landor loses his dog for a minute

thanks british library

A friend of Walter Savage Landor's writes of an exciting few hours during which his dog Pomero was missing, presumed lost...
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Once, when I was staying with him, Pomero was missing for a few hours. We had gone out for a walk to Lansdowne Crescent, . . . when we came back Pomero, who had accompanied us for a short time, and had then turned as we supposed to go home, was not to be found. I shall never forget the padrone's mingled rage and despair. He would not eat any dinner, and I remember how that it was a dinner of turbot and stewed hare, which he himself had seasoned and prepared with wine, etc., in the little sitting-room; for he was a good cook in that way and to that extent. And both of these were favorite dishes with him. But he would not eat, and sat in his high-backed chair, which was not an easy one, or stamped about the room in a state of stormy sorrow, like nothing I had ever seen before, though I saw more than one like tempest afterwards. Now he was sure the dog was murdered, and he should never see him again; some scoundrel had murdered him out of spite or cruelty, or to make a few pounds by him stuffed, and there was no use in thinking more about him; then he would go out and scour all Bath for him; then he would offer rewards—wild rewards—a hundred pounds—his whole fortune—if any one would bring him back alive; after which he would give way to his grief and indignation again, and, by way of turning the knife in his wound, would detail every circumstance of the dog's being kidnapped, struck, pelted with stones, and tortured in some stable or cellar, and finally killed outright, as if he had been present at the scene. But in a short time, after the whole city had been put into an uproar, and several worthy people made exceedingly unhappy, the little fellow was brought back as pert and vociferous as ever; and yelped out mea culpa on his master's knee, in between the mingled scolding and caressing with which he was received.

—Mrs. E. Lynn Linton {Fraser's Magazine, July, 1870).  Excerpted in Mason, Edward T. 1847-1911. Personal Traits of British Authors. v. 1. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1885. pp. 272-3.