Chapter 9
"When I was a child, I had a very close friendship with a genuine old wolf-dog, Bruno by name. He was the property of an old friend of my grandmother's, who claimed descent from the Irish kings. His name was O'Toole. His manners were the most courtly you can imagine; as they might well be, for he had spent much time and fortune at the French court, when Marie Antoinette was in her prime and beauty. His visits were my jubilees--there was the kind, dignified old gentleman, who told me tales--there was his tall, gaunt dog, grey with age, and yet with me full of play; and there were two rough terriers, whom Bruno kept in admirable order. He managed the little one by simply placing his paw upon it when it was too frisky; but Vixen, the large one, like many ladies, had a will of her own, and entertained some idea of being mistress. Bruno would bear a good deal from her, giving, however, now and then, a low deep growl; but when provoked too much, he would quietly lift the dog off the ground by the strength of his jaws (his teeth were gone), stand with her in his mouth at the doors until they were opened, and then deposit her, half strangled as she was, in a nettle-bed some distance from the house. The dog's discrimination was curious. If Vixen was thrown upon him, or if we forced her to insult him, he never punished her; but if she of her own accord teazed him more than his patience could bear, the punishment was certain to follow.
"O'Toole and his dogs always occupied the same room, the terriers being on the bed with their master. No entreaty, however, ever induced Bruno to sleep on anything softer than stone. He would remove the hearth-rug and lay on the marble. His master used to instance the dog's disdain of luxury as a mark of his noble nature.
"I should not omit to tell you, as characteristic of my old friend, that O'Toole was proud, and never would submit to be called 'Mr.' Meeting, one day, Lord Arne in Dame Street, Dublin, while the old man was followed by his three wolf-dogs, of which Bruno was the last, the young nobleman, who had also his followers in the shape of 'Parliament men,' said to the descendant of Irish kings, nodding to him familiarly at the same time, 'How do you do, _Mr._ O'Toole?' The old man paused, drew himself up, lifted his hat, made his courtly bow, and answered, 'O'Toole salutes Arne.' I can recall nothing more picturesque than that majestic old gentleman and his dog, both remnants of a bygone age. Bruno was rough, but not long-coated, very grave, observant, enduring every one, very fond of children, playing with them gently, but only crouching and fawning on his master; 'and that,' O'Toole would say, 'is a proof of my royal blood.' I could fill a volume with memoirs of that fine old man. He was more than six feet in height, and his dog always sat with his head on his master's knee."
This is altogether a pretty and interesting picture.
The sagacity of this fine breed is well illustrated in what follows:--
A gentleman walking along the road on Kingston Hill, accompanied by a friend and a noble deer-hound, which was also a retriever, threw his glove into a ditch; and having walked on for a mile, sent his dog back for it. After waiting a considerable time, and the dog not returning, they retraced their steps. Hearing loud cries in the distance, they hastened on, and at last saw the dog dragging a boy by his coat towards them. On questioning the boy, it appeared that he had picked up the glove and put it into his pocket. The sagacious animal had no other means of conveying it to his master than by compelling the boy to accompany him.
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The following anecdotes are from Capt. Thomas Brown's now scarce work, "Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of Dogs." He says:--
"Sir Walter Scott has most obligingly furnished me with the following anecdotes of his celebrated dog Maida:--
"I was once riding over a field on which the reapers were at work, the stooks being placed behind them, as is usual. Maida having found a hare, began to chase her, to the great amusement of the spectators, as the hare turned very often and very swiftly among the stooks. At length, being hard pressed, she fairly bolted into one of them. Maida went in headlong after her, and the stook began to be much agitated in various directions. At length the sheaves tumbled down; and the hare and the dog, terrified alike at their overthrow, ran different ways, to the great amusement of the spectators."
"Among several peculiarities which Maida possessed, one was a strong aversion to a certain class of artists, arising from the frequent restraints he was subjected to in having his portrait taken, on account of his majestic appearance. The instant he saw a pencil and paper produced he prepared to beat a retreat; and, if forced to remain, he exhibited the strongest marks of displeasure."
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Ranaldson Macdonell, Esq. of Glengarry, has most kindly furnished the following interesting notices and anecdotes of the Scottish Highland greyhound:--
"Not many years since one of Glengarry's tenants, who had some business with his chief, happened to arrive at Glengarry House at rather an early hour in the morning. A deer-hound perceiving this person sauntering about before the domestics were astir, walked quietly up to him, took him gently by the wrist with his teeth, and proceeded to lead him off the ground. The man, finding him forbearing, attempted resistance; but the dog, instantly seizing his wrist with redoubled pressure, soon convinced him that his attempt was in vain. Thus admonished, the man took the hint, and quietly yielded to his canine conductor, who, without farther injury, led him to the outside of the gate, and then left him. The whole of the dogs at Glengarry House were allowed to go at liberty at all times.
"The Highland greyhounds, or deer-hounds as they are called in the Highlands, have a great antipathy to the sheep-dogs, and never fail to attack them whenever an opportunity offers. A shepherd, whose colley had frequently been attacked by the deer-dogs of Glengarry singly, and always succeeded in beating them off on such occasions, was one day assailed by them in a body; and his life would have been in considerable danger, but for one of the keepers, who happened to pass at the time, and called them off.
"The following circumstance will prove the exquisite sense of smell possessed by the deer-hound. One of this breed, named Bran, when held in the leash, followed the track of a wounded stag, and that in most unfavourable rainy weather, for three successive days, at the end of which time the game was shot. He was wounded first within nine miles of Invergarry House, and was traced that night to the estate of Glenmoriston. At dusk in the evening the deer-stalkers placed a stone on each side of the last fresh print of his hoof, and another over it; and this they did each night following. On the succeeding morning they removed the upper stone, when the dog recovered the scent, and the deer was that day traced over a great part of Glenmoriston's ground. On the third day he was retraced to the lands of Glengarry, and there shot.
"My present dog, Comhstri, to great courage unites the quality of a gentle disposition, with much fidelity and attachment. Though not so large as some of his kindred, he is nevertheless as high-spirited and determined as any of his race, which the following circumstance will testify: 'About three years ago, a deer from the wood of Derrygarbh, whose previous hurts had been healed, came out of Glengarry's pass, who wounded it severely in the body with a rifle bullet. The deer-hounds were immediately laid on the blood-track. The stag was started in the course of a few minutes; the dogs were instantly slipped, and the fine animal ran to bay in a deep pool of water, below a cascade, on the Garyquulach burn. Comhstri immediately plunged in, and seized the stag by the throat; both went under water, surrounded with the white foam, slightly tinged with the deer's blood. The dog soon came to the surface to recover his breath; and before the other could do so, Comhstri dived, and again seized him by the throat. The stag was soon after taken out of the pool dead.
"Comhstri's colour is grey, with a white chest; but we have had them of different colours at Glengarry, such as pure white, black, brindled, and sand-colour.
"When the Highlanders dream of a _black_ dog, it is interpreted to mean one of the clan of Macdonell; but if of a deer-hound, it denotes a chief, or one of the principal persons of that clan."
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That the Scottish dogs were much prized in England from the earliest times, the following interesting account, taken from Holinshed's Chronicles, 'Historie of Scotland,' p. 71, printed in 1586, will show. "And shortlie after the return of these ambassadors into their countrie, divers young gentlemen of the Pictish nobilitie repaired unto King Crathlint, to hunt and make merie with him; but when they should depart homewards, perceiving that the Scotish dogs did farre excell theirs, both in fairnesse, swiftnesse, hardinesse, and also in long standing up and holding out, they got diverse both dogs and bitches of the best kinds for breed to be given them by the Scotish Lords; and yet not so contented, they stole one belonging to the king from his keeper, being more esteemed of him than all the others which he had about him. The master of the leash being informed hereof, pursued after them which had stollen that dog, thinking indeed to have taken him from them; but they not willing to part with him, fell at altercation, and in the end chanced to strike the maister of the leash through with their horsespeares that he died presentlie: whereupon noise and crie being raised in the countrie by his servants, diverse of the Scots, as they were going home from hunting, returned, and, falling upon the Picts to revenge the death of their fellow, there ensued a shrewd bickering betwixt them, so that of the Scots there died three score gentlemen, besides a great number of the commons, not one of them understanding (till all was done) what the matter meant. Of the Picts there were about an hundred slaine. This circumstance led to a bloody war betwixt the two nations."
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The following interesting anecdote, related by Mr. Carr in his "Stranger in Ireland," there can be no doubt, I think, refers to the Irish wolf-dog. Mr. Carr says, that while on his journey to Ireland he "wandered to a little church, which owed its elevation to the following circumstance. Llewelyn the Great, who resided near the base of Snowdon, had a beautiful dog named Gelert, which had been presented to him by King John in 1205. One day, in consequence of the faithful animal, which at night always 'sentinelled his master's bed,' not making his appearance in the chase, Llewelyn returned home very angry, and met the dog, covered with blood, at the door of the chamber of his child. Upon entering it, he found the bed overturned, and the coverlet stained with gore. He called to his boy; but receiving no answer, he rashly concluded that he had been killed by Gelert, and in his anguish instantly thrust his sword through the poor animal's body. The Hon. Robert Spencer has beautifully told the remainder of the story.
'His suppliant looks, as prone he fell, No pity could impart; But still his Gelert's dying yell Passed heavy on his heart.
Arous'd by Gelert's dying yell, Some slumb'rer waken'd nigh: What words the parent's joy could tell, To hear his infant's cry?
Nor scathe had he, nor harm, nor dread: But the same couch beneath, Lay a gaunt wolf all torn and dead, Tremendous still in death.
Ah! what was then Llewelyn's pain? For now the truth was clear:-- His gallant hound the wolf had slain, To save Llewelyn's heir.'[F]
In order to mitigate his offence, Llewelyn built this chapel, and raised a tomb to poor Gelert; and the spot to this day is called _Beth-Gelert_, or the Grave of Gelert."
I should not omit to mention, that in Mr. Windle's account of Cork, Kerry, &c., there is the following notice of the wolf and Irish wolf-dog.
"The last wolf seen in Ireland was killed in the neighbourhood of Annascuit, near Dingle, in 1710. The place is still known by the name of the Wolf's Step. The Irish called the wolf-dog _Sagh cliun_; and old Campion, speaking of the Irish, says, They are not without wolves, and greyhounds to hunt them bigger of bone and limne than a colt."
This noble animal is also described as "similar in shape to a greyhound, larger than a mastiff, and tractable as a spaniel."
The following fact will serve to prove that the deer-hound is possessed of a fine sense of smelling, a circumstance which has been doubted by many persons.
The head keeper of Richmond Park is possessed of a famous old deer-hound bitch, remarkable for her sagacity, and for having taken five bucks in one day. After a battue in the Park in the winter of 1845, he directed one of the under-keepers to examine the ground carefully, which had been shot over the day before. He was accompanied by the old dog, who was to act as retriever. She came to a point in one of the covers, as was her custom when she seemed to find a rabbit; but the keeper, finding that it was a hare, called her off. After going some distance, the dog went back and pointed the hare a second time. The keeper put her up, and then found that she had been wounded, having had her hind leg broken. Here the fine sense of smelling was the more remarkable, as this old dog will not look at a hare, nor indeed can she be induced to run after one.
One of her progeny ran a wounded buck into the large pond in the Park, swam after it, killed it in the water, and then seizing it by the foot, swam with it to the shore.
Having now given my reader all the information I can gather on this dog of bygone times, I will gratify him with a letter I have received from a lady whose name is dear to Ireland, and highly placed in the ranks of English Literature:--
"Dear Sir,
"I am much flattered by your compliment to my national erudition, a very scanty stock in my best of times, and now nearly used up, in 'furnishing forth' the pages of many an idle tale, worked out in the 'Irish Interest,' as the mouse nibbled at the lion's net,--the same presumption, if not with the same results! However, I will rub up my old '_Shannos_,' as Elizabeth said of her Latin, and endeavour to recollect the little I have ever known on the subject of the Irish wolf-dog.
"Natural history is too much a matter of fact to have ever interested the poetic temperament of the Irish; Schools of Poetry, Heraldry, and Music, were opened (says the Irish historians), 'time immemorial.' St. Patrick found the Academies of Lismore and Armagh in a flourishing condition, when he arrived on his great mission; and the more modern College of Clonard (founded in the fifth century by Bishop Finnan), had a great reputation for its learning and learned professors. But it does not appear that there was any Chair of Natural History or Philosophy in these scholastic Seminaries. Their Transactions recorded the miracles of saints rather than the miracles of nature. And had some daring Cuvier, or enterprising Lyell or Murchison, opened those spacious cabinets, once
'In the deep bosom of the ocean buried,'
or entombed in mountain layers for unnumbered ages, the Druid priests would probably have immolated the daring naturalist under his highest oak. Is it quite sure that the Prior of Armagh, or the founder of the Royal Academy of Clonard, the good Saint Finnan himself, would have served them much better? Certain, however, it is, that the Druids, Bards, Filiahs, Senachies and Saints of Ireland, who left such mighty reputations behind them for learning, have not dropped one word on the subject of the natural history of their 'Isle of Song;' and though they may have dabbled a little in that prosaic pursuit, they probably soon discovered its perilous tendency, and sang with the last and most charming of Irish Bards,--
'No, Science, to you We have long bade a last and careless adieu.'
"Nearly two thousand years after the foundation of the most learned Academies of Ireland, a pretty little Zoological Garden was opened in the capital of the country; but no living type of the Irish wolf-dog is to be found there, nor were any 'fossil remains' of the noble animal discovered in the Wicklow Mines,[G] which were worked some fifty years back, but which, for want of capital or perseverance, only furnished a few Cronobane halfpence, and materials for a musical farce to one of the most delightful farcical Irish writers of his time;[H] for in Ireland,
'Tout finis par un chanson,'
(as Figaro had it of the France of his age,) when worse results do not follow disappointment.
"The Irish wolf-dog, therefore, it may be asserted, belongs to the poetical traditions of Ireland, or to its remote Milesian histories. 'Gomer, the eldest son of Japhet, and others, the immediate posterity of Noah, after the dispersion of mankind at Babel, ventured (it is said), to 'commit themselves by ships upon the sea,' to search out the unknown corners of the world, and thus found out a western land called Ireland.'--(Dr. Warner.)
"It is probable they were the first to disturb its tranquillity by the introduction of wolves, a fragment of the menagerie of the Ark; for all noxious and destructive animals and reptiles were brought into Ireland by her invaders. The soil and clime of the 'woody Morven,' however, though not genial to their naturalisation, was long a prey to one of the most ferocious animals imported by foreign aggression to increase and multiply. Ireland swarmed with wolves, and its colonists and aborigines would in time have alike shared the fate of 'little Red Riding Hood;' when, lo! up started the noble _Canis familiaris Hibernicus_, which, greatly improved by a cross with the wolf itself, was found everywhere in fierce antagonism with foreign ferocity; and for his eminent services was not only speedily adopted by patriot kings and heroes, as part of their courtly and warlike parade, but sung by bards and immortalised by poets, as worthy of such illustrious companionship. It is thus Bran, the famous and beloved hound of Fingal, has become as immortal as his master; and a track is still shown on a mountain in Tyrone, near New Town Stuart, called 'The Track of the Foot of Bran, the Hound of Fionne Mac Cumhall.' So much for poetry and tradition. Modern naturalists, however, in their animal biography and prosaic view of things, have assigned the introduction of the wolf-dog in Ireland to the Danes, who brought it over in their first invasion; and its resemblance to '_Le gros Danois_' of Buffon favours the supposition. 'When Ireland swarmed with wolves,' says Pennant, 'these dogs were confined to the chase; but as soon as these animals were extirpated, the number of the dogs decreased, and from that period were kept chiefly for state.' Goldsmith mentions having only seen in his time in Ireland one Irish wolf-hound that was four feet high. And though the father of the late Marquis of Sligo endeavoured to preserve the breed, his kennels in latter years exhibited but a scanty specimen. These majestic and beautiful animals are now, I believe, quite extinct in Ireland, where their scarcity is accounted for by Mr. Pennant as 'the consequence of the late King of Poland having procured from thence by his agents as many as could be purchased.' The last notice taken of the Irish wolf-dog in fictitious narrative may, I believe, be found in one of my own national novels, 'O'Donnel,' where the hero and his hound are first introduced to the reader together. I borrowed the picture, as I gave it, from living originals, which in my earliest youth struck forcibly on my imagination, in the person of the celebrated Archibald Hamilton Rowan, accompanied by his Irish hound Bran!
"This is all I know or can recollect of my noble and beautiful compatriot; but I remember that when some writer in 'Fraser's Magazine' styled me 'that Irish she wolf-dog,' I felt complimented by the epithet, since to attack the enemies of Ireland, and to worry when they could not destroy them, was the peculiar attribute of the species.
"I have the honour to be, dear Sir,
"Most truly yours,
"SYDNEY MORGAN."
"_William Street, Albert Gate._"
THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG.
"Nor will it less delight th' attentive sage, T' observe that instinct which unerring guides The brutal race, which mimics reason's lore, And oft transcends.
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The dog, whom nothing can mislead, Must be a dog of parts indeed. Is often wiser than his master." SOMMERVILLE.
This noble dog may be justly styled the friend and guardian of his master. I had some doubts in making out my list of dogs, whether he ought not to take precedence of all others; but, after duly weighing the matter in my own mind, I have given the palm to the Irish wolf-hound, and the honest Newfoundland immediately follows him. I not only think that this precedence will gratify some of my friends in Ireland, who have called upon me to do justice to one of their favourite and national emblems, but it is, perhaps, due in strict justice to an animal who proved himself so great a benefactor to his native country. There is, moreover, such a degree of romance attached to the recollection of his fine qualities and imposing appearance, that I should be sorry to lessen them by appearing to give the preference to any other dog. At the same time I may be allowed to add, that I have seen such courage, perseverance, and fidelity in the Newfoundland dog, and am acquainted with so many well-authenticated facts of his more than ordinary sense and utility, that I think him entitled to be considered as little inferior to the Irish wolf-dog.
When we reflect on the docility of the Newfoundland dog, his affectionate disposition, his aptitude in receiving instruction, and his instantaneous sense of impending danger, we shall no longer wonder at his being called the friend of his master, whom he is at all times ready to defend at the risk of his own life. How noble is his appearance, and at the same time how serene is his countenance!
"Sa fierte, sa beaute, sa jeunesse agreable Le fit cherir de vous, et il est redoutable A vos fiers ennemis par sa courage."