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Updated: June 15, 2025
In a recess beside the hearth in the hall at Nuthill Finn found an oaken platform, or bench, five feet long by two and a half feet wide. It stood perhaps fifteen inches from the floor, on four stout legs, and its two ends and back had sides eight inches high. The front was open, and the bench itself was covered by a 'possum-skin rug.
But there still were people in the district whom he visited upon occasion as a doctor, and his friends at Nuthill were among the favored few. Such visits, however, did not in any way affect his income, which, as the result of an unexpected legacy some twelve or fourteen years before this time, was a substantial one, even apart from professional earnings or the rents of Upcroft.
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.
But experience had brought him none of those lessons which had given Finn his prudent reserve, his carefully non-committal attitude where human strangers were concerned. For example, supposing Finn and Jan to be lying somewhere in the neighborhood of the porch at Nuthill when a strange man whom neither had ever seen before appeared in the garden, both dogs would immediately rise to their feet.
Once he had felt the Master's hand burrowing in the wiry gray hair of his neck, Finn knew well that they were homeward bound, that the unaccountable period of separation was over, and that he would very presently see the Mistress of the Kennels; as in fact he did, that very night, at Nuthill by the Downs.
Betty Murdoch round-figured, rosy, high-spirited, a great lover of out of doors, and aged now twenty-two had been much exercised in her mind as to what Finn would think of her, when he arrived at Nuthill, after the long railway journey from Plymouth. She had seen the wolfhound only once before, when she was somewhat less grown-up and he was still in puppyhood, before the visit to Australia.
I declare, you've quite the old bush-ranging air to-night. Where have you been?" asked the Master, when Finn rejoined his own family circle in the hall at Nuthill, toward bedtime that night. Finn silently nuzzled the under side of the Master's right wrist; but, though his dark eyes were eloquent, it was beyond him to explain either his doings or his emotions.
Bates was to escort her on the nuptial journey, and all arrangements for the wedding of the distinguished pair had been completed. And now "Just as if she mighter bin any tramp's cur," as Bates feelingly put it Desdemona had elected to stay away and to remain away. And the news from Nuthill showed that "That there plaguy great wolfhound" was also on the missing list.
Jan speedily became an object of affectionate interest for every member of the Nuthill household, and was, from the first, the special and well-loved protégé of Betty Murdoch, a privilege which, of itself, would have insured his well-being. For Betty was an eminently sensible girl, besides being a kindly, merry lover of animals and outdoor life.
That is precisely what the Colonel was; a genuine amateur of hounds. 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.
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