DOGS AND LANGUAGES.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SE11,—YOU have recently discussed in your columns the intel- ligence and literary tastes of dogs. It may interest your readers to know of one case in which a dog showed very pronounced convictions on a question of ecclesiastical policy. Any one familiar with the shepherds of the Vale of Yarrow, in the Scottish Borderland, will bear witness to the truth of the following tale. At the Disruption of 1843 the bulk of the shepherds joined the Free Kirk. But one collie held by the Establishment principle, and refused to "come out." Every Sabbath he went alone to the Established church where he had been wont to accompany his owner. His master refused to coerce him. "Na, na," he said; "he's a wise dowg ; I'll no
meddle wi' his convictions." The collie's adherence to the Establishment had, however, a disastrous end. He was accustomed to lie during the sermon on the pulpit stairs, no doubt the better to hear the discourse. Below him were placed the long stove-pipe hats of the elders. On one unfortu- nate day he fell asleep, rolled off his step, and managed to get his head firmly fixed inside one of the hats. Bitterly mortified, the dog fled from the kirk, and ever afterwards, as his master said, "had nae trokings wi' releegion."—I am,
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