THE HIGHLAND SHEPHERD’S CHIEF MOURNER
While the mountains of the Scottish
Highlands are haunted by deer, the valleys are the
pasture ground for large flocks of sheep. Here
our painter, Landseer, made the acquaintance of two
unique characters, the Highland shepherd and his dog.
In former times the shepherds of Scotland were no
ordinary men. The loneliness of the life in these
wilds left an impress upon their nature, making it
stern and serious. Not infrequently great readers
were found among them, and even poets. The Ettrick
shepherd James Hogg was one of Scotland’s first
men of letters.
The poet Wordsworth, whose boyhood
was passed in the north of England, describes in “The
Prelude” his admiration for the shepherds of
that region:
“There, ’t is the shepherd’s
task the winter long
To wait upon the storms: of their
approach
Sagacious, into sheltering coves he drives
His flock, and thither from the homestead
bears
A toilsome burden up the craggy ways,
And deals it out, their regular nourishment
Strewn on the frozen snow. And when
the spring
Looks out, and all the pastures dance
with lambs,
And when the flock, with warmer weather,
climbs
Higher and higher, him his office leads
To watch their goings, whatsoever track
The wanderers choose.
A
rambling schoolboy, thus
I felt his presence in his own domain,
As of a lord and master, or a power,
Or genius, under Nature, under God,
Presiding; and severest solitude
Had more commanding looks when he was
there.”
The shepherd would be helpless without
his dog, the collie, whose astuteness and skill can
hardly be overstated. The trained sheep dog learns
to know every individual member of the flock, so that
if a straggler goes beyond bounds, he will reclaim
it; if an intruder enters he will drive it out.
When the flock is to be led home, he gathers the scattered
portions into a compact body and keeps them in the
way. A sagacious dog belonging to Hogg once amazed
his master by gathering together a flock of seven
hundred lambs which had broken up at midnight and
scattered in three directions.
The collie is fitted by nature with
special qualifications for his peculiar work.
His neck is long and arched, that he may put his nose
well to the ground and stretch it when running.
His half pricked ears are the best possible for distinguishing
sounds at a distance, and the part that falls over
protects the inner ear from the rain. His thick
coat is proof against rain, snow, or wind, and the
heavy mane shields the most vulnerable part of his
chest, like a natural lung protector. With bare
hind legs, long and springy, he can make his way easily
in the heather. The long, tapering muzzle gives
a peculiarly intelligent look to the face. An
authority on dogs says, “There is, if the expression
may be used, a philosophic look about him which shows
thought, patience, energy, and vigilance.”
The shepherd and his dog are constant
companions from dawn to sunset, sharing the responsibilities
of their charge. Common hardships seem to knit
the friendship, and the tie between them is unusually
close. We can easily understand that a faithful
dog deprived of his master would mourn him deeply.
Such grief is the subject of our picture, The Highland
Shepherd’s Chief Mourner.
An old shepherd living alone in his
rude cottage has thrown down his hat and staff for
the last time. His neighbors have prepared his
body for decent burial, the coffin has been closed
and nailed, and now stands on the trestles ready for
removal. The shepherd’s plaid has been
laid over it as a sort of pall, and a bit of green
is added by some reverent hand. For the moment
the house is deserted, and the dog is left alone with
all that represents his master’s life to him.
His mute grief is intensely pathetic; speech could
not express more plainly his utter despair.
A beautiful description by Ruskin
suggests the important points to notice in the picture, “the
close pressure of the dog’s breast against the
wood, the convulsive clinging of the paws, which has
dragged the blanket off the trestle, the total powerlessness
of the head laid close and motionless upon its folds,
the fixed and tearful fall of the eye in its utter
hopelessness, the rigidity of repose which marks that
there has been no motion or change in the trance of
agony since the last blow was struck on the coffin-lid,
the quietness and gloom of the chamber, the spectacles
marking the place where the Bible was last closed,
indicating how lonely has been the life how
unwatched the departure of him who is now laid solitary
in his sleep.”
The critic shows that the skill with
which the painting is executed, remarkable as it is,
is not so great a thing to praise the painter for
as the imagination which could conceive so pathetic
a scene. The picture is, he says, “one
of the most perfect poems which modern times have
seen.”
The incident which Landseer imagined
has doubtless many a parallel in actual life.
There is a story of a traveller who was killed by a
fall from a precipice near Mt. Helvellyn.
Three months later his remains were discovered, watched
over by the faithful dog. Scott’s poem
“Helvellyn” commemorates the incident,
and the line telling how
“Faithful in death, his mute favorite
attended,”
expresses well the spirit of our picture.