I wish I could take Bobby with me to show him to the dear
Queen."
"Preserve me!" cried Mistress Jeanie, and Mr. Brown's pet pipe was
in fragments on the hearth.
Bobby leaped upon her and whimpered, saying "Dinna gang, Leddy!" as
plainly as a little dog could say anything. He showed the pathos at
parting with one he was fond of, now, that an old and affectionate
person shows. He clung to her gown, rubbed his rough head under her
hand, and trotted disconsolately beside her to her waiting
carriage. At the very last she said, sadly:
"The Queen will have to come to Edinburgh to see Bobby."
"The bonny wee wad be a prood doggie, yer Leddyship," Mistress
Jeanie managed to stammer, but Mr. Brown was beyond speech.
The Grand Leddy said nothing. She looked at the foundation work of
Bobby's memorial fountain, swathed in canvas against the winter,
and waiting--waiting for the spring, when the waters of the earth
should be unsealed again; waiting until finis could be written to a
story on a bronze table-tomb; waiting for the effigy of a shaggy
Skye terrier to be cast and set up; waiting--
When the Queen came to see Bobby it was unlikely that he would know
anything about it.
He would know nothing of the crowds to gather there on a public
occasion, massing on the bridge, in Greyfriars Place, in broad
Chambers Street, and down Candlemakers Row--the magistrates and
Burgh council, professors and students from the University,
soldiers from the Castle, the neighboring nobility in carriages,
farmers and shepherds from the Pentlands, the Heriot laddies
marching from the school, and the tenement children in holiday
duddies--all to honor the memory of a devoted little dog.
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