Part 2 (2/2)
”Yes; I see.” The Mistress of the Kennels was thoughtfully balancing on the tip of her fore-finger a big wooden spoon, used in the mixing of Tara's meals. ”But why do you choose Finn for the foster?”
”Well, now, that's rather a nice point, and involves a conviction of mine which I know you'll resent, because you rightly think Tara the perfection of all that a Wolfhound should be. But the conviction is right, all the same. A mongrel's milk is far stronger, heartier food than the milk of so highly-bred a great lady as dear old Tara. Tara gives the most aristocratic blood in the world; but when you come to food, the nourishment that is to build up bone and muscle, and hardy health--that's different. Also, I only mean to give the foster this one pup, though I dare say she is capable of rearing two or three. Therefore that one pup ought to do exceedingly well with her. Now Finn, as you see him, is the biggest pup I ever knew, and I want to give him every chance of growing into the biggest Irish Wolfhound living. That's why he is going to have this sheep-dog foster all to his little self, and, unless I'm mistaken, you'll find him in a week the fattest little tub of a pup in all England--the fatter the better at this stage, so the food's wholesome and digestible.”
In about one hour from that time, Finn woke among his strange bedfellows, and trampled all over them, in a vain and wrathful search for his mother's dugs. Then he bleated vigorously for three minutes; and then the warmth of that snug corner of the kitchen sent him off to sleep again.
Another hour pa.s.sed, and when Finn woke this time one could tell from the furious lunges he made over the little bodies of his foster-brothers that he had arrived at a serious determination to let nothing stand any longer between himself and a good square meal. He would take one indignant step forward (as it might have been a rather gouty and very choleric old gentleman, prepared to tear down his bell-rope if dinner were not served that minute); then his podgy little fore-legs would double up, and the next few inches of progress would be made on blunt little pink nose, and round little stomach, his hind-legs being flattened out behind him in the exact position of a frog's while swimming. Several times Finn quite thought he had at length found a teat, and, in its infantile, impotent way, the blind fury he displayed was quite terrible, when he discovered that he was merely chewing the muzzle of one of the other pups. On one of these occasions, Finn spluttered and swore so vehemently that the effort completely robbed him of what rudimentary sense of balance he had, and he rolled over on his back, leaving all his four pink feet wriggling in the air in a pa.s.sion of protest.
It was in this undignified position that the Master presently found the grey whelp, and he chuckled as he picked up Finn, with two of the other pups, and wrapped them together in a warm blanket. The remaining puppy was handed over to the gardener and seen no more in that place; so it is safe to a.s.sume that this little creature's life embraced no sorrows or disillusions. The next thing Finn knew was that his gaping mouth, held open by the Master's thumb and forefinger, was being pressed against a soft surface from which warm milk trickled. ”At last!” one can imagine Finn muttering, if he had been old enough to know how to talk. Immediately his little hind-legs began to work like pistons, and his fore-paws to knead and pound at the soft udder from which the milk was drawn. Finn, with his two foster-brothers, was at the dugs of the foster-mother, a soft-eyed little sheep-dog, then occupying a very comfortable corner of the big bed in the coach-house.
The Master sat watchfully beside the sheep-dog. She was very glad to be eased of some of her superabundance of milk, and curved her elastic body forward to simplify matters for the pups. Then she began to lick the back and flank of the pup nearest her head; one of her own. The Master leaned forward. The foster's sensitive nose pa.s.sed over the back of the first pup to the wriggling tail of Finn; and her big eyes hardened and looked queerly straight down her muzzle at the fat grey back of the stranger; a back twice as broad as those of her own pups. The black nostrils quivered and expanded, expressing suspicious resentment. No warm tongue curled out over Finn's fat back; but, instead, a nose made curiously harsh and unsympathetic pushed him clear away from the place he had selected, after spluttering hurried investigation, and out upon the straw of the bed.
Immediately then, and almost before Finn's sticky mouth could open in a bleat of protest, the Master's hand had returned him to the warm dugs. Again came the harsh, suspicious nose of the foster about Finn's tail, and this time a low growl followed the resentful sniff, and blind, helpless, unformed little jelly that Finn was, instinct made him wriggle fearfully from under that cold nose. The language in which b.i.t.c.hes speak to the very young among puppies is simplicity itself. The Master, human though he was, had not failed to catch the sense of this observation of the foster's, which was:--
”Get out of here, you lumping great whelp! You're not mine, and I won't nurse you. Get out, or I'll bite. It's true you've somehow got the smell of mine; but--you can't deceive me. Gr-r-r-! Get out!”
But, though Finn instinctively wriggled his hind-quarters from under that cold muzzle, his mouth and fore-feet vigorously pursued their business; and, before the threatened bite came, the Master's hand (a firm one, and soothing to dog people) had caressingly pressed the foster's head back upon the straw, and held it there.
”There, there, little woman,” he said, good-humouredly. ”Let him have his chance; he's a good pup, and will do you great credit presently.”
His hand continued to rest on the sheep-dog's neck or head, till the three pups were comfortably full, and the foster herself was comfortably eased of her bounteous milk-supply. Then, gently, he removed his hand, and the foster proceeded to lick her own two pups with exemplary diligence. Out of consideration for the Master, whom she found an obviously well-meaning person, she refrained from taking any active steps against the big grey pup, but she very pointedly ignored him. And when, in due course, Finn came galumphing about her neck, with all the doddering insolence of the full-fed pup, she turned her head in the opposite direction with cool superciliousness, and exhaled a long breath through her nose, as though she found the air offensive. But the Master petted her, and gave her a very little warm bread and milk. Then he took the three puppies away in the warm blanket and handed one of them to some one who waited outside the door of the back-kitchen. Finn, with one sleepy foster-brother, was replaced in the hamper near the kitchen stove.
A couple of hours later, the foster-mother began to worry, and to wish that her puppies would come and take another meal. At about the same time Finn and his diminutive companion in the hamper began to worry, and to wish that they could have another meal. Ten minutes after that they were carried down to the coach-house, and put to nurse again. While they fed vigorously, the foster, apparently by accident, touched Finn once or twice with her tongue, in process of licking her own pup; and she did not growl.
”Good!” said the Master, and he sat down on a little barrel of disinfectant powder to fill a pipe.
Then both puppies began to grovel and slide about the foster's legs and body; this being the natural order of things for very young puppies: to feed full, to grovel and wriggle, to sleep; and then to begin again at the beginning. But for the complete comfort and well-being of puppies at this age, certain maternal attentions, apart from the provision of nourishment, are requisite. For several minutes the foster-mother plied her own offspring with every good office, and severely ignored the rotund and would-be playful Finn.
Then the sheep-dog lay flat on her side, and breathed out through her nostrils a statement to the effect that:--
”That is really quite as far as I can be expected to go. This big grey creature has fed beside mine, and I have suffered it, as a matter of charity; but---no more. The great clumsy thing must s.h.i.+ft for itself now.”
But Finn appeared to think otherwise. His mode of progression was rather that of an intoxicated snake, or an over-fed turtle on dry land; but he managed to stagger along as far as the foster's muzzle, and swayed there on his little haunches within reach of her warm breath. Instinct guided the pup so far, and left him waiting vaguely uncomfortable.
The Master watched closely, but nothing happened, save that the b.i.t.c.h 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 s.n.a.t.c.h the pup from danger. The sheep-dog emitted a low, angry growl, which filled Finn with uncomprehending fear, and toppled him over on his fat back. But, even while she growled, maternity a.s.serted its claim strongly in the kindly heart of this soft-eyed sheep-dog. Finn did not know in the least what he wanted; but the wise little sheep-dog did; and, her growl ended, she rolled Finn into the required position with her nose, and gave him the licking and tongue-was.h.i.+ng which his bodily comfort demanded, with quiet, conscientious thoroughness.
When this was over, Finn, feeling ever so much more content, sidled back to a place beside the other pup, and in a minute the pair of them were fast asleep in the warm shelter of the foster's flank.
Then the Master laid down his pipe, and bent forward to stroke and fondle the little sheep-dog for two or three minutes, chatting with her, and establis.h.i.+ng firmly the friends.h.i.+p already begun between them. And then, feeling quite safe in the matter, now that the foster had once licked Finn into comfort, he went away, and left the three together while he paid a visit to Tara.
Next morning, while the foster-mother was being petted and fed in the garden, some one removed her own little puppy from the bed, and when she returned to the coach-house, full of the contentment inspired by a good meal, a little exercise, and a deal of kindly petting, it was to find her bed occupied only by the big grey whelp. But she showed no more than momentary surprise and uneasiness, and within the minute was busily engaged in giving Finn his morning tubbing and polis.h.i.+ng, after which she disposed herself with great consideration in a position which made nursing an easy delight for Finn, and enabled his a.s.siduous foster-mother to watch the undulations of his fat back, out of the tail of her left eye, while apparently sleeping.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER IV
FIRST STEPS
The st.u.r.dy, kindly, plebeian sheep-dog proved an admirable foster-mother, diligent, thorough, and forgetful of nothing, not even of her own needs and well-being, though it was evident that these were served from quite unselfish motives, and obliged to take a secondary place in all her thoughts. It was particularly well for Finn that the sheep-dog proved so sterling a soul; for, though he naturally knew and cared nothing about it all, Finn received less attention during the next few days from the Master and the Mistress than they were wont to give their canine families. Of course, the foster was properly fed and given exercise and otherwise looked after; but the Master did not smoke his pipe in the coach-house, and the Mistress of the Kennels did not sit on the side of the bed for half an hour at a time and stroke the foster's ears while admiring her nursling, as certainly would have happened in normal circ.u.mstances.
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