Ralph was deeply shocked that a girl should whistle, and still
more that she should use two fingers to do it, for all the world
like a shepherd on the hill. He bethought him that not one of his
cousins, Professor Habakkuk Thriepneuk's daughters (who studied
Chaldaeic with their father), would ever have dreamed of doing
that. He imagined their horror at the thought, and a picture,
compound of Jemima, Kezia, and Kerenhappuch, rose before him.

Down the hill, out from beneath the dark green solid foliaged
elder bushes, there came a rush of dogs.

"Save us," said Ralph, who saw himself discovered, "the deil's in
the lassie; she'll have the dogs on me!"--an expression he had
learned from John Bairdison, his father's "man," [Footnote: Church
officer and minister's servant.] who in an unhallowed youth had
followed the sea.

Then he would have reproved himself for the unlicensed exclamation
as savouring of the "minced oath," had he not been taken up with
watching the dogs. There were two of them. One was a large, rough
deerhound, clean cut about the muzzle, shaggy everywhere else,
which ran first, taking the hedges in his stride. The other was a
small, short-haired collie, which, with his ears laid back and an
air of grim determination not to be left behind, followed grimly
after. The collie went under the hedges, diving instinctively for
the holes which the hares had made as they went down to the water
for their evening drink. Both dogs crossed to windward of him,
racing for their mistress. When they reached the green level where
the great tubs stood they leaped upon her with short sharp barks
of gladness. She fended them off again with gracefully impatient