How the Mastiffs Went to Ireland

When the big Bohemian sister had done its appointed dam over half-acre of Devon downland, while the bitch raced it up and onward over the tall furze, the Master was wild with such joy as a father hardly feels.

Mancunian mastiff-pack → Liverpool/Ireland packet → Welsh wastes cast → partial success / resigned loss = plot 79.

The ladies were on the rocks,—at least the bitch was the first to take to the river itself; though they were between wind and water in all our salt Pincester well. The Master's central trouble was the bitch. The bitch was for swimming!

McMahon + Reilly + dark lady + Big Hollins + the mastiff-pack mascot-crew = cast 81.

[R]eilly would not be Reilly unless we ran him off his warm November's biscuit; but Reilly had won the day; and it shall not be dog-eat-dog with him, though a puss had thought of butter.

Chapter paragraphs short; travelogue-becomes-disaster; weather and slip-pace in comic ear = pace 86.

There was a slight discussion between my father and his friend Mr. Runker on a dog with us not being able to keep pace with the folk in their language and their dark eloquence.

Travelogue style — channel-packet-comedy cross-cut with seasick Irish cousins = prose 88.

The sea was driving into the village of Holyhead, and the dunes were full of carbines. Then they crossed the Channel where they had once been blood in Dublin; they sailed along toward 'the Brown Bottle.'

1878 Liverpool/Ireland packet; Welsh soils and marshes; Dublin & Connemara lowlands = world 86.

Then as he stood looking at them up the dark-laid hills above the high sea, washing the dogs in the early morning, came the great seashore roaring wet from the river-mouth!

'Wash the dogs first' as opening matter; mastiffs as small men of pettish private persuasion = hook 86.

[T]he mastiffs looked out upon Big Hollins in the drover-cab of Number Eight Liffey-street, in a pride of dog-pelt and a shame of pilgrim-ridden shoes.

Bull-terrier travelogue as half-fable — Trollope sheepdog anthem of inadvertent traveling men = innov 85.

[T]he mastiffs had partly done the Master's errand, and that 'it shall not be dog-eat-dog with him' in the mossy pool beyond Harlech.

Mossy pool rescue → resigned loss story → partial success so the dog-team counts as 'good traveller' = ending 83.