MY EARLY FRIENDS. 145
-only burst out and greeted her family rather uproariously on
their return in the ranks of their fellow-worshippers.
 On other occasions, to stay at home when her friends were
going abroad, or to submit to confinement, was so severe a
trial of Skatta's philosophy, that it was the one decree which
found and left her rebellious. It was no easy task to detain a
dog that, when shut into a room on the second floor of the
house, with the windows closed, broke through a pane of
glass, and precipitated herself twelve or fifteen feet to the
ground; and with such rapidity did she clear the glass in
taking the leap, that she was not punished for her defiant
temerity by more than a few inconsiderable scratches and
bruises.
 She once walked a distance of fifteen miles with her
master, and at the end of the journey was tied up in a stable,
since he was going where she could not conveniently accom-
pany him. I need not say that she gnawed through the
string, seized an opportunity, when the stable-door was open,
to make her escape, and, not being able to trace her master,
ran the whole way home again, and arrived in the course of
two more hours, very travel-stained, tired, and hungry, but
content. This is nothing of a feat compared to that performed
by an Argyleshire terrier, which, having been conveyed in a
carriage through one of the passes into an entirely different
district, set off at the first available moment, and crossed a
great solitary mountain range-taking a week to do it-arriving
at last, a gaunt but happy skeleton, at what it persisted in
regarding as its own door. How the poor animal subsisted
in the meantime was only known to Him who feedeth the
young ravens when they cry.
 T