Page:Of-englishe-dogges.djvu/49

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Engliſhe Dogges.
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silence and dead time of the night, or in stormy weather of the sayde season, the older dogges barcke, ball, howle, and yell (yea notwithstandyng they bee roughly rated) neyther will they stay their tounges till the householde seruauntes awake, ryse, search, and see the burning of the fyre, which beyng perceaued they vse voluntary silence, and cease from yolping This hath bene, and is founde true by tryall, in sundry partes of England. There was no faynting faith in that Dogge, which when his Master by a mischaunce in hunting stumbled and fell toppling downe a deepe dytche beyng vnable to recouer of himselfe, the Dogge signifying his masters mishappe, reskue came, and he was hayled up by a rope, whom the Dogge seeying almost drawne up to the edge of the dytche, cheerefully saluted, leaping and skipping ypon his master as though he woulde haue imbraced hym, beyng glad of his presence, whose longer absence he was lothe to lacke. Some Dogges there be, which will not suffer fyery coales to lye skattered about the hearthe, but with their pawes wil rake up the burnyng coales, musying and studying fyrst with themselues how it might be conueniently be done. And if so bee that the coales caste to great a heate then will they buyry them in ashes and so remoue them forwarde to a fyt place wyth theyr noses. Other Dogges bee there which esequute the office of a Farmer in the nyghte tyme. For when his master goeth to bedde to take his naturall sleepe, And when,

A hundred barres of brasse and yron boltes,
Make all things safe from startes and from reuoltes.
VVhen Ianus keepes the gate with Argos eye.
That daungers none approch, ne mischiefes nye.

As Virgill vaunteth in his verses, Then if his master byddeth him go abroade, he lingereth not, but raungeth ouer all his lands lying there about, more diligently, I wys, then any farmer himselfe. And if he finde anything their that is straunge and pertaining to other persons besides