Mr. Tasker's Gods (8 page)

I
N the bar of a little public-house just outside the village of Kingston, the village that lay between Shelton and the town, a company were assembled watching a dog. The most prominent amongst them was the owner of the dog. He was a drover from the market, a kind of Caliban, whose joy in life was to beat dumb creatures until they did speak. This drover was a man very friendly to one thing in the world—beer. His face was bestial. On his head was a torn, foul hat. He held a large stick, and a great toe protruded from a hole in his boot.

This man, like the rest of the company, watched the dog. The beast, a tawny creature, was holding fast in his jaws one of the legs of the table. His great red eyes were filled with biting murder. His attitude denoted fury, almost madness.

‘Damn 'e, 'e won't let go—damn 'e!' shouted the dog's master.

‘What made 'e lay 'old on it?' inquired a shepherd, whose own curly-haired dog was asleep under the bench.

The drover took up his ash stick and carefully turned it round so that the heavy knob leaned the right way, and then he spat in his hand and with a quick blow brought the stick down upon the dog's head. At the same time he yelled, ‘Bloody damn thee!' and gave it another.
The dog winced but held on. It thought it had the leg bone of a man in its teeth.

The group of men became more interested. Meanwhile another guest arrived. This was no less a person than Mr. Tasker, who was on his way home from market. He had found
something
wrong with his harness, and he hoped to be able to get a piece of cord at the inn to mend it with.

Mr. Tasker's mind had been much troubled of late with the thought of his father, who had, ever since his last holiday in prison, been hanging around the town. Mr. Tasker had seen him, once, twice, three times! Mr. Tasker feared that one day he might come to Shelton and refuse to go away. He might lie about in sheds and come and demand every day to be fed at Mr. Tasker's expense.

The dairyman's long lean face was lined with trouble; the harness was broken, and he might have to pay for a rope wherewith to mend it. ‘He might,' he thought regretfully, ‘have to buy a glass of beer.' ‘Would a penny packet of Woodbine cigarettes be enough?' Mr. Tasker looked at the group of serious men round the table, who watched the dog. The savage way that it still held the leg of the table impressed every one. It was the kind of fury that they liked to find in themselves at times. Mr. Tasker looked at the dog and thought. Then in his market voice he spoke to the drover.

‘Do 'e fetch up cows? Would dog keep away a tramp? I wants a dog like thik.'

The drover was willing to deal.

‘Sell 'e to you, master, ten shillings down and a pint. 'E be the dog for you. See 'ow 'e 'olds thik bloody table! See—I let 'e 'ave it!' And he gave another exhibition of his skill with the thick end of his ash stick.

There was some difficulty about the removal of the dog from the leg of the table, but a piece of meat, stale and putrid, having been found, the dog was persuaded to fasten his teeth into it and was then thrown into Mr. Tasker's cart. Mr. Tasker paid the drover his money, refused to share the pint, borrowed a rope and mended his harness, and drove away. As he drove along, he heard under the seat the low growls and fierce crunchings as the beast devoured the stinking flesh for which Mr. Tasker had been obliged to pay twopence. The sound under the seat pleased Mr. Tasker. The drover had explained to him that the dog had once had hold of a tramp's throat, and the drover had sworn that he would kill a man.

It was a lovely late summer afternoon, and Mr. Tasker drove home slowly. Near a tiny cottage he passed two little girls with hoops, running up and down, dressed in clean print frocks, and a pretty boy, in socks and overall, merrily trundled behind them a wooden cart. Mr. Tasker drove slowly along the white road.
Over the hedges were the pleasant fields. The golden corn, now partly cut, was set in shocks ready for the wagon. It seemed fat and full of grain. Here and there were the meadows, very green, shining and lit with bright fire by the still burning afternoon sun. Cows and sheep were feeding.

To Mr. Tasker's mind all this had one meaning—‘value.' The fields, the barns, the sheep, the hazel copses, the set-up corn, the cows—what were they worth? The pretty children, the colour, the rooks, the odorous feeling of late summer—what did he know or care about all this? He had his work to do—he believed in pigs.

A gentleman passed on a horse; Mr. Tasker touched his hat. A tramp shuffled along. As he did not get enough into the hedge, Mr. Tasker brushed his coat with his wheel. Mr. Tasker was thinking of his children. ‘The big girls,' he could make them work. But all ate his cheese.

‘Too much live stock indoors,' he said aloud, ‘too much live stock indoors!' It was a favourite saying with the farmers.

A growl from the dog made him think of his father, and he growled too. And then he
considered
if it would be possible to make his wife get up at 4
A.M
. instead of 4.30. He had once—unlucky man—had to pay a doctor on account of her, when she had strained herself with the great churn just before one of her confinements.

With the dog under the seat, Mr. Tasker drove into his yard. He let down the back of his cart and kicked out the dog, chain and all. Daisy Tasker, aged five years, was watching her father's return, and was standing near. In a moment the enraged beast sprang upon her and mauled her face. Mr. Tasker pulled his prize away and conveyed it to a tub, where, at his leisure, he tied it up. Meanwhile his little girl, covered with blood, half mad with terror, lay screaming. She was at last carried in, and fainted. Mr. Tasker went out to milk the cows.

After milking, Mr. Tasker, much against his will, sent for the doctor.

‘You know what people will say, if she dies,' he told his wife.

The bites were serious. The child had to lie for a month in bed, and then went to school with fearful scars and was made fun of by the boys.

Mr. Tasker went about his work as usual. He liked the dog, and the dog was beginning to like him. It happened, one evening, that Mrs. Tasker found her husband rummaging in the bottom of a large cupboard that stood in their big kitchen. His long lean arms were pulling out things from the bottom, where old clothes were kept. He was looking for something he could not find. Mrs. Tasker watched and waited.

‘Where be thik wold 'at of father's? Thik 'wold 'at 'e wore at mother's burying?'

The master moved out of her way and Mrs.
Tasker stooped down and found it, a soft black felt, dusty and worn.

‘What do 'e want it for?' she said.

‘Mind thee own work,' he grunted, and went out into the yard.

He went straight up to the chained dog, and he began to tease it with the hat. He swung his long lean figure about, bent himself double, grinned horribly, hissed and kicked and growled like another dog, and at last, when the beast was almost mad with anger, Mr. Tasker threw him his father's hat. Then he went in to his tea.

H
ENRY TURNBULL had been too busy these harvest days—he had been helping the small farmer—to visit his friend. In the evenings he had been too tired to do anything except to sit before the little cross upon the Christmas card. Upon this first day of mists there was nothing for him to do, and he walked between the heavy moisture-laden hedges and heard the moaning of the coming storms.

Henry was that day thirty-one, and he had begun to feel old. So far he had not allowed a girl to intercept and to steal the feelings that would, if unhindered, love all mankind. He had never thought of taking the hand of a cottage girl. He could not bring himself to make love to that sort. Something or other would have to break in him before he could dare to. Though he wanted a second kiss, he could never ask for one.

The young ladies, the clergyman’s daughters of the neighbourhood, called him ‘an old dear’ when he pumped up their bicycles, or held their ponies at his father’s door. Unless he was required for work of this kind, they left him to his own thoughts, and to his prayers—and prayers are dangerously wicked thoughts for a young man.

Henry reached the vicarage gate and was surprised to find it open. The gate had been
dragged back, and was fallen against the hedge, and the marks of a motor car were plainly seen in the long grass of the drive. Henry was so used to finding everything quiet and snug under those great trees that he was quite taken aback by these new signs. He walked nervously up the drive and saw a large motor in front of the door. He knew the car belonged to the town doctor.

Henry knocked with his stick; the bell had long ago been broken. He waited a little until he heard the uneven shuffle of Mrs. Lefevre, who opened the door. With a dirty handkerchief held to her red eyes, she led the way upstairs to Neville’s bedroom. The door was wide open, and, as he went upstairs, Henry heard the cheery voice of the town doctor asking Neville if he had ever played golf. Neville was lying on his bed. The cheerful doctor sat by his side, Henry was welcomed by them both.

Neville had not replied to the question about golf, and now he spoke quite at his ease.

‘How long do you think I shall live? You must have seen hundreds like me, you must know.’

‘Well,’ said the doctor, ‘I should say about a month under your old woman’s care. With a good nurse, perhaps six weeks. Abroad, possibly a year. Yours is not a simple case, not a case that gives a chance of treatment: it is one of the deadly kind. The evil, you know, has been in your family for generations. The worst kind
of vermin’—the doctor smiled—‘have attacked you.’

‘You must get a nurse. Your old hag drinks, I am sure of it. And besides, think how much trouble I shall be saved if you are under good care. I must be getting along. You had better continue to lie as still as you can. Do be
persuaded
about the nurse. Good day—Turnbull; your father—pretty well, I hope?’

And the cheerful doctor departed.

Henry took the chair by the bed. Neville was smiling, a really amused smile.

‘Before we talk, Henry,’ he said, ‘I want you to write a letter for me to my sister. You did not know I had a sister. Well, I have. She is in India. I am the older. She is a missionary. A voluble preacher caught her and shipped her off before she could say no, and now she has been in India for ten years. I think this is the moment for her to come home. I can just manage two months or thereabouts. I have seen, I think, nearly as many of these ‘cases’ as Dr. Hawkins. Will you write for me? Her name is Molly. On that table you will find ink and pen.’

Henry took the paper, and after the priest had rested a little, Henry wrote as directed:

‘She will have plenty of time to come, and she has not got on well there. She is not happy. She ought to come home. Just read her last letter to me. She has begun to worship an idol—lift up that red book, the letter is
underneath
.’

Henry found the letter.

From the top of the nearest elm, a dead leaf out of a branch of gold, the first leaf to fall, fluttered down. It drifted in through the window and fell upon the bed. Neville took it up and held, this first yellow leaf, in his hand. He knew that in two months’ time the leaves would still be falling. His friend was reading the letter.

Henry posted Neville’s letter, and then walked slowly to his own home. The mist had changed to rain. The warmth of summer had not gone, but the shroud was upon the body, and the limbs would soon be cold.