VARIETIES OF THE DOG. 47 



attachment to which the more lively land-spaniel cannot always lay just 

 claim. The writer of this work once saved a young water-spaniel from 

 the persecution of a crowd of people who had driven it into a passage, 

 and were pelting it with stones. The animal had the character of being, 

 contrary to what his species usually are, exceedingly savage ; and he suf- 

 fered himself to be taken up by me and carried from his foes with a kind 

 of sullenness ; but when, being out of the reach of danger, he was put 

 down, he gazed on his deliverer, and then crouched at his feet. 



From that moment he attached himself to his new master with an 

 intensity of affection scarcely conceivable never expressed by any 

 boisterous caresses, but by endeavouring to be in some manner in contact 

 with him ; resting his head upon his foot ; lying upon some portion of 

 his apparel, his eye intently fixed upon him ; endeavouring to understand 

 every expression of his countenance. He would follow one gentleman, 

 and one only, to the river-side, and behave gallantly and nobly there ; but 

 the moment he was dismissed he would scamper home, gaze upon his 

 master, and lay himself down at his feet. In one of these excursions he 

 was shot. He crawled home, reached his master's feet, and expired in 

 the act of licking his hand. 



Perhaps the author may be permitted to relate one story more of the 

 water-spaniel : he pledges himself for its perfect truth. The owner of 

 the dog is telling this tale. " I was once on the sea-coast, when a small, 

 badly-formed, and leaky fishing-boat was cast on shore, on a fearful reef 

 of rocks. Three men and a boy of ten years old constituted the crew. 

 The men swam on shore, but they were so bruised against the rocks, that 

 they could not render any assistance to the poor boy, and no person could 

 be found to venture out in any way. I heard the noise and went to the 

 spot with my dog. I spoke to him, and in he went, more like a seal than 

 a dog, and after several fruitless attempts to mount the wreck he suc- 

 ceeded, and laid hold of the boy, who clung to the ropes, screaming in the 

 most fearful way at being thus dragged into the water. The waves dashed 

 frightfully on the rocks. In the anxiety and responsibility of the moment 

 I thought that the dog had missed him, and I stripped off my clothes, 

 resolved to render what assistance I could. I was just in the act of 

 springing from the shore, having selected the moment when the receding 

 waves gave me the best chance of rendering any assistance, when I saw 

 old ' Bagsman,' for that was the name of my dog, with the struggling 

 boy in his mouth, arid the head uppermost. I rushed to the place where 

 he must land, and the waves bore the boy and the dog into my arms. 



" Some time after that I was shooting wild-fowl. I and my dog had 

 been working hard, and I left him behind me while I went to a neigh- 

 bouring town to purchase gunpowder. A man, in a drunken frolic, had 

 pushed off in a boat with a girl in it ; the tide going out carried the boat 

 quickly away, and the man becoming frightened, and unable to swim, 

 jumped overboard. Bagsman, who was on the spot, hearing the splash, 

 jumped in, swam out to the man, caught hold of him, and brought him 

 twenty or thirty yards towards the shore, when the drunken fellow clasped 

 the dog tight round the body, and they both went down together. The girl 

 was saved by a boat going to her assistance. The body of the man was 

 recovered about an hour afterwards, with that of the dog clasped tight in 

 his arms, thus dragging him to the bottom. ' Poor Bagsman ! thy worth 

 deserves to be thus chronicled.' " 



