I have told you of dogs making their way from one end of the country to
the other in search of their masters, and of horses traversing wide
districts to the pastures where they were bred, but you would scarcely
expect to hear of a sheep performing a long journey to return to the
home of her youth.
A ewe, bred in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, was driven into
Perthshire, a distance of upwards of one hundred miles. She remained
some time at the place, and there became the mother of a lamb. She took
a dislike to her new home, and thoughts of her early days stealing upon
her, she came to the resolution of returning to the scenes of her youth.
Calling her lamb, she one night set off southward. Often she was
compelled to hurry on her young one with impatient bleatings. She took
the highroad, along which she had been driven. Reaching Stirling early
in the morning, she discovered that an annual fair was taking place, and
that the town was full of people. Unwilling to venture among them for
fear of being caught, or losing her lamb, she waited patiently outside
till the evening, lying close by the roadside. Many people saw her, but
believing her owner was near, did not molest her. During the early
hours of the morning she got safely through, observed by several people,
and evidently afraid lest the dogs prowling about the town might injure
her young one.
Arriving at length at the toll-bar of Saint Ninians, she was stopped by
the toll-keeper, who supposed her to be a stray sheep. She escaped him,
however, and several times when the gate was opened endeavoured, with
the lamb at her heels, to make her way through. He each time drove her
back. She at length turned round, and appeared to be going the way she
came. She had, however, not abandoned her intention, for she either
discovered a more circuitous road to the south side of the gate, or made
her way through; for on a Sabbath morning early in June she arrived at
the farm where she had been bred,--having been nine days on her journey.
So delighted was her former owner with this exhibition of affection for
the farm, and with her wonderful memory, that he offered her purchaser
the price he had received; and to the day of her death--when she had
reached the mature age, for a sheep, of seventeen years--she remained a
constant resident on her native farm.