who dined one day in Castle Street before I came here.'
The staghound so introduced was the famous Maida, which came upon the scene when the Waverley novels were beginning to set the world on fire. Maida was the crack dog of Scott's life, and figures at his feet in the well-known sculpture by Steell. He did not quite supersede Wallace and the other dogs, but assumed among them the most distinguished place, and might be called the canine major-domo of the establishment. On visiting Abbotsford in 1817, Washington Irving enjoyed the pleasure of a ramble with Scott and his dogs. His description of the scene is so amusing that we can scarcely abate a jot:
'As we sallied forth, every dog in the establishment turned out to attend us. There was the old staghound, Maida, that I have already mentioned, a noble animal; and Hamlet, the black greyhound, a wild thoughtless youngster, not yet arrived at the years of discretion; and Finette, a beautiful setter, with soft silken hair, long pendent ears, and a mild eye, the parlour favourite. When in front of the house, we were joined by a superannuated greyhound, who came from the kitchen wagging his tail; and was cheered by Scott as an old friend and comrade. In our walks, he would frequently pause in conversation, to notice his dogs, and speak to them as if rational companions; and, indeed, there appears to be a vast deal of rationality in these faithful attendants on man, derived from their close intimacy with him. Maida deported himself with a gravity becoming his age and size, and seemed to consider himself called upon to preserve a great degree of dignity and decorum in our society. As he jogged along a little distance ahead of us, the young dogs would gambol about him, leap on his neck, worry at his ears, and endeavour to tease him into a gambol. The old dog would keep on for a long time with imperturbable solemnity, now and then seeming to rebuke the wantonness of his young companions. At length he would make a sudden turn, seize one of them, and tumble him in the dust, then giving a glance at us, as much as to say: "You see, gentlemen, I can't help giving way to this nonsense," would resume his gravity, and jog on as before. Scott amused himself with these peculiarities. "I make no doubt," said he, "when Maida is alone with these young dogs, he throws gravity aside, and plays the boy as much as any of them; but he is ashamed to do so in our company, and seems to say: Ha' done with your nonsense, youngsters: what will the laird and that other gentleman think of me if I give way to such foolery?"
'Scott amused himself with the peculiarities of another of his dogs, a little shamefaced terrier, with large glassy eyes, one of the most sensitive little bodies to insult and indignity in the world. "If ever he whipped him," he said, "the little fellow would sneak off and hide himself from the light of day in a lumber garret, from whence there was no drawing him forth but by the sound of the chopping-knife, as if chopping up his victuals, when he would steal forth with humiliated and downcast look, but would skulk away again if any one regarded him."
'While we were discussing the humours and peculiarities of our canine companions, some object provoked their spleen, and produced a sharp and petulant barking from the smaller fry; but it was some time before Maida was sufficiently roused to ramp forward two or three bounds, and join the chorus with a deep-mouthed bow wow. It was but a transient outbreak, and he returned instantly, wagging his tail, and looking up dubiously in his master's face, uncertain whether he would receive censure or applause. "Ay, ay, old boy!" cried Scott, "you have done wonders; you have shaken the Eildon hills with your roaring; you may now lay by your artillery for the rest of the day. Maida," continued he, "is like the great gun at Constantinople; it takes so long to get it ready, that the smaller guns can fire off a dozen times first."'
Maida accompanied his master to town, where he occupied the place of the lamented Camp. In the sanctum at Castle Street, Maida lay on the hearth-rug, ready when called on to lay his head across his master's knees, and to be caressed and fondled. On the top step of a ladder for reaching down the books from the higher shelves sat a sleek and venerable Tom-cat, which Scott facetiously called by the German name Hinse of Hinsfeldt. Lockhart mentions that Hinse, 'no longer very locomotive, usually lay watching the proceedings of his master and Maida with an air of dignified equanimity. When Maida chose to leave the party, he signified his inclinations by beating the door with his huge paw; Scott rose and opened it for him with courteous alacrity – and then Hinse came down purring from his perch, and mounted guard by the foot-stool, vice Maida absent on furlough. Whatever discourse might be passing was broken, every now and then, by some affectionate apostrophe to these four-footed friends. Dogs and cats, like children, have some infallible tact for discovering who is, and who is not, really fond of their company; and I venture to say, Scott was never five minutes in any room before the little pets of the family, whether dumb or lisping, had found out his kindness for all their generation.'
In letters to his eldest son, Scott seldom fails to tell him how things are going on with the domesticated animals. For example: 'Hamlet had an inflammatory attack, and I began to think he was going mad, after the example of his great namesake; but Willie Laidlaw bled him, and he recovered. Pussy is very well.' Next letter: 'Dogs all well – cat sick – supposed with eating birds in their feathers.' Shortly afterwards: 'All here send love. Dogs and cat are well. I daresay you have heard from some other correspondent that poor Lady Wallace [a favourite pony] died of an inflammation after two days' illness. Trout [a favourite pointer] has returned here several times, poor fellow, and seems to look for you; but Henry Scott is very kind to him.' In a succeeding letter we have the account of an accident to Maida: 'On Sunday, Maida walked with us, and in jumping the paling at the Greentongue park, contrived to hang himself up by the hind-leg. He howled at first, but seeing us making towards him, he stopped crying, and waved his tail, by way of signal, it was supposed, for assistance. He sustained no material injury, though his leg was strangely twisted into the bars, and he was nearly hanging by it. He shewed great gratitude, in his way, to his deliverers.'
At Abbotsford, in the autumn of 1820, when a large party, including Sir Humphry Davy, Dr Wollaston, and Henry Mackenzie were sallying out – Scott on his pony Sybyl Grey, with Maida gambolling about him – there was some commotion and laughter when it was discovered that a little black pig was frisking about and apparently resolved to be one of the party for the day. Scott tried to look stern, and cracked his whip at the creature, but was in a moment obliged to join in the general cheers. Poor piggy was sent home. 'This pig,' says Lockhart, 'had taken, nobody could tell how, a most sentimental attachment to Scott, and was constantly urging his pretensions to be admitted a regular member of his tail along with the greyhounds and terriers; but indeed, I remember him suffering another summer under the same sort of pertinacity on the part of an affectionate hen. I leave the explanation for philosophers – but such were the facts.'
Mr Adolphus, a visitor to Abbotsford in 1830, when the health of the great writer was breaking down under his honourable and terribly imposed task-work, gives us not the least striking instance of Scott's wonderful considerateness towards animals. 'In the morning's drive we crossed several fords, and after the rain they were wide and deep. A little, long, wise-looking, rough terrier, named Spice, which ran after us, had a cough, and as often as we came to a water, Spice, by the special order of his master, was let into the carriage till we had crossed. His tenderness to his brute dependants was a striking point in the benignity of his character. He seemed to consult not only their bodily welfare, but their feelings, in the human sense. He was a gentleman even to his dogs.' When too roughly frolicsome, he rebuked them gently, so as not to mortify them, or spoil the natural buoyancy of their character.
We could extend these memorabilia, but have perhaps said enough. Maida died in October 1824, and is commemorated in a sculptured figure at the doorway of Abbotsford. His attached master wrote an epitaph on him in Latin, which he thus Englished:
Beneath the sculptured form which late you wore,
Sleep soundly, Maida, at your master's door.
It was a sad pang for Scott, when quitting home to seek for health abroad, and which he did not find, to leave the pet dogs which survived Maida. His last orders were that they should be taken care of. We may be permitted to join in the noble eulogium pronounced on Scott by Willie Laidlaw, who lived to mourn his loss, that Kindness of heart was positively the reigning quality of Sir Walter's character!
