“ ‘WHY, SURELY, YOU’RE NOT THE MAN IN THE MOON?’ ”
“Where’s the others with the long legs and arms?” and the shepherd shuddered.
“He’s cranky, sure enough,” muttered the traveller audibly. “The coves as you were asking arter are all gone,” he said aloud. “You get up on your pins, or they’ll be back again [[220]]Here’s a bob; come now, hook it, or they’ll have you,” saying which the swagman went on his way.
Our hero raised himself into a sitting posture. Before him lay the verdant slopes and ridges of the mountain, bathed in sunlight. Yonder his sheep fed peacefully, watched by the faithful Patch. Then the old man raised his vision higher than the earth and thanked Heaven that he was still safe and sound on terra firma. [[221]]
“SAILOR.”
That great painter of animals, Sir Edwin Landseer, never sketched a nobler specimen of the canine race than the big, black, curly Newfoundland dog, Sailor, the hero of our story. He was a fine, faithful dog, and almost as large as a young foal, and every bit as frisky and as harmless, save when teased by naughty boys. If you tried ever so hard you couldn’t hide anything from Sailor. You might fasten him in a room and then attempt to conceal a ball, or a piece of wood, in the garden or the stables, but the moment you set him free Sailor would hunt the object out and return with it in his mouth. Besides being sagacious, the faithful brute could dive and swim like a fish; that is why he received such a suitable name.
Captain Hauser, of the barque South Australian, had brought him from India when but a puppy, but now the worthy captain had settled down ashore with his two boys at Anchordale on the [[222]]River Murray, and the dog had become almost one of the family circle.
On a very hot afternoon, and when the New Year was scarcely a score of days old, Bertie Hauser and his cousin, Tom Blake, took it into their heads to have a row down the river. Anchordale was a pleasant cottage situated on the bank of the Murray, with a tiny skiff fastened to a stout post at the end of the orchard.