Eleanor Atkinson

“I heard of Bobby first early in the winter, from a Bible-reader at the Medical Mission in the Cowgate, who saw the little dog’s master buried. He sees many strange, sad things in his work, but nothing ever shocked him so as the lonely death of that pious old shepherd in such a picturesque den of vice and misery.” “Ay,”

“Within a narrow limit, and concerning familiar things, the understanding of human speech by these intelligent little terriers is very truly remarkable. At mention of the wee lassie he looked behind for his rough old friend and unfailing refuge. Auld Jack’s absence discovered, Bobby promptly dropped from the seat of honour and from the cart tail, sniffed the smoke of Edinboro’s town, and faced right about. To the farmer’s peremptory call he returned the spicy repartee of a cheerful bark. It was as much as to say: ‘Dinna fash yersel’! I ken what I’m aboot.”

“They could not see the little dog, but they knew he was there. They knew now that he would still be there when they could see him no more- his body a part of the soil, his memory a part of all that was held dear and imperishable in that old garden of souls. They could go up to the lodge and look at his famous collar, and they would have his image in bronze on the fountain. And sometime, when the mysterious door opened for them, they might see Bobby again, a sonsie doggie running on the green pastures and beside the still waters, at the heels of his shepherd master, for: If there is not more love in this world than there is room for in God's heaven, Bobby would have just 'gaen awa' hame'.”