some little time, shooting a bird or two as I went,--for I wanted
some bright feathers to send home to a little cousin that I had in
England,--I alighted from my horse, and, letting him loose to
graze, lay down for a quarter of an hour to cool myself, and then
began to make ready for my plunge.

"I was standing on a little ledge of cliff, some six or seven feet
above the sea. It was high tide, and the water at my feet was about
a fathom deep. 'I shall have a delightful swim,' thought to myself,
as I threw off my coat; and as just at that moment Rolf in a very
excited way flung himself upon me, evidently understanding the
meaning of the proceeding, and, as I thought, anxious to show his
sympathy with it, I repeated the remark aloud. 'Yes, we'll have a
delightful swim, you and I together,' I said. 'A grand swim, my old
lad'; and I clapped his back as I spoke, and encouraged him, as I
was in the habit of doing, to express his feelings without reserve.
But, rather to my surprise, instead of wagging his tail, and
wrinkling his nose, and performing any of his usual antics, the
creature only lifted up his face and began to whine. He had lain,
for the quarter of an hour while I had been resting, at the edge of
the little cliff, with his head dropped over it; but whether he had
been taking a sleep in that position, or had been amusing himself
by watching the waves, was more than I knew. He was a capital one
for sleeping even then, and generally made a point of snatching a
doze at every convenient opportunity; so I had naturally troubled
my head very little about him, taking it for granted that he was at
his usual occupation. But, whether he had been asleep before or
not, at any rate he was wide awake now, and, as it seemed to me, in
a very odd humor indeed.