. . . contrary cry, “Away, round them,” and the unresting collie must move again. He has one compensation, however: while all other dogs, save Toby in the Punch and Judy show, have their heads caged in wire, he runs unmuzzled. One day the shepherd remarked, “Tweed had na a minute’s rest yesterday. Tooting Bec Common is an abominable place. Do what you will, the sheep are always a-scattering, and you’re always a-hounding them, and always they are giving you trouble. It’s full of bushes, and the grass is no good, all grey and wiry, different altogether from the other commons. Give me Clapham Common or Wandsworth Common. Clapham has the best grass, but I like Wandsworth best. At the Burntwood Lane end of the Common you get such a splendid breeze.”
“Tweed is almost human in his canniness. He is indeed a peculiar dowg,” says his master. “If he sees me look at yon sheep, ever so far away, before I can speak, he looks into my face as if to say, ‘I’ll save you the trouble,’ and off he goes. And if I’m walking on the vera edge of the pavement by the Common, and there’s a motor coming, he begins to push me back to the pavement and the Common. Tweed could be trained in a week to attend to a blind man.”
But not always has Tweed been as self-controlled as we now find him. In the springtime of his apprenticeship, while he was still a mere puppy under tutelage, a laughable little incident happened, which provided a fine display of dogcraft on the . . .