Indeed this feudal dog is frequently introduced by our poet, from his ballads, where Smaylho'me's Lady gay, wooing the Phantom Knight to come to her bower, in the 'Eve of St. John,' tells the spectre that she will "chain the blood-hound," down to that grand moonlight scene in the Legend of Montrose,' where Dalgetty and Ronald of the Mist are traced to their wood-girt retreat after their escape from Argyle's dungeons.
The 'pursuit of border forayers was called the 'hot-trod.' The 'harried' party and his friends followed the marauders with blood hound and bugle-horn, and if his dog could trace the scent into the opposite kingdom he was entitled to pursue them thither.
Sir Walter Scott states that the breed was kept up by the Buedench family on their border estates till within the 18th century, and records the following narrative :—" A person was alive in the memory of man who remembered a blood-hound being kept at Eldinhope, in Ettricke Forest, for whose maintenance the tenant had an allowance of meal. At that time the sheep were always watched at night. Upon one occasion, when the duty had fallen upon the narrator, then a lad, he became exhausted with fatigue, and fell asleep upon a bank, near sun-rising. Suddenly ho was awakened by the tread of horses, and saw five men well mounted and armed ride briskly over the edge of the hilL They stopped and looked at the flock ; but the day was too far broken to admit the chance of their carrying any of them off. One of them, in spite, leaped from his horse, and coming to the shepherd seized him by the belt he wore round his waist; and setting his foot upon his body pulled it till it broke, and carried it away with him. They rode off at the gallop; and the shepherd giving the alarm, the blood-hound was turned loose, and the people in the neighbourhood alarmed. The marauders, however, °sepal, notwithstanding a sharp pursuit This circionatance serve« to show how very long the license of the Borderers continued in some degree to manifest itself." This, perhaps, is the last instance of an attempted 'Border foray' on record. The times were changed. The nobles had ceased to pride themselves on their Ignorance of all the arts save the nrt of war, and to make it matter of thanksgiving that they knew not how to use the pen. Civilisation advanced as learning was diffused, till
the law of the strongest no longer prevailed against the law of the land. The Blood-llound, from the nobler pursuit of heroes and knight.% 'minions of the moon,' who swept away the cattle and goods of whole districts, marking the extent of their ' raid' by all the horrors of fire and sword, sank to the tracker of the deer-stealer and petty felon. About a century and a quarter ago, when deer-stealing was a common crime, the park-keepers relied upon their blood-hounds principally for detecting the thief; and so adroit were these dogs, that when one of them was fairly laid on, the escape of the criminal was with good reason considered to be all but impossible. Even now the breed still lingers about some of the great deer-parks ; and many of our readers will remember the noble specimen at Richmond Park, bearing the name of Procter, and the admirable study of his head engraved by T. Landseer from a painting by his brother Edwin. Another of this race has been perpetuated by Sir Edwin Landseer. It belonged to Jacob Bell, Esq., and was killed by jumping out of a window, and its accidental death is perpetuated by the artist having drawn it after death as though sleeping.
This noble variety is now only kept as an object of curiosity and ornament ; for its services have long since been superseded by the justice's warrant and the police-officer. We find it, indeed, recorded about 50 years ago, that "the Thrapston association for the prevention of felons in Northamptonshire have provided and trained a blood houud for the detection of sheep-stealers. To demonstrate the unerring infallibility of this animal a day was appointed for public trial; the person he was intended to hunt started, in the presence of a great concourse of people, about 10 o'clock in the forenoon, and at 11 o'clock the hound was laid on. After a chase of an hour and a half, notwithstanding a very indifferent scent, the hound ran up to a tree in which lie was secreted, at the distance of 15 miles from the place of starting, to the admiration and perfect satisfaction of the very great number assembled upon the occasion." But this may be considered more in the light of a proceeding 'in terroreni' than anything else.