The Bloodhound. 57 



ordinary event on the ignorant and credulous. It is not, however, 

 altogether impracticable to make these hounds auxiliaries to the police. 

 A well-trained hound will trace the steps of the fugitive after many 

 hours, and in cases of burglary or other crimes in rural districts, as 

 already said, their employment might be useful. It certainly seems a pity 

 that, kept as he is now as a noble companion, the wonderful power 

 nature has given him should, with but few exceptional cases, be allowed 

 to lie dormant. 



Having cursorily glanced in the first part of this chapter at the 

 bloodhounds of our forefathers through such dim light as he is at all 

 visible, I now turn to him as he is in our own day, the noblest of all 

 the hound tribe, so patrician in appearance that he calls up to the 

 imagination pictures of old baronial halls with their wide-extending 

 parks and noble woods, rather than the surroundings in which the 

 majority now only see him on the show bench, where he, as by right of 

 birth and blood, heads the long list of canine aristocracy. To write of 

 the bloodhound and not quote the unparalleled lines of Scott in the 

 "Lay of the Last Minstrel" were rank heresy. The beauty of these 

 lines has been so much better eulogised by the writer of the article on 

 41 Bloodhounds" in the "Penny Cyclopaedia," that I quote them 

 verbatim as an introduction to the lines themselves: "This is one of 

 the best poetical descriptions of the bloodhound in action, if not the 

 best, for though Somerville's lines may enter more into detail, they 

 want the vivid animation of the images brought absolutely under the 

 eye by the power of Seott, where the ' noble child,' the heir of Brank- 

 some, is left alone in his terror : " 



Starting oft, he journeyed on, 



And deeper in the wool is gone. 



For aye, the more he sought his way , 



The farther fctill he went astray ; 



Until he heard the mountains round 



Ring to the baying of a hound. 



And hark ! and hark ! the deep-mouthed bark 



Comes nigher still, and nigher ; 

 Burst on the path a c'ark bloodhound, 

 His tawny muzzle tracked the ground, 



And his red eye shot fire. 

 Soon as the 'wildered child saw he, 

 He flew at him right furiouslie. 

 I ween you would have feen with joy 

 The bearing of the gallant boy, 

 When, worthy of Hs noble sire, 

 His wet cheek glowed 'twixt fear and ire 



