consider this a very large shearing, and yet in six days' time no less
than 11,000 sheep were turned away fleeceless.

And what a scene it was, to be sure!

I remember well, when quite a little lad, thinking old Parson McGruer's
shearing a wonderful sight. The old man, who was very fat and podgy, and
seldom got down to breakfast before eleven in the morning, considered
himself a sheep farmer on rather a large scale. Did he not own a flock of
nearly six hundred--one shepherd's work--that fed quietly on the
heath-clad braes of Coila? One shepherd and two collies; and the collies
did nearly all the duty in summer and a great part of it in winter. The
shepherd had his bit of shieling in a clump of birch-trees at the
glen-foot, and at times, crook in hand, his Highland plaid dangling from
his shoulder, he might be seen slowly winding along the braes, or
standing, statue-like, on the hill-top, his romantic figure well defined
against the horizon, and very much in keeping with the scene. I never yet
saw the minister's shepherd running. His life was almost an idyllic one in
summer, when the birks waved green and eke, or in autumn, when the hills
were all ablaze with the crimson glory of the heather. To be sure, his pay
was not a great deal, and his fare for the most part consisted of oatmeal
and milk, with now and then a slice of the best part of a 'braxied' sheep.
Here, in our home in the Silver West, how different! Every _puestero_ had
a house or hut as good as the minister's shepherd; and as for living, why,
the worthy Mr. McGruer himself never had half so well-found a table. Our
dogs in the Silver West lived far more luxuriously than any farm servant
or shepherd, or even gamekeeper, 'in a' braid Scotland.'

But our shepherds had to run and to ride both. Wandering over miles upon
miles of pasturage, sheep learn to be dainty, and do not stay very long in
any one place; so it is considered almost impossible to herd them on foot.
It is not necessary to do so; at all events, where one can buy a horse for
forty shillings, and where his food costs _nil_, or next to _nil_, one
usually prefers riding to walking.

But it was a busy time in May even at the Scotch minister's place when
sheep-shearing came round. The minister got up early then, if he did not
do so all the year round again. The hurdles were all taken to the
river-side, or banks of the stream that, leaving Loch Coila, went
meandering through the glen. Here the sheep wer