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Page 24
It was an interesting picture for the Nuthill folk and Colonel Forde to
see Finn and Desdemona sedately strolling across the lawn together,
tried friends and mates, divided sometimes by the impudent gambols and
even by the mock attacks and invitations to play of their own lusty
son--the only whelp in existence, probably the only one who ever had
lived, to carry in his veins in equal parts the blood of centuries of
Irish wolfhound and bloodhound champions.
"Do keep them there!" cried pretty Betty Murdoch. "I simply must have
that picture; I'll fetch my camera." And after some skilled manoeuvering
to secure the son's collaboration, the promised picture was secured.
XIII
SAPLING DAYS
At the age of six months, Jan, the son of Finn and Desdemona, weighed
just ninety-eight and one-half pounds, and by reason of his
well-furnished appearance might easily have been mistaken by many people
for a grown hound. He was not really anything like fully grown and
furnished, of course, nor would be until his second year was far
advanced. But the free and healthy life he led, combined with a generous
and correctly thought-out diet, had given him remarkably rapid
development, and the strength to carry it without strain.
At this time Jan had, in outline, assumed his adult appearance. As time
went on he would increase greatly in weight, and to some extent in
height and length. His body would thicken, and his frame would harden
and set; his coat would improve, and his muscles would develop to more
than double their present growth. But in his seventh month one knew what
Jan's appearance was to be; his type had declared itself, and so, to a
considerable extent, had his personality.
There was not a brown hair in Jan's coat; not one hair of any other
color than black or iron-gray. His saddle and haunches were jetty black,
so was the crown of his head. But his muzzle was the right wolfhound
steel-gray. So were his chest, belly, and legs, though the black hairs
crept fairly low down on the outsides of his thighs and hocks, the inner
sides being all hard gray. The gray of his chest extended, like a ruff,
right round the upper part of his neck, forming a break of three or four
inches between the silky blackness of his head and saddle. And all his
coat was thicker, more dense, and longer in the hair than his sire's
coat, which, again, was of course much longer than Desdemona's.
Thus, in color and texture of coat Jan was neither all wolfhound nor all
bloodhound. For the rest, his bodily appearance and build favored his
mother's race more than his father's. The depth and solidity of his head
and muzzle, the length and shape of his ears, the rolling elasticity and
plenitude of his skin and the deep wrinkles it had already formed about
his face, were all features true to bloodhound type, as were also the
thickness and solidity of his frame, the downward poise of his head, and
his deep-pouched crimson-hawed eyes.
But when one saw Jan extended at the gallop, or in the act of leaping a
gate or other obstruction, one was apt to forget the bloodhound in him,
and to remember only his kinship with Finn, the fleetest son of a fleet
race of hunters. Jan had all the wonderfully springy elasticity of the
wolfhound. Already he leaped and ran as a greyhound leaps and runs.
Already, too, his accuracy of balance and his agility were remarkable.
He could trot quickly across the long drawing-room at Nuthill without
sound, and without grazing anything. Occasional tables and the like were
perfectly safe in his path. Despite his ninety-eight and a half pounds
of weight (still rapidly increasing), he could, on occasion, tread
lightly as a cat.
But the bloodhound came out in Jan in other ways besides his appearance.
He was for ever trailing, and used his dark hazel eyes far less than any
wolfhound uses his. In questing about the place for Betty Murdoch, one
noticed that Jan often did not raise his eyes or muzzle from the ground
until he almost touched her skirt. Withal, his vision was keener than
that of Desdemona's or any other typical bloodhound. His eyes served him
well for scanning the Downs; and often he would see a rabbit in the far
distance before picking up its trail. Still, once he did pick up a
trail, he would follow it as no wolfhound could, with unfailing
certitude, and without troubling to use his eyes.
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