he faithful animal heard my words--words such as of all others
were sure to set him most on the alert; and without much ado he
silently set off in search of the recreant flock. Meanwhile I and my
companion did not fail to do all in our power to recover our lost
charge. We spent the whole night in scouring the hills for miles
around, but of neither the lambs nor Sirrah could we obtain the
slightest trace. It was the most extraordinary circumstance that had
occurred in my pastoral life. We had nothing for it (day having
dawned), but to return to our master, and inform him that we had lost
his whole flock of lambs, and knew not what had become of them. On our
way home, however, we discovered a body of lambs at the bottom of a
deep ravine, called the Flesh Cleuch, and the indefatigable Sirrah
standing in front of them, looking all around for some relief, but
still standing true to his charge. The sun was then up; and when we
first came in view of them, we concluded that it was one of the
divisions which Sirrah had been unable to manage until he came to
that commanding situation. But what was our astonishment, when we
discovered by degrees that not one lamb of the whole flock was
wanting! How he had got all the divisions collected in the dark, is
beyond my comprehension. The charge was left entirely to himself, from
midnight until the rising of the sun; and if all the shepherds in the
forest had been there to have assisted him, they could not have
effected it with greater propriety. All that I can farther say is,
that I never felt so grateful to any creature below the sun, as I did
to my honest Sirrah that morning."

"I once sent you," says Mr. Hogg, some years later, in a letter to the
Editor of "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine," "an account of a notable
dog of my own, named Sirrah, which amused a number of your readers a
great deal, and put their faith in my veracity somewhat to the test;
but in this district, where the singular qualities of the animal were
known, so far from any of the anecdotes being disputed, every shepherd
values himself to this day on the possession of facts far outstripping
any of those recorded by you formerly. With a few of these I shall
conclude this paper. But, in the first place, I must give you some
account of my own renowned Hector, which I promised long ago. He was
the son and immediate successor of the faithful old Sirrah; and though
not nearly so valuable a dog as his father, he was a far mo