About seven hundred lambs, which were at once under Mr. Hogg's care, broke up at midnight, and scampered off in three divisions across the hills, in spite of all that the shepherd and an assistant lad could do to keep them together. "Sirrah," cried the shepherd, in great alarm, "my man, they're awa." The night was so dark that he did not see Sirrah, but the faithful dog had heard his master's words, and without more ado he set off in quest of the flock. The shepherd and his companion spent the whole of the night in scouring the hills, but of neither lambs nor Sirrah could they obtain the slightest trace. "We had nothing for it," says the shepherd, "but to return to our master and tell him that we had lost his whole flock of lambs. On our way home, however, we came suddenly upon a body of lambs at the bottom of a deep ravine, and in front of them was sitting Sirrah, who was looking around for help. We decided that here was at least one of the divisions which Sirrah had managed to collect; but what was our astonishment when we discovered that not one of the whole flock was missing. How he had got all the divisions together in the dark is beyond my comprehension. I never felt so grateful to any creature under the sun as I did to my honest Sirrah that morning."
An innkeeper once sent, as a present to a friend, a dog and cat that had been companions for more than ten months. The carrier took them, tied up in a bag. A short time after the dog and cat set out together, and returned to their old home, a distance of thirteen miles. They jogged along the road side by side, and on one occasion the dog gallantly defended his fellow-traveller from the attack of another dog they met.
A surgeon's mate on board a ship relates that while he was lying awake one evening, he saw a rat come into his berth, and after looking carefully about the place, go away with the greatest care and silence. Soon after it returned, leading by the ear another rat, which it left at a small distance from the hole by which they had entered. A third rat joined this kind conductor; they then foraged about, and picked up all the small scraps of biscuit; these they carried to the second rat, which seemed blind, and staid right on the spot where they had left it, nibbling such food as its faithful friends, whom the story-teller thinks were its children, brought to it from the more remote parts of the room.
