m one of
his professional journies. His way lay across a range of hills, the road
over which was so blocked up with snow as to leave all trace of it
indiscernible. Uncertain how to proceed, he resolved to trust to his
horse, and throwing loose the reins, allowed him to choose his course.
The animal proceeded cautiously, and safely for some time, till coming
to a ravine, horse and rider sunk in a snow-wreath several fathoms deep.

"Stunned by the suddenness and depth of the descent, the gentleman lay
for some time insensible. On recovering, he found himself nearly three
yards from the dangerous spot, with his faithful horse standing over him
and licking the snow from his face. He accounts for his extrication, by
supposing that the bridle must have been attached to his person, but so
completely had he lost all sense of consciousness, that beyond the bare
fact as stated, he had no knowledge of the means by which he made so
remarkable an escape."

"It was at any rate very kind in the horse to clear away the snow, Uncle
Thomas."

"No doubt of it, John, and perhaps he owed his life quite as much to
this act of kindness as to being pulled out of the ravine. He might have
been as certainly choked by the snow out of it as in it. Sometimes the
horse becomes much attached to the animals with which it associates, and
its feelings of friendship are as powererful as those of the dog. A
gentleman of Bristol had a greyhound which slept in the same stable, and
contracted a very great intimacy with a fine hunter. When the dog was
taken out, the horse neighed wistfully after him, and seemed to long for
its return; he welcomed him home with a neigh; the greyhound ran up to
the horse and licked him; the horse, in return, scratched the
greyhound's back with his teeth. On one occasion, when the groom had the
pair out for exercise, a large dog attacked the greyhound, bore him to
the ground, and seemed likely to worry him, when the horse threw back
his ears, rushed forward, seized the strange dog by the back, and flung
him to a distance, which so terrified the aggressor, that he at once
desisted and made off."

"That was very kind, Uncle Thomas. I like to hear of such instances of
friendship between animals."

"Such a docile animal as the horse can readily be trained to particular
habits, and does not readily forget them, however disreputable. There is
an odd story to illustrate this.

"About the middle of last century, a Scottish lawyer