118 "DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE."
lurking ill-humour as besets us all at times; only Wallace
was a mighty brute, unsupplied with the reins of reason and
conscience wherewith to check his passions, and furnished on
the other hand with the instinct of quick retaliation and fierce,
disproportioned revenge. He gave a low growl, like muttered
thunder, and made a half-spring at his master, who recognized
on the instant that an unexpected crisis had come, which was
to settle whether he was to be the master of the beast or the
beast was to be his master, and which placed for the moment
his very life in danger. Acting on the impulse of self-
preservation, rather than on any deliberate design, he snatched
up the poker, and dealt the dog a blow which felled him, and
left him stunned and motionless. Quick remorse followed
the deed, as the assailant asked himself, had he slain his
comrade outright on the spot, and that for the merest ebullition
of temper? If Wallace had betrayed some traces of the
savage, who else had been cruel in unsparing punishment?
 But Wallace came to himself almost before his master
could make the compunctious reflection, rose and took himself
off with lowered crest and submissive head and tail, clearly
acknowledging himself beaten, and as clearly evincing the
extreme of shame, for having been guilty of provoking the
unequal contest. Unlike man, the dog bore no malice for his
defeat; it simply called out in him that unswerving loyalty
which has no parallel. From that day to the hour of his
death, in a ripe old age, Wallace never again disputed his
master's sovereign will, or disobeyed his direct command, but
awarded him the most devoted allegiance. The dog's great
strength, his solid sense for a dog, his rare magnanimity,
were, from the era of his conquest, laid, together with his