Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

     A gentleman of Suffolk, England, being on an Excursion with his friends, and having a Newfoundland dog at the party soon became the subject of conversation. The master, after a sharp eulogium upon his perfections, assured his companion that he would, upon receiving the order, return and fetch any article he would leave behind, from any distance. To confirm the assertion, a market shilling was put under a large square stone by the side of the road, being first shown to the dog. The gentleman then rode for three miles, when the dog received the signal from his master to return for the shilling he had seen put under the stone. The dog turned back and the gentleman rode on and reached home; but to their surprise and disapointment, the hitherto faithful messenger did not return during the day. It afterward appeared that he had gone to the place where the shilling was deposited, but the stone being too heavy for his strength to remove, he had stayed howling at the place till two horsemen riding by and attracted by his seeming distress, stopped to look at him; one of them, alighting, removed the stone, and, seeing the shilling, put it in his pocket, not at the time conceiving it to be the object of the dog’s search. The dog followed their horses for twenty miles, remaining undisturbed in the room where they supped, followed the chambermaid into the bedchamber, and secreted himself under one of the beds. The possessor of the shilling hung his trowsers upon a nail by the bedside; but, when the travelers were both asleep, the dog took the trowsers in his mouth, and leaping out the window, which had been left open on account of the sultry heat, reached his master’s house at 4 o’clock in the morning with the prize he had made free with, in the pockets of which were found money and the watch, that were returned upon being advertised, when the whole mystery was mutually unraveled, to the admiration of all parties.