MASTER CARTY’S BOTTLE
Now I must hark back to Master Carty.
He couldn’t seem to get over his tippling for a long time after he came
to Green Hill--not until something happened.
I have referred before to my conversation with Gringo about Master
Carty’s troublesome habit. The good old dog never mentioned the
tiresome young man, till three months after that, when one day, as
he and I were taking a stroll in the young orchard to get some of a
new kind of young grass that was springing up about the baby trees,
and that was very good for our stomachs, we saw Master Carty taking a
short cut across to the house. There was a gentle hill in the orchard,
and just as our naughty young man got near it, out came a flask from
his pocket. He was just going to take a long pull out of it, when old
Gringo pretended to see a mouse in the earth, gave chase, and stumbled
in front of the self-indulgent young man.
Ordinarily Gringo doesn’t worry about the mice. He’s not that kind of
a dog. One of my duties is to hunt them, so they won’t hide under the
snow in winter, and girdle the fruit trees.
Well, away went the flask. I sprang to pick it up, grabbed it, held it
carefully neck down, and laid it at Master Carty’s feet.
He praised me, and aimed a kick at Gringo. The old dog stared at him
thoughtfully, and didn’t say anything, but the next day he played a
fine trick on him.
It was a pouring wet day, but still Mrs. Granton and George Washington
had gone over in the limousine to spend the day with Mrs. Bonstone,
Cyria and the twins.
The air was so warm that they were all sitting out on the partly
covered-in veranda. The rain beat against the glass, but Cyria and our
baby were snug inside, playing with a Noah’s ark and a box of blocks.
The two little tots sat on a rug, and the twin babies lay asleep in a
pretty swinging cot. Mrs. Bonstone lounged in a reclining chair beside
them, and my mistress rocked and talked and knitted a sock for George
Washington.
I was in a corner, having an after-lunch nap. Human beings would do
well if they could imitate dogs, and throw themselves down for a rest
after eating. Usually, they get up from the table and fly at their work
harder than ever.
After a while, I thought I would go up to the barn and see what the
other dogs were doing, for no one was in sight but Amarilla, who never
ventured far from Mrs. Granton.
On rainy days, it was the custom for the dogs to assemble on the barn
floor to have a gossip.
I found the whole bunch up there, every one with lip curled, and
indulging in a hearty fit of dog laughter. Even Gringo, who was not too
old to enjoy a joke, was just shaking with dog amusement. The polite
Frenchmen were giggling, while the nervous Yeggie ran up and down,
squealing and yapping with delight. Czarina’s aristocratic lip was
curled high in enjoyment, and Weary Winnie, forgetting her laziness,
was rolling over and over in the hay ki-yiing with glee.
Sir Walter Scott was missing; probably he was huddled in one of the
hen-houses and letting the chicken Betsy roost on his back to keep her
feet from getting damp.
“What’s the joke, boys?” I asked.
“Let me speak, oh! let me speak,” said the dancing Yeggie. “Mr. Carty
comes home by the train, he has to walk from the station, ’cause
there’s nobody’s car there to give him a lift. Yeggie happens to be
down there calling on a friend, Yeggie follows him home.”
This dog always speaks of himself by his name, instead of using
a pronoun. He is a silly little fellow, yet lovable, and he has
occasional strains of sense.
“Well,” I said. “I don’t see any joke yet, but go on, and don’t jump up
and down the whole time you’re talking.”
Yeggie continued, “Master Carty’s rubber stuck in the mud, Master
Carty said a naughty word, and stooped down to pull it on. Yeggie saw
something wicked in his pocket.”
“A flask, I suppose,” I said.
“No, not a flask; that wasn’t big enough for to-day. It was a bottle
with strong stuff in it--Yeggie smelt it.”
“Well, what did Yeggie do?” I asked impatiently.
“Yeggie did nothing. He just watched. Master Carty was talking to
himself. ‘If I take this brandy in the house, those blessed’--only
Yeggie didn’t hear blessed--‘women will be watering it, and I’m wet
enough without any more diluting. I’ll hide it.’”
“And you marked the hiding place, and came and told Gringo.”
“Yes, Yeggie did,” and the little Jack-in-the-box almost danced his
legs off.
“And what did you do, Gringo?” I asked, turning to him.
“I thought about that kick he gave me yesterday,” said the old dog. “A
man who starts kicking animals, winds up by kicking human beings. If I
should ever see Master Carty kick Mrs. Bonstone, or the brown baby, I’d
bite him. So I thought we’d better extract the kick right now.”
“Isn’t this terrible,” I exclaimed. “He’s bringing far too many bottles
from the city lately. It’s amazing how many drinks a day a man can
take.”
“He’s a scamp,” said Gringo, “but he’ll get nothing out of his bottle
this time. I ran up here, when Yeggie told me, and what do you think
we’ve done to the bottle?”
“Hidden it of course, but where?”
“No, not hidden it,” said Gringo, “we’ve smashed it.”
“Let me finish, oh! let me finish,” squealed Yeggie, and he went on.
“Master Carty didn’t hide his bottle in the bushes the way he does
sometimes. Yeggie saw him bring it here to the barn. He climbed the
ladder to the hay-mow, he tucked it somewhere and came down.”
“You see,” said Gringo to me, “he wanted to have it in some place easy
to get at in this storm, and where he could have some good excuse
for calling on it. He’d run out here to see the horses in the stable
beyond, then he’d have a swig at his old bottle.”
“The rogue!” I said irritably.
“Smell! smell! smell!” cried Yeggie, dancing up and down, “it’s right
here.”
I had noticed a heavy smell of brandy when I came in the barn, and now
I trotted to the other end near the big open doors, and there on the
floor, lay the remains of a bottle on a bed of wet oats.
One of the men had spilt the horses’ feed, and hay and oats were all
mixed up with the nasty drink.
“But how did you get the bottle down from the hay-mow?” I asked.
Old Czarina began to laugh, and licked the ear of the poodle next her.
“Frenchmen are clever,” she murmured.
I stared at the poodles. In the days of their captivity, they had
learned how to climb ladders. They were now never asked to perform any
tricks. One day, when we first came out here, Mrs. Bonstone had shown a
neighbour’s boy what odd things they could do, and his mother told Mrs.
Bonstone afterwards that he went home and tried to teach his dog, and
beat him cruelly when he would not learn until she interfered and took
his stick from him.
“That settles it,” said Mrs. Bonstone, “no more clown tricks for our
dogs. They may be as intelligent as they please along their own lines,
but they shall not be asked to imitate human beings. They may do it on
their own initiative, if they wish.”
The Frenchmen, however, really liked to climb, and Mrs. Bonstone smiled
when she saw those two white dogs going, paw over paw, up the ladders
that led to the hay-mows. The barn loft was a great place for them to
retire to when they wanted a nap.
The stableman, however, did not smile. One day I heard Thomas talking
severely to the two Frenchmen who stood before him like two culprits.
“If I ever ketch you two young limbs messing up the hay for my horses
again, I’ll lather you,” he said, and he shook a strap at them. “Horses
hate to have dogs, and cats, and any critters lying on their feed. How
would you like a horse to lie on your breakfus, hey?” and he hung the
strap up where they could see it.
The Frenchmen trembled, and went away with hanging heads, and from that
day to this, I had never heard of their climbing to the mows. So I said
to Czarina, “Weren’t they afraid to go up there?”
“Ask them,” she said with a motion of her noble head toward them.
The Frenchmen bowed politely--they always did everything together, and
each one lifting a forepaw, curled it slightly, to signify that they
had mounted to the mow and found the bottle.
“And pushed it down?” I asked.
“Yes! yes!” said all the dogs.
“My! what a smash it made,” cried Yeggie. “Yeggie jumped, and then the
smell--wow!” and he twisted his muzzle all up in a knot.
“Brave dogs,” I exclaimed, “especially brave, since you so hate a
bottle, but weren’t you afraid Thomas would catch you?”
“Yeggie watched,” cried the little dog. “If Yeggie barked once, it
meant some one was coming, and the Frenchmen must drop on the hay, and
be dead dogs. Two barks from Yeggie meant that they had time to skip
down the ladder. But no one came.”
I congratulated the two poodles on their cleverness, and asked whether
the men had found the bottle.
“No. We found out after we’d had the trouble of watching for them, that
they’d fed the stock for the night, and had gone to the city on a half
holiday. The chauffeur is to shut the barn doors in an hour.”
“Master Carty will be out before then to call on the bottle,” I said.
“He’s coming, boys, he’s coming,” said Weary Winnie suddenly. She had
been staring out the barn door in the direction of the house. We dogs
all scattered, except Yeggie who crept behind a grain measure.
Later on Yeggie, with wicked glee, related Master Carty’s
disappointment and anger on not finding the bottle. He climbed to the
mow, groped about in the hay, came down, smelt his lost treasure, raged
at the men who he thought had stolen it, and flung himself back to the
house in a passion, telling what he was going to do to be revenged on
the thieves.
That was not the last of the bottle. The next scene in its history came
the next morning. A terrible thunderstorm coming on at dinner time this
same day, prevented my master and mistress from taking the baby home.
They often stayed all night at the Bonstones’, who had plenty of guest
rooms.
Everybody was late for breakfast the next morning. The dear human
beings had sat up late talking the night before, over the library fire
that Mrs. Bonstone had had lighted to make things look cheerful.
Gringo and I were the first downstairs. We ran out-of-doors, and to
our surprise, were met on the front veranda by Czarina, Yeggie, the
Frenchmen, and even Weary Winnie, all in the most extraordinary state
of excitement.
“Come up to the barn,” they cried, “come up to the barn,” and not a
word more would they say.
We ran up like foxes, and there in front of the barn a most peculiar
thing was taking place.
Sir Walter stood with his aristocratic face in a snarl of worry. He
was staring at his big flock of Wyandottes who were behaving in a most
erratic manner.
“If those hens weren’t so steady,” I said, “I would guess that they are
trying to do a cake walk.”
Yeggie could keep still no longer, and just burst out, “They’re doing
the Carty walk--they got at the bottle. Yeggie saw ’em.”
“What!” I barked wildly.
“Shut up,” said Gringo giving him a nip, “you’re making Scott feel
sore,” and he threw a compassionate glance at Sir Walter.
“I will explain,” said Czarina in her slow, solemn way, and she began,
“You remember the oats that got soaked with the brandy yesterday
afternoon?”
“Perfectly,” I replied.
“This morning,” she continued, “when Thomas threw open the barn doors,
Sir Walter, who had just got the hens roused, drove them in here to get
some nice dry hayseed. They said it would have been better for them to
get out early, and pick up the fat worms that had come up on the soil
loosened by the rain. However, Sir Walter didn’t know that. I think he
thought the wet ground would be bad for the chickens’ feet. Be that as
it may, the hens obeyed him, came in here, and he calmly watched them
while they crowded about the spilled oats. He has a good vein of Scotch
thrift, and he thought it was a good thing to save the oats.
“However, they were affected immediately. You know any kind of a bird
has a short digestive tract. When they began to stagger, he withdrew
to that spot, and he will not allow any of us to explain the affair to
him.”
“Well, some one’s got to put him wise about it,” said Gringo decidedly,
“and right away. I believe I’ll do it,” and he set out in his sturdy
fashion to have a talk with Sir Walter. For a long time, they stood
with their heads close together, then Sir Walter, with a furious face,
bolted toward the house.
He had never liked Master Carty very much, for the young man used to
tease him unmercifully, and no dog likes persecution any more than a
human being does. I knew what he was going to do, and I whispered to
Gringo, “If I’m not greatly mistaken, we shall soon see Mrs. Bonstone
in the arena.”
Sure enough, as we heard later, Sir Walter burst into the bed-room of
the lady he loved so dearly, and served so well in his devotion to
her hens, and pulling at her gown, until she hurriedly finished her
dressing, induced her to come up to the barn with him.
I shall never forget her face, as she stood staring at us, at the hens,
and at Thomas and Joe, who by this time had appeared, and were yelling
with glee at the sight of the tipsy hens.
They quieted down when they saw Mrs. Bonstone, and one of them
beginning to sniff, followed his nose, till he walked straight to the
spot where the bottle still lay in the midst of the few oats left.
“Some one’s been having a spree here,” said Joe.
Mrs. Bonstone swooped down, caught up the broken neck of the bottle,
and despite herself, could not help flashing him a suspicious glance.
“I’m a teetotaller, ma’am,” he said shortly. “Joe and me never brings
nothin’ from the city.”
She winced as if he had struck her. She knew she had done wrong to
suspect him, but I have noticed that wherever drink goes, it breeds
suspicion and mistrust even in the good.
“Forgive me, Thomas,” she said softly, and there were tears in her
eyes. “I know it wasn’t you, nor Joe.”
Then the tears began to roll down her cheeks, and she went swiftly
back to the house. She did not like to see her pretty hens staggering
against each other, and leaning up against the trees in the orchard,
and she knew very well who was responsible for their condition.
She sent her husband and Mr. Granton out, and I thought they would kill
themselves laughing at the plight of her hens. They were powerfully
ridiculous, and to see Sir Walter trying to bunch them, and get them
into their hen-houses to hide their shame, was as good as a play. He
ran round and round them with his tongue out, and panted for all he was
worth. The poor creatures tried to obey him, but they had little use of
their legs, and finally he flopped down on the grass, and made up his
mind just to wait till they got over it.
Only Betsy was sober, and she walked curiously all round her
companions, lifting one claw high in the air, then the other, and
saying softly, “Ka! Ka!” She was too dainty to eat oats, and had been
holding herself in, to share in Sir Walter’s nice breakfast down at the
house, as she usually did.
“That’s right, Walter,” said Mr. Bonstone mopping his eyes, “let them
sleep it off. Good dog,” and he patted him.
I ran behind the two men as they went to the house. I wanted to hear
what they said.
“There’s a serious side to this, Granton,” said Mr. Bonstone, “and my
wife will be worried to death. Some one has brought forbidden fruit
here. It’s between the men and that scamp Carty.”
My master was very careful about meddling with his friend’s private
affairs; however he said softly, “No tramp could pass your dogs. I
believe your men are beyond suspicion, but it’s always safe to give the
suspected person the benefit of the doubt.”
“All right,” said Mr. Bonstone briskly. “We’ll go on the supposition
that the offender is unknown.”
The ladies were at breakfast when we entered, and very sweet and pretty
they looked, as they sat at a well-spread table, drawn up close to some
windows overlooking the rose-garden.
My dear mistress had got a little more flesh, and I thought her quite
handsome now, but she never ceased inwardly bemoaning the fact that her
beauty had fled, though she said little about it.
“Let it stay fled,” Gringo often growled. “She’s a better woman without
it.”
“No, Rudolph, I don’t want to look at drunken hens, or drunken
anything,” she said, when my master invited her to go up to the
orchard, and see how amusing the hens were. “Suppose George Washington
should drink when he grows up,” and she shuddered.
“The drink will all be banished by that time,” said her husband
good-naturedly. “You women are getting so decided on the subject.”
“I don’t see how you men can jest,” she went on. “I think it’s a very
sad subject--a very sad one,” and she pursed up her lips.
Her husband didn’t answer, but he was pleased with her attitude, for
he gave her enough fried chicken for two women, and usually he tried to
scrimp her about her food, for he was so afraid of the dreadful flesh
coming back.
I think Mr. Bonstone was in misery till breakfast was over. He had
put Carty out of his mind, and I knew that there floated continually
before his eyes the vision of those white beauties who were no longer
mistresses of themselves. He choked once or twice over his coffee, and
finally he went off by himself in the rose-garden, and indulged in what
Sir Walter calls a burst of Homeric laughter.
“I don’t see why he wants to laugh that way,” Sir Walter often says
to me. “It’s so underbred. I like the way Mrs. Bonstone laughs much
better.”
“He’s having a good time,” Gringo always growls, if he hears this
criticism, “and he’s hurting no one. Let him alone.”
Master Carty came in very late for breakfast that morning, and only the
two ladies were left. He had slept off his ill-temper over the loss of
his bottle, and was in his usual waggish, teasing mood.
He pulled his sister’s hair as he passed her, and made an amusing face
at Mrs. Granton.
His sister began to whimper a bit, and I knew a scene was coming.
“What’s the matter, Sis?” he asked kindly. “Has Bonstone been beating
you--don’t cry in my coffee, if he has. It will only weaken me, when I
punish him.”
“The h-h-hens are all drunk,” she said as she passed him his cup.
“Drunk!” he exclaimed, “and what do they find to get drunk on in this
double-distilled temperance household? Spring water, eh?”
“Some one brought this bottle to the place,” said Mrs. Bonstone,
dramatically withdrawing from under the table the broken neck that she
had picked up in the barn.
Master Carty started, and said, “Ye gods! Have I found the murderer of
my long-lost brother?”
Mrs. Granton chipped in here. She was hand and glove with Mrs. Bonstone
in trying to reform her old friend Carty.
“Perhaps some of your men have been drinking,” she said airily, “and
let some of the nasty stuff fall on the barn floor, and the hens ate
the hayseed.”
This was not quite correct, but it served her purpose.
“Jerusalem!” said poor Master Carty.
Gringo gave me a push. We were both lying on the floor in a big patch
of sunlight, apparently observing nothing, yet taking note of all that
went on.
Mrs. Bonstone worked herself, or seemed to work herself into a sudden
passion. “I shall ask Norman to discharge both those men, if they are
guilty. I shall not have drunkards about the place. They might set the
barn on fire.”
Now this touched Master Carty in a tender spot. He was mischievous and
self-indulgent, but he was no coward.
“Let me see that neck,” he said miserably.
His sister handed him the bit of broken bottle, and both women
surveyed him narrowly from under their eyelids.
Gringo and I were close to his place at the table, and we heard him
mutter, “Well, I’ve got it in the neck this time--like the chickens.”
“What are you muttering, Carty?” asked his sister.
“Nothing, nothing,” and he pushed his chair away from his untasted
coffee--Oh! how good it smelt, with lots of lovely cream from the
Bonstones’ own cows in it, and a sugary sweet smell, for he liked six
lumps.
“Stanna,” he said presently, “where’s your husband?”
“Gone,” she said, “some time ago. He was in a hurry to get to town. We
were late.”
“Then I’ll have to tell you,” he went on with hanging head. “Don’t
blame the men. This bottle was mine,” and he hurled the neck through
the open window. “I--I’m very sorry. I don’t see how your hens got at
it. They must have vicious tastes.”
Now just here, instead of falling on his neck, and extracting from him
promises of reform, as she had done so many, oh! so many, times, his
sister did what seemed to me a queer thing, at first.
She put her arms on the table, dropped her head on them, and said, “Oh!
oh! oh!” a great many times.
Gringo had been licking his paw thoughtfully, while he listened to the
conversation at the table. Now he stopped, and pondered. He had struck
a snag in his thoughts. He was trying to catch on to Mrs. Bonstone’s
wasping, as he told me when I whispered to him.
Presently he went on licking, and I knew he had got the clue.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“She’s going to make fun of him, poor soul!” he responded. “She’s tried
everything else.”
Master Carty was striding up and down the room. “Stanna,” he said
stopping short, “what’s the matter with you? One would think you’d
never seen a bottle before.”
“It’s not that, brother,” she cried, lifting her head, and beating the
table with both her little hands. “It’s the ridicule that will be made
of you. Norman was just roaring with laughter. He thought it was the
best drink joke he ever heard, and you know he is full of them. He will
tell it to the men at the club at lunch. It will be all over the city,
that Carty Resterton has sunk so low, that he drinks with the hens.
You know what a picture Dicky Grey, and Mark Jones and all that set
will draw--Carty Resterton having a carousal in the barn, because his
sister’s house isn’t open for that sort of thing. He took a pull at the
bottle, then the hens had their turn--oh! oh! oh! I can’t stand it,”
and she went off into an admirable fit of hysterics.
Mrs. Granton threw water on her face, and rang for Annie and they
slapped and pinched her, and put her on the sofa, and Master Carty
stared and glowered, till she recovered enough for him to ask her a
furious question, “Do you mean to say that Bonstone is deliberately
going to make game of me?”
Mrs. Granton flashed out at him, “Carty Resterton, what do you mean?
Your brother-in-law is the soul of honour, and he has had infinite
patience with your weakness. Do you suppose any one told him it was
your bottle?”
Master Carty rammed his hands down deep in his pockets. Annie came
in the room with a glass of something for Mrs. Bonstone, and he had
to wait till the door closed behind her. Then he shouted, “I wish to
heaven I knew what you two women mean.”
“Hush, hush,” said Mrs. Granton patting Mrs. Bonstone as if she were a
child. “I will speak for you,” and speak she did, and with an eloquence
that astonished Gringo and me, too, though I understand how much she
had developed since the baby came.
“She hits out from the shoulder,” muttered Gringo admiringly.
Mistress gave Master Carty about the plainest talk he’d ever had. She
told him how he was killing his poor grandmother and sister, and if
she’d been in their places, she would have turned him out to die in the
gutter.
“She wouldn’t, you know,” I said anxiously to Gringo.
“I track her,” said the good old dog. “She’s fighting for her friend.
It’ll do him good.”
“And your brother-in-law,” said mistress furiously. “How many men would
put up with your actions? It’s common talk, that you come home here
staggering, night after night.”
The discomfited Carty at last got a word in. “But what has all this
got to do with Bonstone’s going to town and making game of me?”
“He hasn’t gone to make fun of you,” cried mistress, “he’ll tell the
story, and your boon companions will put their own interpretation on
it. They’ll know it was you that debauched the hens. They know you
bring bottles home.”
“Debauched the hens,” cried Master Carty, putting both hands to his
head, and acting as if he were trying to lift himself up by his hair,
“Good London! have I sunk as low as that?”
Mrs. Granton’s voice suddenly became compassionate. “Run to the
telephone, dear Carty,” she said, “we can’t help loving you, in spite
of your faults. Telephone Norman, telephone my husband--beg them to say
nothing of the occurrence. Beg them to keep quiet. Tell them it was
your bottle, that your friends will put their own construction on the
story, no matter how innocently it is told. Fly to the telephone, like
a good boy.”
Mistress glanced at the sofa. Her friend was with her. She was doing
right. She urged Master Carty to the hall, she put the receiver in his
hand, he called up Mr. Bonstone and my dear master. He faltered and
stammered, and she supplied words. Finally, the campaign was over, and
he came back to the table where Mrs. Bonstone, having revived by this
time, was sitting ringing for fresh coffee.
Then didn’t the two women pet him! He was their own dear boy, no one
should make fun of him, while they could protect him. No one must tell
Grandmother, she would be so shocked, and Master Carty alternately
beamed and glowered, and cast puzzled glances at us, as if he didn’t
quite know whether to be flattered or disgruntled.
They begged him not to go in town that morning, to take them for
a drive, and presently the two women with the children, Gringo
and myself, were spinning over the beautiful country in our big
touring-car, with Louis grinning happily as he conducted us.
The roads were grand after the rain, and the country was a dream,
everything being washed and clean from the heavy rain.
Mistress took Carty to our house to lunch, and Gringo says when he went
home late that afternoon, he walked up to the hen-houses and stared at
the Wyandottes for a long time, with the most curious expression on his
face.
Then, Gringo says, he muttered, “A companion to hens--by Jove! I must
look higher.” He sauntered back to the house, mounted the staircase to
his lovely room overlooking the beautiful, blue garden with its rocks
and rills, and after enjoying the view from the window for a while, got
out a little book from a locked drawer, and wrote something that Gringo
heard him read aloud, “Sworn off again, and by the hens, I mean to keep
my vow this time.”
He has kept it so far, though Gringo says Mrs. Bonstone often looks at
him very anxiously. That’s the worst of tipplers. You never know when
they’re going to break out again.