Greyfriars Bobby | Page 8

Auld Jock and Bobby slept. They slept while the tavern emptied
itself of noisy guests and clattering crockery was washed at the dingy,
gas-lighted windows that overlooked the cockpit. They slept while the
cold fell with the falling day and the mist was whipped into driving rain.
Almost a cave, between shelving rock and house wall, a gust of wind

still found its way in now and then. At a splash of rain Auld Jock
stirred uneasily in his sleep. Bobby merely sniffed the freshened air
with pleasure and curled himself up for an other nap.
No rain could wet Bobby. Under his rough outer coat, that was parted
along the back as neatly as the thatch along a cottage ridge-pole, was a
dense, woolly fleece that defied wind and rain, snow and sleet to
penetrate. He could not know that nature had not been as generous in
protecting his master against the weather. Although of a subarctic breed,
fitted to live shelterless if need be, and to earn his living by native wit,
Bobby had the beauty, the grace, and the charming manners of a lady's
pet. In a litter of prick-eared, wire-haired puppies Bobby was a "sport."
It is said that some of the ships of the Spanish Armada, with French
poodles in the officers' cabins, were blown far north and west, and
broken up on the icy coasts of The Hebrides and Skye. Some such
crossing of his far-away ancestry, it would seem, had given a greater
length and a crisp wave to Bobby's outer coat, dropped and silkily
fringed his ears, and powdered his useful, slate-gray color with silver
frost. But he had the hardiness and intelligence of the sturdier breed,
and the instinct of devotion to the working master. So he had turned
from a soft-hearted bit lassie of a mistress, and the cozy chimney corner
of the farm-house kitchen, and linked his fortunes with this forlorn old
laborer.
A grizzled, gnarled little man was Auld Jock, of tough fiber, but worn
out at last by fifty winters as a shepherd on the bleak hills of
Midlothian and Fife, and a dozen more in the low stables and
storm-buffeted garrets of Edinburgh. He had come into the world
unnoted in a shepherd's lonely cot. With little wit of mind or skill of
hand he had been a common tool, used by this master and that for the
roughest tasks, when needed, put aside, passed on, and dropped out of
mind. Nothing ever belonged to the man but his scant earnings.
Wifeless, cotless, bairnless, he had slept, since early boyhood, under
strange roofs, eaten the bread of the hireling, and sat dumb at other
men's firesides. If he had another name it had been forgotten. In youth
he was Jock; in age, Auld Jock.

In his sixty-third summer there was a belated blooming in Auld Jock's
soul. Out of some miraculous caprice Bobby lavished on him a riotous
affection. Then up out of the man's subconscious memory came words
learned from the lips of a long-forgotten mother. They were words not
meant for little dogs at all, but for sweetheart, wife and bairn. Auld
Jock used them cautiously, fearing to be overheard, for the matter was a
subject of wonder and rough jest at the farm. He used them when
Bobby followed him at the plow-tail or scampered over the heather
with him behind the flocks. He used them on the market-day
journeyings, and on summer nights, when the sea wind came sweetly
from the broad Firth and the two slept, like vagabonds, on a haycock
under the stars. The purest pleasure Auld Jock ever knew was the
taking of a bright farthing from his pocket to pay for Bobby's delectable
bone in Mr. Traill's place.
Given what was due him that morning and dismissed for the season to
find such work as he could in the city, Auld Jock did not question the
farmer's right to take Bobby "back hame." Besides, what could he do
with the noisy little rascal in an Edinburgh lodging? But, duller of wit
than usual, feeling very old and lonely, and shaky on his legs, and dizzy
in his head, Auld Jock parted with Bobby and with his courage,
together. With the instinct of the dumb animal that suffers, he stumbled
into the foul nook and fell, almost at once, into a heavy sleep. Out of
that Bobby roused him but briefly.
Long before his master awoke, Bobby finished his series of refreshing
little naps, sat up, yawned, stretched his short, shaggy legs, sniffed at
Auld Jock experimentally, and trotted around the bed of the cart on a
tour of investigation. This proving to be of small interest and no profit,
he lay down again beside his master, nose on paws, and