Mr. M‘Crae and the servants saw the poor horse fall, and hurried at once to Sandie’s assistance. At first an attempt was made to raise the animal, but this was found impossible; the neck drooped, the legs were paralysed. M‘Crae had always been his own veterinary surgeon, and perhaps knew quite as much about the ailments of cattle and horses as did the drunken little smith and farrier who lived in the neighbouring village. So Glancer’s harness was unloosened, a bundle of soft dry hay was placed under his head, and a canvas shelter was erected to save him from the burning rays of the sun. His poor head, too, was kept constantly wet with the coldest of water, and now and then his tongue was pulled to one side, and a cooling draught administered.
Sandie and Jamie never left him all that day; Jeannie brought their dinner out to the field, and their supper also, and they ate it beside the dying Glancer.
Poor Tyro, the collie, seemed to know he was in the presence of death. He sat or lay, though not asleep, near to the horse till the end, often heaving deep sighs, for the farm nags were all special favourites of his.
Tyro really was a faithful and kind-hearted dog. I need not tell the reader he was wise, because he was a Scottish collie, and collies are the kings of the race canine. Yes, he was loving and gentle, and he was an excellent guard by night. Once upon a time he surprised a hawker-tramp robbing the fowl-house. Tyro did not fly at the man and bite him, as a less sensible dog would have done. No, he simply placed that fowl-house, with the itinerant hardware merchant inside, in a state of siege.
“If you dare to come out,” Tyro told him, “I will cut your throat, as certain as sunrise.”
So the unhappy man preferred capture to a cut throat; and when M‘Crae came round in the grey dawn, he found the tramp, and in due course he was landed in prison.
But in the interests of truth, I must state here that Tyro had one fault, and a very sad one it was. In company with another dog, a smooth-coated cross ’twixt a greyhound and collie, he used in the season to go hunting the turnip-fields for hares or rabbits. They worked very systematically, Spot going into the field to start the game and chase it towards the gate, where Tyro lay in wait to seize and kill it. In this way they sometimes laid dead as many as six or eight hares a night, bringing home one each in the grey of the morn, and hiding the others to be recovered by degrees.
Tyro had even been accused of sheep-killing, but the crime was brought home to another dog, and Tyro left without a stain on his character.
Just as the sun had dipped behind the wooded hills of the west, and gloaming shadows began to fill up the hollows, it was evident that great Glancer’s minutes were numbered. The fast glazing eye and the stertorous breathing told the watchers that. Soon after, he had a few fits of shivering, one last long sigh, and then he lay still—all was over.
Jamie Duncan had kept up till now, but when he heard that sigh, and knew the horse was dead, he lost all control over himself, and threw himself on the body in a paroxysm of grief and tears.