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.”
Bandy once had a rude shock. He had gone out with one of her late Majesty’s judges, to dig out a badger in the Pewsey Vale, some seven miles off. The holt was in a sand-pit, and had two entrances or pipes. A dog was sent up one of them to mark the badger, and behind the dog a man worked with a short pick, passing the sand out behind him. At the same time another man was told off to crawl up the other pipe and report progress. It was a pouring wet day, and just as Bandy’s master arrived on the scene the second man emerged backwards from his pipe. In a moment the judge’s coat was off, and in spite of all remonstrances he insisted on taking his turn, and slowly disappeared. The whole proceedings were a mystery to Bandy, and he watched attentively. No sooner did the judge reappear from the bowels of the earth than Bandy dashed in to solve the mystery for himself. His curiosity was quickly satisfied. Instead of a rabbit he found a badger at bay, and in this case he decided that discretion was the better part of valour.
It was only comparatively late in life that Bandy turned his thoughts seriously to education. Then for some time he attended his master’s lessons regularly, and never was there a more attentive pupil. When the blackboard was being used he would come out and sit in full view of it, and never take his eyes off till the chalk was laid down. For two terms he took up science, but he had the sense to limit his range of study, and only attended a class that was held twice a week. He never mistook the day and hour, and always made a point of escorting the master who was to give the lesson from his rooms to the laboratory.