Finn the wolfhound

by A. J. Dawson

Nevertheless, his weight and the force of the impact between the two, brought Reynard to earth, where he rolled smartly on his back, slashing at Finn's fore-arm with his sharp white fangs, and snarling ferociously. In the same instant almost, the fox was on his feet, but before he could leap away, Finn's jaws descended on the back of his neck, gripping him like a vice, and shaking him almost as a terrier shakes a rat. With a desperate squirm the fox wriggled earthward from this terrible grip, and, as Finn drew breath, stabbing at the fox with one fore-paw, as he would have stabbed at a still living rabbit, to hold it, Reynard's fangs cut deeply into the loose skin of his chest. As he slashed, the fox, after the manner of his kind, leaped clear. But he had no time to run before Finn was upon him, with a roar of awakened fury. The fox dodged and slashed again, drawing blood from the fleshy part of Finn's fore-arm. Reynard fought like a wolf, or a light-weight boxer; and after this last slash, he wheeled like lightning and flew for cover. But the Wolfhound's fighting blood was boiling in him now, and Finn swept down upon the fox, exactly as a greyhound sweeps upon a hare. When his great jaws closed upon the fox's neck this time, it was to kill. Reynard squirmed valiantly; but Finn flung him on his back, and took new hold upon his throat. The fox's two hind-feet, drawn well up, scored down Finn's belly like the feet of a lynx; but it was Reynard's last movement, for, as he made it, Finn's long fangs met in his jugular, and his warm blood streamed upon the ground.

That was Finn's first big kill, and it marked an epoch in his development, leaving active in him a newly-wakened instinct of fierceness which had been foreign to his family for several generations. If the big fox could have kept clear of Finn for but two more days he would have saved his life; and, in any case, such killings as Finn's had been during the past month or so could hardly have continued much longer in that country-side without attracting human attention, the result of which might have been awkward for the Wolfhound. As it was, the superficial wounds the fox had inflicted upon him were never noticed by the Master or the Mistress of the Kennels, by reason of other happenings in which Finn also was concerned. His wounds were not deep, his coat was dense, and Finn doctored himself effectively with his own tongue.

Early on the morning after his successful hunting of the fox, Finn found several strange men about the house and grounds. The Master had arrived home late on the previous evening, unconscious, not alone of Finn's fox-hunting, but of his foraging habits generally; ignorant even of the fact that his one remaining Wolfhound ever left the premises, unless with the Mistress of the Kennels. It was a very large slice of Finn's life during the last few months that was unknown to his human friends. All through this day Finn pottered about the house and garden and the outside den, observing with curiosity the behaviour of the strange men who wore green aprons. It seemed to Finn that these men were bent upon turning the whole place upside down. The game they played seemed to consist of laboriously lifting heavy articles of furniture, carrying them about, and putting them down again, in what seemed to Finn a confused and pointless manner. Evening found the Wolfhound scarcely more comfortable than his human friends, who were evidently in very poor spirits. They were moved by conscious regret, and by conscious anxiety regarding the future. Finn was moved by conscious discomfort, and vague mental stirrings of impending trouble of some sort. When he slept, he dreamed of Matey; this time in the form of a huge fox, whose jaws slashed the air in the most fearsome manner. (Up till the previous day, Finn had hunted and killed innumerable wild creatures, but never fought with one.)

The next day was one of even less comfort and more bewilderment. In addition to the men with green aprons and strongly vocal boots, there was quite a large assemblage of other people, who strode about through the rooms of the little house, and in its garden, stable, and outside den, as though the place belonged to them, and they were rather disgusted with it. Later on, however, these noisy men-folk (there were women among them, too) drew together in one of the front rooms of the house, and made all sorts of--to Finn--meaningless noises, while one among them stood upon a kitchen-chair and occasionally smote the top of a salt-box with a small white hammer, before proceeding to call forth more meaningless noises from the other people. Finn prowled about in a most unhappy mood, and once, the Mistress of the Kennels led him into an empty bedroom, and knelt down on the floor and cried over him, while he endeavoured to lick her face, whimpering the while, to show his sympathy. Later on, the people flocked out into the den, and made more vain noises there; and then to the stable. Finally, they streamed out into the orchard, and made stupid remarks about the kennels there; and at long last they went away, leaving the green-aproned men in undisputed possession, and free to throw furniture about, and pile it on carts in the road, as they chose.

Then the Master and the Mistress and Finn went away together to the station, saying nothing, and looking very unhappy. Finn carried his tail so low that it dragged, and its black tip picked up mud from the wet road, upon which a fine autumnal drizzle had begun to fall. That night, and for two subsequent nights, Finn lived unhappily in a poky London lodging with his friends; and on the third day, he walked with the Master to a railway station, while the Mistress of the Kennels drove in a cab with a mountain of baggage. Finn was not allowed in the carriage with his friends, but had to travel in a van full of boxes and bags, with a rough but amiable man whose coat had shiny buttons, and whose attitude toward Finn was one of respectful and distant deference.

Some time before this, Finn had come to the conclusion that they were all going to a Dog Show; and, remembering vividly a Great Dane who had snarled viciously at him in the last show he had visited during the middle of the summer (when, as on each other occasion of his being exhibited, he had been awarded first prize in each class for which he was eligible), he decided that he would adopt a killing demeanour and stand no nonsense at all. Four or five months ago, at the time of this last show, the Dane's fang-bearing snarl had made him shudder. To-day he would have rather welcomed it than otherwise, and returned it with interest.

After walking some fifty or sixty yards from the train, among a great crowd of people and baggage, Finn, with the Master, entered what he supposed was the show building. The chief reason, by the way, of his conviction that he was bound for a show, lay in the fact that a long, bright steel chain was attached to his best green collar, with its brass name-plate bearing Finn's name and the Master's. The odd thing about this show building, however, was that there appeared to be only two other dogs in it, besides Finn; one a collie, and one an Irish terrier, whose head, so far as its shape went, was a tiny miniature of Finn's own head. In colour, however, the terrier reminded him rather of the big fox he had slain. Finn found these two dogs--both, of course, unimportant small fry, from his lofty standpoint--each chained to the front part of a barrel half filled with straw; and that seemed to the Wolfhound an extremely odd kind of show bench. But the bed to which Finn himself was chained was a good deal more like the kind he had seen before at shows, in that it was a flat bench, well strawed, and a good foot above the floor level; but it had solid wooden sides and roof, so that, while he lay on it, Finn could not see the other dogs, unless by craning his head round the corner. And before he left, the Master fixed up some wirework before the bench, so as to shut Finn in, while on the inside of that network a notice was hung, for the benefit of passers-by, most of whom read the notice aloud, until Finn was thoroughly tired of hearing it. It ran like this: "Warning! Do not touch!"

After arranging this matter of the network, the Master disappeared, with a hurried wave of his hand in Finn's direction, and a "Wait there, old man!" a rather unnecessary request Finn may have thought, seeing that he was securely chained.

Upon the whole, Finn decided that this was the most curious show he had visited. He heard no barking, beyond an occasional yap from the Irish terrier, and among the innumerable people who passed the front of his bench, the majority seemed to be carrying bags or bundles, and none seemed to have come there to see dogs. After a time Finn tired of the whole thing and, curling up on his bench, went to sleep. He slept and waked, and slept and waked again, for what seemed a very long time; and then the Master came to see him, with the Mistress of the Kennels. He was taken down from his bench and allowed to stroll to and fro for a few minutes, though not for any distance. The Master knew that cleanly habits had long since become second nature with all the Wolfhounds of his breeding, and that it would have been cruel to have left Finn on his bench for very long stretches of time. Supper was given Finn, on the floor near his bench, and fresh water was placed in his dish in the front corner of the bed. Then he was chained up again, and the Master told him to be a good Finn boy, and go to sleep till the next morning.

Days passed, all manner of odd things happened, and Finn saw many strange sights before he actually realized that he was not at a Dog Show at all, but a passenger aboard a great ocean liner. And even then, when a good part of the ship had become quite familiar to him, the Wolfhound did not know, of course, that they were all bound to the other side of the world, that their passages were booked for Australia, and that this great steamer, which had once belonged to the Atlantic service, was now given over entirely to passengers of one class, who were travelling at a uniform and cheap rate to the Antipodes.