a' hame, noo," he said, kindly. "A kirkya'rd isna a place for a
bit dog to be leevin'."

Bobby lay where he had been dropped until the caretaker was out of
sight. Then, finding the aperture under the gate too small for him
to squeeze through, he tried, in his ancestral way, to enlarge it by
digging. He scratched and scratched at the unyielding stone until his
little claws were broken and his toes bleeding, before he stopped and
lay down with his nose under the wicket.

Just before the closing hour a carriage stopped at the
kirkyard gate. A black-robed lady, carrying flowers, hurried through the
wicket. Bobby slipped in behind her and disappeared.

After nightfall, when the lamps were lighted on the bridge, when Mr.
Traill had come out to stand idly in his doorway, looking for some one
to talk to, and James Brown had locked the kirkyard yard gate for the
night and gone into his little stone lodge to supper, Bobby came out of
hiding and stretched himself prone across Auld Jock's grave.

IV.

Fifteen minutes after the report of the time-gun on Monday, when the
bells were playing their merriest and the dining-rooms were busiest,
Mr. Traill felt such a tiny tug at his trouser-leg that it was repeated
before he gave it attention. In the press of hungry guests Bobby had
little more than room to rise in his pretty, begging attitude. The
landlord was so relieved to see him again, after five conscience
stricken days, that he stooped to clap the little dog on the side and to
greet him with jocose approval.

"Gude dog to fetch Auld Jock--"

With a faint and piteous cry that was heard by no one but Mr. Traill,
Bobby toppled over on the floor. It was a limp little bundle that the
landlord picked up from under foot and held on his arm a moment, while
he looked around for the dog's master. Shocked at not seeing Auld Jock,
by a kind of inspiration he carried the little dog to the inglenook
and laid him down under the familiar settle. Bobby was little more than
breathing, but he opened his silkily veiled brown eyes and licked the
friendly hand that had done this refinement of kindness. It took Mr.
Traill more than a moment to realize the nature of the trouble. A dog
with so thick a fleece of wool, under so crisply waving an outer coat
as Bobby's, may perish for lack of food and show no outward sign of
emaciation.

"The sonsie, wee--why, he's all but starved!"

Pale with pity, Mr. Traill snatched a plate of broth from th