Now, the sergeant was pleasant company, to be sure; but he was not a
person who had to be obeyed, so Bobby barked again, wagged his crested
tail, and dropped lower. The people who shuddered on the brink could see
that the little dog was going cautiously enough; and presently he looked
doubtfully over a sheer fall of twenty feet, turned and scrambled back
to the promenade. He was cried and exclaimed over by the hysterical
ladies, and scolded for a bittie fule by the sergeant. To this Bobby
returned ostentatious yawns of boredom and nonchalant lollings, for
it seemed a small matter to be so fashed about. At that a gentleman
remarked, testily, to hide his own agitation, that dogs really had very
little sense. The sergeant ordered Bobby to precede him through the
postern, and the little dog complied amiably.
All the afternoon bugles had been blowing. For each signal there was a
different note, and at each uniformed men appeared and hurried to new
points. Now, near sunset, there was the fanfare for officers' orders for
the next day. The sergeant put Bobby into Queen Margaret's Chapel, bade
him remain there, and went down to the Palace Yard. The chapel on the
summit was a convenient place for picking the little dog up on his way
to the officers' mess. Then he meant to have his own supper cozily at
Mr. Traill's and to negotiate for Bobby.
A dozen people would have crowded this ancient oratory, but, small as
it was, it was fitted with a chancel rail and a font for baptizing the
babies born in the Castle. Through the window above the altar, where the
sainted Queen was pictured in stained glass, the sunlight streamed and
laid another jeweled image on the stone floor. Then the colors faded,
until the holy place became an austere cell. The sun had dropped behind
the western Highlands.
Bobby thought it quite time to go home. By day he often went far
afield, seeking distraction, but at sunset he yearned for the grave in
Greyfriars. The steps up which he had come lay in plain view from the
doorway of the chapel. Bobby dropped down the stairs, and turned into
the main roadway of the Castle. At the first arch that spanned it a
red-coated guard paced on the other side of a closed gate. It would
not be locked until tattoo, at nine thirty, but, without a pass, no one
could go in or out. Bobby sprang on the bars and barked, as much as to
say: “Come awa', man, I hae to get oot.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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