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Updated: May 26, 2025
Never was such a sight seen as his burial: the whole country side was there, and all as solemn as if they had been assembled in the valley of Jehoshaphat in the latter day. The hedges where the funeral was to pass were clad with weans, like bunches of hips and haws, and the kirkyard was as if all its own dead were risen. Never, do I think, was such a multitude gathered together.
The landlord locked his moneydrawer, pushed his easy-chair against it, and roused Auld Jock so far as to move him over from the settle. The chief responsibility he laid on the anxious little dog, that watched his every movement. "Lie down, Bobby, and mind Auld Jock. And you're no' a gude dog if you canna bark to waken the dead in the kirkyard, if ony strange body comes about."
She looked at her with a sly air, in which there was something like irony, as she chanted, in a low but marked tone, a scrap of an old Scotch song "Through the kirkyard I met wi' the Laird, The silly puir body he said me nae harm; But just ere 'twas dark, I met wi' the clerk"
Sall," and then Hillocks became incapable of speech, and you knew that the thought of Dr. Davidson explaining comic slides had quite overcome him. This visitation counted as an event in domestic life, and the Doctor's progress through the Glen was noted in the kirkyard, and any special remark duly reported.
"Man, Saunders," he said, "this wes a kind thocht, and rael weel dune." But Saunders' only reply was this: "Mony a time he's hed tae gang round; he micht as weel hae an open road for his last traivel." When the coffin was laid down at the mouth of the grave, the only blackness in the white kirkyard, Tammas Mitchell did the most beautiful thing in all his life.
It was to these poor people around the kirkyard, themselves forgotten by the more fortunate, that the little dog must look for his daily meed of affection and companionship. Mr. Traill spoke to them kindly. "Bide a wee, noo, an' I'll fetch the doggie doon." Bobby had slept blissfully nearly all the day, after his exhausting labors and torturing pains.
Get on the gude side of the bairns, man, and you'll live easier and die happier." It seemed useless to search the much longer arm of the kirkyard that ran southward behind the shops of Greyfriars Place and Forest Road. If Bobby was in the enclosure at all he would not be far from Auld Jock's grave. Nearest the new-made mound were two very old and dark table-tombs.
He would have rejoiced to have dwelt in darkness for ever, but there was no escape from the eyes of his tormentors. The congregation stood in groups in the kirkyard, "just," as they said, "to hae anither look at the orator;" and he must pass through the midst of them. With his very soul steeped in shame, and his cheeks covered with confusion, he stepped from the kirk door.
"Your father is nothing but an ache and a stound to you, lass," Sim would say in a whimper. "It'll be well for you, Rotha, when you give me my last top-sark and take me to the kirkyard yonder," the little man would snuffle audibly. "Hush, father," the girl would say, putting the palm of her hand playfully over his mouth, "you'll be sonsie-looking yet."
Brown confined, to the lodge, and Mistress Jeanie in close attendance upon him there, the kirkyard was a lonely place for a sociable little dog; and a soft, spring day given over to brooding beside a beloved grave, was quite too heart-breaking a thing to contemplate. Just for cheerful occupation Bobby had another tussle with the collar.
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