He
pulled it so far under his thatch that no one could have guessed
that he had a collar on at all, when he suddenly righted himself
and scampered away to the gate.
The music grew louder and came nearer. The first of the
route-marching that the Castle garrison practiced on occasional,
bright spring mornings was always a delightful surprise to the
small boys and dogs of Edinburgh. Usually the soldiers went down
High Street and out to Portobello on the sea. But a regiment of
tough and wiry Highlanders often took, by preference, the
mounting road to the Pentlands to get a whiff of heather in their
nostrils.
On they came, band playing, colors flying, feet moving in unison
with a march, across the viaduct bridge into Greyfriars Place.
Bobby was up on the wicket, his small, energetic body quivering
with excitement from his muzzle to his tail. If Mr. Traill had
been there he would surely have caught the infection, thrown care
to this sweet April breeze for once, and taken the wee terrier
for a run on the Pentland braes. The temptation was going by when
a preoccupied lady, with a sheaf of Easter lilies on her sable
arm, opened the wicket. Her ample Victorian skirts swept right
over the little dog, and when he emerged there was the gate
slightly ajar. Widening the aperture with nose and paws, Bobby
was off, skirmishing at large on the rear and flanks of the
troops, down the Burghmuir.
It may never have happened, in the years since Auld Jock died and
the farmer of Cauldbrae gave up trying to keep him on the hills,
that Bobby, had gone so far back on this once familiar road; and
he may not have recognized it at first, for the highways around
Edinburgh were everywhere much alike.
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