the lambing season was over, and spring
already shyly kissing the land. And the back of the year's work broken,
and her master well started on a fresh season, M'Adam's old collie,
Cuttie Sark, lay down one evening and passed quietly away.

The little black-and-tan lady, Parson Leggy used to say, had been
the only thing on earth M'Adam cared for. Certainly the two had been
wondrously devoted; and for many a market-day the Dalesmen missed the
shrill, chuckling cry which heralded the pair's approach: "Weel done,
Cuttie Sark!"

The little man felt his loss acutely, and, according to his wont, vented
his ill-feeling on David and the Dalesmen. In return, Tammas, whose
forte lay in invective and alliteration, called him behind his back,
"A wenomous one!" and "A wiralent wiper!" to the applause of tinkling
pewters.

A shepherd without his dog is like a ship without a rudder, and M'Adam
felt his loss practically as well as otherwise. Especially did he
experience this on a day when he had to take a batch of draft-ewes over
to Grammoch-town. To help him Jem Burton had lent the services of his
herring-gutted, herring-hearted, greyhound lurcher, Monkey. But before
they had well topped Braithwaite Brow, which leads from the village
on to the marches, M'Adam was standing in the track with a rock in his
hand, a smile on his face, and the tenderest blandishments in his voice
as he coaxed the dog to him. But Master Monkey knew too much for that.
However, after gamboling a while longer in the middle of the flock, a
boulder, better aimed than its predecessors, smote him on the hinder
parts and sent him back to the Sylvester Arms, with a sore tail and a
subdued heart.

For the rest, M'Adam would never have won over the sheep-infested
marches alone with his convoy had it not been for the help of old
Saunderson and Shep, who caught him on the way and aided him.

It was in a very wrathful mood that on his way home he turned into the
Dalesman's Daughter in Silverdale.

The only occupants of the tap-room, as he entered, were Teddy Bolstock,
the publican, Jim Mason, with the faithful Betsy beneath his chair and
the post-bags flung into the corner, and one long-limbed, drover-like
man--a stranger.

"And he coom up to Mr. Moore," Teddy was saying, "and says he, 'I'll gie
ye twal' pun for yon gray dog o' yourn.' 'Ah,' says Moore, 'yo' may gie
me twal' hunner'd and yet you'll not get ma Bob.'--Eh, Jim?"

"And he did thot," corroborated Jim