But what has all this, it may be asked, to do with Mr. Frank Buckland and his proverb that "Dog will not eat dog"? A little patience, as is your wont, courteous reader, and we shall come to the point without much more ado. When "Albert" was about four years old, and as powerful, and perfect, and pleasant a dog as ever growled in anger or barked with glee, it began to be rumoured abroad that he was fast falling into bad habits--whether from following evil example, or instinctively and proprio motû, was never determined. He was accused, in fact, of sheep-worrying, and of course we couldn't and wouldn't believe a bit of it. Other dogs might be guilty of such vulgar misconduct; in the case of our dog the thing was impossible. Wasn't he regularly and well fed? Didn't he sleep every night at our own bedroom door? All this, of course, we said, and urged, and argued, and furthermore we urged a fact which seemed to us to be conclusive of our dog's innocence of the great misdemeanour laid to his charge--we had sheep of our own, and there were sheep belonging to others in our immediate neighbourhood, and with none of these, we pointed out, had our dog ever been known to make or meddle in any way further than by an occasional deep bow-wow! which, though it sometimes made them scamper, was uttered more in rollicking fun and merry make-believe than in anything like anger or earnest. Precisely so, answered a host of crook-carrying shepherds from farms five, seven, ten miles away: "Your dog is too knowing to kill sheep at your own doors; he goes to a considerable distance on his raids, the better to escape detection, slipping away at night or early in the morning unknown to you, and returning as innocent-seeming as the last sheep he has worried, before you appear in your breakfast parlour!" It was not alleged that he had ever been caught in the act, or actually seen eating forbidden mutton or lamb, minus the "mint sauce;" but more than one shepherd averred that he had more than once been seen wandering at improper hours on hill-sides, where he had no good right or reason to be, on which occasions, too, he exhibited the stealthy, prowling pace, and all the hang-dog looks and other signs of an evil-doer. Half afraid that it was too true, but irritated by their strenuousness of assertion, and defiant to the last, "Catch him, then!" we exclaimed, "shoot him, kill him, if he is harming you; but I am not going to put away or kill my dog--and such a dog, too! worth the best hirsel in your charge!--simply to please you." And thus the matter rested for a time, but not for long. Early one Monday morning, about a fortnight afterwards, our good neighbour Mr. Linton, of the farm of Coruanan, seven or eight miles away, drove up to our door in his gig, and asked to see us. After the usual civilities, "Your big dog is killing my sheep, Mr. S.!" was the charge, straightforward and unqualified. We argued, of course, that it couldn't be, &c., as above, but Mr. Linton soon brought the matter to a very practical issue. "What is the value of your dog?" We couldn't say; he was very valuable, a great favourite, and we declined to put a price upon him. "Well," continued Mr. Linton, "say that he is worth £5, or £10, or £20. I charge him with killing two of my sheep this very morning. I have my gun here in the gig: let me shoot him, and if I don't find and show you wool and mutton-flesh taken from his stomach, I will gladly pay over the dog's price; if I show you what I am certain I can show, his still undigested morning meal of mutton-flesh and wool, we are quits. That's surely fair!" And there was no denying that it was perfectly fair, but we declined, nevertheless, bringing the matter to the arbitrament suggested. We parted good friends, however, for we promised that whether he was to be shot or drowned, or sent out of the country, the dog would never again be allowed a chance of killing another sheep in Lochaber, and our friend Mr. Linton is, we are glad to say, still in life to bear testimony to the fact that we were as good as our word. On due consideration of the case in all its aspects, we decided that it was best, in the interest of peace and good neighbourhood, to have the dog shot forthwith, and shot he was accordingly within an hour of the interview above described. We directed the executioner of the sad sentence to open him, that we might examine the contents of the stomach, and sure enough, intermixed with wool enough to stuff a small cushion, it was found to contain many pounds of recently killed and undigested mutton. It was clear that some at least of the many grave charges against him were true.