OLD PONTO. 269 



race I ever encountered. He possessed, however, 

 some good qualities, but it cannot be said of bim, 

 as it is often asserted of plain bipeds, that good 

 temper made up for a deficiency in good looks, as 

 he happened to be just about the roughest dispo- 

 sition one could possibly meet with in the course 

 of a life. Old Ponto would do very well if left 

 in undisturbed possession of the field and his own 

 way of beating it, which was in a long, scrambling 

 jog trot ; and possessing a good nose, it rarely 

 happened that he missed his birds. He would 

 stand like a post until the gun was discharged, 

 but " down charge" was an unknown or rather an 

 unheeded term in his vocabulary, if he ever had 

 one. Nothing could have made him submit to 

 such a degradation as this except a charge of shot 

 through his head. The bird he would fetch when 

 dropped, or, if wounded, would pursue until caught, 

 and if in a very bad humour, he would ruffle him 

 considerably before delivered up. This, I con- 

 clude, had formed part of his education before I 

 became the piu*chaser of the aforesaid Ponto, and 

 remonstrance I found to be of little avail. 



Upon our first meeting in stubble fields, finding 

 " down charge" or other such objurgations, so little 

 heeded by my friend Ponto, I took the liberty of 

 calling to my aid a little auxiliary in the shape of 



