Thomasina. Paul Gallico

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      The minister stroked the head of his little dog lovingly. “I suspect the real punishment for the sin in Eden,” he said, “was when He made us human, when He took away the divinity He had loaned us and made us kin and blood brothers with –” and here he nodded with his head towards the suffering pug dog – “these. You must admit the sentence contains an element of humour, something for which God is rarely given credit.”

      For once Mr MacDhui was caught without a retort, for with a university cunning, his friend had suddenly made use of some of his own best arguments.

      “But you won’t even admit that relationship,” the minister continued, cheerful at having extricated himself from the position where MacDhui could lecture him, “whereas I love this little fellow foolishly and consider him as important as myself when it comes to indulgence. Tell me, Andrew, do you not at all come to love these suffering animals you treat? Does not your heart break when they look at you so helplessly and trustingly?”

      MacDhui turned his aggressive beard upon the pastor and regarded him with mingled truculence and pity as he replied: “Hardly. Even if I am only a vet I am still a doctor. If every doctor permitted himself to become emotionally involved with each of his patients or relatives of his patients, he would not last long. I am not sentimental, nor can I abide this indulgent affection wasted upon useless animals.” And he thrust out his beard again.

      The Rev. Angus Peddie nodded his round, smooth face as though in understanding and agreement and quite suddenly attacked from another quarter. He asked: “Was there then nothing you could do as a doctor for that poor old woman’s dog – I mean Mrs Laggan’s? The one you persuaded her to have put away, and I doubt not have done so by now.”

      Mr MacDhui turned as red as his hair, and his eyes grew hard and angry. “Why, has she complained to you, or said anything?”

      “Do you find that so strange then? No, she did not complain, but she could not conceal her desolation. I saw her eyes as she went out. She is now all alone in the world.”

      MacDhui continued defiant. “You thought I was hard on her, did you? Well, and what if I could have kept the animal alive for another three weeks, or a month, or even two? The end result would be the same. She would still be alone in the world. And besides, I offered to procure her another dog. People are always wishing me to find homes for all sorts.”

      “But it was that poor, wretched, wheezy dog she loved and whose presence and friendship gave her comfort – just as this little fellow here fills a part of my life. Don’t you believe in the power of love at all to make our tour of duty here a little more bearable?”

      MacDhui shrugged and did not reply. He had loved and wooed and would have devoted his life to the profession of medicine and it had been denied him. He had loved Anne MacLean, his wife, and she had been taken from him … Love was a snare and love was a danger. One was better off without it, if one could avoid it, which was not always possible, and he thought of Mary Ruadh and his love for her. Simpler perhaps to be a stick or a stone, or a tree and feel nothing.

      Mr Peddie was ruminating with his brow knitted in a frown. “There must be a key, you know,” he said.

      “Key to what?”

      “Perhaps it IS love. The key to the relationship between man and the four-footed, the winged and the finned creatures who are his neighbours in woods, field and stream, and his brothers and sisters on earth—”

      “Tosh!” snorted MacDhui. “We are all part of the gigantic cosmic accident that put us here. We all started even, you know. We developed the upright position and the thumb and they lost. Bad luck for them.”

      Peddie regarded MacDhui keenly through his spectacles and said with a smile – “Ah, Angus – I did not know you had come so far already. To admit we were put here seems to me a weakening of your position you can ill afford. And who, may I ask, arranged this cosmic accident? For surely you are not so old-fashioned as to believe any longer that accidents just happen—”

      “And if I ask you who, you will say God, of course.”

      “Who but?”

      “Anti-God. The system is wretchedly run. I could conduct it better myself.” MacDhui reached up to a shelf and took down a small bottle of medicine. The pug dog emitted a gigantic belch, struggled to its feet and sat up begging. The two men looked at one another and burst into roars of laughter.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      I was checking a mousehole when Mary Ruadh came to take me away to go down to the quay in the town in company with Hughie Stirling to see the steamer arrive from Glasgow.

      The interruption did not leave me in the best of humour for I had put in a lot of time and work on that hole and felt that I was just about to achieve results.

      It was the one by the larder, the important one. I had been treating it for days and it was a nuisance being dragged off. Mousehole watching to me was duty, and I always did it thoroughly and well. All of the other things I had to do for Mary Ruadh to keep her happy and contented including submitting to being carried about by her everywhere she went were her idea and not mine.

      People are inclined to forget or overlook our primary purpose in a house – and out of purely selfish reasons such as when they try to turn us into babies – and when made to live unnatural lives, we become spoiled and lazy. Even when every so often we bring them a mouse as a reminder and lay it at their feet, people are so conceited and stupid as to accept it as a personal gift, instead of realising that we are calling attention to our reason for being there and paying up for board and lodging.

      I suppose you think that checking a mousehole is easy and no work at all. Well, all I can say is YOU try it sometime. Get down on your hands and knees and remain in that position, concentrating and staring at one little hole in the wainscoting for hours at a time, while simultaneously pretending that you are not. Checking a mousehole isn’t just giving it a sniff and going away as a dog would do. On the contrary. If you are as conscientious and dutiful as I am, it is a full-time job, particularly if there are two or three or you suspect one of them of having two entrances.

      It isn’t catching mice, mind you, that is the most necessary. Anyone can catch a mouse; it is no trick at all; it is putting them off and keeping them down that is important. You will hear sayings like – “The only good mouse is a dead mouse,” but that is only half of it. The only good mouse is the mouse that isn’t there at all. What you must do if you are at all principled about your work, is to conduct a war of nerves on the creatures. This calls for both time, energy and a good deal of cleverness, which I wouldn’t begrudge if I wasn’t expected to do so many other things besides.

      Just to give you an idea of what mousehole watching entails, after you have located and charted them and decided which ones are active and which extinct, you select one and go there, but, of course, never twice at the same time exactly. A mouse is no fool and soon learns to time you if you are regular. I find that hunch and instinct, or just plain feline know-how are the best things to guide you. You just KNOW at a certain moment; it comes over you as in a dream that THAT is the time to go there.

      Well, first you take two or three sniffs and then settle down in front of it and stare for a while. If the mouse is in, he or she can’t get out, and if they are out they can’t get home. Either way it is worrying. And so for the first hour you just remain there staring. At the same time, when СКАЧАТЬ