GRUMBO 9 



could, endeavouring to make them the aggressor. From under- 

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

 far removed to prevent collision, I could at an instant 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 was 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 

 in the course of some experience I invariably observed, 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 sufferer. 

 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 



