The Fairy Caravan: Chapter XXI - The Veterinary Retriever

CHAPTER XXI

THE VETERINARY RETRIEVER

NOW while the mice were merry-making in the caravan, all sorts of things were happening in the stable. Paddy Pig continued to be feverish and restless; he kicked off the blanket as fast as the cats replaced it.

“His strength is well maintained,” said Cheesebox after a renewed struggle. “We must keep him on a low diet.”

“What! what! what? I’m hungry,” squealed the patient. “Fetch me a bucketful of pig-wash, I say! I’m hungry!”

“Possibly he might be granted a teeny weeny bit of fish; the fisher-cart comes round from Flookborough on Wednesdays,” purred Mary Ellen.

“I won’t eat it! flukes are full of pricky bones. Fetch me pig-wash and potatoes!”

“I could pick it for you if you fancied a little fish—”

“I don’t want fish, I tell you. I want potatoes!” grumbled Paddy Pig. He closed his eyes and pretended to snore.

“He sleeps,” purred Mary Ellen.

“Which of us shall sit up first? We might as well take turns,” said Cheesebox, who was growing a trifle tired of Mary Ellen’s purring.

“I will watch first, dear Cheesebox, while you take forty winky peepies.”

Mary Ellen composed herself beside Paddy Pig with her paws tucked under her. Paddy Pig sulked. Maggret, the mare, dozed in the stall nearest to the window. There was some reflected moonlight through the small dusty panes, but the stable was very dark.

Cheesebox jumped nimbly onto the manger, and thence into the hay-rack, wherein was some foisty hay, long undisturbed, to judge by three doubtful eggs in a forgotten hen nest. Cheesebox curled herself up in the hay.

Overhead cobwebs hung from the broken plaster of the ceiling; there were cracks between the laths, and holes in the floor of the loft above.

The stable had been well appointed in old days. The tailposts of the stalls were handsomely carved, and on each were nailed the antlers of deer. The points served as pegs for hanging up the harness. But all had become neglected, broken, and dark; the corn-bin was patched with tin, and the third backmost stall was full of lumber.

A slight noise amongst the lumber drew the attention of Cheesebox; a climbing, scratching noise, followed by the pattering of rat’s feet over the loft above. Mary Ellen, in the stall below, stopped purring. Cheesebox listened intently.

There were many pattering footsteps. More and more rats were assembling. “There must be a committee meeting; a congress of rats,” thought Cheesebox, very wide awake.

The noise and squeaking increased, until there was a sound of rapping on a box for silence.

“I move that the soapbox-chair be taken by Alder-rat Squeaker. Seconded and carried unanimously.”

“First business?” said old Chair Squeaker, in a rich suetty voice. “First business, please?”

But there seemed to be neither first nor last; all the rats squeaked at once, and the Chair-rat thumped in vain upon the soapbox.

“One at a time, please! You squeak first! No, not you. Now be quiet, you other rats! I call upon Brother Chigbacon to address the assembly. Now, Brother Chigbacon, squeak up!”

“Mr. Chair-rat and Brother Rat-men, I rise from a sense of cheese—I should say duty, so to squeak. I represent the stable rats, so to squeak, what is left of us, so to squeak, being only me and Brother Scatter-meal. Mr. Chair-rat, we being decimated. A horrid squinting, hideous old cat named Cheesebox—”

(Mary Ellen looked up at the hay-rack and grinned from ear to ear; Cheesebox’s tail twitched)

“—a mangy, skinny-tailed, scraggy, dirty old grimalkin, is decimating us. What is to be done, Mr. Chair-rat and Brother Rat-men? We refer ourselves to the guidance of your united wisdom and cunning!”

The loud, noisy squeaking recommenced; all the rats squeaked different advice, and old Chair Squeaker thumped upon the soapbox. At length amongst the jumble of squeaks, a resolution was put before the meeting by Ratson Nailer, a pert young rat from the village shop.

He proposed that a bell be stolen and hung by a ribbon round the neck of that wicked green-eyed monster, the ugliest, greediest, slyest cat in the whole village. “But with a bell round her neck we would always hear her coming, in spite of her velvet slippers.”

Every rat voted for this proposal except old Chair Squeaker. He was a rat of many winters, renowned for extracting cheese from every known make of rat-trap without setting off the spring.

“Why don’t you vote? What’s your objection, old Chair Squeaker?” inquired Ratson Nailer, pertly.

“No objection,” replied old Chair Squeaker, “none whatever! But tell me—who is going to bell the cat?”

No one answered.

Cheesebox reached up, standing on her hind legs in the hay-rack; she applied her green eyes to a crack between the boards of the loft floor. Instantly there was a rush, a scurry, and the assembly of rats dispersed.

Cheesebox jumped down into the stall; her tail was thick, her fur stood on end. Mary Ellen very unwisely was still shaking with laughter.

Cheesebox walked up to Mary Ellen. She boxed Mary Ellen’s ears with her claws out. Mary Ellen, with a howl, jumped into the hay-rack; Cheesebox followed her. They sat in the hay, making horrible cat noises and cuffing each other, to the intense annoyance of the mare in the stall below.

As for Paddy Pig—who had really been enjoying a good sleep at last—Paddy Pig screamed with rage and yelled for Sandy.

While the uproar was at its height, the stable door opened, and Sandy came in carrying a lantern, and followed by the veterinary retriever and Pony Billy.

The retriever was a large, important dog with a hurrying, professional manner, copied from his master. He came rapidly into the stall, wearing a long blue overcoat, and examined the patient through a pair of large horn spectacles. The cats glared down at him from the hayrack.

“Put your tongue out and say R.”

“What, what, what? It’s bad manners?” objected Paddy Pig.

“Put your tongue out, or I’ll bite you!”

“What, what, what?”

“The patient does not appear to be amenable to treatment; but I can perceive no rash; nothing which would justify me in diagnosing measles” (dognosing, he pronounced it). “I am inclined to dog-nose iracundia, arising from tormenta ventris, complicated by feline incompatibility. But, in order to make certain, I will proceed to feel the patient’s pulse. Where is the likeliest spot to find the pulse of a pig, I wonder?”

“Try feeling his tail,” suggested Pony William.

“I have no watch,” said the retriever, “but the thermometer will do just as well. Hold it to the lantern, Sandy, while I count. It does not seem to go up,” said Sandy, much mystified.

“That settles it,” said the retriever, “I felt sure I was not justified in dog-nosing measles. We will now proceed to administer an emetic—I mean to say an aperient. Has anybody got a medicine glass?”

“There is a drenching horn in that little wall cupboard behind the door,” said Maggret, who was watching the proceedings with much interest over the side of her stall.

“Capital!” said the retriever, “hold the bottle please, Sandy, while I dust the horn. It’s chock-full of cobwebs.” Sandy shook the bottle. “I partly seem to know the smell,” said he. He held it beside the lantern and spelled out the label: “Appodyldock. What may that be?”

The retriever displayed some anxiety to get the bottle away from him. “Be careful, the remedy is extremely powerful.”

“Excuse me,” purred a cat’s voice from the hay-rack overhead, “excuse me—appodyldock is not for insides. My poor dear Granny-ma, Puss Cat Mew, had appodyldock rubbed on her back where she got burnt by a hot cinder while she was sitting in the fender. Appodyldock is poison.”

“In spite of our differing I agree with you,” said another cat’s voice in the hay-rack, “appodyldock is for outward application only.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” said the veterinary retriever, drawing the cork out of the bottle with his teeth. “Stuff and nonsense! Here goes—”

“What! what! what! if you poison me again, I’ll scream!” remonstrated the patient.

“I seem to remember the smell,” said Sandy.

“Quite likely,” said the retriever; “since there is going to be all this fuss I may as well tell you it’s castor oil that I have in the bottle.”

“What, what? Castor—ugh! ugh! ugh!” choked Paddy Pig, as they poked the drenching horn into the corner of his mouth and dosed him.

“A good, safe, old-fashioned remedy, Paddy Pig,” said Pony William. “Now go to sleep, and you will wake up quite well in the morning. As a matter of fact, I don’t think there is much wrong with you now.”

“I think one dose will cure me. But, Pony Billy, come here, I want to whisper. For goodness sake—send away those cats!”

Pony Billy took the hint, and acted with tact. “Mary Ellen, we are extremely obliged to you for your invaluable attention to the invalid. I shall be pleased to trot you home to Stott Farm, provided you can go at once, before the moon sets. Cheesebox, we are equally indebted to you for your self-sacrificing devotion. I may tell you there are four rats quarreling in the granary, and one of them sounds like Ratson Nailer.”

Cheesebox jumped out of the stable window without another word.

Mary Ellen—after making sure that the veterinary retriever had left—Mary Ellen climbed down into the stall and tucked up the patient for the last time.

“Was it a poor leetle sick piggy then—”

“What, what, what! Here, I say! Sandy, Sandy!”

“Lie still then. I’m only seeking my fur-lined boots, they are somewhere in poor piggy’s beddee beddee.”

“Come, Mary Ellen; the moon is setting. Good-night, Paddy Pig, and pleasant dreams.”

“Now we shall have some peace! Those two are worse than the rats,” said Maggret, lying down heavily in her stall. Paddy Pig was already snoring.

The sun rose next day upon a glorious May morning. Paddy Pig, a little thinner than usual, sat by the camp fire, displaying a hearty appetite for breakfast.

“No more toadstool tartlets for me. Give me another plateful of porridge, Jenny Ferret!”