beside
his master.

Very late at night shuffling footsteps came up the stairs. The "auld
wifie" kept a sharp eye on the comings and goings of her lodgers. It was
"no' canny" that this old man, with a cauld in his chest, had gone up
full two days before and had not come down again. To bitter complaints
of his coughing and of his strange talking to himself she gave scant
attention, but foul play was done often enough in these dens to make
her uneasy. She had no desire to have the Burgh police coming about
and interfering with her business. She knocked sharply on the door and
called:

"Auld Jock!"

Bobby trotted over to the door and stood looking at it. In such a strait
he would naturally have welcomed the visitor, scratching on the panel,
and crying to any human body without to come in and see what had
befallen his master. But Auld Jock had bade him "haud 'is gab" there,
as in Greyfriars kirkyard. So he held to loyal silence, although the
knocking and shaking of the latch was insistent and the lodgers were
astir. The voice of the old woman was shrill with alarm.

"Auld Jock, can ye no' wauken?" And, after a moment, in which the
unlatched casement window within could be heard creaking on its hinges
in the chill breeze, there was a hushed and frightened question:

"Are ye deid?"

The footsteps fled down the stairs, and Bobby was left to watch through
the long hours of darkness.

Very early in the morning the flimsy door was quietly forced by
authority. The first man who entered--an officer of the Crown from the
sheriff's court on the bridge--took off his hat to the majesty that
dominated that bare cell. The Cowgate region presented many a startling
contrast, but such a one as this must seldom have been seen. The classic
fireplace, and the motionless figure and peaceful face of the pious old
shepherd within it, had the dignity and beauty of some monumental tomb
and carved effigy in old Greyfriars kirkyard. Only less strange was the
contrast between the marks of poverty and toil on the dead man and the
dainty grace of the little fluff of a dog that mourned him.

No such men as these--officers of her Majesty the Queen, Burgh
policemen, and learned doctors from the Royal Infirmary--had ever been
aware of Auld Jock, living. Dead, and no' needing them any more, they
stood guard over him, and inquired sternly as to the manner in which
he had died. There was a hysterical breath of relief from the crowd
of lodgers and ten