Nor am I aware that he displayed any emotional tenderness towards his charges; and certainly, I may add, his personal appearance would not have recommended him to a painter in search of a model for the Good Shepherd of traditional art. In eliminating undesirable specimens from the flock, Snarley was as ruthless as Nature; and when the butcher's man drove them off to the shambles he would watch their departure without a qualm. It was certainly said that he would never slaughter a sheep with his own hands, not even when death was merciful; on the other hand, he would sternly execute, by shooting, any dog that showed a tendency to bite or worry the flock. There was one doubtful case of this kind which Snarley told Mrs. Abel he had settled by reference to his monitor--the verdict being adverse to the dog. The monitor was, indeed, his actual Master--the captain of the ship whose orders were inviolable,--Farmer Perryman being only the purser from whom he received his pay: a view of the relationship which probably worked to Perryman's great advantage. In short, whatever may have been Snarley's sins or virtues in other directions, "the Shepherd" had little or nothing to do with them. The burden which Snarley laid at his feet was the burden which had bent his back, and crippled his limbs, and gnarled his hands, and furrowed his broad brows during seventy years of hardship and toil. Moral lapses--in the matter of drink and, at one time, of fighting--occasionally took place; but they were never known to be followed by any reference to the disapproval of "the Shepherd." In some respects, indeed, Robert Dellanow showed himself singularly deficient in moral graces. To the very end of his life he was given to outbreaks of violent behaviour--as we have seen; and not only would he show no signs of after-contrition for his bad conduct, but would hint, at times, that his invisible companion had been a partner, or at least an unreproving spectator, in what he had done. But if he made a mistake in feeding the ewes or in doctoring the lambs, Snarley would say, "I don't know what 'the Shepherd' will think o' me. I'll hardly have the face to meet him next time." Once, on the other hand, when there had been a heavy snowfall towards the end of April, and desperate work in digging the flock out of a drift, he described the success of the operations to Mrs. Abel by saying, "It were a job as 'the Shepherd' himself might be proud on."