THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD
I
In Scotland there once lived a poor shepherd whose name was James Hogg. His father and grandfather and great-grandfather had all been shepherds.
It was his business to take care of the sheep which belonged to a rich landholder by the Ettrick Water. Sometimes he had several hundreds of lambs to look after. He drove these to the pastures on the hills and watched them day after day while they fed on the short green grass.
He had a dog which he called Sirrah. This dog helped him watch the sheep. He would drive them from place to place as his master wished. Sometimes he would take care of the whole flock while the shepherd was resting or eating his dinner.
One dark night James Hogg was on the hilltop with a flock of seven hundred lambs. Sirrah was with him. Suddenly a storm came up. There was thunder and lightning; the wind blew hard; the rain poured.
The poor lambs were frightened. The shepherd and his dog could not keep them together. Some of them ran towards the east, some towards the west, and some towards the south.
The shepherd soon lost sight of them in the darkness. With his lighted lantern in his hand, he went up and down the rough hills calling for his lambs.
Two or three other shepherds joined him in the search. All night long they sought for the lambs.
Morning came and still they sought. They looked, as they thought, in every place where the lambs might have taken shelter.
At last James Hogg said, "It's of no use; all we can do is to go home and tell the master that we have lost his whole flock."
They had walked a mile or two towards home, when they came to the edge of a narrow and deep ravine. They looked down, and at the bottom they saw some lambs huddled together among the rocks. And there was Sirrah standing guard over them and looking all around for help "These must be the lambs that rushed off towards the south," said James Hogg.
[Illustration]
The men hurried down and soon saw that the flock was a large one.
"I really believe they are all here," said one.
They counted them and were surprised to find that not one lamb of the great flock of seven hundred was missing.
How had Sirrah managed to get the three scattered divisions together? How had he managed to drive all the frightened little animals into this place of safety?
Nobody could answer these questions. But there was no shepherd in
Scotland that could have done better than Sirrah did that night.
Long afterward James Hogg said, "I never felt so grateful to any creature below the sun as I did to Sirrah that morning."