One night, a very long time ago, I drove to an Indian military
cantonment called Mian Mir to see amateur theatricals. At the back of
the Infantry barracks a soldier, his cap over one eye, rushed in front
of the horses and shouted that he was a dangerous highway robber. As a
matter of fact, he was a friend of mine, so I told him to go home before
any one caught him; but he fell under the pole, and I heard voices of a
military guard in search of some one.
The driver and I coaxed him into the carriage, drove home swiftly,
undressed him and put him to bed, where he waked next morning with
a sore headache, very much ashamed. When his uniform was cleaned and
dried, and he had been shaved and washed and made neat, I drove him back
to barracks with his arm in a fine white sling, and reported that I
had accidentally run over him. I did not tell this story to my
friend's sergeant, who was a hostile and unbelieving person, but to his
lieutenant, who did not know us quite so well.
Three days later my friend came to call, and at his heels slobbered and
fawned one of the finest bull-terriers--of the old-fashioned breed, two
parts bull and one terrier--that I had ever set eyes on. He was pure
white, with a fawn-coloured saddle just behind his neck, and a fawn
diamond at the root of his thin whippy tail. I had admired him distantly
for more than a year; and Vixen, my own fox-terrier, knew him too, but
did not approve.
“'E's for you,” said my friend; but he did not look as though he liked
parting with him.
“Nonsense! That dog's worth more than most men, Stanley,” I said.
“'E's that and more. 'Tention!”
The dog rose on his hind legs, and stood upright for a full minute.
“Eyes right!”
He sat on his haunches and turned his head sharp to the right. At a sign
he rose and barked thrice. Then he shook hands with his right paw and
bounded lightly to my shoulder. Here he made himself into a necktie,
limp and lifeless, hanging down on either side of my neck. I was told to
pick him up and throw him in the air. He fell with a howl, and held up
one leg.
“Part o' the trick,” said his owner. “You're going to die now. Dig
yourself your little grave an' shut your little eye.”
Still limping, the dog hobbled to the garden-edge, dug a hole and lay
down in it. When told that he was cured, he jumped out, wagging his
tail, and whining for applause. He was put through half-a-dozen other
tricks, such as showing how he would hold a man safe (I was that man,
and he sat down before me, his teeth bared, ready to spring), and how
he would stop eating at the word of command. I had no more than finished
praising him when my friend made a gesture that stopped the dog as
though he had been shot, took a piece of blue-ruled canteen-paper from
his helmet, handed it to me and ran away, while the dog looked after him
and howled. I read:
SIR--I give you the dog because of what you got me out of. He is the
best I know, for I made him myself, and he is as good as a man. Please
do not give him too much to eat, and please do not give him back to me,
for I'm not going to take him, if you will keep him. So please do not
try to give him back any more. I have kept his name back, so you can
call him anything and he will answer, but please do not give him back.
He can kill a man as easy as anything, but please do not give him too
much meat. He knows more than a man.
Vixen sympathetically joined her shrill little yap to the bull-terrier's
despairing cry, and I was annoyed, for I knew that a man who cares for
dogs is one thing, but a man who loves one dog is quite another. Dogs
are at the best no more than verminous vagrants, self-scratchers, foul
feeders, and unclean by the law of Moses and Mohammed; but a dog with
whom one lives alone for at least six months in the year; a free thing,
tied to you so strictly by love that without you he will not stir or
exercise; a patient, temperate, humorous, wise soul, who knows your
moods before you know them yourself, is not a dog under any ruling.
I had Vixen, who was all my dog to me; and I felt what my friend must
have felt, at tearing out his heart in this style and leaving it in
my garden. However, the dog understood clearly enough that I was his
master, and did not follow the soldier. As soon as he drew breath I made
much of him, and Vixen, yelling with jealousy, flew at him. Had she been
of his own sex, he might have cheered himself with a fight, but he only
looked worriedly when she nipped his deep iron sides, laid his heavy
head on my knee, and howled anew. I meant to dine at the Club that
night; but as darkness drew in, and the dog snuffed through the empty
house like a child trying to recover from a fit of sobbing, I felt that
I could not leave him to suffer his first evening alone. So we fed at
home, Vixen on one side, and the stranger-dog on the other; she watching
his every mouthful, and saying explicitly what she thought of his table
manners, which were much better than hers.
It was Vixen's custom, till the weather grew hot, to sleep in my bed,
her head on the pillow like a Christian; and when morning came I would
always find that the little thing had braced her feet against the wall
and pushed me to the very edge of the cot. This night she hurried to bed
purposefully, every hair up, one eye on the stranger, who had dropped
on a mat in a helpless, hopeless sort of way, all four feet spread out,
sighing heavily. She settled her head on the pillow several times,
to show her little airs and graces, and struck up her usual whiney
sing-song before slumber. The stranger-dog softly edged toward me. I
put out my hand and he licked it. Instantly my wrist was between Vixen's
teeth, and her warning aaarh! said as plainly as speech, that if I took
any further notice of the stranger she would bite.
I caught her behind her fat neck with my left hand, shook her severely,
and said:
“Vixen, if you do that again you'll be put into the verandah. Now,
remember!”
She understood perfectly, but the minute I released her she mouthed my
right wrist once more, and waited with her ears back and all her body
flattened, ready to bite. The big dog's tail thumped the floor in a
humble and peace-making way.
I grabbed Vixen a second time, lifted her out of bed like a rabbit
(she hated that and yelled), and, as I had promised, set her out in the
verandah with the bats and the moonlight. At this she howled. Then
she used coarse language--not to me, but to the bull-terrier--till she
coughed with exhaustion. Then she ran round the house trying every door.
Then she went off to the stables and barked as though some one were
stealing the horses, which was an old trick of hers. Last she returned,
and her snuffing yelp said, “I'll be good! Let me in and I'll be good!”
She was admitted and flew to her pillow. When she was quieted I
whispered to the other dog, “You can lie on the foot of the bed.” The
bull jumped up at once, and though I felt Vixen quiver with rage, she
knew better than to protest. So we slept till the morning, and they had
early breakfast with me, bite for bite, till the horse came round and
we went for a ride. I don't think the bull had ever followed a horse
before. He was wild with excitement, and Vixen, as usual, squealed and
scuttered and scooted, and took charge of the procession.
There was one corner of a village near by, which we generally passed
with caution, because all the yellow pariah-dogs of the place gathered
about it.
They were half-wild, starving beasts, and though utter cowards, yet
where nine or ten of them get together they will mob and kill and eat an
English dog. I kept a whip with a long lash for them.
That morning they attacked Vixen, who, perhaps of design, had moved from
beyond my horse's shadow.
The bull was ploughing along in the dust, fifty yards behind, rolling in
his run, and smiling as bull-terriers will. I heard Vixen squeal; half a
dozen of the curs closed in on her; a white streak came up behind me;
a cloud of dust rose near Vixen, and, when it cleared, I saw one tall
pariah with his back broken, and the bull wrenching another to earth.
Vixen retreated to the protection of my whip, and the bull paddled back
smiling more than ever, covered with the blood of his enemies. That
decided me to call him “Garm of the Bloody Breast,” who was a great
person in his time, or “Garm” for short; so, leaning forward, I told him
what his temporary name would be. He looked up while I repeated it, and
then raced away. I shouted “Garm!” He stopped, raced back, and came up
to ask my will.
Then I saw that my soldier friend was right, and that that dog knew and
was worth more than a man. At the end of the ride I gave an order which
Vixen knew and hated: “Go away and get washed!” I said. Garm understood
some part of it, and Vixen interpreted the rest, and the two trotted off
together soberly. When I went to the back verandah Vixen had been washed
snowy-white, and was very proud of herself, but the dog-boy would not
touch Garm on any account unless I stood by. So I waited while he was
being scrubbed, and Garm, with the soap creaming on the top of his broad
head, looked at me to make sure that this was what I expected him to
endure. He knew perfectly that the dog-boy was only obeying orders.
“Another time,” I said to the dog-boy, “you will wash the great dog with
Vixen when I send them home.”
“Does he know?” said the dog-boy, who understood the ways of dogs.
“Garm,” I said, “another time you will be washed with Vixen.”
I knew that Garm understood. Indeed, next washing-day, when Vixen as
usual fled under my bed, Garm stared at the doubtful dog-boy in the
verandah, stalked to the place where he had been washed last time, and
stood rigid in the tub.
But the long days in my office tried him sorely. We three would drive
off in the morning at half-past eight and come home at six or later.
Vixen knowing the routine of it, went to sleep under my table; but
the confinement ate into Garm's soul. He generally sat on the verandah
looking out on the Mall; and well I knew what he expected.
Sometimes a company of soldiers would move along on their way to the
Fort, and Garm rolled forth to inspect them; or an officer in uniform
entered into the office, and it was pitiful to see poor Garm's welcome
to the cloth--not the man. He would leap at him, and sniff and bark
joyously, then run to the door and back again. One afternoon I heard
him bay with a full throat--a thing I had never heard before--and he
disappeared. When I drove into my garden at the end of the day a soldier
in white uniform scrambled over the wall at the far end, and the Garm
that met me was a joyous dog. This happened twice or thrice a week for a
month.
I pretended not to notice, but Garm knew and Vixen knew. He would glide
homewards from the office about four o'clock, as though he were only
going to look at the scenery, and this he did so quietly that but for
Vixen I should not have noticed him. The jealous little dog under
the table would give a sniff and a snort, just loud enough to call my
attention to the flight. Garm might go out forty times in the day and
Vixen would never stir, but when he slunk off to see his true master in
my garden she told me in her own tongue. That was the one sign she made
to prove that Garm did not altogether belong to the family. They were
the best of friends at all times, but, Vixen explained that I was never
to forget Garm did not love me as she loved me.
I never expected it. The dog was not my dog—could never be my dog--and I
knew he was as miserable as his master who tramped eight miles a day to
see him. So it seemed to me that the sooner the two were reunited the
better for all. One afternoon I sent Vixen home alone in the dog-cart
(Garm had gone before), and rode over to cantonments to find another
friend of mine, who was an Irish soldier and a great friend of the dog's
master.