He made
up the Cowgate at a rapid swing; he had forgotten some engagement. He
turned up the Candlemaker Row, and stopped at the Harrow Inn.
There was a carrier's cart ready to start, and a keen thin, impatient,
black-a-vised little man, his hand at his gray horse's head, looking
about angrily for something. "Rab, ye thief!" said he, aiming a kick
at my great friend, who drew cringing up, and avoiding the heavy shoe
with more agility than dignity, and watching his master's eye, slunk
dismayed under the cart--his ears down, and as much as he had of tail
down too.
What a man this must be--thought I--to whom my tremendous hero turns
tail. The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from his
neck, and I eagerly told him the story, which Bob and I always
thought, and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter alone
were worthy to rehearse. The severe little man was mitigated, and
condescended to say, "Rab, my man, puir Rabbie,"--whereupon the stump
of a tail rose up, the ears were cocked, the eyes filled, and were
comforted; the two friends were reconciled. "Hupp!" and a stroke of
the whip were given to Jess; and off went the three.
Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we had not much of a
tea) in the back-green of his house in Melville Street, No. 17, with
considerable gravity and silence; and being at the time in the Iliad,
and, like all boys, Trojans, we called him Hector of course.
* * * * *
Six years have passed--a long time for a boy and a dog: Bob Ainslie is
off to the wars; I am a medical student and clerk at Minto House
Hospital.
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