aws stretched
wide for slaughter. But something always intervened to prevent Finn
taking the leap. The something was this: at the moment of the leap,
Matey always looked more like a man and less like a rabbit, and the
instinct which told Finn not to slay a man was a very strong one.
But, somehow, rabbit-Matey seemed an exception. Finn was very
anxious to feel the crunching of his shoulder and neck bones; and
altogether it was unfortunate that such a dream should have been
inspired in the brain of so nobly born a hound.

When Finn finally woke he gaped right in the eye of the setting
sun, and all about him was the solemn silence of a fine October
twilight. He yawned cavernously, and, raising his haunches,
stretched his huge trunk from fore-paws placed far out. But, in the
midst of the stretch, he gave a little smothered yelp of pain, and
came to earth again, solicitously licking at the ribs of his right
side. Matey's heavy boot had done great execution there. Slowly,
then, Finn rose, and walked out into the darkening twilight of the
field. Before he had covered a hundred yards, a rabbit started up
from behind a bush, and scurried hedgewards for its life. But the
distance was too great for bunny by three yards, and Finn's jaws
snapped his backbone in sunder within six feet of his own burrow.
This was hard on the rabbit; but it was no more than one tiny
instance of the outworking of Nature's most inexorable law. Finn
had killed many rabbits before this evening; but in the past he had
merely obeyed his hunting and killing instinct. Now this instinct
in him was sharpened by hunger, by having slept on the open earth,
and by being conscious of no human control or protection. Finn
proceeded to eat this particular rabbit, and that was distinctly a
new experience for him, and one that left him upon the whole
pleased with himself. He was not aware of the fact, of course, but
this simple act placed him more nearly on terms with his ancestors
than anything else he had ever done, unless, perhaps, one counts
the dream acts of that afternoon.

After his meal Finn strolled along the hedge-side till he came to a
gap, and then slipped through to the road. For a mile or two he
trotted along the silent road with no particular object in view,
and then, coming to a grassy lane, turned into that, and trotted
for another mile or two, leaping a gate and a stile which barred
his way at intervals, and coming presently to a group of three
large