A wounded knight has been brought home to his castle, and a line of blood-stains on the floor shows where he was carried through the hall to the room beyond. The family and servants press after, the door is closed, and the favorite hound is shut out in the hall alone. Only the meaningless murmur of voices, broken perhaps by the groans of his master, tells what is going on within. It is a moment of suspense, and the dog waits with drooping head, and eyes fixed mournfully on the barrier which separates him from the object of his devotion.[3] So alert is every sense that at the slightest touch upon the door he will spring forward and push his way in.

It is some such story as this which the painter tells us in the picture called Suspense.[4] Every detail is full of meaning to the imagination. The heavy door, studded with great nails, calls to mind the old Norman castle; the gauntlets on the table and the plume on the floor suggest the armor of the mediÆval knight. The picture is like an illustration for one of Scott's novels. Our knight may have been wounded, like Ivanhoe, in a tournament. The scene of the lists rises before us, the opposite lines of mounted knights charging upon each other with their lances, the shock of the meeting, the unhorsing of many, the blows of the battle axe upon helmet and coat of mail, and finally the entrance of the squires to bear their wounded masters to a place of safety.

The hound had no part in the sports of the tourney, but the scene of his glory was the chase. When the knight went forth for a day's hunting in the forest, the whole pack went with him, waking the woodland echoes with their baying. Some familiar verses tell of

The dogs' delicate sense of smell enables them to track game with unerring precision. It seems impossible to exhaust their perseverance or their wind, and it is surely not their fault if a hunting-party returns unsuccessful.

While hunting brings out the more ferocious elements of the nature, the hound is on the other hand capable of an affectionate devotion which makes him a valued friend of man. The English country gentleman is a lover of dogs and horses, and knows how to appreciate their good qualities. Out of the many animals in his kennels one dog is usually a chosen favorite which becomes his master's inseparable companion. Such a favorite is the dog of our picture, and we like to fancy that the knight is worthy the love of so noble a creature.

The hound is represented in his best and noblest aspect: all the forces of his being seem concentrated in loving anxiety. It is as if suffering brought out in the dog's nature those higher qualities by which he is allied to human beings. His countenance is intensely expressive yet thoroughly canine. Every line of the drawing brings out the dog's character,—the squat of the haunches, the position of the legs far apart, the rising of the hair on the crest of the back, the droop of the head, the flattening of the tail.

The broad collar with the ring is a symbol of his subjection. The privilege of man's friendship has cost the dog his freedom. To offset the hours of delightful companionship with his friendly master are the weary times when he must tug impotently at the chain which keeps him within the castle enclosure.

It has been said that Landseer looked upon most animals with the eyes of the artist, the poet, and the natural historian, but the dog alone he painted as a friend. Our picture is good evidence of the truth of the statement. Every resource of the painter's art was lavished upon his favorite subject with the loving care that one gives only to a friend.

The massive size of the dog is seen by comparing the figure with the height of the table and the door. The great creature practically fills the canvas. The pose is so finely conceived, the figure itself so admirably "modelled," to use the critic's phrase, that it seems almost like a work of sculpture. The light and shadow are carefully studied. The light seems to come from some source at the right, bringing out strongly the expressiveness of the dog's face. Landseer, we are told, was fond of introducing into his pictures a bit of sparkling metal. Here the reflected light on the gauntlets, like that on the spurs beside the King Charles Spaniels and on the helmet near the Sleeping Bloodhound, adds an effective touch to the composition.

Suspense has been a popular favorite among Landseer's works, and is one of the pictures referred to in the Memorial Verses published in "Punch" after the artist's death. This is the stanza describing it:—