274 TOUE IN SUTHERLANDSHIRE. 



with a preparatory lick at his lips and a suspicious look at 

 his mistress. The tricks consisted of the usual routine of 

 adding up figures, spelling short words, and finding the first 

 letter of any town named by one of the company. This last 

 trick was very cleverly done, and puzzled us very much, as 

 we i.e. the grown-up part of his audience were most 

 intently watching, not him, but his mistress, in order to 

 discover what signs she made to guide him in his choice of 

 the cards ; but we could not perceive that she moved hand 

 or foot, or made any signal whatever. Indeed, the dog 

 seemed to pay little regard to her, but to receive his orders 

 direct from anyone who gave them. In fact, his teaching 

 must have been perfect, and his intellect wonderful. 



Now, I dare say I shall be laughed at for introducing an 

 anecdote of a learned dog, and told that it was " all trick." 

 No doubt it was "all trick ;" but it was a very clever one, 

 and showed how capable of education dogs are far more 

 so than we imagine. For here was a dog performing tricks 

 so cleverly, that not one out of four or five persons who were 

 most attentively watching him could find out how he was 

 assisted by his mistress. The dog, too, as the woman said, 

 was by no means of the kind easiest to teach. She told us 

 that a poodle or spaniel would be far quicker in learning 

 than a terrier : but I strongly suspect that neither of these 

 kinds would have courage sufficient to stand the corrections 

 necessary to complete their education, without becoming too 

 shy to perform their part well. 



The woman, though clever enough in her way and well- 

 spoken, was a melancholy specimen of a peculiar class. Sold 

 by her parents, if she ever had any decided relatives of that 

 kind, at an early age to the leader of some itinerant party of 

 rope dancers, or walkers on stilts when she had mastered 

 these respectable sciences, she acted in the capacity of rope- 

 dancer, or fifth-rate figurante, in some fifth-rate theatre. 

 Disabled by an accident a broken ankle from following 

 these employments, she was reduced at last to travelling to 

 country fairs and markets in a painted caravan, the ill-used 

 companion of some whiskered ruffian, arrayed in a fur cap, 

 red plush waistcoat, corduroy breeches, white stockings and 

 ankle boots the invariable dress of all masters of show- 

 caravans. And now the poor woman, ruined in health and 

 mind by hardship and dissipation, earns a precarious living 

 by wandering through the country, and exhibiting her learned 



