THE ENGLISH SETTER 259 



evening's fire combined with the seductive effects of some good old 

 port, disclosed a few faint shadows of his dark secrets. One of 

 them is here related. 



Once on a time there was a tract of country on the Borders 

 called " the Debatable Land," nominally belonging to the Earls of 

 Carlisle. Now, this country swarmed with gipsies, and that strange 

 people had from time immemorial claimed the right to shoot over 

 this tract at their own sweet will, so on August i2th in each year 

 they were accustomed to form a band of thirty or more, and with a 

 large army of Setters, and probably Pointers as well, make a regular 

 raid on the said moors, and it is not surprising that the keepers 

 gave them a wide berth. 



Well, on one Twelfth, Laverack accompanied this mob, and he 

 had with him one of his best dogs. Among all the Setters which 

 were ranging far and wide, Laverack's keen eyes noted one animal, 

 liver-and-white, which was facile princeps, and beat the whole lot 

 in both nose and pace, though by no means a good-looking one. 

 "Well, sir," the old man said, "I hunted up those gipsies. 

 I found that dog, I bought him, and I bred from him ! " 



There is some reason to suspect that in much later times a 

 judicious cross was effected with the Pointer; but there seems to 

 be very little doubt at all that the Irish Setter also was called in 

 to refresh the blood. The writer feels sure that the old man, in 

 his later days, having sold all his best dogs at temptingly high prices, 

 was obliged, in order to save his strain from utter extinction, to 

 resort to some outside agency to preserve it, and there are some 

 good judges who fancy that they can even now trace some of these 

 crosses in the world-wide progeny that has resulted from the, in 

 many cases, injudicious and indiscriminate use of the Laverack 

 Setter with the old English strains. 



Now, it is commonly said among Setter men that Laverack was 

 a great benefactor to the Setter and the Setter lover. The writer's 

 opinion is that this idea admits of very grave doubt. One thing 

 seems certain viz. that the Laverack and its crosses caused a 

 great number of men to give up shooting over dogs altogether, 

 and that for one simple reason only viz. that they could not break 

 either the original or its offspring. The ancient Laverack excelled 

 in beauty, it also had surpassing good field qualities, a very high 

 head, a wonderful nose, great pace, endurance, pluck, and a 

 marvellous " sporting instinct." By this last is meant such a love 

 for game-finding that it would go on for ever, even though never 

 a bird was shot to it ; but to all these qualities it added an almost 

 invincible headstrongness and obstinacy, and this rendered it 

 an impossible object of training to nine men out of ten, of that 

 day at all events. So things happened thus : every one sought 

 to cross his breed with a Laverack, of some sort or another, and 



