Chapter 15
"The following instance of canine affection came under my observation at a farm-steading, where I happened to be. A colley belonging to the shepherd on the farm appeared very restless and agitated: she frequently sent forth short howls, and moaned as if in great agony. 'What on earth is the matter with the dog?' I asked. 'Ye see, sur,' said the shepherd, 'au drownt a' her whelps i' the pond the day, and she's busy greeting for them.' Of course, I had no objection to offer to this explanation, but resolved to watch her future operations. She was not long in setting off to the pond and fishing out her offspring. One strong brindled pup she seemed to lament over the most. After looking at it for some time, she again set off at a quick rate to a new house then in the course of erection, and scooped out a deep hole among the rubbish. She then, one by one, deposited the remains of her young in it, and covered them up most carefully. After she had fulfilled this task, she resumed her labours among her woolly charge as usual."
In the winter of the year 1795, as Mr. Boulstead's son, of Great Salkeld, in Cumberland, was attending the sheep of his father upon Great Salkeld Common, he had the misfortune to fall and break his leg. He was then at the distance of three miles from home--there was no chance of any person's coming in so unfrequented a place within call, and evening was fast approaching. In this dreadful dilemma, suffering extreme pain from the fracture, and laying upon the damp ground at so dreary a season of the year, his fearful situation suggested to him the following expedient. Folding one of his gloves in his pocket-handkerchief, he fastened it round the neck of the dog, and rather emphatically ordered him 'home.' These dogs, trained so admirably to orders and signals during their attendance upon the flock, are well known to be under the most minute subjection, and to execute the commands of their masters with an alacrity scarcely to be conceived.
Perfectly convinced of some inexplicable disquietude from the situation in which his master lay, he set off at a pace which soon brought him to the house, where he scratched with great violence at the door for immediate admittance. This obtained, the parents were in the utmost alarm and consternation at his appearance, especially when they had examined the handkerchief and its contents. Instantly concluding that some accident had befallen their son, they did not delay a moment to go in search of him. The dog, apparently conscious that the principal part of his duty was yet to be performed, anxiously led the way, and conducted the agitated parents to the spot where their son lay overwhelmed with pain, increased by the awful uncertainty of his situation. Happily he was removed just at the close of day; and the necessary assistance being procured, he soon recovered. He was never more pleasingly engaged than when reciting the sagacity and affection of his faithful follower, who then became his constant companion.
Mr. Hawkes, farmer of Halling, returning much intoxicated from Maidstone market, with his dog, when the whole face of the country was covered with snow, mistook his path, and passed over a ditch on his right-hand towards the river; fortunately he was unable to get up the bank, or he must have fallen into the Medway, at nearly high water. Overcome with the liquor, Hawkes fell amongst the snow, in one of the coldest nights ever remembered: turning on his back, he was soon asleep; his dog scratched the snow about him, and then mounted upon the body, rolled himself round, and laid him on his master's bosom, for which his shaggy hide proved a seasonable covering. In this state, with snow falling all the time, the farmer and his dog lay the whole of the night; in the morning, a Mr. Finch, who was out with his gun, perceiving an uncommon appearance, proceeded towards it; at his approach, the dog got off the body, shook the snow from him, and by significant actions encouraged Mr. Finch to advance. Upon wiping the snow from the face, the person was immediately recognised, and was conveyed to the first house, when a pulsation in the heart being evident, the necessary means to recover him were employed, and in a short time Hawkes was able to relate his own story. In gratitude for his faithful friend, a silver collar was made for his wearing, and thus inscribed:--
"In man, true friendship I long strove to find, but missed my aim; At length I found it in my dog most kind; man! blush for shame."
The following tale is copied from the "Glasgow Post:"--
"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."