ing slope shelving under suddenly,
where he could not retreat, he leaped, turned over and over in the air,
and fell stunned. His heart filled with fear of the unseen before him,
the little dog lay for a long time in a clump of whins. He may even have
dozed and dreamed, to be awakened with starts by his misery of longing,
and once by the far-away barking of a dog. It came up deadened, as if
from fathoms below. He stood up and listened, but the sound was not
repeated. His lacerated feet burned and throbbed; his bruised muscles
had begun to stiffen, so that every movement was a pain.

In these lower levels there was more smoke, that smeared out and
thickened the mist. Suddenly a breath of air parted the fog as if it
were a torn curtain. Like a shot Bobby went down the crag, leaping from
rock to rock, scrambling under thorns and hazel shrubs, dropping over
precipitous ledges, until he looked down a sheer fall on which not even
a knot of grass could find a foothold. He took the leap instantly, and
his thick fleece saved him from broken bones; but when he tried to get
up again his body was racked with pain and his hind legs refused to
serve him.

Turning swiftly, he snarled and bit, at them in angry disbelief that his
good little legs should play false with his stout heart. Then he quite
forgot his pain, for there was the sharp ring of iron on an anvil and
the dull glow of a forge fire, where a smith was toiling in the early
hours of the morning. A clever and resourceful little dog, Bobby made
shift to do without legs. Turning on his side, he rolled down the last
slope of Castle Rock. Crawling between two buildings and dropping from
the terrace on which they stood, he fell into a little street at the
west end and above the Grassmarket.

Here the odors were all of the stables. He knew the way, and that it was
still downward. The distance he had to go was a matter of a quarter of a
mile, or less, and the greater part of it was on the level, through
the sunken valley of the Grassmarket. But Bobby had literally to drag
himself now; and he had still to pull him self up by his fore paws over
the wet and greasy cobblestones of Candlemakers Row. Had not the great
leaves of the gate to the kirkyard been left on the latch, he would
have had to lie there in the alcove, with his nose under the bars, until
morning. But the gate gave way to his push, and so, he dragged himself
through it and around the kirk, and stretched himself on Auld