"A few days since, while Hector Macalister was on the Aran Hills
looking after his sheep, six miles from home or other habitation, his
two colley dogs started a rabbit, which ran under a large block of
granite. He thrust his arm under the stone, expecting to catch it; but
instead of doing so, he removed the supports of the block, which
instantly came down on his arm, holding him as fast as a vice. His
pain was great; but the pangs he felt were greater when he thought of
home, and the death he seemed doomed to die. In this position he lay
from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon; when, finding that
all his efforts to extricate himself were unavailing, he tried several
times, without effect, to get his knife out of his pocket to cut his
arm off.
"His only chance now was to send home his dogs, with the view of
alarming his friends. After much difficulty, as the faithful creatures
were most unwilling to leave him, he succeeded; and Mrs. Macalister,
seeing them return alone, took the alarm, and collecting the
neighbours, went in search of her husband, led on by the faithful
colleys. When they came to the spot, poor Macalister was speechless
with crying for assistance. It required five strong men to remove the
block from his arm.
"A further instance of reason and self-judgment was shown in the
colley, which, having to collect some sheep from the sides of a gorge,
through which ran a morass, saw one of the animals precipitate itself
into the shifting mass, where it sank immediately up to the neck,
leaving nothing but its small black head visible. The dog looked at
the sheep and then at its master with an embarrassed, what-shall-I-do
kind of expression; but the latter, being too far off to notice the
difficulty or to assist, the dog, with infinite address, seized the
struggling animal by the neck, and dragged it by main force to the dry
land, and then compelled it to join the flock he was collecting."
The care a sheep-dog will take of the sheep committed to his charge is
extraordinary, and he will readily chastise any other dog which
happens to molest them. Col. Hamilton Smith relates that a strange cur
one day bit a sheep in rear of the flock, unseen by the shepherd. The
assault was committed by a tailor's dog, but not unnoticed by the
other, which immediately seized the delinquent by the ear and dragged
him into a puddle, where he kept dabbling him in the mud with the
utmost gravity. The cur yelled. The tailor came slipshod with his
goose to the rescue, and flung it at the sheep-dog, but missed him,
and did not venture to pick it up till the castigation was over.
And here I cannot do better than introduce Dr. Walcot's (Peter Pindar)
charming lines on "The Old Shepherd's Dog:"--
"The old shepherd's dog, like his master, was grey,
His teeth all departed, and feeble his tongue;
Yet where'er Corin went he was follow'd by Tray:
Thus happy through life did they hobble along.
When fatigued on the grass the shepherd would lie
For a nap in the sun, 'midst his slumbers so sweet
His faithful companion crawl'd constantly nigh,
Placed his head on his lap, or laid down at his feet.
When winter was heard on the hill and the plain,
When torrents descended, and cold was the wind;
If Corin went forth 'mid the tempest and rain,
Tray scorn'd to be left in the chimney behind.
At length, in the straw, Tray made his last bed--
For vain against death is the stoutest endeavour--
To lick Corin's hand he rear'd up his weak head,
Then fell back, closed his eyes, and ah! closed them for ever.
Not long after Tray did the shepherd remain,
Who oft o'er his grave with true sorrow would bend;
And when dying, thus feebly was heard the poor swain,
'O bury me, neighbours, beside my old friend!'"
There can be little doubt but that the dog I have been describing is
possessed of almost human sagacity. The following is an extraordinary
instance of it. It is related by Dr. Anderson:--
A young farmer in the neighbourhood of Innerleithen, whose
circumstances were supposed to be good, and who was connected with
many of the best store-farming families in the county, had been
tempted to commit some extensive depredations upon the flocks of his
neighbours, in which he was assisted by his shepherd. The pastoral
farms of Tweeddale, which generally consist each of a certain range of
hilly ground, had in those days no enclosures: their boundaries were
indicated only by the natural features of the country. The sheep were,
accordingly, liable to wander, and to become intermixed with each
other; and at every reckoning of a flock a certain allowance had to be
made for this, as for other contingencies. For some time Mr. William
Gibson, tenant in Newby, an extensive farm stretching from the
neighbourhood of Peebles to the borders of Selkirkshire, had remarked
a surprising increase in the amount of his annual losses. He
questioned his shepherds severely, taxed them with carelessness in
picking up and bringing home the dead, and plainly intimated that he
conceived some unfair dealing to be in progress. The men, finding
themselves thus exposed to suspicions of a very painful kind, were as
much chagrined as the worthy farmer himself, and kept their minds
alive to every circumstance which might tend to afford any elucidation
of the mystery. One day, while they were summering their lambs, the
eye of a very acute old shepherd, named Hyslop, was caught by a
black-faced ewe which they had formerly missed (for the shepherds
generally know every particular member of their flocks), and which
was now suckling its own lamb as if it had never been absent. On
inspecting it carefully, it was found to bear an additional birn upon
its face. Every farmer, it must be mentioned, impresses with a hot
iron a particular letter upon the faces of his sheep, as a means of
distinguishing his own from those of his neighbours. Mr. Gibson's birn
was the letter T, and this was found distinctly enough impressed on
the face of the ewe. But above this mark there was an O, which was
known to be the mark of the tenant of Wormiston, the individual
already mentioned. It was immediately suspected that this and the
other missing sheep had been abstracted by that person; a suspicion
which derived strength from the reports of the neighbouring shepherds,
by whom, it appeared, the black-faced ewe had been tracked for a
considerable way in a direction leading from Wormiston to Newby. It
was indeed ascertained that instinctive affection for her lamb had led
this animal across the Tweed, and over the lofty heights between
Cailzie and Newby; a route of very considerable difficulty, and
probably quite different from that by which she had been led away, but
the most direct that could have been taken. Mr. Gibson only stopped to
obtain the concurrence of a neighbouring farmer, whose losses had been
equally great, before proceeding with some of the legal authorities to
Wormiston, where Millar the shepherd, and his master, were taken into
custody, and conducted to the prison of Peebles. On a search of the
farm, no fewer than thirty-three score of sheep belonging to various
individuals were found, all bearing the condemnatory O above the
original birns; and it was remarked that there was not a single ewe
returned to Grieston, the farm on the opposite bank of the Tweed,
which did not minny her lambs--that is, assume the character of mother
towards the offspring from which she had been separated.
The magnitude of this crime, the rareness of such offences in the
district, and the station in life of at least one of the offenders,
produced a great sensation in Tweeddale, and caused the elicitation of
every minute circumstance that could possibly be discovered respecting
the means which had been employed for carrying on such an extensive
system of depredation. The most surprising part of the tale is the
extent to which it appears that the instinct of dumb animals had been
instrumental, both in the crime and in its detection. While the farmer
seemed to have deputed the business chiefly to his shepherd, the
shepherd seemed to have deputed it again, in many instances, to a dog
of extraordinary sagacity, which served him in his customary and
lawful business. This animal, which bore the name of "Yarrow," would
not only act under his immediate direction in cutting off a portion of
a flock, and bringing it home to Wormiston, but is said to have been
able to proceed solitarily, and by night, to a sheepwalk, and there
detach certain individuals previously pointed out by its master,
which it would drive home by secret ways, without allowing one to
straggle. It is mentioned that, while returning home with their stolen
droves, they avoided, even in the night, the roads along the banks of
the river, or those that descend to the valley through the adjoining
glens. They chose rather to come along the ridge of mountains that
separate the small river Leithen from the Tweed. But even here there
was sometimes danger, for the shepherds occasionally visit their
flocks even before day; and often when Millar had driven his prey from
a distance, and while he was yet miles from home, and the
weather-gleam of the eastern hills began to be tinged with the
brightening dawn, he has left them to the charge of his dog, and
descended himself to the banks of the Leithen, off his way, that he
might not be seen connected with their company. Yarrow, although
between three and four miles from his master, would continue, with
care and silence, to bring the sheep onward to Wormiston, where his
master's appearance could be neither a matter of question nor
surprise.
Near to the thatched farmhouse was one of those old square towers, or
peel-houses, whose picturesque ruins were then seen ornamenting the
course of the Tweed, as they had been placed alternately along the
north and south bank, generally from three to six hundred yards from
it--sometimes on the shin, and sometimes in the hollow of a hill. In
the vault of this tower it was the practice of these men to conceal
the sheep they had recently stolen; and while the rest of their
people were absent on Sunday at the church, they used to employ
themselves in cancelling with their knives the ear-marks, and
impressing with a hot iron a large O upon the face, that covered both
sides of the animal's nose, for the purpose of obliterating the brand
of the true owner. While his accomplices were so busied, Yarrow kept
watch in the open air, and gave notice, without fail, by his barking,
of the approach of strangers.
The farmer and his servant were tried at Edinburgh in January 1773,
and the proceedings excited an extraordinary interest, not only in the
audience, but amongst the legal officials. Hyslop, the principal
witness, gave so many curious particulars respecting the instincts of
sheep, and the modes of distinguishing them both by natural and
artificial marks, that he was highly complimented by the bench. The
evidence was so complete, that both culprits were found guilty and
expiated their crime on the scaffold.
The general tradition is, that Yarrow was also put to death, though in
a less ceremonious manner; but this has probably no other foundation
than a _jeu d'esprit_, which was cried through the streets of
Edinburgh as his dying speech. We have been informed that the dog was
in reality purchased, after the execution of Millar, by a sheep-farmer
in the neighbourhood, but did not take kindly to honest courses, and
his new master having no work of a different kind in which to engage
him, he was remarked to show rather less sagacity than the ordinary
shepherd's dog.
An instance of shrewd discrimination in the shepherd's dog, almost as
remarkable as that of poor Yarrow, was mentioned a few years ago in a
Greenock newspaper. In the course of last summer, says the narrator,
it chanced that the sheep on the farm of a friend of ours, on the
water of Stinchar, were, like those of his neighbours, partially
affected with that common disease, maggots in the skin, to cure which
distemper it is necessary to cut off the wool over the part affected,
and apply a small quantity of tobacco juice, or some other liquid. For
this purpose the shepherd set off to the hill one morning, accompanied
by his faithful canine assistant, Ladie. Arrived among the flock, the
shepherd pointed out a diseased animal; and making the accustomed
signal for the dog to capture it, "poor Mailie" was speedily sprawling
on her back, and gently held down by the dog till the arrival of her
keeper, who proceeded to clip off a portion of her wool, and apply the
healing balsam. During the operation, Ladie continued to gaze on the
operator with close attention; and the sheep having been released, he
was directed to capture in succession two or three more of the flock,
which underwent similar treatment. The sagacious animal had now become
initiated into the mysteries of his master's vocation, for off he set
unbidden through the flock, and picked out with unerring precision
those sheep which were affected with maggots in their skin, and held
them down until the arrival of his master; who was thus, by the
extraordinary instinct of Ladie, saved a world of trouble, while the
operation of clipping and smearing was also greatly facilitated.
Often as I have attempted to make acquaintance with a colley-dog, I
have never been able to succeed in producing any degree of
familiarity. On the contrary, he has always regarded me with looks of
shyness and suspicion. His master appears to be the only being to whom
he is capable of showing any degree of attachment; and coiled up on
his great-coat, or reposing at his feet, he eyes a stranger with
distrust, if not with anger. At the same time there is a look of
extraordinary intelligence, which perhaps is possessed by no other
animal in a greater degree. It has been said of him, that although he
has not the noble port of the Newfoundland dog, the affectionate
fondling of the spaniel, nor the fierce attachment which renders the
mastiff so efficient a guard, yet he exceeds them all in readiness and
extent of intelligence, combined with a degree of docility unequalled,
perhaps, by any other animal in existence. There is, if the expression
may be used, a philosophic look about him, which shows thought,
patience, energy, and vigilance. During a recent visit in Cumberland,
I took some pains to make myself acquainted with the character of this
dog, and I am now convinced that too much cannot be said of his
wonderful properties. He protects with indefatigable exertions the
flock committed to his charge. When we consider the dreary wilds, the
almost inaccessible heights, the rugged hills and lofty mountains to
which sheep have access, and to which man could scarcely
penetrate--that some sheep will stray and intermix with other
flocks--that the dog knows the extent of his walk as well as every
individual of his flock, and that he will select his own as well as
drive away intruders, we must admit his utility and admire his
sagacity.
Let me give another instance of this in the words of the Ettrick
Shepherd. It was related to me by himself, and has since been
published in the "Percy Anecdotes."
"I once witnessed a very singular feat performed by a dog belonging to
John Graham, late tenant in Ashiesteel. A neighbour came to his house
after it was dark, and told him that he had lost a sheep on his farm,
and that if he (Graham) did not secure her in the morning early, she
would be lost, as he had brought her far. John said he could not
possibly get to the hill next morning, but if he would take him to the
very spot where he lost the sheep, perhaps his dog Chieftain would
find her that night. On that they went away with all expedition, lest
the traces of the feet should cool; and I, then a boy, being in the
house, went with them. The night was pitch dark, which had been the
cause of the man losing his ewe, and at length he pointed out a place
to John by the side of the water where he had lost her. 'Chieftain,
fetch that!' said John. 'Bring her back, sir!' The dog jumped around
and around, and reared himself up on end; but not being able to see
anything, evidently misapprehended his master, on which John fell to
scolding his dog, calling it a great many hard names. He at last told
the man that he must point out the very track that the sheep went,
otherwise he had no chance of recovering it. The man led him to a grey
stone, and said he was sure she took the brae (hill side) within a
yard of that. 'Chieftain, come hither to my foot, you great numb'd
whelp!' said John. Chieftain came--John pointed with his finger to the
ground, 'Fetch that, I say, sir--bring that back--away!' The dog
scented slowly about on the ground for some seconds, but soon began to
mend his pace, and vanished in the darkness. 'Bring her back!--away,
you great calf!' vociferated John, with a voice of exultation, as the
dog broke to the hill; and as all these good dogs perform their work
in perfect silence, we neither saw nor heard any more of him for a
long time. I think, if I remember right, we waited there about half an
hour, during which time all the conversation was about the small
chance which the dog had to find the ewe, for 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. 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."
The care the shepherds of the north of England take in preserving a
pure breed of these dogs is very great, and the value set upon them is
proportionably high. Nor must the shepherds themselves be passed over
without notice. They are a shrewd, sagacious set of men, many of them
by no means uneducated, as is the case generally with the peasantry in
the north of England. Indeed, it is from this class that many scholars
and mathematicians have done so much credit, and I may add honour, to
the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland. An anecdote is related of
a shepherd, who was found by a gentleman attending his flock, and
reading a volume of Milton. "What are you reading?" asked the
gentleman. "Why," replied the shepherd, "I am reading an odd sort of a
poet; he would fain rhyme, but does not quite know how to set about
it."
The valleys, or glens, which intersect the Grampian mountains, are
chiefly inhabited by shepherds. The pastures over which each flock is
permitted to range extend many miles in every direction. The shepherd
never has a view of his whole flock at once, except when they are
collected for sale or shearing. His occupation is to make daily
excursions to the different extremities of his pastures in succession,
and to turn back, by means of his dog, any stragglers that may be
approaching the boundaries of his neighbours. In one of these
excursions, a shepherd happened to carry along with him one of his
children, about three years old. This is a usual practice among the
Highlanders, who accustom their children from their earliest infancy
to endure the rigours of the climate. After traversing his pasture for
some time, attended by his dog, the shepherd found himself under the
necessity of ascending a summit at some distance, in order to have a
more extensive view of his range. As the ascent was too fatiguing for
the child, he left him on a small plain at the bottom, with strict
injunctions not to stir from it till his return. Scarcely, however,
had he gained the summit, when the horizon was suddenly darkened by
one of those impenetrable mists which frequently descend so rapidly
amidst these mountains, as almost to turn day into night, and that in
the course of a few minutes. The anxious father instantly hastened
back to find his child, but, owing to the unusual darkness, he missed
his way in the descent. After a search of many hours amongst the
dangerous morasses and cataracts with which these mountains abound, he
was at length overtaken by night. Still wandering on without knowing
whither, he at length came to the verge of the mist, and, by the light
of the moon, discovered that he had reached the bottom of his valley,
and was within a short distance of his cottage. To renew the search
that night was equally fruitless and dangerous. He was, therefore,
obliged to return to his cottage, having lost both his child and his
dog, who had attended him faithfully for years.
Next morning by daybreak, the shepherd, accompanied by a band of his
neighbours, set out in search of the child, but, after a day spent in
fruitless fatigue, he was at last compelled, by the approach of night,
to descend from the mountain. On returning to his cottage he found
that the dog, which he had lost the day before, had been home, and on
receiving a piece of cake, had instantly gone off again. For several
successive days the shepherd renewed the search for his child, but
still, on returning at evening disappointed to his cottage, he found
that the dog had been home, and, on receiving his usual allowance of
cake, had instantly disappeared. Struck with this circumstance, he
remained at home one day, and when the dog, as usual, departed with
his piece of cake, he resolved to follow him, and find out the cause
of his strange procedure. The dog led the way to a cataract, at some
distance from the spot where the shepherd had left his child. The
banks of the cataract almost joined at the top, yet separated by an
abyss of immense depth, presenting that appearance which so often
astonishes and appals travellers who frequent the Grampian Mountains,
and indicates that these stupendous chasms were not the silent work of
time, but the sudden effect of some violent convulsion of the earth.
Down one of these rugged and almost perpendicular descents, the dog
began, without hesitation, to make his way, and at last disappeared
into a cave, the mouth of which was almost on a level with the
torrent. The shepherd with some difficulty followed, but upon entering
the cave, what were his emotions when he beheld his lost child eating
with much satisfaction the cake which the dog had just brought to him,
while the faithful animal stood by, eyeing his young charge with the
utmost complacence.
From the situation in which the child was found, it appears that he
had wandered to the brink of the precipice, and then either fallen or
scrambled down till he reached the cave, which the dread of the
torrent had probably prevented him from quitting. The dog had traced
him to the spot, and afterwards prevented him from starving by giving
up to him the whole, or the greater part of his own daily allowance.
He appears never to have quitted the child by night or day, except
when it was necessary to go for food, and then he was always seen
running at full speed to and from the cottage.
This extraordinary and interesting anecdote is taken from the "Monthly
Magazine" of April, 1802, and bears every appearance of authenticity.
It affords an instance of the sense, affection, and self-denial of a
faithful animal, and is recorded to his honour, and as an example to
the whole race of human beings.
* * * * *
Mr. Daniel, in the Supplement to his "Rural Sports," gives the
following account of the shepherds' dogs in North Wales. He says,
"The sheep in this country are the ancient Alpine sort, (how excellent
the mutton is!) and that from their varying mode of life they assume
very different habits to the sheep of an inland country, while those
of the shepherds' dogs are no less conspicuous. The excellency of
these animals renders sheep-pens in a great degree unnecessary. If a
shepherd wishes to inspect his flock in a cursory way, he places
himself in the middle of the field, or the piece of ground they are
depasturing, and giving a whistle or a shout, the dogs and the sheep
are equally obedient to the sound, and draw towards the shepherd, and
are kept within reach by one or more dogs, until the business which
required them to be assembled is finished. In such estimation was this
breed of dogs, when cattle constituted one of the grand sources of
wealth to the country, that in the laws of Hywell Dda, the legal price
of one perfectly broken in for conducting the flocks or herds to or
from their pasturage, was equal to that of an ox, viz. sixty denarii,
while the price of the house-dog was estimated at only four, which was
the value of a sheep. If any doubt arose as to the genuineness of the
breed, or his having been _pastorally_ trained, then the owner and a
neighbour were to make oath that he went with the flocks or herds in
the morning, and drove them, with the stragglers, home in the
evening."
I delight in seeing a shepherd's dog in full activity, anxious to
obey the directions of his master. He runs with his utmost speed,
encompassing a large space of open country in a short time, and brings
those sheep that are wanted to the feet of his master. Indeed the
natural talents and sagacity of this dog are so great, partly by being
the constant companion of his master, and partly by education, that he
may almost be considered a rational being. Mr. Smellie says, "that he
reigns at the head of his flock, and that his _language_, whether
expressive of blandishment or of command, is better heard and better
understood than the voice of his master. Safety, order, and discipline
are the effects of his vigilance and activity. Sheep and cattle are
his subjects. These he conducts and protects with prudence and
bravery, and never employs force against them, except for the
preservation of peace and good order. He not only understands the
language of his master, but, when too distant to be heard, he knows
how to act by signals made with the hand." How well Delille describes
this faithful animal!--
"Aimable autant qu'utile,
Superbe et caressant, courageux et docile,
Forme pour le conduire et pour le proteger.
Du troupeau qu'il gouverne il est le vrai berger;
Le Ciel l'a fait pour nous; et dans leur cours rustique,
Il fut des rois pasteurs le premier domestique."
Mr. Charles Darwin, in his interesting travels in South America,
informs us, that when riding it is a common thing to meet a large
flock of sheep, guarded by one or two dogs, at the distance of some
miles from any house or man. He often wondered how so firm a
friendship had been established, till he found that the method of
education consisted in separating the puppy, while very young, from
the mother, and in accustoming it to its future companions. In order
to do this, a ewe is held three or four times a-day for the little
thing to suck, and a nest of wool is made for it in the sheep-pen. At
no time is it allowed to associate with other dogs, or with the
children of the family. From this education, it has no wish to leave
the flock, and just as another dog will defend his master, so will
these the sheep. It is amusing to observe, when approaching a flock,
how the dog immediately advances barking, and the sheep all close in
his rear, as if round the oldest ram. These dogs are also easily
taught to bring home the flock at a certain hour in the evening. Their
most troublesome fault, when young, is their desire of playing with
the sheep; for, in their sport, they sometimes gallop their poor
subjects most unmercifully. The shepherd dog comes to the house every
day for some meat, and immediately it is given him he skulks away as
if ashamed of himself. On these occasions the house-dogs are very
tyrannical, and the least of them will attack and pursue the stranger.
The minute, however, the latter has reached the flock, he turns round
and begins to bark, and then all the house-dogs take very quietly to
their heels. In a similar manner, a whole pack of hungry wild dogs
will scarcely ever venture to attack a flock when under the protection
of even one of these faithful shepherds.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: ST. BERNARD DOG.]