HIS FIRST NIGHT AT HIS MASTER'S HOME.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 216, 15 June 1877, Page 7

HIS FIRST NIGHT AT HIS MASTER'S HOME.

(FROM AN AMERICAN PAPER.) " I do love a dog," said Mr. So miner beck, the owner of the big yellow brick house in Spring-street, out on North Hill. " Man's faithful friend ; always devoted to his master ; always vigilant in his protection; untiring in his efforts to please; docile under discipline, forgiving in his disposition, kind and faithful, man does not half appreciate him nor understand him. I have bought a dog, one that will in his infantine days be a source of unceasing mirth to us all by his innocent gambols, and, as age develops his sterner qualities, will be a faithful, vigilant guardian, of our sleeping hours. Let us love him and deal with him ge tly and tenderly, *and his very life will be devoted to our service. Come, Herze- ** govina, come ! come in and get acquainted witu your friends " Herzegovina was not a very promising-looking dog. He had a pair of black, headlike eyes, that were set in such a steady stare thej never winked, but glared through the tangled mass of grizzly hair that hung over them in a heavy fringe. One of his ears had been ran over by a freight train or something, and was broken about mid-ships, the end hanging down like a hall-masted signal of distress. The other ear stood up bold upright, like the sample on a lightning-rod wagon. His coat was an indescribable pepper-and-salt colour, and the dog appeared to have grown gray from premature trouble Every time one of the family spoke to him he started and sidled under a chair or behind the sofa, with an agility that could only come from long experience, and when Mr. Somuierbeck stooped down to pat his head the cautious creature gave a howl that made the windows rattle, and dived under the nearest table. " Never mind," said Mr. Somraerbeck, " never mind ; lie will learn to know us in a few days. He will learn to know us. Learn to know us. Enow us." When the family retired that night the dog was shut up in the carriage-shed, as it was feared, he might feel lonesome, and. stray

away from his new home. The last lamp had hardly bee» put out however, when Mr. Sommerbeck heard strange noises in the yard. Somebody was prowling around the barn. Mr. Sommerbeok groaned as he left his snug "bed and leaned out of a window to listen and catch a Centennial cold in his head. Evidently there was something 1 or somebody out in the "barn, and the master groaned, and dressed, and went down with his heart in his mouth and a lantern in his hand to reconnoitre. He put his ear against the crack of the door; he heard a rasping noise, as of some one cramming things into a bag. He opened the door, and the first thing he saw was the strip of a buggy-cushion. Then he saw some fragments of stuff that looked like the lining of his buggy, and then his attention was attracted to a kind of geyser of curled hair, and he saw the faithful dog throwing his whole soul into the work of digging for rats, where no rat ever was, in the buggy-cushion. The faithful dog had already gnawed the whip in three pieces, chewed the check-rains and one 'of the traces up into hard, moistlooking knots, and tore Mr. Sommerbeck' s sta,ble-coat and a horseblanket into carpet-rags. " One consolation," said Mr. Sommerbeck, " it's evident he's a powerful ratter." Mr. Sommerbeck sat out in the cold until he was chilled through, and held the dog by the neck, wondering what to do with him. "Confinement is irksome to him, and makes him restless, maybe," said Mr. Sommerbeck, wondering if he couldn't get the buggy fixed before Mrs. S. saw it. " I guess I'll tie him out." So he tied him to the back fence with a piece of the clothesline, and again sought his downy couch. He had been in bed about ten minutes when a, howl of most unearthly import smote the air, dying away in a prolonged, shuddering gurgle that lifted every hair on Mr. Sommerbeck' s head, and emptied all tho>shrieking, fainting women in the house into his room in one wailing, hysterical torrent. Again and again the howl came swelling up through the closed windows, as though it wailed out of the very walls of the house, and then would come a series of choking, gurgling gasps and asthmatic groans that were too full of horror to listen to without shrieking. Mr. Sommerbeck could feel his hair trying to lift itself out by the roots, and he tried to shout for the police, but the sound of his terror-stricken voice awed him into silence. " I will go down and see what it is," he said, in a tone of forced calmness. He dressed, and took the lantern and revolver and went out. Guided by the terrible sounds, he came to where he had tied the dog. No dog was visible, but the rope that was stretched tight across the top of the fence showed where he was. The docile animal had jumped over the fence, and the rope was just long enough to let his hind legs touch the ground. As long as he could stand the dog could howl till he hushed the railroad whistles, and when his weakening legs "buckled and let him down, the rope tightened and shut off his wind in a series of chokes and gurgles that were too awful to think about Mr. Somraerbeck climbed painfully over the fence and tried to lift the dog back into the yard, and as he pushed the howling animal over the fence, it pawed the top of his bald head until it looked like a map of the Servian war. Mr. Sommerbeck wished the faithful dog at the Centennial. . Then it crawled its hind legs down the neck of his night-shirt, and braced its four paws against the fence and pushed back, and walked all over Mr. Sommerbeck's upturned face, howling all the time. Finally, Mr. Sommerbeck pushed him over and heard him drop with a heavy thump on the ground. Then he tried to climb over himself. At last he got one leg over the top of the fence after many grunts, and with a great groan of satisfaction balanced himself on top. His sudden appearance seemed to fill the dog with terror, and in a flash, just as Mr. Sommerbeck dropped on the inside of the fence, the faithful dog went up like a rocket and shot out of sight on the other, and recommenced his hideous howls and gasps. Mr. Sommerbeck felt as though he couldn t groan deep enough as he prepared to scale the dreadful fence. It was discouraging work, but he got to the top at last, lost his balance, and went down on the other side like a land slide, falling plump on the faithful dog and killing ib so quick that the doomed animal never whined a protest. Mr. Sommerbeck limped slowly down the alley, and up the street to the front gate. He got in the house and went to bed, and in response to the anxious inquiries of the women as to what was the matter, he merely told them to pull on the clotheslines in the morning and they would find out.