there was on the rough
Pentland braes. And there his thoughts came back to this cold prison
cell in which he could not defend the right of his one faithful little
friend to live. He stooped and lifted Bobby into the bed. Humble, and
eager to be forgiven for an offense he could not understand, the
loving little creature leaped to Auld Jock's arms and lavished frantic
endearments upon him.

Lying so together in the dark, man and dog fell into a sleep that was
broken by Auld Jock's fitful coughing and the abuse of his neighbors.
It was not until the wind had long died to a muffled murmur at the
casements, and every other lodger was out, that Auld Jock slept soundly.
He awoke late to find Bobby waiting patiently on the floor and the
bare cell flooded with white glory. That could mean but one thing. He
stumbled dizzily to his feet and threw a sash aback. Over the huddle of
high housetops, the Univ