194 DOGS 



believe in the wonderful stories of dogs who have 

 travelled in dog-boxes from Land's End to John o' 

 Groat's, finding their way straight home again like 

 homing pigeons. As I once heard the editor of 

 Punch remark, if they were worth stealing they would 

 certainly be picked up on the road. But if the 

 youngest dog is missing in course of a walk anywhere 

 near his home, you may be pretty sure he will turn 

 up ail right, barring thieves or accidents. Yet, till 

 he does turn up, you can never be altogether easy. 

 It is a fair presumption that he is in mischief, and 

 may have got into grief. He may have been caught 

 in a trap, or shot by a zealous game watcher when 

 scraping at a rabbit burrow, or in his excitement 

 he may have burrowed into the bowels of the earth 

 and got wedged between stones or buried in a 

 landslip. The weakness of lively young dogs for 

 poaching is a constant sense of anxiety. When 

 there is a pair of them knocking about in com- 

 pany they are perpetually in scrapes. I live 

 where small coverts and straggling woods come 

 up to a thick coppice at the bottom of the 

 garden. There is a tangled bit of paddock, and 

 the dogs stroll off innocently enough on their own 

 property, jumping among the tufts of grass and 

 pretending to be hunting field-mice. They know 

 as well as I do the boundaries they are forbidden 

 to pass. But suddenly something comes as an 

 excuse or an irresistible temptation for breaking 

 bounds. A rabbit starts from under a bramble 

 and scuttles for the hedge, or a pair of partridges 



