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stick to that for a month or two, regular, and you'll have him like a
little child."
"Um!--seems to me that I'm going to get more training over his job than
anybody else," muttered my uncle, as he thanked the man and left the
shop; "but I suppose it's got to be done. Wish I'd never had the d--- dog
now!"
So, religiously, every evening, my uncle would fasten a long chain to
that poor dog, and drag him away from his happy home with the idea of
exhausting him; and the dog would come back as fresh as paint, my
uncle behind him, panting and clamoring for brandy.
My uncle said he should never have dreamed there could have been
such stirring times in this prosaic nineteenth century as he had, training
that dog.
Oh, the wild, wild scamperings over the breezy common--the dog
trying to catch a swallow, and my uncle, unable to hold him back,
following at the other end of the chain!
Oh, the merry frolics in the fields, when the dog wanted to kill a cow,
and the cow wanted to kill the dog, and they each dodged round my
uncle, trying to do it!
And, oh, the pleasant chats with the old ladies when the dog wound the
chain into a knot around their legs, and upset them, and my uncle had
to sit down in the road beside them, and untie them before they could
get up again!
But a crisis came at last. It was a Saturday afternoon--uncle being

exercised by dog in usual way--nervous children playing in road, see
dog, scream, and run--playful young dog thinks it a game, jerks chain
out of uncle's grasp, and flies after them--uncle flies after dog, calling it
names--fond parent in front garden, seeing beloved children chased by
savage dog, followed by careless owner, flies after uncle, calling him
names--householders come to doors and cry, "Shame!"--also throw
things at dog--things don't hit dog, hit uncle--things that don't hit uncle,
hit fond parent--through the village and up the hill, over the bridge and
round by the green--grand run, mile and a half without a break!
Children sink exhausted--dog gambols up among them--children go
into fits--fond parent and uncle come up together, both breathless.
"Why don't you call your dog off, you wicked old man?"
"Because I can't recollect his name, you old fool, you!"
Fond parent accuses uncle of having set dog on--uncle, indignant,
reviles fond parent--exasperated fond parent attacks uncle--uncle
retaliates with umbrella--faithful dog comes to assistance of uncle, and
inflicts great injury on fond parent--arrival of police--dog attacks
police--uncle and fond parent both taken into custody--uncle fined five
pounds and costs for keeping a ferocious dog at large--uncle fined five
pounds and costs for assault on fond parent--uncle fined five pounds
and cost for assault on police!
My uncle gave the dog away soon after that. He did not waste him. He
gave him as a wedding-present to a near relation.
But the saddest story I ever heard in connection with a bull-dog, was
one told by my aunt herself.
Now you can rely upon this story, because it is not one of mine, it is
one of my aunt's, and she would scorn to tell a lie. This is a story you
could tell to the heathen, and feel that you were teaching them the truth
and doing them good. They give this story out at all the Sunday-schools
in our part of the country, and draw moral lessons from it. It is a story
that a little child can believe.
It happened in the old crinoline days. My aunt, who was then living in a
country-town, had gone out shopping one morning, and was standing in
the High Street, talking to a lady friend, a Mrs. Gumworthy, the
doctor's wife. She (my aunt) had on a new crinoline that morning, in
which, to use her own expression, she rather fancied herself. It was a
tremendously big one, as stiff as a wire-fence; and it "set" beautifully.

They were standing in front of Jenkins', the draper's; and my aunt
thinks that it--the crinoline--must have got caught up in something, and
an opening thus left between it and the ground. However this may be,
certain it is that an absurdly large and powerful bull-dog, who was
fooling round about there at the time, managed, somehow or other, to
squirm in under my aunt's crinoline, and effectually imprison himself
beneath it.
Finding himself suddenly in a dark and gloomy chamber, the dog,
naturally enough, got frightened, and made frantic rushes to get out.
But whichever way he charged; there was the crinoline in front of him.
As he flew, he, of course, carried it before him, and with the crinoline,
of course, went my aunt.
But nobody