-
Sredni Vashtar
by H.H. Munro
(SAKI)
Conradin
was
ten
years
old,
and
the
doctor
had
pronounced
his
professional
opinion that the boy would not live
another five years. The doctor was silky and
effete, and counted for little, but his
opinion was endorsed by Mrs. De Ropp, who
counted for nearly everything. Mrs. De
Ropp was Conradin's cousin and guardian,
and
in
his
eyes
she
represented
those
three-fifths
of
the
world
that
are
necessary
and
disagreeable
and
real;
the
other
two-fifths,
in
perpetual
antagonism
to
the
foregoing,
were
summed
up
in
himself
and
his
imagination.
One
of
these
days
Conradin
supposed
he
would
succumb
to
the
mastering
pressure
of
wearisome
necessary
things---such
as
illnesses
and
coddling
restrictions
and
drawn-out
dullness. Without his imagination,
which was rampant under the spur of loneliness,
he would have succumbed long ago.
Mrs.
De
Ropp
would
never,
in
her
honestest
moments,
have
confessed
to
herself that she disliked Conradin,
though she might
have been
dimly aware that
thwarting
him
his
good
was
a
duty
which
she
did
not
find
particularly
irksome.
Conradin hated her with a desperate sincerity
which he was perfectly able
to mask.
Such few pleasures as he could contrive for
himself gained an added relish
from
the likelihood that
they
would be displeasing to his
guardian, and
from
the
realm of his imagination
she was locked out---an unclean thing, which
should find
no entrance.
In
the dull, cheerless garden, overlooked by so many
windows that were ready
to open with a
message not to do this or that, or a reminder that
medicines were due,
he
found
little
attraction.
The
few
fruit-
trees
that
it
contained
were
set
jealously
apart from his plucking, as though they
were rare specimens of their kind blooming
in an arid waste; it would probably
have been difficult to find a market-gardener
who would have offered ten shillings
for their entire yearly produce. In a forgotten
corner, however, almost hidden behind a
dismal shrubbery, was a disused tool-shed
of respectable proportions, and within
its walls Conradin found a haven, something
that took on the varying aspects of a
playroom and a cathedral. He had peopled it
with
a legion
of
familiar phantoms,
evoked
partly
from fragments of history
and
partly from his own
brain, but it also boasted two inmates of flesh
and blood.
In
one
corner
lived
a
ragged-plumaged
Houdan
hen,
on
which
the
boy
lavished
an
affection that had
scarcely another outlet. Further back in the gloom
stood a large
hutch, divided into two
compartments,
one of which
was fronted with
close iron
bars. This was the abode of a large
polecat-ferret, which a friendly butcher-boy had
once
smuggled,
cage
and
all,
into
its
present
quarters,
in
exchange
for
a
1
long-secreted
hoard
of
small
silver.
Conradin
was
dreadfully
afraid
of
the
lithe,
sharp-fanged beast,
but it was his most treasured possession. Its very
presence in
the
tool-shed
was
a
secret
and
fearful
joy,
to
be
kept
scrupulously
from
the
knowledge of the Woman,
as he privately dubbed his cousin. And one day,
out of
Heaven knows what material, he
spun the beast a wonderful name, and from that
moment it grew into a god and a
religion. The Woman indulged in religion once a
week at a church near by, and took
Conradin with her, but to him the church service
was an alien rite in the House of
Rimmon. Every Thursday, in the dim and musty
silence
of
the
tool-shed,
he
worshipped
with
mystic
and
elaborate
ceremonial
before the wooden hutch where dwelt
Sredni Vashtar, the great ferret. Red flowers
in their season and scarlet berries in
the winter-time were offered at his shrine, for
he was a god who laid some special
stress on the fierce impatient side of things, as
opposed to the Woman's religion, which,
as far as Conradin could observe, went to
great lengths in the contrary
direction. And on great festivals powdered nutmeg
was
strewn
in
front
of
his
hutch,
an
important
feature
of
the
offering
being
that
the
nutmeg
had
to
be
stolen.
These
festivals
were
of
irregular
occurrence,
and
were
chiefly
appointed to celebrate some passing event. On one
occasion, when Mrs. De
Ropp suffered
from acute toothache for three days, Conradin kept
up the festival
during
the
entire
three
days,
and
almost
succeeded
in
persuading
himself
that
Sredni
Vashtar
was
personally
responsible
for
the
toothache.
If
the
malady
had
lasted
for another day the supply of nutmeg would have
given out.
The Houdan hen was never
drawn into the cult of Sredni Vashtar. Conradin
had
long ago settled that she was an
Anabaptist. He did not pretend to have the
remotest
knowledge as to what an
Anabaptist was, but he privately hoped that it was
dashing
and not very respectable. Mrs.
De Ropp was the ground plan on which he based
and detested all respectability.
After a while Conradin's absorption in
the tool-shed began to attract the notice
of his guardian.
she
promptly
decided,
and
at
breakfast
one
morning
she
announced
that
the
Houdan hen had been sold
and taken away overnight. With her short-sighted
eyes
she peered at Conradin, waiting
for an outbreak of rage and sorrow, which she was
ready to rebuke with a flow of
excellent precepts and reasoning. But Conradin
said
nothing: there was nothing to be
said. Something perhaps in his white set face gave
her
a
momentary
qualm,
for
at
tea
that
afternoon
there
was
toast
on
the
table,
a
delicacy
which
she
usually
banned
on
the
ground
that
it
was
bad
for
him;
also
because
the
making
of
it
trouble,
a
deadly
offence
in
the
middle-class
feminine eye.
he
did not touch it.
2