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Page 23
Here he found Betty and the Mistress, and at their feet deposited his
now rather badly mangled mouse; while Finn, like a big nurse taking
pride in the escapades of her charge, stood at one side and smiled, with
lolling tongue.
"Oh, what a fearsome beast it is!" laughed Betty, and ran to call the
Master. Then Jan was patted and petted, and told what a fine fellow he
was; what a mighty hunter before the Lord; and Finn smiled more broadly
than ever. This over, Jan was taken into the kitchen to be weighed (he
being now seven weeks old), and was told in an impressive manner that he
was within four ounces of twenty pounds.
"Pretty nearly half-a-pound-a-day increase. You'll have to take a cure
soon, my friend, if this goes on," said the Master.
From this time onward many of Jan's games were sensibly affected by his
slaughter of the mouse. He now treated the big shin-bones that were
provided for his delectation as live game of a peculiarly treacherous
sort. He stalked, tracked, hunted, and slew those bones with unerring
skill and remarkable daring. Their tenacity of life was most striking.
There were times when, having slain a bone after a long chase, poor Jan
would give way to his natural exhaustion and fall sound asleep with his
head pillowed on one end of the apparently well-killed and harmless
bone. Yet as often as not, when he would wake, perhaps a quarter of an
hour later, this same bone would once more betray its desperate and
treacherous vitality by means of an attempt at escape. So that even in
the very moment of waking the dauntless Jan would be obliged to growl
fiercely and plunge straightway into hard fighting again.
His first real bark was another dazzling experience. It came in his
eleventh week, when he was as heavy as two terriers, though still
somewhat shapeless, and gristly, rather than bony, as to his limbs.
Colonel Forde walked into the garden one afternoon, followed very
sedately by the Lady Desdemona, now sleek and shining, and more
aristocratic-looking than ever. Jan was dozing in the front porch, and
Finn away somewhere in the orchard. Jan sprang rashly to his feet and,
losing his balance, rolled over. Rising again, with more of caution and
considerable anger, he took a good look at the visitors, and glared with
special severity at Desdemona, who serenely ignored his existence.
Then, bracing himself firmly against the door-jamb, Jan opened his jaws
and--barked. But the novelty of the performance, superimposed upon the
concussion and the exertion involved, was too much for his stability,
and with one prolonged but unsuccessful effort to hold on to his dignity
Jan rolled over on the side farthest from the door-jamb. It was not to
be denied, however, that he had barked; and the strange sound--it was
part bark, part growl, and in part a bloodhound's bay--brought Finn from
the near-by orchard, and Betty Murdoch from the morning-room, and the
Master from his study, and the Persian cat from her perch on the hall
mantelshelf; so Master Black-and-Gray had no lack of audience, and,
indeed, received an almost embarrassing amount of congratulation, in the
course of which he made shift to get a good sniff at Desdemona's legs
and satisfy himself that she was art inoffensive person.
That Desdemona was any relation of his own neither he nor she seemed for
one moment to guess, though less than a couple of months had passed
since he ceased to derive his sole nutriment and support in life from
this same stately hound, at whose golden-brown fore legs and low-hanging
dewlap he now sniffed so curiously.
One result of her return to the sheltered life was that Desdemona looked
almost twice as big and massive as she had looked in her nursing days.
The pendulous dugs were no longer in evidence; but the rich, silky rolls
about her neck lay fold in fold; the immensely long ears were veritable
buttresses to her massy head. Her black nose gleamed like satin at the
end of her long muzzle, above which lay an interminable array of deep
wrinkles, radiating out and downward from her high-peaked crown. Just
once the noble head was lowered--as that of an ancient Greek philosopher
to an inquisitive child--and the crimson-hawed eyes directed downward
as, in a calm, aloof spirit of investigation, the Lady Desdemona took
note of the fussy movements of her own son.
"I don't think we have been introduced, have we?" she seemed to say. It
was difficult to realize that, not many weeks before, hollow of flank,
with the mother anxiety in her eyes, the same noble creature had battled
and contrived to keep life in herself and in this same lusty pup out
there on the open Down, four miles and more away, among the small wild
creatures and the d�bris of her cave home.
Among the dog-folk Nature has arranged matters in this way, wisely and
kindly. Separated from her good master, Colonel Forde, for many months,
or even years, Desdemona would have recognized him again without
hesitation. But like every other canine mother, and like every creature
of the wild, her own flesh and blood became utterly strange to her
within a very few weeks, when separated from her during its first months
of life. And from Nature's standpoint this is a highly necessary
ordinance, since, after a few more months, Desdemona, mated elsewhere,
might easily find herself called upon to rear an entirely new family in
new surroundings. So it is that whilst among her kind, as among the
creatures of the wild, there is nothing to prevent mother and son or
daughter from becoming friends in the youngster's adult life; yet never,
after the first separation, can they meet consciously as mother and
offspring.
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