Yet again and again it
returned, that strange feeling, and with it now something like the
whispering of innumerable little feet brushing through bent and heather.
Then came a distant rushing sound and the panting as of an animal sore
spent, and hard on the shepherd's tracks there appeared over a knoll an
overdriven mob of sheep flying before the silent, demoniacal, tireless
energy of his own dog. He had never noticed that the animal had left
him, but now, having once more turned the sheep towards their home, and
severely chid his dog, he resolved that it should not again have the
chance to play him such a trick. For a mile all went well, then suddenly
the beast was gone. Dawn was breaking; he dared not stop where he was,
nor dared to return to meet the dog. All that he could do was to take a
route he was certain his dog did not know, and so would be sure not to
follow, and thus he might abandon the animal to its own devices, hoping
that he himself might not be compromised. For in his own mind he was
very sure that the dog had once more gone back to collect the sheep. By
a circuitous route which he had never followed before, going in at least
one instance through a gate, which he securely fastened behind him, the
shepherd at length reached a farm-house, where, as it chanced, both his
sister and his sweetheart were in service.
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