I hardly ever saw a dog who had such very expressive eyes. Once when out with me he was attacked and bitten in the leg by a mastiff; an ill-conditioned brute that was always flying at him. Now Wallace was most good-tempered and hardly ever fought, so I spoke to him and told him to come along, thinking the mastiff would leave him. Instead of this it seized him by the ear, and Wallace's ears were always very tender and painful in the summer; but he never retaliated--only looked at me in a sort of reproachful way, as much as to say "see what pain you have caused me." I could not stand it, and said, "Kill him, Wallace." Shaking the dog off as if he was nothing, he gave him a grip between the forelegs and the dog was dead in an instant. Wallace left him at once and came on after me as if nothing had happened. He certainly was one of the most intelligent dogs I ever met with; I kept him until he was very old, and when he was almost entirely blind, it used to be very curious to see the old fellow hunting me. When loosed, he would put down his nose and work till he got on my trail, and then, however I might have gone about and turned, he was sure to hunt up to me, and the pleased look which came into his old face when he found me and moved round my legs was very touching. However, poor old fellow, he got quite deaf as well as blind, and then to my grief I had to sign his death-warrant.
Long after this, I possessed a wonderfully intelligent dog, a pure-bred Skye terrier, one of the real sort, with soft coat of wavy mustard-coloured hair tipped with black; sharp, prick ears, just turned over at the top; such taper paws; tail carried over the back and parting like an ostrich plume; she had dark eyes. I had her directly she could be taken from her mother, and in my bachelor days she hardly ever left me, often going in my pocket when I was riding--her head and forepaws outside. I once left her for six months with some friends whilst I went abroad, and on my return a most curious thing occurred. I drove from the station, distant about six miles from my friends' house, arriving there past nine in the evening. Fanny (that was her name) was shut up in the harness-room, but about four o'clock the next morning I was awakened by scratching and whining at my door, and on getting up and opening it, there was Fanny, who was exceptionally delighted to see me, and jumped on my bed and went to sleep. On getting up I noticed her paws were very sore and bleeding, and on going down, asked where she had been and how she had found me. It turned out thus: she had been locked up in the harness-room as usual, and this was quite 200 yards from the house; but had set to work, and scratched her way out, tearing a hole through the weather boarding close to the doorpost; she then came round to a court at the back of the house, where there was a drain-pipe in one corner through the wall, to carry off the water when it was wasted; this she had torn at until she made the hole big enough to force her little body through, and getting into the house by an unfastened side door, made her way up to my room. But how on earth could she possibly have known that I was there? She had not seen me for six months, and I had not been near the stable, so she could not have heard my voice, and there was not any coat or wrap of mine left in the carriage. That she had got into the house by the way I have stated was quite clear from the state of her paws, and the marks on the stable and outer court.