|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 32
XVI
GOOD-BY TO DICK
On a day in February, Dr. Vaughan and his son Dick ate their dinner at
Nuthill, and spent most of the evening there, around the hall fire. On
the flanks of the big recessed fireplace, one on either side, Finn and
Jan lay stretched, dozing happily. Jan's wounds were long since healed
now, and the rapid growth of his thick coat had already gone far toward
hiding the scars, though it could not quite mask the fact that a piece
of his right ear was missing. Jan was more than eight months old now,
and scaled just over a hundred and twenty pounds.
Late in the evening Dick Vaughan (who had honorably held to his pact
with the Master where Betty Murdoch was concerned) had a little chat
with Jan, whose ears he pulled affectionately, while the youngster sat
with muzzle resting on Dick's knee.
"Don't much like saying good-by to you, Jan, boy," said Dick Vaughan.
"Ah, well, there need not be any good-bys to-night, Dick," said the
Master. "We'll all be at the station in the morning, Finn and Jan as
well."
"Ha! that's good of you," said Dick. "But you'll never let that
youngster run five miles behind a carriage, will you? Isn't he too
gristly in the legs yet, for the weight he carries?"
The Master smiled. "Trust me for that, Dick. I've reared too many big
wolfhound pups to make that mistake. A few such road trips as that, and
Master Jan would never again show a real gun-barrel fore leg. Why, he
weighs a hundred and twenty pounds! No; old Finn will lope alongside of
us, but Master Jan can have a seat inside. I have seen some of the best
and biggest hounds ever bred spoiled for life by being allowed to follow
horses on the road in their first year. There was Donovan, by Champion
Kerry, you know. He might have beaten Finn, I believe, if they hadn't
ruined him in his sixth month, trying to harden his feet behind a
dog-cart on the great north road. The result was, when he was shown at
the Palace in his eleventh month, his fore legs had gone for ever--like
a dachshund's."
"Ah! When I get back," said Dick, musingly, you'll be pretty nearly a
two-year-old, Jan, boy."
"And if all goes well, he will be as strong a hound as any in England;
won't he, Betty? You'll see to that."
"I will if you'll help to keep us going the right way," said Betty,
smiling at the Master.
And so, directly after an early breakfast, the Nuthill party drove to
the station, with Jan on the floor of the wagonette and Finn pacing
easily beside it. There was quite an assembly on the platform of the
little station to see "young Mr. Vaughan" off. For he was bound for
Liverpool that day, where he was to meet Captain Will Arnutt, of the
Royal North-west Mounted Police of Canada, with whom he was to embark
for Halifax, _en route_ for Regina, in Saskatchewan, the headquarters of
the R.N.W.M.P., for which fine service Dick Vaughan had enlisted, after
a stiff course of training under Captain Arnutt's personal supervision.
"Between ourselves," the captain had told the Master, in Lewes, a week
or two earlier, "neither I nor the Royal North-west have much to teach
young Vaughan in the matter of horsemanship, and I look to see him make
as fine a trooper as any we've got. But there's one thing we can give
him, and that's discipline. We can teach him to face the devil himself
at two o'clock in the morning without blinking--and I think he'll take
it well. I don't mind a scrap about his having been a bit wild. He's got
the right stuff in him; and, man, he's got as pretty a punch, with the
gloves on, as ever I saw in my life. An archangel couldn't make better
use of his left than young Vaughan."
This rather tickled the Master, who up till then had never considered
archangelic possibilities in boxing.
"I was certain the boy was all right," he said.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|