hoped to get him back to me some day to a home 

 where he would end his days in peace. Yet it seemed 

 impossible to picture him in a life of ease and idleness 

 a watch-dog in a house sleeping away his life on a mat, 

 his only excitement keeping off strange kaffirs and 

 stray dogs, or burrowing for rats and moles in a garden, 

 with old age, deafness, and infirmities growing year 

 by year to make his end miserable. I had often 

 thought that it might have been better had he died 

 fighting hanging on with his indomitable pluck and 

 tenacity, tackling something with all the odds against 

 him ; doing his duty and his best as he had always 

 done and died as Rocky's dog had died. If on that 

 last day of our hunting together he had got at the 

 lioness, and gone under in the hopeless fight ; if the 

 sable bull had caught and finished him with one of 

 the scythe-like sweeps of the scimitar horns ; if he 

 could have died like Nelson in the hour of victory ! 

 Would it not have been better for him happier for 

 me ? Often I thought so. For to fade slowly away ; 

 to lose his strength and fire and intelligence ; to 

 outlive his character, and no longer be himself ! No, 

 that could not be happiness ! 



Well, Jock is dead ! Jock, the innocent cause of 

 Seedling's downfall and death, lies buried under 

 the same big Fig Tree : the graves stand side by side. 

 He died, as he lived true to his trust ; and this is 

 how it happened, as it was faithfully told to me : 



It was a bright moonlight night Think of the scores 

 we had spent together, the mild glorious nights of 

 the Bushveld ! and once more Tom was roused by 



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