verb. (colloquial).—To guard; to keep under surveillance; to chaperon: as a ticket-of-leave man (see NARK, subs. and verb); an unmarried woman, or (mining) as in quot. 1863. Also (football) to head off whilst one’s side is running or kicking. At Harrow, SHEPHERD, subs. = every sixth boy in the cricket-bill who answers for the five below him being present.
1863. Once a Week, VIII. 507. Having sunk their holes, each about a foot, and placed in them a pick or shovel as a sign of ownership, they devoted themselves to the laborious occupation of SHEPHERDING, which consists in sitting by a huge fire with a pipe in your mouth, telling or listening to interminable yarns,… grumbling at your present and regretting your past luck, diversified by occasionally lounging up to the sinking party for the purpose of examining the ‘tack’ thrown up, and criticising the progress made.
1886. PERCY CLARKE, The ‘New Chum’ in Australia, 71. The speculators, who sat dangling their legs in their infant pits ‘SHEPHERDING their claims,’ awaiting with anxiety … the run of the vein.
