320 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PINCHEB 



conveyed by a band of sympathisers to his own home, 

 very unwell. 



After this event Jack and Pincher were carefully kept 

 apart, and Pincher firmly believed that his enemy was 

 dead. But, in the following year, Pincher crossed the 

 bridge, and, in the view of several credible witnesses, he 

 encountered Jack. Instantly that short tail of Pincher's 

 drooped, he trembled, turned, and fled. He had slain 

 Jack, that he knew, and yet here was Jack again, re-arisen 

 from his grave. Now, and never before, men saw Pincher 

 fly from a foe. The inference is obvious : he regarded 

 Jack as a visitor from the world of spirits. Brutus was 

 not afraid of the ghost of Caesar, but in this one respect 

 Pincher fell short of the Eoman courage. 



Pincher, though alarmed, was unconverted. Though 

 gentle to small dogs, and the attached friend of little 

 children, Pincher reigned the tyrant of the glen. When 

 he marched down the middle of the village street, dogs 

 and cats fled to back gardens and under beds in cottages. 

 At the age of fourteen Pincher died. It was his habit to 

 jump at the noses of trotting horses ; enfeebled by years 

 he ' missed his tip,' was kicked by the justly irritated 

 horse, and never recovered from the injury. Pincher 

 was brave to a fault, tender, faithful, and the patron of at 

 least one of the fine arts : sacred music. "When he first 

 landed in the Highlands, the barque which bore him glided 

 through clear water over a green field, submerged at high 

 tide. In the mirror-like expanse Pincher beheld his own 

 reflected shape, conceived it to be a hostile hound, and 

 leaped to battle. His perplexed expression when he rose 

 to the surface is said to have been extremely comic. His 

 old age was gloomy, as he no longer dared to keep the 

 crown of the causeway, dreading the reprisals of the 

 young. The time came to this conqueror when, like Eob 

 Eoy in his last days, he had enough of fighting. Such, 

 as drawn by a feeble but impartial hand, were the Life 

 and Death of Pincher. 



