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."
II
When James Hogg was a boy, his parents were too poor to send him to school. By some means, however, he learned to read; and after that he loved nothing so much as a good book.
There were no libraries near him, and it was hard for him to get books. But he was anxious to learn. Whenever he could buy or borrow a volume of prose or verse he carried it with him until he had read it through. While watching his flocks, he spent much of his time in reading. He loved poetry and soon began to write poems of his own. These poems were read and admired by many people.
The name of James Hogg became known all over Scotland. He was often called the Ettrick Shepherd, because he was the keeper of sheep near the Ettrick Water.
Many of his poems are still read and loved by children as well as by grown up men and women. Here is one:—