both were alive to their misfortune. Word came, after some days,
that a farmer about Braid had found a pair of sheep; and thither
went John and the dog to ask for restitution. But the farmer was a
hard man and stood upon his rights. "How were they marked?" he
asked; and since John had bought right and left from many sellers
and had no notion of the marks - "Very well," said the farmer,
"then it's only right that I should keep them." - "Well," said
John, "it's a fact that I cannae tell the sheep; but if my dog can,
will ye let me have them?" The farmer was honest as well as hard,
and besides I daresay he had little fear of the ordeal; so he had
all the sheep upon his farm into one large park, and turned John's
dog into their midst. That hairy man of business knew his errand
well; he knew that John and he had bought two sheep and (to their
shame) lost them about Boroughmuirhead; he knew besides (the lord
knows how, unless by listening) that they were come to Braid for
their recovery; and without pause or blunder singled out, first one
and then another, the two waifs. It was that afternoon the forty
pounds were offered and refused. And the shepherd and his dog -
what do I say? the true shepherd and his man - set off together by
Fairmilehead in jocund humour, and "smiled to ither" all the way
home, with the two recovered ones before them. So far, so good;
but intelligence may be abused. The dog, as he is by little man's
inferior in mind, is only by little his superior in virtue; and
John had another collie tale of quite a different complexion. At
the foot of the moss behind Kirk Yetton (Caer Ketton, wise men say)
there is a scrog of low wood and a pool with a dam for washing
sheep. John was one day lying under a bush in the scrog, when he
was aware of a collie on the far hillside skulking down through the
deepest of the heather with obtrusive stealth. He knew the dog;
knew him for a clever, rising practitioner from quite a distant