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The noise of barking, the pungency and variety of smells, and the crowded multiplicity of doggy personalities were at first overpowering, and Finn and his sister walked with lowered tails, quick-shifting eyes, raised hackles, and twitching skin.
There was nobody who did not believe as a matter of course that there was something shameful about Finn blood, and he, therefore, always tried to avoid her in company. The girl understood it all well enough, for latterly she took care to keep out of his way.
The landlady's son, who had paid her a flying visit that day, appeared in the passage in his shirt sleeves, holding a small lamp. The landlady closed the front door, and together the two walked upstairs to where Finn sat, whining softly, and pawing at the closed door of what had been the Master's sitting-room.
After a time, Finn and the stranger came to a little town, and walked into the yard of an inn. There another man met them, to whom Finn's friend said, hurriedly "I'll walk straight on. You drive on with the cart after me. Don't stop till you're clear of the village." "You've got him, then?" said the second man. "Never you mind about that. Can't yer see I've got him? You get the pony out."
The Master watched closely, but nothing happened, save that the bitch ostentatiously closed her eyes. Then instinct moved again, strongly, in shapeless little Finn, and he straddled the foster's nose, so that his round stomach pressed on her nostrils. There he wriggled helplessly. Then a curious thing happened, while the Master leaned forward, prepared to snatch the pup from danger.
It was difficult to say that he had grown much since his fifteenth month, and yet he looked a very much bigger dog, and, above all, he looked and was very much stronger. There was no longer anything immature or unformed about Finn.
When they were nearly a mile away, the old dingo began to howl dismally; and when Finn made his first kill, seven miles to the north-west of Mount Desolation, old Tufter he had a sort of mop at the end of a rather scraggy tail was on hand, and yowling eagerly for scraps.
The drainage of their chalky soil was such that their surface could not hold much moisture, and outside the Downs the world was as yet a closed book to Finn. But spring asserted itself notably in his veins, and appeared to enter into a partnership with his lusty youth, and wholesome, generous scale of living, to speed the young Wolfhound's growth in wonderful style.
The Master was leading Finn, and, before they entered the ring, he passed his hand solicitously over the dog's immature brows and beard once or twice, even as a very young man may be noticed to tug at his moustache with a view, presumably, to making the very most of it.
Finn has been made a lord of something," said Madame Max Goesler. "I had the pleasure of a long political discussion with him the other night, and I quite approve of him." "We are so much gratified, Mr. Finn," said Lady Laura. "Mr. Kennedy says that it is the best appointment they could have made, and papa is quite proud about it."
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