I have seen him
perplexed by not being able to account to himself for certain particular
sheep. A light has gradually broken on him, he has remembered at what
butcher's he left them, and in a burst of grave satisfaction has caught
a fly off his nose, and shown himself much relieved. If I could at any
time have doubted the fact that it was he who kept the drover, and not
the drover who kept him, it would have been abundantly proved by his way
of taking undivided charge of the six sheep, when the drover came out
besmeared with red ochre and beer, and gave him wrong directions, which
he calmly disregarded. He has taken the sheep entirely into his own
hands, has merely remarked with respectful firmness, "That instruction
would place them under an omnibus; you had better confine your attention
to yourself--you will want it all"; and has driven his charge away, with
an intelligence of ears and tail, and a knowledge of business, that has
left his lout of a man very, very far behind.
As the dogs of shy neighbourhoods usually betray a slinking
consciousness of being in poor circumstances--for the most part
manifested in an aspect of anxiety, an awkwardness in their play, and a
misgiving that somebody is going to harness them to something, to pick
up a living--so the cats of shy neighbourhoods exhibit a strong tendency
to relapse into barbarism.
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