“And now Stanley's in my garden crying over his dog. Why doesn't he take
him back? They're both unhappy.”
“Unhappy! There's no sense in the little man any more. But 'tis his
fit.”
“What is his fit? He travels fifty miles a week to see the brute, and
he pretends not to notice me when he sees me on the road; and I'm as
unhappy as he is. Make him take the dog back.”
“It's his penance he's set himself. I told him by way of a joke, afther
you'd run over him so convenient that night, whin he was drunk--I said
if he was a Catholic he'd do penance. Off he went wid that fit in his
little head an' a dose of fever, an nothin' would suit but givin' you
the dog as a hostage.”
“Hostage for what? I don't want hostages from Stanley.”
“For his good behaviour. He's keepin' straight now, the way it's no
pleasure to associate wid him.”
“Has he taken the pledge?”
“If 'twas only that I need not care. Ye can take the pledge for three
months on an' off. He sez he'll never see the dog again, an' so mark
you, he'll keep straight for evermore. Ye know his fits? Well, this is
wan of them. How's the dog takin' it?”
“Like a man. He's the best dog in India. Can't you make Stanley take him
back?”
“I can do no more than I have done. But ye know his fits. He's just
doin' his penance. What will he do when he goes to the Hills? The
doctor's put him on the list.”
It is the custom in India to send a certain number of invalids from each
regiment up to stations in the Himalayas for the hot weather; and though
the men ought to enjoy the cool and the comfort, they miss the society
of the barracks down below, and do their best to come back or to avoid
going. I felt that this move would bring matters to a head, so I left
Terrence hopefully, though he called after me “He won't take the dog,
sorr. You can lay your month's pay on that. Ye know his fits.”
I never pretended to understand Private Ortheris; and so I did the next
best thing—I left him alone.
That summer the invalids of the regiment to which my friend belonged
were ordered off to the Hills early, because the doctors thought
marching in the cool of the day would do them good. Their route lay
south to a place called Umballa, a hundred and twenty miles or more.
Then they would turn east and march up into the hills to Kasauli or
Dugshai or Subathoo. I dined with the officers the night before they
left--they were marching at five in the morning. It was midnight when I
drove into my garden, and surprised a white figure flying over the wall.
“That man,” said my butler, “has been here since nine, making talk to
that dog. He is quite mad.”
“I did not tell him to go away because he has been here many times
before, and because the dog-boy told me that if I told him to go away,
that great dog would immediately slay me. He did not wish to speak to
the Protector of the Poor, and he did not ask for anything to eat or
drink.”
“Kadir Buksh,” said I, “that was well done, for the dog would surely
have killed thee. But I do not think the white soldier will come any
more.”
Garm slept ill that night and whimpered in his dreams. Once he sprang up
with a clear, ringing bark, and I heard him wag his tail till it waked
him and the bark died out in a howl. He had dreamed he was with his
master again, and I nearly cried. It was all Stanley's silly fault.
The first halt which the detachment of invalids made was some miles
from their barracks, on the Amritsar road, and ten miles distant from my
house. By a mere chance one of the officers drove back for another good
dinner at the Club (cooking on the line of march is always bad), and
there I met him. He was a particular friend of mine, and I knew that he
knew how to love a dog properly. His pet was a big fat retriever who was
going up to the Hills for his health, and, though it was still April,
the round, brown brute puffed and panted in the Club verandah as though
he would burst.
“It's amazing,” said the officer, “what excuses these invalids of mine
make to get back to barracks. There's a man in my company now asked me
for leave to go back to cantonments to pay a debt he'd forgotten. I
was so taken by the idea I let him go, and he jingled off in an ekka as
pleased as Punch. Ten miles to pay a debt! Wonder what it was really?”
“If you'll drive me home I think I can show you,” I said.
So he went over to my house in his dog-cart with the retriever; and on
the way I told him the story of Garm.
“I was wondering where that brute had gone to. He's the best dog in the
regiment,” said my friend. “I offered the little fellow twenty rupees
for him a month ago. But he's a hostage, you say, for Stanley's good
conduct. Stanley's one of the best men I have when he chooses.”
“That's the reason why,” I said. “A second-rate man wouldn't have taken
things to heart as he has done.”
We drove in quietly at the far end of the garden, and crept round the
house. There was a place close to the wall all grown about with tamarisk
trees, where I knew Garm kept his bones. Even Vixen was not allowed to
sit near it. In the full Indian moonlight I could see a white uniform
bending over the dog.
“Good-bye, old man,” we could not help hearing Stanley's voice. “For
'Eving's sake don't get bit and go mad by any measley pi-dog. But you can
look after yourself, old man. You don't get drunk an' run about 'ittin'
your friends. You takes your bones an' you eats your biscuit, an' you
kills your enemy like a gentleman. I'm goin' away--don't 'owl--I'm goin'
off to Kasauli, where I won't see you no more.”
I could hear him holding Garm's nose as the dog threw it up to the
stars.
“You'll stay here an' be'ave, an'--an' I'll go away an' try to be'ave,
an' I don't know 'ow to leave you. I don't know--”
“I think this is damn silly,” said the officer, patting his foolish
fubsy old retriever. He called to the private, who leaped to his feet,
marched forward, and saluted.
“You here?” said the officer, turning away his head.
“Yes, sir, but I'm just goin' back.”
“I shall be leaving here at eleven in my cart. You come with me. I can't
have sick men running about all over the place. Report yourself at
eleven, here.”
We did not say much when we went indoors, but the officer muttered and
pulled his retriever's ears.
He was a disgraceful, overfed doormat of a dog; and when he waddled off
to my cookhouse to be fed, I had a brilliant idea.
At eleven o'clock that officer's dog was nowhere to be found, and you
never heard such a fuss as his owner made. He called and shouted and
grew angry, and hunted through my garden for half an hour.
Then I said:
“He's sure to turn up in the morning. Send a man in by rail, and I'll
find the beast and return him.”
“Beast?” said the officer. “I value that dog considerably more than I
value any man I know. It's all very fine for you to talk--your dog's
here.”
So she was--under my feet--and, had she been missing, food and wages
would have stopped in my house till her return. But some people grow
fond of dogs not worth a cut of the whip. My friend had to drive away at
last with Stanley in the back seat; and then the dog-boy said to me:
“What kind of animal is Bullen Sahib's dog? Look at him!”
I went to the boy's hut, and the fat old reprobate was lying on a mat
carefully chained up. He must have heard his master calling for twenty
minutes, but had not even attempted to join him.
“He has no face,” said the dog-boy scornfully. “He is a punniar-kooter
(a spaniel). He never tried to get that cloth off his jaws when his
master called. Now Vixen-baba would have jumped through the window, and
that Great Dog would have slain me with his muzzled mouth. It is true
that there are many kinds of dogs.”
Next evening who should turn up but Stanley. The officer had sent
him back fourteen miles by rail with a note begging me to return the
retriever if I had found him, and, if I had not, to offer huge rewards.
The last train to camp left at half-past ten, and Stanley, stayed till
ten talking to Garm. I argued and entreated, and even threatened to
shoot the bull-terrier, but the little man was as firm as a rock, though
I gave him a good dinner and talked to him most severely. Garm knew as
well as I that this was the last time he could hope to see his man, and
followed Stanley like a shadow. The retriever said nothing, but licked
his lips after his meal and waddled off without so much as saying “Thank
you” to the disgusted dog-boy.
So that last meeting was over, and I felt as wretched as Garm, who
moaned in his sleep all night. When we went to the office he found a
place under the table close to Vixen, and dropped flat till it was
time to go home. There was no more running out into the verandahs, no
slinking away for stolen talks with Stanley. As the weather grew warmer
the dogs were forbidden to run beside the cart, but sat at my side on
the seat, Vixen with her head under the crook of my left elbow, and Garm
hugging the left handrail.
Here Vixen was ever in great form. She had to attend to all the moving
traffic, such as bullock-carts that blocked the way, and camels, and led
ponies; as well as to keep up her dignity when she passed low friends
running in the dust. She never yapped for yapping's sake, but her
shrill, high bark was known all along the Mall, and other men's terriers
ki-yied in reply, and bullock-drivers looked over their shoulders and
gave us the road with a grin.
But Garm cared for none of these things. His big eyes were on the
horizon and his terrible mouth was shut. There was another dog in the
office who belonged to my chief. We called him “Bob the Librarian,”
because he always imagined vain rats behind the bookshelves, and in
hunting for them would drag out half the old newspaper-files. Bob was a
well-meaning idiot, but Garm did not encourage him. He would slide his
head round the door panting, “Rats! Come along Garm!” and Garm would
shift one forepaw over the other, and curl himself round, leaving Bob to
whine at a most uninterested back. The office was nearly as cheerful as
a tomb in those days.
Once, and only once, did I see Garm at all contented with his
surroundings. He had gone for an unauthorised walk with Vixen early one
Sunday morning, and a very young and foolish artilleryman (his battery
had just moved to that part of the world) tried to steal them both.
Vixen, of course, knew better than to take food from soldiers, and,
besides, she had just finished her breakfast. So she trotted back with a
large piece of the mutton that they issue to our troops, laid it down
on my verandah, and looked up to see what I thought. I asked her where
Garm was, and she ran in front of the horse to show me the way.
About a mile up the road we came across our artilleryman sitting very
stiffly on the edge of a culvert with a greasy handkerchief on his
knees. Garm was in front of him, looking rather pleased. When the man
moved leg or hand, Garm bared his teeth in silence. A broken string
hung from his collar, and the other half of it lay, all warm, in the
artilleryman's still hand. He explained to me, keeping his eyes straight
in front of him, that he had met this dog (he called him awful names)
walking alone, and was going to take him to the Fort to be killed for a
masterless pariah.
I said that Garm did not seem to me much of a pariah, but that he had
better take him to the Fort if he thought best. He said he did not care
to do so. I told him to go to the Fort alone. He said he did not want to
go at that hour, but would follow my advice as soon as I had called off
the dog. I instructed Garm to take him to the Fort, and Garm marched
him solemnly up to the gate, one mile and a half under a hot sun, and I
told the quarter-guard what had happened; but the young artilleryman was
more angry than was at all necessary when they began to laugh. Several
regiments, he was told, had tried to steal Garm in their time.
That month the hot weather shut down in earnest, and the dogs slept
in the bathroom on the cool wet bricks where the bath is placed. Every
morning, as soon as the man filled my bath the two jumped in, and every
morning the man filled the bath a second time. I said to him that he
might as well fill a small tub specially for the dogs. “Nay,” said he
smiling, “it is not their custom. They would not understand. Besides,
the big bath gives them more space.”
The punkah-coolies who pull the punkahs day and night came to know Garm
intimately. He noticed that when the swaying fan stopped I would call
out to the coolie and bid him pull with a long stroke. If the man still
slept I would wake him up. He discovered, too, that it was a good thing
to lie in the wave of air under the punkah. Maybe Stanley had taught him
all about this in barracks. At any rate, when the punkah stopped, Garm
would first growl and cock his eye at the rope, and if that did not
wake the man--it nearly always did--he would tiptoe forth and talk in
the sleeper's ear. Vixen was a clever little dog, but she could never
connect the punkah and the coolie; so Garm gave me grateful hours of
cool sleep. But he was utterly wretched--as miserable as a human being;
and in his misery he clung so closely to me that other men noticed it,
and were envious. If I moved from one room to another Garm followed;
if my pen stopped scratching, Garm's head was thrust into my hand; if
I turned, half awake, on the pillow, Garm was up and at my side, for he
knew that I was his only link with his master, and day and night, and
night and day, his eyes asked one question--“When is this going to end?”
Living with the dog as I did, I never noticed that he was more than
ordinarily upset by the hot weather, till one day at the Club a man
said: “That dog of yours will die in a week or two. He's a shadow.” Then
I dosed Garm with iron and quinine, which he hated; and I felt very
anxious. He lost his appetite, and Vixen was allowed to eat his dinner
under his eyes. Even that did not make him swallow, and we held a
consultation on him, of the best man-doctor in the place; a lady-doctor,
who cured the sick wives of kings; and the Deputy Inspector-General of
the veterinary service of all India. They pronounced upon his symptoms,
and I told them his story, and Garm lay on a sofa licking my hand.
“He's dying of a broken heart,” said the lady-doctor suddenly.
“'Pon my word,” said the Deputy Inspector General, “I believe Mrs.
Macrae is perfectly right as usual.”
The best man-doctor in the place wrote a prescription, and the
veterinary Deputy Inspector-General went over it afterwards to be sure
that the drugs were in the proper dog-proportions; and that was the
first time in his life that our doctor ever allowed his prescriptions
to be edited. It was a strong tonic, and it put the dear boy on his feet
for a week or two; then he lost flesh again. I asked a man I knew to
take him up to the Hills with him when he went, and the man came to the
door with his kit packed on the top of the carriage. Garm took in the
situation at one red glance. The hair rose along his back; he sat down
in front of me and delivered the most awful growl I have ever heard in
the jaws of a dog. I shouted to my friend to get away at once, and as
soon as the carriage was out of the garden Garm laid his head on my
knee and whined. So I knew his answer, and devoted myself to getting
Stanley's address in the Hills.
My turn to go to the cool came late in August. We were allowed thirty
days' holiday in a year, if no one fell sick, and we took it as we could
be spared. My chief and Bob the Librarian had their holiday first, and
when they were gone I made a calendar, as I always did, and hung it up
at the head of my cot, tearing off one day at a time till they returned.
Vixen had gone up to the Hills with me five times before; and she
appreciated the cold and the damp and the beautiful wood fires there as
much as I did.
“Garm,” I said, “we are going back to Stanley at Kasauli.
Kasauli--Stanley; Stanley--Kasauli.” And I repeated it twenty times.
It was not Kasauli really, but another place. Still I remembered what
Stanley had said in my garden on the last night, and I dared not change
the name. Then Garm began to tremble; then he barked; and then he leaped
up at me, frisking and wagging his tail.
“Not now,” I said, holding up my hand. “When I say 'Go,' we'll go,
Garm.” I pulled out the little blanket coat and spiked collar that Vixen
always wore up in the Hills to protect her against sudden chills and
thieving leopards, and I let the two smell them and talk it over. What
they said of course I do not know; but it made a new dog of Garm. His
eyes were bright; and he barked joyfully when I spoke to him. He ate his
food, and he killed his rats for the next three weeks, and when he began
to whine I had only to say “Stanley--Kasauli; Kasauli--Stanley,” to wake
him up. I wish I had thought of it before.
My chief came back, all brown with living in the open air, and very
angry at finding it so hot in the plains. That same afternoon we three
and Kadir Buksh began to pack for our month's holiday, Vixen rolling in
and out of the bullock-trunk twenty times a minute, and Garm grinning
all over and thumping on the floor with his tail. Vixen knew the routine
of travelling as well as she knew my office-work. She went to the
station, singing songs, on the front seat of the carriage, while Garm
sat with me. She hurried into the railway carriage, saw Kadir Buksh make
up my bed for the night, got her drink of water, and curled up with her
black-patch eye on the tumult of the platform. Garm followed her (the
crowd gave him a lane all to himself) and sat down on the pillows with
his eyes blazing, and his tail a haze behind him.
We came to Umballa in the hot misty dawn, four or five men, who had been
working hard for eleven months, shouting for our dâks--the two-horse
travelling carriages that were to take us up to Kalka at the foot of the
Hills. It was all new to Garm. He did not understand carriages where you
lay at full length on your bedding, but Vixen knew and hopped into her
place at once; Garm following. The Kalka Road, before the railway was
built, was about forty-seven miles long, and the horses were changed
every eight miles. Most of them jibbed, and kicked, and plunged, but
they had to go, and they went rather better than usual for Garm's deep
bay in their rear.
There was a river to be forded, and four bullocks pulled the carriage,
and Vixen stuck her head out of the sliding-door and nearly fell into
the water while she gave directions. Garm was silent and curious,
and rather needed reassuring about Stanley and Kasauli. So we rolled,
barking and yelping, into Kalka for lunch, and Garm ate enough for two.
After Kalka the road wound among the hills, and we took a curricle with
half-broken ponies, which were changed every six miles. No one dreamed
of a railroad to Simla in those days, for it was seven thousand feet up
in the air. The road was more than fifty miles long, and the regulation
pace was just as fast as the ponies could go. Here, again, Vixen led
Garm from one carriage to the other; jumped into the back seat, and
shouted. A cool breath from the snows met us about five miles out of
Kalka, and she whined for her coat, wisely fearing a chill on the
liver. I had had one made for Garm too, and, as we climbed to the fresh
breezes, I put it on, and Garm chewed it uncomprehendingly, but I think
he was grateful.
“Hi-yi-yi-yi!” sang Vixen as we shot round the curves; “Toot-toot-toot!”
went the driver's bugle at the dangerous places, and “yow! yow!” bayed
Garm. Kadir Buksh sat on the front seat and smiled. Even he was glad to
get away from the heat of the Plains that stewed in the haze behind us.
Now and then we would meet a man we knew going down to his work again,
and he would say: “What's it like below?” and I would shout: “Hotter
than cinders. What's it like up above?” and he would shout back: “Just
perfect!” and away we would go.
Suddenly Kadir Buksh said, over his shoulder: “Here is Solon”; and Garm
snored where he lay with his head on my knee. Solon is an unpleasant
little cantonment, but it has the advantage of being cool and healthy.
It is all bare and windy, and one generally stops at a rest-house nearby
for something to eat. I got out and took both dogs with me, while Kadir
Buksh made tea. A soldier told us we should find Stanley “out there,”
nodding his head towards a bare, bleak hill.
When we climbed to the top we spied that very Stanley, who had given me
all this trouble, sitting on a rock with his face in his hands, and his
overcoat hanging loose about him. I never saw anything so lonely and
dejected in my life as this one little man, crumpled up and thinking, on
the great gray hillside.
Here Garm left me.
He departed without a word, and, so far as I could see, without moving
his legs. He flew through the air bodily, and I heard the whack of him
as he flung himself at Stanley, knocking the little man clean over. They
rolled on the ground together, shouting, and yelping, and hugging. I
could not see which was dog and which was man, till Stanley got up and
whimpered.
He told me that he had been suffering from fever at intervals, and was
very weak. He looked all he said, but even while I watched, both man and
dog plumped out to their natural sizes, precisely as dried apples swell
in water. Garm was on his shoulder, and his breast and feet all at the
same time, so that Stanley spoke all through a cloud of Garm--gulping,
sobbing, slavering Garm. He did not say anything that I could
understand, except that he had fancied he was going to die, but that now
he was quite well, and that he was not going to give up Garm any more
to anybody under the rank of Beelzebub.
Then he said he felt hungry, and thirsty, and happy.
We went down to tea at the rest-house, where Stanley stuffed himself
with sardines and raspberry jam, and beer, and cold mutton and pickles,
when Garm wasn't climbing over him; and then Vixen and I went on.
Garm saw how it was at once. He said good-bye to me three times, giving
me both paws one after another, and leaping on to my shoulder. He
further escorted us, singing Hosannas at the top of his voice, a mile
down the road. Then he raced back to his own master.
Vixen never opened her mouth, but when the cold twilight came, and we
could see the lights of Simla across the hills, she snuffled with her
nose at the breast of my ulster. I unbuttoned it, and tucked her inside.
Then she gave a contented little sniff, and fell fast asleep, her head
on my breast, till we bundled out at Simla, two of the four happiest
people in all the world that night.