THE FEATS OF GRUMBO. 11 



or oxen, or cows, always, if he could, endeavouring 

 to make tliem the aggressor. From understanding 

 him so well, when many hundred yards off, and too 

 far removed to prevent collision, I could at an in- 

 stant see when he was bent on mischief. Thus, he 

 would get on a footpath before some man, always 

 selecting the worst dressed, — a travelling pedlar or 

 tinker was always an object of persecution, — and 

 walking very slowly with his ears laid back, and his 

 stern hanging listlessly down. As they approached 

 he would be sure to swerve in their way, so that 

 they stumbled over him ; this he construed into an 

 assault, and the next moment saw bundle or wares 

 pitched into the hedge, and the man going round 

 and round with Grumbo fast hold of the calf of his 

 leg. If his field of action lay with cows or oxen, 

 he would saunter into their pasture and lie down 

 in the midst of them : the moment he was seen, the 

 bovine inclination was to gather curiously round 

 him, till one more forward than the rest butted at 

 him, or smelt to him. The latter was enough, and 

 then the offender w^as seized by the nose. I have 

 often wondered, mere stripling that I was, how I 

 escaped being beaten by some of the men he bit ; 

 for I never would quit without him, and always 

 deemed it my duty to do as he always was ready 

 to do by me, to stand by him to the last. I always 

 tailed the ox or cow that he had by the nose, 

 and thrashed all pigs that he had taken by the ear, 

 and had he been assaulted by a man I should have 

 done my best to have defended him. I think a point 

 in our favour must have been, that the bitten man 

 was taken up with vague ideas of having been at 

 that moment inoculated with the hydrophobia; for 



