for instance, after long strivings succumbed to the temptation to steal sheep from a far-distant farm, where at one time he had been employed.  Mounted on a pony, and accompanied by a dog, the young man arrived at the far-off hill one moon-lit night, mustered the sheep he meant to steal, and started to drive them towards Edinburgh.  Then, before even he had got them off the farm, conscience awoke—­or was it fear of the consequences?—­and he called off his dog, letting the sheep return to the hill.  Congratulating himself on being well out of an ugly business, he had ridden on his homeward way a matter of three miles when again and again there came over him an eerie feeling that he was being followed, though when he looked back nothing was to be seen but dim moor and hill sleeping in the moonlight.  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.  Here he breakfasted, and remained some time, and still there was no sign of the dog.  All was no doubt well; after all, the beast must have somehow missed him in the night and had gone home; after the punishment he had received he would never have gone back again for the sheep.  So, comparatively light of heart, the shepherd was just about to start on his journey, when up there came to him a man: 

“Ye’ll hae missed your dowg, I’m thinking?  But ye needna’ fash; he’s waitin’ for ye doon by the Crooked Yett, wi’ a’ your yowes safe enough.”

It was useless after this.  The wretched man gave in; he struggled no more, but actually went off with the sheep and sold them.  And the gallows ended his career.  But how the dog followed him is a mystery, and why he waited for him at the “Crooked Yett.”  For miles he must have tracked him by the scent of the feet of the pony the shepherd rode.  But he never came within sight of the farm-house, and how did he know to wait at the gate?