"The landscape seen from our windows is certainly charming," said
Annabel; "those cherry orchards and green meadows, and the river
winding along the valley, and the church tower peeping out among the
elms, they all make a most effective picture. There's something
dreadfully sleepy and languorous about it, though; stagnation seems
to be the dominant note. Nothing ever happens here; seedtime and
harvest, an occasional outbreak of measles or a mildly destructive
thunderstorm, and a little election excitement about once in five
years, that is all that we have to modify the monotony of our
existence. Rather dreadful, isn't it?"
"On the contrary," said Matilda, "I find it soothing and restful;
but then, you see, I've lived in countries where things do happen,
ever so many at a time, when you're not ready for them happening all
at once."
"That, of course, makes a difference," said Annabel.
"I have never forgotten," said Matilda, "the occasion when the
Bishop of Bequar paid us an unexpected visit; he was on his way to
lay the foundation-stone of a mission-house or something of the
sort."
"I thought that out there you were always prepared for emergency
guests turning up," said Annabel.
"I was quite prepared for half a dozen Bishops," said Matilda, "but
it was rather disconcerting to find out after a little conversation
that this particular one was a distant cousin of mine, belonging to
a branch of the family that had quarrelled bitterly and offensively
with our branch about a Crown Derby dessert service; they got it,
and we ought to have got it, in some legacy, or else we got it and
they thought they ought to have it, I forget which; anyhow, I know
they behaved disgracefully. Now here was one of them turning up in
the odour of sanctity, so to speak, and claiming the traditional
hospitality of the East."
"It was rather trying, but you could have left your husband to do
most of the entertaining."
"My husband was fifty miles up-country, talking sense, or what he
imagined to be sense, to a village community that fancied one of
their leading men was a were-tiger."
"A what tiger?"
"A were-tiger; you've heard of were-wolves, haven't you, a mixture
of wolf and human being and demon? Well, in those parts they have
were-tigers, or think they have, and I must say that in this case,
so far as sworn and uncontested evidence went, they had every ground
for thinking so. However, as we gave up witchcraft prosecutions
about three hundred years ago, we don't like to have other people
keeping on our discarded practices; it doesn't seem respectful to
our mental and moral position."
"I hope you weren't unkind to the Bishop," said Annabel.
"Well, of course he was my guest, so I had to be outwardly polite to
him, but he was tactless enough to rake up the incidents of the old
quarrel, and to try to make out that there was something to be said
for the way his side of the family had behaved; even if there was,
which I don't for a moment admit, my house was not the place in
which to say it. I didn't argue the matter, but I gave my cook a
holiday to go and visit his aged parents some ninety miles away.
The emergency cook was not a specialist in curries, in fact, I don't
think cooking in any shape or form could have been one of his strong
points. I believe he originally came to us in the guise of a
gardener, but as we never pretended to have anything that could be
considered a garden he was utilised as assistant goatherd, in which
capacity, I understand, he gave every satisfaction. When the Bishop
heard that I had sent away the cook on a special and unnecessary
holiday he saw the inwardness of the manoeuvre, and from that moment
we were scarcely on speaking terms. If you have ever had a Bishop
with whom you were not on speaking terms staying in your house, you
will appreciate the situation."
Annabel confessed that her life-story had never included such a
disturbing experience.
"Then," continued Matilda, "to make matters more complicated, the
Gwadlipichee overflowed its banks, a thing it did every now and then
when the rains were unduly prolonged, and the lower part of the
house and all the out-buildings were submerged. We managed to get
the ponies loose in time, and the syce swam the whole lot of them
off to the nearest rising ground. A goat or two, the chief goat-
herd, the chief goat-herd's wife, and several of their babies came
to anchorage in the verandah. All the rest of the available space
was filled up with wet, bedraggled-looking hens and chickens; one
never really knows how many fowls one possesses till the servants'
quarters are flooded out. Of course, I had been through something
of the sort in previous floods, but never before had I had a
houseful of goats and babies and half-drowned hens, supplemented by
a Bishop with whom I was hardly on speaking terms."
"It must have been a trying experience," commented Annabel.
"More embarrassments were to follow. I wasn't going to let a mere
ordinary flood wash out the memory of that Crown Derby dessert
service, and I intimated to the Bishop that his large bedroom, with
a writing table in it, and his small bath-room, with a sufficiency
of cold-water jars in it, was his share of the premises, and that
space was rather congested under the existing circumstances.
However, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, when he had
awakened from his midday sleep, he made a sudden incursion into the
room that was normally the drawing-room, but was now dining-room,
store-house, saddle-room, and half a dozen other temporary premises
as well. From the condition of my guest's costume he seemed to
think it might also serve as his dressing-room.
"'I'm afraid there is nowhere for you to sit,' I said coldly; 'the
verandah is full of goats.'
"'There is a goat in my bedroom,' he observed with equal coldness,
and more than a suspicion of sardonic reproach.
"'Really,' I said, 'another survivor? I thought all the other goats
were done for.'
"'This particular goat is quite done for,' he said, 'it is being
devoured by a leopard at the present moment. That is why I left the
room; some animals resent being watched while they are eating.'
"The leopard, of course, was easily explained; it had been hanging
round the goat sheds when the flood came, and had clambered up by
the outside staircase leading to the Bishop's bath-room,
thoughtfully bringing a goat with it. Probably it found the bath-
room too damp and shut-in for its taste, and transferred its
banqueting operations to the bedroom while the Bishop was having his
nap."
"What a frightful situation!" exclaimed Annabel; "fancy having a
ravening leopard in the house, with a flood all round you."
"Not in the least ravening," said Matilda; "it was full of goat, had
any amount of water at its disposal if it felt thirsty, and probably
had no more immediate wish than a desire for uninterrupted sleep.
Still, I think any one will admit that it was an embarrassing
predicament to have your only available guest-room occupied by a
leopard, the verandah choked up with goats and babies and wet hens,
and a Bishop with whom you were scarcely on speaking terms planted
down in your own sitting-room. I really don't know how I got
through those crawling hours, and of course mealtimes only made
matters worse. The emergency cook had every excuse for sending in
watery soup and sloppy rice, and as neither the chief goat-herd nor
his wife were expert divers, the cellar could not be reached.
Fortunately the Gwadlipichee subsides as rapidly as it rises, and
just before dawn the syce came splashing back, with the ponies only
fetlock deep in water. Then there arose some awkwardness from the
fact that the Bishop wished to leave sooner than the leopard did,
and as the latter was ensconced in the midst of the former's
personal possessions there was an obvious difficulty in altering the
order of departure. I pointed out to the Bishop that a leopard's
habits and tastes are not those of an otter, and that it naturally
preferred walking to wading; and that in any case a meal of an
entire goat, washed down with tub-water, justified a certain amount
of repose; if I had had guns fired to frighten the animal away, as
the Bishop suggested, it would probably merely have left the bedroom
to come into the already over-crowded drawing-room. Altogether it
was rather a relief when they both left. Now, perhaps, you can
understand my appreciation of a sleepy countryside where things
don't happen."
_________
-THE END-
[HH Munro] Saki's short story: The Guests
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