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Updated: June 22, 2025
Away towards the Greyfriars were the tall "lands" which the masons were pulling down. Nearer were men climbing up ladders with hods on their shoulders. Highest of all, against the blue sky, naked as a new gibbet, stood out the framework of a crane. It was the very place of my dream. I knew it well enough, indeed, but never until that day it had looked so.
This unfortunate superstition and idol-worship of this good woman was the cause of a great deal of the misfortune which befell the young gentleman who is the hero of this history, and deserves therefore to be mentioned at the outset of his story. Arthur Pendennis's schoolfellows at the Greyfriars School state that, as a boy, he was in no ways remarkable either as a dunce or as a scholar.
"Ay, he's buried four days since in Greyfriars kirkyard, and Bobby has slept every night on the auld man's grave." "I'll juist tak' a leuk at the grave, moil, gin ye'll hae an ee on the dog." Mr. Traill cautioned him not to let the caretaker know that Bobby had continued to sleep in the kirkyard, after having been put out twice.
Thus it was, that many who had escaped from the slaughter from the horrors of the Greyfriars church-yard and from the drowning in the Orkneys, and, like myself, had resumed their quiet country labour, were marked out for destruction.
While Edinburgh waited breathless for this possible attack an extension of the existing wall was begun to defend the southern suburb, then semi-rural, containing the country-houses of the wealthy burghers and lawyers, the great convent of the Greyfriars, that of St. Mary in the Field, and many other monastic houses.
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.
The document breathed the spirit of the National Covenant of Greyfriars, condemned the Papal and Prelatic system, pled for a constitutional monarchy, and outlined a comprehensive programme for future efforts in extending the principles of the Reformation. On September 25, 1643, it was subscribed in St. Margarets Church, Westminster.
"Gentlemen, your indulgence for a moment, to drink another toast to a little dog that is said to have slept on his master's grave in Greyfriars churchyard for more than eight years. Sergeant Scott, of the Royal Engineers, vouches for the story and will present the hero." The sergeant came forward then with the word that Bobby could not be found.
And as there is nothing else astir, these incongruous sights and noises take hold on the attention and exaggerate the sadness of the place. Greyfriars is continually overrun by cats. I have seen one afternoon, as many as thirteen of them seated on the grass beside old Milne, the Master Builder, all sleek and fat, and complacently blinking, as if they had fed upon strange meats.
Greyfriars Dining-Rooms had more distinguished visitors in a day than they had had in all the years since Auld Jock died and a little dog fell there at the landlord's feet "a' but deid wi' hunger." Not one of all the grand folk who, inquired for Bobby at the kirkyard or at the restaurant got a glimpse of him that day.
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