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. This one alone began to climb again. Up, up it
toiled, for two weary miles, to the hilltop toll-bar of Fairmilehead,
and there the sounds and smells that made it different from other roads
began.

Five miles out of the city the halt was called, and the soldiers flung
themselves on the slope. Many experiences of route-marching had taught
Bobby that there was an interval of rest before the return, so, with
his nose to the ground, he started up the brae on a pilgrimage to old
shrines, just as in his puppyhood days, at Auld Jock's heels, there was
much shouting of men, barking of collies, and bleating of sheep all the
way up. Once he had to leave the road until a driven flock had passed.
Behind the sheep walked an old laborer in hodden-gray, woolen bonnet,
and shepherd's two-fold plaid, with a lamb in the pouch of it. Bobby
trembled at the apparition, sniffed at the hob-nailed boots, and then,
with drooped head and tail, trotted on up the slope.

Men and dogs were all out on the billowy pastures, and the farm-house
of Cauldbrae lay on the level terrace, seemingly deserted and steeped in
memories. A few moments before, a tall lassie had come out to listen
to the military music. A couple of hundred feet below, the coats of the
soldiers looked to her like poppies scattered on the heather. At the
top of the brae the wind was blowing a cold gale, so the maidie went up
again, and around to a bit of tangled garden on the sheltered side of
the house. The "wee lassie Elsie" was still a bairn in short skirts
and braids, who lavished her soft heart, as yet, on briar bushes and
daisies.

Bobby made a tour of the sheepfold, the cowyard and byre, and he
lingered behind the byre, where Auld Jock had played with him on Sabbath
afternoons. He inspected the dairy, and the poultry