coursing season, having lost Brush, our old spaniel, her great
friend, and the blue greyhound, Mariette, her comrade and rival,
both of which four-footed worthies were sent out to keep for the
summer, began to find solitude a weary condition, and to look abroad
for company. Now it so happened that the same suspension of sport
which had reduced our little establishment from three dogs to one,
had also dispersed the splendid kennel of a celebrated courser in
our neighbourhood, three of whose finest young dogs came home to
'their walk' (as the sporting phrase goes) at the collarmaker's in
our village. May, accordingly, on the first morning of her solitude
(she had never taken the slightest notice of her neighbours before,
although they had sojourned in our street upwards of a fortnight),
bethought herself of the timely resource offered to her by the
vicinity of these canine beaux, and went up boldly and knocked at
their stable door, which was already very commodiously on the
half-latch. The three dogs came out with much alertness and
gallantry, and May, declining apparently to enter their territories,
brought them off to her own. This manoeuvre has been repeated every
day, with one variation; of the three dogs, the first a brindle, the
second a yellow, and the third a black, the two first only are now
allowed to walk or consort with her, and the last, poor fellow, for
no fault that I can discover except May's caprice, is driven away
not only by the fair lady, but even by his old companions--is, so to
say, sent to Coventry. Of her two permitted followers, the yellow
gentleman, Saladin by name, is decidedly the favourite. He is,
indeed, May's shadow, and will walk with me whether I choose or not.
It is quite impossible to get rid of him unless by discarding Miss
May also;--and to accomplish a walk in the country without her,
would be like an adventure of Don Quixote without his faithful
'squire Sancho.