Beasts and Super-Beasts Read online

  THE LULL

  “I’ve asked Latimer Springfield to spend Sunday with us and stop thenight,” announced Mrs. Durmot at the breakfast-table.

  “I thought he was in the throes of an election,” remarked her husband.

  “Exactly; the poll is on Wednesday, and the poor man will have workedhimself to a shadow by that time. Imagine what electioneering must belike in this awful soaking rain, going along slushy country roads andspeaking to damp audiences in draughty schoolrooms, day after day for afortnight. He’ll have to put in an appearance at some place of worshipon Sunday morning, and he can come to us immediately afterwards and havea thorough respite from everything connected with politics. I won’t lethim even think of them. I’ve had the picture of Cromwell dissolving theLong Parliament taken down from the staircase, and even the portrait ofLord Rosebery’s ‘Ladas’ removed from the smoking-room. And Vera,” addedMrs. Durmot, turning to her sixteen-year-old niece, “be careful whatcolour ribbon you wear in your hair; not blue or yellow on any account;those are the rival party colours, and emerald green or orange would bealmost as bad, with this Home Rule business to the fore.”

  “On state occasions I always wear a black ribbon in my hair,” said Verawith crushing dignity.

  Latimer Springfield was a rather cheerless, oldish young man, who wentinto politics somewhat in the spirit in which other people might go intohalf-mourning. Without being an enthusiast, however, he was a fairlystrenuous plodder, and Mrs. Durmot had been reasonably near the mark inasserting that he was working at high pressure over this election. Therestful lull which his hostess enforced on him was decidedly welcome, andyet the nervous excitement of the contest had too great a hold on him tobe totally banished.

  “I know he’s going to sit up half the night working up points for hisfinal speeches,” said Mrs. Durmot regretfully; “however, we’ve keptpolitics at arm’s length all the afternoon and evening. More than thatwe cannot do.”

  “That remains to be seen,” said Vera, but she said it to herself.

  Latimer had scarcely shut his bedroom door before he was immersed in asheaf of notes and pamphlets, while a fountain-pen and pocket-book werebrought into play for the due marshalling of useful facts and discreetfictions. He had been at work for perhaps thirty-five minutes, and thehouse was seemingly consecrated to the healthy slumber of country life,when a stifled squealing and scuffling in the passage was followed by aloud tap at his door. Before he had time to answer, a much-encumberedVera burst into the room with the question; “I say, can I leave thesehere?”

  “These” were a small black pig and a lusty specimen of black-redgamecock.

  Latimer was moderately fond of animals, and particularly interested insmall livestock rearing from the economic point of view; in fact, one ofthe pamphlets on which he was at that moment engaged warmly advocated thefurther development of the pig and poultry industry in our ruraldistricts; but he was pardonably unwilling to share even a commodiousbedroom with samples of henroost and stye products.

  “Wouldn’t they be happier somewhere outside?” he asked, tactfullyexpressing his own preference in the matter in an apparent solicitude fortheirs.

  “There is no outside,” said Vera impressively, “nothing but a waste ofdark, swirling waters. The reservoir at Brinkley has burst.”

  “I didn’t know there was a reservoir at Brinkley,” said Latimer.

  “Well, there isn’t now, it’s jolly well all over the place, and as westand particularly low we’re the centre of an inland sea just at present.You see the river has overflowed its banks as well.”

  “Good gracious! Have any lives been lost?”

  “Heaps, I should say. The second housemaid has already identified threebodies that have floated past the billiard-room window as being the youngman she’s engaged to. Either she’s engaged to a large assortment of thepopulation round here or else she’s very careless at identification. Ofcourse it may be the same body coming round again and again in a swirl; Ihadn’t thought of that.”

  “But we ought to go out and do rescue work, oughtn’t we?” said Latimer,with the instinct of a Parliamentary candidate for getting into the locallimelight.

  “We can’t,” said Vera decidedly, “we haven’t any boats and we’re cut offby a raging torrent from any human habitation. My aunt particularlyhoped you would keep to your room and not add to the confusion, but shethought it would be so kind of you if you would take in Hartlepool’sWonder, the gamecock, you know, for the night. You see, there are eightother gamecocks, and they fight like furies if they get together, sowe’re putting one in each bedroom. The fowl-houses are all flooded out,you know. And then I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind taking in thiswee piggie; he’s rather a little love, but he has a vile temper. He getsthat from his mother—not that I like to say things against her when she’slying dead and drowned in her stye, poor thing. What he really wants isa man’s firm hand to keep him in order. I’d try and grapple with himmyself, only I’ve got my chow in my room, you know, and he goes for pigswherever he finds them.”

  “Couldn’t the pig go in the bathroom?” asked Latimer faintly, wishingthat he had taken up as determined a stand on the subject of bedroomswine as the chow had.

  “The bathroom?” Vera laughed shrilly. “It’ll be full of Boy Scouts tillmorning if the hot water holds out.”

  “Boy Scouts?”

  “Yes, thirty of them came to rescue us while the water was onlywaist-high; then it rose another three feet or so and we had to rescuethem. We’re giving them hot baths in batches and drying their clothes inthe hot-air cupboard, but, of course, drenched clothes don’t dry in aminute, and the corridor and staircase are beginning to look like a bitof coast scenery by Tuke. Two of the boys are wearing your Meltonovercoat; I hope you don’t mind.”

  “It’s a new overcoat,” said Latimer, with every indication of mindingdreadfully.

  “You’ll take every care of Hartlepool’s Wonder, won’t you?” said Vera.“His mother took three firsts at Birmingham, and he was second in thecockerel class last year at Gloucester. He’ll probably roost on the railat the bottom of your bed. I wonder if he’d feel more at home if some ofhis wives were up here with him? The hens are all in the pantry, and Ithink I could pick out Hartlepool Helen; she’s his favourite.”

  Latimer showed a belated firmness on the subject of Hartlepool Helen, andVera withdrew without pressing the point, having first settled thegamecock on his extemporised perch and taken an affectionate farewell ofthe pigling. Latimer undressed and got into bed with all due speed,judging that the pig would abate its inquisitorial restlessness once thelight was turned out. As a substitute for a cosy, straw-bedded sty theroom offered, at first inspection, few attractions, but the disconsolateanimal suddenly discovered an appliance in which the most luxuriouslycontrived piggeries were notably deficient. The sharp edge of theunderneath part of the bed was pitched at exactly the right elevation topermit the pigling to scrape himself ecstatically backwards and forwards,with an artistic humping of the back at the crucial moment and anaccompanying gurgle of long-drawn delight. The gamecock, who may havefancied that he was being rocked in the branches of a pine-tree, bore themotion with greater fortitude than Latimer was able to command. A seriesof slaps directed at the pig’s body were accepted more as an additionaland pleasing irritant than as a criticism of conduct or a hint to desist;evidently something more than a man’s firm hand was needed to deal withthe case. Latimer slipped out of bed in search of a weapon ofdissuasion. There was sufficient light in the room to enable the pig todetect this manœuvre, and the vile temper, inherited from the drownedmother, found full play. Latimer bounded back into bed, and hisconqueror, after a few threatening snorts and champings of its jaws,resumed its massage operations with renewed zeal. During the longwakeful hours which ensued Latimer tried to distract his mind from hisown immediate troubles by dwelling with decent sympathy on the secondhousemaid’s bereavement, but he found himself more often wondering
howmany Boy Scouts were sharing his Melton overcoat. The rôle of SaintMartin malgré lui was not one which appealed to him.

  Towards dawn the pigling fell into a happy slumber, and Latimer mighthave followed its example, but at about the same time Stupor Hartlepooligave a rousing crow, clattered down to the floor and forthwith commenceda spirited combat with his reflection in the wardrobe mirror.Remembering that the bird was more or less under his care Latimerperformed Hague Tribunal offices by draping a bath-towel over theprovocative mirror, but the ensuing peace was local and short-lived. Thedeflected energies of the gamecock found new outlet in a sudden andsustained attack on the sleeping and temporarily inoffensive pigling, andthe duel which followed was desperate and embittered beyond anypossibility of effective intervention. The feathered combatant had theadvantage of being able, when hard pressed, to take refuge on the bed,and freely availed himself of this circumstance; the pigling never quitesucceeded in hurling himself on to the same eminence, but it was not fromwant of trying.

  Neither side could claim any decisive success, and the struggle had beenpractically fought to a standstill by the time that the maid appearedwith the early morning tea.

  “Lor, sir,” she exclaimed in undisguised astonishment, “do you want thoseanimals in your room?”

  _Want_!

  The pigling, as though aware that it might have outstayed its welcome,dashed out at the door, and the gamecock followed it at a more dignifiedpace.

  “If Miss Vera’s dog sees that pig—!” exclaimed the maid, and hurried offto avert such a catastrophe.

  A cold suspicion was stealing over Latimer’s mind; he went to the windowand drew up the blind. A light, drizzling rain was falling, but therewas not the faintest trace of any inundation.

  Some half-hour later he met Vera on the way to the breakfast-room.

  “I should not like to think of you as a deliberate liar,” he observedcoldly, “but one occasionally has to do things one does not like.”

  “At any rate I kept your mind from dwelling on politics all the night,”said Vera.

  Which was, of course, perfectly true.