I remember one day, during a period of rainy weather, when even the sandy roads of that district were wet and miry, that an elder sister, who had gone to make calls in the village, came back half-a-mile with Rona. The dog had stolen out and kept at a safe distance in the rear, till she considered that she was beyond the danger of being marched home, when she capered to the front, and her unconscious companion not only perceived who was her attendant, but discovered, to her mingled diversion and chagrin, that the dog was dressed in that supremely absurd pair of pantaloons, plentifully bespattered with mud.
By the time the younger members of the family were sent to school, poor Rona was up in years, and had become peevish and snappish in her growing infirmities, so that it was judged advisable that she should be quietly put out of the way in her mistresses’ absence. When we came home jubilant, we found no Rona waddling out to greet us, and I am afraid we had so many to meet, and so much to occupy us, that we hardly missed our humble friend.
A contemporary of Rona’s was a tall, gaunt, black—with silver hairs, peculiarly ugly, and valuable sheep-dog, which was my father’s friend. His ugliness was the result either of disease or of an accident, which had removed a portion of the lip and exposed his teeth on one side, but which did not impair his health, or detract from his merit as a wise and an efficient collie. His name, which was not given by us, was peculiar. I imagine it was either a mistake or a corruption. Instead of being termed “Yarrow,” “Tweed,” or “Heather,” the traditional names for Scotch collies, he was called “Gasto,” which I have a notion must have been a perversion of “Gaston,” though how a Scotch collie came to bear a chivalrous French Christian name I have not the faintest idea.
He was a dog that had his proper business to mind, and did not take much account of us children. Shepherds who have the rearing of such dogs do not encourage their association with children, and regard it, where it occurs, as liable to be a source of deterioration in an animal which is bred to endure hardship, and to live under a sense of responsibility. And when the creature is trained to perfection, it is as valuable and important a member of the establishment on a sheep-farm as an ox or a horse on another farm. Gasto was one of the gravest dogs I ever saw, far too sober for play of any kind. Looking back, I cannot help associating him with wintry blasts and snow-drifts, in which he is buffeting the blast and wading through the drift, intent on his calling.