CHAPTER XXI

MASTER CARTY’S BOTTLE

Now I must hark back to Master Carty.

He couldn’t seem to get over his tippling for a long time after he came to Green Hill--not until something happened.

I have referred before to my conversation with Gringo about Master Carty’s troublesome habit. The good old dog never mentioned the tiresome young man, till three months after that, when one day, as he and I were taking a stroll in the young orchard to get some of a new kind of young grass that was springing up about the baby trees, and that was very good for our stomachs, we saw Master Carty taking a short cut across to the house. There was a gentle hill in the orchard, and just as our naughty young man got near it, out came a flask from his pocket. He was just going to take a long pull out of it, when old Gringo pretended to see a mouse in the earth, gave chase, and stumbled in front of the self-indulgent young man.

Ordinarily Gringo doesn’t worry about the mice. He’s not that kind of a dog. One of my duties is to hunt them, so they won’t hide under the snow in winter, and girdle the fruit trees.

Well, away went the flask. I sprang to pick it up, grabbed it, held it carefully neck down, and laid it at Master Carty’s feet.

He praised me, and aimed a kick at Gringo. The old dog stared at him thoughtfully, and didn’t say anything, but the next day he played a fine trick on him.

It was a pouring wet day, but still Mrs. Granton and George Washington had gone over in the limousine to spend the day with Mrs. Bonstone, Cyria and the twins.

The air was so warm that they were all sitting out on the partly covered-in veranda. The rain beat against the glass, but Cyria and our baby were snug inside, playing with a Noah’s ark and a box of blocks. The two little tots sat on a rug, and the twin babies lay asleep in a pretty swinging cot. Mrs. Bonstone lounged in a reclining chair beside them, and my mistress rocked and talked and knitted a sock for George Washington.

I was in a corner, having an after-lunch nap. Human beings would do well if they could imitate dogs, and throw themselves down for a rest after eating. Usually, they get up from the table and fly at their work harder than ever.

After a while, I thought I would go up to the barn and see what the other dogs were doing, for no one was in sight but Amarilla, who never ventured far from Mrs. Granton.

On rainy days, it was the custom for the dogs to assemble on the barn floor to have a gossip.

I found the whole bunch up there, every one with lip curled, and indulging in a hearty fit of dog laughter. Even Gringo, who was not too old to enjoy a joke, was just shaking with dog amusement. The polite Frenchmen were giggling, while the nervous Yeggie ran up and down, squealing and yapping with delight. Czarina’s aristocratic lip was curled high in enjoyment, and Weary Winnie, forgetting her laziness, was rolling over and over in the hay ki-yiing with glee.

Sir Walter Scott was missing; probably he was huddled in one of the hen-houses and letting the chicken Betsy roost on his back to keep her feet from getting damp.

“What’s the joke, boys?” I asked.

“Let me speak, oh! let me speak,” said the dancing Yeggie. “Mr. Carty comes home by the train, he has to walk from the station, ’cause there’s nobody’s car there to give him a lift. Yeggie happens to be down there calling on a friend, Yeggie follows him home.”

This dog always speaks of himself by his name, instead of using a pronoun. He is a silly little fellow, yet lovable, and he has occasional strains of sense.

“Well,” I said. “I don’t see any joke yet, but go on, and don’t jump up and down the whole time you’re talking.”

Yeggie continued, “Master Carty’s rubber stuck in the mud, Master Carty said a naughty word, and stooped down to pull it on. Yeggie saw something wicked in his pocket.”

“A flask, I suppose,” I said.

“No, not a flask; that wasn’t big enough for to-day. It was a bottle with strong stuff in it--Yeggie smelt it.”

“Well, what did Yeggie do?” I asked impatiently.

“Yeggie did nothing. He just watched. Master Carty was talking to himself. ‘If I take this brandy in the house, those blessed’--only Yeggie didn’t hear blessed--‘women will be watering it, and I’m wet enough without any more diluting. I’ll hide it.’”

“And you marked the hiding place, and came and told Gringo.”

“Yes, Yeggie did,” and the little Jack-in-the-box almost danced his legs off.

“And what did you do, Gringo?” I asked, turning to him.

“I thought about that kick he gave me yesterday,” said the old dog. “A man who starts kicking animals, winds up by kicking human beings. If I should ever see Master Carty kick Mrs. Bonstone, or the brown baby, I’d bite him. So I thought we’d better extract the kick right now.”

“Isn’t this terrible,” I exclaimed. “He’s bringing far too many bottles from the city lately. It’s amazing how many drinks a day a man can take.”

“He’s a scamp,” said Gringo, “but he’ll get nothing out of his bottle this time. I ran up here, when Yeggie told me, and what do you think we’ve done to the bottle?”

“Hidden it of course, but where?”

“No, not hidden it,” said Gringo, “we’ve smashed it.”

“Let me finish, oh! let me finish,” squealed Yeggie, and he went on. “Master Carty didn’t hide his bottle in the bushes the way he does sometimes. Yeggie saw him bring it here to the barn. He climbed the ladder to the hay-mow, he tucked it somewhere and came down.”

“You see,” said Gringo to me, “he wanted to have it in some place easy to get at in this storm, and where he could have some good excuse for calling on it. He’d run out here to see the horses in the stable beyond, then he’d have a swig at his old bottle.”

“The rogue!” I said irritably.

“Smell! smell! smell!” cried Yeggie, dancing up and down, “it’s right here.”

I had noticed a heavy smell of brandy when I came in the barn, and now I trotted to the other end near the big open doors, and there on the floor, lay the remains of a bottle on a bed of wet oats.

One of the men had spilt the horses’ feed, and hay and oats were all mixed up with the nasty drink.

“But how did you get the bottle down from the hay-mow?” I asked.

Old Czarina began to laugh, and licked the ear of the poodle next her. “Frenchmen are clever,” she murmured.

I stared at the poodles. In the days of their captivity, they had learned how to climb ladders. They were now never asked to perform any tricks. One day, when we first came out here, Mrs. Bonstone had shown a neighbour’s boy what odd things they could do, and his mother told Mrs. Bonstone afterwards that he went home and tried to teach his dog, and beat him cruelly when he would not learn until she interfered and took his stick from him.

“That settles it,” said Mrs. Bonstone, “no more clown tricks for our dogs. They may be as intelligent as they please along their own lines, but they shall not be asked to imitate human beings. They may do it on their own initiative, if they wish.”

The Frenchmen, however, really liked to climb, and Mrs. Bonstone smiled when she saw those two white dogs going, paw over paw, up the ladders that led to the hay-mows. The barn loft was a great place for them to retire to when they wanted a nap.

The stableman, however, did not smile. One day I heard Thomas talking severely to the two Frenchmen who stood before him like two culprits. “If I ever ketch you two young limbs messing up the hay for my horses again, I’ll lather you,” he said, and he shook a strap at them. “Horses hate to have dogs, and cats, and any critters lying on their feed. How would you like a horse to lie on your breakfus, hey?” and he hung the strap up where they could see it.

The Frenchmen trembled, and went away with hanging heads, and from that day to this, I had never heard of their climbing to the mows. So I said to Czarina, “Weren’t they afraid to go up there?”

“Ask them,” she said with a motion of her noble head toward them.

The Frenchmen bowed politely--they always did everything together, and each one lifting a forepaw, curled it slightly, to signify that they had mounted to the mow and found the bottle.

“And pushed it down?” I asked.

“Yes! yes!” said all the dogs.

“My! what a smash it made,” cried Yeggie. “Yeggie jumped, and then the smell--wow!” and he twisted his muzzle all up in a knot.

“Brave dogs,” I exclaimed, “especially brave, since you so hate a bottle, but weren’t you afraid Thomas would catch you?”

“Yeggie watched,” cried the little dog. “If Yeggie barked once, it meant some one was coming, and the Frenchmen must drop on the hay, and be dead dogs. Two barks from Yeggie meant that they had time to skip down the ladder. But no one came.”

I congratulated the two poodles on their cleverness, and asked whether the men had found the bottle.

“No. We found out after we’d had the trouble of watching for them, that they’d fed the stock for the night, and had gone to the city on a half holiday. The chauffeur is to shut the barn doors in an hour.”

“Master Carty will be out before then to call on the bottle,” I said.

“He’s coming, boys, he’s coming,” said Weary Winnie suddenly. She had been staring out the barn door in the direction of the house. We dogs all scattered, except Yeggie who crept behind a grain measure.

Later on Yeggie, with wicked glee, related Master Carty’s disappointment and anger on not finding the bottle. He climbed to the mow, groped about in the hay, came down, smelt his lost treasure, raged at the men who he thought had stolen it, and flung himself back to the house in a passion, telling what he was going to do to be revenged on the thieves.

That was not the last of the bottle. The next scene in its history came the next morning. A terrible thunderstorm coming on at dinner time this same day, prevented my master and mistress from taking the baby home. They often stayed all night at the Bonstones’, who had plenty of guest rooms.

Everybody was late for breakfast the next morning. The dear human beings had sat up late talking the night before, over the library fire that Mrs. Bonstone had had lighted to make things look cheerful.

Gringo and I were the first downstairs. We ran out-of-doors, and to our surprise, were met on the front veranda by Czarina, Yeggie, the Frenchmen, and even Weary Winnie, all in the most extraordinary state of excitement.

“Come up to the barn,” they cried, “come up to the barn,” and not a word more would they say.

We ran up like foxes, and there in front of the barn a most peculiar thing was taking place.

Sir Walter stood with his aristocratic face in a snarl of worry. He was staring at his big flock of Wyandottes who were behaving in a most erratic manner.

“If those hens weren’t so steady,” I said, “I would guess that they are trying to do a cake walk.”

Yeggie could keep still no longer, and just burst out, “They’re doing the Carty walk--they got at the bottle. Yeggie saw ’em.”

“What!” I barked wildly.

“Shut up,” said Gringo giving him a nip, “you’re making Scott feel sore,” and he threw a compassionate glance at Sir Walter.

“I will explain,” said Czarina in her slow, solemn way, and she began, “You remember the oats that got soaked with the brandy yesterday afternoon?”

“Perfectly,” I replied.

“This morning,” she continued, “when Thomas threw open the barn doors, Sir Walter, who had just got the hens roused, drove them in here to get some nice dry hayseed. They said it would have been better for them to get out early, and pick up the fat worms that had come up on the soil loosened by the rain. However, Sir Walter didn’t know that. I think he thought the wet ground would be bad for the chickens’ feet. Be that as it may, the hens obeyed him, came in here, and he calmly watched them while they crowded about the spilled oats. He has a good vein of Scotch thrift, and he thought it was a good thing to save the oats.

“However, they were affected immediately. You know any kind of a bird has a short digestive tract. When they began to stagger, he withdrew to that spot, and he will not allow any of us to explain the affair to him.”

“Well, some one’s got to put him wise about it,” said Gringo decidedly, “and right away. I believe I’ll do it,” and he set out in his sturdy fashion to have a talk with Sir Walter. For a long time, they stood with their heads close together, then Sir Walter, with a furious face, bolted toward the house.

He had never liked Master Carty very much, for the young man used to tease him unmercifully, and no dog likes persecution any more than a human being does. I knew what he was going to do, and I whispered to Gringo, “If I’m not greatly mistaken, we shall soon see Mrs. Bonstone in the arena.”

Sure enough, as we heard later, Sir Walter burst into the bed-room of the lady he loved so dearly, and served so well in his devotion to her hens, and pulling at her gown, until she hurriedly finished her dressing, induced her to come up to the barn with him.

I shall never forget her face, as she stood staring at us, at the hens, and at Thomas and Joe, who by this time had appeared, and were yelling with glee at the sight of the tipsy hens.

They quieted down when they saw Mrs. Bonstone, and one of them beginning to sniff, followed his nose, till he walked straight to the spot where the bottle still lay in the midst of the few oats left.

“Some one’s been having a spree here,” said Joe.

Mrs. Bonstone swooped down, caught up the broken neck of the bottle, and despite herself, could not help flashing him a suspicious glance.

“I’m a teetotaller, ma’am,” he said shortly. “Joe and me never brings nothin’ from the city.”

She winced as if he had struck her. She knew she had done wrong to suspect him, but I have noticed that wherever drink goes, it breeds suspicion and mistrust even in the good.

“Forgive me, Thomas,” she said softly, and there were tears in her eyes. “I know it wasn’t you, nor Joe.”

Then the tears began to roll down her cheeks, and she went swiftly back to the house. She did not like to see her pretty hens staggering against each other, and leaning up against the trees in the orchard, and she knew very well who was responsible for their condition.

She sent her husband and Mr. Granton out, and I thought they would kill themselves laughing at the plight of her hens. They were powerfully ridiculous, and to see Sir Walter trying to bunch them, and get them into their hen-houses to hide their shame, was as good as a play. He ran round and round them with his tongue out, and panted for all he was worth. The poor creatures tried to obey him, but they had little use of their legs, and finally he flopped down on the grass, and made up his mind just to wait till they got over it.

Only Betsy was sober, and she walked curiously all round her companions, lifting one claw high in the air, then the other, and saying softly, “Ka! Ka!” She was too dainty to eat oats, and had been holding herself in, to share in Sir Walter’s nice breakfast down at the house, as she usually did.

“That’s right, Walter,” said Mr. Bonstone mopping his eyes, “let them sleep it off. Good dog,” and he patted him.

I ran behind the two men as they went to the house. I wanted to hear what they said.

“There’s a serious side to this, Granton,” said Mr. Bonstone, “and my wife will be worried to death. Some one has brought forbidden fruit here. It’s between the men and that scamp Carty.”

My master was very careful about meddling with his friend’s private affairs; however he said softly, “No tramp could pass your dogs. I believe your men are beyond suspicion, but it’s always safe to give the suspected person the benefit of the doubt.”

“All right,” said Mr. Bonstone briskly. “We’ll go on the supposition that the offender is unknown.”

The ladies were at breakfast when we entered, and very sweet and pretty they looked, as they sat at a well-spread table, drawn up close to some windows overlooking the rose-garden.

My dear mistress had got a little more flesh, and I thought her quite handsome now, but she never ceased inwardly bemoaning the fact that her beauty had fled, though she said little about it.

“Let it stay fled,” Gringo often growled. “She’s a better woman without it.”

“No, Rudolph, I don’t want to look at drunken hens, or drunken anything,” she said, when my master invited her to go up to the orchard, and see how amusing the hens were. “Suppose George Washington should drink when he grows up,” and she shuddered.

“The drink will all be banished by that time,” said her husband good-naturedly. “You women are getting so decided on the subject.”

“I don’t see how you men can jest,” she went on. “I think it’s a very sad subject--a very sad one,” and she pursed up her lips.

Her husband didn’t answer, but he was pleased with her attitude, for he gave her enough fried chicken for two women, and usually he tried to scrimp her about her food, for he was so afraid of the dreadful flesh coming back.

I think Mr. Bonstone was in misery till breakfast was over. He had put Carty out of his mind, and I knew that there floated continually before his eyes the vision of those white beauties who were no longer mistresses of themselves. He choked once or twice over his coffee, and finally he went off by himself in the rose-garden, and indulged in what Sir Walter calls a burst of Homeric laughter.

“I don’t see why he wants to laugh that way,” Sir Walter often says to me. “It’s so underbred. I like the way Mrs. Bonstone laughs much better.”

“He’s having a good time,” Gringo always growls, if he hears this criticism, “and he’s hurting no one. Let him alone.”

Master Carty came in very late for breakfast that morning, and only the two ladies were left. He had slept off his ill-temper over the loss of his bottle, and was in his usual waggish, teasing mood.

He pulled his sister’s hair as he passed her, and made an amusing face at Mrs. Granton.

His sister began to whimper a bit, and I knew a scene was coming.

“What’s the matter, Sis?” he asked kindly. “Has Bonstone been beating you--don’t cry in my coffee, if he has. It will only weaken me, when I punish him.”

“The h-h-hens are all drunk,” she said as she passed him his cup.

“Drunk!” he exclaimed, “and what do they find to get drunk on in this double-distilled temperance household? Spring water, eh?”

“Some one brought this bottle to the place,” said Mrs. Bonstone, dramatically withdrawing from under the table the broken neck that she had picked up in the barn.

Master Carty started, and said, “Ye gods! Have I found the murderer of my long-lost brother?”

Mrs. Granton chipped in here. She was hand and glove with Mrs. Bonstone in trying to reform her old friend Carty.

“Perhaps some of your men have been drinking,” she said airily, “and let some of the nasty stuff fall on the barn floor, and the hens ate the hayseed.”

This was not quite correct, but it served her purpose.

“Jerusalem!” said poor Master Carty.

Gringo gave me a push. We were both lying on the floor in a big patch of sunlight, apparently observing nothing, yet taking note of all that went on.

Mrs. Bonstone worked herself, or seemed to work herself into a sudden passion. “I shall ask Norman to discharge both those men, if they are guilty. I shall not have drunkards about the place. They might set the barn on fire.”

Now this touched Master Carty in a tender spot. He was mischievous and self-indulgent, but he was no coward.

“Let me see that neck,” he said miserably.

His sister handed him the bit of broken bottle, and both women surveyed him narrowly from under their eyelids.

Gringo and I were close to his place at the table, and we heard him mutter, “Well, I’ve got it in the neck this time--like the chickens.”

“What are you muttering, Carty?” asked his sister.

“Nothing, nothing,” and he pushed his chair away from his untasted coffee--Oh! how good it smelt, with lots of lovely cream from the Bonstones’ own cows in it, and a sugary sweet smell, for he liked six lumps.

“Stanna,” he said presently, “where’s your husband?”

“Gone,” she said, “some time ago. He was in a hurry to get to town. We were late.”

“Then I’ll have to tell you,” he went on with hanging head. “Don’t blame the men. This bottle was mine,” and he hurled the neck through the open window. “I--I’m very sorry. I don’t see how your hens got at it. They must have vicious tastes.”

Now just here, instead of falling on his neck, and extracting from him promises of reform, as she had done so many, oh! so many, times, his sister did what seemed to me a queer thing, at first.

She put her arms on the table, dropped her head on them, and said, “Oh! oh! oh!” a great many times.

Gringo had been licking his paw thoughtfully, while he listened to the conversation at the table. Now he stopped, and pondered. He had struck a snag in his thoughts. He was trying to catch on to Mrs. Bonstone’s wasping, as he told me when I whispered to him.

Presently he went on licking, and I knew he had got the clue.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“She’s going to make fun of him, poor soul!” he responded. “She’s tried everything else.”

Master Carty was striding up and down the room. “Stanna,” he said stopping short, “what’s the matter with you? One would think you’d never seen a bottle before.”

“It’s not that, brother,” she cried, lifting her head, and beating the table with both her little hands. “It’s the ridicule that will be made of you. Norman was just roaring with laughter. He thought it was the best drink joke he ever heard, and you know he is full of them. He will tell it to the men at the club at lunch. It will be all over the city, that Carty Resterton has sunk so low, that he drinks with the hens. You know what a picture Dicky Grey, and Mark Jones and all that set will draw--Carty Resterton having a carousal in the barn, because his sister’s house isn’t open for that sort of thing. He took a pull at the bottle, then the hens had their turn--oh! oh! oh! I can’t stand it,” and she went off into an admirable fit of hysterics.

Mrs. Granton threw water on her face, and rang for Annie and they slapped and pinched her, and put her on the sofa, and Master Carty stared and glowered, till she recovered enough for him to ask her a furious question, “Do you mean to say that Bonstone is deliberately going to make game of me?”

Mrs. Granton flashed out at him, “Carty Resterton, what do you mean? Your brother-in-law is the soul of honour, and he has had infinite patience with your weakness. Do you suppose any one told him it was your bottle?”

Master Carty rammed his hands down deep in his pockets. Annie came in the room with a glass of something for Mrs. Bonstone, and he had to wait till the door closed behind her. Then he shouted, “I wish to heaven I knew what you two women mean.”

“Hush, hush,” said Mrs. Granton patting Mrs. Bonstone as if she were a child. “I will speak for you,” and speak she did, and with an eloquence that astonished Gringo and me, too, though I understand how much she had developed since the baby came.

“She hits out from the shoulder,” muttered Gringo admiringly.

Mistress gave Master Carty about the plainest talk he’d ever had. She told him how he was killing his poor grandmother and sister, and if she’d been in their places, she would have turned him out to die in the gutter.

“She wouldn’t, you know,” I said anxiously to Gringo.

“I track her,” said the good old dog. “She’s fighting for her friend. It’ll do him good.”

“And your brother-in-law,” said mistress furiously. “How many men would put up with your actions? It’s common talk, that you come home here staggering, night after night.”

The discomfited Carty at last got a word in. “But what has all this got to do with Bonstone’s going to town and making game of me?”

“He hasn’t gone to make fun of you,” cried mistress, “he’ll tell the story, and your boon companions will put their own interpretation on it. They’ll know it was you that debauched the hens. They know you bring bottles home.”

“Debauched the hens,” cried Master Carty, putting both hands to his head, and acting as if he were trying to lift himself up by his hair, “Good London! have I sunk as low as that?”

Mrs. Granton’s voice suddenly became compassionate. “Run to the telephone, dear Carty,” she said, “we can’t help loving you, in spite of your faults. Telephone Norman, telephone my husband--beg them to say nothing of the occurrence. Beg them to keep quiet. Tell them it was your bottle, that your friends will put their own construction on the story, no matter how innocently it is told. Fly to the telephone, like a good boy.”

Mistress glanced at the sofa. Her friend was with her. She was doing right. She urged Master Carty to the hall, she put the receiver in his hand, he called up Mr. Bonstone and my dear master. He faltered and stammered, and she supplied words. Finally, the campaign was over, and he came back to the table where Mrs. Bonstone, having revived by this time, was sitting ringing for fresh coffee.

Then didn’t the two women pet him! He was their own dear boy, no one should make fun of him, while they could protect him. No one must tell Grandmother, she would be so shocked, and Master Carty alternately beamed and glowered, and cast puzzled glances at us, as if he didn’t quite know whether to be flattered or disgruntled.

They begged him not to go in town that morning, to take them for a drive, and presently the two women with the children, Gringo and myself, were spinning over the beautiful country in our big touring-car, with Louis grinning happily as he conducted us.

The roads were grand after the rain, and the country was a dream, everything being washed and clean from the heavy rain.

Mistress took Carty to our house to lunch, and Gringo says when he went home late that afternoon, he walked up to the hen-houses and stared at the Wyandottes for a long time, with the most curious expression on his face.

Then, Gringo says, he muttered, “A companion to hens--by Jove! I must look higher.” He sauntered back to the house, mounted the staircase to his lovely room overlooking the beautiful, blue garden with its rocks and rills, and after enjoying the view from the window for a while, got out a little book from a locked drawer, and wrote something that Gringo heard him read aloud, “Sworn off again, and by the hens, I mean to keep my vow this time.”

He has kept it so far, though Gringo says Mrs. Bonstone often looks at him very anxiously. That’s the worst of tipplers. You never know when they’re going to break out again.