"Shepherd Toller took to his bed the very day as my 'usband met him, and never left it, leastways he never went outside the hut again. I wanted to go myself and look after him a bit in the daytime. But my 'usband wouldn't let me go. 'He's no sight for you to look at, missis,' he sez. 'Except for the pain, his mind's at rest. Besides, there's nobody but me knows how to talk to him, and there's nobody but me as he wants to see. You can't make him no comfortabler than he is.' "But it were a terrible strain on my poor 'usband, and there's not a doubt that it would ha' killed him there and then if it had lasted much longer. It were about three weeks before the end come, and nivver shall I forget that night--no, not if I was to live to be a thousand years old. "My master come home about ten o'clock, lookin' just like a man as were walkin' in his sleep. I couldn't get him to take notice o' nothin', and when I put his supper on the table he seemed as though he hardly knowed what it were for. He didn't eat more than two mouthfuls, and then he turned his chair round to the fire, tremblin' all over. "After a bit I sees him drop asleep like. So I sez to myself, 'I'll just go upstairs to warm his bed for him, and then I'll come down and wake him up,' and I begins to get the warmin'-pan ready. He were mutterin' all sorts of things; but I didn't take much notice o' that, because that's what he allus did when he went to sleep in his chair. However, I did notice that he kep' mutterin' something about a dog. "Soon he wakes up, kind o' startled, and sez, 'Missis, let that dog in; he won't let me get a wink o' sleep.' 'You silly man,' I sez, 'you've been fast asleep for three-quarters of a' hour.' 'Why,' he sez, 'I've been wide awake all the time, listenin' to the dog whinin' and scratchin' at the door, and I was too tired to get up and let him in. Open the door quick; I'm fair sick on it.' I sez, 'What nonsense you're talkin'! Why, Boxer's been lyin' under the table ever since you come home at ten o'clock. He's there now.' So he looks under the table, and there sure enough were Boxer fast asleep. 'Well,' he sez, 'it must be another dog. Open the door, as I tell you, and see what it is.' So I opens the door; and, of course, there were no sign of a dog. 'Are you satisfied now?' I sez. 'I can't make it out,' he sez; 'it's something funny. I'd take my dyin' oath as there were a dog scratchin'. But maybe as I'll go to sleep now.' So he shuts his eyes, and were soon off, mutterin' as before.