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It's aye been a hangin' maitter, an' Jock's no the man to turn again the rule an' custom o' his forebears. 'Yince gang, yince hang, is Jock's motto." Ralph did not press the point. But he had some unexpected feeling in saying good-bye to Jock. It was not so easy. He tried to put three of Winsome's guineas into his hand, but Jock would have none of them. "ME wi' gowden guineas!" he said.
He scampered down to the circling street of tombs at once, and not until the last prowler had been dispatched, or frightened into his burrow, did he return for a brief nap on Auld Jock's grave. All about him the birds fluttered and hopped and gossiped and foraged, unafraid. They were used, by this time, to seeing the little dog lying motionless, his nose on his paws.
"Hear that now?" said Tim the boatswain to me in a loud whisper, he having come down from the forecastle after heaving a rope over to those in the boat, and I following him to where the others were standing on the deck. "Ye'll soon know owld Jock's ways. We allers calls him `Sayin's an' Maynins'; for that's what he's allars a-sayin'!"
Jock blurted out. "The whole blamed show oughter been exposed. I reckon the best job the company ever had to its credit was that happening of yours the dress and the the rest of the picter. Lord!" Jock's feelings were running over as he looked upon the bowed head. The story had got hold of his tender heart. "Lord above! Just think of that sort of rum suffering going on back there.
Jock's guide, the man who had volunteered to show him the sights and who had only once been in London before, could see very faintly the difference between light and dark.... Thus this pair of irresponsibles had fared forth into the dusk of Regent Street. It sounds a very horrible fate to be blinded. But somehow the blind men themselves seldom seem to be overwhelmed by its horribleness.
It was, however, during this time of preparation and quiet that the household in Park Lane one day received a visit from Jock, accompanied by no less a person than MTutor, the leader of intellectual life and light of the world to the boy. They came to luncheon by appointment, and after visiting some museum on which Jock's mind was set, came to remain to dinner and go to the theatre.
This had passed enough for her to know there would be a respite for perhaps a good many hours, and she had yielded to the entreaty or command of Bobus, that she would lie down and sleep, trusting to him to call her at any moment. Presently, as morning light stole in, Jock's eyes were open, gazing at him fondly, and he whispered, "Dear old Bob," then presently, "Open the window."
Presently, however, the two ladies appeared to regain the courage they had momentarily lost; and vanished from sight in the direction of the front door; which was shortly opened by Andrews, who had evidently been lurking in the hall listening to Jock's protestations.
"Yes, yes," said Dundee, whose thoughts had evidently been far away, and who was attaching little importance to Jock's groundless fears. "Go on. So you did a bit of scouting, I suppose?" I'm no prepared to say that I could catch a' their colloguing, but I got enough to set me thinkin'. Juist bits, but they could be pieced togither." "Well," said Dundee, with more interest, "what were the bits?"
Talk of what ye ha' some knowledge of " "Aye," I said. "That's good advice, Jock. I suppose I'm not knowing so much as you do about ghosts. But tell me, man would a ghost be making a noise like this?" And I made the self-same noise I'd made before, when I was playing the ghost for Jock's benefit. He turned purple; he was clever enough to see the joke I'd played on him at once.
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