[To THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR."] Sia,—May I be allowed
to add one more to the dog-stories which have appeared in the Spectator? When my brothers and I were young, we had a white French poodle as our friend and constant companion. He was a strong, muscular dog, standing, I should think, about 18 in. high at the shoulder, and quite the most intelligent dog I have ever known. Among other accomplishments, we had taught him to climb a ladder. He went up very cleverly, and could sometimes turn round and come down ; but he could not always depend upon doing this successfully, and occasionally he slipped and came down with a run, but we were always there to catch him, so no harm was done. The dog was inordinately fond of running after stones, and was seldom without one in his month. In those days, I am afraid, we were hardly alive to the grinding effect of stones upon the teeth. In the part of Devonshire in which we lived, there had been a great deal of mining for copper, and there were various workings, old and new, on my father's estate. In a wood, which stood on the side of a steep hill, not half a mile from the house, a gallery, or "adit," as it is called locally, had been driven into the hill-side in the hope of intersecting at a lower level a lode which had shown itself above. To those who passed down the main path of the wood this adit showed itself as a cave, quite dark within. Going that way one day with my brothers and having the poodle's stone in my hand, I idly and thoughtlessly threw it into the mouth of the adit. The dog rushed after it, and, to our surprise and horror, we heard the stone fall, and immediately afterwards the dog. This told us that there was a shaft in the edit, a most unusual thing ; we listened but could hear no sound, and we had not a doubt that the dog had been killed ; one thing surprised us, it was well known to us that all disused shafts have water at the bottom, but we could hear by the sound of the fall that it had not been into water. The loss of our favourite was a terrible blow, but we determined, if it were possible, to ascertain his fate, and at least to recover his body. We rushed home, procured the longest ladder we could find on the emergency, a rope, a lantern, with a long string attached to it, and a couple of men. I should think the ladder was about 22 ft. long. With these we went to the adit ; on letting down the lantern into the shaft, there we saw the dog on a ledge of rock or earth, looking up, and apparently none the worse for his fall. We lowered the ladder by the rope, one of us intending to go down and carry him up, but we found the ladder was not long enough to reach from the ledge where the dog was standing to the edge of the shaft; and this presented a difficulty which we began to dis- cuss. However, no sooner was the ladder fixed than the dog began to climb it, and our shouts could not prevent him. As the ladder did not quite reach to the edge of the shaft we feared that when he got to the top he might slip and have tnother fall, and this time probably to the bottom of the shaft, for we could see that all was dark beyond the ledge on which he had been standing ; owing to some mining freak the shaft had stopped here, but had been sunk again a few feet to the right. Up came the dog; the longest of us bent over the edge of the shaft, the others holding on by his heels, he just managed to reach the scruff of the dog's neck, and hauled him up ; and there he was among us safe, and showing every sign of gladness to be with us again. I can hardly say what form our rejoicings took at the moment, but the dog was a more beloved companion than ever. He did not show the slightest sign of having been hurt by the fall.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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