About the year 1800, Mrs. Osburn, who lived a few miles out of London, went to town to receive a large sum of money granted her by Parliament for discovering a lithontryptic medicine. She received the money, and returned back with it in her own carriage to the country, without anything particular happening to her on the road. It was evening when she arrived at home; and being fatigued with her journey, she retired early to rest. On her stepping into bed, she was somewhat surprised at the importunities of a small King Charles's dog, which was a great pet, and always slept in her bedchamber. He became exceedingly troublesome, and kept pulling the bedclothes with all his strength. She chid him repeatedly, and in an angry tone of voice desired him to lie still, that she might go to sleep. The dog, however, still persisted in his efforts, and kept pulling the bedclothes; and at length leaped on the bed, and endeavoured with the most determined perseverance to pull off the bedclothes. Mrs. Osburn then conceived there must be some extraordinary cause for this unusual conduct on the part of her dog, and leaped out of bed; and being a lady of some courage, put on her petticoat, and placed a brace of pistols by her side, which she had always ready loaded in a closet adjoining her bed-room, and proceeded down-stairs. When she had reached the first landing-place, she saw her coachman coming down the private staircase, which led to the servants' rooms, with a lighted candle in his hand, and full dressed. Suspecting his intentions were bad, and with heroic presence of mind, she presented one of her pistols, and threatened to lodge the contents of it in him, unless he returned to bed forthwith. Subdued by her determined courage, he quietly and silently obeyed. She then went into a back-parlour, when she heard a distant whispering of voices; she approached the window, and threw it up, and fired one of her pistols out of it, in the direction from which the noise proceeded. Everything became silent, and not a whisper was to be heard. After looking through the different rooms on the lower floor, and finding all right, she proceeded to bed and secured the door, and nothing further occurred that night. Next morning she arose at an early hour, went into the garden, and in the direction which she had fired the preceding night she discovered drops of blood, which she traced to the other end of the garden. This left no doubt on her mind of what had been intended. Thinking it imprudent to keep so large a sum of money in her house, she ordered her carriage to drive to town, where she deposited her cash. She then repaired to the house of Sir John Fielding, and related to him the whole affair, who advised her to part with her coachman immediately, and that he would investigate the matter, and, if possible, discover and convict the offenders. But the parties concerned in this affair were never discovered; for the mere fact of the coachman being found coming down the stair was not sufficient to implicate him, although there were strong grounds of suspicion. Thus, by the instinct and fidelity of this little animal, was robbery, and most likely murder, prevented.
A spaniel belonging to a medical gentleman, with whom I am acquainted, residing at Richmond in Surrey, was in the habit of accompanying him when he went out at night to visit his patients. If he was shut out of the house of a patient, as was frequently the case, he would return home; and whatever the hour of the night might be, he would take the knocker in his mouth, and knock till the door was opened. It should be mentioned that the knocker was below a half-glazed door, so that it was easily within the dog's reach.
"In the capital of a German principality," says Capt. Brown, "the magistrates once thought it expedient to order all dogs that had not the mark of having been wormed, to be seized and confined for a certain time in a large yard without the walls of the town. These dogs, which were of all possible varieties, made a hideous noise while thus confined together; but a spaniel, which, as the person that had the care of them observed, sat apart from the rest in a corner of the yard, seemed to consider the circumstances with greater deliberation. He attended to the manner in which the gate of the yard was opened and shut; and, taking a favourable opportunity, leapt with his forepaws upon the latch, opened the gate, looked round upon the clamorous multitude, and magnanimously led them the way out of the prison. He conducted them in triumph through the gate of the town; upon which every dog ran home exulting to his master."
The following anecdote, which was sent to me by the gentleman who witnessed the occurrence, proves the sense and observation of a spaniel. He possessed one which was a great favourite, and a constant companion in all his rambles. One day, in passing through a field of young turnips, he pulled up one of them, and after washing it carefully in a rivulet, he cut off the top, and ate the other part. During this time the dog eyed him attentively, and then proceeded to one of the growing turnips, drew it from the earth, went up briskly to the rivulet, and after dashing it about some time till he caused the water to froth considerably, he laid it down, and holding the turnip inverted, and by the top, he deliberately gnawed the whole of it off, and left the top, thus closely imitating the actions of his master.
A gentleman, who generally resided at Boston in Lincolnshire, had also a house at Chepstow in Monmouthshire, to which he occasionally went in the summer. While at the latter place, a small spaniel dog which a friend at Chepstow had given him was taken on his return in a carriage to Boston. On the Sunday evening after the arrival at that place, the spaniel was attacked by a large dog, when out walking with his master on the river bank, and ran away. Nothing was heard of him until the receipt of a letter from Chepstow, announcing his arrival at that place in a famished and travel-worn condition. The distance is one hundred and eighty-four miles.
The following anecdote is related by Mr. Blaine:—
"I was once called from dinner in a hurry to attend to something that had occurred; unintentionally I left a favourite cat in the room, together with a no less favourite spaniel. When I returned I found the latter, which was not a small figure, extending her whole length along the table by the side of a leg of mutton which I had left. On my entrance she showed no signs of fear, nor did she immediately alter her position. I was sure, therefore, that none but a good motive had placed her in this extraordinary situation, nor had I long to conjecture. Puss was skulking in a corner, and though the mutton was untouched, yet her conscious fears clearly evinced that she had been driven from the table in the act of attempting a robbery on the meat, to which she was too prone, and that her situation had been occupied by this faithful spaniel to prevent a repetition of the attempt. Here was fidelity united with great intellect, and wholly free from the aid of instinct. This property of guarding victuals from the cat, or from other dogs, was a daily practice of this animal; and, while cooking was going forward, the floor might have been strewed with eatables, which would have been all safe from her own touch, and as carefully guarded from that of others. A similar property is common to many dogs, but to spaniels particularly."
It is impossible in a work on dogs to omit the insertion of some pretty lines on a spaniel by Mrs. Barrett Browning, and which do so much credit to her kindly feelings and poetic talents:—
"Yet, my pretty sportive friend,
Little is't to such an end
That I praise thy rareness!
Other dogs may be thy peers,
Haply, in those drooping ears,
And this glossy fairness.
But of thee it shall be said,
'This dog watched beside a bed
Day and night unweary,—
Watched within a curtained room
Where no sunbeam broke the gloom
Round the sick and dreary.