There was another member of the family whose qualities deserve especial mention—the great Newfoundland dog.

We have already alluded to the captain’s fondness for the race: there was always a dog in his father’s family. Often had old Lion furnished them with a meal, or detected the ambush of the lurking Indian. As though to round and complete the sum of kindly associations clustering around this pleasant household, even Tiger partook of the good qualities of the family. Captain Rhines said that he wouldn’t have a dog that would make the neighbors dislike to come to the house; but as for Tiger, he was both a gentleman and a Christian.

The breed of dogs to which he belonged are both by nature and inclination fitted for the water, and as insensible to the cold as a white bear. Their skin is greasy; there is a fine wool under their long hair which turns water; when they come ashore they give themselves a shake or two and are nearly dry. They are also partially web-footed; they do not swim like common dogs, thrusting their paws out before them like a hog, but spread out their great feet and strike out sidewise like a boy.

The way in which the captain made the acquaintance of Tige was on this wise: One of his last voyages was to Trieste; he met in the street a fine-looking dog carrying a basket full of eggs; greatly pleased with the appearance of the animal, he turned to look after him, when, as he passed a stable door, a dog as large as himself attacked him in the rear. He bore it patiently till he came to a house, when, putting down his eggs, he turned upon his persecutor, and gave him such a mauling that he was glad to escape on three legs, and covered with blood. The captain followed the dog to a menagerie, where he ascertained that it was the dog’s daily duty to bring eggs to feed the monkeys; that he had flogged the other a day or two before, who thought to avenge himself by attacking him at a disadvantage.

The captain succeeded in buying the animal, though he never dared to tell what he gave for him.

“Were I not pushed for money,” said the showman, after the bargain was concluded, “I never would have parted with him; he will protect your person and your property; you never will be sorry that you bought him, though I shall often regret that I was obliged to sell him.”

Captain Rhines soon found that the showman had spoken the truth. He could leave the most valuable articles on the wharf, and trust them to his keeping.

So well was his disposition known, that not a child in the neighborhood feared to come to the house by night or day. He would permit any person to inspect the premises, but not to touch the least thing.

They might, in the night time, knock at the door as long as they pleased; but if they put their hand on the latch, he would knock it off with his paw, and show his teeth in a way that discouraged further attempts. When the little children came who could not knock loud enough to be heard, he would bark for them till he brought somebody to the door.

There was nothing so attractive to Tige as a baby on the floor, nor anything in which he so much delighted as to follow them around, and with his great tongue lick meat and gingerbread out of their fists. No wonder his master said he was a gentleman and a Christian; for though he would tear a thief in a moment, these little tots would get on him as he lay in the grass, stuff his mouth and nose full of clover heads to hear him sneeze, and, when tired of that, lie down on him and go to sleep.

Next to playing with babies, his favorite employment was fishing. In a calm day, when the water was clear, he would swim off to a dry ledge, called Seal Rock, in the cove before the house, dive down, and bring up a fish every time.

The fish always worked off on the ebb tide, and came up on the flood. Tige knew as well when it was flood tide, and time to go floundering, as did John Rhines, his bosom friend and constant companion. Tige always went to meeting, and slept on the horse-block in fair weather, and under it in foul.

The good women said, they did wish Tige Rhines would stay at home, for when they had fixed the children all up nice to go to meeting, they were sure to be hugging him, and he would slobber them all over, lick their hair down about their eyes, and chew their bonnet “ribbins” into strings.

Captain Rhines hired Sam Hadlock to help him hoe. When he went home Saturday night, he hung up his hoe in the shed, as he expected to work there the next week, but, finding his mother’s corn was suffering to be hoed, went back to get it. The family had gone to bed, and Tige wouldn’t let him touch it, though they were great friends, and he was the next neighbor. He was going into the house without knocking, for they didn’t fasten doors in those days; but the instant he put his hand on the latch, the dog knocked it off with his paw, and he was obliged to knock till Ben came and got the hoe for him.

A more singular proof of his sagacity occurred soon after. They had a fuss in the district with the schoolmaster, and a lawsuit grew out of it. Captain Rhines’s daughter was summoned as a witness by the master. He came one evening to see her about it, when the rest of the family were from home. Tiger thought, as she was alone, all was not right; so he waits upon the master to the door, and when she opened it, stood up on his hind legs, and put his fore paws on the master’s shoulders, and without offering to harm him, kept him there. They had to do their talking over Tiger’s shoulder; but when it was finished, he made no objection to his departure.

In the cove before the house was a beach of fine white sand, without a stone in it, which when wet was as hard as a floor. The children were never tired of playing on this spot. The upper portion, which was only occasionally wet by the tide, was dry and the sand loose, while the lower part, which the water had recently left, was hard and smooth to run on, thus affording them a variety of amusements. Some would run races on the beach, chase the retreating waves, and then scamper back, screaming with delight, as the wave broke around their heels.

Others sailed boats, waded in the water after shells, and if they could get Tige, they would spit on a stick and fling it as far as they could into the water, and send him in to fetch it out, while those who were learning to swim would catch hold of his tail and be towed ashore. While all this was going on at the water’s edge, another party on the upper portion would be rolling over on the hot, clean sand, and building forts, and digging wells with clam shells; others still, under the clay bank, were making mud puddings and pies, and roasting clams at a great fire made of drift-wood.

Parents did not like very well to have the children, especially the little ones, play there so much, for fear of their getting drowned; and the larger ones could not well be spared from work to go with them; but they could not find it in their hearts to forbid them, they had such a good time of it. So, once or twice every week during the summer, a group of little folks would come to the captain’s, and one of them, making her best “courtesy,” would say,—

“Captain Rhines, me, and Eliza Ann Hadlock, and Caroline Griffin, and the Warren girls, are going down to the cove to play, and my marm wants to know if Tige can go and take care of us.”

Tige, who knew what the children wanted as well as they did themselves, would stand looking his master in the face, wagging his tail, and saying, as plain as a dog could say, “Do let me go, sir.”

Captain Rhines, one afternoon, set a herring net in the mouth of the cove. These nets are very long, and are set by fastening the upper edge to a rope, called the cork-rope. On this rope are strung corks, or wooden buoys made of cedar, which keep it on top of the water. It is then stretched out, and the two ends fastened to the bottom by “grapplings.” To each end larger buoys are fastened; weights are then attached to the lower edge, so that it hangs perpendicular in the water. The fish run against it in the dark, and are caught by their gills. It is the nature of Newfoundland dogs to bring ashore whatever they see floating. Tige went down to the Seal Rock floundering, and saw the buoys bobbing up and down in the water; away he swims to bring them ashore. Finding them fast to the bottom, what does he do, but with his sharp teeth gnaws off the cork-rope and set them adrift? till there were not enough left to float the net, and it sank to the bottom. He then carried all the floats to the Seal Rock and piled them up, and thinking he had done a meritorious act, lay down to rest himself after his labors.

The next morning Captain Rhines and Ben went to take up their net. They thought some vessel must either have run over it and carried it off on her keel or rudder, or else that so many fish were meshed as to sink it. They grappled and brought it up, when, to their astonishment, there was not a fish in it, the cork-rope cut to pieces, the two large buoys and about two thirds of the net-buoys gone.

But as they pulled home by the Seal Rock there was every one of the missing floats, with the marks of Tiger’s teeth in the soft wood. Captain Rhines was in a towering passion, because it was not only a great deal of work to grapple for the net, but the cork-rope, which was valuable in those days, was all cut to pieces.

He sent John up to the house after Tige, and got a big stick to beat him. The beach was covered with children of all ages. They left their sports and ran to the spot. John Rhines begged his father not to lick the dog, while the children began to cry; but the captain was determined. “Father,” said Ben, “I wouldn’t beat him; if you beat him for bringing these floats ashore, he won’t go after birds when you shoot them.” Upon this, the captain, who was an inveterate gunner, flung away the stick; and the children, drying up their tears, took Tige off to frolic with them.

The miller’s daughter, three years and a half old, had a speckled kitten; a brutal boy drowned it in the mill-pond. The little creature went down to look for her kitten, and fell in. Just then Captain Rhines and Tige came to the mill with a grist. The child had gone down for the third time. He jumped from the horse, and threw in a stone where he saw the bubbles come up. Tige instantly followed the stone, and brought up the child with just the breath of life in it.

The overjoyed mother hugged the child, and then hugged Tige. The miller gave him a brass collar, with an account of this brave act engraved upon it.

Ever after this he had a warm place in the affections of the whole community, and was almost as much beloved and respected as his master.

The sentiments of the young folks, in respect to Tige, were put to the test the next summer. A boy came there in a fishing vessel, who was full of pranks, had never received any culture, knew nothing of the history of Tige, and perhaps, if he had, would not have cared; to gratify a malicious disposition, he put some spirits of turpentine on him, causing him great agony. The enraged children enticed the boy to the beach, and while he was in swimming, carried off his clothes, and, having prepared themselves with sticks, fell upon him as he came out of the water, and beat him to a jelly.

A few days after the event just narrated, Captain Rhines was sitting in the door after dinner, when he saw little Fannie Williams, the miller’s daughter, coming into the yard. She was evidently bent on business of importance, for, though passionately fond of flowers, she never looked at the lilies, hollyhocks, and morning glories, on each side of her, but walking directly up to him, and putting both hands on his knees, said, with the tears glistening in her little eyes, “You won’t whip Tige, will you, if he does do naughty things?”

“God bless the child!” said the captain, taking her in his lap and kissing her, “have you come way down here to ask me that?”

“Nobody knowed it, and nobody telled me to come; I comed my own self, ’cause he shan’t be whipped. Fannie loves Tige.”

“You’ve good reason to love him, for if it had not been for him you’d been a dead baby now. I never will whip him, nor let anybody else.”

The captain then took her by the hand, and led her into the orchard, where he picked up some pears, and put in a basket; he then culled a bunch of flowers as large as she could carry, and putting the handle of the basket in Tige’s mouth, sent him home with her. The little girl, with her fears quieted, trudged along, putting her flowers to Tige’s nose for him to smell of, telling him he shouldn’t be licked, ’cause Captain Rhines said so.