The wonderful collar was passed from hand to hand in awed silence. The
children stared and stared at this white-haired and bearded man, who
“wasna grand ava,” but who talked to them as simply and kindly as a
grandfaither. He went right on talking to them in his homely way to put
them at their ease, telling them that nobody at all, not even the bonny
Queen, could be more than kind and well-behaving and faithful to duty.
Wee Bobby was all that, and so “Gin dizzens an' dizzens o' bairns war
kennin' 'im, an' wad fetch seven shullin's i' their ha'pennies to a
kirk, they could buy the richt for the braw doggie to be leevin', the
care o' them a', i' the auld kirkyaird o' Greyfriars. An' he maun hae
the collar so the police wull ken 'im an' no' ever tak' 'im up for a
puir, gaen-aboot dog.”
The children quite understood the responsibility they assumed, and their
eyes shone with pride at the feeling that, if more fortunate friends
failed, this little creature must never be allowed to go hungry. And
when he came to die--oh, in a very, very few years, for they must
remember that “a doggie isna as lang-leevin' as folk”--they must not
forget that Bobby would not be permitted to be buried in the kirkyard.
“We'll gie 'im a grand buryin',” said Tammy. “We'll find a green brae
by a babblin' burn aneath a snawy hawthorn, whaur the throstle sings an'
the blackbird whustles.” For the crippled laddie had never forgotten Mr.
Traill's description of a proper picnic, and that must, indeed, be a wee
dog's heaven.
“Ay, that wull do fair weel.” The collar had come back to him by this
time, and the Lord Provost buckled it securely about Bobby's neck.