"What! put them in the rape and no dog to help 'ee?" cried the other. "You are not doing things right, but master mustn't pay for it. Take Watch to help 'ee—I must do without'n this morning."
"No, I'll not take'n," he said, for he was angry because he had done an evil thing and he would have no one, man or dog, to help him. "I'll do better without a dog," he said, and marched off.
Caleb cried after him: "If you won't have the dog don't let the lambs suffer but do as I tell 'ee. Don't you let 'em bide in the rape more 'n ten minutes; then chase them out, and let 'em stand twenty minutes to half an hour; then let them in another ten minutes and out again for twenty minutes, then let them go back and feed in it quietly, for the danger 'll be over. If you don't do as I tell 'ee you'll have many blown."
David listened, then without a word went his way. But Caleb was still much troubled in his mind. How would he get that flock of hungry lambs out of the rape without a dog? And presently he determined to send Watch, or try to send him, to save the situation. David had been gone half an hour when he called the dog, and pointing in the direction he had taken he cried, "Dave wants 'ee—go to Dave."
Watch looked at him and listened, then bounded away, and after running full speed about fifty yards stopped to look back to make sure he was doing the right thing. "Go to Dave," shouted Caleb once more; and away went Watch again, and arriving at a very high gate at the end of the field dashed at and tried two or three times to get over it, first by jumping, then by climbing, and falling back each time. But by and by he managed to force his way through the thick hedge and was gone from sight.
When David came back that evening he was in a different mood, and said that Watch had saved him from a great misfortune: he could never have got the lambs out by himself, as they were mad for the rape. For some days after this Watch served two masters. Caleb would take him to his ewes, and after a while would say, "Go—Dave wants 'ee," and away Watch would go to the other shepherd and flock.
When Bawcombe had taken up his new place at Doveton, his master, Mr. Ellerby, watched him for a while with sharp eyes, but he was soon convinced that he had not made a mistake in engaging a head-shepherd twenty-five miles away without making the usual inquiries but merely on the strength of something heard casually in conversation about this man. But while more than satisfied with the man he remained suspicious of the dog. "I'm afraid that dog of yours must hurt the sheep," he would say, and he even advised him to change him for one that worked in a quieter manner. Watch was too excitable, too impetuous—he could not go after the sheep in that violent way and grab them as he did without injuring them with his teeth.
"He did never bite a sheep in his life," Bawcombe assured him, and eventually he was able to convince his master that Watch could make a great show of biting the sheep without doing them the least hurt—that it was actually against his nature to bite or injure anything.
One day in the late summer, when the corn had been cut but not carried, Bawcombe was with his flock on the edge of a newly reaped cornfield in a continuous, heavy rain, when he spied his master coming to him. He was in a very light summer suit and straw hat, and had no umbrella or other protection from the pouring rain. "What be wrong with master to-day?" said Bawcombe. "He's tarrably upset to be out like this in such a rain in a straw hat and no coat."
Mr. Ellerby had by that time got into the habit when troubled in his mind of going out to his shepherd to have a long talk with him. Not a talk about his trouble—that was some secret bitterness in his heart—but just about the sheep and other ordinary topics, and the talk, Caleb said, would seem to do him good. But this habit he had got into was observed by others, and the farm-men would say, "Something's wrong to-day—the master's gone off to the head-shepherd."