Finn the wolfhound

by A. J. Dawson

"Oho! So we don't like our new master, don't we? Haven't forgotten our blooming gruellin', eh? Better take care we don't get some more o' the same sort, Mister Wolfhound, if you arst me!"

The walled-in yard was quite safe. Matey was in nowise perturbed, and, moreover, having slept soundly and breakfasted copiously, he was, for him, in an amiable mood. Still, he had no wish to waste time, and he wanted to overhaul his plunder, and groom Finn up a little before the prospective purchaser arrived. So Matey turned round, leaned forward with a hand resting on one knee, and tried to twist his features into an ingratiating expression, as he said--

"Here, then, good dog! Come on, Finn! Here, boy!"

But instinct made Finn's intelligence upon the whole superior to Matey's in this matter, and, having already satisfied himself by means of hurried investigation that at present he could not escape from the walled-in yard, the Wolfhound stood half a dozen paces distant from the man, waiting, with every nerve and muscle at concert pitch. The man moved forward, with hand outstretched invitingly. The Wolfhound moved backward, with hackles slightly raised. Thus they followed each other round the little yard perhaps six times, the distance between them being maintained with nicety and precision by Finn. Then Matey's mental inferiority appeared. He was expecting very shortly now the man from whom he hoped to receive his reward--the price of Finn. His intelligence, such as it was, told him that strategy would now be necessary to enable him to lay hands on the Wolfhound; but, even while recognising that, he could not refrain from angrily flinging his chain in Finn's face, after his sixth promenade of the yard, and cursing the dog savagely, before retiring into the house to prepare a stratagem.

Finn did not snarl as the chain struck him. Instinct had not carried him so far from education. But he barked angrily, and bounded to one side. While the man was away Finn examined the gate of the yard through which he had been driven on the previous night, and, though it rattled hopefully when he plunged against it with his fore-paws, raised high above its fastening, it remained solidly closed.

As Finn turned away from the doors of the yard, Matey appeared from the house, holding in one outstretched hand a piece of the same kind of meat with which he had seduced Finn into accompanying him on the previous evening, and calling the hound to him in a friendly tone. But Finn had learned a good deal since his first taste of that savoury meat; more a good deal than the man who offered the meat had learned in the same time. Taking the middle of the yard, so as to leave himself ample space for retreat, he remained watchfully regarding Matey, and refused to advance a step. Matey's spoken blandishments were now a dead letter to Finn. Having once discovered the possibilities of human treachery, he would never forget them. And here the folk who belong to what we call the brute creation are apt to be a good deal wiser than their betters in the scale of evolution. They do not forget the teaching of experience so readily as do those of us who are farther removed from Nature. To be sure, Matey's notion of strategy was puerile enough; but, apart from that, it is safe to assume that Finn would never again completely trust this man, who had been the first to introduce him to fear and misery, to humiliation, and to knowledge of the existence of treachery and cruelty in men folk.

Matey cursed the Wolfhound angrily, but that did not incline Finn to trust him any the more. Then the man advanced a little in his strategy, and tossed a piece of the meat on to the ground, before Finn, to inspire confidence. But Finn's mistrust was too profound to admit of his stooping to pick this up. He was not very specially hungry, in any case; and if Matey had been an observant creature, or even one who used his memory wisely, he would have known that

the offer of drinking-water would have been infinitely more tempting to Finn than any quantity of savoury meat. But, as a fact, Finn was too much possessed just now by his determination to escape from Matey and all his works to be very clearly conscious of any other need.

Then, his petty strategy exhausted, and his paltry measure of self-control with it, Matey started to chase Finn with a stick. Now and again he succeeded in getting a blow home, as Finn wheeled and leapt before him within the narrow limits of the yard; and every time the stick touched him Finn barked angrily. This performance was extremely bad for Finn. It was calculated to break down some of the most valuable among his acquired qualities; the characteristics that he acquired with his blood through many generations of wisely-bred and humanely-reared hounds. In one sense it was more harmful than the merciless and unreasonable punishment of the previous night, because there was no faintest hint of a punishment about it; not even of the sort of punishment that had followed his howling. That had had the bad qualities of cruelty and unreasonableness, unjustifiableness. This was not punishment at all, it was sheer savagery, the savagery of a running fight in which the man, though he might hurt occasionally, could not conquer. And that is a most demoralizing sort of a happening, as between dog and man. Its demoralizing influence could have been detected by an observant spectator in the notes of Finn's barks when the stick reached him. They approached momentarily nearer the threatening nature of a growl; a new, dangerous note to hear in Finn's speech with mankind.

Matey was rapidly becoming exhausted, and in another moment or two would probably have flung his stick at Finn and given up his senseless pursuit, when, just as the Wolfhound bounded forward from under his stick at the house end of the yard, the gate leading into that yard opened, and Bill appeared. In an instant Finn had sprung for the opening, Bill's legs were thrust from under him, and as he stumbled, with one hand on the ground and an oath on his lips, Finn reached the open road outside. Behind him, for a moment, Finn heard a hurried scrambling, and a deal of broken, breathless whistling, and calling aloud of his name. And then he heard no more from the place of his captivity and anguish, for the reason that he was already nearing the limits of the little town, and galloping hard for the open country, over the road by which he had travelled some ten hours earlier in Matey's cart.