"A few days since, while Hector Macalister was on the Aran Hills looking after his sheep, six miles from home or other habitation, his two colley dogs started a rabbit, which ran under a large block of granite. He thrust his arm under the stone, expecting to catch it; but instead of doing so, he removed the supports of the block, which instantly came down on his arm, holding him as fast as a vice. His pain was great; but the pangs he felt were greater when he thought of home, and the death he seemed doomed to die. In this position he lay from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon; when, finding that all his efforts to extricate himself were unavailing, he tried several times, without effect, to get his knife out of his pocket to cut his arm off.
"His only chance now was to send home his dogs, with the view of alarming his friends. After much difficulty, as the faithful creatures were most unwilling to leave him, he succeeded; and Mrs. Macalister, seeing them return alone, took the alarm, and collecting the neighbours, went in search of her husband, led on by the faithful colleys. When they came to the spot, poor Macalister was speechless with crying for assistance. It required five strong men to remove the block from his arm.
"A further instance of reason and self-judgment was shown in the colley, which, having to collect some sheep from the sides of a gorge, through which ran a morass, saw one of the animals precipitate itself into the shifting mass, where it sank immediately up to the neck, leaving nothing but its small black head visible. The dog looked at the sheep and then at its master with an embarrassed, what-shall-I-do kind of expression; but the latter, being too far off to notice the difficulty or to assist, the dog, with infinite address, seized the struggling animal by the neck, and dragged it by main force to the dry land, and then compelled it to join the flock he was collecting."
The care a sheep-dog will take of the sheep committed to his charge is extraordinary, and he will readily chastise any other dog which happens to molest them. Col. Hamilton Smith relates that a strange cur one day bit a sheep in rear of the flock, unseen by the shepherd. The assault was committed by a tailor's dog, but not unnoticed by the other, which immediately seized the delinquent by the ear and dragged him into a puddle, where he kept dabbling him in the mud with the utmost gravity. The cur yelled. The tailor came slipshod with his goose to the rescue, and flung it at the sheep-dog, but missed him, and did not venture to pick it up till the castigation was over.
And here I cannot do better than introduce Dr. Walcot's (Peter Pindar) charming lines on "The Old Shepherd's Dog:"—
"The old shepherd's dog, like his master, was grey,
His teeth all departed, and feeble his tongue;
Yet where'er Corin went he was follow'd by Tray:
Thus happy through life did they hobble along.
When fatigued on the grass the shepherd would lie
For a nap in the sun, 'midst his slumbers so sweet
His faithful companion crawl'd constantly nigh,
Placed his head on his lap, or laid down at his feet.
When winter was heard on the hill and the plain,
When torrents descended, and cold was the wind;
If Corin went forth 'mid the tempest and rain,
Tray scorn'd to be left in the chimney behind.
At length, in the straw, Tray made his last bed—
For vain against death is the stoutest endeavour—
To lick Corin's hand he rear'd up his weak head,
Then fell back, closed his eyes, and ah! closed them for ever.
Not long after Tray did the shepherd remain,
Who oft o'er his grave with true sorrow would bend;
And when dying, thus feebly was heard the poor swain,
'O bury me, neighbours, beside my old friend!'"