While listening with the profoundest attention to Gingham, I had, it must be confessed, been taking a look, from time to time, at the country round. Hitherto our route had been across an open level, and we had always seen the road before us. Now, first, we reached a spot were we could not discern what was in front. The table-land, over which we had been marching, terminated in a brow or declivity. The road dipped, and disappeared; where it led us there was no perceiving. The road itself also became hollow—that is, it descended between two high banks, and these were covered with underwood. This was the part of our way on which we were now about to enter. Just at this moment, while I was debating with myself whether we ought to go on without a little exploration, Jones stepped up to me rather hastily. “Please, sir,” said he, “I’m a-thinking Nanny siz something as we doesn’t see.” I should mention that, in the course of our march, when we approached any eminence that afforded a view of the road and country in front, Nanny would trot off from the party, run to the summit, and make her observations—in short, see all that was to be seen. Goats, if you observe, never, unless compelled, venture on new ground, till they have first halted, and taken a view of it. Even sheep, if not over-driven, will not turn down a lane, till they have stopped and turned their heads, for the purpose of taking a look with _both_ eyes. Cows, on the contrary, look and advance at the same time; and your nag, contenting himself with a _one-eyed_ view, appears to advance without looking at all. Your dog, who has more sense than all the others put together, when you come to a place where the road forks—dear old Burruff!—_looks up in your face_. Well, Nanny, in the present instance, had done as she always did. The ground rose to our left, and the elevation _commanded_ the valley in front. On that elevation Nanny was now standing, and Jones’s observation was evidently correct. She saw something, or somebody, unseen by us. There she stood—not, though, as on previous occasions, quietly taking a survey of the road before us: her tail, the “upward curl” of which was more than perpendicular—_retroussé_—from time to time vibrated rapidly. She uttered, at intervals, a sharp, anxious bleat, and ever and anon stamped with a movement so quick, the eye could scarce discern it. “What d’ye think, then, she sees down there?” said I to Jones—“other goats?” “Please, sir,” said Jones, “I’m a-thinking it’s not goats, sir; ’cause then she wouldn’t stop up there, sir. Please, sir, she’d come back at once, and keep close, sir; ’cause she knows as how I’d protect her varchy, sir; ’cause for fear the Billies should make too free, sir; ’cause, when the Nannies is in milk, sir, they doesn’t not pemit hinnersint libbities, sir.”