“The other was a ploughman’s collie.
* * * * *
He was a gash (wise) and faithfu’ tyke,
As ever lap a sheugh (ditch) or dyke.
His honest sonsy bawan’t (white-striped) face,
Ay gat him friends in ilka place;
His breast was white, his towsie back
Weel clad wi’ coat o’ glossy black,
His gawcie tail, wi’ upward curl,
Hung o’er his hurdils wi’ a swirl.”
You find the collie everywhere all over broad Scotland. The only place where I do not like to see him is on chain.
Yonder he is even now trotting merrily on in front of that farmer’s gig, sometimes barking with half-hysterical joy, sometimes jumping up and kissing the old mare’s soft brown nose, by way of encouraging her.
Yonder again, standing on the top of a stone fence herding cows, and suspiciously eyeing every stranger who passes. He is giving us a line of his mind even now. He says we are only gipsy-folk, and no doubt want to steal a cow and take her away in the caravan.
There runs a collie assisting a sheep-drover. There trots another at the heels of a flock of cattle.
Another is out in the field up there watching the people making hay, while still another is lying on his master’s coat, while that master is at work. His master is only a ditcher. What does that matter? He is a king to Collie.
At Aberuthven was a retriever-collie who—his master, at whose farm I lay, told me—went every day down the long loaning to fetch the letters when the postman blew his horn. This dog’s name is Fred, and it was Fred’s own father who taught him this, and “in two lessons” Fred’s father always went for the letters, and never failed except once to bring them. On this particular occasion, he was seen to disappear behind a bush with a letter in his mouth, and presently to come forth without it. No trace of it was to be found. But a week after another letter was received asking the farmer why he had not acknowledged the bride’s cake. So the murder was out, for the dog’s honesty had not been proof against a bit of cake, and he had swallowed it, envelope and all.
Gipsies’ Dogs.
These are, as a rule, a mongrel lot, but very faithful, and contented with their roving life. They are as follows:—