"I'm not happy," said Artemis. "I was well brought up. I never associated with this sort of thing before."
Fiona, who knew that a new shepherd had been coming, could make nothing of their trouble, and did her best to smooth them down. The shepherd led the way up the hill, and on to a little rough plateau broken with rocks and bits of heather, lying under the main rise of the hill where it rounds away toward the Glenollisdal burn. "I am thinking that there should be a woodcock about here," he said.
"This is one of the earliest places in all the heather," whispered Artemis to Fiona. "He must know this moor very well."
"It's too early yet, all the same, even for here," said Apollo.
It looked as if Apollo were right. For when at the shepherd's request Fiona threw the dogs off, they quartered the whole plateau and found nothing.
But the shepherd stuck to his guns.
"I am thinking that there should be a bird here," he said. "Will Miss Fiona give me leave to try my own dog?"
Fiona nodded and called the setters to heel; the shepherd waved his hand, and the black collie came racing to him. Some collies will work a ground like a spaniel, and some will even do a little pointing, but the black collie troubled himself neither with one nor the other. When the shepherd spoke to him, he just cantered straight forward to a small patch of heather on the sunless side of a rock, where the frost still lingered, and there sat down quite unconcerned, as though the matter in hand were altogether beneath the scope of his talents.
"I think he has a bird," said the shepherd.
"I tried that place," said Apollo. "There's nothing there."