by Ruskin Bond
"It's a very fine goat," said Lord Bampton. "Very fine indeed."
"Yes, a splendid animal—splendid. I—I love goats," sputtered the colonel. 'It's well bred, too—dashed well bred."
The splendid well-bred goat sampled another sofa-cushion, and Lord Bampton could not help wondering at the splendid well-bred calm of his host. For, judging merely by his complexion and his fierce white moustache, he would have thought him rather more explosive than dynamite. It was odd that Gwen had not mentioned her father's passion for pets.
"I understand you have an uncommon love for animals," said the colonel.
"I grieve that it is uncommon," said Lord Bampton, fervently following the line of agreement indicated. "I adore them, as you do!"
"You don't draw the line anywhere?" asked the colonel, as the goat climbed the sofa and eyed a shining bureau which stood close by.
"Absolutely nowhere," said Lord Bampton, wondering if his host did.
"Have you many pets of this kind?"
"Oh, yes; I have a most delightful pet lamb."
"Is it at all mischievous?" asked the colonel.
"At times," said Lord Bampton; "but, like you, I love to see animals happy and active."
The happy and active goat made a wonderful spring and landed safely on the bureau.
"How beautifully he jumps!" cried the colonel, wishing he could boil the animal in a brass pan.
"Magnificently," said Lord Bampton, thinking his host must be mad to allow a goat in such a beautiful room. "but won't he break something?"
"It doesn't matter if he does," said the colonel, looking at the goat as if he were hypnotized. "I—I rather want something broken."
"You do? Isn't that china good?"
"Not if the goat likes to break it," said the colonel. This room has been just the same for the last hundred years, and I'm tired of it—fairly wearied out by it."
The goat, after balancing himself in the most beautiful manner, jumped from the bureau upon a table, and only dislodged an old punch-bowl.
"He certainly jumps very skilfully," said Lord Bampton. "I thought he might bring everything down. How he does enjoy himself!"
"True!" said the colonel. "It affords me the deepest, the most enchanting pleasure to see animals enjoy themselves. Some don't! Some men hate to! I absolutely know men who would cut that goat's throat, or boil it or fry it!"
"Do you really?" asked Lord Bampton, with surprise. "There is no end to human cruelty. I have rarely seen a goat who could jump better. You don't mind him chewing that curtain?"
"Not in the least," said Colonel Oakhurst. "It's old brocade—very old, too old! Let him do as he likes."
"You almost excel me in your love of animals," said Lord Bampton warmly; "but there is, I maintain, no sign of an amiable nature so certain. I try all my friends by that test. This particular goat is really a most remarkable animal, and seems to have immense intellectual curiosity."
"It looks like it," growled the colonel. "Now just you watch him! He's going to jump on that table."
"It looks a highly polished and very slippery table," said his guest; "will he be able to keep his footing? I am curious to see."
The goat made a spring and, landing on the table, slid with all four feet together, and only brought up on the edge.
"He seems to have scratched the polished surface," said Lord Bampton. "Do you mind his scratching it?"
"Oh, no, not in the least," said the colonel, with powerfully concentrated calm. "The table belonged to my great-grandfather, and it's high time it was scratched. Till now there wasn't a scratch on it."
"Does Mrs. Oakhurst like goats?" asked Lord Bampton.
The colonel chewed at his lips and made curious sounds.
"Oh, yes, she has a perfect passion for them! But being, as most women are, a trifle uncertain in her temper, she is apt to take a dislike to a particular goat."
"Surely not to this very delightful animal?" asked the courteous guest, with an air of warm, interested surprise at the bare possibility.
"What, dislike a goat like that?" roared the colonel. "Such an active, inquiring animal! Oh, no! Why, if it was a simple, dull, inactive goat she would sell it and buy another just like that!"
The goat immediately demonstrated that it was not dull or inactive by springing form the hitherto unscratched table that had belonged to the colonel's great-grandfather to one which had belonged to his grandmother, and brought a large silver bowl with a crash to the ground, as he and the table cover and the bowl slid off together. With beautiful agility, the goat avoided damage to himself and, making a pleasing little buck, began to eat some flowers from the bowl and drink a little of the water as it meandered over the parquet floor.
"And Miss Oakhurst?" asked Lord Bampton, wondering what he should do when they were married if Gwen introduced goats into the drawing-room of Woodhurst.
"She also likes 'em!" gasped the colonel, wondering if a rich and noble son-in-law were worth the price he was paying.
"Does she feel towards them as you do?"
"Oh, no!" said the colonel. "Oh, no; I absolutely defy her to come up to the feelings with which I regard this goat! She couldn't—couldn't do it! My feelings with regard to this goat are indescribable—perfectly indescribable!"
"They do you honour," said Lord Bampton.
The goat now inspected an old Venetian mirror, and, discovering a rival in it, after a few preliminary bucks, rose up and charged the other goat which so obviously intended to charge him. There was a fearful crash, and after a moment's surprise at his sudden victory, the successful warrior sought other fields.
"I'm afraid he's broken that mirror," said Lord Bompton.
"It's time it was broken—full time," said the colonel desperately. "It's—it's only an old Venetian thing an ancestor of mine brought to England. I'll order a nice new one from Tottenham Court Road."
It was certainly remarkable that such a man should speak like that of an old Venetian mirror; but as Lord Bampton knew those who owned goats became mad so far as goats were concerned, a very common observation among those who kept other animals and went insane in other ways, he felt he could say nothing. The colonel also felt for the moment that he could say nothing. A determination of blood to the head seemed to threaten him with apoplexy, and he was perfectly aware that his complexion was that of a ripe prize tomato as his hands shook with the madly repressed desire to strangle Lord Bampton's goat without delay. To save his own life and that of this accursed animal it was necessary for him to quit the room at all costs. He choked as he said he must leave his guest for a moment.
"I'll see if my wife and daughter have got back," he sputtered. "You don't mind if I leave you and the goat for a minute?"
"Not at all," said Lord Bampton; "we shall no doubt enjoy ourselves while you are away."
And even as the colonel hastened blindly to the door, the goat obviously took a fancy to something upon the mantelpiece. It was perhaps a piece of old Chelsea, or the photograph of the colonel in a silver frame. The animal was not at all awed by the difficult approach to his desire, and Lord Bampton watched him with great curiosity, being firmly convinced it was not the first time the animal had been up there. By a very skilful use of a sofa, an occasional table, and the back of an easy chair, Billy achieved his desire, and stood with all four feet together on the summit of his Matterhorn, having done nothing more in the way of damage then upsetting the little table and knocking a leg off it, and capsizing a brass tray into the fender.
"Bravo, Billy!" said his lordship, and Billy baaed.
And so did the colonel in the passage—for he ran against his wife and Gwendolen.
"How—how do you like him?" they asked eagerly.
It was then that the colonel baaed and made strange and peculiar noises.
Mrs. Oakhurst and Gwendolen took him by the arms. He seemed in the first throes of an epileptic fit.
"What is it? Oh, what is it?" they cried in chorus.
"That—that accurse
d Bampton!" said the colonel. "He's wreckin' the house—fairly wreckin' it!"
"Oh, father," said Gwen, "what can you mean? Do—do be calm!"
"Ain't I calm?" roared the colonel, as he tugged at his collar. "I'm so calm it's killin' me. The goat, the goat!"
"Tom, what goat are you speaking of?" asked his wife.
"Tell us—do tell us!"
"Lord Bampton's goat, his pet goat, that he brought with him," gasped the colonel. "He says it's splendid, well-bred goat with amazin' intellectual curiosity, and, by the Holy Poker, if you want real cold-blooded calmness go in and see his infernal well-bred lordship fairly eggin' on the animal to do more damage. I think he must be mad, for there's nothing left—nothing! The room's a wreck and so am I, and every time it smashed something he smiled and said it was a well-bred goat, or a fine goat, or that it jumped beautifully, and I—what did I do?—why, I said, curse me, that it was a damned well-bred goat, when the infernal beast was wrecking my house, and that it was a very, very fine goat, oh, Lord, and that it jumped, oh, so beautifully! Go in and see for yourselves. There, listen!"
And what they heard was the fall of the brass tray.
"Why, the infernal thing must be on the mantelpiece, or perhaps his mad master is," gurgled the colonel. "Look here, Mary, I can't stand this—I can't!"
And the unhappy old gentleman took several short runs up and down the passage.
"There must be some mistake——" began his wife.
"Go in, go in and see!" sputtered the colonel. "Let me stay here. I'll put my head under the tap in the bathroom and come back presently."
And he took a longer run for the bathroom.
"What shall we do?" asked Gwendolen's mother. "You said he was everything a man should be."
"And so he is," said Gwen firmly. "I don't care if he does keep goats. I'll cure him of that later. Whatever happens, you must keep calm. Come in, or I'll go by myself."
Thus encouraged, Mrs. Oakhurst entered the drawing-room and nothing but the sense of nobles se oblige kept her from uttering wild yells worthy of an East End lady when the cat breaks ornaments in the parlour. For upon the mantelpiece, the lambrequin of which she had embroidered with her own hands, the goat was now disporting himself. At every step something came into the fender, and at every crash the goat was more and more pleased with himself. It seemed also that he pleased Lord Bampton, who did not observe the ladies come in.
"Bravo, Billy!" said his lordship.
"Baa," said Billy.
"You're simply magnificent, Billy," said his lordship, "and the most remarkable goat I ever saw."
By this time Mrs. Oakhurst has recovered herself. The damage was done and could not be undone. But the possible match remained. That his lordship had desired to meet Gwendolen was much, but Lord Bampton, whose manners, if eccentric in points, were irreproachable, was said never to forgive want of manners in others. It suddenly occurred to her that it might even be that he had determined to put the Oakhursts to a severe test—the very severest he could devise. If that was so, she and Gwen, to whom she whispered her conclusions as Billy upset the other brass tray, would not fail to meet the occasion, whatever stress was put upon them.
"Good afternoon, Lord Bampton," said Mrs. Oakhurst. And when his lordship turned and saw not only Gwendolen, but her mother as well, taking matters so sweetly, he was doubly impressed, once by the fact of their high-bred calm and again by the certainty that nothing but a series of similar dramas conducted on many other occasions by Colonel Oakhurst could possibly account for it.
"As my husband is detained for a moment, my daughter must introduce us," said Mrs. Oakhurst.
The beautiful calm courtesy and deep interest shown by Lord Bampton as he was made aquainted personally with Gwendolen's mother assured them that his manners were perfect, while this fact was confirmed by his total indifference to the noise made by his curious pet.
As was only natural, the conversation turned cheerfully and lightly upon goats in general, and particularly upon the goat in the room.
"The goat really seems to be enjoying himself to-day," said Mrs. Oakhurst, settling herself in a settee from which she had an admirable view of the Matterhorn and the goat upon its dangerous traverse.
"Colonel Oakhurst made the very same remark," said Lord Bampton. "It is delightful to find you are all so fond of animals."
"I told you I adored them," said Gwendolen, smiling.
"Do you like goats as much as your father does?" asked his lordship.
"Even more," said Gwendolen truthfully.
Lord Bampton allowed himself the trifling relaxation of a look of mild wonder.
"Dear me, you don't say so," he remarked. "Still, they have a peculiar elegance of their own, and it does not really surprise me. I can forgive anyone anything who is fond of animals. I think, by the way, that the one on the mantelpiece is measuring with his eye the distance from his perch to your settee, Mrs. Oakhurst."
But before he or Mrs. Oakhurst could move, the goat launched himself into the air and, missing her head by some inches, landed on the bare barquer floor and slid for ten feet, thus well displaying the peculiar elegance for which his lordship commended the goat family. Mrs. Oakhurst, although it was the first time in her life that a goat had jumped over her from a mantelpiece, once more displayed the high-bred calm which had pleased their guest. It now led him on to the further reflection that, if her mother was thus attuned to the peculiar harmonies of the colonel's mind, and preserved the Horatian precept of keeping cool when in difficulties, her daughter was likely to make an equally good wife. Thus every action of the goat and Mrs. Oakhurst and Gwendolen riveted the fetters of love upon Lord Bampton. He naturally assumed that their passion for the animal would make them interested in a light zoological sketch of the Capra bircus or Domestic Goat, and of the Capra aegagrus, the wild goat or paseng of the Persians.
"The paseng ranges from the Himalayas to the Caucasus," he told them, and they well believed it, for the goat, having left the Himalayas of the mantelpiece, discovered Caucasus in the grand piano, and, perhaps imagining that a pile of modern music represented Elburz, leapt upon the piano lightly. The sound that proceeded from it seemed to excite his curiosity, for he stamped as though trying the instrument's general resonance, and then climbed on the peak of music.
"You don't mind him being on the piano, I trust?" said Lord Bampton, breaking off in his description of the reasons why the sacrifice of the goat to Athena was forbidden on the Acropolis, just at the point that Mrs. Oakhurst longed for him to give a practical example in the art of sacrifice to the goddess of domestic order.
"Certainly not," said Gwen, "if it pleases the goat."
"He seems to take great interest in the music," said Lord Bampton.
"He may eat a great deal of Debussy without getting much further," said Gwen, as she saw the animal devouring "Li'Apresmidi d'un Faune".
And while the goat browsed like a destructive critic among modern music, the incipient lovers and Mrs. Oakhurst discussed Stravinsky, Tcherepnine, and Strauss. The conversation was, however, interrupted by the goat discovering that the keyboard suggested to his native instincts a snowy and rocky mountain path. He leapt upon it, and was so greatly surprised by the result that he left it with a wild buck and landed with a clatter among the fire-irons.
"That last simple chord that he struck distinctly reminded me of a theme of Moussorgsky's," said Lord Bampton. "But, see! His interest in the instrument is by no means exhausted."
Certainly the goat had both courage and curiosity, for after refreshing himself with a bite of Tschaikowsky and a taste of Brahms he returned to the instrument and walked up and down the keyboard with the greatest delight. His lordship pointed out how evident it was that the goat was pleased with the simple wood-notes which he evoked, and from this built up a pleasing theory as to the origin of much modern music. Gwendolen argued the point eagerly, for she adored the moderns, and Lord Bampton at last admitted that it was only his fun to decry
them.
"One cannot deny that there is a simple wildness in the goat's performance which is distinctly pleasing. He has, as the critics say, an idiom of his own, not remotely like the Russian idiom."
"I think it would please my husband," said Mrs. Oakhurst thoughtfully.
"Then he likes music?" asked Lord Bampton eagerly.
"No, I cannot say that. What he likes is the simpler noises of the popular song," replied Mrs. Oakhurst. "But I wonder what detains him. Gwendolen, please see if your father is still manipulating that cold-water tap in the bathroom."
"Yes, mother," said Gwendolen.
"Has the water supply gone wrong?" asked Lord Bampton as the door closed.
"Oh, no," replied his hostess; "but when he gets excited about anything my husband puts his head under the tap, and he is apt to leave the water running."
"Has he been at all excited this morning?" asked his lordship. "Has anything occurred to disturb him?"
Once more the goat played an accompaniment to the conversation, but, with no more than a casual glance at the performer, Mrs. Oakhurst replied that the colonel was not disturbed but excited by the surprising activity of the goat.
"Then I gather that you have never had a goat in here before?" asked Lord Bampton.
"Not that I remember," said Mrs. Oakhurst; "but you must not for a moment, one single moment, imagine that I object. I adore all animals, and so does Gwendolen."
What Lord Bampton said then was a proof of his real passion, for, during one terrible moment, he feared it was obscuring his discretion. The behaviour of Colonel Oakhurst in allowing valuable and beautiful things to be destroyed by a goat, so distinctly out of place in a drawing-room, could possibly be understood. A wild military experience might account for much. But when Mrs. Oakhurst, and Gwendolen as well, displayed neither distress nor anxiety, even when the animal became musical, it opened to the lover the awful possibility of the whole household being alike afflicted. And yet it could not be! In town, Gwen had spoken as if her father was capable on occasions of going directly contrary to all dictates of reason. Ad was this not common in fathers, to say nothing of men generally? Lord Bampton accordingly put hesitation aside and seized the happy moment.