SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS BULL-TERRIER, CAMP.
(From the painting by Raeburn.)
Poor Camp went over to the majority of dogs in January; in July, Sir Walter wrote to a friend that he had filled the vacant place with a shaggy terrier-puppy of high pedigree, and named it Wallace—its donor being a descendant of that famous Scotchman. Somewhat later the family was enlarged by a smooth-haired kintail terrier called Ourisque, which, if attending the master on his rides, would sometimes pretend fatigue, and whine to be taken up on horseback, where it would sit upright, without any support, in great state.
But of all Sir Walter’s pets, the most famous was Maida, a gift in 1816 from his Highland friend Glengarry. He describes it with enthusiasm, as “The noblest dog ever seen on the Border since Johnny Armstrong’s time, ... between the wolf and deer greyhound, about six feet from the tip of the nose to the tail, and high and strong in proportion.” Captain Thomas Brown, who knew Maida well, says, “So uncommon was his appearance, that he used to attract great crowds in Edinburgh to look at him whenever he appeared on the streets. He was a remarkably high-spirited and beautiful dog, with black ears, cheeks, back and sides, ... the tip of his tail white, ... his hair rough and shaggy; ... that on the ridge of his neck, he used to raise like a lion’s mane, when excited to anger.”
Maida was uniformly gentle except—aristocrat that he was!—to the poorly-dressed and to artists. His detestation of the latter may be explained by the number of times he had been obliged to pose for them;—the mere sight of a brush and palette was at last enough to make him run. His bark was deep and hollow; and sometimes, says Sir Walter, “he amused himself with howling in a very tiresome way. When he was very fond of his friends he used to grin, tucking up his whole lips and showing all his teeth, but it was only when he was particularly disposed to recommend himself.”
Once he got hung by the leg, in trying to jump a park paling, and began to howl. But seeing his friends approach, “he stopped crying, and waved his tail by the way of signal, it was supposed, for assistance.” Luckily he was not much hurt, and most grateful for his rescue.
The pleasant Irish authoress, Miss Edgeworth, was also fond of animals; and Scott’s correspondence with this lady is full of allusions to their mutual canine friends. In April, 1822, he tells her that Maida can no longer follow him far from the house, and adds: “I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives; and I am quite satisfied that it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?”
We can well imagine his grief when finally (October, 1824) Maida passed away painlessly, in his straw. They buried him at Abbotsford gate where he had so long kept watch and ward, with his own marble likeness for monument,—and for epitaph—