Atavism is mysteriously powerful in dogs, and it takes strange forms. A collie, too, has a queer strain of wolf in him—not only in body but in brain, and the wolf was the sheep's official murderer, as far back as the days when a humpbacked Greek slave, named Æsop, used to beguile his sleepless nights with writing fables.
Round and round the paddock prowled Lad; his eyes alight with a myriad half-memories; his sensitive nostrils quivering at the scents that enveloped them.
McGillicuddy, from time to time, eyed the dog obliquely, and with a scowl. These sheep were not the pride of his heart. His conscientious heart possessed no pride—pride being one of the seven deadly sins, and the sheep not being his own; but the flock represented his livelihood—his comfortably overpaid job with the Wall Street Farmer. He was responsible for their welfare.
And McGillicuddy did not at all like the way this beautiful collie eyed the prize merinos, nor was the Scot satisfied with the strength of the corral. Its wire fencing was rusty and sagging from long disuse, its gate hung crookedly and had a crazy hasp.
A sheep is one of the least intelligent creatures on earth. Should the flock's leader decide at any time during the night to press his heavy bulk against the gate or against some of the rustier wire strands, there would presently be a gap through which the entire twenty could amble forth. Once outside——
Again McGillicuddy glowered dourly at Lad. The collie returned the look with interest; a well-bred dog being as skilled in reading human faces as is any professional dead beat. Lad saw the dislike in McGillicuddy's heavy-thatched eyes; cordially he yearned to prove his own distaste for the shepherd, but the Mistress' command had immuned this sour stranger.
So Lad merely turned his back on the man, sat down, flattened his furry ears close against his head, thrust his pointed nose skyward, and sniffed. McGillicuddy was too much an animal man not to read the insult in the dog's posture and action, and the shepherd's fist tightened longingly round his staff.
Half an hour later the Wall Street Farmer himself arrived at The Place. He came in a runabout. On the seat beside him sat his pasty-faced, four-year-old son. At his feet was something which, at first glance, might have been either a quadruped or a rag bag.
The Mistress and the Master, with dutiful hypocrisy, came smilingly out on the veranda to welcome the guests. Lad, who had returned from the impromptu sheep-fold, stood beside them. At sight and scent of this new batch of visitors the collie doubtless felt what old-fashioned novelists used to describe as "mingled emotions."