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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]