Jess in Her Stable by Jemima Blackburn (née Wedderburn) (1823-1909), 1861; shown here as it appeared in an illustration for John Brown's Rab and His Friends (1883 edition), facing p. 26. Click on the image to enlarge it.
In the author's preface, written in the September of 1861 John Brown, M.D., explained that he was pressured by his uncle, the Rev. Dr Smith of Biggar (a town about 30 miles from Edinburgh in S. Lanarkshire), to give a lecture in his home village, and, since he was completely unaccustomed to giving talks, came up with this story instead:
I read it to the Biggar folk in the school-house, very frightened, and felt I was reading it ill, and their honest faces intimated as much in their affectionate puzzled looks. I gave it on my return home, to some friends, who liked the story; and the first idea was to print it, as now, with illustrations, on the principle of Rogers' joke, "that it would be dished except for the plates."
My willing and gifted friends, Lady Trevelyan, Mrs. Blackburn, George Harvey, and Noel Baton, made sketches.... [n.p.]
The story is a sad one, starting with a dog-fight involving a carrier's dog, Rab, and following the tragic course of events that lead to Rab's death. First, the carrier's wife is taken ill, then she dies after an operation, and then the carrier, devastated and weakened by his loss, dies too. Rab, having taken up his station beside his last remaining friend, the carrier's old mare, Jess, menaces the new carrier when he tries to come into the stable to feed her, so has to be dispatched: "I was laith to mak' awa wi' the auld dowg," the new carrier tells the narrator, "— but, 'deed, sir, I could do naething else" (34). Here then is Jess, who inspired Rab's loyalty, and Rabb himself, curled in the corner of the stable, refusing to be enticed by the proffered bowl, and in fact baring his teeth at the "intruder." It is typical of Blackburn that she should have chosen this scene of the mild-natured mare and the desperately protective dog for her subject. — Jacqueline Banerjee
You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Internet Archive and the University of California Libraries and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.
Bibliography
Brown, John. Rab and His Friends. Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1883. Internet Archive, from a copy in the University of California Libraries. Web. 20 May 2026.
Created 19 May 2026