AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
267 
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, 
which 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 comparison 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 scarcely 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, t( 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 off 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, 
