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against the suggestions of sinister import that had been born of 
the ill-informed correspondent’s letter in the Cumberland Pacquet, 
in 1805, doubtless to be repeated by scoffers at dog-nature from 
time to time still. Indeed, since writing the above, I find an 
anonymous scribbler in the G/ode of 15th July, trying to bring the 
poor little heroine of the Poems into contempt by asserting “ that 
it is notorious in Patterdale, that the men who actually found the 
remains of poor Gough answered the question that puzzled Words- 
worth, as to with what food the animal was sustained during the 
months that elapsed before its master’s body was found, without 
any difficulty whatever.” To this gentleman it will be enough 
to rejoin, that, having made very careful enquiries amongst 
those best qualified to give a judgment, I find every voice lifted 
up in reasonable contradiction to his statement, and in full accord 
with the well-informed correspondent’s view who wrote the second 
letter in the Cumberland Pacquet of July 27th, 1805. 
But if it was difficult to ascertain what kind of dog the faithful 
little guardian had been, it was still more difficult to trace what 
became of her after the inquest. All that was known in Patterdale 
was, that she was taken away by some one that came to the funeral 
in the Friends’ burial ground at Tirril, beyond Pooley Bridge. 
A paragraph appeared in the Westmorland Gazette of November 
Sth, 1890, as follows :— 
“‘What kind of a dog was that which kept watch and ward over Gough 
through the weary days and nights its master lay a corpse near Red Tarn in 
1805? Scott has immortalised the faithful creature in his poem on Helvellyn, 
and in a note he says it was a terrier bitch. This week I have received two 
enquiries on the subject from different parts of England, ‘and as I happen to 
have been told by a dear old friend, now long passed away, that he well 
remembered this interesting dog, and had whena child often played with it, 
it may be well to put his account of the facts on record. After poor Gough’s 
remains were interred, the dog was handed over to a cousin, I believe, of Mr. 
Gough’s, who resided in Stricklandgate, Kendal. My old friend said the dog 
was a cocker. Whether it was a cocker, or a terrier, as Sir Walter has it, 
the wonderful endurance and fidelity shewn through these thirteen weeks of 
watching will always arouse admiration of the dog’s attachment.” 
This, no doubt, was the cocker spoken of to Mr. Pearson by the 
Wythburn hostel keeper in 1824. 
