Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (547 page)

‘Weren’t you afraid?’ said Una.

‘Why? There were no Christians in the boat. At sunrise I made my prayer, and cast the gold — all — all that gold — into the deep sea! A King’s ransom — no, the ransom of a People! When I had loosed hold of the last bar, the Lord commanded the tide to return me to a haven at the mouth of a river, and thence I walked across a wilderness to Lewes, where I have brethren. They opened the door to me, and they say — I had not eaten for two days — they say that I fell across  the threshold, crying: “I have sunk an army with horsemen in the sea!”‘

‘But you hadn’t,’ said Una. ‘Oh, yes! I see! You meant that King John might have spent it on that?’

‘Even so,’ said Kadmiel.

The firing broke out again close behind them. The pheasants poured over the top of a belt of tall firs. They could see young Mr Meyer, in his new yellow gaiters, very busy and excited at the end of the line, and they could hear the thud of the falling birds.

‘But what did Elias of Bury do?’ Puck demanded. ‘He had promised money to the King.’

Kadmiel smiled grimly. ‘I sent him word from London that the Lord was on my side. When he heard that the Plague had broken out in Pevensey, and that a Jew had been thrust into the Castle to cure it, he understood my word was true. He and Adah hurried to Lewes and asked me for an accounting. He still looked on the gold as his own. I told them where I had laid it, and I gave them full leave to pick it up ... Eh, well! The curses of a fool and the dust of a journey are two things no wise man can escape ... But I pitied Elias! The King was wroth with him because he could not lend; the Barons were wroth too because they heard that he would have lent to the King; and Adah was wroth with him because she was an odious woman. They took ship from Lewes to Spain. That was wise!’

‘And you? Did you see the signing of  the Law at Runnymede?’ said Puck, as Kadmiel laughed noiselessly.

‘Nay. Who am I to meddle with things too high for me? I returned to Bury, and lent money on the autumn crops. Why not?’

There was a crackle overhead. A cock-pheasant that had sheered aside after being hit spattered down almost on top of them, driving up the dry leaves like a shell.
Flora
and
Folly
threw themselves at it; the children rushed forward, and when they had beaten them off and smoothed down the plumage Kadmiel had disappeared.

‘Well,’ said Puck calmly, ‘what did you think of it? Weland gave the Sword! The Sword gave the Treasure, and the Treasure gave the Law. It’s as natural as an oak growing.’

‘I don’t understand. Didn’t he know it was Sir Richard’s old treasure?’ said Dan. ‘And why did Sir Richard and Brother Hugh leave it lying about? And — and —  — ’

‘Never mind,’ said Una politely. ‘He’ll let us come and go and look and know another time. Won’t you, Puck?’

‘Another time maybe,’ Puck answered. ‘Brr! It’s cold — and late. I’ll race you towards home!’

They hurried down into the sheltered valley. The sun had almost sunk behind Cherry Clack, the trodden ground by the cattle-gates was freezing at the edges, and the new-waked north wind blew the night on them from over the hills. They picked up their feet and flew across the browned pastures, and when they halted, panting in the steam of their own breath, the dead leaves  whirled up behind them. There was Oak and Ash and Thorn enough in that year-end shower to magic away a thousand memories.

So they trotted to the brook at the bottom of the lawn, wondering why
Flora
and
Folly
had missed the quarry-hole fox.

Old Hobden was just finishing some hedge-work. They saw his white smock glimmer in the twilight where he faggoted the rubbish.

‘Winter, he’s come, I reckon, Mus’ Dan,’ he called. ‘Hard times now till Heffle Cuckoo Fair. Yes, we’ll all be glad to see the Old Woman let the Cuckoo out o’ the basket for to start lawful Spring in England.’

They heard a crash, and a stamp and a splash of water as though a heavy old cow were crossing almost under their noses.

Hobden ran forward angrily to the ford.

‘Gleason’s bull again, playin’ Robin all over the Farm! Oh, look, Mus’ Dan — his great footmark as big as a trencher. No bounds to his impidence! He might count himself to be a man or — or Somebody —  — ’

A voice the other side of the brook boomed:

‘I wonder who his cloak would turn When Puck had led him round, Or where those walking fires would burn —  — ’

Then the children went in singing ‘Farewell Rewards and Fairies’ at the tops of their voices. They had forgotten that they had not even said good-night to Puck.

THE CHILDREN’S SONG

Land of our Birth, we pledge to theeOur love and toil in the years to be;
When we are grown and take our place,
As men and women with our race.

Father in Heaven Who lovest all, Oh, help Thy children when they call; That they may build from age to age, An undefiled heritage.

Teach us to bear the yoke in youth, With steadfastness and careful truth; That, in our time, Thy Grace may give The Truth whereby the Nations live.

Teach us to rule ourselves alway, Controlled and cleanly night and day; That we may bring, if need arise, No maimed or worthless sacrifice.

Teach us to look in all our ends, On Thee for judge, and not our friends; That we, with Thee, may walk uncowed By fear or favour of the crowd.

Teach us the Strength that cannot seek, By deed or thought, to hurt the weak; That, under Thee, we may possess Man’s strength to comfort man’s distress.

Teach us Delight in simple things, And Mirth that has no bitter springs; Forgiveness free of evil done, And Love to all men ‘neath the sun!

Land of our Birth, our faith, our pride,For whose dear sake our fathers died;
O Motherland, we pledge to thee
Head, heart and hand through the years to be!

ACTIONS AND REACTIONS

This collection of short stories was first published in 1909.

CONTENTS

AN HABITATION ENFORCED

THE RECALL

GARM — A HOSTAGE

THE POWER OF THE DOG

THE MOTHER HIVE

THE BEES AND THE FLIES

WITH THE NIGHT MAIL

A STORY OF 2000 A. D.

THE FOUR ANGELS

A DEAL IN COTTON

THE NEW KNIGHTHOOD

THE PUZZLER

LITTLE FOXES

GALLIO’S SONG

THE HOUSE SURGEON

THE RABBI’S SONG

AN HABITATION ENFORCED

         My friend, if cause doth wrest thee,

         Ere folly hath much oppressed thee,

         Far from acquaintance kest thee

         Where country may digest thee...

         Thank God that so hath blessed thee,

         And sit down, Robin, and rest thee.

         — THOMAS TUSSER.

It came without warning, at the very hour his hand was outstretched to crumple the Holz and Gunsberg Combine. The New York doctors called it overwork, and he lay in a darkened room, one ankle crossed above the other, tongue pressed into palate, wondering whether the next brain-surge of prickly fires would drive his soul from all anchorages. At last they gave judgment. With care he might in two years return to the arena, but for the present he must go across the water and do no work whatever. He accepted the terms. It was capitulation; but the Combine that had shivered beneath his knife gave him all the honours of war: Gunsberg himself, full of condolences, came to the steamer and filled the Chapins’ suite of cabins with overwhelming flower-works.

“Smilax,” said George Chapin when he saw them. “Fitz is right. I’m dead; only I don’t see why he left out the ‘In Memoriam’ on the ribbons!”

“Nonsense!” his wife answered, and poured him his tincture. “You’ll be back before you can think.”

He looked at himself in the mirror, surprised that his face had not been branded by the hells of the past three months. The noise of the decks worried him, and he lay down, his tongue only a little pressed against his palate.

An hour later he said: “Sophie, I feel sorry about taking you away from everything like this. I — I suppose we’re the two loneliest people on God’s earth to-night.”

Said Sophie his wife, and kissed him: “Isn’t it something to you that we’re going together?”

They drifted about Europe for months — sometimes alone, sometimes with chance met gipsies of their own land. From the North Cape to the Blue Grotto at Capri they wandered, because the next steamer headed that way, or because some one had set them on the road. The doctors had warned Sophie that Chapin was not to take interest even in other men’s interests; but a familiar sensation at the back of the neck after one hour’s keen talk with a Nauheimed railway magnate saved her any trouble. He nearly wept.

“And I’m over thirty,” he cried. “With all I meant to do!”

“Let’s call it a honeymoon,” said Sophie. “D’ you know, in all the six years we’ve been married, you’ve never told me what you meant to do with your life?”

“With my life? What’s the use? It’s finished now.” Sophie looked up quickly from the Bay of Naples. “As far as my business goes, I shall have to live on my rents like that architect at San Moritz.”

“You’ll get better if you don’t worry; and even if it rakes time, there are worse things than — How much have you?”

“Between four and five million. But it isn’t the money. You know it isn’t. It’s the principle. How could you respect me? You never did, the first year after we married, till I went to work like the others. Our tradition and upbringing are against it. We can’t accept those ideals.”

“Well, I suppose I married you for some sort of ideal,” she answered, and they returned to their forty-third hotel.

In England they missed the alien tongues of Continental streets that reminded them of their own polyglot cities. In England all men spoke one tongue, speciously like American to the ear, but on cross-examination unintelligible.

“Ah, but you have not seen England,” said a lady with iron-grey hair. They had met her in Vienna, Bayreuth, and Florence, and were grateful to find her again at Claridge’s, for she commanded situations, and knew where prescriptions are most carefully made up. “You ought to take an interest in the home of our ancestors as I do.”

“I’ve tried for a week, Mrs. Shonts,” said Sophie, “but I never get any further than tipping German waiters.”

“These men are not the true type,” Mrs. Shouts went on. “I know where you should go.”

Chapin pricked up his ears, anxious to run anywhere from the streets on which quick men, something of his kidney, did the business denied to him.

“We hear and we obey, Mrs. Shonts,” said Sophie, feeling his unrest as he drank the loathed British tea.

Mrs. Shonts smiled, and took them in hand. She wrote widely and telegraphed far on their behalf till, armed with her letter of introduction, she drove them into that wilderness which is reached from an ash-barrel of a station called Charing Cross. They were to go to Rockett’s — the farm of one Cloke, in the southern counties — where, she assured them, they would meet the genuine England of folklore and song.

Rocketts they found after some hours, four miles from a station, and, so far as they could, judge in the bumpy darkness, twice as many from a road. Trees, kine, and the outlines of barns showed shadowy about them when they alighted, and Mr. and Mrs. Cloke, at the open door of a deep stone-floored kitchen, made them shyly welcome. They lay in an attic beneath a wavy whitewashed ceiling, and, because it rained, a wood fire was made in an iron basket on a brick hearth, and they fell asleep to the chirping of mice and the whimper of flames.