Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated), page 213
After I had lain still for a little, sweating in my agony and waiting until I should awake from this terrible dream (for dream I knew it to be) he says again, that I must pay my price, and a little after, as though it were to be given in pagodas and sicca rupees: ‘What price will you pay?’ Says I, very softly: ‘For God’s sake let me be, whoever you are, and I will mend my ways from to-night.’ Says he, laughing a little at my words, but otherwise making no motion of having heard them: ‘Nay, I would only rid so brave a young ruffler as yourself of much that will be a great hindrance to you on your way through life in the Indies; for believe me,’ and here he looks full on me once more, ‘there is no return.’ At all this rigmarole, which I could not then understand, I was a good deal put aback and waited for what should come next. Says he very calmly, ‘Give me your trust in man.’ At that I saw how heavy would be my price, for I never doubted but that he could take from me all that he asked, and my head was, through terror and wakefulness, altogether cleared of the wine I had drunk. So I takes him up very short, crying that I was not so wholly bad as he would make believe, and that I trusted my fellows to the full as much as they were worthy of it. ‘It was none of my fault,’ says I, ‘if one half of them were liars and the other half deserved to be burnt in the hand, and I would once more ask him to have done with his questions.’ Then I stopped, a little afraid, it is true, to have let my tongue so run away with me, but he took no notice of this, and only laid his hand lightly on my left breast and I felt very cold there for a while. Then he says, laughing more: ‘Give me your faith in women.’ At that I started in my bed as though I had been stung, for I thought of my sweet mother in England, and for a while fancied that my faith in God’s best creatures could neither be shaken nor stolen from me. But later, Myself’s hard eyes being upon me, I fell to thinking, for the second time that night, of Kitty (she that jilted me and married Tom Sanderson) and of Mistress Vansuythen, whom only my devilish pride made me follow, and how she was even worse than Kitty, and I worst of them all — seeing that with my life’s work to be done, I must needs go dancing down the Devil’s swept and garnished causeway, because, forsooth, there was a light woman’s smile at the end of it. And I thought that all women in the world were either like Kitty or Mistress Vansuythen (as indeed they have ever since been to me) and this put me to such an extremity of rage and sorrow, that I was beyond word glad when Myself’s hand fell again on my left breast, and I was no more troubled by these follies.
After this he was silent for a little, and I made sure that he must go or I awake ere long: but presently he speaks again (and very softly) that I was a fool to care for such follies as those he had taken from me, and that ere he went he would only ask me for a few other trifles such as no man, or for matter of that boy either, would keep about him in this country. And so it happened that he took from out of my very heart as it were, looking all the time into my face with my own eyes, as much as remained to me of my boy’s soul and conscience. This was to me a far more terrible loss than the two that I had suffered before. For though, Lord help me, I had travelled far enough from all paths of decent or godly living, yet there was in me, though I myself write it, a certain goodness of heart which, when I was sober (or sick) made me very sorry of all that I had done before the fit came on me. And this I lost wholly: having in place thereof another deadly coldness at the heart. I am not, as I have before said, ready with my pen, so I fear that what I have just written may not be readily understood. Yet there be certain times in a young man’s life, when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to the more sorrowful state of manhood: as our staring Indian day changes into night with never so much as the gray of twilight to temper the two extremes. This shall perhaps make my state more clear, if it be remembered that my torment was ten times as great as comes in the natural course of nature to any man. At that time I dared not think of the change that had come over me, and all in one night: though I have often thought of it since. ‘I have paid the price,’ says I, my teeth chattering, for I was deadly cold, ‘and what is my return?’ At this time it was nearly dawn, and Myself had begun to grow pale and thin against the white light in the east, as my mother used to tell me is the custom of ghosts and devils and the like. He made as if he would go, but my words stopt him and he laughed — as I remember that I laughed when I ran Angus Macalister through the sword-arm last August, because he said that Mrs. Vansuythen was no better than she should be. ‘What return?’ — says he, catching up my last words — ’Why, strength to live as long as God or the Devil pleases, and so long as you live my young master, my gift.’ With that he puts something into my hand, though it was still too dark to see what it was, and when next I lookt up he was gone.
When the light came I made shift to behold his gift, and saw that it was a little piece of dry bread.
THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY
Wohl auf, my bully cavaliers,
We ride to church to-day,
The man that hasn’t got a horse
Must steal one straight away.
Be reverent, men, remember
This is a Gottes haus.
Du, Conrad, cut along der aisle
And schenck der whiskey aus.
HANS BREITMANN’S RIDE TO CHURCH.
Once upon a time, very far from England, there lived three men who loved each other so greatly that neither man nor woman could come between them. They were in no sense refined, nor to be admitted to the outer- door mats of decent folk, because they happened to be private soldiers in Her Majesty’s Army; and private soldiers of our service have small time for self-culture. Their duty is to keep themselves and their accoutrements specklessly clean, to refrain from getting drunk more often than is necessary, to obey their superiors, and to pray for a war. All these things my friends accomplished; and of their own motion threw in some fighting-work for which the Army Regulations did not call. Their fate sent them to serve in India, which is not a golden country, though poets have sung otherwise. There men die with great swiftness, and those who live suffer many and curious things. I do not think that my friends concerned themselves much with the social or political aspects of the East. They attended a not unimportant war on the northern frontier, another one on our western boundary, and a third in Upper Burma. Then their regiment sat still to recruit, and the boundless monotony of cantonment life was their portion. They were drilled morning and evening on the same dusty parade-ground. They wandered up and down the same stretch of dusty white road, attended the same church and the same grog- shop, and slept in the same lime-washed barn of a barrack for two long years. There was Mulvaney, the father in the craft, who had served with various regiments from Bermuda to Halifax, old in war, scarred, reckless, resourceful, and in his pious hours an unequalled soldier. To him turned for help and comfort six and a half feet of slow-moving, heavy-footed Yorkshireman, born on the wolds, bred in the dales, and educated chiefly among the carriers’ carts at the back of York railway- station. His name was Learoyd, and his chief virtue an unmitigated patience which helped him to win fights. How Ortheris, a fox-terrier of a Cockney, ever came to be one of the trio, is a mystery which even to- day I cannot explain. ‘There was always three av us,’ Mulvaney used to say. ‘An’ by the grace av God, so long as our service lasts, three av us they’ll always be. ‘Tis betther so.’
They desired no companionship beyond their own, and it was evil for any man of the regiment who attempted dispute with them. Physical argument was out of the question as regarded Mulvaney and the Yorkshireman; and assault on Ortheris meant a combined attack from these twain — a business which no five men were anxious to have on their hands. Therefore they flourished, sharing their drinks, their tobacco, and their money; good luck and evil; battle and the chances of death; life and the chances of happiness from Calicut in southern, to Peshawur in northern India.
Through no merit of my own it was my good fortune to be in a measure admitted to their friendship — frankly by Mulvaney from the beginning, sullenly and with reluctance by Learoyd, and suspiciously by Ortheris, who held to it that no man not in the Army could fraternise with a red- coat. ‘Like to like,’ said he. ‘I’m a bloomin’ sodger — he’s a bloomin’ civilian. ‘Tain’t natural — that’s all.’
But that was not all. They thawed progressively, and in the thawing told me more of their lives and adventures than I am ever likely to write.
Omitting all else, this tale begins with the Lamentable Thirst that was at the beginning of First Causes. Never was such a thirst — Mulvaney told me so. They kicked against their compulsory virtue, but the attempt was only successful in the case of Ortheris. He, whose talents were many, went forth into the highways and stole a dog from a ‘civilian’ — videlicet, some one, he knew not who, not in the Army. Now that civilian was but newly connected by marriage with the colonel of the regiment, and outcry was made from quarters least anticipated by Ortheris, and, in the end, he was forced, lest a worse thing should happen, to dispose at ridiculously unremunerative rates of as promising a small terrier as ever graced one end of a leading string. The purchase-money was barely sufficient for one small outbreak which led him to the guard-room. He escaped, however, with nothing worse than a severe reprimand, and a few hours of punishment drill. Not for nothing had he acquired the reputation of being ‘the best soldier of his inches’ in the regiment. Mulvaney had taught personal cleanliness and efficiency as the first articles of his companions’ creed. ‘A dhirty man,’ he was used to say, in the speech of his kind, ‘goes to Clink for a weakness in the knees, an’ is coort-martialled for a pair av socks missin’; but a clane man, such as is an ornament to his service — a man whose buttons are gold, whose coat is wax upon him, an’ whose ‘coutrements are widout a speck — THAT man may, spakin’ in reason, do fwhat he likes an’ dhrink from day to divil. That’s the pride av bein’ dacint.’
We sat together, upon a day, in the shade of a ravine far from the barracks, where a watercourse used to run in rainy weather. Behind us was the scrub jungle, in which jackals, peacocks, the gray wolves of the North-Western Provinces, and occasionally a tiger estrayed from Central India, were supposed to dwell. In front lay the cantonment, glaring white under a glaring sun; and on either side ran the broad road that led to Delhi.
It was the scrub that suggested to my mind the wisdom of Mulvaney taking a day’s leave and going upon a shooting-tour. The peacock is a holy bird throughout India, and he who slays one is in danger of being mobbed by the nearest villagers; but on the last occasion that Mulvaney had gone forth, he had contrived, without in the least offending local religious susceptibilities, to return with six beautiful peacock skins which he sold to profit. It seemed just possible then —
‘But fwhat manner av use is ut to me goin’ out widout a dhrink? The ground’s powdher-dhry underfoot, an’ ut gets unto the throat fit to kill,’ wailed Mulvaney, looking at me reproachfully. ‘An’ a peacock is not a bird you can catch the tail av onless ye run. Can a man run on wather — an’ jungle-wather too?’
Ortheris had considered the question in all its bearings. He spoke, chewing his pipe-stem meditatively the while:
‘Go forth, return in glory,
To Clusium’s royal ‘ome:
An’ round these bloomin’ temples ‘ang
The bloomin’ shields o’ Rome.
You better go. You ain’t like to shoot yourself — not while there’s a chanst of liquor. Me an’ Learoyd’ll stay at ‘ome an’ keep shop — ’case o’ anythin’ turnin’ up. But you go out with a gas-pipe gun an’ ketch the little peacockses or somethin’. You kin get one day’s leave easy as winkin’. Go along an’ get it, an’ get peacockses or somethin’.’
‘Jock,’ said Mulvaney, turning to Learoyd, who was half asleep under the shadow of the bank. He roused slowly.
‘Sitha, Mulvaaney, go,’ said he.
And Mulvaney went; cursing his allies with Irish fluency and barrack- room point.
‘Take note,’ said he, when he had won his holiday, and appeared dressed in his roughest clothes with the only other regimental fowling-piece in his hand. ‘Take note, Jock, an’ you Orth’ris, I am goin’ in the face av my own will — all for to please you. I misdoubt anythin’ will come av permiscuous huntin’ afther peacockses in a desolit lan’; an’ I know that I will lie down an’ die wid thirrrst. Me catch peacockses for you, ye lazy scutts — an’ be sacrificed by the peasanthry — Ugh!’
He waved a huge paw and went away.
At twilight, long before the appointed hour, he returned empty-handed, much begrimed with dirt.
‘Peacockses?’ queried Ortheris from the safe rest of a barrack-room table whereon he was smoking cross-legged, Learoyd fast asleep on a bench.
‘Jock,’ said Mulvaney without answering, as he stirred up the sleeper.
‘Jock, can ye fight? Will ye fight?’
Very slowly the meaning of the words communicated itself to the half- roused man. He understood — and again — what might these things mean? Mulvaney was shaking him savagely. Meantime the men in the room howled with delight. There was war in the confederacy at last — war and the breaking of bonds.
Barrack-room etiquette is stringent. On the direct challenge must follow the direct reply. This is more binding than the ties of tried friendship. Once again Mulvaney repeated the question. Learoyd answered by the only means in his power, and so swiftly that the Irishman had barely time to avoid the blow. The laughter around increased. Learoyd looked bewilderedly at his friend — himself as greatly bewildered. Ortheris dropped from the table because his world was falling.
‘Come outside,’ said Mulvaney, and as the occupants of the barrack-room prepared joyously to follow, he turned and said furiously, ‘There will be no fight this night — onless any wan av you is wishful to assist. The man that does, follows on.’
No man moved. The three passed out into the moonlight, Learoyd fumbling with the buttons of his coat. The parade-ground was deserted except for the scurrying jackals. Mulvaney’s impetuous rush carried his companions far into the open ere Learoyd attempted to turn round and continue the discussion.
‘Be still now. ‘Twas my fault for beginnin’ things in the middle av an end, Jock. I should ha’ comminst wid an explanation; but Jock, dear, on your sowl are ye fit, think you, for the finest fight that iver was — betther than fightin’ me? Considher before ye answer.’
More than ever puzzled, Learoyd turned round two or three times, felt an arm, kicked tentatively, and answered, ‘Ah’m fit.’ He was accustomed to fight blindly at the bidding of the superior mind.
They sat them down, the men looking on from afar, and Mulvaney untangled himself in mighty words.
‘Followin’ your fools’ scheme I wint out into the thrackless desert beyond the barricks. An’ there I met a pious Hindu dhriving a bullock- kyart. I tuk ut for granted he wud be delighted for to convoy me a piece, an’ I jumped in — ’
‘You long, lazy, black-haired swine,’ drawled Ortheris, who would have done the same thing under similar circumstances.
‘‘Twas the height av policy. That naygur-man dhruv miles an’ miles — as far as the new railway line they’re buildin’ now back av the Tavi river. “‘Tis a kyart for dhirt only,” says he now an’ again timoreously, to get me out av ut. “Dhirt I am,” sez I, “an’ the dhryest that you iver kyarted. Dhrive on, me son, an glory be wid you.” At that I wint to slape, an’ took no heed till he pulled up on the embankmint av the line where the coolies were pilin’ mud. There was a matther av two thousand coolies on that line — you remimber that. Prisintly a bell rang, an’ they throops off to a big pay-shed. “Where’s the white man in charge?” sez I to my kyart-dhriver. “In the shed,” sez he, “engaged on a riffle.” — ”A fwhat?” sez I. “Riffle,” sez he. “You take ticket. He take money. You get nothin’.” —
“Oho!” sez I, “that’s fwhat the shuperior an’ cultivated man calls a raffle, me misbeguided child av darkness an’ sin. Lead on to that raffle, though fwhat the mischief ‘tis doin’ so far away from uts home — which is the charity-bazaar at Christmas, an’ the colonel’s wife grinnin’ behind the tea-table — is more than I know.” Wid that I wint to the shed an’ found ‘twas pay-day among the coolies. Their wages was on a table forninst a big, fine, red buck av a man — sivun fut high, four fut wide, an’ three fut thick, wid a fist on him like a corn-sack. He was payin’ the coolies fair an’ easy, but he wud ask each man if he wud raffle that month, an’ each man sez? “Yes,” av course. Thin he wud deduct from their wages accordin’. Whin all was paid, he filled an ould cigar-box full av gun-wads an’ scatthered ut among the coolies. They did not take much joy av that performince, an’ small wondher. A man close to me picks up a black gun-wad an’ sings out, “I have ut.” — ”Good may ut do you,” sez I. The coolie wint forward to this big, fine, red man, who threw a cloth off av the most sumpshus, jooled, enamelled an’ variously bedivilled sedan-chair I iver saw.’
‘Sedan-chair! Put your ‘ead in a bag. That was a palanquin. Don’t yer know a palanquin when you see it?’ said Ortheris with great scorn.
‘I chuse to call ut sedan-chair, an’ chair ut shall be, little man,’ continued the Irishman. ‘‘Twas a most amazin’ chair — all lined wid pink silk an’ fitted wid red silk curtains. “Here ut is,” sez the red man. “Here ut is,” sez the coolie, an’ he grinned weakly-ways. “Is ut any use to you?” sez the red man. “No,” sez the coolie; “I’d like to make a presint av ut to you.” — ”I am graciously pleased to accept that same,” sez the red man; an’ at that all the coolies cried aloud in fwhat was mint for cheerful notes, an’ wint back to their diggin’, lavin’ me alone in the shed. The red man saw me, an’ his face grew blue on his big, fat neck. “Fwhat d’you want here?” sez he. “Standin’-room an’ no more,” sez I, “onless it may be fwhat ye niver had, an’ that’s manners, ye rafflin’ ruffian,” for I was not goin’ to have the Service throd upon. “Out of this,” sez he. “I’m in charge av this section av construction.” — ”I’m in charge av mesilf,” sez I, “an’ it’s like I will stay a while. D’ye raffle much in these parts?” — ”Fwhat’s that to you?” sez he. “Nothin’,” sez I, “but a great dale to you, for begad I’m thinkin’ you get the full half av your revenue from that sedan-chair. Is ut always raffled so?” I sez, an’ wid that I wint to a coolie to ask questions. Bhoys, that man’s name is Dearsley, an’ he’s been rafflin’ that ould sedan-chair monthly this matther av nine months. Ivry coolie on the section takes a ticket — or he gives ‘em the go — wanst a month on pay-day. Ivry coolie that wins ut gives ut back to him, for ‘tis too big to carry away, an’ he’d sack the man that thried to sell ut. That Dearsley has been makin’ the rowlin’ wealth av Roshus by nefarious rafflin’. Think av the burnin’ shame to the sufferin’ coolie-man that the army in Injia are bound to protect an’ nourish in their bosoms! Two thousand coolies defrauded wanst a month!’
