OUR FAVOURITE SPANIEL 
207 
is a blot upon the escutcheon of a whole Principality. If the 
honest Welshmen of the Mawddach estuary allow their visitors 
to indulge in such a venomous persecution of the very tender- 
hearted lady of Hengwrt to pass by without protest, it will mean 
that residents will not risk their reputations by coming into the 
neighbourhood, and what might have been an historic vale of 
rest for men and women of repute will cease to attract the very 
people of whom all Britain may be proud. 
OUR FAVOURITE SPANIEL. 
coat 
LL people who care for animals must, I think, love dogs 
especially. I remember a spaniel my brother had, 
which seemed almost human in understanding. We 
^ had him from a puppy and he was always with one or 
other of us, as he never liked to be alone. \Ve called him 
Bounce because he was never still. As time went on. Bounce 
into a very large spaniel, with a lovely black and white 
and long silken tail and beautiful soft brown eyes that 
watched you intently. As he grew out of his puppy ways he 
became devoted to my brother and hardly ever left his side, so 
that if you saw Bounce you were sure J. was close at hand. 
In the evenings, when my brothers came in from shooting. 
Bounce would dart off to get J’s. slippers from among a pile of 
other slippers and bring them and lay them at his feet ready for 
him to put on. 
He loved to be taken out of doors, and if J. did not go out 
early enough for him in the morning, he would trot off and get 
his hat out of the hall and bring it to him in his mouth, just as 
if he were asking him to put it on and come out and not waste 
the morning indoors. Bounce loved going out with the gun, but 
would never go unless one of my brothers went. There was a 
farmer and also a miller living on the estate, and they were both 
great sportsmen, and my brothers often took them out shooting 
with them, and so they knew what a clever dog Bounce was, and 
I have been told that many times they tried to induce Bounce 
to go out alone with them. He would go a little way, to a place 
where my brothers often started from for their shooting expedi- 
tions, and then he would stand and look in every direction to see 
if they were coming, and if they did not come, nothing would 
induce him to go further. 
Once there was a pond being drained, and there were a 
number of large pike stuck in the mud at the bottom of the pond 
after the water was run off. My brother J. was watching the 
operation, and the thought struck him that Bounce would rescue 
the fish from their uncomfortable position, so he said, pointing to 
the fish, which were flapping their tails in the mud, “ Bounce, 
go fetch,” and Bounce immediately splashed into the mud and 
