No More Learning

»
}
»


## p. 8628 (#236) ###########################################

8628
CHARLES KINGSLEY
THE SALMON RIVER
From the "Water-Babies)
>
A
ND then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a sight.
He had been very stupid all day, and so had the trout;
for they would not move an inch to take a fly, though there
were thousands on the water, but lay dozing at the bottom under
the shade of the stones; and Tom lay dozing too, and was glad
to cuddle their smooth, cool sides, for the water was quite warm
and unpleasant.
But toward evening it grew suddenly dark; and Tom looked
up and saw a blanket of black clouds lying right across the
valley above his head, resting on the crags right and left. He
felt not quite frightened, but very still; for everything was still.
There was not a whisper of wind nor a chirp of a bird to be
heard; and next a few great drops of rain fell plop into the
water, and one hit Tom on the nose, and made him pop his head
down quickly enough.
And then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed, and
leaped across Vendale and back again, from cloud to cloud and
cliff to cliff, till the very rocks in the stream seemed to shake;
and Tom looked up at it through the water, and thought it the
finest thing he ever saw in his life.
But out of the water he dared not put his head; for the rain
came down by bucketfuls, and the hail hammered like shot on
the stream, and churned it into foam; and soon the stream rose
and rushed down, higher and higher and fouler and fouler, full
of beetles, and sticks and straws, and worms and addle-eggs, and
wood-lice and leeches, and odds and ends, and omnium-gatherums,
and this, that, and the other, enough to fill nine museums.
Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid behind a
rock. But the trout did not; for out they rushed from among
the stones, and began gobbling the beetles and leeches in the
most greedy and quarrelsome way; and swimming about with
great worms hanging out of their mouths, tugging and kicking
to get them away from each other.
And now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw a new
sight,- all the bottom of the stream alive with great eels, turn-
ing and twisting along, all down-stream and away. They had
been hiding for weeks past in the cracks of the rocks, and in
burrows in the mud; and Tom had hardly ever seen them, except


## p. 8629 (#237) ###########################################

CHARLES KINGSLEY
8629
(C
now and then at night; but now they were all out, and went
hurrying past him so fiercely and wildly that he was quite fright-
ened. And as they hurried past he could hear them say to each
other, “We must run, we must run. What a jolly thunder-storm!
Down to the sea, down to the sea! ”
And then the otter came by with all her brood, twining and
sweeping along as fast as the eels themselves; and she spied Tom
as she came by, and said:
Now is your time, eft, if you want to see the world. Come
along, children, never mind those nasty eels: we shall breakfast
on salmon to-morrow. Down to the sea, down to the sea! »
Then came a flash brighter than all the rest; and by the light
of it - in the thousandth part of a second they were gone again,
but he had seen them, he was certain of it — three beautiful
Little white girls, with their arms twined round each other's
necks, floating down the torrent as they sang, "Down to the sea,
down to the sea ! »
“Oh, stay! Wait for me! ” cried Tom; but they were gone;
yet he could hear their voices clear and sweet through the roar
of thunder and water and wind, singing as they died away,
“Down to the sea! ”
«Down to the sea ? ” said Tom: "everything is going to the
sea, and I will go too. Good-by, trout. ” But the trout were so
busy gobbling worms that they never turned to answer him; so
that Tom was spared the pain of bidding them farewell.
And now, down the rushing stream, guided by the bright
flashes of the storm; past tall birch-fringed rocks, which shone
out one moment as clear as day, and the next were dark as
night; past dark hovers under swirling banks, from which great
trout rushed out on Tom, thinking him to be good to eat, and
turned back sulkily, for the fairies sent them home again with a
tremendous scolding for daring to meddle with a water-baby; on
through narrow strids and roaring cataracts, where Tom was
deafened and blinded for a moment by the rushing waters; along
deep reaches, where the white water-lilies tossed and flapped
beneath the wind and hail; past sleeping villages, under dark
bridge arches, and away and away to the sea. And Tom could
not stop, and did not care to stop: he would see the great world
below, and the salmon and the breakers and the wide, wide sea.
And when the daylight came, Tom found himself out in the
salmon river,
*
1
4


## p. 8630 (#238) ###########################################

8630
CHARLES KINGSLEY
!
1
1
1
And what sort of a river was it? Was it like an Irish stream
winding through the brown bogs, where the wild ducks squatter
up from among the white water-lilies, and the curlews flit to and
fro, crying, “Tullie-wheep, mind your sheep," and Dennis tells
you strange stories of the Peishtamore, the great bogy-snake
which lies in the black peat pools, among the old pine stems, and
puts his head out at night to snap at the cattle as they come
down to drink ? But you must not believe all that Dennis tells
you, mind; for if you ask him —
Is there a salmon here, do you think, Dennis ? »
“Is it salmon, thin, your Honor manes ? Salmon ? Cart-loads
it is of thim, thin, an' ridgmens, shouldthering ache ither out of
water, av ye'd but the luck to see thim. ”
Then you fish the pool all over, and never get a rise.
But there can't be a salmon here, Dennis! and if you'll but
think, if one had come up last tide, he'd be gone to the higher
pools by now. ”
« Sure, thin, and your Honor's the thrue fisherman, and un-
derstands it all like a book. Why, ye spake as if ye'd known the
wather a thousand years! As I said, how could there be a fish
here at all, just now? »
“But you said just now they were shouldering each other out
of water. "
And then Dennis will look up at you with his handsome,
sly, soft, sleepy, good-natured, untrustable, Irish gray eye, and
answer with the prettiest smile:-
"Sure, and didn't I think your Honor would like a pleasant
answer ? »
So you must not trust Dennis, because he is in the habit of
giving pleasant answers; but instead of being angry with him,
you must remember that he is a poor Paddy, and knows no bet-
ter: so you must just burst out laughing; and then he will burst
out laughing too, and slave for you, and trot about after you,
and show you good sport if he can,- for he is an affectionate fel-
low, and as fond of sport as you are,- and if he can't, tell you
fibs instead, a hundred an hour; and wonder all the while why
poor ould Ireland does not prosper like England and Scotland
and some other places, where folk have taken up a ridiculous
fancy that honesty is the best policy.
Or was it like a Welsh salmon river, which is remarkable
chiefly (at least, till this last year) for containing no salmon, as
2
!
1
1


## p. 8631 (#239) ###########################################

CHARLES KINGSLEY
8631
they have been all poached out by the enlighted peasantry, to
prevent the Cythrawl Sassenach (which means you, my little dear,
your kith and kin, and signifies much the same as the Chinese
Fan Quei) from coming bothering into Wales, with good tackle
and ready money, and civilization and common honesty, and other
like things of which the Cymry stand in no need whatsoever ?
Or was it such a salmon stream as I trust you will see among
the Hampshire water-meadows before your hairs are gray, under
the wise new fishing-laws — when Winchester apprentices shall
covenant, as they did three hundred years ago, not to be made
to eat salmon more than three days a week, and fresh-run fish
shall be as plentiful under Salisbury spire as they are in Holly-
h ole at Christchurch; in the good time coming, when folks shall
see that of all Heaven's gifts of food, the one to be protected
most carefully is that worthy gentleman salmon, who is generous
e nough to go down to the sea weighing five ounces, and to come
back next year weighing five pounds, without having cost the
soil or the State one farthing?
Or was it like a Scotch stream such as Arthur Clough drew
in his Bothie?
«Where over a ledge of granite
Into a granite basin the amber torrent descended.
Beautiful there for the color derived from green rocks under;
Beautiful most of all, where beads of foam uprising
Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the still-
(
ness.
Cliff
over cliff for its sides, with rowan
boughs. ”
and pendent birch
.
Ah, my little man, when you are a big man, and fish such
a stream as that, you will hardly care, I think, whether she be
roaring down in full spate, like coffee covered with scald cream,
while the fish are swirling at your fly as an oar-blade swirls in
a boat-race, or flashing up the cataract like silver arrows, out
of the fiercest of the foam; or whether the fall be dwindled to
a single thread, and the shingle below be as white and dusty as a
turnpike road, while the salmon huddle together in one dark
cloud in the clear amber pool, sleeping away their time till the
ra in creeps back again off the sea You will not care much, if
you have eyes and brains; for you will lay down your rod con-
te ntedly, and drink in at your eyes the beauty of that glorious
place, and listen to the water-ouzel piping on the stones, and
9


## p. 8632 (#240) ###########################################

8632
CHARLES KINGSLEY
« You
-
watch the yellow roes come down to drink and look up at you
with their great soft, trustful eyes, as much as to say,
could not have the heart to shoot at us. " And then, if you have
,
sense, you will turn and talk to the great giant of a gilly who
lies basking on the stone beside you. He will tell you no fibs,
my little man, for he is a Scotchman, and fears God; and as you
talk with him you will be surprised more and more at his knowl-
edge, his sense, his humor, his courtesy; and you will find out -
unless you have found it out before — that a man may learn
from his Bible to be a more thorough gentleman than if he had
been brought up in all the drawing-rooms in London.
No. It was none of these, the salmon stream at Harthover.
It was such a stream as you see in dear old Bewick — Bewick,
who was born and bred upon them. A full hundred yards broad
it was, sliding on from broad pool to broad shallow, and broad
shallow to broad pool, over great fields of shingle, under oak and
ash coverts, past low cliffs of sandstone, past green meadows and
fair parks, and a great house of gray stone, and brown moors
above, and here and there against the sky the smoking chimney
of a colliery. You must look at Bewick to see just what it was
like, for he has drawn it a hundred times with the care and the
love of a true north-countryman; and even if you do not care
about the salmon river, you ought like all good boys to know
your Bewick.
At least, so old Sir John used to say; and very sensibly he
put it too, as he was wont to do:-
" If they want to describe a finished young gentleman in
France, I hear, they say of him, Il sait son Rabelais. ' But if I
want to describe one in England, I say, 'He knows his Bewick. '
And I think that is the higher compliment. ”


## p. 8632 (#241) ###########################################

|||


## p. 8632 (#242) ###########################################


ISIONI
PA12102
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1
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RUDYARD KIPLING.


## p. 8632 (#243) ###########################################

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interesting phases of the life in wie Ita
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In. Siity. to genius, of 115? g the pack
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Papp Vay lie has cor-sitated hyself, in schooieri
-"? ] "instrel of tie fai-scattered coriai i10. . .
ki, 15's birth, education, and only perieure Hits tuto
royalfy liim for his elected work in the murid. I! W.
born in
Ciritmas week, 1865, in Bumbay, a city he has cel? r? :/? in ve mingo!
(tiry
"A husid mills rors througe where I g! ? n
A'i raeus frun al: lards »
Hi! ),
(11111
bus father, Jr. Loshwoord Kipling, is a cured writer, art toucher,
! 111. 781, who has use his taltit in priskiria pictures and dieses
fir tice in Biak ani W? p=> starciard in of 1,1; wei's
Birks, published by the Scribners in Vw York it 13. ,7. Russis
ich vile viits passed in England, giviig him the 11,7%! ! ! ! ! se
t'i Britisier ! huis native inand. Then, when het
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? cessity of condotemervation and inevitable 2,0
rict is
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TV l'id rider pressite,
Some of his b ni
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str xperia
ws, which was in iuiita'ly a goo! the fi
ik Kling
Wireles? ile, in the int. Viis oi ? ppging 1. *? ? (
lui C "Copy,” tu.
which :1. vre was a ivlisi call in the coilposting-pow. 11, he was doing


## p. 8632 (#244) ###########################################

41
1
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و وو ، کھو


## p. 8633 (#245) ###########################################

8633
RUDYARD KIPLING
(1865-)
:
UDYARD KIPLING, still a young man in the early thirties, is a
dominant figure and force in cur nt English literature. He
has passed successfully through the preliminary stages of
uncritical popularity to receive the most careful critical consideration
as story-teller and poet. He has brought a new and striking person-
ality into the literature of the day: with a splendid vigor, breadth,
and directness he has given literary expression to entirely fresh and
interesting phases of the life in wide regions of the English-speaking
peoples; and he has with a noble realism proved in his work the
possibility, to genius, of using the practical rushing late nineteenth
century — with its machinery, science-worship, and struggle for place
-as rich material for imaginative treatment in literature. In a fairly
epic way he has constituted himself, in song and story, the chronicler
and minstrel of the far-scattered colonial English.
Kipling's birth, education, and early experience were such as to
qualify him for his elected work in the world. He was born in
Christmas week, 1865, in Bombay, a city he has celebrated in verse:
-
“A thousand mills roar through me where I glean
All races from all lands. »
$1
11
16
3
His father, Mr. Lockwood Kipling, is a cultured writer, art teacher,
and illustrator, who has used his talent in making pictures and deco-
rations for the “In Black and White ) standard edition of his son's
works, published by the Scribners in New York in 1897. Rudyard's
school-life was passed in England, giving him the opportunity to see
the Britisher in his native island. Then, when he was but seventeen,
came the return to India for rough-and-ready journalistic work, as
sub-editor of the Lahore Civil and Military Gazette,— with all its
necessity of close observation and inevitable assimilation of that life.
Kipling took the shortest cut to the writer's trade; namely, he wrote
daily and under pressure.
Some of his best tales — notably “The
Man Who Would Be King'— vividly present this newspaper experi-
ence, which was indubitably a good thing for a man like Kipling.
Meanwhile, in the intervals of supplying mere prosaic “copy,” for
which there was a loud call in the composing-room, he was doing


## p. 8634 (#246) ###########################################

8634
RUDYARD KIPLING
>
what many another hard-worked newspaper man has done before
him. turning out stories and verses — which were quickly caught up
by the press and circulated through East India. Then Kipling, in
1886, having attained to man's estate in years, had bound up
in
rough fashion in his office a small volume of his verse: "a lean
oblong docket, wire-stitched, to imitate a D. 0. government envelope,
printed on one side only, bound in brown paper and secured with red
tape. ” And this bard's bantling had a good sale thereabouts; and as
he himself puts it, (at last the book came to London with a gilt
top and a stiff back. ” Its subsequent history is not private: few first
volumes have had so cordial a reception. The Indian stories too,
Plain Tales from the Hills) (1888), were collected in book shape,
eagerly read by the writer's local clientèle, and found a continually
widening public. Kipling's verse and prose were of honestest birth:
sprung from local experience, his writings appealed primarily to a
local audience; but possessing the essential qualities and interests,
the work proved acceptable to anybody on earth capable of being
moved by the earnest, truthful, forcible portrayal of life in words.
When Plain Tales from the Hills) appeared as a book, it was seen
to be the manifesto of a new talent. The vitality, distinction, new-
ness of theme, the pathos, drama, and humor of the work, set it clean
aside from anything else contemporaneous in fiction of the short-
story kind. The defects in the earlier books were an occasional
abuse of the technical in word or allusion, and a young-man cynicism,
appearing especially in the Gadsby series,-a mood soon sloughed off
by the maturer Kipling. But the merits were of the overpowering
sort, and the dynamic force of the tales was beyond question. That
a man but little more than twenty should have written them made
the performance spectacular. In the use of plain Biblical language
and the selection of realistic themes there was something of the
audacity and immediateness of journalism; but the result almost
always justified the method.
The tales found in the volumes — about a dozen in number –
published between 1886 and 1895, are of several kinds. Some treat
pathetic, realistic, or weirdly sombre situations, either of native or
soldier life: a class containing some masterpieces, of which «The Man
Who Would Be King,' (The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes,' (The
Mark of the Beast,' Without Benefit of Clergy,) (The Phantom Rick-
shaw,' and Beyond the Pale) are illustrations. Another division, of
which (Wee Willie Winkie) is the type, grouped in the book Wee
Willie Winkie and Other Stories) (1888), deals with children, and
exhibits a very winning aspect of the author. Still another contains
the humorous cycle personified in the inimitable triad Mulvaney,
Ortheris, and Learoyd, brought into an artistic unity by their common
(


## p. 8635 (#247) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8635
1112
.
lot as British-Indian privates (with Dinah Shadd as a minor deity),
one of the most spontaneous and successful of 'Kipling's ventures.
The three sharply differentiated individualities have a reality as tan-
gible as Dumas's Guardsmen. The range and variety of the stories
under these heads furnish an emphatic testimonial to Kipling's many-
sidedness. The successive volumes of short stories, from (Plain
Tales' to Many Inventions) in 1893, have only strengthened the
feeling made by his début. The work has been prevailingly, though
by no means exclusively, inspired by Anglo-Indian motives; -- one
such exception as the superbly imaginative psychologic study, A
Disturber of Traffic, indicates his independence of any prescribed
place or subject. Kipling went to England in 1889, and a little later
settled in the United States, where he married Miss Balestier, the
sister of his friend Wolcott Balestier, with whom he collaborated in
the novel “The Naulakha”; a name he afterwards gave to the sightly
house he has built in Brattleboro, Vermont. His English and Ameri-
can experience has entered into and somewhat conditioned his fiction,
which so far however has made its most distinct impression when it
has come out of the East. But whatever the material of the art, the
Kiplingesque attributes are pretty steadily present: a sinewy vernac-
ular strength and beauty of diction; a wonderful power to see and to
represent with bold synthetic effect; and a deep, broad, brotherly
apprehension of the large fundamental passions and interests of
humanity. If one had to name off-hand the qualities most noticeable
in Kipling's short stories, one would say, strength and democratic
sympathy.
Having done short-story work of so much power and flexibility,
Kipling in 1894 produced that unique and wonderful series of animal
fables, The Jungle Book); a Second Jungle Book' following in 1895.
Here was an absolutely fresh handling of the beast-epic,- a theme
familiar since the Middle Ages. But Kipling's attitude is new: the
beast kind are considered from their own side of the fence, and man
is an inferior rather than superior race. The writer's marvelous com-
prehension of animal life, and his equally marvelous technical knowl-
edge of the Indian beast haunts, combine to give to what might
have been grotesquely imaginative the realism of a latter-day annal;
and a rich ethical suggestion covers it like an atmosphere. Kipling
has given no plainer proof of his rightful claim to greatness than
these Jungle fables. His Mowgli is a creation as definite as any of
Æsop's; and its note of sympathy has a modernness which appeals to
the present-day reader.
The essays in full-length fiction also call for attention; though this
work is, up to the present, minor. In 1890 appeared The Light that
Failed'; a novelette which certainly possesses strength of description
1
#
-
1
11
1


## p. 8636 (#248) ###########################################

8636
RUDYARD KIPLING
(
>
-
14
-
and characterization, with some very dramatic scenes, but which does
not strike one as 'having the form germane to the writer's genius.
(The Naulakha' (1892) is a very readable novel, the second part of
which, where the scene shifts from the western United States to
India, and some gruesomely powerful situations are well handled,
Kipling is responsible for. The book as a whole is not close-knit
enough nor homogeneous enough to make it an impressive piece of
sustained art-work. Nor, judging Kipling by the high standard set
by his own short tales, can the Captains Courageous! (1897) – a
spirited narrative of the Gloucester (Massachusetts) fishermen, and
the first long study of American life he has made the short story
“The Walking Delegate) also used a piquant American subject) — be
ranked among his major works. In a word, Kipling has so far
found his authentic prose utterance in the short-story form.
It remains to speak of his poetry, which is now seen to be one of the
most important outcomes of his literary genius. Readers of Kipling's
short stories were early attracted by the snatches of verse myste-
riously prefixed thereto and ascribed to imaginary sources. These
fragments were sometimes startling for power and felicity in the
pathetic, dramatic, and satiric veins. But before long the books of
verse which appeared were a notification — if any were needed, for
Kipling is a prose poet in much of his fiction — that the virile young
Anglo-Indian must be reckoned with both as singer and sayer. De-
partmental Ditties and Other Verses' (1891), (Barrack-Room Ballads
and Other Verses) (1892), and “The Seven Seas) (1896), are collections
of steadily ascending worth and importance. Kipling has come to his
position as poet later and more slowly than was the case with his
fiction; but his seat will be quite as secure, for recognition among
the judicious is now general and hearty. His first appeal was as a
maker of rollicking rhymes, in which the common British soldier in
his picturesque variations was hymned and limned. Kipling became
the barrack-room bard whose seamy heroes, Danny Deever, Tommy
Atkins, Bill 'Awkins, and their likes, were drawn in their habits as
they lived, in their dramatic virtues and equally dramatic sins. The
zest, the high-heartedness, and the infectious lilt of these verses were
such as to commend them not only to the military of many lands,
but to the great international democracy of civilians who love vital
literature. The accent was caught, the epic of the rank-and-file
revealed.
Had Kipling done no more than the barrack-room songs, he would
have won place as a verse-writer; but his flight has been freer and
higher. In his latest poetic utterance he has published himself as the
“bard of the greater Britain,” the uncrowned laureate of the whole
English-speaking folk wherever established. He has shown himself


## p. 8637 (#249) ###########################################

RUDYARD KIPLING
8637
>
E
the strongest living ballad-writer of the tongue. Tennyson, shortly
before his death, wrote Kipling concerning «The Ballad of East and
West' that it was the finest thing of the kind in English verse.
"The
English Flag,' «The Last Chantey,' (A Song of the English,' McAn-
drew's Hymn,' (The Native Born,' — such pieces as these could come
only from a man of puissant power. Kipling has seized, with superb
courage and strong grasp, upon contemporaneous motives whose
connotation is what we call practical, even vulgar; and as only the
largely endowed, truly called poet can, has lifted the bald subject into
the higher realms of imaginative thought and feeling. This is the
truest of all idealism, because it stands four-square upon fact. A
horny-handed and sin-seared skipper, a lawless soldier with a light-o'-
love in every port, a cattle-keeper on shipboard, an engineer amidst
his oily engines, are put before us so that we recognize them as lov-
able fellow-creatures, responsive to the «thousandfold thrill of life. ”
An electric cable, a steam-engine, a banjo, or a mess-room toast offer
occasion for song; and lo, they are converted by the alchemy of the
imagination until they become a type and an illumination of the red-
blooded life of human kind. The ability to achieve this is a crowning
characteristic and merit of Rudyard Kipling's poetry.
It is unnecessary to ask if Kipling's American residence will more
and more color his work. Where he finds his stimulus is immaterial,
so long as the resulting literature is good. His is a restless spirit,
with the adventure quest in the blood, implied in the short compact
figure and the thin alert face, out of which keen eyes behind glasses
peer forth at the human show. He likes to exchange at short notice
the New England hills for the London club or the Indian bungalow.
It is enough to be sure he will follow the Terentian injunction,
surveying men and morals widely and closely and deeming nothing
human alien to his interest. Prophecy concerning his literary work
still to come is likewise foolish. The conventional remark that he
has shown great promise, with the implied postponement of full
accomplishment to the limbo of a dim imaginary future, is not appli-
cable to a Kipling. Already his promise has become performance: he
has done enough to display his genius and define his place with the
few modern English authors of originality, force, and superlative gift.
He is an answer in the concrete to the dyspeptic query,
( What is
the end of the present century doing in literature ? »
METER LIBRARIE


## p. 8638 (#250) ###########################################

8638
RUDYARD KIPLING
WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY
From Harper's Weekly, by permission of Harper & Brothers
‘BºT
1
son
ut if it be a girl ? »
“Lord of my life, it cannot be! I have prayed for so
many nights, and sent gifts to Sheikh Badl's shrine so
often, that I know God will give us a - a man-child that
shall grow into a man. Think of this and be glad. My mother
shall be his mother till I can take him again, and the mullah of
the Pattan Mosque shall cast his nativity — God send he be born
in an auspicious hour! - and then and then thou wilt never
weary of me, thy slave. ”
« Since when hast thou been a slave, my queen ? ”
“Since the beginning — till this mercy came
to me,
How
could I be sure of thy love when I knew that I had been bought
with silver ? »
“Nay, that was the dowry. I paid it to thy mother. ”
“And she has buried it, and sits upon it all day long like a
hen. What talk is yours of dowry? I was bought as though I
had been a Lucknow dancing-girl instead of a child. ”
"Art thou sorry for the sale ? ”
“I have sorrowed; but to-day I am glad. Thou wilt never
cease to love me now? Answer, my king. ”
Never — never. No. "
“Not even though the mem-log — the white women of thy own
blood — love thee? And remember, I have watched them driving
in the evening; they are very fair. ”
“I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred; I have seen the
moon, and
then I saw no more fire-balloons.
Ameera clapped her hands and laughed. “Very good talk,"
she said. Then, with an assumption of great stateliness, “It is
enough. Thou hast my permission to depart—if thou wilt. ”
The man did not move. He was sitting on
a low red-lac-
quered couch, in a room furnished only with a blue-and-white
floor-cloth, some rugs, and a very complete collection of native
cushions. At his feet sat a woman of sixteen, and she was all-
but all the world in his eyes. By every rule and law she should
have been otherwise; for he was an Englishman and she a Mus-
sulman's daughter, bought two years before from her mother,
who being left without money, would have sold Ameera, shriek-
ing, to the Prince of Darkness, if the price had been sufficient.
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RUDYARD KIPLING
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It was a contract entered into with a light heart.
But even
before the girl had reached her bloom she came to fill the greater
portion of John Holden's life. For her and the withered hag, her
mother, he had taken a little house overlooking the great red-
walled city, and found, when the marigolds had sprung up by the
well in the court-yard, and Ameera had established herself accord-
ing to her own ideas of comfort, and her mother had ceased
grumbling at the inadequacy of the cooking-places, the distance
from the daily market, and matters of housekeeping in general,
that the house was to him his home. Any one could enter his
bachelor's bungalow by day or night, and the life that he led
there was an unlovely one. In the house in the city, his feet
only could pass beyond the outer court-yard to the women's rooms;
and when the big wooden gate was bolted behind him he was
king in his own territory, with Ameera for queen. And there
was going to be added to his kingdom a third person, whose
arrival Holden felt inclined to resent. It interfered with his
perfect happiness. It disarranged the orderly peace of the house
that was his own. But Ameera was wild with delight at the
thought of it, and her mother not less so. The love of a man,
and particularly a white man, was at the best an inconstant
affair; but it might, both women argued, be held fast by a baby's
Bands. "And then, Ameera would always say — “then he will
Dever care for the white mem-log. I hate them all — I hate them
all. )
“He will go back to his own people in time,” said the mother;
but by the blessing of God, that time is yet afar off. ”
Holden sat silent on the couch, thinking of the future, and
his thoughts were not pleasant. The drawbacks of a double life
are manifold. The government, with singular care, had ordered
him out of the station for a fortnight on special duty, in the
place of a man who was watching by the bedside of a sick wife.
The verbal notification of the transfer had been edged by a
cheerful remark that Holden ought to think himself lucky in
being a bachelor and a free man. He came to break the news
to Ameera.
"It is not good,” she said slowly, “but it is not all bad.
There is my mother here, and no harm will come to me - unless
in deed I die of pure joy. Go thou to thy work, and think no
troublesome thoughts. When the days are done, I believe - nay,
I am sure.
And- and then I shall lay him in thy arms, and
,
»
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8640
RUDYARD KIPLING
thou wilt love me forever. The train goes to-night — at mid-
night, is it not ? Go now, and do not let thy heart be heavy by
cause of me. But thou wilt not delay in returning! Thou wilt
not stay on the road to talk to the bold white mem-log! Come
back to me swiftly, my life! ”
As he left the court-yard to reach his horse, that was tethered
to the gate-post, Holden spoke to the white-haired old watchman
who guarded the house, and bade him under certain contingen-
cies dispatch the filled-up telegraph form that Holden gave him.
It was all that could be done; and with the sensations of a man
who has attended his own funeral, Holden went away by the
night mail to his exile. Every hour of the day he dreaded the
arrival of the telegram, and every hour of the night he pictured
to himself the death of Ameera. In consequence, his work for
the State was not of first-rate quality, nor was his temper towards
his colleagues of the most amiable. The fortnight ended with-
out a sign from his home; and torn to pieces by his anxieties,
Holden returned to be swallowed up for two precious hours by a
dinner at the club, wherein he heard, as a man hears in a swoon,
voices telling him how execrably he had performed the other
man's duties, and how he had endeared himself to all his asso-
ciates. Then he fled on horseback through the night with his
heart in his mouth. There was no answer at first to his blows
on the gate; and he had just wheeled his horse round to kick it
in, when Pir Khan appeared with a lantern and held his stirrup.
«Has aught occurred ? ” said Holden.
« The news does not come from my mouth, Protector of the
Poor, but — » He held out his shaking hand, as befitted the
bearer of good news who is entitled to a reward.
Holden hurried through the court-yard. A light burned in
the upper room. His horse neighed in the gateway, and he
heard a pin-pointed wail that sent all the blood into the apple of
his throat. It was a new voice, but it did not prove that Ameera
was alive.
“Who is there? ” he called up the narrow brick staircase.
There was a cry of delight from Ameera, and then the voice
of her mother, tremulous with old age and pride: “We be two
women and — the— man — thy son. ”
On the threshold of the room Holden stepped on
dagger that was laid there to avert ill-luck, and it broke at the
hilt under his impatient heel.
या
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"God is great! ” cooed Ameera in the half-light. « Thou hast
taken his misfortunes on thy head. ”
"Ay, but how is it with thee, life of my life?
Old woman,
how is it with her ? »
"She has forgotten her sufferings for joy that the child is
born. There is no harm; but speak softly,” said the mother.
“It only needed thy presence to make me all well,” said
Ameera. “My king, thou hast been very long away. What gifts
hast thou for me? Ah! ah! It is I that bring gifts this time.
Look, my life, look! Was there ever such a babe ? Nay, I am
too weak even to clear my arm from him. ”
“Rest, then, and do not talk. I am here, bachheri” [little
woman).
« Well said; for there is a bond and a heel-rope (peecharee]
between us now that nothing can break. Look — canst thou see
in this light? He is without spot or blemish. Never was such
a man-child. Ya illah! he shall be a pundit- no, a trooper of
the Queen. And my life, dost thou love me as well as ever,
though I am faint and sick and worn ? Answer truly. ”
« Yea. I love as I have loved, with all my soul.
Lie still,
pearl, and rest. ”
« Then do not go. Sit by my side here — so. Mother, the
lord of this house needs a cushion. Bring it. ”
There was an
almost imperceptible movement on the part of the new life that
lay in the hollow of Ameera's arm. "Aho! ” she said, her voice
breaking with love. “The babe is a champion from his birth.
He is kicking me in the side with mighty kicks. Was there ever
such a babe ? And he is ours to us— -thine and mine. Put thy
hand on his head; but carefully, for he is very young, and men
are unskilled in such matters. ”
Very cautiously Holden touched with the tips of his fingers
the downy head.
"He is of the Faith,” said Ameera; for, lying here in the
night-watches, I whispered the Call to Prayer and the Profession
of Faith into his ears. And it is most marvelous that he was
born upon a Friday, as I was born. Be careful of him, my life;
but he can almost grip with his hands. ”
Holden found one helpless little hand that closed feebly on
h is finger. And the clutch ran through his limbs till it settled
a bout his heart. Till then his sole thought had been for Ameera.
He began to realize that there was some one else in the world,
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8642
RUDYARD KIPLING
11
T
»
but he could not feel that it was a veritable son with a soul. He
sat down to think, and Ameera dozed lightly.
“Get hence, sahib,” said her mother, under her breath. “It
is not good that she should find you here on waking. She must
be still. ”
“I go,” said Holden submissively. «Here be rupees.
See
that my baba gets fat and finds all that he needs. ”
The chink of the silver roused Ameera. “I am his mother,
and no hireling,” she said weakly. «Shall I look to him more or
less for the sake of money? Mother, give it back. I have borne
my lord a son. ”
The deep sleep of weakness came upon her almost before the
sentence was completed. Holden went down to the court-yard
very softly, with his heart at ease. Pir Khan, the old watchman,
was chuckling with delight.
« This house is now complete,” he said; and without fur-
ther comment thrust into Holden's hands the hilt of a sabre
worn many years ago, when Pir Khan served the Queen in the
police.
The bleat of a tethered goat came from the well-curb.
« There be two,” said Pir Khan — «two goats of the best. I
bought them, and they cost much money; and since there is no
birth-party assembled, their flesh will be all mine. Strike craft.
ily, sahib. 'Tis an ill-balanced sabre at the best. Wait till they
raise their heads from cropping the marigolds. ”
"And why? ” said Holden, bewildered.
“For the birth sacrifice. What else ? Otherwise the child,
being unguarded from fate, may die. The Protector of the Poor
knows the fitting words to be said. ”
Holden had learned them once, with little thought that he
would ever say them in earnest. The touch of the cold sabre
hilt in his palm turned suddenly to the clinging grip of the child
up-stairs, — the child that was his own son, — and a dread of loss
filled him.
« Strike! » said Pir Khan. "Never life came into the world
but life was paid for it. See, the goats have raised their heads.
Now! With a drawing cut! ”
Hardly knowing what he did, Holden cut twice as he mut-
tered the Mohammedan prayer that runs, “Almighty! In place
of this my son I offer life for life, blood for blood, head for
head, bone for bone, hair for hair, skin for skin. ” The waiting
f
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RUDYARD KIPLING
8643
(
horse snorted and bounded in his pickets at the smell of the raw
blood that spurted over Holden's riding-boots.
“Well smitten! ” said Pir Khan, wiping the sabre. "A swords-
man was lost in thee. Go with a light heart, heaven-born. I
am thy servant, and the servant of thy son. May the Pres-
ence live a thousand years, and — the flesh of the goats is all
mine ? »
Pir Khan drew back richer by a month's pay.
Holden swung
himself into the saddle, and rode off through the low-hanging
wood smoke of the evening. He was full of riotous exultation,
alternating with a vast vague tenderness directed towards no
particular object, that made him choke as he bent over the neck
of his uneasy horse. “I never felt like this in my life," he
thought. “I'll go to the club and pull myself together. ”
A game of pool was beginning, and the room was full of
men. Holden entered, eager to get to the light and the com-
pany of his fellows, singing at the top of his voice,
(
>
« In Baltimore a-walking, a lady I did meet. '»
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<< Did
19
"Did you ? ” said the club secretary from his corner.