by Paul Gallico
He called in at the McPherson chicken farm and calmed the fears of the widow McPherson that she was in for an outbreak of the gapes, a disease of fowls caused by worms in the windpipe. The laboratory report had been negative and the suspected chicks were suffering from a harmless respiratory attack and were already perking up in their isolation pen. MacDhui certified them for release.
He called in at the farm of a wealthy experimental cattle farmer who was trying out a herd in the hills, and gave the cattle the tuberculin test, visited several other small farms and crofters’ cottages for minor complaints, and on his way back looked in again on Fergus Birnie’s stalls.
Fear of loss of bread and butter had worked upon the farmer, and stables and cattle were in passable condition, clean enough at least for the vet to get on with the treatment. He inoculated each animal, promised to restore the license when the disease had abated, provided the standard of cleanliness was maintained. With a final threat to drop in any day unannounced to check up on them, he climbed into his jeep and headed down the twisting, winding track to the main road back to the valley and Inveranoch.
Yet he dawdled with his driving, hunched about the wheel, dwarfing it with his great bulk, since he was in no hurry to get back. For of all there was to and about his work and profession, this was the part he liked the best, poking about in the rugged hill country above the loch, visiting the farms, and practicing a medicine that was almost human medicine in that it was designed to aid in the protection of human beings, and where the beasts he was called upon to treat were doughty breadwinners and servants of man, from the clever, bright-eyed sheep dogs to the black-faced sheep they herded and the stalwart hardy breeds of Highland cattle.
Here, too, he was received almost with the same respect as Dr. Strathsay, who came out likewise to the back country to deliver their children, set their fractures, or treat occasional illnesses. To the crofter who lived by his sheep, pigs, fowl, or cattle, Mr. MacDhui was a man of importance. A person could well recover from a sneeze or feverish cough, a hand or foot cut with ax or scythe, but a dead animal that could not even be sold for meat was money out of pocket, and an infection which might condemn an entire herd to slaughter was a catastrophe. To them Mr. MacDhui was a man of value and in most quarters he was treated with deference.
Thus it was with reluctance that the animal doctor found himself again in Inveranoch, where his office waiting room would no doubt be filled once more with both locals as well as visitors from as far off as Liverpool, Birmingham, and London, with their useless and pampered pets.
It was a quarter past eleven when he drove the jeep around to the back and, entering the premises from the rear, turned his bag over to Willie Bannock along with a quick account of the morning’s doings back in the hills, washed his hands, still talking and giving his assistant no chance to speak, and donning a fresh white coat, made his usual entrance, beard outthrust, into the doorway of the waiting room.
He noted that, as usual, every bench and chair was occupied, the locals in their sober clothes, coveralls or work aprons, the city dwellers more flamboyantly clad, including a lady in a most grand and fashionable hat holding a chocolate-covered Pomeranian with rheumy eyes. And, as always, the sight inspired the same choler and truculent impatience it seemed to bring on every day at this hour. He hated them and he hated his work.
Yet he looked them over and looked again and this time became aware of a startling presence among the group of waiting clients. Seated quietly and most upright on the edge of the last chair at the far end of the room, the very last in line, was his daughter, Mary Ruadh.
MacDhui colored red at this challenging evidence of disobedience, for the child was under strict orders and Mrs. McKenzie knew it too, that she was never to come next door to the surgery, hospital, or consulting room, as many of the diseases suffered by animal patients were likewise infectious and communicable to man. One such tragedy in his life had been sufficient.
As he stared with rising anger, he noted that what had seemed to be an extension of her red-gold hair tumbling down her shoulder was her ginger cat held in her arms close to her breast, its head cuddled under her chin in the manner of a child. Before he could inquire sharply as to what kind of play or nonsense this was, and in direct contravention to his orders, Willie Bannock was at his elbow whispering: “The puir puss has some unco’ ailment. It can walk nae mair. The chiel has been biding anxiously for your return.”
Mr. MacDhui said, “You know as well as I she is not to come here. Well, since she is here then she must await her turn like the rest.” To the woman seated nearest the door he said, “If you will take your dog inside now, Mrs. Kechnie, we’ll have a look at those ears,” when a great noise and hubbub was heard without in the street, approaching nearer and a moment later the door swung open and it burst in upon them.
It revealed itself to be composed of small children in various stages of excitement, housewives from neighboring cottages, wiping their hands on their aprons, several men likewise attracted by the noise, and at its center the minister, Mr. Angus Peddie, old Tammas Moffat, the blind man who was licensed to sell pencils and shoelaces at the corner of High and Fore streets, and Constable MacQuarrie. In the constable’s arms, muddied and bloodied, still in his harness with the guide handle, lay the quivering form of Bruce, the seeing-eye dog that had been provided for Tammas through subscription by the parish at the instigation of Mr. Peddie.
The noise caught Mr. MacDhui as he was closing the door and he returned quickly. “Now, now—what’s all this? I’ll have no crowding in here. Come, now, out with you, all of you who have no business here, everyone except Mr. Peddie, Tammas, and the policeman. Angus, what has happened?”
“Run over, sir,” the constable replied in place of the priest, who busied himself clearing the followers on out of the room. “It happened only a few moments ago, one of the visitors, speeding. We’ll have him under lock and key in short order, but in the meantime I’m afraid the dog’s done for. Both wheels went over him. We brought him here as quickly as we could.”
Mr. Peddie returned, fluttering anxiously. “He’s still living, Andrew. Perhaps you can still do something—”
The old blind man was in a state, his knees trembling and his head shaking from side to side, stunned by the accident, lost without his dog, bewildered by the people about. He moaned, “Where is he, my Bruce? Where is he? We were about to cross the street. I heard a noise and a shout. Where is he? Is he dead? What will I do? What will happen to me?”
Mr. Peddie took him by the arm. “Gently now, Tammas. Don’t take on so. The dog is still alive and in good hands. Mr. MacDhui will do the best he can for him.”
The blind man groped for an instant and then quavered, “Mr. MacDhui? Mr. MacDhui? Is that where we are?”
“Take the dog inside,” Mr. MacDhui ordered Willie Bannock, who carefully relieved the policeman of his quivering burden. The veterinarian glanced at the dog as it went by and wrinkled his nose; the life seemed all but crushed out of it.
“Is it Mr. MacDhui?” the blind man said again, and turning his sightless face to him, put out his hand, touched and held his arm. “I’m an old man. I cannot be doing without him. Save my eyes for me, Mr. MacDhui—”
The plea went into the bowels of Mr. Veterinary Surgeon Andrew MacDhui like a knife thrust and turned there, for with three words—“save my eyes”—the blind man had brought back again all of the frustration and failure of his forty-odd years of living. He would have given the next forty to have heard those words spoken to him as a doctor of medicine, to have been called upon to give of his skill, love, and devotion to the saving of human sight, or health, or life itself instead of being asked to put together again, like Humpty Dumpty, the fragments of a dog.
Something of what was passing through his mind communicated itself to his friend, Mr. Peddie, either because of the tortured misery the minister thought he glimpsed at that moment in the face of the animal doctor, or because he himself was so well acq
uainted with MacDhui’s story, since they had known one another since their schoolboy and student days in Glasgow.
It was to the young Peddie that the boy MacDhui had confided his ambition to become a great physician just about the time that the former had decided for the ministry, and they had argued and discussed the respective merits of their chosen professions then, boasted, bickered, and let their ambitions soar.
And it was only Peddie, the young divinity student, who saw fall the tears of grief, rage, and frustration when the tyrannical father cut short his boy’s hopes and ambitions and compelled him to follow in his own profession of animal medicine.
“He means—” Mr. Peddie began, but MacDhui quelled him with a look.
“I know what he means,” he said. “The dog is three-quarters dead and ought to be put out of his misery, but—I’ll save Tammas’s eyes if I can—” Then to all of those in the waiting room he shouted, “Go home. Come back tomorrow. I have no time for you now.”
One by one they picked up their pets and filed out. MacDhui said to Peddie, “There’s no use your waiting. It will be sometime before I can tell. Get Tammas home. I’ll let you know—” He went into the surgery and closed the door behind him.
The constable led the blind man out. Peddie was about to follow when his glance fell upon the child sitting quietly in the corner hugging her cat to her and he went over to her in surprise.
“Hello, Mary Ruadh. What are you doing here? Why aren’t you out playing?”
She looked up at him confidingly, for they were old and trusted friends, and replied, “Thomasina’s very sick. She can’t walk at all. I’m bringing her to Daddy to make well.”
Mr. Peddie nodded and absent-mindedly stroked the head of the ginger cat and scratched it under the chin as he always did when he came upon the two together. The accident to the blind man’s dog, though he had not witnessed it, had been a shock to him, and, too, he had felt the depth of pain of MacDhui’s reaction.
Mr. Peddie nodded again and said, “Ah well, I’ve no doubt he’ll put her right again,” and went out after Constable MacQuarrie.
6
On that fatal day I awoke, as usual, at dawn and prepared to engage in my accustomed routine—a yawn, a good stretch lengthwise followed by a round humpbacked one, and then escape from the house.
I had a secret exit and entrance, of course, but I could use them only when nobody was about or they wouldn’t have been secret any more. These escape routes are the first things we work out in whatever house we find ourselves living. People actually believe they can shut us up. Well, there are few places or houses we cannot get out of if we really want to do so.
I liked to be about early in the morning to see the sun come up, to attend to eliminations, have a quiet once-over-lightly wash to get my fur looking presentable, inspect things on our lane, and exchange a bit of gossip with friends and neighbors sitting on their doorsteps or engaged upon similar errands. This was one of the pleasantest hours of the day and I used to look forward to it. It was wonderful to be free and with no people about. Yet I always managed to be back before Mary Ruadh awakened.
But not that day. I opened my eyes at the usual hour when the curtains drawn over the windows turned from black to gray, tried to stretch, and discovered that I was unable to move my legs. Such a thing had never happened to me before. I was so frightened I simply lay there trembling from head to tail.
I thought perhaps it might be a bad dream, for we have them quite often, dreadful ones in which we are being chased and cannot run fast enough, and I lay there quietly for a little, waiting for it to go away. But it didn’t, and as it grew lighter, I realized that there was something wrong with my vision as well. I was unable to see the room or the corner of it, or the window, sharply; objects seemed to be unclear and when I tried to look harder they seemed to vanish. I appeared to be swimming in and out of things.
The next thing I remembered I was lying in Mary Ruadh’s arms and she was saying, “Sleepyhead Thomasina. I have been awake ever so long and you are still sleeping. Shall I give you a whisper, Thomasina? I love you!”
I had no time for such sentiments . . . I was sick, sick, sick and for all I knew, might be dying. There was no use my trying to tell Mary Ruadh that something queer had happened to me, that I could not make my legs work and sometimes could not even see her even though I was lying in her arms. Those are the times when people are our despair, so dense, obtuse, and insensitive are they, and unable to understand even our simplest communications. Another cat would have known at once, at the first sight, the first sniff, the first and smallest impulse transmitted from my antennae to hers, that I was dangerously ill.
The dreadful morning wore on until sometimes I was certain it could only be a nightmare. Mrs. McKenzie came to get Mary Ruadh up, but since the child always carried me about everywhere, I was left to lie there while she was helped to dress; then she came and got me from the bed and carried me into the next room and later lifted me into the dining room and put me on the chair next to hers while she had breakfast and Mrs. McKenzie gossiped with the dustman.
And when I cried Mary Ruadh only said, “Haven’t you a lot to say this morning, Thomasina, you naughty sleepyhead—”
At last Mrs. McKenzie finished her interminable chatter, placed my bowl of milk and cereal by the back door in the kitchen, and called, “Come, puss, and get yer porridge—”
I lay on the chair where Mary Ruadh had last put me, unable to stir except for my head and the tip of my tail. I didn’t want anything to eat. I only wanted them to find out there was something the matter with me and help me. I cried to them as loudly as I could, but not much sound came out. Mary Ruadh said, “Lazy Thomasina! Go and have your breakfast. Oh, very well then, I’ll carry you, you lazy old Thomasina.”
She picked me up and went with me to the bowl and put me down next it, where I fell over onto my side. I tried washing, but I was not even able to make the proper movements with my head and tongue. Mary Ruadh said, “Thomasina, you MUST drink your milk,” imitating the way Mrs. McKenzie used to say the same thing to her. “If you don’t drink your milk, you naughty Thomasina, I shan’t take you to the burn this afternoon to watch the trout with Hughie Stirling.”
I tell you, it isn’t much fun to be lying at death’s door, AND at the same time be scolded and told you are to be punished . . . For there was nothing I liked so much as to squat among the flowers on the bank of the brook that flowed into the river not far from the ruins of Castle Ardrath and watch the trout lying on the bottom, fanning themselves with their fins.
I think I could sit and watch them for days. I never caught any. I did not even try to scoop them out with my paw, though I am sure I could have done so had I wished. I was just happy to lie as still as they. Sometimes when one moved away from the sunny shallows and swam into a deeper portion where it would be merely a faint shadow against the bottom, I would get up and follow it and looking down into the clear water, try to make it out. The children would wander off, exploring, but I would just stay there watching the fish. Tears began to roll from my eyes as I thought that I had probably done this for the last time.
I lay on my side, helpless, no sound coming from my mouth as I tried to call for the help that was not forthcoming.
At last! Mary Ruadh came over to me and tried to set me on my feet, saying, “Thomasina, you MUST eat your breakfast!” and when I fell over onto my side again she became alarmed and when it happened once more called, “Mrs. McKenzie! Oh, dear Mrs. McKenzie; do you come here at once, please, and see what is wrong with Thomasina. Please, Mrs. McKenzie, do come at once.”
The housekeeper hurried into the kitchen and knelt at my side. She, too, tried to set me on my feet and when I fell over she said, “Och, Mary, I’m feart oor puss has some unchancy illness. The puir wee thing canna stan’ on her ain fower feet.”
Mary Ruadh picked me up, half crushing me, crying my name over and over, the tears rolling down her cheeks. “Thomasina—Thomasina—poor
Thomasina—!” Like a fool, I purred. I couldn’t help myself. Mrs. McKenzie enveloped us both in her arms and said, “Dinna greet so, lassis, for it’s mair nor his hert can stan’ tae hear ye. Ye maun rin, Mary Ruadh, an’ take Thomasina next door tae yer ain feyther, the doctor, wha’ll nae doot ken goo tae pit richt whitever ails her. He’ll shairly no rail gin ye come there this yince an sae sair an errand.”
Mary Ruadh ceased her crying at once. The tears stopped as if by magic and she smiled down at me. “Do you hear, Thomasina? We will go to see Daddy and Daddy will make you well again.”
I must confess I did not share her optimism, and quite frankly I did not relish finding myself in the hands of this great, red brute of a man who could not bear the sight of me, and entrusting what was left of my life to him. But there seemed to be no other choice. Had I been able to walk, I should have crawled away to some hole or corner by myself.
Mrs. McKenzie led us next door, Mary Ruadh carrying me, and as soon as we entered I smelled the same medicine smell that was always on Mr. MacDhui and it turned me sick and faint.
I was swimming again, in and out, and I saw blurred, as though looking into the loch when it was stirred by the wind, a room filled with people, some with cats and some with dogs, but I was feeling quite too awful to care much about them. Mary Ruadh sat down on a chair while Mrs. McKenzie explained to Willie Bannock what had happened. I heard Willie say that it was the doctors morning to be away at the farms, but as soon as he returned he would tell him and the best thing for Mary Ruadh to do was bide there.
Willie Bannock said he did not dare examine me himself, for the doctor would have the rest of his hair off his head if he did, but Mary Ruadh was not to worry, for the doctor was quite the cleverest man in the world where beasties were concerned and would cure me if anyone could. I felt cheered for the first time. I always liked Willie Bannock. Had I but known the part he would be called upon to play!