had he kept watch the whole
night. Almost any other colley would have discerned that the lambs
were safe enough in the fold, but honest Hector had not been able to
see through this. He even refused to take my word for it; for he would
not quit his watch, though he heard me calling both at night and
morning.

"Another peculiarity of his was, that he had a mortal antipathy to the
family-mouser, which was ingrained in his nature from his very
puppyhood; yet so perfectly absurd was he, that no impertinence on
her side, and no baiting on, could ever induce him to lay his mouth
on her, or injure her in the slightest degree. There was not a day and
scarcely an hour passed over, that the family did not get some
amusement with these two animals. Whenever he was within doors, his
whole occupation was watching and _pointing_ the cat from morning to
night. When she flitted from one place to another, so did he in a
moment; and then squatting down, he kept his _point_ sedulously, till
he was either called off or fell asleep.

"He was an exceedingly poor eater of meat, always had to be pressed to
it, and often would not take it till we brought in the cat. The
malicious looks that he cast at her from under his eyebrows on such
occasions were exceedingly ludicrous, considering his utter
disinclination to injure her. Whenever he saw her, he drew near his
bicker and looked angry; but still he would not taste till she was
brought to it, and then he cocked his tail, set up his birses, and
began lapping furiously as if in utter desperation. His good nature,
however, was so immovable, that he would never refuse her a share of
what was placed before him; he even lapped close to the one side of
the dish, and left her room,--but mercy! how he did ply!

"It will appear strange to you to hear a dog's reasoning faculty
mentioned as I have done; but I declare I have hardly ever seen a
shepherd's dog do anything without believing that I perceived his
reasons for it. I have often amused myself in calculating what his
motives were for such and such things, and I generally found them very
cogent ones. But Hector had a droll stupidity about him, and took up
forms and rules of his own, for which I could never perceive any
motive that was not even farther out of the way than the action
itself. He had one uniform practice, and a very bad one it was; during
the time of family worship, and just three or four seconds before the
conclusion of the prayer, he