the yearly killings and purchases, each must be proportionally
thinned and strengthened; the midnight busyness of animals, the
signs of the weather, the cares of the snowy season, the exquisite
stupidity of sheep, the exquisite cunning of dogs: all these he
could present so humanly, and with so much old experience and
living gusto, that weariness was excluded. And in the midst he
would suddenly straighten his bowed back, the stick would fly
abroad in demonstration, and the sharp thunder of his voice roll
out a long itinerary for the dogs, so that you saw at last the use
of that great wealth of names for every knowe and howe upon the
hillside; and the dogs, having hearkened with lowered tails and
raised faces, would run up their flags again to the masthead and
spread themselves upon the indicated circuit. It used to fill me
with wonder how they could follow and retain so long a story. But
John denied these creatures all intelligence; they were the
constant butt of his passion and contempt; it was just possible to
work with the like of them, he said, - not more than possible. And
then he would expand upon the subject of the really good dogs that
he had known, and the one really good dog that he had himself
possessed. He had been offered forty pounds for it; but a good
collie was worth more than that, more than anything, to a "herd;"
he did the herd's work for him. "As for the like of them!" he
would cry, and scornfully indicate the scouring tails of his
assistants.

Once - I translate John's Lallan, for I cannot do it justice, being
born BRITANNIS IN MONTIBUS, indeed, but alas! INERUDITO SAECULO -
once, in the days of his good dog, he had bought some sheep in
Edinburgh, and on the way out, the road being crowded, two were
lost. This was a reproach to John, and a slur upon the dog; and