steadily on his own axis when I approached to
mount him at a patient's door. He was a new
purchase in my time, and it was my misfortune
first to ride him to the country-house of a
substantial farmer, whose confidence in "only the
assistant" I desired to win. It was easy to get
off the horse, and in the house all might go well.
But when I came out, and when the farmer's
wife and eldest daughter stood respectfully at
their front door, behold the great Teetotum how
he spins! Ah! well! There are memories still
glowing, over which we have to rake the ashes of
the past. After that day, when I entered a village
on Teetotum, and travelled down from the upper
regions of his back at the door of the first
patient, I led that monster about while I walked
from one house to another, and took good care
never to go through the agonies of remounting
until we had come out at the other side of the
village.

This beginning of horsemanship gave me four-
footed acquaintances, not friends. Once,
however, fairly settled in the open country, I, of
course, sought also four-footed friends. Now
was the time to keep a dog!

I began modestly by entering into society
with a young sheep-dog, who received the
professional name of Blister, for which the familiar
term is Bliss. Bliss was a happy young dog
of full growth, with eyes like jewels, teeth like
a shark's, and all a puppy's ecstasy in using
them on anything that could be bitten through.
Every morning, when I first appeared before
him, he flew at me with barks of affection, fixed
his teeth firmly in a skirt of my dressing-gown,
to pull at it and shake it, as a fiercely cordial
man might shake you by the hand. How many
days I had enjoyed my Bliss, might have been
ascertained at any period by numbering the
rents in the tail of my dressing-gown, as clearly
as men ascertain the age of trees by counting
the rings in the wood. Having breakfasted
with me, my friend sat on his tail at the door of
my lodging till he saw me mounted. Then, no
ingenuity could stay him from joining all my
rounds, and making it his business to preach to
the sheep of the whole country-side, gathered
by him together on the hills in crowded and
excited congregations. One morning, however,
when there was a round of almost forty miles
for us, he was not indulged with any slackenings
of pace for his particular convenience.
He came home very tired, and after that
day satisfied himself with the courtesy of walking
out to see me off, but steadily declined to
follow.

This active creature went astray, and was a
lost dog. Then it became necessary to supply
his place; and as it appeared probable that a
less boisterous comrade was to be desired as his
successor, I bought with gold the friendship of
a mild old lady, a thin spaniel with glossy black
hair. She had answered for years to the hereditary
name of Fan, which is among dogs what
Smith is among men.

Now, therefore, I was blessed with a four-
footed being who would never go out with the
horse, but was content only to follow me on
foot, and visit the sick in our little town of
Somerton. She had a good appetite, enlarged
in flesh, panted a good deal when our walk
was up-hill, ran to and fro within bounds of a
very strict discretion, and gave me nothing but
the simple flattery of her canine affection. She
was a steady every-day person, who had even a
sense of Sunday in her nature. When I went
out on Sunday morning, without offering to
follow me as usual, she jumped into the window-
sill, and from that post of observation watched
for my return from church. But a time came
when, having bought a promising lot of
patients, I left the far west, and travelled to the
centre of the earth (within Great Britain). Fan
went with me, and being unused to the
punctualities of travelling, was lost upon the way, at
Bristol.

Dark visions of an unprotected female in
distress haunted me all the way to this old house
at Ortemly, in which I have grown grey. I
knew only one man in Bristol, a long lank,
rambling hawker, who had reached sometimes
even the distant Somerton. He might be at
home or abroad: at any rate, to him I wrote, as
to the one possible helper. By him the forlorn
damsel was found under the protection of a
hackney coachman, and in a few days she reached
me in a hamper, labelled "a Live Dog, with
Care."

The house I took, was haunted. For a black
terrier who had once lived there, it was a yarrow
constantly to be revisited, and to be explored
daily in every corner. The terrier lost no time
in declaring his affection for the mature beauty
from the west, his love was returned, and blessed
with a litter of four puppies. Puppies are not
born to be drowned. These were, moreover, very
handsome. So they were allowed houseroom
until they were of age to be sent out into the
world. When they were all of age to run with
ease, the sedate Madam Spaniel, with her four
little ones behind her, and the terrier ghost
usually at her side, waited for me outside the
doors of all the patients I had in the village,
and dogged my heels in all pedestrian excursions.
But the tender puppies required sometimes to be
carried. Three of these puppies established
themselves in other homes. The mother
suddenly died in the midst of her dinner. There
remained to me, therefore, only one dog—my
last dog, Master Squeak—in-doors: while out of
doors there was a friend on all fours in the
stable—my first horse.

Pegasus looked well worth the high price she
had cost; a noble creature, with fine paces,
though she had all her four feet damaged by
thrush. Falling at last suddenly lame, she
obliged me to walk before her, fifteen miles through
mud and rain, slowly conducting her to her own
stable: which she left only to be sold, when her
paces were recovered, for what she was worth—
five pounds. But the good soul had mettle
enough for a hundred legs, and we were friends
together. She had but one bad habit, and it
was one that I thought unsociable. When