ght so far from home, he dreaded there would be a pursuit,
and he could not get them home again before day. Resolving, at all
events, to keep his hands clear of them, he corrected his dog in great
wrath, left the sheep once more, and taking colley with him, rode off
a second time. He had not ridden above a mile, till he perceived that
his assistant had again given him the slip; and suspecting for what
purpose, he was terribly alarmed as well as chagrined; for daylight
now approached, and he durst not make a noise calling on his dog, for
fear of alarming the neighbourhood, in a place where they were both
well known. He resolved therefore to abandon the animal to himself,
and take a road across the country which he was sure the other did not
know, and could not follow. He took that road, but being on horseback,
he could not get across the enclosed fields. He at length came to a
gate, which he shut behind him, and went about half a mile farther, by
a zigzag course, to a farmhouse, where both his sister and sweetheart
lived; and at that place he remained until after breakfast time. The
people of this house were all examined on the trial, and no one had
either seen the sheep or heard them mentioned, save one man, who came
up to the aggressor as he was standing at the stable-door, and told
him that his dog had the sheep safe enough down at the Crooked Yett,
and he needed not hurry himself. He answered, that the sheep were not
his--they were young Mr. Thomson's, who had left them to his charge,
and he was in search of a man to drive them, which made him come off
his road.

"After this discovery, it was impossible for the poor fellow to get
quit of them; so he went down and took possession of the stolen drove
once more, carried them on, and disposed of them; and, finally, the
transaction cost him his life. The dog, for the last four or five
miles that he had brought the sheep, could have no other guide to the
road his master had gone but the smell of his pony's feet. I appeal to
every unprejudiced person if this was not as like one of the deil's
tricks as an honest colley's.

"It is also well known that there was a notorious sheep-stealer in the
county of Mid-Lothian, who, had it not been for the skins and the
heads, would never have been condemned, as he could, with the
greatest ease, have proved an _alibi_ every time suspicions were
entertained against him. He always went by one road, calling on his
acquaintances, and takin