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diff --git a/30568-8.txt b/30568-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee9e477 --- /dev/null +++ b/30568-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6319 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child +Should Know, Book II, by Rudyard Kipling + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Editor: Mary E. Burt + W. T. Chapin + +Release Date: November 30, 2009 [EBook #30568] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KIPLING STORIES AND POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Juliet Sutherland, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + The Riverside Literature Series + + + Kipling Stories and Poems + + Every Child Should Know + + + BOOK II + + + _From Rudyard Kipling's The Seven + + Seas, The Days Work, Etc._ + + + + EDITED BY + + MARY E. BURT AND W. T. CHAPIN, PH.D. (Princeton) + + + + + + BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO + + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + + The Riverside Press Cambridge + + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1891, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, + 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1907, 1909 + + BY RUDYARD KIPLING + + + COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY WOLCOTT BALESTIER + + COPYRIGHT, 1892, 1893, 1895, BY MACMILLAN & COMPANY + + COPYRIGHT, 1893, 1905, BY D. APPLETON & COMPANY + + COPYRIGHT, 1893, 1894, 1897, 1898, BY THE CENTURY COMPANY + + COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY HARPER & BROTHERS + + COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + + + PUBLISHED, APRIL, 1909 + + + The Riverside Press + + CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +Biographical Sketch--Charles Eliot Norton vii + + +PART IV + +(_Continued from Book I, Riverside Literature + Series, No. 257_) + +IV. Baa, Baa, Black Sheep (from "Under + the Deodars," etc.) 143 + +V. Wee Willie Winkie (from "Under the + Deodars," etc.) 188 + +VI. The Dove of Dacca (from "Departmental + Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-room + Ballads") 205 + +VII. The Smoke upon Your Altar Dies + (from "Departmental Ditties and + Ballads and Barrack-room Ballads") 207 + +VIII. Recessional (from "The Five Nations") 208 + +IX. L'Envoi (from "The Seven Seas") 210 + + +PART V + +I. The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo + (from "Just So Stories") 213 + +II. Fuzzy Wuzzy (from "Departmental + Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-room + Ballads") 222 + +III. The English Flag (from "Departmental + Ditties and Ballads and + Barrack-room Ballads") 225 + +IV. The King (from "The Seven Seas") 231 + +V. To the Unknown Goddess (from "Departmental + Ditties and Ballads and + Barrack-room Ballads") 234 + +VI. The Galley Slave (from "Departmental + Ditties and Ballads and + Barrack-room Ballads") 235 + +VII. The Ship That Found Herself (from + "The Day's Work") 238 + + +PART VI + +I. A Trip Across a Continent (from + "Captains Courageous") 267 + +II. The Children of the Zodiac (from + "Many Inventions") 274 + +III. The Bridge Builders (from "The + Day's Work") 299 + +IV. The Miracles (from "The Seven Seas") 351 + +V. Our Lady of the Snows (from "The + Five Nations") 353 + +VI. The Song of the Women (from "The + Naulahka") 356 + +VII. The White Man's Burden (from "The + Five Nations") 359 + + * * * * * + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS BY RUDYARD KIPLING + + +Initial for "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo" 213 + +A picture of Old Man Kangaroo when he was +the Different Animal with four short legs 215 + +Old Man Kangaroo at five in the afternoon, +when he had got his beautiful hind legs +just as Big God Nqong had promised 217 + + * * * * * + + + + +A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH + +BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON + + +The deep and widespread interest which the writings of Mr. Rudyard +Kipling have excited has naturally led to curiosity concerning their +author and to a desire to know the conditions of his life. Much has +been written about him which has had little or no foundation in truth. +It seems, then, worth while, in order to prevent false or mistaken +reports from being accepted as trustworthy, and in order to provide +for the public such information concerning Mr. Kipling as it has a +right to possess, that a correct and authoritative statement of the +chief events in his life should be given to it. This is the object of +the following brief narrative. + + * * * * * + +Rudyard Kipling was born at Bombay on the 30th of December, 1865. His +mother, Alice, daughter of the Rev. G. B. Macdonald, a Wesleyan +preacher, eminent in that denomination, and his father, John Lockwood +Kipling, the son also of a Wesleyan preacher, were both of Yorkshire +birth. They had been married in London early in the year, and they +named their first-born child after the pretty lake in Staffordshire +on the borders of which their acquaintance had begun. Mr. Lockwood +Kipling, after leaving school, had served his apprenticeship in one of +the famous Staffordshire potteries at Burslem, had afterward worked in +the studio of the sculptor, Mr. Birnie Philip, and from 1861 to 1865 +had been engaged on the decorations of the South Kensington Museum. +During our American war and in the years immediately following, the +trade of Bombay was exceedingly flourishing, the city was immensely +prosperous, a spirit of inflation possessed the Government and the +people alike, there were great designs for the improvement and +rebuilding of large portions of the town, and a need was felt for +artistic oversight and direction of the works in hand and +contemplated. The distinction which Mr. Lockwood Kipling had already +won by his native ability and thorough training led to his being +appointed in 1865 to go to Bombay as the professor of Architectural +Sculpture in the British School of Art which had been established +there. + +It was thus that Rudyard Kipling came to be born in the most +cosmopolitan city of the Eastern world, and it was there and in its +neighbourhood that the first three years of the boy's life were spent, +years in which every child receives ineffaceable impressions, shaping +his conceptions of the world, and in which a child of peculiarly +sensitive nature and active disposition, such as this boy possessed, +lies open to myriad influences that quicken and give colour to the +imagination. + +In the spring of 1868 he was taken by his mother for a visit to +England, and there, in the same year, his sister was born. In the next +year his mother returned to India with both her children, and the +boy's next two years were spent at and near Bombay. + +He was a friendly and receptive child, eager, interested in all the +various entertaining aspects of life in a city which, "gleaning all +races from all lands," presents more diversified and picturesque +varieties of human condition than any other, East or West. A little +incident which his mother remembers is not without a pretty allegoric +significance. It was at Nasik, on the Dekhan plain, not far from +Bombay: the little fellow trudging over the ploughed field, with his +hand in that of the native husbandman, called back to her in the +Hindustani, which was as familiar to him as English, "Good-bye, this +is my brother." + +In 1871 Mr. and Mrs. Kipling went with their children to England, and +being compelled to return to India the next year, they took up the +sorrow common to Anglo-Indian lives, in leaving their children "at +home," in charge of friends at Southsea, near Portsmouth. It was a +hard and sad experience for the boy. The originality of his nature and +the independence of his spirit had already become clearly manifest, +and were likely to render him unintelligible and perplexing to +whosoever might have charge of him unless they were gifted with +unusual perceptions and quick sympathies. Happily his mother's sister, +Mrs. (now Lady) Burne-Jones, was near at hand, in case of need, to +care for him. + +In the spring of 1877 Mrs. Kipling came to England to see her +children, and was followed the next year by her husband. The children +were removed from Southsea, and Rudyard, grown into a companionable, +active-minded, interesting boy, now in his thirteenth year, had the +delight of spending some weeks in Paris, with his father, attracted +thither by the exhibition of that year. His eyesight had been for some +time a source of trouble to him, and the relief was great from +glasses, which were specially fitted to his eyes, and with which he +has never since been able to dispense. + +On the return of his parents to India, early in 1878, Rudyard was +placed at the school of Westward Ho, at Bideford, in Devon. This +school was one chiefly intended for the sons of members of the Indian +services, most of whom were looking forward to following their +fathers' careers as servants of the Crown. It was in charge of an +admirable head-master, Mr. Cormell Price, whose character was such +that he won the affection of his boys no less than their respect. The +young Kipling was not an easy boy to manage. He chose his own way. His +talents were such that he might have held a place near the highest in +his studies, but he was content to let others surpass him in lessons, +while he yielded to his genius in devoting himself to original +composition and to much reading in books of his own choice. He became +the editor of the school paper, he contributed to the columns of the +local Bideford _Journal_, he wrote a quantity of verse, and was +venturesome enough to send a copy of verses to a London journal, +which, to his infinite satisfaction, was accepted and published. Some +of his verses were afterward collected in a little volume, privately +printed by his parents at Lahore, with the title "Schoolboy Lyrics." +All through his time at school his letters to his parents in India +were such as to make it clear to them that his future lay in the field +of literature. + +His literary gifts came to him by inheritance from both the father and +mother, and they were nurtured and cultivated in the circle of +relatives and family friends with whom his holidays were spent. A +sub-master at Westward Ho, though little satisfied with the boy's +progress in the studies of the school, gave to him the liberty of his +own excellent library. The holidays were spent at the Grange, in South +Kensington, the home of his aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Burne-Jones, +and here he came under the happiest possible domestic influences, and +was brought into contact with men of highest quality, whose lives were +given to letters and the arts, especially with William Morris, the +closest intimate of the household of the Grange. Other homes were open +to him where the pervading influence was that of intellectual +pursuits, and where he had access to libraries through which he was +allowed to wander and to browse at his will. The good which came to +him, directly and indirectly, from these opportunities can hardly be +overstated. To know, to love, and to be loved by such a man as +Burne-Jones was a supreme blessing in his life. + +In the autumn of 1882, having finished his course at school, a +position was secured for him on the _Civil and Military Gazette_, +Lahore, and he returned to his parents in India, who had meanwhile +removed from Bombay to Lahore, where his father was at the head of the +most important school of the arts in India. The _Civil and Military +Gazette_ is the chief journal of northwestern India, owned and +conducted by the managers and owners of the Allahabad _Pioneer_, the +ablest and most influential of all Indian newspapers published in the +interior of the country. + +For five years he worked hard and steadily on the _Gazette_. Much of +the work was simple drudgery. He shirked nothing. The editor-in-chief +was a somewhat grim man, who believed in snubbing his subordinates, +and who, though he recognized the talents of the "clever pup," as he +called him, and allowed him a pretty free hand in his contributions to +the paper, yet was inclined to exact from him the full tale of the +heavy routine work of a newspaper office. + +But these were happy years. For the youth was feeling the spring of +his own powers, was full of interest in life, was laying up stores of +observation and experience, and found in his own home not only +domestic happiness, but a sympathy in taste and a variety of talent +and accomplishment which acted as a continual stimulus to his own +genius. Father, mother, sister, and brother all played and worked +together with rare combination of sympathetic gifts. In 1885 some of +the verses with the writing of which he and his sister had amused +themselves were published at Lahore, in a little volume entitled +"Echoes," because most of them were lively parodies on some of the +poems of the popular poets of the day. The little book had its moment +of narrowly limited success and opened the way for the wider notoriety +and success of a volume into which were gathered the "Departmental +Ditties" that had appeared from time to time in the _Gazette_. Many of +the stories also which were afterward collected under the now familiar +title of "Plain Tales from the Hills" made their first appearance in +the _Gazette_, and attracted wide attention in the Anglo-Indian +community. + +Kipling's work for five years at Lahore had indeed been of such +quality that it was not surprising that he was called down to +Allahabad, in 1887, to take a place upon the editorial staff of the +_Pioneer_. The training of an Anglo-Indian journalist is peculiar. He +has to master knowledge of many kinds, to become thoroughly acquainted +with the affairs of the English administration and the conditions of +Anglo-Indian life, and at the same time with the interests, the modes +of life, and thought of the vast underlying native population. The +higher positions in Indian journalism are places of genuine importance +and of large emolument, worthy objects of ambition for a young man +conscious of literary faculty and inspired with zeal for public ends. + +The _Pioneer_ issued a weekly as well as a daily edition, and in +addition to his regular work upon the daily paper, Kipling continued +to write for the weekly issue stories similar to those which had +already won him reputation, and they now attracted wider attention +than ever. His home at Allahabad was with Professor Hill, a man of +science attached to the Allahabad College. But the continuity of his +life was broken by various journeys undertaken in the interest of the +paper--one through Rajputana, from which he wrote a series of +descriptive letters, called "Letters of Marque"; another to Calcutta +and through Bengal, which resulted in "The City of Dreadful Night" and +other letters describing the little-known conditions of the vast +presidency; and, finally, in 1889, he was sent off by the _Pioneer_ on +a tour round the world, on which he was accompanied by his friends, +Professor and Mrs. Hill. Going first to Japan, he thence came to +America, writing on the way and in America the letters which appeared +in the _Pioneer_ under the title of "From Sea to Sea"; and in +September, 1889, he arrived in London. + +His Indian repute had not preceded him to such degree as to make the +way easy for him through the London crowd. But after a somewhat dreary +winter, during which he had been making acquaintances and had found +irregular employment upon newspapers and magazines, arrangements were +made with Messrs. Macmillan & Co. for the publication of an edition of +"Plain Tales from the Hills." The book appeared in June. Its success +was immediate. It was republished at once in America, and was welcomed +as warmly on this side of the Atlantic as on the other. The reprint of +Kipling's other Indian stories and of his "Departmental Ditties" +speedily followed, together with the new tales and poems which showed +the wide range of his creative genius. Each volume was a fresh +success; each extended the circle of Mr. Kipling's readers, till now +he is the most widely known of English authors. + +In 1891 Mr. Kipling left England for a long voyage to South Africa, +Australia, New Zealand, and Ceylon, and thence to visit his parents at +Lahore. On his return to England, he was married in London to Miss +Balestier, daughter of the late Mr. Wolcott Balestier of New York. +Shortly after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Kipling visited Japan, and +in August they came to America. They established their home at +Brattleboro, Vermont, where Mrs. Kipling's family had a large estate: +and here, in a pleasant and beautifully situated house which they had +built for themselves, their two eldest children were born, and here +they continued to live till September, 1896. + +During these four years Mr. Kipling made three brief visits to England +to see his parents, who had left India and were now settled in the old +country. + +The winter of 1897-98 was spent by Mr. Kipling and his family, +accompanied by his father, in South Africa. He was everywhere received +with the utmost cordiality and friendliness. + +Returning to England in the spring of 1898, he took a house at +Rottingdean, near Brighton, with intention to make it his permanent +home. + +Of the later incidents of his life there is no need to speak. + + + + +IV + +BAA, BAA, BLACK SHEEP + + At the School Council Baa, Baa, Black Sheep was elected to a + very high position among the Kipling Stories "because it + shows how mean they were to a boy and he did n't need it." + + Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, + Have you any wool? + Yes, Sir; yes, Sir; three bags full. + One for the Master, one for the Dame-- + None for the Little Boy that cries down the lane. + + --_Nursery Rhyme._ + + +THE FIRST BAG + + "When I was in my father's house, I was in a better place." + + +They were putting Punch to bed--the ayah and the hamal, and Meeta, the +big Surti boy with the red and gold turban. Judy, already tucked +inside her mosquito-curtains, was nearly asleep. Punch had been +allowed to stay up for dinner. Many privileges had been accorded to +Punch within the last ten days, and a greater kindness from the people +of his world had encompassed his ways and works, which were mostly +obstreperous. He sat on the edge of his bed and swung his bare legs +defiantly. + +"Punch-baba going to bye-lo?" said the ayah suggestively. + +"No," said Punch. "Punch-baba wants the story about the Ranee that was +turned into a tiger. Meeta must tell it, and the hamal shall hide +behind the door and make tiger-noises at the proper time." + +"But Judy-Baba will wake up," said the ayah. + +"Judy-baba is waking," piped a small voice from the mosquito-curtains. +"There was a Ranee that lived at Delhi. Go on, Meeta," and she fell +asleep again while Meeta began the story. + +Never had Punch secured the telling of that tale with so little +opposition. He reflected for a long time. The hamal made the +tiger-noises in twenty different keys. + +"'Top!" said Punch authoritatively. "Why does n't Papa come in and say +he is going to give me put-put?" + +"Punch-baba is going away," said the ayah. "In another week there will +be no Punch-baba to pull my hair any more." She sighed softly, for the +boy of the household was very dear to her heart. + +"Up the Ghauts in a train?" said Punch, standing on his bed. "All the +way to Nassick, where the Ranee-Tiger lives?" + +"Not to Nassick this year, little Sahib," said Meeta, lifting him on +his shoulder. "Down to the sea where the cocoanuts are thrown, and +across the sea in a big ship. Will you take Meeta with you to +Belait?" + +"You shall all come," said Punch, from the height of Meeta's strong +arms. "Meeta and the ayah and the hamal and Bhini-in-the-Garden, and +the salaam-Captain-Sahib-snake-man." + +There was no mockery in Meeta's voice when he replied--"Great is the +Sahib's favour," and laid the little man down in the bed, while the +ayah, sitting in the moonlight at the doorway, lulled him to sleep +with an interminable canticle such as they sing in the Roman Catholic +Church at Parel. Punch curled himself into a ball and slept. + +Next morning Judy shouted that there was a rat in the nursery, and +thus he forgot to tell her the wonderful news. It did not much matter, +for Judy was only three and she would not have understood. But Punch +was five; and he knew that going to England would be much nicer than a +trip to Nassick. + + * * * * * + +And Papa and Mamma sold the brougham and the piano, and stripped the +house, and curtailed the allowance of crockery for the daily meals, +and took long council together over a bundle of letters bearing the +Rocklington postmark. + +"The worst of it is that one can't be certain of anything," said Papa, +pulling his moustache. "The letters in themselves are excellent, and +the terms are moderate enough." + +"The worst of it is that the children will grow up away from me," +thought Mamma; but she did not say it aloud. + +"We are only one case among hundreds," said Papa bitterly. "You shall +go Home again in five years, dear." + +"Punch will be ten then--and Judy eight. Oh, how long and long and +long the time will be! And we have to leave them among strangers." + +"Punch is a cheery little chap. He's sure to make friends wherever he +goes." + +"And who could help loving my Ju?" + +They were standing over the cots in the nursery late at night, and I +think that Mamma was crying softly. After Papa had gone away, she +knelt down by the side of Judy's cot. The ayah saw her and put up a +prayer that the memsahib might never find the love of her children +taken away from her and given to a stranger. + +Mamma's own prayer was a slightly illogical one. Summarized it ran: +"Let strangers love my children and be as good to them as I should be, +but let me preserve their love and their confidence for ever and ever. +Amen." Punch scratched himself in his sleep, and Judy moaned a little. +That seems to be the only answer to the prayer: and, next day, they +all went down to the sea, and there was a scene at the Apollo Bunder +when Punch discovered that Meeta could not come too, and Judy learned +that the ayah must be left behind. But Punch found a thousand +fascinating things in the rope, block, and steam-pipe line on the big +P. and O. Steamer, long before Meeta and the ayah had dried their +tears. + +"Come back, Punch-baba," said the ayah. + +"Come back," said Meeta, "and be a Burra Sahib." + +"Yes," said Punch, lifted up in his father's arms to wave good-bye. +"Yes, I will come back, and I will be a Burra Sahib Bahadur!" + +At the end of the first day Punch demanded to be set down in England, +which he was certain must be close at hand. Next day there was a merry +breeze, and Punch was very sick. "When I come back to Bombay," said +Punch on his recovery, "I will come by the road--in a broom-gharri. +This is a very naughty ship." + +The Swedish boatswain consoled him, and he modified his opinions as +the voyage went on. There was so much to see and to handle and ask +questions about that Punch nearly forgot the ayah and Meeta and the +hamal, and with difficulty remembered a few words of the Hindustani +once his second-speech. + +But Judy was much worse. The day before the steamer reached +Southampton, Mamma asked her if she would not like to see the ayah +again. Judy's blue eyes turned to the stretch of sea that had +swallowed all her tiny past, and she said: "Ayah! What ayah?" + +Mamma cried over her, and Punch marveled. It was then that he heard +for the first time Mamma's passionate appeal to him never to let Judy +forget Mamma. Seeing that Judy was young, ridiculously young, and that +Mamma, every evening for four weeks past, had come into the cabin to +sing her and Punch to sleep with a mysterious tune that he called +"Sonny, my soul," Punch could not understand what Mamma meant. But he +strove to do his duty, for the moment Mamma left the cabin, he said to +Judy: "Ju, you bemember Mamma?" + +"'Torse I do," said Judy. + +"Then always bemember Mamma, 'r else I won't give you the paper ducks +that the red-haired Captain Sahib cut out for me." + +So Judy promised always to "bemember Mamma." + +Many and many a time was Mamma's command laid upon Punch, and Papa +would say the same thing with an insistence that awed the child. + +"You must make haste and learn to write, Punch," said Papa, "and then +you'll be able to write letters to us in Bombay." + +"I'll come into your room," said Punch, and Papa choked. + +Papa and Mamma were always choking in those days. If Punch took Judy +to task for not "bemembering," they choked. If Punch sprawled on the +sofa in the Southampton lodging-house and sketched his future in +purple and gold, they choked; and so they did if Judy put up her mouth +for a kiss. + +Through many days all four were vagabonds on the face of the earth: +Punch with no one to give orders to, Judy too young for anything, and +Papa and Mamma grave, distracted, and choking. + +"Where," demanded Punch, wearied of a loathsome contrivance on four +wheels with a mound of luggage atop--"where is our broom-gharri? This +thing talks so much that I can't talk. Where is our own broom-gharri? +When I was at Bandstand before we comed away, I asked Inverarity Sahib +why he was sitting in it, and he said it was his own. And I said, 'I +will give it you'--I like Inverarity Sahib--and I said, 'Can you put +your legs through the pully-wag loops by the windows? And Inverarity +Sahib said No, and laughed. I can put my legs through the pully-wag +loops. I can put my legs through these pully-wag loops. Look! Oh, +Mamma's crying again! I did n't know. I was n't not to do so." + +Punch drew his legs out of the loops of the four-wheeler: the door +opened and he slid to the earth, in a cascade of parcels, at the door +of an austere little villa whose gates bore the legend "Downe Lodge." +Punch gathered himself together and eyed the house with disfavour. It +stood on a sandy road, and a cold wind tickled his knickerbockered +legs. + +"Let us go away," said Punch. "This is not a pretty place." + +But Mamma and Papa and Judy had quitted the cab, and all the luggage +was being taken into the house. At the door-step stood a woman in +black, and she smiled largely, with dry chapped lips. Behind her was a +man, big, bony, gray, and lame as to one leg--behind him a boy of +twelve, black-haired and oily in appearance. Punch surveyed the trio, +and advanced without fear, as he had been accustomed to do in Bombay +when callers came and he happened to be playing in the veranda. + +"How do you do?" said he. "I am Punch." But they were all looking at +the luggage--all except the gray man, who shook hands with Punch and +said he was a "smart little fellow." There was much running about and +banging of boxes, and Punch curled himself up on the sofa in the +dining-room and considered things. + +"I don't like these people," said Punch. "But never mind. We'll go +away soon. We have always went away soon from everywhere. I wish we +was gone back to Bombay soon." + +The wish bore no fruit. For six days Mamma wept at intervals, and +showed the woman in black all Punch's clothes--a liberty which Punch +resented. "But p'raps she's a new white ayah," he thought. "I'm to +call her Antirosa, but she does n't call me Sahib. She says just +Punch," he confided to Judy. "What is Antirosa?" + +Judy did n't know. Neither she nor Punch had heard anything of an +animal called an aunt. Their world had been Papa and Mamma, who knew +everything, permitted everything, and loved everybody--even Punch when +he used to go into the garden at Bombay and fill his nails with mold +after the weekly nail-cutting, because, as he explained between two +strokes of the slipper to his sorely tried Father, his fingers "felt +so new at the ends." + +In an undefined way Punch judged it advisable to keep both parents +between himself and the woman in black and the boy in black hair. He +did not approve of them. He liked the gray man, who had expressed a +wish to be called "Uncleharri." They nodded at each other when they +met, and the gray man showed him a little ship with rigging that took +up and down. + +"She is a model of the _Brisk_--the little _Brisk_ that was sore +exposed that day at Navarino." The gray man hummed the last words and +fell into a reverie. "I'll tell you about Navarino, Punch, when we go +for walks together; and you must n't touch the ship, because she's the +_Brisk_." + +Long before that walk, the first of many, was taken, they roused Punch +and Judy in the chill dawn of a February morning to say Good-bye; and +of all people in the wide earth to Papa and Mamma--both crying this +time. Punch was very sleepy and Judy was cross. + +"Don't forget us," pleaded Mamma. "Oh, my little son, don't forget us, +and see that Judy remembers too." + +"I've told Judy to bemember," said Punch, wiggling, for his father's +beard tickled his neck. "I've told Judy--ten--forty--'leven thousand +times. But Ju 's so young--quite a baby--is n't she?" + +"Yes," said Papa, "Quite a baby, and you must be good to Judy, and +make haste to learn to write and--and--and----" + +Punch was back in his bed again. Judy was fast asleep, and there was +the rattle of a cab below. Papa and Mamma had gone away. Not to +Nassick; that was across the sea. To some place much nearer, of +course, and equally of course they would return. They came back after +dinner-parties, and Papa had come back after he had been to a place +called "The Snows," and Mamma with him, to Punch and Judy at Mrs. +Inverarity's house in Marine Lines. Assuredly they would come back +again. So Punch fell asleep till the true morning, when the +black-haired boy met him with the information that Papa and Mamma had +gone to Bombay, and that he and Judy were to stay at Downe Lodge +"forever." Antirosa, tearfully appealed to for a contradiction, said +that Harry had spoken the truth, and that it behooved Punch to fold up +his clothes neatly on going to bed. Punch went out and wept bitterly +with Judy, into whose fair head he had driven some ideas of the +meaning of separation. + +When a matured man discovers that he has been deserted by Providence, +deprived of his God, and cast without help, comfort, or sympathy, upon +a world which is new and strange to him, his despair, which may find +expression in evil-living, the writing of his experiences, or the more +satisfactory diversion of suicide, is generally supposed to be +impressive. A child, under exactly similar circumstances as far as its +knowledge goes, cannot very well curse God and die. It howls till its +nose is red, its eyes are sore, and its head aches. Punch and Judy, +through no fault of their own, had lost all their world. They sat in +the hall and cried; the black-haired boy looking on from afar. + +The model of the ship availed nothing, though the gray man assured +Punch that he might pull the rigging up and down as much as he +pleased; and Judy was promised free entry into the kitchen. They +wanted Papa and Mamma, gone to Bombay beyond the seas, and their grief +while it lasted was without remedy. + +When the tears ceased the house was very still. Antirosa had decided +it was better to let the children "have their cry out," and the boy +had gone to school. Punch raised his head from the floor and sniffed +mournfully. Judy was nearly asleep. Three short years had not taught +her how to bear sorrow with full knowledge. There was a distant, dull +boom in the air--a repeated heavy thud. Punch knew that sound in +Bombay in the Monsoon. It was the sea--the sea that must be traversed +before anyone could get to Bombay. + +"Quick, Ju!" he cried, "we're close to the sea. I can hear it! Listen! +That's where they've went. P'raps we can catch them if we was in time. +They did n't mean to go without us. They've only forgot." + +"Iss," said Judy. "They've only forgotted. Less go to the sea." + +The hall-door was open and so was the garden-gate. + +"It's very, very big, this place," he said, looking cautiously down +the road, "and we will get lost; but I will find a man and order him +to take me back to my house--like I did in Bombay." + +He took Judy by the hand, and the two fled hatless in the direction of +the sound of the sea. Downe Villa was almost the last of a range of +newly built houses running out, through a chaos of brick-mounds, to a +heath where gypsies occasionally camped and where the Garrison +Artillery of Rocklington practised. There were few people to be seen, +and the children might have been taken for those of the soldiery, who +ranged far. Half an hour the wearied little legs tramped across +heath, potato-field, and sand-dune. + +"I'se so tired," said Judy, "and Mamma will be angry." + +"Mamma's never angry. I suppose she is waiting at the sea now while +Papa gets tickets. We'll find them and go along with them. Ju, you +must n't sit down. Only a little more and we'll come to the sea. Ju, +if you sit down I'll thmack you!" said Punch. + +They climbed another dune, and came upon the great gray sea at low +tide. Hundreds of crabs were scuttling about the beach, but there was +no trace of Papa and Mamma not even of a ship upon the waters--nothing +but sand and mud for miles and miles. + +And "Uncleharri" found them by chance--very muddy and very +forlorn--Punch dissolved in tears, but trying to divert Judy with an +"ickle trab," and Judy wailing to the pitiless horizon for "Mamma, +Mamma!"--and again "Mamma!" + + +THE SECOND BAG + + Ah, well-a-day, for we are souls bereaved! + Of all the creatures under Heaven's wide scope + We are most hopeless, who had once most hope, + And most beliefless, who had most believed. + + --_The City of Dreadful Night._ + + +All this time not a word about Black Sheep. He came later, and Harry, +the black-haired boy, was mainly responsible for his coming. +Judy--who could help loving little Judy?--passed, by special permit, +into the kitchen and thence straight to Aunty Rosa's heart. Harry was +Aunty Rosa's one child, and Punch was the extra boy about the house. +There was no special place for him or his little affairs, and he was +forbidden to sprawl on sofas and explain his ideas about the +manufacture of this world and his hopes for his future. Sprawling was +lazy and wore out sofas, and little boys were not expected to talk. +They were talked to, and the talking to was intended for the benefit +of their morals. As the unquestioned despot of the house at Bombay, +Punch could not quite understand how he came to be of no account in +this new life. + +Harry might reach across the table and take what he wanted; Judy might +point and get what she wanted. Punch was forbidden to do either. The +gray man was his great hope and stand-by for many months after Mamma +and Papa left, and he had forgotten to tell Judy to "bemember Mamma." + +This lapse was excusable, because in the interval he had been +introduced by Aunty Rosa to two very impressive things--an abstraction +called God, the intimate friend and ally of Aunty Rosa, generally +believed to live behind the kitchen-range because it was hot +there--and a dirty brown book filled with unintelligible dots and +marks. Punch was always anxious to oblige everybody. He, therefore, +welded the story of the Creation on to what he could recollect of his +Indian fairy tales, and scandalized Aunty Rosa by repeating the result +to Judy. It was a sin, a grievous sin, and Punch was talked to for a +quarter of an hour. He could not understand where the iniquity came +in, but was careful not to repeat the offence, because Aunty Rosa told +him that God had heard every word he had said and was very angry. If +this were true why did n't God come and say so, thought Punch, and +dismissed the matter from his mind. Afterward he learned to know the +Lord as the only thing in the world more awful than Aunty Rosa--as a +Creature that stood in the background and counted the strokes of the +cane. + +But the reading was, just then, a much more serious matter than any +creed. Aunty Rosa sat him upon a table and told him that A B meant ab. + +"Why?" said Punch. "A is a and B is bee. Why does A B mean ab?" + +"Because I tell you it does," said Aunty Rosa "and you've got to say +it." + +Punch said it accordingly, and for a month, hugely against his will, +stumbled through the brown book, not in the least comprehending what +it meant. But Uncle Harry, who walked much and generally alone, was +wont to come into the nursery and suggest to Aunty Rosa that Punch +should walk with him. He seldom spoke, but he showed Punch all +Rocklington, from the mud-banks and the sand of the back-bay to the +great harbours where ships lay at anchor, and the dockyards where the +hammers were never still, and the marine-store shops, and the shiny +brass counters in the Offices where Uncle Harry went once every three +months with a slip of blue paper and received sovereigns in exchange; +for he held a wound-pension. Punch heard, too, from his lips the story +of the battle of Navarino, where the sailors of the Fleet, for three +days afterward, were deaf as posts and could only sign to each other. +"That was because of the noise of the guns," said Uncle Harry, "and I +have got the wadding of a bullet somewhere inside me now." + +Punch regarded him with curiosity. He had not the least idea what +wadding was, and his notion of a bullet was a dockyard cannon-ball +bigger than his own head. How could Uncle Harry keep a cannon-ball +inside him? He was ashamed to ask, for fear Uncle Harry might be +angry. + +Punch had never known what anger--real anger--meant until one terrible +day when Harry had taken his paint-box to paint a boat with, and Punch +had protested with a loud and lamentable voice. Then Uncle Harry had +appeared on the scene and, muttering something about "strangers' +children," had with a stick smitten the black-haired boy across the +shoulders till he wept and yelled, and Aunty Rosa came in and abused +Uncle Harry for cruelty to his own flesh and blood, and Punch +shuddered to the tips of his shoes. "It was n't my fault," he +explained to the boy, but both Harry and Aunty Rosa said that it was, +and that Punch had told tales, and for a week there were no more walks +with Uncle Harry. + +But that week brought a great joy to Punch. + +He had repeated till he was thrice weary the statement that "the Cat +lay on the Mat and the Rat came in." + +"Now I can truly read," said Punch, "and now I will never read +anything in the world." + +He put the brown book in the cupboard where his schoolbooks lived and +accidentally tumbled out a venerable volume, without covers, labelled +_Sharpe's Magazine_. There was the most portentous picture of a +Griffin on the first page, with verses below. The Griffin carried off +one sheep a day from a German village, till a man came with a +"falchion" and split the Griffin open. Goodness only knew what a +falchion was, but there was the Griffin, and his history was an +improvement upon the eternal Cat. + +"This," said Punch, "means things, and now I will know all about +everything in all the world." He read till the light failed, not +understanding a tithe of the meaning, but tantalized by glimpses of +new worlds hereafter to be revealed. + +"What is a 'falchion'? What is a 'e-wee lamb'? What is a 'base +ussurper'? What is a 'verdant me-ad'? he demanded, with flushed +cheeks, at bedtime, of the astonished Aunt Rosa. + +"Say your prayers and go to sleep," she replied, and that was all the +help Punch then or afterward found at her hands in the new and +delightful exercise of reading. + +"Aunt Rosa only knows about God and things like that," argued Punch. +"Uncle Harry will tell me." + +The next walk proved that Uncle Harry could not help either; but he +allowed Punch to talk, and even sat down on a bench to hear about the +Griffin. Other walks brought other stories as Punch ranged farther +afield, for the house held large store of old books that no one ever +opened--from Frank Fairlegh in serial numbers, and the earlier poems +of Tennyson, contributed anonymously to _Sharpe's Magazine_, to '62 +Exhibition Catalogues, gay with colours and delightfully +incomprehensible, and odd leaves of "Gulliver's Travels." + +As soon as Punch could string a few pot-hooks together, he wrote to +Bombay, demanding by return of post "all the books in all the world." +Papa could not comply with this modest indent, but sent "Grimm's Fairy +Tales" and a "Hans Andersen." That was enough. If he were only left +alone Punch could pass, at any hour he chose, into a land of his own, +beyond reach of Aunty Rosa and her God, Harry and his teasements, and +Judy's claims to be played with. + +"Don't disturb me, I'm reading. Go and play in the kitchen," grunted +Punch. "Aunty Rosa lets you go there." Judy was cutting her second +teeth and was fretful. She appealed to Aunty Rosa, who descended on +Punch. + +"I was reading," he explained, "reading a book. I want to read." + +"You're only doing that to show off," said Aunty Rosa. "But we'll see. +Play with Judy now, and don't open a book for a week." + +Judy did not pass a very enjoyable playtime with Punch, who was +consumed with indignation. There was a pettiness at the bottom of the +prohibition which puzzled him. + +"It's what I like to do," he said, "and she's found out that and +stopped me. Don't cry, Ju--it was n't your fault--please don't cry, or +she'll say I made you." + +Ju loyally mopped up her tears, and the two played in their nursery, a +room in the basement and half underground, to which they were +regularly sent after the midday dinner while Aunty Rosa slept. She +drank wine--that is to say, something from a bottle in the +cellaret--for her stomach's sake, but if she did not fall asleep she +would sometimes come into the nursery to see that the children were +really playing. Now bricks, wooden hoops, ninepins, and chinaware +cannot amuse forever, especially when all Fairyland is to be won by +the mere opening of a book, and, as often as not, Punch would be +discovered reading to Judy or tell her interminable tales. That was an +offence in the eyes of the law, and Judy would be whisked off by Aunty +Rosa, while Punch was left to play alone, "and be sure that I hear you +doing it." + +It was not a cheering employ, for he had to make a playful noise. At +last, with infinite craft, he devised an arrangement whereby the table +could be supported as to three legs on toy bricks, leaving the fourth +clear to bring down on the floor. He could work the table with one +hand and hold a book with the other. This he did till an evil day when +Aunty Rosa pounced upon him unawares and told him that he was "acting +a lie." + +"If you're old enough to do that," she said--her temper was always +worst after dinner--"you're old enough to be beaten." + +"But--I'm--I'm not a animal!" said Punch, aghast. He remembered Uncle +Harry and the stick, and turned white. Aunty Rosa had hidden a light +cane behind her, and Punch was beaten then and there over the +shoulders. It was a revelation to him. The room door was shut, and he +was left to weep himself into repentance and work out his own Gospel +of Life. + +Aunty Rosa, he argued, had the power to beat him with many stripes. It +was unjust and cruel and Mamma and Papa would never have allowed it. +Unless perhaps, as Aunty Rosa seemed to imply, they had sent secret +orders. In which case he was abandoned indeed. It would be discreet in +the future to propitiate Aunty Rosa, but, then, again, even in matters +in which he was innocent, he had been accused of wishing to "show +off." He had "shown off" before visitors when he had attacked a +strange gentleman--Harry's uncle, not his own--with requests for +information about the Griffin and the falchion, and the precise nature +of the Tilbury in which Frank Fairlegh rode--all points of paramount +interest which he was bursting to understand. Clearly it would not do +to pretend to care for Aunty Rosa. + +At this point Harry entered and stood afar off, eying Punch, a +disheveled heap in the corner of the room, with disgust. + +"You're a liar--a young liar," said Harry, with great unction, "and +you're to have tea down here because you're not fit to speak to us. +And you're not to speak to Judy again till Mother gives you leave. +You'll corrupt her. You're only fit to associate with the servant. +Mother says so." + +Having reduced Punch to a second agony of tears Harry departed +upstairs with the news that Punch was still rebellious. + +Uncle Harry sat uneasily in the dining-room. "D---- it all, Rosa," +said he at last, "can't you leave the child alone? He's a good enough +little chap when I meet him." + +"He puts on his best manners with you, Henry," said Aunty Rosa, "but +I'm afraid, I'm very much afraid, that he is the Black Sheep of the +family." + +Harry heard and stored up the name for future use. Judy cried till she +was bidden to stop, her brother not being worth tears; and the evening +concluded with the return of Punch to the upper regions and a private +sitting at which all the blinding horrors of Hell were revealed to +Punch with such store of imagery as Aunty Rosa's narrow mind +possessed. + +Most grievous of all was Judy's round-eyed reproach, and Punch went to +bed in the depths of the Valley of Humiliation. He shared his room +with Harry and knew the torture in store. For an hour and a half he +had to answer that young gentleman's question as to his motives for +telling a lie, and a grievous lie, the precise quantity of punishment +inflicted by Aunty Rosa, and had also to profess his deep gratitude +for such religious instruction as Harry thought fit to impart. + +From that day began the downfall of Punch, now Black Sheep. + +"Untrustworthy in one thing, untrustworthy in all," said Aunty Rosa, +and Harry felt that Black Sheep was delivered into his hands. He +would wake him up in the night to ask him why he was such a liar. + +"I don't know," Punch would reply. + +"Then don't you think you ought to get up and pray to God for a new +heart?" + +"Y-yess." + +"Get out and pray, then!" And Punch would get out of bed with raging +hate in his heart against all the world, seen and unseen. He was +always tumbling into trouble. Harry had a knack of cross-examining him +as to his day's doings, which seldom failed to lead him, sleepy and +savage, into half a dozen contradictions--all duly reported to Aunty +Rosa next morning. + +"But it was n't a lie," Punch would begin, charging into a laboured +explanation that landed him more hopelessly in the mire. "I said that +I did n't say my prayers twice over in the day, and that was on +Tuesday. Once I did, I know I did, but Harry said I did n't," and so +forth, till the tension brought tears, and he was dismissed from the +table in disgrace. + +"You use n't to be as bad as this?" said Judy, awe-stricken at the +catalogue of Black Sheep's crimes. "Why are you so bad now?" + +"I don't know," Black Sheep would reply. "I'm not, if I only was n't +bothered upside down. I knew what I did, and I want to say so; but +Harry always makes it out different somehow, and Aunty Rosa does n't +believe a word I say. Oh, Ju! don't you say I'm bad too." + +"Aunty Rosa says you are," said Judy. "She told the Vicar so when he +came yesterday." + +"Why does she tell all the people outside the house about me? It is +n't fair," said Black Sheep. "When I was in Bombay, and was bad--doing +bad, not made-up bad like this--Mamma told Papa, and Papa told me he +knew, and that was all. Outside people did n't know too--even Meeta +did n't know." + +"I don't remember," said Judy wistfully. "I was all little then. Mamma +was just as fond of you as she was of me, was n't she?" + +"'Course she was. So was Papa. So was everybody." + +"Aunty Rosa likes me more than she does you. She says that you are a +Trial and a Black Sheep, and I'm not to speak to you more than I can +help." + +"Always? Not outside of the times when you must n't speak to me at +all?" + +Judy nodded her head mournfully. Black Sheep turned away in despair, +but Judy's arms were round his neck. + +"Never mind, Punch," she whispered. "I will speak to you just the same +as ever and ever. You're my own, own brother though you are--though +Aunty Rosa says you're Bad, and Harry says you're a little coward. He +says that if I pulled your hair hard, you'd cry." + +"Pull, then," said Punch. + +Judy pulled gingerly. + +"Pull harder--as hard as you can! There! I don't mind how much you +pull it now. If you'll speak to me same as ever I'll let you pull it +as much as you like--pull it out if you like. But I know if Harry came +and stood by and made you do it I'd cry." + +So the two children sealed the compact with a kiss, and Black Sheep's +heart was cheered within him, and by extreme caution and careful +avoidance of Harry he acquired virtue and was allowed to read +undisturbed for a week. Uncle Harry took him for walks and consoled +him with rough tenderness, never calling him Black Sheep. "It's good +for you, I suppose, Punch," he used to say. "Let us sit down. I'm +getting tired." His steps led him now not to the beach, but to the +Cemetery of Rocklington, amid the potato-fields. For hours the gray +man would sit on a tombstone, while Black Sheep read epitaphs, and +then with a sigh would stump home again. + +"I shall lie there soon," said he to Black Sheep; one winter evening, +when his face showed white as a worn silver coin under the lights of +the chapel-lodge. "You need n't tell Aunty Rosa." + +A month later, he turned sharp round, ere half a morning walk was +completed, and stumped back to the house. "Put me to bed, Rosa," he +muttered. "I've walked my last. The wadding has found me out." + +They put him to bed, and for a fortnight the shadow of his sickness +lay upon the house, and Black Sheep went to and fro unobserved. Papa +had sent him some new books, and he was told to keep quiet. He retired +into his own world, and was perfectly happy. Even at night his +felicity was unbroken. He could lie in bed and string himself tales of +travel and adventure while Harry was downstairs. + +"Uncle Harry's going to die," said Judy, who now lived almost entirely +with Aunty Rosa. + +"I'm very sorry," said Black Sheep soberly. "He told me that a long +time ago." + +Aunty Rosa heard the conversation. "Will nothing check your wicked +tongue?" she said angrily. There were blue circles round her eyes. + +Black Sheep retreated to the nursery and read "Cometh up as a Flower" +with deep and uncomprehending interest. He had been forbidden to read +it on account of its "sinfulness," but the bonds of the Universe were +crumbling, and Aunty Rosa was in great grief. + +"I'm glad," said Black Sheep. "She 's unhappy now. It was n't a lie, +though. I knew. He told me not to tell." + +That night Black Sheep woke with a start. Harry was not in the room, +and there was a sound of sobbing on the next floor. Then the voice of +Uncle Harry, singing the song of the Battle of Navarino, cut through +the darkness: + + "Our vanship was the Asia-- + The Albion and Genoa!" + +"He 's getting well," thought Black Sheep, who knew the song through +all its seventeen verses. But the blood froze at his little heart as +he thought. The voice leapt an octave and rang shrill as a boatswain's +pipe: + + "And next came on the lovely Rose, + The Philomel, her fire-ship, closed, + And the Little Brisk was sore exposed + That day at Navarino." + +"That day at Navarino, Uncle Harry!" shouted Black Sheep, half wild +with excitement and fear of he knew not what. + +A door opened and Aunty Rosa screamed up the staircase: "Hush! For +God's sake hush, you little devil. Uncle Harry is dead!" + + +THE THIRD BAG + + Journeys end in lovers' meeting, + Every wise man's son doth know. + + +"I wonder what will happen to me now," thought Black Sheep, when the +semi-pagan rites peculiar to the burial of the Dead in middle-class +houses had been accomplished, and Aunty Rosa, awful in black crape, +had returned to this life. "I don't think I've done anything bad that +she knows of. I suppose I will soon. She will be very cross after +Uncle Harry's dying, and Harry will be cross too. I 'll keep in the +nursery." + +Unfortunately for Punch's plans, it was decided that he should be sent +to a day-school which Harry attended. This meant a morning walk with +Harry, and perhaps an evening one; but the prospect of freedom in the +interval was refreshing. "Harry 'll tell everything I do, but I won't +do anything," said Black Sheep. Fortified with this virtuous +resolution, he went to school only to find that Harry's version of his +character had preceded him, and that life was a burden in consequence. +He took stock of his associates. Some of them were unclean, some of +them talked in dialect, many dropped their h's, and there were two +Jews and a Negro, or someone quite as dark, in the assembly. "That's a +hubshi," said Black Sheep to himself. "Even Meeta used to laugh at a +hubshi. I don't think this is a proper place." He was indignant for at +least an hour, till he reflected that any expostulation on his part +would be by Aunty Rosa construed into "showing off," and that Harry +would tell the boys. + +"How do you like school?" said Aunty Rosa at the end of the day. + +"I think it is a very nice place," said Punch quietly. + +"I suppose you warned the boys of Black Sheep's character?" said Aunty +Rosa to Harry. + +"Oh, yes!" said the censor of Black Sheep's morals. "They know all +about him." + +"If I was with my father," said Black Sheep, stung to the quick, "I +should n't speak to those boys. He would n't let me. They live in +shops. I saw them go into shops--where their fathers live and sell +things." + +"You're too good for that school, are you?" said Aunty Rosa, with a +bitter smile. "You ought to be grateful, Black Sheep, that those boys +speak to you at all. It is n't every school that takes little liars." + +Harry did not fail to make much capital out of Black Sheep's +ill-considered remark; with the result that several boys, including +the hubshi, demonstrated to Black Sheep the eternal equality of the +human race by smacking his head, and his consolation from Aunty Rosa +was that it "served him right for being vain." He learned, however, to +keep his opinions to himself, and by propitiating Harry in carrying +books and the like to secure a little peace. His existence was not too +joyful. From nine till twelve he was at school, and from two to four, +except on Saturdays. In the evenings he was sent down into the nursery +to prepare his lessons for the next day, and every night came the +dreaded cross-questionings at Harry's hand. Of Judy he saw but little. +She was deeply religious--at six years of age Religion is easy to come +by--and sorely divided between her natural love for Black Sheep and +her love for Aunty Rosa, who could do no wrong. + +The lean woman returned that love with interest, and Judy, when she +dared, took advantage of this for the remission of Black Sheep's +penalties. Failures in lessons at school were furnished at home by a +week without reading other than schoolbooks, and Harry brought the +news of such a failure with glee. Further, Black Sheep was then bound +to repeat his lessons at bedtime to Harry, who generally succeeded in +making him break down, and consoled him by gloomiest forebodings for +the morrow. Harry was at once spy, practical joker, inquisitor, and +Aunty Rosa's deputy executioner. He filled his many posts to +admiration. From his actions, now that Uncle Harry was dead, there was +no appeal. Black Sheep had not been permitted to keep any self-respect +at school; at home he was of course utterly discredited, and grateful +for any pity that the servant-girls--they changed frequently at Downe +Lodge because they, too, were liars--might show. "You 're just fit to +row in the same boat with Black Sheep," was a sentiment that each new +Jane or Eliza might expect to hear, before a month was over, from +Aunty Rosa's lips; and Black Sheep was used to ask new girls whether +they had yet been compared to him. Harry was "Master Harry" in their +mouths; Judy was officially "Miss Judy"; but Black Sheep was never +anything more than Black Sheep _tout court_. + +As time went on and the memory of Papa and Mamma became wholly +overlaid by the unpleasant task of writing them letters under Aunty +Rosa's eye, each Sunday, Black Sheep forgot what manner of life he had +led in the beginning of things. Even Judy's appeals to "try and +remember about Bombay" failed to quicken him. + +"I can't remember," he said. "I know I used to give orders and Mamma +kissed me." + +"Aunty Rosa will kiss you if you are good," pleaded Judy. + +"Ugh! I don't want to be kissed by Aunty Rosa. She'd say I was doing +it to get something more to eat." + +The weeks lengthened into months, and the holidays came; but just +before the holidays Black Sheep fell into deadly sin. + +Among the many boys whom Harry had incited to "punch Black Sheep's +head because he dare n't hit back," was one more aggravating than the +rest, who, in an unlucky moment, fell upon Black Sheep when Harry was +not near. The blows stung, and Black Sheep struck back at random with +all the power at his command. The boy dropped and whimpered. Black +Sheep was astounded at his own act, but, feeling the unresisting body +under him, shook it with both his hands in blind fury and then began +to throttle his enemy; meaning honestly to slay him. There was a +scuffle, and Black Sheep was torn off the body by Harry and some +colleagues, and cuffed home tingling but exultant. Aunty Rosa was out; +pending her arrival Harry set himself to lecture Black Sheep on the +sin of murder--which he described as the offence of Cain. + +"Why did n't you fight him fair? What did you hit him when he was down +for, you little cur?" + +Black Sheep looked up at Harry's throat and then at a knife on the +dinner-table. + +"I don't understand," he said wearily. "You always set him on me and +told me I was a coward when I blubbed. Will you leave me alone until +Aunty Rosa comes in? She'll beat me if you tell her I ought to be +beaten; so it's all right." + +"It's all wrong," said Harry magisterially. "You nearly killed him, +and I should n't wonder if he dies." + +"Will he die?" said Black Sheep. + +"I daresay," said Harry, "and then you'll be hanged." + +"All right," said Black Sheep, possessing himself of the table-knife. +"Then I'll kill you now. You say things and do things and--and I +don't know how things happen, and you never leave me alone--and I +don't care what happens!" + +He ran at the boy with the knife, and Harry fled upstairs to his room, +promising Black Sheep the finest thrashing in the world when Aunty +Rosa returned. Black Sheep sat at the bottom of the stairs, the +table-knife in his hand, and wept for that he had not killed Harry. +The servant-girl came up from the kitchen, took the knife away, and +consoled him. But Black Sheep was beyond consolation. He would be +badly beaten by Aunty Rosa; then there would be another beating at +Harry's hands; then Judy would not be allowed to speak to him; then +the tale would be told at school and then---- + +There was no one to help and no one to care, and the best way out of +the business was by death. A knife would hurt, but Aunty Rosa had told +him, a year ago, that if he sucked paint he would die. He went into +the nursery, unearthed the now-disused Noah's Ark, and sucked the +paint off as many animals as remained. It tasted abominable, but he +had licked Noah's Dove clean by the time Aunty Rosa and Judy returned. +He went upstairs and greeted them with: "Please, Aunty Rosa, I believe +I've nearly killed a boy at school, and I've tried to kill Harry, and +when you've done all about God and Hell, will you beat me and get it +over?" + +The tale of the assault as told by Harry could only be explained on +the ground of possession by the Devil. Wherefore Black Sheep was not +only most excellently beaten, once by Aunty Rosa and once, when +thoroughly cowed down, by Harry, but he was further prayed for at +family prayers, together with Jane, who had stolen a cold rissole from +the pantry and snuffled audibly as her enormity was brought before the +Throne of Grace. Black Sheep was sore and stiff, but triumphant. He +would die that very night and be rid of them all. No, he would ask for +no forgiveness from Harry, and at bedtime would stand no questioning +at Harry's hands, even though addressed as "Young Cain." + +"I've been beaten," said he, "and I've done other things. I don't care +what I do. If you speak to me to-night, Harry, I'll get out and try to +kill you. Now you can kill me if you like." + +Harry took his bed into the spare-room, and Black Sheep lay down to +die. + +It may be that the makers of Noah's Arks know that their animals are +likely to find their way into young mouths, and paint them +accordingly. Certain it is that the common, weary next morning broke +through the windows and found Black Sheep quite well and a good deal +ashamed of himself, but richer by the knowledge that he could, in +extremity, secure himself against Harry for the future. + +When he descended to breakfast on the first day of the holidays, he +was greeted with the news that Harry, Aunty Rosa, and Judy were going +away to Brighton, while Black Sheep was to stay in the house with the +servant. His latest outbreak suited Aunty Rosa's plans admirably. It +gave her good excuse for leaving the extra boy behind. Papa in Bombay, +who really seemed to know a young sinner's wants to the hour, sent, +that week, a package of new books. And with these, and the society of +Jane on board-wages, Black Sheep was left alone for a month. + +The books lasted for ten days. They were eaten too quickly, in long +gulps of four-and-twenty hours at a time. Then came days of doing +absolutely nothing, of dreaming dreams and marching imaginary armies +up and down stairs, of counting the number of banisters, and of +measuring the length and breadth of every room in handspans--fifty +down the side, thirty across, and fifty back again. Jane made many +friends, and, after receiving Black Sheep's assurance that he would +not tell of her absences, went out daily for long hours. Black Sheep +would follow the rays of the sinking sun from the kitchen to the +dining-room and thence upward to his own bedroom until all was gray +dark, and he ran down to the kitchen fire and read by its light. He +was happy in that he was left alone and could read as much as he +pleased. But, later, he grew afraid of the shadows of window-curtains +and the flapping of doors and the creaking of shutters. He went out +into the garden, and the rustling of the laurel-bushes frightened him. + +He was glad when they all returned--Aunty Rosa, Harry, and Judy--full +of news, and Judy laden with gifts. Who could help loving loyal little +Judy? In return for all her merry babblement, Black Sheep confided to +her that the distance from the hall-door to the top of the first +landing was exactly one hundred and eighty-four handspans. He had +found it out himself. + +Then the old life recommenced; but with a difference, and a new sin. +To his other iniquities Black Sheep had now added a phenomenal +clumsiness--was as unfit to trust in action as he was in word. He +himself could not account for spilling everything he touched, +upsetting glasses as he put his hand out, and bumping his head against +doors that were manifestly shut. There was a gray haze upon all his +world, and it narrowed month by month, until at last it left Black +Sheep almost alone with the flapping curtains that were so like +ghosts, and the nameless terrors of broad daylight that were only +coats on pegs after all. + +Holidays came and holidays went, and Black Sheep was taken to see many +people whose faces were all exactly alike; was beaten when occasion +demanded, and tortured by Harry on all possible occasions; but +defended by Judy through good and evil report, though she hereby drew +upon herself the wrath of Aunty Rosa. + +The weeks were interminable and Papa and Mamma were clean forgotten. +Harry had left school and was a clerk in a Banking-Office. Freed from +his presence, Black Sheep resolved that he should no longer be +deprived of his allowance of pleasure-reading. Consequently, when he +failed at school he reported that all was well, and conceived a large +contempt for Aunty Rosa as he saw how easy it was to deceive her. "She +says I'm a little liar when I don't tell lies, and now I do, she does +n't know," thought Black Sheep. Aunty Rosa had credited him in the +past with petty cunning and stratagem that had never entered into his +head. By the light of the sordid knowledge that she had revealed to +him he paid her back full tale. In a household where the most innocent +of his motives, his natural yearning for a little affection, had been +interpreted into a desire for more bread and jam or to ingratiate +himself with strangers and so put Harry into the background, his work +was easy. Aunty Rosa could penetrate certain kinds of hypocrisy, but +not all. He set his child's wits against hers and was no more beaten. +It grew monthly more and more of a trouble to read the schoolbooks, +and even the pages of the open-print story-books danced and were dim. +So Black Sheep brooded in the shadows that fell about him and cut him +off from the world, inventing horrible punishments for "dear Harry," +or plotting another line of the tangled web of deception that he +wrapped round Aunty Rosa. + +Then the crash came and the cobwebs were broken. It was impossible to +foresee everything. Aunty Rosa made personal inquiries as to Black +Sheep's progress and received information that startled her. Step by +step, with a delight as keen as when she convicted an underfed +housemaid of the theft of cold meats, she followed the trail of Black +Sheep's delinquencies. For weeks and weeks, in order to escape +banishment from the book-shelves, he had made a fool of Aunty Rosa, of +Harry, of God, of all the world. Horrible, most horrible, and evidence +of an utterly depraved mind. + +Black Sheep counted the cost. "It will only be one big beating, and +then she'll put a card with 'Liar' on my back, same as she did before. +Harry will whack me and pray for me, and she will pray for me at +prayers and tell me I'm a Child of the Devil and give me hymns to +learn. But I've done all my reading and she never knew. She'll say she +knew all along. She's an old liar, too," said he. + +For three days Black Sheep was shut in his own bedroom--to prepare his +heart. "That means two beatings. One at school and one here. That one +will hurt most." And it fell even as he thought. He was thrashed at +school before the Jews and the hubshi, for the heinous crime of +bringing home false reports of progress. He was thrashed at home by +Aunty Rosa on the same count, and then the placard was produced. Aunty +Rosa stitched it between his shoulders and bade him go for a walk with +it upon him. + +"If you make me do that," said Black Sheep very quietly, "I shall burn +this house down, and perhaps I'll kill you. I don't know whether I can +kill you--you 're so bony--but I'll try." + +No punishment followed this blasphemy, though Black Sheep held himself +ready to work his way to Aunty Rosa's withered throat, and grip there +till he was beaten off. Perhaps Aunty Rosa was afraid, for Black +Sheep, having reached the Nadir of Sin, bore himself with a new +recklessness. + +In the midst of all the trouble there came a visitor from over the +seas to Downe Lodge, who knew Papa and Mamma, and was commissioned to +see Punch and Judy. Black Sheep was sent to the drawing-room and +charged into a solid tea-table laden with china. + +"Gently, gently, little man," said the visitor turning Black Sheep's +face to the light slowly. "What's that big bird on the palings?" + +"What bird?" asked Black Sheep. + +The visitor looked deep down into Black Sheep's eyes for a half a +minute, and then said suddenly: "Good God, the little chap's nearly +blind." + +It was a most business-like visitor. He gave orders, on his own +responsibility, that Black Sheep was not to go to school or open a +book until Mamma came home. "She'll be here in three weeks, as you +know of course," said he, "and I'm Inverarity Sahib. I ushered you +into this wicked world, young man, and a nice use you seem to have +made of your time. You must do nothing whatever. Can you do that?" + +"Yes," said Punch in a dazed way. He had known that Mamma was coming. +There was a chance, then, of another beating. Thank Heaven, Papa was +n't coming too. Aunty Rosa had said of late that he ought to be beaten +by a man. + +For the next three weeks Black Sheep was strictly allowed to do +nothing. He spent his time in the old nursery looking at the broken +toys, for all of which account must be rendered to Mamma. Aunty Rosa +hit him over the hands if even a wooden boat were broken. But that sin +was of small importance compared to the other revelations, so darkly +hinted at by Aunty Rosa. "When your mother comes, and hears what I +have to tell her, she may appreciate you properly," she said grimly, +and mounted guard over Judy lest that small maiden should attempt to +comfort her brother, to the peril of her own soul. + +And Mamma came--in a four-wheeler and a flutter of tender excitement. +Such a Mamma! She was young, frivolously young, and beautiful, with +delicately flushed cheeks, eyes that shone like stars, and a voice +that needed no additional appeal of outstretched arms to draw little +ones to her heart. Judy ran straight to her, but Black Sheep +hesitated. Could this wonder be "showing off"? She would not put out +her arms when she knew of his crimes. Meantime was it possible that by +fondling she wanted to get anything out of Black Sheep? Only all his +love and all his confidence; but that Black Sheep did not know. Aunty +Rosa withdrew and left Mamma, kneeling between her children, half +laughing, half crying, in the very hall where Punch and Judy had wept +five years before. + +"Well, chicks, do you remember me?" + +"No," said Judy frankly, "but I said 'God bless Papa and Mamma,' ev'vy +night." + +"A little," said Black Sheep. "Remember I wrote to you every week, +anyhow. That is n't to show off, but 'cause of what comes afterward." + +"What comes after! What should come after, my darling boy?" And she +drew him to her again. He came awkwardly, with many angles. "Not used +to petting," said the quick Mother-soul. "The girl is." + +"She's too little to hurt anyone," thought Black Sheep, "and if I said +I'd kill her, she'd be afraid. I wonder what Aunty Rosa will tell." + +There was a constrained late dinner, at the end of which Mamma picked +up Judy and put her to bed with endearments manifold. Faithless little +Judy had shown her defection from Aunty Rosa already. And that lady +resented it bitterly. Black Sheep rose to leave the room. + +"Come and say good night," said Aunty Rosa, offering a withered cheek. + +"Huh!" said Black Sheep. "I never kiss you, and I'm not going to show +off. Tell that woman what I've done, and see what she says." + +Black Sheep climbed into bed feeling that he had lost Heaven after a +glimpse through the gates. In half an hour "that woman" was bending +over him. Black Sheep flung up his right arm. It was n't fair to come +and hit him in the dark. Even Aunty Rosa never tried that. But no blow +followed. + +"Are you showing off? I won't tell you anything more than Aunty Rosa +has, and she does n't know everything," said Black Sheep as clearly as +he could for the arms round his neck. + +"Oh, my son--my little, little son! It was my fault--my fault, +darling--and yet how could we help it? Forgive me, Punch." The voice +died out in a broken whisper, and two hot tears fell on Black Sheep's +forehead. + +"Has she been making you cry, too?" he asked. "You should see Jane +cry. But you're nice, and Jane is a Born Liar--Aunty Rosa says so." + +"Hush, Punch, hush! My boy, don't talk like that. Try to love me a +little bit--a little bit. You don't know how I want it. Punch-baba, +come back to me! I am your Mother--your own Mother--and never mind the +rest. I know--yes, I know, dear. It does n't matter now. Punch, won't +you care for me a little?" + +It is astonishing how much petting a big boy of ten can endure when he +is quite sure that there is no one to laugh at him. Black Sheep had +never been made much of before, and here was this beautiful woman +treating him--Black Sheep, the Child of the Devil and the Inheritor of +Undying Flame--as though he were a small God. + +"I care for you a great deal, Mother dear," he whispered at last, "and +I'm glad you've come back; but are you sure Aunty Rosa told you +everything?" + +"Everything. What does it matter? But----" the voice broke with a sob +that was also laughter--"Punch, my poor, dear, half-blind darling, +don't you think it was a little foolish of you?" + +"No. It saved a lickin'." + +Mamma shuddered and slipped away in the darkness to write a long +letter to Papa. Here is an extract: + +"... Judy is a dear, plump little prig who adores the woman, and wears +with as much gravity as her religious opinions--only eight, Jack!--a +venerable horsehair atrocity which she calls her Bustle. I have just +burned it, and the child is asleep in my bed as I write. She will come +to me at once. Punch I cannot quite understand. He is well nourished, +but seems to have been worried into a system of small deceptions which +the woman magnifies into deadly sins. Don't you recollect our own +up-bringing, dear, when the Fear of the Lord was so often the +beginning of falsehood? I shall win Punch to me before long. I am +taking the children away into the country to get them to know me, and, +on the whole, I am content, or shall be when you come home, dear boy, +and then, thank God, we shall be all under one roof again at last!" + + * * * * * + +Three months later, Punch, no longer Black Sheep, has discovered that +he is the veritable owner of a real, live, lovely Mamma, who is also a +sister, comforter, and friend, and that he must protect her till the +Father comes home. Deception does not suit the part of a protector, +and, when one can do anything without question, where is the use of +deception? + +"Mother would be awfully cross if you walked through that ditch," says +Judy, continuing a conversation. + +"Mother's never angry," says Punch. "She'd just say, 'You're a little +pagal'; and that's not nice, but I'll show." + +Punch walks through the ditch and mires himself to the knees. "Mother, +dear," he shouts, "I'm just as dirty as I can pos-sib-ly be!" + +"Then change your clothes as quickly as you pos-sib-ly can!" rings out +Mother's clear voice from the house. "And don't be a little pagal!" + +"There! Told you so," says Punch. "It's all different now, and we are +just as much Mother's as if she had never gone." + +Not altogether, O Punch, for when young lips have drunk deep of the +bitter waters of Hate, Suspicion, and Despair, all the Love in the +world will not wholly take away that knowledge; though it may turn +darkened eyes for a while to the light, and teach Faith where no Faith +was. + + + + +V + +WEE WILLIE WINKIE + +"An officer and a gentleman." + + +His full name was Percival William Williams, but he picked up the +other name in a nursery-book, and that was the end of the christened +titles. His mother's ayah called him Willie-Baba, but as he never paid +the faintest attention to anything that the ayah said, her wisdom did +not help matters. + +His father was the Colonel of the 195th, and as soon as Wee Willie +Winkie was old enough to understand what Military Discipline meant, +Colonel Williams put him under it. There was no other way of managing +the child. When he was good for a week, he drew good-conduct pay; and +when he was bad, he was deprived of his good-conduct-stripe. Generally +he was bad, for India offers so many chances to little six-year-olds +of going wrong. + +Children resent familiarity from strangers, and Wee Willie Winkie was +a very particular child. Once he accepted an acquaintance, he was +graciously pleased to thaw. He accepted Brandis, a subaltern of the +195th, on sight. Brandis was having tea at the Colonel's, and Wee +Willie Winkie entered, strong in the possession of a good-conduct +badge won for not chasing the hens round the compound. He regarded +Brandis with gravity for at least ten minutes, and then delivered +himself of his opinion. + +"I like you," said he slowly, getting off his chair and coming over to +Brandis. "I like you. I shall call you Coppy, because of your hair. Do +you mind being called Coppy? It is because of ve hair, you know." + +Here was one of the most embarrassing of Wee Willie Winkie's +peculiarities. He would look at a stranger for some time, and then, +without warning or explanation, would give him a name. And the name +stuck. No regimental penalties could break Wee Willie Winkie of this +habit. He lost his good-conduct badge for christening the +Commissioner's wife "Pobs"; but nothing that the Colonel could do made +the Station forego the nickname, and Mrs. Collen remained Mrs. "Pobs" +till the end of her stay. So Brandis was christened "Coppy," and rose, +therefore, in the estimation of the regiment. + +If Wee Willie Winkie took an interest in anyone, the fortunate man was +envied alike by the mess and the rank and file. And in their envy lay +no suspicion of self-interest. "The Colonel's son" was idolized on his +own merits entirely. Yet Wee Willie Winkie was not lovely. His face +was permanently freckled, as his legs were permanently scratched, and +in spite of his mother's almost tearful remonstrances he had insisted +upon having his long yellow locks cut short in the military fashion. +"I want my hair like Sergeant Tummil's," said Wee Willie Winkie, and, +his father abetting, the sacrifice was accomplished. + +Three weeks after the bestowal of his youthful affections on +Lieutenant Brandis--henceforward to be called "Coppy" for the sake of +brevity--Wee Willie Winkie was destined to behold strange things and +far beyond his comprehension. + +Coppy returned his liking with interest. Coppy had let him wear for +five rapturous minutes his own big sword--just as tall as Wee Willie +Winkie. Coppy had promised him a terrier puppy; and Coppy had +permitted him to witness the miraculous operation of shaving. Nay, +more--Coppy had said that even he, Wee Willie Winkie, would rise in +time to the ownership of a box of shiny knives, a silver soap-box and +a silver-handled "sputter-brush," as Wee Willie Winkie called it. +Decidedly, there was no one, except his father, who could give or take +away good-conduct badges at pleasure, half so wise, strong, and +valiant as Coppy with the Afghan and Egyptian medals on his breast. +Why, then, should Coppy be guilty of the unmanly weakness of +kissing--vehemently kissing--a "big girl," Miss Allardyce to wit? In +the course of a morning ride, Wee Willie Winkie had seen Coppy so +doing, and, like the gentleman he was, had promptly wheeled round and +cantered back to his groom, lest the groom should also see. + +Under ordinary circumstances he would have spoken to his father, but +he felt instinctively that this was a matter on which Coppy ought +first to be consulted. + +"Coppy," shouted Wee Willie Winkie, reining up outside that +subaltern's bungalow early one morning--"I want to see you, Coppy!" + +"Come in, young 'un," returned Coppy, who was at early breakfast in +the midst of his dogs. "What mischief have you been getting into now?" + +Wee Willie Winkie had done nothing notoriously bad for three days, and +so stood on a pinnacle of virtue. + +"I've been doing nothing bad," said he, curling himself into a long +chair with a studious affectation of the Colonel's langour after a hot +parade. He buried his freckled nose in a tea-cup and, with eyes +staring roundly over the rim, asked: "I say, Coppy, is it pwoper to +kiss big girls?" + +"By Jove! You're beginning early. Who do you want to kiss?" + +"No one. My muvver's always kissing me if I don't stop her. If it is +n't pwoper, how was you kissing Major Allardyce's big girl last +morning, by ve canal?" + +Coppy's brow wrinkled. He and Miss Allardyce had with great craft +managed to keep their engagement secret for a fortnight. There were +urgent and imperative reasons why Major Allardyce should not know how +matters stood for at least another month, and this small marplot had +discovered a great deal too much. + +"I saw you," said Wee Willie Winkle calmly. "But ve groom did n't see. +I said, 'Hut jao.'" + +"Oh, you had that much sense, you young Rip," groaned poor Coppy, half +amused and half angry. "And how many people may you have told about +it?" + +"Only me myself. You did n't tell when I twied to wide ve buffalo ven +my pony was lame; and I fought you would n't like." + +"Winkie," said Coppy enthusiastically, shaking the small hand, "you're +the best of good fellows. Look here, you can't understand all these +things. One of these days--hang it, how can I make you see it!--I'm +going to marry Miss Allardyce, and then she'll be Mrs. Coppy, as you +say. If your young mind is so scandalized at the idea of kissing big +girls, go and tell your father." + +"What will happen?" said Wee Willie Winkie, who firmly believed that +his father was omnipotent. + +"I shall get into trouble," said Coppy, playing his trump card with +an appealing look at the holder of the ace. + +"Ven I won't," said Wee Willie Winkie briefly. "But my faver says it's +un-man-ly to be always kissing, and I did n't fink you'd do vat, +Coppy." + +"I'm not always kissing, old chap. It's only now and then, and when +you're bigger you'll do it too. Your father meant it's not good for +little boys." + +"Ah!" said Wee Willie Winkle, now fully enlightened. "It's like ve +sputter-brush?" + +"Exactly," said Coppy gravely. + +"But I don't fink I'll ever want to kiss big girls, nor no one, 'cept +my muvver. And I must vat, you know." + +There was a long pause, broken by Wee Willie Winkie. + +"Are you fond of vis big girl, Coppy?" + +"Awfully!" said Coppy. + +"Fonder van you are of Bell or ve Butcha--or me?" + +"It's in a different way," said Coppy. "You see, one of these days +Miss Allardyce will belong to me, but you'll grow up and command the +Regiment and--all sorts of things. It's quite different, you see." + +"Very well," said Wee Willie Winkie, rising. "If you're fond of ve big +girl, I won't tell anyone. I must go now." + +Coppy rose and escorted his small guest to the door, adding: "You're +the best of little fellows, Winkie. I tell you what. In thirty days +from now you can tell if you like--tell anyone you like." + +Thus the secret of the Brandis-Allardyce engagement was dependent on a +little child's word. Coppy, who knew Wee Willie Winkie's idea of +truth, was at ease, for he felt that he would not break promises. Wee +Willie Winkie betrayed a special and unusual interest in Miss +Allardyce, and, slowly revolving round that embarrassed young lady, +was used to regard her gravely with unwinking eye. He was trying to +discover why Coppy should have kissed her. She was not half so nice as +his own mother. On the other hand she was Coppy's property, and would +in time belong to him. Therefore it behooved him to treat her with as +much respect as Coppy's big sword or shiny pistol. + +The idea that he shared a great secret in common with Coppy kept Wee +Willie Winkie unusually virtuous for three weeks. Then the Old Adam +broke out, and he made what he called a "camp-fire" at the bottom of +the garden. How could he have foreseen that the flying sparks would +have lighted the Colonel's little hay-rick and consumed a week's store +for the horses? Sudden and swift was the punishment--deprivation of +the good-conduct badge and, most sorrowful of all, two days' +confinement to barracks--the house and veranda--coupled with the +withdrawal of the light of his father's countenance. + +He took the sentence like the man he strove to be, drew himself up +with a quivering under-lip, saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran +to weep bitterly in his nursery--called by him "my quarters." Coppy +came in the afternoon and attempted to console the culprit. + +"I'm under awwest," said Wee Willie Winkie mournfully, "and I did n't +ought to speak to you." + +Very early the next morning he climbed on to the roof of the +house--that was not forbidden--and beheld Miss Allardyce going for a +ride. + +"Where are you going?" cried Wee Willie Winkie. + +"Across the river," she answered, and trotted forward. + +Now the cantonment in which the 195th lay was bounded on the north by +a river--dry in the winter. From his earliest years, Wee Willie Winkie +had been forbidden to go across the river, and had noted that even +Coppy--the almost almighty Coppy--had never set foot beyond it. Wee +Willie Winkie had once been read to, out of a big blue book, the +history of the Princess and the Goblins--a most wonderful tale of a +land where the Goblins were always warring with the children of men +until they were defeated by one Curdie. Ever since that date it seemed +to him that the bare black and purple hills across the river were +inhabited by Goblins, and, in truth, everyone had said that there +lived the Bad Men. Even in his own house the lower halves of the +windows were covered with green paper on account of the Bad Men who +might, if allowed clear view, fire into peaceful drawing-rooms and +comfortable bedrooms. Certainly, beyond the river, which was the end +of all the Earth, lived the Bad Men. And here was Major Allardyce's +big girl, Coppy's property, preparing to venture into their borders! +What would Coppy say if anything happened to her? If the Goblins ran +off with her as they did with Curdie's Princess? She must at all +hazards be turned back. + +The house was still. Wee Willie Winkie reflected for a moment on the +very terrible wrath of his father; and then--broke his arrest! It was +a crime unspeakable. The low sun threw his shadow, very large and very +black, on the trim garden-paths, as he went down to the stables and +ordered his pony. It seemed to him in the hush of the dawn that all +the big world had been bidden to stand still and look at Wee Willie +Winkie guilty of mutiny. The drowsy groom handed him his mount, and +since the one great sin made all others insignificant, Wee Willie +Winkie said that he was going to ride over to Coppy Sahib, and went +out at a foot-pace, stepping on the soft mould of the flower-borders. + +The devastating track of the pony's feet was the last misdeed that cut +him off from all sympathy of Humanity. He turned into the road, leaned +forward, and rode as fast as the pony could put foot to the ground in +the direction of the river. + +But the liveliest of twelve-two ponies can do little against the long +canter of a Waler. Miss Allardyce was far ahead, had passed through +the crops, beyond the Police-post, when all the guards were asleep, +and her mount was scattering the pebbles of the river bed as Wee +Willie Winkie left the cantonment and British India behind him. Bowed, +forward and still flogging, Wee Willie Winkie shot into Afghan +territory, and could just see Miss Allardyce a black speck, flickering +across the stony plain. The reason of her wandering was simple enough. +Coppy, in a tone of too-hastily-assumed authority, had told her over +night that she must not ride out by the river. And she had gone to +prove her own spirit and teach Coppy a lesson. + +Almost at the foot of the inhospitable hills Wee Willie Winkie saw the +Waler blunder and come down heavily. Miss Allardyce struggled clear, +but her ankle had been severely twisted, and she could not stand. +Having thus demonstrated her spirit, she wept copiously, and was +surprised by the apparition of a white, wide-eyed child in khaki, on a +nearly spent pony. + +"Are you badly, badly hurted?" shouted Wee Willie Winkie, as soon as +he was within range. "You did n't ought to be here." + +"I don't know," said Miss Allardyce ruefully ignoring the reproof. +"Good gracious, child, what are you doing here?" + +"You said you was going acwoss ve wiver," panted Wee Willie Winkie, +throwing himself off his pony. "And nobody--not even Coppy--must go +acwoss ve wiver, and I came after you ever so hard, but you would n't +stop, and now you 've hurted yourself, and Coppy will be angry wiv me, +and--I've bwoken my awwest! I've bwoken my awwest!" + +The future Colonel of the 195th sat down and sobbed. In spite of the +pain in her ankle the girl was moved. + +"Have you ridden all the way from cantonments, little man? What for?" + +"You belonged to Coppy. Coppy told me so!" wailed Wee Willie Winkie +disconsolately. "I saw him kissing you, and he said he was fonder of +you van Bell or ve Butcha or me. And so I came. You must get up and +come back. You did n't ought to be here. Vis is a bad place, and I 've +bwoken my awwest." + +"I can't move, Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, with a groan. "I've hurt +my foot. What shall I do?" + +She showed a readiness to weep afresh which steadied Wee Willie +Winkie, who had been brought up to believe that tears were the depth +of unmanliness. Still, when one is as great a sinner as Wee Willie +Winkie, even a man may be permitted to break down. + +"Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, "when you've rested a little, ride back +and tell them to send out something to carry me back in. It hurts +fearfully." + +The child sat still for a little time and Miss Allardyce closed her +eyes; the pain was nearly making her faint. She was roused by Wee +Willie Winkie tying up the reins on his pony's neck and setting it +free with a vicious cut of his whip that made it whicker. The little +animal headed toward the cantonments. + +"Oh, Winkie! What are you doing?" + +"Hush!" said Wee Willie Winkie. "Vere's a man coming--one of ve Bad +Men. I must stay wiv you. My faver says a man must always look after a +girl. Jack will go home, and ven vey 'll come and look for us. Vat 's +why I let him go." + +Not one man, but two or three, had appeared from behind the rocks of +the hills, and the heart of Wee Willie Winkie sank within him, for +just in this manner were the Goblins wont to steal out and vex +Curdie's soul. Thus had they played in Curdie's garden, he had seen +the picture, and thus had they frightened the Princess's nurse. He +heard them talking to each other, and recognized with joy the bastard +Pushto that he had picked up from one of his father's grooms lately +dismissed. People who spoke that tongue could not be the Bad Men. They +were only natives, after all. + +They came up to the boulders on which Miss Allardyce's horse had +blundered. + +Then rose from the rock Wee Willie Winkie, child of the Dominant Race, +aged six and three-quarters, and said briefly and emphatically "Jao!" +The pony had crossed the river-bed. + +The men laughed, and laughter from natives was the one thing Wee +Willie Winkie could not tolerate. He asked them what they wanted and +why they did not depart. Other men with most evil faces and +crooked-stocked guns crept out of the shadows of the hills, till, +soon, Wee Willie Winkie was face to face with an audience some twenty +strong. Miss Allardyce screamed. + +"Who are you?" said one of the men. + +"I am the Colonel Sahib's son, and my order is that you go at once. +You black men are frightening the Miss Sahib. One of you must run into +cantonments and take the news that the Miss Sahib has hurt herself, +and that the Colonel's son is here with her." + +"Put our feet into the trap?" was the laughing reply. "Hear this boy's +speech!" + +"Say that I sent you--I, the Colonel's son. They will give you +money." + +"What is the use of this talk? Take up the child and the girl, and we +can at least ask for the ransom. Ours are the villages on the +heights," said a voice in the background. + +These were the Bad Men--worse than Goblins--and it needed all Wee +Willie Winkie's training to prevent him from bursting into tears. But +he felt that to cry before a native, excepting only his mother's ayah, +would be an infamy greater than any mutiny. Moreover, he, as future +Colonel of the 195th, had that grim regiment at his back. + +"Are you going to carry us away?" said Wee Willie Winkie, very +blanched and uncomfortable. + +"Yes, my little Sahib Bahadur," said the tallest of the men, "and eat +you afterward." + +"That is child's talk," said Wee Willie Winkie. "Men do not eat men." + +A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he went on firmly--"And if you +do carry us away, I tell you that all my regiment will come up in a +day and kill you all without leaving one. Who will take my message to +the Colonel Sahib?" + +Speech in any vernacular--and Wee Willie Winkie had a colloquial +acquaintance with three--was easy to the boy who could not yet manage +his "r's" and "th's" aright. + +Another man joined the conference, crying: "Oh, foolish men! What this +babe says is true. He is the heart's heart of those white troops. For +the sake of peace let them go both, for if he be taken, the regiment +will break loose and gut the valley. Our villages are in the valley, +and we shall not escape. That regiment are devils. They broke Khoda +Yar's breast-bone with kicks when he tried to take the rifles; and if +we touch this child they will fire and rape and plunder for a month, +till nothing remains. Better to send a man back to take the message +and get a reward. I say that this child is their God, and that they +will spare none of us, nor our women, if we harm him." + +It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom of the Colonel, who made the +diversion, and an angry and heated discussion followed. Wee Willie +Winkie, standing over Miss Allardyce, waited the upshot. Surely his +"wegiment," his own "wegiment," would not desert him if they knew of +his extremity. + + * * * * * + +The riderless pony brought the news to the 195th, though there had +been consternation in the Colonel's household for an hour before. The +little beast came in through the parade-ground in front of the main +barracks, where the men were settling down to play Spoil-five till the +afternoon. Devlin, the Colour Sergeant of E Company, glanced at the +empty saddle and tumbled through the barrack-rooms, kicking up each +Room Corporal as he passed. "Up, ye beggars! There's something +happened to the Colonel's son," he shouted. + +"He could n't fall off! S'elp me, 'e could n't fall off," blubbered a +drummer-boy. "Go an' hunt acrost the river. He's over there if he's +anywhere, an' maybe those Pathans have got 'im. For the love o' Gawd +don't look for 'im in the nullahs! Let's go over the river." + +"There's sense in Mott yet," said Devlin. "E Company, double out to +the river--sharp!" + +So E Company, in its shirt-sleeves mainly, doubled for the dear life, +and in the rear toiled the perspiring Sergeant, adjuring it to double +yet faster. The cantonment was alive with the men of the 195th hunting +for Wee Willie Winkie, and the Colonel finally overtook E Company, far +too exhausted to swear, struggling in the pebbles of the river-bed. + +Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie's Bad Men were discussing +the wisdom of carrying off the child and the girl, a lookout fired two +shots. + +"What have I said?" shouted Din Mahommed. "There is the warning! The +pulton are out already and are coming across the plain! Get away! Let +us not be seen with the boy!" + +The men waited for an instant, and then, as another shot was fired, +withdrew into the hills, silently as they had appeared. + +"The wegiment is coming," said Wee Willie Winkie confidently to Miss +Allardyce, "and it's all wight. Don't cwy!" + +He needed the advice himself, for ten minutes later, when his father +came up, he was weeping bitterly with his head in Miss Allardyce's +lap. + +And the men of the 195th carried him home with shouts and rejoicings; +and Coppy, who had ridden a horse into a lather, met him, and, to his +intense disgust, kissed him openly in the presence of the men. + +But there was balm for his dignity. His father assured him that not +only would the breaking of arrest be condoned, but that the +good-conduct badge would be restored as soon as his mother could sew +it on his blouse-sleeve. Miss Allardyce had told the Colonel a story +that made him proud of his son. + +"She belonged to you, Coppy," said Wee Willie Winkie, indicating Miss +Allardyce with a grimy forefinger. "I knew she did n't ought to go +acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment would come to me if I sent +Jack home." + +"You're a hero, Winkie," said Coppy--"a pukka hero!" + +"I don't know what vat means," said Wee Willie Winkie, "but you must +n't call me Winkie any no more. I'm Percival Will'am Will'ams." + +And in this manner did Wee Willie Winkie enter into his manhood. + + + + +VI + +THE DOVE OF DACCA + + + The freed dove flew to the Rajah's tower-- + Fled from the slaughter of Moslem kings-- + And the thorns have covered the city of Gaur. + Dove--dove--oh, homing dove! + Little white traitor, with woe on thy wings! + + The Rajah of Dacca rode under the wall; + He set in his bosom a dove of flight-- + "If she return, be sure that I fall." + Dove--dove--oh, homing dove! + Pressed to his heart in the thick of the fight. + + "Fire the palace, the fort, and the keep-- + Leave to the foeman no spoil at all. + In the flame of the palace lie down and sleep + If the dove, if the dove--if the homing dove + Come and alone to the palace wall." + + The Kings of the North they were scattered abroad-- + The Rajah of Dacca he slew them all. + Hot from slaughter he stooped at the ford, + And the dove--the dove--oh, the homing dove! + She thought of her cote on the palace wall. + + She opened her wings and she flew away-- + Fluttered away beyond recall; + She came to the palace at break of day. + Dove--dove--oh, homing dove! + Flying so fast for a kingdom's fall. + + The Queens of Dacca they slept in flame-- + Slept in the flame of the palace old-- + To save their honour from Moslem shame. + And the dove--the dove--oh, the homing dove! + She cooed to her young where the smoke-cloud rolled. + + The Rajah of Dacca rode far and fleet, + Followed as fast as a horse could fly, + He came and the palace was black at his feet; + And the dove--the dove--the homing dove, + Circled alone in the stainless sky. + + So the dove flew to the Rajah's tower-- + Fled from the slaughter of Moslem kings; + So the thorns covered the city of Gaur, + And Dacca was lost for a white dove's wings. + Dove--dove--oh, homing dove, + Dacca is lost from the roll of the kings! + + + + +VII + +THE SMOKE UPON YOUR ALTAR DIES + +(_To whom it may concern._) + + + The smoke upon your Altar dies, + The flowers decay, + The Goddess of your sacrifice + Has flown away. + What profit, then, to sing or slay + The sacrifice from day to day? + + "We know the Shrine is void," they said, + "The Goddess flown-- + Yet wreaths are on the Altar laid-- + The Altar-Stone + Is black with fumes of sacrifice, + Albeit She has fled our eyes. + + "For it may be, if still we sing + And tend the Shrine, + Some Deity on wandering wing + May there incline; + And, finding all in order meet, + Stay while we worship at Her feet." + + + + +VIII + +RECESSIONAL + + The Recessional is one of the most popular poems of this + century. It is a warning to age and a nation drunk with + power, a rebuke to materialistic tendencies and + boastfulness, a protest against pride. + + "Reverence is the master-key of knowledge." + + + God of our fathers, known of old-- + Lord of our far-flung battle-line-- + Beneath whose awful Hand we hold + Dominion over palm and pine-- + Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet + Lest we forget--lest we forget! + + The tumult and the shouting dies-- + The captains and the kings depart-- + Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice, + An humble and a contrite heart. + Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, + Lest we forget--lest we forget! + + Far-called our navies melt away-- + On dune and headland sinks the fire-- + Lo, all our pomp of yesterday + Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! + Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, + Lest we forget--lest we forget! + + If, drunk with sight of power, we loose + Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe-- + Such boasting as the Gentiles use + Or lesser breeds without the Law-- + Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, + Lest we forget--lest we forget! + + For heathen heart that puts her trust + In reeking tube and iron shard-- + All valiant dust that builds on dust, + And guarding calls not Thee to guard-- + For frantic boast and foolish word, + Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord! Amen. + + + + +IX + +L'ENVOI + + + When Earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and + dried, + When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died, + We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it--lie down for an æon + or two, + Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us to work anew! + + And those who were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden + chair; + They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet's hair; + They shall find real saints to draw from--Magdalene, Peter, and Paul; + They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all! + + And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame; + And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame; + But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, + Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are! + + + + +I + +THE SING-SONG OF OLD MAN KANGAROO + + +Not always was the Kangaroo as now we do behold him, but a Different +Animal with four short legs. He was gray and he was woolly, and his +pride was inordinate: he danced on an outcrop in the middle of +Australia, and he went to the Little God Nqa at six before breakfast, +saying, "Make me different from all other animals by five this +afternoon." + +Up jumped Nqa from his seat on the sandflat and shouted, "Go away!" + +He was gray and he was woolly, and his pride was inordinate: he danced +on a rockledge in the middle of Australia, and he went to the Middle +God Nquing. + +He went to Nquing at eight after breakfast, saying, "Make me different +from all other animals; make me, also, wonderfully popular by five +this afternoon." + +Up jumped Nquing from his burrow in the spinifex and shouted, "Go +away!" + +He was gray and he was woolly, and his pride was inordinate: he +danced on a sandbank in the middle of Australia, and he went to the +Big God Nqong. + +He went to Nqong at ten before dinner-time, saying, "Make me different +from all other animals; make me popular and wonderfully run after by +five this afternoon." + +Up jumped Nqong from his bath in the salt-pan and shouted, "Yes, I +will!" + +Nqong called Dingo--Yellow-Dog Dingo--always hungry, dusty in the +sunshine, and showed him Kangaroo. Nqong said, "Dingo! Wake up, Dingo! +Do you see that gentleman dancing on an ash-pit? He wants to be +popular and very truly run after. Dingo, make him so!" + +Up jumped Dingo--Yellow-Dog Dingo--and said, "What, _that_ +cat-rabbit?" + +Off ran Dingo--Yellow-Dog Dingo--always hungry, grinning like a +coal-scuttle--ran after Kangaroo. + +Off went the proud Kangaroo on his four little legs like a bunny. + +This, O Beloved of mine, ends the first part of the tale! + +He ran through the desert; he ran through the mountains; he ran +through the salt-pans; he ran through the reed-beds; he ran through +the blue gums; he ran through the spinifex; he ran till his front legs +ached. + +He had to! + +[Illustration: This is a picture of Old Man Kangaroo when he was the +Different Animal with four short legs. I have drawn him gray and +woolly, and you can see that he is very proud because he has a wreath +of flowers in his hair. He is dancing on an outcrop (that means a +ledge of rock) in the middle of Australia at six o'clock before +breakfast. You can see that it is six o'clock, because the sun is just +getting up. The thing with the ears and the open mouth is Little God +Nqa. Nqa is very much surprised, because he has never seen a Kangaroo +dance like that before. Little God Nqa is just saying, "Go away," but +the Kangaroo is so busy dancing that he has not heard him yet. + +The Kangaroo has n't any real name except Boomer. He lost it because +he was so proud.] + +Still ran Dingo--Yellow-Dog Dingo--always hungry, grinning like a +rat-trap, never getting nearer, never getting farther--ran after +Kangaroo. + +He had to! + +Still ran Kangaroo--Old Man Kangaroo. He ran through the ti-trees; he +ran through the mulga; he ran through the long grass; he ran through +the short grass; he ran through the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer; +he ran till his hind legs ached. + +He had to! + +Still ran Dingo--Yellow-Dog Dingo--hungrier and hungrier, grinning +like a horse-collar, never getting nearer, never getting farther; and +they came to the Wollgong River. + +Now, there was n't any bridge, and there was n't any ferry-boat, and +Kangaroo did n't know how to get over; so he stood on his legs and +hopped. + +He had to! + +He hopped through the Flinders; he hopped through the Cinders; he +hopped through the deserts in the middle of Australia. He hopped like +a Kangaroo. + +First he hopped one yard; then he hopped three yards; then he hopped +five yards; his legs growing stronger; his legs growing longer. He had +n't any time for rest or refreshment, and he wanted them very much. + +Still ran Dingo--Yellow-Dog Dingo--very much bewildered, very much +hungry, and wondering what in the world or out of it made Old Man +Kangaroo hop. + +[Illustration: This is the picture of Old Man Kangaroo at five in the +afternoon, when he had got his beautiful hind legs just as Big God +Nqong had promised. You can see that it is five o'clock, because Big +God Nqong's pet tame clock says so. That is Nqong in his bath, +sticking his feet out. Old Man Kangaroo is being rude to Yellow-Dog +Dingo. Yellow-Dog Dingo has been trying to catch Kangaroo all across +Australia. You can see the marks of Kangaroo's big new feet running +ever so far back over the bare hills. Yellow-Dog Dingo is drawn black, +because I am not allowed to paint these pictures with real colours out +of the paint-box; and besides, Yellow-Dog Dingo got dreadfully black +and dusty after running through the Flinders and the Cinders. + +I don't know the names of the flowers growing round Nqong's bath. The +two little squatty things out in the desert are the other two gods +that Old Man Kangaroo spoke to early in the morning. That thing with +the letters on it is Old Man Kangaroo's pouch. He had to have a pouch +just as he had to have legs.] + +For he hopped like a cricket; like a pea in a saucepan; or a new +rubber ball on a nursery floor. + +He had to! + +He tucked up his front legs; he hopped on his hind legs; he stuck out +his tail for a balance-weight behind him; and he hopped through the +Darling Downs. + +He had to! + +Still ran Dingo--Tired Dog Dingo--hungrier and hungrier, very much +bewildered, and wondering when in the world or out of it would Old Man +Kangaroo stop. + +Then came Nqong from his bath in the salt-pan, and said, "It's five +o'clock." + +Down sat Dingo--Poor Dog Dingo--always hungry, dusky in the sunshine; +hung out his tongue and howled. + +Down sat Kangaroo--Old Man Kangaroo--stuck out his tail like a +milking-stool behind him, and said, "Thank goodness _that's_ +finished!" + +Then said Nqong, who is always a gentleman, "Why are n't you grateful +to Yellow-Dog Dingo? Why don't you thank him for all he has done for +you?" + +Then said Kangaroo--Tired Old Kangaroo--"He's chased me out of the +homes of my childhood; he's chased me out of my regular meal-times; +he's altered my shape so I'll never get it back; and he's played Old +Scratch with my legs." + +Then said Nqong, "Perhaps I'm mistaken, but didn't you ask me to make +you different from all other animals, as well as to make you very +truly sought after? And now it is five o'clock." + +"Yes," said Kangaroo. "I wish that I had n't. I thought you would do +it by charms and incantations, but this is a practical joke." + +"Joke!" said Nqong from his bath in the blue gums. "Say that again and +I'll whistle up Dingo and run your hind legs off." + +"No," said the Kangaroo. "I must apologize. Legs are legs, and you +need n't alter 'em so far as I am concerned. I only meant to explain +to Your Lordliness that I've had nothing to eat since morning, and I'm +very empty indeed." + +"Yes," said Dingo--Yellow-Dog Dingo--"I am just in the same situation. +I've made him different from all other animals; but what may I have +for my tea?" + +Then said Nqong from his bath in the salt-pan, "Come and ask me about +it to-morrow, because I'm going to wash." + +So they were left in the middle of Australia, Old Man Kangaroo and +Yellow-Dog Dingo, and each said, "That's _your_ fault." + + This is the mouth-filling song + Of the race that was run by a Boomer, + Run in a single burst--only event of its kind-- + Started by Big God Nqong from Warrigaborrigarooma, + Old Man Kangaroo first: Yellow-Dog Dingo behind. + + Kangaroo bounded away, + His back-legs working like pistons-- + Bounded from morning till dark, + Twenty-five feet to a bound. + Yellow-Dog Dingo lay + Like a yellow cloud in the distance-- + Much too busy to bark. + My! but they covered the ground! + + Nobody knows where they went, + Or followed the track that they flew in, + For that Continent + Had n't been given a name. + They ran thirty degrees, + From Torres Straits to the Leeuwin + (Look at the Atlas, please), + And they ran back as they came. + + S'posing you could trot + From Adelaide to the Pacific, + For an afternoon's run-- + Half what these gentlemen did-- + You would feel rather hot + But your legs would develop terrific-- + Yes, my importunate son, + You'd be a Marvellous Kid! + + + + +II + +FUZZY-WUZZY + + At the School Council Fuzzy-Wuzzy was elected Vice-President + of Mr. Kipling's Poems, "because he was so brave." + + (_Soudan Expeditionary Force._) + + + We've fought with many men acrost the seas, + An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not: + The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese; + But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot. + We never got a ha'porth's change of 'im: + 'E squatted in the scrub an' 'ocked our 'orses, + 'E cut our sentries up at Suakim, + An' 'e played the cat an' banjo with our forces. + + So 'ere's _to_ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Sowdan; + You 're a poor benighted 'eathen, but a first-class fightin' man; + We gives you your certifikit, an' if you want it signed, + We'll come an' 'ave a romp with you whenever you're inclined. + + We took our chanst among the Khyber hills, + The Boers knocked us silly at a mile, + The Burman guv us Irriwaddy chills, + An' a Zulu _impi_ dished us up in style; + But all we ever got from such as they + Was pop to what the Fuzzy made us swaller; + We 'eld our bloomin' own, the papers say, + But man for man the Fuzzy knocked us 'oller. + + Then 'ere's _to_ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an' the missis an' the kid, + Our orders was to break you, an' of course we went an' did. + We sloshed you with Martinis, an' it was n't 'ardly fair; + But for all the odds agin you, Fuzzy Wuz, you bruk the square. + + 'E 'as n't got no papers of 'is own, + 'E 'as n't got no medals nor rewards, + So we must certify the skill 'e 's shown + In usin' of 'is long two-'anded swords; + When 'e 's 'oppin' in an' out among the bush + With 'is coffin-headed shield an' shovel-spear, + A 'appy day with Fuzzy on the rush + Will last a 'ealthy Tommy for a year. + + So 'ere 's _to_ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an' your friends which is no + more, + If we 'ad n't lost some messmates we would 'elp you to deplore; + But give an' take 's the gospel, an' we'll call the bargain fair, + For if you 'ave lost more than us, you crumpled up the square! + + 'E rushes at the smoke, when we let drive, + An', before we know, 'e 's 'ackin' at our 'ead; + 'E 's all 'ot sand an ginger when alive, + An' 'e 's generally shammin' when 'e 's dead. + 'E 's a daisy, 'e 's a duck, 'e 's a lamb! + 'E 's a Injun-rubber idiot on the spree, + 'E 's the on'y thing that does n't care a clam + For the Regiment o' British Infantree. + + So 'ere's _to_ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Sowdan; + You 're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man; + An' 'ere's _to_ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of 'air-- + You big black boundin' beggar--for you bruk a British square. + + + + +III + +THE ENGLISH FLAG + + Above the portico the Union Jack remained fluttering in the + flames for some time, but ultimately when it fell the crowds + rent the air with shouts, and seemed to see significance in + the incident.--_Daily Papers._ + + + Winds of the World, give answer? They are whimpering to and fro-- + And what should they know of England who only England know?-- + The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag, + They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English + Flag! + + Must we borrow a clout from the Boer--to plaster anew with dirt? + An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt? + We may not speak of England; her Flag's to sell or share. + What is the Flag of England? Winds of the World, declare! + + The North Wind blew:--"From Bergen my steel-shod vanguards go; + I chase your lazy whalers home from the Disko floe; + By the great North Lights above me I work the will of God, + That the liner splits on the ice-field or the Dogger fills with cod. + + "I barred my gates with iron, I shuttered my doors with flame, + Because to force my ramparts your nutshell navies came; + I took the sun from their presence, I cut them down with my blast, + And they died, but the Flag of England blew free ere the spirit passed. + + "The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night, + The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern Light: + What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my bergs to dare, + Ye have but my drifts to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!" + + The South Wind sighed:--"From The Virgins my mid-sea course was ta'en + Over a thousand islands lost in an idle main, + Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers + croon + Their endless ocean legends to the lazy, locked lagoon. + + "Strayed amid lonely islets, mazed amid outer keys, + I waked the palms to laughter--I tossed the scud in the breeze-- + Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone, + But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown. + + "I have wrenched it free from the halliard, to hang for a wisp on + the Horn; + I have chased it north to the Lizard--ribboned and rolled and torn; + I have spread its fold o'er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea; + I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave set free. + + "My basking sunfish know it, and wheeling albatross, + Where the lone wave fills with fire beneath the Southern Cross. + What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my reefs to dare, + Ye have but my seas to furrow. Go forth, for it is there!" + + The East Wind roared:--"From the Kuriles, the Bitter Seas, I come, + And me men call the Home-Wind, for I bring the English home. + Look--look well to your shipping! By the breath of my mad typhoon + I swept your close-packed Praya and beached your best at Kowloon! + + "The reeling junks behind me and the racing seas before, + I raped your richest roadstead--I plundered Singapore! + I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose, + And I flung your stoutest steamers to roost with the startled crows. + + "Never the lotos closes, never the wild-fowl wake, + But a soul goes out on the East Wind that died for England's sake-- + Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid-- + Because on the bones of the English the English Flag is stayed. + + "The desert-dust hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows. + The scared white leopard winds it across the taint-less snows. + What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my sun to dare, + Ye have but my sands to travel. Go forth, for it is there!" + + The West Wind called:--"In squadrons the thoughtless galleons fly + That bear the wheat and cattle lest street-bred people die. + They make my might their porter, they make my house their path, + Till I loose my neck from their rudder and whelm them all in my wrath. + + "I draw the gliding fog-bank as a snake is drawn from the hole; + They bellow one to the other, the frightened ship-bells toll, + For day is a drifting terror till I raise the shroud with my breath, + And they see strange bows above them and the two go locked to death. + + "But whether in calm or wrack-wreath, whether by dark or day, + I heave them whole to the conger or rip their plates away, + First of the scattered legions, under a shrieking sky, + Dipping between the rollers, the English Flag goes by. + + "The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it--the frozen dews have kissed-- + The naked stars have seen it, a fellow-star in the mist. + What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare, + Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!" + + + + +IV + +THE KING + + + "Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said; + "With bone well carved he went away; + Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead, + And jasper tips the spear to-day. + Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance, + And he with these. Farewell, Romance!" + + "Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed; + "We lift the weight of flatling years; + The caverns of the mountain side + Hold him who scorns our hutted piers. + Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell, + Guard ye his rest. Romance, farewell!" + + "Farewell, Romance!" the Soldier spoke; + "By sleight of sword we may not win, + But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smoke + Of arquebus and culverin. + Honour is lost, and none may tell + Who paid good blows. Romance, farewell!" + + "Farewell, Romance!" the Traders cried; + "Our keels ha' lain with every sea; + The dull-returning wind and tide + Heave up the wharf where we would be; + The known and noted breezes swell + Our trudging sail. Romance, farewell!" + + "Good-bye, Romance!" the Skipper said; + "He vanished with the coal we burn; + Our dial marks full steam ahead. + Our speed is timed to half a turn. + Sure as the tidal trains we ply + 'Twixt port and port. Romance, good-bye!" + + "Romance!" the Season-tickets mourn, + "_He_ never ran to catch his train, + But passed with coach and guard and horn-- + And left the local--late again! + Confound Romance!" ... And all unseen + Romance brought up the nine-fifteen. + + His hand was on the lever laid, + His oil-can soothed the worrying cranks, + His whistle waked the snow-bound grade, + His fog-horn cut the reeking Banks; + In dock and deep and mine and mill + The Boy-god reckless laboured still. + + Robed, crowned and throned, he wove his spell, + Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curled + With unconsidered miracle, + Hedged in a backward-gazing world: + Then taught his chosen bard to say: + "The King was with us--yesterday!" + + + + +V + +TO THE UNKNOWN GODDESS + + + Will you conquer my heart with your beauty, my soul going out from + afar? + Shall I fall to your hand as a victim of crafty and cautious _shikar_? + + Have I met you and passed you already, unknowing, unthinking, and blind + Shall I meet you next session at Simla, oh, sweetest and best of your + kind? + + * * * * * + + Ah, Goddess! child, spinster, or widow--as of old on Mars Hill when + they raised + To the God that they knew not an altar--so I, a young Pagan, have + praised. + + The Goddess I know not nor worship; yet if half that men tell me be + true, + You will come in the future, and therefore these verses are written + to you. + + + + +VI + +THE GALLEY SLAVE + + + Oh, gallant was our galley from her carven steering-wheel + To her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered steel; + The leg-bar chafed the ankle, and we gasped for cooler air, + But no galley on the water with our galley could compare! + + Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold-- + We ran a mighty merchandise of Negroes in the hold; + The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam below, + As we gripped the kicking sweep-head and we made that galley go. + + It was merry in the galley, for we revelled now and then-- + If they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men! + As we snatched her through the water, so we snatched a minute's bliss, + And the mutter of the dying never spoiled the lover's kiss. + + Our women and our children toiled beside us in the dark-- + They died, we filed their fetters, and we heaved them to the shark-- + We heaved them to the fishes, but so fast the galley sped, + We had only time to envy, for we could not mourn our dead. + + Bear witness, once my comrades, what a hard-bit gang were we-- + The servants of the sweep-head, but the masters of the sea! + By the hands that drove her forward as she plunged and yawed and + sheered, + Woman, Man, or God, or Devil, was there anything we feared? + + Was it storm? Our fathers faced it, and a wilder never blew; + Earth that waited for the wreckage watched the galley struggle through. + Burning noon or choking midnight, Sickness, Sorrow, Parting, Death? + Nay our very babes would mock you, had they time for idle breath. + + But to-day I leave the galley, and another takes my place; + There's my name upon the deck-beam--let it stand a little space. + I am free--to watch my messmates beating out to open main, + Free of all that Life can offer--save to handle sweep again. + + By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel, + By the welt the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal; + By eyes grown old with staring through the sun-wash on the brine, + I am paid in full for service--would that service still were mine! + + * * * * * + + It may be that Fate will give me life and leave to row once more-- + Set some strong man free for fighting as I take awhile his oar. + But to-day I leave the galley. Shall I curse her service then? + God be thanked--whate'er comes after, I have lived and toiled with men! + + + + +VII + +THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF + + +It was her first voyage, and though she was but a cargo-steamer of +twenty-five hundred tons, she was the very best of her kind, the +outcome of forty years of experiments and improvements in framework +and machinery; and her designers and owner thought as much of her as +though she had been the _Lucania_. Anyone can make a floating hotel +that will pay expenses, if he puts enough money into the saloon, and +charges for private baths, suites of rooms, and such like; but in +these days of competition and low freights every square inch of a +cargo-boat must be built for cheapness, great hold-capacity, and a +certain steady speed. This boat was, perhaps, two hundred and forty +feet long and thirty-two feet wide, with arrangements that enabled her +to carry cattle on her main and sheep on her upper deck if she wanted +to; but her great glory was the amount of cargo that she could store +away in her holds. Her owners--they were a very well-known Scotch +firm--came round with her from the north, where she had been launched +and christened and fitted, to Liverpool, where she was to take cargo +for New York; and the owner's daughter, Miss Frazier, went to and fro +on the clean decks, admiring the new paint and the brass work, and the +patent winches, and particularly the strong, straight bow, over which +she had cracked a bottle of champagne when she named the steamer the +_Dimbula_. It was a beautiful September afternoon, and the boat in all +her newness--she was painted lead-colour with a red funnel--looked +very fine indeed. Her house-flag was flying, and her whistle from time +to time acknowledged the salutes of friendly boats, who saw that she +was new to the High and Narrow Seas and wished to make her welcome. + +"And now," said Miss Frazier, delightedly, to the captain, "she's a +real ship, is n't she? It seems only the other day father gave the +order for her, and now--and now--is n't she a beauty!" The girl was +proud of the firm, and talked as though she were the controlling +partner. + +"Oh, she's no so bad," the skipper replied cautiously. "But I'm sayin' +that it takes more than christenin' to mak' a ship. In the nature o' +things, Miss Frazier, if ye follow me, she's just irons and rivets and +plates put into the form of a ship. She has to find herself yet." + +"I thought father said she was exceptionally well found." + +"So she is," said the skipper, with a laugh. "But it's this way wi' +ships, Miss Frazier. She's all here, but the parrts of her have not +learned to work together yet. They've had no chance." + +"The engines are working beautifully. I can hear them." + +"Yes, indeed. But there's more than engines to a ship. Every inch of +her, ye'll understand, has to be livened up and made to work wi' its +neighbour--sweetenin' her, we call it, technically." + +"And how will you do it?" the girl asked. + +"We can no more than drive and steer her, and so forth; but if we have +rough weather this trip--it's likely--she'll learn the rest by heart! +For a ship, ye'll obsairve, Miss Frazier, is in no sense a reegid body +closed at both ends. She's a highly complex structure o' various an' +conflictin' strains, wi' tissues that must give an' tak' accordin' to +her personal modulus of elasteecity." Mr. Buchanan, the chief +engineer, was coming toward them. "I'm sayin' to Miss Frazier, here, +that our little _Dimbula_ has to be sweetened yet, and nothin' but a +gale will do it. How's all wi' your engines, Buck?" + +"Well enough--true by plumb an' rule, o' course; but there's no +spontaneeity yet." He turned to the girl. "Take my word, Miss Frazier, +and maybe ye'll comprehend later; even after a pretty girl's +christened a ship it does not follow that there's such a thing as a +ship under the men that work her." + +"I was sayin' the very same, Mr. Buchanan," the skipper interrupted. + +"That's more metaphysical than I can follow," said Miss Frazier, +laughing. + +"Why so? Ye're good Scotch, an'--I knew your mother's father, he was +fra' Dumfries--ye've a vested right in metapheesics, Miss Frazier, +just as ye have in the _Dimbula_," the engineer said. + +"Eh, well, we must go down to the deep watters, an' earn Miss Frazier +her deevidends. Will you not come to my cabin for tea?" said the +skipper. "We'll be in dock the night, and when you're goin' back to +Glasgie ye can think of us loadin' her down an' drivin' her forth--all +for your sake." + +In the next few days they stowed some four thousand tons' dead weight +into the _Dimbula_, and took her out from Liverpool. As soon as she +met the lift of the open water, she naturally began to talk. If you +lay your ear to the side of the cabin next time you are in a steamer, +you will hear hundreds of little voices in every direction, thrilling +and buzzing, and whispering and popping, and gurgling and sobbing and +squeaking exactly like a telephone in a thunder-storm. Wooden ships +shriek and growl and grunt, but iron vessels throb and quiver through +all their hundreds of ribs and thousands of rivets. The _Dimbula_ was +very strongly built, and every piece of her had a letter or number, or +both, to describe it; and every piece had been hammered, or forged, +or rolled, or punched by man, and had lived in the roar and rattle of +the shipyard for months. Therefore, every piece had its own separate +voice in exact proportion to the amount of trouble spent upon it. +Cast-iron as a rule, says very little; but mild steel plates and +wrought-iron, and ribs and beams that have been much bent and welded +and riveted, talk continuously. Their conversation, of course, is not +half as wise as our human talk, because they are all, though they do +not know it, bound down one to the other in a black darkness, where +they cannot tell what is happening near them, nor what will overtake +them next. + +As soon as she had cleared the Irish coast a sullen gray-headed old +wave of the Atlantic climbed leisurely over her straight bows, and sat +down on her steam-capstan used for hauling up the anchor. Now the +capstan and the engine that drove it had been newly painted red and +green; besides which, nobody likes being ducked. + +"Don't you do that again," the capstan sputtered through the teeth of +his cogs. "Hi! Where's the fellow gone?" + +The wave had slouched overside with a plop and a chuckle; but "Plenty +more where he came from," said a brother-wave, and went through and +over the capstan, who was bolted firmly to an iron plate on the iron +deck-beams below. + +"Can't you keep still up there?" said the deck-beams. "What's the +matter with you? One minute you weigh twice as much as you ought to, +and the next you don't!" + +"It is n't my fault," said the capstan. "There's a green brute outside +that comes and hits me on the head." + +"Tell that to the shipwrights. You've been in position for months and +you've never wriggled like this before. If you are n't careful you'll +strain _us_." + +"Talking of strain," said a low, rasping, unpleasant voice, "are any +of you fellows--you deck-beams, we mean--aware that those exceedingly +ugly knees of yours happen to be riveted into our structure--_ours_?" + +"Who might you be?" the deck-beams inquired. + +"Oh, nobody in particular," was the answer. "We're only the port and +starboard upper-deck stringers; and if you persist in heaving and +hiking like this, we shall be reluctantly compelled to take steps." + +Now the stringers of the ship are long iron girders, so to speak, that +run lengthways from stern to bow. They keep the iron frames (what are +called ribs in a wooden ship) in place, and also help to hold the ends +of the deck-beams, which go from side to side of the ship. Stringers +always consider themselves most important, because they are so long. + +"You will take steps--will you?" This was a long echoing rumble. It +came from the frames--scores and scores of them, each one about +eighteen inches distant from the next, and each riveted to the +stringers in four places. "We think you will have a certain amount of +trouble in _that_;" and thousands and thousands of the little rivets +that held everything together whispered: "You will. You will! Stop +quivering and be quiet. Hold on, brethren! Hold on! Hot Punches! +What's that?" + +Rivets have no teeth, so they cannot chatter with fright; but they did +their best as a fluttering jar swept along the ship from stern to bow, +and she shook like a rat in a terrier's mouth. + +An unusually severe pitch, for the sea was rising, had lifted the big +throbbing screw nearly to the surface, and it was spinning round in a +kind of soda-water--half sea and half air--going much faster than was +proper, because there was no deep water for it to work in. As it sank +again, the engines--and they were triple expansion, three cylinders in +a row--snorted through all their three pistons, "Was that a joke, you +fellow outside? It's an uncommonly poor one. How are we to do our work +if you fly off the handle that way?" + +"I did n't fly off the handle," said the screw, twirling huskily at +the end of the screw-shaft. "If I had, you'd have been scrap-iron by +this time. The sea dropped away from under me, and I had nothing to +catch on to. That's all." + +"That's all, d'you call it?" said the thrust-block whose business it +is to take the push of the screw; for if a screw had nothing to hold +it back it would crawl right into the engine-room. (It is the holding +back of the screwing action that gives the drive to a ship.) "I know I +do my work deep down and out of sight, but I warn you I expect +justice. All I ask for is bare justice. Why can't you push steadily +and evenly instead of whizzing like a whirligig, and making me hot +under all my collars." The thrust-block had six collars, each faced +with brass, and he did not wish to get them heated. + +All the bearings that supported the fifty feet of screw-shaft as it +ran to the stern whispered: "Justice--give us justice." + +"I can only give you what I can get," the screw answered. "Look out! +It's coming again!" + +He rose with a roar as the _Dimbula_ plunged, and +"whack--flack--whack--whack" went the engines, furiously, for they had +little to check them. + +"I'm the noblest outcome of human ingenuity--Mr. Buchanan says so," +squealed the high-pressure cylinder. "This is simply ridiculous!" The +piston went up savagely, and choked, for half the steam behind it was +mixed with dirty water. "Help! Oiler! Fitter! Stoker! Help! I'm +choking," it gasped. "Never in the history of maritime invention has +such a calamity overtaken one so young and strong. And if I go, who's +to drive the ship?" + +"Hush! oh, hush!" whispered the Steam, who, of course, had been to sea +many times before. He used to spend his leisure ashore in a cloud, or +a gutter, or a flower-pot, or a thunder-storm, or anywhere else where +water was needed. "That's only a little priming, a little +carrying-over, as they call it. It'll happen all night, on and off. I +don't say it's nice, but it's the best we can do under the +circumstances." + +"What difference can circumstances make? I'm here to do my work--on +clean, dry steam. Blow circumstances!" the cylinder roared. + +"The circumstances will attend to the blowing. I've worked on the +North Atlantic run a good many times--it's going to be rough before +morning." + +"It is n't distressingly calm now," said the extra-strong frames--they +were called web-frames--in the engine-room. "There's an upward thrust +that we don't understand, and there's a twist that is very bad for our +brackets and diamond-plates, and there's a sort of west-north-westerly +pull that follows the twist, which seriously annoys us. We mention +this because we happened to cost a good deal of money, and we feel +sure that the owner would not approve of our being treated in this +frivolous way." + +"I'm afraid the matter is out of owner's hand, for the present," said +the Steam, slipping into the condenser. "You're left to your own +devices till the weather betters." + +"I would n't mind the weather," said a flat bass voice below; "it's +this confounded cargo that's breaking my heart. I'm the +garboard-strake, and I'm twice as thick as most of the others, and I +ought to know something." + +The garboard-strake is the lowest plate in the bottom of a ship, and +the _Dimbula's_ garboard-strake was nearly three-quarters of an inch +mild steel. + +"The sea pushes me up in a way I should never have expected," the +strake grunted, "and the cargo pushes me down, and, between the two, I +don't know what I'm supposed to do." + +"When in doubt, hold on," rumbled the Steam, making head in the +boilers. + +"Yes; but there's only dark, and cold, and hurry, down here; and how +do I know whether the other plates are doing their duty? Those +bulwark-plates up above, I've heard, ain't more than five-sixteenths +of an inch thick--scandalous, I call it." + +"I agree with you," said a huge web-frame by the main cargo-hatch. He +was deeper and thicker than all the others, and curved half-way across +the ship in the shape of half an arch, to support the deck where deck +beams would have been in the way of cargo coming up and down. "I work +entirely unsupported, and I observe that I am the sole strength of +this vessel, so far as my vision extends. The responsibility, I assure +you, is enormous. I believe the money-value of the cargo is over one +hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Think of that!" + +"And every pound of it is dependent on my personal exertions." Here +spoke a sea-valve that communicated directly with the water outside, +and was seated not very far from the garboard-strake. "I rejoice to +think that I am a Prince-Hyde Valve, with best Para rubber facings. +Five patents cover me--I mention this without pride--five separate and +several patents, each one finer than the other. At present I am +screwed fast. Should I open, you would immediately be swamped. This is +incontrovertible!" + +Patent things always use the longest words they can. It is a trick +that they pick up from their inventors. + +"That's news," said a big centrifugal bilge-pump. "I had an idea that +you were employed to clean decks and things with. At least, I've used +you for that more than once. I forget the precise number, in +thousands, of gallons which I am guaranteed to throw per hour; but I +assure you, my complaining friends, that there is not the least +danger. I alone am capable of clearing any water that may find its way +here. By my Biggest Deliveries, we pitched then!" + +The sea was getting up in workmanlike style. It was a dead westerly +gale, blown from under a ragged opening of green sky, narrowed on all +sides by fat, gray clouds; and the wind bit like pincers as it fretted +the spray into lacework on the flanks of the waves. + +"I tell you what it is," the foremast telephoned down its wire-stays. +"I'm up here, and I can take a dispassionate view of things. There's +an organized conspiracy against us. I'm sure of it, because every +single one of these waves is heading directly for our bows. The whole +sea is concerned in it--and so's the wind. It's awful!" + +"What's awful?" said a wave, drowning the capstan for the hundredth +time. + +"This organized conspiracy on your part," the capstan gurgled, taking +his cue from the mast. + +"Organized bubbles and spindrift! There has been a depression in the +Gulf of Mexico. Excuse me!" He leaped overside; but his friends took +up the tale one after another. + +"Which has advanced----" That wave hove green water over the funnel. + +"As far as Cape Hatteras----" He drenched the bridge. + +"And is now going out to sea--to sea--to sea!" The third went free in +three surges, making a clean sweep of a boat, which turned bottom up +and sank in the darkening troughs alongside, while the broken falls +whipped the davits. + +"That's all there is to it," seethed the white water roaring through +the scuppers. "There's no animus in our proceedings. We're only +meteorological corollaries." + +"Is it going to get any worse?" said the bow-anchor, chained down to +the deck, where he could only breathe once in five minutes. + +"Not knowing, can't say. Wind may blow a bit by midnight. Thanks +awfully. Good-bye." + +The wave that spoke so politely had travelled some distance aft, and +found itself all mixed up on the deck amidships, which was a well-deck +sunk between high bulwarks. One of the bulwark plates, which was hung +on hinges to open outward, had swung out, and passed the bulk of the +water back to the sea again with a clean smack. + +"Evidently that's what I'm made for," said the plate, closing again +with a sputter of pride. "Oh, no, you don't my friend!" + +The top of a wave was trying to get in from the outside, but as the +plate did not open in that direction, the defeated water spurted back. + +"Not bad for five-sixteenths of an inch," said the bulwark-plate. "My +work, I see, is laid down for the night"; and it began opening and +shutting, as it was designed to do, with the motion of the ship. + +"We are not what you might call idle," groaned all the frames +together, as the _Dimbula_ climbed a big wave, lay on her side at the +top, and shot into the next hollow, twisting in the descent. A huge +swell pushed up exactly under her middle, and her bow and stern hung +free with nothing to support them. Then one joking wave caught her up +at the bow, and another at the stern, while the rest of the water +slunk away from under her just to see how she would like it; so she +was held up at her two ends only, and the weight of the cargo and the +machinery fell on the groaning iron keels and bilge-stringers. + +"Ease off! Ease off, there!" roared the garboard-strake. "I want +one-eighth of an inch fair play. D' you hear me, you rivets!" + +"Ease off! Ease off!" cried the bilge-stringers. "Don't hold us so +tight to the frames!" + +"Ease off!" grunted the deck-beams, as the _Dimbula_ rolled fearfully. +"You've cramped our knees into the stringers, and we can't move. Ease +off, you flat-headed little nuisances." + +Then two converging seas hit the bows, one on each side, and fell away +in torrents of streaming thunder. + +"Ease off!" shouted the forward collision-bulkhead. "I want to crumple +up, but I'm stiffened in every direction. Ease off, you dirty little +forge-filings. Let me breathe!" + +All the hundreds of plates that are riveted to the frames, and make +the outside skin of every steamer, echoed the call, for each plate +wanted to shift and creep a little, and each plate, according to its +position, complained against the rivets. + +"We can't help it! _We_ can't help it!" they murmured in reply. "We're +put here to hold you, and we're going to do it; you never pull us +twice in the same direction. If you'd say what you were going to do +next, we'd try to meet your views." + +"As far as I could feel," said the upper-deck planking, and that was +four inches thick, "every single iron near me was pushing or pulling +in opposite directions. Now, what's the sense of that? My friends, let +us all pull together." + +"Pull any way you please," roared the funnel, "so long as you don't +try your experiments on _me_. I need fourteen wire ropes, all pulling +in different directions, to hold me steady. Is n't that so?" + +"We believe you, my boy!" whistled the funnel-stays through their +clinched teeth, as they twanged in the wind from the top of the funnel +to the deck. + +"Nonsense! We must all pull together," the decks repeated. "Pull +lengthways." + +"Very good," said the stringers; "then stop pushing sideways when you +get wet. Be content to run gracefully fore and aft, and curve in at +the ends as we do." + +"No--no curves at the end! A very slight workmanlike curve from side +to side, with a good grip at each knee, and little pieces welded on," +said the deck-beams. + +"Fiddle!" cried the iron pillars of the deep, dark hold. "Who ever +heard of curves? Stand up straight; be a perfectly round column, and +carry tons of good solid weight--like that! There!" A big sea smashed +on the deck above, and the pillars stiffened themselves to the load. + +"Straight up and down is not bad," said the frames, who ran that way +in the sides of the ship, "but you must also expand yourselves +sideways. Expansion is the law of life, children. Open out! open out!" + +"Come back!" said the deck-beams, savagely, as the upward heave of the +sea made the frames try to open. "Come back to your bearings, you +slack-jawed irons!" + +"Rigidity! Rigidity! Rigidity!" thumped the engines. "Absolute, +unvarying rigidity--rigidity!" + +"You see!" whined the rivets, in chorus. "No two of you will ever pull +alike, and--and you blame it all on us. We only know how to go through +a plate and bite down on both sides so that it can't, and must n't, +and shan't move." + +"I've got one-fraction of an inch play, at any rate," said the +garboard-strake, triumphantly. So he had, and all the bottom of the +ship felt the easier for it. + +"Then we're no good," sobbed the bottom rivets. "We were ordered--we +were ordered--never to give; and we've given, and the sea will come +in, and we'll all go to the bottom together! First we're blamed for +everything unpleasant, and now we have n't the consolation of having +done our work." + +"Don't say I told you," whispered the Steam, consolingly; "but, +between you and me and the last cloud I came from, it was bound to +happen sooner or later. You _had_ to give a fraction, and you've given +without knowing it. Now, hold on, as before." + +"What's the use?" a few hundred rivets chattered. "We've given--we've +given; and the sooner we confess that we can't keep the ship together, +and go off our little heads, the easier it will be. No rivet forged +can stand this strain." + +"No one rivet was ever meant to. Share it among you," the Steam +answered. + +"The others can have my share. I'm going to pull out," said a rivet in +one of the forward plates. + +"If you go, others will follow," hissed the Steam. "There's nothing so +contagious in a boat as rivets going. Why, I knew a little chap like +you--he was an eighth of an inch fatter, though--on a steamer--to be +sure, she was only twelve hundred tons, now I come to think of it--in +exactly the same place as you are. He pulled out in a bit of a bobble +of a sea, not half as bad as this, and he started all his friends on +the same butt-strap, and the plates opened like a furnace door, and I +had to climb into the nearest fog-bank, while the boat went down." + +"Now that's peculiarly disgraceful," said the rivet. "Fatter than me, +was he, and in a steamer not half our tonnage? Reedy little peg! I +blush for the family, sir." He settled himself more firmly than ever +in his place, and the Steam chuckled. + +"You see," he went on, quite gravely, "a rivet, and especially a rivet +in your position, is really the one indispensable part of the ship." + +The Steam did not say that he had whispered the very same thing to +every single piece of iron aboard. There is no sense in telling too +much truth. + +And all that while the little _Dimbula_ pitched and chopped, and swung +and slewed, and lay down as though she were going to die, and got up +as though she had been stung, and threw her nose round and round in +circles half a dozen times as she dipped; for the gale was at its +worst. It was inky black, in spite of the tearing white froth on the +waves, and, to top everything, the rain began to fall in sheets, so +that you could not see your hand before your face. This did not make +much difference to the ironwork below, but it troubled the foremast a +good deal. + +"Now it's all finished," he said dismally. "The conspiracy is too +strong for us. There is nothing left but to----" + +"_Hurraar! Brrrraaah! Brrrrrrp!_" roared the Steam through the +fog-horn, till the decks quivered. "Don't be frightened, below. It's +only me, just throwing out a few words, in case any one happens to be +rolling round to-night." + +"You don't mean to say there's any one except us on the sea in such +weather?" said the funnel in a husky snuffle. + +"Scores of 'em," said the Steam, clearing its throat; "_Rrrrrraaa! +Brraaaaa! Prrrrp!_ It's a trifle windy up here; and, Great Boilers! +how it rains!" + +"We're drowning," said the scuppers. They had been doing nothing else +all night, but this steady thrash of rain above them seemed to be the +end of the world. + +"That's all right. We'll be easier in an hour or two. First the wind +and then the rain: Soon you may make sail again! _Grrraaaaaah! +Drrrraaaa! Drrrp!_ I have a notion that the sea is going down already. +If it does you'll learn something about rolling. We've only pitched +till now. By the way, are n't you chaps in the hold a little easier +than you were?" + +There was just as much groaning and straining as ever, but it was not +so loud or squeaky in tone; and when the ship quivered she did not jar +stiffly, like a poker hit on the floor, but gave with a supple little +waggle, like a perfectly balanced golf-club. + +"We have made a most amazing discovery," said the stringers, one after +another. "A discovery that entirely changes the situation. We have +found, for the first time in the history of ship-building, that the +inward pull of the deck-beams and the outward thrust of the frames +locks us, as it were, more closely in our places, and enables us to +endure a strain which is entirely without parallel in the records of +marine architecture." + +The Steam turned a laugh quickly into a roar up the fog-horn. "What +massive intellects you great stringers have," he said softly, when he +had finished. + +"We also," began the deck-beams, "are discoverers and geniuses. We are +of opinion that the support of the hold-pillars materially helps us. +We find that we lock up on them when we are subjected to a heavy and +singular weight of sea above." + +Here the _Dimbula_ shot down a hollow, lying almost on her +side--righting at the bottom with a wrench and a spasm. + +"In these cases--are you aware of this, Steam?--the plating at the +bows, and particularly at the stern--we would also mention the floors +beneath us--help _us_ to resist any tendency to spring." The frames +spoke, in the solemn, awed voice which people use when they have just +come across something entirely new for the very first time. + +"I'm only a poor puffy little flutterer," said the Steam, "but I have +to stand a good deal of pressure in my business. It's all tremendously +interesting. Tell us some more. You fellows are so strong." + +"Watch us and you'll see," said the bow-plates, proudly. "Ready, +behind there! Here's the Father and Mother of Waves coming! Sit tight, +rivets all!" A great sluicing comber thundered by, but through the +scuffle and confusion the Steam could hear the low, quick cries of the +ironwork as the various strains took them--cries like these: "Easy, +now--easy! _Now_ push for all your strength! Hold out! Give a +fraction! Holdup! Pull in! Shove crossways! Mind the strain at the +ends! Grip, now! Bite tight! Let the water get away from under--and +there she goes!" + +The wave raced off into the darkness, shouting, "Not bad, that, if +it's your first run!" and the drenched and ducked ship throbbed to the +beat of the engines inside her. All three cylinders were white with +the salt spray that had come down through the engine-room hatch; there +was white fur on the canvas-bound steam-pipes, and even the +bright-work deep below was speckled and soiled; but the cylinders had +learned to make the most of steam that was half water, and were +pounding along cheerfully. + +"How's the noblest outcome of human ingenuity hitting it?" said the +Steam, as he whirled through the engine-room. + +"Nothing for nothing in this world of woe," the cylinders answered, as +though they had been working for centuries, "and precious little for +seventy-five pounds' head. We've made two knots this last hour and a +quarter! Rather humiliating for eight hundred horse-power, is n't it?" + +"Well, it's better than drifting astern, at any rate. You seem rather +less--how shall I put it?--stiff in the back than you were." + +"If you'd been hammered as we've been this night, you would n't be +stiff--iff--iff, either. Theoreti--retti--retti--cally, of course, +rigidity is the thing. Purrr--purr--practically, there has to be a +little give and take. _We_ found that out by working on our sides for +five minutes at a stretch--chch--chh. How's the weather?" + +"Sea's going down fast," said the Steam. + +"Good business," said the high-pressure cylinder. "Whack her up, boys. +They've given us five pounds more steam"; and he began humming the +first bars of "Said the Young Obadiah to the Old Obadiah," which, as +you may have noticed, is a pet tune among engines not built for high +speed. Racing-liners with twin-screws sing "The Turkish Patrol" and +the overture to the "Bronze Horse," and "Madame Angot," till something +goes wrong, and then they render Gounod's "Funeral March of a +Marionette" with variations. + +"You'll learn a song of your own some fine day," said the Steam, as he +flew up the fog-horn for one last bellow. + +Next day the sky cleared and the sea dropped a little, and the +_Dimbula_ began to roll from side to side till every inch of iron in +her was sick and giddy. But luckily they did not all feel ill at the +same time: otherwise she would have opened out like a wet paper box. + +The Steam whistled warnings as he went about his business: it is in +this short, quick roll and tumble that follows a heavy sea that most +of the accidents happen, for then everything thinks that the worst is +over and goes off guard. So he orated and chattered till the beams and +frames and floors and stringers and things had learned how to lock +down and lock up on one another, and endure this new kind of strain. + +They found ample time to practise, for they were sixteen days at sea, +and it was foul weather till within a hundred miles of New York. The +_Dimbula_ picked up her pilot and came in covered with salt and red +rust. Her funnel was dirty gray from top to bottom; two boats had been +carried away; three copper ventilators looked like hats after a fight +with the police; the bridge had a dimple in the middle of it; the +house that covered the steam steering-gear was split as with hatchets; +there was a bill for small repairs in the engine-room almost as long +as the screw-shaft; the forward cargo-hatch fell into bucket-staves +when they raised the iron cross-bars; and the steam-capstan had been +badly wrenched on its bed. Altogether, as the skipper said, it was "a +pretty general average." + +"But she's soupled," he said to Mr. Buchanan. "For all her dead weight +she rode like a yacht. Ye mind that last blow off the Banks? I am +proud of her, Buck." + +"It's vera good," said the chief engineer, looking along the +dishevelled decks. "Now, a man judgin' superfeecially would say we +were a wreck, but we know otherwise--by experience." + +Naturally everything in the _Dimbula_ fairly stiffened with pride, and +the foremast and the forward collision-bulkhead who are pushing +creatures, begged the Steam to warn the Port of New York of their +arrival. "Tell those big boats all about us," they said. "They seem to +take us quite as a matter of course." + +It was a glorious, clear, dead calm morning, and in single file, with +less than half a mile between each, their bands playing and their +tug-boats shouting and waving handkerchiefs, were the _Majestic_, the +_Paris_, the _Touraine_, the _Servia_, the _Kaiser Wilhelm II._, and +the _Werkendam_, all statelily going out to sea. As the _Dimbula_ +shifted her helm to give the great boats clear way, the Steam (who +knows far too much to mind making an exhibition of himself now and +then) shouted: + +"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Princes, Dukes, and Barons of the High Seas! Know +ye by these presents, we are the _Dimbula_, fifteen days nine hours +from Liverpool, having crossed the Atlantic with four thousand ton of +cargo for the first time in our career! We have not foundered. We are +here, _'Eer! 'Eer!_ We are not disabled. But we have had a time wholly +unparalleled in the annals of ship-building! Our decks were swept! We +pitched; we rolled! We thought we were going to die! _Hi! Hi!_ But we +did n't. We wish to give notice that we have come to New York all the +way across the Atlantic through the worst weather in the world; and we +are the _Dimbula_! We are--arr--ha--ha--ha-r-r-r!" + +The beautiful line of boats swept by as steadily as the procession of +the Seasons. The _Dimbula_ heard the _Majestic_ say, "Hmph!" and the +_Paris_ grunted, "How!" and the _Touraine_ said, "Oui!" with a little +coquettish flicker of steam; and the _Servia_ said "Haw!" and the +_Kaiser_ and the _Werkendam_ said, "Hoch!" Dutch fashion--and that was +absolutely all. + +"I did my best," said the Steam, gravely, "but I don't think they were +much impressed with us, somehow. Do you?" + +"It's simply disgusting," said the bow-plates. "They might have seen +what we've been through. There is n't a ship on the sea that has +suffered as we have--is there, now?" + +"Well, I would n't go so far as that," said the Steam, "because I've +worked on some of those boats, and sent them through weather quite as +bad as the fortnight that we've had, in six days; and some of them are +a little over ten thousand tons, I believe. Now I've seen the +_Majestic_, for instance, ducked from her bows to her funnel; and I've +helped the _Arizona_, I think she was, to back off an iceberg she met +with one dark night; and I had to run out of the _Paris's_ +engine-room, one day, because there was thirty foot of water in it. Of +course, I don't deny----" The Steam shut off suddenly, as a tug-boat, +loaded with a political club and a brass band, that had been to see a +New York Senator off to Europe, crossed their bows, going to Hoboken. +There was a long silence that reached, without a break, from the +cut-water to the propeller-blades of the _Dimbula_. + +Then a new, big voice said slowly and thickly, as though the owner had +just waked up: "It's my conviction that I have made a fool of myself." + +The Steam knew what had happened at once; for when a ship finds +herself all the talking of the separate pieces ceases and melts into +one voice, which is the soul of the ship. + +"Who are you?" he said, with a laugh. + +"I am the _Dimbula_, of course. I've never been anything else except +that--and a fool!" + +The tug-boat, which was doing its very best to be run down, got away +just in time, its band playing clashily and brassily a popular but +impolite air: + + In the days of old Rameses--are you on? + In the days of old Rameses--are you on? + In the days of old Rameses, + That story had paresis, + Are you on--are you on--are you on? + +"Well, I'm glad you've found yourself," said the Steam. "To tell the +truth I was a little tired of talking to all those ribs and stringers. +Here's Quarantine. After that we'll go to our wharf and clean up a +little, and--next month we'll do it all over again." + + + + +I + +A TRIP ACROSS A CONTINENT[1] + + Harvey N. Cheyne, a spoiled darling, "perhaps fifteen years + old," "an American--first, last, and all the time," had + "staggered over the wet decks to the nearest rail," after + trying to smoke a "Wheeling stogie." "He was fainting from + seasickness, and a roll of the ship tilted him over the + rail," where a "gray mother-wave tucked him under one arm." + He was picked up by the fishing schooner _We're Here_, and + after many marvellous experiences among the sailors arrived + in port, a happier and wiser fellow. His telegram to his + father brings the following result. + + +Cheyne was flying to meet the only son, so miraculously restored to +him. The bear was seeking his cub, not the bulls. Hard men who had +their knives drawn to fight for their financial lives put away the +weapons and wished him God-speed, while half a dozen panic-smitten +tin-pot roads perked up their heads and spoke of the wonderful things +they would have done had not Cheyne buried the hatchet. + +[Footnote 1: A selection from "Captains Courageous," copyrighted by +The Century Company.] + +It was a busy week-end among the wires; for, now that their anxiety +was removed, men and cities hastened to accommodate. Los Angeles +called to San Diego and Barstow that the Southern California engineers +might know and be ready in their lonely roundhouses; Barstow passed +the word to the Atlantic and Pacific; and Albuquerque flung it the +whole length of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé management, even +into Chicago. An engine, combination-car with crew, and the great and +gilded "Constance" private car were to be "expedited" over those two +thousand three hundred and fifty miles. The train would take +precedence of one hundred and seventy-seven others meeting and +passing; despatchers and crews of every one of those said trains must +be notified. Sixteen locomotives; sixteen engineers, and sixteen +firemen would be needed--each and every one the best available. Two +and one-half minutes would be allowed for changing engines, three for +watering, and two for coaling. "Warn the men, and arrange tanks and +chutes accordingly; for Harvey Cheyne is in a hurry, a hurry--hurry," +sang the wires. "Forty miles an hour will be expected, and division +superintendents will accompany this special over their respective +divisions. From San Diego to Sixteenth Street, Chicago, let the magic +carpet be laid down. Hurry! oh, hurry!" + +"It will be hot," said Cheyne, as they rolled out of San Diego in the +dawn of Sunday. "We're going to hurry, mamma, just as fast as ever we +can; but I really don't think there's any good of your putting on your +bonnet and gloves yet. You'd much better lie down and take your +medicine. I'd play you a game o' dominoes, but it's Sunday." + +"I'll be good. Oh, I _will_ be good. Only--taking off my bonnet makes +me feel as if we'd never get there." + +"Try to sleep a little, mamma, and we'll be in Chicago before you +know." + +"But it's Boston, father. Tell them to hurry." + +The six-foot drivers were hammering their way to San Bernardino and +the Mohave wastes, but this was no grade for speed. That would come +later. The heat of the desert followed the heat of the hills as they +turned east to the Needles and the Colorado River. The car cracked in +the utter drought and glare, and they put crushed ice to Mrs. Cheyne's +neck, and toiled up the long, long grades, past Ash Fork, toward +Flagstaff, where the forests and quarries are, under the dry, remote +skies. The needle of the speed-indicator flicked and wagged to and +fro, the cinders rattled on the roof, and a whirl of dust sucked after +the whirling wheels. The crew of the combination sat on their bunks, +panting in their shirt-sleeves, and Cheyne found himself among them +shouting old, old stories of the railroad that every trainman knows, +above the roar of the car. He told them about his son, and how the sea +had given up its dead, and they nodded and spat and rejoiced with him; +asked after "her, back there," and whether she could stand it if the +engineer "let her out a piece," and Cheyne thought she could. +Accordingly the great fire-horse was "let out" from Flagstaff to +Winslow, till a division superintendent protested. + +But Mrs. Cheyne, in the boudoir stateroom, where the French maid, +sallow-white with fear, clung to the silver door-handle, only moaned a +little and begged her husband to bid them "hurry." And so they dropped +the dry sands and moon-struck rocks of Arizona behind them, and +grilled on till the crash of the couplings and the wheeze of the +brake-hose told them they were at Coolidge by the Continental Divide. + +Three bold and experienced men--cool, confident, and dry when they +began; white, quivering, and wet when they finished their trick at +those terrible wheels--swung her over the great lift from Albuquerque +to Glorietta and beyond Springer, up and up to the Raton Tunnel on the +State line, whence they dropped rocking into La Junta, had sight of +the Arkansaw, and tore down the long slope to Dodge City, where Cheyne +took comfort once again from setting his watch an hour ahead. + +There was very little talk in the car. The secretary and typewriter +sat together on the stamped Spanish-leather cushions by the +plate-glass observation-window at the rear end, watching the surge and +ripple of the ties crowded back behind them, and, it is believed, +making notes of the scenery. Cheyne moved nervously between his own +extravagant gorgeousness and the naked necessity of the combination, +an unlit cigar in his teeth, till the pitying crews forgot that he was +their tribal enemy, and did their best to entertain him. + +At night the bunched electrics lit up that distressful palace of all +the luxuries, and they fared sumptuously, swinging on through the +emptiness of abject desolation. Now they heard the swish of a +water-tank, and the guttural voice of a Chinaman, the clink-clink of +hammers that tested the Krupp steel wheels, and the oath of a tramp +chased off the rear-platform; now the solid crash of coal shot into +the tender; and now a beating back of noises as they flew past a +waiting train. Now they looked out into great abysses, a trestle +purring beneath their tread, or up to rocks that barred out half the +stars. Now scaur and ravine changed and rolled back to jagged +mountains on the horizon's edge, and now broke into hills lower and +lower, till at last came the true plains. + +At Dodge City an unknown hand threw in a copy of a Kansas paper +containing some sort of an interview with Harvey, who had evidently +fallen in with an enterprising reporter, telegraphed on from Boston. +The joyful journalese revealed that it was beyond question their boy, +and it soothed Mrs. Cheyne for a while. Her one word "hurry" was +conveyed by the crews to the engineers at Nickerson, Topeka, and +Marceline, where the grades are easy, and they brushed the Continent +behind them. Towns and villages were close together now, and a man +could feel here that he moved among people. + +"I can't see the dial, and my eyes ache so. What are we doing?" + +"The very best we can, mamma. There's no sense in getting in before +the Limited. We'd only have to wait." + +"I don't care. I want to feel we're moving. Sit down and tell me the +miles." + +Cheyne sat down and read the dial for her (there were some miles which +stand for records to this day), but the seventy-foot car never changed +its long steamer-like roll, moving through the heat with the hum of a +giant bee. Yet the speed was not enough for Mrs. Cheyne; and the heat, +the remorseless August heat, was making her giddy; the clock-hands +would not move, and when, oh, when would they be in Chicago? + +It is not true that, as they changed engines at Fort Madison, Cheyne +passed over to the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers an +endowment sufficient to enable them to fight him and his fellows on +equal terms for evermore. He paid his obligations to engineers and +firemen as he believed they deserved, and only his bank knows what he +gave the crews who had sympathized with him. It is on record that the +last crew took entire charge of switching operations at Sixteenth +Street, because "she" was in a doze at last, and Heaven was to help +any one who bumped her. + +Now the highly paid specialist who conveys the Lake Shore and +Michigan Southern Limited from Chicago to Elkhart is something of an +autocrat, and he does not approve of being told how to back up to a +car. None the less he handled the "Constance" as if she might have +been a load of dynamite, and when the crew rebuked him they did it in +whispers and dumb show. + +"Pshaw!" said the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé men, discussing life +later, "we were n't runnin' for a record. Harvey Cheyne's wife, she +was sick back, an' we did n't want to jounce her. Come to think of it, +our runnin' time from San Diego to Chicago was 57.54. You can tell +that to them Eastern way-trains. When we're tryin' for a record, we +'ll let you know." + +To the Western man (though this would not please either city) Chicago +and Boston are cheek by jowl, and some railroads encourage the +delusion. The Limited whirled the "Constance" into Buffalo and the +arms of the New York Central and Hudson River (illustrious magnates +with white whiskers and gold charms on their watch-chains boarded her +here to talk a little business to Cheyne), who slid her gracefully +into Albany, where the Boston and Albany completed the run from +tide-water to tide-water--total time, eighty-seven hours and +thirty-five minutes or three days, fifteen hours and one half. Harvey +was waiting for them. + + + + +II + +THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC[2] + + "It's too hard," said the Big Boy. "I don't know what + 'Zodiac' means." "I will hunt up the words for you in the + dictionary," said the Little Girl. And when they came to the + next story the Boy took pleasure in doing his own hunting in + the dictionary. + + + Though thou love her as thyself, + As a self of purer clay, + Though her parting dim the day, + Stealing grace from all alive, + Heartily know + When half Gods go + The gods arrive.--_Emerson._ + +Thousands of years ago, when men were greater than they are to-day, +the Children of the Zodiac lived in the world. There were six Children +of the Zodiac--the Ram, the Bull, the Lion, the Twins, and the Girl; +and they were afraid of the Six Houses which belonged to the Scorpion, +the Balance, the Crab, the Fishes, the Goat, and the Waterman. Even +when they first stepped down upon the earth and knew that they were +immortal Gods, they carried this fear with them; and the fear grew as +they became better acquainted with mankind and heard stories of the +Six Houses. Men treated the Children as Gods and came to them with +prayers and long stories of wrong, while the Children of the Zodiac +listened and could not understand. + +[Footnote 2: Copyrighted, 1891, by Harper & Brothers.] + +A mother would fling herself before the feet of the Twins, or the +Bull, crying: "My husband was at work in the fields and the Archer +shot him and he died; and my son will also be killed by the Archer. +Help me!" The Bull would lower his huge head and answer: "What is that +to me?" Or the Twins would smile and continue their play, for they +could not understand why the water ran out of people's eyes. At other +times a man and a woman would come to Leo or the Girl crying: "We two +are newly married and we are very happy. Take these flowers." As they +threw the flowers they would make mysterious sounds to show that they +were happy, and Leo and the Girl wondered even more than the Twins why +people shouted "Ha! ha! ha!" for no cause. + +This continued for thousands of years by human reckoning, till on a +day, Leo met the Girl walking across the hills and saw that she had +changed entirely since he had last seen her. The Girl, looking at Leo, +saw that he too had changed altogether. Then they decided that it +would be well never to separate again, in case even more startling +changes should occur when the one was not at hand to help the other. +Leo kissed the Girl and all Earth felt that kiss, and the Girl sat +down on a hill and the water ran out of her eyes; and this had never +happened before in the memory of the Children of the Zodiac. + +As they sat together a man and a woman came by, and the man said to +the woman: + +"What is the use of wasting flowers on those dull Gods. They will +never understand, darling." + +The Girl jumped up and put her arms around the woman, crying, "I +understand. Give me the flowers and I will give you a kiss." + +Leo said beneath his breath to the man: "What was the new name that I +heard you give to your woman just now?" + +The man answered, "Darling, of course." + +"Why, of course," said Leo; "and if of course, what does it mean?" + +"It means 'very dear,' and you have only to look at your wife to see +why." + +"I see," said Leo; "you are quite right;" and when the man and the +woman had gone on he called the Girl "darling wife"; and the Girl wept +again from sheer happiness. + +"I think," she said at last, wiping her eyes, "I think that we two +have neglected men and women too much. What did you do with the +sacrifices they made to you, Leo?" + +"I let them burn," said Leo. "I could not eat them. What did you do +with the flowers?" + +"I let them wither. I could not wear them, I had so many of my own," +said the Girl, "and now I am sorry." + +"There is nothing to grieve for," said Leo; "we belong to each other." + +As they were talking the years of men's life slipped by unnoticed, and +presently the man and the woman came back, both white-headed, the man +carrying the woman. + +"We have come to the end of things," said the man quietly. "This that +was my wife----" + +"As I am Leo's wife," said the Girl quickly, her eyes staring. + +"---- was my wife, has been killed by one of your Houses." The man set +down his burden, and laughed. + +"Which House?" said Leo angrily, for he hated all the Houses equally. + +"You are Gods, you should know," said the man. "We have lived together +and loved one another, and I have left a good farm for my son: what +have I to complain of except that I still live?" + +As he was bending over his wife's body there came a whistling through +the air, and he started and tried to run away, crying, "It is the +arrow of the Archer. Let me live a little longer--only a little +longer!" The arrow struck him and he died. Leo looked at the Girl, and +she looked at him, and both were puzzled. + +"He wished to die," said Leo. "He said that he wished to die, and +when Death came he tried to run away. He is a coward." + +"No, he is not," said the Girl; "I think I feel what he felt. Leo, we +must learn more about this for their sakes." + +"For _their_ sakes," said Leo, very loudly. + +"Because _we_ are never going to die," said the Girl and Leo together, +still more loudly. + +"Now sit you still here, darling wife," said Leo, "while I go to the +Houses whom we hate, and learn how to make these men and women live as +we do." + +"And love as we do?" said the Girl. + +"I do not think they need to be taught that," said Leo, and he strode +away very angry, with his lion-skin swinging from his shoulder, till +he came to the House where the Scorpion lives in the darkness, +brandishing his tail over his back. + +"Why do you trouble the children of men?" said Leo, with his heart +between his teeth. + +"Are you so sure that I trouble the children of men alone?" said the +Scorpion. "Speak to your brother the Bull, and see what he says." + +"I come on behalf of the children of men," said Leo. "I have learned +to love as they do, and I wish them to live as I--as we--do." + +"Your wish was granted long ago. Speak to the Bull. He is under my +special care," said the Scorpion. + +Leo dropped back to the earth again, and saw the great star +Aldebaran, that is set in the forehead of the Bull, blazing very near +to the earth. When he came up to it he saw that his brother, the Bull, +yoked to a countryman's plough, was toiling through a wet rice-field +with his head bent down, and the sweat streaming from his flanks. The +countryman was urging him forward with a goad. + +"Gore that insolent to death," cried Leo, "and for the sake of our +family honour come out of the mire." + +"I cannot," said the Bull, "the Scorpion has told me that some day, of +which I cannot be sure, he will sting me where my neck is set on my +shoulders, and that I shall die bellowing." + +"What has that to do with this disgraceful exhibition?" said Leo, +standing on the dyke that bounded the wet field. + +"Everything. This man could not plough without my help. He thinks that +I am a stray bullock." + +"But he is a mud-crusted cottar with matted hair," insisted Leo. "We +are not meant for his use." + +"You may not be; I am. I cannot tell when the Scorpion may choose to +sting me to death--perhaps before I have turned this furrow." The Bull +flung his bulk into the yoke, and the plough tore through the wet +ground behind him, and the countryman goaded him till his flanks were +red. + +"Do you like this?" Leo called down the dripping furrows. + +"No," said the Bull over his shoulder as he lifted his hind legs from +the clinging mud and cleared his nostrils. + +Leo left him scornfully and passed to another country, where he found +his brother the Ram in the centre of a crowd of country people who +were hanging wreaths round his neck and feeding him on freshly plucked +green corn. + +"This is terrible," said Leo. "Break up that crowd and come away, my +brother. Their hands are spoiling your fleece." + +"I cannot," said the Ram. "The Archer told me that on some day of +which I had no knowledge, he would send a dart through me, and that I +should die in very great pain." + +"What has that to do with this?" said Leo, but he did not speak as +confidently as before. + +"Everything in the world," said the Ram. "These people never saw a +perfect sheep before. They think that I am a stray, and they will +carry me from place to place as a model to all their flocks." + +"But they are greasy shepherds, we are not intended to amuse them," +said Leo. + +"You may not be; I am," said the Ram. "I cannot tell when the Archer +may choose to send his arrow at me--perhaps before the people a mile +down the road have seen me." The Ram lowered his head that a yokel +newly arrived might throw a wreath of wild garlic-leaves over it, and +waited patiently while the farmers tugged his fleece. + +"Do you like this?" cried Leo over the shoulders of the crowd. + +"No," said the Ram, as the dust of the trampling feet made him sneeze, +and he snuffed at the fodder piled before him. + +Leo turned back, intending to retrace his steps to the Houses, but as +he was passing down a street he saw two small children, very dusty, +rolling outside a cottage door, and playing with a cat. They were the +Twins. + +"What are you doing here?" said Leo, indignant. + +"Playing," said the Twins calmly. + +"Cannot you play on the banks of the Milky Way?" said Leo. + +"We did," said they, "till the Fishes swam down and told us that some +day they would come for us and not hurt us at all and carry us away. +So now we are playing at being babies down here. The people like it." + +"Do you like it?" said Leo. + +"No," said the Twins, "but there are no cats in the Milky Way," and +they pulled the cat's tail thoughtfully. A woman came out of the +doorway and stood behind them, and Leo saw in her face a look that he +had sometimes seen in the Girl's. + +"She thinks that we are foundlings," said the Twins, and they trotted +indoors to the evening meal. + +Then Leo hurried as swiftly as possible to all the Houses one after +another; for he could not understand the new trouble that had come to +his brethren. He spoke to the Archer, and the Archer assured him that +so far as that House was concerned Leo had nothing to fear. The +Waterman, the Fishes, and the Goat, gave the same answer. They knew +nothing of Leo, and cared less. They were the Houses, and they were +busied in killing men. + +At last he came to that very dark House where Cancer the Crab lies so +still that you might think he was asleep if you did not see the +ceaseless play and winnowing motion of the feathery branches round his +mouth. That movement never ceases. It is like the eating of a +smothered fire into rotten timber in that it is noiseless and without +haste. + +Leo stood in front of the Crab, and the half darkness allowed him a +glimpse of that vast blue-black back, and the motionless eyes. Now and +again he thought that he heard some one sobbing, but the noise was +very faint. + +"Why do you trouble the children of men?" said Leo. There was no +answer, and against his will Leo cried, "Why do you trouble us? What +have we done that you should trouble us?" + +This time Cancer replied, "What do I know or care? You were born into +my House, and at the appointed time I shall come for you." + +"When is the appointed time?" said Leo, stepping back from the +restless movement of the mouth. + +"When the full moon fails to call the full tide," said the Crab, "I +shall come for the one. When the other has taken the earth by the +shoulders, I shall take that other by the throat." + +Leo lifted his hand to the apple of his throat, moistened his lips, +and recovering himself, said: + +"Must I be afraid for two, then?" + +"For two," said the Crab, "and as many more as may come after." + +"My brother, the Bull, had a better fate," said Leo, sullenly. "He is +alone." + +A hand covered his mouth before he could finish the sentence, and he +found the Girl in his arms. Woman-like, she had not stayed where Leo +had left her, but had hastened off at once to know the worst, and +passing all the other Houses, had come straight to Cancer. + +"That is foolish," said the Girl whispering. "I have been waiting in +the dark for long and long before you came. _Then_ I was afraid. But +now----" She put her head down on his shoulder and sighed a sigh of +contentment. + +"I am afraid now," said Leo. + +"That is on my account," said the Girl. "I know it is, because I am +afraid for your sake. Let us go, husband." + +They went out of the darkness together and came back to the Earth, +Leo very silent, and the Girl striving to cheer him. "My brother's +fate is the better one," Leo would repeat from time to time, and at +last he said: "Let us each go our own way and live alone till we die. +We were born into the House of Cancer, and he will come for us." + +"I know; I know. But where shall I go? And where will you sleep in the +evening? But let us try. I will stay here. Do you go on." + +Leo took six steps forward very slowly, and three long steps backward +very quickly, and the third step set him again at the Girl's side. +This time it was she who was begging him to go away and leave her, and +he was forced to comfort her all through the night. That night decided +them both never to leave each other for an instant, and when they had +come to this decision they looked back at the darkness of the House of +Cancer high above their heads, and with their arms round each other's +necks laughed, "Ha! ha! ha!" exactly as the children of men laughed. +And that was the first time in their lives that they had ever laughed. + +Next morning they returned to their proper home and saw the flowers +and the sacrifices that had been laid before their doors by the +villagers of the hills. Leo stamped down the fire with his heel and +the Girl flung the flower-wreaths out of sight, shuddering as she did +so. When the villagers re-returned, as of custom, to see what had +become of their offerings, they found neither roses nor burned flesh +on the altars, but only a man and a woman, with frightened white faces +sitting hand in hand on the altar-steps. + +"Are you not Virgo?" said a woman to the Girl. "I sent you flowers +yesterday." + +"Little sister," said the Girl, flushing to her forehead, "do not send +any more flowers, for I am only a woman like yourself." The man and +the woman went away doubtfully. + +"Now, what shall we do?" said Leo. + +"We must try to be cheerful, I think," said the Girl. "We know the +very worst that can happen to us, but we do not know the best that +love can bring us. We have a great deal to be glad of." + +"The certainty of death?" said Leo. + +"All the children of men have that certainty also; yet they laughed +long before we ever knew how to laugh. We must learn to laugh, Leo. We +have laughed once, already." + +People who consider themselves Gods, as the Children of the Zodiac +did, find it hard to laugh, because the Immortals know nothing worth +laughter or tears. Leo rose up with a very heavy heart, and he and the +girl together went to and fro among men; their new fear of death +behind them. First they laughed at a naked baby attempting to thrust +its fat toes into its foolish pink mouth; next they laughed at a +kitten chasing her own tail; and then they laughed at a boy trying to +steal a kiss from a girl, and getting his ears boxed. Lastly, they +laughed because the wind blew in their faces as they ran down a +hill-side together, and broke panting and breathless into a knot of +villagers at the bottom. The villagers laughed, too, at their flying +clothes and wind-reddened faces; and in the evening gave them food and +invited them to a dance on the grass, where everybody laughed through +the mere joy of being able to dance. + +That night Leo jumped up from the Girl's side crying: "Every one of +those people we met just now will die----" + +"So shall we," said the Girl sleepily. "Lie down again, dear." Leo +could not see that her face was wet with tears. + +But Leo was up and far across the fields, driven forward by the fear +of death for himself and for the Girl, who was dearer to him than +himself. Presently he came across the Bull drowsing in the moonlight +after a hard day's work, and looking through half-shut eyes at the +beautiful straight furrows that he had made. + +"Ho!" said the Bull. "So you have been told these things too. Which of +the Houses holds your death?" + +Leo pointed upward to the dark House of the Crab and groaned. "And he +will come for the Girl too," he said. + +"Well," said the Bull, "what will you do?" + +Leo sat down on the dike and said that he did not know. + +"You cannot pull a plough," said the Bull, with a little touch of +contempt. "I can, and that prevents me from thinking of the Scorpion." + +Leo was angry, and said nothing till the dawn broke, and the +cultivator came to yoke the Bull to his work. + +"Sing," said the Bull, as the stiff, muddy ox-bow creaked and +strained. "My shoulder is galled. Sing one of the songs that we sang +when we thought we were all Gods together." + +Leo stepped back into the canebrake, and lifted up his voice in a song +of the Children of the Zodiac--the war-whoop of the young Gods who are +afraid of nothing. At first he dragged the song along unwillingly, and +then the song dragged him, and his voice rolled across the fields, and +the Bull stepped to the tune, and the cultivator banged his flanks out +of sheer light-heartedness, and the furrows rolled away behind the +plough more and more swiftly. Then the Girl came across the fields +looking for Leo, and found him singing in the cane. She joined her +voice to his, and the cultivator's wife brought her spinning into the +open and listened with all her children round her. When it was time +for the nooning, Leo and the Girl had sung themselves both thirsty and +hungry, but the cultivator and his wife gave them rye bread and milk, +and many thanks; and the Bull found occasion to say: + +"You have helped me to do a full half field more than I should have +done. But the hardest part of the day is to come, brother." + +Leo wished to lie down and brood over the words of the Crab. The Girl +went away to talk to the cultivator's wife and baby, and the afternoon +ploughing began. + +"Help us now," said the Bull. "The tides of the day are running down. +My legs are very stiff. Sing, if you never sang before." + +"To a mud-spattered villager?" said Leo. + +"He is under the same doom as ourselves. Are you a coward?" said the +Bull. + +Leo flushed, and began again with a sore throat and a bad temper. +Little by little he dropped away from the songs of the Children and +made up a song as he went along; and this was a thing he could never +have done had he not met the Crab face to face. He remembered facts +concerning cultivators and bullocks and rice-fields that he had not +particularly noticed before the interview, and he strung them all +together, growing more interested as he sang, and he told the +cultivator much more about himself and his work than the cultivator +knew. The Bull grunted approval as he toiled down the furrows for the +last time that day, and the song ended, leaving the cultivator with a +very good opinion of himself in his aching bones. The Girl came out of +the hut where she had been keeping the children quiet, and talking +woman-talk to the wife, and they all ate the evening meal together. + +"Now yours must be a very pleasant life," said the cultivator; +"sitting as you do on a dyke all day and singing just what comes into +your head. Have you been at it long, you two--gipsies?" + +"Ah!" lowed the Bull from his byre. "That's all the thanks you will +ever get from men, brother." + +"No. We have only just begun it," said the Girl; "but we are going to +keep to it as long as we live. Are we not, Leo?" + +"Yes," said he; and they went away hand in hand. + +"You can sing beautifully, Leo," said she, as a wife will to her +husband. + +"What were you doing?" said he. + +"I was talking to the mother and the babies," she said. "You would not +understand the little things that make us women laugh." + +"And--and I am to go on with this--this gipsy work?" said Leo. + +"Yes, dear, and I will help you." + +There is no written record of the life of Leo and of the Girl, so we +cannot tell how Leo took to his new employment which he detested. We +are only sure that the Girl loved him when and wherever he sang; even +when, after the song was done, she went round with the equivalent of a +tambourine and collected the pence for the daily bread. There were +times, too, when it was Leo's very hard task to console the Girl for +the indignity of horrible praise that people gave him and her--for the +silly wagging peacock feathers that they stuck in his cap, and the +buttons and pieces of cloth that they sewed on his coat. Woman-like, +she could advise and help to the end, but the meanness of the means +revolted. + +"What does it matter," Leo would say, "so long as the songs make them +a little happier?" And they would go down the road and begin again on +the old, old refrain--that whatever came or did not come the children +of men must not be afraid. It was heavy teaching at first, but in +process of years Leo discovered that he could make men laugh and hold +them listening to him even when the rain fell. Yet there were people +who would sit down and cry softly, though the crowd was yelling with +delight, and there were people who maintained that Leo made them do +this; and the Girl would talk to them in the pauses of the performance +and do her best to comfort them. People would die, too, while Leo was +talking and singing and laughing; for the Archer and the Scorpion and +the Crab and the other Houses were as busy as ever. Sometimes the +crowd broke, and were frightened, and Leo strove to keep them steady +by telling them that this was cowardly; and sometimes they mocked at +the Houses that were killing them, and Leo explained that this was +even more cowardly than running away. + +In their wanderings they came across the Bull, or the Ram, or the +Twins, but all were too busy to do more than nod to each other across +the crowd, and go on with their work. As the years rolled on even that +recognition ceased, for the Children of the Zodiac had forgotten that +they had ever been Gods working for the sake of men. The star +Aldebaran was crusted with caked dirt on the Bull's forehead, the +Ram's fleece was dusty and torn, and the Twins were only babies +fighting over the cat on the door-step. It was then that Leo said, +"Let us stop singing and making jokes." And it was then that the Girl +said, "No." But she did not know why she said "No" so energetically. +Leo maintained that it was perversity, till she herself, at the end of +a dusty day, made the same suggestion to him, and he said, "Most +certainly not!" and they quarrelled miserably between the hedgerows, +forgetting the meaning of the stars above them. Other singers and +other talkers sprang up in the course of the years, and Leo, +forgetting that there could never be too many of these, hated them for +dividing the applause of the children of men, which he thought should +be all his own. The Girl would grow angry too, and then the songs +would be broken, and the jests fall flat for weeks to come, and the +children of men would shout: "Go home, you two gipsies. Go home and +learn something worth singing!" + +After one of these sorrowful, shameful days, the Girl, walking by +Leo's side through the fields, saw the full moon coming up over the +trees, and she clutched Leo's arm, crying: "The time has come now. Oh, +Leo, forgive me!" + +"What is it?" said Leo. He was thinking of the other singers. + +"My husband!" she answered, and she laid his hand upon her breast, and +the breast that he knew so well was hard as stone. Leo groaned, +remembering what the Crab had said. + +"Surely we were Gods once," he cried. + +"Surely we are Gods still," said the Girl. "Do you not remember when +you and I went to the House of the Crab and--were not very much +afraid? And since then ... we have forgotten what we were singing +for--we sang for the pence, and, oh, we fought for them!--We, who are +the Children of the Zodiac!" + +"It was my fault," said Leo. + +"How can there be any fault of yours that is not mine too?" said the +Girl. "My time has come, but you will live longer, and...." The look +in her eyes said all she could not say. + +"Yes, I will remember that we are Gods," said Leo. + +It is very hard, even for a child of the Zodiac who has forgotten his +Godhead, to see his wife dying slowly, and to know that he cannot help +her. The Girl told Leo in those last months of all that she had said +and done among the wives and the babies at the back of the roadside +performances, and Leo was astonished that he knew so little of her who +had been so much to him. When she was dying she told him never to +fight for pence or quarrel with the other singers; and, above all, to +go on with his singing immediately after she was dead. + +Then she died, and after he had buried her he went down the road to a +village that he knew, and the people hoped that he would begin +quarrelling with a new singer that had sprung up while he had been +away. But Leo called him "my brother." The new singer was newly +married--and Leo knew it--and when he had finished singing Leo +straightened himself, and sang the "Song of the Girl," which he had +made coming down the road. Every man who was married, or hoped to be +married, whatever his rank or colour, understood that song--even the +bride leaning on the new husband's arm understood it too--and +presently when the song ended, and Leo's heart was bursting in him, +the men sobbed. "That was a sad tale," they said at last, "now make us +laugh." Because Leo had known all the sorrow that a man could know, +including the full knowledge of his own fall who had once been a +God--he, changing his song quickly, made the people laugh till they +could laugh no more. They went away feeling ready for any trouble in +reason, and they gave Leo more peacock feathers and pence than he +could count. Knowing that pence led to quarrels and that peacock +feathers were hateful to the Girl, he put them aside and went away to +look for his brothers, to remind them that they too were Gods. + +He found the Bull goring the undergrowth in a ditch, for the Scorpion +had stung him, and he was dying, not slowly, as the Girl had died, but +quickly. + +"I know all," the Bull groaned, as Leo came up. "I had forgotten, too, +but I remember now. Go and look at the fields I ploughed. The furrows +are straight. I forgot that I was a God, but I drew the plough +perfectly straight, for all that. And you, brother?" + +"I am not at the end of the ploughing," said Leo. "Does Death hurt?" + +"No; but dying does," said the Bull, and he died. The cultivator who +then owned him was much annoyed, for there was a field still +unploughed. + +It was after this that Leo made the Song of the Bull who had been a +God and forgotten the fact, and he sang it in such a manner that half +the young men in the world conceived that they too might be Gods +without knowing it. A half of that half grew impossibly conceited, and +died early. A half of the remainder strove to be Gods and failed, but +the other half accomplished four times more work than they would have +done under any other delusion. + +Later, years later, always wandering up and down, and making the +children of men laugh, he found the Twins sitting on the bank of a +stream waiting for the Fishes to come and carry them away. They were +not in the least afraid, and they told Leo that the woman of the House +had a real baby of her own, and that when that baby grew old enough to +be mischievous he would find a well-educated cat waiting to have its +tail pulled. Then the Fishes came for them, but all that the people +saw was two children drowning in a brook; and though their +foster-mother was very sorry, she hugged her own real baby to her +breast, and was grateful that it was only the foundlings. + +Then Leo made the Song of the Twins who had forgotten that they were +Gods, and had played in the dust to amuse a foster-mother. That song +was sung far and wide among the women. It caused them to laugh and cry +and hug their babies closer to their hearts all in one breath; and +some of the women who remembered the Girl said: "Surely that is the +voice of Virgo. Only she could know so much about ourselves." + +After those three songs were made, Leo sang them over and over again, +till he was in danger of looking upon them as so many mere words, and +the people who listened grew tired, and there came back to Leo the +old temptation to stop singing once and for all. But he remembered the +Girl's dying words and went on. + +One of his listeners interrupted him as he was singing. "Leo," said +he, "I have heard you telling us not to be afraid for the past forty +years. Can you not sing something new now?" + +"No," said Leo; "it is the only song that I am allowed to sing. You +must not be afraid of the Houses, even when they kill you." + +The man turned to go, wearily, but there came a whistling through the +air, and the arrow of the Archer was seen skimming low above the +earth, pointing to the man's heart. He drew himself up, and stood +still waiting till the arrow struck home. + +"I die," he said, quietly. "It is well for me, Leo, that you sang for +forty years." + +"Are you afraid?" said Leo, bending over him. + +"I am a man, not a God," said the man. "I should have run away but for +your Songs. My work is done, and I die without making a show of my +fear." + +"I am very well paid," said Leo to himself. "Now that I see what my +songs are doing, I will sing better ones." + +He went down the road, collected his little knot of listeners, and +began the Song of the Girl. In the middle of his singing he felt the +cold touch of the Crab's claw on the apple of his throat. He lifted +his hand, choked, and stopped for an instant. + +"Sing on, Leo," said the crowd. "The old song runs as well as ever it +did." + +Leo went on steadily till the end, with the cold fear at his heart. +When his song was ended, he felt the grip on his throat tighten. He +was old, he had lost the Girl, he knew that he was losing more than +half his power to sing, he could scarcely walk to the diminishing +crowds that waited for him, and could not see their faces when they +stood about him. None the less he cried angrily to the Crab: + +"Why have you come for me _now_?" + +"You were born under my care. How can I help coming for you?" said the +Crab, wearily. Every human being whom the Crab killed had asked that +same question. + +"But I was just beginning to know what my songs were doing," said Leo. + +"Perhaps that is why," said the Crab, and the grip tightened. + +"You said you would not come till I had taken the world by the +shoulders," gasped Leo, falling back. + +"I always keep my word. You have done that three times, with three +songs. What more do you desire?" + +"Let me live to see the world know it," pleaded Leo. "Let me be sure +that my songs----" + +"Make men brave?" said the Crab. "Even then there would be one man who +was afraid. The Girl was braver than you are. Come." + +Leo was standing close to the restless, insatiable mouth. "I forgot," +said he, simply. "The Girl was braver. But I am a God too, and I am +not afraid." + +"What is that to me?" said the Crab. + +Then Leo's speech was taken from him, and he lay still and dumb, +watching Death till he died. + +Leo was the last of the Children of the Zodiac. After his death there +sprang up a breed of little mean men, whimpering and flinching and +howling because the Houses killed them and theirs, who wished to live +forever without any pain. They did not increase their lives, but they +increased their own torments miserably, and there were no Children of +the Zodiac to guide them, and the greater part of Leo's songs were +lost. + +Only he had carved on the Girl's tombstone the last verse of the Song +of the Girl, which stands at the head of this story. + +One of the children of men, coming thousands of years later, rubbed +away the lichen, read the lines, and applied them to a trouble other +than the one Leo meant. Being a man, men believed that he had made the +verses himself; but they belong to Leo, the Child of the Zodiac, and +teach, as he taught, that what comes or does not come, we must not be +afraid. + + + + +III + +THE BRIDGE BUILDERS + + +The least that Findlayson, of the Public Works Department, expected +was a C.I.E.; he dreamed of a C.S.I.: indeed his friends told him that +he deserved more. For three years he had endured heat and cold, +disappointment, discomfort, danger, and disease, with responsibility +almost too heavy for one pair of shoulders; and day by day, through +that time, the great Kashi Bridge over the Ganges had grown under his +charge. Now, in less than three months, if all went well, His +Excellency the Viceroy would open the bridge in state, an archbishop +would bless it, the first train-load of soldiers would come over it, +and there would be speeches. + +Findlayson, C. E., sat in his trolley on a construction-line that ran +along one of the main revetments--the huge, stone-faced banks that flared +away north and south for three miles on either side of the river--and +permitted himself to think of the end. With its approaches, his work was +one mile and three-quarters in length; a lattice-girder bridge, trussed +with the Findlayson truss, standing on seven-and-twenty brick piers. Each +one of those piers was twenty-four feet in diameter, capped with red Agra +stone and sunk eighty feet below the shifting sand of the Ganges' bed. +Above them ran the railway-line fifteen feet broad; above that, again, a +cart-road of eighteen feet, flanked with footpaths. At either end rose +towers of red brick, loopholed for musketry and pierced for big guns, and +the ramp of the road was being pushed forward to their haunches. The raw +earth-ends were crawling and alive with hundreds upon hundreds of tiny +asses climbing out of the yawning borrow-pit below with sackfuls of stuff; +and the hot afternoon air was filled with the noise of hooves, the rattle +of the drivers' sticks, and the swish and roll-down of the dirt. The river +was very low, and on the dazzling white sand between the three centre +piers stood squat cribs of railway-sleepers, filled within and daubed +without with mud, to support the last of the girders as those were riveted +up. In the little deep water left by the drought, an overhead-crane +travelled to and fro along its spile-pier, jerking sections of iron into +place, snorting and backing and grunting as an elephant grunts in the +timber-yard. Riveters by the hundred swarmed about the lattice side-work +and the iron roof of the railway-line, hung from invisible staging under +the bellies of the girders, clustered round the throats of the piers, and +rode on the overhang of the footpath-stanchions; their fire-pots and the +spurts of flame that answered each hammer-stroke showing no more than pale +yellow in the sun's glare. East and west and north and south the +construction-trains rattled and shrieked up and down the embankments, the +piled trucks of brown and white stone banging behind them till the +side-boards were unpinned, and with a roar and a grumble a few thousand +tons more material were thrown out to hold the river in place. + +Findlayson, C. E., turned on his trolley and looked over the face of the +country that he had changed for seven miles around. Looked back on the +humming village of five thousand workmen; up stream and down, along the +vista of spurs and sand; across the river to the far piers, lessening in +the haze; overhead to the guard-towers--and only he knew how strong those +were--and with a sigh of contentment saw that his work was good. There +stood his bridge before him in the sunlight, lacking only a few weeks' +work on the girders of the three middle piers--his bridge, raw and ugly as +original sin, but _pukka_--permanent--to endure when all memory of the +builder, yea, even of the splendid Findlayson truss, had perished. +Practically, the thing was done. + +Hitchcock, his assistant, cantered along the line on a little +switch-tailed Kabuli pony, who, through long practice, could have +trotted securely over a trestle, and nodded to his chief. + +"All but," said he, with a smile. + +"I've been thinking about it," the senior answered, "Not half a bad +job for two men, is it?" "One--and a half. 'Gad, what a Cooper's Hill +cub I was when I came on the works!" Hitchcock felt very old in the +crowded experiences of the past three years, that had taught him power +and responsibility. + +"You _were_ rather a colt," said Findlayson. "I wonder how you'll like +going back to office work when this job's over." + +"I shall hate it!" said the young man, and as he went on his eye +followed Findlayson's, and he muttered, "Is n't it good?" + +"I think we'll go up the service together," Findlayson said to +himself. "You're too good a youngster to waste on another man. Cub +thou wast; assistant thou art. Personal assistant, and at Simla, thou +shalt be, if any credit comes to me out of the business!" + +Indeed, the burden of the work had fallen altogether on Findlayson and +his assistant, the young man whom he had chosen because of his rawness +to break to his own needs. There were labour-contractors by the +half-hundred--fitters and riveters, European, borrowed from the +railway workshops, with perhaps twenty white and half-caste +subordinates to direct, under direction, the bevies of workmen--but +none knew better than these two, who trusted each other, how the +underlings were not to be trusted. They had been tried many times in +sudden crises--by slipping of booms, by breaking of tackle, failure +of cranes, and the wrath of the river--but no stress had brought to +light any man among them whom Findlayson and Hitchcock would have +honoured by working as remorselessly as they worked themselves. +Findlayson thought it over from the beginning: the months of office +work destroyed at a blow when the Government of India, at the last +moment, added two feet to the width of the bridge, under the +impression that bridges were cut out of paper, and so brought to ruin +at least half an acre of calculations--and Hitchcock, new to +disappointment, buried his head in his arms and wept; the +heart-breaking delays over the filling of the contracts in England; +the futile correspondences hinting at great wealth of commission if +one, only one, rather doubtful consignment were passed; the war that +followed the refusal; the careful, polite obstruction at the other end +that followed the war, till young Hitchcock, putting one month's leave +to another month, and borrowing ten days from Findlayson, spent his +poor little savings of a year in a wild dash to London, and there, as +his own tongue asserted, and the later consignments proved, put the +Fear of God into a man so great that he feared only Parliament, and +said so till Hitchcock wrought with him across his own dinner-table, +and--he feared the Kashi Bridge and all who spoke in its name. Then +there was the cholera that came in the night to the village by the +bridge-works; and after the cholera smote the small-pox. The fever +they had always with them. Hitchcock had been appointed a magistrate +of the third class with whipping powers, for the better government of +the community, and Findlayson watched him wield his powers +temperately, learning what to overlook and what to look after. It was +a long, long reverie, and it covered storm, sudden freshets, death in +every manner and shape, violent and awful rage against red tape half +frenzying a mind that knows it should be busy on other things; +drought, sanitation, finance; birth, wedding, burial, and riot in the +village of twenty warring castes; argument, expostulation, persuasion, +and the blank despair that a man goes to bed upon, thankful that his +rifle is all in pieces in the gun-case. Behind everything rose the +black frame of the Kashi Bridge--plate by plate, girder by girder, +span by span--and each pier of it recalled Hitchcock, the all-round +man, who had stood by his chief without failing from the very first to +this last. So the bridge was two men's work--unless one counted Peroo, +as Peroo certainly counted himself. He was a lascar, a Kharva from +Bulsar, familiar with every port between Rockhampton and London, who +had risen to the rank of serang on the British India boats, but +wearying of routine musters and clean clothes, had thrown up the +service and gone inland, where men of his calibre were sure of +employment. For his knowledge of tackle and the handling of heavy +weights, Peroo was worth almost any price he might have chosen to put +upon his services; but custom decreed the wage of the overhead-men, +and Peroo was not within many silver pieces of his proper value. +Neither running water nor extreme heights made him afraid; and, as an +ex-serang, he knew how to hold authority. No piece of iron was so big +or so badly placed that Peroo could not devise a tackle to lift it--a +loose-ended, sagging arrangement, rigged with a scandalous amount of +talking, but perfectly equal to the work in hand. It was Peroo who had +saved the girder of Number Seven Pier from destruction when the new +wire rope jammed in the eye of the crane, and the huge plate tilted in +its slings, threatening to slide out sideways. Then the native workmen +lost their heads with great shoutings, and Hitchcock's right arm was +broken by a falling T-plate, and he buttoned it up in his coat and +swooned, and came to and directed for four hours till Peroo, from the +top of the crane reported, "All's well," and the plate swung home. +There was no one like Peroo, serang, to lash and guy and hold, to +control the donkey-engines, to hoist a fallen locomotive craftily out +of the borrow-pit into which it had tumbled; to strip and dive, if +need be, to see how the concrete blocks round the piers stood the +scouring of Mother Gunga, or to adventure up-stream on a monsoon night +and report on the state of the embankment-facings. He would interrupt +the field-councils of Findlayson and Hitchcock without fear, till his +wonderful English, or his still more wonderful _lingua-franca_, half +Portuguese and half Malay, ran out and he was forced to take string +and show the knots that he would recommend. He controlled his own gang +of tacklemen--mysterious relatives from Kutch Mandvi gathered month by +month and tried to the uttermost. No consideration of family or kin +allowed Peroo to keep weak hands or a giddy head on the pay-roll. "My +honour is the honour of this bridge," he would say to the about-to-be +dismissed. "What do I care for your honour? Go and work on a steamer. +That is all you are fit for." + +The little cluster of huts where he and his gang lived centred round +the tattered dwelling of a sea-priest--one who had never set foot on +Black Water, but had been chosen as ghostly counsellor by two +generations of sea-rovers, all unaffected by port missions or those +creeds which are thrust upon sailors by agencies along Thames' bank. +The priest of the lascars had nothing to do with their caste, or +indeed with anything at all. He ate the offerings of his church, and +slept and smoked, and slept again, "for," said Peroo, who had haled +him a thousand miles inland, "he is a very holy man. He never cares +what you eat so long as you do not eat beef, and that is good, because +on land we worship Shiva, we Kharvas; but at sea on the Kumpani's +boats we attend strictly to the orders of the Burra Malum (the first +mate), and on this bridge we observe what Finlinson Sahib says." + +Findlayson Sahib had that day given orders to clear the scaffolding +from the guard-tower on the right bank, and Peroo with his mates was +casting loose and lowering down the bamboo poles and planks as swiftly +as ever they had whipped the cargo out of a coaster. + +From his trolley he could hear the whistle of the serang's silver pipe +and the creak and clatter of the pulleys. Peroo was standing on the +topmost coping of the tower, clad in the blue dungaree of his +abandoned service, and as Findlayson motioned to him to be careful, +for his was no life to throw away, he gripped the last pole, and, +shading his eyes ship-fashion, answered with the long-drawn wail of +the fo'c'sle lookout: "_Ham dekhta hai_" ("I am looking out"). +Findlayson laughed, and then sighed. It was years since he had seen a +steamer, and he was sick for home. As his trolley passed under the +tower, Peroo descended by a rope, ape-fashion, and cried: "It looks +well now, Sahib. Our bridge is all but done. What think you Mother +Gunga will say when the rail runs over?" + +"She has said little so far. It was never Mother Gunga that delayed +us." + +"There is always time for her; and none the less there has been delay. +Has the Sahib forgotten last autumn's flood, when the stone-boats +were sunk without warning--or only a half-day's warning?" + +"Yes, but nothing save a big flood could hurt us now. The spurs are +holding well on the west bank." + +"Mother Gunga eats great allowances. There is always room for more +stone on the revetments. I tell this to the Chota Sahib"--he meant +Hitchcock--"and he laughs." + +"No matter, Peroo. Another year thou wilt be able to build a bridge in +thine own fashion." + +The lascar grinned. "Then it will not be in this way--with stonework +sunk under water, as the _Quetta_ was sunk. I like sus-sus-pen-sheen +bridges that fly from bank to bank, with one big step, like a +gang-plank. Then no water can hurt. When does the Lord Sahib come to +open the bridge?" + +"In three months, when the weather is cooler." + +"Ho! ho! He is like the Burra Malum. He sleeps below while the work is +being done. Then he comes upon the quarter-deck and touches with his +finger and says: 'This is not clean! Jiboon-wallah!'" + +"But the Lord Sahib does not call me a jiboon-wallah, Peroo." + +"No, Sahib; but he does not come on deck till the work is all +finished. Even the Burra Malum of the _Nerbudda_ said once at +Tuticorin----" + +"Bah! Go! I am busy." + +"I, also!" said Peroo, with an unshaken countenance. "May I take the +light dinghy now and row along the spurs?" + +"To hold them with thy hands? They are, I think, sufficiently heavy." + +"Nay, Sahib. It is thus. At sea, on the Black Water, we have room to +be blown up and down without care. Here we have no room at all. Look +you, we have put the river into a dock, and run her between stone +sills." + +Findlayson smiled at the "we." + +"We have bitted and bridled her. She is not like the sea, that can +beat against a soft beach. She is Mother Gunga--in irons." His voice +fell a little. + +"Peroo, thou hast been up and down the world more even than I. Speak +true talk, now. How much dost thou in thy heart believe of Mother +Gunga?" + +"All that our priest says. London is London, Sahib. Sydney is Sydney, +and Port Darwin is Port Darwin. Also Mother Gunga is Mother Gunga, and +when I come back to her banks I know this and worship. In London I did +poojah to the big temple by the river for the sake of the God +within.... Yes, I will not take the cushions in the dinghy." + +Findlayson mounted his horse and trotted to the shed of a bungalow +that he shared with his assistant. The place had become home to him in +the last three years. He had grilled in the heat, sweated in the +rains, and shivered with fever under the rude thatch roof; the +lime-wash beside the door was covered with rough drawings and formulæ, +and the sentry-path trodden in the matting of the veranda showed where +he had walked alone. There is no eight-hour limit to an engineer's +work, and the evening meal with Hitchcock was eaten booted and +spurred: over their cigars they listened to the hum of the village as +the gangs came up from the river-bed and the lights began to twinkle. + +"Peroo has gone up the spurs in your dinghy. He's taken a couple of +nephews with him, and he's lolling in the stern like a commodore," +said Hitchcock. + +"That's all right. He's got something on his mind. You 'd think that +ten years in the British India boats would have knocked most of his +religion out of him." + +"So it has," said Hitchcock, chuckling. "I over-heard him the other +day in the middle of a most atheistical talk with that fat old _guru_ +of theirs. Peroo denied the efficacy of prayer; and wanted the _guru_ +to go to sea and watch a gale out with him, and see if he could stop a +monsoon." + +"All the same, if you carried off his _guru_ he'd leave us like a +shot. He was yarning away to me about praying to the dome of St. +Paul's when he was in London." + +"He told me that the first time he went into the engine-room of a +steamer, when he was a boy, he prayed to the low-pressure cylinder." + +"Not half bad a thing to pray to, either. He's propitiating his own +Gods now, and he wants to know what Mother Gunga will think of a +bridge being run across her. Who's there?" A shadow darkened the +doorway, and a telegram was put into Hitchcock's hand. + +"She ought to be pretty well used to it by this time. Only a _tar_. It +ought to be Ralli's answer about the new rivets.... Great Heavens!" +Hitchcock jumped to his feet. + +"What is it?" said the senior, and took the form. "_That's_ what +Mother Gunga thinks, is it," he said, reading. "Keep cool, young 'un. +We've got all our work cut out for us. Let's see. Muir wires, half an +hour ago: '_Floods on the Ramgunga. Look out._' Well, that gives +us--one, two--nine and a half for the flood to reach Melipur Ghaut and +seven's sixteen and a half to Latodi--say fifteen hours before it +comes down to us." + +"Curse that hill-fed sewer of a Ramgunga! Findlayson, this is two +months before anything could have been expected, and the left bank is +littered up with stuff still. Two full months before the time!" + +"That's why it happens. I've only known Indian rivers for five and +twenty years, and I don't pretend to understand. Here comes another +_tar_." Findlayson opened the telegram. "Cockran, this time, from the +Ganges Canal: '_Heavy rains here. Bad._' He might have saved the last +word. Well, we don't want to know any more. We've got to work the +gangs all night and clean up the river-bed. You'll take the east bank +and work out to meet me in the middle. Get everything that floats +below the bridge: we shall have quite enough river-craft coming down +adrift anyhow, without letting the stone-boats ram the piers. What +have you got on the east bank that needs looking after?" + +"Pontoon, one big pontoon with the overhead crane on it. T'other +overhead crane on the mended pontoon, with the cart-road rivets from +Twenty to Twenty-three piers--two construction lines, and a +turning-spur. The pile-work must take its chance," said Hitchcock. + +"All right. Roll up everything you can lay hands on. We'll give the +gang fifteen minutes more to eat their grub." + +Close to the veranda stood a big night-gong, never used except for +flood, or fire in the village. Hitchcock had called for a fresh horse, +and was off to his side of the bridge when Findlayson took the +cloth-bound stick and smote with the rubbing stroke that brings out +the full thunder of the metal. + +Long before the last rumble ceased every night-gong in the village had +taken up the warning. To these were added the hoarse screaming of +conches in the little temples; the throbbing of drums and tom-toms; +and from the European quarters, where the riveters lived, McCartney's +bugle, a weapon of offence on Sundays and festivals, brayed +desperately, calling to "Stables." Engine after engine toiling home +along the spurs after her day's work whistled in answer till the +whistles were answered from the far bank. Then the big gong thundered +thrice for a sign that it was flood and not fire; conch, drum, and +whistle echoed the call, and the village quivered to the sound of bare +feet running upon soft earth. The order in all cases was to stand by +the day's work and wait instructions. The gangs poured by in the dusk; +men stopping to knot a loin-cloth or fasten a sandal; gang-foremen +shouting to their subordinates as they ran or paused by the tool-issue +sheds for bars and mattocks; locomotives creeping down their tracks +wheel-deep in the crowd, till the brown torrent disappeared into the +dusk of the river-bed, raced over the pile-work, swarmed along the +lattices, clustered by the cranes, and stood still, each man in his +place. + +Then the troubled beating of the gong carried the order to take up +everything and bear it beyond high-water mark, and the flare-lamps +broke out by the hundred between the webs of dull iron as the riveters +began a night's work racing against the flood that was to come. The +girders of the three centre piers--those that stood on the cribs--were +all but in position. They needed just as many rivets as could be +driven into them, for the flood would assuredly wash out the supports, +and the ironwork would settle down on the caps of stone if they were +not blocked at the ends. A hundred crowbars strained at the sleepers +of the temporary line that fed the unfinished piers. It was heaved up +in lengths, loaded into trucks, and backed up the bank beyond +flood-level by the groaning locomotives. The tool-sheds on the sands +melted away before the attack of shouting armies, and with them went +the stacked ranks of Government stores, iron-bound boxes of rivets, +pliers, cutters, duplicate parts of the rivet-machines, spare pumps +and chains. The big crane would be the last to be shifted, for she was +hoisting all the heavy stuff up to the main structure of the bridge. +The concrete blocks on the fleet of stone-boats were dropped overside, +where there was any depth of water, to guard the piers, and the empty +boats themselves were poled under the bridge down-stream. It was here +that Peroo's pipe shrilled loudest, for the first stroke of the big +gong had brought aback the dinghy at racing speed, and Peroo and his +people were stripped to the waist, working for the honour and credit +which are better than life. + +"I knew she would speak," he cried. "_I_ knew, but the telegraph gave +us good warning. O sons of unthinkable begetting--children of +unspeakable shame--are we here for the look of the thing?" It was two +feet of wire rope frayed at the ends, and it did wonders as Peroo +leaped from gunnel to gunnel, shouting the language of the sea. + +Findlayson was more troubled for the stone-boats than anything else. +McCartney, with his gangs, was blocking up the ends of the three +doubtful spans, but boats adrift, if the flood chanced to be a high +one, might endanger the girders; and there was a very fleet in the +shrunken channels. + +"Get them behind the swell of the guard-tower," he shouted down to +Peroo. "It will be dead-water there; get them below the bridge." + +"_Accha!_ [Very good.] _I_ know. We are mooring them with wire rope," +was the answer. "Hah! Listen to the Chota Sahib. He is working hard." + +From across the river came an almost continuous whistling of +locomotives, backed by the rumble of stone. Hitchcock at the last +minute was spending a few hundred more trucks of Tarakee stone in +reinforcing his spurs and embankments. + +"The bridge challenges Mother Gunga," said Peroo, with a laugh. "But +when _she_ talks I know whose voice will be the loudest." + +For hours the naked men worked, screaming and shouting under the +lights. It was a hot, moonless night; the end of it was darkened by +clouds and a sudden squall that made Findlayson very grave. + +"She moves!" said Peroo, just before the dawn. "Mother Gunga is awake! +Hear!" He dipped his hand over the side of a boat and the current +mumbled on it. A little wave hit the side of a pier with a crisp +slap. + +"Six hours before her time," said Findlayson, mopping his forehead +savagely. "Now we can't depend on anything. We'd better clear all +hands out of the river-bed." + +Again the big gong beat, and a second time there was the rushing of +naked feet on earth and ringing iron; the clatter of tools ceased. In +the silence, men heard the dry yawn of water crawling over thirsty +sand. + +Foreman after foreman shouted to Findlayson, who had posted himself by +the guard-tower, that his section of the river-bed had been cleaned +out, and when the last voice dropped Findlayson hurried over the +bridge till the iron plating of the permanent way gave place to the +temporary plank-walk over the three centre piers, and there he met +Hitchcock. + +"All clear your side?" said Findlayson. The whisper rang in the box of +latticework. + +"Yes, and the east channel's filling now. We're utterly out of our +reckoning. When is this thing down on us?" + +"There's no saying. She's filling as fast as she can. Look!" +Findlayson pointed to the planks below his feet, where the sand, +burned and defiled by months of work, was beginning to whisper and +fizz. + +"What orders?" said Hitchcock. + +"Call the roll--count stores--sit on your bunkers--and pray for the +bridge. That's all I can think of. Good night. Don't risk your life +trying to fish out anything that may go down-stream." + +"Oh, I'll be as prudent as you are! 'Night. Heavens, how she's +filling! Here's the rain in earnest!" Findlayson picked his way back +to his bank, sweeping the last of McCartney's riveters before him. The +gangs had spread themselves along the embankments, regardless of the +cold rain of the dawn, and there they waited for the flood. Only Peroo +kept his men together behind the swell of the guard-tower, where the +stone-boats lay tied fore and aft with hawsers, wire-ropes, and +chains. + +A shrill wail ran along the line, growing to a yell, half fear and +half wonder: the face of the river whitened from bank to bank between +the stone facings, and the far-away spurs went out in spouts of foam. +Mother Gunga had come bank-high in haste, and a wall of +chocolate-coloured water was her messenger. There was a shriek above +the roar of the water, the complaint of the spans coming down on their +blocks as the cribs were whirled out from under their bellies. The +stone-boats groaned and ground each other in the eddy that swung round +the abutment, and their clumsy masts rose higher and higher against +the dim sky-line. + +"Before she was shut between these walls we knew what she would do. +Now she is thus cramped God only knows what she will do!" said Peroo, +watching the furious turmoil round the guard-tower. "Ohé! Fight, then! +Fight hard, for it is thus that a woman wears herself out." + +But Mother Gunga would not fight as Peroo desired. After the first +down-stream plunge there came no more walls of water, but the river +lifted herself bodily, as a snake when she drinks in mid-summer, +plucking and fingering along the revetments, and banking up behind the +piers till even Findlayson began to recalculate the strength of his +work. + +When day came the village gasped. "Only last night," men said, turning +to each other, "it was as a town in the river-bed! Look now!" + +And they looked and wondered afresh at the deep water, the racing +water that licked the throat of the piers. The farther bank was veiled +by rain, into which the bridge ran out and vanished; the spurs +up-stream were marked by no more than eddies and spoutings, and +down-stream the pent river, once freed of her guide-lines, had spread +like a sea to the horizon. Then hurried by, rolling in the water, dead +men and oxen together, with here and there a patch of thatched roof +that melted when it touched a pier. + +"Big flood," said Peroo, and Findlayson nodded. It was as big a flood +as he had any wish to watch. His bridge would stand what was upon her +now, but not very much more; and if by any of a thousand chances there +happened to be a weakness in the embankments, Mother Gunga would carry +his honour to the sea with the other raffle. Worst of all, there was +nothing to do except to sit still; and Findlayson sat still under his +macintosh till his helmet became pulp on his head, and his boots were +over ankle in mire. He took no count of time, for the river was +marking the hours, inch by inch and foot by foot, along the +embankment, and he listened, numb and hungry, to the straining of the +stone-boats, the hollow thunder under the piers, and the hundred +noises that make the full note of a flood. Once a dripping servant +brought him food, but he could not eat; and once he thought that he +heard a faint toot from a locomotive across the river, and then he +smiled. The bridge's failure would hurt his assistant not a little, +but Hitchcock was a young man with his big work yet to do. For himself +the crash meant everything--everything that made a hard life worth the +living. They would say, the men of his own profession--he remembered +the half-pitying things that he himself had said when Lockhart's big +water-works burst and broke down in brick heaps and sludge, and +Lockhart's spirit broke in him and he died. He remembered what he +himself had said when the Sumao Bridge went out in the big cyclone by +the sea; and most he remembered poor Hartopp's face three weeks +later, when the shame had marked it. His bridge was twice the size of +Hartopp's, and it carried the Findlayson truss as well as the new +pier-shoe--the Findlayson bolted shoe. There were no excuses in his +service. Government might listen, perhaps, but his own kind would +judge him by his bridge, as that stood or fell. He went over it in his +head, plate by plate, span by span, brick by brick, pier by pier, +remembering, comparing, estimating, and recalculating, lest there +should be any mistake; and through the long hours and through the +nights of formulæ that danced and wheeled before him, a cold fear +would come to pinch his heart. His side of the sum was beyond +question; but what man knew Mother Gunga's arithmetic? Even as he was +making all sure by the multiplication-table, the river might be +scooping pot-holes to the very bottom of any one of those eighty-foot +piers that carried his reputation. Again a servant came to him with +food, but his mouth was dry, and he could only drink and return to the +decimals in his brain. And the river was still rising. Peroo, in a mat +shelter-coat, crouched at his feet, watching now his face and now the +face of the river, but saying nothing. + +At last the lascar rose and floundered through the mud toward the +village, but he was careful to leave an ally to watch the boats. + +Presently he returned, most irreverently driving before him the +priest of his creed--a fat old man with a gray beard that whipped the +wind with the wet cloth that blew over his shoulder. Never was seen so +lamentable a _guru_. + +"What good are offerings and little kerosene lamps and dry grain," +shouted Peroo, "if squatting in the mud is all that thou canst do? +Thou hast dealt long with the Gods when they were contented and +well-wishing. Now they are angry. Speak to them!" + +"What is a man against the wrath of Gods?" whined the priest, cowering +as the wind took him. "Let me go to the temple, and I will pray +there." + +"Son of a pig, pray _here_! Is there no return for salt fish and curry +powder and dried onions? Call aloud! Tell Mother Gunga we have had +enough. Bid her be still for the night. I cannot pray, but I have +served in the Kumpani's boats, and when men did not obey my orders +I----" A flourish of the wire-rope colt rounded the sentence, and the +priest, breaking from his disciple, fled to the village. + +"Fat pig!" said Peroo. "After all that we have done for him! When the +flood is down I will see to it that we get a new _guru_. Finlinson +Sahib, it darkens for night now, and since yesterday nothing has been +eaten. Be wise, Sahib. No man can endure watching and great thinking +on an empty belly. Lie down, Sahib. The river will do what the river +will do." + +"The bridge is mine; I cannot leave it." + +"Wilt thou hold it up with thy hands, then?" said Peroo, laughing. "I +was troubled for my boats and sheers _before_ the flood came. Now we +are in the hands of the Gods. The Sahib will not eat and lie down? +Take these, then. They are meat and good toddy together, and they kill +all weariness, besides the fever that follows the rain. I have eaten +nothing else to-day at all." + +He took a small tin tobacco-box from his sodden waist-belt and thrust +it into Findlayson's hand, saying, "Nay, do not be afraid. It is no +more than opium--clean Malwa opium!" + +Findlayson shook two or three of the dark-brown pellets into his hand, +and hardly knowing what he did, swallowed them. The stuff was at least +a good guard against fever--the fever that was creeping upon him out +of the wet mud--and he had seen what Peroo could do in the stewing +mists of autumn on the strength of a dose from the tin box. + +Peroo nodded with bright eyes. "In a little--in a little the Sahib +will find that he thinks well again. I too will----" He dived into his +treasure-box, resettled the rain-coat over his head, and squatted down +to watch the boats. It was too dark now to see beyond the first pier, +and the night seemed to have given the river new strength. Findlayson +stood with his chin on his chest, thinking. There was one point about +one of the piers--the Seventh--that that he had not fully settled in +his mind. The figures would not shape themselves to the eye except one +by one and at enormous intervals of time. There was a sound, rich and +mellow in his ears, like the deepest note of a double-bass--an +entrancing sound upon which he pondered for several hours, as it +seemed. Then Peroo was at his elbow, shouting that a wire hawser had +snapped and the stone-boats were loose. Findlayson saw the fleet open +and swing out fanwise to a long-drawn shriek of wire straining across +gunnels. + +"A tree hit them. They will all go," cried Peroo. "The main hawser has +parted. What does the Sahib do?" + +An immensely complex plan had suddenly flashed into Findlayson's mind. +He saw the ropes running from boat to boat in straight lines and +angles--each rope a line of white fire. But there was one rope which +was the master-rope. He could see that rope. If he could pull it once, +it was absolutely and mathematically certain that the disordered fleet +would reassemble itself in the backwater behind the guard-tower. But +why, he wondered, was Peroo clinging so desperately to his waist as he +hastened down the bank? It was necessary to put the lascar aside, +gently and slowly, because it was necessary to save the boats, and, +further, to demonstrate the extreme ease of the problem that looked so +difficult. And then--but it was of no conceivable importance--a wire +rope raced through his hand burning it, the high bank disappeared, and +with it all the slowly dispersing factors of the problem. He was +sitting in the rainy darkness--sitting in a boat that spun like a top, +and Peroo was standing over him. + +"I had forgotten," said the lascar slowly, "that to those fasting and +unused the opium is worse than any wine. Those who die in Gunga go to +the Gods. Still, I have no desire to present myself before such great +ones. Can the Sahib swim?" + +"What need? He can fly--fly as swiftly as the wind," was the thick +answer. + +"He is mad!" muttered Peroo under his breath. "And he threw me aside +like a bundle of dung-cakes. Well, he will not know his death. The +boat cannot live an hour here even if she strike nothing. It is not +good to look at death with a clear eye." + +He refreshed himself again from the tin box, squatted down in the bows +of the reeling, pegged, and stitched craft staring through the mist at +the nothing that was there. A warm drowsiness crept over Findlayson, +the Chief Engineer, whose duty was with his bridge. The heavy +raindrops struck him with a thousand tingling little thrills, and the +weight of all time since time was made hung heavy on his eyelids. He +thought and perceived that he was perfectly secure, for the water was +so solid that a man could surely step out upon it, and standing still +with his legs apart to keep his balance--this was the most important +point--would be borne with great and easy speed to the shore. But yet +a better plan came to him. It needed only an exertion of will for the +soul to hurl the body ashore as wind drives paper; to waft it +kite-fashion to the bank. Thereafter--the boat spun dizzily--suppose +the high wind got under the freed body? Would it tower up like a kite +and pitch headlong on the far-away sands, or would it duck about +beyond control through all eternity? Findlayson gripped the gunnel to +anchor himself, for it seemed that he was on the edge of taking the +flight before he had settled all his plans. Opium has more effect on +the white man than the black. Peroo was only comfortably indifferent +to accidents. "She cannot live," he grunted. "Her seams open already. +If she were even a dinghy with oars we could have ridden it out; but a +box with holes is no good. Finlinson Sahib, she fills." + +"_Accha!_ I am going away. Come thou also." + +In his mind Findlayson had already escaped from the boat, and was +circling high in air to find a rest for the sole of his foot. His +body--he was really sorry for its gross helplessness--lay in the +stern, the water rushing about its knees. + +"How very ridiculous!" he said to himself, from his eyrie; "that--is +Findlayson--chief of the Kashi Bridge. The poor beast is going to be +drowned, too. Drowned when it's close to shore. I'm--I'm on shore +already. Why does n't it come along?" + +To his intense disgust, he found his soul back in his body again, and +that body spluttering and choking in deep water. The pain of the +reunion was atrocious, but it was necessary, also, to fight for the +body. He was conscious of grasping wildly at wet sand, and striding +prodigiously, as one strides in a dream, to keep foothold in the +swirling water, till at last he hauled himself clear of the hold of +the river, and dropped, panting, on wet earth. + +"Not this night," said Peroo in his ear. "The Gods have protected us." +The lascar moved his feet cautiously, and they rustled among dried +stumps. "This is some island of last year's indigo crop," he went on. +"We shall find no men here; but have great care, Sahib; all the snakes +of a hundred miles have been flooded out. Here comes the lightning, on +the heels of the wind. Now we shall be able to look; but walk +carefully." + +Findlayson was far and far beyond any fear of snakes, or indeed any +merely human emotion. He saw, after he had rubbed the water from his +eyes, with an immense clearness, and trod, so it seemed to himself, +with world-encompassing strides. Somewhere in the night of time he had +built a bridge--a bridge that spanned illimitable levels of shining +seas; but the Deluge had swept it away, leaving this one island under +heaven for Findlayson and his companion, sole survivors of the breed +of man. + +An incessant lightning, forked and blue, showed all that there was to +be seen on the little patch in the flood--a clump of thorn, a clump of +swaying, creaking bamboos, and a gray, gnarled peepul over-shadowing a +Hindoo shrine, from whose dome floated a tattered red flag. The holy +man whose summer resting-place it was had long since abandoned it, and +the weather had broken the red-daubed image of his God. The two men +stumbled, heavy-limbed and heavy-eyed, over the ashes of a brick-set +cooking-place, and dropped down under the shelter of the branches, +while the rain and river roared together. + +The stumps of the indigo crackled, and there was a smell of cattle, as +a huge and dripping Brahminee Bull shouldered his way under the tree. +The flashes revealed the trident mark of Shiva on his flank, the +insolence of head and hump, the luminous stag-like eyes, the brow +crowned with a wreath of sodden marigold blooms and the silky dewlap +that night swept the ground. There was a noise behind him of other +beasts coming up from the flood-line through the thicket, a sound of +heavy feet and deep breathing. + +"Here be more beside ourselves," said Findlayson, his head against the +tree-pole, looking through half-shut eyes, wholly at ease. + +"Truly," said Peroo thickly, "and no small ones." + +"What are they, then? I do not see clearly." + +"The Gods. Who else? Look!" + +"Ah, true! The Gods surely--the Gods." Findlayson smiled as his head +fell forward on his chest. Peroo was eminently right. After the Flood, +who should be alive in the land except the Gods that made it--the Gods +to whom his village prayed nightly--the Gods who were in all men's +mouths and about all men's ways? He could not raise his head or stir a +finger for the trance that held him, and Peroo was smiling vacantly at +the lightning. + +The Bull paused by the shrine, his head lowered to the damp earth. A +green Parrot in the branches preened his wet wings and screamed +against the thunder as the circle under the tree filled with the +shifting shadows of beasts. There was a Black-buck at the Bull's +heels--such a buck as Findlayson in his far-away life upon earth might +have seen in dreams--a buck with a royal head, ebon back, silver +belly, and gleaming straight horns. Beside him, her head bowed to the +ground, the green eyes burning under the heavy brows, with restless +tail switching the dead grass, paced a Tigress, full-bellied and +deep-jowled. + +The Bull crouched beside the shrine and there leaped from the darkness +a monstrous gray Ape, who seated himself man-wise in the place of the +fallen image, and the rain spilled like jewels from the hair of his +neck and shoulders. + +Other shadows came and went behind the circle, among them a drunken +Man flourishing staff and drinking-bottle. Then a hoarse bellow broke +out from near the ground. "The flood lessens even now," it cried. +"Hour by hour the water falls, and their bridge still stands!" + +"My bridge," said Findlayson to himself. "That must be very old work +now. What have the Gods to do with my bridge?" + +His eyes rolled in the darkness following the roar. A Crocodile--the +blunt-nosed, ford-haunting Mugger of the Ganges--draggled herself +before the beasts, lashing furiously to right and left with her tail. + +"They have made it too strong for me. In all this night I have only +torn away a handful of planks. The walls stand! The towers stand! They +have chained my flood, and my river is not free any more. Heavenly +Ones, take this yoke away! Give me clear water between bank and bank! +It is I, Mother Gunga, that speak. The Justice of the Gods! Deal me +the Justice of the Gods!" + +"What said I?" whispered Peroo. "This is in truth a Punchayet of the +Gods. Now we know that all the world is dead, save you and I, Sahib." + +The Parrot screamed and fluttered again, and the Tigress, her ears +flat to her head, snarled wickedly. + +Somewhere in the shadow a great trunk and gleaming tusks swayed to +and fro, and a low gurgle broke the silence that followed on the +snarl. + +"We be here," said a deep voice, "the Great Ones. One only and very +many. Shiv, my father, is here, with Indra. Kali has spoken already. +Hanuman listens also." + +"Kashi is without her Kotwal to-night," shouted the Man with the +drinking-bottle, flinging his staff to the ground, while the island +rang to the baying of hounds. "Give her the Justice of the Gods." + +"Ye were still when they polluted my waters," the great Crocodile +bellowed. "Ye made no sign when my river was trapped between the +walls. I had no help save my own strength, and that failed--the +strength of Mother Gunga failed--before their guard-towers. What could +I do? I have done everything. Finish now, Heavenly Ones!" + +"I brought the death; I rode the spotted sickness from hut to hut of +their workmen, and yet they would not cease." A nose-slitten, +hide-worn Ass, lame, scissor-legged, and galled, limped forward. "I +cast the death at them out of my nostrils, but they would not cease." + +Peroo would have moved, but the opium lay heavy upon him. + +"Bah!" he said, spitting. "Here is Sitala herself; Mata--the +small-pox. Has the Sahib a handkerchief to put over his face?" + +"Small help! They fed me the corpses for a month, and I flung them +out on my sand-bars, but their work went forward! Demons they are, and +so sons of demons! And ye left Mother Gunga alone for their +fire-carriage to make a mock of. The Justice of the Gods on the +bridge-builders!" + +The Bull turned the cud in his mouth and answered slowly, "If the +Justice of the Gods caught all who made a mock of holy things, there +would be many dark altars in the land, mother." + +"But this goes beyond a mock," said the Tigress, darting forward a +griping paw. "Thou knowest, Shiv, and ye, too, Heavenly Ones; ye know +that they have defiled Gunga. Surely they must come to the Destroyer. +Let Indra judge." + +The Buck made no movement as he answered, "How long has this evil +been?" + +"Three years, as men count years," said the Mugger, close pressed to +the earth. + +"Does Mother Gunga die, then, in a year, that she is so anxious to see +vengeance now? The deep sea was where she runs but yesterday, and +to-morrow the sea shall cover her again as the Gods count that which +men call time. Can any say that this their bridge endures till +to-morrow?" said the Buck. + +There was a long hush, and in the clearing of the storm the full moon +stood up above the dripping trees. + +"Judge ye, then," said the River sullenly. "I have spoken my shame. +The flood falls still. I can do no more." + +"For my own part"--it was the voice of the great Ape seated within the +shrine--"it pleases me well to watch these men, remembering that I +also builded no small bridge in the world's youth." + +"They say, too," snarled the Tiger, "that these men came of the wreck +of thy armies, Hanuman, and therefore thou hast aided----" + +"They toil as my armies toiled in Lanka, and they believe that their +toil endures. Indra is too high, but Shiv, thou knowest how the land +is threaded with their fire-carriages." + +"Yea, I know," said the Bull. "Their Gods instructed them in the +matter." + +A laugh ran round the circle. + +"Their Gods! What should their Gods know? They were born yesterday, +and those that made them are scarcely yet cold," said the Mugger. +"To-morrow their Gods will die." + +"Ho!" said Peroo. "Mother Gunga talks good talk. I told that to the +padre-sahib who preached on the _Mombassa_, and he asked the Burra +Malum to put me in irons for a great rudeness." + +"Surely they make these things to please their Gods," said the Bull +again. + +"Not altogether," the Elephant rolled forth. "It is for the profit of +my mahajuns--my fat money-lenders that worship me at each new year, +when they draw my image at the head of the account-books. I, looking +over their shoulders by lamplight, see that the names in the books +are those of men in far places--for all the towns are drawn together +by the fire-carriage, and the money comes and goes swiftly, and the +account-books grow as fat as--myself. And I, who am Ganesh of Good +Luck, I bless my peoples." + +"They have changed the face of the land--which is my land. They have +killed and made new towns on my banks," said the Mugger. + +"It is but the shifting of a little dirt. Let the dirt dig in the dirt +if it pleases the dirt," answered the Elephant. + +"But afterward?" said the Tiger. "Afterward they will see that Mother +Gunga can avenge no insult, and they fall away from her first, and +later from us all, one by one. In the end, Ganesh, we are left with +naked altars." + +The drunken Man staggered to his feet, and hiccupped vehemently in the +face of the assembled Gods. + +"Kali lies. My sister lies. Also this my stick is the Kotwal of Kashi, +and he keeps tally of my pilgrims. When the time comes to worship +Bhairon--and it is always time--the fire-carriages move one by one, +and each bears a thousand pilgrims. They do not come afoot any more, +but rolling upon wheels, and my honour is increased." + +"Gunna, I have seen thy bed at Pryag black with the pilgrims," said +the Ape, leaning forward "and but for the fire-carriage they would +have come slowly and in fewer numbers. Remember." + +"They come to me always," Bhairon went on thickly. "By day and night +they pray to me, all the Common People in the fields and the roads. +Who is like Bhairon to-day? What talk is this of changing faiths? Is +my staff Kotwal of Kashi for nothing? He keeps the tally, and he says +that never were so many altars as to-day, and the fire-carriage serves +them well. Bhairon am I--Bhairon of the Common People, and the +chiefest of the Heavenly Ones to-day. Also my staff says----" + +"Peace, thou!" lowed the Bull. "The worship of the schools is mine, +and they talk very wisely, asking whether I be one or many, as is the +delight of my people, and ye know what I am. Kali, my wife, thou +knowest also." + +"Yea, I know," said the Tigress, with lowered head. + +"Greater am I than Gunga also. For ye know who moved the minds of men +that they should count Gunga holy among the rivers. Who die in that +water--ye know how men say--come to us without punishment, and Gunga +knows that the fire-carriage has borne to her scores upon scores of +such anxious ones; and Kali knows that she has held her chiefest +festivals among the pilgrimages that are fed by the fire-carriage. Who +smote at Pooree, under the Image there, her thousands in a day and a +night, and bound the sickness to the wheels of the fire-carriages, so +that it ran from one end of the land to the other? Who but Kali? +Before the fire-carriage came it was a heavy toil. The fire-carriages +have served thee well, Mother of Death. But I speak for mine own +altars, who am not Bhairon of the Common Folk, but Shiv. Men go to and +fro, making words and telling talk of strange Gods, and I listen. +Faith follows faith among my people in the schools, and I have no +anger; for when the words are said, and the new talk is ended, to Shiv +men return at the last." + +"True. It is true," murmured Hanuman. "To Shiv and to the others, +mother, they return. I creep from temple to temple in the North, where +they worship one God and His Prophet; and presently my image is alone +within their shrines." + +"Small thanks," said the Buck, turning his head slowly. "I am that One +and His Prophet also." + +"Even so, father," said Hanuman. "And to the South I go who am the +oldest of the Gods as men know the Gods, and presently I touch the +shrines of the new faith and the Woman whom we know is hewn +twelve-armed, and still they call her Mary." + +"Small thanks, brother," said the Tigress. "I am that Woman." + +"Even so, sister; and I go West among the fire-carriages, and stand +before the bridge-builder in many shapes, and because of me they +change their faiths and are very wise. Ho! ho! I am the builder of +bridges, indeed--bridges between this and that, and each bridge leads +surely to Us in the end. Be content, Gunga. Neither these men nor +those that follow them mock thee at all." + +"Am I alone, then, Heavenly Ones? Shall I smooth out my flood lest +unhappily I bear away their walls? Will Indra dry my springs in the +hills and make me crawl humbly between their wharfs? Shall I bury me +in the sand ere I offend?" + +"And all for the sake of a little iron bar with the fire-carriage +atop. Truly, Mother Gunga is always young!" said Ganesh the Elephant. +"A child had not spoken more foolishly. Let the dirt dig in the dirt +ere it return to the dirt. I know only that my people grow rich and +praise me. Shiv has said that the men of the schools do not forget; +Bhairon is content for his crowd of the Common People; and Hanuman +laughs." + +"Surely I laugh," said the Ape. "My altars are few beside those of +Ganesh or Bhairon, but the fire-carriages bring me new worshippers +from beyond the Black Water--the men who believe that their God is +toil. I run before them beckoning, and they follow Hanuman." + +"Give them the toil that they desire, then," said the River. "Make a +bar across my flood and throw the water back upon the bridge. Once +thou wast strong in Lanka, Hanuman. Stoop and lift my bed." + +"Who gives life can take life." The Ape scratched in the mud with a +long forefinger. "And yet, who would profit by the killing? Very many +would die." + +There came up from the water a snatch of a love-song such as the boys +sing when they watch their cattle in the noon heats of late spring. +The Parrot screamed joyously, sidling along his branch with lowered +head as the song grew louder, and in a patch of clear moonlight stood +revealed the young herd, the darling of the Gopis, the idol of +dreaming maids and of mothers ere their children are born--Krishna the +Well-beloved. He stooped to knot up his long, wet hair, and the parrot +fluttered to his shoulder. + +"Fleeting and singing, and singing and fleeting," hiccupped Bhairon. +"Those make thee late for the council, brother." + +"And then?" said Krishna, with a laugh, throwing back his head. "Ye +can do little without me or Karma here." He fondled the Parrot's +plumage and laughed again. "What is this sitting and talking together? +I heard Mother Gunga roaring in the dark, and so came quickly from a +hut where I lay warm. And what have ye done to Karma, that he is so +wet and silent? And what does Mother Gunga here? Are the heavens full +that ye must come paddling in the mud beast-wise? Karma, what do they +do?" + +"Gunga has prayed for a vengeance on the bridge-builders, and Kali is +with her. Now she bids Hanuman whelm the bridge, that her honour may +be made great," cried the Parrot. "I waited here, knowing that thou +wouldst come O my master!" + +"And the Heavenly Ones said nothing? Did Gunga and the Mother of +Sorrows out-talk them? Did none speak for my people?" + +"Nay," said Ganesh, moving uneasily from foot to foot; "I said it was +but dirt at play, and why should we stamp it flat?" + +"I was content to let them toil--well content," said Hanuman. + +"What had I to do with Gunga's anger?" said the Bull. + +"I am Bhairon of the Common Folk, and this my staff is Kotwal of all +Kashi. I spoke for the Common People." + +"Thou?" The young God's eyes sparkled. + +"Am I not the first of the Gods in their mouths to-day?" returned +Bhairon, unabashed. "For the sake of the Common People I said--very +many wise things which I have now forgotten--but this my staff----" + +Krishna turned impatiently, saw the Mugger at his feet, and kneeling, +slipped an arm round the cold neck. "Mother," he said gently, "get +thee to thy flood again. The matter is not for thee. What harm shall +thy honour take of this live dirt? Thou hast given them their fields +new year after year, and by thy flood they are made strong. They come +all to thee at the last. What need to slay them now? Have pity, +mother, for a little--and it is only for a little." + +"If it be only for a little----" the slow beast began. + +"Are they Gods, then?" Krishna returned with a laugh, his eyes looking +into the dull eyes of the River. "Be certain that it is only for a +little. The Heavenly Ones have heard thee, and presently justice will +be done. Go, now, mother, to the flood again. Men and cattle are thick +on the waters--the banks fall--the villages melt because of thee." + +"But the bridge--the bridge stands." The Mugger turned grunting into +the undergrowth as Krishna rose. + +"It is ended," said the Tigress, viciously. "There is no more justice +from the Heavenly Ones. Ye have made shame and sport of Gunga, who +asked no more than a few score lives." + +"Of _my_ people--who lie under the leaf-roofs of the village +yonder--of the young girls, and the young men who sing to them," said +Krishna. "And when all is done, what profit? To-morrow sees them at +work. Ay, if ye swept the bridge out from end to end they would begin +anew. Hear me! Bhairon is drunk always. Hanuman mocks his people with +new riddles." + +"Nay, but they are very old ones," the Ape said, laughing. + +"Shiv hears the talk of the schools and the dreams of the holy men; +Ganesh thinks only of his fat traders; but I--I live with these my +people, asking for no gifts, and so receiving them hourly." + +"And very tender art thou of thy people," said the Tigress. + +"They are my own. The old women dream of me, turning in their sleep; +the maids look and listen for me when they go to fill their lotahs by +the river. I walk by the young men waiting without the gates at dusk, +and I call over my shoulder to the white-beards. Ye know, Heavenly +Ones, that I alone of us all walk upon the earth continually, and have +no pleasure in our heavens so long as a green blade springs here, or +there are two voices at twilight in the standing crops. Wise are ye, +but ye live far off, forgetting whence ye came. So do I not forget. +And the fire-carriage feeds your shrines, ye say? And the +fire-carriages bring a thousand pilgrimages where but ten came in the +old years? True. That is true to-day." + +"But to-morrow they are dead, brother," said Ganesh. + +"Peace!" said the Bull, as Hanuman leaned forward again. "And +to-morrow, beloved--what of to-morrow?" + +"This only. A new word creeping from mouth to mouth among the Common +Folk--a word that neither man nor God can lay hold of--an evil word--a +little lazy word among the Common Folk, saying (and none know who set +that word afoot) that they weary of ye, Heavenly Ones." + +The Gods laughed together softly. "And then, beloved?" they said. + +"And to cover that weariness they, my people, will bring to thee, +Shiv, and to thee, Ganesh, at first greater offerings and a louder +noise of worship. But the word has gone abroad, and, after, they will +pay fewer dues to your fat Brahmins. Next they will forget your +altars, but so slowly that no man can say how his forgetfulness +began." + +"I knew--I knew! I spoke this also, but they would not hear," said the +Tigress. "We should have slain--we should have slain!" + +"It is too late now. Ye should have slain at the beginning, when the +men from across the water had taught our folk nothing. Now my people +see their work, and go away thinking. They do not think of the +Heavenly Ones altogether. They think of the fire-carriage and the +other things that the bridge-builders have done, and when your priests +thrust forward hands asking alms, they give unwillingly a little. That +is the beginning, among one or two, or five or ten--for I, moving +among my people, know what is in their hearts." + +"And the end, Jester of the Gods? What shall the end be?" said Ganesh. + +"The end shall be as it was in the beginning, O slothful son of Shiv! +The flame shall die upon the altars and the prayer upon the tongue +till ye become little Gods again--Gods of the jungle--names that the +hunters of rats and noosers of dogs whisper in the thicket and among +the caves--rag-Gods, pot Godlings of the tree, and the village-mark, +as ye were at the beginning. That is the end, Ganesh, for thee, and +for Bhairon--Bhairon of the Common People." + +"It is very far away," grunted Bhairon. "Also, it is a lie." + +"Many women have kissed Krishna. They told him this to cheer their own +hearts when the gray hairs came, and he has told us the tale," said +the Bull, below his breath. + +"Their Gods came, and we changed them. I took the woman and made her +twelve-armed. So shall we twist all their Gods," said Hanuman. + +"Their Gods! This is no question of their Gods--one or three--man or +woman. The matter is with the people. _They_ move, and not the Gods of +the bridge-builders," said Krishna. + +"So be it. I have made a man worship the fire-carriage as it stood +still breathing smoke, and he knew not that he worshipped me," said +Hanuman the Ape. "They will only change a little the names of their +Gods. I shall lead the builders of the bridges as of old; Shiv shall +be worshipped in the schools by such as doubt and despise their +fellows; Ganesh shall have his mahajuns, and Bhairon the +donkey-drivers, the pilgrims, and the sellers of toys. Beloved, they +will do no more than change the names, and that we have seen a +thousand times." + +"Surely they will do no more than change the names," echoed Ganesh: +but there was an uneasy movement among the Gods. + +"They will change more than the names. Me alone they cannot kill, so +long as maiden and man meet together or the spring follows the winter +rains. Heavenly Ones, not for nothing have I walked upon the earth. My +people know not now what they know; but I, who live with them, I read +their hearts. Great Kings, the beginning of the end is born already. +The fire-carriages shout the names of new Gods that are _not_ the old +under new names. Drink now and eat greatly! Bathe your faces in the +smoke of the altars before they grow cold! Take dues and listen to the +cymbals and the drums, Heavenly Ones, while yet there are flowers and +songs. As men count time the end is far off; but as we who know reckon +it is to-day. I have spoken." + +The young God ceased, and his brethren looked at each other long in +silence. + +"This I have not heard before," Peroo whispered in his companion's +ear. "And yet sometimes, when I oiled the brasses in the engine-room +of the _Goorkha_, I have wondered if our priests were so wise--so +wise. The day is coming, Sahib. They will be gone by the morning." + +A yellow light broadened in the sky, and the tone of the river changed +as the darkness withdrew. + +Suddenly the Elephant trumpeted aloud as though men had goaded him. + +"Let Indra judge. Father of all, speak thou! What of the things we +have heard? Has Krishna lied indeed? Or----" + +"Ye know," said the Buck, rising to his feet. "Ye know the Riddle of +the Gods. When Brahm ceases to dream the Heavens and the Hells and +Earth disappear. Be content. Brahm dreams still. The dreams come and +go, and the nature of the dreams changes, but still Brahm dreams. +Krishna has walked too long upon earth, and yet I love him the more +for the tale he has told. The Gods change, beloved--all save One!" + +"Ay, all save one that makes love in the hearts of men," said Krishna, +knotting his girdle. "It is but a little time to wait, and ye shall +know if I lie." + +"Truly it is but a little time, as thou sayest, and we shall know. Get +thee to thy huts again, beloved, and make sport for the young things, +for still Brahm dreams. Go, my children! Brahm dreams--and till He +wakes the Gods die not." + + * * * * * + +"Whither went they?" said the Lascar, awe-struck, shivering a little +with the cold. + +"God knows!" said Findlayson. The river and the island lay in full +daylight now, and there was never mark of hoof or pug on the wet earth +under the peepul. Only a parrot screamed in the branches, bringing +down showers of water-drops as he fluttered his wings. + +"Up! We are cramped with cold! Has the opium died out? Canst thou +move, Sahib?" + +Findlayson staggered to his feet and shook himself. His head swam and +ached, but the work of the opium was over, and, as he sluiced his +forehead in a pool, the Chief Engineer of the Kashi Bridge was +wondering how he had managed to fall upon the island, what chances the +day offered of return, and, above all, how his work stood. + +"Peroo, I have forgotten much. I was under the guard-tower watching +the river; and then--Did the flood sweep us away?" + +"No. The boats broke loose, Sahib, and" (if the Sahib had forgotten +about the opium, decidedly Peroo would not remind him) "in striving to +retie them, so it seemed to me--but it was dark--a rope caught the +Sahib and threw him upon a boat. Considering that we two, with +Hitchcock Sahib, built, as it were, that bridge, I came also upon the +boat, which came riding on horseback, as it were, on the nose of this +island, and so, splitting, cast us ashore. I made a great cry when the +boat left the wharf, and without doubt Hitchcock Sahib will come for +us. As for the bridge, so many have died in the building that it +cannot fall." + +A fierce sun, that drew out all the smell of the sodden land, had +followed the storm, and in that clear light there was no room for a +man to think of dreams of the dark. Findlayson stared up-stream, +across the blaze of moving water, till his eyes ached. There was no +sign of any bank to the Ganges, much less of a bridge-line. + +"We came down far," he said. "It was wonderful that we were not +drowned a hundred times." + +"That was the least of the wonder, for no man dies before his time. I +have seen Sydney, I have seen London, and twenty great ports, +but"--Peroo looked at the damp, discoloured shrine under the +peepul--"never man has seen that we saw here." + +"What?" + +"Has the Sahib forgotten; or do we black men only see the Gods?" + +"There was a fever upon me." Findlayson was still looking uneasily +across the water. "It seemed that the island was full of beasts and +men talking, but I do not remember. A boat could live in this water +now, I think." + +"Oho! Then it _is_ true. 'When Brahm ceases to dream, the Gods die.' +Now I know, indeed, what he meant. Once, too, the _guru_ said as much +to me; but then I did not understand. Now I am wise." + +"What?" said Findlayson over his shoulder. + +Peroo went on as if he were talking to himself. "Six--seven--ten +monsoons since, I was watch on the fo'c'sle of the _Rewah_--the +Kumpani's big boat--and there was a big _tufan_, green and black water +beating; and I held fast to the life-lines, choking under the waters. +Then I thought of the Gods--of Those whom we saw to-night"--he stared +curiously at Findlayson's back, but the white man was looking across +the flood. "Yes, I say of Those whom we saw this night past, and I +called upon Them to protect me. And while I prayed, still keeping my +lookout, a big wave came and threw me forward upon the ring of the +great black bow-anchor, and the _Rewah_ rose high and high, leaning +toward the left-hand side, and the water drew away from beneath her +nose, and I lay upon my belly, holding the ring, and looking down into +those great deeps. Then I thought, even in the face of death, if I +lose hold I die, and for me neither the _Rewah_ nor my place by the +galley where the rice is cooked, nor Bombay, nor Calcutta, nor even +London, will be any more for me. 'How shall I be sure,' I said, 'that +the Gods to whom I pray will abide at all?' This I thought, and the +_Rewah_ dropped her nose as a hammer falls, and all the sea came in +and slid me backward along the fo'c'sle and over the break of the +fo'c'sle, and I very badly bruised my shin against the donkey-engine: +but I did not die, and I have seen the Gods. They are good for live +men, but for the dead----They have spoken Themselves. Therefore, when +I come to the village I will beat the _guru_ for talking riddles which +are no riddles. When Brahm ceases to dream, the Gods go." + +"Look up-stream. The light blinds. Is there smoke yonder?" + +Peroo shaded his eyes with his hands. "He is a wise man and quick. +Hitchcock Sahib would not trust a rowboat. He has borrowed the Rao +Sahib's steam-launch, and comes to look for us. I have always said +that there should have been a steam-launch on the bridge-works for +us." + +The territory of the Rao of Baraon lay within ten miles of the bridge; +and Findlayson and Hitchcock had spent a fair portion of their scanty +leisure in playing billiards and shooting Black-buck with the young +man. He had been bear-led by an English tutor of sporting tastes for +some five or six years, and was now royally wasting the revenues +accumulated during his minority by the Indian Government. His +steam-launch, with its silver-plated rails, striped silk awning, and +mahogany decks, was a new toy which Findlayson had found horribly in +the way when the Rao came to look at the bridge-works. + +"It's great luck," murmured Findlayson, but he was none the less +afraid, wondering what news might be of the bridge. + +The gaudy blue and white funnel came down-stream swiftly. They could +see Hitchcock in the bows, with a pair of opera-glasses, and his face +was unusually white. Then Peroo hailed, and the launch made for the +tail of the island. The Rao Sahib, in tweed shooting-suit and a +seven-hued turban, waved his royal hand, and Hitchcock shouted. But he +need have asked no questions, for Findlayson's first demand was for +his bridge. + +"All serene! 'Gad, I never expected to see you again, Findlayson. +You're seven koss down-stream. Yes, there's not a stone shifted +anywhere; but how are you? I borrowed the Rao Sahib's launch, and he +was good enough to come along. Jump in." + +"Ah, Finlinson, you are very well, eh? That was most unprecedented +calamity last night, eh? My royal palace, too, it leaks like the +devil, and the crops will also be short all about my country. Now you +shall back her out, Hitchcock. I--I do not understand steam-engines. +You are wet? You are cold Finlinson? I have some things to eat here, +and you will take a good drink." + +"I'm immensely grateful, Rao Sahib. I believe you've saved my life. +How did Hitchcock----" + +"Oho! His hair was upon end. He rode to me in the middle of the night and +woke me up in the arms of Morphus. I was most truly concerned, Finlinson, +so I came too. My head-priest he is very angry just now. We will go quick, +Mister Hitchcock. I am due to attend at twelve-forty-five in the state +temple, where we sanctify some new idol. If not so I would have asked you +to spend the day with me. They are dam-bore, these religious ceremonies, +Finlinson, eh?" + +Peroo, well known to the crew, had possessed himself of the wheel, and +was taking the launch craftily up-stream. But while he steered he was, +in his mind, handling two feet of partially untwisted wire-rope; and +the back upon which he beat was the back of his _guru_. + + + + +IV + +THE MIRACLES + + + I sent a message to my dear-- + A thousand leagues and more to her-- + The dumb sea-levels thrilled to hear, + And lost Atlantis bore to her. + + Behind my message hard I came, + And nigh had found a grave for me; + But that I launched of steel and flame + Did war against the wave for me. + + Uprose the deep, by gale on gale, + To bid me change my mind again-- + He broke his teeth along my rail, + And, roaring, swung behind again. + + I stayed the sun at noon to tell + My way across the waste of it; + I read the storm before it fell + And made the better haste of it. + + Afar, I hailed the land at night-- + The towers I built had heard of me-- + And, ere my rocket reached its height, + Had flashed my Love the word of me. + + Earth gave her chosen men of strength + (They lived and strove and died for me) + To drive my road a nation's length, + And toss the miles aside for me. + + I snatched their toil to serve my needs-- + Too slow their fleetest flew for me-- + I tired twenty smoking steeds, + And bade them bait a new for me. + + I sent the lightnings forth to see + Where hour by hour she waited me. + Among ten million one was she, + And surely all men hated me! + + Dawn ran to meet us at my goal-- + Ah, day no tongue shall tell again!-- + And little folk of little soul + Rose up to buy and sell again! + + + + +V + +OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS + +1897 + +(_Canadian Preferential Tariff, 1897_) + + + A Nation spoke to a Nation. + A Queen sent word to a Throne: + "Daughter am I in my mother's house + But mistress in my own. + The gates are mine to open, + As the gates are mine to close, + And I set my house in order," + Said our Lady of the Snows. + + "Neither with laughter nor weeping, + Fear or the child's amaze-- + Soberly under the White Man's law + My white men go their ways. + Not for the Gentiles' clamour-- + Insult or threat of blows-- + Bow we the knee to Baal," + Said our Lady of the Snows. + + "My speech is clean and single, + I talk of common things-- + Words of the wharf and the market-place + And the ware the merchant brings: + Favour to those I favour, + But a stumbling-block to my foes. + Many there be that hate us," + Said our Lady of the Snows. + + "I called my chiefs to council + In the din of a troubled year; + For the sake of a sign ye would not see, + And a word ye would not hear. + This is our message and answer; + This is the path we chose: + For we be also a people," + Said our Lady of the Snows. + + "Carry the word to my sisters-- + To the Queens of the East and the South + I have proven faith in the Heritage + By more than the word of the mouth. + They that are wise may follow + Ere the world's war-trumpet blows, + But I--I am first in the battle," + Said our Lady of the Snows. + + _A Nation spoke to a Nation, + A Throne sent word to a Throne: + "Daughter am I in my mother's house, + But mistress in my own. + The gates are mine to open, + As the gates are mine to close, + And I abide by my Mother's House," + Said our Lady of the Snows._ + + + + +VI + +THE SONG OF THE WOMEN + +(_Lady Dufferin's Fund for medical Aid to the Women of India_). + + + How shall she know the worship we would do her? + The walls are high, and she is very far. + How shall the women's message reach unto her + Above the tumult of the packed bazaar? + Free wind of March, against the lattice blowing, + Bear thou our thanks, lest she depart unknowing. + + Go forth across the fields we may not roam in, + Go forth beyond the trees that rim the city, + To whatsoe'er fair place she hath her home in, + Who dowered us with wealth of love and pity. + Out of our shadow pass, and seek her singing-- + "I have no gifts but Love alone for bringing." + + Say that we be a feeble folk who greet her, + But old in grief, and very wise in tears; + Say that we, being desolate, entreat her + That she forget us not in after years; + For we have seen the light, and it were grievous + To dim that dawning if our lady leave us. + + By life that ebbed with none to stanch the failing, + By love's sad harvest garnered in the spring, + When Love in ignorance wept unavailing + O'er young buds dead before their blossoming; + By all the gray owl watched, the pale moon viewed, + In past grim years, declare our gratitude! + + By hands uplifted to the Gods that heard not, + By gifts that found no favour in their sight, + By faces bent above the babe that stirred not, + By nameless horrors of the stifling night; + By ills foredone, by peace her toils discover, + Bid Earth be good beneath and Heaven above her! + + If she have sent her servants in our pain, + If she have fought with Death and dulled his sword; + If she have given back our sick again, + And to the breast the weakling lips restored, + Is it a little thing that she has wrought? + Then Life and Death and Motherhood be naught. + + Go forth, oh, wind, our message on thy wings, + And they shall hear thee pass and bid thee speed, + In red-roofed hut, or white-walled home of kings, + Who have been helped by her in their need. + All spring shall give thee fragrance, and the wheat + Shall be a tasselled floor-cloth to thy feet. + + Haste, for our hearts are with thee, take no rest, + Loud-voiced ambassador, from sea to sea + Proclaim the blessing, manifold, confest, + Of those in darkness by her hand set free; + Then very softly to her presence move, + And whisper: "Lady, lo, they know and love!" + + + + +VII + +THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN + +1899 + + + Take up the White Man's burden-- + Send forth the best ye breed-- + Go bind your sons to exile + To serve your captives' need; + To wait in heavy harness, + On fluttered folk and wild-- + Your new-caught, sullen peoples, + Half-devil and half child. + + Take up the White Man's burden-- + In patience to abide, + To veil the threat of terror + And check the show of pride; + By open speech and simple, + An hundred times made plain, + To seek another's profit, + And work another's gain. + + Take up the White Man's burden-- + The savage wars of peace-- + Fill full the mouth of Famine + And bid the sickness cease; + And when your goal is nearest + The end for others sought, + Watch Sloth and heathen Folly + Bring all your hope to naught. + + Take up the White Man's burden-- + No tawdry rule of kings, + But toil of serf and sweeper-- + The tale of common things. + The ports ye shall not enter, + The roads ye shall not tread, + Go make them with your living, + And mark them with your dead. + + Take up the White Man's burden-- + And reap his old reward; + The blame of those ye better, + The hate of those ye guard-- + The cry of hosts ye humour + (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:-- + "Why brought ye us from bondage, + Our loved Egyptian night?" + + Take up the White Man's burden-- + Ye dare not stoop to less-- + Nor call too loud on Freedom + To cloak your weariness; + By all ye cry or whisper, + By all ye leave or do, + The silent, sullen peoples + Shall weigh your Gods and you. + + Take up the White Man's burden-- + Have done with childish days-- + The lightly proffered laurel + The easy, ungrudged praise. + Comes now, to search your manhood + Through all the thankless years, + Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, + The judgment of your peers! + + * * * * * + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child +Should Know, Book II, by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KIPLING STORIES AND POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 30568-8.txt or 30568-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/5/6/30568/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Juliet Sutherland, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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