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distress, but a dog having contemplated for some time this scene of inhumanity, and barked his disapprobation, rushed forward, furiously drove one by one the little wretches from the spot, and rescuing the fainting and bleeding animal from the deep ditch, bore it off to his quarters. He then placed it on the straw, licked it all over, and laid down by it; and after this he brought it provision, and the people of the house, inspired by his example, gave it warm milk. Day after day did the dog tend the sick object of his care till it was recovered; and for many years after they were to be seen at the Talbot Inn, Liverpool.

"What is become of your dog, Sir John?" said a friend to Sir John Danvers. "Gone to heaven," was the answer. "Then, Sir John, he has often followed you, and I hope now you will follow him." 1 There are too many superpious folks, who decry with indignation any such ideas as the above; desirous, apparently, to keep the good things of the next world like those of the present, to themselves. Let them show as much charity as the owner of the above dog.

The ensuing relation appeared in the Scotsman,' in December, 1862, and was signed Randolph. It is probably due to a writer known to fame :

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Many years ago, I got a proof of the unseen and therefore unhelped miseries of the homeless dog. I was walking down Duke Street, when I felt myself gently nipped in the leg. I turned, and there was a ragged little terrier crouching and

1 Southey's Common Place Book.

6

abasing himself utterly, as if asking pardon for what he had done. He then stood up on end, and begged as only these coaxing little ruffians can. Being in a hurry, I curtly praised his performance with 'Good dog!' clapped his dirty sides, and, turning round, made down the hill; when presently the same nip, perhaps a little nippier-the same scene, only more intense-the same begging and urgent motioning of his short, shaggy paws. There's meaning in this,' said I to myself,' and looked at him keenly and differently. He seemed to twig at once, and, with a shrill cry, was off much faster than I could. He stopped every now and then to see that I followed, and by way of putting off the time and urging me, got up on the aforesaid portion of his body, and, when I came up, was off again. This continued till, after going through sundry streets and by-lanes, we came to a gate, under which my short-legged friend disappeared. Of course I couldn't follow him. This astonished him greatly. He came out to me, and as much as said, 'Why the don't you come in?' I tried to open it, but in vain. My friend vanished and was silent. I was leaving in despair and disgust, when I heard his muffled, ecstatic yelp far off round the end of the wall, and there he was, wild with excitement. I followed and came to a place where, with a somewhat burglarious ingenuity, I got myself squeezed into a deserted coachyard, lying all rude and waste. My peremptory small friend went under a shed, and disappeared in a twinkling through the window of an old coach-body, which had long ago parted from its wheels and become sedentary. I remember the arms of the Fife family were on its panel; and, I daresay, this chariot with its C springs had figured in

1822, at the King's visit, when all Scotland was somewhat Fifeish.

"I looked in, and there was a pointer-bitch with a litter of five pups; the mother like a ghost, and wild with maternity and hunger; her raging, yelling brood tearing away at her dry dugs. I never saw a more affecting or more miserable scene than that family inside the coach. The poor bewildered mother, I found, had been lost by some sportsman returning south, and must have slunk away there into that deserted place, where her pangs (for she has her pangs as well as a duchess) came, and there, in that forlorn retreat, had she been with them, rushing out to grab any chance garbage, running back fiercely to them-this going on day after day, night after night. What the relief was when we got her well fed and cared for-and her children filled and silent, all cuddling about her asleep, and she asleep too— awaking up to assure herself that this was all true, and that there they were, all the five, each as plump as a plum—

"All too happy in the treasure

Of her own exceeding pleasure,”—

what this is in kind, and all the greater in amount as many outnumber one, may be the relief, the happiness, the charity experienced and exercised in a homely, well-regulated Dog Home. Nipper-for he was a waif-I took home that night and gave him his name. He lived a merry life with me; showed much pluck and zeal in the killing of rats, and incontinently slew a cat which had-unnatural brute-unlike his friend-deserted her kittens, and was howling offensively inside his kennel. He died, aged sixteen, healthy, lean, and

happy to the last. As for Perdita and her pups, they brought large prices, the late Andrew Buchanan, of Coltbridge, an excellent authority and man—the honestest 'dogman' I ever knew-having discovered that their blood and her culture were of the best."

The Band of Hope Review' of October, 1863, contains these admirable lines; which we ask leave to insert here:

FOUL WEATHER.

A SEASIDE SKETCH FROM REAL LIFE.

"The women weep, the children wail,

Scarce knowing why.

And men are watching (fix'd and pale)
A fishing smack, with dripping sail,
Just rolling nigh.

The surf leaps high upon the shore,

In cruel sport:

The wild winds in the caverns roar,

The weary fishers ply the oar

To gain the port.

The breakers crash, the seagulls screech;

No hope! No hope!

How is that fragile boat to reach

Across such surf, the shingly beach?

Oh for a rope?

'Tis vain. The boldest and the best

Turn back in fear:

The strongest swimmer dare not breast
Those breakers with the foamy crest,

For life is dear.

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