or two earlier, "neither I nor the Royal North-west have much to teach
young Vaughan in the matter of horsemanship, and I look to see him make
as fine a trooper as any we've got. But there's one thing we can give
him, and that's discipline. We can teach him to face the devil himself
at two o'clock in the morning without blinking--and I think he'll take
it well. I don't mind a scrap about his having been a bit wild. He's got
the right stuff in him; and, man, he's got as pretty a punch, with the
gloves on, as ever I saw in my life. An archangel couldn't make better
use of his left than young Vaughan."
This rather tickled the Master, who up till then had never considered
archangelic possibilities in boxing.
"I was certain the boy was all right," he said.
There was a rousing cheer from the group on the platform as the up-train
moved off, with Dick Vaughan leaning far out from one of its windows.
"I'll be home in eighteen months," Dick had said when he bade Betty
Murdoch good-by. And the Master, who was beside her, nodded his sympathy
and approval.
"You'll lose nothing by the five-thousand-mile gap, old chap, and you'll
gain a whole lot," he said.
"You'll larn 'em about 'osses, Master Dick," shouted old Knight, the
head groom, to the M.F.H. And the farmers' sons roared lustily at that.
Jan barked once as the train began to move, and the Master's hand fell
sharply over Betty's upon his collar; for Jan, though not yet half so
strong as his sire, was a deal harder to hold when anything excited him.
Like his friend Dick Vaughan, he was of good stuff, but had not as yet
learned much of discipline.
As the Nuthill party walked down the station approach to their
wagonette, among quite a crowd of other people, Betty felt Jan's collar
suddenly tighten--his height, even now, allowed her to hold the young
hound's collar easily without using a lead, for he stood over thirty-one
inches at the shoulder--and, glancing down, saw the hair all about his
neck and shoulder-bones rise, stiffly bristling. In the same moment came
a low growl from Finn, who walked at large on the far side of Jan and a
little behind the Master. There was no anger in this growl of Finn's;
but it was eloquent of warning, and magisterial in its hint of penalties
to follow neglect of warning.
"Why, what's wrong now, old--Ah! I see!" exclaimed the Master.
On the opposite side of the approach was David Crumplin, walking toward
the goods-shed of the little station, and followed closely by the
redoubtable Grip. Grip's hackles were well up, too, for the three dogs
had seen one another before their human friends had noticed anything out
of the ordinary. But though Grip's bristles had risen just as stiffly as
Jan's, and though the sensitive skin over his nostrils had wrinkled
harshly and his upper lip lifted slightly, the gaze of his wall-eyes was
fixed straight before him upon his master's gaiters. He saw Finn and Jan
just as plainly as they saw him, but he never turned a hair's-breadth in
their direction, or betrayed his recognition by a single glance.
Grip was no swashbuckler, and he never played. Life, as he saw it, was
too serious a business for that. But and if fighting was toward, well,
Grip was ready; not eager, but deadly ready, and nothing backward. Grip
had his black cap either in place on his head or very close at hand all
the time. It was doubtless with a sufficiently sardonic sneer that he
presently saw Jan jump obediently into the wagonette. Grip had seen to
the carting of thousands of lambs and sick ewes; but for himself to
climb into a horse-drawn vehicle at the bidding of a lady!--one can
imagine how scornfully Grip breathed through his nostrils as he saw Jan
driven off, with Finn, as escort, trotting alongside.
He bore no particular malice against Jan, and in his hard old heart
probably thought rather well of the bellicose youngster. But, given
reasonable excuse for the fray, he had been blithe to tear out the same
youngster's jugular; and, be the odds what they might, he would quite
cheerfully have stood up to mortal combat with Finn himself. But as
things were, the first meeting of these three since the fight in the
lane passed off quite peacefully.
All the same, there was a ragged fringe to one of Grip's ears, and for
weeks he had limped sorely on his near fore leg. It was written in his
mind that Jan must pay, and pay dearly, for those things, when a
suitable occasion offered. He was no swashbuckler, and did not know what
it meant to ruffle it among the peaceably inclined for the fun of the
thing; but, or it may be because of that, Grip never forgot an injury,
and, if he had known what forgiveness meant, would have regarded it as
an evidence of silly weakness unworthy any grown dog.
It is certain that Finn bore Grip no malice. That was not his way. Grip
had offended by his ruthless onslaught upon a half-grown pup, and Finn
had trounced him soundly for that. Now that they met, some months
afterward, Finn thought it wise to give warning, by way of showing that
he, in his high place, was watchful. Hence his long, low growl. In his
adventurous life Finn had many times killed to eat, as he had frequently
killed in fighting and as an administrator of justice. But he never had
borne malice and never would, for that would have been clean contrary to
the instincts of his nature and breeding.
As for Jan, it would not be easy nor yet quite fair to analyze his
feelings toward the wall-eyed sheep-dog. Jan's mind, like his big frame,
was not yet half developed. It may be that he could never be quite so
fine a gentleman as his sire; and in any case it were foolish to look
for old heads on puppy shoulders. He did not think at all when he saw
Grip. But in that instant he tugged at his collar, without conscious
volition, just as his hackles rose, just as sharp consciousness
penetrated every part of him, of the wounds he had sustained under
Grip's punishing jaws. It was not malice, but a sudden heady rush in his
veins of the lust of combat, that kept his thick coat so erectly
bristling, the soft skin about his nostrils wrinkling so actively, for
several minutes after his recognition of the sheep-dog. Unlike Grip, it
might be that Jan would, as he developed, learn easily to forgive; but
it was already tolerably obvious that he was not of the stuff of which
those dogs who forget are made.
"They don't forget the affair in the lane, either of them," said the
Master, with a smile, after the wagonette had started. It may be Jan
understood the words had reference to his first fight. In any case, he
looked eagerly up into the Master's face, and from that to Betty's; and
in that moment he was living over again through the strenuous rounds of
his struggle with Grip.
"Silly old Jan," said Betty, as her hand smoothed his head
affectionately.
"Truculent infant," laughed the Master. "Take note of the easy
sedateness of your father in the road there." (The round trot of the
Nuthill horses--and they frequently did the trip to the station in
twenty-five minutes--was no more than a comfortable amble for Finn.)
"Jan," said Betty Murdoch to her favorite, as they walked together on
the Downs some three or four hours later; "he's gone away to
Sas-sas-katchewan; and--he never said a word, Jan! I wonder if he
thought--what he thought."
If Jan had been human, he might so far have failed, as a companion, as
to have reminded Betty that, in fact, Dick had said a good many words
before starting for "Sas-sas-katchewan." Being only a dog, Jan failed
not at all in the sympathy he exchanged for Betty's confidence. He just
gently nuzzled her hand, thrusting his nose well up to her coat-cuff,
and showed her the loving devotion in his dark hazel eyes.
XVII
JAN BEFORE THE JUDGES
Eighteen months went by before Dick Vaughan returned to England; and
this period was one of happy and largely uneventful development for Jan,
the son of Finn and Desdemona. (It brought high honors to the Lady
Desdemona, by the way, both as a champion bloodhound and as the dam of
some fame-winning youngsters.) It brought no very marked signs of
advancing age to Finn, for the life the wolfhound led, while admittedly
devoid of any kind of hardship, was sufficiently active in a moderate
way, and very healthy. Jan made no history during this time, beyond the
smooth record of happy days and healthy growth.
"Just for the fun of the thing," he was entered in the "variety" class
at the Brighton dog-show, when twenty months old, and that was certainly
a memorable experience for him. There were bloodhound men at the show
who vowed he would have won a card in their section; and there were
wolfhound breeders who said the same thing of Jan with reference to
their particular division. Be that as it may, Finn's son won general
admiration when led out into the judging ring with the other entrants of
the "variety" class.
The judge was a specially great authority on bulldogs and terriers; but
it was admitted that there was no better or fairer all-round dog judge
in the show, and his experience in the past at hound field trials and
such like events proved him qualified to judge of such an animal as Jan.
Still, his special association with bulldogs and terriers was regarded
as something of a handicap by the exhibitors of other kinds of dogs in
this class, which, as it happened, was an unusually full one.
As Jan had never before been shown and was quite unaccustomed to being
at close quarters with numbers of strange dogs, Betty asked the Master
to take him into the ring for her. (Jan weighed one hundred and
forty-eight pounds now, and a pretty strong arm was required for his
restraint among strangers, the more so as he was quite unaccustomed to
being led.) So Betty and the Mistress secured stools for themselves
outside the ring and the Master led in Jan to a place among no fewer
than twenty-seven other competitors, ranging all the way from a queer
little hairless terrier from Brazil, to a huge, badly cow-hocked animal,
of perhaps two hundred pounds in weight, said to combine St. Bernard and
mastiff blood in his veins.
There was also an Arab hunting-dog, a slogi from Morocco, two boarhounds
of sorts, some Polar dogs, several bulldogs and collies, and a
considerable group of terrier varieties in one way or another
exceptional. One of the bulldogs was a really magnificent creature of
the famous Stone strain, whose only fault seemed to be a club-foot.
There was also a satanic-looking creature of enormous stature; a great
Dane, with very closely cropped prick ears, and a tail no more than five
inches long. This gentleman was further distinguished by wearing a
muzzle, and by the fact that his leader carried a venomous-looking whip.
The lady with the hairless terrier was particularly careful to avoid the
proximity of this rather ill-conditioned brute, and of the weedy-looking
little man in a frock-coat who led him.
In the course of ten or fifteen minutes, during which the ring was
uncomfortably crowded, the judge managed to reduce his field of
selection down to a group of six, which did not include the crop-eared
Dane or exclude Jan.
"Well, come," said the Mistress to Betty, "this does not look like
prejudice against the larger breeds: Jan, and two other big dogs, with
one bulldog and two terriers." Betty only nodded. She was too much
excited on Jan's behalf for conversation; and her bright eyes missed no
single movement in the ring. It was all very well to say that Jan was
only shown "for the fun of the thing," and because "a one-day show is
rather a joke, and not long enough to bore him." But from the moment her
Jan had entered that ring with the Master, Betty knew that in all
seriousness she badly wanted him to--well, if not to win outright, at
all events to "get a card"; to come honorably through the ordeal.
The dogs now left in the ring were the Moorish hound--a creature full of
feline grace and suppleness, with silky drop-over ears and a tufted
tail--an exceptionally fine cross-bred collie, the Stone bulldog, a
Dandie Dinmont, and a Welsh terrier, the last extraordinarily small,
bright, shapely, and game. The slogi had apparently been most carefully
trained for the ring. He entirely ignored the other dogs, stood erect on
his hind feet at his master's word of command, jumped a chair with
exquisite grace and agility, and in a variety of other ways exhibited
both wonderful suppleness and remarkable docility. The collie was
handsome, beautifully groomed, and rather snappish. The Stone bulldog
made a picture of good-humored British stolidity, and if his hind
quarters had been equal to his superbly massive front and marvelously
"smashed-up" face he would have been tolerably sure of a win in any
class. The Dandie Dinmont had the most delightful eyes imaginable, and
was a good-bodied dog, faulty only in tail and in a tendency to be
leggy. The Welshman was a little miracle of Celtic grace--the very
incarnation of doggy sharpness.
The only member of this select company whose presence was really
distasteful to Jan was the collie. This lady's temper was clearly very
uncertain; she had a cold blue eye, and in some way she reminded Jan
strongly of Grip, a fact which served to lift his hackles markedly every
time he passed the bitch. The Master quickly noticed this, and did his
best to keep a good wide patch of ring between them.
The six were each favored with a long and careful separate examination
by the judge, upon a patch of floor space which, fortunately, was right
opposite to Betty Murdoch's seat. Betty rustled her show catalogue to
call Jan's attention when his turn came, and kept up direct telepathic
communication with him during the whole operation. This, combined with
the Master's studious care in handling--a business of which he had had
considerable experience--served to keep Jan keyed up to concert-pitch
while in the judge's hands.
When these individual examinations were ended, the collie and the Dandie
were allowed to leave the ring. Their leaders creditably maintained the
traditional air of being glad _that_ was over, as they escorted their
entries back to their respective benches; and then the judge settled
down to further study of the bulldog, the Welshman, the Moor, and Jan.
Long time the judge pondered over the honest, beautifully ugly head of
the bulldog, while that animal's leader did his well-meaning but quite
futile best to distract attention from his charge's hind quarters. He
would jam the dog well between his own legs, and with a brisk lift under
the chest, endeavor to widen the dog's already splendid frontage. But,
gaze as he might into Bully's wrinkled mask, the judge never for an
instant lost consciousness of the weak hind quarters, the sidelong drag
of the club-foot.
Very nippily the clever little Welshman went through his nimble paces,
dancing to the wave of his master's handkerchief on toes as springily
supple as those of any ballerina. For the admiration of the judge and
his attendants, the Moorish hound performed miracles of sinuous agility.
With the size of a deerhound the Moor combined the delicate graces of an
Italian greyhound.
Jan offered no parlor tricks. Indeed, in these last minutes his young
limbs wearied somewhat--the morning had been one of most exceptional
stress and excitement for him--and while the other three were being
passed in a final review, Jan lay down at full length on his belly in
the ring, his muzzle outstretched upon his paws, neck slightly arched,
crown high and nose very low--a pose he inherited from his distinguished
mother, and in part, it may be, from his paternal grandam, old Tara, who
loved to lie that way. The position was so beautiful, so characteristic,
and so full of breeding that, rather to Betty's consternation, the
Master refrained from disturbing it, unorthodox though such behavior
might be in a judging ring. The Master nodded reassuringly to anxious
Betty, and, after all, he knew even when the judge paced slowly forward,
pencil in mouth, Jan was not disturbed.
"I suppose he's hardly done furnishing yet?" asked the judge.
"No, he still has, perhaps, half a year for that; four months, anyhow,"
replied the Master. "He is only twenty months, and weighs just on a
hundred and fifty pounds."
"Does he indeed? A hundred and fifty. Now, I put him down as twenty
pounds less than that."
"A tribute to his symmetry, sir," said the Master, with a smile.
"Ye--es, to be sure. May I see him on the scale?"
So Jan was carefully weighed by the judge himself, and scaled one
hundred and forty-eight and one-half pounds. And then he was carefully
measured for height--at the shoulder-bone--and touched the standard at a
fraction over thirty-two and one-half inches.
"Re--markable," said the judge; "especially in the weight. He certainly
is finely proportioned. Would you mind just running him across the ring
as quickly as you can?"
The owners of the other three dogs wore during this time an expression
of inhuman selflessness of superhumanly kind interest in Jan and his
doings.
"It's a thousand pities he's so very coarse," murmured one disinterested
admirer, the owner of the Welsh terrier. A moment later the Master had
to hide a smile as he heard the owner of the bulldog whisper: "Nice
beast. Pity he's so weedy. A little less on the fine side and one could
back him as a winner."
To run well while on the lead is an accomplishment rare among large
dogs, and one which demands careful training. So the Master took
chances. He signaled Betty to call Jan to her, and then loosed Jan's
lead. This was a signal of delight for Jan. He was tired of the judging
now and thought this ended it. Not only did he canter very springily
across the ring, but he cleared the four-foot barricade as though it had
not been there and greeted Betty with effusion. A moment later, at her
urgent behest, and in response to the Master's call, he returned as
easily to the ring. Then the judge, thoughtfully tapping his note-book
with his pencil, bowed to the exhibitors, and said:
"Thank you, gentlemen; I think that will do."
The order of the awards was:
No. 214 1
No. 23 2
No. 97 3
No. 116 H.C.
which meant that the Welshman was highly commended--and deserved it--the
Moor took third prize, the bulldog second prize, and Jan, the son of
Finn and Desdemona, first prize. And so, in the only show-ring test to
which he had been submitted, Jan did every credit to both the noble
strains represented in his ancestry. Finn was never beaten. The Lady
Desdemona had never lowered her flag to any bloodhound. Jan had passed
his first test at the head of the list, among twenty-seven competitors,
and despite his judge's special predilection for terriers and bulldogs.
"Wouldn't Dick Vaughan have been proud of him!" said the Master. And
when Betty nodded her excited assent, he added: "I'll tell you what,
we'll send him a cable."
And so it was that, a few hours later, a trooper in the Regina Barracks
of the R.N.W.M. Police, five thousand miles away, read, with keen
delight, this message:
Greeting from Nuthill. Jan won first prize any variety class
Brighton.
XVIII
FIT AS A TWO-YEAR-OLD
Outside the highly beneficial advantages of very healthy surroundings
and a generous, well-chosen dietary, Jan's development during all this
time was largely influenced by two factors--the constant companionship
of Finn, and the fact that all the human folk with whom he came into
contact, barring a largely negligible under-gardener, loved him.
His mistress, fortunately for Jan, was not alone a cheery, wise little
woman, but also a confirmed lover of out of doors. But all the same, if
it had not been for Finn's influence, Jan would probably have been
somewhat lacking in hardihood, and too great a lover of comfort. The
circumstances of his birth had all favored the development of alert
hardiness; but his translation to the well-ordered Nuthill home had come
at a very early stage. The influence of Finn, with his mastery of
hunting and knowledge of wild life, formed a constant and most wholesome
tonic in Jan's upbringing; a splendid corrective to the smooth comforts
of Nuthill life.
From his memorable struggle in the lane with Grip, Jan had learned much
regarding general deportment toward other dogs. Under Finn's influence,
and his own inherited tracking powers, Jan became proficient as a hunter
and confirmed as a sportsman. But experience had brought him none of
those lessons which had given Finn his prudent reserve, his carefully
non-committal attitude where human strangers were concerned.
For example, supposing Finn and Jan to be lying somewhere in the
neighborhood of the porch at Nuthill when a strange man whom neither had
ever seen before appeared in the garden, both dogs would immediately
rise to their feet. Jan would probably give a jolly, welcoming sort of
bark. Finn would make no sound. Jan would amble amiably forward, right
up to the stranger's feet, with head upheld for a caress. Finn would
sooner die than do anything of the sort. He would keep his ground,
motionless, showing neither friendliness nor hostility; nothing but
grave unwinking watchfulness. If that stranger should pass the threshold
without knocking and without invitation from any member of the
household, Finn might safely be relied upon to bark and to follow
closely the man's every step. Jan would probably gambol about him with
never a thought of suspicion.
If a tramp on the road carried a big stick, that fact would not deter
Jan from trotting up to make the man's acquaintance, whereas Finn,
without introduction, never went within reach of any stranger with any
amiable intent. Again, if any person at all, with the exception of
Betty, the Master, or the Mistress, approached Finn when he was in a
recumbent position, he would invariably rise to his feet. Jan would loll
at full length right across a footpath when he felt like taking his
ease, even to the point of allowing people to step across his body. On
the strength of a ten minutes' acquaintance he would go to sleep with
his head under your foot, if it chanced that he was sleepy at the time.
Yet, for all his trustfulness, Jan probably growled a score of times or
more for every one that Finn growled, and no doubt barked more often in
a day than Finn barked in a month. Jan hunted with joyous bays; Finn in
perfect silence. Jan trusted everybody and observed folk--when they
interested him and he felt like observing. Finn, without necessarily
mistrusting anybody, observed everybody watchfully and trusted only his
proven friends. Jan, in his eagerness for praise and commendation,
sought these from any one. Finn would not seek praise even from the
Master, and was gratified by it only when it came from a real friend.
By the same token Finn was far more sensitive to spoken words than Jan.
It was not once in three months that the Master so much as raised or
sharpened his voice in speaking to Finn. If Finn were verbally
reproached by a member of the household, one saw his head droop and his
eyes cloud. Jan would wag his tail while being scolded, even vehemently,
and five minutes later would require a second call, and in a sharp tone,
before turning aside from an interesting scent or a twig in the path.
Withal, Jan's faults, such as they were, were no more seriously
objectionable than the faults of a well-bred, high-spirited,
good-hearted English school-boy. Finn's disposition was knightly; but it
was the disposition of a tried and veteran knight and not of a dashing
young gallant. Under his thick black-and-gray coat Jan did carry a few
scars, so shrewdly had Grip's fangs done their work; but life had hardly
marked him as yet; certainly he carried none of life's scars. Also, good
and sound as his heart was, clean and straight though he was by nature,
he never had that rare and delicate courtliness which so distinguished
his sire among hounds. Even Desdemona, great lady that she undoubtedly
was, had not the wolfhound's grave courtesy. Neither had Jan. He was
more bluff. The bloodhound in him made him look solemn at times; but he
was not naturally a grave person at all.