entrance to the wynd. With a hand outstretched to either wall,
Auld Jock felt his way up. Another lantern marked a sculptured
doorway that gave to the foul court of the tenement. No sky could
be seen above the open well of the court, and the carved, oaken
banister of the stairs had to be felt for and clung to by one so
short of breath. On the seventh landing, from the exertion of the
long climb, Auld Jock was shaken into helplessness, and his heart
set to pounding, by a violent fit of coughing. Overhead a shutter
was slammed back, and an angry voice bade him stop "deaving
folk."

The last two flights ascended within the walls. The old man
stumbled into the pitch-black, stifling passage and sat down on
the lowest step to rest. On the landing above he must encounter
the auld wifie of a landlady, rousing her, it might be, and none
too good-tempered, from sleep. Unaware that he added to his
master's difficulties, Bobby leaped upon him and licked the
beloved face that he could not see.

"Eh, laddie, I dinna ken what to do wi' ye. We maun juist hae to
sleep oot." It did not occur to Auld Jock that he could abandon
the little dog. And then there drifted across his memory a bit of
Mr. Traill's talk that, at the time, had seemed to no purpose:
"Sir Walter happed the wee lassie in the pocket of his plaid--"
He slapped his knee in silent triumph. In the dark he found the
broad, open end of the plaid, and the rough, excited head of the
little dog.

"A hap, an' a stap, an' a loup, an' in ye gang. Loup in, laddie."