Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (600 page)

“Am I allowed to remodel the batch — up above?” I asked anxiously.

“Litera scripta manet. That’s in the Delectus and Eternity.” He turned round to the semi-circle of Characters: “Ladies and gentlemen, who are all a great deal better than you should be by virtue of my power, let me introduce you to your maker. If you have anything to say to him, you can say it.”

“What insolence!” said Mrs. Hauksbee between her teeth. “This isn’t a Peterhoff drawing-room. I haven’t the slightest intention of being leveed by this person. Polly, come here and we’ll watch the animals go by.” She and Mrs. Mallowe stood at my side. I turned crimson with shame, for it is an awful thing to see one’s Characters in the solid.

“Wal,” said Gilead P. Beck as he passed, “I would not be you at this pre-Q\se moment of time, not for all the ile in the univarsal airth. No, sirr! I thought my dinner-party was soul- shatterin’, but it’s mush — mush and milk — to your circus. Let the good work go on!”

I turned to the company and saw that they were men and women, standing upon their feet as folks should stand. Again I forgot the Devil, who stood apart and sneered. From the distant door of entry I could hear the whistle of arriving souls, from the semi-darkness at the end of the hall came the thunderous roar of the Furnace of First Edition, and everywhere the restless crowds of Characters muttered and rustled like windblown autumn leaves. But I looked upon my own people and was perfectly content as man could be.

“I have seen you study a new dress with just such an expression of idiotic beatitude,” whispered Mrs. Mallowe to Mrs. Plauksbee. “Ilush!” said the latter. “He thinks he understands.” Then to me: “Please trot them out. Eternity is long enough in all conscience, but that is no reason for wasting it. Pro-ceed, or shall I call them up? Mrs. Vansuythen, Mr. Boult, Mrs. Boult, Captain Ivurrel and the Major!” The European population in Kashima in the Dosehri hills, the actors in the “Wayside Comedy, moved towards me; and I saw with delight that they were human. “So you wrote about us?” said Mrs. Boult. “About my confession to my husband and my hatred of that Vansuythen woman? Did you think that you understood? Are all men such fools?” “That woman is bad form,” said Mrs. Hauks- bee, “but she speaks the truth. I wonder what these soldiers have to say.” Gunner Barnabas and Private Shacklock stopped, saluted, and hoped I would take no offence if they gave it as their opinion that I had not “got them down quite right.” I gasped.

A spurred Hussar succeeded, his wife on his arm. It was Captain Gadsby and Minnie, and close behind them swaggered Jack Maf- flin, the Brigadier-General in his arms. “Had the cheek to try to describe our life, had you?” said Gadsby carelessly. “Ha-hmm! S’pose he understood, Minnie?” Mrs. Gadsby raised her face to her husband and murmured: “I’m sure he didn’t, Pip,” while Poor Dear Mamma, still in her riding-habit, hissed: “I’m sure he didn’t understand me” And these also went their way.

One after another they filed by — Trewinnard, the pet of his Department; Otis Yeere, lean and lanthorn-jawed; Crook O’Neil and Bobby Wick arm in arm; Janki Meah, the blind miner in the Jimahari coal fields; Afzul Khan, the policeman; the murderous Pathan horse-dealer, Durga Dass; the bunnia, Boh Da Thone; the dacoit, Dana Da, weaver of false magic; the Leander of the Barhwi ford; Peg Barney, drunk as a coot; Mrs. Delville, the dowd; Dinah Shadd, large, red-cheeked and resolute; Simmons, Slane and Losson; Georgie Porgie and his Burmese helpmate; a shadow in a high collar, who was all that I had ever indicated of the Hawley Boy — the nameless men and women who had trod the Hill of Illusion and lived in the Tents of Kedar, and last, His Majesty the King.

Each one in passing told me the same tale, and the burden thereof was: “You did not understand.” My heart turned sick within me. “Where’s Wee Willie Winkie?” I shouted. “Little children don’t lie.”

A clatter of pony’s feet followed, and the child appeared, habited as on the day he rode into Afghan territory to warn Coppy’s love against the “bad men.” “I’ve been playing,” he sobbed, “playing on ve Levels wiv Jackanapes and Lollo, an’ he says I’m only just borrowed. I’m isn’t borrowed. I’m Willie Wi-inkie! Vere’s Coppy?”

“‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,’ “ whispered the Devil, who had drawn nearer. “You know the rest of the proverb. Don’t look as if you were going to be shot in the morning! Here are the last of your gang.”

I turned despairingly to the Three Musketeers, dearest of all my children to me — to Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd. Surely the Three would not turn against me as the others had done! I shook hands with Mulvaney. “Terence, how goes? Are you going to make fun of me, too?” “ ‘Tis not for me to make fun av you, sorr,” said the Irishman, “knowin’ as I du know, fwat good friends we’ve been for the matter av three years.”

“Fower,” said Ortheris,” ‘twas in the Helan- thami barricks, H block, we was become acquaint, an’ ‘ere’s thankin’ you kindly for all the beer we’ve drunk twix’ that and now.”

“Four ut is, then,” said Mulvaney. “He an’

Dinah Shadd are your friends, but” He stood uneasily.

“But what?” I said.

“Savin’ your presence, sorr, an’ it’s more than onwillin’ I am to be hurtin’ you; you did not ondersthand. On my sowl an’ honour, sorr, you did not ondersthand. Come along, you two.”

But Ortheris stayed for a moment to whisper: “It’s Gawd’s own trewth, but there’s this ‘ere to think. ‘Tain’t the bloomin’ belt that’s wrong, as Peg Barney sez, when he’s up for bein’ dirty on p’rade. ‘Tain’t the bloomin’ belt, sir; it’s the bloomin’ pipeclay.” Ere I could seek an explanation he had joined his companions.

“For a private soldier, a singularly shrewd man,” said Mrs. Hauksbee, and she repeated Ortheris’s words. The last drop filled my cup, and I am ashamed to say that I bade her be quiet in a wholly unjustifiable tone. I was rewarded by what would have been a notable lecture on propriety, had I not said to the Devil: “Change that woman to a d — d doll again! Change ‘em all back as they were — as they are. I’m sick of them.”

“Poor wretch!” said the Devil of Discontent very quietly. “They are changed.”

The reproof died on Mrs. Hauksbee’s lips, and she moved away marionette-fashion, Mrs. Mallowe trailing after her. I hastened after the remainder of the Characters, and they were changed indeed — even as the Devil had said, who kept at my side.

They limped and stuttered and staggered and mouthed and staggered round me, till I could endure no more.

“So I am the master of this idiotic puppet- show, am I?” I said bitterly, watching Mulvaney trying to come to attention by spasms.

“In saecula saeculorum” said the Devil, bowing his head; “and you needn’t kick, my dear fellow, because they will concern no one but yourself by the time you whistle up to the door. Stop reviling me and uncover. Here’s the Master!”

Uncover! I would have dropped on my knees, had not the Devil prevented me, at sight of the portly form of Maitre Francois Rabelais, some time Cure of Meudon. lie wore a smoke-stained apron of the colours of Gargan- tua. I made a sign which was duly returned. “An Entered Apprentice in difficulties with his rough ashlar, Worshipful Sir,” explained the Devil. I was too angry to speak.

Said the Master, rubbing his chin: “Are those things yours?” “Even so, Worshipful Sir,” I muttered, praying inwardly that the Characters would at least keep quiet while the Master was near. He touched one or two thoughtfully, put his hand upon my shoulder and started: “By the Great Bells of Notre Dame, you are in the flesh — the warm flesh! — the flesh I quitted so long — ah, so long! And you fret and behave unseemly because of these shadows! Listen now! I, even I, would give my Three, Panurge, Gargantua and Panta- gruel, for one little hour of the life that is in you. And I am the Master!”

But the words gave me no comfort. I could hear Mrs. Mallowe’s joints cracking — or it might have been merely her stays.

“Worshipful Sir, he will not believe that,” said the Devil. “Who live by shadows lust for shadows. Tell him something more to his need.”

The Master grunted contemptuously: “And he is flesh and blood! Know this, then. The First Law is to make them stand upon their feet, and the Second is to make them stand upon their feet, and the Third is to make them stand upon their feet. But, for all that, Trajan is a fisher of frogs.” He passed on, and I could hear him say to himself: “One hour — one minute — of life in the flesh, and I would sell the Great Perhaps thrice over!”

“Well,” said the Devil, “you’ve made the Master angry, seen about all there is to be seen, except the Furnace of First Edition, and, as the Master is in charge of that, I should avoid it. Now you’d better go. You know what you ought to do?”

“I don’t need all Hell”

“Pardon me. Better men than you have called this Paradise.”

“All Hell, I said, and the Master to tell me what I knew before. What I want to know is how?” “Go and find out,” said the Devil. We turned to the door, and I was aware that my Characters had grouped themselves at the exit. “They are going to give you an ovation. Think o’ that, now!” said the Devil. I shuddered and dropped my eyes, while one-and-fifty voices broke into a wailing song, whereof the words, so far as I recollect, ran:

But we brought forth and reared in hours Of change, alarm, surprise. What shelter to grow ripe is ours — What leisure to grow wise?

I ran the gauntlet, narrowly missed collision with an impetuous soul (I hoped he liked his Characters when he met them), and flung free into the night, where I should have knocked my head against the stars. But the Devil caught me.

******

The brain-fever bird was fluting across the grey, dewy lawn, and the punkah had stopped again. “Go to Jehannum and get another man to pull,” I said drowsily. “Exactly,” said a voice from the inkpot.

Now the proof that this story is absolutely true lies in the fact that there will be no other to follow it.

THE END

REWARDS AND FAIRIES

Published in 1910, this historical fantasy book is a sequel to
Puck of Pook’s Hill
. The title comes from the poem
Farewell, Rewards and Fairies
by Richard Corbet, which is referred to by the children in the previous book.
Rewards and Fairies
is set one year later and consists of a series of short stories set in historical times with a linking contemporary narrative. Dan and Una are two children, living in the Weald of Sussex in the area of Kipling’s own home Bateman’s. They have encountered Puck and he magically conjures up real and fictional individuals from the area’s past to tell the children some aspect of its history and prehistory, though the episodes are not always historically accurate. Another recurring character is Old Hobden who represents the continuity of the inhabitants of the land. His ancestors sometimes appear in the stories and seem very much like him.

CONTENTS

A CHARM

INTRODUCTION

COLD IRON

GLORIANA

THE LOOKING-GLASS

THE WRONG THING

MARKLAKE WITCHES

THE KNIFE AND THE NAKED CHALK

BROTHER SQUARE-TOES

‘A PRIEST IN SPITE OF HIMSELF’

THE CONVERSION OF ST WILFRID

A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE

SIMPLE SIMON

THE TREE OF JUSTICE

A CHARM

     Take of English earth as much

     As either hand may rightly clutch.

     In the taking of it breathe

     Prayer for all who lie beneath —

     Not the great nor well-bespoke,

     But the mere uncounted folk

     Of whose life and death is none

     Report or lamentation.

     Lay that earth upon thy heart,

     And thy sickness shall depart!

     It shall sweeten and make whole