Page:Of-englishe-dogges.djvu/48

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A treatiſe of

hewing with such like desperate daungers, For which consideration they are meritoriously tearmed,

In Latine Canes defensores defending dogges in our mother toungue.

If it chaunce that the master bee oppressed, either by a multitude, or by the greater violence & so be beaten downe that he lye groueling on the grounde, (it is proued true by experience) that this Dogge forsaketh not his master, no not when he is starcke deade: But induring the force of famishment and the outrageous tempestes of the weather, most vigilantly watcheth and carefully keepeth the deade carkasse many dayes, endeuouring, furthermore, to kil the murtherer of his master, if he may get any advantage. Or else by barcking, by howling, by furious iarring, snarring, and such like meanes betrayeth the malefactour as desirous to haue the death of his aforesayde Master rigorouslye reuenged. And example hereof fortuned within the compasse of my memory. The Dogge of a certaine wayefaring man trauailing from the Citie of London directly to the Towne of Kingstone (most famous and renowned by reason of the triumphant coronation of eight seuerall Kings) passing ouer a good portion of his iourney was assaulted and set vpon by certaine confederate theefes laying in waight for the spoyle in Comeparcke, a perillous bottom, compassed about wyth woddes to well knowne for the manyfolde murders & mischiefeous robberies theyr committed. Into whose handes this passinger chaunced to fall, so that his ill lucke cost him the price of his lyfe. And that Dogge whose syer was Englishe (which Blondus registreth to haue bene within the banckes of his remēbrance) manifestly perceauyng that his Master was murthered (this chaunced not farre from Paris, by the handes of one which was a suiter to the same womā, whom he was a wooer unto, dyd both bewraye the bloudy butcher, and attempted to teare out the villons throate if he had not sought meanes to auoyde the reuenging rage of the Dogge. In fyers also which fortune in the