He took just
one from each in his mouth, as Auld Jock had taught him to do. On
the kitchen hearth he ate the savory meal with much satisfaction
and polite waggings. But when the bugle sounded from below to form
ranks, he pricked his drop ears and started for the door.
Before he knew what had happened he was inside the poultry-house.
In another instant he was digging frantically in the soft earth
under the door. When the lassie lay down across the crack he
stopped digging, in consternation. His sense of smell told him what
it was that shut out the strip of light; and a bairn's soft body is
not a proper object of attack for a little dog, no matter how
desperate the emergency. There was no time to be lost, for the
drums began to beat the march. Having to get out very quickly,
Bobby did a forbidden thing: swiftly and noisily he dashed around
the dark place, and there arose such wild squawkings and rushings
of wings as to bring the gude-wife out of the house in alarm.
"Lassie, I canna hae the bittie dog in wi the broodin' chuckies!"
She flung the door wide. Bobby shot through, and into Elsie's
outstretched arms. She held to him desperately, while he twisted
and struggled and strained away; and presently something shining
worked into view, through the disordered thatch about his neck. The
mother had come to the help of the child, and it was she who read
the inscription on the brazen plate aloud.
"Preserve us a'! Lassie, he's been tak'n by the Laird Provost an'
gien the name o' the auld kirkyaird.
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