the elderly. Mr. Brown took to his bed in the lodge, and Mr.
Traill was touchy in his temper.

A sensitive little dog learns to read the human barometer with a
degree of accuracy rarely attained by fellowmen and, in times of
low pressure, wisely effaces himself. His rough thatch streaming,
Bobby trotted in blithely for his dinner, ate it under the
settle, shook himself dry, and dozed half the afternoon.

To the casual observer the wee terrier was no older than when his
master died. As swift of foot and as sound of wind as he had
ever been, he could tear across country at the heels of a new
generation of Heriot laddies and be as fresh as a daisy at
nightfall. Silvery gray all over, the whitening hairs on his face
and tufted feet were not visible. His hazel-brown eyes were still
as bright and soft and deep as the sunniest pools of Leith Water.
It was only when he opened his mouth for a tiny, pink cavern of a
yawn that the points of his teeth could be seen to be wearing
down; and his after-dinner nap was more prolonged than of old. At
such times Mr. Traill recalled that the longest life of a dog is
no more than a fifth of the length of days allotted to man.

On that snarling April day, when only himself and the flossy ball
of sleeping Skye were in the place, this thought added to Mr.
Traill's discontent. There had been few guests. Those who had
come in, soaked and surly, ate their dinner in silence and
discomfort and took themselves away, leaving the freshly scrubbed
floor as mucky as a moss-hag on the moor. Late in the afternoon a
sergeant, risen from the ranks and cocky about it, came in and
turned himself out of a dripping greatcoat, dapper and dry in his