THEOPHIL ESHLEY was an artist by profession, a cattle painter by force of environment. It is not to be
supposed that he lived on a ranche or a dairy farm, in an atmosphere pervaded with horn and hoof, milking-stool, and branding-iron. His home was in a park-like, villa-dotted district that only just escaped the reproach of being suburban. On one side of his garden there abutted small, picturesque meadow, in which an enterprising neighbour pastured some small picturesque cows of the Channel Island persuasion. At noonday in summertime the cows stood knee-deep in tall meadow-grass under the shade of a group of walnut trees, with the sunlight falling in dappled patches on their mouse-sleek coats. Eshley had conceived and executed a dainty picture of two reposeful milch-cows in a setting of walnut tree and meadow-grass and filtered sunbeam, and the Royal Academy had duly exposed the same on the walls of its Summer Exhibition. The Royal Academy encourages orderly, methodical habits in its children. Eshley had painted a successful and
acceptable picture of cattle drowsing picturesquely under walnut trees, and as he had begun, so, of necessity, he went on. His "Noontide Peace," a study of two dun cows under a walnut tree, was followed by "A Mid-day Sanctuary," a study of a walnut tree, with two dun cows under it. In due succession there came "Where the Gad-Flies Cease from Troubling," "The Haven of the Herd," and "A-dream in Dairyland," studies of walnut trees and dun cows. His two attempts to break away from his own tradition were signal failures: "Turtle Doves alarmed by Sparrow-hawk" and "Wolves on the Roman Campagna" came back to his studio in the guise of abominable heresies,
and Eshley climbed back into grace and the public gaze
with "A Shaded Nook where Drowsy Milkers Dream."
On a fine afternoon in late autumn he was putting
some finishing touches to a study of meadow weeds when
his neighbour, Adela Pingsford, assailed the outer door of his studio with loud peremptory knockings.
"There is an ox in my garden," she announced, in
explanation of the tempestuous intrusion.
"An ox," said Eshley blankly, and rather fatuously;
"what kind of ox?"
"Oh, I don't know what kind," snapped the lady. "A
common or garden ox, to use the slang expression. It is
the garden part of it that I object to. My garden has
just been put straight for the winter, and an ox roaming
about in it won't improve matters. Besides, there are
the chrysanthemums just coming into flower."
"How did it get into the garden?" asked Eshley.
"I imagine it came in by the gate," said the lady
impatiently; "it couldn't have climbed the walls, and I
don't suppose anyone dropped it from an aeroplane as a
Bovril advertisement. The immediately important question
is not how it got in, but how to get it out."
"Won't it go?" said Eshley.
"If it was anxious to go," said Adela Pingsford
rather angrily, "I should not have come here to chat with
you about it. I'm practically all alone; the housemaid
is having her afternoon out and the cook is lying down
with an attack of neuralgia. Anything that I may have
learned at school or in after life about how to remove a
large ox from a small garden seems to have escaped from
my memory now. All I could think of was that you were a
near neighbour and a cattle painter, presumably more or
less familiar with the subjects that you painted, and
that you might be of some slight assistance. Possibly I was mistaken."
"I paint dairy cows, certainly," admitted Eshley,
"but I cannot claim to have had any experience in
rounding-up stray oxen. I've seen it done on a cinema
film, of course, but there were always horses and lots of other accessories; besides, one never knows how much of those pictures are faked."
Adela Pingsford said nothing, but led the way to her
garden. It was normally a fair-sized garden, but it
looked small in comparison with the ox, a huge mottled
brute, dull red about the head and shoulders, passing to
dirty white on the flanks and hind-quarters, with shaggy
ears and large blood-shot eyes. It bore about as much
resemblance to the dainty paddock heifers that Eshley was
accustomed to paint as the chief of a Kurdish nomad clan
would to a Japanese tea-shop girl. Eshley stood very
near the gate while he studied the animal's appearance
and demeanour. Adela Pingsford continued to say nothing.
"It's eating a chrysanthemum," said Eshley at last,
when the silence had become unbearable.
"How observant you are," said Adela bitterly. "You
seem to notice everything. As a matter of fact, it has
got six chrysanthemums in its mouth at the present
moment."
The necessity for doing something was becoming
imperative. Eshley took a step or two in the direction
of the animal, clapped his hands, and made noises of the
"Hish" and "Shoo" variety. If the ox heard them it gave
no outward indication of the fact.
"If any hens should ever stray into my garden," said
Adela, "I should certainly send for you to frighten them
out. You 'shoo' beautifully. Meanwhile, do you mind
trying to drive that ox away? That is a MADEMOISELLE
LOUISE BICHOT that he's begun on now," she added in icy
calm, as a glowing orange head was crushed into the huge
munching mouth.
"Since you have been so frank about the variety of
the chrysanthemum," said Eshley, "I don't mind telling
you that this is an Ayrshire ox."
The icy calm broke down; Adela Pingsford used
language that sent the artist instinctively a few feet
nearer to the ox. He picked up a pea-stick and flung it
with some determination against the animal's mottled
flanks. The operation of mashing MADEMOISELLE LOUISE
BICHOT into a petal salad was suspended for a long
moment, while the ox gazed with concentrated inquiry at
the stick-thrower. Adela gazed with equal concentration
and more obvious hostility at the same focus. As the
beast neither lowered its head nor stamped its feet
Eshley ventured on another javelin exercise with another
pea-stick. The ox seemed to realise at once that it was
to go; it gave a hurried final pluck at the bed where the
chrysanthemums had been, and strode swiftly up the
garden. Eshley ran to head it towards the gate, but only
succeeded in quickening its pace from a walk to a
lumbering trot. With an air of inquiry, but with no real
hesitation, it crossed the tiny strip of turf that the
charitable called the croquet lawn, and pushed its way
through the open French window into the morning-room.
Some chrysanthemums and other autumn herbage stood about
the room in vases, and the animal resumed its browsing
operations; all the same, Eshley fancied that the
beginnings of a hunted look had come into its eyes, a
look that counselled respect. He discontinued his
attempt to interfere with its choice of surroundings.
"Mr. Eshley," said Adela in a shaking voice, "I
asked you to drive that beast out of my garden, but I did
not ask you to drive it into my house. If I must have it
anywhere on the premises I prefer the garden to the
morning-room."
"Cattle drives are not in my line," said Eshley; "if
I remember I told you so at the outset." "I quite
agree," retorted the lady, "painting pretty pictures of
pretty little cows is what you're suited for. Perhaps
you'd like to do a nice sketch of that ox making itself
at home in my morning-room?"
This time it seemed as if the worm had turned;
Eshley began striding away.
"Where are you going?" screamed Adela.
"To fetch implements," was the answer.
"Implements? I won't have you use a lasso. The
room will be wrecked if there's a struggle."
But the artist marched out of the garden. In a
couple of minutes he returned, laden with easel,
sketching-stool, and painting materials.
"Do you mean to say that you're going to sit quietly
down and paint that brute while it's destroying my
morning-room?" gasped Adela.
"It was your suggestion," said Eshley, setting his
canvas in position.
"I forbid it; I absolutely forbid it!" stormed
Adela.
"I don't see what standing you have in the matter,"
said the artist; "you can hardly pretend that it's your
ox, even by adoption."
"You seem to forget that it's in my morning-room,
eating my flowers," came the raging retort.
"You seem to forget that the cook has neuralgia,"
said Eshley; "she may be just dozing off into a merciful
sleep and your outcry will waken her. Consideration for
others should be the guiding principle of people in our
station of life."
"The man is mad!" exclaimed Adela tragically. A
moment later it was Adela herself who appeared to go mad.
The ox had finished the vase-flowers and the cover of
"Israel Kalisch," and appeared to be thinking of leaving
its rather restricted quarters. Eshley noticed its
restlessness and promptly flung it some bunches of
Virginia creeper leaves as an inducement to continue the
sitting.
"I forget how the proverb runs," he observed; of
something about 'better a dinner of herbs than a stalled
ox where hate is.' We seem to have all the ingredients
for the proverb ready to hand."
"I shall go to the Public Library and get them to
telephone for the police," announced Adela, and, raging
audibly, she departed.
Some minutes later the ox, awakening probably to the
suspicion that oil cake and chopped mangold was waiting
for it in some appointed byre, stepped with much
precaution out of the morning-room, stared with grave
inquiry at the no longer obtrusive and pea-stick-throwing
human, and then lumbered heavily but swiftly out of the
garden. Eshley packed up his tools and followed the
animal's example and "Larkdene" was left to neuralgia and
the cook.
The episode was the turning-point in Eshley's
artistic career. His remarkable picture, "Ox in a
morning-room, late autumn," was one of the sensations and
successes of the next Paris Salon, and when it was
subsequently exhibited at Munich it was bought by the
Bavarian Government, in the teeth of the spirited bidding
of three meat-extract firms. From that moment his
success was continuous and assured, and the Royal Academy
was thankful, two years later, to give a conspicuous
position on its walls to his large canvas "Barbary Apes
Wrecking a Boudoir."
Eshley presented Adela Pingsford with a new copy of
"Israel Kalisch," and a couple of finely flowering plants of MADAME ADNRE BLUSSET, but nothing in the nature of a real reconciliation has taken place between them.
-THE END-
The Stalled Ox, a short story by Saki [H H Munro]
from the collection of 'Beasts and Super-Beasts'.
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