AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



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it was agreed on all hands, that she must long ago have 

 mixed with the rest of the sheep on the farm. How that 

 was, no man will ever be able to decide. John, however, 

 still persisted in waiting until his dog came back, either 

 with the ewe or without her; and at last the trusty animal 

 brought the individual lost sheep to our very feet, which 

 the man took on his back, and went on his way rejoicing. 

 I remember the dog was very warm, and hanging out his 

 tongue — John called him all the ill names he could invent, 

 x^hich the other seemed to take in very good part. Such 

 language seemed to be John's flattery to his dog. For my 

 part, I went home fancying I had seen a miracle, little 

 weeting that it was nothing to what I myself was to expe- 

 rience in the course of my pastoral life, from the sagacity 

 of that faithful animal the shepherd's dog. 



My dog was always my companion. I conversed with 

 him the whole day — I shared every meal with him, and my 

 plaid in the time of a shower; the consequence was, that I 

 generally had the best dogs in all the country. The first 

 remarkable one that I had was named Sirrah, he was beyond 

 all comjjarison the best dog I ever saw. He was of a surly 

 unsocial temper — disdained all flattery, and refused to be 

 caressed ; but his attention to his master's commands and 

 interests never will again be equalled by any of the canine 

 race. The first time that I saw him, a drover was leading 

 him in a rope; he was hungry, and lean, and far from being 

 a beautiful cur, for he was all over black, and had a grim 

 face striped with dark brown. The man had bought him 

 of a boy for three shillings, somewhere on the Border, and 

 doubtless had used him very ill on his journey. I thought 

 I discovered a sort of sullen intelligence in his face, not- 

 withstanding his dejected and forlorn situation, so I gave 

 the drover a guinea for him, and appropriated the captive 

 to myself. I believe there never was a guinea so well 

 laid out; at least, I am satisfied that I never laid out one to 

 so good purpose. He was scarcel)'' then a year old, and 

 knew so little of herding, that he had never turned sheep in 

 his life; but as soon as he discovered that it was his duty to 

 do so, and that it obliged me, I can never forget with what 

 anxiety and eagerness he learned his different evolutions. 

 He would try every way deliberately, till he found out 

 what I wanted him to do; and when once I made him to 

 understand a direction, he never forgot or mistook it again. 

 Well as I knew him, he very often astonished me, for when 

 hard pressed in accomplishing the task that he was put to, 

 he had expedients of the moment that bespoke a great share 

 of the reasoning faculty. Were I to relate all his exploits, 

 it would require a volume; I shall only mention one or two, 

 to prove to you what kind of an animal he was. 



I was a shepherd for ten years on the same farm, where 

 I had always about 700 lambs put under my charge at wean- 



ing time. As they were of the short, or black-faced breed, 

 the breaking of them was a very ticklish and difficult task. 

 I was obliged to watch them night and day for the first four 

 days, during which time I had always a person to assist me. 

 It happened one year, that just about midnight the lambs 

 broke and came up the moor upon us, making a noise with 

 their running louder than thunder. We got up, and waved 

 our plaids, and shouted, in hopes to turn them, but we only 

 made matters worse, for in a moment they were all round 

 us, and by our exertions we cut them into three divisions; 

 one of these run north, another south, and those that came 

 up between us straight up the moor to the westward. I 

 called out, "Sirrah, my man, they're a' away;" the word, 

 of all others, that set him most upon the alert, but owing to 

 the darkness of the night, and blackness of the moor, I never 

 saw him at all. As the division of the lambs that ran south- 

 ward were going straight towards the fold, where they had 

 been that day taken from their dams, I was afraid they would 

 go there, and again mix with them ; so I threw ofi" part of 

 my clothes, and pursued them, and by great personal exer- 

 tion, and the help of another old dog that I had beside 

 Sirrah, I turned them, but in a few minutes afterward lost 

 them altogether. I ran here and there, not knowing what 

 to do, but always, at intervals, gave a loud whistle to Sirrah, 

 to let him know that I was depending on him. By that 

 whistling, the lad who was assisting found me out, but he 

 likewise had lost all traces of the lambs whatsoever. I ask- 

 ed if he had never seen Sirrah? He said, he had not; but 

 that after I left him, a wing of the lambs had come round 

 him with a swirl, and that he supposed Sirrah had then 

 given them a turn, though he could not see him for the 

 darkness. We both concluded, that whatever way the 

 lambs ran at first, they would finally land at the fold where 

 they left their mothers, and without delay we bent our 

 course towards that; but when we came there, we found 

 nothing of them, nor was there any kind of bleating to be 

 heard, and discovered with vexation that we had come on a 

 wrong track. 



My companion then bent his course towards the farm of 

 Glen on the north, and I ran away westward for several 

 miles, along the wild track where the lambs had grazed 

 while following their dams. We met after it was day, far 

 up in a place called the Black Cleuch, but neither of us had 

 been able to discover our lambs, or any traces of them. It 

 was the most extraordinary circumstance that had ever oc- 

 curred in the annals of the pastoral life! We had nothing 

 for it but to return to our master, and inform him that we 

 had lost his whole flock of lambs to him, and knew not what 

 was become of them. 



On our way home, however, we discovered a body of 

 lambs at the bottom of a deep ravine, called the Flesh Cleuch, 



