Jan: A Dog and a Romance Part 2

It happened that Finn ran down and killed a rabbit, rather, perhaps, from lightness of heart, or by way of displaying his powers to Desdemona, than from any desire for food. And so it fell out that, having slain the bunny, the hunter and his mate proceeded to amuse themselves in the vicinity, leaving the rabbit lying where it had received its _coup de grace_, at the foot of a stunted, wind-twisted thorn-bush.

It might have been an hour later when (with appet.i.tes whetted, no doubt, by exercise in the finest air to be found in southern England) Finn and Desdemona forsook their play and made for the thorn-bush, with a view to a cold rabbit supper. But a glance at the spot showed that the very thoroughly killed rabbit was no longer there. Finn's eyes blazed for a moment with the sort of masterful wrath he had not shown since his dingo-leading days in the Tinnaburra. Desdemona noticed this exhibition of lordly anger and thought it rather fine. But, being female, she was more practical than Finn; and being a bloodhound, she had a sense of smell by comparison with which Finn's scenting powers were as naught--a mere gap in his equipment; and this despite the fact that the training his wild life had given him in this respect placed him far ahead of the average wolfhound. But by comparison with bloodhounds, the fleet dogs who hunt by sight and speed--deerhounds, greyhounds, Irish wolfhounds and the like--have very little sense of smell.

Now the Lady Desdemona, having no experience of wild life, did not know in the least what had become of that rabbit. She formed no conclusions whatever about it. But obeying one of her strongest instincts, she picked up a trail leading in the direction opposite to that from which Finn had overtaken the bunny, and, with one glance of encouragement over her shoulder at Finn, began to follow this up at a loping trot. As she ran, her delicate, golden-colored flews skimmed the ground; her sensitive nostrils questioned almost every blade of gra.s.s, her brain automatically registering every particle of information so obtained, and guiding her feet accordingly. Her strong tail waved above and behind her in the curve of an Arab scimitar. She ceased to be the Lady Desdemona and became simply a bloodhound at work; an epitome of the whole complex science of tracking. Finn trotted admiringly beside her, his muzzle never pa.s.sing her shoulder; and now and again when he happened to lower his head from its accustomed three-foot level, his nostrils caught a whiff or two of something reminiscent of long-past hunting excursions when he was barely out of puppyhood.

The dog-folk are not greatly given to discussion. It was obvious that Desdemona had some purpose earnestly in view. (As a fact, she herself did not as yet know what that purpose was.) And that was enough for Finn. The bloodhound's pace was slow, and Finn could have kept up this sort of traveling for a dozen hours on end without really exerting himself.

But this was not to be a long trail as the event proved, though it was mostly up-hill. Before a mile and a half had been covered Desdemona began to show excitement and emitted a single deep bay, mellow as the note of an organ. Finn remarked her fine voice with sincere approval.

Like all hounds, he detested a sharp, high, or yapping cry. A few seconds later Desdemona came to a standstill beside the stem of a starveling yew-tree, and just below the crest of the Down. Her muzzle was thrust into an opening in the steep side of the Down, over which there hung a thatch of furze. But though her head entered the opening, her shoulders could not pa.s.s it and there was wrath and excitement in the belling note she struck as she drew back.

This was Finn's opportunity and, stepping forward, he attacked the overhanging furze and stony chalky earth with both his powerful fore feet. He had winded now a scent that roused him; and what is more, he remembered precisely what that tw.a.n.gy, acrid scent betokened. The chalky earth flew from under his great paws faster than two men could have s.h.i.+fted it with mattocks; and, as the shelving crust was thin, it took him no more than one or two minutes to make an opening through which even his great bulk could pa.s.s with a little stooping.

Another moment and Desdemona had forced her way past Finn, baying hoa.r.s.ely, and was inside the cave. There followed a yowling, snarling cry, a scuffling sound, and a big red fox emerged, low to the ground like a cat, his brush between his legs, fight in his bared jaws, and flight in his red rolling eyes. But fate had knocked at Reynard's door, and would not be denied. His running did not carry him far. It is probably somewhat disturbing to be rooted out of one's own particular sanctuary by a baying bloodhound. But it is worse to find at one's front door a vision of vengeance and destruction in the shape of a giant Irish wolfhound whose kill one has purloined.

In Finn's salad days it might have meant a fight. As things were, it was rather an execution; and though the fox died snapping, his neck was broken before he had decided upon his line of action. As Finn flung the furry corpse aside, Desdemona appeared in the mouth of the cave with most of the stolen rabbit between her jaws. It was noteworthy that she gave no heed at all to the fox. Her business as a tracker had been with her mate's stolen kill. In the absence of Finn, Reynard would have paid no other penalty for his theft than the loss of the rabbit. As it was, the incident cost him his life; and he was a master fox, too, who had ranged that countryside with considerable insolence for some years; a terribly familiar foe in a number of neighboring farm-yards.

Neither Finn nor Desdemona ate the remains of that rabbit. For one thing, they were not yet really hungry, and for another thing they did not relish the musky tang left by Reynard's jaws. Apart from this (and despite its strong scent) they were both keenly interested in the cave which had been Reynard's home; especially Desdemona.

It seemed the bloodhound would never tire of investigating the cave, once she had satisfied herself as to Finn fully understanding that she alone, unaided, and with most complete success, had tracked down and retrieved the stolen rabbit. This fact had to be clearly appreciated before Desdemona could bring herself to lay aside the mangled rabbit.

Then she invited Finn's attention to the interior of the cave. Together they explored its resources till Finn felt almost nauseated by the smell of fox which filled the place. But Desdemona, with her far more delicate sense of smell, seemed quite unaffected by this. To and fro she padded, closely examining every inch of the place, and dragging out into the open scores of bones and other oddments which told of its long occupancy.

It really was a rather fascinating lair, despite its musky smell; and its position was superb. Being on a southern slope, and just below the crest of the highest point of Downs thereabouts, one plainly saw the sparkle of sunlight on the waters of the Channel from the mouth of this cave. On the other hand, an obliging cup-shaped hollow of the Downs, some hundred yards away to the west, gave one a vista of Suss.e.x farm-lands extending over scores of miles; a view that many a caveless millionaire would give a fortune to secure for his home.

Again, the extreme steepness of the particular little spur, or swelling of the Downs, in which this cave had been formed, made it highly improbable that the feet of man would ever come that way. The surrounding turf had doubtless known the sharp little feet of many hundreds of generations of sheep; but it had never known the plow. It was the same unbroken turf which our early British ancestors knew in these parts, and had remained unscathed by any such trifling happenings as the Roman invasion, the Fire of London, the Wars of the Roses, or the advent of Mr. Lloyd George. The very cave itself may easily have been older than Westminster Abbey; and if there is a lord in the land whose ancestral hall can boast a longer record of un-"restored" antiquity, he may fairly claim that his forebears built most superlatively well.

At all events, the place appealed most strongly to the Lady Desdemona, and since her heart seemed set upon it, Finn cheerfully endeavored to forget the foxy smell, busied himself in securing a fresh, rabbit for supper, and generally behaved as a good mate should in the matter of helping to make a new home. And that is the plain truth in the matter of how Desdemona found her nest.

VII

DESDEMONA FORGETS HER MANNERS

It has been recorded that, as the weeks slipped by after Desdemona's first little term of absence from her home at Shaws, she grew daily more sedate in her manner and less given to the irresponsible activities of hound youth.

It was also noticed that she developed a habit of carrying off all her best bones, or other solid comestibles, instead of despatching them beside her dish as her sophisticated habit had always been. What was not known, even to the astute Bates, was that the most of such eatables were laboriously carried over close upon four miles of downland by the Lady Desdemona, for ultimate storage in her cave, where, a little reluctantly, she devoured some of them and stowed away others to be more or less devoured by insects, and, it may be, by prowling stoats and other vermin, during the bloodhound's periods of residence in her own proper home.

Finn accompanied his mate, as a matter of course, upon most of her pilgrimages to the cave. But, somewhat to his chagrin, he found, as time went on, that Desdemona became less and less keen upon his company.

Latterly, in fact, she came as near as so courtly a creature could to sending him about his business flatly, and she formed a habit of lying across the mouth of her cave in a manner which certainly suggested that she grudged Finn entry to the old place--a thing which ruffled him more than he cared to admit.

As a matter of fact, the Lady Desdemona had not the faintest idea why she should adopt this tone and manner toward her mate. She admired Finn as much as ever; she liked him well, and had no shadow of a reason for mistrusting him. But she had her own weird to dree; and inherited memories and instincts far stronger than any wish or inclination of her daily life, were just now dominating her utterly.

She was full of a vague anxiousness; a sense of impending difficulties; a blind but undeniable determination to be forearmed against she knew not what dangers and needs. And among other things, other vague instincts the which she must obey with or without understanding, there was the desire to store up food, and to preserve intact her sole command of the privacy of her cave. If Finn had been human, he would have shrugged his shoulders, and in private given vent to generalizations regarding the inscrutability of females. As it was, he very likely shrugged his great gray shoulders, but went his way without remark.

Then came the day upon which Desdemona disappeared from Shaws, and Finn, to the Master's surprise, slept in his own proper bed at Nuthill.

The fact was he had parted with Desdemona that evening under rather painful circ.u.mstances. In the early evening he had journeyed with her to the cave--she carrying a large mutton-bone which she made no pretense of offering to share with her mate--and her att.i.tude throughout had been one of really unaccountable chilliness and reserve. They had drunk together--the cold nectar of a prehistoric dew-pond that lay within a hundred yards of the cave--and Desdemona had turned away curtly and hurried back to the cave, with never a lick or a look in Finn's direction, as though she feared he might take the place away in his teeth. Finn had noticed that she moved wearily, as though action taxed her strength; yet he thought her unaccountably ready to walk away from him.

He ran down a rabbit for his mate, and deposited it before her at the cave's mouth in the most friendly manner. Then, before he could get time to tear the pelt off for her, the Lady Desdemona, with a snappishness more suggestive of a hedge-side cur than of a hound of her rank, actually s.n.a.t.c.hed away the rabbit, and with never a "Thank you," or a "By your leave," carried it right inside the cave, dropping it there and returning to bar the entrance, with a look in her red-hawed eyes and a lift of her golden flews which, if not actual snarling, was, as folks say, near enough to make no difference. At least it very plainly told Finn he was not wanted there; and the limits of his punctilious courtesy having now been pa.s.sed, he had turned away without look or sound and descended the Down in high dudgeon.

It was clear to Finn that his mate needed a lesson in manners, and so, moodily, he stalked away and went hungry to bed like the illogical male creature he was, vaguely surmising that in his discomfort there must be something of retribution for Desdemona. Had he but known it, he had a long line of human precedents in the matter of this particular piece of foolishness, even to the detail of the untasted dinner-dish which he left in the back porch when he went to bed at Nuthill.

VIII

FINN IS ENLIGHTENED

Next morning courtesy demanded that Finn should accept Betty Murdoch's invitation to accompany her on a rather long walk. She had bills to pay and calls to make in the village. Finn went, of course, stalking silently beside pretty, cheery Betty. But he made a poor companion, and Betty even told the Master at luncheon that she thought Finn was not very well, so dull and uninterested in anything he had appeared all the morning.

"H'm! I suspect he misses Lady Desdemona," said the Master. "Puzzling thing, that. I can't make out why they're not together."

The fact was, Finn found the nursing of his offended dignity a wearisome task. It was all very well to rebuke Desdemona by ignoring her existence; but could he be quite sure that she noticed his absence or cared about it? And in any case, whether or not it affected her, it certainly bored him very much. He missed greatly the companions.h.i.+p of his mate, and not a bit the less because she had been so rude to him the day before.

The upshot of it was that, after disposing of a good portion of the dinner placed in his big dish at six o'clock that evening (in the little courtyard in which he had once held a tramp bailed up all night), he picked up the large, succulent, and still decently covered knuckle-bone designed for his dessert, and, carrying this in his mouth, set out for the cave on the Downs. He probably had some small twinges of misgiving, but endeavored to dismiss these by a.s.suring himself that poor Desdemona was no doubt very sorry for her ill-temper of the previous day; that she doubtless was feeling his protracted absence keenly, and that it would be only courteous and fair now to let bygones be bygones, and present her with a really choice knuckle-bone by way of proving his forgiveness.

This was more or less the way in which the wolfhound's mind worked as he ambled over the Downs that evening with his big knuckle-bone. (The cook at Nuthill was one of Finn's most devoted admirers. In addition to the appetizing golden-brown skin that coated it, this bone carried quite a good deal of the short, dark-colored sort of meat which, though devoid of juice, makes very agreeable eating, and lends itself well to canine mastication.) And in view of this att.i.tude of mind of his, Finn was rather grievously disappointed by the result of his visit.

He found the Lady Desdemona uneasily prowling back and forth, and in and out of the entrance to her cave. She perfunctorily touched Finn's nose with her own (rather rough and hot) muzzle in greeting and, accepting the knuckle-bone with somewhat unmannerly eagerness, carried it at once to the rear of the cave. But when Finn made to follow her she returned nervously to the mouth of the cave and stood there, blocking the entrance. Most strangely stiff, preoccupied, and ill-at-ease, Finn thought her.

"Glad to see you, and all that," her manner suggested; "but I don't much think you'd better stay. I'm--er--busy, and--er--don't let me detain you here."

That was the suggestion conveyed; and Finn would have been the more angered about it, but for a vague feeling he had which he could in no way account for--a sort of yearning desire to help his mate and do something for her.

"She certainly doesn't seem to want me," he thought. And he tried to brace himself by means of resentful recollection of the eager way she had taken the bone he brought her. But much as he would have preferred to sniff, look coldly down his muzzle, and walk off, he found himself licking one of Desdemona's heavily pendulous ears in quite a humble and solicitous manner. It was really rather annoying.

She jerked herself nervously away from him, with no more of deference than she might have shown some too effusive and presumptuous puppy. And yet, and yet the great wolfhound's bowels yearned in kindliness toward this ungracious bloodhound mate of his; and when he did finally accept her numerous hints and take his leave, it was with no thought of resentment in his mind, but, on the contrary, with many a backward glance over his wire-coated shoulder, and several low whines of farewell from deep down in his throat. Altogether the evening, like the day preceding it, was a depressing one for Finn, and he was not sorry when the time came to stretch his great length upon his bed by the door of the Master's room and sleep.

But when morning arrived Finn surprised his friend the cook by not waiting for his customary dish of milk. Directly the back door was opened he slipped out into the sweet, early suns.h.i.+ne of that fragrant neighborhood, and was off at a good loping gait for the Downs. (It was a thousand pities he could not have carried his milk with him as a morning draught for Desdemona.)

There was no sign of the bloodhound near the mouth of the cave when Finn breasted the steep rise it faced. But as he drew nearer there came sounds from out the cave which, while altogether bewildering in themselves, did at least indicate Desdemona's presence there. The first sound to reach him was a hoa.r.s.e and threatening growl, a quite unmistakably minatory growl, from the throat of his own mate as she got her first wind of his, Finn's, approach to the cave he had helped to make a home. Finn paused for a moment, head raised and ears c.o.c.ked, to consider this truly remarkable manifestation. And as he listened, there issued from the den other small sounds of a totally different kind: mild, twittering little bleatings; several voices, each weak and thin, and in some subtle way most curiously appealing to the wolfhound.

Then, in one flash of memory and reason, came vivid understanding of the whole business; as usual, in the form of a picture, Finn saw again, from that sun-washed English hill-side, the gaunt, bald foothills around Mount Desolation. He saw the heat s.h.i.+mmering above the scorched rocks on which he slew Lupus in open fight, and witnessed the terrible disintegration of that fighter's redoubtable sire, Tasman, under the foaming jaws and flas.h.i.+ng feet of his own dingo mate, Warrigal. But the picture did not show Finn any fighting. It showed himself, at the den's mouth, gazing in upon Warrigal, and Warrigal's curved flank supporting a little bunch of wolfhound-dingo pups, helpless, blind, new-born, and cheeping thinly like caged birds. Again came the sound of the small bleatings from the cave on the South Downs. The Australian picture faded out from Finn's excited mind, its task accomplished. He knew now; and into the gentle whining which escaped his throat as he stepped forward to the cave's entrance Finn introduced a note of rea.s.surance and soothing understanding which even human ears would have comprehended and been satisfied by.

"All right, my mate," said Finn's gentle whining. "I know, I know. I'll be very careful."

And then came Desdemona's answer as Finn's great bulk blocked the entrance. This time her voice struck a note quite new to her. She understood now that Finn understood; she knew she was not to be called upon to s.h.i.+eld that which she cherished in the cave there from immediate peril. There was rest and thankfulness in Desdemona's voice now; but withal, as Finn entered, there was more.

"Oh, please be very careful! Be very careful!" said her whine, as her swimming eyes, with their deep-pouched crimson haws, looked up at Finn.

It would have been hard for Desdemona if she had been obliged now to take the defensive, for Finn found the beautiful b.i.t.c.h most utterly exhausted. But, as he well knew, it had gone hardly too with the man or beast who should have forced the Lady Desdemona to her defense. Weak and exhausted though she clearly was, the mother-pa.s.sion looked out from her br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes, and the call of need would have found her a living flame for valor, a most deadly force in a fight.

"All right! All right! Don't stir, my mate," said Finn's low whine. And then he entered the cave and gazed down upon the miracle the night had brought. Five sleek-sided puppies nestled in a row within the Lady Desdemona's carefully curved flank. They were so new to the world as to be no more than a few hours' old; they were blind and helpless as stranded jellyfish. But they were vigorously breakfasting, none the less; and as Finn gazed down upon them from his three-foot height, their mother proceeded to wash and groom their fat bodies for the twentieth time that morning, interrupting herself from time to time to glance proudly up into her mate's face, as who should say: "See what I have given you! Now you understand. These, my lord, are princes of your royal blood and mine."

Neither she nor Finn could realize, of course, just why these children of their union--their lamentable _mesalliance_, as the fanciers would have said--were the first of their kind the world had ever seen: the offspring of an Irish wolfhound champion and a daughter of generations of bloodhound champions. But to Desdemona it was clear enough that a miracle unique in history had occurred; and as for Finn, he looked and looked, and his bowels yearned over the group at his feet even more mightily than over Desdemona, his mate, on the previous evening.