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be known as the "Piper Allan breed," and are thus alluded to in classic literature, in whose pages Allan found a niche. The Piper lived in Coquetdale, whose beauties have been sung by poets, as Dalziel reminds us, for he quotes

The Coquet for ever, the Coquet for aye,

The Coquet the king o' the stream and the brae ;
Frae Harden's green hill tae Warkworth sae gray,
The Coquet for ever, the Coquet for aye!

Here and roundabout Piper Allan beat his bounds with his music and his dogs. And great was the reputation of the latter, so great that many offers came to purchase them-offers which only a true dog-lover could have resisted. Thus it is said the Earl of Northumberland-by which title we can fix the date between 1749 and 1766-offered the piper a farm in exchange for one of his terriers, only to meet with a proud rejection; and on another occasion, when he was asked to name his own price for a terrier named Charlie, that had distinguished itself in killing otter on the estate of Lord Ravensworth, Allan's answer was, "The whole estate wadnae buy Charlie !" To these famous terriers Mr. Cook traces the Dandie Dinmont.

And if Mr. Alcock does the same for the Bedlington there is nothing incompatible with accuracy in the two asseverations. Mr. Rawdon Lee considers Dandie Dinmont and Bedlington to be first cousins, and Dalziel holds that they are closely related, and common observation and comparison confirm both opinions. For, as in the Dandie Dinmont, so in the Bedlington, the colours are the same or similar-pepper or blue of all shades, and mustard or liver or sandy, also of all shades; in both breeds we have the silky top-knot of hair, lighter than the body colour; the pendulous, fringed ears, almond or filbert shaped; and the same

reputation for indomitable courage. Moreover, they both come from within call of the district which Piper Allan tramped. And if in physical shape and type they have gone their different ways, and one selected a Scottish and the other an English domicile, they have clearly retained certain characteristics which they alone share in all the terrier family, and point to a common origin.

But whilst the Bedlington remained in provincial obscurity, its cousin over the Border leaped into fame what time the Wizard of the North touched it with his fairy pen. When Sir Walter Scott published Guy Mannering in 1814, and created the character of Dandie Dinmont of Charlieshope, and dowered him with Auld Pepper and Young Pepper and Little Pepper, and Auld Mustard and Young Mustard and Little Mustard, and described them in that oft-quoted passage which tells how they were “regularly entered, first wi' rattens, then wi' stots or weasels, and then wi' tods and brocks" (by which you may understand rats, stoats, foxes, and badgers), "they fear naething that ever cam' wi' a hairy skin on't!" the dog was immortalised. It awoke to find itself famous, to achieve a world-wide notoriety, and a perennial sentimental popularity such as no race of terriers-not even Parson Russell's has ever been able to acquire. As long as English literature shall live, so long shall those Peppers and Mustards find a niche in it. And for Dandie Dinmont, their master in fiction, the genius of the master-fictionist so far triumphed over fact that one, James Anderson of Hyndlee in Roxburghshire, with whom Sir Walter was not even acquainted when he created what was only meant to be a typical character, was found to so exactly fit the description that his neighbours with one accord, and taking no denial,

decided that Anderson was the man, and dubbed him by the name of Dandie Dinmont.

The curious coincidence remains that Anderson was, in fact, the owner of a fine lot of terriers, twenty or thereabouts at times, whose names were confined to "Pepper" and "Mustard.” And since in ingorance of this Sir Walter accepted those names, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Peachems and Pinchers and Pipers of the south of the Border merged into Peppers and Mustards north of it, and it is even possible "Pepper" may have been a corruption of "Piper." There is certainly a suggestion of dry Scotch humour in the nomenclature, which entertained itself by invention what time the conservative Northumbrian yeomen contented themselves with the names that had first been attached to the fliers of the breed by their founder Allan.

James Davidson died in 1820, and twenty years were to elapse before any special steps were taken to perpetuate the breed of terriers which Scott had immortalised. Two decades form a big gap in canine chronology and continuity if skipped over. But about the year 1840 Mr. E. Bradshaw Smith, of Blackwood, Ecclefechan, applied himself to the task of collecting and establishing the strain, and, Mr. Cook says, “would have had no difficulty in obtaining pure descendants of the original Peppers and Mustards to form the foundations of his kennels.” Certain it is he spared no expense, and it is recorded that in one negotiation, which proved futile, he offered to "cover with five pound notes a certain bitch he was very anxious to obtain. For forty years Mr. Smith fostered and perpetuated the variety, breeding many a good dog, the "incomparable Dirk Hatteraick" for one, and all Dandie Dinmont fanciers owe him a heavy debt of gratitude

for preserving the type in its purity; for Mr. Cook, after studying the records of the Blackwood kennels carefully, came to the conclusion that the terriers of modern days are much nearer to absolute purity of descent than he was at one time disposed to admit. Unfortunately in-breeding for the perpetuation of type found its colophon here, as in many other cases, in "delicate, weedy, and generally unsatisfactory specimens."

One great point of divergence between the Dandie Dinmont and the Bedlington (granted their common ancestry) is in their height and shape. The former should range from 8 to 11 inches at the shoulder, the latter from 15 to 16. The one is a low, singularly long-bodied dog, the other a fairly compact and occasionally leggy one. In short the Scotch descendant of Piper Allan's strain favours the Skye and Scottish terriers in formation of body, whilst the English variety is more on the lines of our English terrier tribe in its proportions. Mr. Cook suggests an explanation for the conformation of the Dandie Dinmont in the theory that the gipsies who formerly migrated to England from the Continent introduced with them certain foreign terriers of the dachshund type, and that this out-cross appears in the Dandie Dinmont, and accounts for its crooked legs. But this seems rather far-fetched; for crooked-legged, roughhaired terriers were not wanting in England, and for the long body and short legs do not the Skye and the Scottie suffice-as probability suggests they might have done? And if not, the Turnspit, a common enough dog a hundred years ago, was a nearer neighbour than the dachshund. But a better argument that Dandie Dinmonts were not necessarily long-bodied and crooked-legged is supplied by Landseer's portrait of

Dandie Din

theory in the

Sir Walter Scott, in which is depicted a mustard Dandie Dinmont that was bred at Abbotsford-a dog longer in the leg and shorter in the body than the modern type. An otterhound out-cross in the family pedigree has also been suggested for the mont, but whilst this seems a reasonable case of the Bedlington, it is difficult to reconcile any trace of it with the contour of the former breed. Regarding the two terriers, with their several common characteristics, their reputed common origin, and their common habitation on the Border, the assimilation of the Dandie Dinmont, on the one side of the Border, to the Scottish type of terrier body-conformation, and the assimilation of the Bedlington on the other side of the Border to the English type, presents an interesting subject for speculation, to my mind, and yet not so interesting or practical as to inflict it on my readers.

The Dandie Dinmont was amongst the earliest dogs to appear on the show-bench, and made his first public appearance at Manchester in 1861. But in the early years of his exhibition the classes were badly filled, not only in quantity but in quality; for on one occasion a third prize was considered commensurate to the deserts of the best dog, and on another, as late as 1867, all the prizes were withheld on account of the inferiority of the exhibits, much to the indignation of their owners. After this matters mended, and in the 'Seventies classes were well filled, on one occasion eighty-five dogs facing the judges. By this time the breed had apparently increased in weight a good deal, for a terrier weighing 27 lbs. divided the honours with a 20-lb. dog. In the modern Standard of Points of

the breed the limit of weight ranges between 14 and 24 lbs., 18 lbs. being the mean recommended. Fifteen years ago the dogs enumerated in Dalziel's article on

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