228 DOGS AND DOG LOVERS 



not sympathise with the admirable conduct of 

 Launce, who sat in the stocks to save his dog from 

 execution for theft. 



Scott was a genuine dog lover. It is on 

 record that he excused himself for not keeping 

 an engagement on the score of the death of an old 

 friend, that friend being his bulldog Camp. His 

 deerhounds Bran and Maida are, like the Duke of 

 Wellington's horse Copenhagen, known to all the 

 world. I am glad to think that Scott's dogs are 

 preserved in several of his portraits. In his books 

 there are two types of dogs, Dandie Dinmonts' 

 Pepper and Mustard who have given their master's 

 name to a breed and are real dogs of flesh and 

 blood. Or again, Harry Bertram's Wasp, who 

 helps to save Dandie from the thieves. But there 

 is also the theatrical dog, Roswal, in The Talisman, 

 who springs at the throat of Conrad of Montserrat 

 and saves his master's honour. Between these 

 come Gurth's dog, Fangs, slightly tinged by the 

 "tushery" of Ivanhoe, but still striking and 

 pathetic. I keep still mysympathywithGurth,who 

 swears "by S. Edmund, S. Dunstan, S. Withold and 

 S. Edward," that he will never forgive Cedric for 

 having attempted to kill his dog, "the only living 

 creature that ever showed me kindness." 



But apart from his love of dogs Scott shows 

 that he can use them with splendid dramatic 

 effect ; for instance, when Dugald Dalgetty and the 

 Child of the Mist are escaping from the Duke of 

 Argyll's prison, how we thrill as the distant baying 

 of those deadly trackers, the bloodhounds, strikes 

 on the ear of the fugitives. 



I 



