The Best of Ruskin Bond by Ruskin Bond

dressing-gown and slippers.
    In the old days, whenever Astley had come home after a journey or a long tramp in the hills, he had liked to bathe and change into his gown and slippers, no matter what the hour. Prem Bahadur still kept them ready. He was convinced that Robert would return one day.
    Astley himself had said so.
    ‘Keep everything ready for me, Prem, old chap. I may be back after a year, or two years, or even longer, but I’ll be back, I promise you. On the first of every month I want you to go to my lawyer, Mr Kapoor. He’ll give you your salary and any money that’s needed for the rates and repairs. I want you to keep the house tip-top!’
    ‘Will you bring back a wife, Sahib?’
    ‘Lord, no! Whatever put that idea in your head?’
    ‘I thought, perhaps—because you wanted the house kept ready. . . .’
    ‘Ready for me, Prem. I don’t want to come home and find the old place falling down.’
    And so Prem had taken care of the house—although there was no news from Astley. What had happened to him? The mystery provided a talking-point whenever local people met on the Mall. And in the bazaar the shopkeepers missed Astley because he was a man who spent freely.
    His relatives still believed him to be alive. Only a few months back a brother had turned up—a brother who had a farm in Canada and could not stay in India for long. He had deposited a further sum with the lawyer and told Prem to carry on as before. The salary provided Prem with his few needs. Moreover, he was convinced that Robert would return.
    Another man might have neglected the house and grounds, but not Prem Bahadur. He had a genuine regard for the absent owner. Prem was much older—now almost sixty and none too strong, suffering from pleurisy and other chest troubles—but he remembered Robert as both a boy and a young man. They had been together on numerous hunting and fishing trips in the mountains. They had slept out under the stars, bathed in icy mountain streams, and eaten from the same cooking-pot. Once, when crossing a small river, they had been swept downstream by a flash-flood, a wall of water that came thundering down the gorges without any warning during the rainy season. Together they had struggled back to safety. Back in the hill-station, Astley told everyone that Prem had saved his life; while Prem was equally insistent that he owed his life to Robert.
    *
    This year the monsoon had begun early and ended late. It dragged on through most of September, and Prem Bahadur’s cough grew worse and his breathing more difficult.
    He lay on his charpai on the veranda, staring out at the garden, which was beginning to get out of hand, a tangle of dahlias, snake-lilies and convolvulus. The sun finally came out. The wind shifted from the south-west to the north-west, and swept the clouds away.
    Prem Bahadur had shifted his charpai into the garden, and was lying in the sun, puffing at his small hookah, when he saw Robert Astley at the gate.
    He tried to get up but his legs would not oblige him. The hookah slipped from his hand.
    Astley came walking down the garden path and stopped in front of the old retainer, smiling down at him. He did not look a day older than when Prem Bahadur had last seen him.
    ‘So you have come at last,’ said Prem.
    ‘I told you I’d return.’
    ‘It has been many years. But you have not changed.’
    ‘Nor have you, old chap.’
    ‘I have grown old and sick and feeble.’
    ‘You’ll be fine now. That’s why I’ve come.’
    ‘I’ll open the house,’ said Prem, and this time he found himself getting up quite easily.
    ‘It isn’t necessary,’ said Astley.
    ‘But all is ready for you!’
    ‘I know. I have heard of how well you have looked after everything. Come then, let’s take a last look round. We cannot stay, you know.’
    Prem was a little mystified but he opened the front door and took Robert through the drawing-room and up the stairs to the bedroom. Robert saw the dressing-gown and the