Finn The Wolfhound Part 9

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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CHAPTER XII

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 s.p.a.cious 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 subst.i.tute for the Suss.e.x 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 antic.i.p.ations 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 s.p.a.cious 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.sure 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 m.u.f.fled 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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