herefore obliged to return home, having lost both his child and his
dog, which had attended him faithfully for years.

Next morning by day-break, the shepherd, accompanied by a band of his
neighbors, set out again to seek his child; but, after a day spent in
fruitless fatigue, he was at last compelled by the approach of night to
descend from the mountain. On returning to his cottage, he found that
the dog which he had lost the day before, had been home, and, on
receiving a piece of cake, had instantly gone off again. For several
successive days the shepherd renewed the search for his child, and
still, on returning in the evening disappointed to his cottage, he found
that the dog had been there, and, on receiving his usual allowance of
cake, had instantly disappeared. Struck with this singular circumstance,
he remained at home one day, and when the dog, as usual, departed with
his piece of cake, he resolved to follow him, and find out the cause of
this strange procedure. The dog led the way to a cataract at some
distance from the spot where the shepherd had left his child. The banks
of the waterfall, almost joined at the top, yet separated by an abyss of
immense depth, presented that abrupt appearance which so often
astonishes and appalls the traveler amid the Grampian mountains, and
indicates that these stupendous chasms were not the silent work of
time, but the sudden effect of some violent convulsion of the earth.
Down one of these rugged and almost perpendicular descents the dog
began, without hesitation, to make his way, and at last disappeared in a
cave, the mouth of which was almost on a level with the torrent. The
shepherd with difficulty followed; but, on entering the cave, what were
his emotions, when he beheld his infant eating with much satisfaction
the cake which the dog had just brought him, while the faithful animal
stood by, eyeing his young charge with the utmost complacency! From the
situation in which the child was found, it appeared that he had wandered
to the brink of the precipice, and either fallen or scrambled down till
he reached the cave, which the dread of the torrent had afterward
prevented him from quitting. The dog, by means of his scent, had traced
him to the spot, and afterward prevented him from starving, by giving up
to him his own daily allowance. He appears never to have quitted the
child by night or day, except when it was necessary to go for his food,
and then he was always seen runni