house, as the formidable and faithful time-out-of-mind member for Coventry. I add another bit from Mr. White, too characteristic of that mixture of kindness and cruelty, of tenderness and pluck, Dandie Dinmont, -and of the exercise, called one-sidedly "sport." It ends happily, which is more than the big store-farmer wished: "The mother of the far-famed Peppers and Mustards was a darkcoloured, rough-haired bitch of the name of Tar. Davidson wanted a cat from some of the cottages at a distance from Hindlee, that he might have the young dogs tried upon it. One of his shepherds chanced to call at Andrew Telfer's house (the grandfather, I believe, of my late friend), where he saw baudrons sitting on the end of a dresser near the door; and the house being low and dark, he swept her into his plaid-neuk on going out, and carried her home. Next morning she was introduced to a covered drain, which ran across the road, the said drain being closed up at one end, whereby she was compelled to give battle to her foes. A young terrier was the first to oppose her, and paid for its rashness by retreating from the drain with the skin almost torn from its nose. Another of the same age met with the same punishment, and Davidson, considerably irritated, brought forward Tar, the old dame, who, by her age and experience, he considered, would be more than a match for the cat. There was sore fighting for a time, till again Puss was victorious, and Tar withdrew from the conflict in such a condition that her master exclaimed, 'Confoond the cat, she's tumblt an e'e oot o' the bitch!' which indeed was the case. Tak awa the stanes frae the tap o' the cundy,' said Davidson, JOHN PYM was a smaller dog than Crab, of more fashionable blood, being a son of Mr. Somner's famous SHEM, whose father and brother are said to have been found dead in a drain into which the hounds had run a fox. It had three entrances; the father was put in at one hole, the son at another, and speedily the fox bolted out at the third, but no appearance of the little terriers, and, on digging, they were found dead, locked in each other's jaws; they had met, and it being dark, and there being no time for explanations, they had throttled each other. John was made of the same sort of stuff, and was as combative. and victorious as his great namesake, and not unlike him in some of his not so creditable qualities. He must, I think, have been related to a certain dog to whom "life was full o'sairiousness, ," but in John's case the same cause produced an opposite effect. John was gay and light-hearted, even when there was not "enuff o' fechtin," which, however, seldom happened, there being a market every week in Melrose, and John appearing most punctually at the cross to challenge all comers, and being short-legged, he inveigled every dog into an engagement by first attacking him, and then falling down on his back, in which posture he latterly fought and won all his battles. What can I say of PUCK* the thoroughbred the 'and we'll ha'e her worried at ance.' The stones were removed, and out leapt the cat in the middle of her enemies. Fortunately for her, however, it happened that a stone wall was continued up the side of the road, which she instantly mounted, and, running along the top thereof, with the dogs in full cry after her, she speedily reached a plantation, and eluded all pursuit. No trace of her could be discovered; and the next time the shepherd called at Andrew Telfer's house, my lady was seated on the dresser, as demure as if nothing in her whole life had ever disturbed her tranquillity." * In The Dog, by Stonehenge, an excellent book, there is a woodcut of Puck, and "Dr. Wm. Brown's celebrated dog John Pym" is mentioned. Their pedigrees are given - here is Puck's, which shows his "strain" is of the pure azure blood - "Got by John Pym, out of Tib; bred by Purves simple-hearted the purloiner of eggs warm from the hen the flutterer of all manner of Volscians the bandy-legged, dear, old, dilapidated buffer? I got him from my brother, and only parted with him because William's stock was gone. He had to the end of life a simplicity which was quite touching. One summer day—a dog-day — when all dogs found straying were hauled away to the police-office, and killed off in twenties with strychnine, I met Puck trotting along Princes Street with a policeman, a rope round his neck, he looking up in the fatal, official, but kindly countenance in the most artless and cheerful manner, wagging his tail and trotting along. In ten minutes he would have been in the next world; for I am one of those who believe dogs have a next world, and why not? Puck ended his days as the best dog in Roxburghshire. Placide quiescas! DICK Still lives, and long may he live! As he was never born, possibly he may never die; be it so, he will miss us when we are gone. I could say much of him, but agree with the lively and admirable Dr. Jortin, when, in his dedication of his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History to the then (1752) Archbishop of Canterbury, he excuses himself for not following the modern custom of praising his Patron, by reminding his Grace "that it was a custom amongst the ancients, not to sacrifice to heroes till after sunset." I defer my sacrifice till Dick's sun is set. of Leaderfoot; sire, Old Dandie, the famous dog of old John Stoddart of Selkirk dam Whin." How Homeric all this sounds! I cannot help quoting what follows "Sometimes a Dandie pup of a good strain may appear not to be game at an early age; but he should not be parted with on this account, because many of them do not show their courage till nearly two years old, and then nothing can beat them; this apparent softness arising, as I suspect, from kindness of heart" - a suspicion, my dear "Stonehenge," which is true, and shows your own "kindness of heart," as well as sense. I think every family should have a dog; it is like having a perpetual baby; it is the plaything and crony of the whole house. It keeps them all young. All unite upon Dick. And then he tells no tales, betrays no secrets, never sulks, asks no troublesome questions, never gets into debt, never coming down late for breakfast, or coming in by his Chubb too early to bed is always ready for a bit of fun, lies in wait for it, and you may, if choleric, to your relief, kick him instead of some one else, who would not take it so meekly, and, moreover, would certainly not, as he does, ask your pardon for being kicked. Never put a collar on your dog - it only gets him stolen; give him only one meal a day, and let that, as Dame Dorothy, Sir Thomas Browne's wife, would say, be "rayther under." Wash him once a week, and always wash the soap out; and let him be carefully combed and brushed twice a week. By the bye, I was wrong in saying that it was Burns who said Man is the god of the Dog he got it from Bacon's Essay on Atheism, or perhaps more truly - Bacon had it first. - QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN. Ir any one wants a pleasure that is sure to please, one over which he needn't growl the sardonic beatitude of the great Dean, let him, when the Mercury is at "Fair,” take the nine A.M. train to the North, and a return ticket for Callander, and when he arrives at Stirling, let him ask the most obliging and knowing of station-masters to telegraph to "the Dreadnought" for a carriage to be in waiting. When passing Dunblane Cathedral, let him resolve to write to the Scotsman, advising the removal of a couple of shabby trees which obstruct the view of that beautiful triple end-window which Mr. Ruskin and everybody else admires, and by the time he has written this letter in his mind, and turned the sentences to it, he will find himself at Callander and the carriage all ready. Giving the order for the Port of Monteith, he will rattle through this hardfeatured, and to our eye comfortless village, lying ugly amid so much grandeur and beauty, and let him stop on the crown of the bridge, and fill his eyes with the perfection of the view up the Pass of Leny · the Teith lying diffuse and asleep, as if its heart were in the Highlands and it were loath to go, the noble Ben Ledi imaged in its broad stream. Then let him make his way across a bit of pleasant moorland flushed with maidenhair and white with cotton-grass; and fragrant with the Orchis conopsia, well deserving its epithet odoratissima. He will see from the turn of the hillside the Blair of Drummond waving with corn and shadowed with rich woods, where eighty years ago there was a black peat-moss; and far off, on the horizon, Damyat and the Touch Fells; and at his side the |