242 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE-BOOKS. CH. XXXV 



dislike to the company and smell of the woolly 

 strangers. I do not, however, conceive that this 

 antipathy on the part of the deer arises from any 

 aversion to the sheep themselves, but from a dread 

 of their accompaniments — the shepherds, shepherds' 

 dogs, and the tar, the odour of which appears to he 

 most distasteful to all wild animals. 



I remember, too, being gravely told by an 

 ancient white-headed Celt that there was an old 

 and undoubted prophecy to the purport, that the 

 Highlands would be overrun and ruined by a race 

 of " white dwarfs," and that this had now been 

 fulfilled by the introduction of sheep. 



When the Cheviot sheep first came into the 

 North, the sheep-farmers brought with them for the 

 most part their own shepherds from the lowlands, 

 or rather from the borders ; a fine stalwart race of 

 men, Armstrongs, Elliots, Scotts, and others, 

 whose names have long been famous among the 

 wild and dreary hills which rise between Scotland 

 and England : formerly reevers and harriers of 

 other men's cattle and chattels, they now follow 

 the more peaceful occupation of shepherds and 

 drovers ; and only occasionally show the fiery spirit 

 of their hardy ancestors by breaking each other's 

 heads at some border fair or market. But the 

 genuine Highlander has not, I think, yet sobered 



