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Page 4
"Six hours 'e's kep' me there, an', bli'me, I'd sooner do six months
quod," the weary tramp explained, when the Master had been roused and
Finn called off.
On the morning of his third day at Nuthill it was that Finn first met
the Lady Desdemona. And it happened in this wise: Colonel Forde, of
Shaws, which, as you may know, lies just across the green shoulder of
Down from Nuthill--its fault is that the house is reached only by the
westering sun, while Nuthill's windows catch the first morning rays on
one side and hold some of any sunshine there may be the day
through--wrote, saying that he had heard of Finn's arrival, and would
the Master come across to luncheon with the Mistress and Miss Murdoch,
and bring the wolfhound.
"I hope you will have a look through my kennels with me in the
afternoon," added the Colonel; and that was the kind of invitation
seldom refused by the Master.
It is, of course, a good many years now since the Shaws kennels first
earned the respect of discerning breeders and lovers of bloodhounds. But
to this day there is one kind of doggy man (and woman) who smiles a
shade disdainfully when Colonel Forde's name is mentioned.
"Very much the amateur," they say. And--"A bit too much of a
sentimentalist to be taken seriously," some knowing fellow in a kennel
coat of the latest style will tell you. Perhaps they do not quite know
what they mean. Or perhaps they are influenced by the known fact that
the Colonel has more than once closed his kennel doors to a long
string of safe prizes by refusing to exhibit a second time some hound
who, on a first showing, has won golden opinions and high awards. But
these refusals were never whimsical. They were due always to the
Colonel's decision, based upon close and sympathetic observation,
that, for the particular hound in question, exhibition represented a
painful ordeal.
Among the breeders who at one time or another have visited the Shaws
kennels are a few of the knowing fellows who smile at mention of the
Colonel's name. Well, let them smile. It is perhaps as well for them
that the Colonel is pretty tolerably indifferent alike to their smiles
and to the awards of show judges; for, if Colonel Forde were seriously
bent upon "pot-hunting," there would not be anything like so many "pots"
about for other people; and these particular gentry would not at all
like that.
"Kennels!" said one of them at a dog-show in Brighton, "why, it's more
like a kindergarten. There's a sitting-room, a kind of drawing-room, if
you'll believe me, in the middle of the kennels, for tea-parties! And as
for the dogs, well, they just do whatever they like. As often as not the
kennels are empty, except for pups, and the hounds all over the garden
and house--a regular kindergarten."
It will be seen then that the Colonel must clearly have merited the
disdainful smiles. But I am bound to say I never heard of any one
being bitten or frightened by a dog at Shaws, and it is notorious
that, difficult though bloodhound whelps are to rear, the Colonel
rarely loses one in a litter. Still, "kindergarten" is certainly a
withering epithet in this connection; and one can perfectly understand
the professional's attitude. A sitting-room, nay, worse--"A kind of
drawing-room," in the midst of the kennels! Why, it almost suggests
that, forgetful of prize-winning, advertising, and selling, the
Colonel must positively have enjoyed the mere pleasure of spending a
leisure hour among his dogs; not at a show or in the public eye, but
in the privacy of his own home! Glaring evidence of amateurishness,
this. The knowing ones, as usual, were perfectly correct. That is
precisely what the Colonel was; a genuine amateur of hounds.
III
INTRODUCING THE LADY DESDEMONA
April was uniformly dull and wet that year, but May seemed to bring full
summer in her train; and it was on the morning of the third of May that
Finn went to Shaws with the Nuthill house party.
The turf of the Downs was so springy on this morning that one felt
uplifted by it in walking. Each separate blade of the clover-scented
carpet seemed surcharged with young life. The downland air was as a
tonic wine to every creature that breathed it. The joy of the day was
voiced in the liquid trilling of two larks that sang far overhead. The
place and time gave to the Nuthill party England at her best and
sweetest, than which, as the Master often said, the world has nothing
more lovely to offer; and he was one who had fared far and wide in other
lands.
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