outward trip. It was true he gave no thought to England as yet. But he
perfectly understood the general idea of travel. He knew that he and his
lord were on a journey together, that certain temporary separations were
an unavoidable feature of this sort of traveling, and that, the journey
done, the two of them would come together again. The sum of Jan's
knowledge, his reasoning powers, and his faculties of observation and
deduction were a hundredfold greater now than at the time of his
departure from England.
Jan loathed the close confinement of his life at sea, but he did not
rebel against it, neither was he cast down by it. He knew that it was to
be no more than a brief interlude, and he understood quite well that
though, unfortunately, men-folk had so arranged things that he must be
kept out of sight of his sovereign, save during those daily intervals of
delight in which Dick visited him in his house beside the butcher's
shop, yet his lord was in the same vessel with him, at no great distance
from him, and bound with him for the one destination. He knew that he
and Dick were traversing the one trail.
And sure enough the morning came at length, after all their shared
divagations since the night of meeting beside the Peace River trail,
when Jan stood beside his lord again, under the open sky and on the
steamer's boat-deck, watching the rapidly nearing shores of England.
Many pictures were passing through Jan's mind, some inspired by memory
of the tense, strenuous life he had left behind him in the northland,
but a larger number having for background and subjects scenes that he
remembered in his old life in Sussex-by-the-Sea.
The steamer was in yellow tidal waters now, with land close in all about
her. As Jan reached the open deck he had drawn in first one and then
another and another long, tremulous, deep breaths which, passing through
the infinitely delicate test-tubes of his wonderful nostrils, recorded
in his brain impressions more vivid and accurate than any that vision
could supply to him.
In this air, incalculably more soft and humid than any he had breathed
for many a long day, were subtly distinctive qualities that were quite
easily recognized by Jan. Well he knew now the meaning of this voyaging.
Well he knew that this was England. It was this knowledge made him lift
his muzzle and touch Dick's left hand with his tongue. The other hand
held binoculars through which Dick was gazing fixedly at the line of
wharfs they were approaching.
"Well, old chap," said he, in answer to the meaning touch. "You know all
about it, eh? I believe you do; begad, I quite believe you do. Well, see
if you can understand this: On the wharf there, where we shall be in a
few minutes, there's old Finn, your sire, waiting, and the Pater and the
Master, and--and there's Betty, Jan, boy, there's sweet Betty standing
there, and she's waiting for you and me. She's waiting there for us,
Jan, boy, and we're never going away from her again, old chap--never, as
long as ever we live."
And if Jan did not understand it all just then he did very soon
afterward, when he felt Betty Murdoch's arms about his neck, and lordly
gray old Finn was sniffing and nuzzling friendly-wise about his flanks.
Jan fully understood then that after all his far wanderings he had at
the last of it come home.
THE END