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diff --git a/old/ptfth10.txt b/old/ptfth10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e9e222a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ptfth10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8050 @@ +*Project Gutenberg Etext Plain Tales from the Hills, by Kipling* +#6 in our series by Rudyard Kipling + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com. + + + + + +PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS + +by Rudyard Kipling + + + + +CONTENTS + + +LESPETH + +THREE AND AN EXTRA + +THROWN AWAY + +MISS YOUGHAL'S SAIS + +YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER + +FALSE DAWN + +THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES + +CUPID'S ARROWS + +HIS CHANCE IN LIFE + +WATCHES OF THE NIGHT + +THE OTHER MAN + +CONSEQUENCES + +THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN MCGOGGIN + +A GERM DESTROYER + +KIDNAPPED + +THE ARREST OF LIEUTENANT GOLIGHTLY + +THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO + +HIS WEDDED WIFE + +THE BROKEN LINK HANDICAPPED. + +BEYOND THE PALE + +IN ERROR + +A BANK FRAUD + +TOD'S AMENDMENT + +IN THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH + +PIG + +THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS + +THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE-CASE + +VENUS ANNODOMINI + +THE BISARA OF POORER + +THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS + +THE STORY OF MUHAMMID DIN + +ON THE STRENGTH OF A LIKENESS + +WRESSLEY OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE + +BY WORD OF MOUTH + +TO BE HELD FOR REFERENCE + + + + +PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS + + + +LISPETH. + + +Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these + You bid me please? +The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so! + To my own Gods I go. +It may be they shall give me greater ease +Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities. + + The Convert. + + +She was the daughter of Sonoo, a Hill-man, and Jadeh his wife. One +year their maize failed, and two bears spent the night in their +only poppy-field just above the Sutlej Valley on the Kotgarth side; +so, next season, they turned Christian, and brought their baby to +the Mission to be baptized. The Kotgarth Chaplain christened her +Elizabeth, and "Lispeth" is the Hill or pahari pronunciation. + +Later, cholera came into the Kotgarth Valley and carried off Sonoo +and Jadeh, and Lispeth became half-servant, half-companion to the +wife of the then Chaplain of Kotgarth. This was after the reign of +the Moravian missionaries, but before Kotgarth had quite forgotten +her title of "Mistress of the Northern Hills." + +Whether Christianity improved Lispeth, or whether the gods of her +own people would have done as much for her under any circumstances, +I do not know; but she grew very lovely. When a Hill girl grows +lovely, she is worth traveling fifty miles over bad ground to look +upon. Lispeth had a Greek face--one of those faces people paint so +often, and see so seldom. She was of a pale, ivory color and, for +her race, extremely tall. Also, she possessed eyes that were +wonderful; and, had she not been dressed in the abominable print- +cloths affected by Missions, you would, meeting her on the hill- +side unexpectedly, have thought her the original Diana of the +Romans going out to slay. + +Lispeth took to Christianity readily, and did not abandon it when +she reached womanhood, as do some Hill girls. Her own people hated +her because she had, they said, become a memsahib and washed +herself daily; and the Chaplain's wife did not know what to do with +her. Somehow, one cannot ask a stately goddess, five foot ten in +her shoes, to clean plates and dishes. So she played with the +Chaplain's children and took classes in the Sunday School, and read +all the books in the house, and grew more and more beautiful, like +the Princesses in fairy tales. The Chaplain's wife said that the +girl ought to take service in Simla as a nurse or something +"genteel." But Lispeth did not want to take service. She was very +happy where she was. + +When travellers--there were not many in those years--came to +Kotgarth, Lispeth used to lock herself into her own room for fear +they might take her away to Simla, or somewhere out into the +unknown world. + +One day, a few months after she was seventeen years old, Lispeth +went out for a walk. She did not walk in the manner of English +ladies--a mile and a half out, and a ride back again. She covered +between twenty and thirty miles in her little constitutionals, all +about and about, between Kotgarth and Narkunda. This time she came +back at full dusk, stepping down the breakneck descent into +Kotgarth with something heavy in her arms. The Chaplain's wife was +dozing in the drawing-room when Lispeth came in breathing hard and +very exhausted with her burden. Lispeth put it down on the sofa, +and said simply: + +"This is my husband. I found him on the Bagi Road. He has hurt +himself. We will nurse him, and when he is well, your husband +shall marry him to me." + +This was the first mention Lispeth had ever made of her matrimonial +views, and the Chaplain's wife shrieked with horror. However, the +man on the sofa needed attention first. He was a young Englishman, +and his head had been cut to the bone by something jagged. Lispeth +said she had found him down the khud, so she had brought him in. +He was breathing queerly and was unconscious. + +He was put to bed and tended by the Chaplain, who knew something of +medicine; and Lispeth waited outside the door in case she could be +useful. She explained to the Chaplain that this was the man she +meant to marry; and the Chaplain and his wife lectured her severely +on the impropriety of her conduct. Lispeth listened quietly, and +repeated her first proposition. It takes a great deal of +Christianity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern instincts, such as +falling in love at first sight. Lispeth, having found the man she +worshipped, did not see why she should keep silent as to her +choice. She had no intention of being sent away, either. She was +going to nurse that Englishman until he was well enough to marry +her. This was her little programme. + +After a fortnight of slight fever and inflammation, the Englishman +recovered coherence and thanked the Chaplain and his wife, and +Lispeth--especially Lispeth--for their kindness. He was a +traveller in the East, he said--they never talked about "globe- +trotters" in those days, when the P. & O. fleet was young and +small--and had come from Dehra Dun to hunt for plants and +butterflies among the Simla hills. No one at Simla, therefore, +knew anything about him. He fancied he must have fallen over the +cliff while stalking a fern on a rotten tree-trunk, and that his +coolies must have stolen his baggage and fled. He thought he would +go back to Simla when he was a little stronger. He desired no more +mountaineering. + +He made small haste to go away, and recovered his strength slowly. +Lispeth objected to being advised either by the Chaplain or his +wife; so the latter spoke to the Englishman, and told him how +matters stood in Lispeth's heart. He laughed a good deal, and said +it was very pretty and romantic, a perfect idyl of the Himalayas; +but, as he was engaged to a girl at Home, he fancied that nothing +would happen. Certainly he would behave with discretion. He did +that. Still he found it very pleasant to talk to Lispeth, and walk +with Lispeth, and say nice things to her, and call her pet names +while he was getting strong enough to go away. It meant nothing at +all to him, and everything in the world to Lispeth. She was very +happy while the fortnight lasted, because she had found a man to +love. + +Being a savage by birth, she took no trouble to hide her feelings, +and the Englishman was amused. When he went away, Lispeth walked +with him, up the Hill as far as Narkunda, very troubled and very +miserable. The Chaplain' s wife, being a good Christian and +disliking anything in the shape of fuss or scandal--Lispeth was +beyond her management entirely--had told the Englishman to tell +Lispeth that he was coming back to marry her. "She is but a child, +you know, and, I fear, at heart a heathen," said the Chaplain's +wife. So all the twelve miles up the hill the Englishman, with his +arm around Lispeth's waist, was assuring the girl that he would +come back and marry her; and Lispeth made him promise over and over +again. She wept on the Narkunda Ridge till he had passed out of +sight along the Muttiani path. + +Then she dried her tears and went in to Kotgarth again, and said to +the Chaplain's wife: "He will come back and marry me. He has gone +to his own people to tell them so." And the Chaplain's wife +soothed Lispeth and said: "He will come back." At the end of two +months, Lispeth grew impatient, and was told that the Englishman +had gone over the seas to England. She knew where England was, +because she had read little geography primers; but, of course, she +had no conception of the nature of the sea, being a Hill girl. +There was an old puzzle-map of the World in the House. Lispeth had +played with it when she was a child. She unearthed it again, and +put it together of evenings, and cried to herself, and tried to +imagine where her Englishman was. As she had no ideas of distance +or steamboats, her notions were somewhat erroneous. It would not +have made the least difference had she been perfectly correct; for +the Englishman had no intention of coming back to marry a Hill +girl. He forgot all about her by the time he was butterfly-hunting +in Assam. He wrote a book on the East afterwards. Lispeth's name +did not appear. + +At the end of three months, Lispeth made daily pilgrimage to +Narkunda to see if her Englishman was coming along the road. It +gave her comfort, and the Chaplain's wife, finding her happier, +thought that she was getting over her "barbarous and most +indelicate folly." A little later the walks ceased to help Lispeth +and her temper grew very bad. The Chaplain's wife thought this a +profitable time to let her know the real state of affairs--that the +Englishman had only promised his love to keep her quiet--that he +had never meant anything, and that it was "wrong and improper" of +Lispeth to think of marriage with an Englishman, who was of a +superior clay, besides being promised in marriage to a girl of his +own people. Lispeth said that all this was clearly impossible, +because he had said he loved her, and the Chaplain's wife had, with +her own lips, asserted that the Englishman was coming back. + +"How can what he and you said be untrue?" asked Lispeth. + +"We said it as an excuse to keep you quiet, child," said the +Chaplain's wife. + +"Then you have lied to me," said Lispeth, "you and he?" + +The Chaplain's wife bowed her head, and said nothing. Lispeth was +silent, too for a little time; then she went out down the valley, +and returned in the dress of a Hill girl--infamously dirty, but +without the nose and ear rings. She had her hair braided into the +long pig-tail, helped out with black thread, that Hill women wear. + +"I am going back to my own people," said she. "You have killed +Lispeth. There is only left old Jadeh's daughter--the daughter of +a pahari and the servant of Tarka Devi. You are all liars, you +English." + +By the time that the Chaplain's wife had recovered from the shock +of the announcement that Lispeth had 'verted to her mother's gods, +the girl had gone; and she never came back. + +She took to her own unclean people savagely, as if to make up the +arrears of the life she had stepped out of; and, in a little time, +she married a wood-cutter who beat her, after the manner of +paharis, and her beauty faded soon. + +"There is no law whereby you can account for the vagaries of the +heathen," said the Chaplain's wife, "and I believe that Lispeth was +always at heart an infidel." Seeing she had been taken into the +Church of England at the mature age of five weeks, this statement +does not do credit to the Chaplain's wife. + +Lispeth was a very old woman when she died. She always had a +perfect command of English, and when she was sufficiently drunk, +could sometimes be induced to tell the story of her first love- +affair. + +It was hard then to realize that the bleared, wrinkled creature, so +like a wisp of charred rag, could ever have been "Lispeth of the +Kotgarth Mission." + + + +THREE AND--AN EXTRA. + + +"When halter and heel ropes are slipped, do not give chase with +sticks but with gram." + + Punjabi Proverb. + + +After marriage arrives a reaction, sometimes a big, sometimes a +little one; but it comes sooner or later, and must be tided over by +both parties if they desire the rest of their lives to go with the +current. + +In the case of the Cusack-Bremmils this reaction did not set in +till the third year after the wedding. Bremmil was hard to hold at +the best of times; but he was a beautiful husband until the baby +died and Mrs. Bremmil wore black, and grew thin, and mourned as if +the bottom of the universe had fallen out. Perhaps Bremmil ought +to have comforted her. He tried to do so, I think; but the more he +comforted the more Mrs. Bremmil grieved, and, consequently, the +more uncomfortable Bremmil grew. The fact was that they both +needed a tonic. And they got it. Mrs. Bremmil can afford to laugh +now, but it was no laughing matter to her at the time. + +You see, Mrs. Hauksbee appeared on the horizon; and where she +existed was fair chance of trouble. At Simla her bye-name was the +"Stormy Petrel." She had won that title five times to my own +certain knowledge. She was a little, brown, thin, almost skinny, +woman, with big, rolling, violet-blue eyes, and the sweetest +manners in the world. You had only to mention her name at +afternoon teas for every woman in the room to rise up, and call +her--well--NOT blessed. She was clever, witty, brilliant, and +sparkling beyond most of her kind; but possessed of many devils of +malice and mischievousness. She could be nice, though, even to her +own sex. But that is another story. + +Bremmil went off at score after the baby's death and the general +discomfort that followed, and Mrs. Hauksbee annexed him. She took +no pleasure in hiding her captives. She annexed him publicly, and +saw that the public saw it. He rode with her, and walked with her, +and talked with her, and picnicked with her, and tiffined at +Peliti's with her, till people put up their eyebrows and said: +"Shocking!" Mrs. Bremmil stayed at home turning over the dead +baby's frocks and crying into the empty cradle. She did not care +to do anything else. But some eight dear, affectionate lady- +friends explained the situation at length to her in case she should +miss the cream of it. Mrs. Bremmil listened quietly, and thanked +them for their good offices. She was not as clever as Mrs. +Hauksbee, but she was no fool. She kept her own counsel, and did +not speak to Bremmil of what she had heard. This is worth +remembering. Speaking to, or crying over, a husband never did any +good yet. + +When Bremmil was at home, which was not often, he was more +affectionate than usual; and that showed his hand. The affection +was forced partly to soothe his own conscience and partly to soothe +Mrs. Bremmil. It failed in both regards. + +Then "the A.-D.-C. in Waiting was commanded by Their Excellencies, +Lord and Lady Lytton, to invite Mr. and Mrs. Cusack-Bremmil to +Peterhoff on July 26th at 9.30 P. M."--"Dancing" in the bottom- +left-hand corner. + +"I can't go," said Mrs. Bremmil, "it is too soon after poor little +Florrie . . . but it need not stop you, Tom." + +She meant what she said then, and Bremmil said that he would go +just to put in an appearance. Here he spoke the thing which was +not; and Mrs. Bremmil knew it. She guessed--a woman's guess is +much more accurate than a man's certainty--that he had meant to go +from the first, and with Mrs. Hauksbee. She sat down to think, and +the outcome of her thoughts was that the memory of a dead child was +worth considerably less than the affections of a living husband. +She made her plan and staked her all upon it. In that hour she +discovered that she knew Tom Bremmil thoroughly, and this knowledge +she acted on. + +"Tom," said she, "I shall be dining out at the Longmores' on the +evening of the 26th. You'd better dine at the club." + +This saved Bremmil from making an excuse to get away and dine with +Mrs. Hauksbee, so he was grateful, and felt small and mean at the +same time--which was wholesome. Bremmil left the house at five for +a ride. About half-past five in the evening a large leather- +covered basket came in from Phelps' for Mrs. Bremmil. She was a +woman who knew how to dress; and she had not spent a week on +designing that dress and having it gored, and hemmed, and herring- +boned, and tucked and rucked (or whatever the terms are) for +nothing. It was a gorgeous dress--slight mourning. I can't +describe it, but it was what The Queen calls "a creation"--a thing +that hit you straight between the eyes and made you gasp. She had +not much heart for what she was going to do; but as she glanced at +the long mirror she had the satisfaction of knowing that she had +never looked so well in her life. She was a large blonde and, when +she chose, carried herself superbly. + +After the dinner at the Longmores, she went on to the dance--a +little late--and encountered Bremmil with Mrs. Hauksbee on his arm. +That made her flush, and as the men crowded round her for dances +she looked magnificent. She filled up all her dances except three, +and those she left blank. Mrs. Hauksbee caught her eye once; and +she knew it was war--real war--between them. She started +handicapped in the struggle, for she had ordered Bremmil about just +the least little bit in the world too much; and he was beginning to +resent it. Moreover, he had never seen his wife look so lovely. +He stared at her from doorways, and glared at her from passages as +she went about with her partners; and the more he stared, the more +taken was he. He could scarcely believe that this was the woman +with the red eyes and the black stuff gown who used to weep over +the eggs at breakfast. + +Mrs. Hauksbee did her best to hold him in play, but, after two +dances, he crossed over to his wife and asked for a dance. + +"I'm afraid you've come too late, MISTER Bremmil," she said, with +her eyes twinkling. + +Then he begged her to give him a dance, and, as a great favor, she +allowed him the fifth waltz. Luckily 5 stood vacant on his +programme. They danced it together, and there was a little flutter +round the room. Bremmil had a sort of notion that his wife could +dance, but he never knew she danced so divinely. At the end of +that waltz he asked for another--as a favor, not as a right; and +Mrs. Bremmil said: "Show me your programme, dear!" He showed it as +a naughty little schoolboy hands up contraband sweets to a master. +There was a fair sprinkling of "H" on it besides "H" at supper. +Mrs. Bremmil said nothing, but she smiled contemptuously, ran her +pencil through 7 and 9--two "H's"--and returned the card with her +own name written above--a pet name that only she and her husband +used. Then she shook her finger at him, and said, laughing: "Oh, +you silly, SILLY boy!" + +Mrs. Hauksbee heard that, and--she owned as much--felt that she had +the worst of it. Bremmil accepted 7 and 9 gratefully. They danced +7, and sat out 9 in one of the little tents. What Bremmil said and +what Mrs. Bremmil said is no concern of any one's. + +When the band struck up "The Roast Beef of Old England," the two +went out into the verandah, and Bremmil began looking for his +wife's dandy (this was before 'rickshaw days) while she went into +the cloak-room. Mrs. Hauksbee came up and said: "You take me in to +supper, I think, Mr. Bremmil." Bremmil turned red and looked +foolish. "Ah--h'm! I'm going home with my wife, Mrs. Hauksbee. I +think there has been a little mistake." Being a man, he spoke as +though Mrs. Hauksbee were entirely responsible. + +Mrs. Bremmil came out of the cloak-room in a swansdown cloak with a +white "cloud" round her head. She looked radiant; and she had a +right to. + +The couple went off in the darkness together, Bremmil riding very +close to the dandy. + +Then says Mrs. Hauksbee to me--she looked a trifle faded and jaded +in the lamplight: "Take my word for it, the silliest woman can +manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a +fool." + +Then we went in to supper. + + + +THROWN AWAY. + + +"And some are sulky, while some will plunge + [So ho! Steady! Stand still, you!] +Some you must gentle, and some you must lunge. + [There! There! Who wants to kill you?] +Some--there are losses in every trade-- +Will break their hearts ere bitted and made, +Will fight like fiends as the rope cuts hard, +And die dumb-mad in the breaking-yard." + + Toolungala Stockyard Chorus. + + +To rear a boy under what parents call the "sheltered life system" +is, if the boy must go into the world and fend for himself, not +wise. Unless he be one in a thousand he has certainly to pass +through many unnecessary troubles; and may, possibly, come to +extreme grief simply from ignorance of the proper proportions of +things. + +Let a puppy eat the soap in the bath-room or chew a newly-blacked +boot. He chews and chuckles until, by and by, he finds out that +blacking and Old Brown Windsor make him very sick; so he argues +that soap and boots are not wholesome. Any old dog about the house +will soon show him the unwisdom of biting big dogs' ears. Being +young, he remembers and goes abroad, at six months, a well-mannered +little beast with a chastened appetite. If he had been kept away +from boots, and soap, and big dogs till he came to the trinity +full-grown and with developed teeth, just consider how fearfully +sick and thrashed he would be! Apply that motion to the "sheltered +life," and see how it works. It does not sound pretty, but it is +the better of two evils. + +There was a Boy once who had been brought up under the "sheltered +life" theory; and the theory killed him dead. He stayed with his +people all his days, from the hour he was born till the hour he +went into Sandhurst nearly at the top of the list. He was +beautifully taught in all that wins marks by a private tutor, and +carried the extra weight of "never having given his parents an +hour's anxiety in his life." What he learnt at Sandhurst beyond +the regular routine is of no great consequence. He looked about +him, and he found soap and blacking, so to speak, very good. He +ate a little, and came out of Sandhurst not so high as he went in. +Them there was an interval and a scene with his people, who +expected much from him. Next a year of living "unspotted from the +world" in a third-rate depot battalion where all the juniors were +children, and all the seniors old women; and lastly he came out to +India, where he was cut off from the support of his parents, and +had no one to fall back on in time of trouble except himself. + +Now India is a place beyond all others where one must not take +things too seriously--the midday sun always excepted. Too much +work and too much energy kill a man just as effectively as too much +assorted vice or too much drink. Flirtation does not matter +because every one is being transferred and either you or she leave +the Station, and never return. Good work does not matter, because +a man is judged by his worst output and another man takes all the +credit of his best as a rule. Bad work does not matter, because +other men do worse, and incompetents hang on longer in India than +anywhere else. Amusements do not matter, because you must repeat +them as soon as you have accomplished them once, and most +amusements only mean trying to win another person's money. +Sickness does not matter, because it's all in the day's work, and +if you die another man takes over your place and your office in the +eight hours between death and burial. Nothing matters except Home +furlough and acting allowances, and these only because they are +scarce. This is a slack, kutcha country where all men work with +imperfect instruments; and the wisest thing is to take no one and +nothing in earnest, but to escape as soon as ever you can to some +place where amusement is amusement and a reputation worth the +having. + +But this Boy--the tale is as old as the Hills--came out, and took +all things seriously. He was pretty and was petted. He took the +pettings seriously, and fretted over women not worth saddling a +pony to call upon. He found his new free life in India very good. +It DOES look attractive in the beginning, from a Subaltern's point +of view--all ponies, partners, dancing, and so on. He tasted it as +the puppy tastes the soap. Only he came late to the eating, with a +growing set of teeth. He had no sense of balance--just like the +puppy--and could not understand why he was not treated with the +consideration he received under his father's roof. This hurt his +feelings. + +He quarrelled with other boys, and, being sensitive to the marrow, +remembered these quarrels, and they excited him. He found whist, +and gymkhanas, and things of that kind (meant to amuse one after +office) good; but he took them seriously too, just as he took the +"head" that followed after drink. He lost his money over whist and +gymkhanas because they were new to him. + +He took his losses seriously, and wasted as much energy and +interest over a two-goldmohur race for maiden ekka-ponies with +their manes hogged, as if it had been the Derby. One-half of this +came from inexperience--much as the puppy squabbles with the corner +of the hearth-rug--and the other half from the dizziness bred by +stumbling out of his quiet life into the glare and excitement of a +livelier one. No one told him about the soap and the blacking +because an average man takes it for granted that an average man is +ordinarily careful in regard to them. It was pitiful to watch The +Boy knocking himself to pieces, as an over-handled colt falls down +and cuts himself when he gets away from the groom. + +This unbridled license in amusements not worth the trouble of +breaking line for, much less rioting over, endured for six months-- +all through one cold weather--and then we thought that the heat and +the knowledge of having lost his money and health and lamed his +horses would sober The Boy down, and he would stand steady. In +ninety-nine cases out of a hundred this would have happened. You +can see the principle working in any Indian Station. But this +particular case fell through because The Boy was sensitive and took +things seriously--as I may have said some seven times before. Of +course, we couldn't tell how his excesses struck him personally. +They were nothing very heart-breaking or above the average. He +might be crippled for life financially, and want a little nursing. +Still the memory of his performances would wither away in one hot +weather, and the shroff would help him to tide over the money +troubles. But he must have taken another view altogether and have +believed himself ruined beyond redemption. His Colonel talked to +him severely when the cold weather ended. That made him more +wretched than ever; and it was only an ordinary "Colonel's +wigging!" + +What follows is a curious instance of the fashion in which we are +all linked together and made responsible for one another. THE +thing that kicked the beam in The Boy's mind was a remark that a +woman made when he was talking to her. There is no use in +repeating it, for it was only a cruel little sentence, rapped out +before thinking, that made him flush to the roots of his hair. He +kept himself to himself for three days, and then put in for two +days' leave to go shooting near a Canal Engineer's Rest House about +thirty miles out. He got his leave, and that night at Mess was +noisier and more offensive than ever. He said that he was "going +to shoot big game, and left at half-past ten o'clock in an ekka. +Partridge--which was the only thing a man could get near the Rest +House--is not big game; so every one laughed. + +Next morning one of the Majors came in from short leave, and heard +that The Boy had gone out to shoot "big game." The Major had taken +an interest in The Boy, and had, more than once, tried to check him +in the cold weather. The Major put up his eyebrows when he heard +of the expedition and went to The Boy's room, where he rummaged. + +Presently he came out and found me leaving cards on the Mess. +There was no one else in the ante-room. + +He said: "The Boy has gone out shooting. DOES a man shoot tetur +with a revolver and a writing-case?" + +I said: "Nonsense, Major!" for I saw what was in his mind. + +He said: "Nonsense or nonsense, I'm going to the Canal now--at +once. I don't feel easy." + +Then he thought for a minute, and said: "Can you lie?" + +"You know best," I answered. "It's my profession." + +"Very well," said the Major; "you must come out with me now--at +once--in an ekka to the Canal to shoot black-buck. Go and put on +shikar-kit--quick--and drive here with a gun." + +The Major was a masterful man; and I knew that he would not give +orders for nothing. So I obeyed, and on return found the Major +packed up in an ekka--gun-cases and food slung below--all ready for +a shooting-trip. + +He dismissed the driver and drove himself. We jogged along quietly +while in the station; but as soon as we got to the dusty road +across the plains, he made that pony fly. A country-bred can do +nearly anything at a pinch. We covered the thirty miles in under +three hours, but the poor brute was nearly dead. + +Once I said: "What's the blazing hurry, Major?" + +He said, quietly: "The Boy has been alone, by himself, for--one, +two, five--fourteen hours now! I tell you, I don't feel easy." + +This uneasiness spread itself to me, and I helped to beat the pony. + +When we came to the Canal Engineer's Rest House the Major called +for The Boy's servant; but there was no answer. Then we went up to +the house, calling for The Boy by name; but there was no answer. + +"Oh, he's out shooting," said I. + +Just then I saw through one of the windows a little hurricane-lamp +burning. This was at four in the afternoon. We both stopped dead +in the verandah, holding our breath to catch every sound; and we +heard, inside the room, the "brr--brr--brr" of a multitude of +flies. The Major said nothing, but he took off his helmet and we +entered very softly. + +The Boy was dead on the charpoy in the centre of the bare, lime- +washed room. He had shot his head nearly to pieces with his +revolver. The gun-cases were still strapped, so was the bedding, +and on the table lay The Boy's writing-case with photographs. He +had gone away to die like a poisoned rat! + +The Major said to himself softly: "Poor Boy! Poor, POOR devil!" +Then he turned away from the bed and said: "I want your help in +this business." + +Knowing The Boy was dead by his own hand, I saw exactly what that +help would be, so I passed over to the table, took a chair, lit a +cheroot, and began to go through the writing-case; the Major +looking over my shoulder and repeating to himself: "We came too +late!--Like a rat in a hole!--Poor, POOR devil!" + +The Boy must have spent half the night in writing to his people, +and to his Colonel, and to a girl at Home; and as soon as he had +finished, must have shot himself, for he had been dead a long time +when we came in. + +I read all that he had written, and passed over each sheet to the +Major as I finished it. + +We saw from his accounts how very seriously he had taken +everything. He wrote about "disgrace which he was unable to bear"-- +"indelible shame"--"criminal folly"--"wasted life," and so on; +besides a lot of private things to his Father and Mother too much +too sacred to put into print. The letter to the girl at Home was +the most pitiful of all; and I choked as I read it. The Major made +no attempt to keep dry-eyed. I respected him for that. He read +and rocked himself to and fro, and simply cried like a woman +without caring to hide it. The letters were so dreary and hopeless +and touching. We forgot all about The Boy's follies, and only +thought of the poor Thing on the charpoy and the scrawled sheets in +our hands. It was utterly impossible to let the letters go Home. +They would have broken his Father's heart and killed his Mother +after killing her belief in her son. + +At last the Major dried his eyes openly, and said: "Nice sort of +thing to spring on an English family! What shall we do?" + +I said, knowing what the Major had brought me but for: "The Boy +died of cholera. We were with him at the time. We can't commit +ourselves to half-measures. Come along." + +Then began one of the most grimy comic scenes I have ever taken +part in--the concoction of a big, written lie, bolstered with +evidence, to soothe The Boy's people at Home. I began the rough +draft of a letter, the Major throwing in hints here and there while +he gathered up all the stuff that The Boy had written and burnt it +in the fireplace. It was a hot, still evening when we began, and +the lamp burned very badly. In due course I got the draft to my +satisfaction, setting forth how The Boy was the pattern of all +virtues, beloved by his regiment, with every promise of a great +career before him, and so on; how we had helped him through the +sickness--it was no time for little lies, you will understand--and +how he had died without pain. I choked while I was putting down +these things and thinking of the poor people who would read them. +Then I laughed at the grotesqueness of the affair, and the laughter +mixed itself up with the choke--and the Major said that we both +wanted drinks. + +I am afraid to say how much whiskey we drank before the letter was +finished. It had not the least effect on us. Then we took off The +Boy's watch, locket, and rings. + +Lastly, the Major said: "We must send a lock of hair too. A woman +values that." + +But there were reasons why we could not find a lock fit to send. +The Boy was black-haired, and so was the Major, luckily. I cut off +a piece of the Major's hair above the temple with a knife, and put +it into the packet we were making. The laughing-fit and the chokes +got hold of me again, and I had to stop. The Major was nearly as +bad; and we both knew that the worst part of the work was to come. + +We sealed up the packet, photographs, locket, seals, ring, letter, +and lock of hair with The Boy's sealing-wax and The Boy's seal. + +Then the Major said: "For God's sake let's get outside--away from +the room--and think!" + +We went outside, and walked on the banks of the Canal for an hour, +eating and drinking what we had with us, until the moon rose. I +know now exactly how a murderer feels. Finally, we forced +ourselves back to the room with the lamp and the Other Thing in it, +and began to take up the next piece of work. I am not going to +write about this. It was too horrible. We burned the bedstead and +dropped the ashes into the Canal; we took up the matting of the +room and treated that in the same way. I went off to a village and +borrowed two big hoes--I did not want the villagers to help--while +the Major arranged--the other matters. It took us four hours' hard +work to make the grave. As we worked, we argued out whether it was +right to say as much as we remembered of the Burial of the Dead. +We compromised things by saying the Lord's Prayer with a private +unofficial prayer for the peace of the soul of The Boy. Then we +filled in the grave and went into the verandah--not the house--to +lie down to sleep. We were dead-tired. + +When we woke the Major said, wearily: "We can't go back till to- +morrow. We must give him a decent time to die in. He died early +THIS morning, remember. That seems more natural." So the Major +must have been lying awake all the time, thinking. + +I said: "Then why didn't we bring the body back to the +cantonments?" + +The Major thought for a minute:--"Because the people bolted when +they heard of the cholera. And the ekka has gone!" + +That was strictly true. We had forgotten all about the ekka-pony, +and he had gone home. + +So, we were left there alone, all that stifling day, in the Canal +Rest House, testing and re-testing our story of The Boy's death to +see if it was weak at any point. A native turned up in the +afternoon, but we said that a Sahib was dead of cholera, and he ran +away. As the dusk gathered, the Major told me all his fears about +The Boy, and awful stories of suicide or nearly-carried-out +suicide--tales that made one's hair crisp. He said that he himself +had once gone into the same Valley of the Shadow as the Boy, when +he was young and new to the country; so he understood how things +fought together in The Boy's poor jumbled head. He also said that +youngsters, in their repentant moments, consider their sins much +more serious and ineffaceable than they really are. We talked +together all through the evening, and rehearsed the story of the +death of The Boy. As soon as the moon was up, and The Boy, +theoretically, just buried, we struck across country for the +Station. We walked from eight till six o'clock in the morning; but +though we were dead-tired, we did not forget to go to The Boy's +room and put away his revolver with the proper amount of cartridges +in the pouch. Also to set his writing-case on the table. We found +the Colonel and reported the death, feeling more like murderers +than ever. Then we went to bed and slept the clock round; for +there was no more in us. + +The tale had credence as long as was necessary, for every one +forgot about The Boy before a fortnight was over. Many people, +however, found time to say that the Major had behaved scandalously +in not bringing in the body for a regimental funeral. The saddest +thing of all was a letter from The Boy's mother to the Major and +me--with big inky blisters all over the sheet. She wrote the +sweetest possible things about our great kindness, and the +obligation she would be under to us as long as she lived. + +All things considered, she WAS under an obligation; but not exactly +as she meant. + + + +MISS YOUGHAL'S SAIS. + + +When Man and Woman are agreed, what can the Kazi do? + + Mahomedan Proverb. + + +Some people say that there is no romance in India. Those people +are wrong. Our lives hold quite as much romance as is good for us. +Sometimes more. + +Strickland was in the Police, and people did not understand him; so +they said he was a doubtful sort of man and passed by on the other +side. Strickland had himself to thank for this. He held the +extraordinary theory that a Policeman in India should try to know +as much about the natives as the natives themselves. Now, in the +whole of Upper India, there is only ONE man who can pass for Hindu +or Mohammedan, chamar or faquir, as he pleases. He is feared and +respected by the natives from the Ghor Kathri to the Jamma Musjid; +and he is supposed to have the gift of invisibility and executive +control over many Devils. But what good has this done him with the +Government? None in the world. He has never got Simla for his +charge; and his name is almost unknown to Englishmen. + +Strickland was foolish enough to take that man for his model; and, +following out his absurd theory, dabbled in unsavory places no +respectable man would think of exploring--all among the native +riff-raff. He educated himself in this peculiar way for seven +years, and people could not appreciate it. He was perpetually +"going Fantee" among the natives, which, of course, no man with any +sense believes in. He was initiated into the Sat Bhai at Allahabad +once, when he was on leave; he knew the Lizard-Song of the Sansis, +and the Halli-Hukk dance, which is a religious can-can of a +startling kind. When a man knows who dances the Halli-Hukk, and +how, and when, and where, he knows something to be proud of. He +has gone deeper than the skin. But Strickland was not proud, +though he had helped once, at Jagadhri, at the Painting of the +Death Bull, which no Englishman must even look upon; had mastered +the thieves'-patter of the changars; had taken a Eusufzai horse- +thief alone near Attock; and had stood under the mimbar-board of a +Border mosque and conducted service in the manner of a Sunni +Mollah. + +His crowning achievement was spending eleven days as a faquir in +the gardens of Baba Atal at Amritsar, and there picking up the +threads of the great Nasiban Murder Case. But people said, justly +enough: "Why on earth can't Strickland sit in his office and write +up his diary, and recruit, and keep quiet, instead of showing up +the incapacity of his seniors?" So the Nasiban Murder Case did him +no good departmentally; but, after his first feeling of wrath, he +returned to his outlandish custom of prying into native life. By +the way, when a man once acquires a taste for this particular +amusement, it abides with him all his days. It is the most +fascinating thing in the world; Love not excepted. Where other men +took ten days to the Hills, Strickland took leave for what he +called shikar, put on the disguise that appealed to him at the +time, stepped down into the brown crowd, and was swallowed up for a +while. He was a quiet, dark young fellow--spare, black-eyes--and, +when he was not thinking of something else, a very interesting +companion. Strickland on Native Progress as he had seen it was +worth hearing. Natives hated Strickland; but they were afraid of +him. He knew too much. + +When the Youghals came into the station, Strickland--very gravely, +as he did everything--fell in love with Miss Youghal; and she, +after a while, fell in love with him because she could not +understand him. Then Strickland told the parents; but Mrs. Youghal +said she was not going to throw her daughter into the worst paid +Department in the Empire, and old Youghal said, in so many words, +that he mistrusted Strickland's ways and works, and would thank him +not to speak or write to his daughter any more. "Very well," said +Strickland, for he did not wish to make his lady-love's life a +burden. After one long talk with Miss Youghal he dropped the +business entirely. + +The Youghals went up to Simla in April. + +In July, Strickland secured three months' leave on "urgent private +affairs." He locked up his house--though not a native in the +Providence would wittingly have touched "Estreekin Sahib's" gear +for the world--and went down to see a friend of his, an old dyer, +at Tarn Taran. + +Here all trace of him was lost, until a sais met me on the Simla +Mall with this extraordinary note: + + +"Dear old man, + +Please give bearer a box of cheroots--Supers, No. I, for +preference. They are freshest at the Club. I'll repay when I +reappear; but at present I'm out of Society. + +Yours, + +E. STRICKLAND." + + +I ordered two boxes, and handed them over to the sais with my love. +That sais was Strickland, and he was in old Youghal's employ, +attached to Miss Youghal's Arab. The poor fellow was suffering for +an English smoke, and knew that whatever happened I should hold my +tongue till the business was over. + +Later on, Mrs. Youghal, who was wrapped up in her servants, began +talking at houses where she called of her paragon among saises--the +man who was never too busy to get up in the morning and pick +flowers for the breakfast-table, and who blacked--actually BLACKED-- +the hoofs of his horse like a London coachman! The turnout of +Miss Youghal's Arab was a wonder and a delight. Strickland-- +Dulloo, I mean--found his reward in the pretty things that Miss +Youghal said to him when she went out riding. Her parents were +pleased to find she had forgotten all her foolishness for young +Strickland and said she was a good girl. + +Strickland vows that the two months of his service were the most +rigid mental discipline he has ever gone through. Quite apart from +the little fact that the wife of one of his fellow-saises fell in +love with him and then tried to poison him with arsenic because he +would have nothing to do with her, he had to school himself into +keeping quiet when Miss Youghal went out riding with some man who +tried to flirt with her, and he was forced to trot behind carrying +the blanket and hearing every word! Also, he had to keep his +temper when he was slanged in "Benmore" porch by a policeman-- +especially once when he was abused by a Naik he had himself +recruited from Isser Jang village--or, worse still, when a young +subaltern called him a pig for not making way quickly enough. + +But the life had its compensations. He obtained great insight into +the ways and thefts of saises--enough, he says, to have summarily +convicted half the chamar population of the Punjab if he had been +on business. He became one of the leading players at knuckle- +bones, which all jhampanis and many saises play while they are +waiting outside the Government House or the Gaiety Theatre of +nights; he learned to smoke tobacco that was three-fourths cowdung; +and he heard the wisdom of the grizzled Jemadar of the Government +House saises, whose words are valuable. He saw many things which +amused him; and he states, on honor, that no man can appreciate +Simla properly, till he has seen it from the sais's point of view. +He also says that, if he chose to write all he saw, his head would +be broken in several places. + +Strickland's account of the agony he endured on wet nights, hearing +the music and seeing the lights in "Benmore," with his toes +tingling for a waltz and his head in a horse-blanket, is rather +amusing. One of these days, Strickland is going to write a little +book on his experiences. That book will be worth buying; and even +more, worth suppressing. + +Thus, he served faithfully as Jacob served for Rachel; and his +leave was nearly at an end when the explosion came. He had really +done his best to keep his temper in the hearing of the flirtations +I have mentioned; but he broke down at last. An old and very +distinguished General took Miss Youghal for a ride, and began that +specially offensive "you're-only-a-little-girl" sort of flirtation-- +most difficult for a woman to turn aside deftly, and most +maddening to listen to. Miss Youghal was shaking with fear at the +things he said in the hearing of her sais. Dulloo--Strickland-- +stood it as long as he could. Then he caught hold of the General's +bridle, and, in most fluent English, invited him to step off and be +heaved over the cliff. Next minute Miss Youghal began crying; and +Strickland saw that he had hopelessly given himself away, and +everything was over. + +The General nearly had a fit, while Miss Youghal was sobbing out +the story of the disguise and the engagement that wasn't recognized +by the parents. Strickland was furiously angry with himself and +more angry with the General for forcing his hand; so he said +nothing, but held the horse's head and prepared to thrash the +General as some sort of satisfaction, but when the General had +thoroughly grasped the story, and knew who Strickland was, he began +to puff and blow in the saddle, and nearly rolled off with +laughing. He said Strickland deserved a V. C., if it were only for +putting on a sais's blanket. Then he called himself names, and +vowed that he deserved a thrashing, but he was too old to take it +from Strickland. Then he complimented Miss Youghal on her lover. +The scandal of the business never struck him; for he was a nice old +man, with a weakness for flirtations. Then he laughed again, and +said that old Youghal was a fool. Strickland let go of the cob's +head, and suggested that the General had better help them, if that +was his opinion. Strickland knew Youghal's weakness for men with +titles and letters after their names and high official position. +"It's rather like a forty-minute farce," said the General, "but +begad, I WILL help, if it's only to escape that tremendous +thrashing I deserved. Go along to your home, my sais-Policeman, +and change into decent kit, and I'll attack Mr. Youghal. Miss +Youghal, may I ask you to canter home and wait? + + . . . . . . . . . + +About seven minutes later, there was a wild hurroosh at the Club. +A sais, with a blanket and head-rope, was asking all the men he +knew: "For Heaven's sake lend me decent clothes!" As the men did +not recognize him, there were some peculiar scenes before +Strickland could get a hot bath, with soda in it, in one room, a +shirt here, a collar there, a pair of trousers elsewhere, and so +on. He galloped off, with half the Club wardrobe on his back, and +an utter stranger's pony under him, to the house of old Youghal. +The General, arrayed in purple and fine linen, was before him. +What the General had said Strickland never knew, but Youghal +received Strickland with moderate civility; and Mrs. Youghal, +touched by the devotion of the transformed Dulloo, was almost kind. +The General beamed, and chuckled, and Miss Youghal came in, and +almost before old Youghal knew where he was, the parental consent +had been wrenched out and Strickland had departed with Miss Youghal +to the Telegraph Office to wire for his kit. The final +embarrassment was when an utter stranger attacked him on the Mall +and asked for the stolen pony. + +So, in the end, Strickland and Miss Youghal were married, on the +strict understanding that Strickland should drop his old ways, and +stick to Departmental routine, which pays best and leads to Simla. +Strickland was far too fond of his wife, just then, to break his +word, but it was a sore trial to him; for the streets and the +bazars, and the sounds in them, were full of meaning to Strickland, +and these called to him to come back and take up his wanderings and +his discoveries. Some day, I will tell you how he broke his +promise to help a friend. That was long since, and he has, by this +time, been nearly spoilt for what he would call shikar. He is +forgetting the slang, and the beggar's cant, and the marks, and the +signs, and the drift of the undercurrents, which, if a man would +master, he must always continue to learn. + +But he fills in his Departmental returns beautifully. + + + +YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER. + + +I am dying for you, and you are dying for another. + + Punjabi Proverb. + + +When the Gravesend tender left the P. & 0. steamer for Bombay and +went back to catch the train to Town, there were many people in it +crying. But the one who wept most, and most openly was Miss Agnes +Laiter. She had reason to cry, because the only man she ever +loved--or ever could love, so she said--was going out to India; and +India, as every one knows, is divided equally between jungle, +tigers, cobras, cholera, and sepoys. + +Phil Garron, leaning over the side of the steamer in the rain, felt +very unhappy too; but he did not cry. He was sent out to "tea." +What "tea" meant he had not the vaguest idea, but fancied that he +would have to ride on a prancing horse over hills covered with tea- +vines, and draw a sumptuous salary for doing so; and he was very +grateful to his uncle for getting him the berth. He was really +going to reform all his slack, shiftless ways, save a large +proportion of his magnificent salary yearly, and, in a very short +time, return to marry Agnes Laiter. Phil Garron had been lying +loose on his friends' hands for three years, and, as he had nothing +to do, he naturally fell in love. He was very nice; but he was not +strong in his views and opinions and principles, and though he +never came to actual grief his friends were thankful when he said +good-bye, and went out to this mysterious "tea" business near +Darjiling. They said:--"God bless you, dear boy! Let us never see +your face again,"--or at least that was what Phil was given to +understand. + +When he sailed, he was very full of a great plan to prove himself +several hundred times better than any one had given him credit for-- +to work like a horse, and triumphantly marry Agnes Laiter. He had +many good points besides his good looks; his only fault being that +he was weak, the least little bit in the world weak. He had as +much notion of economy as the Morning Sun; and yet you could not +lay your hand on any one item, and say: "Herein Phil Garron is +extravagant or reckless." Nor could you point out any particular +vice in his character; but he was "unsatisfactory" and as workable +as putty. + +Agnes Laiter went about her duties at home--her family objected to +the engagement--with red eyes, while Phil was sailing to Darjiling-- +"a port on the Bengal Ocean," as his mother used to tell her +friends. He was popular enough on board ship, made many +acquaintances and a moderately large liquor bill, and sent off huge +letters to Agnes Laiter at each port. Then he fell to work on this +plantation, somewhere between Darjiling and Kangra, and, though the +salary and the horse and the work were not quite all he had +fancied, he succeeded fairly well, and gave himself much +unnecessary credit for his perseverance. + +In the course of time, as he settled more into collar, and his work +grew fixed before him, the face of Agnes Laiter went out of his +mind and only came when he was at leisure, which was not often. He +would forget all about her for a fortnight, and remember her with a +start, like a school-boy who has forgotten to learn his lesson. +She did not forget Phil, because she was of the kind that never +forgets. Only, another man--a really desirable young man-- +presented himself before Mrs. Laiter; and the chance of a marriage +with Phil was as far off as ever; and his letters were so +unsatisfactory; and there was a certain amount of domestic pressure +brought to bear on the girl; and the young man really was an +eligible person as incomes go; and the end of all things was that +Agnes married him, and wrote a tempestuous whirlwind of a letter to +Phil in the wilds of Darjiling, and said she should never know a +happy moment all the rest of her life. Which was a true prophecy. + +Phil got that letter, and held himself ill-treated. This was two +years after he had come out; but by dint of thinking fixedly of +Agnes Laiter, and looking at her photograph, and patting himself on +the back for being one of the most constant lovers in history, and +warming to the work as he went on, he really fancied that he had +been very hardly used. He sat down and wrote one final letter--a +really pathetic "world without end, amen," epistle; explaining how +he would be true to Eternity, and that all women were very much +alike, and he would hide his broken heart, etc., etc.; but if, at +any future time, etc., etc., he could afford to wait, etc., etc., +unchanged affections, etc., etc., return to her old love, etc., +etc., for eight closely-written pages. From an artistic point of +view, it was very neat work, but an ordinary Philistine, who knew +the state of Phil's real feelings--not the ones he rose to as he +went on writing--would have called it the thoroughly mean and +selfish work of a thoroughly mean and selfish, weak man. But this +verdict would have been incorrect. Phil paid for the postage, and +felt every word he had written for at least two days and a half. +It was the last flicker before the light went out. + +That letter made Agnes Laiter very unhappy, and she cried and put +it away in her desk, and became Mrs. Somebody Else for the good of +her family. Which is the first duty of every Christian maid. + +Phil went his ways, and thought no more of his letter, except as an +artist thinks of a neatly touched-in sketch. His ways were not +bad, but they were not altogether good until they brought him +across Dunmaya, the daughter of a Rajput ex-Subadar-Major of our +Native Army. The girl had a strain of Hill blood in her, and, like +the Hill women, was not a purdah nashin. Where Phil met her, or +how he heard of her, does not matter. She was a good girl and +handsome, and, in her way, very clever and shrewd; though, of +course, a little hard. It is to be remembered that Phil was living +very comfortably, denying himself no small luxury, never putting by +an anna, very satisfied with himself and his good intentions, was +dropping all his English correspondents one by one, and beginning +more and more to look upon this land as his home. Some men fall +this way; and they are of no use afterwards. The climate where he +was stationed was good, and it really did not seem to him that +there was anything to go Home for. + +He did what many planters have done before him--that is to say, he +made up his mind to marry a Hill girl and settle down. He was +seven and twenty then, with a long life before him, but no spirit +to go through with it. So he married Dunmaya by the forms of the +English Church, and some fellow-planters said he was a fool, and +some said he was a wise man. Dunmaya was a thoroughly honest girl, +and, in spite of her reverence for an Englishman, had a reasonable +estimate of her husband's weaknesses. She managed him tenderly, +and became, in less than a year, a very passable imitation of an +English lady in dress and carriage. [It is curious to think that a +Hill man, after a lifetime's education, is a Hill man still; but a +Hill woman can in six months master most of the ways of her English +sisters. There was a coolie woman once. But that is another +story.] Dunmaya dressed by preference in black and yellow, and +looked well. + +Meantime the letter lay in Agnes's desk, and now and again she +would think of poor resolute hard-working Phil among the cobras and +tigers of Darjiling, toiling in the vain hope that she might come +back to him. Her husband was worth ten Phils, except that he had +rheumatism of the heart. Three years after he was married--and +after he had tried Nice and Algeria for his complaint--he went to +Bombay, where he died, and set Agnes free. Being a devout woman, +she looked on his death and the place of it, as a direct +interposition of Providence, and when she had recovered from the +shock, she took out and reread Phil's letter with the "etc., etc.," +and the big dashes, and the little dashes, and kissed it several +times. No one knew her in Bombay; she had her husband's income, +which was a large one, and Phil was close at hand. It was wrong +and improper, of course, but she decided, as heroines do in novels, +to find her old lover, to offer him her hand and her gold, and with +him spend the rest of her life in some spot far from unsympathetic +souls. She sat for two months, alone in Watson's Hotel, +elaborating this decision, and the picture was a pretty one. Then +she set out in search of Phil Garron, Assistant on a tea plantation +with a more than usually unpronounceable name. + + . . . . . . . . . + +She found him. She spent a month over it,, for his plantation was +not in the Darjiling district at all, but nearer Kangra. Phil was +very little altered, and Dunmaya was very nice to her. + +Now the particular sin and shame of the whole business is that +Phil, who really is not worth thinking of twice, was and is loved +by Dunmaya, and more than loved by Agnes, the whole of whose life +he seems to have spoilt. + +Worst of all, Dunmaya is making a decent man of him; and he will be +ultimately saved from perdition through her training. + +Which is manifestly unfair. + + + +FALSE DAWN. + + +To-night God knows what thing shall tide, + The Earth is racked and faint-- +Expectant, sleepless, open-eyed; +And we, who from the Earth were made, + Thrill with our Mother's pain. + + In Durance. + + +No man will ever know the exact truth of this story; though women +may sometimes whisper it to one another after a dance, when they +are putting up their hair for the night and comparing lists of +victims. A man, of course, cannot assist at these functions. So +the tale must be told from the outside--in the dark--all wrong. + +Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope of your compliments +reaching the proper ears, and so preparing the way for you later +on. Sisters are women first, and sisters afterwards; and you will +find that you do yourself harm. + +Saumarez knew this when he made up his mind to propose to the elder +Miss Copleigh. Saumarez was a strange man, with few merits, so far +as men could see, though he was popular with women, and carried +enough conceit to stock a Viceroy's Council and leave a little over +for the Commander-in-Chief's Staff. He was a Civilian. Very many +women took an interest in Saumarez, perhaps, because his manner to +them was offensive. If you hit a pony over the nose at the outset +of your acquaintance, he may not love you, but he will take a deep +interest in your movements ever afterwards. The elder Miss +Copleigh was nice, plump, winning and pretty. The younger was not +so pretty, and, from men disregarding the hint set forth above, her +style was repellant and unattractive. Both girls had, practically, +the same figure, and there was a strong likeness between them in +look and voice; though no one could doubt for an instant which was +the nicer of the two. + +Saumarez made up his mind, as soon as they came into the station +from Behar, to marry the elder one. At least, we all made sure +that he would, which comes to the same thing. She was two and +twenty, and he was thirty-three, with pay and allowances of nearly +fourteen hundred rupees a month. So the match, as we arranged it, +was in every way a good one. Saumarez was his name, and summary +was his nature, as a man once said. Having drafted his Resolution, +he formed a Select Committee of One to sit upon it, and resolved to +take his time. In our unpleasant slang, the Copleigh girls "hunted +in couples." That is to say, you could do nothing with one without +the other. They were very loving sisters; but their mutual +affection was sometimes inconvenient. Saumarez held the balance- +hair true between them, and none but himself could have said to +which side his heart inclined; though every one guessed. He rode +with them a good deal and danced with them, but he never succeeded +in detaching them from each other for any length of time. + +Women said that the two girls kept together through deep mistrust, +each fearing that the other would steal a march on her. But that +has nothing to do with a man. Saumarez was silent for good or bad, +and as business-likely attentive as he could be, having due regard +to his work and his polo. Beyond doubt both girls were fond of +him. + +As the hot weather drew nearer, and Saumarez made no sign, women +said that you could see their trouble in the eyes of the girls-- +that they were looking strained, anxious, and irritable. Men are +quite blind in these matters unless they have more of the woman +than the man in their composition, in which case it does not matter +what they say or think. I maintain it was the hot April days that +took the color out of the Copleigh girls' cheeks. They should have +been sent to the Hills early. No one--man or woman--feels an angel +when the hot weather is approaching. The younger sister grew more +cynical--not to say acid--in her ways; and the winningness of the +elder wore thin. There was more effort in it. + +Now the Station wherein all these things happened was, though not a +little one, off the line of rail, and suffered through want of +attention. There were no gardens or bands or amusements worth +speaking of, and it was nearly a day's journey to come into Lahore +for a dance. People were grateful for small things to interest +them. + +About the beginning of May, and just before the final exodus of +Hill-goers, when the weather was very hot and there were not more +than twenty people in the Station, Saumarez gave a moonlight +riding-picnic at an old tomb, six miles away, near the bed of the +river. It was a "Noah's Ark" picnic; and there was to be the usual +arrangement of quarter-mile intervals between each couple, on +account of the dust. Six couples came altogether, including +chaperons. Moonlight picnics are useful just at the very end of +the season, before all the girls go away to the Hills. They lead +to understandings, and should be encouraged by chaperones; +especially those whose girls look sweetish in riding habits. I +knew a case once. But that is another story. That picnic was +called the "Great Pop Picnic," because every one knew Saumarez +would propose then to the eldest Miss Copleigh; and, beside his +affair, there was another which might possibly come to happiness. +The social atmosphere was heavily charged and wanted clearing. + +We met at the parade-ground at ten: the night was fearfully hot. +The horses sweated even at walking-pace, but anything was better +than sitting still in our own dark houses. When we moved off under +the full moon we were four couples, one triplet, and Mr. Saumarez +rode with the Copleigh girls, and I loitered at the tail of the +procession, wondering with whom Saumarez would ride home. Every +one was happy and contented; but we all felt that things were going +to happen. We rode slowly: and it was nearly midnight before we +reached the old tomb, facing the ruined tank, in the decayed +gardens where we were going to eat and drink. I was late in coming +up; and before I went into the garden, I saw that the horizon to +the north carried a faint, dun-colored feather. But no one would +have thanked me for spoiling so well-managed an entertainment as +this picnic--and a dust-storm, more or less, does no great harm. + +We gathered by the tank. Some one had brought out a banjo--which +is a most sentimental instrument--and three or four of us sang. +You must not laugh at this. Our amusements in out-of-the-way +Stations are very few indeed. Then we talked in groups or +together, lying under the trees, with the sun-baked roses dropping +their petals on our feet, until supper was ready. It was a +beautiful supper, as cold and as iced as you could wish; and we +stayed long over it. + +I had felt that the air was growing hotter and hotter; but nobody +seemed to notice it until the moon went out and a burning hot wind +began lashing the orange-trees with a sound like the noise of the +sea. Before we knew where we were, the dust-storm was on us, and +everything was roaring, whirling darkness. The supper-table was +blown bodily into the tank. We were afraid of staying anywhere +near the old tomb for fear it might be blown down. So we felt our +way to the orange-trees where the horses were picketed and waited +for the storm to blow over. Then the little light that was left +vanished, and you could not see your hand before your face. The +air was heavy with dust and sand from the bed of the river, that +filled boots and pockets and drifted down necks and coated eyebrows +and moustaches. It was one of the worst dust-storms of the year. +We were all huddled together close to the trembling horses, with +the thunder clattering overhead, and the lightning spurting like +water from a sluice, all ways at once. There was no danger, of +course, unless the horses broke loose. I was standing with my head +downward and my hands over my mouth, hearing the trees thrashing +each other. I could not see who was next me till the flashes came. +Then I found that I was packed near Saumarez and the eldest Miss +Copleigh, with my own horse just in front of me. I recognized the +eldest Miss Copleigh, because she had a pagri round her helmet, and +the younger had not. All the electricity in the air had gone into +my body and I was quivering and tingling from head to foot--exactly +as a corn shoots and tingles before rain. It was a grand storm. +The wind seemed to be picking up the earth and pitching it to +leeward in great heaps; and the heat beat up from the ground like +the heat of the Day of Judgment. + +The storm lulled slightly after the first half-hour, and I heard a +despairing little voice close to my ear, saying to itself, quietly +and softly, as if some lost soul were flying about with the wind: +"O my God!" Then the younger Miss Copleigh stumbled into my arms, +saying: "Where is my horse? Get my horse. I want to go home. I +WANT to go home. Take me home." + +I thought that the lightning and the black darkness had frightened +her; so I said there was no danger, but she must wait till the +storm blew over. She answered: "It is not THAT! It is not THAT! +I want to go home! O take me away from here!" + +I said that she could not go till the light came; but I felt her +brush past me and go away. It was too dark to see where. Then the +whole sky was split open with one tremendous flash, as if the end +of the world were coming, and all the women shrieked. + +Almost directly after this, I felt a man's hand on my shoulder and +heard Saumarez bellowing in my ear. Through the rattling of the +trees and howling of the wind, I did not catch his words at once, +but at last I heard him say: "I've proposed to the wrong one! What +shall I do?" Saumarez had no occasion to make this confidence to +me. I was never a friend of his, nor am I now; but I fancy neither +of us were ourselves just then. He was shaking as he stood with +excitement, and I was feeling queer all over with the electricity. +I could not think of anything to say except:--"More fool you for +proposing in a dust-storm." But I did not see how that would +improve the mistake. + +Then he shouted: "Where's Edith--Edith Copleigh?" Edith was the +youngest sister. I answered out of my astonishment:--"What do you +want with HER?" Would you believe it, for the next two minutes, he +and I were shouting at each other like maniacs--he vowing that it +was the youngest sister he had meant to propose to all along, and I +telling him till my throat was hoarse that he must have made a +mistake! I can't account for this except, again, by the fact that +we were neither of us ourselves. Everything seemed to me like a +bad dream--from the stamping of the horses in the darkness to +Saumarez telling me the story of his loving Edith Copleigh since +the first. He was still clawing my shoulder and begging me to tell +him where Edith Copleigh was, when another lull came and brought +light with it, and we saw the dust-cloud forming on the plain in +front of us. So we knew the worst was over. The moon was low +down, and there was just the glimmer of the false dawn that comes +about an hour before the real one. But the light was very faint, +and the dun cloud roared like a bull. I wondered where Edith +Copleigh had gone; and as I was wondering I saw three things +together: First Maud Copleigh's face come smiling out of the +darkness and move towards Saumarez, who was standing by me. I +heard the girl whisper, "George," and slide her arm through the arm +that was not clawing my shoulder, and I saw that look on her face +which only comes once or twice in a lifetime-when a woman is +perfectly happy and the air is full of trumpets and gorgeous- +colored fire and the Earth turns into cloud because she loves and +is loved. At the same time, I saw Saumarez's face as he heard Maud +Copleigh's voice, and fifty yards away from the clump of orange- +trees I saw a brown holland habit getting upon a horse. + +It must have been my state of over-excitement that made me so quick +to meddle with what did not concern me. Saumarez was moving off to +the habit; but I pushed him back and said:--"Stop here and explain. +I'll fetch her back!" and I ran out to get at my own horse. I had +a perfectly unnecessary notion that everything must be done +decently and in order, and that Saumarez's first care was to wipe +the happy look out of Maud Copleigh's face. All the time I was +linking up the curb-chain I wondered how he would do it. + +I cantered after Edith Copleigh, thinking to bring her back slowly +on some pretence or another. But she galloped away as soon as she +saw me, and I was forced to ride after her in earnest. She called +back over her shoulder--"Go away! I'm going home. Oh, go away!" +two or three times; but my business was to catch her first, and +argue later. The ride just fitted in with the rest of the evil +dream. The ground was very bad, and now and again we rushed +through the whirling, choking "dust-devils" in the skirts of the +flying storm. There was a burning hot wind blowing that brought up +a stench of stale brick-kilns with it; and through the half light +and through the dust-devils, across that desolate plain, flickered +the brown holland habit on the gray horse. She headed for the +Station at first. Then she wheeled round and set off for the river +through beds of burnt down jungle-grass, bad even to ride a pig +over. In cold blood I should never have dreamed of going over such +a country at night, but it seemed quite right and natural with the +lightning crackling overhead, and a reek like the smell of the Pit +in my nostrils. I rode and shouted, and she bent forward and +lashed her horse, and the aftermath of the dust-storm came up and +caught us both, and drove us downwind like pieces of paper. + +I don't know how far we rode; but the drumming of the horse-hoofs +and the roar of the wind and the race of the faint blood-red moon +through the yellow mist seemed to have gone on for years and years, +and I was literally drenched with sweat from my helmet to my +gaiters when the gray stumbled, recovered himself, and pulled up +dead lame. My brute was used up altogether. Edith Copleigh was in +a sad state, plastered with dust, her helmet off, and crying +bitterly. "Why can't you let me alone?" she said. "I only wanted +to get away and go home. Oh, PLEASE let me go!" + +"You have got to come back with me, Miss Copleigh. Saumarez has +something to say to you." + +It was a foolish way of putting it; but I hardly knew Miss +Copleigh; and, though I was playing Providence at the cost of my +horse, I could not tell her in as many words what Saumarez had told +me. I thought he could do that better himself. All her pretence +about being tired and wanting to go home broke down, and she rocked +herself to and fro in the saddle as she sobbed, and the hot wind +blew her black hair to leeward. I am not going to repeat what she +said, because she was utterly unstrung. + +This, if you please, was the cynical Miss Copleigh. Here was I, +almost an utter stranger to her, trying to tell her that Saumarez +loved her and she was to come back to hear him say so! I believe I +made myself understood, for she gathered the gray together and made +him hobble somehow, and we set off for the tomb, while the storm +went thundering down to Umballa and a few big drops of warm rain +fell. I found out that she had been standing close to Saumarez +when he proposed to her sister and had wanted to go home and cry in +peace, as an English girl should. She dabbled her eyes with her +pocket-handkerchief as we went along, and babbled to me out of +sheer lightness of heart and hysteria. That was perfectly +unnatural; and yet, it seemed all right at the time and in the +place. All the world was only the two Copleigh girls, Saumarez and +I, ringed in with the lightning and the dark; and the guidance of +this misguided world seemed to lie in my hands. + +When we returned to the tomb in the deep, dead stillness that +followed the storm, the dawn was just breaking and nobody had gone +away. They were waiting for our return. Saumarez most of all. +His face was white and drawn. As Miss Copleigh and I limped up, he +came forward to meet us, and, when he helped her down from her +saddle, he kissed her before all the picnic. It was like a scene +in a theatre, and the likeness was heightened by all the dust- +white, ghostly-looking men and women under the orange-trees, +clapping their hands, as if they were watching a play--at +Saumarez's choice. I never knew anything so un-English in my life. + +Lastly, Saumarez said we must all go home or the Station would come +out to look for us, and WOULD I be good enough to ride home with +Maud Copleigh? Nothing would give me greater pleasure, I said. + +So, we formed up, six couples in all, and went back two by two; +Saumarez walking at the side of Edith Copleigh, who was riding his +horse. + +The air was cleared; and little by little, as the sun rose, I felt +we were all dropping back again into ordinary men and women and +that the "Great Pop Picnic" was a thing altogether apart and out of +the world--never to happen again. It had gone with the dust-storm +and the tingle in the hot air. + +I felt tired and limp, and a good deal ashamed of myself as I went +in for a bath and some sleep. + +There is a woman's version of this story, but it will never be +written . . . . unless Maud Copleigh cares to try. + + + +THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES. + + +Thus, for a season, they fought it fair-- + She and his cousin May-- +Tactful, talented, debonnaire, + Decorous foes were they; +But never can battle of man compare + With merciless feminine fray. + + Two and One. + + +Mrs. Hauksbee was sometimes nice to her own sex. Here is a story +to prove this; and you can believe just as much as ever you please. + +Pluffles was a subaltern in the "Unmentionables." He was callow, +even for a subaltern. He was callow all over--like a canary that +had not finished fledging itself. The worst of it was he had three +times as much money as was good for him; Pluffles' Papa being a +rich man and Pluffles being the only son. Pluffles' Mamma adored +him. She was only a little less callow than Pluffles and she +believed everything he said. + +Pluffles' weakness was not believing what people said. He +preferred what he called "trusting to his own judgment." He had as +much judgment as he had seat or hands; and this preference tumbled +him into trouble once or twice. But the biggest trouble Pluffles +ever manufactured came about at Simla--some years ago, when he was +four-and-twenty. + +He began by trusting to his own judgment, as usual, and the result +was that, after a time, he was bound hand and foot to Mrs. Reiver's +'rickshaw wheels. + +There was nothing good about Mrs. Reiver, unless it was her dress. +She was bad from her hair--which started life on a Brittany's +girl's head--to her boot-heels, which were two and three-eighth +inches high. She was not honestly mischievous like Mrs. Hauksbee; +she was wicked in a business-like way. + +There was never any scandal--she had not generous impulses enough +for that. She was the exception which proved the rule that Anglo- +Indian ladies are in every way as nice as their sisters at Home. +She spent her life in proving that rule. + +Mrs. Hauksbee and she hated each other fervently. They heard far +too much to clash; but the things they said of each other were +startling--not to say original. Mrs. Hauksbee was honest--honest +as her own front teeth--and, but for her love of mischief, would +have been a woman's woman. There was no honesty about Mrs. Reiver; +nothing but selfishness. And at the beginning of the season, poor +little Pluffles fell a prey to her. She laid herself out to that +end, and who was Pluffles, to resist? He went on trusting to his +judgment, and he got judged. + +I have seen Hayes argue with a tough horse--I have seen a tonga- +driver coerce a stubborn pony--I have seen a riotous setter broken +to gun by a hard keeper--but the breaking-in of Pluffles of the +"Unmentionables" was beyond all these. He learned to fetch and +carry like a dog, and to wait like one, too, for a word from Mrs. +Reiver. He learned to keep appointments which Mrs. Reiver had no +intention of keeping. He learned to take thankfully dances which +Mrs. Reiver had no intention of giving him. He learned to shiver +for an hour and a quarter on the windward side of Elysium while +Mrs. Reiver was making up her mind to come for a ride. He learned +to hunt for a 'rickshaw, in a light dress-suit under a pelting +rain, and to walk by the side of that 'rickshaw when he had found +it. He learned what it was to be spoken to like a coolie and +ordered about like a cook. He learned all this and many other +things besides. And he paid for his schooling. + +Perhaps, in some hazy way, he fancied that it was fine and +impressive, that it gave him a status among men, and was altogether +the thing to do. It was nobody's business to warn Pluffles that he +was unwise. The pace that season was too good to inquire; and +meddling with another man's folly is always thankless work. +Pluffles' Colonel should have ordered him back to his regiment when +he heard how things were going. But Pluffles had got himself +engaged to a girl in England the last time he went home; and if +there was one thing more than another which the Colonel detested, +it was a married subaltern. He chuckled when he heard of the +education of Pluffles, and said it was "good training for the boy." +But it was not good training in the least. It led him into +spending money beyond his means, which were good: above that, the +education spoilt an average boy and made it a tenth-rate man of an +objectionable kind. He wandered into a bad set, and his little +bill at Hamilton's was a thing to wonder at. + +Then Mrs. Hauksbee rose to the occasion. She played her game +alone, knowing what people would say of her; and she played it for +the sake of a girl she had never seen. Pluffles' fiancee was to +come out, under the chaperonage of an aunt, in October, to be +married to Pluffles. + +At the beginning of August, Mrs. Hauksbee discovered that it was +time to interfere. A man who rides much knows exactly what a horse +is going to do next before he does it. In the same way, a woman of +Mrs. Hauksbee's experience knows accurately how a boy will behave +under certain circumstances--notably when he is infatuated with one +of Mrs. Reiver's stamp. She said that, sooner or later, little +Pluffles would break off that engagement for nothing at all--simply +to gratify Mrs. Reiver, who, in return, would keep him at her feet +and in her service just so long as she found it worth her while. +She said she knew the signs of these things. If she did not, no +one else could. + +Then she went forth to capture Pluffles under the guns of the +enemy; just as Mrs. Cusack-Bremmil carried away Bremmil under Mrs. +Hauksbee's eyes. + +This particular engagement lasted seven weeks--we called it the +Seven Weeks' War--and was fought out inch by inch on both sides. A +detailed account would fill a book, and would be incomplete then. +Any one who knows about these things can fit in the details for +himself. It was a superb fight--there will never be another like +it as long as Jakko stands--and Pluffles was the prize of victory. +People said shameful things about Mrs. Hauksbee. They did not know +what she was playing for. Mrs. Reiver fought, partly because +Pluffles was useful to her, but mainly because she hated Mrs. +Hauksbee, and the matter was a trial of strength between them. No +one knows what Pluffles thought. He had not many ideas at the best +of times, and the few he possessed made him conceited. Mrs. +Hauksbee said:--"The boy must be caught; and the only way of +catching him is by treating him well." + +So she treated him as a man of the world and of experience so long +as the issue was doubtful. Little by little, Pluffles fell away +from his old allegiance and came over to the enemy, by whom he was +made much of. He was never sent on out-post duty after 'rickshaws +any more, nor was he given dances which never came off, nor were +the drains on his purse continued. Mrs. Hauksbee held him on the +snaffle; and after his treatment at Mrs. Reiver's hands, he +appreciated the change. + +Mrs. Reiver had broken him of talking about himself, and made him +talk about her own merits. Mrs. Hauksbee acted otherwise, and won +his confidence, till he mentioned his engagement to the girl at +Home, speaking of it in a high and mighty way as a "piece of boyish +folly." This was when he was taking tea with her one afternoon, +and discoursing in what he considered a gay and fascinating style. +Mrs. Hauksbee had seen an earlier generation of his stamp bud and +blossom, and decay into fat Captains and tubby Majors. + +At a moderate estimate there were about three and twenty sides to +that lady's character. Some men say more. She began to talk to +Pluffles after the manner of a mother, and as if there had been +three hundred years, instead of fifteen, between them. She spoke +with a sort of throaty quaver in her voice which had a soothing +effect, though what she said was anything but soothing. She +pointed out the exceeding folly, not to say meanness, of Pluffles' +conduct, and the smallness of his views. Then he stammered +something about "trusting to his own judgment as a man of the +world;" and this paved the way for what she wanted to say next. It +would have withered up Pluffles had it come from any other woman; +but in the soft cooing style in which Mrs. Hauksbee put it, it only +made him feel limp and repentant--as if he had been in some +superior kind of church. Little by little, very softly and +pleasantly, she began taking the conceit out of Pluffles, as you +take the ribs out of an umbrella before re-covering it. She told +him what she thought of him and his judgment and his knowledge of +the world; and how his performances had made him ridiculous to +other people; and how it was his intention make love to herself if +she gave him the chance. Then she said that marriage would be the +making of him; and drew a pretty little picture--all rose and opal-- +of the Mrs. Pluffles of the future going through life relying on +the "judgment" and "knowledge of the world" of a husband who had +nothing to reproach himself with. How she reconciled these two +statements she alone knew. But they did not strike Pluffles as +conflicting. + +Hers was a perfect little homily--much better than any clergyman +could have given--and it ended with touching allusions to Pluffles' +Mamma and Papa, and the wisdom of taking his bride Home. + +Then she sent Pluffles out for a walk, to think over what she had +said. Pluffles left, blowing his nose very hard and holding +himself very straight. Mrs. Hauksbee laughed. + +What Pluffles had intended to do in the matter of the engagement +only Mrs. Reiver knew, and she kept her own counsel to her death. +She would have liked it spoiled as a compliment, I fancy. + +Pluffles enjoyed many talks with Mrs. Hauksbee during the next few +days. They were all to the same end, and they helped Pluffles in +the path of Virtue. + +Mrs. Hauksbee wanted to keep him under her wing to the last. +Therefore she discountenanced his going down to Bombay to get +married. "Goodness only knows what might happen by the way!" she +said. "Pluffles is cursed with the curse of Reuben, and India is +no fit place for him!" + +In the end, the fiancee arrived with her aunt; and Pluffles, having +reduced his affairs to some sort of order--here again Mrs. Hauksbee +helped him--was married. + +Mrs. Hauksbee gave a sigh of relief when both the "I wills" had +been said, and went her way. + +Pluffies took her advice about going Home. He left the Service, +and is now raising speckled cattle inside green painted fences +somewhere at Home. I believe he does this very judiciously. He +would have come to extreme grief out here. + +For these reasons if any one says anything more than usually nasty +about Mrs. Hauksbee, tell him the story of the Rescue of Pluffles. + + + +CUPID'S ARROWS. + + +Pit where the buffalo cooled his hide, +By the hot sun emptied, and blistered and dried; +Log in the reh-grass, hidden and alone; +Bund where the earth-rat's mounds are strown: +Cave in the bank where the sly stream steals; +Aloe that stabs at the belly and heels, +Jump if you dare on a steed untried-- +Safer it is to go wide--go wide! +Hark, from in front where the best men ride:-- +"Pull to the off, boys! Wide! Go wide!" + + The Peora Hunt. + + + +Once upon a time there lived at Simla a very pretty girl, the +daughter of a poor but honest District and Sessions Judge. She was +a good girl, but could not help knowing her power and using it. +Her Mamma was very anxious about her daughter's future, as all good +Mammas should be. + +When a man is a Commissioner and a bachelor and has the right of +wearing open-work jam-tart jewels in gold and enamel on his +clothes, and of going through a door before every one except a +Member of Council, a Lieutenant-Governor, or a Viceroy, he is worth +marrying. At least, that is what ladies say. There was a +Commissioner in Simla, in those days, who was, and wore, and did, +all I have said. He was a plain man--an ugly man--the ugliest man +in Asia, with two exceptions. His was a face to dream about and +try to carve on a pipe-head afterwards. His name was Saggott-- +Barr-Saggott--Anthony Barr-Saggott and six letters to follow. +Departmentally, he was one of the best men the Government of India +owned. Socially, he was like a blandishing gorilla. + +When he turned his attentions to Miss Beighton, I believe that Mrs. +Beighton wept with delight at the reward Providence had sent her in +her old age. + +Mr. Beighton held his tongue. He was an easy-going man. + +Now a Commissioner is very rich. His pay is beyond the dreams of +avarice--is so enormous that he can afford to save and scrape in a +way that would almost discredit a Member of Council. Most +Commissioners are mean; but Barr-Saggott was an exception. He +entertained royally; he horsed himself well; he gave dances; he was +a power in the land; and he behaved as such. + +Consider that everything I am writing of took place in an almost +pre-historic era in the history of British India. Some folk may +remember the years before lawn-tennis was born when we all played +croquet. There were seasons before that, if you will believe me, +when even croquet had not been invented, and archery--which was +revived in England in 1844--was as great a pest as lawn-tennis is +now. People talked learnedly about "holding" and "loosing," +"steles," "reflexed bows," "56-pound bows," "backed" or "self-yew +bows," as we talk about "rallies," "volleys," "smashes," "returns," +and "16-ounce rackets." + +Miss Beighton shot divinely over ladies' distance--60 yards, that +is--and was acknowledged the best lady archer in Simla. Men called +her "Diana of Tara-Devi." + +Barr-Saggott paid her great attention; and, as I have said, the +heart of her mother was uplifted in consequence. Kitty Beighton +took matters more calmly. It was pleasant to be singled out by a +Commissioner with letters after his name, and to fill the hearts of +other girls with bad feelings. But there was no denying the fact +that Barr-Saggott was phenomenally ugly; and all his attempts to +adorn himself only made him more grotesque. He was not christened +"The Langur"--which means gray ape--for nothing. It was pleasant, +Kitty thought, to have him at her feet, but it was better to escape +from him and ride with the graceless Cubbon--the man in a Dragoon +Regiment at Umballa--the boy with a handsome face, and no +prospects. Kitty liked Cubbon more than a little. He never +pretended for a moment the he was anything less than head over +heels in love with her; for he was an honest boy. So Kitty fled, +now and again, from the stately wooings of Barr-Saggott to the +company of young Cubbon, and was scolded by her Mamma in +consequence. "But, Mother," she said, "Mr. Saggot is such--such a-- +is so FEARFULLY ugly, you know!" + +"My dear," said Mrs. Beighton, piously, "we cannot be other than an +all-ruling Providence has made us. Besides, you will take +precedence of your own Mother, you know! Think of that and be +reasonable." + +Then Kitty put up her little chin and said irreverent things about +precedence, and Commissioners, and matrimony. Mr. Beighton rubbed +the top of his head; for he was an easy-going man. + +Late in the season, when he judged that the time was ripe, Barr- +Saggott developed a plan which did great credit to his +administrative powers. He arranged an archery tournament for +ladies, with a most sumptuous diamond-studded bracelet as prize. +He drew up his terms skilfully, and every one saw that the bracelet +was a gift to Miss Beighton; the acceptance carrying with it the +hand and the heart of Commissioner Barr-Saggott. The terms were a +St. Leonard's Round--thirty-six shots at sixty yards--under the +rules of the Simla Toxophilite Society. + +All Simla was invited. There were beautifully arranged tea-tables +under the deodars at Annandale, where the Grand Stand is now; and, +alone in its glory, winking in the sun, sat the diamond bracelet in +a blue velvet case. Miss Beighton was anxious--almost too anxious +to compete. On the appointed afternoon, all Simla rode down to +Annandale to witness the Judgment of Paris turned upside down. +Kitty rode with young Cubbon, and it was easy to see that the boy +was troubled in his mind. He must be held innocent of everything +that followed. Kitty was pale and nervous, and looked long at the +bracelet. Barr-Saggott was gorgeously dressed, even more nervous +than Kitty, and more hideous than ever. + +Mrs. Beighton smiled condescendingly, as befitted the mother of a +potential Commissioneress, and the shooting began; all the world +standing in a semicircle as the ladies came out one after the +other. + +Nothing is so tedious as an archery competition. They shot, and +they shot, and they kept on shooting, till the sun left the valley, +and little breezes got up in the deodars, and people waited for +Miss Beighton to shoot and win. Cubbon was at one horn of the +semicircle round the shooters, and Barr-Saggott at the other. Miss +Beighton was last on the list. The scoring had been weak, and the +bracelet, PLUS Commissioner Barr-Saggott, was hers to a certainty. + +The Commissioner strung her bow with his own sacred hands. She +stepped forward, looked at the bracelet, and her first arrow went +true to a hair--full into the heart of the "gold"--counting nine +points. + +Young Cubbon on the left turned white, and his Devil prompted Barr- +Saggott to smile. Now horses used to shy when Barr-Saggott smiled. +Kitty saw that smile. She looked to her left-front, gave an almost +imperceptible nod to Cubbon, and went on shooting. + +I wish I could describe the scene that followed. It was out of the +ordinary and most improper. Miss Kitty fitted her arrows with +immense deliberation, so that every one might see what she was +doing. She was a perfect shot; and her 46-pound bow suited her to +a nicety. She pinned the wooden legs of the target with great care +four successive times. She pinned the wooden top of the target +once, and all the ladies looked at each other. Then she began some +fancy shooting at the white, which, if you hit it, counts exactly +one point. She put five arrows into the white. It was wonderful +archery; but, seeing that her business was to make "golds" and win +the bracelet, Barr-Saggott turned a delicate green like young +water-grass. Next, she shot over the target twice, then wide to +the left twice--always with the same deliberation--while a chilly +hush fell over the company, and Mrs. Beighton took out her +handkerchief. Then Kitty shot at the ground in front of the +target, and split several arrows. Then she made a red--or seven +points--just to show what she could do if she liked, and finished +up her amazing performance with some more fancy shooting at the +target-supports. Here is her score as it was picked off:-- + + + Gold. Red. Blue. Black. White. Total Hits. Total +Score +Miss Beighton 1 1 0 0 5 7 21 + + +Barr-Saggott looked as if the last few arrowheads had been driven +into his legs instead of the target's, and the deep stillness was +broken by a little snubby, mottled, half-grown girl saying in a +shrill voice of triumph: "Then I'VE won!" + +Mrs. Beighton did her best to bear up; but she wept in the presence +of the people. No training could help her through such a +disappointment. Kitty unstrung her bow with a vicious jerk, and +went back to her place, while Barr-Saggott was trying to pretend +that he enjoyed snapping the bracelet on the snubby girl's raw, red +wrist. It was an awkward scene--most awkward. Every one tried to +depart in a body and leave Kitty to the mercy of her Mamma. + +But Cubbon took her away instead, and--the rest isn't worth +printing. + + + +HIS CHANCE IN LIFE. + + +Then a pile of heads be laid-- + Thirty thousand heaped on high-- +All to please the Kafir maid, + Where the Oxus ripples by. + Grimly spake Atulla Khan:-- + "Love hath made this thing a Man." + + Oatta's Story. + + +If you go straight away from Levees and Government House Lists, +past Trades' Balls--far beyond everything and everybody you ever +knew in your respectable life--you cross, in time, the Border line +where the last drop of White blood ends and the full tide of Black +sets in. It would be easier to talk to a new made Duchess on the +spur of the moment than to the Borderline folk without violating +some of their conventions or hurting their feelings. The Black and +the White mix very quaintly in their ways. Sometimes the White +shows in spurts of fierce, childish pride--which is Pride of Race +run crooked--and sometimes the Black in still fiercer abasement and +humility, half heathenish customs and strange, unaccountable +impulses to crime. One of these days, this people--understand they +are far lower than the class whence Derozio, the man who imitated +Byron, sprung--will turn out a writer or a poet; and then we shall +know how they live and what they feel. In the meantime, any +stories about them cannot be absolutely correct in fact or +inference. + +Miss Vezzis came from across the Borderline to look after some +children who belonged to a lady until a regularly ordained nurse +could come out. The lady said Miss Vezzis was a bad, dirty nurse +and inattentive. It never struck her that Miss Vezzis had her own +life to lead and her own affairs to worry over, and that these +affairs were the most important things in the world to Miss Vezzis. +Very few mistresses admit this sort of reasoning. Miss Vezzis was +as black as a boot, and to our standard of taste, hideously ugly. +She wore cotton-print gowns and bulged shoes; and when she lost her +temper with the children, she abused them in the language of the +Borderline--which is part English, part Portuguese, and part +Native. She was not attractive; but she had her pride, and she +preferred being called "Miss Vezzis." + +Every Sunday she dressed herself wonderfully and went to see her +Mamma, who lived, for the most part, on an old cane chair in a +greasy tussur-silk dressing-gown and a big rabbit-warren of a house +full of Vezzises, Pereiras, Ribieras, Lisboas and Gansalveses, and +a floating population of loafers; besides fragments of the day's +bazar, garlic, stale incense, clothes thrown on the floor, +petticoats hung on strings for screens, old bottles, pewter +crucifixes, dried immortelles, pariah puppies, plaster images of +the Virgin, and hats without crowns. Miss Vezzis drew twenty +rupees a month for acting as nurse, and she squabbled weekly with +her Mamma as to the percentage to be given towards housekeeping. +When the quarrel was over, Michele D'Cruze used to shamble across +the low mud wall of the compound and make love to Miss Vezzis after +the fashion of the Borderline, which is hedged about with much +ceremony. Michele was a poor, sickly weed and very black; but he +had his pride. He would not be seen smoking a huqa for anything; +and he looked down on natives as only a man with seven-eighths +native blood in his veins can. The Vezzis Family had their pride +too. They traced their descent from a mythical plate-layer who had +worked on the Sone Bridge when railways were new in India, and they +valued their English origin. Michele was a Telegraph Signaller on +Rs. 35 a month. The fact that he was in Government employ made +Mrs. Vezzis lenient to the shortcomings of his ancestors. + +There was a compromising legend--Dom Anna the tailor brought it +from Poonani--that a black Jew of Cochin had once married into the +D'Cruze family; while it was an open secret that an uncle of Mrs. +D'Cruze was at that very time doing menial work, connected with +cooking, for a Club in Southern India! He sent Mrs D'Cruze seven +rupees eight annas a month; but she felt the disgrace to the family +very keenly all the same. + +However, in the course of a few Sundays, Mrs. Vezzis brought +herself to overlook these blemishes and gave her consent to the +marriage of her daughter with Michele, on condition that Michele +should have at least fifty rupees a month to start married life +upon. This wonderful prudence must have been a lingering touch of +the mythical plate-layer's Yorkshire blood; for across the +Borderline people take a pride in marrying when they please--not +when they can. + +Having regard to his departmental prospects, Miss Vezzis might as +well have asked Michele to go away and come back with the Moon in +his pocket. But Michele was deeply in love with Miss Vezzis, and +that helped him to endure. He accompanied Miss Vezzis to Mass one +Sunday, and after Mass, walking home through the hot stale dust +with her hand in his, he swore by several Saints, whose names would +not interest you, never to forget Miss Vezzis; and she swore by her +Honor and the Saints--the oath runs rather curiously; "In nomine +Sanctissimae--" (whatever the name of the she-Saint is) and so +forth, ending with a kiss on the forehead, a kiss on the left +cheek, and a kiss on the mouth--never to forget Michele. + +Next week Michele was transferred, and Miss Vezzis dropped tears +upon the window-sash of the "Intermediate" compartment as he left +the Station. + +If you look at the telegraph-map of India you will see a long line +skirting the coast from Backergunge to Madras. Michele was ordered +to Tibasu, a little Sub-office one-third down this line, to send +messages on from Berhampur to Chicacola, and to think of Miss +Vezzis and his chances of getting fifty rupees a month out of +office hours. He had the noise of the Bay of Bengal and a Bengali +Babu for company; nothing more. He sent foolish letters, with +crosses tucked inside the flaps of the envelopes, to Miss Vezzis. + +When he had been at Tibasu for nearly three weeks his chance came. + +Never forget that unless the outward and visible signs of Our +Authority are always before a native he is as incapable as a child +of understanding what authority means, or where is the danger of +disobeying it. Tibasu was a forgotten little place with a few +Orissa Mohamedans in it. These, hearing nothing of the Collector- +Sahib for some time, and heartily despising the Hindu Sub-Judge, +arranged to start a little Mohurrum riot of their own. But the +Hindus turned out and broke their heads; when, finding lawlessness +pleasant, Hindus and Mahomedans together raised an aimless sort of +Donnybrook just to see how far they could go. They looted each +other's shops, and paid off private grudges in the regular way. It +was a nasty little riot, but not worth putting in the newspapers. + +Michele was working in his office when he heard the sound that a +man never forgets all his life--the "ah-yah" of an angry crowd. +[When that sound drops about three tones, and changes to a thick, +droning ut, the man who hears it had better go away if he is +alone.] The Native Police Inspector ran in and told Michele that +the town was in an uproar and coming to wreck the Telegraph Office. +The Babu put on his cap and quietly dropped out of the window; +while the Police Inspector, afraid, but obeying the old race- +instinct which recognizes a drop of White blood as far as it can be +diluted, said:--"What orders does the Sahib give?" + +The "Sahib" decided Michele. Though horribly frightened, he felt +that, for the hour, he, the man with the Cochin Jew and the menial +uncle in his pedigree, was the only representative of English +authority in the place. Then he thought of Miss Vezzis and the +fifty rupees, and took the situation on himself. There were seven +native policemen in Tibasu, and four crazy smooth-bore muskets +among them. All the men were gray with fear, but not beyond +leading. Michele dropped the key of the telegraph instrument, and +went out, at the head of his army, to meet the mob. As the +shouting crew came round a corner of the road, he dropped and +fired; the men behind him loosing instinctively at the same time. + +The whole crowd--curs to the backbone--yelled and ran; leaving one +man dead, and another dying in the road. Michele was sweating with +fear, but he kept his weakness under, and went down into the town, +past the house where the Sub-Judge had barricaded himself. The +streets were empty. Tibasu was more frightened than Michele, for +the mob had been taken at the right time. + +Michele returned to the Telegraph-Office, and sent a message to +Chicacola asking for help. Before an answer came, he received a +deputation of the elders of Tibasu, telling him that the Sub-Judge +said his actions generally were "unconstitional," and trying to +bully him. But the heart of Michele D'Cruze was big and white in +his breast, because of his love for Miss Vezzis, the nurse-girl, +and because he had tasted for the first time Responsibility and +Success. Those two make an intoxicating drink, and have ruined +more men than ever has Whiskey. Michele answered that the Sub- +Judge might say what he pleased, but, until the Assistant Collector +came, the Telegraph Signaller was the Government of India in +Tibasu, and the elders of the town would be held accountable for +further rioting. Then they bowed their heads and said: "Show +mercy!" or words to that effect, and went back in great fear; each +accusing the other of having begun the rioting. + +Early in the dawn, after a night's patrol with his seven policemen, +Michele went down the road, musket in hand, to meet the Assistant +Collector, who had ridden in to quell Tibasu. But, in the presence +of this young Englishman, Michele felt himself slipping back more +and more into the native, and the tale of the Tibasu Riots ended, +with the strain on the teller, in an hysterical outburst of tears, +bred by sorrow that he had killed a man, shame that he could not +feel as uplifted as he had felt through the night, and childish +anger that his tongue could not do justice to his great deeds. It +was the White drop in Michele's veins dying out, though he did not +know it. + +But the Englishman understood; and, after he had schooled those men +of Tibasu, and had conferred with the Sub-Judge till that excellent +official turned green, he found time to draught an official letter +describing the conduct of Michele. Which letter filtered through +the Proper Channels, and ended in the transfer of Michele up- +country once more, on the Imperial salary of sixty-six rupees a +month. + +So he and Miss Vezzis were married with great state and ancientry; +and now there are several little D'Cruzes sprawling about the +verandahs of the Central Telegraph Office. + +But, if the whole revenue of the Department he serves were to be +his reward Michele could never, never repeat what he did at Tibasu +for the sake of Miss Vezzis the nurse-girl. + +Which proves that, when a man does good work out of all proportion +to his pay, in seven cases out of nine there is a woman at the back +of the virtue. + +The two exceptions must have suffered from sunstroke. + + + +WATCHES OF THE NIGHT. + + +What is in the Brahmin's books that is in the Brahmin's heart. +Neither you nor I knew there was so much evil in the world. + + Hindu Proverb. + + +This began in a practical joke; but it has gone far enough now, and +is getting serious. + +Platte, the Subaltern, being poor, had a Waterbury watch and a +plain leather guard. + +The Colonel had a Waterbury watch also, and for guard, the lip- +strap of a curb-chain. Lip-straps make the best watch guards. +They are strong and short. Between a lip-strap and an ordinary +leather guard there is no great difference; between one Waterbury +watch and another there is none at all. Every one in the station +knew the Colonel's lip-strap. He was not a horsey man, but he +liked people to believe he had been on once; and he wove fantastic +stories of the hunting-bridle to which this particular lip-strap +had belonged. Otherwise he was painfully religious. + +Platte and the Colonel were dressing at the Club--both late for +their engagements, and both in a hurry. That was Kismet. The two +watches were on a shelf below the looking-glass--guards hanging +down. That was carelessness. Platte changed first, snatched a +watch, looked in the glass, settled his tie, and ran. Forty +seconds later, the Colonel did exactly the same thing; each man +taking the other's watch. + +You may have noticed that many religious people are deeply +suspicious. They seem--for purely religious purposes, of course-- +to know more about iniquity than the Unregenerate. Perhaps they +were specially bad before they became converted! At any rate, in +the imputation of things evil, and in putting the worst +construction on things innocent, a certain type of good people may +be trusted to surpass all others. The Colonel and his Wife were of +that type. But the Colonel's Wife was the worst. She manufactured +the Station scandal, and--TALKED TO HER AYAH! Nothing more need be +said. The Colonel's Wife broke up the Laplace's home. The +Colonel's Wife stopped the Ferris-Haughtrey engagement. The +Colonel's Wife induced young Buxton to keep his wife down in the +Plains through the first year of the marriage. Whereby little Mrs. +Buxton died, and the baby with her. These things will be +remembered against the Colonel's Wife so long as there is a +regiment in the country. + +But to come back to the Colonel and Platte. They went their +several ways from the dressing-room. The Colonel dined with two +Chaplains, while Platte went to a bachelor-party, and whist to +follow. + +Mark how things happen! If Platte's sais had put the new saddle- +pad on the mare, the butts of the territs would not have worked +through the worn leather, and the old pad into the mare's withers, +when she was coming home at two o'clock in the morning. She would +not have reared, bolted, fallen into a ditch, upset the cart, and +sent Platte flying over an aloe-hedge on to Mrs. Larkyn's well-kept +lawn; and this tale would never have been written. But the mare +did all these things, and while Platte was rolling over and over on +the turf, like a shot rabbit, the watch and guard flew from his +waistcoat--as an Infantry Major's sword hops out of the scabbard +when they are firing a feu de joie--and rolled and rolled in the +moonlight, till it stopped under a window. + +Platte stuffed his handkerchief under the pad, put the cart +straight, and went home. + +Mark again how Kismet works! This would not happen once in a +hundred years. Towards the end of his dinner with the two +Chaplains, the Colonel let out his waistcoat and leaned over the +table to look at some Mission Reports. The bar of the watch-guard +worked through the buttonhole, and the watch--Platte's watch--slid +quietly on to the carpet. Where the bearer found it next morning +and kept it. + +Then the Colonel went home to the wife of his bosom; but the driver +of the carriage was drunk and lost his way. So the Colonel +returned at an unseemly hour and his excuses were not accepted. If +the Colonel's Wife had been an ordinary "vessel of wrath appointed +for destruction," she would have known that when a man stays away +on purpose, his excuse is always sound and original. The very +baldness of the Colonel's explanation proved its truth. + +See once more the workings of Kismet! The Colonel's watch which +came with Platte hurriedly on to Mrs. Larkyn's lawn, chose to stop +just under Mrs. Larkyn's window, where she saw it early in the +morning, recognized it, and picked it up. She had heard the crash +of Platte's cart at two o'clock that morning, and his voice calling +the mare names. She knew Platte and liked him. That day she +showed him the watch and heard his story. He put his head on one +side, winked and said:--"How disgusting! Shocking old man! with +his religious training, too! I should send the watch to the +Colonel's Wife and ask for explanations." + +Mrs. Larkyn thought for a minute of the Laplaces--whom she had +known when Laplace and his wife believed in each other--and +answered:--"I will send it. I think it will do her good. But +remember, we must NEVER tell her the truth." + +Platte guessed that his own watch was in the Colonel's possession, +and thought that the return of the lip-strapped Waterbury with a +soothing note from Mrs. Larkyn, would merely create a small trouble +for a few minutes. Mrs. Larkyn knew better. She knew that any +poison dropped would find good holding-ground in the heart of the +Colonel's Wife. + +The packet, and a note containing a few remarks on the Colonel's +calling-hours, were sent over to the Colonel's Wife, who wept in +her own room and took counsel with herself. + +If there was one woman under Heaven whom the Colonel's Wife hated +with holy fervor, it was Mrs. Larkyn. Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous +lady, and called the Colonel's Wife "old cat." The Colonel's Wife +said that somebody in Revelations was remarkably like Mrs. Larkyn. +She mentioned other Scripture people as well. From the Old +Testament. [But the Colonel's Wife was the only person who cared +or dared to say anything against Mrs. Larkyn. Every one else +accepted her as an amusing, honest little body.] Wherefore, to +believe that her husband had been shedding watches under that +"Thing's" window at ungodly hours, coupled with the fact of his +late arrival on the previous night, was . . . . . + +At this point she rose up and sought her husband. He denied +everything except the ownership of the watch. She besought him, +for his Soul's sake, to speak the truth. He denied afresh, with +two bad words. Then a stony silence held the Colonel's Wife, while +a man could draw his breath five times. + +The speech that followed is no affair of mine or yours. It was +made up of wifely and womanly jealousy; knowledge of old age and +sunken cheeks; deep mistrust born of the text that says even little +babies' hearts are as bad as they make them; rancorous hatred of +Mrs. Larkyn, and the tenets of the creed of the Colonel's Wife's +upbringing. + +Over and above all, was the damning lip-strapped Waterbury, ticking +away in the palm of her shaking, withered hand. At that hour, I +think, the Colonel's Wife realized a little of the restless +suspicions she had injected into old Laplace's mind, a little of +poor Miss Haughtrey's misery, and some of the canker that ate into +Buxton's heart as he watched his wife dying before his eyes. The +Colonel stammered and tried to explain. Then he remembered that +his watch had disappeared; and the mystery grew greater. The +Colonel's Wife talked and prayed by turns till she was tired, and +went away to devise means for "chastening the stubborn heart of her +husband." Which translated, means, in our slang, "tail-twisting." + +You see, being deeply impressed with the doctrine of Original Sin, +she could not believe in the face of appearances. She knew too +much, and jumped to the wildest conclusions. + +But it was good for her. It spoilt her life, as she had spoilt the +life of the Laplaces. She had lost her faith in the Colonel, and-- +here the creed-suspicion came in--he might, she argued, have erred +many times, before a merciful Providence, at the hands of so +unworthy an instrument as Mrs. Larkyn, had established his guilt. +He was a bad, wicked, gray-haired profligate. This may sound too +sudden a revulsion for a long-wedded wife; but it is a venerable +fact that, if a man or woman makes a practice of, and takes a +delight in, believing and spreading evil of people indifferent to +him or her, he or she will end in believing evil of folk very near +and dear. You may think, also, that the mere incident of the watch +was too small and trivial to raise this misunderstanding. It is +another aged fact that, in life as well as racing, all the worst +accidents happen at little ditches and cut-down fences. In the +same way, you sometimes see a woman who would have made a Joan of +Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces +over all the mean worry of housekeeping. But that is another +story. + +Her belief only made the Colonel's Wife more wretched, because it +insisted so strongly on the villainy of men. Remembering what she +had done, it was pleasant to watch her unhappiness, and the penny- +farthing attempts she made to hide it from the Station. But the +Station knew and laughed heartlessly; for they had heard the story +of the watch, with much dramatic gesture, from Mrs. Larkyn's lips. + +Once or twice Platte said to Mrs. Larkyn, seeing that the Colonel +had not cleared himself:--"This thing has gone far enough. I move +we tell the Colonel's Wife how it happened." Mrs. Larkyn shut her +lips and shook her head, and vowed that the Colonel's Wife must +bear her punishment as best she could. Now Mrs. Larkyn was a +frivolous woman, in whom none would have suspected deep hate. So +Platte took no action, and came to believe gradually, from the +Colonel's silence, that the Colonel must have "run off the line" +somewhere that night, and, therefore, preferred to stand sentence +on the lesser count of rambling into other people's compounds out +of calling hours. Platte forgot about the watch business after a +while, and moved down-country with his regiment. Mrs. Larkyn went +home when her husband's tour of Indian service expired. She never +forgot. + +But Platte was quite right when he said that the joke had gone too +far. The mistrust and the tragedy of it--which we outsiders cannot +see and do not believe in--are killing the Colonel's Wife, and are +making the Colonel wretched. If either of them read this story, +they can depend upon its being a fairly true account of the case, +and can "kiss and make friends." + +Shakespeare alludes to the pleasure of watching an Engineer being +shelled by his own Battery. Now this shows that poets should not +write about what they do not understand. Any one could have told +him that Sappers and Gunners are perfectly different branches of +the Service. But, if you correct the sentence, and substitute +Gunner for Sapper, the moral comes just the same. + + + +THE OTHER MAN. + + +When the earth was sick and the skies were gray, + And the woods were rotted with rain, +The Dead Man rode through the autumn day + To visit his love again. + + Old Ballad. + + +Far back in the "seventies," before they had built any Public +Offices at Simla, and the broad road round Jakko lived in a pigeon- +hole in the P. W. D. hovels, her parents made Miss Gaurey marry +Colonel Schriederling. He could not have been MUCH more than +thirty-five years her senior; and, as he lived on two hundred +rupees a month and had money of his own, he was well off. He +belonged to good people, and suffered in the cold weather from lung +complaints. In the hot weather he dangled on the brink of heat- +apoplexy; but it never quite killed him. + +Understand, I do not blame Schriederling. He was a good husband +according to his lights, and his temper only failed him when he was +being nursed. Which was some seventeen days in each month. He was +almost generous to his wife about money matters, and that, for him, +was a concession. Still Mrs. Schreiderling was not happy. They +married her when she was this side of twenty and had given all her +poor little heart to another man. I have forgotten his name, but +we will call him the Other Man. He had no money and no prospects. +He was not even good-looking; and I think he was in the +Commissariat or Transport. But, in spite of all these things, she +loved him very madly; and there was some sort of an engagement +between the two when Schreiderling appeared and told Mrs. Gaurey +that he wished to marry her daughter. Then the other engagement +was broken off--washed away by Mrs. Gaurey's tears, for that lady +governed her house by weeping over disobedience to her authority +and the lack of reverence she received in her old age. The +daughter did not take after her mother. She never cried. Not even +at the wedding. + +The Other Man bore his loss quietly, and was transferred to as bad +a station as he could find. Perhaps the climate consoled him. He +suffered from intermittent fever, and that may have distracted him +from his other trouble. He was weak about the heart also. Both +ways. One of the valves was affected, and the fever made it worse. +This showed itself later on. + +Then many months passed, and Mrs. Schreiderling took to being ill. +She did not pine away like people in story books, but she seemed to +pick up every form of illness that went about a station, from +simple fever upwards. She was never more than ordinarily pretty at +the best of times; and the illness made her ugly. Schreiderling +said so. He prided himself on speaking his mind. + +When she ceased being pretty, he left her to her own devices, and +went back to the lairs of his bachelordom. She used to trot up and +down Simla Mall in a forlorn sort of way, with a gray Terai hat +well on the back of her head, and a shocking bad saddle under her. +Schreiderling's generosity stopped at the horse. He said that any +saddle would do for a woman as nervous as Mrs. Schreiderling. She +never was asked to dance, because she did not dance well; and she +was so dull and uninteresting, that her box very seldom had any +cards in it. Schreiderling said that if he had known that she was +going to be such a scare-crow after her marriage, he would never +have married her. He always prided himself on speaking his mind, +did Schreiderling! + +He left her at Simla one August, and went down to his regiment. +Then she revived a little, but she never recovered her looks. I +found out at the Club that the Other Man is coming up sick--very +sick--on an off chance of recovery. The fever and the heart-valves +had nearly killed him. She knew that, too, and she knew--what I +had no interest in knowing--when he was coming up. I suppose he +wrote to tell her. They had not seen each other since a month +before the wedding. And here comes the unpleasant part of the +story. + +A late call kept me down at the Dovedell Hotel till dusk one +evening. Mrs. Schreidlerling had been flitting up and down the +Mall all the afternoon in the rain. Coming up along the Cart-road, +a tonga passed me, and my pony, tired with standing so long, set +off at a canter. Just by the road down to the Tonga Office Mrs. +Schreiderling, dripping from head to foot, was waiting for the +tonga. I turned up-hill, as the tonga was no affair of mine; and +just then she began to shriek. I went back at once and saw, under +the Tonga Office lamps, Mrs. Schreiderling kneeling in the wet road +by the back seat of the newly-arrived tonga, screaming hideously. +Then she fell face down in the dirt as I came up. + +Sitting in the back seat, very square and firm, with one hand on +the awning-stanchion and the wet pouring off his hat and moustache, +was the Other Man--dead. The sixty-mile up-hill jolt had been too +much for his valve, I suppose. The tonga-driver said:--"The Sahib +died two stages out of Solon. Therefore, I tied him with a rope, +lest he should fall out by the way, and so came to Simla. Will the +Sahib give me bukshish? IT," pointing to the Other Man, "should +have given one rupee." + +The Other Man sat with a grin on his face, as if he enjoyed the +joke of his arrival; and Mrs. Schreiderling, in the mud, began to +groan. There was no one except us four in the office and it was +raining heavily. The first thing was to take Mrs. Schreiderling +home, and the second was to prevent her name from being mixed up +with the affair. The tonga-driver received five rupees to find a +bazar 'rickshaw for Mrs. Schreiderling. He was to tell the tonga +Babu afterwards of the Other Man, and the Babu was to make such +arrangements as seemed best. + +Mrs. Schreiderling was carried into the shed out of the rain, and +for three-quarters of an hour we two waited for the 'rickshaw. The +Other Man was left exactly as he had arrived. Mrs. Schreiderling +would do everything but cry, which might have helped her. She +tried to scream as soon as her senses came back, and then she began +praying for the Other Man's soul. Had she not been as honest as +the day, she would have prayed for her own soul too. I waited to +hear her do this, but she did not. Then I tried to get some of the +mud off her habit. Lastly, the 'rickshaw came, and I got her away-- +parrtly by force. It was a terrible business from beginning to +end; but most of all when the 'rickshaw had to squeeze between the +wall and the tonga, and she saw by the lamp-light that thin, yellow +hand grasping the awning-stanchion. + +She was taken home just as every one was going to a dance at +Viceregal Lodge--"Peterhoff" it was then--and the doctor found that +she had fallen from her horse, that I had picked her up at the back +of Jakko, and really deserved great credit for the prompt manner in +which I had secured medical aid. She did not die--men of +Schreiderling's stamp marry women who don't die easily. They live +and grow ugly. + +She never told of her one meeting, since her marriage, with the +Other Man; and, when the chill and cough following the exposure of +that evening, allowed her abroad, she never by word or sign alluded +to having met me by the Tonga Office. Perhaps she never knew. + +She used to trot up and down the Mall, on that shocking bad saddle, +looking as if she expected to meet some one round the corner every +minute. Two years afterward, she went Home, and died--at +Bournemouth, I think. + +Schreiderling, when he grew maudlin at Mess, used to talk about "my +poor dear wife." He always set great store on speaking his mind, +did Schreiderling! + + + +CONSEQUENCES. + + +Rosicrucian subtleties +In the Orient had rise; +Ye may find their teachers still +Under Jacatala's Hill. +Seek ye Bombast Paracelsus, +Read what Flood the Seeker tells us +Of the Dominant that runs +Through the cycles of the Suns-- +Read my story last and see +Luna at her apogee. + + +There are yearly appointments, and two-yearly appointments, and +five-yearly appointments at Simla, and there are, or used to be, +permanent appointments, whereon you stayed up for the term of your +natural life and secured red cheeks and a nice income. Of course, +you could descend in the cold weather; for Simla is rather dull +then. + +Tarrion came from goodness knows where--all away and away in some +forsaken part of Central India, where they call Pachmari a +"Sanitarium," and drive behind trotting bullocks, I believe. He +belonged to a regiment; but what he really wanted to do was to +escape from his regiment and live in Simla forever and ever. He +had no preference for anything in particular, beyond a good horse +and a nice partner. He thought he could do everything well; which +is a beautiful belief when you hold it with all your heart. He was +clever in many ways, and good to look at, and always made people +round him comfortable--even in Central India. + +So he went up to Simla, and, because he was clever and amusing, he +gravitated naturally to Mrs. Hauksbee, who could forgive everything +but stupidity. Once he did her great service by changing the date +on an invitation-card for a big dance which Mrs. Hauksbee wished to +attend, but couldn't because she had quarrelled with the A.-D.-C., +who took care, being a mean man, to invite her to a small dance on +the 6th instead of the big Ball of the 26th. It was a very clever +piece of forgery; and when Mrs. Hauksbee showed the A.-D.-C. her +invitation-card, and chaffed him mildly for not better managing his +vendettas, he really thought he had made a mistake; and--which was +wise--realized that it was no use to fight with Mrs. Hauksbee. She +was grateful to Tarrion and asked what she could do for him. He +said simply: "I'm a Freelance up here on leave, and on the lookout +for what I can loot. I haven't a square inch of interest in all +Simla. My name isn't known to any man with an appointment in his +gift, and I want an appointment--a good, sound, pukka one. I +believe you can do anything you turn yourself to do. Will you help +me?" Mrs. Hauksbee thought for a minute, and passed the last of +her riding-whip through her lips, as was her custom when thinking. +Then her eyes sparkled, and she said:--"I will;" and she shook +hands on it. Tarrion, having perfect confidence in this great +woman, took no further thought of the business at all. Except to +wonder what sort of an appointment he would win. + +Mrs. Hauksbee began calculating the prices of all the Heads of +Departments and Members of Council she knew, and the more she +thought the more she laughed, because her heart was in the game and +it amused her. Then she took a Civil List and ran over a few of +the appointments. There are some beautiful appointments in the +Civil List. Eventually, she decided that, though Tarrion was too +good for the Political Department, she had better begin by trying +to get him in there. What were her own plans to this end, does not +matter in the least, for Luck or Fate played into her hands, and +she had nothing to do but to watch the course of events and take +the credit of them. + +All Viceroys, when they first come out, pass through the +"Diplomatic Secrecy" craze. It wears off in time; but they all +catch it in the beginning, because they are new to the country. +The particular Viceroy who was suffering from the complaint just +then--this was a long time ago, before Lord Dufferin ever came from +Canada, or Lord Ripon from the bosom of the English Church--had it +very badly; and the result was that men who were new to keeping +official secrets went about looking unhappy; and the Viceroy plumed +himself on the way in which he had instilled notions of reticence +into his Staff. + +Now, the Supreme Government have a careless custom of committing +what they do to printed papers. These papers deal with all sorts +of things--from the payment of Rs. 200 to a "secret service" +native, up to rebukes administered to Vakils and Motamids of Native +States, and rather brusque letters to Native Princes, telling them +to put their houses in order, to refrain from kidnapping women, or +filling offenders with pounded red pepper, and eccentricities of +that kind. Of course, these things could never be made public, +because Native Princes never err officially, and their States are, +officially, as well administered as Our territories. Also, the +private allowances to various queer people are not exactly matters +to put into newspapers, though they give quaint reading sometimes. +When the Supreme Government is at Simla, these papers are prepared +there, and go round to the people who ought to see them in office- +boxes or by post. The principle of secrecy was to that Viceroy +quite as important as the practice, and he held that a benevolent +despotism like Ours should never allow even little things, such as +appointments of subordinate clerks, to leak out till the proper +time. He was always remarkable for his principles. + +There was a very important batch of papers in preparation at that +time. It had to travel from one end of Simla to the other by hand. +It was not put into an official envelope, but a large, square, +pale-pink one; the matter being in MS. on soft crinkley paper. It +was addressed to "The Head Clerk, etc., etc." Now, between "The +Head Clerk, etc., etc.," and "Mrs. Hauksbee" and a flourish, is no +very great difference if the address be written in a very bad hand, +as this was. The chaprassi who took the envelope was not more of +an idiot than most chaprassis. He merely forgot where this most +unofficial cover was to be delivered, and so asked the first +Englishman he met, who happened to be a man riding down to +Annandale in a great hurry. The Englishman hardly looked, said: +"Hauksbee Sahib ki Mem," and went on. So did the chaprasss, +because that letter was the last in stock and he wanted to get his +work over. There was no book to sign; he thrust the letter into +Mrs. Hauksbee's bearer's hands and went off to smoke with a friend. +Mrs. Hauksbee was expecting some cut-out pattern things in flimsy +paper from a friend. As soon as she got the big square packet, +therefore, she said, "Oh, the DEAR creature!" and tore it open with +a paper-knife, and all the MS. enclosures tumbled out on the floor. + +Mrs. Hauksbee began reading. I have said the batch was rather +important. That is quite enough for you to know. It referred to +some correspondence, two measures, a peremptory order to a native +chief and two dozen other things. Mrs. Hauksbee gasped as she +read, for the first glimpse of the naked machinery of the Great +Indian Government, stripped of its casings, and lacquer, and paint, +and guard-rails, impresses even the most stupid man. And Mrs. +Hauksbee was a clever woman. She was a little afraid at first, and +felt as if she had laid hold of a lightning-flash by the tail, and +did not quite know what to do with it. There were remarks and +initials at the side of the papers; and some of the remarks were +rather more severe than the papers. The initials belonged to men +who are all dead or gone now; but they were great in their day. +Mrs. Hauksbee read on and thought calmly as she read. Then the +value of her trove struck her, and she cast about for the best +method of using it. Then Tarrion dropped in, and they read through +all the papers together, and Tarrion, not knowing how she had come +by them, vowed that Mrs. Hauksbee was the greatest woman on earth. +Which I believe was true, or nearly so. + +"The honest course is always the best," said Tarrion after an hour +and a half of study and conversation. "All things considered, the +Intelligence Branch is about my form. Either that or the Foreign +Office. I go to lay siege to the High Gods in their Temples." + +He did not seek a little man, or a little big man, or a weak Head +of a strong Department, but he called on the biggest and strongest +man that the Government owned, and explained that he wanted an +appointment at Simla on a good salary. The compound insolence of +this amused the Strong Man, and, as he had nothing to do for the +moment, he listened to the proposals of the audacious Tarrion. +"You have, I presume, some special qualifications, besides the gift +of self-assertion, for the claims you put forwards?" said the +Strong Man. "That, Sir," said Tarrion, "is for you to judge." +Then he began, for he had a good memory, quoting a few of the more +important notes in the papers--slowly and one by one as a man drops +chlorodyne into a glass. When he had reached the peremptory order-- +and it WAS a peremptory order--the Strong Man was troubled. + +Tarrion wound up:--"And I fancy that special knowledge of this kind +is at least as valuable for, let us say, a berth in the Foreign +Office, as the fact of being the nephew of a distingushed officer's +wife." That hit the Strong Man hard, for the last appointment to +the Foreign Office had been by black favor, and he knew it. "I'll +see what I can do for you," said the Strong Man. "Many thanks," +said Tarrion. Then he left, and the Strong Man departed to see how +the appointment was to be blocked. + + . . . . . . . . . + +Followed a pause of eleven days; with thunders and lightnings and +much telegraphing. The appointment was not a very important one, +carrying only between Rs. 500 and Rs. 700 a month; but, as the +Viceroy said, it was the principle of diplomatic secrecy that had +to be maintained, and it was more than likely that a boy so well +supplied with special information would be worth translating. So +they translated him. They must have suspected him, though he +protested that his information was due to singular talents of his +own. Now, much of this story, including the after-history of the +missing envelope, you must fill in for yourself, because there are +reasons why it cannot be written. If you do not know about things +Up Above, you won't understand how to fill it in, and you will say +it is impossible. + +What the Viceroy said when Tarrion was introduced to him was:--"So, +this is the boy who 'rusked' the Government of India, is it? +Recollect, Sir, that is not done TWICE." So he must have known +something. + +What Tarrion said when he saw his appointment gazetted was:--"If +Mrs. Hauksbee were twenty years younger, and I her husband, I +should be Viceroy of India in twenty years." + +What Mrs. Hauksbee said, when Tarrion thanked her, almost with +tears in his eyes, was first:--"I told you so!" and next, to +herself:--"What fools men are!" + + + +THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN McGOGGIN. + + +Ride with an idle whip, ride with an unused heel. +But, once in a way, there will come a day +When the colt must be taught to feel +The lash that falls, and the curb that galls, + and the sting of the rowelled steel. + + Life's Handicap. + + +This is not a tale exactly. It is a Tract; and I am immensely +proud of it. Making a Tract is a Feat. + +Every man is entitled to his own religious opinions; but no man-- +least of all a junior--has a right to thrust these down other men's +throats. The Government sends out weird Civilians now and again; +but McGoggin was the queerest exported for a long time. He was +clever--brilliantly clever--but his clevereness worked the wrong +way. Instead of keeping to the study of the vernaculars, he had +read some books written by a man called Comte, I think, and a man +called Spencer, and a Professor Clifford. [You will find these +books in the Library.] They deal with people's insides from the +point of view of men who have no stomachs. There was no order +against his reading them; but his Mamma should have smacked him. +They fermented in his head, and he came out to India with a +rarefied religion over and above his work. It was not much of a +creed. It only proved that men had no souls, and there was no God +and no hereafter, and that you must worry along somehow for the +good of Humanity. + +One of its minor tenets seemed to be that the one thing more sinful +than giving an order was obeying it. At least, that was what +McGoggin said; but I suspect he had misread his primers. + +I do not say a word against this creed. It was made up in Town, +where there is nothing but machinery and asphalt and building--all +shut in by the fog. Naturally, a man grows to think that there is +no one higher than himself, and that the Metropolitan Board of +Works made everything. But in this country, where you really see +humanity--raw, brown, naked humanity--with nothing between it and +the blazing sky, and only the used-up, over-handled earth +underfoot, the notion somehow dies away, and most folk come back to +simpler theories. Life, in India, is not long enough to waste in +proving that there is no one in particular at the head of affairs. +For this reason. The Deputy is above the Assistant, the +Commissioner above the Deputy, the Lieutenant-Governor above the +Commissioner, and the Viceroy above all four, under the orders of +the Secretary of State, who is responsible to the Empress. If the +Empress be not responsible to her Maker--if there is no Maker for +her to be responsible to--the entire system of Our administration +must be wrong. Which is manifestly impossible. At Home men are to +be excused. They are stalled up a good deal and get intellectually +"beany." When you take a gross, 'beany" horse to exercise, he +slavers and slobbers over the bit till you can't see the horns. +But the bit is there just the same. Men do not get "beany" in +India. The climate and the work are against playing bricks with +words. + +If McGoggin had kept his creed, with the capital letters and the +endings in "isms," to himself, no one would have cared; but his +grandfathers on both sides had been Wesleyan preachers, and the +preaching strain came out in his mind. He wanted every one at the +Club to see that they had no souls too, and to help him to +eliminate his Creator. As a good many men told him, HE undoubtedly +had no soul, because he was so young, but it did not follow that +his seniors were equally undeveloped; and, whether there was +another world or not, a man still wanted to read his papers in +this. "But that is not the point--that is not the point!" Aurelian +used to say. Then men threw sofa-cushions at him and told him to +go to any particular place he might believe in. They christened +him the "Blastoderm"--he said he came from a family of that name +somewhere, in the pre-historic ages--and, by insult and laughter, +strove to choke him dumb, for he was an unmitigated nuisance at the +Club; besides being an offence to the older men. His Deputy +Commissioner, who was working on the Frontier when Aurelian was +rolling on a bed-quilt, told him that, for a clever boy, Aurelian +was a very big idiot. And, you know, if he had gone on with his +work, he would have been caught up to the Secretariat in a few +years. He was just the type that goes there--all head, no physique +and a hundred theories. Not a soul was interested in McGoggin's +soul. He might have had two, or none, or somebody's else's. His +business was to obey orders and keep abreast of his files instead +of devastating the Club with "isms." + +He worked brilliantly; but he could not accept any order without +trying to better it. That was the fault of his creed. It made men +too responsible and left too much to their honor. You can +sometimes ride an old horse in a halter; but never a colt. +McGoggin took more trouble over his cases than any of the men of +his year. He may have fancied that thirty-page judgments on fifty- +rupee cases--both sides perjured to the gullet--advanced the cause +of Humanity. At any rate, he worked too much, and worried and +fretted over the rebukes he received, and lectured away on his +ridiculous creed out of office, till the Doctor had to warn him +that he was overdoing it. No man can toil eighteen annas in the +rupee in June without suffering. But McGoggin was still +intellectually "beany" and proud of himself and his powers, and he +would take no hint. He worked nine hours a day steadily. + +"Very well," said the doctor, "you'll break down because you are +over-engined for your beam." McGoggin was a little chap. + +One day, the collapse came--as dramatically as if it had been meant +to embellish a Tract. + +It was just before the Rains. We were sitting in the verandah in +the dead, hot, close air, gasping and praying that the black-blue +clouds would let down and bring the cool. Very, very far away, +there was a faint whisper, which was the roar of the Rains breaking +over the river. One of the men heard it, got out of his chair, +listened, and said, naturally enough:--"Thank God!" + +Then the Blastoderm turned in his place and said:--"Why? I assure +you it's only the result of perfectly natural causes--atmospheric +phenomena of the simplest kind. Why you should, therefore, return +thanks to a Being who never did exist--who is only a figment--" + +"Blastoderm," grunted the man in the next chair, "dry up, and throw +me over the Pioneer. We know all about your figments." The +Blastoderm reached out to the table, took up one paper, and jumped +as if something had stung him. Then he handed the paper over. + +"As I was saying," he went on slowly and with an effort--"due to +perfectly natural causes--perfectly natural causes. I mean--" + +"Hi! Blastoderm, you've given me the Calcutta Mercantile +Advertiser." + +The dust got up in little whorls, while the treetops rocked and the +kites whistled. But no one was looking at the coming of the Rains. +We were all staring at the Blastoderm, who had risen from his chair +and was fighting with his speech. Then he said, still more +slowly:-- + +"Perfectly conceivable--dictionary--red oak--amenable--cause-- +retaining--shuttlecock--alone." + +"Blastoderm's drunk," said one man. But the Blastoderm was not +drunk. He looked at us in a dazed sort of way, and began motioning +with his hands in the half light as the clouds closed overhead. +Then--with a scream:-- + +"What is it?--Can't--reserve--attainable--market--obscure--" + +But his speech seemed to freeze in him, and--just as the lightning +shot two tongues that cut the whole sky into three pieces and the +rain fell in quivering sheets--the Blastoderm was struck dumb. He +stood pawing and champing like a hard-held horse, and his eyes were +full of terror. + +The Doctor came over in three minutes, and heard the story. "It's +aphasia," he said. "Take him to his room. I KNEW the smash would +come." We carried the Blastoderm across, in the pouring rain, to +his quarters, and the Doctor gave him bromide of potassium to make +him sleep. + +Then the Doctor came back to us and told us that aphasia was like +all the arrears of "Punjab Head" falling in a lump; and that only +once before--in the case of a sepoy--had he met with so complete a +case. I myself have seen mild aphasia in an overworked man, but +this sudden dumbness was uncanny--though, as the Blastoderm himself +might have said, due to "perfectly natural causes." + +"He'll have to take leave after this," said the Doctor. "He won't +be fit for work for another three months. No; it isn't insanity or +anything like it. It's only complete loss of control over the +speech and memory. I fancy it will keep the Blastoderm quiet, +though." + +Two days later, the Blastoderm found his tongue again. The first +question he asked was: "What was it?" The Doctor enlightened him. +"But I can't understand it!" said the Blastoderm; "I'm quite sane; +but I can't be sure of my mind, it seems--my OWN memory--can I?" + +"Go up into the Hills for three months, and don't think about it," +said the Doctor. + +"But I can't understand it," repeated the Blastoderm. "It was my +OWN mind and memory." + +"I can't help it," said the Doctor; "there are a good many things +you can't understand; and, by the time you have put in my length of +service, you'll know exactly how much a man dare call his own in +this world." + +The stroke cowed the Blastoderm. He could not understand it. He +went into the Hills in fear and trembling, wondering whether he +would be permitted to reach the end of any sentence he began. + +This gave him a wholesome feeling of mistrust. The legitimate +explanation, that he had been overworking himself, failed to +satisfy him. Something had wiped his lips of speech, as a mother +wipes the milky lips of her child, and he was afraid--horribly +afraid. + +So the Club had rest when he returned; and if ever you come across +Aurelian McGoggin laying down the law on things Human--he doesn't +seem to know as much as he used to about things Divine--put your +forefinger on your lip for a moment, and see what happens. + +Don't blame me if he throws a glass at your head! + + + +A GERM DESTROYER. + + +Pleasant it is for the Little Tin Gods, + When great Jove nods; +But Little Tin Gods make their little mistakes +In missing the hour when great Jove wakes. + + +As a general rule, it is inexpedient to meddle with questions of +State in a land where men are highly paid to work them out for you. +This tale is a justifiable exception. + +Once in every five years, as you know, we indent for a new Viceroy; +and each Viceroy imports, with the rest of his baggage, a Private +Secretary, who may or may not be the real Viceroy, just as Fate +ordains. Fate looks after the Indian Empire because it is so big +and so helpless. + +There was a Viceroy once, who brought out with him a turbulent +Private Secretary--a hard man with a soft manner and a morbid +passion for work. This Secretary was called Wonder--John Fennil +Wonder. The Viceroy possessed no name--nothing but a string of +counties and two-thirds of the alphabet after them. He said, in +confidence, that he was the electro-plated figurehead of a golden +administration, and he watched in a dreamy, amused way Wonder's +attempts to draw matters which were entirely outside his province +into his own hands. "When we are all cherubims together," said His +Excellency once, my dear, good friend Wonder will head the +conspiracy for plucking out Gabriel's tail-feathers or stealing +Peter's keys. THEN I shall report him." + +But, though the Viceroy did nothing to check Wonder's +officiousness, other people said unpleasant things. Maybe the +Members of Council began it; but, finally, all Simla agreed that +there was "too much Wonder, and too little Viceroy," in that +regime. Wonder was always quoting "His Excellency." It was "His +Excellency this," "His Excellency that," "In the opinion of His +Excellency," and so on. The Viceroy smiled; but he did not heed. +He said that, so long as his old men squabbled with his "dear, good +Wonder," they might be induced to leave the "Immemorial East" in +peace. + +"No wise man has a policy," said the Viceroy. "A Policy is the +blackmail levied on the Fool by the Unforeseen. I am not the +former, and I do not believe in the latter." + +I do not quite see what this means, unless it refers to an +Insurance Policy. Perhaps it was the Viceroy's way of saying:-- +"Lie low." + +That season, came up to Simla one of these crazy people with only a +single idea. These are the men who make things move; but they are +not nice to talk to. This man's name was Mellish, and he had lived +for fifteen years on land of his own, in Lower Bengal, studying +cholera. He held that cholera was a germ that propagated itself as +it flew through a muggy atmosphere; and stuck in the branches of +trees like a wool-flake. The germ could be rendered sterile, he +said, by "Mellish's Own Invincible Fumigatory"--a heavy violet- +black powder--"the result of fifteen years' scientific +investigation, Sir!" + +Inventors seem very much alike as a caste. They talk loudly, +especially about "conspiracies of monopolists;" they beat upon the +table with their fists; and they secrete fragments of their +inventions about their persons. + +Mellish said that there was a Medical "Ring" at Simla, headed by +the Surgeon-General, who was in league, apparently, with all the +Hospital Assistants in the Empire. I forget exactly how he proved +it, but it had something to do with "skulking up to the Hills;" and +what Mellish wanted was the independent evidence of the Viceroy-- +"Steward of our Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, Sir." So Mellish +went up to Simla, with eighty-four pounds of Fumigatory in his +trunk, to speak to the Viceroy and to show him the merits of the +invention. + +But it is easier to see a Viceroy than to talk to him, unless you +chance to be as important as Mellishe of Madras. He was a six- +thousand-rupee man, so great that his daughters never "married." +They "contracted alliances." He himself was not paid. He +"received emoluments," and his journeys about the country were +"tours of observation." His business was to stir up the people in +Madras with a long pole--as you stir up stench in a pond--and the +people had to come up out of their comfortable old ways and gasp:-- +"This is Enlightenment and progress. Isn't it fine!" Then they +gave Mellishe statues and jasmine garlands, in the hope of getting +rid of him. + +Mellishe came up to Simla "to confer with the Viceroy." That was +one of his perquisites. The Viceroy knew nothing of Mellishe +except that he was "one of those middle-class deities who seem +necessary to the spiritual comfort of this Paradise of the Middle- +classes," and that, in all probability, he had "suggested, +designed, founded, and endowed all the public institutions in +Madras." Which proves that His Excellency, though dreamy, had +experience of the ways of six-thousand-rupee men. + +Mellishe's name was E. Mellishe and Mellish's was E. S. Mellish, +and they were both staying at the same hotel, and the Fate that +looks after the Indian Empire ordained that Wonder should blunder +and drop the final "e;" that the Chaprassi should help him, and +that the note which ran: "Dear Mr. Mellish.--Can you set aside your +other engagements and lunch with us at two to-morrow? His +Excellency has an hour at your disposal then," should be given to +Mellish with the Fumigatory. He nearly wept with pride and +delight, and at the appointed hour cantered off to Peterhoff, a big +paper-bag full of the Fumigatory in his coat-tail pockets. He had +his chance, and he meant to make the most of it. Mellishe of +Madras had been so portentously solemn about his "conference," that +Wonder had arranged for a private tiffin--no A.-D. C.'s, no Wonder, +no one but the Viceroy, who said plaintively that he feared being +left alone with unmuzzled autocrats like the great Mellishe of +Madras. + +But his guest did not bore the Viceroy. On the contrary, he amused +him. Mellish was nervously anxious to go straight to his +Fumigatory, and talked at random until tiffin was over and His +Excellency asked him to smoke. The Viceroy was pleased with Mellish +because he did not talk "shop." + +As soon as the cheroots were lit, Mellish spoke like a man; +beginning with his cholera-theory, reviewing his fifteen years' +"scientific labors," the machinations of the "Simla Ring," and the +excellence of his Fumigatory, while the Viceroy watched him between +half-shut eyes and thought: "Evidently, this is the wrong tiger; but +it is an original animal." Mellish's hair was standing on end with +excitement, and he stammered. He began groping in his coat-tails +and, before the Viceroy knew what was about to happen, he had tipped +a bagful of his powder into the big silver ash-tray. + +"J-j-judge for yourself, Sir," said Mellish. "Y' Excellency shall +judge for yourself! Absolutely infallible, on my honor." + +He plunged the lighted end of his cigar into the powder, which began +to smoke like a volcano, and send up fat, greasy wreaths of copper- +colored smoke. In five seconds the room was filled with a most +pungent and sickening stench--a reek that took fierce hold of the +trap of your windpipe and shut it. The powder then hissed and +fizzed, and sent out blue and green sparks, and the smoke rose till +you could neither see, nor breathe, nor gasp. Mellish, however, was +used to it. + +"Nitrate of strontia," he shouted; "baryta, bone-meal, etcetera! +Thousand cubic feet smoke per cubic inch. Not a germ could live-- +not a germ, Y' Excellency!" + +But His Excellency had fled, and was coughing at the foot of the +stairs, while all Peterhoff hummed like a hive. Red Lancers came +in, and the Head Chaprassi, who speaks English, came in, and mace- +bearers came in, and ladies ran downstairs screaming "fire;" for the +smoke was drifting through the house and oozing out of the windows, +and bellying along the verandahs, and wreathing and writhing across +the gardens. No one could enter the room where Mellish was +lecturing on his Fumigatory, till that unspeakable powder had burned +itself out. + +Then an Aide-de-Camp, who desired the V. C., rushed through the +rolling clouds and hauled Mellish into the hall. The Viceroy was +prostrate with laughter, and could only waggle his hands feebly at +Mellish, who was shaking a fresh bagful of powder at him. + +"Glorious! Glorious!" sobbed his Excellency. "Not a germ, as you +justly observe, could exist! I can swear it. A magnificent +success!" + +Then he laughed till the tears came, and Wonder, who had caught the +real Mellishe snorting on the Mall, entered and was deeply shocked +at the scene. But the Viceroy was delighted, because he saw that +Wonder would presently depart. Mellish with the Fumigatory was also +pleased, for he felt that he had smashed the Simla Medical "Ring." + + . . . . . . . . . + +Few men could tell a story like His Excellency when he took the +trouble, and the account of "my dear, good Wonder's friend with the +powder" went the round of Simla, and flippant folk made Wonder +unhappy by their remarks. + +But His Excellency told the tale once too often--for Wonder. As he +meant to do. It was at a Seepee Picnic. Wonder was sitting just +behind the Viceroy. + +"And I really thought for a moment," wound up His Excellency, "that +my dear, good Wonder had hired an assassin to clear his way to the +throne!" + +Every one laughed; but there was a delicate subtinkle in the +Viceroy's tone which Wonder understood. He found that his health +was giving way; and the Viceroy allowed him to go, and presented him +with a flaming "character" for use at Home among big people. + +"My fault entirely," said His Excellency, in after seasons, with a +twinkling in his eye. "My inconsistency must always have been +distasteful to such a masterly man." + + + +KIDNAPPED. + + +There is a tide in the affairs of men, +Which, taken any way you please, is bad, +And strands them in forsaken guts and creeks +No decent soul would think of visiting. +You cannot stop the tide; but now and then, +You may arrest some rash adventurer +Who--h'm--will hardly thank you for your pains. + + Vibart's Moralities. + + + +We are a high-caste and enlightened race, and infant-marriage is +very shocking and the consequences are sometimes peculiar; but, +nevertheless, the Hindu notion--which is the Continental notion-- +which is the aboriginal notion--of arranging marriages irrespective +of the personal inclinations of the married, is sound. Think for a +minute, and you will see that it must be so; unless, of course, you +believe in "affinities." In which case you had better not read this +tale. How can a man who has never married; who cannot be trusted to +pick up at sight a moderately sound horse; whose head is hot and +upset with visions of domestic felicity, go about the choosing of a +wife? He cannot see straight or think straight if he tries; and the +same disadvantages exist in the case of a girl's fancies. But when +mature, married and discreet people arrange a match between a boy +and a girl, they do it sensibly, with a view to the future, and the +young couple live happily ever afterwards. As everybody knows. + +Properly speaking, Government should establish a Matrimonial +Department, efficiently officered, with a Jury of Matrons, a Judge +of the Chief Court, a Senior Chaplain, and an Awful Warning, in the +shape of a love-match that has gone wrong, chained to the trees in +the courtyard. All marriages should be made through the Department, +which might be subordinate to the Educational Department, under the +same penalty as that attaching to the transfer of land without a +stamped document. But Government won't take suggestions. It +pretends that it is too busy. However, I will put my notion on +record, and explain the example that illustrates the theory. + +Once upon a time there was a good young man--a first-class officer +in his own Department--a man with a career before him and, possibly, +a K. C. G. E. at the end of it. All his superiors spoke well of +him, because he knew how to hold his tongue and his pen at the +proper times. There are to-day only eleven men in India who possess +this secret; and they have all, with one exception, attained great +honor and enormous incomes. + +This good young man was quiet and self-contained--too old for his +years by far. Which always carries its own punishment. Had a +Subaltern, or a Tea-Planter's Assistant, or anybody who enjoys life +and has no care for to-morrow, done what he tried to do not a soul +would have cared. But when Peythroppe--the estimable, virtuous, +economical, quiet, hard-working, young Peythroppe--fell, there was a +flutter through five Departments. + +The manner of his fall was in this way. He met a Miss Castries-- +d'Castries it was originally, but the family dropped the d' for +administrative reasons--and he fell in love with her even more +energetically that he worked. Understand clearly that there was not +a breath of a word to be said against Miss Castries--not a shadow of +a breath. She was good and very lovely--possessed what innocent +people at home call a "Spanish" complexion, with thick blue-black +hair growing low down on her forehead, into a "widow's peak," and +big violet eyes under eyebrows as black and as straight as the +borders of a Gazette Extraordinary when a big man dies. But--but-- +but--. Well, she was a VERY sweet girl and very pious, but for many +reasons she was "impossible." Quite so. All good Mammas know what +"impossible" means. It was obviously absurd that Peythroppe should +marry her. The little opal-tinted onyx at the base of her finger- +nails said this as plainly as print. Further, marriage with Miss +Castries meant marriage with several other Castries--Honorary +Lieutenant Castries, her Papa, Mrs. Eulalie Castries, her Mamma, and +all the ramifications of the Castries family, on incomes ranging +from Rs. 175 to Rs. 470 a month, and THEIR wives and connections +again. + +It would have been cheaper for Peythroppe to have assaulted a +Commissioner with a dog-whip, or to have burned the records of a +Deputy Commissioner's Office, than to have contracted an alliance +with the Castries. It would have weighted his after-career less-- +even under a Government which never forgets and NEVER forgives. +Everybody saw this but Peythroppe. He was going to marry Miss +Castries, he was--being of age and drawing a good income--and woe +betide the house that would not afterwards receive Mrs. Virginie +Saulez Peythroppe with the deference due to her husband's rank. +That was Peythroppe's ultimatum, and any remonstrance drove him +frantic. + +These sudden madnesses most afflict the sanest men. There was a +case once--but I will tell you of that later on. You cannot account +for the mania, except under a theory directly contradicting the one +about the Place wherein marriages are made. Peythroppe was +burningly anxious to put a millstone round his neck at the outset of +his career and argument had not the least effect on him. He was +going to marry Miss Castries, and the business was his own business. +He would thank you to keep your advice to yourself. With a man in +this condition, mere words only fix him in his purpose. Of course +he cannot see that marriage out here does not concern the individual +but the Government he serves. + +Do you remember Mrs. Hauksbee--the most wonderful woman in India? +She saved Pluffles from Mrs. Reiver, won Tarrion his appointment in +the Foreign Office, and was defeated in open field by Mrs. Cusack- +Bremmil. She heard of the lamentable condition of Peythroppe, and +her brain struck out the plan that saved him. She had the wisdom of +the Serpent, the logical coherence of the Man, the fearlessness of +the Child, and the triple intuition of the Woman. Never--no, never-- +as long as a tonga buckets down the Solon dip, or the couples go a- +riding at the back of Summer Hill, will there be such a genius as +Mrs. Hauksbee. She attended the consultation of Three Men on +Peythroppe's case; and she stood up with the lash of her riding-whip +between her lips and spake. + + . . . . . . . . . + +Three weeks later, Peythroppe dined with the Three Men, and the +Gazette of India came in. Peythroppe found to his surprise that he +had been gazetted a month's leave. Don't ask me how this was +managed. I believe firmly that if Mrs. Hauksbee gave the order, the +whole Great Indian Administration would stand on its head. + +The Three Men had also a month's leave each. Peythroppe put the +Gazette down and said bad words. Then there came from the compound +the soft "pad-pad" of camels--"thieves' camels," the bikaneer breed +that don't bubble and howl when they sit down and get up. + +After that I don't know what happened. This much is certain. +Peythroppe disappeared--vanished like smoke--and the long foot-rest +chair in the house of the Three Men was broken to splinters. Also a +bedstead departed from one of the bedrooms. + +Mrs. Hauksbee said that Mr. Peythroppe was shooting in Rajputana +with the Three Men; so we were compelled to believe her. + +At the end of the month, Peythroppe was gazetted twenty days' +extension of leave; but there was wrath and lamentation in the house +of Castries. The marriage-day had been fixed, but the bridegroom +never came; and the D'Silvas, Pereiras, and Ducketts lifted their +voices and mocked Honorary Lieutenant Castries as one who had been +basely imposed upon. Mrs. Hauksbee went to the wedding, and was +much astonished when Peythroppe did not appear. After seven weeks, +Peythroppe and the Three Men returned from Rajputana. Peythroppe +was in hard, tough condition, rather white, and more self-contained +than ever. + +One of the Three Men had a cut on his nose, cause by the kick of a +gun. Twelve-bores kick rather curiously. + +Then came Honorary Lieutenant Castries, seeking for the blood of his +perfidious son-in-law to be. He said things--vulgar and +"impossible" things which showed the raw rough "ranker" below the +"Honorary," and I fancy Peythroppe's eyes were opened. Anyhow, he +held his peace till the end; when he spoke briefly. Honorary +Lieutenant Castries asked for a "peg" before he went away to die or +bring a suit for breach of promise. + +Miss Castries was a very good girl. She said that she would have no +breach of promise suits. She said that, if she was not a lady, she +was refined enough to know that ladies kept their broken hearts to +themselves; and, as she ruled her parents, nothing happened. Later +on, she married a most respectable and gentlemanly person. He +travelled for an enterprising firm in Calcutta, and was all that a +good husband should be. + +So Peythroppe came to his right mind again, and did much good work, +and was honored by all who knew him. One of these days he will +marry; but he will marry a sweet pink-and-white maiden, on the +Government House List, with a little money and some influential +connections, as every wise man should. And he will never, all his +life, tell her what happened during the seven weeks of his shooting- +tour in Rajputana. + +But just think how much trouble and expense--for camel hire is not +cheap, and those Bikaneer brutes had to be fed like humans--might +have been saved by a properly conducted Matrimonial Department, +under the control of the Director General of Education, but +corresponding direct with the Viceroy. + + + +THE ARREST OF LIEUTENANT GOLIGHTLY. + + +"'I've forgotten the countersign,' sez 'e. +'Oh! You 'aye, 'ave you?' sez I. +'But I'm the Colonel,' sez 'e. +'Oh! You are, are you?' sez I. 'Colonel nor no Colonel, you waits +'ere till I'm relieved, an' the Sarjint reports on your ugly old +mug. Coop!' sez I. + . . . . . . . . . +An' s'help me soul, 'twas the Colonel after all! But I was a +recruity then." + + The Unedited Autobiography of Private Ortheris. + + +IF there was one thing on which Golightly prided himself more than +another, it was looking like "an Officer and a gentleman." He said +it was for the honor of the Service that he attired himself so +elaborately; but those who knew him best said that it was just +personal vanity. There was no harm about Golightly--not an ounce. +He recognized a horse when he saw one, and could do more than fill a +cantle. He played a very fair game at billiards, and was a sound +man at the whist-table. Everyone liked him; and nobody ever dreamed +of seeing him handcuffed on a station platform as a deserter. But +this sad thing happened. + +He was going down from Dalhousie, at the end of his leave--riding +down. He had cut his leave as fine as he dared, and wanted to come +down in a hurry. + +It was fairly warm at Dalhousie, and knowing what to expect below, +he descended in a new khaki suit--tight fitting--of a delicate +olive-green; a peacock-blue tie, white collar, and a snowy white +solah helmet. He prided himself on looking neat even when he was +riding post. He did look neat, and he was so deeply concerned about +his appearance before he started that he quite forgot to take +anything but some small change with him. He left all his notes at +the hotel. His servants had gone down the road before him, to be +ready in waiting at Pathankote with a change of gear. That was what +he called travelling in "light marching-order." He was proud of his +faculty of organization--what we call bundobust. + +Twenty-two miles out of Dalhousie it began to rain--not a mere hill- +shower, but a good, tepid monsoonish downpour. Golightly bustled +on, wishing that he had brought an umbrella. The dust on the roads +turned into mud, and the pony mired a good deal. So did Golightly's +khaki gaiters. But he kept on steadily and tried to think how +pleasant the coolth was. + +His next pony was rather a brute at starting, and Golightly's hands +being slippery with the rain, contrived to get rid of Golightly at a +corner. He chased the animal, caught it, and went ahead briskly. +The spill had not improved his clothes or his temper, and he had +lost one spur. He kept the other one employed. By the time that +stage was ended, the pony had had as much exercise as he wanted, +and, in spite of the rain, Golightly was sweating freely. At the +end of another miserable half-hour, Golightly found the world +disappear before his eyes in clammy pulp. The rain had turned the +pith of his huge and snowy solah-topee into an evil-smelling dough, +and it had closed on his head like a half-opened mushroom. Also the +green lining was beginning to run. + +Golightly did not say anything worth recording here. He tore off +and squeezed up as much of the brim as was in his eyes and ploughed +on. The back of the helmet was flapping on his neck and the sides +stuck to his ears, but the leather band and green lining kept things +roughly together, so that the hat did not actually melt away where +it flapped. + +Presently, the pulp and the green stuff made a sort of slimy mildew +which ran over Golightly in several directions--down his back and +bosom for choice. The khaki color ran too--it was really shockingly +bad dye--and sections of Golightly were brown, and patches were +violet, and contours were ochre, and streaks were ruddy red, and +blotches were nearly white, according to the nature and +peculiarities of the dye. When he took out his handkerchief to wipe +his face and the green of the hat-lining and the purple stuff that +had soaked through on to his neck from the tie became thoroughly +mixed, the effect was amazing. + +Near Dhar the rain stopped and the evening sun came out and dried +him up slightly. It fixed the colors, too. Three miles from +Pathankote the last pony fell dead lame, and Golightly was forced to +walk. He pushed on into Pathankote to find his servants. He did +not know then that his khitmatgar had stopped by the roadside to get +drunk, and would come on the next day saying that he had sprained +his ankle. When he got into Pathankote, he couldn't find his +servants, his boots were stiff and ropy with mud, and there were +large quantities of dirt about his body. The blue tie had run as +much as the khaki. So he took it off with the collar and threw it +away. Then he said something about servants generally and tried to +get a peg. He paid eight annas for the drink, and this revealed to +him that he had only six annas more in his pocket--or in the world +as he stood at that hour. + +He went to the Station-Master to negotiate for a first-class ticket +to Khasa, where he was stationed. The booking-clerk said something +to the Station-Master, the Station-Master said something to the +Telegraph Clerk, and the three looked at him with curiosity. They +asked him to wait for half-an-hour, while they telegraphed to +Umritsar for authority. So he waited, and four constables came and +grouped themselves picturesquely round him. Just as he was +preparing to ask them to go away, the Station-Master said that he +would give the Sahib a ticket to Umritsar, if the Sahib would kindly +come inside the booking-office. Golightly stepped inside, and the +next thing he knew was that a constable was attached to each of his +legs and arms, while the Station-Master was trying to cram a mailbag +over his head. + +There was a very fair scuffle all round the booking-office, and +Golightly received a nasty cut over his eye through falling against +a table. But the constables were too much for him, and they and the +Station-Master handcuffed him securely. As soon as the mail-bag was +slipped, he began expressing his opinions, and the head-constable +said:--"Without doubt this is the soldier-Englishman we required. +Listen to the abuse!" Then Golightly asked the Station-Master what +the this and the that the proceedings meant. The Station-Master +told him he was "Private John Binkle of the ---- Regiment, 5 ft. 9 +in., fair hair, gray eyes, and a dissipated appearance, no marks on +the body," who had deserted a fortnight ago. Golightly began +explaining at great length; and the more he explained the less the +Station-Master believed him. He said that no Lieutenant could look +such a ruffian as did Golightly, and that his instructions were to +send his capture under proper escort to Umritsar. Golightly was +feeling very damp and uncomfortable, and the language he used was +not fit for publication, even in an expurgated form. The four +constables saw him safe to Umritsar in an "intermediate" +compartment, and he spent the four-hour journey in abusing them as +fluently as his knowledge of the vernaculars allowed. + +At Umritsar he was bundled out on the platform into the arms of a +Corporal and two men of the ---- Regiment. Golightly drew himself +up and tried to carry off matters jauntily. He did not feel too +jaunty in handcuffs, with four constables behind him, and the blood +from the cut on his forehead stiffening on his left cheek. The +Corporal was not jocular either. Golightly got as far as--"This is +a very absurd mistake, my men," when the Corporal told him to "stow +his lip" and come along. Golightly did not want to come along. He +desired to stop and explain. He explained very well indeed, until +the Corporal cut in with:--"YOU a orficer! It's the like o' YOU as +brings disgrace on the likes of US. Bloom-in' fine orficer you are! +I know your regiment. The Rogue's March is the quickstep where you +come from. You're a black shame to the Service." + +Golightly kept his temper, and began explaining all over again from +the beginning. Then he was marched out of the rain into the +refreshment-room and told not to make a qualified fool of himself. +The men were going to run him up to Fort Govindghar. And "running +up" is a performance almost as undignified as the Frog March. + +Golightly was nearly hysterical with rage and the chill and the +mistake and the handcuffs and the headache that the cut on his +forehead had given him. He really laid himself out to express what +was in his mind. When he had quite finished and his throat was +feeling dry, one of the men said:--"I've 'eard a few beggars in the +click blind, stiff and crack on a bit; but I've never 'eard any one +to touch this 'ere 'orficer.'" They were not angry with him. They +rather admired him. They had some beer at the refreshment-room, and +offered Golightly some too, because he had "swore won'erful." They +asked him to tell them all about the adventures of Private John +Binkle while he was loose on the countryside; and that made +Golightly wilder than ever. If he had kept his wits about him he +would have kept quiet until an officer came; but he attempted to +run. + +Now the butt of a Martini in the small of your back hurts a great +deal, and rotten, rain-soaked khaki tears easily when two men are +jerking at your collar. + +Golightly rose from the floor feeling very sick and giddy, with his +shirt ripped open all down his breast and nearly all down his back. +He yielded to his luck, and at that point the down-train from Lahore +came in carrying one of Golightly's Majors. + +This is the Major's evidence in full:-- + +"There was the sound of a scuffle in the second-class refreshment- +room, so I went in and saw the most villainous loafer that I ever +set eyes on. His boots and breeches were plastered with mud and +beer-stains. He wore a muddy-white dunghill sort of thing on his +head, and it hung down in slips on his shoulders, which were a good +deal scratched. He was half in and half out of a shirt as nearly in +two pieces as it could be, and he was begging the guard to look at +the name on the tail of it. As he had rucked the shirt all over his +head, I couldn't at first see who he was, but I fancied that he was +a man in the first stage of D. T. from the way he swore while he +wrestled with his rags. When he turned round, and I had made +allowance for a lump as big as a pork-pie over one eye, and some +green war-paint on the face, and some violet stripes round the neck, +I saw that it was Golightly. He was very glad to see me," said the +Major, "and he hoped I would not tell the Mess about it. I didn't, +but you can if you like, now that Golightly has gone Home." + +Golightly spent the greater part of that summer in trying to get the +Corporal and the two soldiers tried by Court-Martial for arresting +an "officer and a gentleman." They were, of course, very sorry for +their error. But the tale leaked into the regimental canteen, and +thence ran about the Province. + + + +THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO + + +A stone's throw out on either hand +From that well-ordered road we tread, + And all the world is wild and strange; +Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite +Shall bear us company to-night, +For we have reached the Oldest Land + Wherein the Powers of Darkness range. + + From the Dusk to the Dawn. + + +The house of Suddhoo, near the Taksali Gate, is two-storied, with +four carved windows of old brown wood, and a flat roof. You may +recognize it by five red hand-prints arranged like the Five of +Diamonds on the whitewash between the upper windows. Bhagwan Dass, +the bunnia, and a man who says he gets his living by seal-cutting, +live in the lower story with a troop of wives, servants, friends, +and retainers. The two upper rooms used to be occupied by Janoo and +Azizun and a little black-and-tan terrier that was stolen from an +Englishman's house and given to Janoo by a soldier. To-day, only +Janoo lives in the upper rooms. Suddhoo sleeps on the roof +generally, except when he sleeps in the street. He used to go to +Peshawar in the cold weather to visit his son, who sells curiosities +near the Edwardes' Gate, and then he slept under a real mud roof. +Suddhoo is a great friend of mine, because his cousin had a son who +secured, thanks to my recommendation, the post of head-messenger to +a big firm in the Station. Suddhoo says that God will make me a +Lieutenant-Governor one of these days. I daresay his prophecy will +come true. He is very, very old, with white hair and no teeth worth +showing, and he has outlived his wits--outlived nearly everything +except his fondness for his son at Peshawar. Janoo and Azizun are +Kashmiris, Ladies of the City, and theirs was an ancient and more or +less honorable profession; but Azizun has since married a medical +student from the North-West and has settled down to a most +respectable life somewhere near Bareilly. Bhagwan Dass is an +extortionate and an adulterator. He is very rich. The man who is +supposed to get his living by seal-cutting pretends to be very poor. +This lets you know as much as is necessary of the four principal +tenants in the house of Suddhoo. Then there is Me, of course; but I +am only the chorus that comes in at the end to explain things. So I +do not count. + +Suddhoo was not clever. The man who pretended to cut seals was the +cleverest of them all--Bhagwan Dass only knew how to lie--except +Janoo. She was also beautiful, but that was her own affair. + +Suddhoo's son at Peshawar was attacked by pleurisy, and old Suddhoo +was troubled. The seal-cutter man heard of Suddhoo's anxiety and +made capital out of it. He was abreast of the times. He got a +friend in Peshawar to telegraph daily accounts of the son's health. +And here the story begins. + +Suddhoo's cousin's son told me, one evening, that Suddhoo wanted to +see me; that he was too old and feeble to come personally, and that +I should be conferring an everlasting honor on the House of Suddhoo +if I went to him. I went; but I think, seeing how well-off Suddhoo +was then, that he might have sent something better than an ekka, +which jolted fearfully, to haul out a future Lieutenant-Governor to +the City on a muggy April evening. The ekka did not run quickly. +It was full dark when we pulled up opposite the door of Ranjit +Singh's Tomb near the main gate of the Fort. Here was Suddhoo and +he said that, by reason of my condescension, it was absolutely +certain that I should become a Lieutenant-Governor while my hair was +yet black. Then we talked about the weather and the state of my +health, and the wheat crops, for fifteen minutes, in the Huzuri +Bagh, under the stars. + +Suddhoo came to the point at last. He said that Janoo had told him +that there was an order of the Sirkar against magic, because it was +feared that magic might one day kill the Empress of India. I didn't +know anything about the state of the law; but I fancied that +something interesting was going to happen. I said that so far from +magic being discouraged by the Government it was highly commended. +The greatest officials of the State practiced it themselves. (If +the Financial Statement isn't magic, I don't know what is.) Then, +to encourage him further, I said that, if there was any jadoo afoot, +I had not the least objection to giving it my countenance and +sanction, and to seeing that it was clean jadoo--white magic, as +distinguished from the unclean jadoo which kills folk. It took a +long time before Suddhoo admitted that this was just what he had +asked me to come for. Then he told me, in jerks and quavers, that +the man who said he cut seals was a sorcerer of the cleanest kind; +that every day he gave Suddhoo news of the sick son in Peshawar more +quickly than the lightning could fly, and that this news was always +corroborated by the letters. Further, that he had told Suddhoo how +a great danger was threatening his son, which could be removed by +clean jadoo; and, of course, heavy payment. I began to see how the +land lay, and told Suddhoo that I also understood a little jadoo in +the Western line, and would go to his house to see that everything +was done decently and in order. We set off together; and on the way +Suddhoo told me he had paid the seal-cutter between one hundred and +two hundred rupees already; and the jadoo of that night would cost +two hundred more. Which was cheap, he said, considering the +greatness of his son's danger; but I do not think he meant it. + +The lights were all cloaked in the front of the house when we +arrived. I could hear awful noises from behind the seal-cutter's +shop-front, as if some one were groaning his soul out. Suddhoo +shook all over, and while we groped our way upstairs told me that +the jadoo had begun. Janoo and Azizun met us at the stair-head, and +told us that the jadoo-work was coming off in their rooms, because +there was more space there. Janoo is a lady of a freethinking turn +of mind. She whispered that the jadoo was an invention to get money +out of Suddhoo, and that the seal-cutter would go to a hot place +when he died. Suddhoo was nearly crying with fear and old age. He +kept walking up and down the room in the half light, repeating his +son's name over and over again, and asking Azizun if the seal-cutter +ought not to make a reduction in the case of his own landlord. +Janoo pulled me over to the shadow in the recess of the carved bow- +windows. The boards were up, and the rooms were only lit by one +tiny lamp. There was no chance of my being seen if I stayed still. + +Presently, the groans below ceased, and we heard steps on the +staircase. That was the seal-cutter. He stopped outside the door +as the terrier barked and Azizun fumbled at the chain, and he told +Suddhoo to blow out the lamp. This left the place in jet darkness, +except for the red glow from the two huqas that belonged to Janoo +and Azizun. The seal-cutter came in, and I heard Suddhoo throw +himself down on the floor and groan. Azizun caught her breath, and +Janoo backed to one of the beds with a shudder. There was a clink +of something metallic, and then shot up a pale blue-green flame near +the ground. The light was just enough to show Azizun, pressed +against one corner of the room with the terrier between her knees; +Janoo, with her hands clasped, leaning forward as she sat on the +bed; Suddhoo, face down, quivering, and the seal-cutter. + +I hope I may never see another man like that seal-cutter. He was +stripped to the waist, with a wreath of white jasmine as thick as my +wrist round his forehead, a salmon-colored loin-cloth round his +middle, and a steel bangle on each ankle. This was not awe- +inspiring. It was the face of the man that turned me cold. It was +blue-gray in the first place. In the second, the eyes were rolled +back till you could only see the whites of them; and, in the third, +the face was the face of a demon--a ghoul--anything you please +except of the sleek, oily old ruffian who sat in the day-time over +his turning-lathe downstairs. He was lying on his stomach, with his +arms turned and crossed behind him, as if he had been thrown down +pinioned. His head and neck were the only parts of him off the +floor. They were nearly at right angles to the body, like the head +of a cobra at spring. It was ghastly. In the centre of the room, +on the bare earth floor, stood a big, deep, brass basin, with a pale +blue-green light floating in the centre like a night-light. Round +that basin the man on the floor wriggled himself three times. How +he did it I do not know. I could see the muscles ripple along his +spine and fall smooth again; but I could not see any other motion. +The head seemed the only thing alive about him, except that slow +curl and uncurl of the laboring back-muscles. Janoo from the bed +was breathing seventy to the minute; Azizun held her hands before +her eyes; and old Suddhoo, fingering at the dirt that had got into +his white beard, was crying to himself. The horror of it was that +the creeping, crawly thing made no sound--only crawled! And, +remember, this lasted for ten minutes, while the terrier whined, and +Azizun shuddered, and Janoo gasped, and Suddhoo cried. + +I felt the hair lift at the back of my head, and my heart thump like +a thermantidote paddle. Luckily, the seal-cutter betrayed himself +by his most impressive trick and made me calm again. After he had +finished that unspeakable triple crawl, he stretched his head away +from the floor as high as he could, and sent out a jet of fire from +his nostrils. Now, I knew how fire-spouting is done--I can do it +myself--so I felt at ease. The business was a fraud. If he had +only kept to that crawl without trying to raise the effect, goodness +knows what I might not have thought. Both the girls shrieked at the +jet of fire and the head dropped, chin down, on the floor with a +thud; the whole body lying then like a corpse with its arms trussed. +There was a pause of five full minutes after this, and the blue- +green flame died down. Janoo stooped to settle one of her anklets, +while Azizun turned her face to the wall and took the terrier in her +arms. Suddhoo put out an arm mechanically to Janoo's huqa, and she +slid it across the floor with her foot. Directly above the body and +on the wall, were a couple of flaming portraits, in stamped paper +frames, of the Queen and the Prince of Wales. They looked down on +the performance, and, to my thinking, seemed to heighten the +grotesqueness of it all. + +Just when the silence was getting unendurable, the body turned over +and rolled away from the basin to the side of the room, where it lay +stomach up. There was a faint "plop" from the basin--exactly like +the noise a fish makes when it takes a fly--and the green light in +the centre revived. + +I looked at the basin, and saw, bobbing in the water, the dried, +shrivelled, black head of a native baby--open eyes, open mouth and +shaved scalp. It was worse, being so very sudden, than the crawling +exhibition. We had no time to say anything before it began to +speak. + +Read Poe's account of the voice that came from the mesmerized dying +man, and you will realize less than one-half of the horror of that +head's voice. + +There was an interval of a second or two between each word, and a +sort of "ring, ring, ring," in the note of the voice, like the +timbre of a bell. It pealed slowly, as if talking to itself, for +several minutes before I got rid of my cold sweat. Then the blessed +solution struck me. I looked at the body lying near the doorway, +and saw, just where the hollow of the throat joins on the shoulders, +a muscle that had nothing to do with any man's regular breathing, +twitching away steadily. The whole thing was a careful reproduction +of the Egyptian teraphin that one read about sometimes and the voice +was as clever and as appalling a piece of ventriloquism as one could +wish to hear. All this time the head was "lip-lip-lapping" against +the side of the basin, and speaking. It told Suddhoo, on his face +again whining, of his son's illness and of the state of the illness +up to the evening of that very night. I always shall respect the +seal-cutter for keeping so faithfully to the time of the Peshawar +telegrams. It went on to say that skilled doctors were night and +day watching over the man's life; and that he would eventually +recover if the fee to the potent sorcerer, whose servant was the +head in the basin, were doubled. + +Here the mistake from the artistic point of view came in. To ask +for twice your stipulated fee in a voice that Lazarus might have +used when he rose from the dead, is absurd. Janoo, who is really a +woman of masculine intellect, saw this as quickly as I did. I heard +her say "Asli nahin! Fareib!" scornfully under her breath; and just +as she said so, the light in the basin died out, the head stopped +talking, and we heard the room door creak on its hinges. Then Janoo +struck a match, lit the lamp, and we saw that head, basin, and seal- +cutter were gone. Suddhoo was wringing his hands and explaining to +any one who cared to listen, that, if his chances of eternal +salvation depended on it, he could not raise another two hundred +rupees. Azizun was nearly in hysterics in the corner; while Janoo +sat down composedly on one of the beds to discuss the probabilities +of the whole thing being a bunao, or "make-up." + +I explained as much as I knew of the seal-cutter's way of jadoo; but +her argument was much more simple:--"The magic that is always +demanding gifts is no true magic," said she. "My mother told me +that the only potent love-spells are those which are told you for +love. This seal-cutter man is a liar and a devil. I dare not tell, +do anything, or get anything done, because I am in debt to Bhagwan +Dass the bunnia for two gold rings and a heavy anklet. I must get +my food from his shop. The seal-cutter is the friend of Bhagwan +Dass, and he would poison my food. A fool's jadoo has been going on +for ten days, and has cost Suddhoo many rupees each night. The +seal-cutter used black hens and lemons and mantras before. He never +showed us anything like this till to-night. Azizun is a fool, and +will be a pur dahnashin soon. Suddhoo has lost his strength and his +wits. See now! I had hoped to get from Suddhoo many rupees while +he lived, and many more after his death; and behold, he is spending +everything on that offspring of a devil and a she-ass, the seal- +cutter!" + +Here I said:--"But what induced Suddhoo to drag me into the +business? Of course I can speak to the seal-cutter, and he shall +refund. The whole thing is child's talk--shame--and senseless." + +"Suddhoo IS an old child," said Janoo. "He has lived on the roofs +these seventy years and is as senseless as a milch-goat. He brought +you here to assure himself that he was not breaking any law of the +Sirkar, whose salt he ate many years ago. He worships the dust off +the feet of the seal-cutter, and that cow-devourer has forbidden him +to go and see his son. What does Suddhoo know of your laws or the +lightning-post? I have to watch his money going day by day to that +lying beast below." + +Janoo stamped her foot on the floor and nearly cried with vexation; +while Suddhoo was whimpering under a blanket in the corner, and +Azizun was trying to guide the pipe-stem to his foolish old mouth. + + . . . . . . . . . + +Now the case stands thus. Unthinkingly, I have laid myself open to +the charge of aiding and abetting the seal-cutter in obtaining money +under false pretences, which is forbidden by Section 420 of the +Indian Penal Code. I am helpless in the matter for these reasons, I +cannot inform the Police. What witnesses would support my +statements? Janoo refuses flatly, Azizun is a veiled woman +somewhere near Bareilly--lost in this big India of ours. I cannot +again take the law into my own hands, and speak to the seal-cutter; +for certain am I that, not only would Suddhoo disbelieve me, but +this step would end in the poisoning of Janoo, who is bound hand and +foot by her debt to the bunnia. Suddhoo is an old dotard; and +whenever we meet mumbles my idiotic joke that the Sirkar rather +patronizes the Black Art than otherwise. His son is well now; but +Suddhoo is completely under the influence of the seal-cutter, by +whose advice he regulates the affairs of his life. Janoo watches +daily the money that she hoped to wheedle out of Suddhoo taken by +the seal-cutter, and becomes daily more furious and sullen. + +She will never tell, because she dare not; but, unless something +happens to prevent her, I am afraid that the seal-cutter will die of +cholera--the white arsenic kind--about the middle of May. And thus +I shall have to be privy to a murder in the House of Suddhoo. + + + +HIS WEDDED WIFE. + + +Cry "Murder!" in the market-place, and each +Will turn upon his neighbor anxious eyes +That ask:--"Art thou the man?" We hunted Cain, +Some centuries ago, across the world, +That bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain +To-day. + + Vibart's Moralities. + + +Shakespeare says something about worms, or it may be giants or +beetles, turning if you tread on them too severely. The safest plan +is never to tread on a worm--not even on the last new subaltern from +Home, with his buttons hardly out of their tissue paper, and the red +of sappy English beef in his cheeks. This is the story of the worm +that turned. For the sake of brevity, we will call Henry Augustus +Ramsay Faizanne, "The Worm," although he really was an exceedingly +pretty boy, without a hair on his face, and with a waist like a +girl's when he came out to the Second "Shikarris" and was made +unhappy in several ways. The "Shikarris" are a high-caste regiment, +and you must be able to do things well--play a banjo or ride more +than a little, or sing, or act--to get on with them. + +The Worm did nothing except fall off his pony, and knock chips out +of gate-posts with his trap. Even that became monotonous after a +time. He objected to whist, cut the cloth at billiards, sang out of +tune, kept very much to himself, and wrote to his Mamma and sisters +at Home. Four of these five things were vices which the "Shikarris" +objected to and set themselves to eradicate. Every one knows how +subalterns are, by brother subalterns, softened and not permitted to +be ferocious. It is good and wholesome, and does no one any harm, +unless tempers are lost; and then there is trouble. There was a man +once--but that is another story. + +The "Shikarris" shikarred The Worm very much, and he bore everything +without winking. He was so good and so anxious to learn, and +flushed so pink, that his education was cut short, and he was left +to his own devices by every one except the Senior Subaltern, who +continued to make life a burden to The Worm. The Senior Subaltern +meant no harm; but his chaff was coarse, and he didn't quite +understand where to stop. He had been waiting too long for his +company; and that always sours a man. Also he was in love, which +made him worse. + +One day, after he had borrowed The Worm's trap for a lady who never +existed, had used it himself all the afternoon, had sent a note to +The Worm purporting to come from the lady, and was telling the Mess +all about it, The Worm rose in his place and said, in his quiet, +ladylike voice: "That was a very pretty sell; but I'll lay you a +month's pay to a month's pay when you get your step, that I work a +sell on you that you'll remember for the rest of your days, and the +Regiment after you when you're dead or broke." The Worm wasn't +angry in the least, and the rest of the Mess shouted. Then the +Senior Subaltern looked at The Worm from the boots upwards, and down +again, and said, "Done, Baby." The Worm took the rest of the Mess +to witness that the bet had been taken, and retired into a book with +a sweet smile. + +Two months passed, and the Senior Subaltern still educated The Worm, +who began to move about a little more as the hot weather came on. I +have said that the Senior Subaltern was in love. The curious thing +is that a girl was in love with the Senior Subaltern. Though the +Colonel said awful things, and the Majors snorted, and married +Captains looked unutterable wisdom, and the juniors scoffed, those +two were engaged. + +The Senior Subaltern was so pleased with getting his Company and his +acceptance at the same time that he forgot to bother The Worm. The +girl was a pretty girl, and had money of her own. She does not come +into this story at all. + +One night, at the beginning of the hot weather, all the Mess, except +The Worm, who had gone to his own room to write Home letters, were +sitting on the platform outside the Mess House. The Band had +finished playing, but no one wanted to go in. And the Captains' +wives were there also. The folly of a man in love is unlimited. +The Senior Subaltern had been holding forth on the merits of the +girl he was engaged to, and the ladies were purring approval, while +the men yawned, when there was a rustle of skirts in the dark, and a +tired, faint voice lifted itself: + +"Where's my husband?" + +I do not wish in the least to reflect on the morality of the +"Shikarris;" but it is on record that four men jumped up as if they +had been shot. Three of them were married men. Perhaps they were +afraid that their wives had come from Home unbeknownst. The fourth +said that he had acted on the impulse of the moment. He explained +this afterwards. + +Then the voice cried:--"Oh, Lionel!" Lionel was the Senior +Subaltern's name. A woman came into the little circle of light by +the candles on the peg-tables, stretching out her hands to the dark +where the Senior Subaltern was, and sobbing. We rose to our feet, +feeling that things were going to happen and ready to believe the +worst. In this bad, small world of ours, one knows so little of the +life of the next man--which, after all, is entirely his own concern-- +that one is not surprised when a crash comes. Anything might turn +up any day for any one. Perhaps the Senior Subaltern had been +trapped in his youth. Men are crippled that way occasionally. We +didn't know; we wanted to hear; and the Captains' wives were as +anxious as we. If he HAD been trapped, he was to be excused; for +the woman from nowhere, in the dusty shoes, and gray travelling +dress, was very lovely, with black hair and great eyes full of +tears. She was tall, with a fine figure, and her voice had a +running sob in it pitiful to hear. As soon as the Senior Subaltern +stood up, she threw her arms round his neck, and called him "my +darling," and said she could not bear waiting alone in England, and +his letters were so short and cold, and she was his to the end of +the world, and would he forgive her. This did not sound quite like +a lady's way of speaking. It was too demonstrative. + +Things seemed black indeed, and the Captains' wives peered under +their eyebrows at the Senior Subaltern, and the Colonel's face set +like the Day of Judgment framed in gray bristles, and no one spoke +for a while. + +Next the Colonel said, very shortly:--"Well, Sir?" and the woman +sobbed afresh. The Senior Subaltern was half choked with the arms +round his neck, but he gasped out:--"It's a d----d lie! I never had a +wife in my life!" "Don't swear," said the Colonel. "Come into the +Mess. We must sift this clear somehow," and he sighed to himself, +for he believed in his "Shikarris," did the Colonel. + +We trooped into the ante-room, under the full lights, and there we +saw how beautiful the woman was. She stood up in the middle of us +all, sometimes choking with crying, then hard and proud, and then +holding out her arms to the Senior Subaltern. It was like the +fourth act of a tragedy. She told us how the Senior Subaltern had +married her when he was Home on leave eighteen months before; and +she seemed to know all that we knew, and more too, of his people and +his past life. He was white and ashy gray, trying now and again to +break into the torrent of her words; and we, noting how lovely she +was and what a criminal he looked, esteemed him a beast of the worst +kind. We felt sorry for him, though. + +I shall never forget the indictment of the Senior Subaltern by his +wife. Nor will he. It was so sudden, rushing out of the dark, +unannounced, into our dull lives. The Captains' wives stood back; +but their eyes were alight, and you could see that they had already +convicted and sentenced the Senior Subaltern. The Colonel seemed +five years older. One Major was shading his eyes with his hand and +watching the woman from underneath it. Another was chewing his +moustache and smiling quietly as if he were witnessing a play. Full +in the open space in the centre, by the whist-tables, the Senior +Subaltern's terrier was hunting for fleas. I remember all this as +clearly as though a photograph were in my hand. I remember the look +of horror on the Senior Subaltern's face. It was rather like seeing +a man hanged; but much more interesting. Finally, the woman wound +up by saying that the Senior Subaltern carried a double F. M. in +tattoo on his left shoulder. We all knew that, and to our innocent +minds it seemed to clinch the matter. But one of the Bachelor +Majors said very politely:--"I presume that your marriage +certificate would be more to the purpose?" + +That roused the woman. She stood up and sneered at the Senior +Subaltern for a cur, and abused the Major and the Colonel and all +the rest. Then she wept, and then she pulled a paper from her +breast, saying imperially:--"Take that! And let my husband--my +lawfully wedded husband--read it aloud--if he dare!" + +There was a hush, and the men looked into each other's eyes as the +Senior Subaltern came forward in a dazed and dizzy way, and took the +paper. We were wondering as we stared, whether there was anything +against any one of us that might turn up later on. The Senior +Subaltern's throat was dry; but, as he ran his eye over the paper, +he broke out into a hoarse cackle of relief, and said to the woman:-- +"You young blackguard!" + +But the woman had fled through a door, and on the paper was +written:--"This is to certify that I, The Worm, have paid in full my +debts to the Senior Subaltern, and, further, that the Senior +Subaltern is my debtor, by agreement on the 23d of February, as by +the Mess attested, to the extent of one month's Captain's pay, in +the lawful currency of the India Empire." + +Then a deputation set off for The Worm's quarters and found him, +betwixt and between, unlacing his stays, with the hat, wig, serge +dress, etc., on the bed. He came over as he was, and the +"Shikarris" shouted till the Gunners' Mess sent over to know if they +might have a share of the fun. I think we were all, except the +Colonel and the Senior Subaltern, a little disappointed that the +scandal had come to nothing. But that is human nature. There could +be no two words about The Worm's acting. It leaned as near to a +nasty tragedy as anything this side of a joke can. When most of the +Subalterns sat upon him with sofa-cushions to find out why he had +not said that acting was his strong point, he answered very +quietly:--"I don't think you ever asked me. I used to act at Home +with my sisters." But no acting with girls could account for The +Worm's display that night. Personally, I think it was in bad taste. +Besides being dangerous. There is no sort of use in playing with +fire, even for fun. + +The "Shikarris" made him President of the Regimental Dramatic Club; +and, when the Senior Subaltern paid up his debt, which he did at +once, The Worm sank the money in scenery and dresses. He was a good +Worm; and the "Shikarris" are proud of him. The only drawback is +that he has been christened "Mrs. Senior Subaltern;" and as there +are now two Mrs. Senior Subalterns in the Station, this is sometimes +confusing to strangers. + +Later on, I will tell you of a case something like, this, but with +all the jest left out and nothing in it but real trouble. + + + +THE BROKEN LINK HANDICAPPED. + + +While the snaffle holds, or the "long-neck" stings, +While the big beam tilts, or the last bell rings, +While horses are horses to train and to race, +Then women and wine take a second place + For me--for me-- + While a short "ten-three" +Has a field to squander or fence to face! + + Song of the G. R. + + +There are more ways of running a horse to suit your book than +pulling his head off in the straight. Some men forget this. +Understand clearly that all racing is rotten--as everything +connected with losing money must be. Out here, in addition to its +inherent rottenness, it has the merit of being two-thirds sham; +looking pretty on paper only. Every one knows every one else far +too well for business purposes. How on earth can you rack and harry +and post a man for his losings, when you are fond of his wife, and +live in the same Station with him? He says, "on the Monday +following," "I can't settle just yet." "You say, "All right, old +man," and think your self lucky if you pull off nine hundred out of +a two-thousand rupee debt. Any way you look at it, Indian racing is +immoral, and expensively immoral. Which is much worse. If a man +wants your money, he ought to ask for it, or send round a +subscription-list, instead of juggling about the country, with an +Australian larrikin; a "brumby," with as much breed as the boy; a +brace of chumars in gold-laced caps; three or four ekka-ponies with +hogged manes, and a switch-tailed demirep of a mare called Arab +because she has a kink in her flag. Racing leads to the shroff +quicker than anything else. But if you have no conscience and no +sentiments, and good hands, and some knowledge of pace, and ten +years' experience of horses, and several thousand rupees a month, I +believe that you can occasionally contrive to pay your shoeing- +bills. + +Did you ever know Shackles--b. w. g., 15.13.8--coarse, loose, mule- +like ears--barrel as long as a gate-post--tough as a telegraph-wire-- +and the queerest brute that ever looked through a bridle? He was +of no brand, being one of an ear-nicked mob taken into the +Bucephalus at 4l.-10s. a head to make up freight, and sold raw and +out of condition at Calcutta for Rs. 275. People who lost money on +him called him a "brumby;" but if ever any horse had Harpoon's +shoulders and The Gin's temper, Shackles was that horse. Two miles +was his own particular distance. He trained himself, ran himself, +and rode himself; and, if his jockey insulted him by giving him +hints, he shut up at once and bucked the boy off. He objected to +dictation. Two or three of his owners did not understand this, and +lost money in consequence. At last he was bought by a man who +discovered that, if a race was to be won, Shackles, and Shackles +only, would win it in his own way, so long as his jockey sat still. +This man had a riding-boy called Brunt--a lad from Perth, West +Australia--and he taught Brunt, with a trainer's whip, the hardest +thing a jock can learn--to sit still, to sit still, and to keep on +sitting still. When Brunt fairly grasped this truth, Shackles +devastated the country. No weight could stop him at his own +distance; and The fame of Shackles spread from Ajmir in the South, +to Chedputter in the North. There was no horse like Shackles, so +long as he was allowed to do his work in his own way. But he was +beaten in the end; and the story of his fall is enough to make +angels weep. + +At the lower end of the Chedputter racecourse, just before the turn +into the straight, the track passes close to a couple of old brick- +mounds enclosing a funnel-shaped hollow. The big end of the funnel +is not six feet from the railings on the off-side. The astounding +peculiarity of the course is that, if you stand at one particular +place, about half a mile away, inside the course, and speak at an +ordinary pitch, your voice just hits the funnel of the brick-mounds +and makes a curious whining echo there. A man discovered this one +morning by accident while out training with a friend. He marked the +place to stand and speak from with a couple of bricks, and he kept +his knowledge to himself. EVERY peculiarity of a course is worth +remembering in a country where rats play the mischief with the +elephant-litter, and Stewards build jumps to suit their own stables. +This man ran a very fairish country-bred, a long, racking high mare +with the temper of a fiend, and the paces of an airy wandering +seraph--a drifty, glidy stretch. The mare was, as a delicate +tribute to Mrs. Reiver, called "The Lady Regula Baddun"--or for +short, Regula Baddun. + +Shackles' jockey, Brunt, was a quiet, well-behaved boy, but his +nerves had been shaken. He began his career by riding jump-races in +Melbourne, where a few Stewards want lynching, and was one of the +jockeys who came through the awful butchery--perhaps you will +recollect it--of the Maribyrnong Plate. The walls were colonial +ramparts--logs of jarrak spiked into masonry--with wings as strong +as Church buttresses. Once in his stride, a horse had to jump or +fall. He couldn't run out. In the Maribyrnong Plate, twelve horses +were jammed at the second wall. Red Hat, leading, fell this side, +and threw out The Glen, and the ruck came up behind and the space +between wing and wing was one struggling, screaming, kicking +shambles. Four jockeys were taken out dead; three were very badly +hurt, and Brunt was among the three. He told the story of the +Maribyrnong Plate sometimes; and when he described how Whalley on +Red Hat, said, as the mare fell under him:--"God ha' mercy, I'm done +for!" and how, next instant, Sithee There and White Otter had +crushed the life out of poor Whalley, and the dust hid a small hell +of men and horses, no one marvelled that Brunt had dropped jump- +races and Australia together. Regula Baddun's owner knew that story +by heart. Brunt never varied it in the telling. He had no +education. + +Shackles came to the Chedputter Autumn races one year, and his owner +walked about insulting the sportsmen of Chedputter generally, till +they went to the Honorary Secretary in a body and said:--"Appoint +Handicappers, and arrange a race which shall break Shackles and +humble the pride of his owner." The Districts rose against Shackles +and sent up of their best; Ousel, who was supposed to be able to do +his mile in 1-53; Petard, the stud-bred, trained by a cavalry +regiment who knew how to train; Gringalet, the ewe-lamb of the 75th; +Bobolink, the pride of Peshawar; and many others. + +They called that race The Broken-Link Handicap, because it was to +smash Shackles; and the Handicappers piled on the weights, and the +Fund gave eight hundred rupees, and the distance was "round the +course for all horses." Shackles' owner said:--"You can arrange the +race with regard to Shackles only. So long as you don't bury him +under weight-cloths, I don't mind. Regula Baddun's owner said:--"I +throw in my mare to fret Ousel. Six furlongs is Regula's distance, +and she will then lie down and die. So also will Ousel, for his +jockey doesn't understand a waiting race." Now, this was a lie, for +Regula had been in work for two months at Dehra, and her chances +were good, always supposing that Shackles broke a blood-vessel--OR +BRUNT MOVED ON HIM. + +The plunging in the lotteries was fine. They filled eight thousand- +rupee lotteries on the Broken Link Handicap, and the account in the +Pioneer said that "favoritism was divided." In plain English, the +various contingents were wild on their respective horses; for the +Handicappers had done their work well. The Honorary Secretary +shouted himself hoarse through the din; and the smoke of the +cheroots was like the smoke, and the rattling of the dice-boxes like +the rattle of small-arm fire. + +Ten horses started--very level--and Regula Baddun's owner cantered +out on his back to a place inside the circle of the course, where +two bricks had been thrown. He faced towards the brick-mounds at +the lower end of the course and waited. + +The story of the running is in the Pioneer. At the end of the first +mile, Shackles crept out of the ruck, well on the outside, ready to +get round the turn, lay hold of the bit and spin up the straight +before the others knew he had got away. Brunt was sitting still, +perfectly happy, listening to the "drum, drum, drum" of the hoofs +behind, and knowing that, in about twenty strides, Shackles would +draw one deep breath and go up the last half-mile like the "Flying +Dutchman." As Shackles went short to take the turn and came abreast +of the brick-mound, Brunt heard, above the noise of the wind in his +ears, a whining, wailing voice on the offside, saying:--"God ha' +mercy, I'm done for!" In one stride, Brunt saw the whole seething +smash of the Maribyrnong Plate before him, started in his saddle and +gave a yell of terror. The start brought the heels into Shackles' +side, and the scream hurt Shackles' feelings. He couldn't stop +dead; but he put out his feet and slid along for fifty yards, and +then, very gravely and judicially, bucked off Brunt--a shaking, +terror-stricken lump, while Regula Baddun made a neck-and-neck race +with Bobolink up the straight, and won by a short head--Petard a bad +third. Shackles' owner, in the Stand, tried to think that his +field-glasses had gone wrong. Regula Baddun's owner, waiting by the +two bricks, gave one deep sigh of relief, and cantered back to the +stand. He had won, in lotteries and bets, about fifteen thousand. + +It was a broken-link Handicap with a vengeance. It broke nearly all +the men concerned, and nearly broke the heart of Shackles' owner. +He went down to interview Brunt. The boy lay, livid and gasping +with fright, where he had tumbled off. The sin of losing the race +never seemed to strike him. All he knew was that Whalley had +"called" him, that the "call" was a warning; and, were he cut in two +for it, he would never get up again. His nerve had gone altogether, +and he only asked his master to give him a good thrashing, and let +him go. He was fit for nothing, he said. He got his dismissal, and +crept up to the paddock, white as chalk, with blue lips, his knees +giving way under him. People said nasty things in the paddock; but +Brunt never heeded. He changed into tweeds, took his stick and went +down the road, still shaking with fright, and muttering over and +over again:--"God ha' mercy, I'm done for!" To the best of my +knowledge and belief he spoke the truth. + +So now you know how the Broken-Link Handicap was run and won. Of +course you don't believe it. You would credit anything about +Russia's designs on India, or the recommendations of the Currency +Commission; but a little bit of sober fact is more than you can +stand! + + + +BEYOND THE PALE. + + +"Love heeds not caste nor sleep a broken bed. I went in search of +love and lost myself." + + Hindu Proverb. + + +A man should, whatever happens, keep to his own caste, race and +breed. Let the White go to the White and the Black to the Black. +Then, whatever trouble falls is in the ordinary course of things-- +neither sudden, alien, nor unexpected. + +This is the story of a man who wilfully stepped beyond the safe +limits of decent every-day society, and paid for it heavily. + +He knew too much in the first instance; and he saw too much in the +second. He took too deep an interest in native life; but he will +never do so again. + +Deep away in the heart of the City, behind Jitha Megji's bustee, +lies Amir Nath's Gully, which ends in a dead-wall pierced by one +grated window. At the head of the Gully is a big cow-byre, and the +walls on either side of the Gully are without windows. Neither +Suchet Singh nor Gaur Chand approved of their women-folk looking +into the world. If Durga Charan had been of their opinion, he would +have been a happier man to-day, and little Biessa would have been +able to knead her own bread. Her room looked out through the grated +window into the narrow dark Gully where the sun never came and where +the buffaloes wallowed in the blue slime. She was a widow, about +fifteen years old, and she prayed the Gods, day and night, to send +her a lover; for she did not approve of living alone. + +One day the man--Trejago his name was--came into Amir Nath's Gully +on an aimless wandering; and, after he had passed the buffaloes, +stumbled over a big heap of cattle food. + +Then he saw that the Gully ended in a trap, and heard a little laugh +from behind the grated window. It was a pretty little laugh, and +Trejago, knowing that, for all practical purposes, the old Arabian +Nights are good guides, went forward to the window, and whispered +that verse of "The Love Song of Har Dyal" which begins: + + + Can a man stand upright in the face of the naked Sun; + or a Lover in the Presence of his Beloved? + If my feet fail me, O Heart of my Heart, am I to blame, + being blinded by the glimpse of your beauty? + + +There came the faint tchinks of a woman's bracelets from behind the +grating, and a little voice went on with the song at the fifth +verse: + + + Alas! alas! Can the Moon tell the Lotus of her love when the + Gate of Heaven is shut and the clouds gather for the rains? + They have taken my Beloved, and driven her with the pack-horses + to the North. + There are iron chains on the feet that were set on my heart. + Call to the bowman to make ready-- + + +The voice stopped suddenly, and Trejago walked out of Amir Nath's +Gully, wondering who in the world could have capped "The Love Song +of Har Dyal" so neatly. + +Next morning, as he was driving to the office, an old woman threw a +packet into his dog-cart. In the packet was the half of a broken +glass bangle, one flower of the blood red dhak, a pinch of bhusa or +cattle-food, and eleven cardamoms. That packet was a letter--not a +clumsy compromising letter, but an innocent, unintelligible lover's +epistle. + +Trejago knew far too much about these things, as I have said. No +Englishman should be able to translate object-letters. But Trejago +spread all the trifles on the lid of his office-box and began to +puzzle them out. + +A broken glass-bangle stands for a Hindu widow all India over; +because, when her husband dies a woman's bracelets are broken on her +wrists. Trejago saw the meaning of the little bit of the glass. +The flower of the dhak means diversely "desire," "come," "write," or +"danger," according to the other things with it. One cardamom means +"jealousy;" but when any article is duplicated in an object-letter, +it loses its symbolic meaning and stands merely for one of a number +indicating time, or, if incense, curds, or saffron be sent also, +place. The message ran then:--"A widow dhak flower and bhusa--at +eleven o'clock." The pinch of bhusa enlightened Trejago. He saw-- +this kind of letter leaves much to instinctive knowledge--that the +bhusa referred to the big heap of cattle-food over which he had +fallen in Amir Nath's Gully, and that the message must come from the +person behind the grating; she being a widow. So the message ran +then:--"A widow, in the Gully in which is the heap of bhusa, desires +you to come at eleven o'clock." + +Trejago threw all the rubbish into the fireplace and laughed. He +knew that men in the East do not make love under windows at eleven +in the forenoon, nor do women fix appointments a week in advance. +So he went, that very night at eleven, into Amir Nath's Gully, clad +in a boorka, which cloaks a man as well as a woman. Directly the +gongs in the City made the hour, the little voice behind the grating +took up "The Love Song of Har Dyal" at the verse where the Panthan +girl calls upon Har Dyal to return. The song is really pretty in +the Vernacular. In English you miss the wail of it. It runs +something like this:-- + + + Alone upon the housetops, to the North + I turn and watch the lightning in the sky,-- + The glamour of thy footsteps in the North, + Come back to me, Beloved, or I die! + + Below my feet the still bazar is laid + Far, far below the weary camels lie,-- + The camels and the captives of thy raid, + Come back to me, Beloved, or I die! + + My father's wife is old and harsh with years, + And drudge of all my father's house am I.-- + My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears, + Come back to me, Beloved, or I die! + + +As the song stopped, Trejago stepped up under the grating and +whispered:--"I am here." + +Bisesa was good to look upon. + +That night was the beginning of many strange things, and of a double +life so wild that Trejago to-day sometimes wonders if it were not +all a dream. Bisesa or her old handmaiden who had thrown the +object-letter had detached the heavy grating from the brick-work of +the wall; so that the window slid inside, leaving only a square of +raw masonry, into which an active man might climb. + +In the day-time, Trejago drove through his routine of office-work, +or put on his calling-clothes and called on the ladies of the +Station; wondering how long they would know him if they knew of poor +little Bisesa. At night, when all the City was still, came the walk +under the evil-smelling boorka, the patrol through Jitha Megji's +bustee, the quick turn into Amir Nath's Gully between the sleeping +cattle and the dead walls, and then, last of all, Bisesa, and the +deep, even breathing of the old woman who slept outside the door of +the bare little room that Durga Charan allotted to his sister's +daughter. Who or what Durga Charan was, Trejago never inquired; and +why in the world he was not discovered and knifed never occurred to +him till his madness was over, and Bisesa . . . But this comes +later. + +Bisesa was an endless delight to Trejago. She was as ignorant as a +bird; and her distorted versions of the rumors from the outside +world that had reached her in her room, amused Trejago almost as +much as her lisping attempts to pronounce his name--"Christopher." +The first syllable was always more than she could manage, and she +made funny little gestures with her rose-leaf hands, as one throwing +the name away, and then, kneeling before Trejago, asked him, exactly +as an Englishwoman would do, if he were sure he loved her. Trejago +swore that he loved her more than any one else in the world. Which +was true. + +After a month of this folly, the exigencies of his other life +compelled Trejago to be especially attentive to a lady of his +acquaintance. You may take it for a fact that anything of this kind +is not only noticed and discussed by a man's own race, but by some +hundred and fifty natives as well. Trejago had to walk with this +lady and talk to her at the Band-stand, and once or twice to drive +with her; never for an instant dreaming that this would affect his +dearer out-of-the-way life. But the news flew, in the usual +mysterious fashion, from mouth to mouth, till Bisesa's duenna heard +of it and told Bisesa. The child was so troubled that she did the +household work evilly, and was beaten by Durga Charan's wife in +consequence. + +A week later, Bisesa taxed Trejago with the flirtation. She +understood no gradations and spoke openly. Trejago laughed and +Bisesa stamped her little feet--little feet, light as marigold +flowers, that could lie in the palm of a man's one hand. + +Much that is written about "Oriental passion and impulsiveness" is +exaggerated and compiled at second-hand, but a little of it is true; +and when an Englishman finds that little, it is quite as startling +as any passion in his own proper life. Bisesa raged and stormed, +and finally threatened to kill herself if Trejago did not at once +drop the alien Memsahib who had come between them. Trejago tried to +explain, and to show her that she did not understand these things +from a Western standpoint. Bisesa drew herself up, and said simply: + +"I do not. I know only this--it is not good that I should have made +you dearer than my own heart to me, Sahib. You are an Englishman. +I am only a black girl"--she was fairer than bar-gold in the Mint-- +"and the widow of a black man." + +Then she sobbed and said: "But on my soul and my Mother's soul, I +love you. There shall no harm come to you, whatever happens to me." + +Trejago argued with the child, and tried to soothe her, but she +seemed quite unreasonably disturbed. Nothing would satisfy her save +that all relations between them should end. He was to go away at +once. And he went. As he dropped out at the window, she kissed his +forehead twice, and he walked away wondering. + +A week, and then three weeks, passed without a sign from Bisesa. +Trejago, thinking that the rupture had lasted quite long enough, +went down to Amir Nath's Gully for the fifth time in the three +weeks, hoping that his rap at the sill of the shifting grating would +be answered. He was not disappointed. + +There was a young moon, and one stream of light fell down into Amir +Nath's Gully, and struck the grating, which was drawn away as he +knocked. From the black dark, Bisesa held out her arms into the +moonlight. Both hands had been cut off at the wrists, and the +stumps were nearly healed. + +Then, as Bisesa bowed her head between her arms and sobbed, some one +in the room grunted like a wild beast, and something sharp--knife, +sword or spear--thrust at Trejago in his boorka. The stroke missed +his body, but cut into one of the muscles of the groin, and he +limped slightly from the wound for the rest of his days. + +The grating went into its place. There was no sign whatever from +inside the house--nothing but the moonlight strip on the high wall, +and the blackness of Amir Nath's Gully behind. + +The next thing Trejago remembers, after raging and shouting like a +madman between those pitiless walls, is that he found himself near +the river as the dawn was breaking, threw away his boorka and went +home bareheaded. + +What the tragedy was--whether Bisesa had, in a fit of causeless +despair, told everything, or the intrigue had been discovered and +she tortured to tell, whether Durga Charan knew his name, and what +became of Bisesa--Trejago does not know to this day. Something +horrible had happened, and the thought of what it must have been +comes upon Trejago in the night now and again, and keeps him company +till the morning. One special feature of the case is that he does +not know where lies the front of Durga Charan's house. It may open +on to a courtyard common to two or more houses, or it may lie behind +any one of the gates of Jitha Megji's bustee. Trejago cannot tell. +He cannot get Bisesa--poor little Bisesa--back again. He has lost +her in the City, where each man's house is as guarded and as +unknowable as the grave; and the grating that opens into Amir Nath's +Gully has been walled up. + +But Trejago pays his calls regularly, and is reckoned a very decent +sort of man. + +There is nothing peculiar about him, except a slight stiffness, +caused by a riding-strain, in the right leg. + + + +IN ERROR. + + +They burnt a corpse upon the sand-- + The light shone out afar; + It guided home the plunging boats + That beat from Zanzibar. + Spirit of Fire, where'er Thy altars rise. + Thou art Light of Guidance to our eyes! + + Salsette Boat-Song. + + +There is hope for a man who gets publicly and riotously drunk more +often that he ought to do; but there is no hope for the man who +drinks secretly and alone in his own house--the man who is never +seen to drink. + +This is a rule; so there must be an exception to prove it. +Moriarty's case was that exception. + +He was a Civil Engineer, and the Government, very kindly, put him +quite by himself in an out-district, with nobody but natives to talk +to and a great deal of work to do. He did his work well in the four +years he was utterly alone; but he picked up the vice of secret and +solitary drinking, and came up out of the wilderness more old and +worn and haggard than the dead-alive life had any right to make him. +You know the saying that a man who has been alone in the jungle for +more than a year is never quite sane all his life after. People +credited Moriarty's queerness of manner and moody ways to the +solitude, and said it showed how Government spoilt the futures of +its best men. Moriarty had built himself the plinth of a very god +reputation in the bridge-dam-girder line. But he knew, every night +of the week, that he was taking steps to undermine that reputation +with L. L. L. and "Christopher" and little nips of liqueurs, and +filth of that kind. He had a sound constitution and a great brain, +or else he would have broken down and died like a sick camel in the +district, as better men have done before him. + +Government ordered him to Simla after he had come out of the desert; +and he went up meaning to try for a post then vacant. That season, +Mrs. Reiver--perhaps you will remember her--was in the height of her +power, and many men lay under her yoke. Everything bad that could +be said has already been said about Mrs. Reiver, in another tale. +Moriarty was heavily-built and handsome, very quiet and nervously +anxious to please his neighbors when he wasn't sunk in a brown +study. He started a good deal at sudden noises or if spoken to +without warning; and, when you watched him drinking his glass of +water at dinner, you could see the hand shake a little. But all +this was put down to nervousness, and the quiet, steady, "sip-sip- +sip, fill and sip-sip-sip, again," that went on in his own room when +he was by himself, was never known. Which was miraculous, seeing +how everything in a man's private life is public property out here. + +Moriarty was drawn, not into Mrs. Reiver's set, because they were +not his sort, but into the power of Mrs. Reiver, and he fell down in +front of her and made a goddess of her. This was due to his coming +fresh out of the jungle to a big town. He could not scale things +properly or see who was what. + +Because Mrs. Reiver was cold and hard, he said she was stately and +dignified. Because she had no brains, and could not talk cleverly, +he said she was reserved and shy. Mrs. Reiver shy! Because she was +unworthy of honor or reverence from any one, he reverenced her from +a distance and dowered her with all the virtues in the Bible and +most of those in Shakespeare. + +This big, dark, abstracted man who was so nervous when a pony +cantered behind him, used to moon in the train of Mrs. Reiver, +blushing with pleasure when she threw a word or two his way. His +admiration was strictly platonic: even other women saw and admitted +this. He did not move out in Simla, so he heard nothing against his +idol: which was satisfactory. Mrs. Reiver took no special notice of +him, beyond seeing that he was added to her list of admirers, and +going for a walk with him now and then, just to show that he was her +property, claimable as such. Moriarty must have done most of the +talking, for Mrs. Reiver couldn't talk much to a man of his stamp; +and the little she said could not have been profitable. What +Moriarty believed in, as he had good reason to, was Mrs. Reiver's +influence over him, and, in that belief, set himself seriously to +try to do away with the vice that only he himself knew of. + +His experiences while he was fighting with it must have been +peculiar, but he never described them. Sometimes he would hold off +from everything except water for a week. Then, on a rainy night, +when no one had asked him out to dinner, and there was a big fire in +his room, and everything comfortable, he would sit down and make a +big night of it by adding little nip to little nip, planning big +schemes of reformation meanwhile, until he threw himself on his bed +hopelessly drunk. He suffered next morning. + +One night, the big crash came. He was troubled in his own mind over +his attempts to make himself "worthy of the friendship" of Mrs. +Reiver. The past ten days had been very bad ones, and the end of it +all was that he received the arrears of two and three-quarter years +of sipping in one attack of delirium tremens of the subdued kind; +beginning with suicidal depression, going on to fits and starts and +hysteria, and ending with downright raving. As he sat in a chair in +front of the fire, or walked up and down the room picking a +handkerchief to pieces, you heard what poor Moriarty really thought +of Mrs. Reiver, for he raved about her and his own fall for the most +part; though he ravelled some P. W. D. accounts into the same skein +of thought. He talked, and talked, and talked in a low dry whisper +to himself, and there was no stopping him. He seemed to know that +there was something wrong, and twice tried to pull himself together +and confer rationally with the Doctor; but his mind ran out of +control at once, and he fell back to a whisper and the story of his +troubles. It is terrible to hear a big man babbling like a child of +all that a man usually locks up, and puts away in the deep of his +heart. Moriarty read out his very soul for the benefit of any one +who was in the room between ten-thirty that night and two-forty-five +next morning. + +From what he said, one gathered how immense an influence Mrs. Reiver +held over him, and how thoroughly he felt for his own lapse. His +whisperings cannot, of course, be put down here; but they were very +instructive as showing the errors of his estimates. + + . . . . . . . . . + +When the trouble was over, and his few acquaintances were pitying +him for the bad attack of jungle-fever that had so pulled him down, +Moriarty swore a big oath to himself and went abroad again with Mrs. +Reiver till the end of the season, adoring her in a quiet and +deferential way as an angel from heaven. Later on he took to +riding--not hacking, but honest riding--which was good proof that he +was improving, and you could slam doors behind him without his +jumping to his feet with a gasp. That, again, was hopeful. + +How he kept his oath, and what it cost him in the beginning, nobody +knows. He certainly managed to compass the hardest thing that a man +who has drank heavily can do. He took his peg and wine at dinner, +but he never drank alone, and never let what he drank have the least +hold on him. + +Once he told a bosom-friend the story of his great trouble, and how +the "influence of a pure honest woman, and an angel as well" had +saved him. When the man--startled at anything good being laid to +Mrs. Reiver's door--laughed, it cost him Moriarty's friendship. +Moriarty, who is married now to a woman ten thousand times better +than Mrs. Reiver--a woman who believes that there is no man on earth +as good and clever as her husband--will go down to his grave vowing +and protesting that Mrs. Reiver saved him from ruin in both worlds. + +That she knew anything of Moriarty's weakness nobody believed for a +moment. That she would have cut him dead, thrown him over, and +acquainted all her friends with her discovery, if she had known of +it, nobody who knew her doubted for an instant. + +Moriarty thought her something she never was, and in that belief +saved himself. Which was just as good as though she had been +everything that he had imagined. + +But the question is, what claim will Mrs. Reiver have to the credit +of Moriarty's salvation, when her day of reckoning comes? + + + +A BANK FRAUD. + + +He drank strong waters and his speech was coarse; + He purchased raiment and forebore to pay; +He struck a trusting junior with a horse, + And won Gymkhanas in a doubtful way. +Then, 'twixt a vice and folly, turned aside + To do good deeds and straight to cloak them, lied. + + The Mess Room. + + +If Reggie Burke were in India now, he would resent this tale being +told; but as he is in Hong-Kong and won't see it, the telling is +safe. He was the man who worked the big fraud on the Sind and +Sialkote Bank. He was manager of an up-country Branch, and a sound +practical man with a large experience of native loan and insurance +work. He could combine the frivolities of ordinary life with his +work, and yet do well. Reggie Burke rode anything that would let +him get up, danced as neatly as he rode, and was wanted for every +sort of amusement in the Station. + +As he said himself, and as many men found out rather to their +surprise, there were two Burkes, both very much at your service. +"Reggie Burke," between four and ten, ready for anything from a hot- +weather gymkhana to a riding-picnic; and, between ten and four, "Mr. +Reginald Burke, Manager of the Sind and Sialkote Branch Bank." You +might play polo with him one afternoon and hear him express his +opinions when a man crossed; and you might call on him next morning +to raise a two-thousand rupee loan on a five hundred pound +insurance-policy, eighty pounds paid in premiums. He would +recognize you, but you would have some trouble in recognizing him. + +The Directors of the Bank--it had its headquarters in Calcutta and +its General Manager's word carried weight with the Government-- +picked their men well. They had tested Reggie up to a fairly severe +breaking-strain. They trusted him just as much as Directors ever +trust Managers. You must see for yourself whether their trust was +misplaced. + +Reggie's Branch was in a big Station, and worked with the usual +staff--one Manager, one Accountant, both English, a Cashier, and a +horde of native clerks; besides the Police patrol at nights outside. +The bulk of its work, for it was in a thriving district, was hoondi +and accommodation of all kinds. A fool has no grip of this sort of +business; and a clever man who does not go about among his clients, +and know more than a little of their affairs, is worse than a fool. +Reggie was young-looking, clean-shaved, with a twinkle in his eye, +and a head that nothing short of a gallon of the Gunners' Madeira +could make any impression on. + +One day, at a big dinner, he announced casually that the Directors +had shifted on to him a Natural Curiosity, from England, in the +Accountant line. He was perfectly correct. Mr. Silas Riley, +Accountant, was a MOST curious animal--a long, gawky, rawboned +Yorkshireman, full of the savage self-conceit that blossom's only in +the best county in England. Arrogance was a mild word for the +mental attitude of Mr. S. Riley. He had worked himself up, after +seven years, to a Cashier's position in a Huddersfield Bank; and all +his experience lay among the factories of the North. Perhaps he +would have done better on the Bombay side, where they are happy with +one-half per cent. profits, and money is cheap. He was useless for +Upper India and a wheat Province, where a man wants a large head and +a touch of imagination if he is to turn out a satisfactory balance- +sheet. + +He was wonderfully narrow-minded in business, and, being new to the +country, had no notion that Indian banking is totally distinct from +Home work. Like most clever self-made men, he had much simplicity +in his nature; and, somehow or other, had construed the ordinarily +polite terms of his letter of engagement into a belief that the +Directors had chosen him on account of his special and brilliant +talents, and that they set great store by him. This notion grew and +crystallized; thus adding to his natural North-country conceit. +Further, he was delicate, suffered from some trouble in his chest, +and was short in his temper. + +You will admit that Reggie had reason to call his new Accountant a +Natural Curiosity. The two men failed to hit it off at all. Riley +considered Reggie a wild, feather-headed idiot, given to Heaven only +knew what dissipation in low places called "Messes," and totally +unfit for the serious and solemn vocation of banking. He could +never get over Reggie's look of youth and "you-be-damned" air; and +he couldn't understand Reggie's friends--clean-built, careless men +in the Army--who rode over to big Sunday breakfasts at the Bank, and +told sultry stories till Riley got up and left the room. Riley was +always showing Reggie how the business ought to be conducted, and +Reggie had more than once to remind him that seven years' limited +experience between Huddersfield and Beverly did not qualify a man to +steer a big up-country business. Then Riley sulked and referred to +himself as a pillar of the Bank and a cherished friend of the +Directors, and Reggie tore his hair. If a man's English +subordinates fail him in this country, he comes to a hard time +indeed, for native help has strict limitations. In the winter Riley +went sick for weeks at a time with his lung complaint, and this +threw more work on Reggie. But he preferred it to the everlasting +friction when Riley was well. + +One of the Travelling Inspectors of the Bank discovered these +collapses and reported them to the Directors. Now Riley had been +foisted on the Bank by an M. P., who wanted the support of Riley's +father, who, again, was anxious to get his son out to a warmer +climate because of those lungs. The M. P. had an interest in the +Bank; but one of the Directors wanted to advance a nominee of his +own; and, after Riley's father had died, he made the rest of the +Board see that an Accountant who was sick for half the year, had +better give place to a healthy man. If Riley had known the real +story of his appointment, he might have behaved better; but knowing +nothing, his stretches of sickness alternated with restless, +persistent, meddling irritation of Reggie, and all the hundred ways +in which conceit in a subordinate situation can find play. Reggie +used to call him striking and hair-curling names behind his back as +a relief to his own feelings; but he never abused him to his face, +because he said: "Riley is such a frail beast that half of his +loathsome conceit is due to pains in the chest." + +Late one April, Riley went very sick indeed. The doctor punched him +and thumped him, and told him he would be better before long. Then +the doctor went to Reggie and said:--"Do you know how sick your +Accountant is?" "No!" said Reggie--"The worse the better, confound +him! He's a clacking nuisance when he's well. I'll let you take +away the Bank Safe if you can drug him silent for this hot-weather." + +But the doctor did not laugh--"Man, I'm not joking," he said. "I'll +give him another three months in his bed and a week or so more to +die in. On my honor and reputation that's all the grace he has in +this world. Consumption has hold of him to the marrow." + +Reggie's face changed at once into the face of "Mr. Reginald Burke," +and he answered:--"What can I do?" + +"Nothing," said the doctor. "For all practical purposes the man is +dead already. Keep him quiet and cheerful and tell him he's going +to recover. That's all. I'll look after him to the end, of +course." + +The doctor went away, and Reggie sat down to open the evening mail. +His first letter was one from the Directors, intimating for his +information that Mr. Riley was to resign, under a month's notice, by +the terms of his agreement, telling Reggie that their letter to +Riley would follow and advising Reggie of the coming of a new +Accountant, a man whom Reggie knew and liked. + +Reggie lit a cheroot, and, before he had finished smoking, he had +sketched the outline of a fraud. He put away--"burked"--the +Directors letter, and went in to talk to Riley, who was as +ungracious as usual, and fretting himself over the way the bank +would run during his illness. He never thought of the extra work on +Reggie's shoulders, but solely of the damage to his own prospects of +advancement. Then Reggie assured him that everything would be well, +and that he, Reggie, would confer with Riley daily on the management +of the Bank. Riley was a little soothed, but he hinted in as many +words that he did not think much of Reggie's business capacity. +Reggie was humble. And he had letters in his desk from the +Directors that a Gilbarte or a Hardie might have been proud of! + +The days passed in the big darkened house, and the Directors' letter +of dismissal to Riley came and was put away by Reggie, who, every +evening, brought the books to Riley's room, and showed him what had +been going forward, while Riley snarled. Reggie did his best to +make statements pleasing to Riley, but the Accountant was sure that +the Bank was going to rack and ruin without him. In June, as the +lying in bed told on his spirit, he asked whether his absence had +been noted by the Directors, and Reggie said that they had written +most sympathetic letters, hoping that he would be able to resume his +valuable services before long. He showed Riley the letters: and +Riley said that the Directors ought to have written to him direct. +A few days later, Reggie opened Riley's mail in the half-light of +the room, and gave him the sheet--not the envelope--of a letter to +Riley from the Directors. Riley said he would thank Reggie not to +interfere with his private papers, specially as Reggie knew he was +too weak to open his own letters. Reggie apologized. + +Then Riley's mood changed, and he lectured Reggie on his evil ways: +his horses and his bad friends. "Of course, lying here on my back, +Mr. Burke, I can't keep you straight; but when I'm well, I DO hope +you'll pay some heed to my words." Reggie, who had dropped polo, +and dinners, and tennis, and all to attend to Riley, said that he +was penitent and settled Riley's head on the pillow and heard him +fret and contradict in hard, dry, hacking whispers, without a sign +of impatience. This at the end of a heavy day's office work, doing +double duty, in the latter half of June. + +When the new Accountant came, Reggie told him the facts of the case, +and announced to Riley that he had a guest staying with him. Riley +said that he might have had more consideration than to entertain his +"doubtful friends" at such a time. Reggie made Carron, the new +Accountant, sleep at the Club in consequence. Carron's arrival took +some of the heavy work off his shoulders, and he had time to attend +to Riley's exactions--to explain, soothe, invent, and settle and +resettle the poor wretch in bed, and to forge complimentary letters +from Calcutta. At the end of the first month, Riley wished to send +some money home to his mother. Reggie sent the draft. At the end +of the second month, Riley's salary came in just the same. Reggie +paid it out of his own pocket; and, with it, wrote Riley a beautiful +letter from the Directors. + +Riley was very ill indeed, but the flame of his life burnt +unsteadily. Now and then he would be cheerful and confident about +the future, sketching plans for going Home and seeing his mother. +Reggie listened patiently when the office work was over, and +encouraged him. + +At other times Riley insisted on Reggie's reading the Bible and grim +"Methody" tracts to him. Out of these tracts he pointed morals +directed at his Manager. But he always found time to worry Reggie +about the working of the Bank, and to show him where the weak points +lay. + +This in-door, sick-room life and constant strains wore Reggie down a +good deal, and shook his nerves, and lowered his billiard-play by +forty points. But the business of the Bank, and the business of the +sick-room, had to go on, though the glass was 116 degrees in the +shade. + +At the end of the third month, Riley was sinking fast, and had begun +to realize that he was very sick. But the conceit that made him +worry Reggie, kept him from believing the worst. "He wants some +sort of mental stimulant if he is to drag on," said the doctor. +"Keep him interested in life if you care about his living." So +Riley, contrary to all the laws of business and the finance, +received a 25-per-cent, rise of salary from the Directors. The +"mental stimulant" succeeded beautifully. Riley was happy and +cheerful, and, as is often the case in consumption, healthiest in +mind when the body was weakest. He lingered for a full month, +snarling and fretting about the Bank, talking of the future, hearing +the Bible read, lecturing Reggie on sin, and wondering when he would +be able to move abroad. + +But at the end of September, one mercilessly hot evening, he rose up +in his bed with a little gasp, and said quickly to Reggie:--"Mr. +Burke, I am going to die. I know it in myself. My chest is all +hollow inside, and there's nothing to breathe with. To the best of +my knowledge I have done nowt"--he was returning to the talk of his +boyhood--"to lie heavy on my conscience. God be thanked, I have +been preserved from the grosser forms of sin; and I counsel YOU, Mr. +Burke . . . ." + +Here his voice died down, and Reggie stooped over him. + +"Send my salary for September to my mother. . . . done great things +with the Bank if I had been spared . . . . mistaken policy . . . . +no fault of mine." + +Then he turned his face to the wall and died. + +Reggie drew the sheet over Its face, and went out into the verandah, +with his last "mental stimulant"--a letter of condolence and +sympathy from the Directors--unused in his pocket. + +"If I'd been only ten minutes earlier," thought Reggie, "I might +have heartened him up to pull through another day." + + + +TOD'S AMENDMENT. + + +The World hath set its heavy yoke +Upon the old white-bearded folk + Who strive to please the King. +God's mercy is upon the young, +God's wisdom in the baby tongue + That fears not anything. + + The Parable of Chajju Bhagat. + + +Now Tods' Mamma was a singularly charming woman, and every one in +Simla knew Tods. Most men had saved him from death on occasions. +He was beyond his ayah's control altogether, and perilled his life +daily to find out what would happen if you pulled a Mountain Battery +mule's tail. He was an utterly fearless young Pagan, about six +years old, and the only baby who ever broke the holy calm of the +supreme Legislative Council. + +It happened this way: Tods' pet kid got loose, and fled up the hill, +off the Boileaugunge Road, Tods after it, until it burst into the +Viceregal Lodge lawn, then attached to "Peterhoff." The Council +were sitting at the time, and the windows were open because it was +warm. The Red Lancer in the porch told Tods to go away; but Tods +knew the Red Lancer and most of the Members of Council personally. +Moreover, he had firm hold of the kid's collar, and was being +dragged all across the flower-beds. "Give my salaam to the long +Councillor Sahib, and ask him to help me take Moti back!" gasped +Tods. The Council heard the noise through the open windows; and, +after an interval, was seen the shocking spectacle of a Legal Member +and a Lieutenant-Governor helping, under the direct patronage of a +Commander-in-Chief and a Viceroy, one small and very dirty boy in a +sailor's suit and a tangle of brown hair, to coerce a lively and +rebellious kid. They headed it off down the path to the Mall, and +Tods went home in triumph and told his Mamma that ALL the Councillor +Sahibs had been helping him to catch Moti. Whereat his Mamma +smacked Tods for interfering with the administration of the Empire; +but Tods met the Legal Member the next day, and told him in +confidence that if the Legal Member ever wanted to catch a goat, he, +Tods, would give him all the help in his power. "Thank you, Tods," +said the Legal Member. + +Tods was the idol of some eighty jhampanis, and half as many saises. +He saluted them all as "O Brother." It never entered his head that +any living human being could disobey his orders; and he was the +buffer between the servants and his Mamma's wrath. The working of +that household turned on Tods, who was adored by every one from the +dhoby to the dog-boy. Even Futteh Khan, the villainous loafer khit +from Mussoorie, shirked risking Tods' displeasure for fear his co- +mates should look down on him. + +So Tods had honor in the land from Boileaugunge to Chota Simla, and +ruled justly according to his lights. Of course, he spoke Urdu, but +he had also mastered many queer side-speeches like the chotee bolee +of the women, and held grave converse with shopkeepers and Hill- +coolies alike. He was precocious for his age, and his mixing with +natives had taught him some of the more bitter truths of life; the +meanness and the sordidness of it. He used, over his bread and +milk, to deliver solemn and serious aphorisms, translated from the +vernacular into the English, that made his Mamma jump and vow that +Tods MUST go home next hot weather. + +Just when Tods was in the bloom of his power, the Supreme +Legislature were hacking out a Bill, for the Sub-Montane Tracts, a +revision of the then Act, smaller than the Punjab Land Bill, but +affecting a few hundred thousand people none the less. The Legal +Member had built, and bolstered, and embroidered, and amended that +Bill, till it looked beautiful on paper. Then the Council began to +settle what they called the "minor details." As if any Englishman +legislating for natives knows enough to know which are the minor and +which are the major points, from the native point of view, of any +measure! That Bill was a triumph of "safe guarding the interests of +the tenant." One clause provided that land should not be leased on +longer terms than five years at a stretch; because, if the landlord +had a tenant bound down for, say, twenty years, he would squeeze the +very life out of him. The notion was to keep up a stream of +independent cultivators in the Sub-Montane Tracts; and +ethnologically and politically the notion was correct. The only +drawback was that it was altogether wrong. A native's life in India +implies the life of his son. Wherefore, you cannot legislate for +one generation at a time. You must consider the next from the +native point of view. Curiously enough, the native now and then, +and in Northern India more particularly, hates being over-protected +against himself. There was a Naga village once, where they lived on +dead AND buried Commissariat mules . . . . But that is another +story. + +For many reasons, to be explained later, the people concerned +objected to the Bill. The Native Member in Council knew as much +about Punjabis as he knew about Charing Cross. He had said in +Calcutta that "the Bill was entirely in accord with the desires of +that large and important class, the cultivators;" and so on, and so +on. The Legal Member's knowledge of natives was limited to English- +speaking Durbaris, and his own red chaprassis, the Sub-Montane +Tracts concerned no one in particular, the Deputy Commissioners were +a good deal too driven to make representations, and the measure was +one which dealt with small landholders only. Nevertheless, the +Legal Member prayed that it might be correct, for he was a nervously +conscientious man. He did not know that no man can tell what +natives think unless he mixes with them with the varnish off. And +not always then. But he did the best he knew. And the measure came +up to the Supreme Council for the final touches, while Tods +patrolled the Burra Simla Bazar in his morning rides, and played +with the monkey belonging to Ditta Mull, the bunnia, and listened, +as a child listens to all the stray talk about this new freak of the +Lat Sahib's. + +One day there was a dinner-party, at the house of Tods' Mamma, and +the Legal Member came. Tods was in bed, but he kept awake till he +heard the bursts of laughter from the men over the coffee. Then he +paddled out in his little red flannel dressing-gown and his night- +suit, and took refuge by the side of his father, knowing that he +would not be sent back. "See the miseries of having a family!" said +Tods' father, giving Tods three prunes, some water in a glass that +had been used for claret, and telling him to sit still. Tods sucked +the prunes slowly, knowing that he would have to go when they were +finished, and sipped the pink water like a man of the world, as he +listened to the conversation. Presently, the Legal Member, talking +"shop," to the Head of a Department, mentioned his Bill by its full +name--"The Sub-Montane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment." Tods +caught the one native word, and lifting up his small voice said:-- +"Oh, I know ALL about that! Has it been murramutted yet, Councillor +Sahib?" + +"How much?" said the Legal Member. + +"Murramutted--mended.--Put theek, you know--made nice to please +Ditta Mull!" + +The Legal Member left his place and moved up next to Tods. + +"What do you know about Ryotwari, little man?" he said. + +"I'm not a little man, I'm Tods, and I know ALL about it. Ditta +Mull, and Choga Lall, and Amir Nath, and--oh, lakhs of my friends +tell me about it in the bazars when I talk to them." + +"Oh, they do--do they? What do they say, Tods?" + +Tods tucked his feet under his red flannel dressing-gown and said:-- +"I must fink." + +The Legal Member waited patiently. Then Tods, with infinite +compassion: + +"You don't speak my talk, do you, Councillor Sahib?" + +"No; I am sorry to say I do not," said the Legal' Member. + +"Very well," said Tods. "I must fink in English." + +He spent a minute putting his ideas in order, and began very slowly, +translating in his mind from the vernacular to English, as many +Anglo-Indian children do. You must remember that the Legal Member +helped him on by questions when he halted, for Tods was not equal to +the sustained flight of oratory that follows. + +"Ditta Mull says:--'This thing is the talk of a child, and was made +up by fools.' But I don't think you are a fool, Councillor Sahib," +said Todds, hastily. "You caught my goat. This is what Ditta Mull +says:--'I am not a fool, and why should the Sirkar say I am a child? +I can see if the land is good and if the landlord is good. If I am +a fool, the sin is upon my own head. For five years I take my +ground for which I have saved money, and a wife I take too, and a +little son is born.' Ditta Mull has one daughter now, but he SAYS +he will have a son, soon. And he says: 'At the end of five years, +by this new bundobust, I must go. If I do not go, I must get fresh +seals and takkus-stamps on the papers, perhaps in the middle of the +harvest, and to go to the law-courts once is wisdom, but to go twice +is Jehannum.' That is QUITE true," explained Tods, gravely. "All +my friends say so. And Ditta Mull says:--'Always fresh takkus and +paying money to vakils and chaprassis and law-courts every five +years or else the landlord makes me go. Why do I want to go? Am I +fool? If I am a fool and do not know, after forty years, good land +when I see it, let me die! But if the new bundobust says for +FIFTEEN years, then it is good and wise. My little son is a man, +and I am burnt, and he takes the ground or another ground, paying +only once for the takkus-stamps on the papers, and his little son is +born, and at the end of fifteen years is a man too. But what profit +is there in five years and fresh papers? Nothing but dikh, trouble, +dikh. We are not young men who take these lands, but old ones--not +jais, but tradesmen with a little money--and for fifteen years we +shall have peace. Nor are we children that the Sirkar should treat +us so." + +Here Tods stopped short, for the whole table were listening. The +Legal Member said to Tods: "Is that all?" + +"All I can remember," said Tods. "But you should see Ditta Mull's +big monkey. It's just like a Councillor Sahib." + +"Tods! Go to bed," said his father. + +Tods gathered up his dressing-gown tail and departed. + +The Legal Member brought his hand down on the table with a crash-- +"By Jove!" said the Legal Member, "I believe the boy is right. The +short tenure IS the weak point." + +He left early, thinking over what Tods had said. Now, it was +obviously impossible for the Legal Member to play with a bunnia's +monkey, by way of getting understanding; but he did better. He made +inquiries, always bearing in mind the fact that the real native--not +the hybrid, University-trained mule--is as timid as a colt, and, +little by little, he coaxed some of the men whom the measure +concerned most intimately to give in their views, which squared very +closely with Tods' evidence. + +So the Bill was amended in that clause; and the Legal Member was +filled with an uneasy suspicion that Native Members represent very +little except the Orders they carry on their bosoms. But he put the +thought from him as illiberal. He was a most Liberal Man. + +After a time the news spread through the bazars that Tods had got +the Bill recast in the tenure clause, and if Tods' Mamma had not +interfered, Tods would have made himself sick on the baskets of +fruit and pistachio nuts and Cabuli grapes and almonds that crowded +the verandah. Till he went Home, Tods ranked some few degrees +before the Viceroy in popular estimation. But for the little life +of him Tods could not understand why. + +In the Legal Member's private-paper-box still lies the rough draft +of the Sub-Montane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment; and, opposite +the twenty-second clause, pencilled in blue chalk, and signed by the +Legal Member, are the words "Tods' Amendment." + + + +IN THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH. + + +"Stopped in the straight when the race was his own! +Look at him cutting it--cur to the bone!" +"Ask ere the youngster be rated and chidden, +What did he carry and how was he ridden? +Maybe they used him too much at the start; +Maybe Fate's weight-cloths are breaking his heart." + + Life's Handicap. + + +When I was telling you of the joke that The Worm played off on the +Senior Subaltern, I promised a somewhat similar tale, but with all +the jest left out. This is that tale: + +Dicky Hatt was kidnapped in his early, early youth--neither by +landlady's daughter, housemaid, barmaid, nor cook, but by a girl so +nearly of his own caste that only a woman could have said she was +just the least little bit in the world below it. This happened a +month before he came out to India, and five days after his one-and- +twentieth birthday. The girl was nineteen--six years older than +Dicky in the things of this world, that is to say--and, for the +time, twice as foolish as he. + +Excepting, always, falling off a horse there is nothing more fatally +easy than marriage before the Registrar. The ceremony costs less +than fifty shillings, and is remarkably like walking into a pawn- +shop. After the declarations of residence have been put in, four +minutes will cover the rest of the proceedings--fees, attestation, +and all. Then the Registrar slides the blotting-pad over the names, +and says grimly, with his pen between his teeth:--"Now you're man +and wife;" and the couple walk out into the street, feeling as if +something were horribly illegal somewhere. + +But that ceremony holds and can drag a man to his undoing just as +thoroughly as the "long as ye both shall live" curse from the altar- +rails, with the bridesmaids giggling behind, and "The Voice that +breathed o'er Eden" lifting the roof off. In this manner was Dicky +Hatt kidnapped, and he considered it vastly fine, for he had +received an appointment in India which carried a magnificent salary +from the Home point of view. The marriage was to be kept secret for +a year. Then Mrs. Dicky Hatt was to come out and the rest of life +was to be a glorious golden mist. That was how they sketched it +under the Addison Road Station lamps; and, after one short month, +came Gravesend and Dicky steaming out to his new life, and the girl +crying in a thirty-shillings a week bed-and-living room, in a back +street off Montpelier Square near the Knightsbridge Barracks. + +But the country that Dicky came to was a hard land, where "men" of +twenty-one were reckoned very small boys indeed, and life was +expensive. The salary that loomed so large six thousand miles away +did not go far. Particularly when Dicky divided it by two, and +remitted more than the fair half, at 1-6, to Montpelier Square. One +hundred and thirty-five rupees out of three hundred and thirty is +not much to live on; but it was absurd to suppose that Mrs. Hatt +could exist forever on the 20 pounds held back by Dicky, from his +outfit allowance. Dicky saw this, and remitted at once; always +remembering that Rs. 700 were to be paid, twelve months later, for a +first-class passage out for a lady. When you add to these trifling +details the natural instincts of a boy beginning a new life in a new +country and longing to go about and enjoy himself, and the necessity +for grappling with strange work--which, properly speaking, should +take up a boy's undivided attention--you will see that Dicky started +handicapped. He saw it himself for a breath or two; but he did not +guess the full beauty of his future. + +As the hot weather began, the shackles settled on him and ate into +his flesh. First would come letters--big, crossed, seven sheet +letters--from his wife, telling him how she longed to see him, and +what a Heaven upon earth would be their property when they met. +Then some boy of the chummery wherein Dicky lodged would pound on +the door of his bare little room, and tell him to come out and look +at a pony--the very thing to suit him. Dicky could not afford +ponies. He had to explain this. Dicky could not afford living in +the chummery, modest as it was. He had to explain this before he +moved to a single room next the office where he worked all day. He +kept house on a green oil-cloth table-cover, one chair, one charpoy, +one photograph, one tooth-glass, very strong and thick, a seven- +rupee eight-anna filter, and messing by contract at thirty-seven +rupees a month. Which last item was extortion. He had no punkah, +for a punkah costs fifteen rupees a month; but he slept on the roof +of the office with all his wife's letters under his pillow. Now and +again he was asked out to dinner where he got both a punkah and an +iced drink. But this was seldom, for people objected to recognizing +a boy who had evidently the instincts of a Scotch tallow-chandler, +and who lived in such a nasty fashion. Dicky could not subscribe to +any amusement, so he found no amusement except the pleasure of +turning over his Bank-book and reading what it said about "loans on +approved security." That cost nothing. He remitted through a +Bombay Bank, by the way, and the Station knew nothing of his private +affairs. + +Every month he sent Home all he could possibly spare for his wife-- +and for another reason which was expected to explain itself shortly +and would require more money. + +About this time, Dicky was overtaken with the nervous, haunting fear +that besets married men when they are out of sorts. He had no +pension to look to. What if he should die suddenly, and leave his +wife unprovided for? The thought used to lay hold of him in the +still, hot nights on the roof, till the shaking of his heart made +him think that he was going to die then and there of heart-disease. +Now this is a frame of mind which no boy has a right to know. It is +a strong man's trouble; but, coming when it did, it nearly drove +poor punkah-less, perspiring Dicky Hatt mad. He could tell no one +about it. + +A certain amount of "screw" is as necessary for a man as for a +billiard-ball. It makes them both do wonderful things. Dicky +needed money badly, and he worked for it like a horse. But, +naturally, the men who owned him knew that a boy can live very +comfortably on a certain income--pay in India is a matter of age, +not merit, you see, and if their particular boy wished to work like +two boys, Business forbid that they should stop him! But Business +forbid that they should give him an increase of pay at his present +ridiculously immature age! So Dicky won certain rises of salary-- +ample for a boy--not enough for a wife and child--certainly too +little for the seven-hundred-rupee passage that he and Mrs. Hatt had +discussed so lightly once upon a time. And with this he was forced +to be content. + +Somehow, all his money seemed to fade away in Home drafts and the +crushing Exchange, and the tone of the Home letters changed and grew +querulous. "Why wouldn't Dicky have his wife and the baby out? +Surely he had a salary--a fine salary--and it was too bad of him to +enjoy himself in India. But would he--could he--make the next draft +a little more elastic?" Here followed a list of baby's kit, as long +as a Parsee's bill. Then Dicky, whose heart yearned to his wife and +the little son he had never seen--which, again, is a feeling no boy +is entitled to--enlarged the draft and wrote queer half-boy, half- +man letters, saying that life was not so enjoyable after all and +would the little wife wait yet a little longer? But the little +wife, however much she approved of money, objected to waiting, and +there was a strange, hard sort of ring in her letters that Dicky +didn't understand. How could he, poor boy? + +Later on still--just as Dicky had been told--apropos of another +youngster who had "made a fool of himself," as the saying is--that +matrimony would not only ruin his further chances of advancement, +but would lose him his present appointment--came the news that the +baby, his own little, little son, had died, and, behind this, forty +lines of an angry woman's scrawl, saying that death might have been +averted if certain things, all costing money, had been done, or if +the mother and the baby had been with Dicky. The letter struck at +Dicky's naked heart; but, not being officially entitled to a baby, +he could show no sign of trouble. + +How Dicky won through the next four months, and what hope he kept +alight to force him into his work, no one dare say. He pounded on, +the seven-hundred-rupee passage as far away as ever, and his style +of living unchanged, except when he launched into a new filter. +There was the strain of his office-work, and the strain of his +remittances, and the knowledge of his boy's death, which touched the +boy more, perhaps, than it would have touched a man; and, beyond +all, the enduring strain of his daily life. Gray-headed seniors, +who approved of his thrift and his fashion of denying himself +everything pleasant, reminded him of the old saw that says: + + + "If a youth would be distinguished in his art, art, art, + He must keep the girls away from his heart, heart, heart." + + +And Dicky, who fancied he had been through every trouble that a man +is permitted to know, had to laugh and agree; with the last line of +his balanced Bank-book jingling in his head day and night. + +But he had one more sorrow to digest before the end. There arrived +a letter from the little wife--the natural sequence of the others if +Dicky had only known it--and the burden of that letter was "gone +with a handsomer man than you." It was a rather curious production, +without stops, something like this:--"She was not going to wait +forever and the baby was dead and Dicky was only a boy and he would +never set eyes on her again and why hadn't he waved his handkerchief +to her when he left Gravesend and God was her judge she was a wicked +woman but Dicky was worse enjoying himself in India and this other +man loved the ground she trod on and would Dicky ever forgive her +for she would never forgive Dicky; and there was no address to write +to." + +Instead of thanking his lucky stars that he was free, Dicky +discovered exactly how an injured husband feels--again, not at all +the knowledge to which a boy is entitled--for his mind went back to +his wife as he remembered her in the thirty-shilling "suite" in +Montpelier Square, when the dawn of his last morning in England was +breaking, and she was crying in the bed. Whereat he rolled about on +his bed and bit his fingers. He never stopped to think whether, if +he had met Mrs. Hatt after those two years, he would have discovered +that he and she had grown quite different and new persons. This, +theoretically, he ought to have done. He spent the night after the +English Mail came in rather severe pain. + +Next morning, Dicky Hatt felt disinclined to work. He argued that +he had missed the pleasure of youth. He was tired, and he had +tasted all the sorrow in life before three-and-twenty. His Honor +was gone--that was the man; and now he, too, would go to the Devil-- +that was the boy in him. So he put his head down on the green oil- +cloth table-cover, and wept before resigning his post, and all it +offered. + +But the reward of his services came. He was given three days to +reconsider himself, and the Head of the establishment, after some +telegraphings, said that it was a most unusual step, but, in view of +the ability that Mr. Hatt had displayed at such and such a time, at +such and such junctures, he was in a position to offer him an +infinitely superior post--first on probation, and later, in the +natural course of things, on confirmation. "And how much does the +post carry?" said Dicky. "Six hundred and fifty rupees," said the +Head slowly, expecting to see the young man sink with gratitude and +joy. + +And it came then! The seven hundred rupee passage, and enough to +have saved the wife, and the little son, and to have allowed of +assured and open marriage, came then. Dicky burst into a roar of +laughter--laughter he could not check--nasty, jangling merriment +that seemed as if it would go on forever. When he had recovered +himself he said, quite seriously:--"I'm tired of work. I'm an old +man now. It's about time I retired. And I will." + +"The boy's mad!" said the Head. + +I think he was right; but Dicky Hatt never reappeared to settle the +question. + + + +PIG. + + +Go, stalk the red deer o'er the heather + Ride, follow the fox if you can! +But, for pleasure and profit together, + Allow me the hunting of Man,-- +The chase of the Human, the search for the Soul + To its ruin,--the hunting of Man. + + The Old Shikarri. + + +I believe the difference began in the matter of a horse, with a +twist in his temper, whom Pinecoffin sold to Nafferton and by whom +Nafferton was nearly slain. There may have been other causes of +offence; the horse was the official stalking-horse. Nafferton was +very angry; but Pinecoffin laughed and said that he had never +guaranteed the beast's manners. Nafferton laughed, too, though he +vowed that he would write off his fall against Pinecoffin if he +waited five years. Now, a Dalesman from beyond Skipton will forgive +an injury when the Strid lets a man live; but a South Devon man is +as soft as a Dartmoor bog. You can see from their names that +Nafferton had the race-advantage of Pinecoffin. He was a peculiar +man, and his notions of humor were cruel. He taught me a new and +fascinating form of shikar. He hounded Pinecoffin from Mithankot to +Jagadri, and from Gurgaon to Abbottabad up and across the Punjab, a +large province and in places remarkably dry. He said that he had no +intention of allowing Assistant Commissioners to "sell him pups," in +the shape of ramping, screaming countrybreds, without making their +lives a burden to them. + +Most Assistant Commissioners develop a bent for some special work +after their first hot weather in the country. The boys with +digestions hope to write their names large on the Frontier and +struggle for dreary places like Bannu and Kohat. The bilious ones +climb into the Secretariat. Which is very bad for the liver. +Others are bitten with a mania for District work, Ghuznivide coins +or Persian poetry; while some, who come of farmers' stock, find that +the smell of the Earth after the Rains gets into their blood, and +calls them to "develop the resources of the Province." These men +are enthusiasts. Pinecoffin belonged to their class. He knew a +great many facts bearing on the cost of bullocks and temporary +wells, and opium-scrapers, and what happens if you burn too much +rubbish on a field, in the hope of enriching used-up soil. All the +Pinecoffins come of a landholding breed, and so the land only took +back her own again. Unfortunately--most unfortunately for +Pinecoffin--he was a Civilian, as well as a farmer. Nafferton +watched him, and thought about the horse. Nafferton said:--"See me +chase that boy till he drops!" I said:--"You can't get your knife +into an Assistant Commissioner." Nafferton told me that I did not +understand the administration of the Province. + +Our Government is rather peculiar. It gushes on the agricultural +and general information side, and will supply a moderately +respectable man with all sorts of "economic statistics," if he +speaks to it prettily. For instance, you are interested in gold- +washing in the sands of the Sutlej. You pull the string, and find +that it wakes up half a dozen Departments, and finally communicates, +say, with a friend of yours in the Telegraph, who once wrote some +notes on the customs of the gold-washers when he was on +construction-work in their part of the Empire. He may or may not be +pleased at being ordered to write out everything he knows for your +benefit. This depends on his temperament. The bigger man you are, +the more information and the greater trouble can you raise. + +Nafferton was not a big man; but he had the reputation of being very +earnest." An "earnest" man can do much with a Government. There +was an earnest man who once nearly wrecked . . . but all India knows +THAT story. I am not sure what real "earnestness" is. A very fair +imitation can be manufactured by neglecting to dress decently, by +mooning about in a dreamy, misty sort of way, by taking office-work +home after staying in office till seven, and by receiving crowds of +native gentlemen on Sundays. That is one sort of "earnestness." + +Nafferton cast about for a peg whereon to hang his earnestness, and +for a string that would communicate with Pinecoffin. He found both. +They were Pig. Nafferton became an earnest inquirer after Pig. He +informed the Government that he had a scheme whereby a very large +percentage of the British Army in India could be fed, at a very +large saving, on Pig. Then he hinted that Pinecoffin might supply +him with the "varied information necessary to the proper inception +of the scheme." So the Government wrote on the back of the letter:-- +"Instruct Mr. Pinecoffin to furnish Mr. Nafferton with any +information in his power." Government is very prone to writing +things on the backs of letters which, later, lead to trouble and +confusion. + +Nafferton had not the faintest interest in Pig, but he knew that +Pinecoffin would flounce into the trap. Pinecoffin was delighted at +being consulted about Pig. The Indian Pig is not exactly an +important factor in agricultural life; but Nafferton explained to +Pinecoffin that there was room for improvement, and corresponded +direct with that young man. + +You may think that there is not much to be evolved from Pig. It all +depends how you set to work. Pinecoffin being a Civilian and +wishing to do things thoroughly, began with an essay on the +Primitive Pig, the Mythology of the Pig, and the Dravidian Pig. +Nafferton filed that information--twenty-seven foolscap sheets--and +wanted to know about the distribution of the Pig in the Punjab, and +how it stood the Plains in the hot weather. From this point +onwards, remember that I am giving you only the barest outlines of +the affair--the guy-ropes, as it were, of the web that Nafferton +spun round Pinecoffin. + +Pinecoffin made a colored Pig-population map, and collected +observations on the comparative longevity of the Pig (a) in the sub- +montane tracts of the Himalayas, and (b) in the Rechna Doab. +Nafferton filed that, and asked what sort of people looked after +Pig. This started an ethnological excursus on swineherds, and drew +from Pinecoffin long tables showing the proportion per thousand of +the caste in the Derajat. Nafferton filed that bundle, and +explained that the figures which he wanted referred to the Cis- +Sutlej states, where he understood that Pigs were very fine and +large, and where he proposed to start a Piggery. By this time, +Government had quite forgotten their instructions to Mr. Pinecoffin. +They were like the gentlemen, in Keats' poem, who turned well-oiled +wheels to skin other people. But Pinecoffin was just entering into +the spirit of the Pig-hunt, as Nafferton well knew he would do. He +had a fair amount of work of his own to clear away; but he sat up of +nights reducing Pig to five places of decimals for the honor of his +Service. He was not going to appear ignorant of so easy a subject +as Pig. + +Then Government sent him on special duty to Kohat, to "inquire into" +the big-seven-foot, iron-shod spades of that District. People had +been killing each other with those peaceful tools; and Government +wished to know "whether a modified form of agricultural implement +could not, tentatively and as a temporary measure, be introduced +among the agricultural population without needlessly or unduly +exasperating the existing religious sentiments of the peasantry." + +Between those spades and Nafferton's Pig, Pinecoffin was rather +heavily burdened. + +Nafferton now began to take up "(a) The food-supply of the +indigenous Pig, with a view to the improvement of its capacities as +a flesh-former. (b) The acclimatization of the exotic Pig, +maintaining its distinctive peculiarities." Pinecoffin replied +exhaustively that the exotic Pig would become merged in the +indigenous type; and quoted horse-breeding statistics to prove this. +The side-issue was debated, at great length on Pinecoffin's side, +till Nafferton owned that he had been in the wrong, and moved the +previous question. When Pinecoffin had quite written himself out +about flesh-formers, and fibrins, and glucose and the nitrogenous +constituents of maize and lucerne, Nafferton raised the question of +expense. By this time Pinecoffin, who had been transferred from +Kohat, had developed a Pig theory of his own, which he stated in +thirty-three folio pages--all carefully filed by Nafferton. Who +asked for more. + +These things took ten months, and Pinecoffin's interest in the +potential Piggery seemed to die down after he had stated his own +views. But Nafferton bombarded him with letters on "the Imperial +aspect of the scheme, as tending to officialize the sale of pork, +and thereby calculated to give offence to the Mahomedan population +of Upper India." He guessed that Pinecoffin would want some broad, +free-hand work after his niggling, stippling, decimal details. +Pinecoffin handled the latest development of the case in masterly +style, and proved that no "popular ebullition of excitement was to +be apprehended." Nafferton said that there was nothing like +Civilian insight in matters of this kind, and lured him up a bye- +path--"the possible profits to accrue to the Government from the +sale of hog-bristles." There is an extensive literature of hog- +bristles, and the shoe, brush, and colorman's trades recognize more +varieties of bristles than you would think possible. After +Pinecoffin had wondered a little at Nafferton's rage for +information, he sent back a monograph, fifty-one pages, on "Products +of the Pig." This led him, under Nafferton's tender handling, +straight to the Cawnpore factories, the trade in hog-skin for +saddles--and thence to the tanners. Pinecoffin wrote that +pomegranate-seed was the best cure for hog-skin, and suggested--for +the past fourteen months had wearied him--that Nafferton should +"raise his pigs before he tanned them." + +Nafferton went back to the second section of his fifth question. +How could the exotic Pig be brought to give as much pork as it did +in the West and yet "assume the essentially hirsute characteristics +of its oriental congener?" Pinecoffin felt dazed, for he had +forgotten what he had written sixteen month's before, and fancied +that he was about to reopen the entire question. He was too far +involved in the hideous tangle to retreat, and, in a weak moment, he +wrote:--"Consult my first letter." Which related to the Dravidian +Pig. As a matter of fact, Pinecoffin had still to reach the +acclimatization stage; having gone off on a side-issue on the +merging of types. + +THEN Nafferton really unmasked his batteries! He complained to the +Government, in stately language, of "the paucity of help accorded to +me in my earnest attempts to start a potentially remunerative +industry, and the flippancy with which my requests for information +are treated by a gentleman whose pseudo-scholarly attainments should +at lest have taught him the primary differences between the +Dravidian and the Berkshire variety of the genus Sus. If I am to +understand that the letter to which he refers me contains his +serious views on the acclimatization of a valuable, though possibly +uncleanly, animal, I am reluctantly compelled to believe," etc., +etc. + +There was a new man at the head of the Department of Castigation. +The wretched Pinecoffin was told that the Service was made for the +Country, and not the Country for the Service, and that he had better +begin to supply information about Pigs. + +Pinecoffin answered insanely that he had written everything that +could be written about Pig, and that some furlough was due to him. + +Nafferton got a copy of that letter, and sent it, with the essay on +the Dravidian Pig, to a down-country paper, which printed both in +full. The essay was rather highflown; but if the Editor had seen +the stacks of paper, in Pinecoffin's handwriting, on Nafferton's +table, he would not have been so sarcastic about the "nebulous +discursiveness and blatant self-sufficiency of the modern +Competition-wallah, and his utter inability to grasp the practical +issues of a practical question." Many friends cut out these remarks +and sent them to Pinecoffin. + +I have already stated that Pinecoffin came of a soft stock. This +last stroke frightened and shook him. He could not understand it; +but he felt he had been, somehow, shamelessly betrayed by Nafferton. +He realized that he had wrapped himself up in the Pigskin without +need, and that he could not well set himself right with his +Government. All his acquaintances asked after his "nebulous +discursiveness" or his "blatant self-sufficiency," and this made him +miserable. + +He took a train and went to Nafferton, whom he had not seen since +the Pig business began. He also took the cutting from the paper, +and blustered feebly and called Nafferton names, and then died down +to a watery, weak protest of the "I-say-it's-too-bad-you-know" +order. + +Nafferton was very sympathetic. + +"I'm afraid I've given you a good deal of trouble, haven't I?" said +he. + +"Trouble!" whimpered Pinecoffin; "I don't mind the trouble so much, +though that was bad enough; but what I resent is this showing up in +print. It will stick to me like a burr all through my service. And +I DID do my best for your interminable swine. It's too bad of you, +on my soul it is!" + +"I don't know," said Nafferton; "have you ever been stuck with a +horse? It isn't the money I mind, though that is bad enough; but +what I resent is the chaff that follows, especially from the boy who +stuck me. But I think we'll cry quite now." + +Pinecoffin found nothing to say save bad words; and Nafferton smiled +ever so sweetly, and asked him to dinner. + + + +THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS. + + +It was not in the open fight + We threw away the sword, +But in the lonely watching + In the darkness by the ford. +The waters lapped, the night-wind blew, +Full-armed the Fear was born and grew, +And we were flying ere we knew + From panic in the night. + + Beoni Bar. + + +Some people hold that an English Cavalry regiment cannot run. This +is a mistake. I have seen four hundred and thirty-seven sabres +flying over the face of the country in abject terror--have seen the +best Regiment that ever drew bridle, wiped off the Army List for the +space of two hours. If you repeat this tale to the White Hussars +they will, in all probability, treat you severely. They are not +proud of the incident. + +You may know the White Hussars by their "side," which is greater +than that of all the Cavalry Regiments on the roster. If this is +not a sufficient mark, you may know them by their old brandy. It +has been sixty years in the Mess and is worth going far to taste. +Ask for the "McGaire" old brandy, and see that you get it. If the +Mess Sergeant thinks that you are uneducated, and that the genuine +article will be lost on you, he will treat you accordingly. He is a +good man. But, when you are at Mess, you must never talk to your +hosts about forced marches or long-distance rides. The Mess are +very sensitive; and, if they think that you are laughing at them, +will tell you so. + +As the White Hussars say, it was all the Colonel's fault. He was a +new man, and he ought never to have taken the Command. He said that +the Regiment was not smart enough. This to the White Hussars, who +knew they could walk round any Horse and through any Guns, and over +any Foot on the face of the earth! That insult was the first cause +of offence. + +Then the Colonel cast the Drum-Horse--the Drum-Horse of the White +Hussars! Perhaps you do not see what an unspeakable crime he had +committed. I will try to make it clear. The soul of the Regiment +lives in the Drum-Horse, who carries the silver kettle-drums. He is +nearly always a big piebald Waler. That is a point of honor; and a +Regiment will spend anything you please on a piebald. He is beyond +the ordinary laws of casting. His work is very light, and he only +manoeuvres at a foot-pace. Wherefore, so long as he can step out +and look handsome, his well-being is assured. He knows more about +the Regiment than the Adjutant, and could not make a mistake if he +tried. + +The Drum-Horse of the White Hussars was only eighteen years old, and +perfectly equal to his duties. He had at least six years' more work +in him, and carried himself with all the pomp and dignity of a Drum- +Major of the Guards. The Regiment had paid Rs. 1,200 for him. + +But the Colonel said that he must go, and he was cast in due form +and replaced by a washy, bay beast as ugly as a mule, with a ewe- +neck, rat-tail, and cow-hocks. The Drummer detested that animal, +and the best of the Band-horses put back their ears and showed the +whites of their eyes at the very sight of him. They knew him for an +upstart and no gentleman. I fancy that the Colonel's ideas of +smartness extended to the Band, and that he wanted to make it take +part in the regular parade movements. A Cavalry Band is a sacred +thing. It only turns out for Commanding Officers' parades, and the +Band Master is one degree more important than the Colonel. He is a +High Priest and the "Keel Row" is his holy song. The "Keel Row" is +the Cavalry Trot; and the man who has never heard that tune rising, +high and shrill, above the rattle of the Regiment going past the +saluting-base, has something yet to hear and understand. + +When the Colonel cast the Drum-horse of the White Hussars, there was +nearly a mutiny. + +The officers were angry, the Regiment were furious, and the Bandsman +swore--like troopers. The Drum-Horse was going to be put up to +auction--public auction--to be bought, perhaps, by a Parsee and put +into a cart! It was worse than exposing the inner life of the +Regiment to the whole world, or selling the Mess Plate to a Jew--a +black Jew. + +The Colonel was a mean man and a bully. He knew what the Regiment +thought about his action; and, when the troopers offered to buy the +Drum-Horse, he said that their offer was mutinous and forbidden by +the Regulations. + +But one of the Subalterns--Hogan-Yale, an Irishman--bought the Drum- +Horse for Rs. 160 at the sale; and the Colonel was wroth. Yale +professed repentance--he was unnaturally submissive--and said that, +as he had only made the purchase to save the horse from possible +ill-treatment and starvation, he would now shoot him and end the +business. This appeared to soothe the Colonel, for he wanted the +Drum-Horse disposed of. He felt that he had made a mistake, and +could not of course acknowledge it. Meantime, the presence of the +Drum-Horse was an annoyance to him. + +Yale took to himself a glass of the old brandy, three cheroots, and +his friend, Martyn; and they all left the Mess together. Yale and +Martyn conferred for two hours in Yale's quarters; but only the +bull-terrier who keeps watch over Yale's boot-trees knows what they +said. A horse, hooded and sheeted to his ears, left Yale's stables +and was taken, very unwillingly, into the Civil Lines. Yale's groom +went with him. Two men broke into the Regimental Theatre and took +several paint-pots and some large scenery brushes. Then night fell +over the Cantonments, and there was a noise as of a horse kicking +his loose-box to pieces in Yale's stables. Yale had a big, old, +white Waler trap-horse. + +The next day was a Thursday, and the men, hearing that Yale was +going to shoot the Drum-Horse in the evening, determined to give the +beast a regular regimental funeral--a finer one than they would have +given the Colonel had he died just then. They got a bullock-cart +and some sacking, and mounds and mounds of roses, and the body, +under sacking, was carried out to the place where the anthrax cases +were cremated; two-thirds of the Regiment followed. There was no +Band, but they all sang "The Place where the old Horse died" as +something respectful and appropriate to the occasion. When the +corpse was dumped into the grave and the men began throwing down +armfuls of roses to cover it, the Farrier-Sergeant ripped out an +oath and said aloud:--"Why, it ain't the Drum-Horse any more than +it's me!" The Troop-Sergeant-Majors asked him whether he had left +his head in the Canteen. The Farrier-Sergeant said that he knew the +Drum-Horse's feet as well as he knew his own; but he was silenced +when he saw the regimental number burnt in on the poor stiff, +upturned near-fore. + +Thus was the Drum-Horse of the White Hussars buried; the Farrier- +Sergeant grumbling. The sacking that covered the corpse was smeared +in places with black paint; and the Farrier-Sergeant drew attention +to this fact. But the Troop-Sergeant-Major of E Troop kicked him +severely on the shin, and told him that he was undoubtedly drunk. + +On the Monday following the burial, the Colonel sought revenge on +the White Hussars. Unfortunately, being at that time temporarily in +Command of the Station, he ordered a Brigade field-day. He said +that he wished to make the regiment "sweat for their damned +insolence," and he carried out his notion thoroughly. That Monday +was one of the hardest days in the memory of the White Hussars. +They were thrown against a skeleton-enemy, and pushed forward, and +withdrawn, and dismounted, and "scientifically handled" in every +possible fashion over dusty country, till they sweated profusely. +Their only amusement came late in the day, when they fell upon the +battery of Horse Artillery and chased it for two mile's. This was a +personal question, and most of the troopers had money on the event; +the Gunners saying openly that they had the legs of the White +Hussars. They were wrong. A march-past concluded the campaign, and +when the Regiment got back to their Lines, the men were coated with +dirt from spur to chin-strap. + +The White Hussars have one great and peculiar privilege. They won +it at Fontenoy, I think. + +Many Regiments possess special rights, such as wearing collars with +undress uniform, or a bow of ribbon between the shoulders, or red +and white roses in their helmets on certain days of the year. Some +rights are connected with regimental saints, and some with +regimental successes. All are valued highly; but none so highly as +the right of the White Hussars to have the Band playing when their +horses are being watered in the Lines. Only one tune is played. +and that tune never varies. I don't know its real name, but the +White Hussars call it:--"Take me to London again." It sound's very +pretty. The Regiment would sooner be struck off the roster than +forego their distinction. + +After the "dismiss" was sounded, the officers rode off home to +prepare for stables; and the men filed into the lines, riding easy. +That is to say, they opened their tight buttons, shifted their +helmets, and began to joke or to swear as the humor took them; the +more careful slipping off and easing girths and curbs. A good +trooper values his mount exactly as much as he values himself, and +believes, or should believe, that the two together are irresistible +where women or men, girl's or gun's, are concerned. + +Then the Orderly-Officer gave the order:--"Water horses," and the +Regiment loafed off to the squadron-troughs, which were in rear of +the stables and between these and the barracks. There were four +huge troughs, one for each squadron, arranged en echelon, so that +the whole Regiment could water in ten minutes if it liked. But it +lingered for seventeen, as a rule, while the Band played. + +The band struck up as the squadrons filed off the troughs and the +men slipped their feet out of the stirrups and chaffed each other. +The sun was just setting in a big, hot bed of red cloud, and the +road to the Civil Lines seemed to run straight into the sun's eye. +There was a little dot on the road. It grew and grew till it showed +as a horse, with a sort of gridiron thing on his back. The red +cloud glared through the bars of the gridiron. Some of the troopers +shaded their eyes with their hands and said:--"What the mischief as +that there 'orse got on 'im!" + +In another minute they heard a neigh that every soul--horse and man-- +in the Regiment knew, and saw, heading straight towards the Band, +the dead Drum-Horse of the White Hussars! + +On his withers banged and bumped the kettle-drums draped in crape, +and on his back, very stiff and soldierly, sat a bare-headed +skeleton. + +The band stopped playing, and, for a moment, there was a hush. + +Then some one in E troop--men said it was the Troop-Sergeant-Major-- +swung his horse round and yelled. No one can account exactly for +what happened afterwards; but it seems that, at least, one man in +each troop set an example of panic, and the rest followed like +sheep. The horses that had barely put their muzzles into the +trough's reared and capered; but, as soon as the Band broke, which +it did when the ghost of the Drum-Horse was about a furlong distant, +all hooves followed suit, and the clatter of the stampede--quite +different from the orderly throb and roar of a movement on parade, +or the rough horse-play of watering in camp--made them only more +terrified. They felt that the men on their backs were afraid of +something. When horses once know THAT, all is over except the +butchery. + +Troop after troop turned from the troughs and ran--anywhere, and +everywhere--like spit quicksilver. It was a most extraordinary +spectacle, for men and horses were in all stages of easiness, and +the carbine-buckets flopping against their sides urged the horses +on. Men were shouting and cursing, and trying to pull clear of the +Band which was being chased by the Drum-Horse whose rider had fallen +forward and seemed to be spurring for a wager. + +The Colonel had gone over to the Mess for a drink. Most of the +officers were with him, and the Subaltern of the Day was preparing +to go down to the lines, and receive the watering reports from the +Troop-Sergeant Majors. When "Take me to London again" stopped, +after twenty bars, every one in the Mess said:--"What on earth has +happened?" A minute later, they heard unmilitary noises, and saw, +far across the plain, the White Hussars scattered, and broken, and +flying. + +The Colonel was speechless with rage, for he thought that the +Regiment had risen against him or was unanimously drunk. The Band, +a disorganized mob, tore past, and at it's heels labored the Drum- +Horse--the dead and buried Drum-Horse--with the jolting, clattering +skeleton. Hogan-Yale whispered softly to Martyn:--"No wire will +stand that treatment," and the Band, which had doubled like a hare, +came back again. But the rest of the Regiment was gone, was rioting +all over the Province, for the dusk had shut in and each man was +howling to his neighbor that the Drum-Horse was on his flank. +Troop-Horses are far too tenderly treated as a rule. They can, on +emergencies, do a great deal, even with seventeen stone on their +backs. As the troopers found out. + +How long this panic lasted I cannot say. I believe that when the +moon rose the men saw they had nothing to fear, and, by twos and +threes and half-troops, crept back into Cantonments very much +ashamed of themselves. Meantime, the Drum-Horse, disgusted at his +treatment by old friends, pulled up, wheeled round, and trotted up +to the Mess verandah-steps for bread. No one liked to run; but no +one cared to go forward till the Colonel made a movement and laid +hold of the skeleton's foot. The Band had halted some distance +away, and now came back slowly. The Colonel called it, individually +and collectively, every evil name that occurred to him at the time; +for he had set his hand on the bosom of the Drum-Horse and found +flesh and blood. Then he beat the kettle-drums with his clenched +fist, and discovered that they were but made of silvered paper and +bamboo. Next, still swearing, he tried to drag the skeleton out of +the saddle, but found that it had been wired into the cantle. The +sight of the Colonel, with his arms round the skeleton's pelvis and +his knee in the old Drum-Horse's stomach, was striking. Not to say +amusing. He worried the thing off in a minute or two, and threw it +down on the ground, saying to the Band:--"Here, you curs, that's +what you're afraid of." The skeleton did not look pretty in the +twilight. The Band-Sergeant seemed to recognize it, for he began to +chuckle and choke. "Shall I take it away, sir?" said the Band- +Sergeant. "Yes," said the Colonel, "take it to Hell, and ride there +yourselves!" + +The Band-Sergeant saluted, hoisted the skeleton across his saddle- +bow, and led off to the stables. Then the Colonel began to make +inquiries for the rest of the Regiment, and the language he used was +wonderful. He would disband the Regiment--he would court-martial +every soul in it--he would not command such a set of rabble, and so +on, and so on. As the men dropped in, his language grew wilder, +until at last it exceeded the utmost limits of free speech allowed +even to a Colonel of Horse. + +Martyn took Hogan-Yale aside and suggested compulsory retirement +from the service as a necessity when all was discovered. Martyn was +the weaker man of the two, Hogan-Yale put up his eyebrows and +remarked, firstly, that he was the son of a Lord, and secondly, that +he was as innocent as the babe unborn of the theatrical resurrection +of the Drum-Horse. + +"My instructions," said Yale, with a singularly sweet smile, "were +that the Drum-Horse should be sent back as impressively as possible. +I ask you, AM I responsible if a mule-headed friend sends him back +in such a manner as to disturb the peace of mind of a regiment of +Her Majesty's Cavalry?" + +Martyn said:--"you are a great man and will in time become a +General; but I'd give my chance of a troop to be safe out of this +affair." + +Providence saved Martyn and Hogan-Yale. The Second-in-Command led +the Colonel away to the little curtained alcove wherein the +subalterns of the white Hussars were accustomed to play poker of +nights; and there, after many oaths on the Colonel's part, they +talked together in low tones. I fancy that the Second-in-Command +must have represented the scare as the work of some trooper whom it +would be hopeless to detect; and I know that he dwelt upon the sin +and the shame of making a public laughingstock of the scare. + +"They will call us," said the Second-in-Command, who had really a +fine imagination, "they will call us the 'Fly-by-Nights'; they will +call us the 'Ghost Hunters'; they will nickname us from one end of +the Army list to the other. All the explanations in the world won't +make outsiders understand that the officers were away when the panic +began. For the honor of the Regiment and for your own sake keep +this thing quiet." + +The Colonel was so exhausted with anger that soothing him down was +not so difficult as might be imagined. He was made to see, gently +and by degrees, that it was obviously impossible to court-martial +the whole Regiment, and equally impossible to proceed against any +subaltern who, in his belief, had any concern in the hoax. + +"But the beast's alive! He's never been shot at all!" shouted the +Colonel. "It's flat, flagrant disobedience! I've known a man broke +for less, d----d sight less. They're mocking me, I tell you, Mutman! +They're mocking me!" + +Once more, the Second-in-Command set himself to sooth the Colonel, +and wrestled with him for half-an-hour. At the end of that time, +the Regimental Sergeant-Major reported himself. The situation was +rather novel tell to him; but he was not a man to be put out by +circumstances. He saluted and said: "Regiment all come back, Sir." +Then, to propitiate the Colonel:--"An' none of the horses any the +worse, Sir." + +The Colonel only snorted and answered:--"You'd better tuck the men +into their cots, then, and see that they don't wake up and cry in +the night." The Sergeant withdrew. + +His little stroke of humor pleased the Colonel, and, further, he +felt slightly ashamed of the language he had been using. The +Second-in-Command worried him again, and the two sat talking far +into the night. + +Next day but one, there was a Commanding Officer's parade, and the +Colonel harangued the White Hussars vigorously. The pith of his +speech was that, since the Drum-Horse in his old age had proved +himself capable of cutting up the Whole Regiment, he should return +to his post of pride at the head of the band, BUT the Regiment were +a set of ruffians with bad consciences. + +The White Hussars shouted, and threw everything movable about them +into the air, and when the parade was over, they cheered the Colonel +till they couldn't speak. No cheers were put up for Lieutenant +Hogan-Yale, who smiled very sweetly in the background. + +Said the Second-in-Command to the Colonel, unofficially:--"These +little things ensure popularity, and do not the least affect +discipline." + +"But I went back on my word," said the Colonel. + +"Never mind," said the Second-in-Command. "The White Hussars will +follow you anywhere from to-day. Regiment's are just like women. +They will do anything for trinketry." + +A week later, Hogan-Yale received an extraordinary letter from some +one who signed himself "Secretary Charity and Zeal, 3709, E. C.," +and asked for "the return of our skeleton which we have reason to +believe is in your possession." + +"Who the deuce is this lunatic who trades in bones?" said Hogan- +Yale. + +"Beg your pardon, Sir," said the Band-Sergeant, "but the skeleton is +with me, an' I'll return it if you'll pay the carriage into the +Civil Lines. There's a coffin with it, Sir." + +Hogan-Yale smiled and handed two rupees to the Band-Sergeant, +saying:--"Write the date on the skull, will you?" + +If you doubt this story, and know where to go, you can see the date +on the skeleton. But don't mention the matter to the White Hussars. + +I happen to know something about it, because I prepared the Drum- +Horse for his resurrection. He did not take kindly to the skeleton +at all. + + + +THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE-CASE. + + +In the daytime, when she moved about me, + In the night, when she was sleeping at my side,-- +I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence. +Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her-- + Would to God that she or I had died! + + Confessions. + + +There was a man called Bronckhorst--a three-cornered, middle-aged +man in the Army--gray as a badger, and, some people said, with a +touch of country-blood in him. That, however, cannot be proved. +Mrs. Bronckhorst was not exactly young, though fifteen years younger +than her husband. She was a large, pale, quiet woman, with heavy +eyelids, over weak eyes, and hair that turned red or yellow as the +lights fell on it. + +Bronckhorst was not nice in any way. He had no respect for the +pretty public and private lies that make life a little less nasty +than it is. His manner towards his wife was coarse. There are many +things--including actual assault with the clenched fist--that a wife +will endure; but seldom a wife can bear--as Mrs. Bronckhorst bore-- +with a long course of brutal, hard chaff, making light of her +weaknesses, her headaches, her small fits of gayety, her dresses, +her queer little attempts to make herself attractive to her husband +when she knows that she is not what she has been, and--worst of all-- +the love that she spends on her children. That particular sort of +heavy-handed jest was specially dear to Bronckhorst. I suppose that +he had first slipped into it, meaning no harm, in the honeymoon, +when folk find their ordinary stock of endearments run short, and so +go to the other extreme to express their feelings. A similar +impulse make's a man say:--"Hutt, you old beast!" when a favorite +horse nuzzles his coat-front. Unluckily, when the reaction of +marriage sets in, the form of speech remains, and, the tenderness +having died out, hurts the wife more than she cares to say. But +Mrs. Bronckhorst was devoted to her "teddy," as she called him. +Perhaps that was why he objected to her. Perhaps--this is only a +theory to account for his infamous behavior later on--he gave way to +the queer savage feeling that sometimes takes by the throat a +husband twenty years' married, when he sees, across the table, the +same face of his wedded wife, and knows that, as he has sat facing +it, so must he continue to sit until day of its death or his own. +Most men and all women know the spasm. It only lasts for three +breaths as a rule, must be a "throw-back" to times when men and +women were rather worse than they are now, and is too unpleasant to +be discussed. + +Dinner at the Bronckhorst's was an infliction few men cared to +undergo. Bronckhorst took a pleasure in saying things that made his +wife wince. When their little boy came in at dessert, Bronckhorst +used to give him half a glass of wine, and naturally enough, the +poor little mite got first riotous, next miserable, and was removed +screaming. Bronckhorst asked if that was the way Teddy usually +behaved, and whether Mrs. Bronckhorst could not spare some of her +time to teach the "little beggar decency." Mrs. Bronckhorst, who +loved the boy more than her own life, tried not to cry--her spirit +seemed to have been broken by her marriage. Lastly, Bronckhorst +used to say:--"There! That'll do, that'll do. For God's sake try +to behave like a rational woman. Go into the drawing-room." Mrs. +Bronckhorst would go, trying to carry it all off with a smile; and +the guest of the evening would feel angry and uncomfortable. + +After three years of this cheerful life--for Mrs. Bronckhorst had no +woman-friends to talk to--the Station was startled by the news that +Bronckhorst had instituted proceedings ON THE CRIMINAL COUNT, +against a man called Biel, who certainly had been rather attentive +to Mrs. Bronckhorst whenever she had appeared in public. The utter +want of reserve with which Bronckhorst treated his own dishonor +helped us to know that the evidence against Biel would be entirely +circumstantial and native. There were no letters; but Bronckhorst +said openly that he would rack Heaven and Earth until he saw Biel +superintending the manufacture of carpets in the Central Jail. Mrs. +Bronckhorst kept entirely to her house, and let charitable folks say +what they pleased. Opinions were divided. Some two-thirds of the +Station jumped at once to the conclusion that Biel was guilty; but a +dozen men who knew and liked him held by him. Biel was furious and +surprised. He denied the whole thing, and vowed that he would +thrash Bronckhorst within an inch of his life. No jury, we knew, +could convict a man on the criminal count on native evidence in a +land where you can buy a murder-charge, including the corpse, all +complete for fifty-four rupees; but Biel did not care to scrape +through by the benefit of a doubt. He wanted the whole thing +cleared: but as he said one night:--"He can prove anything with +servants' evidence, and I've only my bare word." This was about a +month before the case came on; and beyond agreeing with Biel, we +could do little. All that we could be sure of was that the native +evidence would be bad enough to blast Biel's character for the rest +of his service; for when a native begins perjury he perjures himself +thoroughly. He does not boggle over details. + +Some genius at the end of the table whereat the affair was being +talked over, said:--"Look here! I don't believe lawyers are any +good. Get a man to wire to Strickland, and beg him to come down and +pull us through." + +Strickland was about a hundred and eighty miles up the line. He had +not long been married to Miss Youghal, but he scented in the +telegram a chance of return to the old detective work that his soul +lusted after, and next night he came in and heard our story. He +finished his pipe and said oracularly:--we must get at the evidence. +Oorya bearer, Mussalman khit and methraniayah, I suppose, are the +pillars of the charge. I am on in this piece; but I'm afraid I'm +getting rusty in my talk." + +He rose and went into Biel's bedroom where his trunk had been put, +and shut the door. An hour later, we heard him say:--"I hadn't the +heart to part with my old makeups when I married. Will this do?" +There was a lothely faquir salaaming in the doorway. + +"Now lend me fifty rupees," said Strickland, "and give me your Words +of Honor that you won't tell my Wife." + +He got all that he asked for, and left the house while the table +drank his health. What he did only he himself knows. A faquir hung +about Bronckhorst's compound for twelve days. Then a mehter +appeared, and when Biel heard of HIM, he said that Strickland was an +angel full-fledged. Whether the mehter made love to Janki, Mrs. +Bronckhorst's ayah, is a question which concerns Strickland +exclusively. + +He came back at the end of three weeks, and said quietly:--"You +spoke the truth, Biel. The whole business is put up from beginning +to end. Jove! It almost astonishes ME! That Bronckhorst-beast +isn't fit to live." + +There was uproar and shouting, and Biel said:--"How are you going to +prove it? You can't say that you've been trespassing on +Bronckhorst's compound in disguise!" + +"No," said Strickland. "Tell your lawyer-fool, whoever he is, to +get up something strong about 'inherent improbabilities' and +'discrepancies of evidence.' He won't have to speak, but it will +make him happy. I'M going to run this business." + +Biel held his tongue, and the other men waited to see what would +happen. They trusted Strickland as men trust quiet men. When the +case came off the Court was crowded. Strickland hung about in the +verandah of the Court, till he met the Mohammedan khitmatgar. Then +he murmured a faquir's blessing in his ear, and asked him how his +second wife did. The man spun round, and, as he looked into the +eyes of "Estreeken Sahib," his jaw dropped. You must remember that +before Strickland was married, he was, as I have told you already, a +power among natives. Strickland whispered a rather coarse +vernacular proverb to the effect that he was abreast of all that was +going on, and went into the Court armed with a gut trainer's-whip. + +The Mohammedan was the first witness and Strickland beamed upon him +from the back of the Court. The man moistened his lips with his +tongue and, in his abject fear of "Estreeken Sahib" the faquir, went +back on every detail of his evidence--said he was a poor man and God +was his witness that he had forgotten every thing that Bronckhorst +Sahib had told him to say. Between his terror of Strickland, the +Judge, and Bronckhorst he collapsed, weeping. + +Then began the panic among the witnesses. Janki, the ayah, leering +chastely behind her veil, turned gray, and the bearer left the +Court. He said that his Mamma was dying and that it was not +wholesome for any man to lie unthriftily in the presence of +"Estreeken Sahib." + +Biel said politely to Bronckhorst:--"Your witnesses don't seem to +work. Haven't you any forged letters to produce?" But Bronckhorst +was swaying to and fro in his chair, and there was a dead pause +after Biel had been called to order. + +Bronckhorst's Counsel saw the look on his client's face, and without +more ado, pitched his papers on the little green baize table, and +mumbled something about having been misinformed. The whole Court +applauded wildly, like soldiers at a theatre, and the Judge began to +say what he thought. + + . . . . . . . . . + +Biel came out of the place, and Strickland dropped a gut trainer's- +whip in the verandah. Ten minutes later, Biel was cutting +Bronckhorst into ribbons behind the old Court cells, quietly and +without scandal. What was left of Bronckhorst was sent home in a +carriage; and his wife wept over it and nursed it into a man again. + +Later on, after Biel had managed to hush up the counter-charge +against Bronckhorst of fabricating false evidence, Mrs. Bronckhorst, +with her faint watery smile, said that there had been a mistake, but +it wasn't her Teddy's fault altogether. She would wait till her +Teddy came back to her. Perhaps he had grown tired of her, or she +had tried his patience, and perhaps we wouldn't cut her any more, +and perhaps the mothers would let their children play with "little +Teddy" again. He was so lonely. Then the Station invited Mrs. +Bronckhorst everywhere, until Bronckhorst was fit to appear in +public, when he went Home and took his wife with him. According to +the latest advices, her Teddy did "come back to her," and they are +moderately happy. Though, of course, he can never forgive her the +thrashing that she was the indirect means of getting for him. + + . . . . . . . . . + +What Biel wants to know is:--"Why didn't I press home the charge +against the Bronckhorst-brute, and have him run in?" + +What Mrs. Strickland wants to know is:--"How DID my husband bring +such a lovely, lovely Waler from your Station? I know ALL his +money-affairs; and I'm CERTAIN he didn't BUY it." + +What I want to know is:--How do women like Mrs. Bronckhorst come to +marry men like Bronckhorst?" + +And my conundrum is the most unanswerable of the three. + + + +VENUS ANNODOMINI. + + +And the years went on as the years must do; +But our great Diana was always new-- +Fresh, and blooming, and blonde, and fair, +With azure eyes and with aureate hair; +And all the folk, as they came or went, +Offered her praise to her heart's content. + + Diana of Ephesus. + + +She had nothing to do with Number Eighteen in the Braccio Nuovo of +the Vatican, between Visconti's Ceres and the God of the Nile. She +was purely an Indian deity--an Anglo-Indian deity, that is to say-- +and we called her THE Venus Annodomini, to distinguish her from +other Annodominis of the same everlasting order. There was a legend +among the Hills that she had once been young; but no living man was +prepared to come forward and say boldly that the legend was true. +Men rode up to Simla, and stayed, and went away and made their name +and did their life's work, and returned again to find the Venus +Annodomini exactly as they had left her. She was as immutable as +the Hills. But not quite so green. All that a girl of eighteen +could do in the way of riding, walking, dancing, picnicking and +over-exertion generally, the Venus Annodomini did, and showed no +sign of fatigue or trace of weariness. Besides perpetual youth, she +had discovered, men said, the secret of perpetual health; and her +fame spread about the land. From a mere woman, she grew to be an +Institution, insomuch that no young man could be said to be properly +formed, who had not, at some time or another, worshipped at the +shrine of the Venus Annodomini. There was no one like her, though +there were many imitations. Six years in her eyes were no more than +six months to ordinary women; and ten made less visible impression +on her than does a week's fever on an ordinary woman. Every one +adored her, and in return she was pleasant and courteous to nearly +every one. Youth had been a habit of hers for so long, that she +could not part with it--never realized, in fact, the necessity of +parting with it--and took for her more chosen associates young +people. + +Among the worshippers of the Venus Annodomini was young Gayerson. +"Very Young" Gayerson, he was called to distinguish him from his +father "Young" Gayerson, a Bengal Civilian, who affected the +customs--as he had the heart--of youth. "Very Young" Gayerson was +not content to worship placidly and for form's sake, as the other +young men did, or to accept a ride or a dance, or a talk from the +Venus Annodomini in a properly humble and thankful spirit. He was +exacting, and, therefore, the Venus Annodomini repressed him. He +worried himself nearly sick in a futile sort of way over her; and +his devotion and earnestness made him appear either shy or +boisterous or rude, as his mood might vary, by the side of the older +men who, with him, bowed before the Venus Annodomini. She was sorry +for him. He reminded her of a lad who, three-and-twenty years ago, +had professed a boundless devotion for her, and for whom in return +she had felt something more than a week's weakness. But that lad +had fallen away and married another woman less than a year after he +had worshipped her; and the Venus Annodomini had almost--not quite-- +forgotten his name. "Very Young" Gayerson had the same big blue +eyes and the same way of pouting his underlip when he was excited or +troubled. But the Venus Annodomini checked him sternly none the +less. Too much zeal was a thing that she did not approve of; +preferring instead, a tempered and sober tenderness. + +"Very Young" Gayerson was miserable, and took no trouble to conceal +his wretchedness. He was in the Army--a Line regiment I think, but +am not certain--and, since his face was a looking-glass and his +forehead an open book, by reason of his innocence, his brothers in +arms made his life a burden to him and embittered his naturally +sweet disposition. No one except "Very Young" Gayerson, and he +never told his views, knew how old "Very Young" Gayerson believed +the Venus Annodomini to be. Perhaps he thought her five and twenty, +or perhaps she told him that she was this age. "Very Young" +Gayerson would have forded the Gugger in flood to carry her lightest +word, and had implicit faith in her. Every one liked him, and every +one was sorry when they saw him so bound a slave of the Venus +Annodomini. Every one, too, admitted that it was not her fault; for +the Venus Annodomini differed from Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Reiver in +this particular--she never moved a finger to attract any one; but, +like Ninon de l'Enclos, all men were attracted to her. One could +admire and respect Mrs. Hauksbee, despise and avoid Mrs. Reiver, but +one was forced to adore the Venus Annodomini. + +"Very Young" Gayerson's papa held a Division or a Collectorate or +something administrative in a particularly unpleasant part of +Bengal--full of Babus who edited newspapers proving that "Young" +Gayerson was a "Nero" and a "Scylla" and a "Charybdis"; and, in +addition to the Babus, there was a good deal of dysentery and +cholera abroad for nine months of the year. "Young" Gayerson--he +was about five and forty--rather liked Babus, they amused him, but +he objects to dysentery, and when he could get away, went to +Darjilling for the most part. This particular season he fancied +that he would come up to Simla, and see his boy. The boy was not +altogether pleased. He told the Venus Annodomini that his father +was coming up, and she flushed a little and said that she should be +delighted to make his acquaintance. Then she looked long and +thoughtfully at "Very Young" Gayerson; because she was very, very +sorry for him, and he was a very, very big idiot. + +"My daughter is coming out in a fortnight, Mr. Gayerson," she said. + +"Your WHAT?" said he. + +"Daughter," said the Venus Annodomini. "She's been out for a year +at Home already, and I want her to see a little of India. She is +nineteen and a very sensible, nice girl I believe." + +"Very Young" Gayerson, who was a short twenty-two years old, nearly +fell out of his chair with astonishment; for he had persisted in +believing, against all belief, in the youth of the Venus Annodomini. +She, with her back to the curtained window, watched the effect of +her sentences and smiled. + +"Very Young" Gayerson's papa came up twelve days later, and had not +been in Simla four and twenty hours, before two men, old +acquaintances of his, had told him how "Very Young" Gayerson had +been conducting himself. + +"Young" Gayerson laughed a good deal, and inquired who the Venus +Annodomini might be. Which proves that he had been living in Bengal +where nobody knows anything except the rate of Exchange. Then he +said "boys will be boys," and spoke to his son about the matter. +"Very Young" Gayerson said that he felt wretched and unhappy; and +"Young" Gayerson said that he repented of having helped to bring a +fool into the world. He suggested that his son had better cut his +leave short and go down to his duties. This led to an unfilial +answer, and relations were strained, until "Young" Gayerson +denmanded that they should call on the Venus Annodomini. "Very +Young" Gayerson went with his papa, feeling, somehow, uncomfortable +and small. + +The Venus Annodomini received them graciously and "Young" Gayerson +said:--"By Jove! It's Kitty!" "Very Young" Gayerson would have +listened for an explanation, if his time had not been taken up with +trying to talk to a large, handsome, quiet, well-dressed girl-- +introduced to him by the Venus Annodomini as her daughter. She was +far older in manners, style and repose than "Very Young" Gayerson; +and, as he realized this thing, he felt sick. + +Presently, he heard the Venus Annodomini saying:--"Do you know that +your son is one of my most devoted admirers?" + +"I don't wonder," said "Young" Gayerson. Here he raised his voice:-- +"He follows his father's footsteps. Didn't I worship the ground +you trod on, ever so long ago, Kitty--and you haven't changed since +then. How strange it all seems!" + +"Very Young" Gayerson said nothing. His conversation with the +daughter of the Venus Annodomini was, through the rest of the call, +fragmentary and disjointed. + + . . . . . . . . . + +"At five, to-morrow then," said the Venus Annodomini. "And mind you +are punctual." + +"At five punctual," said "Young" Gayerson. "You can lend your old +father a horse I dare say, youngster, can't you? I'm going for a +ride tomorrow afternoon." + +"Certainly," said "Very Young" Gayerson. "I am going down to-morrow +morning. My ponies are at your service, Sir." + +The Venus Annodomini looked at him across the half-light of the +room, and her big gray eyes filled with moisture. She rose and +shook hands with him. + +"Good-bye, Tom," whispered the Venus Annodomini. + + + +THE BISARA OF POOREE. + + +Little Blind Fish, thou art marvellous wise, +Little Blind Fish, who put out thy eyes? +Open thine ears while I whisper my wish-- +Bring me a lover, thou little Blind Fish. + + The Charm of the Bisara. + + +Some natives say that it came from the other side of Kulu, where the +eleven-inch Temple Sapphire is. Others that it was made at the +Devil-Shrine of Ao-Chung in Thibet, was stolen by a Kafir, from him +by a Gurkha, from him again by a Lahouli, from him by a khitmatgar, +and by this latter sold to an Englishman, so all its virtue was +lost: because, to work properly, the Bisara of Pooree must be +stolen--with bloodshed if possible, but, at any rate, stolen. + +These stories of the coming into India are all false. It was made +at Pooree ages since--the manner of its making would fill a small +book--was stolen by one of the Temple dancing-girls there, for her +own purposes, and then passed on from hand to hand, steadily +northward, till it reached Hanla: always bearing the same name--the +Bisara of Pooree. In shape it is a tiny, square box of silver, +studded outside with eight small balas-rubies. Inside the box, +which opens with a spring, is a little eyeless fish, carved from +some sort of dark, shiny nut and wrapped in a shred of faded gold- +cloth. That is the Bisara of Pooree, and it were better for a man +to take a king cobra in his hand than to touch the Bisara of Pooree. + +All kinds of magic are out of date and done away with except in +India where nothing changes in spite of the shiny, toy-scum stuff +that people call "civilization." Any man who knows about the Bisara +of Pooree will tell you what its powers are--always supposing that +it has been honestly stolen. It is the only regularly working, +trustworthy love-charm in the country, with one exception. + +[The other charm is in the hands of a trooper of the Nizam's Horse, +at a place called Tuprani, due north of Hyderabad.] This can be +depended upon for a fact. Some one else may explain it. + +If the Bisara be not stolen, but given or bought or found, it turns +against its owner in three years, and leads to ruin or death. This +is another fact which you may explain when you have time. +Meanwhile, you can laugh at it. At present, the Bisara is safe on +an ekka-pony's neck, inside the blue bead-necklace that keeps off +the Evil-eye. If the ekka-driver ever finds it, and wears it, or +gives it to his wife, I am sorry for him. + +A very dirty hill-cooly woman, with goitre, owned it at Theog in +1884. It came into Simla from the north before Churton's khitmatgar +bought it, and sold it, for three times its silver-value, to +Churton, who collected curiosities. The servant knew no more what +he had bought than the master; but a man looking over Churton's +collection of curiosities--Churton was an Assistant Commissioner by +the way--saw and held his tongue. He was an Englishman; but knew +how to believe. Which shows that he was different from most +Englishmen. He knew that it was dangerous to have any share in the +little box when working or dormant; for unsought Love is a terrible +gift. + +Pack--"Grubby" Pack, as we used to call him--was, in every way, a +nasty little man who must have crawled into the Army by mistake. He +was three inches taller than his sword, but not half so strong. And +the sword was a fifty-shilling, tailor-made one. Nobody liked him, +and, I suppose, it was his wizenedness and worthlessness that made +him fall so hopelessly in love with Miss Hollis, who was good and +sweet, and five foot seven in her tennis shoes. He was not content +with falling in love quietly, but brought all the strength of his +miserable little nature into the business. If he had not been so +objectionable, one might have pitied him. He vapored, and fretted, +and fumed, and trotted up and down, and tried to make himself +pleasing in Miss Hollis's big, quiet, gray eyes, and failed. It was +one of the cases that you sometimes meet, even in this country where +we marry by Code, of a really blind attachment all on one side, +without the faintest possibility of return. Miss Hollis looked on +Pack as some sort of vermin running about the road. He had no +prospects beyond Captain's pay, and no wits to help that out by one +anna. In a large-sized man, love like his would have been touching. +In a good man it would have been grand. He being what he was, it +was only a nuisance. + +You will believe this much. What you will not believe, is what +follows: Churton, and The Man who Knew that the Bisara was, were +lunching at the Simla Club together. Churton was complaining of +life in general. His best mare had rolled out of stable down the +hill and had broken her back; his decisions were being reversed by +the upper Courts, more than an Assistant Commissioner of eight +years' standing has a right to expect; he knew liver and fever, and, +for weeks past, had felt out of sorts. Altogether, he was disgusted +and disheartened. + +Simla Club dining-room is built, as all the world knows, in two +sections, with an arch-arrangement dividing them. Come in, turn to +your own left, take the table under the window, and you cannot see +any one who has come in, turning to the right, and taken a table on +the right side of the arch. Curiously enough, every word that you +say can be heard, not only by the other diner, but by the servants +beyond the screen through which they bring dinner. This is worth +knowing: an echoing-room is a trap to be forewarned against. + +Half in fun, and half hoping to be believed, The Man who Knew told +Churton the story of the Bisara of Pooree at rather greater length +than I have told it to you in this place; winding up with the +suggestion that Churton might as well throw the little box down the +hill and see whether all his troubles would go with it. In ordinary +ears, English ears, the tale was only an interesting bit of folk- +lore. Churton laughed, said that he felt better for his tiffin, and +went out. Pack had been tiffining by himself to the right of the +arch, and had heard everything. He was nearly mad with his absurd +infatuation for Miss Hollis that all Simla had been laughing about. + +It is a curious thing that, when a man hates or loves beyond reason, +he is ready to go beyond reason to gratify his feelings. Which he +would not do for money or power merely. Depend upon it, Solomon +would never have built altars to Ashtaroth and all those ladies with +queer names, if there had not been trouble of some kind in his +zenana, and nowhere else. But this is beside the story. The facts +of the case are these: Pack called on Churton next day when Churton +was out, left his card, and STOLE the Bisara of Pooree from its +place under the clock on the mantelpiece! Stole it like the thief +he was by nature. Three days later, all Simla was electrified by +the news that Miss Hollis had accepted Pack--the shrivelled rat, +Pack! Do you desire clearer evidence than this? The Bisara of +Pooree had been stolen, and it worked as it had always done when won +by foul means. + +There are three or four times in a man's life-when he is justified +in meddling with other people's affairs to play Providence. + +The Man who Knew felt that he WAS justified; but believing and +acting on a belief are quite different things. The insolent +satisfaction of Pack as he ambled by the side of Miss Hollis, and +Churton's striking release from liver, as soon as the Bisara of +Pooree had gone, decided the Man. He explained to Churton and +Churton laughed, because he was not brought up to believe that men +on the Government House List steal--at least little things. But the +miraculous acceptance by Miss Hollis of that tailor, Pack, decided +him to take steps on suspicion. He vowed that he only wanted to +find out where his ruby-studded silver box had vanished to. You +cannot accuse a man on the Government House List of stealing. And +if you rifle his room you are a thief yourself. Churton, prompted +by The Man who Knew, decided on burglary. If he found nothing in +Pack's room . . . . but it is not nice to think of what would have +happened in that case. + +Pack went to a dance at Benmore--Benmore WAS Benmore in those days, +and not an office--and danced fifteen waltzes out of twenty-two with +Miss Hollis. Churton and The Man took all the keys that they could +lay hands on, and went to Pack's room in the hotel, certain that his +servants would be away. Pack was a cheap soul. He had not +purchased a decent cash-box to keep his papers in, but one of those +native imitations that you buy for ten rupees. It opened to any +sort of key, and there at the bottom, under Pack's Insurance Policy, +lay the Bisara of Pooree! + +Churton called Pack names, put the Bisara of Pooree in his pocket, +and went to the dance with The Man. At least, he came in time for +supper, and saw the beginning of the end in Miss Hollis's eyes. She +was hysterical after supper, and was taken away by her Mamma. + +At the dance, with the abominable Bisara in his pocket, Churton +twisted his foot on one of the steps leading down to the old Rink, +and had to be sent home in a rickshaw, grumbling. He did not +believe in the Bisara of Pooree any the more for this manifestation, +but he sought out Pack and called him some ugly names; and "thief" +was the mildest of them. Pack took the names with the nervous smile +of a little man who wants both soul and body to resent an insult, +and went his way. There was no public scandal. + +A week later, Pack got his definite dismissal from Miss Hollis. +There had been a mistake in the placing of her affections, she said. +So he went away to Madras, where he can do no great harm even if he +lives to be a Colonel. + +Churton insisted upon The Man who Knew taking the Bisara of Pooree +as a gift. The Man took it, went down to the Cart Road at once, +found an ekka pony with a blue head-necklace, fastened the Bisara of +Pooree inside the necklace with a piece of shoe-string and thanked +Heaven that he was rid of a danger. Remember, in case you ever find +it, that you must not destroy the Bisara of Pooree. I have not time +to explain why just now, but the power lies in the little wooden +fish. Mister Gubernatis or Max Muller could tell you more about it +than I. + +You will say that all this story is made up. Very well. If ever +you come across a little silver, ruby-studded box, seven-eighths of +an inch long by three-quarters wide, with a dark-brown wooden fish, +wrapped in gold cloth, inside it, keep it. Keep it for three years, +and then you will discover for yourself whether my story is true or +false. + +Better still, steal it as Pack did, and you will be sorry that you +had not killed yourself in the beginning. + + + +THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS. + + +"If I can attain Heaven for a pice, why should you be envious?" + + Opium Smoker's Proverb. + + +This is no work of mine. My friend, Gabral Misquitta, the half- +caste, spoke it all, between moonset and morning, six weeks before +he died; and I took it down from his mouth as he answered my +questions so:-- + +It lies between the Copper-smith's Gully and the pipe-stem sellers' +quarter, within a hundred yards, too, as the crow flies, of the +Mosque of Wazir Khan. I don't mind telling any one this much, but I +defy him to find the Gate, however well he may think he knows the +City. You might even go through the very gully it stands in a +hundred times, and be none the wiser. We used to call the gully, +"the Gully of the Black Smoke," but its native name is altogether +different of course. A loaded donkey couldn't pass between the +walls; and, at one point, just before you reach the Gate, a bulged +house-front makes people go along all sideways. + +It isn't really a gate though. It's a house. Old Fung-Tching had +it first five years ago. He was a boot-maker in Calcutta. They say +that he murdered his wife there when he was drunk. That was why he +dropped bazar-rum and took to the Black Smoke instead. Later on, he +came up north and opened the Gate as a house where you could get +your smoke in peace and quiet. Mind you, it was a pukka, +respectable opium-house, and not one of those stifling, sweltering +chandoo-khanas, that you can find all over the City. No; the old +man knew his business thoroughly, and he was most clean for a +Chinaman. He was a one-eyed little chap, not much more than five +feet high, and both his middle fingers were gone. All the same, he +was the handiest man at rolling black pills I have ever seen. Never +seemed to be touched by the Smoke, either; and what he took day and +night, night and day, was a caution. I've been at it five years, +and I can do my fair share of the Smoke with any one; but I was a +child to Fung-Tching that way. All the same, the old man was keen +on his money, very keen; and that's what I can't understand. I +heard he saved a good deal before he died, but his nephew has got +all that now; and the old man's gone back to China to be buried. + +He kept the big upper room, where his best customers gathered, as +neat as a new pin. In one corner used to stand Fung-Tching's Joss-- +almost as ugly as Fung-Tching--and there were always sticks burning +under his nose; but you never smelt 'em when the pipes were going +thick. Opposite the Joss was Fung-Tching's coffin. He had spent a +good deal of his savings on that, and whenever a new man came to the +Gate he was always introduced to it. It was lacquered black, with +red and gold writings on it, and I've heard that Fung-Tching brought +it out all the way from China. I don't know whether that's true or +not, but I know that, if I came first in the evening, I used to +spread my mat just at the foot of it. It was a quiet corner you +see, and a sort of breeze from the gully came in at the window now +and then. Besides the mats, there was no other furniture in the +room--only the coffin, and the old Joss all green and blue and +purple with age and polish. + +Fung-Tching never told us why he called the place "The Gate of a +Hundred Sorrows." (He was the only Chinaman I know who used bad- +sounding fancy names. Most of them are flowery. As you'll see in +Calcutta.) We used to find that out for ourselves. Nothing grows +on you so much, if you're white, as the Black Smoke. A yellow man +is made different. Opium doesn't tell on him scarcely at all; but +white and black suffer a good deal. Of course, there are some +people that the Smoke doesn't touch any more than tobacco would at +first. They just doze a bit, as one would fall asleep naturally, +and next morning they are almost fit for work. Now, I was one of +that sort when I began, but I've been at it for five years pretty +steadily, and its different now. There was an old aunt of mine, +down Agra way, and she left me a little at her death. About sixty +rupees a month secured. Sixty isn't much. I can recollect a time, +seems hundreds and hundreds of years ago, that I was getting my +three hundred a month, and pickings, when I was working on a big +timber contract in Calcutta. + +I didn't stick to that work for long. The Black Smoke does not +allow of much other business; and even though I am very little +affected by it, as men go, I couldn't do a day's work now to save my +life. After all, sixty rupees is what I want. When old Fung-Tching +was alive he used to draw the money for me, give me about half of it +to live on (I eat very little), and the rest he kept himself. I was +free of the Gate at any time of the day and night, and could smoke +and sleep there when I liked, so I didn't care. I know the old man +made a good thing out of it; but that's no matter. Nothing matters, +much to me; and, besides, the money always came fresh and fresh each +month. + +There was ten of us met at the Gate when the place was first opened. +Me, and two Baboos from a Government Office somewhere in Anarkulli, +but they got the sack and couldn't pay (no man who has to work in +the daylight can do the Black Smoke for any length of time straight +on); a Chinaman that was Fung-Tching's nephew; a bazar-woman that +had got a lot of money somehow; an English loafer--Mac-Somebody I +think, but I have forgotten--that smoked heaps, but never seemed to +pay anything (they said he had saved Fung-Tching's life at some +trial in Calcutta when he was a barrister): another Eurasian, like +myself, from Madras; a half-caste woman, and a couple of men who +said they had come from the North. I think they must have been +Persians or Afghans or something. There are not more than five of +us living now, but we come regular. I don't know what happened to +the Baboos; but the bazar-woman she died after six months of the +Gate, and I think Fung-Tching took her bangles and nose-ring for +himself. But I'm not certain. The Englishman, he drank as well as +smoked, and he dropped off. One of the Persians got killed in a row +at night by the big well near the mosque a long time ago, and the +Police shut up the well, because they said it was full of foul air. +They found him dead at the bottom of it. So, you see, there is only +me, the Chinaman, the half-caste woman that we call the Memsahib +(she used to live with Fung-Tching), the other Eurasian, and one of +the Persians. The Memsahib looks very old now. I think she was a +young woman when the Gate was opened; but we are all old for the +matter of that. Hundreds and hundreds of years old. It is very +hard to keep count of time in the Gate, and besides, time doesn't +matter to me. I draw my sixty rupees fresh and fresh every month. +A very, very long while ago, when I used to be getting three hundred +and fifty rupees a month, and pickings, on a big timber-contract at +Calcutta, I had a wife of sorts. But she's dead now. People said +that I killed her by taking to the Black Smoke. Perhaps I did, but +it's so long since it doesn't matter. Sometimes when I first came +to the Gate, I used to feel sorry for it; but that's all over and +done with long ago, and I draw my sixty rupees fresh and fresh every +month, and am quite happy. Not DRUNK happy, you know, but always +quiet and soothed and contented. + +How did I take to it? It began at Calcutta. I used to try it in my +own house, just to see what it was like. I never went very far, but +I think my wife must have died then. Anyhow, I found myself here, +and got to know Fung-Tching. I don't remember rightly how that came +about; but he told me of the Gate and I used to go there, and, +somehow, I have never got away from it since. Mind you, though, the +Gate was a respectable place in Fung-Tching's time where you could +be comfortable, and not at all like the chandoo-khanas where the +niggers go. No; it was clean and quiet, and not crowded. Of +course, there were others beside us ten and the man; but we always +had a mat apiece with a wadded woollen head-piece, all covered with +black and red dragons and things; just like a coffin in the corner. + +At the end of one's third pipe the dragons used to move about and +fight. I've watched 'em, many and many a night through. I used to +regulate my Smoke that way, and now it takes a dozen pipes to make +'em stir. Besides, they are all torn and dirty, like the mats, and +old Fung-Tching is dead. He died a couple of years ago, and gave me +the pipe I always use now--a silver one, with queer beasts crawling +up and down the receiver-bottle below the cup. Before that, I +think, I used a big bamboo stem with a copper cup, a very small one, +and a green jade mouthpiece. It was a little thicker than a +walking-stick stem, and smoked sweet, very sweet. The bamboo seemed +to suck up the smoke. Silver doesn't, and I've got to clean it out +now and then, that's a great deal of trouble, but I smoke it for the +old man's sake. He must have made a good thing out of me, but he +always gave me clean mats and pillows, and the best stuff you could +get anywhere. + +When he died, his nephew Tsin-ling took up the Gate, and he called +it the "Temple of the Three Possessions;" but we old ones speak of +it as the "Hundred Sorrows," all the same. The nephew does things +very shabbily, and I think the Memsahib must help him. She lives +with him; same as she used to do with the old man. The two let in +all sorts of low people, niggers and all, and the Black Smoke isn't +as good as it used to be. I've found burnt bran in my pipe over and +over again. The old man would have died if that had happened in his +time. Besides, the room is never cleaned, and all the mats are torn +and cut at the edges. The coffin has gone--gone to China again-- +with the old man and two ounces of smoke inside it, in case he +should want 'em on the way. + +The Joss doesn't get so many sticks burnt under his nose as he used +to; that's a sign of ill-luck, as sure as Death. He's all brown, +too, and no one ever attends to him. That's the Memsahib's work, I +know; because, when Tsin-ling tried to burn gilt paper before him, +she said it was a waste of money, and, if he kept a stick burning +very slowly, the Joss wouldn't know the difference. So now we've +got the sticks mixed with a lot of glue, and they take half-an-hour +longer to burn, and smell stinky. Let alone the smell of the room +by itself. No business can get on if they try that sort of thing. +The Joss doesn't like it. I can see that. Late at night, +sometimes, he turns all sorts of queer colors--blue and green and +red--just as he used to do when old Fung-Tching was alive; and he +rolls his eyes and stamps his feet like a devil. + +I don't know why I don't leave the place and smoke quietly in a +little room of my own in the bazar. Most like, Tsin-ling would kill +me if I went away--he draws my sixty rupees now--and besides, it's +so much trouble, and I've grown to be very fond of the Gate. It's +not much to look at. Not what it was in the old man's time, but I +couldn't leave it. I've seen so many come in and out. And I've +seen so many die here on the mats that I should be afraid of dying +in the open now. I've seen some things that people would call +strange enough; but nothing is strange when you're on the Black +Smoke, except the Black Smoke. And if it was, it wouldn't matter. +Fung-Tching used to be very particular about his people, and never +got in any one who'd give trouble by dying messy and such. But the +nephew isn't half so careful. He tells everywhere that he keeps a +"first-chop" house. Never tries to get men in quietly, and make +them comfortable like Fung-Tching did. That's why the Gate is +getting a little bit more known than it used to be. Among the +niggers of course. The nephew daren't get a white, or, for matter +of that, a mixed skin into the place. He has to keep us three of +course--me and the Memsahib and the other Eurasian. We're fixtures. +But he wouldn't give us credit for a pipeful--not for anything. + +One of these days, I hope, I shall die in the Gate. The Persian and +the Madras man are terrible shaky now. They've got a boy to light +their pipes for them. I always do that myself. Most like, I shall +see them carried out before me. I don't think I shall ever outlive +the Memsahib or Tsin-ling. Women last longer than men at the Black- +Smoke, and Tsin-ling has a deal of the old man's blood in him, +though he DOES smoke cheap stuff. The bazar-woman knew when she was +going two days before her time; and SHE died on a clean mat with a +nicely wadded pillow, and the old man hung up her pipe just above +the Joss. He was always fond of her, I fancy. But he took her +bangles just the same. + +I should like to die like the bazar-woman--on a clean, cool mat with +a pipe of good stuff between my lips. When I feel I'm going, I +shall ask Tsin-ling for them, and he can draw my sixty rupees a +month, fresh and fresh, as long as he pleases, and watch the black +and red dragons have their last big fight together; and then . . . . + +Well, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters much to me--only I wished +Tsin-ling wouldn't put bran into the Black Smoke. + + + +THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN. + + +"Who is the happy man? He that sees in his own house at home little +children crowned with dust, leaping and falling and crying." + + Munichandra, translated by Professor Peterson. + + +The polo-ball was an old one, scarred, chipped, and dinted. It +stood on the mantelpiece among the pipe-stems which Imam Din, +khitmatgar, was cleaning for me. + +"Does the Heaven-born want this ball?" said Imam Din, deferentially. + +The Heaven-born set no particular store by it; but of what use was a +polo-ball to a khitmatgar? + +"By Your Honor's favor, I have a little son. He has seen this ball, +and desires it to play with. I do not want it for myself." + +No one would for an instant accuse portly old Imam Din of wanting to +play with polo-balls. He carried out the battered thing into the +verandah; and there followed a hurricane of joyful squeaks, a patter +of small feet, and the thud-thud-thud of the ball rolling along the +ground. Evidently the little son had been waiting outside the door +to secure his treasure. But how had he managed to see that polo- +ball? + +Next day, coming back from office half an hour earlier than usual, I +was aware of a small figure in the dining-room--a tiny, plump figure +in a ridiculously inadequate shirt which came, perhaps, half-way +down the tubby stomach. It wandered round the room, thumb in mouth, +crooning to itself as it took stock of the pictures. Undoubtedly +this was the "little son." + +He had no business in my room, of course; but was so deeply absorbed +in his discoveries that he never noticed me in the doorway. I +stepped into the room and startled him nearly into a fit. He sat +down on the ground with a gasp. His eyes opened, and his mouth +followed suit. I knew what was coming, and fled, followed by a +long, dry howl which reached the servants' quarters far more quickly +than any command of mine had ever done. In ten seconds Imam Din was +in the dining-room. Then despairing sobs arose, and I returned to +find Imam Din admonishing the small sinner who was using most of his +shirt as a handkerchief. + +"This boy," said Imam Din, judicially, "is a budmash, a big budmash. +He will, without doubt, go to the jail-khana for his behavior." +Renewed yells from the penitent, and an elaborate apology to myself +from Imam Din. + +"Tell the baby," said I, "that the Sahib is not angry, and take him +away." Imam Din conveyed my forgiveness to the offender, who had +now gathered all his shirt round his neck, string-wise, and the yell +subsided into a sob. The two set off for the door. "His name," +said Imam Din, as though the name were part of the crime, "is +Muhammad Din, and he is a budmash." Freed from present danger, +Muhammad Din turned round, in his father's arms, and said gravely:-- +"It is true that my name is Muhammad Din, Tahib, but I am not a +budmash. I am a MAN!" + +From that day dated my acquaintance with Muhammad Din. Never again +did he come into my dining-room, but on the neutral ground of the +compound, we greeted each other with much state, though our +conversation was confined to "Talaam, Tahib" from his side and +"Salaam Muhammad Din" from mine. Daily on my return from office, +the little white shirt, and the fat little body used to rise from +the shade of the creeper-covered trellis where they had been hid; +and daily I checked my horse here, that my salutation might not be +slurred over or given unseemly. + +Muhammad Din never had any companions. He used to trot about the +compound, in and out of the castor-oil bushes, on mysterious errands +of his own. One day I stumbled upon some of his handiwork far down +the ground. He had half buried the polo-ball in dust, and stuck six +shrivelled old marigold flowers in a circle round it. Outside that +circle again, was a rude square, traced out in bits of red brick +alternating with fragments of broken china; the whole bounded by a +little bank of dust. The bhistie from the well-curb put in a plea +for the small architect, saying that it was only the play of a baby +and did not much disfigure my garden. + +Heaven knows that I had no intention of touching the child's work +then or later; but, that evening, a stroll through the garden +brought me unawares full on it; so that I trampled, before I knew, +marigold-heads, dust-bank, and fragments of broken soap-dish into +confusion past all hope of mending. Next morning I came upon +Muhammad Din crying softly to himself over the ruin I had wrought. +Some one had cruelly told him that the Sahib was very angry with him +for spoiling the garden, and had scattered his rubbish using bad +language the while. Muhammad Din labored for an hour at effacing +every trace of the dust-bank and pottery fragments, and it was with +a tearful apologetic face that he said, "Talaam Tahib," when I came +home from the office. A hasty inquiry resulted in Imam Din +informing Muhammad Din that by my singular favor he was permitted to +disport himself as he pleased. Whereat the child took heart and +fell to tracing the ground-plan of an edifice which was to eclipse +the marigold-polo-ball creation. + +For some months, the chubby little eccentricity revolved in his +humble orbit among the castor-oil bushes and in the dust; always +fashioning magnificent palaces from stale flowers thrown away by the +bearer, smooth water-worn pebbles, bits of broken glass, and +feathers pulled, I fancy, from my fowls--always alone and always +crooning to himself. + +A gayly-spotted sea-shell was dropped one day close to the last of +his little buildings; and I looked that Muhammad Din should build +something more than ordinarily splendid on the strength of it. Nor +was I disappointed. He meditated for the better part of an hour, +and his crooning rose to a jubilant song. Then he began tracing in +dust. It would certainly be a wondrous palace, this one, for it was +two yards long and a yard broad in ground-plan. But the palace was +never completed. + +Next day there was no Muhammad Din at the head of the carriage- +drive, and no "Talaam Tahib" to welcome my return. I had grown +accustomed to the greeting, and its omission troubled me. Next day, +Imam Din told me that the child was suffering slightly from fever +and needed quinine. He got the medicine, and an English Doctor. + +"They have no stamina, these brats," said the Doctor, as he left +Imam Din's quarters. + +A week later, though I would have given much to have avoided it, I +met on the road to the Mussulman burying-ground Imam Din, +accompanied by one other friend, carrying in his arms, wrapped in a +white cloth, all that was left of little Muhammad Din. + + + +ON THE STRENGTH OF A LIKENESS. + + +If your mirror be broken, look into still water; but have a care +that you do not fall in. + + Hindu Proverb. + + +Next to a requited attachment, one of the most convenient things +that a young man can carry about with him at the beginning of his +career, is an unrequited attachment. It makes him feel important +and business-like, and blase, and cynical; and whenever he has a +touch of liver, or suffers from want of exercise, he can mourn over +his lost love, and be very happy in a tender, twilight fashion. + +Hannasyde's affair of the heart had been a Godsend to him. It was +four years old, and the girl had long since given up thinking of it. +She had married and had many cares of her own. In the beginning, +she had told Hannasyde that, "while she could never be anything more +than a sister to him, she would always take the deepest interest in +his welfare." This startlingly new and original remark gave +Hannasyde something to think over for two years; and his own vanity +filled in the other twenty-four months. Hannasyde was quite +different from Phil Garron, but, none the less, had several points +in common with that far too lucky man. + +He kept his unrequited attachment by him as men keep a well-smoked +pipe--for comfort's sake, and because it had grown dear in the +using. It brought him happily through the Simla season. Hannasyde +was not lovely. There was a crudity in his manners, and a roughness +in the way in which he helped a lady on to her horse, that did not +attract the other sex to him. Even if he had cast about for their +favor, which he did not. He kept his wounded heart all to himself +for a while. + +Then trouble came to him. All who go to Simla, know the slope from +the Telegraph to the Public Works Office. Hannasyde was loafing up +the hill, one September morning between calling hours, when a +'rickshaw came down in a hurry, and in the 'rickshaw sat the living, +breathing image of the girl who had made him so happily unhappy. +Hannasyde leaned against the railing and gasped. He wanted to run +downhill after the 'rickshaw, but that was impossible; so he went +forward with most of his blood in his temples. It was impossible, +for many reasons, that the woman in the 'rickshaw could be the girl +he had known. She was, he discovered later, the wife of a man from +Dindigul, or Coimbatore, or some out-of-the-way place, and she had +come up to Simla early in the season for the good of her health. +She was going back to Dindigul, or wherever it was, at the end of +the season; and in all likelihood would never return to Simla again, +her proper Hill-station being Ootacamund. That night, Hannasyde, +raw and savage from the raking up of all old feelings, took counsel +with himself for one measured hour. What he decided upon was this; +and you must decide for yourself how much genuine affection for the +old love, and how much a very natural inclination to go abroad and +enjoy himself, affected the decision. Mrs. Landys-Haggert would +never in all human likelihood cross his path again. So whatever he +did didn't much matter. She was marvellously like the girl who +"took a deep interest" and the rest of the formula. All things +considered, it would be pleasant to make the acquaintance of Mrs. +Landys-Haggert, and for a little time--only a very little time--to +make believe that he was with Alice Chisane again. Every one is +more or less mad on one point. Hannasyde's particular monomania was +his old love, Alice Chisane. + +He made it his business to get introduced to Mrs. Haggert, and the +introduction prospered. He also made it his business to see as much +as he could of that lady. When a man is in earnest as to +interviews, the facilities which Simla offers are startling. There +are garden-parties, and tennis-parties, and picnics, and luncheons +at Annandale, and rifle-matches, and dinners and balls; besides +rides and walks, which are matters of private arrangement. +Hannasyde had started with the intention of seeing a likeness, and +he ended by doing much more. He wanted to be deceived, he meant to +be deceived, and he deceived himself very thoroughly. Not only were +the face and figure, the face and figure of Alice Chisane, but the +voice and lower tones were exactly the same, and so were the turns +of speech; and the little mannerisms, that every woman has, of gait +and gesticulation, were absolutely and identically the same. The +turn of the head was the same; the tired look in the eyes at the end +of a long walk was the same; the sloop and wrench over the saddle to +hold in a pulling horse was the same; and once, most marvellous of +all, Mrs. Landys-Haggert singing to herself in the next room, while +Hannasyde was waiting to take her for a ride, hummed, note for note, +with a throaty quiver of the voice in the second line:--"Poor +Wandering One!" exactly as Alice Chisane had hummed it for Hannasyde +in the dusk of an English drawing-room. In the actual woman +herself--in the soul of her--there was not the least likeness; she +and Alice Chisane being cast in different moulds. But all that +Hannasyde wanted to know and see and think about, was this maddening +and perplexing likeness of face and voice and manner. He was bent +on making a fool of himself that way; and he was in no sort +disappointed. + +Open and obvious devotion from any sort of man is always pleasant to +any sort of woman; but Mrs. Landys-Haggert, being a woman of the +world, could make nothing of Hannasyde's admiration. + +He would take any amount of trouble--he was a selfish man +habitually--to meet and forestall, if possible, her wishes. +Anything she told him to do was law; and he was, there could be no +doubting it, fond of her company so long as she talked to him, and +kept on talking about trivialities. But when she launched into +expression of her personal views and her wrongs, those small social +differences that make the spice of Simla life, Hannasyde was neither +pleased nor interested. He didn't want to know anything about Mrs. +Landys-Haggert, or her experiences in the past--she had travelled +nearly all over the world, and could talk cleverly--he wanted the +likeness of Alice Chisane before his eyes and her voice in his ears. +Anything outside that, reminding him of another personality jarred, +and he showed that it did. + +Under the new Post Office, one evening, Mrs. Landys-Haggert turned +on him, and spoke her mind shortly and without warning. "Mr. +Hannasyde," said she, "will you be good enough to explain why you +have appointed yourself my special cavalier servente? I don't +understand it. But I am perfectly certain, somehow or other, that +you don't care the least little bit in the world for ME." This +seems to support, by the way, the theory that no man can act or tell +lies to a woman without being found out. Hannasyde was taken off +his guard. His defence never was a strong one, because he was +always thinking of himself, and he blurted out, before he knew what +he was saying, this inexpedient answer:--"No more I do." + +The queerness of the situation and the reply, made Mrs. Landys- +Haggert laugh. Then it all came out; and at the end of Hannasyde's +lucid explanation, Mrs. Haggert said, with the least little touch of +scorn in her voice:--"So I'm to act as the lay-figure for you to +hang the rags of your tattered affections on, am I?" + +Hannasyde didn't see what answer was required, and he devoted +himself generally and vaguely to the praise of Alice Chisane, which +was unsatisfactory. Now it is to be thoroughly made clear that Mrs. +Haggert had not the shadow of a ghost of an interest in Hannasyde. +Only . . . . only no woman likes being made love through instead of +to--specially on behalf of a musty divinity of four years' standing. + +Hannasyde did not see that he had made any very particular +exhibition of himself. He was glad to find a sympathetic soul in +the arid wastes of Simla. + +When the season ended, Hannasyde went down to his own place and Mrs. +Haggert to hers. "It was like making love to a ghost," said +Hannasyde to himself, "and it doesn't matter; and now I'll get to my +work." But he found himself thinking steadily of the Haggert- +Chisane ghost; and he could not be certain whether it was Haggert or +Chisane that made up the greater part of the pretty phantom. + + . . . . . . . . . + +He got understanding a month later. + +A peculiar point of this peculiar country is the way in which a +heartless Government transfers men from one end of the Empire to the +other. You can never be sure of getting rid of a friend or an enemy +till he or she dies. There was a case once--but that's another +story. + +Haggert's Department ordered him up from Dindigul to the Frontier at +two days' notice, and he went through, losing money at every step, +from Dindigul to his station. He dropped Mrs. Haggert at Lucknow, +to stay with some friends there, to take part in a big ball at the +Chutter Munzil, and to come on when he had made the new home a +little comfortable. Lucknow was Hannasyde's station, and Mrs. +Haggert stayed a week there. Hannasyde went to meet her. And the +train came in, he discovered which he had been thinking of for the +past month. The unwisdom of his conduct also struck him. The +Lucknow week, with two dances, and an unlimited quantity of rides +together, clinched matters; and Hannasyde found himself pacing this +circle of thought:--He adored Alice Chisane--at least he HAD adored +her. AND he admired Mrs. Landys-Haggert because she was like Alice +Chisane. BUT Mrs. Landys-Haggert was not in the least like Alice +Chisane, being a thousand times more adorable. NOW Alice Chisane +was "the bride of another," and so was Mrs. Landys-Haggert, and a +good and honest wife too. THEREFORE, he, Hannasyde, was . . . . +here he called himself several hard names, and wished that he had +been wise in the beginning. + +Whether Mrs. Landys-Haggert saw what was going on in his mind, she +alone knows. He seemed to take an unqualified interest in +everything connected with herself, as distinguished from the Alice- +Chisane likeness, and he said one or two things which, if Alice +Chisane had been still betrothed to him, could scarcely have been +excused, even on the grounds of the likeness. But Mrs. Haggert +turned the remarks aside, and spent a long time in making Hannasyde +see what a comfort and a pleasure she had been to him because of her +strange resemblance to his old love. Hannasyde groaned in his +saddle and said, "Yes, indeed," and busied himself with preparations +for her departure to the Frontier, feeling very small and miserable. + +The last day of her stay at Lucknow came, and Hannasyde saw her off +at the Railway Station. She was very grateful for his kindness and +the trouble he had taken, and smiled pleasantly and sympathetically +as one who knew the Alice-Chisane reason of that kindness. And +Hannasyde abused the coolies with the luggage, and hustled the +people on the platform, and prayed that the roof might fall in and +slay him. + +As the train went out slowly, Mrs. Landys-Haggert leaned out of the +window to say goodbye:--"On second thoughts au revoir, Mr. +Hannasyde. I go Home in the Spring, and perhaps I may meet you in +Town." + +Hannasyde shook hands, and said very earnestly and adoringly:--"I +hope to Heaven I shall never see your face again!" + +And Mrs. Haggert understood. + + + +WRESSLEY OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE. + + +I closed and drew for my love's sake, + That now is false to me, +And I slew the Riever of Tarrant Moss, + And set Dumeny free. + +And ever they give me praise and gold, + And ever I moan my loss, +For I struck the blow for my false love's sake, + And not for the men at the Moss. + + Tarrant Moss. + + +One of the many curses of our life out here is the want of +atmosphere in the painter's sense. There are no half-tints worth +noticing. Men stand out all crude and raw, with nothing to tone +them down, and nothing to scale them against. They do their work, +and grow to think that there is nothing but their work, and nothing +like their work, and that they are the real pivots on which the +administration turns. Here is an instance of this feeling. A half- +caste clerk was ruling forms in a Pay Office. He said to me:--"Do +you know what would happen if I added or took away one single line +on this sheet?" Then, with the air of a conspirator:--"It would +disorganize the whole of the Treasury payments throughout the whole +of the Presidency Circle! Think of that?" + +If men had not this delusion as to the ultra-importance of their own +particular employments, I suppose that they would sit down and kill +themselves. But their weakness is wearisome, particularly when the +listener knows that he himself commits exactly the same sin. + +Even the Secretariat believes that it does good when it asks an +over-driven Executive Officer to take census of wheat-weevils +through a district of five thousand square miles. + +There was a man once in the Foreign Office--a man who had grown +middle-aged in the department, and was commonly said, by irreverent +juniors, to be able to repeat Aitchison's "Treaties and Sunnuds" +backwards, in his sleep. What he did with his stored knowledge only +the Secretary knew; and he, naturally, would not publish the news +abroad. This man's name was Wressley, and it was the Shibboleth, in +those days, to say:--"Wressley knows more about the Central Indian +States than any living man." If you did not say this, you were +considered one of mean undertanding. + +Now-a-days, the man who says that he knows the ravel of the inter- +tribal complications across the Border is of more use; but in +Wressley's time, much attention was paid to the Central Indian +States. They were called "foci" and "factors," and all manner of +imposing names. + +And here the curse of Anglo-Indian life fell heavily. When Wressley +lifted up his voice, and spoke about such-and-such a succession to +such-and-such a throne, the Foreign Office were silent, and Heads of +Departments repeated the last two or three words of Wressley's +sentences, and tacked "yes, yes," on them, and knew that they were +"assisting the Empire to grapple with serious political +contingencies." In most big undertakings, one or two men do the +work while the rest sit near and talk till the ripe decorations +begin to fall. + +Wressley was the working-member of the Foreign Office firm, and, to +keep him up to his duties when he showed signs of flagging, he was +made much of by his superiors and told what a fine fellow he was. +He did not require coaxing, because he was of tough build, but what +he received confirmed him in the belief that there was no one quite +so absolutely and imperatively necessary to the stability of India +as Wressley of the Foreign Office. There might be other good men, +but the known, honored and trusted man among men was Wressley of the +Foreign Office. We had a Viceroy in those days who knew exactly +when to "gentle" a fractious big man and to hearten up a collar- +galled little one, and so keep all his team level. He conveyed to +Wressley the impression which I have just set down; and even tough +men are apt to be disorganized by a Viceroy's praise. There was a +case once--but that is another story. + +All India knew Wressley's name and office--it was in Thacker and +Spink's Directory--but who he was personally, or what he did, or +what his special merits were, not fifty men knew or cared. His work +filled all his time, and he found no leisure to cultivate +acquaintances beyond those of dead Rajput chiefs with Ahir blots in +their 'scutcheons. Wressley would have made a very good Clerk in +the Herald's College had he not been a Bengal Civilian. + +Upon a day, between office and office, great trouble came to +Wressley--overwhelmed him, knocked him down, and left him gasping as +though he had been a little school-boy. Without reason, against +prudence, and at a moment's notice, he fell in love with a +frivolous, golden-haired girl who used to tear about Simla Mall on a +high, rough waler, with a blue velvet jockey-cap crammed over her +eyes. Her name was Venner--Tillie Venner--and she was delightful. +She took Wressley's heart at a hand-gallop, and Wressley found that +it was not good for man to live alone; even with half the Foreign +Office Records in his presses. + +Then Simla laughed, for Wressley in love was slightly ridiculous. +He did his best to interest the girl in himself--that is to say, his +work--and she, after the manner of women, did her best to appear +interested in what, behind his back, she called "Mr. Wressley's +Wajahs"; for she lisped very prettily. She did not understand one +little thing about them, but she acted as if she did. Men have +married on that sort of error before now. + +Providence, however, had care of Wressley. He was immensely struck +with Miss Venner's intelligence. He would have been more impressed +had he heard her private and confidential accounts of his calls. He +held peculiar notions as to the wooing of girls. He said that the +best work of a man's career should be laid reverently at their feet. +Ruskin writes something like this somewhere, I think; but in +ordinary life a few kisses are better and save time. + +About a month after he had lost his heart to Miss Venner, and had +been doing his work vilely in consequence, the first idea of his +"Native Rule in Central India" struck Wressley and filled him with +joy. It was, as he sketched it, a great thing--the work of his +life--a really comprehensive survey of a most fascinating subject-- +to be written with all the special and laboriously acquired +knowledge of Wressley of the Foreign Office--a gift fit for an +Empress. + +He told Miss Venner that he was going to take leave, and hoped, on +his return, to bring her a present worthy of her acceptance. Would +she wait? Certainly she would. Wressley drew seventeen hundred +rupees a month. She would wait a year for that. Her mamma would +help her to wait. + +So Wressley took one year's leave and all the available documents, +about a truck-load, that he could lay hands on, and went down to +Central India with his notion hot in his head. He began his book in +the land he was writing of. Too much official correspondence had +made him a frigid workman, and he must have guessed that he needed +the white light of local color on his palette. This is a dangerous +paint for amateurs to play with. + +Heavens, how that man worked! He caught his Rajahs, analyzed his +Rajahs, and traced them up into the mists of Time and beyond, with +their queens and their concubines. He dated and cross-dated, +pedigreed and triple-pedigreed, compared, noted, connoted, wove, +strung, sorted, selected, inferred, calendared and counter- +calendared for ten hours a day. And, because this sudden and new +light of Love was upon him, he turned those dry bones of history and +dirty records of misdeeds into things to weep or to laugh over as he +pleased. His heart and soul were at the end of his pen, and they +got into the link. He was dowered with sympathy, insight, humor and +style for two hundred and thirty days and nights; and his book was a +Book. He had his vast special knowledge with him, so to speak; but +the spirit, the woven-in human Touch, the poetry and the power of +the output, were beyond all special knowledge. But I doubt whether +he knew the gift that was in him then, and thus he may have lost +some happiness. He was toiling for Tillie Venner, not for himself. +Men often do their best work blind, for some one else's sake. + +Also, though this has nothing to do with the story, in India where +every one knows every one else, you can watch men being driven, by +the women who govern them, out of the rank-and-file and sent to take +up points alone. A good man once started, goes forward; but an +average man, so soon as the woman loses interest in his success as a +tribute to her power, comes back to the battalion and is no more +heard of. + +Wressley bore the first copy of his book to Simla and, blushing and +stammering, presented it to Miss Venner. She read a little of it. +I give her review verbatim:--"Oh, your book? It's all about those +how-wid Wajahs. I didn't understand it." + + . . . . . . . . . + +Wressley of the Foreign Office was broken, smashed,--I am not +exaggerating--by this one frivolous little girl. All that he could +say feebly was:--"But, but it's my magnum opus! The work of my +life." Miss Venner did not know what magnum opus meant; but she +knew that Captain Kerrington had won three races at the last +Gymkhana. Wressley didn't press her to wait for him any longer. He +had sense enough for that. + +Then came the reaction after the year's strain, and Wressley went +back to the Foreign Office and his "Wajahs," a compiling, +gazetteering, report-writing hack, who would have been dear at three +hundred rupees a month. He abided by Miss Venner's review. Which +proves that the inspiration in the book was purely temporary and +unconnected with himself. Nevertheless, he had no right to sink, in +a hill-tarn, five packing-cases, brought up at enormous expense from +Bombay, of the best book of Indian history ever written. + +When he sold off before retiring, some years later, I was turning +over his shelves, and came across the only existing copy of "Native +Rule in Central India"--the copy that Miss Venner could not +understand. I read it, sitting on his mule-trucks, as long as the +light lasted, and offered him his own price for it. He looked over +my shoulder for a few pages and said to himself drearily:--"Now, how +in the world did I come to write such damned good stuff as that?" +Then to me:--"Take it and keep it. Write one of your penny-farthing +yarns about its birth. Perhaps--perhaps--the whole business may +have been ordained to that end." + +Which, knowing what Wressley of the Foreign Office was once, struck +me as about the bitterest thing that I had ever heard a man say of +his own work. + + + +BY WORD OF MOUTH. + + +Not though you die to-night, O Sweet, and wail, + A spectre at my door, +Shall mortal Fear make Love immortal fail-- + I shall but love you more, +Who from Death's house returning, give me still + One moment's comfort in my matchless ill. + + Shadow Houses. + + +This tale may be explained by those who know how souls are made, and +where the bounds of the Possible are put down. I have lived long +enough in this country to know that it is best to know nothing, and +can only write the story as it happened. + +Dumoise was our Civil Surgeon at Meridki, and we called him +"Dormouse," because he was a round little, sleepy little man. He +was a good Doctor and never quarrelled with any one, not even with +our Deputy Commissioner, who had the manners of a bargee and the +tact of a horse. He married a girl as round and as sleepy-looking +as himself. She was a Miss Hillardyce, daughter of "Squash" +Hillardyce of the Berars, who married his Chief's daughter by +mistake. But that is another story. + +A honeymoon in India is seldom more than a week long; but there is +nothing to hinder a couple from extending it over two or three +years. This is a delightful country for married folk who are +wrapped up in one another. They can live absolutely alone and +without interruption--just as the Dormice did. These two little +people retired from the world after their marriage, and were very +happy. They were forced, of course, to give occasional dinners, but +they made no friends hereby, and the Station went its own way and +forgot them; only saying, occasionally, that Dormouse was the best +of good fellows, though dull. A Civil Surgeon who never quarrels is +a rarity, appreciated as such. + +Few people can afford to play Robinson Crusoe anywhere--least of all +in India, where we are few in the land, and very much dependent on +each other's kind offices. Dumoise was wrong in shutting himself +from the world for a year, and he discovered his mistake when an +epidemic of typhoid broke out in the Station in the heart of the +cold weather, and his wife went down. He was a shy little man, and +five days were wasted before he realized that Mrs. Dumoise was +burning with something worse than simple fever, and three days more +passed before he ventured to call on Mrs. Shute, the Engineer's +wife, and timidly speak about his trouble. Nearly every household +in India knows that Doctors are very helpless in typhoid. The +battle must be fought out between Death and the Nurses, minute by +minute and degree by degree. Mrs. Shute almost boxed Dumoise's ears +for what she called his "criminal delay," and went off at once to +look after the poor girl. We had seven cases of typhoid in the +Station that winter and, as the average of death is about one in +every five cases, we felt certain that we should have to lose +somebody. But all did their best. The women sat up nursing the +women, and the men turned to and tended the bachelors who were down, +and we wrestled with those typhoid cases for fifty-six days, and +brought them through the Valley of the Shadow in triumph. But, just +when we thought all was over, and were going to give a dance to +celebrate the victory, little Mrs. Dumoise got a relapse and died in +a week and the Station went to the funeral. Dumoise broke down +utterly at the brink of the grave, and had to be taken away. + +After the death, Dumoise crept into his own house and refused to be +comforted. He did his duties perfectly, but we all felt that he +should go on leave, and the other men of his own Service told him +so. Dumoise was very thankful for the suggestion--he was thankful +for anything in those days--and went to Chini on a walking-tour. +Chini is some twenty marches from Simla, in the heart of the Hills, +and the scenery is good if you are in trouble. You pass through +big, still deodar-forests, and under big, still cliffs, and over +big, still grass-downs swelling like a woman's breasts; and the wind +across the grass, and the rain among the deodars says:--"Hush--hush-- +hush." So little Dumoise was packed off to Chini, to wear down his +grief with a full-plate camera, and a rifle. He took also a useless +bearer, because the man had been his wife's favorite servant. He +was idle and a thief, but Dumoise trusted everything to him. + +On his way back from Chini, Dumoise turned aside to Bagi, through +the Forest Reserve which is on the spur of Mount Huttoo. Some men +who have travelled more than a little say that the march from +Kotegarh to Bagi is one of the finest in creation. It runs through +dark wet forest, and ends suddenly in bleak, nipped hill-side and +black rocks. Bagi dak-bungalow is open to all the winds and is +bitterly cold. Few people go to Bagi. Perhaps that was the reason +why Dumoise went there. He halted at seven in the evening, and his +bearer went down the hill-side to the village to engage coolies for +the next day's march. The sun had set, and the night-winds were +beginning to croon among the rocks. Dumoise leaned on the railing +of the verandah, waiting for his bearer to return. The man came +back almost immediately after he had disappeared, and at such a rate +that Dumoise fancied he must have crossed a bear. He was running as +hard as he could up the face of the hill. + +But there was no bear to account for his terror. He raced to the +verandah and fell down, the blood spurting from his nose and his +face iron-gray. Then he gurgled:--"I have seen the Memsahib! I +have seen the Memsahib!" + +"Where?" said Dumoise. + +"Down there, walking on the road to the village. She was in a blue +dress, and she lifted the veil of her bonnet and said:--'Ram Dass, +give my salaams to the Sahib, and tell him that I shall meet him +next month at Nuddea.' Then I ran away, because I was afraid." + +What Dumoise said or did I do not know. Ram Dass declares that he +said nothing, but walked up and down the verandah all the cold +night, waiting for the Memsahib to come up the hill and stretching +out his arms into the dark like a madman. But no Memsahib came, +and, next day, he went on to Simla cross-questioning the bearer +every hour. + +Ram Dass could only say that he had met Mrs. Dumoise and that she +had lifted up her veil and given him the message which he had +faithfully repeated to Dumoise. To this statement Ram Dass adhered. +He did not know where Nuddea was, had no friends at Nuddea, and +would most certainly never go to Nuddea; even though his pay were +doubled. + +Nuddea is in Bengal, and has nothing whatever to do with a doctor +serving in the Punjab. It must be more than twelve hundred miles +from Meridki. + +Dumoise went through Simla without halting, and returned to Meridki +there to take over charge from the man who had been officiating for +him during his tour. There were some Dispensary accounts to be +explained, and some recent orders of the Surgeon-General to be +noted, and, altogether, the taking-over was a full day's work. In +the evening, Dumoise told his locum tenens, who was an old friend of +his bachelor days, what had happened at Bagi; and the man said that +Ram Dass might as well have chosen Tuticorin while he was about it. + +At that moment a telegraph-peon came in with a telegram from Simla, +ordering Dumoise not to take over charge at Meridki, but to go at +once to Nuddea on special duty. There was a nasty outbreak of +cholera at Nuddea, and the Bengal Government, being shorthanded, as +usual, had borrowed a Surgeon from the Punjab. + +Dumoise threw the telegram across the table and said:--"Well?" + +The other Doctor said nothing. It was all that he could say. + +Then he remembered that Dumoise had passed through Simla on his way +from Bagi; and thus might, possibly, have heard the first news of +the impending transfer. + +He tried to put the question, and the implied suspicion into words, +but Dumoise stopped him with:--"If I had desired THAT, I should +never have come back from Chini. I was shooting there. I wish to +live, for I have things to do . . . . but I shall not be sorry." + +The other man bowed his head, and helped, in the twilight, to pack +up Dumoise's just opened trunks. Ram Dass entered with the lamps. + +"Where is the Sahib going?" he asked. + +"To Nuddea," said Dumoise, softly. + +Ram Dass clawed Dumoise's knees and boots and begged him not to go. +Ram Dass wept and howled till he was turned out of the room. Then +he wrapped up all his belongings and came back to ask for a +character. He was not going to Nuddea to see his Sahib die, and, +perhaps to die himself. + +So Dumoise gave the man his wages and went down to Nuddea alone; the +other Doctor bidding him good-bye as one under sentence of death. + +Eleven days later, he had joined his Memsahib; and the Bengal +Government had to borrow a fresh Doctor to cope with that epidemic +at Nuddea. The first importation lay dead in Chooadanga Dak- +Bungalow. + + + +TO BE HELD FOR REFERENCE. + + +By the hoof of the Wild Goat up-tossed +From the Cliff where She lay in the Sun, + Fell the Stone +To the Tarn where the daylight is lost; +So She fell from the light of the Sun, + And alone. + +Now the fall was ordained from the first, +With the Goat and the Cliff and the Tarn, + But the Stone +Knows only Her life is accursed, +As She sinks in the depths of the Tarn, + And alone. + +Oh, Thou who has builded the world +Oh, Thou who hast lighted the Sun! +Oh, Thou who hast darkened the Tarn! + Judge Thou +The Sin of the Stone that was hurled +By the Goat from the light of the Sun, +As She sinks in the mire of the Tarn, + Even now--even now--even now! + +From the Unpublished Papers of McIntosh Jellaludin. + + + "Say, is it dawn, is it dusk in thy Bower, + Thou whom I long for, who longest for me? + Oh be it night--be it--" + + +Here he fell over a little camel-colt that was sleeping in the Serai +where the horse-traders and the best of the blackguards from Central +Asia live; and, because he was very drunk indeed and the night was +dark, he could not rise again till I helped him. That was the +beginning of my acquaintance with McIntosh Jellaludin. When a +loafer, and drunk, sings The Song of the Bower, he must be worth +cultivating. He got off the camel's back and said, rather thickly:-- +"I--I--I'm a bit screwed, but a dip in Loggerhead will put me right +again; and I say, have you spoken to Symonds about the mare's +knees?" + +Now Loggerhead was six thousand weary miles away from us, close to +Mesopotamia, where you mustn't fish and poaching is impossible, and +Charley Symonds' stable a half mile further across the paddocks. It +was strange to hear all the old names, on a May night, among the +horses and camels of the Sultan Caravanserai. Then the man seemed +to remember himself and sober down at the same time. He leaned +against the camel and pointed to a corner of the Serai where a lamp +was burning:-- + +"I live there," said he, "and I should be extremely obliged if you +would be good enough to help my mutinous feet thither; for I am more +than usually drunk--most--most phenomenally tight. But not in +respect to my head. 'My brain cries out against'--how does it go? +But my head rides on the--rolls on the dung-hill I should have said, +and controls the qualm." + +I helped him through the gangs of tethered horses and he collapsed +on the edge of the verandah in front of the line of native quarters. + +"Thanks--a thousand thanks! O Moon and little, little Stars! To +think that a man should so shamelessly . . . . Infamous liquor, +too. Ovid in exile drank no worse. Better. It was frozen. Alas! +I had no ice. Good-night. I would introduce you to my wife were I +sober--or she civilized." + +A native woman came out of the darkness of the room, and began +calling the man names; so I went away. He was the most interesting +loafer that I had the pleasure of knowing for a long time; and later +on, he became a friend of mine. He was a tall, well-built, fair man +fearfully shaken with drink, and he looked nearer fifty than the +thirty-five which, he said, was his real age. When a man begins to +sink in India, and is not sent Home by his friends as soon as may +be, he falls very low from a respectable point of view. By the time +that he changes his creed, as did McIntosh, he is past redemption. + +In most big cities, natives will tell you of two or three Sahibs, +generally low-caste, who have turned Hindu or Mussulman, and who +live more or less as such. But it is not often that you can get to +know them. As McIntosh himself used to say:--"If I change my +religion for my stomach's sake, I do not seek to become a martyr to +missionaries, nor am I anxious for notoriety." + +At the outset of acquaintance McIntosh warned me. "Remember this. +I am not an object for charity. I require neither your money, your +food, nor your cast-off raiment. I am that rare animal, a self- +supporting drunkard. If you choose, I will smoke with you, for the +tobacco of the bazars does not, I admit, suit my palate; and I will +borrow any books which you may not specially value. It is more than +likely that I shall sell them for bottles of excessively filthy +country-liquors. In return, you shall share such hospitality as my +house affords. Here is a charpoy on which two can sit, and it is +possible that there may, from time to time, be food in that platter. +Drink, unfortunately, you will find on the premises at any hour: and +thus I make you welcome to all my poor establishments." + +I was admitted to the McIntosh household--I and my good tobacco. +But nothing else. Unluckily, one cannot visit a loafer in the Serai +by day. Friends buying horses would not understand it. +Consequently, I was obliged to see McIntosh after dark. He laughed +at this, and said simply:--"You are perfectly right. When I enjoyed +a position in society, rather higher than yours, I should have done +exactly the same thing, Good Heavens! I was once"--he spoke as +though he had fallen from the Command of a Regiment--"an Oxford +Man!" This accounted for the reference to Charley Symonds' stable. + +"You," said McIntosh, slowly, "have not had that advantage; but, to +outward appearance, you do not seem possessed of a craving for +strong drinks. On the whole, I fancy that you are the luckier of +the two. Yet I am not certain. You are--forgive my saying so even +while I am smoking your excellent tobacco--painfully ignorant of +many things." + +We were sitting together on the edge of his bedstead, for he owned +no chairs, watching the horses being watered for the night, while +the native woman was preparing dinner. I did not like being +patronized by a loafer, but I was his guest for the time being, +though he owned only one very torn alpaca-coat and a pair of +trousers made out of gunny-bags. He took the pipe out of his mouth, +and went on judicially:--"All things considered, I doubt whether you +are the luckier. I do not refer to your extremely limited classical +attainments, or your excruciating quantities, but to your gross +ignorance of matters more immediately under your notice. That for +instance."--He pointed to a woman cleaning a samovar near the well +in the centre of the Serai. She was flicking the water out of the +spout in regular cadenced jerks. + +"There are ways and ways of cleaning samovars. If you knew why she +was doing her work in that particular fashion, you would know what +the Spanish Monk meant when he said-- + + + 'I the Trinity illustrate, + Drinking watered orange-pulp-- + In three sips the Aryan frustrate, + While he drains his at one gulp.--' + + +and many other things which now are hidden from your eyes. However, +Mrs. McIntosh has prepared dinner. Let us come and eat after the +fashion of the people of the country--of whom, by the way, you know +nothing." + +The native woman dipped her hand in the dish with us. This was +wrong. The wife should always wait until the husband has eaten. +McIntosh Jellaludin apologized, saying:-- + +"It is an English prejudice which I have not been able to overcome; +and she loves me. Why, I have never been able to understand. I +fore-gathered with her at Jullundur, three years ago, and she has +remained with me ever since. I believe her to be moral, and know +her to be skilled in cookery." + +He patted the woman's head as he spoke, and she cooed softly. She +was not pretty to look at. + +McIntosh never told me what position he had held before his fall. +He was, when sober, a scholar and a gentleman. When drunk, he was +rather more of the first than the second. He used to get drunk +about once a week for two days. On those occasions the native woman +tended him while he raved in all tongues except his own. One day, +indeed, he began reciting Atalanta in Calydon, and went through it +to the end, beating time to the swing of the verse with a bedstead- +leg. But he did most of his ravings in Greek or German. The man's +mind was a perfect rag-bag of useless things. Once, when he was +beginning to get sober, he told me that I was the only rational +being in the Inferno into which he had descended--a Virgil in the +Shades, he said--and that, in return for my tobacco, he would, +before he died, give me the materials of a new Inferno that should +make me greater than Dante. Then he fell asleep on a horse-blanket +and woke up quite calm. + +"Man," said he, "when you have reached the uttermost depths of +degradation, little incidents which would vex a higher life, are to +you of no consequence. Last night, my soul was among the gods; but +I make no doubt that my bestial body was writhing down here in the +garbage." + +"You were abominably drunk if that's what you mean," I said. + +"I WAS drunk--filthy drunk. I who am the son of a man with whom you +have no concern--I who was once Fellow of a College whose buttery- +hatch you have not seen. I was loathsomely drunk. But consider how +lightly I am touched. It is nothing to me. Less than nothing; for +I do not even feel the headache which should be my portion. Now, in +a higher life, how ghastly would have been my punishment, how bitter +my repentance! Believe me, my friend with the neglected education, +the highest is as the lowest--always supposing each degree extreme." + +He turned round on the blanket, put his head between his fists and +continued:-- + +"On the Soul which I have lost and on the Conscience which I have +killed, I tell you that I CANNOT feel! I am as the gods, knowing +good and evil, but untouched by either. Is this enviable or is it +not?" + +When a man has lost the warning of "next morning's head," he must be +in a bad state, I answered, looking at McIntosh on the blanket, with +his hair over his eyes and his lips blue-white, that I did not think +the insensibility good enough. + +"For pity's sake, don't say that! I tell you, it IS good and most +enviable. Think of my consolations!" + +"Have you so many, then, McIntosh?" + +"Certainly; your attempts at sarcasm which is essentially the weapon +of a cultured man, are crude. First, my attainments, my classical +and literary knowledge, blurred, perhaps, by immoderate drinking-- +which reminds me that before my soul went to the Gods last night, I +sold the Pickering Horace you so kindly lent me. Ditta Mull the +Clothesman has it. It fetched ten annas, and may be redeemed for a +rupee--but still infinitely superior to yours. Secondly, the +abiding affection of Mrs. McIntosh, best of wives. Thirdly, a +monument, more enduring than brass, which I have built up in the +seven years of my degradation." + +He stopped here, and crawled across the room for a drink of water. +He was very shaky and sick. + +He referred several times to his "treasure"--some great possession +that he owned--but I held this to be the raving of drink. He was as +poor and as proud as he could be. His manner was not pleasant, but +he knew enough about the natives, among whom seven years of his life +had been spent, to make his acquaintance worth having. He used +actually to laugh at Strickland as an ignorant man--"ignorant West +and East"--he said. His boast was, first, that he was an Oxford Man +of rare and shining parts, which may or may not have been true--I +did not know enough to check his statements--and, secondly, that he +"had his hand on the pulse of native life"--which was a fact. As an +Oxford man, he struck me as a prig: he was always throwing his +education about. As a Mahommedan faquir--as McIntosh Jellaludin--he +was all that I wanted for my own ends. He smoked several pounds of +my tobacco, and taught me several ounces of things worth knowing; +but he would never accept any gifts, not even when the cold weather +came, and gripped the poor thin chest under the poor thin alpaca- +coat. He grew very angry, and said that I had insulted him, and +that he was not going into hospital. He had lived like a beast and +he would die rationally, like a man. + +As a matter of fact, he died of pneumonia; and on the night of his +death sent over a grubby note asking me to come and help him to die. + +The native woman was weeping by the side of the bed. McIntosh, +wrapped in a cotton cloth, was too weak to resent a fur coat being +thrown over him. He was very active as far as his mind was +concerned, and his eyes were blazing. When he had abused the Doctor +who came with me so foully that the indignant old fellow left, he +cursed me for a few minutes and calmed down. + +Then he told his wife to fetch out "The Book" from a hole in the +wall. She brought out a big bundle, wrapped in the tail of a +petticoat, of old sheets of miscellaneous note-paper, all numbered +and covered with fine cramped writing. McIntosh ploughed his hand +through the rubbish and stirred it up lovingly. + +"This," he said, "is my work--the Book of McIntosh Jellaludin, +showing what he saw and how he lived, and what befell him and +others; being also an account of the life and sins and death of +Mother Maturin. What Mirza Murad Ali Beg's book is to all other +books on native life, will my work be to Mirza Murad Ali Beg's!" + +This, as will be conceded by any one who knows Mirza Ali Beg's book, +was a sweeping statement. The papers did not look specially +valuable; but McIntosh handled them as if they were currency-notes. +Then he said slowly:--"In despite the many weaknesses of your +education, you have been good to me. I will speak of your tobacco +when I reach the Gods. I owe you much thanks for many kindnesses. +But I abominate indebtedness. For this reason I bequeath to you now +the monument more enduring than brass--my one book--rude and +imperfect in parts, but oh, how rare in others! I wonder if you +will understand it. It is a gift more honorable than . . . Bah! +where is my brain rambling to? You will mutilate it horribly. You +will knock out the gems you call 'Latin quotations,' you Philistine, +and you will butcher the style to carve into your own jerky jargon; +but you cannot destroy the whole of it. I bequeath it to you. +Ethel . . . My brain again! . . Mrs. McIntosh, bear witness that I +give the sahib all these papers. They would be of no use to you, +Heart of my heart; and I lay it upon you," he turned to me here, +"that you do not let my book die in its present form. It is yours +unconditionally--the story of McIntosh Jellaludin, which is NOT the +story of McIntosh Jellaludin, but of a greater man than he, and of a +far greater woman. Listen now! I am neither mad nor drunk! That +book will make you famous." + +I said, "thank you," as the native woman put the bundle into my +arms. + +"My only baby!" said McIntosh with a smile. He was sinking fast, +but he continued to talk as long as breath remained. I waited for +the end: knowing that, in six cases out of ten the dying man calls +for his mother. He turned on his side and said:-- + +"Say how it came into your possession. No one will believe you, but +my name, at least, will live. You will treat it brutally, I know +you will. Some of it must go; the public are fools and prudish +fools. I was their servant once. But do your mangling gently--very +gently. It is a great work, and I have paid for it in seven years' +damnation." + +His voice stopped for ten or twelve breaths, and then he began +mumbling a prayer of some kind in Greek. The native woman cried +very bitterly. Lastly, he rose in bed and said, as loudly as +slowly:--"Not guilty, my Lord!" + +Then he fell back, and the stupor held him till he died. The native +woman ran into the Serai among the horses and screamed and beat her +breasts; for she had loved him. + +Perhaps his last sentence in life told what McIntosh had once gone +through; but, saving the big bundle of old sheets in the cloth, +there was nothing in his room to say who or what he had been. + +The papers were in a hopeless muddle. + +Strickland helped me to sort them, and he said that the writer was +either an extreme liar or a most wonderful person. He thought the +former. One of these days, you may be able to judge for yourself. +The bundle needed much expurgation and was full of Greek nonsense, +at the head of the chapters, which has all been cut out. + +If the things are ever published some one may perhaps remember this +story, now printed as a safeguard to prove that McIntosh Jellaludin +and not I myself wrote the Book of Mother Maturin. + +I don't want the Giant's Robe to come true in my case. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext Plain Tales from the Hills, by Kipling + diff --git a/old/ptfth10.zip b/old/ptfth10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c2aba8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ptfth10.zip |