But a poor dumb despised dog--nothing, as some say, but animated dust--was there,--and without shout or signal--for all the Christian creatures were alike helpless in their despair--shot swift as a sunbeam over the deep, and by those golden tresses, sinking and brightening through the wave, brought the noble child ashore, and stood over him, as if in joy and sorrow, lying too like death on the sand! And when little Harry opened his glazed eyes, and looked bewildered on all the faces around--and then fainted--and revived and fainted again--till at last he came to dim recollection of this world on the bosom of the physician brought thither with incomprehensible speed from his dwelling afar off--thou didst lick his cold white hands and blue face, with a whine that struck awful pity into all hearts, and thou didst follow him--one of the group--as he was borne along--and frisking and gambolling no more all that day, gently didst thou lay thyself down at the feet of his little bed, and watch there unsleeping all night long! For the boy knew that God had employed one of his lowly creatures to save him--and beseeched that he might lie there to be looked at by the light of the taper, till he himself, as the pains went away, might fall asleep! And we, the watchers by his bedside, heard him in his dreams mentioning the creature's name in his prayers.
Yet at times--O Fro--thou wert a sad dog indeed--neither to bind nor to hold--for thy blood was soon set aboil, and thou--like Julius Cæsar--and Demetrius Poliorcetes--and Alexander the Great--and many other ancient and modern kings and heroes--thou wert the slave of thy passions. No Scipio wert thou with a Spanish captive. Often--in spite of threatening eye and uplifted thong--uplifted only, for thou went'st unflogged to thy grave--didst thou disappear for days at a time--as if lost or dead. Rumours of thee were brought to the kirk by shepherds from the remotest hills in the parish--most confused and contradictory--but, when collected and compared, all agreeing in this--that thou wert living, and lifelike, and life-imparting, and after a season from thy travels to return; and return thou still didst--wearied often and woe-begone--purpled thy snow-white curling--and thy broad breast torn, not disfigured, by honourable wounds. For never yet saw we a fighter like thee. Up on thy hind-legs in a moment, like a growling Polar monster, with thy fore-paws round thy foeman's neck, bull-dog, collie, mastiff, or greyhound, and down with him in a moment, with as much ease as Cass, in the wrestling ring at Carlisle, would throw a Bagman, and then woe to the throat of the downfallen, for thy jaws were shark-like as they opened and shut with their terrific tusks, grinding through skin and sinew to the spine.