When Ailie wanted to get up unusually early in the morning she made use of Tammy for an alarm-clock.A crippled laddie who must "mak' 'is leevin' wi' 'is heid" can waste no moment of daylight, and in the ancient buildings around Greyfriars the maximum of daylight was to be had only by those able and willing to climb to the gables.Tammy, having to live on the lowest, darkest floor of all, used the kirkyard for a study, by special indulgence of the caretaker, whenever the weather permitted.
From a window he dropped his books and his crutches over the wall.Then, by clasping his arms around a broken shaft that blocked the casement, he swung himself out, and scrambled down into an enclosed vault yard.There he kept hidden Mistress Jeanie's milking stool for a seat; and a table-tomb served as well, for the laddie to do his sums upon, as it had for the tearful signing of the Covenant more than two hundred years before.Bobby, as host, greeted Tammy with cordial friskings and waggings, saw him settled to his tasks, and then went briskly about his own interrupted business of searching out marauders.
Many a spring dawn the quiet little boy and the swift and silent little dog had the shadowy garden all to themselves, and it was for them the song-thrushes and skylarks gave their choicest concerts.
On that mid-April morning, when the rising sun gilded the Castle turrets and flashed back from the many beautiful windows of Heriot's Hospital, Tammy bundled his books under the table-tomb of Mistress Jean Grant, went over to the rear of the Guildhall at the top of the Row, and threw a handful of gravel up to Ailie's window.Because of a grandmither Ailie, too, dwelt on a low level.Her eager little face, lighted by sleep-dazzled blue eyes, popped out with the surprising suddenness of the manikins in a Punch-and-Judy show.
"In juist ane meenit, Tammy," she whispered, "no' to wauken the grandmither." It was in so very short a minute that the lassie climbed out onto the classic pediment of a tomb and dropped into the kirkyard that her toilet was uncompleted.Tammy buttoned her washed-out cotton gown at the back, and she sat on a slab to lace her shoes.If the fun of giving Bobby his bath was to be enjoyed to the full there must be no unnecessary delay.This consideration led Tammy to observe:
"Ye're no' needin' to comb yer hair, Ailie.It leuks bonny eneugh."In truth, Ailie was one of those fortunate lassies whose crinkly, gold-brown mop really looked best when in some disorder; and of that advantage the little maid was well aware.
"I ken a' that, Tammy.I aye gie it a lick or twa wi' a comb the nicht afore.Ca' the wee doggie."Bobby fully understood that he was wanted for some serious purpose, but it was a fresh morning of dew and he, apparently, was in the highest of spirits.So he gave Ailie a chase over the sparkling grass and under the showery shrubbery.When he dropped at last on Auld Jock's grave Tammy captured him.The little dog could always be caught there, in a caressable state of exhaustion or meditation, for, sooner or later, he returned to the spot from every bit of work or play.No one would have known it for a place of burial at all.Mr.Brown knew it only by the rose bush at its head and by Bobby's haunting it, for the mound had sunk to the general level of the terrace on which it lay, and spreading crocuses poked their purple and gold noses through the crisp spring turf.But for the wee, guardian dog the man who lay beneath had long lost what little identity he had ever possessed.
Now, as the three lay there, the lassie as flushed and damp as some water-nymph, Bobby panting and submitting to a petting, Tammy took the little dog's muzzle between his thin hands, parted the veil, and looked into the soft brown eyes.
"Leak, Ailie, Bobby's wantin' somethin', an' is juist haudin'
'imsel'."
It was true.For all his gaiety in play and his energy at work Bobby's eyes had ever a patient, wistful look, not unlike the crippled laddie's.Ah, who can say that it did not require as much courage and gallant bravado on the part of that small, bereft creature to enable him to live at all, as it did for Tammy to face his handicapped life and "no' to remember 'is bad legs"?
In the bath on the rear steps of the lodge Bobby swam and splashed, and scattered foam with his excited tail.He would not stand still to be groomed, but wriggled and twisted and leaped upon the children, putting his shaggy wet paws roguishly in their faces.But he stood there at last, after the jolliest romp, in which the old kirkyard rang with laughter, and oh! so bonny, in his rippling coat of dark silver.No sooner was he released than he dashed around the kirk and back again, bringing his latest bone in his mouth.To his scratching on the stone sill, for he had been taught not to scratch on the panel, the door was opened by snod and smiling Mistress Jeanie, who invited these slum bairns into such a cozy, spotless kitchen as was not possible in the tenements.Mr.Brown sat by the hearth, bundled in blue and white blankets of wonderfully blocked country weaving.Bobby put his fore paws on the caretaker's chair and laid his precious bone in the man's lap.
"Eh, ye takin' bit rascal; loup!" Bobby jumped to the patted knee, turned around and around on the soft bed that invited him, licked the beaming old face to show his sympathy and friendliness, and jumped down again.Mr.Brown sighed because Bobby steadily but amiably refused to be anybody's lap-dog.The caretaker turned to the admiring children.
"Ilka morn he fetches 'is bit bane up, thinkin' it a braw giftie for an ill man.An' syne he veesits me twa times i' the day, juist bidin' a wee on the hearthstane, lollin' 'is tongue an'
