idering this and other infirmities, for he was stone deaf and very
near-sighted, he was highly creditable to his profession.

Though he frequently found game under his very nose, he was perfectly
aware, though his mouth watered to taste it, that he had not a chance
until I came up and shot it. He was, in consequence, the staunchest
dog in the country. Only once, in this respect, did I know him guilty
of a breach of decorum, and that too, I must say, under very
aggravating circumstances.

One sultry day, at the expense of a great deal of time, and still more
trouble, he had carefully footed an old cock pheasant round three
sides of a very extensive field, and at last brought him to a
stand-still in a bunch of nettles, and was now patiently waiting for
me to come up and help him. In the meantime, an unfortunate terrier
had chanced upon the trail of the pheasant, and now came yapping along
the ditch as hard as he could scamper. Of course, Bob being as deaf as
a post, was quite unaware of this circumstance, and as the terrier
brushed rudely by him, poor Bob looked so mortified! He wasn't going
to find game for him, so "the devil take the hindmost," became the
order of the day, and had I not shot the pheasant, which they put up
between them, Bob was so angry that he would have wrung the very soul
out of little Whisky.

After the fatigues of a long day, Bob was dozing in the farm-yard,
when the team arrived in the evening from market. Nobody saw Bob, and
Bob couldn't hear the wagon, which the next moment passed over his
neck, and broke it.

CHAPTER IV.

The sole thing connected with my days on this spot, attended by a
satisfactory feeling, is the remembrance of my long and quiet
evenings, when I did happen to spend the week in the parish. It was
the only period of my life that I read to any effect, and I must own,
that even then it was no fault of mine, for it was impossible to do
otherwise.

I used to rise at one o'clock in the afternoon, and go to bed at five
the next morning. As to late hours, as it is termed, I have no sort of
compunction, so long as I do not spend more than the necessary quantum
of the twenty-four in bed.

I was agreeably surprised with the number of works I crept through;
among which, my favourites were Byron's works throughout, with his
life by Moore; Butler's Analogy, White's Farriery, and Dwight's
Theology, which last is as full of poetry as Childe Harold.

The last half hour of ea