April IG, 1869. 1 



JOUENAIi OP HOBTIOULTUBE AN1> COTTAGE GABDENBB. 



26S 



bearded, broad-slionldered, powerful man, that even yon little 

 child aged three, with " brown eyea and little nose," thinks bo 

 very much of yon and your might ? May be she thinks you a 

 great awkward fellow, far too tall, and is Rorry for you, for if 

 yon tumble, as she often does, you will sorely damaso your larpe 

 nose, (or yon wonid have to fall so very far. Such a little 

 prattler stood one day, with hat untied, needinp; the aid of the 

 pliant ficgerB of nurse, or mother, or sister, when a tall man 

 stooped down and tied the strings for the child. She with the 

 wide-open eyes of genuine astonishment exclaimed, " Can mens 

 tie my hat ?" She did not think that the great creature could 

 do anything eo useful or so clever. But to descend lower, from 

 children to animals. What do other beings think of us ? For 

 instance : What do dogs think of mankind ? Ave we sure that 

 they always regard men as superior to themselves ? I am by 

 no means certain that they do. Forward dashes amid the 

 high grass the silky-coated, silky-eared spaniel ; forward he 

 bounds, turning his eye now and then back to him who is 

 obliged to trudge slowly, with only two legs, in a straight line 

 along a footpath. Does not the dog think himself superior to 

 the man '! 1 think he does. Spaniel aforesaid scents a rabbit 

 ia the hedge and is after it, high-mettled and excited. " Kings 

 may be blest, but Dash is glorious." And does the dog envy 

 that slowly-walking man ? Nay, surely he thinks himself far 

 the superior animal, and if the man be his master he loves him, 

 then, at least with a half-pitying love. 



In some dogs instinct rises almost to reason. I give the 

 following true anecdote as proof : — A gentleman, owner of a 

 very clever dog, was walking with a friend who admired the 

 dog. " Yes," said he, " he is a beauty, but his sense is better 

 than his looks. Now, I will hide this half-crown under a 

 stone in the road, and not particularly call the dog's attention, 

 and yet when we have returned home an hour hence, I will 

 bid him fetch it. and he will do so." All this was done, and the 

 dog galloped off on his errand. The day was a Friday, but 

 that night the dog, to the astonishment and disappointment 

 of his master, did not return. Saturday, no dog. Still the 

 master from his great confidence in the dog's cleverness did 

 not give him up, and stoutly refused to go in search of him. 

 Sunday morning, and about breakfast time the dog appeared, 

 with a pair of men's brpeches in his mouth, and in one pocket 

 was the half-crown. The facts had been as follows : — A stone- 

 breaker had noticed that the gentleman hid something — he 

 searched, the dog seeing him — found and pocketed the half- 

 crown. The dog, to the alarm of the labourer's wife, had hung 

 day and night about the cottage, and as the man did not 

 appear on Sunday morning, he, when the cottage door was 

 opened by the woman, rushed up-stairs, seized the breeches 

 from the chair by the bedside, and so brought back his master's 

 half-crown. This occurred some years ago, and shows how 

 near to reason does instinct sometimes approach. I will give 

 another instance of the wonderful sagacity, almost reason, in 

 a dog now living. There is a white bull terrier, who each morn- 

 ing meets a passing down-train, the guard of which throws out 

 at a certain spot a newspaper for the dog's master. One rule 

 the dog always observes : if the weather be fine he starts much 

 earlier, and lies resting on the grass by the line ; if it be bad 

 weather, he only just comes in time. 



Now, the dog I have to tell of when I first became a Benedict 

 was the reverse of all this, for she was a very silly dog, but like 

 many foolish people, she once did something clever. 



I was then, I said, a new Benedict ; some of my readers well 

 remember the time when they became new Benedicts. The 

 wedding tour over, the settling-down in the first home with 

 everything new about them, the drawing-room glittering with 

 marriage presents — all so new ; the life so unlike the former life, 

 tmd yet nnlike, most probably, the life to follow; for business, 

 cares, joys, and sorrows will follow; also life's realities, the 

 family coming and growing-up around, until the old Hebrew 

 poet's words become true for the many-millionth time. " He 

 maketh them households like a flock of sheep." Now, my first 

 home was in Scotland, on its eastern coast, almost within sight 

 of Ethie Cliffs, np which Miss Wardour was supposed to have 

 been drawn, as, indeed, she might have been. Mine was an 

 old Scotch residence, many-roomed, ivy-covered, with one 

 tower standing, the last of several brothers. The place was 

 more like a French chAtean than a British house ; indeed, it 

 was said to very much referable the cb;lteau of Hougoumont, 

 for the possession of which there were such a series of fierce 

 Btrnggles at Waterloo ; and, indeed, the place had figured in 

 the iwars of the great Marquis of Montrose. Its walls, many 

 yards thick in places, to say nothing of an outer wall high and 



thick enclosing an acre or so of land, and its one approach 

 through a high and strong archway, must have made it well 

 suited (or a house of protection and of eusy defence. 



There I was a " new Benedict ;" but two persons feel awant 

 in time of other beings, and cro that want is mercifully sup- 

 plied, they usually take to pets; so before the right sort of peta 

 came' we set up a pet dog. Pet Pigeous I, of course, soon 

 placed in the old tower. The dog, tho bride's choice, was 

 chosen for her silky hair and fair spaniel-like (lor she was not 

 true-bred), exterioi'. She was a foolish, nonsensical, faithless 

 dog; the'caro other mistress improved her not; she had 

 no^s'ense, and therefore could be taught nothing; she was 

 a silly, run-aflor-anybody dog, a four-legged, black-haired nui- 

 sance, and a source of constant trouble. Fenella was her 

 name. Ben (Anglici; Dell) Fenella was not many miles distant, 

 a spot of enchanting beauty— a deep ravine whore a silver 

 thread of a waterfall fell with tinkling splash, even in the 

 hottest summer-duy, and the green, vivid green herbage rose 

 beside the water, when far up, every field was baked brown ; 

 and from out tho grass stood numerous pale-stemmed, elegant, 

 quivering mountain ashes, while oaks further up spread a 

 pleasant shade. There, in Den Fenella, Sir Walter Scott spent 

 a long afternoon, and in memory of its happiness named a fairy 

 in his " Peverel of the Peak,"' Fenella ; and we, too, for the 

 same reason named our fair-looking dog Fenella. Happy first 

 home with the light of romance in it, lived in and loved twenty 

 years ago. Ehnt! cheu! "Time flies, alas ! how quick he flies !" 

 And fly on he will until, if I am spared, I shall in my turn 

 become a talking old man, and the Roman poet's words be ful- 

 filled in me as in millions before me, for each old man becomes 

 " laudator tcmporis acti se puero." But old age is not yet. Still, 

 looking back, even in mid-life, early married days have on 

 them a rich tint of happiness, they seem 

 " Apparelled in celestial light, 



Tho glory and the beauty of a dream." 



So I love to sit and review in southern England the days spent 

 in east Scotland. I think of the old Hougoumont-like chatean, 

 the tower, the strong-arched gateway, the walled garden, one 

 door of which opened on a view of the "multitudinous sea," 

 and often shut by me after a look-out of but one moment, if I 

 saw the waves coming in " ragged and brown," on the bar of 

 Montrose harbour. For the sight of a rough sea destroys cozy 

 home feelings. Then there were walks and rides, accompanied 

 in their beginnings by Fenella, but the faithless "beastie" 

 soon played truant, and idled away her silly life by her silly 

 self. She seemed incapable of either attachment or discern- 

 ment. Yet there was one exception. One Sunday (fie ! oh, 

 Englishman, one Sabbath, for it is of Scotland you are speak- 

 ing), we went to the parish kirk, and had just sat down in the 

 gallery, the service had not yet begun, when in the door 

 sneaked and pushed thin Fenella, dodging through legs, and 

 avoiding kicks. I tried to look as if I had never seen the dog, 

 but the dog was determined to see me, and being a good 

 general spied at once the beat point for inspection — namely, 

 the pulpit. In a Scotch kirk there is no reading-desk, simply 

 a pulpit, usually much loftier than in Enelish churches. Feel 

 for me, oh, reader! when I tell you that Fenella went pat, pat, 

 up the corkscrew- stairs of the high pulpit. Still I tried to 

 look innocent. The congregation were amnzed and grieved. 

 One notorious snuff-taker beneath me, whose mull with a 

 bone spoon in it was seldom out of his hand in kirk time, even 

 stopped snuffing. The dog reached the pulpit, and I fondly 

 hoped would there be buried from fight, and then captured by 

 the wrathful precentor; but, no, Fenella jumped on the pulpit 

 cushion, and black and clerical-looking as she was, even to a 

 white throat, she made the juveniles titter. Still I trusted to 

 Fenella'a known stupidity, and kept on the innocent look; 

 but it was no use, she saw me at once and gave a loud and 

 joyful yelp of recognition. With a burning cheek I had to 

 descend the gallery and ascend the unwonted pulpit (I was a 

 layman then), and capture and carry out the dog under a fire 

 of very severe looks from certain presbjterian dames. 



Often have we laughed over Fenella's exploit, and she shall 

 live now in these pages, in spite of her usual silliness, partly 

 because of this her pulpit deed, and more bpcanse she brings 

 before me the happy, happy days, I spent in Scotland when I 

 was a new Benedict. — Wiltshibb Rectob. 



NOUTHUMBEPXAND BEE-KEEPING. 

 By reading The Jooenal of HoRTiccLTcrr. I learn that in 

 other districts much more honey is obtained with mooh less 



