Greyfriars Bobby | Page 3

exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that

you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this "small print!"
statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in
machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or
hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not*
contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work,
although tilde (), asterisk (*) and underline () characters may be used to
convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters
may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into
plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays
the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional
cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form
(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual
(or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon

University".
We are planning on making some changes in our donation structure in
2000, so you might want to email me, [email protected] beforehand.

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

GREYFRIARS BOBBY
by Eleanor Atkinson

I.
When the time-gun boomed from Edinburgh Castle, Bobby gave a
startled yelp. He was only a little country dog--the very youngest and
smallest and shaggiest of Skye terriers-bred on a heathery slope of the
Pentland hills, where the loudest sound was the bark of a collie or the
tinkle of a sheep-bell. That morning he had come to the weekly market
with Auld Jock, a farm laborer, and the Grassmarket of the Scottish
capital lay in the narrow valley at the southern base of Castle Crag.
Two hundred feet above it the time-gun was mounted in the half-moon
battery on an overhanging, crescent-shaped ledge of rock. In any part of
the city the report of the one-o'clock gun was sufficiently alarming, but
in the Grassmarket it was an earth-rending explosion directly overhead.
It needed to be heard but once there to be registered on even a little
dog's brain. Bobby had heard it many times, and he never failed to yelp
a sharp protest at the outrage to his ears; but, as the gunshot was always
followed by a certain happy event, it started in his active little mind a
train of pleasant associations.
In Bobby's day of youth, and that was in 1858, when Queen Victoria
was a happy wife and mother, with all her bairns about her knees in
Windsor or Balmoral, the Grassmarket of Edinburgh was still a bit of

the Middle Ages, as picturesquely decaying and Gothic as German
Nuremberg. Beside the classic corn exchange, it had no modern
buildings. North and south, along its greatest length, the sunken
quadrangle was faced by tall, old, timber-fronted houses of stone,
plastered like swallows' nests to the rocky slopes behind them.
Across the eastern end, where the valley suddenly narrowed to the
ravine-like street of the Cowgate, the market was spanned by the lofty,
crowded arches of George IV Bridge. This high-hung, viaduct
thoroughfare, that carried a double line of buildings within its parapet,
leaped the gorge, from the tall, old, Gothic rookeries on High Street
ridge, just below the Castle esplanade. It cleared the roofs of the tallest,
oldest houses that swarmed up the steep banks from the Cowgate, and
ran on, by easy descent, to the main gateway of Greyfriars kirkyard at
the lower top of the southern rise.
Greyfriars' two kirks formed together, under one continuous roof, a
long, low, buttressed building without tower or spire. The new kirk was
of Queen Anne's day, but the old kirk was built before ever the Pilgrims
set sail for America. It had been but one of several sacred buildings, set
in a monastery garden that sloped pleasantly to the