There, under the single arch of the South Bridge, is a huge mastiff, sauntering down the middle of the causeway, as if with his hands in his pockets:  he is old, gray, brindled, as big as a little Highland bull, and has the Shakespearian dewlaps shaking as he goes.

The Chicken makes straight at him, and fastens on his throat.  To our astonishment the great creature does nothing but stand still, hold himself up, and roar,—­yes, roar; a long, serious, remonstrative roar.  How is this?  Bob and I are up to them.  He is muzzled!  The bailies had proclaimed a general muzzling, and his master, studying strength and economy mainly, had encompassed his huge jaws in a home-made apparatus constructed out of the leather of some ancient breechin.  His mouth was open as far as it could; his lips curled up in rage,—­a sort of terrible grin; his teeth gleaming, ready, from out the darkness; the strap across his mouth tense as a bow-string; his whole frame stiff with indignation and surprise; his roar asking us all around, “Did you ever see the like of this?” He looked a statue of anger and astonishment done in Aberdeen granite.

We soon had a crowd:  the Chicken held on.  “A knife!” cried Bob; and a cobbler gave him his knife:  you know the kind of knife, worn away obliquely to a point, and always keen.  I put its edge to the tense leather; it ran before it; and then!—­one sudden jerk of that enormous head, a sort of dirty mist about his mouth, no noise,—­and the bright and fierce little fellow is dropped, limp and dead.  A solemn pause; this was more than any of us had bargained for.  I turned the little fellow over, and saw he was quite dead; the mastiff had taken him by the small of the back like a rat, and broken it.

He looked down at his victim appeased, ashamed, and amazed, snuffed him all over, stared at him, and, taking a sudden thought, turned round and trotted off.  Bob took the dead dog up, and said, “John, we’ll bury him after tea.”  “Yes,” said I, and was off after the mastiff.  He made up the Cowgate at a rapid swing; he had forgotten some engagement.  He turned up the Candlemaker Row, and stopped at the Harrow Inn.

There was a carrier’s cart ready to start, and a keen, thin, impatient, black-a-vised little man, his hand at his gray horse’s head, looking about angrily for something.  “Rab, ye thief!” said he, aiming a kick at my great friend, who drew cringing up, and, avoiding the heavy shoe with more agility than dignity, and watching his master’s eye, slunk dismayed under the cart, his ears down, and as much as he had of tail down too.

What a man this must be,—­thought I,—­to whom my tremendous hero turns tail!  The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from his neck, and I eagerly told him the story, which Bob and I always thought, and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter, alone were worthy to rehearse.  The severe little man was mitigated, and condescended to say, “Rab, ma man, puir Rabbie!”—­whereupon the stump of a tail rose up, the ears were cocked, the eyes filled, and were comforted; the two friends were reconciled.  “Hupp!” and a stroke of the whip were given to Jess; and off went the three.