124 "DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE."

of duty. But the consequences of his escapades always fell
short of the condign punishment at the hands of incensed
proprietors which his master dreaded for the dog, and
repentance, forgiveness, amendment followed till the next
outbreak.
 These outbreaks would probably have decreased in num-
ber and died out as Wallace's spirit of enterprise abated with
his advancing age ;* but I am sorry to say Dick proved an
artful decoy and subtle tempter. The two dogs did not
venture on a forbidden expedition under the very eye of their
master; but the moment his back was turned to go from
home, I have been assured that the certainty and celerity with
which the conspirators detected his absence was something
marvellous. Wallace and Dick set off like the wind-or at
least as like the wind as the old dog's lagging limbs would
allow-to the nefarious indulgence of their appetite. Nothing
short of chaining up Wallace before his master left could
prevent the catastrophe. No' efforts of his young mistress-of
whom, at the same time, he was exceedingly fond, and whose
escort and protector he was generally proud to be-were of
the least avail to detain him; she has told me how she would
run out to intercept the dogs on the first hint of their decamp-
ing, and try to hold them back by main force, but Wallace

 "* However, I have heard of an old terrier who had lived many years
leading an entirely domestic life in a large town, and who, on being taken by its
owners to country quarters-which happened, unfortunately, to be in a game
country-ran off the very night of his arrival, hunted the whole summer night
through, and turned up the next morning, after his friends had resigned all hope
of recovering him. He was dead tired, and in a few hours was crying out under
paroxysms of rheumatism, which his unwonted exposure, together with his
weight of years, brought upon him.