A TRANSITION STAGE
To Finn it seemed that life was never the same after the evening of
Tara's death. He did not know, of course, that changes had been set
afoot during many months before his mother's end came. And in a way
he was right; life never was quite the same for him. Active
changes, toward which the Master's circumstances had been leading
for some time past, began immediately after that strange home-coming which
finally separated Finn from his own kin.
For instance, the Master seemed generally to be away from the house
beside the Downs; and the Mistress of the Kennels seemed always to
be busy, and never to be in playful mood. Days passed without even
one of those gentle runs behind a bicycle to which Finn had grown
accustomed; days during which no one ever spoke to Finn except at
meal-times, and the home seemed strangely silent and deserted. Finn
was always locked up at night, or he would have chosen that time
for hunting expeditions. As it was, however, the long days were his
own, and he grew to devote less and less time out of these days to
the home life. He was not inclined, as his mother had been, to lie
dozing and dreaming for hours together in the outside den. He would
slip through the orchard, and over its gate to the open Downs; and
there, roaming that country-side for hours at a stretch, he would
hunt; only occasionally killing to eat, and for the greater part of
his time hunting for the sheer pleasure of it. For so great a
hound, he became wonderfully adept and cunning in the pursuit of
the small creatures of the open; stalking them as silently,
cautiously, and surely as a cat, and acquiring, day by day, more
and more of that most distinguishing characteristic of the wild
creatures: indomitable patience. Great fleetness and great strength
were his by birth; tireless patience and cunning he learned in
these lonely days beside the Sussex Downs; and learned them so well
that his silent, shadowy great form became a very real terror to
all the wild things of that district. There was, of course, no
creature among them that could attempt for an instant to meet Finn
in open combat; and as time went on, there were few who could
successfully pit their cunning and their agility against those of
the great hound.
There was one wild creature, however, in this district, who grew to
know Finn well, and to fear him not at all; and this was a large
male fox, born and bred in a copse not half a mile from Finn's
home. To this strong and cunning fox, Finn appeared in the light of
a provider of good things, and for long he waxed fat and lazy upon
Finn's numerous kills, without the Wolfhound ever having suspected
his existence. Then, late one autumn afternoon, Finn saw Reynard
descend from a little wooded hillock and seize upon the half of a
rabbit which the Wolfhound had left lying there in the valley,
beside a little brook, where he had killed it. Like a flash, Finn
wheeled and gave chase; but the fox disdained even to drop his
prize, and, by reason rather of his superior woodcraft, and his
knowledge of every leaf and twig in that country-side, than of his
fleetness, Reynard was the winner of the long race that followed.
This interested Finn more than anything that had happened for a
long while. His trailing faculties, though they had been greatly
developed of late, were nothing like so keen as those of a
foxhound, or a pointer, or a setter; his race having always done
their hunting by sight and sheer fleetness. But, as against that,
the big fox had grown very lazy of late. He had done practically no
hunting at all, preferring to trail Finn on his hunting
expeditions, and fare sumptuously upon Finn's leavings. As it
happened, this particular fox had never been hunted, and during a
big slice of his life he had been wont to regard himself as the
unquestioned monarch of that country-side; so far as its wild life
went. He did not realize, even after Finn's first pursuit of him,
that he had made a powerful enemy, and one in whom the
determination to run him down had already taken firm root.
And now, for days, Finn's great interest in life was the pursuit of
the big fox. For the rest, he only killed rabbits and the like when
they came in his way; and, even so, he supplied ample food for the
cunning fox. At first, Finn spent his time largely in looking for
his new quarry, and then giving forthright chase. But gradually he
learned that the fox was his master in this work, if only by reason
of its comparative smallness, which enabled it to twist and double
through places which were impenetrable to the great hound who
followed. So Finn fell back upon his recently acquired cunning. He
killed a rabbit, and left three-quarters of its carcase in an
exposed, open place, while he himself crawled into a clump of brush
and lay waiting, with eager, watchful eyes peering through the
leaves. Presently, Reynard approached from some undergrowth a
hundred yards away on the other side of the kill. But he did not
approach very nearly. His sharp, sensitive nose wrinkled and
pointed skyward for a moment, and then, as the breeze gave him
Finn's scent, he turned promptly round and trotted back to covert.
Finn gave an immense amount of reflection to this, and two days
later, his cunning evolved a very much cleverer scheme. He killed
another rabbit, and placed it in a convenient run-way of the big
fox's. Then he trotted off on the lee side of the kill, and quietly
made towards his entrance to the orchard at home. But, instead of
entering the orchard, he circled again, and, keeping religiously to
leeward of his track, flew at great speed for the far end of the
run-way in which he had left his kill. When Reynard discovered the
rabbit, he merely glanced at it, and then quietly took up Finn's
trail, to make sure of the Wolfhound's whereabouts. This trail he
followed to a point that was as near as he cared to venture to the
orchard fence. Then, satisfied that Finn had gone home, he trotted
back to where the kill lay, being naturally to windward all the
while of Finn's second trail.
[Illustration: Finn's teeth sank deep.]
Arrived in the run-way, Reynard picked up the dead rabbit and slung
it carelessly across his shoulder. Then he trotted leisurely down
the run-way toward his own earth, where he meant to feast in
security and comfort. At the end of the run-way came a wide, open
stretch of waste land, on the far side of which lay the track to
Reynard's cave. Well hidden by the bushes at the end of the run-way,
on its lee side, crouched Finn, every nerve tensely alert. He
waited till Reynard was well clear of the run-way and fairly
started across the open, and then he sprang out from the place of
his concealment, his leap carrying him to within a yard of
Reynard's flank. The insolence of good and easy living, and long
mastery over the creatures that dwelt about him, led the fox into
perhaps two seconds of indecision; and those two seconds cost him
dear. There was no indecision about his flight, of course, and
almost before Finn's feet touched the ground, the fox was stretched
to the full stride of his top gait. The indecision was in the
matter of relinquishing his booty; and that it was which cost the
fox dear by reducing his starting speed. At the end of his fourth
stride, he dropped the rabbit; but at the end of his fifth stride
the Wolfhound was abreast of him, with neck bent sideways, and jaws
stretched wide. Less than a second later, Finn's great jaws closed
upon the back of the fox's shoulders; and that was where Finn made
his first mistake. He was, for all his recent experience, quite new
to the killing of such a quarry as the fox, who himself was easily
able, and big and strong enough for the killing of such prey as
Finn had learned to hunt. The shoulders of a hare or a rabbit were
easily smashed between Finn's jaws; but the shoulders of the big
fox, with their mat of dense fur, were far otherwise. Finn's teeth
sank deep, but they broke no bones.
Nevertheless, his weight and the force of the impact between the
two, brought Reynard to earth, where he rolled smartly on his back,
slashing at Finn's fore-arm with his sharp white fangs, and
snarling ferociously. In the same instant almost, the fox was on
his feet, but before he could leap away, Finn's jaws descended on
the back of his neck, gripping him like a vice, and shaking him
almost as a terrier shakes a rat. With a desperate squirm the fox
wriggled earthward from this terrible grip, and, as Finn drew
breath, stabbing at the fox with one fore-paw, as he would have
stabbed at a still living rabbit, to hold it, Reynard's fangs cut
deeply into the loose skin of his chest. As he slashed, the fox,
after the manner of his kind, leaped clear. But he had no time to
run before Finn was upon him, with a roar of awakened fury. The fox
dodged and slashed again, drawing blood from the fleshy part of
Finn's fore-arm. Reynard fought like a wolf, or a light-weight
boxer; and after this last slash, he wheeled like lightning and
flew for cover. But the Wolfhound's fighting blood was boiling in
him now, and Finn swept down upon the fox, exactly as a greyhound
sweeps upon a hare. When his great jaws closed upon the fox's neck
this time, it was to kill. Reynard squirmed valiantly; but Finn
flung him on his back, and took new hold upon his throat. The fox's
two hind-feet, drawn well up, scored down Finn's belly like the
feet of a lynx; but it was Reynard's last movement, for, as he made
it, Finn's long fangs met in his jugular, and his warm blood
streamed upon the ground.
That was Finn's first big kill, and it marked an epoch in his
development, leaving active in him a newly-wakened instinct of
fierceness which had been foreign to his family for several
generations. If the big fox could have kept clear of Finn for but
two more days he would have saved his life; and, in any case, such
killings as Finn's had been during the past month or so could
hardly have continued much longer in that country-side without
attracting human attention, the result of which might have been
awkward for the Wolfhound. As it was, the superficial wounds the
fox had inflicted upon him were never noticed by the Master or the
Mistress of the Kennels, by reason of other happenings in which
Finn also was concerned. His wounds were not deep, his coat was
dense, and Finn doctored himself effectively with his own tongue.
Early on the morning after his successful hunting of the fox, Finn
found several strange men about the house and grounds. The Master
had arrived home late on the previous evening, unconscious, not
alone of Finn's fox-hunting, but of his foraging habits generally;
ignorant even of the fact that his one remaining Wolfhound ever
left the premises, unless with the Mistress of the Kennels. It was
a very large slice of Finn's life during the last few months that
was unknown to his human friends. All through this day Finn
pottered about the house and garden and the outside den, observing
with curiosity the behaviour of the strange men who wore green
aprons. It seemed to Finn that these men were bent upon turning the
whole place upside down. The game they played seemed to consist of
laboriously lifting heavy articles of furniture, carrying them
about, and putting them down again, in what seemed to Finn a
confused and pointless manner. Evening found the Wolfhound scarcely
more comfortable than his human friends, who were evidently in very
poor spirits. They were moved by conscious regret, and by conscious
anxiety regarding the future. Finn was moved by conscious
discomfort, and vague mental stirrings of impending trouble of some
sort. When he slept, he dreamed of Matey; this time in the form of
a huge fox, whose jaws slashed the air in the most fearsome manner.
(Up till the previous day, Finn had hunted and killed innumerable
wild creatures, but never fought with one.)
The next day was one of even less comfort and more bewilderment. In
addition to the men with green aprons and strongly vocal boots,
there was quite a large assemblage of other people, who strode
about through the rooms of the little house, and in its garden,
stable, and outside den, as though the place belonged to them, and
they were rather disgusted with it. Later on, however, these noisy
men-folk (there were women among them, too) drew together in one of
the front rooms of the house, and made all sorts of--to Finn--meaningless
noises, while one among them stood upon a kitchen-chair
and occasionally smote the top of a salt-box with a small white
hammer, before proceeding to call forth more meaningless noises
from the other people. Finn prowled about in a most unhappy mood,
and once, the Mistress of the Kennels led him into an empty
bedroom, and knelt down on the floor and cried over him, while he
endeavoured to lick her face, whimpering the while, to show his
sympathy. Later on, the people flocked out into the den, and made
more vain noises there; and then to the stable. Finally, they
streamed out into the orchard, and made stupid remarks about the
kennels there; and at long last they went away, leaving the green-aproned
men in undisputed possession, and free to throw furniture
about, and pile it on carts in the road, as they chose.
Then the Master and the Mistress and Finn went away together to the
station, saying nothing, and looking very unhappy. Finn carried his
tail so low that it dragged, and its black tip picked up mud from
the wet road, upon which a fine autumnal drizzle had begun to fall.
That night, and for two subsequent nights, Finn lived unhappily in
a poky London lodging with his friends; and on the third day, he
walked with the Master to a railway station, while the Mistress of
the Kennels drove in a cab with a mountain of baggage. Finn was not
allowed in the carriage with his friends, but had to travel in a
van full of boxes and bags, with a rough but amiable man whose coat
had shiny buttons, and whose attitude toward Finn was one of
respectful and distant deference.
Some time before this, Finn had come to the conclusion that they
were all going to a Dog Show; and, remembering vividly a Great Dane
who had snarled viciously at him in the last show he had visited
during the middle of the summer (when, as on each other occasion of
his being exhibited, he had been awarded first prize in each class
for which he was eligible), he decided that he would adopt a
killing demeanour and stand no nonsense at all. Four or five months
ago, at the time of this last show, the Dane's fang-bearing snarl
had made him shudder. To-day he would have rather welcomed it than
otherwise, and returned it with interest.
After walking some fifty or sixty yards from the train, among a
great crowd of people and baggage, Finn, with the Master, entered
what he supposed was the show building. The chief reason, by the
way, of his conviction that he was bound for a show, lay in the
fact that a long, bright steel chain was attached to his best green
collar, with its brass name-plate bearing Finn's name and the
Master's. The odd thing about this show building, however, was that
there appeared to be only two other dogs in it, besides Finn; one a
collie, and one an Irish terrier, whose head, so far as its shape
went, was a tiny miniature of Finn's own head. In colour, however,
the terrier reminded him rather of the big fox he had slain. Finn
found these two dogs--both, of course, unimportant small fry, from
his lofty standpoint--each chained to the front part of a barrel
half filled with straw; and that seemed to the Wolfhound an
extremely odd kind of show bench. But the bed to which Finn himself
was chained was a good deal more like the kind he had seen before
at shows, in that it was a flat bench, well strawed, and a good
foot above the floor level; but it had solid wooden sides and roof,
so that, while he lay on it, Finn could not see the other dogs,
unless by craning his head round the corner. And before he left,
the Master fixed up some wirework before the bench, so as to shut
Finn in, while on the inside of that network a notice was hung, for
the benefit of passers-by, most of whom read the notice aloud,
until Finn was thoroughly tired of hearing it. It ran like this:
"Warning! Do not touch!"
After arranging this matter of the network, the Master disappeared,
with a hurried wave of his hand in Finn's direction, and a "Wait
there, old man!" a rather unnecessary request Finn may have
thought, seeing that he was securely chained.
Upon the whole, Finn decided that this was the most curious show he
had visited. He heard no barking, beyond an occasional yap from the
Irish terrier, and among the innumerable people who passed the
front of his bench, the majority seemed to be carrying bags or
bundles, and none seemed to have come there to see dogs. After a
time Finn tired of the whole thing and, curling up on his bench,
went to sleep. He slept and waked, and slept and waked again, for
what seemed a very long time; and then the Master came to see him,
with the Mistress of the Kennels. He was taken down from his bench
and allowed to stroll to and fro for a few minutes, though not for
any distance. The Master knew that cleanly habits had long since
become second nature with all the Wolfhounds of his breeding, and
that it would have been cruel to have left Finn on his bench for
very long stretches of time. Supper was given Finn, on the floor
near his bench, and fresh water was placed in his dish in the front
corner of the bed. Then he was chained up again, and the Master
told him to be a good Finn boy, and go to sleep till the next
morning.
Days passed, all manner of odd things happened, and Finn saw many
strange sights before he actually realized that he was not at a Dog
Show at all, but a passenger aboard a great ocean liner. And even
then, when a good part of the ship had become quite familiar to
him, the Wolfhound did not know, of course, that they were all
bound to the other side of the world, that their passages were
booked for Australia, and that this great steamer, which had once
belonged to the Atlantic service, was now given over entirely to
passengers of one class, who were travelling at a uniform and cheap
rate to the Antipodes.
[Illustration]