I have heard his master tell that, when Wallace was a young dog, one winter night he took more than his own share of the hearthrug, on which his master’s solitary chair was also drawn up. The man, desiring more space to move in, gave the dog an unceremonious push, which roused in him such lurking ill-humour as besets us all at times; only Wallace was a mighty brute, unsupplied with the reins of reason and conscience wherewith to check his passions, and furnished on the other hand with the instinct of quick retaliation and fierce, disproportioned revenge. He gave a low growl, like muttered thunder, and made a half-spring at his master, who recognised on the instant that an unexpected crisis had come, which was to settle whether he was to be the master of the beast or the beast was to be his master, and which placed for the moment his very life in danger. Acting on the impulse of self-preservation, rather than on any deliberate design, he snatched up the poker, and dealt the dog a blow which felled him, and left him stunned and motionless. Quick remorse followed the deed, as the assailant asked himself, had he slain his comrade outright on the spot, and that for the merest ebullition of temper? If Wallace had betrayed some traces of the savage, who else had been cruel in unsparing punishment? But Wallace came to himself almost before his master could make the compunctious reflection, rose and took himself off with lowered crest and submissive head and tail, clearly acknowledging himself beaten, and as clearly evincing the extreme of shame, for having been guilty of provoking the unequal contest. Unlike man, the dog bore no malice for his defeat; it simply called out in him that unswerving loyalty which has no parallel. From that day to the hour of his death, in a ripe old age, Wallace never again disputed his master’s sovereign will, or disobeyed his direct command, but awarded him the most devoted allegiance. The dog’s great strength, his solid sense for a dog, his rare magnanimity, were, from the era of his conquest, laid, together with his fervent attachment, at the feet of his conqueror—for the dog is another St. Christopher.