"My dog (the trustiest of his kind)
With gratitude inflames my mind:
I mark his true, his faithful way,
And in my service copy Tray."--GAY.
Who that has seen has not been delighted with the charming picture by
Mr. Landseer of the shepherd's dog, resting his head on the coffin
which contained the body of his dead master! Grief, fidelity, and
affection are so strongly portrayed in the countenance of the poor
dog, that they cannot be mistaken. We may fancy him to have been the
constant companion of the old shepherd through many a dreary day of
rain, and frost, and snow on the neighbouring hills, gathering the
scattered flock with persevering industry, and receiving the reward of
his exertions in the approbation of his master. On returning to the
humble cottage at night, he partakes of the "shepherd's scanty fare;"
and then, coiled up before the flickering light of a few collected
sticks, cold and shivering with wet, he awakes to greet his master at
the first glimmering of morn, and is ready to renew his toils. Poor
dog! what a lesson do you afford to those who are incapable of your
gratitude, fidelity, and affection! and what justice has the charming
artist done to these noble qualities! I trust he will receive this
fanciful description of his dog as a little tribute paid to his
talents, as well as to his good feeling.
The late Mr. Satterthwaite, grandfather of Thomas Rogerson, Esq., of
Liverpool and Ballamillaghyn, Isle of Man, who died some years ago at
Coulthouse, near Hawkshead, soon after his marriage, resided near the
Low Wood Inn, on the borders of Windermere Lake. He left home early
one morning, accompanied by his shepherd's dog, to look after some
sheep on the mountains near Rydal, about four miles distant; and
discovering two at the bottom of a precipice between two rocks he
descended, with the view of extricating them; but when he got to the
bottom, he could neither assist them nor get up himself, and there he
was confined until midnight. The faithful dog remained at the top of
the precipice watching his master; but at nightfall he proceeded home,
scratched the door, and was let in by his mistress, who expressed her
surprise at the barking of the dog and non-arrival of her husband. She
had no sooner sat down than the dog ran barking towards her, and then
went to the door: but as she did not follow, the dog ran to her again,
seized her apron, and endeavoured to pull her to the door; which
circumstance caused her to suppose some accident had befallen her
husband. She immediately called up the servant-man, and told him she
was sure, from the strange conduct of the dog, that something must
have happened to his master. She told the man to take a lantern and
some ropes, and follow the dog, taking care to get assistance at
Ambleside; which he did. No sooner had the man opened the door than
the dog bounded out, leaped up at him, barked, and then ran forward,
but quickly returned, leaped up again, barked, and then ran forward,
as if to hasten the man's speed. The faithful dog led the man and his
companions to the prison of his master. The ropes were instantly
lowered, and Mr. Satterthwaite was providentially released from his
perilous situation. The sheep also were recovered.
How well do I recollect the Ettrick Shepherd descanting on the
sagacity and perseverance of his favourite sheep-dog! His name was
Sirrah, and he told me the following extraordinary anecdote of him,
which I give in his own words:--
"About seven hundred lambs, which were once under my care at weaning
time, broke up at midnight, and scampered off in three divisions
across the hills, in spite of all that I and an assistant lad could do
to keep them together. 'Sirrah, my man!' said I in great affliction,
'they are awa'.' The night was so dark that I could not see Sirrah,
but the faithful animal heard my words--words such as of all others
were sure to set him most on the alert; and without much ado he
silently set off in search of the recreant flock. Meanwhile I and my
companion did not fail to do all in our power to recover our lost
charge. We spent the whole night in scouring the hills for miles
around, but of neither the lambs nor Sirrah could we obtain the
slightest trace. It was the most extraordinary circumstance that had
occurred in my pastoral life. We had nothing for it (day having
dawned), but to return to our master, and inform him that we had lost
his whole flock of lambs, and knew not what had 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, and the indefatigable Sirrah
standing in front of them, looking all around for some relief, but
still standing true to his charge. The sun was then up; and when we
first came in view of them, 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 by degrees that not one lamb of the whole flock was
wanting! How he had got all the divisions collected in the dark, is
beyond my comprehension. The charge was left entirely to himself, from
midnight until the rising of the sun; and if all the shepherds in the
forest had been there to have assisted him, they could not have
effected it with greater propriety. All that I can farther say is,
that I never felt so grateful to any creature below the sun, as I did
to my honest Sirrah that morning."
"I once sent you," says Mr. Hogg, some years later, in a letter to the
Editor of "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine," "an account of a notable
dog of my own, named Sirrah, which amused a number of your readers a
great deal, and put their faith in my veracity somewhat to the test;
but in this district, where the singular qualities of the animal were
known, so far from any of the anecdotes being disputed, every shepherd
values himself to this day on the possession of facts far outstripping
any of those recorded by you formerly. With a few of these I shall
conclude this paper. But, in the first place, I must give you some
account of my own renowned Hector, which I promised long ago. He was
the son and immediate successor of the faithful old Sirrah; and though
not nearly so valuable a dog as his father, he was a far more
interesting one. He had three times more humour and whim about him;
and though exceedingly docile, his bravest acts were mostly tinctured
with a grain of stupidity, which showed his reasoning faculty to be
laughably obtuse.
"I shall mention a striking instance of it. I was once at the farm of
Shorthope on Ettrick Head, receiving some lambs that I had bought, and
was going to take to market, with some more, the next day. Owing to
some accidental delay, I did not get final delivery of the lambs till
it was growing late; and being obliged to be at my own house that
night, I was not a little dismayed lest I should scatter and lose my
lambs if darkness overtook me. Darkness did overtake me by the time I
got half-way, and no ordinary darkness for an August evening. The
lambs having been weaned that day, and of the wild black-faced breed,
became exceedingly unruly, and for a good while I lost hopes of
mastering them. Hector managed the point, and we got them safe home;
but both he and his master were alike sore forefoughten. It had become
so dark that we were obliged to fold them with candles; and, after
closing them safely up, I went home with my father and the rest to
supper. When Hector's supper was set down, behold he was awanting! and
as I knew we had him at the fold, which was within call of the house,
I went out and called and whistled on him for a good while, but he did
not make his appearance. I was distressed about this; for, having to
take away the lambs next morning, I knew I could not drive them a
mile without my dog if it had been to save the whole drove.
"The next morning, as soon as it was day, I arose and inquired if
Hector had come home? No; he had not been seen. I knew not what to do;
but my father proposed that he would take out the lambs and herd them,
and let them get some meat to fit them for the road, and that I should
ride with all speed to Shorthope to see if my dog had gone back there.
Accordingly we went together to the fold to turn out the lambs, and
there was poor Hector, sitting trembling in the very middle of the
fold-door, on the inside of the flake that closed it, with his eyes
still steadfastly fixed on the lambs. He had been so hardly set with
them after it grew dark, that he durst not for his life leave them,
although hungry, fatigued, and cold, for the night had turned out a
deluge of rain. He had never so much as lain down; for only the small
spot that he sat on was dry, and there had he kept watch the whole
night. Almost any other colley would have discerned that the lambs
were safe enough in the fold, but honest Hector had not been able to
see through this. He even refused to take my word for it; for he would
not quit his watch, though he heard me calling both at night and
morning.
"Another peculiarity of his was, that he had a mortal antipathy to the
family-mouser, which was ingrained in his nature from his very
puppyhood; yet so perfectly absurd was he, that no impertinence on
her side, and no baiting on, could ever induce him to lay his mouth
on her, or injure her in the slightest degree. There was not a day and
scarcely an hour passed over, that the family did not get some
amusement with these two animals. Whenever he was within doors, his
whole occupation was watching and _pointing_ the cat from morning to
night. When she flitted from one place to another, so did he in a
moment; and then squatting down, he kept his _point_ sedulously, till
he was either called off or fell asleep.
"He was an exceedingly poor eater of meat, always had to be pressed to
it, and often would not take it till we brought in the cat. The
malicious looks that he cast at her from under his eyebrows on such
occasions were exceedingly ludicrous, considering his utter
disinclination to injure her. Whenever he saw her, he drew near his
bicker and looked angry; but still he would not taste till she was
brought to it, and then he cocked his tail, set up his birses, and
began lapping furiously as if in utter desperation. His good nature,
however, was so immovable, that he would never refuse her a share of
what was placed before him; he even lapped close to the one side of
the dish, and left her room,--but mercy! how he did ply!
"It will appear strange to you to hear a dog's reasoning faculty
mentioned as I have done; but I declare I have hardly ever seen a
shepherd's dog do anything without believing that I perceived his
reasons for it. I have often amused myself in calculating what his
motives were for such and such things, and I generally found them very
cogent ones. But Hector had a droll stupidity about him, and took up
forms and rules of his own, for which I could never perceive any
motive that was not even farther out of the way than the action
itself. He had one uniform practice, and a very bad one it was; during
the time of family worship, and just three or four seconds before the
conclusion of the prayer, he started to his feet and ran barking round
the apartment like a crazed beast. My father was so much amused with
this, that he would never suffer me to correct him for it, and I
scarcely ever saw the old man rise from the prayer without his
endeavouring to suppress a smile at the extravagance of Hector. None
of us ever could find out how he knew that the prayer was near done,
for my father was not formal in his prayers; but certes he did
know,--and of that we had nightly evidence. There never was anything
for which I was so puzzled to discover a motive as this, but from
accident I did discover it; and, however ludicrous it may appear, I am
certain I was correct. It was much in character with many of Hector's
feats, and rather, I think, the most _outre_ of any principle he ever
acted on. As I said, his great daily occupation was pointing the cat.
Now, when he saw us kneel all down in a circle, with our faces couched
on our paws, in the same posture with himself, it struck his absurd
head that we were all engaged in pointing the cat. He lay on tenters
all the while, but the acuteness of his ear enabling him, through
time, to ascertain the very moment when we would all spring to our
feet, he thought to himself, 'I shall be first after her, for you
all.'
"He inherited his dad's unfortunate ear for music, not perhaps in so
extravagant a degree, but he ever took care to exhibit it on the most
untimely and ill-judged occasions. Owing to some misunderstanding
between the minister of the parish and the session-clerk, the
precenting in church devolved on my father, who was the senior elder.
Now, my father could have sung several of the old church-tunes
middling well in his own family-circle; but it so happened that, when
mounted in the desk, he never could command the starting notes of any
but one (St. Paul's), which were always in undue readiness at the root
of his tongue, to the exclusion of every other semibreve in the whole
range of sacred melody. The minister gave out psalms four times in the
course of every day's service; consequently the congregation were
treated with St. Paul's in the morning at great length, twice in the
course of the service, and then once again at the close. Nothing but
St. Paul's. And it being itself a monotonous tune, nothing could
exceed the monotony that prevailed in the primitive church of Ettrick.
Out of pure sympathy for my father alone, I was compelled to take the
precentorship in hand; and having plenty of tunes, for a good while I
came on as well as could be expected, as men say of their wives. But,
unfortunately for me, Hector found out that I attended church every
Sunday, and though I had him always closed up carefully at home, he
rarely failed in making his appearance in church at some time of the
day. Whenever I saw him a tremor came over my spirits, for I well knew
what the issue would be. The moment that he heard my voice strike up
the psalm 'with might and majesty,' then did he fall in with such
overpowering vehemence, that he and I seldom got any to join in the
music but our two selves. The shepherds hid their heads, and laid them
down on the backs of their seats rowed in their plaids, and the lasses
looked down to the ground and laughed till their faces grew red. I
despised to _stick_ the tune, and therefore was obliged to carry on in
spite of the obstreperous accompaniment; but I was, time after time,
so completely put out of all countenance with the brute, that I was
obliged to give up my office in disgust, and leave the parish once
more to their old friend, St. Paul.
"Hector was quite incapable of performing the same feats among sheep
that his father did; but, as far as his judgment served him, he was a
docile and obliging creature. He had one singular quality, of keeping
true to the charge to which he was set. If we had been shearing, or
sorting sheep in any way, when a division was turned out and Hector
got the word to attend to them, he would have done it pleasantly for
a whole day without the least symptom of weariness. No noise or hurry
about the fold, which brings every other dog from his business, had
the least effect on Hector, save that it made him a little troublesome
on his own charge, and set him a-running round and round them, turning
them in at corners, from a sort of impatience to be employed as well
as his baying neighbours at the fold. Whenever old Sirrah found
himself hard set in commanding wild sheep on steep ground, where they
are worst to manage, he never failed, without any hint to the purpose,
to throw himself wide in below them, and lay their faces to the hill,
by which means he got the command of them in a minute. I never could
make Hector comprehend this advantage with all my art, although his
father found it out entirely of himself. The former would turn or wear
sheep no other way but on the hill above them; and, though very good
at it, he gave both them and himself double the trouble and fatigue.
"It cannot be supposed that he could understand all that was passing
in the little family circle, but he certainly comprehended a good part
of it. In particular, it was very easy to discover that he rarely
missed aught that was said about himself, the sheep, the cat, or of a
hunt. When aught of that nature came to be discussed, Hector's
attention and impatience soon became manifest. There was one winter
evening I said to my mother that I was going to Bowerhope for a
fortnight, for that I had more conveniency for writing with Alexander
Laidlaw than at home; and I added, 'But I will not take Hector with
me, for he is constantly quarrelling with the rest of the dogs,
singing music, or breeding some uproar.' 'Na, na,' quoth she, 'leave
Hector with me; I like aye best to have him at hame, poor fallow.'
"These were all the words that passed. The next morning the waters
were in a great flood, and I did not go away till after breakfast; but
when the time came for tying up Hector, he was a-wanting. 'The deil's
in that beast,' said I,--'I will wager that he heard what we were
saying yesternight, and has gone off for Bowerhope as soon as the door
was opened this morning.'
"'If that should really be the case, I'll think the beast no canny,'
said my mother.
"The Yarrow was so large as to be quite impassable, so that I had to
walk up by St. Mary's Loch, and go across by the boat; and, on drawing
near to Bowerhope, I soon perceived that matters had gone precisely as
I suspected. Large as the Yarrow was, and it appeared impassable by
any living creature, Hector had made his escape early in the morning,
had swam the river, and was sitting, 'like a drookit hen,' on a knoll
at the east end of the house, awaiting my arrival with great
impatience. I had a great attachment to this animal, who, to a good
deal of absurdity, joined all the amiable qualities of his species. He
was rather of a small size, very rough and shagged, and not far from
the colour of a fox.
"His son Lion was the very picture of his dad, had a good deal more
sagacity, but also more selfishness. A history of the one, however,
would only be an epitome of that of the other. Mr. William
Nicholson[O] took a fine likeness of this latter one, which he still
possesses. He could not get him to sit for his picture in such a
position as he wanted, till he exhibited a singularly fine portrait of
a small dog, on the opposite side of the room. Lion took it for a real
animal, and, disliking its fierce and important look exceedingly, he
immediately set up his ears and his shaggy birses, and, fixing a stern
eye on the picture in manifest wrath, he would then sit for a whole
day and point at it without budging or altering his position.
"It is a curious fact in the history of these animals, that the most
useless of the breed have often the greatest degree of sagacity in
trifling and useless matters. An exceedingly good sheep-dog attends to
nothing else but that particular branch of business to which he is
bred. His whole capacity is exerted and exhausted on it, and he is of
little avail in miscellaneous matters; whereas, a very indifferent
cur, bred about the house, and accustomed to assist in every thing,
will often put the more noble breed to disgrace in those paltry
services. If one calls out, for instance, that the cows are in the
corn, or the hens in the garden, the house-colley needs no other hint,
but runs and turns them out. The shepherd's dog knows not what is
astir; and, if he is called out in a hurry for such work, all that he
will do is to break to the hill, and rear himself up on end to see if
no sheep are running away. A bred sheep-dog, if coming hungry from the
hills, and getting into a milk-house, would most likely think of
nothing else than filling his belly with the cream. Not so his
uninitiated brother; he is bred at home to far higher principles of
honour. I have known such lie night and day among from ten to twenty
pails full of milk, and never once break the cream of one of them with
the tip of his tongue, nor would he suffer cat, rat, or any other
creature to touch it. This latter sort, too, are far more acute at
taking up what is said in a family.
"The anecdotes of these animals are all so much alike, that were I but
to relate the thousandth part of those I have heard, they would often
look very much like repetitions. I shall therefore, in this paper,
only mention one or two of the most singular, which I know to be well
authenticated.
"There was a shepherd lad near Langholm, whose name was Scott, who
possessed a bitch famed over all the West Border for her singular
tractability. He could have sent her home with one sheep, two sheep,
or any given number, from any of the neighbouring farms; and, in the
lambing season, it was his uniform practice to send her home with the
kebbed ewes just as he got them. I must let the town reader understand
this. A kebbed ewe is one whose lamb dies. As soon as such is found,
she is immediately brought home by the shepherd, and another lamb put
to her; and Scott, on going his rounds on the hill, whenever he found
a kebbed ewe, immediately gave her in charge to his bitch to take
home, which saved him from coming back that way again and going over
the same ground he had visited before. She always took them carefully
home, and put them into a fold which was close by the house, keeping
watch over them till she was seen by some one of the family; upon
which she instantly decamped, and hastened back to her master, who
sometimes sent her three times home in one morning with different
charges. It was the custom of the farmer to watch her and take the
sheep in charge from her: but this required a good deal of caution;
for as soon as she perceived that she was seen, whether the sheep were
put into the fold or not, she concluded her charge was at an end, and
no flattery could induce her to stay and assist in folding them. There
was a display of accuracy and attention in this that I cannot say I
have ever seen equalled.
"The late Mr. Steel, flesher in Peebles, had a bitch that was fully
equal to the one mentioned above, and that, too, in the very same
qualification. Her feats in taking sheep from the neighbouring farms
into the Flesh-market at Peebles, form innumerable anecdotes in that
vicinity. But there is one related of her, that manifests so much
sagacity with natural affection, that I do not think the history of
the animal creation furnishes such another.
"Mr. Steel had such implicit dependence on the attention of this
animal to his orders, that, whenever he put a lot of sheep before her,
he took a pride in leaving them to herself, and either remained to
take a glass with the farmer of whom he had made the purchase, or took
another road to look after bargains or other business. But one time he
chanced to commit a drove to her charge at a place called Willenslee,
without attending to her condition as he ought to have done. This farm
is five miles from Peebles, over wild hills, and there is no regularly
defined path to it. Whether Mr. Steel remained behind, or chose
another road, I know not; but, on coming home late in the evening, he
was astonished at hearing that his faithful animal had not made her
appearance with the flock. He and his son, or servant, instantly
prepared to set out by different paths in search of her; but, on their
going out to the street, there was she coming with the drove, no one
missing; and, marvellous to relate, she was carrying a young pup in
her mouth! She had been taken in travail on those hills; and how the
poor beast had contrived to manage the drove in her state of
suffering is beyond human calculation, for her road lay through sheep
the whole way. Her master's heart smote him when he saw what she had
suffered and effected: but she was nothing daunted; and having
deposited her young one in a place of safety, she again set out full
speed to the hills, and brought another and another, till she removed
her whole litter one by one; but the last one was dead.
"The stories related of the dogs of sheep-stealers are fairly beyond
all credibility. I cannot attach credit to some of them without
believing the animals to have been devils incarnate, come to the earth
for the destruction both of the souls and bodies of men. I cannot
mention names, for the sake of families that still remain in the
country; but there have been sundry men executed, who belonged to this
district of the kingdom, for that heinous crime, in my own days; and
others have absconded, just in time to save their necks. There was not
one of these to whom I allude who did not acknowledge his dog to be
the greatest aggressor. One young man in particular, who was, I
believe, overtaken by justice for his first offence, stated, that
after he had folded the sheep by moonlight, and selected his number
from the flock of a former master, he took them out, and set away with
them towards Edinburgh. But before he had got them quite off the farm,
his conscience smote him, as he said (but more likely a dread of that
which soon followed), and he quitted the sheep, letting them go again
to the hill. He called his dog off them, and mounting his pony, he
rode away. At that time he said his dog was capering and playing
around him, as if glad of having got free of a troublesome business;
and he regarded him no more, till, after having rode about three
miles, he thought again and again that he heard something coming up
behind him. Halting, at length, to ascertain what it was, in a few
minutes there comes his dog with the stolen animals, driving them at a
furious rate to keep up with his master. The sheep were all smoking,
and hanging out their tongues, and their guide was fully as warm as
they. The young man was now exceedingly troubled, for the sheep having
been brought so far from home, he dreaded there would be a pursuit,
and he could not get them home again before day. Resolving, at all
events, to keep his hands clear of them, he corrected his dog in great
wrath, left the sheep once more, and taking colley with him, rode off
a second time. He had not ridden above a mile, till he perceived that
his assistant had again given him the slip; and suspecting for what
purpose, he was terribly alarmed as well as chagrined; for daylight
now approached, and he durst not make a noise calling on his dog, for
fear of alarming the neighbourhood, in a place where they were both
well known. He resolved therefore to abandon the animal to himself,
and take a road across the country which he was sure the other did not
know, and could not follow. He took that road, but being on horseback,
he could not get across the enclosed fields. He at length came to a
gate, which he shut behind him, and went about half a mile farther, by
a zigzag course, to a farmhouse, where both his sister and sweetheart
lived; and at that place he remained until after breakfast time. The
people of this house were all examined on the trial, and no one had
either seen the sheep or heard them mentioned, save one man, who came
up to the aggressor as he was standing at the stable-door, and told
him that his dog had the sheep safe enough down at the Crooked Yett,
and he needed not hurry himself. He answered, that the sheep were not
his--they were young Mr. Thomson's, who had left them to his charge,
and he was in search of a man to drive them, which made him come off
his road.
"After this discovery, it was impossible for the poor fellow to get
quit of them; so he went down and took possession of the stolen drove
once more, carried them on, and disposed of them; and, finally, the
transaction cost him his life. The dog, for the last four or five
miles that he had brought the sheep, could have no other guide to the
road his master had gone but the smell of his pony's feet. I appeal to
every unprejudiced person if this was not as like one of the deil's
tricks as an honest colley's.
"It is also well known that there was a notorious sheep-stealer in the
county of Mid-Lothian, who, had it not been for the skins and the
heads, would never have been condemned, as he could, with the
greatest ease, have proved an _alibi_ every time suspicions were
entertained against him. He always went by one road, calling on his
acquaintances, and taking care to appear to everybody by whom he was
known, while his dog went by another with the stolen sheep; and then,
on the two felons meeting again, they had nothing more to do than turn
the sheep into an associate's enclosure, in whose house the dog was
well fed and entertained, and would have soon taken all the fat sheep
on the Lothian edges to that house. This was likewise a female, a
jet-black one, with a deep coat of soft hair, but smooth-headed, and
very strong and handsome in her make. On the disappearance of her
master she lay about the hills and places where he had frequented, but
she never attempted to steal a drove by herself, nor the smallest
thing for her own hand. She was kept some time by a relation of her
master's, but never acting heartily in his service, soon came
privately to an untimely end. Of this there is little doubt, although
some spread the report that one evening, after uttering two or three
loud howls, she instantly vanished! From such dogs as these, good Lord
deliver us!"
The following is, perhaps, a still more extraordinary anecdote of the
fidelity shown by a sheep-dog to its charge. It was communicated by
Robert Murray, shepherd to Mr. Samuel Richmond, Path of Coudie, near
Dunning, in Perthshire.
Murray had purchased for his master four score of sheep at the Falkirk
Tryst, but having occasion to stop another day, and confident in the
faithfulness and sagacity of his colley, which was a female, he
committed the drove to her care, with orders to drive them home,--a
distance of about seventeen miles. The poor animal, when a few miles
on the road, dropped two whelps, but, faithful to her charge, she
drove the sheep on a mile or two further--then, allowing them to stop,
returned for her pups, which she carried for about two miles in
advance of the sheep. Leaving her pups, the colley again returned for
the sheep, and drove them onwards a few miles. This she continued to
do, alternately carrying her own young ones and taking charge of the
flock, till she reached home. The manner of her acting on this
occasion was afterwards gathered by the shepherd from various
individuals, who had observed these extraordinary proceedings of the
dumb animal on the road. However, when the colley reached her home,
and delivered her charge, it was found that the two pups were dead. In
this extremity, the instinct of the poor brute was, if possible, still
more remarkable. She went to a rabbit-brae in the vicinity, and dug
out of the earth two young rabbits, which she deposited on some straw
in a barn, and continued to suckle for some time, until one of the
farm servants unluckily let down a full sack upon them and smothered
them.