d of three hundred Irish Wolfhounds, whose
prowess in battle and in the chase were sung by Oisin in two
thousand, two hundred and seventy-two separate verses. Finn was
chief of King Cormac's household and master of his hounds; for the
most honoured counsellor that the ancient Kings of Ireland had were
masters of the hounds always.

And this was the way of the Irish Wolfhound Finn's entry into the
world, at the end of the first hour of a June day, in the Master's
den beside the Sussex Downs. You may see the embalmed body of his
great mother's sire, Champion O'Leary, if you care to look for it,
in the Natural History Museum at Kensington; woefully shorn of his
imposing beard and shaggy eyebrows, it is true, but yet only less
magnificent in death than he was always in life. Her mother was the
dam of the hound who marches to-day at the head of His Majesty's
Irish Guards. Between them, the sire and dam of Finn would have
scaled three hundred pounds, while either could easily have
stretched to a height above the shoulders of a six-foot man. Finn
rested easily in the palm of the Master's right hand when
christened by the Mistress of the Kennels, for he was little bigger
than a week-old kitten. But he was none the less Finn, the lineal
descendant of King Cormac's battle-hounds of fifteen hundred years
ago; and it was said he had the makings of the biggest Wolfhound
ever bred.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER III

THE FOSTER-MOTHER

Finn's first adventure came to him when he was no more than about
thirty-seven hours old, and, of course, still blind as any bat.
That being so, it may be taken that the grey whelp was not
particularly interested. Still, the event was important, and
probably affected the whole of Finn's after life. This was the way
of it:--

Early on the second morning of his life in this beautiful world,
Finn was lying snugly asleep between his mother's hind-legs on the
great bed at the stove-end of the outside den. When a litter of
puppies are lying with their mother there is always one place which
is snugger, and in various ways rather better than any other place.
You would have said that the little more or less shapeless, blind
lump of gristle and skin that was Finn, at this stage, had no more
intelligence or reasoning power than a potato; but it is to be
noted that, from the very beginning, this best place had been
exclusively occupied by him; and if while he slept one of his
wakeful brothers or siste