12 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



in the course of some experience I invariably ob- 

 served, that the patient, the instant the dog loosed 

 his leg, sat down to take off his stocking, either to 

 ascertain the extent of injury, or to wash the part 

 at the nearest ditch ; and during those to him in- 

 teresting occupations, Grumbo and myself departed. 

 I have more than once been followed home, and 

 had to pay the suiferer. Grumbo was famous on 

 land as well as in the water. There was no better 

 dog to find and hunt out a moorhen for the gun, 

 to hunt a duck, or to assist in a mimic otter hunt 

 in the chase of water-rats. From having seen me 

 stamp above the hole where the rat went in, — they 

 always, like the otter, have a vent-hole to the air, — 

 Grumbo would put his nose to the vent-hole or 

 "chimney," and blow down it, and then bob his face 

 quickly over the edge of the bank to watch the water 

 and see if anything went out from the hole beneath. 

 When we killed a water-rat, he would eat it with 

 great relish. To show the extraordinary sagacity 

 to which constant use had inured this dog, I could 

 leave him to guard a small slip of arable land in the 

 midst of the covers, which was planted with potatoes, 

 to keep off the pheasants, and prevent their scratch- 

 ing them up. He would remain there all night, to 

 be ready for break of day, and I used to take him 

 his dinner in a brown paper bag. On these occa- 

 sions it was necessary to leave some property of 

 mine — a stick would do — with him, as a sort of 

 rallying point by which he was to sit. 



I left him the whole of one night in the park at 

 Cranford, in charge of a waggon-load of red-deer, 

 which had been sent from Berkeley Castle for us 

 to hunt, when I assisted my brother Moreton in 



