VARIETIES OF THE DOG. 



63 



directions across the hills, in spite of all that he could do to keep them 

 together. u Sirrah," said the shepherd, " they're a' awa !" 



It was too dark for the dog and his master to see each other at any con- 

 siderable distance, but Sirrah understood him, and set off after the fugi- 

 tives. The night passed on, and Hogg and his assistant traversed every 

 neighbouring hill in anxious but fruitless search for the lambs ; but he 

 could hear nothing of them nor of the dog, and he was returning to his 

 master with the doleful intelligence that he had lost all his lambs. " On our 

 way home, however," says he, " we discovered a lot of lambs at the bottom 

 of a deep ravine called the Flesh Cleuch, and the indefatigable Sirrah 

 standing in front of them, looking round for some relief, but still true to 

 his charge. We concluded that it was one of the divisions which Sirrah 

 had been unable to manage, until he came to that commanding situation. 

 But what was our astonishment when we discovered that not one lamb of 

 the flock was missing ! How he had got all the divisions collected in the 

 dark, is beyond my comprehension. The charge was left entirely to him- 

 self from midnight until the rising sun ; and, if all the shepherds in the 

 forest had been there to have assisted him, they could not have effected 

 it with greater promptitude. All that I can say is, that I never felt so 

 grateful to any creature under the sun as I did to my honest Sirrah that 

 morning." 



THE SCOTCH SHEEP-DOG. 



A shepherd, in one of his excursions over the Grampian Hills to collect 

 his scattered flock, took with him (as is a frequent practice, to initiate 

 them in their future business) one of his children about four years old. 



