SILENCE AND MUSIC 151 



I advised her to try again, and the next day I spent 

 some time watching her, the dog at her side, calling 

 and crying her loudest, flying over the wide hill side 

 after the sheep; but the dog cared not where they 

 went, and sullenly refused to obey her. Here is a 

 dog, thought I, with good old-fashioned conservative 

 ideas about the employment of women: he is not 

 going to help them make themselves shepherdesses 

 on the South Downs. A probably truer explanation 

 of the animal's rebellious behaviour was given by a 

 young shepherd of my acquaintance. The dog, he 

 said, refused to do what he was told because the girl 

 was not his master's daughter, nor of his house. The 

 sheep-dog's attachment to the family is always very 

 strong, and he will gladly work for any member of it ; 

 but for no person outside. " My dog," he added, " will 

 work as willingly and as well for any one of my sisters, 

 when I leave the flock to their care, as he will for me ; 

 but he would not stir a foot for any person, man or 

 woman, not of the family." He said, too, that this 

 was the common temper of the Sussex sheep-dog; 

 faithful above all dogs to their own people but sus- 

 picious of all strangers, and likely at any time to bite 

 the stranger's hand that caresses them. 



I daresay he was right : I have made the acquaint- 

 ance of some scores of these downland dogs, and 

 greatly admired them, especially their brown eyes, 

 which are more eloquent and human in their expres- 

 sion than any other dog's eyes known to me ; yet it 



