The noble mastiff lies stately and serene, his vast bulk tempered by his perfect proportions, and by a gait worthy of the king of dogs. His well-opened hazel eyes look with honest straightforwardness full in your face. His huge ears hang down quietly. His jaws are closed and overlapped by his deep jowl. He is the _beau-ideal_ of strength in restraint and repose, as he lies there with one paw, like that of a lion’s cub, hanging idly over the framework of his couch, and the other half-turned inwards, as if he were about to put it on his heart, in token of the true gentleman he is.
From within the same pent-house, where he is freely tolerated as a lively child companion, protrudes the small confident head—bristling with hair, the knowing little ears erect, the tongue half-thrust out at one side, equivalent to being stuck in the cheek—of the briskest, most undaunted of terriers. I suppose it is because we all know many versions—both human and canine—of this pair of friends, that we are so fond of looking at them and admiring their union in diversity.
I can never see “Dignity and Impudence” without thinking of a couple of dogs belonging to friends of mine, and that were said to bear a striking and exact resemblance to the dogs in the picture. I had not the good fortune to know this living “Dignity and Impudence,” though I long looked forward to the pleasure; but I happened to hear a great deal of them, and registered their traits with interest.
Wallace and Dick were north-country dogs, as is evidenced by the name of the first—he would have been Bevis in England. They dwelt within sight of a purple spur of the Grampians, known as the Braes of Angus. Their home was a hospitable farm-house, among fresh breezy uplands, with that element of breadth and freedom which belongs to hill countries, where, side by side with the cultivated fields, lies a wide moor and remnant of ancient forest, and where the ground is broken—and now falls gradually in a sunny slope—now dips abruptly into a shady dell, or den, as we call it in Scotland. The last is a place of spreading beeches, feathery larches, waving birks, and a great wealth of ferns and wild flowers in spring and early summer, and with a never-failing wimpling burn threading its recesses. It is quite distinct from a wild heathery glen. The neighbourhood to which I allude has quaint old mansions, some of which existed in the stirring times when the glens and dens served as passes for “John Hielandman,” rustling in his plaid and kilt, and bristling with his claymore and skene-dhu. He did not bring down cattle—long-horned kylies—like the modern drover, but came, saw, and lifted what “nowt” he fancied on lowland pastures, goading them up among the mountains to the headquarters of the chief and his dhuinnewassels. An ancient town with steep, narrow streets, having a feudal castle on a tree-crowned rock above a brawling river, and the remains of an abbey, is the market town of the district. On the road to this town one has a glimpse from a distance of the silver shield of the German ocean, with a larger town on its brink.