A CHAPTER ON DOGS. 



percd away in three divisions over hill and plain. ' Sirrah, my man,' said Hogg mourn- 

 fully to his cully, meaning it for an expression of grief, and not for a direction, they're 

 awa.' Silent!}-, and without his master's knowledge, for it was too dark to see, the dog 

 left his side, while the shepherd passed the hours till morning in a weary and fruitless 

 search after his wandering charge. At the dawn of day he was about to return to his em- 

 ployer with a heart full of despair, when he caught a sight of Sirrah guarding at the bot- 

 tom of a deep ravine, not, as he at first suppo.sed, one division of the lambs, but the whole 

 of the vast flock, Avithout a solitary exception. 'It was,' says James Hogg, ' the most 

 extraordinary circumstance that had ever occurred in my pastoral life. How he had got 

 all the divisions collected in the dark, is beyond my comprehension. The charge was left 

 entirely to himself, from midnight until the rising of the sun, and if all the shepherds in 

 the Forest had been there to have assisted him, they could not have effected it with greater 

 propriety.' On another occasion the same famous shepherd saw a dog, when it was utter- 

 ly dark, put upon the path of a ewe that had been lost by her owner near a neighbor's 

 farm, and which was supposed to have mingled with her fellows that were feeding in the 

 surrounding pastures. ' Chieftain,' said the master of the dog, pointing to the spot from 

 which the sheep had gone off, ' fetch that, I say, sir — bring that back; away!' And 

 away he went, and back he brought in half an hour the identical sheep A sheep-stealer 

 who was at last discovered and hanged, u.sed to carry on his trade by secretly signifying the 

 particular sheep that he wanted out of a large flock, as he viewed them under the pretence 

 of purchasing, to his dog, who returning by himself, a distance of several miles, at night 

 drove the selected sheep, which were undoubtedly the fattest, to his fastidious owner. 

 Both Scott and Hogg relate this picturesque story most circumstantially from the annals 

 of the Justiciary Court in Scotland. Sir Thomas Wilde knew an instance in which three 

 oxen out of some score had mingled with another herd. ' Go fetch them,' was all the in- 

 struction the drover gave his dog, and he instantly brought along with him those very 

 three. A cattle dealer, accustomed to drive his beasts for nine miles, to Alston in Cum- 

 berland, once for a wager, sent them alone with his dog. Theanimal perfectly understood 

 his commission. He kept the straight road, ran when he came to a strange drove, to the 

 head of his own, to stop their progress, put the beasts that blocked the path upon one 

 side, then was back again to the rear, to hie on his charge, and thus adroitly steering his 

 way and keeping his herd together, he carried them safelj'^ to the destined 3"ard, and sig- 

 nified their arrival by barking at the door of the dwelling. More than this, the dog will 

 on emergencies, volunteer services which occur to none but himself. One has been known 

 of his own accord, to overtake a runaway horse, sieze his bridle, and hold him fast till he 

 was secured. Lately, in France, a stable took fire that was full of cattle, and, as usual, 

 the animals, stricken with terror, refused to stir. It caught the eye of the farmer's dog, 

 who rushed in, and by barks and bites, forced out at two several charges, the greater part 

 of the beasts, and went back a third time for a few remaining sheep, when the flames had 

 made such progress that they were already dead. 



It may be questioned after all, whether the sagacity of the dog in keeping sheep is equal 

 to his sagacity when he has taken to kill them, a vice that is incorrigible when once contract- 

 ed, admitting no other remedy than the death of the culprit. The dexterity by which he 

 endeavors, as if aware of the consequences, to escape detection, is not surpassed, and hard- 

 ly equalled, b}' human felons. Sir Thomas Wilde was cognisant of a case in which the 

 dog had learnt to slip off his collar and put it on again when he returned from his noctur- 

 deprcdations. In a similar instance, the animal took the additional precaution of 

 g his bloody jaws in a stream, unless indeed, the supposed act of cunning was sim- 



