Thomasina. Paul Gallico

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      Mind you, said the tattlers, no one denied that he was a good and efficient doctor for the beasties. Quick to cure or kill, and a mite too handy with the chloroform rag was the word that went around. Those who felt kindly towards him held that he was a humane man not disposed to see a hopelessly sick animal suffer needlessly, while those who disliked him and his high-handed ways called him a hard, cruel man to whom the life of an animal was nothing, and who was openly contemptuous of people who were sentimentally attached to their pets.

      And many of those who did not encounter him professionally were inclined to the belief that there must be some good in the man else he would not have had the friendship and esteem of Mr Angus Peddie, pastor of the Presbyterian flock of Inveranoch. It was said that the minister who had known MacDhui in their student days had been largely instrumental in persuading his friend, upon the death of his wife, Anne, to purchase the practice of Inveranoch’s retiring vet and move thither leaving behind him the unhappy memories that had bedevilled him in Glasgow.

      Several of the inhabitants of Inveranoch remembered Mr MacDhui’s late father, John, himself a Glasgow veterinary, a dour, tyrannical old man with a strong religious bent who, holding the purse strings, had compelled his son to follow in his footsteps. The story was that Andrew MacDhui had wished to study to become a surgeon in his youth but in the end had been compelled for financial reasons to yield to his father’s wishes and likewise become a veterinary.

      One of these inhabitants had once paid a visit to the gloomy old house in Dunearn Street in Glasgow where for a time father and son practised together until the old man died, and had nothing good to say about it, except that it was not much to wonder at that Mr MacDhui had turned out as he had.

      Mr Peddie had known MacDhui’s father as a psalm-singing old hypocrite in whose home God served merely as an auxiliary policeman. Whatever seemed healthy or fun, old John MacDhui’s God was against, and Andrew MacDhui had grown up hating Him and then denying Him. The tragedy of the loss of his wife, Anne, when his daughter, Mary Ruadh, was only three had confirmed him in his bitterness.

      His scrutiny completed, MacDhui now pointed his beard at old, fat Mrs Laggan and jerked his head in the direction of his office. She gave a little bleat of fright, picked Rabbie up out of her lap and arose painfully, holding him in her arms where he lay on his back, forepaws bent limply, watery eyes revolving. He resembled an over-stuffed black and grey porker and he wheezed at every breath like a catarrhal old man snoring.

      Mr Angus Peddie pulled in his feet to let her by and gave her a warm, cherubic smile of encouragement, for he was the very opposite of the figure that a dour Scots churchman is supposed to resemble. He was short, inclined to stoutness, sweet-natured and extraordinarily vital. He had a round, dimpled face and mischievous eyes and smile which, however, could instantly express the deepest sympathy, penetrating understanding and concern.

      Peddie’s pug dog, who, as well as suffering from chronic indigestion, staggered under the name of Fin-du-Siècle, an indication of the kind of humour one might be expected to encounter in the large Peddie family, lay likewise wheezing in the minister’s lap. Peddie lifted him into a sitting position so that he could better see Mrs Laggan and her sick dog go by. He said: “That’s Mrs Laggan’s Rabbie, Fin. The poor wee thing isn’t feeling well just now.” The rolling eyes of the two dogs met for a moment in melancholy exchange.

      Mrs Laggan followed Mr MacDhui into the examining room of the surgery and deposited Rabbie on his back upon the long, white-enamelled examining table where he remained, his forepaws still limp and his breath coming in difficult gasps.

      The veterinarian lifted the lip of the animal, glanced at his teeth, pulled down its eyelids and placed one hand for a moment upon its heaving belly. “How old is this dog?” he asked.

      Mrs Laggan, traditionally dressed as became a respectable widow, in rusty black with a Paisley shawl over her shoulders, seemed to shrink inside her clothes. “Fifteen years and a bit,” she replied. “Well, fourteen, since he’s grown from the wee pup he was the day I got him,” she added, as though by quickly subtracting a year from his age she might lure fate into permitting him to remain a year longer. Fifteen was old for a dog. With fourteen there was always hope they might live to be fifteen, like Mrs Campbell’s old sheepdog, which was actually nearly sixteen.

      The veterinarian nodded, glanced perfunctorily at the dog again and said: “He ought to be put out of his misery. You can see how bad his asthma is. He can hardly breathe.” He picked the dog up and set him on his feet on the floor where he promptly collapsed on to his belly with his chin flat on the floor and his eyes turned up adoringly at Mrs Laggan. “Or walk,” concluded MacDhui.

      The widow had many chins. Fear set them all to quivering. “Put him away? Put the poor beastie to death? But whatever should I do then when he’s all I’ve got in this world? We’ve been together for fifteen years now, and me a lonely widow for twenty-five. What would I be doing without Rabbie?”

      “Get another dog,” MacDhui replied. “It shouldn’t be difficult. The village is full of them.”

      “Och, how can you be speaking like that? It would not be Rabbie. Can you not be giving him a wee bit of medicine that will keep him going till he gets well? He’s been a very healthy dog.”

      Animals, reflected Mr MacDhui, were never a problem, it was the sentimentality of their owners that created all the difficulties. “The dog must die soon,” he said. “He is very old and very ill. Anyone with half an eye can see that his life has become a burden to him and that he is suffering. If I gave him some medicine you would be back here within a fortnight. It might prolong his life for a month, at the most six months. I am a busy man,” he concluded, but then added more gently: “It would be kinder to make an end to him.”

      The quivering of her chins now had spread to her small mouth as Mrs Laggan looked fearfully into the day that would be without Rabbie; no one to talk to, no one to whose breathing she would hearken whilst she had her evening cup of tea, or lay in bed at night. She said what came into her head, but not what was bursting in her heart. “The customers who come to my shop will miss Rabbie sore if he’s not there for them to be stepping over.” But she was meaning: “I’m an old woman. I have not many days left myself. I am lonely. The dog has been my companion and my comfort for so long. He and I know one another’s ways so well.”

      “Yes, yes, Mrs Laggan, no doubt. But you must make up your mind, for I have other patients waiting.”

      Mrs Laggan looked uneasily to the big, vital man with the red moustache and beard.

      “I suppose I shouldn’t be selfish if poor Rabbie is suffering …”

      Mr MacDhui did not reply, but sat waiting.

      Life without Rabbie – the once cold nose pressing against her hand, the edge of pink tongue that protruded when he was contemplative, his great sigh of contentment when he was fed full – but above all his presence; Rabbie always within sight, sound, or touch. Old dogs must die; old people must die. She was minded to plead for the bit of medicine, for another month, a week, a day more with Rabbie, but she was rushed and nervous and fearful. And so she said: “You would be very gentle with him –”

      MacDhui sighed with impatient relief: “He will not feel a thing, I assure you.” He rose. “I think you are doing what is right, Mrs Laggan.”

      “Very well, then. Make away with him. What will it be I’ll be owing you?”

      The vet had a moment’s pang brought on by the sight of the trembling lips and chins and cursed himself for it. “There will be no charge,” he said curtly.

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