A SEA CHANGE
That long sea voyage was a strange, instructive experience for
Finn. The preceding few months had made for rapid development upon
his wilder side; they had taught him much as a hound and a hunter.
This voyage developed his personality, his character, the central
something that was Finn, and that differentiated him from other
Irish Wolfhounds. Above all, the voyage brought great development
in Finn in the matter of his relations with the Master and the
Mistress of the Kennels.
The first three or four days of the passage did, as an experience,
resemble a Dog Show, in that Finn spent almost the whole time on
his bench, and was only taken down for a few minutes at a time.
Later on, however, when things and people had settled down into
their places on board the big liner, the Master obtained permission
to give Finn a good deal more freedom, on the understanding that he
held himself responsible for the Wolfhound's good behaviour. This
meant that, by day and night, Finn was given his liberty for hours
together; but during the whole of that time he was never out of the
sight of one or other of his two friends, and, the Mistress not
being a good sailor, it meant that Finn was nearly always with the
Master. This, again, meant a marked change in Finn's ways of life,
and a change which affected his character materially. Here was no
orchard through which he could wander off to the open country,
there to roam and hunt alone, and out of touch with humans. Now,
whether moving about or at rest, Finn was continuously within
hearing and sight of the Master, and practically always within
touch of him.
One result of all this was that Finn became greatly humanised. He
grew to understand far more of the Master's speech than he had ever
understood before; he came to depend greatly upon the Master's
company and kindly intercourse with him. With this came the
development of an enduring and conscious love of the Master, which
filled Finn's mind and heart through all these warm and lazy days,
and entirely dominated his environment. With regard to other
people, he was a great deal more reserved than he had been in the
old days before he met Matey, and before he took to hunting. He
permitted their attentions courteously and, in the case of
children, he would lend himself to their desires readily enough.
But he never invited attention from any one, excepting the Master;
and, whereas he would settle down comfortably to doze on the
sun-bathed deck, with his muzzle resting on the Master's feet, he
never volunteered to touch other people, though he accepted their
caresses good-humouredly enough.
Hitherto, putting aside the exuberant demonstrativeness of early
puppyhood, this had been Finn's attitude toward all humans,
including even the Master. He had liked the Master and the
Mistress; he had trusted them, and he had been deeply thankful to
find them again after his escapade with Matey; but it could hardly
have been said that he had loved them, in the sense, for example,
that his mother had loved the Master, or that he himself loved the
Master now; now that he would lie for hours on his bench, waiting,
watching, and listening for the sound of the footfall which he
easily distinguished from among the many that he heard. In short,
what had been no more than friendly affection and confidence, grew
now to personal attachment, to a feeling which could fairly be
called love, seeing that it comprised intense and jealous devotion,
and a contentedness which approached rapture, in the touch and
presence and society of one person. When they sat on the deck
together at night, the Master and Finn, under the gorgeous sky
which so often favours Pacific travellers by sea, the Wolfhound's
intercourse with the man stopped only just short of articulation,
and went far beyond the normal companionship of man and dog.
For instance, the Master would sometimes growl out low remarks to
Finn about the Old Country, about Tara, and the house beside the
Sussex Downs; and Finn understood practically every word he said on
those occasions. And then the Master might wind up by stroking his
head in a heavy, lingering way that Finn loved, and saying--
"Ah, well, Finn boy; there's other good places in the world, too.
The Australian bush is a mighty big hunting ground, I can tell you.
We'll have some good times there, Finn boy; rabbits, and wallabies,
and kangaroos, Finn; great sport for my big Wolfhound and me. And
maybe we'll get a good home together out there before long, old
man; might even strike it rich, somehow, and go back to the Downs
again, and do the thing in real solid style, my Finn, with big
kennels and half a score of hounds for you to lord it over!"
And at such times, Finn's inability to speak after the human
fashion was no particular bar between them. Understanding was so
clearly voiced in his dark, glistening eyes, in the eager thrust of
his wet, cool muzzle, and sometimes, for emphasis, in the
compelling weight of his great arm, as he laid it, with a pulling
pressure, over the Master's shoulder. In addition to all this, he
would occasionally whimper, or make low growling noises, while he
pawed the Master's shoulder; and these sounds said as plainly as
any words could, and perhaps more emphatically: "I love you. I
understand; and I love you, Master. It's you and me, for always;
and nothing else matters, wherever we may be!"
And then the Master would say something about the Mistress of the
Kennels, and Finn would beat the deck with his thirty-inch tail,
which was as thick and strong at its roots as a man's arm. Or
perhaps, if the weather were calm as well as fine, the Mistress
herself would come along and join them, seated in a low deck chair;
and then, though Finn's eyes would take on a momentarily anxious
look if her hand touched the Master, he would yet be very happy,
stretched out between them, with the half of one dark eye to spare
for one of them, and his whole big heart shining out upon the
Master in the gaze which held his head always turned the one way.
Just as something always seems to strike a balance in the affairs
of men-folk, so the gods who watch over the affairs of Finn's kind
are wont to provide compensations. For months, before this sea
voyage, Finn's whole being had been absorbed by the interests of
the half-tame wild, in the country beside the Sussex Downs.
Dreaming and waking, the hunt had held his thoughts, and solitary
roaming had been his delight. Here aboard the great steamer he was
suddenly and completely cut off from all these things; but
something else had come to take possession of his active nature,
his busy mind, his growing heart; and the great love of the Master
which grew in him now effectually shut out anything like regret for
the old life, by making the new life all-sufficing and more compact
of interest, of satisfying fullness, than ever the home life had
been at its best.
If it had not been for this remarkable development of Finn's
character which was brought about by his confinement on board a
ship with the Master, he would never have played the part he did in
what was really the most important event of his life up till this
time; and one, too, which taught the Master a good deal, regarding
his own relationship to the great Wolfhound he had bred. It all
happened on a Sunday morning when, the weather being very hot, the
captain held service on the upper deck, under awnings, of course.
Half a dozen children were allowed, during the latter part of the
service, to withdraw, and play quietly by themselves, twenty yards
away from the last row of chairs occupied by the congregation. At
one end of this last row the Master sat, with Finn beside him on
the deck. Among the children, one, a curly-headed rascal of a boy
named Tim, aged eight, was everybody's favourite, and the leader of
the rest in most kinds of mischief. Exactly how he managed it was
never rightly understood, but when the piercing sound of a childish
scream smote upon the Master's ears, through the droning periods of
the captain's read sermon, Tim was in mid-air, half-way between the
ship's rail and the sea, and the other children were staring,
horror-stricken, at the place he had occupied a moment before, with
his chubby arms about the stem of a boat's davit, and his brown
legs astride the rail.
The Master was a man given to acting swiftly upon impulse. Finn had
leaped to his feet at sound of the scream. The Master followed on
the instant, and reached the ship's side within a second
or two of Finn's arrival there. Finn's muzzle was thrust out
between the white rails, and he saw the tiny figure of Tim in the
smoothly eddying water a little abaft of the ship's beam. The
Master saw it, too, and, turning, with one urgent hand on Finn's
neck, he shouted--
"Over and fetch him, Finn! Over boy! Over!"
There was no mistaking his meaning. Finn had instant understanding
of that. But Finn was no water dog. The sea was very far below. He
let out two short nasal whimpers. The Master swung one arm
excitedly.
"Over, boy! Fetch Tim! Over, then!"
Then the growing love of the past few weeks spoke strongly in Finn,
overriding instinct in him, and, with a whining sort of bark of
protest against the order his new love forced him to obey, he
leaped over the white rail, and down, down, down through
five-and-thirty feet of space into the smooth, blue sea, where it
swirled and rippled past the high steel walls of the ship.
This exhausted the Master's first impulse. Instantly then there
flashed through his mind knowledge of the fact that Finn was no
water dog; that he had never been trained to fetch from the water,
or to handle human beings gently with his teeth. The Master had
never even seen Finn swim. That was a great love, a wonderful trust
which had shone out from Finn's eyes, when, instinct protesting in
his whining bark, he had leaped the rail in obedience to orders
given on the impulse, and without thought. Would Finn be able to
help the child who had often played with him about the deck? And
how if that whining bark were a last good-bye?
In the next moment the Master acted on his second impulse,
regardless of the shouts he heard behind him. His shoes and coat
were shed from him in a moment, and he, too, leaped the rail,
reaching the warm, blue water feet first, and striking out at once
towards Finn and the child. As a swimmer his powers were not at all
above the average.
For all his inexperience of the water Finn was a quicker swimmer
than the Master, and he reached little Tim within a very few
seconds, and seized the youngster firmly between his great jaws,
while turning in the water towards the ship he had left. Finn was
careful enough to prevent his teeth from injuring the child; there
was no more fear of his doing that than of his biting the hand of a
man who caressed him. But he was no trained life-saver, and it did
not occur to him to notice which side up the child was held. Also,
a few seconds later, he caught sight of the Master in the water,
and that made him loose his hold of Tim, in his haste to reach one
whose claim upon him he regarded as infinitely greater. This was
only momentary, however. Some instinct told him he must not leave
undone the task he had been set, and with a swift movement he
plucked the child to him again, and exerted all his great strength
to reach the Master. This time little Tim's face was uppermost; but
his small arms hung limply and helplessly at right angles from his
body.
It was only a matter of seconds now till Finn and the Master met in
the water. The Master seized little Tim, and Finn seized the
Master, by one arm.
"Down, boy! Get down, Finn!" shouted the Master; and Finn
obediently loosed his hold, and swam anxiously round and round his
friend in short circles, while the Master trod water, and held Tim
high above him, head down, and body bent in the middle.
It was less than three minutes later that the second officer of the
liner shouted, "Way enough!" and a big white lifeboat slid past the
Master's shoulder. The second officer leaned far out, and snatched
little curly-headed Tim from the Master's hands, passing him
straight to the waiting arms of another officer, the ship's
surgeon.
"Help the dog in!" shouted the Master, as two sailorly hands
reached out toward himself. But Finn was watchfully circling behind
him. It was rather an undertaking getting the great Wolfhound into
the lifeboat; but it was presently accomplished, the Master
thrusting behind, and two men in the boat tugging in front. Tim was
lying on his face on the doctor's knees, and gasping his way back
to life under a vigorous kneading treatment. Whatever it may have
been for the man and the Wolfhound, it had undoubtedly been a close
call for the child. There were great rejoicings on the big
Australian liner during the rest of that sunshiny Sunday, and you
may imagine that Finn came in for a good deal of flattering
attention. But he paid small heed to this. What did make his heart
swell within him, till his great chest seemed scarcely big enough
to hold it, was the little talk he had with the Master before they
boarded the ship from the lifeboat. The Master had one dripping arm
about Finn's wet shoulder, and held it there with a warm pressure,
while he muttered certain matters in Finn's right ear which sent
hot blood pumping into the Wolfhound's heart. The Master knew that
Finn had done a big thing for love of him that day, and he would
never forget it. Finn would have leaped overboard fifty times to
earn again that pressure about his shoulder, and that low murmur of
loving commendation in his ear. The half-hysterical caresses of
Tim's mother, and the admiring attention of the whole ship's
company were trifles indeed after this.
The voyage to Australia took Finn into a new world in more senses
than one. Nature and the Master had endowed him richly before. This
voyage endowed him with the gift of true love, which he had not
known before; and whereas he had come aboard that ship a very
magnificent Wolfhound, he would leave it, the richer by something
which would almost be called a soul, a personality developed by
these long weeks of close intercourse with a man, and the final
mental triumph which had ended in his successfully rebelling
against the dominion of instinct, by reason of the completeness of
his devotion to the Master.
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