It always seemed a great pity that he "gave himself away" to the public by publishing his miraculous in-and-in pedigrees, which can be seen in the Kennel Club Stud Book. He probably believed them to some extent himself, but whether he ever succeeded in inducing others to do so, with the exception perhaps of a very few, is far more dubious. To any man of common sense, not to speak of any practical experience, they are simply an impossibility. One thing is, however, certain, that his talent for selection enabled him to breed very closely, and so to preserve and increase the beauty of his type, and that his inherent canniness, as well as his perfect judgment, enabled him to select occasional fresh strains of blood, which improved instead of destroying the excellence of the progeny.

Sometimes also he, in the soothing atmosphere of a winter evening's fire combined with the seductive effects of some good old port, disclosed a few faint shadows of his dark secrets. One of them is here related.

Once on a time there was a tract of country on the Borders called "the Debatable Land," nominally belonging to the Earls of Carlisle. Now, this country swarmed with gipsies, and that strange people had from time immemorial claimed the right to shoot over this tract at their own sweet will, so on August 12th in each year they were accustomed to form a band of thirty or more, and with a large army of Setters, and probably Pointers as well, make a regular raid on the said moors, and it is not surprising that the keepers gave them a wide berth.

Well, on one Twelfth, Laverack accompanied this mob, and he had with him one of his best dogs. Among all the Setters which were ranging far and wide, Laverack's keen eyes noted one animal, liver-and-white, which was facile princeps, and beat the whole lot in both nose and pace, though by no means a good-looking one. "Well, sir," the old man said, "I hunted up those gipsies. I found that dog, I bought him, and I bred from him!"

There is some reason to suspect that in much later times a judicious cross was effected with the Pointer; but there seems to be very little doubt at all that the Irish Setter also was called in to refresh the blood. The writer feels sure that the old man, in his later days, having sold all his best dogs at temptingly high prices, was obliged, in order to save his strain from utter extinction, to resort to some outside agency to preserve it, and there are some good judges who fancy that they can even now trace some of these crosses in the world-wide progeny that has resulted from the, in many cases, injudicious and indiscriminate use of the Laverack Setter with the old English strains.

Now, it is commonly said among Setter men that Laverack was a great benefactor to the Setter and the Setter lover. The writer's opinion is that this idea admits of very grave doubt. One thing seems certain - viz. that the Laverack and its crosses caused a great number of men to give up shooting over dogs altogether, and that for one simple reason only - viz. that they could not break either the original or its offspring. The ancient Laverack excelled in beauty, it also had surpassing good field qualities, a very high head, a wonderful nose, great pace, endurance, pluck, and a marvellous "sporting instinct." By this last is meant such a love for game-finding that it would go on for ever, even though never a bird was shot to it; but to all these qualities it added an almost invincible headstrongness and obstinacy, and this rendered it an impossible object of training to nine men out of ten, of that day at all events. So things happened thus: every one sought to cross his breed with a Laverack, of some sort or another, and everybody did it; and so a headstrong breed arose which no one could manage, and therefore men went out shooting without their dogs. The writer recollects Laverack himself being once asked on the moors with respect to a dog of his, which was endued with perpetual motion, entire self-hunting, and utter regardlessness of whistle, "However do you get that dog home at night?" "Why, sir, I just wait till he points, and then I put a collar and chain on him and lead him home."

The writer firmly believes that if Laverack had never existed we should now have a more even and a far more useful Setter, and that many more would be used for shooting. The writer, indeed, had several friends, shooting comrades in those now ancient days, who discarded dogs simply because they could not manage them, and when they came to shoot with him and saw a brace of tremendous rangers put down, who would gallop like lightning, fall down motionless on point in their wild career, and take a fifty-acre field in one beat, they could not understand it; they could not believe that game was not left behind in those wide quarterings, and although the dogs might never make a mistake, they got so nervous they could not shoot, as they always thought the dogs were going to do some outrageous thing.

Mr. Laverack never called his dogs by his own name - that was the doing of the British public; indeed, he never claimed to have invented his strain, only to have continued it. Here are his own words, copied from a letter written by himself: "The breed of Setters that I have found most useful and valuable, combining the essential qualities of a setting dog - viz. innate point, speed, nose, method of range or carriage, with powers of endurance - has been known in the northern counties of Cumberland, Northumberland, and the southern counties of Scotland as the old original black or silver grey, and in Scotland as the old blue Beltons. How they originated I can't say; but I can state with confidence that I can trace back this breed for a period of seventy-five years or more, having had them in my own possession forty years, and the late Rev. A. Harrison, of Carlisle, from whom I originally obtained them, had them thirty-five years previously."

The pure Laverack Setter is now as nearly as possible extinct. Mr. Pilkington, of Sandside, Caithness, had, a few years since, and probably still has, a kennel of beautiful Setters, mostly blue Beltons, and these are as good on the moors as they are handsome in the kennel. Some of these may be pure Laveracks; at all events, they are very closely allied to the strain. Mr. Hartley also, a gentleman residing in Leicestershire, has some fine specimens of the "Pride of the Border" family of Laveracks, which he has kept intact. Of course there may be some others.