Of Rab I have little to say, indeed have little right to speak of him as
one of "our dogs;" but nobody will be sorry to hear anything of that
noble fellow. Ailie, the day or two after the operation, when she was
well and cheery, spoke about him, and said she would tell me fine
stories when I came out, as I promised to do, to see her at Howgate. I
asked her how James came to get him. She told me that one day she saw
James coming down from Leadburn with the cart; he had been away west,
getting eggs and butter, cheese and hens for Edinburgh. She saw he was
in some trouble, and on looking, there was what she thought a young calf
being dragged, or, as she called it, "haurled," at the back of the cart.
James was in front, and when he came up, very warm and very angry, she
saw that there was a huge young dog tied to the cart, struggling and
pulling back with all his might, and as she said "lookin' fearsom."
James, who was out of breath and temper, being past his time, explained
to Ailie, that this "muckle brute o' a whalp" had been worrying sheep,
and terrifying everybody up at Sir George Montgomery's at Macbie Hill,
and that Sir George had ordered him to be hanged, which, however, was
sooner said than done, as "the thief" showed his intentions of dying
hard. James came up just as Sir George had sent for his gun; and as the
dog had more than once shown a liking for him, he said he "wad gie him a
chance;" and so he tied him to his cart. Young Rab, fearing some
mischief, had been entering a series of protests all the way, and nearly
strangling himself to spite James and Jess, besides giving Jess more
than usual to do. "I wish I had let Sir George pit that charge into him,
the thrawn brute," said James. But Ailie had seen that in his foreleg
there was a splinter of wood, which he had likely got when objecting to
be hanged, and that he was miserably lame. So she got James to leave him
with her, and go straight into Edinburgh. She gave him water, and by her
woman's wit got his lame paw under a door, so that he couldn't suddenly
get at her, then with a quick firm hand she plucked out the splinter,
and put in an ample meal. She went in some time after, taking no notice
of him, and he came limping up, and laid his great jaws in her lap; from
that moment they were "chief," as she said, James finding him mansuete
and civil when he returned.

She said it was Rab's habit to make his appearance exactly half an hour
before his master, tro