ricks. His side was aching dully, and Finn was rather unhappy
over finding no sign of the home beside the Downs where his friends
were, and his own comfortable bed. Having allowed his mind to dwell
upon this for several minutes, he sat down on his haunches near one
of the ricks, and howled to the stars about it all for quite a
while, and so effectively that a farmer, sitting in his comfortable
dining-room nearly half a mile away, made a remark to his daughter
about the new-fangled way these pesky motor-car people have of
blowing fog-horns like the ships at sea, and carrying on as if the
road belonged to them--drat 'un!

It was not active unhappiness, let alone misery like that of the
previous night, that moved Finn to this vocal display; but only a
kind of gentle melancholy such as we call home-sickness, and after
five minutes of it, he curled up beside one of the ricks, after
scratching and turning round and round sufficiently to make a kind
of burrow for himself, and was fast asleep in about two minutes.

In the morning, long before the dew was off the grass, Finn set out
to do what he had never done a before: he set out deliberately to
hunt and kill some creature for his breakfast. He very nearly
caught an unwary partridge, though the bird did not tempt him
nearly so strongly as a thing that ran upon the earth, and ran
fast. In the end his menu was that of the previous evening, and, as
he eyed its still warm and furry remains, Finn felt that life was
really a very good thing, even when one had a pain in one's side,
and a large assortment of bruises and sore places in various other
parts of one's body.

Towards midday Finn lounged into a rather large village, and did
not like it at all. It stirred up in him the recollection of Matey
and his horrible environment, and he began to hurry, impelled by a
nervous dread of some kind of treachery. Towards the end of the
village he passed a pretty, creeper-grown cottage, from the door of
which a policeman issued. The policeman stared at Finn, and smacked
his own leg. Then he bent his body in an insinuating manner and
called to the Wolfhound: "Here, boy! Here, good dog! Come along!"
But Finn only lengthened his stride, and presently broke into a
gallop. He was no longer the guileless, trustful Finn of a week
ago. The rural constable sighed as he resumed an erect position and
watched Finn's disappearing form.

"He must be the dog that's wanted, all right; reg'ler monster, I