'God send him back to the fields and the hills!' ejaculated Creighton, with warmth. 'The town is no place for poor Rob, and I doubt they have ruined the lad between them all! But I must be gone, too, sir. Dick has been waiting on me this hour and more in the cold.'
Dick--well known to half the town as 'Creighton's Dick'--was a dog, a gaunt and hairy Skye terrier, with appealing eyes, who owned Creighton as master. Every morning he followed the lawyer to his office, returning home by himself, and every evening he came for him, waiting on the doorstep for Creighton to appear. He never failed, and the townspeople, on his line of route, would time their doings by the punctual coming and going of the lawyer's dog.
'Come, man!' Creighton would say, as he closed the sounding door behind him, and the dog, though stiff and old, would spring at his knees. This night was one of a penetrating coldness, and Creighton seemed to shrink together as he met the blast. But he faced it, and man and dog took their accustomed way down the windy granite street.
Alison's journey to Edinburgh with her new friend was certainly the most exciting and novel experience which her quiet life had yet afforded. It was hardly more than daylight when they got to Green Loaning, and exchanged their country conveyance for the Edinburgh stage coach. There were but few people travelling at this season, and they had the interior of that vehicle all to themselves. Nancy soon had it littered with all the paraphernalia which ever seemed a part of herself--the down cushions, the scent bottles, the poetry books, the pencil and tablets for recording any sudden outburst of the Muse--all the thousand little odds and ends, so new and so marvellous to Alison, the country girl of simple habits and few possessions. Nancy was in high glee, the mood, as it were, of some general of a feeble army, who, by an adroit and timely stratagem, has defeated and outwitted a foe infinitely stronger than himself.
'Well, Ally,' she said cheerfully, for Alison was a little tearful, just at first, 'is it not a comfort, child, that you've left home with the blessing of one parent at least? As to the other, well, your mother is a resourceful lady, I am sure, and will find a good use for Mr. Cheape yet. She will get him for Kate or Maggie--'
