The man had his back to the withered iron-bark now.
FINN THE WOLFHOUND
By A. J. DAWSON
AUTHOR OF "'THE MESSAGE," "THE GENTEEL A.B.," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY R. H. BUXTON
This etext prepared from a 1909 reprint of the first edition published in 1908 by Grant Richards of London and printed by William Brendon and Son Ltd of Plymouth.
TO "THE MISTRESS OF THE KENNELS" AND TO THE MEMORY OF TYNAGH MOTHER OF WOLFHOUND HEROES ITS WRITER DEDICATES THIS HISTORY
Witchampton, 1908
CONTENTS
[CHAPTER I. The Mother of Heroes]
[CHAPTER II. In the Beginning]
[CHAPTER III. The Foster-mother]
[CHAPTER V. Youth beside the Downs]
[CHAPTER VI. The Ordeal of the Ring]
[CHAPTER VIII. Finn Walks Alone]
[CHAPTER IX. The Heart of Tara]
[CHAPTER X. A Transition Stage]
[CHAPTER XII. The Parting of the Ways]
[CHAPTER XIII. An Adventure by Night]
[CHAPTER XIV. The Southern Cross Circus]
[CHAPTER XV. The Making of a Wild Beast]
[CHAPTER XIX. The Domestic Lure]
[CHAPTER XXI. Three Dingoes went a-walking]
[CHAPTER XXII. A Break-up in Arcadia]
[CHAPTER XXIV. A Lone Bachelor]
[CHAPTER XXVI. The Pack and its Masters]
[CHAPTER XXVII. Single Combat]
[CHAPTER XXVIII. Domestic Life in the Mountain Den]
[CHAPTER XXIX. Tragedy in the Mountain Den]
[CHAPTER XXXI. The Trail of Man]
[CHAPTER XXXII. In the Last Ditch]
[CHAPTER XXXIII. Back from the Wild]
LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
[THE MAN HAD HIS BACK TO THE WITHERED IRON-BARK NOW]
[TARA SMILED BROADLY, AND STRETCHED OUT HER FORE-LEGS ON THE GROUND]
[THE GATE LEADING INTO THE YARD OPENED, AND BILL APPEARED]
[THE NEXT INSTANT SAW THE PROFESSOR FLUNG BACK AT LENGTH AGAINST THE BARS OF THE CAGE]
[WAS LOST IN THE SHADOW OF THE MAIN TENT]
[HE WAS BACKING GRADUALLY TOWARDS A BOULDER BESIDE THE TRAIL]
[FINN WAS STANDING ROYALLY ERECT]
[FINN'S TOWERING FORM STOOD OUT CLEARLY IN THE MOONLIGHT]
[HE SLUNG THE WALLABY OVER HIS SHOULDER AND SET OUT FOR THE MOUNTAIN]
[SCRAMBLING AND SLIDING DOWN THE HIGH BANKS OF A RIVER-BED]
[THEY SETTLED WITHIN A DOZEN PACES OF HIS RECUMBENT FIGURE]
[FOUR MEN WERE RIDING TOGETHER THROUGH THE LOW BURNT-UP SCRUB]
[THE WOLFHOUND RAISED HIS BEARDED MUZZLE, AND SOFTLY LICKED THE MASTER'S THIN BROWN HAND]
[CHAPTER I]
THE MOTHER OF HEROES
For a man whose thirtieth year was still not far behind him, the man's face was over careworn. It suggested that he felt life's difficulties more keenly than a man should at that age. But it may have been that this was a necessary part of the keenness with which the whole of life appealed to him; its good things, as well as its worries.
He rose from his writing-table and straightened his back with a long sigh, clenching both hands tightly, and stretching both arms over his shoulders, as he moved across the little room to its window. The window gave him an extensive view of dully gleaming roofs and chimney-pots, seen through driving sleet, towards the end of a raw forenoon in February. The roofs he saw were those of one of London's cheap suburbs; first, a block of "mansions" similar to those in which his own flat was situated; then a rather superior block, where the rents were much cheaper because they were called "dwellings"; and beyond that, the huddled small houses of a quarter with which no builder had interfered since early Victorian days.
The man turned away from the dripping window, and looked round this den in which he worked. Its walls were mostly covered by book-shelves, but in the gaps between the shelves there were pictures; a rather odd mixture of pictures, of men and women and dogs. The men and women were mostly people who had written books, and the dogs were without exception Irish Wolfhounds; those fine animals which combine in themselves the fleetness of the greyhound, the strength of the boarhound, and the picturesque, wiry shaggyness of the deerhound; those animals whose history goes back to the beginning of the Christian era; through all the storied ages in which they were the friends and companions of kings and princes, great chieftains and mighty hunters.
For several minutes the man paused before a picture, underneath which was written: "The Mistress of the Kennels." This picture showed a girl with wind-blown hair, happy face, and laughing eyes, standing, with a small puppy in her arms, in the midst of a wide kennel enclosure on the sloping rise of an upland meadow. In the background one saw a comfortable-looking house, half hidden by two huge walnut trees, and flanked by a row of aged elms. When the man had looked his fill at this picture, and at other pictures of various Irish Wolfhounds, each marked with the name and age of the hound depicted, he sighed, and went to the window again. While he stood there, looking out through the February sleet, the door of the den opened, and the Mistress of the Kennels came in, wearing a big, loose overall, or pinafore, which covered her dress completely. Her face had not quite the colour which the picture made one feel it must have had when she stood in that wide, windy, kennel enclosure; but it was still a sunny face; the eyes were still laughing eyes; a loving, lovable face, one felt, even though London had robbed it of some of its open-air freshness. She walked up to the man's side, and, seeing the expression on his face as he gazed out over the wet roofs, she said--
"Yes, it is, rather--isn't it?--after Croft."
"Oh, don't talk of Croft, child, or you'll bring my spring madness upon me before its time. I have had hints of it this morning, as it is. It seems almost incredible that we have only been two years and four months away from Croft, and the old open life. I was looking at the picture of the Mistress of the Kennels just now. Do you remember that morning? Tara's first litter hadn't long been weaned. My goodness, the air was sweet in that meadow! That was the morning poor old crippled Eileen ran the rabbit down, you remember."
"Yes, and it was old Tara's third day out, after that awful illness. Well, well, it's a blessed thing to know that the old dear is happy, and has such a lovely home down in Devonshire, isn't it?"
"Yes, oh yes; I know it might have been worse, and I'm a brute to be discontented, but--two and a half years! Why, it seems more like twenty, since we lived in a place where you could lean out of the window and drink the air; where I could go outside in my pyjamas before tubbing in the morning, and see the dogs, and set the rabbits flying in the orchard. Two years and four months. Do you know, if we give spring madness half a chance this year, it strikes me it will lead us out of this huddled, pent-in town, out to the open again. I almost think we could manage it now. I hardly seem to have lifted my nose from that table since last summer; but it's true the bank book shows small results as yet."
"And four years was to be the minimum, wasn't it? We thought of five, at first."
"Yes, yes; I know. My idea was that we would not go back till it seemed sure we should be able really to stay; no more returns to town with our tails between our legs. But, all the same, when I look out of that window--if we really lived cottage style, you know."
"But should we? Cottages don't have kennels, you know; not Wolfhound kennels, anyhow."
"I know. Oh, of course, it would be quite unjustifiable, quite mad; but--I thought I felt signs of spring madness when I looked out of that window this morning."
"Oh, well! Now do you know what I came in for? I came to tell you that this is the last day of the Dog Show at the Agricultural Hall. You remember that I have to go over to Mrs. Kenneth's this afternoon, and I think it would be a good plan for you to take an afternoon off and go to the Show. If you don't, it will be the third year you have missed it. I really think you ought to go. It will do you good."
"H'm! I should hardly have thought a Dog Show was a good thing for spring madness and the change fever; rather dangerous, I should have thought," said the man, with a queer little twisted smile.
"Oh, yes; I think it is all right; quite bracing; a sort of trial of strength; and quite safe, because we know that madness in that direction is simply and altogether impossible. You have been working too hard; and besides, it will do you good to meet the people. You will see a lot of the youngsters we reared; there are three champions among them now. Do go!"
A little more than an hour later he was on his way to the Dog Show, at which, in other days, he had been one of the principal exhibitors. A bout of ill-health, combined with consequent diminution of earnings, and a characteristic habit of doing things on a more generous scale than his income justified, had led to a break-up of his country home, with its big kennels and stabling, and a descent upon London in pursuit of economical living and increased earnings. Parting with the kennels and their inhabitants had been the severest wrench of all; and it is probable that, even in the mean little town flat, room would have been found for Tara, the well-loved mother of Irish Wolfhound heroes, but for the special circumstance that an excellent home had been offered for her in Devonshire. The Devonshire lady to whom Tara had, after long deliberations, been sold by the Master, had been extremely keen upon purchasing her, and, in addition to offering a splendid home, had faithfully promised that in no circumstances whatever would she think of parting with Tara unless to the Master himself. Here then was an opportunity which the man had felt that he could not afford to miss.
He had been very much concerned about other matters and other troubles at the time, but when the actual morning of Tara's departure had arrived, he had begun to feel very bad about it. The household gathered round to bid good-bye to the beautiful hound, and her Master himself took her to the station. When Tara was in the guard's van she looked out through a barred window at her friend on the station platform, and he said afterwards that the situation exhausted every ounce of self-control he possessed. He had an overpowering impulse, even when the train was moving, to jump aboard and release old Tara.
"I would sooner face the Bankruptcy Court than have her mournful old eyes turned upon me again with just that wonderingly reproachful look," he said.
But glowing reports were received of Tara's happiness in her new home, with its extensive grounds and generous management; and, though Tara was never forgotten--one does not forget such a mother of heroes, when one has bred her and nursed her through mortal illness--her Master had ceased to grieve about her or to feel self-reproachful about having parted with her.
Arrived in the great show building, he wandered up and down between the benches, pausing now and again to speak to an old acquaintance, human or canine, as the case might be. But this was the last day of the show, and the majority of the exhibitors were away. The place had a half-dismantled air about it. The Show was virtually over. Presently the Master found himself in a kind of outbuilding, where an auction sale of dogs was being held. There he sat down on a chair at the edge of the ring in which the dogs for sale were being led to and fro by attendants for inspection.
After a while a young Irish Wolfhound was led into the ring for sale, and immediately monopolized the Master's attention, for it was a dog of his own breeding, sold by him from the country home, Croft, soon after weaning time. He handled the dog with a deal of interest, and was expatiating upon its merits to a small group of possible buyers when he felt another dog nuzzling his arm and wrist from behind, where it was evidently held by a chain, or in some other way prevented from coming farther forward, for its muzzle was pressing hard under his cuff. But the Master was too much interested in examining the young hound then being offered for sale to pay any attention to any other animal. In due course, however, the young Wolfhound was sold and led away, and the auctioneer was heard to say--
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, we come to lot number a hundred and twenty-seven, lot one-two-seven, the--er--the--er--er--yes, ladies and gentlemen, the dam of the fine young hound just sold--a remarkable good bargain, too--to my friend Mr. Scarr-Hislop. This magnificent bitch, whose show record I will read to you directly, is, most of you are probably aware, by the famous Champion O'Leary, ex--er--Come, come, man; let's have that bitch in the ring, please. No one can see her there."
The auctioneer spoke sharply to an attendant who stood close to the Master's seat tugging at a chain. The Master, who had been busy in conversation up till that moment, turned now to respond to the pressingly affectionate advances of the unseen animal, whose cold muzzle he had felt at his wrist for some minutes past.
"Just push her out for me, sir, if you please," said the rebuked attendant, sulkily. "I can't get her to budge from your chair. The brute's as strong as a mule."
"Let me have the chain a minute," said the Master, as he rose from his chair. "I expect you've frightened the---- Why--Great Caesar! Why--Tara! Tara--dear--old--lady. Who the devil put this hound in here?"
"Mrs. Forsyth, the owner, put her in; she's for sale, without reserve," said a groom, who forced his way forward through the crowd at this moment.
The Master wasted some moments, but not many, in wondering, disgusted expostulation, while fondling the head of poor Tara, who had stood erect with her fore-paws on his shoulders the instant he recognized her, her noble face all alight with gladness and love. Through ten acutely unhappy minutes she had nuzzled her friend's hand, and gained never a hint of recognition or response. Then the Master walked up to the auctioneer's rostrum, followed by Tara, who, with no apparent effort, dragged the sulky, puzzled attendant after him, paying not the slightest heed to his angry jerks at her collar.
"I'm sorry," said the auctioneer, after a few moments' conversation; "but I cannot possibly postpone the sale, can I? I had my instructions direct from the owner, and she should know. I am told the dog is positively to be sold, and---- No, there is no reserve at all. Yes, certainly, I will take your cheque as deposit, if you will get it endorsed by the Show Secretary. But---- Very well, sir; no need to blame me about it. I'll give you five minutes. Bring in lot 128, Johnson."
Five minutes was not much of a respite, but the Master meant to make the most of it. See old Tara put up and sold to a dealer in the ring, he felt he could not. The bare idea of her being held there in the auction-room by a show attendant--Tara, the queen of Wolfhound mothers, the daughter of innumerable generations of Wolfhound queens, the noblest living dam of her noble race--was maddening to the man who had bred and reared her, seen her through her puppy's ills, and bred from her the most famous hounds of the day. The groom said Mrs. Forsyth was in the tea-room, and there the Master sought her, with anger and anxiety in his eye; sought her unavailingly and in a frenzy of haste. To and fro he hurried through the huge, noisy show building. At one moment of his fruitless search he obtained a card from the Show Secretary stating that his cheque might be accepted; but even as he thanked the worried official for his confidence in an old exhibitor, he realized with bitterness that he could not by any stretch of fancy pretend that he was able to afford anything like the sort of price that Tara would bring. Not a sign did he see of Mrs. Forsyth, and at last a Kennel-man, whom he remembered tipping years before for some slight service, informed him that he had seen Mrs. Forsyth leaving the building some time before. Almost despairing now, and conscious that the limit of time given him was passed, he hurried back to the auction-room, caught a glimpse of his beautiful Tara standing sorrowful and stately in the ring, head and tail both carried low, and heard a tall, clean-shaven man in a kennel-coat bid forty-eight guineas for her.
"Forty-eight!" echoed the auctioneer. "This magnificent Irish Wolfhound bitch, the dam of many winners and two champions, is positively going for forty---- Why, gentlemen, she'd be worth that to the Natural History Museum!"
"Forty-nine!" cried the Master, with a tightening of his lips.
And then he saw the mean, ferrety face of a well-known low-class dealer thrust forward from among the crowd. This dealer was notorious for keeping a large number of big Danes and Newfoundlands in the miserable backyard of a cobbler's shop in the East End of London. He had been ordered out of show rings before that day for malpractices. He had never owned a Wolfhound, but he was a shrewd business judge of the values of dogs. He nodded to the auctioneer, and that gentleman nodded responsively before taking up his tale afresh.
"Fifty guineas only is offered for the celebrated Irish Wolfhound Tara, by the famous Champion O'Leary. Fifty guineas only is offered, and the time is running merrily on, gentlemen, all the time. Fifty guineas only is offered--and one. Fifty-one guineas--Thank you, sir. Fifty and one guineas is my last bid for----"
The auctioneer babbled serenely on, and the Master followed his words, rather pale in the face now, for fifty-one guineas was a great deal more than he could afford to pay at this time, for such a purpose.
The ferret-faced dealer raised the price to fifty-three guineas, and the Master bit his lip and made it fifty-four.
"May I say fifty-five for you, sir?" said the auctioneer to the clean-shaven man in the kennel-coat.
"If you'll just wait one moment, sir; I must just ask my----" The clean-shaven man was edging his way towards the back of the crowd, where several ladies and gentlemen were seated at a table just out of sight of the ring.
"Time and tide and auctioneers wait for no man, sir," continued the auctioneer. "The hammer is very near to falling, gentlemen. The magnificent St. Bernard dog--um--er----The magnificent Irish Wolfhound Tara is going for fifty-four guineas only; for fifty-four guin--and one----Thank you, sir"--this to the ferret-faced dealer--"at fifty-five guineas only, this noble animal is going for fif----Why, gentlemen, what has come over us this afternoon? Her record alone is worth more than that. You must know that if this animal were sold by private treaty, double the sum would not purchase her. What am I to say for the gentleman who appeared to be recognized by this fine animal? Surely, sir, civility demands a little recognition of such touching devotion!"
"We're not dealing in personalities, sir," snapped the Master. "Sixty guineas!"
And then he turned on his heel; this desperate bid being far more than he could afford. The auctioneer smiled amiably.
"As you say, sir, this is strict business, strict business; and all I am offered for this magnificent hound, gentlemen, is sixty guineas! But my instructions are to sell, gentlemen; and sell I must, whatever the figure." He raised his hammer. "At sixty guineas, gent--and one. At sixty-one guineas, gentlemen; lot number 127 is going--a rare bargain for somebody--going! Will nobody try another guinea on this magnifi----Thank you, sir! That's a little better, gentlemen. Seventy guineas I think you said, sir?"--this to the man in the kennel-coat, who had returned from his visit to the back of the crowd.
The ferret-faced dealer who had bid sixty-one guineas now turned his back on the ring; and, as he heard the cry of seventy guineas, the Master moved slowly forward among the crowd toward the door of the building. He dared not offer more, and he could not wait to see Tara led out of the ring by some stranger. He paused a moment, without looking up, and heard the auctioneer's "Going, going, gone!" Then he walked to the entrance of the main hall, to escape from the scene of so grievous a disappointment.
Outside, in the main building, while moodily filling a pipe, the Master decided that, whatever happened, he must find out who had purchased Tara in order that he might put in a word for his dear old friend, and thereby, it might be, ensure more consideration for her in her new home. There were one or two little whims and peculiarities of hers which he must explain. He thought of pretty Mrs. Forsyth and her broken pledge regarding Tara. He looked along the dusty, littered hall, and, in the distance, saw an elderly lady leading an Irish Wolfhound. A moment later, and he recognized the hound as Tara, and the lady as a good friend of his own, a kindly, wealthy Yorkshire woman who had bought two whelps of him before he left the country, and with whom he had corresponded since. He had visited this lady, too, to help her in the matter of some doggy trouble of hers. Now she was walking directly toward him, leading Tara, and smiling and nodding to him. Just then the lady leaned forward and unsnapped Tara's chain. In an instant, the great hound bounded forward to greet her well-loved friend, the Master, furiously nuzzling his hands, and finally standing erect to reach his face, a paw on either shoulder, her soft eyes glistening, brimming over with canine love and delight. The man's eyes were not altogether dry, either, as he muttered and growled affectionate nonsense in Tara's silky ears. His heart swelled as he felt the tremulous excitement in the great hound's limbs.
"You see, dear old Tara cannot be deceived; she knows her real friends," said the lady from Yorkshire, as she shook hands with the Master. "Please take her chain, and never give any one else the right to handle it. You will allow me this pleasure, I am sure, if only because of the love I bear Tara's son." (One of the whelps this lady had bought from him was a son of Tara.) "I know Mrs. Forsyth quite well--a whimsical, fanciful little person, who takes up a new fad every month, and is apt to change her pets as often as her gloves. I could not possibly let a stranger buy the beautiful mother of my Dhulert, and it gives me so much real pleasure to be the means of bringing her to your hands again."
This good woman bowed her silvery head when the Master took her hand in his, because she had caught a glimpse of what glistened in his eyes, as he tried to give words to the gratitude that filled a heart already swelled by another emotion inspired by Tara.
They walked all the way home, the Master and Tara; and twice they made considerable detours (despite the distance still before them), for the sake of spending a few minutes in open spaces, where there was grass--smutty and soiled it is true, but grass--and comparative solitude. In these places they exchanged remarks, and Tara placed a little London mud on each of the Master's shoulders, and he made curious noises in his throat, such as Tara had been wont to associate with early morning scampers in an upland orchard, after rabbits.
At last they came to the "mansions," and made great show of creeping along close to the railing, and dodging quickly in at the entrance to avoid being overlooked from the windows above. As a matter of fact tenants of the flats in these buildings were not supposed to keep dogs at all, while the idea of an Irish Wolfhound, thirty-two inches high the shoulder!---- But it was little the Master cared that night. The meeting between Tara and the Mistress of the Kennels was a spectacle which afforded him real joy. The flat seemed ridiculously tiny when once Tara was inside it; but, like all her race, this mother of heroes was a marvel of deftness, and could walk in and out of the Mistress's little drawing-room without so much as brushing a chair-leg. There was great rejoicing in the little flat that night; and a deal of wonderful planning, too, I make no doubt.
And this was how Tara, the mother of heroes, returned to the friends who had watched over her birth and early training, and later motherhood, with every sort of loving care.
[CHAPTER II]
IN THE BEGINNING
It was little that Tara, the Wolfhound, cared about lack of space, so that she could stretch her great length along a hearthrug, with her long, bearded muzzle resting on her friend's slippers, and gaze at him, while he sat at his work, through the forest of overhanging eyebrows which screened her soft, brown eyes. And in any case, the next four months of her life, after the happy meeting at the Show which restored her to her old friend, were too full of changing happenings and variety of scene and occupation to leave time for much consideration about the size of quarters, and matters of that like.
For one thing, it was within a few days of the show that Tara was taken on a two days' visit to a farm in Oxfordshire, where she renewed her old acquaintance with one of the greatest aristocrats of her race, Champion Dermot Asthore, the father of those great young hounds she had given to the world during her life with the Master; the children whose subsequently earned champion honours reflected glory upon herself as the most famous living mother of her breed, though not the most famous show dog. The qualities which win the greatest honour in the show ring are not always the qualities which make for famous motherhood. As a show hound merely, Tara might have been beaten by dames of her race who had not half her splendid width of flank and chest and general massiveness, though they might have a shade more than her height and raciness.
After that, something considerable seemed to happen pretty well every day. The Master spoke laughingly of the spring madness that was as quicksilver to his heels, and of great profit to furniture removers. He laughed a good deal in those early spring days, and took Tara and the Mistress of the Kennels with him on quite a number of journeys from Victoria railway station. Tara heard much talk of Sussex Downs, and when she came to scamper over them, found herself in thorough agreement with every sort of joyous encomium she heard passed upon them. Then there came a day of extraordinary confusion at the little flat, when men with aprons stamped about and turned furniture upside down, and made foolish remarks about Tara, as she sat beside the writing-table gravely watching them. That night Tara slept in a loose box in the stable of a country inn, and in the early morning went out for a glorious run on the Downs with the Master, who seemed to have grown younger since they left London.
Within a very few days from this time, Tara and her friends had settled down comfortably in a new home. An oddly-shaped little house it was, full of unexpected angles and doors, and having a garden and orchard which straggled up the lower slope of one of the Downs. It had a stable, too, of a modest sort, and rather poky, but the coach-house was admirable, light, airy, facing south-east, and having a new concrete floor, which the Master helped to lay with his own hands. The back half of this coach-house consisted of a slightly raised wooden dais; a very pleasant place for a Wolfhound to lie, when spring sunshine was flooding the coach-house. But Tara did not spend much of her time there, for between the stabling and the house there was a big wooden structure with a tiled roof, large as a good-sized barn, but with an entrance like an ordinary house-door, and comfortably matchboarded inside, like a wooden house. A pleasant old villager who was doing some work in the garden referred to this place as "th'old parish room," but the Master made it his own den, lined one of its sides with books, and pictures of dogs and men, and fields and kennels. He had his big writing-table established there, with a sufficiency of chairs, a few rugs upon the forty-feet length of floor, and an old couch upon one side, manufactured by himself with the aid of an ancient spring mattress, a few blocks of wood, a big 'possum-skin rug which some friend had sent him from Australia, and a variety of cushions. The actual house, for all its rambling shape, was small, and possibly this was why the Master chose to utilize this outside place as his den, and to fix a big stove in it for heating. Here, too, at one end, and just beyond the big writing-table, was a raised wooden dais or bed, like that in the coach-house, a good six feet square, with sides to it, perhaps six inches high. Tara watched the making of this dais, and saw the master cover its floor with a kind of sawdust that had a strong, pleasant smell, and then nail down a tightly stretched piece of old carpet over that, making altogether, as she thought, a very excellent bed. And as such Tara used it by night, but in the daytime she usually preferred to stretch herself beside the writing-table, or on the rug by the door, where the sunshine formed a pool of light and warmth on a fine morning.
Here it was that Tara took her meals, a dish of milk in the morning, with a little bread or biscuit, and the real meal of the day, the dinner, which the Mistress of the Kennels always prepared with her own hands, so that it was full of delightful surprises and variety, though everything in it had the moisture and flavour of meat, in the evening. At about this time it was that Tara noticed a kind of white sediment, quite inoffensive and not at all bad to eat, in her morning milk dish; and this she welcomed, because in some dim way it was connected in her mind with happy old days that came before her parting with the Master, when she had lived with him in a place not unlike this clean, fragrant down-land, which stretched now, far as one could see on either hand, outside the garden and the orchard, all about this new home, which Tara found so good. (At certain times and in certain circumstances, some breeders of big hounds believe in mixing precipitated phosphate of lime with ordinary food, for the sake of its bone-forming properties.)
To describe one half the many delightful incidents and occupations which made the days pass quickly for Tara now, would require a volume; but as time went the great hound tended to become less active. There were any number of rabbits on the Downs beyond the orchard, and at first, in her before-breakfast ramble with the Master, Tara used greatly to enjoy running down one or two of these. But after a little time the Master seemed to make a point of discouraging this, even to the extent of resting a hand lightly upon Tara's collar as she walked beside him; and, gradually, she herself lost inclination for the sport, except where greatly tempted, as by a rabbit's jumping suddenly for its burrow close beside her. In the afternoon, when Tara generally went out with the Mistress of the Kennels for a good long round, she wore a lead on her collar now, so that even sudden inspirations to galloping were checked in the bud, and a sedate gait was maintained always. Without troubling her head to think much about it, Tara had a generally contented feeling that these precautions were wise and good. The same prudent feeling influenced her in the matter of meals now. Though she frequently felt that she would much rather be without her morning milk, she always lapped it carefully up, and conscientiously swabbed the dish bright and dry with her great red tongue. She could not have explained, even to herself, just why she did these things; but sub-conscious understanding and fore-knowledge play a large part in a Wolfhound's life, and so does sub-conscious memory and the inherited thing we call instinct. Without considering prehistoric ancestry, there were fifteen hundred years of lineal Irish Wolfhound ancestry behind Tara; her own family dated back so far. For instance:--
In the year 391, seven centuries before the Conqueror landed in England, there was a Roman Consul whose name was Quintus Aurelius Symmachus. In a letter that he wrote to his brother Flavianus, he said:--
"In order to win the favour of the Roman people for our Quaestor, you have been a generous and diligent provider of novel contributions to our solemn shows and games, as is proved by your gift of seven Irish hounds. All Rome viewed them with wonder, and fancied they must have been brought hither in iron cages. For such a gift, I tender you the greatest possible thanks."
That these Irish Wolfhounds of fifteen hundred years ago were big and fierce, and brave and strong, you may know from the conviction of the Roman people that they must have been brought in iron cages. Also, friend Symmachus writes in other letters of the boars, and lions, and the armed Saxons provided to do battle with the Irish Wolfhounds. Also, he shows the quaintest sort of annoyance over the fact that some twenty-nine of these perverse Saxons, who were obtained to fight the Irish Wolfhounds, cut their throats on the night before the games--their own throats, I mean--and so spoiled sport for the holiday-loving Romans. In the first century of our era, Mesroida, the King of the Leinstermen, had an Irish Wolfhound which was so mighty in battle that it was said to defend the whole province, and to fill all Ireland with its fame. For this hound, six thousand cows, besides other property, were offered by the King of Connaught, and about the same price was offered by the King of Ulster. Irish Wolfhounds fought regularly in battle, through the early centuries of our era; and fearsome warriors they were. Right down to the period of a couple of centuries ago, a leash of Irish Wolfhounds was considered a fitting and acceptable present for one monarch, or lord, to offer to another king or great noble; while from the earliest times, down to the day of Buffon, and, in our own time, "Stonehenge," the naturalists have written of the Irish Wolfhound as the greatest, that is finest, and "tallest of all dogs."
But it was not alone in such matters as refraining from violent exercise, and the taking of food whether inclined for it or not, that a sort of prescience guided beautiful Tara at this time in her new home beside the Sussex Downs. There came a morning when, as she strolled about the strip of shrubbery and orchard which lay between the stabling and the house, it occurred to her that it would be a good thing to dig a hole somewhere in the ground; the sort of hole or cave into which a great hound like herself could creep for shelter if need be; a cave in which she could live for a while. Tara did not know that the Master was watching her at this time; but he was, and there was a sympathetic and understanding sort of smile on his face, when Tara forced her way in between two large shrubs, and began excavating. The earth was soft and moist there, and Tara's powerful fore-feet scooped it out in regular shovelfuls, for her hind feet to scatter in an earthy rain behind her. She made a cavern as big as herself, and then divided the rest of the day between the beautiful big dais in the coach-house, all dry, and sweet, and clean, and her fragrant, carpeted great bed in "th'old parish room." Lying there at her ease, with one eye on the Master's shoulder, where it showed round the side of his high-topped writing-table, Tara wondered vaguely why she had troubled to dig that hole in the wet earth. But the Master knew all about it, though he could not claim to have fifteen hundred years of Wolfhound ancestry behind him, and he seemed quite satisfied.
On the following day Tara gravely inspected the hole she had dug, and decided that it was not altogether good. So she went and dug another in a rather more secluded spot; and then came back and dozed comfortably at the Master's feet while he wrote. Later on in the day she strolled round the whole premises, and inspected carefully the various places in which, during the past week or so, she had buried large bones. The next day found Tara extremely restless and rather unhappy. She had an uncomfortable feeling that she had forgotten some important matter which required attention. In her effort to recall what the thing could be that she had neglected, she dug two or three more holes, and finally, a thing she had never thought of doing before, took one of the Master's slippers--always a singularly dear and comforting piece of property to Tara--and buried it about two feet deep in a little ditch. She felt vaguely ashamed about this, though she had no idea that the Master had watched her taking the slipper away; but she could not bring herself to return the slipper, because of the hazy need she felt for laying up treasure and taking every sort of precaution against a rainy day.
During the afternoon, Tara's general uneasiness increased. She felt thoroughly uncomfortable and worried; convinced that she had forgotten some really important matter, and disinclined either to go out or to stay in. Fifty times the Master opened and closed doors to suit her changing whims, until poor Tara felt quite ashamed of herself, though still quite unable to settle down. As a sort of savoury after dinner, the Master gave her some silky, warm olive oil; an odd thing to take, Tara thought, but upon the whole pleasing and comforting. Then, suddenly, and as she woke from a doze of about ten seconds' duration, Tara decided that it would be a good thing to tear a hole in the middle of the tight-stretched old carpet on her big bed. She got to work at once, pleased to think that she had remembered this little matter in good time, and was distinctly disappointed when the Master came and sat beside her on the edge of the bed and playfully held her paws, after gently lowering her into a lying position. Still, it was good to have him sit there and chat, as he did for some little time, rubbing the backs of her ears, and being generally sociable. He was the only human creature, with the exception of the Mistress of the Kennels, who had ever really chatted with Tara.
While Tara was gradually forgetting her desire to tear the bed covering, a cart stopped outside the house, and a whiff, the hint of an odour, drifted in through the open door of the den, and caused the great hound's nose to wrinkle ominously. Next moment she gave a savage bark, deep, threatening, and sonorous, and sprang to her feet. She was not quite sure what ailed her, but she was conscious of an access of great anger, of passionate hostility. After soothing her, the Master carefully locked the door of the den, and then went round through the gateway leading to the front of the house, and took delivery of a large hamper from the station carrier. Then the Mistress of the Kennels came and sat in the Master's den for perhaps half an hour, while he was busy down at the coach-house with the hamper, and a lantern, and a dish of dog's dinner of a milky, sloppy sort.
That was a strange, eventful night in the den. All the country round was silent as the grave, and the air of the June night was soft and sweet as the petals of wild roses. The Mistress of the Kennels was persuaded into going early to bed, but the Master sat behind his big table, writing beneath a carefully shaded lamp, and rising quietly every now and again, to peer over the top of the high table in the direction of the big bed in the shadow, where Tara lay. Many things happened in the meantime, but it was just after the clock in the tower of the village church had struck the hour of one, that the Master was thrilled by a cry from his beloved Tara; the fifth he had heard during the past three and a half hours.
He leaned forward on his elbows, waiting and listening. Tara had never heard of duty or self-control. She was a pure child of Nature. But the moment of that cry of hers was the only moment she allowed for self-consideration, or the play of her own inclinations. In the next moment she was busying herself, with the most exquisite delicacy and precision, over the care of her latest offspring; the last late-comer in her new family of five. In that next instant, too, a weak, bleating little cry, a voice that was not at all like Tara's, smote pleasantly upon the ears of the Master, where he waited, peering watchfully from beside the deeply shaded lamp on his table.
It was then, just after the Master heard that little bleating cry which told of new life in the world, that Tara, with infinite care and precaution, lowered her great bulk upon the bed in a coil--she had been standing--the centre of which was occupied by four glossy Irish Wolfhound puppies, who had arrived respectively at ten, eleven, twelve, and half-past twelve that night. The four, then blindly grovelling over the carpeted bed, were now perfectly sheltered in the still heaving hollow of their mother's flank. These comparatively world-worn pups had not arranged themselves conveniently in a cluster to receive their loving mother's caress. On the contrary, they were all groping in different directions at the moment in which Tara's pain-racked body was lowered to rest, and to shelter them. But, while yet that great body hung over them in the act of descending, it had twisted and curved into the required lines, and a soft muzzle had thrust this puppy that way, and the other another way; the mother's soft, filmy eyes missing nothing before her or behind. One inch of miscalculation, and the life had been crushed out of one of those tiny creatures. But pain brought no miscalculation for Tara.
One quick movement of her head satisfied the mother that her four firstborn were safe and well disposed. Immediately then, with never a thought of rest, her nose thrust the new-comer into position between her fore-paws, and she proceeded to administer the life-giving and stimulating tongue-wash. Over and over the little shapeless grey form was turned, cheeping and bleating, until every crevice of its soft anatomy had come under the vivifying sweep of six inches of scarlet tongue, warm and tenderly rough. Then the mother's sensitive nose thrust and coaxed the little creature to its nesting-place under her flank, where three sisters and a brother already nosed complainingly among milk-swollen dugs, quite indifferent to the coming of an addition to their number, and desiring they knew not what--desiring it lustily.
Then, and not till then, did the beautiful mother of these new-born descendants of an ancient race permit herself to draw a long breath of relief, and lower her massive head upon her fore-paws. A moment later, and a desire which overcame weariness impelled Tara to part her hot jaws, and glance in the direction of the shaded lamp. No least movement of hers escaped the Master, and in the moment of her glance, he came forward with a dish of fresh cold water in his hand. The mother lapped, slowly, weakly, gratefully, thanking whatever gods she knew, and the friend whose hand and eye were so ready, for the balm of water. The man moved very gently and deftly before her, and no anxiety came into her brown eyes when he leaned forward to examine the now resting litter at her flank. But it had gone hardly one fancied with the stranger, or even with the casual acquaintance, who should have approached too inquisitively the little family.
"There, there, pet; all right, my Tara girl," murmured the man, as he stepped back softly to his table, to return a moment later with a dish of warm milk and water, which the slightly rested mother drank with forethoughtful eagerness, though the effort necessary for lapping in that constrained position, and without disturbing the little ones beside her, was far from pleasant, and far enough from personal inclination.
Ten minutes later the dam very gently changed her position, all idea of rest having left her now, and proceeded systematically to lick, first her own swollen dugs, and then the little featureless faces of her offspring, with many small encouraging muzzle-thrusts and undulations of her sinuous frame; while the Master (ready to give assistance if that were required, but too knowledgeable in these matters to wish to hasten Nature, or botch the delicate handiwork of the mother) stood in the shadow of his big table, watching and waiting. Within another few minutes the five pups were immersed in the most important affair of life (from their point of view) and, with wriggling tails and tiny, heaving flanks, with impatient, out-thrust, pink fore-feet, wet faces, and gaping little jaws, were nursing in a row like clock-work.
The mother turned a proud, filmy eye in the direction of her friend, the Master, and allowed her massive head to fall on its side, her whole great form outstretched to reap the benefit of a few more minutes of needed repose.
"Good girl!" whispered the Master; and stepping backward, he turned yet lower than it was the wick of his shaded lamp. "Good! Excellent! Five's a very good number. I should have been sorry to see a big litter, for dear old Tara. And, anyhow, that last one, the grey, is about equal to any two I ever saw; an immense whelp; dog for sure, and a giant at that."
The Master lay down to sleep presently, on the couch with the 'possum-skin rug; and before many hours of the June daylight had passed, he had verified his impressions of that last-born son of Tara's as a grey-brindle, and the biggest whelp of its age that he had ever seen. For purposes of registration in the books of the Kennel Club--The Debrett of the dog world--the late-comer was forthwith christened by the Mistress of the Kennels, under the name of Finn, in honour of the memory of the fourth-century warrior Finn, son of Cumall, lord of three hundred Irish Wolfhounds, whose prowess in battle and in the chase were sung by Oisin in two thousand, two hundred and seventy-two separate verses. Finn was chief of King Cormac's household and master of his hounds; for the most honoured counsellor that the ancient Kings of Ireland had were masters of the hounds always.
And this was the way of the Irish Wolfhound Finn's entry into the world, at the end of the first hour of a June day, in the Master's den beside the Sussex Downs. You may see the embalmed body of his great mother's sire, Champion O'Leary, if you care to look for it, in the Natural History Museum at Kensington; woefully shorn of his imposing beard and shaggy eyebrows, it is true, but yet only less magnificent in death than he was always in life. Her mother was the dam of the hound who marches to-day at the head of His Majesty's Irish Guards. Between them, the sire and dam of Finn would have scaled three hundred pounds, while either could easily have stretched to a height above the shoulders of a six-foot man. Finn rested easily in the palm of the Master's right hand when christened by the Mistress of the Kennels, for he was little bigger than a week-old kitten. But he was none the less Finn, the lineal descendant of King Cormac's battle-hounds of fifteen hundred years ago; and it was said he had the makings of the biggest Wolfhound ever bred.
[CHAPTER III]
THE FOSTER-MOTHER
Finn's first adventure came to him when he was no more than about thirty-seven hours old, and, of course, still blind as any bat. That being so, it may be taken that the grey whelp was not particularly interested. Still, the event was important, and probably affected the whole of Finn's after life. This was the way of it:--
Early on the second morning of his life in this beautiful world, Finn was lying snugly asleep between his mother's hind-legs on the great bed at the stove-end of the outside den. When a litter of puppies are lying with their mother there is always one place which is snugger, and in various ways rather better than any other place. You would have said that the little more or less shapeless, blind lump of gristle and skin that was Finn, at this stage, had no more intelligence or reasoning power than a potato; but it is to be noted that, from the very beginning, this best place had been exclusively occupied by him; and if while he slept one of his wakeful brothers or sisters crawled over him and momentarily usurped his proud position, then, in the very moment of his awakening, that other puppy would be rolled backward, full of gurgling and futile protestation, and Finn would resume the picked place. Whatever was best in the way of warmth, and food, and comfort, that Finn obtained, even at this absurdly rudimentary stage, by token of superior weight, energy, and vitality. Also, though the last to be born, Finn was the first to approach the achievement of standing, for an instant, upon his own little pink-padded feet, and the first, by days, to dream of the impertinence of blindly pawing his mother's wet satin nose, while that devoted parent washed her family.
But Finn and the rest were sound asleep, and Tara was dozing with one brown eye uncovered, when the Master came into the den on that second morning and spoke invitingly to his beloved mother of heroes. The great bitch rose slowly and with gentle care, and Finn, with the other sucklings, rolled helplessly on his back, sleepily cheeping a puny remonstrance, though he had no idea what he wanted. Then, in his ridiculously masterful way, Finn grovellingly burrowed under the other puppies, that he might have the benefit of all their warmth, and was asleep again. Tara eyed the blind things for a moment with maternal solicitude, and then, seeing that all was well with them, followed the Master out into the bright, fresh sunshine of the stable-yard. She did not think about it, but she was perfectly well aware that it was desirable for her to take fresh air, and move about a little to stretch her great limbs.
"Come and see the Mistress, old lady; come along and stretch yourself," said her friend.
And so Tara strolled round the yard twice, and then across to the back-kitchen door, where, inside the house, she had some warm bread and milk with the Mistress of the Kennels. Tara lapped steadily and conscientiously, but without much appetite. Suddenly, when the basin was about three-quarters empty, she realised with a start that the Master had left her. One quick look she gave to right and left, and then, the mother anxiety shining in her brown eyes, she reached the outer door in a bound.
"Look out for Tara!" cried the Mistress through the open window. And: "All right! I'm clear now. Let her in, will you?" answered the Master, from beyond the gate leading to the coach-house.
So the Mistress opened the house door, and in three cat-like bounds Tara reached the door of the den, and stood erect, her fore-paws against the door, more than six feet above the ground.
"There, there, pet; your children are all right, you see," said the Mistress, as she let Tara into the den.
In a moment, lighter of foot than a terrier, for all that she weighed as much as an average man, Tara was in the midst of the big bed, where she saw her puppies bunched snugly and asleep. She looked up gratefully at the Mistress, as the roused pups (she had touched them with her nose) came mewing about her feet, and coiled down at once to nurse them, apparently unconscious of the fact that there were only four mouths to feed instead of five. One cannot say for certain whether or not she missed Finn then. She licked the four assiduously while they nursed; and, in any case, four gaping little mouths, and four wriggling, helpless little bodies, represent a considerable claim upon a Wolfhound mother's attention and strength; also, it may be, that if she did notice that the big grey whelp was missing, she was too wise and devoted a mother and nurse to allow herself to injure the remaining four by fretting and worrying over matters beyond her immediate control. One must remember, too, that Tara lived in an atmosphere of the most implicit confidence, in which she never even heard an unkind word. On the other hand, if there had been no puppies at all on that bed, when Tara returned from her brief excursion to the back-kitchen, then it is likely that the big den would not have been strong enough to have held her for long within its wooden walls. The room had windows, and match-boarding and weather-board are not like iron.
Having seen Tara comfortably settled down with her family of four, the Mistress hurried back to the house in time to see the Master unwrapping little Finn from a soft old blanket, and placing him carefully in the midst of three puppies of perhaps half his size, in a hamper near the kitchen stove. Finn bleated rather languidly for two minutes in his new environment, and then, being very full of milk, and very warm, forgot what the trouble was and fell asleep. The Master closed the lid of the hamper then, and said:--
"I'll let them have a good two hours together there. Finn ought to assimilate the smell of the others pretty well by then. What do you think of the foster?"
"Oh, I like her," said the Mistress of the Kennels. "She seems a nice affectionate little beast, and I think she has quite recovered from the effects of that awful journey."
Finn and his foster-mother
"Um! Yes, twelve or fourteen hours' travelling with three new-born pups must be rather awful--poor little beast! Did she take her breakfast?"
"Yes; a first-rate meal. And I think she will be a good mother. She seems to have any amount of milk--more than is comfortable for her, poor little thing!"
"Yes; that's exactly what I want. I want her to be uncomfortably heavy for the time, and then she will be the less likely to resent my great big Finn's introduction. It's only discomfort, you know, not pain; and we shall put it right in a couple of hours."
"Then you have decided to put Finn to the foster-mother?"
"Yes. You see, poor old Tara--well, she----"
"Yes, I know; she's poor old Tara--spoiled darling!"
The Master chuckled. "Well, perhaps it is partly that. And, any way, she deserves it. The old girl has done a good share of prize-winning, and nursing, and the rest of it. I think of her as a lady who has earned repose, particularly after----"
"Yes, I know; the illness, you mean."
"Well, anyhow, I think four pups quite enough for her to nurse. And, as a matter of fact, I am none too comfortable about that. You know I have always believed that that awful bout of mammitis permanently affected her; her heart, and----and other things, too. Four days with a temperature of over a hundred and five, you know; and, mind you, the vet. said she must die. It was, so to say, in spite of Nature that we pulled her through. I am not at all sure that we may not have to take them all from her. We shall see better by to-night."
"Yes; I see." The Mistress of the Kennels was thoughtfully balancing on the tip of her fore-finger a big wooden spoon, used in the mixing of Tara's meals. "But why do you choose Finn for the foster?"
"Well, now, that's rather a nice point, and involves a conviction of mine which I know you'll resent, because you rightly think Tara the perfection of all that a Wolfhound should be. But the conviction is right, all the same. A mongrel's milk is far stronger, heartier food than the milk of so highly-bred a great lady as dear old Tara. Tara gives the most aristocratic blood in the world; but when you come to food, the nourishment that is to build up bone and muscle, and hardy health--that's different. Also, I only mean to give the foster this one pup, though I dare say she is capable of rearing two or three. Therefore that one pup ought to do exceedingly well with her. Now Finn, as you see him, is the biggest pup I ever knew, and I want to give him every chance of growing into the biggest Irish Wolfhound living. That's why he is going to have this sheep-dog foster all to his little self, and, unless I'm mistaken, you'll find him in a week the fattest little tub of a pup in all England--the fatter the better at this stage, so the food's wholesome and digestible."
In about one hour from that time, Finn woke among his strange bedfellows, and trampled all over them, in a vain and wrathful search for his mother's dugs. Then he bleated vigorously for three minutes; and then the warmth of that snug corner of the kitchen sent him off to sleep again.
Another hour passed, and when Finn woke this time one could tell from the furious lunges he made over the little bodies of his foster-brothers that he had arrived at a serious determination to let nothing stand any longer between himself and a good square meal. He would take one indignant step forward (as it might have been a rather gouty and very choleric old gentleman, prepared to tear down his bell-rope if dinner were not served that minute); then his podgy little fore-legs would double up, and the next few inches of progress would be made on blunt little pink nose, and round little stomach, his hind-legs being flattened out behind him in the exact position of a frog's while swimming. Several times Finn quite thought he had at length found a teat, and, in its infantile, impotent way, the blind fury he displayed was quite terrible, when he discovered that he was merely chewing the muzzle of one of the other pups. On one of these occasions, Finn spluttered and swore so vehemently that the effort completely robbed him of what rudimentary sense of balance he had, and he rolled over on his back, leaving all his four pink feet wriggling in the air in a passion of protest.
It was in this undignified position that the Master presently found the grey whelp, and he chuckled as he picked up Finn, with two of the other pups, and wrapped them together in a warm blanket. The remaining puppy was handed over to the gardener and seen no more in that place; so it is safe to assume that this little creature's life embraced no sorrows or disillusions. The next thing Finn knew was that his gaping mouth, held open by the Master's thumb and forefinger, was being pressed against a soft surface from which warm milk trickled. "At last!" one can imagine Finn muttering, if he had been old enough to know how to talk. Immediately his little hind-legs began to work like pistons, and his fore-paws to knead and pound at the soft udder from which the milk was drawn. Finn, with his two foster-brothers, was at the dugs of the foster-mother, a soft-eyed little sheep-dog, then occupying a very comfortable corner of the big bed in the coach-house.
The Master sat watchfully beside the sheep-dog. She was very glad to be eased of some of her superabundance of milk, and curved her elastic body forward to simplify matters for the pups. Then she began to lick the back and flank of the pup nearest her head; one of her own. The Master leaned forward. The foster's sensitive nose passed over the back of the first pup to the wriggling tail of Finn; and her big eyes hardened and looked queerly straight down her muzzle at the fat grey back of the stranger; a back twice as broad as those of her own pups. The black nostrils quivered and expanded, expressing suspicious resentment. No warm tongue curled out over Finn's fat back; but, instead, a nose made curiously harsh and unsympathetic pushed him clear away from the place he had selected, after spluttering hurried investigation, and out upon the straw of the bed.
Immediately then, and almost before Finn's sticky mouth could open in a bleat of protest, the Master's hand had returned him to the warm dugs. Again came the harsh, suspicious nose of the foster about Finn's tail, and this time a low growl followed the resentful sniff, and blind, helpless, unformed little jelly that Finn was, instinct made him wriggle fearfully from under that cold nose. The language in which bitches speak to the very young among puppies is simplicity itself. The Master, human though he was, had not failed to catch the sense of this observation of the foster's, which was:--
"Get out of here, you lumping great whelp! You're not mine, and I won't nurse you. Get out, or I'll bite. It's true you've somehow got the smell of mine; but--you can't deceive me. Gr-r-r-! Get out!"
But, though Finn instinctively wriggled his hind-quarters from under that cold muzzle, his mouth and fore-feet vigorously pursued their business; and, before the threatened bite came, the Master's hand (a firm one, and soothing to dog people) had caressingly pressed the foster's head back upon the straw, and held it there.
"There, there, little woman," he said, good-humouredly. "Let him have his chance; he's a good pup, and will do you great credit presently."
His hand continued to rest on the sheep-dog's neck or head, till the three pups were comfortably full, and the foster herself was comfortably eased of her bounteous milk-supply. Then, gently, he removed his hand, and the foster proceeded to lick her own two pups with exemplary diligence. Out of consideration for the Master, whom she found an obviously well-meaning person, she refrained from taking any active steps against the big grey pup, but she very pointedly ignored him. And when, in due course, Finn came galumphing about her neck, with all the doddering insolence of the full-fed pup, she turned her head in the opposite direction with cool superciliousness, and exhaled a long breath through her nose, as though she found the air offensive. But the Master petted her, and gave her a very little warm bread and milk. Then he took the three puppies away in the warm blanket and handed one of them to some one who waited outside the door of the back-kitchen. Finn, with one sleepy foster-brother, was replaced in the hamper near the kitchen stove.
A couple of hours later, the foster-mother began to worry, and to wish that her puppies would come and take another meal. At about the same time Finn and his diminutive companion in the hamper began to worry, and to wish that they could have another meal. Ten minutes after that they were carried down to the coach-house, and put to nurse again. While they fed vigorously, the foster, apparently by accident, touched Finn once or twice with her tongue, in process of licking her own pup; and she did not growl.
"Good!" said the Master, and he sat down on a little barrel of disinfectant powder to fill a pipe.
Then both puppies began to grovel and slide about the foster's legs and body; this being the natural order of things for very young puppies: to feed full, to grovel and wriggle, to sleep; and then to begin again at the beginning. But for the complete comfort and well-being of puppies at this age, certain maternal attentions, apart from the provision of nourishment, are requisite. For several minutes the foster-mother plied her own offspring with every good office, and severely ignored the rotund and would-be playful Finn. Then the sheep-dog lay flat on her side, and breathed out through her nostrils a statement to the effect that:--
"That is really quite as far as I can be expected to go. This big grey creature has fed beside mine, and I have suffered it, as a matter of charity; but---no more. The great clumsy thing must shift for itself now."
But Finn appeared to think otherwise. His mode of progression was rather that of an intoxicated snake, or an over-fed turtle on dry land; but he managed to stagger along as far as the foster's muzzle, and swayed there on his little haunches within reach of her warm breath. Instinct guided the pup so far, and left him waiting vaguely uncomfortable.
The Master watched closely, but nothing happened, save that the bitch ostentatiously closed her eyes. Then instinct moved again, strongly, in shapeless little Finn, and he straddled the foster's nose, so that his round stomach pressed on her nostrils. There he wriggled helplessly. Then a curious thing happened, while the Master leaned forward, prepared to snatch the pup from danger. The sheep-dog emitted a low, angry growl, which filled Finn with uncomprehending fear, and toppled him over on his fat back. But, even while she growled, maternity asserted its claim strongly in the kindly heart of this soft-eyed sheep-dog. Finn did not know in the least what he wanted; but the wise little sheep-dog did; and, her growl ended, she rolled Finn into the required position with her nose, and gave him the licking and tongue-washing which his bodily comfort demanded, with quiet, conscientious thoroughness. When this was over, Finn, feeling ever so much more content, sidled back to a place beside the other pup, and in a minute the pair of them were fast asleep in the warm shelter of the foster's flank. Then the Master laid down his pipe, and bent forward to stroke and fondle the little sheep-dog for two or three minutes, chatting with her, and establishing firmly the friendship already begun between them. And then, feeling quite safe in the matter, now that the foster had once licked Finn into comfort, he went away, and left the three together while he paid a visit to Tara.
Next morning, while the foster-mother was being petted and fed in the garden, some one removed her own little puppy from the bed, and when she returned to the coach-house, full of the contentment inspired by a good meal, a little exercise, and a deal of kindly petting, it was to find her bed occupied only by the big grey whelp. But she showed no more than momentary surprise and uneasiness, and within the minute was busily engaged in giving Finn his morning tubbing and polishing, after which she disposed herself with great consideration in a position which made nursing an easy delight for Finn, and enabled his assiduous foster-mother to watch the undulations of his fat back, out of the tail of her left eye, while apparently sleeping.
[CHAPTER IV]
FIRST STEPS
The sturdy, kindly, plebeian sheep-dog proved an admirable foster-mother, diligent, thorough, and forgetful of nothing, not even of her own needs and well-being, though it was evident that these were served from quite unselfish motives, and obliged to take a secondary place in all her thoughts. It was particularly well for Finn that the sheep-dog proved so sterling a soul; for, though he naturally knew and cared nothing about it all, Finn received less attention during the next few days from the Master and the Mistress than they were wont to give their canine families. Of course, the foster was properly fed and given exercise and otherwise looked after; but the Master did not smoke his pipe in the coach-house, and the Mistress of the Kennels did not sit on the side of the bed for half an hour at a time and stroke the foster's ears while admiring her nursling, as certainly would have happened in normal circumstances.
The Master's doubts about poor Tara's health had been fully justified. Her puppies were thin and inclined to be ailing, and she herself was only just saved, by means of scrupulous care and attention, and the use of other drugs besides externally-applied belladonna, from a severe illness. Meantime, another foster was telegraphed for, and, an hour after this new-comer's arrival, one of Tara's pups died. The Master had no time to be greatly concerned about this, by reason of his anxiety regarding Tara herself. He felt that another bout of the illness in which she had nearly lost her life in the early days would almost certainly be fatal, and the steps he took to stave this off kept him very busy. In addition to this, a carpenter had to be set to work in a great hurry to put together a suitable bed for the new foster-mother in a shed in the orchard. Fortunately, the weather was very favourable, and the two puppies taken from Tara soon picked up their lost ground when they were established with their foster, an active, cross-bred spaniel-retriever.
But Finn in the coach-house knew nothing of all this. Apart from anything else, he was still perfectly blind; also, he had as much of the best kind of nourishment as he was capable of absorbing, and was watched over, and cared for, and ministered to by the loyal little sheep-dog quite as scrupulously as a human baby is tended. There never was a truer saying than that "Blood will tell." But, not only is a mongrel mother's milk rich and strong (if she is a healthy, well-cared for animal), but also her care of her young is slavish and unremitting. Her nerves are never overstrained; she is not unduly sensitive; she knows how to economize vital energy. There is as much difference between her life and temperament and that of a champion-bred aristocrat and winner of prizes at shows as there is between the life and temperament of a society belle and a Devonshire dairymaid. In the sheep-dog's case, a healthy appetite waited always upon plentiful meals. She had but one whelp to care for, and of that one she hardly ever lost sight, even when sleeping. If the blind, foolish Finn wriggled from her side in mid-most night, he ran no risk of taking cold, for if the sheep-dog did not see him, then her instinct (keener in the plebeian than in the dog of high degree, just as nerves and sentiment are keener in the aristocrat) woke her within the minute, and up she got to nose her erring infant back to sleep and warmth and safety.
On the evening of his tenth day in the world, Finn was still perfectly blind. His eyes as yet showed no signs of opening. This rather surprised the Master, when he looked in before shutting up for the night. He was quite easy in his mind now about Tara, who was almost well again, to all appearances, and lay contentedly in the den all day, having apparently forgotten, not only her illness, but its causes, and her puppies. She was rather listless and lackadaisical, but seemed to be well content so that she could lie within sight of the Master and dream. And now the Master was chatting with the sheep-dog foster, after having had a good look at Finn, and before shutting up for the night.
"But perhaps it is well he is still blind, for your sake, old lady," said he to the foster. "He will be a bit of a handful for you before you've done with him, I fancy; and the sooner he begins to find his own way about, the longer he will torment you. Never mind, little bitch; you must do your best for Finn; for he's a great pup."
And a great pup he assuredly was, to be sprawling across that little sheep-dog's sandy flank. He covered pretty nearly as much space as a whole litter of her own kind would have occupied. His pink pads looked monstrous now; his timbers were quite twice the thickness you would have expected to find them; and his shapeless, abundantly nourished body was very nearly as broad at the haunch as it was long from neck to tail. His flat, black nose was remarkably broad, in spite of the unusual length of the black-marked muzzle, and the Master, who had studied Wolfhound puppies very closely, seemed particularly pleased about this. Finn's corners, so to say, were practically black. His body, as a whole, was of a steely, brindle grey, but the centre of the back of his tail and its tip were almost black, and so were his little podgy hocks, knees, muzzle, brows (if he could be said to have any) and the hair over his gristly shoulder bones. The Master swung his hurricane lamp high for a last look at Finn and the foster.
"You certainly are a marvel of size, my son; but I wonder you don't begin to open those eyes of yours, I must say. Let's hope they're very dark. Good-night, little shepherd!"
The light of Finn's twelfth day on earth had already filled the coach-house through its back windows when the sheep-dog stirred next morning and yawned. The slight sound and movement woke Finn, and automatically he burrowed vigorously after his breakfast without an instant's hesitation. Presently he emerged with milky nose from the foster's flanks, and meandered forth to be licked and made comfortable. The licking ended, the foster rose, and stepped off the bed to stretch her limbs. Finn rolled rollickingly over on his back, and then staggered up and on to his absurdly large and spreading feet. Then he backed sideways among the straw, like a crab. Then he tried to rub one eye with one of his mushroom-like fore-feet, and, failing abjectly in that, fell plump on his nose. Staggering to his feet again, Finn turned his face once toward the broad sunbeam that divided the coach-house in two parts from the side window; and then, as though tried beyond endurance, opened wide his jaws and bleated forth his fright and distress to the world, so that the patient little foster-mother was obliged to cut her constitutional short, and hop back to bed, lolling a solicitous tongue and making queer comforting noises in her throat.
But for some several minutes the puppy absolutely refused to be comforted; and when the Master came in an hour or so later he understood at a glance what Finn's trouble was, though the casual observer might well have thought there was no particular change in his circumstances. The fact was Finn had sustained a real shock, and his perturbation about it lasted for nearly half an hour, after which it retired, overcome by youthful curiosity. Finn had suddenly awakened to the fact that he was no longer blind; he had stepped, at one uncertain stride, into a seeing life. It was like being born again, and that with faculties matured and sharpened by nearly a fortnight's life in the world. It really was no trifling adventure for Finn, this discovery of a new and very wonderful sense, which had come simply with the parting of the lids that covered his black-brown eyes.
He spent practically the whole of that day testing this new sense which had come to him with so great a shock. For instance, he found that if he crawled a certain distance from the foster in one direction, the air before him became whiter and whiter, until at last he stubbed his toes and his nose against it. And that was his first acquaintance with walls. Then, when he crawled in another direction, he came presently to a ledge several inches in height, and when, as the result of really herculean efforts, he had raised his fat body upon that ledge, the floor beyond jumped up and hit him very hard, and left him helpless as a turtle on its back, till the foster came and lifted him back to bed in her jaws. That was how he learned that it was not wise for very small pups to climb over the edges of beds. Towards evening, when many useful lessons had been learned, and the pup was beginning to swagger over the advantage given him by his new-found sense, in the matter of picking and choosing feeding-places, and demanding his foster-mother's attention by planting one foot on her eye, and so forth, Finn came to the conclusion that this new power he had was, upon the whole, a remarkably fine thing, and a jolly gift, even if it did keep one awake, and lead to considerable exhaustion, and---- And then he shut up his little black-brown eyes, and, well sheltered by the foster's right hind-leg and tail, went fast asleep and dreamed of warm milk.
From this point onward, Finn's progress was rapid. Whereas till now he had seemed little more than an appendage of the sheep-dog foster-mother, he now rapidly developed a personality, and a very masterful one, of his own. His eyes, which were quite as dark as the Master had desired them to be, were idle only when he slept; and the same might have been said of every part of him. He grovelled most industriously during all his waking hours, until such time as his podgy legs had hardened sufficiently to bear his weight--with many falls, of course--and then he began to scurry about on his feet. His usual style of progression at this period was to take from two to four abrupt, jerky strides, rather with the air of a fussy and corpulent old gentleman who had to catch a train, and then to subside in a confused lump, on chest and nose, with tail waggling angrily in mid-air. This was not so annoying to the grey pup as one might suppose, because, though generally in a hurry, he always forgot his intended destination by the time he had taken three steps towards it, and therefore a sudden halt at the fourth seemed reasonable enough, and quite an agreeable diversion.
During the third week of his life, the weather being very fine, Finn, with the other pups, was treated to long sun-baths in a little fenced-in square of gravel which was covered with deodorized sawdust. These sun-baths were extremely good for the pups, and provided pleasant periods of rest and relaxation for the foster-mothers, who, though never allowed to see each other, were each within smelling distance of the pups, one upon one side and one on the other.
A huge dry bullock's shin-bone was put into the sun-bath, on a piece of matting, and this was a source of great interest to the pups, whose little white teeth were now as sharp as needles; a fact known only too well to their respective foster-mothers. Finn's favourite amusement was to lie straddled along this bone, and defy the other pups to touch it. He would give hard-breathing little snorts which he meant for growls, when one of the other pups began to nuzzle the bone; and, at times, these snorts would be vehement enough to make him lose his balance and roll helplessly off the bone on to the ground. Then the other three pups would straddle across his tubby body and snort defiance at him, each with a paw planted victoriously in his protuberant stomach or on his broad chest.
On Finn's twenty-first morning he spent the better part of half an hour in the lap of the Mistress of the Kennels, learning to lap warm milk and water. First of all he learned to suck the milky tip of the Mistress's little finger. Then, gradually, his nose was made to follow the little finger-tip into the milk; and, one way and another, he consumed during that first lesson about a tablespoonful of milk. In the afternoon he was kept for perhaps two and a half hours from the foster-mother, and then he, with the other pups, made great progress in the art of lapping; though they were all glad to approach the feeding question in a more serious and practical manner on being returned to their foster-mothers. Still, they had learned something, and the succeeding lessons of each following day brought quick familiarity and facility. In fact, the trouble with Finn, after two or three days, was that, in his lusty eagerness for nourishment, he generally risked the suicide's end by stumbling forward and plunging his whole face in the milk. His one notion of a safeguard against this danger was to plant one, or both, of his tubby fore-legs in the dish, a course which always brought him rebuke from the Mistress of the Kennels.
Toward the end of the fourth week these lessons in lapping became real meals, and the milk so consumed was always fortified with a thickening of some cereal rich in phosphates, besides minute doses of precipitated phosphate of lime, intended to stiffen the gristly leg-bones of these heavy pups, and increase bone development. The foster-mothers had been taking this, and communicating it in their milk, all along. This was the period in which the maternal feelings of the foster-mothers were submitted to the most severe strain. Finn's milk-white teeth, and his toe-nails, too, were sharp as pins, and used with great strength and vigour. Naturally, he entertained no unkind feelings for his loving little foster-mother; but, from sheer ignorance and riotous good living, he gave her a good deal of pain. Some dog-mothers would have warned him about this pretty sharply; but not so the little sheep-dog. She never even growled when, after feeding till he could feed no more, the insolent grey whelp would pound and paw at her soft dugs, and tug at them with his sharp teeth in sheer wantonness, till they were a network of red scars and scratches. The most the gentle, plebeian little mother would do would be to lie flat, after a while, to protect her dugs--and that for the puppy's own sake--a movement which always brought Finn galumphing over her shoulder to bite her ears and paw her nose, and otherwise seek to provoke breaches of the peace. A riotous, overbearing, disorderly rascal was Finn at this stage.
On the morning which ended Finn's fifth week in the world, all the pups were solemnly weighed in the kitchen scales, which were brought into the coach-house for that purpose. The Master stood by with a note-book, and these are the weights he recorded:--
Fawn bitch 10 3/4 lbs.
Grey bitch 11 1/4 lbs.
Fawn dog 12 lbs. 3 oz.
Finn 14 lbs. 4 oz.
In other words, at the age of five weeks, and while still a suckling pup, Finn weighed as much as some prize-winning fox terriers, and that breed when fully developed, in point of size, though not, of course, shapely or set. After corresponding with other breeders, the Master was confirmed in his already-expressed conviction that, thus far, Finn was a maker and breaker of records.
During the week following this weighing Finn was only allowed to visit his foster-mother once, for half an hour or so, in each day. But the meals he lapped from a dish, in his own blundering way, included broth now, as well as milky foods, and he still slept with the foster at night. During the next week--in fine, dry July weather--all four puppies were gambolling together in the orchard, from six in the morning till six at night, and never saw the foster-mothers till they were tired out with their day-long play and ready for the night's sleep. The Master and the Mistress took their own lunch and tea in the orchard at this time, and a table and chairs were kept under a big oak tree for this purpose. In and out among the legs of these chairs and the table the Wolfhound pups played boisterously hour by hour, till fatigue overtook them, with capricious suddenness, and they would fall asleep in the midst of some absurd antic and in any odd position that came handy.
Then one of the pups, usually Finn, would open his eyes and yawn, realize once more how good life was, and plunge forthwith upon his still sleeping brothers and sisters, tumbling them triumphantly into the midst of a new romp before they knew whether they were on their heads or their heels. A twig, a leaf, or a stone would be endowed with the attributes of some cunning and fierce quarry, to be stalked, run down, and finally torn in sunder with marvellous heroism, with reckless, noisy valour. The sun shone warm and sweetly over all, there beside the immemorial Sussex Downs; life and the dry old earth were very, very good--if only one's breath did not give out so soon, and one's fore-legs had not so annoying a trick of doubling up; and then---- What was that rascally fawn pup rushing for? The Mistress, with the four little dishes and the big basin? Another meal? Here goes! Bother! I should certainly have reached her first, if I hadn't turned that somersault over the fawn pup!
That was how it seemed to Finn, whose life was one long, happy play and swagger at this time. But there were moments of a kind of seriousness, too, in which Finn had glimpses of real life. That very night, or rather late afternoon, Finn discovered that he could bark, more or less as grown-up dogs bark. True, his first, second, and third barks proved too much for his unstable equilibrium, and he rolled over on his side in emitting the noble sounds. But the fourth time he leaned against the table-leg under the oak tree, and on that occasion was able to stand proudly to observe the paralysing effect of his performance upon the others of his family, who sat round him on their podgy haunches in a respectfully wide circle, and marvelled fearfully at his robust prowess. They had all yapped before, but this deep, resonant bark--fully one in three had no crack in it--this was an achievement indeed. After a while the grey bitch pup came and tentatively chewed Finn's backbone, with a vague idea that the sound came from there.
When Finn was escorted--prancing drunkenly--to the coach-house that evening after his supper, the little sheep-dog within was just finishing her supper. Finn conceived the notion of showing his foster-mother what he could do, and accordingly swaggered unsteadily into the coach-house, delivering loud barks as he advanced, all up and down the scale. The little sheep-dog (less than twice Finn's size now) raised her nose from the dish and barked angrily in good earnest. Finn rolled forward and sniffed in casual fashion at her dish. Whereupon the foster growled at him quite ferociously, and shouldered the great whelp out of her way. The Master, who was looking on, nodded his head once or twice thoughtfully.
"Yes," he said, as Finn sidled off to the bed rather crestfallen, "I think you may take that as your notice to quit, my son; that's weaning. You've been a good deal on your own lately, you know. Well, I had meant this for your last night as a baby, anyhow. But as it is--there, there, little shepherd, you've been a dear, good little mother, haven't you? Six weeks now; and, as you say, he is a great hulking chap, isn't he? Well, all right; make it up then, and give him a good-bye lick. I don't think you've much else to give now, anyway, but the warmth of your body."
But the good, patient little sheep-dog had already placed herself at the grey whelp's voracious disposal, and he was pounding and tugging away at her in his usual merciless style. Then, when she went dutifully to lick the rascal, he thrust at her strongly with his great strong legs, and the Master, who had been standing, smoking and watching, said--
"Come along, little shepherd. That's good-bye."
And that was the last Finn saw of any foster-mother. That was the end of babyhood, and the beginning of childhood for Finn. He slept alone that night, and found it rather awesome during the few minutes in which his eyes were open, between the last lapped meal at ten o'clock and the first of the next day, when the Master came to him at five-thirty. The Master held that if you would breed a really exceptional hound, you must be prepared to take really exceptional trouble over the task, since a chance lost in the first half year of your hound's life, is lost for good and all.
[CHAPTER V]
YOUTH BESIDE THE DOWNS
Finn did not have more than one solitary night for the present. His great bed in the coach-house, which was twelve feet long by six feet broad, was shared the next night by the other three puppies, who had seen the last of their foster-mother that morning. They whimpered a little after the last night meal, when they found themselves bereft of maternal attention, and this gave Finn an opportunity for indulging in a certain amount of swagger on the strength of his previous night's experience. He had already adopted the air of a dog accustomed to go his own way and to sleep alone. Also, he regarded the coach-house bed as his own, and the other puppies as youngsters only admitted to that place by his courtesy. Thus from the very outset, here as elsewhere, he gave his comrades to understand that he was master, and that no one must presume to trespass upon any quarter which he took up as his own. All day long the four puppies had the run of the shed in the orchard, which was kept wide open. If a shower of rain came, they were bustled into this place by the Mistress of the Kennels, and there the most of their nine daily meals were served to them.
Nine meals in a day seems a very large number, but this was part of the Master's theory in the rearing of Irish Wolfhounds, or any other dog in whom great size is aimed at. In the week after weaning the meals began at half-past five in the morning and finished at ten o'clock at night. In the next week they were cut down to eight meals; the next week seven, the next week six; the next fortnight five; and then, for a long time, the number of meals served to these young princes of their breed each day was four. The object in all this was threefold. First, the Master held it necessary that these pups should have as much nourishment as they were capable of assimilating with advantage; secondly, he was anxious never to spoil their appetites by permitting them at any time to experience surfeit; and, in the third place, he believed strongly in light meals for young hounds, as distinguished from the sort of meal often given, which leaves the puppy fit for nothing but the heavy sleep of the overeaten. Tara's pups romped after their meals, and slept before them. Their digestions were never overtaxed, and their soft, unset legs were never overstrained by the extremely bulging stomach which many breeders associate as a matter of course with puppyhood. This the Master held to be a point of great importance with hounds of this kind, whose limbs take just as long to harden and set as those of any other breed, while their increase in weight to be carried on those limbs is enormously rapid, at all events in the case of such whelps as those of Tara's.
For instance, at the age of five weeks Finn weighed just over fourteen pounds. Sixteen days later he weighed 22 lbs. 2 ozs., while the other three pups weighed respectively on the same day 20 lbs., 19 1/2 lbs., and 18 3/4 lbs. Growth at the rate of just half a pound weight per day is growth which requires a good deal of wise feeding and care. At the age of twenty weeks Finn weighed 91 [sic] 1/4 lbs. Puppies' legs are easily bowed and rarely straightened. Finn and his brother and sisters were never allowed on damp ground at this period. It was rarely that they were out of the sight of either the Master or the Mistress of the Kennels for more than half an hour at a time. As the Master said, breeding champion Irish Wolfhounds is no light undertaking. The Mistress of the Kennels was the more inclined to agree with him for the reason that it was her province to see to it, even when the pups were having their nine meals a day, that the same kind of meal was never served twice consecutively. The dietary included four or five staple articles, with as many as seven or eight different accessories. The bills of fare at different successive periods were as studiously and exactly drawn up by the Master as ever a human patient's diet is arranged by doctors in a hospital.
But of all these things, which kept several people pretty busy--five or six feeding dishes were scalded and washed nine times a day; there was a puppy's kitchen and a puppy's larder--Finn and his companions knew nothing. To them life was the most delightfully haphazard affair, made up exclusively of playing, sleeping, and eating, with a little occasional fighting and mock-fighting (over the huge bones which were placed at their disposal to serve the purpose of tooth-brushes and tooth-sharpeners) by way of diversion and excitement. Their play was not at all unlike that of human children. They loved to dig holes in the ground; to hide behind tree-trunks and spring out upon one another with terrifying cries and pretended fierceness; all kinds of make-believe appealed to them greatly, and to none of them more keenly than to Finn, who liked to come galloping down from the other end of the orchard to the old oak tree, flying exaggerated danger signals, and making believe that he was pursued by a savage and remorseless enemy.
Tara smiled broadly, and stretched out her fore-legs on the ground.
One morning, very much to the amazement of the pups, the Master came strolling into the orchard, followed by a huge creature of their own species, who walked with the slow and gracious dignity of a great queen. None of them guessed that this was Tara, their own mother, and Tara herself gave no sign of being aware that these were her own children. After some minutes of embarrassed, watchful uncertainty, Finn, greatly daring, ventured to step out from among his companions and approach Tara closely enough to sniff warily at her legs and tail, his own tail hanging meekly on the ground the while. Tara sniffed at him once with amiable indifference, and then turned her head the other way. Two minutes later Finn had discovered that this great hound was perfectly well-meaning and kindly disposed, and that, his habit and nature being what they were, was sufficient to place him at once upon terms of highly presumptuous familiarity. Having watched their daring brother from a distance so far, the other pups now took heart of grace, and were soon sniffing respectfully about Tara's legs. For a moment the mother of heroes felt, or pretended to feel, mere boredom; but as the Master turned away to look at some distant object--a diplomatic move upon his part this--Tara smiled broadly, stretched out her fore-legs on the ground, exactly as a cat will when about to play, and, again in cat-like fashion, began to spring about, around, and over the half-fearful but wholly delighted puppies. When the Master turned round again, the five of them, mother and four children, were in the midst of the wildest sort of frolic, and impudent Finn had actually reached the length of growling at his mother with theatrical savagery, and leaping at the loose skin about her throat with widely distended eyes and gaping jaws.
After this Tara spent most of her days in the orchard with the pups. When tired of their frivolity, she would retire to the roots of the oak tree and give them to understand that they were not to bother her further, or she would leap the gate leading into the garden, leaving her offspring gaping admiringly upon its orchard side, and stroll into the Master's den for an hour or so. On one occasion she opened a new vista of life before Finn and the others. At the higher end of the orchard, nearest to the open downs, there were a number of rabbit earths, and one morning, when the four pups were frolicsomely following Tara in that direction, an unwary rabbit allowed the dogs to get between himself and the earths. Too late the rabbit started up from the leaf he had been nibbling, and headed for his burrow. Tara bounded forward and cut off his retreat. Wheeling then at a tangent, the rabbit flew toward the far end of the orchard, where there was a gap in the fence. Tara was after him like the wind, her puppies excitedly galloping in her wake, yapping with delight. Half-way across the orchard Tara overtook the bunny, and her great jaws closed upon the middle of its body, smashing the spinal column and killing instantaneously. A moment later and Finn was on the scene in a frenzy of excitement. Tara drew back, eyeing the dead rabbit with lofty unconcern. Finn, on the other hand, endowed the poor dead little beast with the dangerous ferocity of a live tiger, and sprang upon it, snarling and growling desperately. Round and round his head he whirled the rabbit till his throat was half-choked with fur, and by that time the other puppies butted in, each snatching a hold where it could, and tugging valorously. Then it was that the Master arrived, attracted by the noise of the youngsters' yapping, and the pups saw no more of their victim.
But this brought a new interest into Finn's life, and much of his time now was spent in the neighbourhood of the rabbit earths. Many glorious runs Finn had after venturesome rabbits in that corner of the orchard, but he was not fleet enough as yet to catch them, and possibly his jaws could hardly have managed the killing in any case. But even so, he experienced great joy in the matter of stalking, hunting, and lying in wait.
On a glorious mellow afternoon in September, when the four pups, captained as usual by Finn, were having great fun with a hammock chair, from which they had managed to tear the canvas, they looked up suddenly, and not without some sense of shame, to see three people strolling into the orchard from the garden with Tara. There was the Master and the Mistress of the Kennels and a stately, white-haired lady, who fondled Tara's beautiful head as she walked. Tara was walking with great care and delicacy to make the fondling easy. She had no idea who the lady might be, but yet remembered having met her before upon more than one occasion. This was the lady from Yorkshire who had been the generous means of restoring Tara to the Master. She was staying now in Sussex for a few days, and had been asked to come to the little house beside the downs to see Tara's children. Tara was perfectly aware that this was the object of the walk in the orchard, and, though she may have forgotten that these puppies were her own offspring, she certainly had a distinctly proprietary feeling where they were concerned, as one could see from the modest, deprecatory expression on her face when the youngsters came gambolling about her, and were duly admired by the visitor.
"You have not disposed of any of them yet, then?" said the lady to the Master. "Oh, no; I should not have thought of doing that until you had an opportunity of making your choice," he replied.
"I? Oh, but, really, I--I----"
The lady from Yorkshire paused. For one thing she was not quite sure whether the Master meant that he wished her to buy one of the puppies, or whether he wanted to give one of them to her. She was a wealthy lady, so that the monetary aspect of it did not exercise her mind much, but she would not for the world have hurt the Master's feelings.
"But I am quite sure you will not deny me the real pleasure of giving you one of Tara's children," said the Master. "That is a small return for your gift of Tara herself; but I should like to think of your having one of this family, and it would make me unhappy if you were to deny me the opportunity of giving you your real choice. That was why I asked you to come to-day. It is Tara's thank-offering, and I can assure you she has excelled herself in the making of it."
The three were seated now, so that they might observe and admire the family at leisure.
"Yes, she really has excelled herself. That grey dog there is Finn. When he was weighed yesterday he scaled nine pounds more than the biggest of the other three, and they are as big as any whelps of their age I have seen. That grey dog is going to be the biggest Irish Wolfhound bred in our time, in my opinion; and if you choose him he will do you credit. He should be a great champion one day. You will always know, if you take Finn, that Tara was not ungrateful to you. As for me, I know very well you will never suspect me of ingratitude."
"It is very, very good of you, and I shall be delighted, delighted to have one of Tara's children."
And then the visitor stopped, gazing thoughtfully at the puppies. Her kind heart was a good deal moved in this matter, and she guessed more than the Master gave her credit for guessing, in the matter of how much hope and pride he had centred on the rearing of Finn. When the visitor spoke again, it was to say, slowly—
"Finn is quite splendid, there is not a doubt of that, and I can easily believe he will do all that you expect of him. But, if I may be quite frank, what I should really most like would be to have a female if I might. I should then feel that I not only had one of Tara's children of this family, but also that I had a possible future mother of heroes. But--perhaps you want to keep both females, or to dispose of them otherwise?"
One would not like to suggest of this good lady that she was anything but strictly truthful; but it is a fact that she never had done any breeding of hounds, and that, up till that day at all events, she had never thought to. But the Master did not know this, and it was with an undeniable thrill of pleasure that he hailed the unexpected chance of being able to keep Finn. He had made up his mind that Finn would be chosen, and was quite prepared and glad to make the sacrifice; but it was a notable sacrifice, and if the same end could be served without losing Finn, why that was blithe news. He was not sure of his intention to keep either of the bitch pups, and in any case he would not have thought of keeping both of them. But honesty and real gratitude made him, impelled him, to point out to the visitor that she might never again have the opportunity of obtaining the kind of hound that Finn would make. However, she stuck to her preference for a daughter, and so it was decided. Three days afterwards a large dog-box on little wheels, with grated windows and a properly ventilated roof, arrived from Yorkshire, and was placed outside the back-kitchen door. After a very light breakfast next morning--it is bad for whelps, or grown dogs either, to have a full meal before a journey, because the stress and excitements of railway travelling, which are at least as great for a dog as those of air-ship travelling would be for a man, arrest the process of digestion--the fawn bitch puppy was coaxed into this box, while Tara looked on with a good deal of interest; and that was the last she saw of the cottage by the Downs. When the fawn whelp left that travelling-box again, some nine hours later, she was in the paved stable courtyard of a great house in Yorkshire.
A week later another visitor came, this time from Somerset, and his choice fell upon a fawn dog, after half an hour spent in trying to tempt the Master to part with Finn. When this visitor, who was a famous breeder of Irish Wolfhounds, was leaving, with the fawn dog whelp in a travelling hamper, he said--
"But, really, I think you are mistaken, you know, about the grey whelp. He's a beauty, of course, or I shouldn't want him; but I fancy you made a mistake not to accept that offer. Fifty guineas is a longish figure for a three months' pup, with distemper to face and all that. I'm not sure that I wasn't over rash to make such an offer."
The Master laughed. "Well," he said, "be thankful that there's no likelihood of my taking advantage of your rashness. As for distemper, we don't deal in it at all; don't believe in it. If pups are consistently nourished, and get no chills and no damp and no infection, there's no earthly reason why they should ever have distemper. At least, that's how we've found it."
So the fawn dog whelp went, and Finn stayed with the grey bitch pup, and Tara's family was thus reduced to two. The Master said that as he had sold only one puppy of the family so far, he really could not afford to keep Finn's sister; but, however that might be, he kept her for the present, and now that there were but two of the youngsters, they began to live more after the fashion of grown hounds. As autumn advanced the pair were gradually given more and more in the way of grown-up privileges. They learned to come into the den with Tara, and to behave themselves with discretion when there. They never saw such a thing as a whip, but the Master spoke to them with all the sharp emphasis of a growl when original canine sin tempted them to the chewing of newspapers, or attempting to tear rugs. Also, they learned very much from Tara in the matter of the deportment and dignity which becomes a Wolfhound. In the latter part of November their meals were reduced in number from four to three a day, and they were presented with green leather collars with the Master's name engraved in brass thereon. These were for outdoor wear only, outside the doors of the home premises that is, and with them came lessons in leading which required a good deal of patience on the part of the Mistress of the Kennels, for, after the first two lessons, which were given by the Master, much of teaching work fell to her.
Early in the morning, as a general thing, the Master took Tara and the two youngsters out on the Downs, and these were altogether delightful experiences for Finn and his sister. It was on one of these occasions, and just after entering his sixth month, that Finn tasted the joy and pride of his first kill. He had started with Tara after a rabbit which had scurried out from behind a little hillock no more than ten distant paces. The rabbit wheeled at a tangent from under Tara's nose, and, as it headed down the slope, was bound to cross Finn's course. The grey whelp's heart swelled within him; his jaws dripped hot desire as he galloped. The fateful moment came, and the whelp seized his prey precisely as Tara would have seized it, a little behind the shoulders. It was bad for the rabbit, because Finn was neither practised nor powerful enough to kill instantaneously as his mother would have done. But his vehemence in shaking was such that before Tara reached his side the quarry was dead. Tara sniffed at the dead rabbit with the air of an official inspector of such matters, and then sat up on her haunches to indicate that she had no wish to interfere with her son's prize. As for Finn, he was uncertain what course to adopt. The rabbit was very thoroughly killed; killed with a thoroughness which would have sufficed for half a dozen rabbits. A number of obscure instincts were at work in Finn's mind as he jerkily licked, and withdrew from, and nosed again at his first kill. In the main his instincts said, "Tear and eat!" But, as against that, he was not hungry. The Master believed in giving the dogs a snack before the morning run, and breakfast after it, because this prevents a dog being anxious to pick up any more or less edible trifle of an undesirable kind that he may meet with, and, then, there were other instincts. It was long, very long, since Finn's kind had been killers for eating purposes. Finn was undecided in the matter. He certainly would have allowed no dog to take his quarry from him; but the matter was decided for him when the Master arrived on the scene and picked up the rabbit by its hind legs. Finn jumped to catch it in his jaws; but the Master spoke with unmistakable decision when he bade Finn drop it, and there the matter ended, except as a proud and inspiring memory, and a ground for added swagger on Finn's part.
In the quiet corner of Sussex, where Finn was born, it was the rarest thing for the Wolfhounds to meet another dog; but it did occur at times, and then it was odd to see how strong the instincts of their race was in the whelps. They seemed to take it as a matter of course that other dogs must be lesser creatures, and that as such they were to be treated with every sort of courtesy, patience, and good humour. Finn and his sister never made advances, but they would stand politely still while the stranger sniffed all round them. For pups in their first half-year they were extraordinarily dignified. Much of this, of course, they learned from gracious Tara, one of the gentlest and sweetest-mannered hounds that ever lived. Also, they had that within, in the shape of truly aristocratic lineage, which gave them great self-respect, a tradition of courtesy, and a remarkable deal of savoir-faire. The notion of snapping or snarling at a stranger, human or brute, simply never occurred to either of them; never for an instant. That there were certain creatures whose part it was to be chased and killed seemed evident to Finn; but that there was any created thing in the world to be feared, mistrusted, hated, or snapped at, he did not believe. It may be that Finn was more of a gentleman and a sportsman than many who have borne those titles in the world without challenge or demur from any of their own kind.
[CHAPTER VI]
THE ORDEAL OF THE RING
Finn's first winter was a mild one, and it passed without his noticing anything remarkable in climatic conditions. But he was aware of change when spring came. The Downs round Finn's home never seemed to get really wet. The drainage of their chalky soil was such that their surface could not hold much moisture, and outside the Downs the world was as yet a closed book to Finn. But spring asserted itself notably in his veins, and appeared to enter into a partnership with his lusty youth, and wholesome, generous scale of living, to speed the young Wolfhound's growth in wonderful style. Long, slow trots along the Sussex highways and by-ways, behind the bicycle of the Master or the Mistress, hardened Finn's round feet without overstraining his young legs, for the reason that the pace was always set with special reference to his capabilities in this direction. Even in the winter nine-tenths of his waking hours were spent in the open; yet so wise and constant was the supervision of his life that he never knew what chill meant, and never lay on damp ground, never missed a meal, and never suffered from the penalties which attend overtaxed canine digestion, as surely as they attend the same state in human beings.
On the morning of his first birthday, Finn, with his sister Kathleen and Tara and the Master, walked down to the little local railway station and was weighed. He weighed 119 lbs., exactly 26 1/2 lbs. more than his sister, and thirteen pounds less than his mother. With the standard pressed down upon his shoulder-bones he stood within an eighth of an inch of thirty-five inches in height. (The height of Wolfhounds is measured from the shoulder to the ground, not from the head.) It must be remembered that although some dogs reach their full development in one year from birth, Irish Wolfhounds are not really fully developed before the end of the second year, though they may be said to attain their full height, and probably their full length, in about eighteen months. After that, however, comes a good deal of what breeders call "furnishing," which means filling out, general development of flesh and muscle and coat, and an all-round hardening and "setting." Chest and loin deepen and widen a good deal in the second year; ribs, legs, jaws, tail, and neck all develop and strengthen greatly during this period, under such favourable conditions as Finn enjoyed. But he was a noble-looking young hound, even on this day which, technically, saw the end of his whelphood.
And then came three more months of Sussex downland summer, the hunting of innumerable rabbits, out-of-door days which were fifteen hours long, and a steadily increasing amount of slow-road exercise, for which Finn was still fortified by three good meals a day, and those of the best that care and science could devise. In early October the Master devised a new game, tolerably amusing in its way, but rather lacking in point and excitement, Finn thought. A ring was marked out in the orchard by means of a few faggots being stuck into the ground at intervals, and in the centre of this ring the Mistress of the Kennels would take up her stand as a sort of director of ceremonies. Then, sometimes with the assistance of the maidservant and the gardener, and sometimes a couple of village lads, Tara and Kathleen and Finn would be led gravely round and round, and to and fro, by the Master, while all their movements were closely watched from the centre of the ring. At first Finn found this a good deal of a nuisance, because he disliked having a lead attached to his collar; his inclination was to pull against it sideways. Before him always, however, he had the gracious example of his beautiful mother, who never did more than keep the lead nicely tight while she marched round, with her head well up, her tail hanging in a graceful sweeping curve, and her whole body radiantly expressive of alertness. Gradually it was borne in upon Finn that these were matters which touched his reputation, his pride, his belief in himself; that he, Finn, was being observed and judged with regard to his appearance and deportment. Once possessed of this idea, who so stately proud in all the Wolfhound world as Finn? At the end of a week he could march as sedately as Tara herself, or bound forward with the springy elasticity of a tiger-cat at a touch on his flank from the Master's hand; stand erect on his hind-feet, with one fore-paw on the Master's forefinger raised shoulder high; or fall to attention with hind-quarters well set out, fore-feet even and forward, head up, and tail correctly curved, in the position of a thoroughbred hackney at rest. It was great fun to find how easily commendation could be earned from the Master in this simple manner, for Finn never realized that quite a number of hours of patient instruction and practice had been devoted to the attainment of this end.
Then there came a mid-October morning when, in place of the early scamper on the Downs, Finn and Kathleen were given a light breakfast a little before daylight arrived, and after that were treated to an unusually elaborate grooming. Finn had an exciting sense of impending change and adventure, and even Tara seemed moved to a stately kind of restlessness which kept her pacing the den as though performing a minuet, instead of sitting or lying at her ease. Tara seemed to be a good deal moved and excited when two bright nickel chains, with queer little tin medals attached to them, were produced, and fitted on two new green collars for Finn and Kathleen. She nosed these chains with great interest, for they roused all kinds of vague memories in her, and anticipations, too, which she could not define to herself. (Finn and Kathleen had never seen dog chains before, and paid very little heed to them now. Their necks and shoulders had never tasted the irk of the state which is called being "tied up.") The Master drew the attention of the Mistress of the Kennels to Tara's interest in the chains, and then he stroked the great bitch's head as he said--
"Never any more, old lady. You have done your share, and shall never be hustled about at shows again; so just lie down and go to sleep. The Missis will be home to see you again this evening. Be a good girl, and wish your son and daughter luck!"
Tara watched them wistfully as they all filed out of the stable-yard gateway to the road, and then, with the philosophy born of honoured age and matronhood, returned to the den and lay down with her muzzle on the Master's slippers.
Finn was weighed on the station platform that morning, and turned the scale at 139 lbs., with nine months still before him for "furnishing."
"Of course, one has to remember that not a single chance has been missed with Finn," said the Master. "His development is probably some months ahead of the average hound of his age, but it is pretty good at that; yes, I think it is pretty good."
And then a train came roaring into the station, and Finn and Kathleen, who up till now had only occasionally seen trains from a distance, lowered their tails, and pulled back a little on their chains. The Master had a pleasant way with people like railway guards, and this particular train had not very many people in it. Accordingly the two young hounds presently found themselves in a passenger compartment, the door of which was locked. So chains were removed, and while Finn stood with his nose against the glass of one window, Kathleen, facing the other way, had her nose against the opposite window. When the train started, with a jerk, Finn had his first abrupt sensation of travel, and he did not like it at all. It seemed to him that the ground was suddenly snatched from under him, and then he saw trees and posts and houses flying bodily past him. He barked loudly at one little flying house, which seemed almost to brush the window against which his nose rested, and the Mistress of the Kennels laughed at him as she placed a hand caressingly on his neck. Now Finn detested being laughed at. He did not know what it meant, and when the Master laughed with him, during a frolic of any kind, he liked the sound very much. But being laughed at always made the hair stir uncomfortably on his shoulder-blades. As the culprit in this case was the Mistress of the Kennels, he did not even look at her angrily; but when Tara laughed at him, as she often had done in the past, he always protested with a sort of throaty beginning of a growl, which was not so much really a growl as an equivalent for the sound humans make and describe as "Tut, tut!" or "Tsh, tsh!" Finn did not again bark at a flying house or tree; but, though the whole experience interested him very much, he was greatly puzzled by some of the phenomena connected with this railway journey.
In due course, but not before Finn had become comparatively blasé as a traveller, and more than a little weary of the whole thing, the chains were put on again, and the hounds were led out from the train into the midst of a crowd of strange people. Finn had no idea that there were anything like so many people in the world as he found pressing about him now, and many of them were leading dogs on chains. Finn's attitude towards these strange dogs was one of considerable reserve. He was very self-conscious; rather like a young man from the country who suddenly and unexpectedly found himself in the midst of some fashionable crush in London; an exceedingly well-bred young man, of remarkably fine figure; a sportsman of some prowess, too; but one who felt that he had not been introduced to any of the members of the noisy, bustling throng, and fancied that every one else was conscious of the fact.
New experiences were crowding thick and fast upon Finn and Kathleen just now. After rubbing shoulders with this astonishing crowd for some minutes, they found themselves face to face for the first time in their lives with a flight of steps. True, they each felt a soothing hand on their shoulders, a hand they knew and loved, but the thing was disconcerting none the less. At first glance these steps obviously called for small leaps and bounds as a mode of progression. And yet, when one took ever so small a leap, one's nose inevitably came into sharp contact with the legs of strange humans who climbed in front; a distinctly unpleasant experience, because undignified, and implying a desire for familiarity which Finn by no means felt.
However, an end came to the steps at length, and then, after walking some distance in the open road, and being allowed to run loose for a few minutes in a quiet street, full of strange, strong smells and a curious absence of air, Finn and Kathleen were led into a large building, bigger than the orchard at home, and containing, besides countless humans, all the dogs that ever were in all the world, all talking incoherently, and together. At least, that was how it struck Finn and Kathleen. As a matter of fact, there were some thousands of dogs in the Crystal Palace that day, for it was the opening day of the great annual Kennel Club Show; the biggest society event of the year among dogs. It was a more exclusive assembly than any of the purely human sort, because every dog, among all the thousands there assembled, was an aristocrat with a pedigree as long as his body. There was not a parvenu among them all; and there are no human assemblies about which that may be said.
It is difficult to conceive precisely how great an ordeal it was for Finn and Kathleen to face, when they were led down the length of this great building to their own particular bench among the other Irish Wolfhounds, of whom there were some thirty or forty present. For fifty yards or more they walked down an aisle between double rows of benches, every yard of which was occupied by terriers of one sort and another, all yapping and barking at the top of their respective registers. Be it remembered that Finn and Kathleen, up till that morning, had never been at close quarters with more than one dog at a time, and had never seen more than about a dozen dogs outside their own breed altogether. The noise of barking, the pungency and variety of smells, and the crowded multiplicity of doggy personalities were at first overpowering, and Finn and his sister walked with lowered tails, quick-shifting eyes, raised hackles, and twitching skin. But pride of race, and the self-confidence which goes with exceptional strength, soon came to Finn's aid, and by the time he reached his own bench, his tail was carried high and muzzle also, though he walked with unusual rigidity, and at heart was far from comfortable.
Though the benches were continuous, the space allotted to each dog was divided from that of the next dog by a strong galvanized iron net-work, and each dog's chain was fastened to the back of his bench. When the Wolfhounds were benched, Finn had his sister upon his right, and (though he never suspected it) his redoubtable sire, the great Champion Dermot Asthore, on his left. On Kathleen's right was a big rebel of a dog with an angry eye, named Wolf Tone. Facing them, on the other side of their aisle, was a long row of their cousins, the Deerhound family; while behind them, and out of sight, was an even longer row of their cousins on the other side: the Great Dane family. Farther on, beyond Champion Dermot Asthore, who sat in the rear of his bench wrapped in a cloak of kingly isolation--he disliked shows very much, and now, late in his great career, was thoroughly weary of them--was a row of five and twenty distant connections of Finn's, belonging to the Russian Wolfhound or Borzois family. Finn had noticed these white and lemon coloured curled darlings as he was led along to his own bench, and his nostrils had wrinkled with scorn as he noted their "prettiness," the snipey sharpness of their long muzzles, the extraordinary slimness and delicacy of their legs, the effeminate narrowness of their chests, and the toyish blue ribbons that decorated some of their collars. Mentally, he granted these fashionable darlings fleetness, but absolutely withheld from them the killing powers they are credited with. "Bah!" one may imagine Finn muttering to himself. "Foxy tails, weasel's faces, terrier's legs--you are almost toys!"
Heavy-coated, massive old Dermot Asthore took no more notice of Finn than of the rest of the show. He was supremely bored, and, being perfectly aware that the show lasted three days, his immediate prospect disgusted him. One fancied that on the few occasions upon which he did open his mouth at all, his remark was always the same--"Tcha! And at my time of life, too!" But Finn was not otherwise neglected. The Mistress of the Kennels had a little camp-stool, and on this she sat mid-way between Finn and Kathleen. Finn also had the Master's hand-bag in his section of the bench; and that was rather nice and companionable. Also, the Master himself seemed seldom to be far away. He flitted to and fro, generally in conversation with somebody, and always followed, for so long as he was in sight, by the eyes of Finn and Kathleen. In his hand he carried a yellow book which told him the names of every dog in all that vast assemblage of canine princes and lordlings, with details, too, as to their exalted ancestry.
The Mistress of the Kennels was studying a similar book, and if Finn, whose muzzle at this time was just above her shoulder, could have read, he would have seen that she was busy with the Irish Wolfhound section of the catalogue. This showed her that there were three separate classes for Irish Wolfhound dogs, and three for bitches of the same breed--Open, Limit, and Novice; with first, second, and third prizes to be won in each class. The Open classes were for all and any Irish Wolfhounds of each sex; the Limit classes were for such as had not previously won more than six first prizes; and the Novice classes were for hounds that had never won a first prize in any show. There was also a junior class for hounds of both sexes under the age of eighteen months. In the Open dog class there appeared the names of no fewer than two fully-fledged champions, and two other fully developed hounds that were already within measurable reach of championship honours; besides several other Wolfhounds of high repute and proved prowess as prize-winners at shows. In the Open bitch class there was one champion entered, and four or five others of whom great things had been predicted. In the other classes it was evident that competition would be brisk. In the Limit class, for example, were several hounds well past maturity who had already won at other shows as many as four and five first prizes. The Novice classes included the names of some extremely promising hounds, several of whom had already won second and third prizes elsewhere. In the junior class there were four other entries, besides those of Finn and Kathleen. But Finn and Kathleen had been boldly entered right through, in all classes for which they were eligible. Old breeders who had not seen them smiled over the breeder's enthusiasm in entering fifteen months old youngsters in Open classes, where they would meet old champions, whose very names carried great weight, both with the judges and the public.
A young Irish Wolfhound, lying down among the straw of his bench, is a very deceptive animal. When he is, say, three years old, his beard and brows, massive shoulders, and set, assured expression give one fair warning of the commanding presence he will display when he rises. But when he is yet young he looks a much lesser creature than he is when seen on a show bench, particularly if, as so often happens, he makes a kind of nest for himself in the straw. Most of the people specially interested in Wolfhounds paused opposite Finn's place, and made some passing remark about: "Fine head, that!" "Good muzzle that youngster has!" or if they noticed one of his forelegs over the straw: "Wonderful heavy timbers, those!" But they paid no very particular heed really to the hounds from the cottage beside the Downs. Now and again, however, an old breeder, passing leisurely along the benches, would pause when he had passed Kathleen, and, after a quick glance back, return to Finn's place, looking up his number in the catalogue, and gazing at the young hound with a gravely calculating eye. "Fifteen months old!" muttered one of these, glancing to and fro between his catalogue and Finn. "H'm! By old Dermot--Tara. Yes. Finn. Ah!" And so on down the benches. Finn had a notion that these men knew a good deal; they had a knowledgeable way with them. Finn would have obeyed them readily. That was how their manner impressed him.
By the time Finn had to some extent exhausted the first novelty of his surroundings, and was contemplating the desirability of sleeping off some of its effects--the number of new impressions he had formed that morning was at least equal to those of a human's first visit to a great picture gallery--the Master came along with something of a rush, chains were unsnapped, and Finn and his sister were taken down from the bench. A number of other Wolfhounds were leaving the bench at the same time, and being led in the direction of a fenced-in judging ring (square in shape, by the way) at one end of the building. The dog classes for Irish Wolfhounds were about to be judged, and the Mistress of the Kennels brought Kathleen along, though her sex was not to be judged for some time, because she knew the youngster would be unhappy if left alone on the bench. The Master was leading Finn, and, before they entered the ring, he passed his hand solicitously over the dog's immature brows and beard once or twice, even as a very young man may be noticed to tug at his moustache with a view, presumably, to making the very most of it. The Mistress found a place for herself beside the ring with Kathleen, which not only gave her a good view of the judging, but also showed her plainly to all in the ring. This was for Finn's especial benefit. And then the Master walked into the ring with Finn, and took up his place next to the lady who led the grand old hound who had sired Finn--Champion Dermot.
In the centre of the ring, accompanied by a busy steward with a sheaf of notes in his hand, stood the Judge of Irish Wolfhounds; a man grown grey, white-haired indeed, in the study of dog-folk, and one of whom it might be said that, by his own single-hearted efforts, he had saved the breed of Irish Wolfhounds from becoming extinct in the middle of last century, and accomplished a great deal of the spade work which has brought the modern breed to its present flourishing state. No man living could claim to know more of Irish Wolfhounds than this white-haired Judge, who stood in the centre of a ring formed by all the greatest aristocrats of the historic breed.
"Move them round, please," he said quietly. "Keep them moving as freely as possible."
Finn was the only hound in that ring under two and a half years of age, and Finn was just fifteen months old, a child among the acknowledged leaders and chieftains of his race. One noticed it in the comparative angularity and leggyness of his build. He carried less flesh than the others, was far less set; in a word, they had "furnished," and Finn had not. The Mistress of the Kennels, from her place beside the ring, noticed these things, and sighed for the soaring ambition which had led to the entering of this tyro in Open class.
"Finn, boy!" said she, in an impressive, long-drawn whisper, as Finn passed her place. The youngster's ears lifted, and his fine neck curved superbly as he looked round at the Mistress. And just then the Master bent over him, whispering close beside his ear certain nonsense words which were associated in Finn's mind with certain events, like rabbit-hunting and racing on the Downs.
"Chu, chu, chu--u--u--, Finn!" whispered the Master. And that was a nonsense word connected with two things only: the unexpected rising of a rabbit ahead, and the new game in which Finn had been led round a ring with Tara and Kathleen in the orchard at home. And, to be sure, there was the Mistress of the Kennels looking on all the time, and Finn and the Master walking round, and other dogs, and----
And it was thus that Finn passed a Judge at a dog show for the first time. It was thus that he realized that it was a show; that he, Finn, was being judged, compared with others of his kind. From that moment Finn showed the best that was in him to show, with an air as kingly as that of any of his warrior ancestors in the ancient days when they were the friends and defenders of kings, the companions in sport of great chieftains. When next Finn approached the Judge in the march round, the Master touched his flank, and he rose up to his full towering height, his fore-paws higher than a man's head, and the Master pretended to rebuke him with: "Down, Finn! Down, you rascal!" But Finn knew well, by his tone, that all was well, and his own appearance most imposing. The Judge, in the centre of the ring, chewed the end of his pencil reflectively, and now and again he said, "That will do, thank you!" to some exhibitor, and that exhibitor withdrew from the ring with his hound, wearing an elaborately assumed air of indifference or relief, and feeling much real chagrin. Occasionally the Judge would merely wave his hand for the same purpose, with a nod to some particular exhibitor.
During about the fifth or sixth march round the Judge waved his hand and nodded to the Master with a murmured remark. The Master's face fell, and, as he drew abreast of the opening in the side of the ring, he moved out slowly with Finn. To him then came a steward, fussily official. He was not to withdraw from the ring, it appeared, but only to take up his stand in one corner of it with Champion Dermot Asthore, Champion Munster, and a magnificent hound named Cormac. The Judge was making notes on slips of paper now, and in another minute or so the ring was empty, save for the three hounds mentioned and Finn.
And now there came the most searching sort of examination of these four Wolfhounds, who were drawn up in a row before the Judge. Teeth, eyes, claws, all were in turn closely scrutinized by the man who had weighed and studied such matters for the half of a century. Muscles and joints were carefully felt, and all in a manner which no self-respecting hound could take exception to; with the assured, gentle, knowledgeable touch which soothes and inspires confidence in all animal folk. Then the four hounds must walk round once more in single file. Then they must run to and fro, singly. And, lastly, they must stand together to have the measuring standard applied to their shoulders. Young Finn was the last to come under the standard; and the Judge measured him four times over before he would admit himself correct in pronouncing Finn full 35 1/4 inches at the shoulder: "And I may say, sir, the biggest hound I ever measured. Fifteen and a half months, you say? Tcha! Remarkable; re-markable, sir." And this Judge knew more about Irish Wolfhounds than any other man living.
Cormac's master was told that he could stand aside, and a murmur went round the ring of spectators to the effect that Cormac was the winner. Then Champion Munster was told to stand aside, and the crowd placed him second. And then the Judge spent five reflective minutes in pondering over Champion Dermot Asthore, the most famous Irish Wolfhound of his day, and young Finn, his son, and the son of beautiful Tara. The crowd wondered which of these two was to have third prize, the celebrated old champion or the tyro.
At last the Judge drew back, saying: "That will do, thank you!"
The crowd surged round the notice-board. Excitement ran high now, for this was the most important Wolfhound class of the whole show, and the stewards were approaching the board to pin up the winning numbers. The Master glanced across at the Mistress of the Kennels, and stooped then to fondle Finn's ears, and murmur nonsense words to him. Then he, too, pressed forward to the notice-board, and read the awards, thus:--
1st...No. 247.
2nd...No. 248.
3rd...No. 261.
V.H.C...No. 256.
H.C...No. 259.
Not daring to be quite certain, the Master drew out the little medal from beside Finn's collar, and read again on it Finn's number: 247. By this single judgment, then, Finn was declared winner of the Open class for Irish Wolfhound dogs, and that meant that, unless a bitch could be found to beat him, Finn also won the Challenge Shield for best Irish Wolfhound in the Show. Champion Dermot Asthore, his sire, came second, Champion Munster third, Cormac very highly commended, and a dog called Patrick highly commended.
A moment later the Mistress of the Kennels was in possession of the great news, and her arms were about Finn's neck, while Finn nosed the momentarily neglected Kathleen's muzzle.
"You great, beautiful Finn, do you know you are first? Do you know you've beaten all the champions?" she said. And Finn nuzzled her shoulder and wondered why she was in any doubt about his recognition of a thing so obvious. But it was a very great triumph all the same; the greatest triumph that had ever fallen to a breeder of Irish Wolfhounds, as some of those who hastened to congratulate the Master now were careful to point out.
"For a fifteen months' novice, you know, against two champions, and a hound like Cormac--wonderful!" they said. But all were agreed that Finn justified the award. "He's the tallest hound in the breed, now," said the Judge, as he passed that way, and lingered to pass his hand over Finn's shoulder; "and he will be the biggest and finest if he lives; distinctly the finest Irish Wolfhound I have ever handled, and--I've handled most of them." Higher tribute from such a Judge no dog could earn. The Master flushed with pleasure and pride as he heard it, and turned to receive the congratulations of the exhibitors of Champions Dermot Asthore, and Munster.
In the Limit and Novice classes Finn was awarded first place as a matter of course. There was nothing there to beat him. And then came the judging of the bitch classes, in which Kathleen did extraordinarily well for so young a hound, and in such "good company," as the saying goes. She won third prize in the Open class, second in the Limit, and first in the Novice. And then four other young hounds filed into the ring with Finn and Kathleen to be judged in the junior class. The other four young hounds were of a very good sort, but they had not the development, the bone, muscle, and stature of Finn and Kathleen, and there was not much hesitation in the decision which placed Finn first, Kathleen second, and a youngster called Connemara third.
And then Finn had to be judged beside the winner in the Open class for bitches, to decide who should be given the Challenge Shield for the best Irish Wolfhound in the Show. And this was a task which tried the white-haired Judge's patience for a long time. The female was Champion Lady Iseult of Leinster, and one of the most beautiful hounds of her sex ever seen. She was fully matured, and her reputation was world-wide. Judged on "points," as breeders say, she was very near to perfection. Technically, it was difficult to find fault in her, unless that she was a shade too straight in her hocks, a fault that often goes with great stature in a hound. Finn's hocks were curved like an Arab stallion's, springy as a cat's. The Judge tested the two hounds side by side, again and again, and in every way he could think of, but without coming to a decision between them. At last, after passing his hand down the hocks of the Lady Iseult, he asked that they might both be run, quickly as possible, while led. That seemed to guide him a good deal. But it was clear that the conscientious old Judge and breeder was not yet fully satisfied. Finally, he had the opening to the rings closed, and a hurdle brought in. Then the Lady Iseult was invited to run at and leap the hurdle. She did so, and with a good grace, returning docilely enough to her master. Then the Master loosed Finn, and the Mistress of the Kennels called him from the far side of the ring. Finn bounded forward with the elasticity of a cat, and cleared the hurdle with a perfect spring and fully two feet to spare. The Judge stroked his imperial, laid a hand on the shoulders of both hounds, and said--
"The young dog has it--the finest hound I ever saw!"
