THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
If Finn had been transported on a magic carpet and in an instant of
time, from England to that part of Australia in which he did
eventually land, the first few months he spent in the land of the
Southern Cross would have been a desperately unhappy time. As it
was, he landed under the influence of six weeks of steady character
development, his whole being dominated by the warm personal
devotion to the Master which had taken the place with Finn of mere
friendly affection. And that made all the difference in the world,
in the matter of the great Wolfhound's first experience of the new
land.
But it is a fact that it was not a very happy period for Finn. The
intimate understanding he had acquired regarding the Master's moods
and states of mind and spirits, gave him more than a dog's fair
share of the burdens of that curious period. It was a bad time for
the Master, and for that reason, quite apart from anything else, it
was not a good time for Finn. Some of the evil happenings of that
period Finn understood completely, and with regard to others again,
all that he could understand was their unhappy effect upon his
friends and himself. The first of them saluted Finn's friends
before they left the ship, in the shape of news of the death, one
week before this date, of the one man upon whom the Master had been
relying for help in establishing himself in Australia. So that,
instead of meeting with a warm welcome, Finn and his friends had to
find quarters for themselves, and to spend days in the country
without a friendly word from any one.
The man who had died, suddenly, was a bachelor, and a squatter on a
large scale. His spacious country home was now in the hands of the
representatives of the Crown, pending its disposal for the benefit
of relatives in remote parts of the world who had never seen the
man who made it. This meant that, instead of going up country on
their arrival in Australia, the Master and the Mistress and Finn
were obliged to find economical quarters for themselves in the
city. It was a pleasant, sunny city enough, but no city would ever
commend itself much to an Irish Wolfhound, and cheap town lodgings
formed a poor substitute for the Sussex Downs for one of Finn's
kind. And then, before the situation had ceased to be strange and
unfamiliar, the Master was smitten with an illness which confined
him to one room for several weeks, and kept the Mistress of the
Kennels pretty constantly employed in tending him. If it had not
been for his consciousness of the Master's trouble and weakness,
Finn would have had no great fault to find with this period, for he
was allowed to spend the greater part of his days and nights beside
the bed, and within sight of the man he loved.
But after the Master's recovery came many weeks of anxiety and
increasing depression, during which every sort of misfortune seemed
to pursue Finn's friends, and they were obliged at length to move
into a cheaper, smaller lodging, into which Finn was only admitted
by those in authority upon sufferance; in which he had hardly room
to turn and twist his great bulk. The Master's walks abroad at this
time took him principally into offices and places of that sort,
where Finn could not accompany him, and, if it had not been for the
Mistress's good care, the Wolfhound's life would have been dreary
indeed, and without any outdoor exercise. All these matters,
however, Finn could have endured cheerfully enough, by reason of
the content that filled his mind when the Master was by, and the
anticipations that possessed him while he waited for the Master's
return. But the thing that sapped Finn's spirits and vitality was
his consciousness of the growing weight of unhappiness and anxiety
and distress which possessed the Master. Finn knew by the manner in
which his friend sat down when he entered the poor little lodging
at night, that things had gone evilly during the day. The touch of
his friend's hand on his head, languid and inert, told the
Wolfhound much; and the nightly messages which reached his
understanding were increasingly depressing. He did not understand
the Master's explanations to the Mistress of how he had been
swindled here, turned away in the other place, and misled by such
and such a person. But he did realize very keenly the effects of
these things, and the distress they produced.
But this little party of strangers in a strange land had not
reached the end of the long train of misfortunes with which the new
world tested them before making them free of its bounty. The climax
of several long-drawn months of unhappiness came to them in the
form of serious illness for the Mistress of the Kennels, which, for
weeks, prevented the Master from seeking any further to better his
fortunes. At the end of a month, in which the Master and Finn
plumbed unsuspected deeps of misery, the Mistress, white and wan,
and desperately shaky, left her bedroom for the tiny sitting-room
which Finn could almost span when he stretched his mighty frame.
(He measured seven feet six and a quarter inches now, from nose-tip
to tail-tip; and when he stood absolutely erect he could just reach
the top of a door six feet six inches high with his fore-paws.) And
there the Mistress sat, and smiled weakly, as she bade the Master
go out to take the air and walk with Finn. By her way of it, she
was to be quite herself again within a few days, but a fortnight
found her practically no stronger; and the doctor spoke plainly,
almost angrily, of the necessity of change of air and scene. When
the Master hinted at his inability to provide this, the doctor
shrugged his well-clad shoulders.
"I can only tell you, my dear sir, that if the patient is to
recover she must leave this place. A month up in the mountains
would put her right, with a liberal diet, and comfortable quarters.
The expense need not be great. I should say that, with care, twenty
pounds might cover the whole thing."
It was then that, with a certain gruff abruptness, the Master
informed the doctor, outside the door of the sitting-room, that his
resources were reduced to less than half the amount mentioned, and
that there were bills owing. The doctor looked grave for a moment,
and then shrugged his shoulders again. As he was leaving he said--
"Why, you have a dog there that must eat as much as a man. I
imagine you could sell him for twenty pounds. Indeed, there is a
patient of my own who I am sure would pay that for so fine a
hound."
"I dare say," said the Master sadly, "seeing that I refused a
hundred guineas for him before he was fully grown. That is the
finest Irish Wolfhound living, a full champion, and the most
valuable dog of his breed in the world. But we could not part with
Finn. He---- No, we could not sell Finn."
Again the young doctor shrugged his shoulders.
"Ah, well, that's your business, of course; but I have told you the
patient will not recover in this place. If the dog is such a fine
one as all that, perhaps you could get more for him; enough to set
the patient on her feet, and establish yourself in some way. In
fact, I think my friend would give more, if I were to ask him; he
is one of the richest men in the city, and a great lover of
animals."
The rest of that day proved the most miserable time that the Master
and Finn had spent in Australia. But a pretence at cheerfulness had
to be maintained until the Mistress had retired for the night; and
then, for many hours, the Master sat before an empty fire-place,
with Finn's great head resting on his knees, and one of his hands
mechanically rubbing and stroking the Wolfhound's ears, while he
thought, and thought, and found only greater sadness in his
thinking. Finn felt plainly that a crisis had arrived, and he
tried to show his agreement and understanding, when at long last,
the Master rose from his comfortless wooden chair, saying sadly--
"I don't see what else a man can do, my Finn, boy; but--but it's
hard."
Early next morning, before the Mistress appeared, the Master took a
leash in his hand, and set out with Finn from the poor house that
sheltered them, in the dingy quarter of the town where they lived.
They walked for two miles through sunlit spacious streets, and then
they came to the house of the doctor. The Master waited in the
hall, and the doctor came to see him there, a finger napkin in his
hands.
"Doctor," said the Master; "I want the address of that rich patient
of yours who is fond of animals."
"Ah! Yes, I thought you would," answered the doctor. "Just step in
here a moment, and I will give you a note for Mr. Sandbrook. If you
are going there right away, you will certainly be sure of catching
him in."
It was nearly an hour later that the Master and Finn reached the
entrance to a beautiful garden, in the centre of which stood a big,
picturesque house, with windows overlooking the sparkling waters of
a great harbour. The house had only one storey above the ground
floor, and its walls rambled over a large expanse of ground. All
round the house, with its deep, shady verandahs, spread a host of
ever-diminishing satellites, in the form of outbuildings of one
kind and another; extensive stabling, coach-houses, wood and coal
lodges, laundry, tool-sheds, workmen's living-rooms, and so forth.
The Master and Finn were kept waiting for some time, and were
seated on the verandah when Mr. Sandbrook, the portly broker,
merchant, and shipping agent, came to them. Finn was lying
stretched at his full great length on the cedar-wood planks of the
verandah, fore-legs far out before him, head carried high, his big,
dark eyes fixed lovingly on the Master's face. Mr. Sandbrook was a
good-natured, kindly soul, very prosperous and very vain, and
little accustomed to deny himself anything which his quickly
roaming little grey eyes desired. As these eyes of his fell upon
Finn, they told him that this was the most magnificent dog he had
ever seen; the handsomest dog in Australia; as indeed Finn was,
easily, and without a doubt.
And then the merchant shook hands with the Master, and read the
note from the doctor.
"I don't know, I'm sure, what made the doctor think I wanted
another dog," he said; "but this is certainly a noble animal of
yours, Mr.----er."
And then the Master showed him Finn's printed pedigree, with one or
two newspaper descriptions of the Wolfhound, and a list of his
championship honours, and other papers showing the Master's own
connection with the Irish Wolfhound Club, and so forth. Mr.
Sandbrook had already made up his mind that this dog must belong to
him, however; he almost resented, in a good-humoured way, the fact
that Finn had not belonged to him before. It seemed to him only
right that the best should be his. But he was a business man, and
he said--
"Of course, in this country no dogs have the sort of market value
that you speak of this hound having in England. That would be
regarded as absurd here. You understand that, I am sure."
"No price you could name, sir, would tempt me into parting with
Finn; only dire necessity makes that possible. But, in this country
or any other, Finn's value, not to me, but to the dog-buyer, would
be a hundred guineas; and he would be very cheap at that. He would
bring double that in England. But I will sell Finn to you, sir, for
fifty guineas, because I am assured that he would have a good home
with you--on one condition; and that is that you will let me have
him again for, say, eighty guineas, if I can offer you that sum
within a couple of years."
Mr. Sandbrook stuck out his chin, pulled down his white waistcoat,
and said that he was afraid he could not make such an offer as
that.
"You see, I am not a dealer in animals," he said. And the Master
answered him rather sharply with: "Neither am I. You know why I am
here, sir." "Yes, yes," said Mr. Sandbrook, stroking his whiskers
with one plump white hand; "but you see, I don't want to feel that
I have to give up a--er--a possession of my own whenever I may
happen to be called upon to do so. No; I could never do that. But,
I'll tell you what; I'll give you seventy guineas for the dog
outright, if you like; but I assure you there's not another man in
the country but would laugh at such a figure for a dog, for any
dog. But I can see he's a fine fellow, and--er--I'll do that, if
you like."
The Master shook his head.
Suddenly then, the Master turned upon the merchant, with a little
upward movement of both hands.
"Sir, I would ask you to reconsider that," he said. "I would ask
you please to try and think what this means to me. It is not a
business proposition to me at all. I have told you what the doctor
said. I cannot neglect that--dare not. But Finn--Finn is like a
child of my own to me; like a young brother. Take him from me for
thirty guineas, and promise to let me buy him back for sixty, if I
can do it, in two years, in one, then. It--it would be a great
kindness."
The merchant measured the Master with his little grey eyes. He was
good-natured and very vain. He wanted to own that magnificent
hound. No one else in the colony (it was not a State then) owned
such a hound as that. He pictured Finn lying on a rug in the fine
hall of his fine house, which he was told was equal to that of one
of the stately homes of England. It had cost enough, he thought,
with its armour, and its dim old portraits of men and women whose
names he had never heard, though he was wont to refer to them
vaguely as "family portraits, you know--the old folk at Home." And
it was true enough they had come from the Old Country; through the
dealer who supplied the armour. But then to have some one come and
take his fine hound away from him--no, his dignity forbade the
thought of such a thing. He turned half round on his heels.
"No," he said decisively; "I'm sorry, but I couldn't think of it.
I'll make it seventy-five guineas for an outright sale, and that's
my last word."
While the Master pondered over this, he had a vision of the
Mistress of the Kennels, sitting, white and shaky, in the dismal
little room on the far side of the city, waiting for the change
which was to give her health again. He did hesitate for another
minute; but he knew all the time that there was no alternative for
him, and, watching the expression on his careworn face, the
merchant, good-natured creature though he was, told himself that he
had been a fool to offer that extra five guineas. It really was a
preposterous price for a dog, he thought.
Five minutes later the merchant was making out a cheque in his
study, and the Master was engaged in writing down a long list of
details regarding Finn's dietary, and the sort of methods and
system which should be followed to secure health and happiness to
an Irish Wolfhound. The Master used great care over the preparation
of these instructions. At least, he thought, Finn would be sure of
a luxuriously good home.
"You don't think he'll run away, do you?" asked the merchant.
"No; I don't think he'll run away," said the Master. "I'll tell him
he mustn't do that." The merchant stared. "But, for a week or two,
you should be careful with him, and not leave him quite at large."
The Master had already made it clear to the merchant that Finn was
an aristocrat in all his habits. And now the merchant was anxious
to get to his much-deferred breakfast, always a rather late
function in that house; and the Master had no wish to prolong a
situation of unmitigated wretchedness to himself.
They parted in the big hall, the Master and Finn, among the dim
portraits of somebody's ancestors and the armour which came from a
street near Regent's Park. Finn had been eyeing the Master with
desperate anxiety for some time past. At frequent intervals he had
nervously wagged his tail, and even made a pretence of gaiety, with
jaws parted, and red tongue lolling. Now he sat down on his
haunches on a big rug, because the Master told him to sit down. For
a moment the Master dropped on one knee beside him, one arm about
his shoulders. Finn gave an anxious little whine. His heart was
thudding against his ribs; the prescient anxiety stirring within
him affected him with a physical nausea.
"Good-bye, my old Finn, son! Good-bye, you--you Irish Hound! Now
mark me, Finn, you stay here; you stay here--stay here, Finn!"
Such episodes are always suspect when seen in print. I have no wish
to exaggerate by a hair's-breadth about Finn. His whole nature bade
the Wolfhound follow his friend. The Master said, "Stay there!" And
there was no mistaking his meaning. Finn crouched down. His body
did not touch the floor; his weight rested on his outstretched
legs, though his position appeared to be that of lying. There he
crouched; but, as though the thing were too much for him to see as
well as feel, he buried his muzzle, well over the eyes, between his
fore-legs, just as he might have done if a strong light had dazzled
him. It was obedience such as a great soldier could appreciate.
Finn stayed there, hiding his face; but as the house-door closed
behind the Master, a cry broke from Finn, a muffled cry, by reason
of the position of his head; a cry that was part bark, part whine,
and part groan; a cry that smote upon the Master's ears as he
stepped out upon the gravel drive in the sunlight, with the biting,
stinging pain, not of the parting, but of an accusation. There was
a twinge of shame as well as grief in the Master's heart that day,
though he knew well that what he had done was unavoidable. Still,
there was the sense of shame, of treachery. Finn had been
wonderfully human and close to him since they left England
together.
Before noon of that day the Master was on his way to the mountains
with the Mistress of the Kennels.
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