From this source Snarley professed to have derived some of the secrets on which his system of breeding was founded. "'The Shepherd' had put him up to them." He said that it was "the Shepherd" who had turned his thoughts to Spain as the country which would provide him with a short-eared ram. "The Shepherd" had assisted in the creation of "Thunderbolt," had indicated the meadows where the "Spanish cross" would find the best pasturage, and never failed to warn him when he was going to make a serious mistake. In his brilliant successes, which were many, at agricultural shows and such like, Snarley disclaimed every tittle of merit for himself, assuring Mrs. Abel that it was all due to the guidance of "the Shepherd." Of the prize-money which came to him in this way--for Farmer Perryman let him have it all--Snarley would never spend a sixpence; it was all "the Shepherd's money," and was promptly banked "that the missis might have a bit when he were gone"--the "bit" amounting, if I remember rightly, to four hundred and eighty pounds. Throughout these communings there was scarcely a trace of moral reference in the usual senses of the term. One rule of life, and one only, Snarley professed to have derived from his invisible monitor--that "the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." This rule, also, he accepted in a strictly literal sense, and considered himself under orders accordingly. Thus interpreted, it was for him the one rule which summed up the essential content of the whole moral law. I am not able to recall any notable act of heroism or self-sacrifice performed by Snarley on behalf of his flock; but perhaps we shall not err in regarding his whole life as such an act. When, in his old age, physical suffering overtook him--the result of a lifetime of toil and exposure to the elements--he bore it as a good soldier should bear his wounds, sustained by the consciousness that pain such as his was the lot of every shepherd "as did his duty by the sheep."