Jan - A. J. Dawson

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place, though the Master had tried hard to explain. But he had been well treated there, and was certain the Master would eventually return to him. Yet, when the moment came, there was a sudden overwhelming swelling of his heart which made Finn gasp. He almost staggered as the Master greeted him. The emotion of gladness hurt him, and his dark eyes were flooded.

      After that there were no further surprises for Finn. Once he had felt the Master's hand burrowing in the wiry gray hair of his neck, Finn knew well that they were homeward bound, that the unaccountable period of separation was over, and that he would very presently see the Mistress of the Kennels; as in fact he did, that very night, at Nuthill by the Downs. And Betty—well, it was perfectly clear to Finn that she was somehow part and parcel with the Mistress; and whilst never now effusive to any one, he made it clear at once that he accepted Betty as one of his own little circle of human folk, to be loved and trusted, and never suspected. In the evening the great hound lay extended on the hearthrug of the square, oak-paneled hall at Nuthill. (He occupied a good six feet of rug.) Betty stepped across his shoulders once, to reach matches from the mantel; and Finn never blinked or moved a hair, save that the tip of his long tail just languidly rose twice, ever so gently slapping the rug. The Master, who was watching, laughed at this.

      "You may account yourself an honored friend already, Betty," he said. "I'll guarantee no other living soul, except the Mistress or I, could step over old Finn like that without his moving. In these days he doesn't unguard to that extent with any one else."

      "Ah, well," laughed Betty; "even less wise dogs than Finn know who loves them—don't they, old man?"

      Finn blinked a friendly response as she rubbed his ears. But as yet it was not that. Finn had given no thought to Betty's loving him; but he had realized that she was kin to the Mistress and the Master, and therefore, for him, in a category apart from all other folk, animal or human; a person to be trusted absolutely, even by a hound of his unique experience.

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      In a recess beside the hearth in the hall at Nuthill Finn found an oaken platform, or bench, five feet long by two and a half feet wide. It stood perhaps fifteen inches from the floor, on four stout legs, and its two ends and back had sides eight inches high. The front was open, and the bench itself was covered by a 'possum-skin rug.

      "This, my friend, is your own bed," said the Master, when he showed the bench to Finn, after all the household had retired that night. "You've slept hard, old chap, and you've lived hard, in your time; but when you want it, there will always be comfort for you here. But you're free, old chap. You can go wherever you like; still, I'd like you to try this. See! Up, lad!"

      Finn sniffed long and interestedly at the 'possum-rug which had often covered the Mistress's feet on board ship and elsewhere. Then he stepped on to the bed and lowered his great bulk gracefully upon it.

      "How's that?" asked the Master. And Finn thrust his muzzle gratefully into the hand he loved. The bed was superlatively good, as a matter of fact. But when, in the quite early morning hours, the Master opened his bedroom door, bound for the bath, he found Finn dozing restfully on the doormat.

      So that was the end of the hall bed as a hall bed. That night Finn found it beside the Master's bedroom door; and there in future he slept of a night, when indoors at all. But he was allowed perfect freedom, and there were summer nights he spent in the outer porch and farther afield than that, including the queer little Sussex slab-paved courtyard outside the kitchen door, where he spent the better part of one night on guard over a smelly tramp who, in a moment unlucky for himself, had decided to try his soft and clumsy hand at burglary. The gardener found the poor wretch in the morning aching with cramp and bailed up in a dampish corner by the dust-bin, by a wolfhound who kept just half an inch of white fang exposed, and responded with a truly awe-inspiring throaty snarl to the slightest hint of movement on the tramp's part.

      "Six hours 'e's kep' me there, an', bli'me, I'd sooner do six months quod," the weary tramp explained, when the Master had been roused and Finn called off.

      On the morning of his third day at Nuthill it was that Finn first met the Lady Desdemona. And it happened in this wise: Colonel Forde, of Shaws, which, as you may know, lies just across the green shoulder of Down from Nuthill—its fault is that the house is reached only by the westering sun, while Nuthill's windows catch the first morning rays on one side and hold some of any sunshine there may be the day through—wrote, saying that he had heard of Finn's arrival, and would the Master come across to luncheon with the Mistress and Miss Murdoch, and bring the wolfhound.

      "I hope you will have a look through my kennels with me in the afternoon," added the Colonel; and that was the kind of invitation seldom refused by the Master.

      It is, of course, a good many years now since the Shaws kennels first earned the respect of discerning breeders and lovers of bloodhounds. But to this day there is one kind of doggy man (and woman) who smiles a shade disdainfully when Colonel Forde's name is mentioned.

      "Very much the amateur," they say. And—"A bit too much of a sentimentalist to be taken seriously," some knowing fellow in a kennel coat of the latest style will tell you. Perhaps they do not quite know what they mean. Or perhaps they are influenced by the known fact that the Colonel has more than once closed his kennel doors to a long string of safe prizes by refusing to exhibit a second time some hound who, on a first showing, has won golden opinions and high awards. But these refusals were never whimsical. They were due always to the Colonel's decision, based upon close and sympathetic observation, that, for the particular hound in question, exhibition represented a painful ordeal.

      Among the breeders who at one time or another have visited the Shaws kennels are a few of the knowing fellows who smile at mention of the Colonel's name. Well, let them smile. It is perhaps as well for them that the Colonel is pretty tolerably indifferent alike to their smiles and to the awards of show judges; for, if Colonel Forde were seriously bent upon "pot-hunting," there would not be anything like so many "pots" about for other people; and these particular gentry would not at all like that.

      "Kennels!" said one of them at a dog-show in Brighton, "why, it's more like a kindergarten. There's a sitting-room, a kind of drawing-room, if you'll believe me, in the middle of the kennels, for tea-parties! And as for the dogs, well, they just do whatever they like. As often as not the kennels are empty, except for pups, and the hounds all over the garden and house—a regular kindergarten."

      It will be seen then that the Colonel must clearly have merited the disdainful smiles. But I am bound to say I never heard of any one being bitten or frightened by a dog at Shaws, and it is notorious that, difficult though bloodhound whelps are to rear, the Colonel rarely loses one in a litter. Still, "kindergarten" is certainly a withering epithet in this connection; and one can perfectly understand the professional's attitude. A sitting-room, nay, worse—"A kind of drawing-room," in the midst of the kennels! Why, it almost suggests that, forgetful of prize-winning, advertising, and selling, the Colonel must positively have enjoyed the mere pleasure of spending a leisure hour among his dogs; not at a show or in the public eye, but in the privacy of his own home! Glaring evidence of amateurishness, this. The knowing ones, as usual, were perfectly correct. That is precisely what the Colonel was; a genuine amateur of hounds.

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      April

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