190 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



be pacified ; and probably it was lucky I did so, for I 

 took my dog Bran instead, and be readied tbe scene 

 of action quicker tban we could. "When we got witbin 

 sigbt of tbe spot, Bran saw in an instant wbat was 

 going on in tbe distance, and sprang off like ligbtning, 

 and bad bitten off tbe bull and beld bim safe at bay 

 long before we got up to bim. So intent, bowever, was 

 tbe bull upon bis victim, tbat be broke away several 

 times to return to bim ; but Bran was too powerful and 

 determined to give him a cbance, and tore at his hocks 

 till he forced bim to turn round again. So we got the 

 poor fellow into a cart. 



" You would suppose that after such a mauling the 

 poor man would have little life left in him ; but he 

 lived to be eighty-four, and he was still pursuing his 

 favourite vocation of trapping rabbits, &c, on the 

 Cheviots, when I met him there only three years ago, 

 with a heavy load of traps and rabbits on his back. It 

 seems a marvel that, with five broken ribs and a quarter 

 of an hour's goring and tossing by a wild bull, his days 

 should not have been shortened to something less tban 

 this patriarchal term of life. The man who was tossed 

 was called Barnes ; it is Cole who, as head keeper, is 

 represented in Landseer's picture : but some poetic license 

 has been taken in his likeness. The animals, which were 

 Landseer's forte, are perfect fac-similes."* 



If the keeper showed such tenacity of life, so also 

 did the bull ; for tbe late Lord Tankerville, writing in 

 1838, gives us this sequel to the story. The keeper 

 having been withdrawn, several gentlemen, and among 

 them " a steady, good marksman," fired " upon the bull 

 from behind a fence, at the distance of twenty-five yards ; 



* Letter of Lord Tankerville to me, dated October 22nd, 1874. 



