THE SHEEP. 
29 
THE CHEVIOT BREED. 
miserable circumstances, but making all possible exertion, I got out about one-lialf of them, which I left in a place of safety, and 
made towards home, for it was beginning to grow dark, and the storm was again raging in all its darkness and fury. I was not in 
the least afraid of losing my way, for I knew all the declivities of the hills so well, that I could have come home with my eyes 
bound up; and indeed, long ere I got home, they were of no use to me. I was terrified for the water (Douglas Burn), for in the 
morning it was flooded and gorged up with snow in a dreadful manner, and I judged that it would be now quite impassable. At 
length I came to a place where I thought the water should be, and fell a-boring and groping for it with my long staff. No: I 
could find no water, and began to dread that, in spite of my supposed accuracy, I had gone wrong. This greatly surprised me, 
and standing still to consider, I looked up towards Heaven, I shall not say for what cause, and to my utter amazement thought I 
beheld trees over my head, flourishing abroad over the whole sky. I never had seen such an optical delusion before; it was so 
like enchantment that I knew not what to think, but dreaded that some extraordinary thing was coming over me, and that I was 
deprived of my right senses. I concluded that the storm was a great judgment sent on us for our sins, and that this strange 
phantasy was connected with it, an illusion effected by evil spirits. I stood a good while in this painful trance ; but at length, on 
making a bold exertion to escape from the fairy vision, I came all at once in contact with the Old Tower. Never in my life did 
I experience such a relief; I was not only all at once freed from the fairies, but from the dangers of the gorged river. I had 
come over it on some mountain of snow, I knew not how nor where, nor do I know to this day. So that, after all, what I had 
seen were trees, and trees of no great magnitude neither; but their appearance to my eyes it is impossible to describe. I thought 
they flourished abroad, not for miles, but for hundreds of miles, to the utmost verges of the visible heavens. Such a day and such 
a night may the eye of a shepherd never again behold ! ” 
No apology, we trust, is due for extracting those passages. Had the author never written more than his account of the 
storms of Etterick, he would deserve to be remembered. Even if we shall imagine that a little fancy has been mixed with the 
reality of the story, we must feel that the shepherd boy had really mingled in the scenes which he lived to paint so well. One 
passage more is worthy of note. It refers to a faculty known to be possessed by the Dogs of these mountains, of discovering the 
Sheep which have been buried beneath the snow. We know that a similar instinct of the noble Dogs of St Bernard, is employed 
to discover the remains of the perished traveller. 
“ Next morning the sky was clear; but a cold intemperate wind still blew from the north. The face of the country was 
entirely altered. The form of every hill was changed, and new mountains leaned over every valley. All traces of burns, rivers, 
and lakes were obliterated.” “ When we came to the ground where the sheep should have been, there was not one of them above 
the snow. Here and there, at a great distance from each other, we could perceive the heads or horns of stragglers appearing; and 
these were easily got out: but when we had collected these few, we could find no more. They had been lying all abroad in a 
scattered state when the storm came on, and were covered over just as they had been lying. It was on a kind of sloping ground, 
that lay half beneath the wind, and the snow was uniformly from six to eight feet deep. Under this the hogs were lying scattered 
over at least one hundred acres of heathery ground. We went about boring with our long poles, and often did not find one hog 
in a quarter of an hour. But at length a white shaggy colly, named Sparkie, that belonged to the cowherd boy, seemed to have 
comprehended something of our perplexity, for we observed him plying and scraping in the snow with great violence, and always 
looking over his shoulder for us. On going to the spot, we found that he had marked straight above a sheep. From that he flew 
to another, and so on to another, as fast as we could dig them out, and ten times faster, for he sometimes had twenty or thirty 
holes marked beforehand.” 
Although these dreadful tempests occur but occasionally, bad seasons, that is, seasons in which the ground is covered for a 
long period with frozen snow, are common, and never fail to affect in a serious manner the health and condition of the flock. 
When they take place at the period of lambing, vast numbers of the young creatures perish, notwithstanding every care on the 
part of the shepherds. 
The Cheviot Breed, naturalized in countries so cold and tempestuous, and spreading over so large a tract of country, must be 
seen to be of the highest economical importance. The attention of agriculturists in the district proper to the breed has been 
skilfully directed to its improvement. Superior feeding has had the effect of enlarging the size of the animals, and increasing 
the produce of wool; but the wool, as was before observed, has become less fine, and has almost ceased to be used in the manu¬ 
facture of cloths. It has, therefore, become the interest of breeders 'to direct attention to the improvement of the form of the 
animals, holding the quality of the wool to be a secondary consideration. Nevertheless to this extent attention to the wool is 
proper : a fine and close fleece indicates constitutional hardiness in the individuals, and should therefore be carefully attended to as 
a character in the breeding parents. 
