Garm--a Hostage

Garm--a Hostage

0ne night, a very long time ago, I drove to an Indian military
cantonment called Mian Mir to see amateur theatricals. At the
back of the Infantry barracks a soldier, his cap over one eye,
rushed in front of the horses and shouted that he was a dangerous
highway robber. As a matter of fact, he was a friend of mine, so
I told him to go home before any one caught him; but he fell
under the pole, and I heard voices of a military guard in search
of some one.

The driver and I coaxed him into the carriage, drove home
swiftly, undressed him and put him to bed, where he waked next
morning with a sore headache, very much ashamed. When his uniform
was cleaned and dried, and he had been shaved and washed and made
neat, I drove him back to barracks with his arm in a fine white
sling, and reported that I had accidentally run over him. I did
not tell this story to my friend's sergeant, who was a hostile
and unbelieving person, but to his lieutenant, who did not know
us quite so well.

Three days later my friend came to call, and at his heels
slobbered and fawned one of the finest bull-terriers--of the
old-fashioned breed, two parts bull and one terrier--that I had
ever set eyes on. He was pure white, with a fawn-coloured saddle
just behind his neck, and a fawn diamond at the root of his thin
whippy tail. I had admired him distantly for more than a year;
and Vixen, my own fox-terrier, knew him too, but did not approve.

"'E's for you," said my friend; but he did not look as though he
liked parting with him.

"Nonsense! That dog's worth more than most men, Stanley," I said.

"'E's that and more. 'Tention!"

The dog rose on his hind legs, and stood upright for a full
minute.

"Eyes right!"

He sat on his haunches and turned his head sharp to the right. At
a sign he rose and barked thrice. Then he shook hands with his
right paw and bounded lightly to my shoulder. Here he made
himself into a necktie, limp and lifeless, hanging down on either
side of my neck. I was told to pick him up and throw him in the
air. He fell with a howl, and held up one leg.

"Part o' the trick," said his owner. "You're going to die now.
Dig yourself your little grave an' shut your little eye."

Still limping, the dog hobbled to the garden-edge, dug a hole and
lay down in it. When told that he was cured, he jumped out,
wagging his tail, and whining for applause. He was put through
half-a-dozen other tricks, such as showing how he would hold a
man safe (I was that man, and he sat down before me, his teeth
bared, ready to spring), and how he would stop eating at the word
of command. I had no more than finished praising him when my
friend made a gesture that stopped the dog as though he had been
shot, took a piece of blue-ruled canteen-paper from his helmet,
handed it to me and ran away, while the dog looked after him and
howled. I read:

SIR--I give you the dog because of what you got me out of. He is
the best I know, for I made him myself, and he is as good as a
man. Please do not give him too much to eat, and please do not
give him back to me, for I'm not going to take him, if you will
keep him. So please do not try to give him back any more. I have
kept his name back, so you can call him anything and he will
answer. but please do not give him back. He can kill a man as
easy as anything, but please do not give him too much meat. He
knows more than a man.

Vixen sympathetically joined her shrill little yap to the
bull-terrier's despairing cry, and I was annoyed, for I knew that
a man who cares for dogs is one thing, but a man who loves one
dog is quite another. Dogs are at the best no more than verminous
vagrants, self-scratchers, foul feeders, and unclean by the law
of Moses and Mohammed; but a dog with whom one lives alone for at
least six months in the year; a free thing, tied to you so
strictly by love that without you he will not stir or exercise; a
patient, temperate, humorous, wise soul, who knows your moods
before you know them yourself, is not a dog under any ruling.

I had Vixen, who was all my dog to me; and I felt what my friend
must have felt, at tearing out his heart in this style and
leaving it in my garden. However, the dog understood clearly
enough that I was his master, and did not follow the soldier. As
soon as he drew breath I made much of him, and Vixen, yelling
with jealousy, flew at him. Had she been of his own sex, he might
have cheered himself with a fight, but he only looked worriedly
when she nipped his deep iron sides, laid his heavy head on my
knee, and howled anew. I meant to dine at the Club that night;
but as darkness drew in, and the dog snuffed through the empty
house like a child trying to recover from a fit of sobbing, I
felt that I could not leave him to suffer his first evening
alone. So we fed at home, Vixen on one side, and the stranger-dog
on the other; she watching his every mouthful, and saying
explicitly what she thought of his table manners, which were much
better than hers.

It was Vixen's custom, till the weather grew hot, to sleep in my
bed, her head on the pillow like a Christian; and when morning
came I would always find that the little thing had braced her
feet against the wall and pushed me to the very edge of the cot.
This night she hurried to bed purposefully, every hair up, one
eye on the stranger, who had dropped on a mat in a helpless,
hopeless sort of way, all four feet spread out, sighing heavily.
She settled her head on the pillow several times, to show her
little airs and graces, and struck up her usual whiney sing-song
before slumber. The stranger-dog softly edged toward me. I put
out my hand and he licked it. Instantly my wrist was between
Vixen's teeth, and her warning aaarh! said as plainly as speech,
that if I took any further notice of the stranger she would bite.

I caught her behind her fat neck with my left hand, shook her
severely, and said:

"Vixen, if you do that again you'll be put into the verandah.
Now, remember!"

She understood perfectly, but the minute I released her she
mouthed my right wrist once more, and waited with her ears back
and all her body flattened, ready to bite. The big dog's tail
thumped the floor in a humble and peace-making way.

I grabbed Vixen a second time, lifted her out of bed like a
rabbit (she hated that and yelled), and, as I had promised, set
her out in the verandah with the bats and the moonlight. At this
she howled. Then she used coarse language--not to me, but to the
bullterrier--till she coughed with exhaustion. Then she ran round
the house trying every door. Then she went off to the stables and
barked as though some one were stealing the horses, which was an
old trick of hers. Last she returned, and her snuffing yelp said,
"I'll be good! Let me in and I'll' be good!"

She was admitted and flew to her pillow. When she was quieted I
whispered to the other dog, "You can lie on the foot of the bed."
The bull jumped up at once, and though I felt Vixen quiver with
rage, she knew better than to protest. So we slept till the
morning, and they had early breakfast with me, bite for bite,
till the horse came round and we went for a ride. I don't think
the bull had ever followed a horse before. He was wild with
excitement, and Vixen, as usual, squealed and scuttered and
scooted, and took charge of the procession.

There was one corner of a village near by, which we generally
passed with caution, because all the yellow pariah-dogs of the
place gathered about it.

They were half-wild, starving beasts, and though utter cowards,
yet where nine or ten of them get together they will mob and kill
and eat an English dog. I kept a whip with a long lash for them.

That morning they attacked Vixen, who, perhaps of design, had
moved from beyond my horse's shadow.

The bull was ploughing along in the dust, fifty yards behind,
rolling in his run, and smiling as bull-terriers will. I heard
Vixen squeal; half a dozen of the curs closed in on her; a white
streak came up behind me; a cloud of dust rose near Vixen, and,
when it cleared, I saw one tall pariah with his back broken, and
the bull wrenching another to earth. Vixen retreated to the
protection of my whip, and the bull paddled back smiling more
than ever, covered with the blood of his enemies. That decided me
to call him "Garin of the Bloody Breast," who was a great person
in his time, or "Garm" for short; so, leaning forward, I told him
what his temporary name would be. He looked up while I repeated
it, and then raced away. I shouted "Garin!" He stopped, raced
back, and came up to ask my will.

Then I saw that my soldier friend was right, and that that dog
knew and was worth more than a man. At the end of the ride I gave
an order which Vixen knew and hated: "Go away and get washed!" I
said. Garin understood some part of it, and Vixen interpreted the
rest, and the two trotted off together soberly. When I went to
the back verandah Vixen had been washed snowy-white, and was very
proud of herself, but the dog-boy would not touch Garm on any
account unless I stood by. So I waited while he was being
scrubbed, and Garm, with the soap creaming on the top of his
broad head, looked at me to make sure that this was what I
expected him to endure. He knew perfectly that the dog-boy was
only obeying orders.

"Another time," I said to the dog-boy, "you will wash the great
dog with Vixen when I send them home."

"Does he know?" said the dog-boy, who understood the ways of
dogs.

"Garm," I said, "another time you will be washed with Vixen."

I knew that Garm understood. Indeed, next washing-day, when Vixen
as usual fled under my bed, Garm stared at the doubtful dog-boy
in the verandah, stalked to the place where he had been washed
last time, and stood rigid in the tub.

But the long days in my office tried him sorely. We three would
drive off in the morning at half-past eight and come home at six
or later. Vixen knowing the routine of it, went to sleep under my
table; but the confinement ate into Garm's soul. He generally sat
on the verandah looking out on the Mall; and well I knew what he
expected.

Sometimes a company of soldiers would move along on their way to
the Fort, and Garm rolled forth to inspect them; or an officer in
uniform entered into the office, and it was pitiful to see poor
Garm's welcome to the cloth--not the man. He would leap at him,
and sniff and bark joyously, then run to the door and back again.
One afternoon I heard him bay with a full throat--a thing I had
never heard before--and he disappeared. When I drove into my
garden at the end of the day a soldier in white uniform scrambled
over the wall at the far end, and the Garm that met me was a
joyous dog. This happened twice or thrice a week for a month.

I pretended not to notice, but Garm knew and Vixen knew. He would
glide homewards from the office about four o'clock, as though he
were only going to look at the scenery, and this he did so
quietly that but for Vixen I should not have noticed him. The
jealous little dog under the table would give a sniff and a
snort, just loud enough to call my attention to the flight. Garm
might go out forty times in the day and Vixen would never stir,
but when he slunk off to see his true master in my garden she
told me in her own tongue. That was the one sign she made to
prove that Garm did not altogether belong to the family. They
were the best of friends at all times, but, Vixen explained that
I was never to forget Garm did not love me as she loved me.

I never expected it. The dog was not my dog could never be my
dog--and I knew he was as miserable as his master who tramped
eight miles a day to see him. So it seemed to me that the sooner
the two were reunited the better for all. One afternoon I sent
Vixen home alone in the dog-cart (Garm had gone before), and rode
over to cantonments to find another friend of mine, who was an
Irish soldier and a great friend of the dog's master.

I explained the whole case, and wound up with:

"And now Stanley's in my garden crying over his dog. Why doesn't
he take him back? They're both unhappy."

"Unhappy! There's no sense in the little man any more. But 'tis
his fit."

"What is his fit? He travels fifty miles a week to see the brute,
and he pretends not to notice me when he sees me on the road; and
I'm as unhappy as he is. Make him take the dog back."

"It's his penance he's set himself. I told him by way of a joke,
afther you'd run over him so convenient that night, whin he was
drunk--I said if he was a Catholic he'd do penance. Off he went
wid that fit in his little head an' a dose of fever, an nothin'
would suit but givin' you the dog as a hostage."

"Hostage for what? I don't want hostages from Stanley."

"For his good behaviour. He's keepin' straight now, the way it's
no pleasure to associate wid him."

"Has he taken the pledge?"

"If 'twas only that I need not care. Ye can take the pledge for
three months on an' off. He sez he'll never see the dog again,
an' so mark you, he'll keep straight for evermore. Ye know his
fits? Well, this is wan of them. How's the dog takin' it ?"

"Like a man. He's the best dog in India. Can't you make Stanley
take him back?"

"I can do no more than I have done. But ye know his fits. He's
just doin' his penance. What will he do when he goes to the
Hills? The doctor's put him on the list."

It is the custom in India to send a certain number of invalids
from each regiment up to stations in the Himalayas for the hot
weather; and though the men ought to enjoy the cool and the
comfort, they miss the society of the barracks down below, and do
their best to come back or to avoid going. I felt that this move
would bring matters to a head, so I left Terrence hopefully,
though he called after me "He won't take the dog, sorr. You can
lay your month's pay on that. Ye know his fits."

I never pretended to understand Private Ortheris; and so I did
the next best thing I left him alone.

That summer the invalids of the regiment to which my friend
belonged were ordered off to the Hills early, because the doctors
thought marching in the cool of the day would do them good. Their
route lay south to a place called Umballa, a hundred and twenty
miles or more. Then they would turn east and march up into the
hills to Kasauli or Dugshai or Subathoo. I dined with the
officers the night before they left--they were marching at five
in the morning. It was midnight when I drove into my garden, and
surprised a white figure flying over the wall.

"That man," said my butler, "has been here since nine, making
talk to that dog. He is quite mad."

I did not tell him to go away because he has been here many times
before, and because the dog-boy told me that if I told him to go
away, that great dog would immediately slay me. He did not wish
to speak to the Protector of the Poor, and he did not ask for
anything to eat or drink."

"Kadir Buksh," said I, "that was well done, for the dog would
surely have killed thee. But I do not think the white soldier
will come any more."

Garm slept ill that night and whimpered in his dreams. Once he
sprang up with a clear, ringing bark, and I heard him wag his
tail till it waked him and the bark died out in a howl. He had
dreamed he was with his master again, and I nearly cried. It was
all Stanley's silly fault.

The first halt which the detachment of invalids made was some
miles from their barracks, on the Amritsar road, and ten miles
distant from my house. By a mere chance one of the officers drove
back for another good dinner at the Club (cooking on the line of
march is always bad), and there I met him. He was a particular
friend of mine, and I knew that he knew how to love a dog
properly. His pet was a big fat retriever who was going up to the
Hills for his health, and, though it was still April, the round,
brown brute puffed and panted in the Club verandah as though he
would burst.

"It's amazing," said the officer, "what excuses these invalids of
mine make to get back to barracks. There's a man in my company
now asked me for leave to go back to cantonments to pay a debt
he'd forgotten. I was so taken by the idea I let him go, and he
jingled off in an ekka as pleased as Punch. Ten miles to pay a
debt! Wonder what it was really?"

"If you'll drive me home I think I can show you," I said.

So he went over to my house in his dog-cart with the retriever;
and on the way I told him the story of Garm.

"I was wondering where that brute had gone to. He's the best dog
in the regiment," said my friend. "I offered the little fellow
twenty rupees for him a month ago. But he's a hostage, you say,
for Stanley's good conduct. Stanley's one of the best men I have
when he chooses."

"That's the reason why," I said. "A second-rate man wouldn't have
taken things to heart as he has done."

We drove in quietly at the far end of the garden, and crept round
the house. There was a place close to the wall all grown about
with tamarisk trees, where I knew Garm kept his bones. Even Vixen
was not allowed to sit near it. In the full Indian moonlight I
could see a white uniform bending over the dog.

"Good-bye, old man," we could not help hearing Stanley's voice.
"For 'Eving's sake don't get bit and go mad by any measly pi-dog.
But you can look after yourself, old man. You don't get drunk an'
run about 'ittin' your friends. You takes your bones an' you eats
your biscuit, an' you kills your enemy like a gentleman. I'm
goin' away--don't 'owl--I'm goin' off to Kasauli, where I won't
see you no more."

I could hear him holding Garm's nose as the dog threw it up to
the stars.

"You'll stay here an' be'ave, an'--an' I'll go away an' try to
be'ave, an' I don't know 'ow to leave you. I don't know--"

"I think this is damn silly," said the officer, patting his
foolish fubsy old retriever. He called to the private, who leaped
to his feet, marched forward, and saluted.

"You here?" said the officer, turning away his head.

"Yes, sir, but I'm just goin' back."

"I shall be leaving here at eleven in my cart. You come with me.
I can't have sick men running about fall over the place. Report
yourself at eleven, here."

We did not say much when we went indoors, but the officer
muttered and pulled his retriever's ears.

He was a disgraceful, overfed doormat of a dog; and when he
waddled off to my cookhouse to be fed, I had a brilliant idea.

At eleven o'clock that officer's dog was nowhere to be found, and
you never heard such a fuss as his owner made. He called and
shouted and grew angry, and hunted through my garden for half an
hour.

Then I said:

"He's sure to turn up in the morning. Send a man in by rail, and
I'll find the beast and return him."

"Beast?" said the officer. "I value that dog considerably more
than I value any man I know. It's all very fine for you to
talk--your dog's here."

So she was--under my feet--and, had she been missing, food and
wages would have stopped in my house till her return. But some
people grow fond of dogs not worth a cut of the whip. My friend
had to drive away at last with Stanley in the back seat; and then
the dog-boy said to me:

"What kind of animal is Bullen Sahib's dog? Look at him!"

I went to the boy's hut, and the fat old reprobate was lying on a
mat carefully chained up. He must have heard his master calling
for twenty minutes, but had not even attempted to join him.

"He has no face," said the dog-boy scornfully. "He is a
punniar-kooter (a spaniel). He never tried to get that cloth off
his jaws when his master called. Now Vixen-baba would have jumped
through the window, and that Great Dog would have slain me with
his muzzled mouth. It is true that there are many kinds of dogs."

Next evening who should turn up but Stanley. The officer had sent
him back fourteen miles by rail with a note begging me to return
the retriever if I had found him, and, if I had not, to offer
huge rewards. The last train to camp left at half-past ten, and
Stanley, stayed till ten talking to Garm. I argued and entreated,
and even threatened to shoot the bull-terrier, bat the little man
was as firm as a rock, though I gave him a good dinner and talked
to him most severely. Garm knew as well as I that this was the
last time he could hope to see his man, and followed Stanley like
a shadow. The retriever said nothing, but licked his lips after
his meal and waddled off without so much as saying "Thank you" to
the disgusted dog-boy.

So that last meeting was over, and I felt as wretched as Garm,
who moaned in his sleep all night. When we went to the office he
found a place under the table close to Vixen, and dropped flat
till it was time to go home. There was no more running out into
the verandahs, no slinking away for stolen talks with Stanley. As
the weather grew warmer the dogs were forbidden to run beside the
cart, but sat at my side on the seat, Vixen with her head under
the crook of my left elbow, and Garm hugging the left handrail.

Here Vixen was ever in great form. She had to attend to all the
moving traffic, such as bullock-carts that blocked the way, and
camels, and led ponies; as well as to keep up her dignity when
she passed low friends running in the dust. She never yapped for
yapping's sake, but her shrill, high bark was known all along the
Mall, and other men's terriers ki-yied in reply, and
bullock-drivers looked over their shoulders and gave us the road
with a grin.

But Garm cared for none of these things. His big eyes were on the
horizon and his terrible mouth was shut. There was another dog in
the office who belonged to my chief. We called him "Bob the
Librarian," because he always imagined vain rats behind the
bookshelves, and in hunting for them would drag out half the old
newspaper-files. Bob was a well-meaning idiot, but Garm did not
encourage him. He would slide his head round the door panting,
"Rats! Come along Garm!" and Garm would shift one forepaw over
the other, and curl himself round, leaving Bob to whine at a most
uninterested back. The office was nearly as cheerful as a tomb in
those days.

Once, and only once, did I see Garm at all contented with his
surroundings. He had gone for an unauthorised walk with Vixen
early one Sunday morning, and a very young and foolish
artilleryman (his battery had just moved to that part of the
world) tried to steal them both. Vixen, of course, knew better
than to take food from soldiers, and, besides, she had just
finished her breakfast. So she trotted back with a large piece of
the mutton that they issue to our troops, laid it down on my
verandah, and looked up to see what I thought. I asked her where
Garin was, and she ran in front of the horse to show me the way.

About a mile up the road we came across our artilleryman sitting
very stiffly on the edge of a culvert with a greasy handkerchief
on his knees. Garin was in front of him, looking rather pleased.
When the man moved leg or hand, Garin bared his teeth in silence.
A broken string hung from his collar, and the other half of, it
lay, all warm, in the artilleryman's still hand. He explained to
me, keeping his eyes straight in front of him, that he had met
this dog (he called him awful names) walking alone, and was going
to take him to the Fort to be killed for a masterless pariah.

I said that Garin did not seem to me much of a pariah, but that
he had better take him to the Fort if he thought best. He said he
did not care to do so. I told him to go to the Fort alone. He
said he did not want to go at that hour, but would follow my
advice as soon as I had called off the dog. I instructed Garin to
take him to the Fort, and Garm marched him solemnly up to the
gate, one mile and a half under a hot sun, and I told the
quarter-guard what had happened; but the young artilleryman was
more angry than was at all necessary when they began to laugh.
Several regiments, he was told, had tried to steal Garm in their
time.

That month the hot weather shut down in earnest, and the dogs
slept in the bathroom on the cool wet bricks where the bath is
placed. Every morning, as soon as the man filled my bath the two
jumped in, and every morning the man filled the bath a second
time. I said to him that he might as well fill a small tub
specially for the dogs. "Nay," said he smiling, "it is not their
custom. They would not understand. Besides, the big bath gives
them more space."

The punkah-coolies who pull the punkahs day and night came to
know Garin intimately. He noticed that when the swaying fan
stopped I would call out to the coolie and bid him pull with a
long stroke. If the man still slept I would wake him up. He
discovered, too, that it was a good thing to lie in the wave of
air under the punkah. Maybe Stanley had taught him all about this
in barracks. At any rate, when the punkah stopped, Garin would
first growl and cock his eye at the rope, and if that did not
wake the man it nearly always did--he would tiptoe forth and talk
in the sleeper's ear. Vixen was a clever little dog, but she
could never connect the punkah and the coolie; so Garin gave me
grateful hours of cool sleep. But--he was utterly wretched--as
miserable as a human being; and in his misery he clung so closely
to me that other men noticed it, and were envious. If I moved
from one room to another Garin followed; if my pen stopped
scratching, Garm's head was thrust into my hand; if I turned,
half awake, on the pillow, Garm was up and at my side, for he
knew that I was his only link with his master, and day and night,
and night and day, his eyes asked one question--"When is this
going to end?"

Living with the dog as I did, I never noticed that he was more
than ordinarily upset by the hot weather, till one day at the
Club a man said: "That dog of yours will die in a week or two.
He's a shadow." Then I dosed Garin with iron and quinine, which
he hated; and I felt very anxious. He lost his appetite, and
Vixen was allowed to eat his dinner under his eyes. Even that did
not make him swallow, and we held a consultation on him, of the
best man-doctor in the place; a lady-doctor, who cured the sick
wives of kings; and the Deputy Inspector-General of the
veterinary service of all India. They pronounced upon his
symptoms, and I told them his story, and Garm lay on a sofa
licking my hand.

"He's dying of a broken heart," said the lady-doctor suddenly.

"'Pon my word," said the Deputy Inspector General, "I believe
Mrs. Macrae is perfectly right as usual."

The best man-doctor in the place wrote a prescription, and the
veterinary Deputy Inspector-General went over it afterwards to be
sure that the drugs were in the proper dog-proportions; and that
was the first time in his life that our doctor ever allowed his
prescriptions to be edited. It was a strong tonic, and it put the
dear boy on his feet for a week or two; then he lost flesh again.
I asked a man I knew to take him up to the Hills with him when he
went, and the man came to the door with his kit packed on the top
of the carriage. Garin took in the situation at one red glance.
The hair rose along his back; he sat down in front of me and
delivered the most awful growl I have ever heard in the jaws of a
dog. I shouted to my friend to get away at once, and as soon as
the carriage was out of the garden Garin laid his head on my knee
and whined. So I knew his answer, and devoted myself to getting
Stanley's address in the Hills.

My turn to go to the cool came late in August. We were allowed
thirty days' holiday in a year, if no one fell sick, and we took
it as we could be spared. My chief and Bob the Librarian had
their holiday first, and when they were gone I made a calendar,
as I always did, and hung it up at the head of my cot, tearing
off one day at a time till they returned. Vixen had gone up to
the Hills with me five times before; and she appreciated the cold
and the damp and the beautiful wood fires there as much as I did.

"Garm," I said, "we are going back to Stanley at Kasauli.
Kasauli--Stanley; Stanley Kasauli." And I repeated it twenty
times. It was not Kasauli really, but another place. Still I
remembered what Stanley had said in my garden on the last night,
and I dared not change the name. Then Garm began to tremble; then
he barked; and then he leaped up at me, frisking and wagging his
tail.

"Not now," I said, holding up my hand. "When I say 'Go,' we'll
go, Garm." I pulled out the little blanket coat and spiked collar
that Vixen always wore up in the Hills to protect her against
sudden chills and thieving leopards, and I let the two smell them
and talk it over. What they said of course I do not know; but it
made a new dog of Garm. His eyes were bright; and he barked
joyfully when I spoke to him. He ate his food, and he killed his
rats for the next three weeks, and when he began to whine I had
only to say "Stanley--Kasauli; Kasauli--Stanley," to wake him up.
I wish I had thought of it before.

My chief came back, all brown with living in the open air, and
very angry at finding it so hot in the plains. That same
afternoon we three and Kadir Buksh began to pack for our month's
holiday, Vixen rolling in and out of the bullock-trunk twenty
times a minute, and Garm grinning all over and thumping on the
floor with his tail. Vixen knew the routine of travelling as well
as she knew my office-work. She went to the station, singing
songs, on the front seat of the carriage, while Garin sat with
me. She hurried into the railway carriage, saw Kadir Buksh make
up my bed for the night, got her drink of water, and curled up
with her black-patch eye on the tumult of the platform. Garin
followed her (the crowd gave him a lane all to himself) and sat
down on the pillows with his eyes blazing, and his tail a haze
behind him.

We came to Umballa in the hot misty dawn, four or five men, who
had been working hard fox eleven months, shouting for our
dales--the two-horse travelling carriages that were to take us up
to Kalka at the foot of the Hills. It was all new to Garm. He did
not understand carriages where you lay at full length on your
bedding, but Vixen knew and hopped into her place at once; Garin
following. The Kalka Road, before the railway was built, was
about forty-seven miles long, and the horses were changed every
eight miles. Most of them jibbed, and kicked, and plunged, but
they had to go, and they went rather better than usual for Garm's
deep bay in their rear.

There was a river to be forded, and four bullocks pulled the
carriage, and Vixen stuck her head out of the sliding-door and
nearly fell into the water while she gave directions. Garin was
silent and curious, and rather needed reassuring about Stanley
and Kasauli. So we rolled, barking and yelping, into Kalka for
lunch, and Garm ate enough for two.

After Kalka the road wound among the hills, and we took a
curricle with half-broken ponies, which were changed every six
miles. No one dreamed of a railroad to Simla in those days, for
it was seven thousand feet up in the air. The road was more than
fifty miles long, and the regulation pace was just as fast as the
ponies could go. Here, again, Vixen led Garm from one carriage to
the other; jumped into the back seat, and shouted. A cool breath
from the snows met us about five miles out of Kalka, and she
whined for her coat, wisely fearing a chill on the liver. I had
had one made for Garm too, and, as we climbed to the fresh
breezes, I put it on, and arm chewed it uncomprehendingly, but I
think he was grateful.

"Hi-yi-yi-yi!" sang Vixen as we shot round the curves;
"Toot-toot-toot!" went the driver's bugle at the dangerous
places, and "yow! yow!" bayed Garm. Kadir Buksh sat on the front
seat and smiled. Even he was glad to get away from the heat of
the Plains that stewed in the haze behind us. Now and then we
would meet a man we knew going down to his work again, and he
would say: "What's it like below?" and I would shout: "Hotter
than cinders. What's it like up above?" and he would shout back:
"Just perfect!" and away we would go.

Suddenly Kadir Buksh said, over his shoulder: "Here is Solon";
and Garm snored where he lay with his head on my knee. Solon is
an unpleasant little cantonment, but it has the advantage of
being cool and healthy. It is all bare and windy, and one
generally stops at a rest-house nearby for something to eat. I
got out and took both dogs with me, while Kadir Buksh made tea. A
soldier told, us we should find Stanley "out there," nodding his
head towards a bare, bleak hill.

When we climbed to the top we spied that very Stanley, who had
given me all this trouble, sitting on a rock with his face in his
hands, and his overcoat hanging loose about him. I never saw
anything so lonely and dejected in my life as this one little
man, crumpled up and thinking, on the great gray hillside.

Here Garm left me.

He departed without a word, and, so far as I could see, without
moving his legs. He flew through the air bodily, and I heard the
whack of him as he flung himself at Stanley, knocking the little
man clean over. They rolled on the ground together, shouting, and
yelping, and hugging. I could not see which was dog and which was
man, till Stanley got up and whimpered.

He told me that he had been suffering from fever at intervals,
and was very weak. He looked all he said, but even while I
watched, both man and dog plumped out to their natural sizes,
precisely as dried apples swell in water. Garin was on his
shoulder, and his breast and feet all at the same time, so that
Stanley spoke all through a cloud of Garin--gulping, sobbing,
slavering Garm. He did not say anything that I could understand,
except that he had fancied he was going to die, but that now he
was quite well, and that he was not going to give up Garin any
more to anybody under the rank of Beelzebub.

Then he said he felt hungry, and thirsty, and happy.

We went down to tea at the rest-house, where Stanley stuffed
himself with sardines and raspberry jam, and beer, and cold
mutton and pickles, when Garm wasn't climbing over him; and then
Vixen and I went on.

Garm saw how it was at once. He said good-bye to me three times,
giving me both paws one after another, and leaping on to my
shoulder. He further escorted us, singing Hosannas at the top of
his voice, a mile down the road. Then he raced back to his own
master.

Vixen never opened her mouth, but when the cold twilight came,
and we could see the lights of Simla across the hills, she
snuffled with her nose at the breast of my ulster. I unbuttoned
it, and tucked her inside. Then she gave a contented little
sniff, and fell fast asleep, her head on my breast, till we
bundled out at Simla, two of the four happiest people in all the
world that night.

-THE END-
Rudyard Kipling's short story: Garm--a Hostage

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