The caretaker exploded with wrath: "Syne I'll hae the law on ye.
Can ye no' read, man?"

"Tut, tut, Jeemes Brown. Don't stand there arguing. It's a gude
and necessary regulation, but it's no' the law o' the land. I
turned the dog in to settle a matter with my ain conscience, and
John Knox would have done the same thing in the bonny face o'
Queen Mary. What it is, is nae beesiness of yours. The dog was a
sma' young terrier of the Highland breed, but with a drop to his
ears and a crinkle in his frosty coat--no' just an ordinar' dog.
I know him weel. He came to my place to be fed, near dead of
hunger, then led me here. If his master lies in this kirkyard,
I'll tak' the bit dog awa' with me."

Mr. Traill's astonishing fluency always carried all walls of
resistance before it with men of slower wit and speech. Only a
superior man could brush time-honored rules aside so curtly and
stand on his human rights so surely. James Brown pulled his
bonnet off deferentially, scratched his shock head and shifted
his pipe. Finally he admitted:

"Weel, there was a bit tyke i' the kirkyaird twa days syne. I put
'im oot, an' haena seen 'im aboot ony main" He offered, however,
to show the new-made mound on which he had found the dog. Leading
the way past the church, he went on down the terraced slope,
prolonging the walk with conversation, for the guardianship of an
old churchyard offers very little such lively company as John
Traill's.

"I mind, noo, it was some puir body frae the Coogate, wi' no' ony