Jan - A. J. Dawson

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bush. And yet, though he did not show it as Desdemona did, this trifling incident was of quite epoch-marking importance for Finn, and stirred him profoundly.

      "Hullo, old friend! What of the hunting? I declare, you've quite the old bush-ranging air to-night. Where have you been?" asked the Master, when Finn rejoined his own family circle in the hall at Nuthill, toward bedtime that night. Finn silently nuzzled the under side of the Master's right wrist; but, though his dark eyes were eloquent, it was beyond him to explain either his doings or his emotions. Yet the Master was not altogether without understanding of these.

      "Fact is," he said to Betty Murdoch, as he affectionately rubbed one of Finn's ears, "I believe this old gallant has quite fallen in love with Miss Desdemona, and I could swear he's been hunting in her company to-night. He has all the look of it. I suspect it carries him back to old days, past the quarantine, past even Australia—eh, old chap?—and back to his hunting days about these very Downs, when we were at the cottage, you know. I had to be a great deal in town in those days, before we went to Australia, and Finn ran pretty much wild through his last summer in England."

      So the Master did know something of what passed in the wolfhound's mind, though they had no common language. As a matter of fact, the evening meeting with Desdemona, the frolic on the Downs, and, at the last, the running down of that rabbit, had combined to stir Finn more than anything else had stirred him since he had fought for the Master's life in a drought-smitten corner of the bush in Australia. Much that had lain dormant in the great hound since the adventurous days of his leadership of a dingo pack had waked into active, insistent life that evening, and, brushing aside the habits of a year's soft living, had filled him once more with the keenness of the hunter and the fire of the masterful mate and leader.

      It must not be supposed that nostalgia is a modern weakness, or the monopoly of human minds. When Finn looked out across the moonlit Downs that night, while strolling round the house with the Master before going to bed, nostalgia filled his heart to aching-point and clouded his mind with its elusive, tormenting vapors as surely as ever it clouded the brain of any human wanderer. It was the nostalgia of the wilderness, of the life of the wild; and, as he looked out into the moonlight, Finn saw again in fancy, the boundary-rider's lonely humpy, the rugged, rocky hills of the Tinnaburra; a fleeing wallaby in the distance, himself in hot pursuit. He smelt again the tang of crushed gum-leaves, and heard the fascinating rustle which tells of the movements of game, of live food, over desiccated twigs and leaves, in bush untrodden by human feet.

      Yes, Finn tasted to the full that night the nostalgia of the wilderness. But if it stirred him deeply, it by no means made him unhappy. Across the Downs' shoulder there was Desdemona; and he was free, save for the ties of affection—stronger these than any dog-chain—which bound him to the Nuthill folk. And as for Desdemona; owing to what many fanciers would have regarded as the reprehensible eccentricity of the owner of Shaws, Desdemona was almost as free as Finn.

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      A week later, even easy-going Colonel Forde was a little perturbed by the news that Lady Desdemona had been away all night and that nobody knew of her whereabouts. However, the bitch strolled into the house during the forenoon, looking none the worse for her night out, and, much to his kennelman's annoyance, the Colonel refused to have her confined to the kennels. He did not know that Finn was schooling this blood-royal princess in the ways of the wild; but he could see that she looked fit as a fiddle and was obviously very much enjoying her life. And so he turned a deaf ear to his kennelman, even when the good fellow said, protestingly:

      "You don't see such a bitch once in twenty years, sir. She's just on her eighteenth month and she's worth taking care of."

      "She certainly is, Bates," replied the Colonel, "and you must keep a sharp lookout. Look to her each day. But, upon my word, I think she's also worth giving a good time to. Give her her head, and I don't think she will ever disappoint us. Thank goodness, there are no traps or poison about here, or none that I ever heard of."

      "No, it's not that, sir," persisted the kennelman; "but Desdemona she's good enough to win in the best company, and to mother winners, too. And you know, sir, if a dog's to do hisself justice on the bench, you can't let him go skirmishing around the country like a gipsy's lurcher. It sorter roughs 'em somehow. The judges don't like it, and the Fancy don't, neither, sir. Look at the chalk an' that on her coat this morning, sir."

      "Ah well," said the Colonel, with a little laugh, "we never have bred for the judges, Bates; nor yet for the Fancy, either; and if they can't recognize the merits of a bitch like that because she's been living a natural, happy sort of life, instead of a cage-life—why, then, that's their loss, not ours, and we must chance it."

      And so the kennelman shrugged his shoulders and the Lady Desdemona continued to enjoy life, the new and wider life to which she was being introduced by that hardened wanderer and past-master in the lore of the wild—Finn.

      It may be that Colonel Forde himself was more than a little worried about it when, a week later, the young bloodhound disappeared one afternoon and did not show up again next day. There had been further communications with the house of the redoubtable champion Windle Hercules in Hampshire. The Lady Desdemona's line of travel had been chosen. Bates was to escort her on the nuptial journey, and all arrangements for the wedding of the distinguished pair had been completed. And now—"Just as if she mighter bin any tramp's cur," as Bates feelingly put it—Desdemona had elected to stay away and to remain away. And the news from Nuthill showed that—"That there plaguy great wolfhound" was also on the missing list.

      On the fourth day of absence, all search having proved unsuccessful, the police were notified. Then, bright and early on the morning of the fifth day, the Lady Desdemona walked quietly up to the kitchen door at Shaws, followed leisurely by Finn, who, after seeing his mate welcomed with some enthusiasm by the cook and several members of her excited staff, turned about and loped easily away in the direction of Nuthill.

      But to the experts concerned it speedily became apparent that the alliance with Champion Windle Hercules must be indefinitely postponed. Lady Desdemona would have none of him. It seemed she knew her own mind very well, was perfectly calm and content, but quite determined in her opposition to any hint of matrimonial pourparlers with the admitted champion of her race. Bates the kennelman pished and tushed, and thought he knew all about it. The Master felt pretty sure he knew all about it. The Colonel just smiled and said that Desdemona was young yet, and that, for his part, he always had thought two years a better marrying age than eighteen months.

      Meantime, you could not have found a more placidly happy and contented hound in England than the Lady Desdemona; and there were very few days on which she did not meet Finn, either at Nuthill or at Shaws.

      The beautiful early summer weeks slid by, and the young bloodhound grew more sedate and less given to violent exercise. And then Bates succeeded in persuading the Colonel into allowing him to kennel the Lady Desdemona. It is true the kennel given her was pretty nearly the size of a horse's loose box, and had a little covered outside yard of its own. But it was a kennel, and securely inclosed. Despite the watchfulness of Bates, Finn the wolfhound came nuzzling round its sides fairly often in search of the prisoner.

      After four days of confinement the bitch was released by Colonel Forde's orders. For two days she had taken no food; and as she obviously fretted when Finn was kept away from her, the wolfhound was allowed to come and go at Shaws as he chose, and as he did at Nuthill.

      Thus a week passed, and it was seen that the Lady Desdemona grew restless and uneasy.

      "Take my advice and leave them severely alone," said the Master. "Finn will go his own way whether we like it or not. He's too old a hand to be cajoled, and I've sworn I'll never coerce him. The bitch will be better

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