The Beast Tamer

by Ruskin Bond

  ‘With the advent of spring weather, Thumbeline became not only more beautiful, but wilder, and exceedingly restless. She now coaxed me to let her out, and against my judgement, I did it; she had to be carried over the entry; for when I had set the gate wide open and pointed her the way into the garden, she squatted down in her usual attitude of attention, with her legs crossed, and watched me, waiting. I wanted to see how she would get through the hateful wire, so went away and hid myself, leaving her alone with Bran. I saw her creep to the entry and peer at the wire. What followed was curious. Bran came up wagging his tail and stood close to her, his side against her head; he looked down, inviting her to go out with him. Long looks passed between them, and then Bran stooped his head, she put her arms around his neck, twined her feet about his foreleg, and was carried out. Then she became a mad thing, now bird now moth; high and low, round and round, flashing about the place for all the world like a humming-bird moth, perfectly beautiful in her motions (whose ease always surprised me), and equally so in her colouring of soft grey and dusky-rose flesh. Bran grew a puppy again and whipped about after her in great circles round the meadow. But though he was famous at coursing, and has killed his hares single-handed, he was never once near Thumbeline. It was a curious sight and made me late for business.

  ‘By degrees she got to be very bold, and taught me boldness too, and (I am ashamed to say) greater degrees of deceit. She came freely into the house and played with Florrie up and down stairs; she got on my knee at meal-times, or evenings when my wife and I were together. Fine tricks she played with me, I must own. She spilled my tea for me, broke cups and saucers, scattered my patience cards, caught poor Mary’s knitting wool and rolled it about the room. The cunning little creature knew that I dared not scold her or make any kind of fuss. She used to beseech me for forgiveness occasionally when I looked very glum, and would touch my cheek to make me look at her imploring eyes, and keep me looking at her till I smiled. Then she would put her arms round my neck and pull herself up to my level and kiss me, and then nestle down in my arms and pretend to sleep. By and by, when my attention was called off her, she would pinch me, or tweak my necktie, and make me look again at her wicked eye peeping out from under my arm. 1 had to kiss her again, of course, and at last she might go to sleep in earnest. She seemed able to sleep at any hour or in any place, just like an animal.

  ‘I had some difficulty in arranging for the night when once she had made herself free of the house. She saw no reason whatever for our being separated; but I circumvented her by nailing a strip of zinc all round the door; and I put one around Florrie’s too. I pretended to my wife that it was to keep out draughts. Thumbcline was furious when she found out how she had been tricked. I think she never quite forgave me for it. Where she hid herself at night I am not sure. I think on the sitting-room sofa; but on mild mornings I used to find her outdoors, playing round Bran’s kennel.

  ‘Strap, our Fox-terrier, picked up some rat-poison towards the end of April and died in the night. Thumbeline’s way of taking that was very curious. It shocked me a good deal. She had never been so friendly with him as with Bran, though certainly more at ease in his company than mine. The night before he died, I remembered that she and Bran and he had been having high games in the meadow, which had ended by their all lying down together in a heap, Thumbeline’s head on Bran’s flank, and her legs between his. Her arm had been round Strap’s neck in a most loving way. They made quite a picture for a Royal Academician; “Tired of Play” or “The End of it Romp” I can fancy he would call it. Next morning I found poor old Strap stiff and staring, and Thumbeline and Bran at their games just the same. She actually jumped over him and all about him as if he had been a lump of earth or stone. Just some such thing he was to her; she did not seem able to realize that there was the cold body of her friend. Bran just sniffed him over and left him, but Thumbeline showed no consciousness that he was there at all. I wondered, was this heartlessness of obliquity? But I have never found the answer to my question.

  ‘Now I come to the tragical part of my story, and wish with all my heart that I could leave it out. But beyond the full confession I have made to my wife, the County Police and the newspapers, I feel that I should not shrink from any admission that may be called for of how much I have been to blame. In May, on the 13 of May, Thumbeline, Bran and our only child, Florrie, disappeared.

  ‘It was a day, I remember well, of wonderful beauty. I had left all three of them together in the water meadow, little thinking of what was in store for us before many hours. Thumbeline had been crowning Florrie with a wreath of flowers. She had gathered cuckoo-pint and marsh marigolds and woven them together, far more deftly than any of us could have done, into a chaplet. I remember the curious winding, wandering air she had been singing (without any words, as usual) over her business, and how she touched each flower first with her lips, and then brushed it lightly across her bosom before she wove it in. She had kept her eyes on me as she did it, looking up from under her brows, as if to see whether I knew what she was about.

  ‘I don’t doubt now but that she was bewitching Florrie by this curious performance, which every flower had to undergo separately: but fool that I was, I thought nothing of it at the time, and bicycled off to Salisbury, leaving them there.

  ‘At noon my poor wife came to me at the Bank, distracted with anxiety and fatigue. She had run most of the way, she gave me to understand. Her news was that Florrie and Bran could not be found anywhere. She said that she had gone to the gate of the meadow to call the child in, and, not seeing her, or getting any answer, she had gone down to the river at the bottom. Here she had found a few picked wild flowers but no other traces. There were no footprints in the mud, either of a child or a dog. Having spent the morning with some of the neighbours in a fruitless search, she had now come to me.

  ‘My heart was like lead, and shame prevented me from telling her the truth, as I was sure it must be. But my own conviction of it clogged all my efforts. Of what avail could it be to inform the police or organize search-parties, knowing what I knew only too well? However, I did put Gulliver in communication with the head office in Sarum, and everything possible was done. We explored a circuit of six miles about Wilsford; every fold of the hills, every spinney, every hedgerow was thoroughly examined. But that first night of grief had broken down my shame: I told my wife the whole truth in the presence of the Reverend Richard Walsh, the congregational minister, and in spite of her absolute incredulity, and, I may add, scorn, next morning I repeated it to Chief Inspector Notcutt of Salisbury. Particulars got into the local papers by the following Saturday: and next I had to face the ordeal of the Daily Chronicle, Daily News, Daily Graphic, Star and other London journals. Most of these newspapers sent representatives to lodge in the village, many of them with photographic cameras. All this hateful notoriety I had brought upon myself, and did my best to bear like the humble, contrite Christian, which I hope I may say I have become. We found no trace of our dear one, and never have to this day. Bran, too, had completely vanished. I have not cared to keep a dog since.

  ‘Whether my dear wife ever believed my account, I cannot be sure. She has never reproached me for my wicked thoughtlessness, that’s certain. Mr Walsh, our respected pastor, who has been so kind as to read this paper, told me more than once that he could hardly doubt it. The Salisbury police made no comments upon it one way or another. My colleagues at the Bank, out of respect for my grief and sincere repentance, treated me with a forbearance for which I can never be too grateful. I need not add that every word of this is absolutely true. I made notes of the most remarkable characteristics of the being I called Thumbeline at the time of remarking them, and those notes are still in my possession.’

  Pendlebury’s Trophy

  John Eyton

  I

  Arthur St John Pendlebury—known to his intimates as ‘Pen’—was the beau-ideal of the cavalry subaltern, with plenty of friends, money and self-assurance. Before he had been in the count
ry a year, India was at his feet; this is not to say that he had overstudied her languages or customs, but that he had sufficient means for fulfilling any of his aspirations, which were limited to picnics, polo ponies and shikar trophies. To the latter his first long leave was devoted. To one who has stalked the Highland stag under the eye of an experienced man, the stag of Kashmir seems easy game, and satisfaction was in Pendlebury’s eye as he ran it over his pile of kit on Rawalpindi station: new portmanteau; new gun-cases, containing his twelve-bore, his Mannlicher Schonhauer, his Holland and Holland High Velocity; fieldglasses and telescope; kodak, for recording triumphs; new tent, fully equipped with every device for comfort and cooking altogether a capital outfit, pointing to an interesting addition to the Scotch heads in the hall at Pendlebury, for he could not fail to bag a Kashmiri stag or two in three weeks. To this sentiment Ali Baksh, his Mohammedan servant, agreed in perfect English… capital man, Ali Baksh—a real treasure.

  The drive from Rawalpindi to Srinagar was quite pleasant, the scenery being almost English, though the road was only soso. On arrival, Pendlebury resisted the tame temptations of picnic-making, and got down to business at once. He was not going to be bothered with consulting the old local bores in the Club, because the obvious thing to do was to get hold of a native fellow who could talk English a bit, and knew the ropes from A to Z, and such a man was known to Ali Baksh, who would find him out quietly and persuade him to accompany the saheb. His friend, he said, was the best man in Kashmir, who being in constant request, would accompany only noted shikaris. Ali Baksh tactfully insinuated that Pendlebury belonged to the latter category, and Pendlebury of course believed him—for even the finished product of Eton and the Bullingdon is often singularly artless in the experienced hands of an Indian bearer.

  At eleven o’clock on the morning after arrival, Ali Baksh produced the paragon, whose name was also something Baksh Pir, Baksh, Pendlebury believed him to say. He was a fine-looking, well-set-up fellow, with fierce moustaches and glittering eyes; nicely turned out too, with a khaki suit of military cut, mauve shirt and neat puttees; he carried a long mountaineering pole, and had glasses slung in a leather case over his shoulder, and was altogether the type of what a shikari ought to look, and indeed does look in magazine illustrations. To the experienced old bores in the Club, he might have appeared to overdo the part, but to Pendlebury he was the very thing. Besides, he knew all the likely spots, had excellent chits from officers in quite good regiments, indicating invariable success, and, lastly, got on well with Ali Baksh.

  So Pir Baksh was engaged on the spot—for the modest sum of one hundred rupees, paid in advance, for the three weeks’ trip, and on the understanding that he would waste no time over uncertainties, but would lead on direct to the spot where an astounding stag had been marked down. About this stag there was no doubt whatever, for Pir Baksh himself resided in its neighbourhood, and knew its haunts and habits so well that the stag might almost be said to be one of the family. He had been keeping it, he said, for a General, but could not resist the temptation of seeing it fall to the rifle of so noble a saheb as Pendlebury. They parted quite effusively, after payment had been made, and Ali Baksh accompanied Pir Baksh to make the bandobast. Pendlebury washed his hands of these matters, so naturally did not see Pir hand over the stipulated thirty rupees to his friend Ali outside.

  As Pendlebury remarked in the mess on his return from leave. ‘What I like about this country is that you only have to get hold of a good servant, tell him what you want to do and how you like it, and say “Bazar chalo, bandobast kayo.” He’ll do the rest. Now I had a first-class bandobast up in Kashmir—never had to say a word myself; no use messing a good man about.’

  And so it was—his two men certainly were not messed about, for between them they did everything, and ran Pendlebury—engaging ponies and carriers on the basis of a twenty per cent commission for themselves; leading in men from the shops, who staggered beneath a vast weight of stores, some of which were destined for Pendlebury’s consumption; making a great show of polishing things and cleaning clean rifles. There was nothing wrong with that bandobast, and Pendlebury could well afford to pay the hundred and fifty odd rupees, which it was found necessary to disburse. In fact, the charm of the whole thing was that Pendlebury believed throughout that he was saving money—a fact which redounds to the credit of the astute pair.

  The start for the first camp was worth watching; first rode Pendlebury, every inch a cavalry officer, his blue eyes full of good humour, and his cheeks quite pink with excitement; his shooting suit was good to look upon, and Ali Baksh could certainly polish boots. At a respectful distance behind him rode Pir Baksh, resplendent in Jodhpur breeches, while, last of all, Ali marshalled the kit, a fine staff in one hand, and in the other that emblem of the bearer, a brass hurricane lamp. It was a procession to be proud of, and successful shikar was in the very air.

  The haunt of the famous stage was ten marches away, and Pendlebury beguiled them with small-game shooting and the taking of snapshots. The marches were very well run, and it was not the fault of Pir Baksh that the leather suitcase, the telescope, and the cartridge bag got lost in the process of crossing a river. In fact, Pendlebury thought Pir Baksh had behaved very openly about the whole thing, and had seemed to regard the matter as a personal loss—whereas, in truth, it was exactly the opposite. But for this mishap all went swimmingly.

  They reached the little village at the edge of the forest in the evening, and Pendlebury’s tent was pitched under delightful chenal trees near a little stream which looked first-class for trout. He could hardly sleep for excitement, and lay awake picturing the record stag and its record head, and hearing the sound of a high-pitched song in the bazaar, where, had he but known it, Pir and Ali were entertaining the local shikaris at his expense. Finally he shouted, ‘Choop. Choop karo ek dam!’ and lay back with the satisfaction of one whose commands are obeyed.

  Next day it was arranged that Pir Baksh should go for khabar of the stag, while Pendlebury fished the river for trout. So Pendlebury sallied out with his split-cane and fly-boxes, and a man to carry his net, and another man to bear his lunch, while Pir Baksh, with his glasses and pole and preposterous jodhpuris, departed in the opposite direction. It was curious that so confident and so famous a shikari should require the assistance of a local man, a stranger of ragged and unkempt appearance—but we will suppose that he too needed some one to carry his lunch.

  Pendlebury had a pleasant enough day by the bright, clear stream, and brought home several minute trout for his dinner. Of the movements of Pir Baksh little is known, except that he went quite a distance into the forest, starting at 10 a.m. and returning at noon, after which hour he sat with Ali and the local talent in the bazaar. Yet, when he was announced at 8 p.m., he entered the tent wearily enough, with much bazaar dust on his boots and puttees—so much that Pendlebury could see that the fellow had had a pretty stiff day of it. Pir Baksh was mysterious and confidential; in response to Pendlebury’s eager inquiries, he allowed that he had seen the stag, but when Pendlebury whooped with delight, he qualified this intelligence with the remark that the stag was bahut hoshiar, and had only arrived on the scene in the late evening, after a complete day of tireless, lonely watching on the part of Pir Baksh. He had heard the stag at intervals and had not dared to move for fear of making it nervous. It would be as well to let it rest, under due observation, for a day or two, and then make certain of it. Incidentally he had heard in the bazaar on his return that another saheb, a well-known hunter, had set his heart on this stag and had hunted it for a month, but, since he had not seen fit to engage the services of Pir Baksh, he had not had a shot. It was finally suggested that Pendlebury would do well to visit a noted pool three miles down stream for the next day or two, and this Pendlebury agreed to do. After all, Pir Baksh knew the ropes, and this stag was worth waiting for.

  So for the next two days Pendlebury lashed the stream for trout, while each morning Pir Baksh started with a set face f
or the jungle and spent the day in the bazaar, arriving each evening at a later hour and more visibly weary and dusty. Each evening, too, the antlers of the stag had grown with its cunning. Rowland Ward’s book, which Pendlebury of course carried, had no record in it to touch this head, as described by Pir Baksh; to Rowland Ward the head should go for setting up—none of your local mochis. Pendlebury saw the footnote in that book, ‘Shot by A. St J. Pendlebury, Esq, the Blue Hussars, Kashmir, 1920. A remarkable head, with record points, length and span’. On the third evening Pir Baksh was very late indeed. Pendlebury had turned in, and had long lain listening to a perfect orgy in the bazaar, when, about midnight, Ali Baksh gave that deprecating cough whereby the Indian servant makes known his humble presence, and announced Pir Baksh.

  A tired, grimy, dusty picture he made in the light of the electric torch, and a pitiful tale he told. He had sat up without food for a day and half a night

  ‘Bahut kaam kiya, saheb. Main bilkull bhuka ho gya—bilkull. Kuchh nahin khaya gya.’

  Great indeed had been the sufferings of the worthy man (considering they had been experienced in the bazaar), but he had seen the stag at close quarters, and something told him that the saheb would shoot it tomorrow.

  Such a stag—a Barasingha indeed, with antlers like trees, and it roar like a river; such a stag had not been seen for twenty years, when ‘Ismith’ saheb had missed just such a one, and had given him, Pir Baksh, his new rifle and a hundred golis, vowing he would never shoot again…‘Kabhi ham aisa barawala nahin dekha.’ Pendlebury was, of course, half out of his mind with excitement, and, had it been feasible, he would have gone out there and then and tried conclusions. As it was, he contented himself with lauding Pir Baksh to the skies, an honour which the latter accepted with sweet humility. He would make the bandobast; they would start out after tiffin, and would lie up till the evening. Let the saheb have no doubts; he would slay that stag, and his name would be great in Kashmir…‘Kuchh shaqq nahin hai; qaza zarur hoga…zarur.’