X Billy : a Memoir of an Old Friend 251 



heard up tlie pipe, and repeated search failed to 

 reveal any fresh clue, I next morning gave up all 

 hope of seeing him again. Bequiescat in pace, — in 

 his drain-pipe, a sepulchre not unmeet for an aged 

 hunter. Let me think of him as spirited away from 

 me in that great meadow, his happy hunting-ground . 

 while he lived, — caught away while no eye was upon 

 him, like Eomulus of old in the Campus Martins. 

 And as all his life his ways were his own, I like to 

 think that he languished on no sick-bed like a 

 common dog, but chose to depart suddenly from my 

 side before old age had quite disabled him. 



I have never found my fondness for animals 

 turning into sentimentality, and I am not now going 

 to drop a tear on that drain. By one emotional 

 friend of his Billy's decease was said to have " cast a 

 gloom over the whole village " ; but I am much dis- 

 posed to think that those who really grieved were 

 very few, and that his many enemies rejoiced. And 

 it must be allowed that there was nothing in this 

 dog to excite sentiment in any human breast. He 

 despised all uncalled-for display of affection ; what 

 was proper to be done when his master returned 

 home he would do with the most genuine zeal, and 

 would then suddenly resume his ordinary staid de- 

 meanour. He could not bear to be nursed ; he never 

 begged, or jumped on your knee. When in an unusu- 

 ally happy frame of mind, he would occasionally 



