Finn the wolfhound

by A. J. Dawson

Upon one occasion--one brilliantly sunny morning of Finn's martyrdom--it did dimly occur to the Professor that it might be the hot iron which somehow stood between himself and the mastery of Finn. Accordingly, he twisted some wire round the end of his quilt, or cutting whip, and entered the cage without the iron, while Sam stood outside with the brazier, ready to pass in the iron if that should prove necessary. Finn absolutely mistrusted the man, of course--he had suffered what he believed to be the man's insane lust of cruelty for a fortnight now--but yet he saw that the iron was not in the cage, and so he made no hostile demonstration; and that was a notable concession on his part, for, of late, the Professor's tactics, so far from taming him, had taught the naturally gracious and kindly Wolfhound to fly at the man with snapping jaws the instant he came within reach. Now the man moved slowly, very slowly, nearer and nearer to Finn's corner, using ingratiating words. When it seemed that he meant to come near enough for touch, Finn decided that he would slip across the cage to its opposite far corner in order to avoid the hated contact. He did not snarl; he did not even uncover his fangs, for the fiery instrument of torture was not there. He rose from his crouching position, and of necessity that brought him a few inches nearer to the Professor, before he could move toward the far side of the cage.

"Would yer? Down, ye brute!" snarled the man, in his best awe-inspiring tone. And in that instant the wire-bound rhinoceros-hide whistled down across Finn's face, cutting him almost as painfully as the hot iron was wont to sear him. He snarled ferociously. Down came the lash again, and this time a loose end of wire stabbed the corner of one of his eyes. The next instant saw the Professor flung back at length against the bars of the cage; and in his face he felt Finn's breath, and heard and saw the flashing, clashing gleam of Finn's white fangs. Sam thrust the white-hot bar in, stabbing Finn's neck with its hissing end. The Professor seized the bar and beat Finn off with it; not for protection now, but in sheer, savage anger. Then he withdrew from the cage, and seizing a long pole beat Finn crushingly with that, through the bars, till his arms ached. Meantime, Finn fought the pole like a mad thing; and the Professor, unable to think of any other way of inflicting punishment upon the untameable Giant Wolf, took his food from the basket and gave it to Killer before Finn's eyes, leaving the Wolfhound to go empty for the day.

The next instant saw the Professor flung back at length against the bars of the cage.

That was the result of the Professor's one attempt, according to his lights, at humouring the Giant Wolf, by approaching him without the iron. That also was a specimen of the kind of daily interviews he had with Finn.

By this time the Wolfhound actually was a very fierce and savage creature. But he was not at all like the magnificently raging whirlwind of wrath which had aroused the boss's admiring wonder on the day he first saw Finn. Killer might growl and snarl himself hoarse now for all the notice Finn took of the great beast. Scarred from nose to flank with burns, bruised and battered and aching in every limb, Finn remained always curled in the darkest, farthest corner of his cage now, roused only by the daily fight, the daily torture, of his interviews with the Professor. At other times, as the boss said bitterly, he might have been dead or a lap-dog, for all the spectacle he offered to the curious who visited his cage. All they saw was a coiled, iron-grey mass, and two burning black eyes, with a glint of red in them, and a blood-coloured triangle in their upper corners.

Now and again, in the midst of the night, Finn would rise and go down to the bars of his cage and stand there, motionless, for an hour at a stretch, his scarred muzzle protruding between two bars, his aching nostrils, hot and dry, drinking in the night air, his eyes robbed of their resentful fire, and pitiably softened by the great tears that stood in them. At the end of such an hour he would sometimes begin to walk softly to and fro, inside the bars, the four paces that his cage allowed him. Thus he would pad back and forth silently for another hour, with tail curled toward his belly and nose on a level with his knees, almost brushing the bars as he passed them. He made no sound at all, even when the moon's silvery light flooded his cage, or when Killer snarled in his sleep. But always, before returning to his corner, he would systematically test every bar at its base with teeth and paws; and then sigh, like a very weary man, as he slouched despairingly back to his corner.

But, for all the glowering misery that possessed him by day and the despair to which he would give rein by night, it was always with dauntless ferocity that the tortured Wolfhound faced his enemy, the Professor. Short of starving him to death, or killing him outright with the iron bar, the Professor could see no way of making the Giant Wolf cringe to him; he could devise no method of breaking that fierce spirit, though he exhausted every kind of severity and every sort of cruelty that his wide experience in the handling of fierce animals could furnish. For any one who could have comprehended the true inwardness of that situation, its tragedy would have lain in the reflection that, had he but known it, Finn could without difficulty have earned not alone ease and good treatment, but high honours in the Southern Cross Circus. But Finn had no means of guessing that the Professor merely desired to master him, and to teach him to stand erect, or leap through a hoop at the word of command. No sign of any such desire, that Finn could possibly read, had been furnished. But, on the contrary, the one thing made evident to the Wolfhound's understanding was that here was a bloodthirsty man in a leather coat who desired to burn him to death, when not engaged in beating him with a pole, or thrusting at him viciously through the bars of his cage with a stick, or slashing at him with a whip that cut through hair and skin. And, be it remembered, that the hound who was faced with these, to him, utterly gratuitous and senseless atrocities, was one who, if we except the single occasion of his night with the dog-thief in Sussex, had never known what it meant to face an angry man, or to receive a blow from a man, angry or otherwise. It was small wonder that Finn had only snarls and snapping jaws for the Professor. The pity of it was that he could have avoided as much suffering if he had only known what it was desired of him. The wonder of it was that he faced the Professor day after day with such unfailing courage, with a spirit which remained absolutely uncowed, though the body which sheltered it could not present a single patch of the bigness of a man's hand which was neither burned, nor bruised, nor cut.

There came a day when, other matters occupying his attention, the Professor did not trouble to pay one of his futile visits to Finn's cage. Sam fed him as usual, when Killer was fed. (One of the features of Finn's captivity, which, while in his confinement it helped to injure his physical condition, also helped to make him the more fierce, was the fact that his diet consisted exclusively of raw meat.) Finn waited through the long day for the Professor, steeling himself for the daily struggle and the daily suffering. His body free of new pains he rested that night more thoroughly than he had rested for a long time; and there were faint stirrings of hope in his mind. Next morning the boss happened to walk past the cages with the Professor, and when they came to Finn's place the Professor said--