Ere ours, whom Marlborough bred:
And when was dog so mourned as you?
Half sighs, half smiles, the wide world through
Will blend in thousand-fold adieu
When news comes—“Bandy’s dead.”
A. H. Beesly.
Anything of the nature of a spectacle always had attractions for Bandy. Sunday was, as I have said, a dull time to him, for he was never allowed to follow his friends when they went into chapel. One day, when there was to be a confirmation in the school chapel, the sight of visitors and an unusual stir about the place attracted his attention. Soberly, as befitted the occasion, Bandy watched the crowd slowly pass into the chapel, and then retired to the Bradleian arches, to be ready for what might yet be in store. Scarcely had he settled down before there issued from the old house the Bishop and the Head Master, side by side, with crozier bearer in front. Bandy was instantly all attention. Was this a procession, within the meaning of the Act? Three was a small quorum, but then there were the robes. It was a procession, and with a yell of joy that to his master’s ears told only too well what was happening outside, he flew to take part in it. A series of short, sharp barks that sounded like pistol shots in the quiet stillness of the chapel made the watchers inside sharers of the scene that disturbed the serenity of the embarrassed dignitaries. But one of the sufferers was a Bishop, and Bandy’s master’s diocesan, so we will draw a veil over the sequel.
It was on a Sunday that yet another great disaster nearly ended Bandy’s life. To relieve the tedium of the dull hours he went off in the afternoon to do a little ratting on his own account. What followed can only be surmised, but that night Bandy did not return. The next morning a blood-stained track was found leading from a rick on Granham Hill, and on a harrow at the foot of the rick were blood and hair. Bandy must have leaped or fallen from the rick, though how he reached the top must ever be a mystery. That day two boys saw him making a desperate effort to reach home. He was in a terrible condition, and without assistance must have died before he could find his friends. The boys, however, did what they could for him. They took him to a friendly saddler, who washed his wounds and sewed him up, and again he was carried home apparently in extremis. Once more he was tenderly nursed back to life, and within forty-eight hours he crept from his master’s house to the school gates, where his owner found him waiting for him, too feeble to travel further.
Though Bandy was no fighter in the sense that he sought an encounter, he never refused a good offer. He returned sometimes from his little private excursions more than a trifle mauled, but he never made any fuss about his wounds. Rats were ever a joy to him, mice came in for a lesser share of his attentions, and he would spend hours in desperate efforts to dig out a rabbit. There was no mistaking the language with which he would resent any intervention, even from his best friends, at such times. On the other hand he was always ready to acknowledge a really well-timed service.
As the Downs round Marlborough abound in hares, they were ever an attraction to Bandy, and he lived in hope of some day accounting for one. He had a good nose, and would sometimes stick to a stale line till the hare jumped up within a few feet of him. Then away he would go again, always running by scent and not by view. When nearly beat he would sometimes start another hare. “Good,” he seemed to say, “I knew I was getting up to her,” and with desperate determination he would carry on the chase. His master was often obliged to ride up at last and call him off, “faint, yet pursuing.”