Dogs. 3 



and I, along the banks of our own stream and out on the 

 purple moors ! 



Of course the reader cannot be expected to care very 

 much about a poor little terrier that only loved its young 

 master, as all dogs will, by reason of the instinct that is in 

 them, and died more than eighteen years ago. I am will- 

 ing to believe that millions of dogs have been as good as 

 she was, and a great deal more valuable in the market, 

 but no skull in the best natural history collection in 

 Europe could tempt me to part with this. Every year 

 makes the relic more precious, since every year certain 

 recollections gradually fade, and this helps me to recover 

 them. You may think that it is a questionable taste to 

 keep so ghastly a reminder. It does not seem ghastly to 

 me, but is only as the dried flower that we treasure in 

 some sacred book. When I think by how much devoted 

 affection this bony tenement was once inhabited, it seems 

 to me still a most fair and beautiful dwelling. The prevail- 

 ing idea that reigned there was the image of me, her 

 master. Shall I scorn this ivory cell in which my own 

 picture had ever the place of honour ? 



Many a man past the middle of life remembers with a 

 quite peculiar and especial tenderness that one dog which 

 was the dear companion of his boyhood. No other canine 

 friend can ever be to us exactly what that one was. . . . 

 I had a dog of great gifts, exceptionally intelligent, who 

 would obey a look where another needed an order, and of 

 rare beauty both of colour and form. One evening in the 

 twilight we went out together, and, as cruel fate would 

 have it, I crossed a valley where there was a deep and 

 rapid stream. Rapid and deep it was, yet not much wider 

 than the Strid at Bolton, and there was a mill and a nar- 

 row rustic bridge. My poor dog lingered behind a few 



