HOKSES AND HOUNDS. 99 



little more composed. I then begged my companion to go 

 quietly Lome. " Pray, sir," he said, " what may you be going 

 to do on these mountains alone f " Why," I said, " my friend, 

 I shall walk these hills, and search the ravines as long as I can 

 see, or until T find the dog, if it is till midnight." " Then, sir," 

 he said, " I shall go witli you ; I don't care much about this 

 scratch, and I should like to know the fate of the dog, and if 

 you do not think he was mad, we shall find him." We accord- 

 ingly made a circuit of the country, making inquiries of every 

 man we met with, but no tidings could we hear of the missing 

 animal. At six o'clock in the evening, we were on our 

 homeward track, and called at a keeper's house to know if he 

 had seen or heard anything of him ; still no tidings. I then 

 determined, although pretty well tired, to go again to the very 

 spot where we had lost him, and search the ravines, although 

 my companion was very much averse to this proceeding, and 

 he told me afterwards he was afraid of finding him. We walked 

 and searched for two hours more, when in going down a ravine, 

 whistling and calling the dog by name, his head suddenly 

 appeared above the heather and gorse, close to the side of the 

 stream. He had fallen, in his fit, down the steep bank into the 

 water below, whicli had restored him to his senses ; he crawled 

 out into the heather, and there laid for nearly eight hours. He 

 was quite recovered, but stiflf and frightened. 



Now, had this occurred in a thiclily populated district, the 

 dog would most probably have bitten other animals whilst the 

 fit was upon him, or any one he met in his way, and would un- 

 questionably have been destroyed as a mad dog. I reached my 

 quarters about ten o'clock at night, gave the dog a dose of 

 calomel, and made him up a bed in the corner of my bed-room, 

 leaving the door partially open for him to go down stairs if he 

 liked. When I got up in the morning I found the dog had been 

 down stairs, jumping round the servant girl, and frightening 

 the landlady as well. From what I heard from my companion 

 of the day before, a consultation had been held by the village 

 gossips and the landlady, and it had been resolved nem. con. 

 that my dog was certainly mad, and ought to be destroyed. 

 My worthy hostess soon made her appearance, and urged me 

 to destroy him at once. To this I gave a flat denial, laughed at 

 her fears, and told her that, for the satisfaction of the man that 

 had been bitten, as well as my own, the dog should not be 

 touched by her or any one else, but I did not afterwards trust 

 him out of my sight day or night. In a few days the dog was 

 quite well again. 



I have been rather particular in this case, to satisfy the 

 h2 



