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He would know nothing of the crowds to gather there on a public occasion, massing on the bridge, in Greyfriars Place, in broad Chambers Street, and down Candlemakers Row the magistrates and Burgh council, professors and students from the University, soldiers from the Castle, the neighboring nobility in carriages, farmers and shepherds from the Pentlands, the Heriot laddies marching from the school, and the tenement children in holiday duddies all to honor the memory of a devoted little dog.
Oh, Tammy, Maister Traill gaed to gie 'im up! He was wearin' a' 'is gude claes an' a lang face, to gang to Bobby's buryin'." This dreadful thought spurred them to instant action. By way of mutual encouragement they went together through the sculptured doorway, that bore the arms of the ancient guild of the candlemakers on the lintel, and into the carting office on the front.
As the market-place emptied he chased at the heels of laggards, up the crescent-shaped rise of Candlemakers Row, and straight on to the familiar dining-rooms. Through the forest of table and chair and human legs he made his way to the back, to find a soldier from the Castle, in smart red coat and polished boots, lounging in Auld Jock's inglenook. Bobby stood stock still for a shocked instant.
By way of Candlemakers Row he gained the kirkyard gate, and when the wicket was opened he disappeared around the church. When Bobby failed to answer calls, Mr. Brown grumbled, but went after him. The little dog submitted to his vigorous scrubbing and grooming, but he refused his supper. Without a look or a wag of the tail he was gone again. "Noo, what hae ye done to'im?
To the first, many of the boys came dirty and untidy; the second shewed a great improvement; the third, one still greater; until now, most of the factory-boys assemble to chapel, and other places where they ought to be decent, in plain suits of black, which give them a neat and even gentlemanlike appearance: yes, though the word applied to a set of factory-boys, candlemakers, may make many of our readers smile.
From the end of the bridge approach there was a glimpse of massive walls, of pointed windows, and of monumental tombs through a double-leafed gate of wrought iron, that was alcoved and wedged in between the ancient guildhall of the candlemakers and a row of prosperous little shops in Greyfriars Place.
It appeared, now, that no one about the diningrooms had seen the little dog. Everybody had thought that Mr. Traill had taken Bobby with him. He hurried down to the gate to find Mistress Jeanie at the wicket, and a crowd of tenement women and children in the alcove and massed down Candlemakers Row. Alarm spread like a contagion.
The first tea-party was held on Easter-Monday, as a counterpoise to the attractions of Greenwich and Camberwell fairs; and it succeeded in that object, evidencing that vice is not that necessary ingredient in the pleasures of the people which some people think. In 1849, the cholera came, peculiarly severe about Lambeth and Battersea Fields, where many of the candlemakers lived.
The excursion of the next year was on a grander scale: 250 started from Vauxhall Bridge, to go down the river to Herne Bay, which, though it may sound ludicrously Cockneyfied, was quite as much as the strength, and more than the stomachs of the little candlemakers could stand; yet very delightful, notwithstanding the qualmishness and face-playing of the majority.
If only this day had been a festa, he might have done well enough. For in the great processions when the priests and people carried their lighted candles round the church, he could always dart in and out with his little iron scraper, lift the melted wax of the marble floor and sell it over again to the candlemakers.
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