268 COLLIES, OB SHEEP DOGS 



dead with cold. A few hours more and it would have 

 been too late to save hint. 



Sirrah, the favourite collie of Hogg, the ' Ettrick Shep- 

 herd,' was, like many people who live in lonely places, 

 rude and unsociable. If a friend patted him, he growled ; 

 if anyone admired him, he simply walked away. But, 

 says his master, in spite of these manners, ' he was the 

 best dog I ever saw.' Very little is known of his early 

 history, but when he is first heard of he belonged to a 

 boy down on the border, and was sold by him to a 

 drover for three shillings. The drover brought him north- 

 wards, and gave him very little food on the way, so that 

 when Hogg first met him he was very thin, and looking 

 as cross as hungry people often do. At this time he was 

 nearly a year old, with a very dark coat. Partly out of 

 pity, and partly because he thought that the dog looked 

 as if something might be made of him, Hogg offered the 

 man a guinea, which was eagerly accepted, and took his new 

 bargain home. The next day the Ettrick Shepherd began 

 to teach Sirrah his duties, which were evidently quite new 

 to him ; but it was wonderful what pains he took to learn, 

 and how grateful he was to his new master. ' He would 

 try every way deliberately till he found out what I wanted 

 him to do, and when once I made him understand a 

 direction, he never forgot or mistook it again.' And 

 besides his care in following out directions, he was 

 wonderfully clever at inventing ways of overcoming 

 obstacles or getting out of difficulties. 



One dark night, about seven hundred lambs, which had 

 just been taken away from their mothers, formed them- 

 selves into three divisions and rushed away to try to 

 find their way home again. Hogg, and a boy who was 

 with him, did all they could to stop them, but it was no 

 use, for the darkness was so dense you could not see 

 the length of your hand. ' Sirrah ! ' cried the poor man 

 in despair, ' they're awa' ; ' and so they were, beyond the 

 power of his catching. But Sirrah was cleverer than his 



