ty and carried all the way down and up to the hilltop toll-bar
of Fairmilehead. It could not occur to his loyal little heart that this
treachery was planned nor, stanch little democrat that he was, that
the farmer was really his owner, and that he could not follow a humbler
master of his own choosing. He might have been carried to the distant
farm, and shut safely in the byre with the cows for the night, but for
an incautious remark of the farmer. With the first scent of the native
heather the horse quickened his pace, and, at sight of the purple slopes
of the Pentlands looming homeward, a fond thought at the back of the
man's mind very naturally took shape in speech.

"Eh, Bobby; the wee lassie wull be at the tap o' the brae to race ye
hame."

Bobby pricked his drop ears. Within a narrow limit, and concerning
familiar things, the understanding of human speech by these intelligent
little terriers is very truly remarkable. At mention of the wee lassie
he looked behind for his rough old friend and unfailing refuge. Auld
Jock's absence discovered, Bobby promptly dropped from the seat of honor
and from the cart tail, sniffed the smoke of Edinboro' town and faced
right about. To the farmer's peremptory call he returned the spicy
repartee of a cheerful bark. It was as much as to say:

"Dinna fash yersel'! I ken what I'm aboot."

After an hour's hard run back over the dipping and rising country road
and a long quarter circuit of the city, Bobby found the high-walled,
winding way into the west end of the Grassmarket. To a human being
afoot there was a shorter cut, but the little dog could only retrace
the familiar route of the farm carts. It was a notable feat for a small
creature whose tufted legs were not more than six inches in length,
whose thatch of long hair almost swept the roadway and caught at every
burr and bramble, and who was still so young that his nose could not be
said to be educated.

In the market-place he ran here and there through the crowd, hopefully
investigating narrow closes that were mere rifts in precipices of
buildings; nosing outside stairs, doorways, stables, bridge arches,
standing carts, and even hob-nailed boots. He yelped at the crash of the
gun, but it was another matter altogether that set his little heart to
palpitating with alarm. It was the dinner-hour, and where was Auld Jock?

Ah! A happy thought: his master had gone to dinner!

A human friend would have resented the idea of such ba