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The Covenant was signed in the churchyard of the Greyfriars at Edinburgh on the first of March, in a tumult of enthusiasm, "with such content and joy as those who, having long before been outlaws and rebels, are admitted again into covenant with God."
One that has his usefulness in the human scheme of things often is able to make his own terms with life, to win the niche of his choice. Bobby's one talent that was of practical value to society was his hunting instinct for every small animal that burrows and prowls and takes toll of men's labor. In Greyfriars kirkyard was work to be done that he could do.
This was a square enclosure in the Greyfriars churchyard, guarded on one side by a veteran angel without a nose, and having only one wing, who had the merit of having maintained his post for a century, while his comrade cherub, who had stood sentinel on the corresponding pedestal, lay a broken trunk among the hemlock, burdock, and nettles which grew in gigantic luxuriance around the walls of the mausoleum.
But Bobby fitted his mop of a black muzzle into the largest hole of his wicker prison, and set his useful little nose to gathering news of his whereabouts. If it should happen to a dog in this day to be taken from Ye Olde Greyfriars Dining-Rooms and carried southward out of Edinburgh there would be two miles or more of city and suburban streets to be traversed before coming to the open country.
Nothing more tragic could be than the fate of Margaret; and the splendour and happiness had been very shortlived in Mary's experience, soon quenched in sudden destruction; but to see the two young mothers planning over the heads of the little ones how the two kingdoms were to be united, and happiness come back in a future that was never to be, while they sat together in brief companionship in those strait rooms of Edinburgh Castle, which were so narrow and so poor for a queen's habitation, or within the precincts of the Greyfriars, looking out upon the peaceful Pentlands and the soft hills of Braid, is like the recurring melody in a piece of stormy music, the bit of light in a tempestuous picture.
"Noo," continued Black, "I've gotten a mither as weel as you, an' she lives in the Can'lemaker Raw, close to the Greyfriars' Kirkyaird where they signed the Covenants, ye ken. Weel, I wad advise you to gang to Lanark wi' Quentin, an' when ye find yer mither tak' her to Edinbro' an' let her live wi' my mither i' the meantime, till we see what the Lord has in store for this puir persecuted remnant.
Among my father's favourite companions were the two sons of Dr. John Erskine, minister of Old Greyfriars, in conjunction with the equally celebrated Dr. Robertson. Dr. On one occasion, when my father was at play with his sons, one of them threw a stone, which smashed a neighbour's window.
If they did not choose to bury him they might let him lie, he said in grim jest. He was, however, reverently buried by the authorities of Edinburgh, in the historical churchyard of the Greyfriars, attended by "a great company of the faithful," though no stone seems ever to have been placed to indicate the spot where he was laid.
"Seen her!" exclaimed Andrew in surprise. "Ay, you and Jean were seated alone at the little window in the Candlemaker Raw last night about ten o'clock, and I was standing by a tombstone in the Greyfriars Churchyard admiring you.
Not one of all the hundreds of bairns who had known and loved this little dog could give him any real care or protection. For the rest, Bobby had remained almost unknown. Many of the congregations of old and new Greyfriars had never seen or heard of him. When strangers were about he seemed to prefer lying in his retreat under the fallen tomb.
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