to choose--the roadway on around and past the barracks, and a
flight of steps cut steeply in the living rock of the ledge, and leading
up to the King's Bastion. Bobby took the stairs at a few bounds.

On the summit there was nothing at all beside a tiny, ancient stone
chapel with a Norman arched and sculptured doorway, and guarding it
an enormous burst cannon. But these ruins were the crown jewels of the
fortifications--their origins lost in legends--and so they were cared
for with peculiar reverence. Sergeant Scott of the Royal Engineers
himself, in fatigue-dress, was down on his knees before St. Margaret's
oratory, pulling from a crevice in the foundations a knot of grass that
was at its insidious work of time and change. As Bobby dashed up to the
citadel, still barking, the man jumped to his feet. Then he slapped his
thigh and laughed. Catching the animated little bundle of protest the
sergeant set him up for inspection on the shattered breeching of Mons
Meg.

"Losh! The sma' dog cam' by 'is ainsel'! He could no' resist the braw
soldier laddies. 'He's a dog o' discreemination,' eh? Gin he bides a
wee, noo, it wull tak' the conceit oot o' the innkeeper." He turned to
gather up his tools, for the first dinner bugle was blowing. Bobby knew
by the gun that it was the dinner-hour, but he had been fed at the farm
and was not hungry. He might as well see a bit more of life. He sat
upon the cannon, not in the least impressed by the honor, and lolled his
tongue.

In Edinburgh Castle there was nothing to alarm a little dog. A dozen
or more large buildings, in three or four groups, and representing
many periods of architecture, lay to the south and west on the lowest
terraces, and about them were generous parked spaces. Into the largest
of the buildings, a long, four-storied barracks, the soldiers had
vanished. And now, at the blowing of a second bugle, half a hundred
orderlies hurried down from a modern cook-house, near the summit, with
cans of soup and meat and potatoes. The sergeant followed one of these
into a room on the front of the barracks. In their serge fatigue-tunics
the sixteen men about the long table looked as different from the gay
soldiers of the march as though so many scarlet and gold and bonneted
butterflies had turned back into sad-colored grubs.

"Private McLean," he called to his batman who, for one-and-six a week,
cared for his belongings, "tak' chairge o' the dog, wull ye, an' fetch
'im to the non-c