Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (611 page)

‘But they didn’t even look back, much less come. They ran to the village alehouse like hares.

‘“No matter for these canaille,” said Rene, buttoning up his coat so as not to show any linen. All gentlemen do that before a duel, Dad says — and he’s been out five times. “You shall be his second, Monsieur Gamm. Give him the pistol.”

‘Doctor Break took it as if it was red-hot, but he said that if Rene resigned his pretensions in certain quarters he would pass over the matter. Rene bowed deeper than ever.

‘“As for that,” he said, “if you were not the ignorant which you are, you would have known long ago that the subject of your remarks is not for any living man.”

‘I don’t know what the subject of his remarks might have been, but he spoke in a simply dreadful voice, my dear, and Doctor Break turned quite white, and said Rene was a liar; and then Rene caught him by the throat, and choked him black.

‘Well, my dear, as if this wasn’t deliciously exciting enough, just exactly at that minute I heard a strange voice on the other side of the hedge say, “What’s this? What’s this, Bucksteed?” and there was my father and Sir Arthur Wesley on horseback in the lane; and there was Rene kneeling on Doctor Break, and there was I up in the oak, listening with all my ears.

‘I must have leaned forward too much, and the voice gave me such a start that I slipped. I had only time to make one jump on to the pigsty roof — another, before the tiles broke, on to the pigsty wall — and then I bounced down into the garden, just behind Jerry, with my hair full of bark. Imagine the situation!’

‘Oh, I can!’ Una laughed till she nearly fell off the stool.

‘Dad said, “Phil — a — del — phia!” and Sir Arthur Wesley said, “Good Ged” and Jerry put his foot on the pistol Rene had dropped. But Rene was splendid. He never even looked at me. He began to untwist Doctor Break’s neckcloth as fast as he’d twisted it, and asked him if he felt better.

‘“What’s happened? What’s happened?” said Dad.

‘“A fit!” said Rene. “I fear my confrere has had a fit. Do not be alarmed. He recovers himself. Shall I bleed you a little, my dear Doctor?” Doctor Break was very good too. He said, “I am vastly obliged, Monsieur Laennec, but I am restored now.” And as he went out of the gate he told Dad it was a syncope — I think. Then Sir Arthur said, “Quite right, Bucksteed. Not another word! They are both gentlemen.” And he took off his cocked hat to Doctor Break and Rene.

‘But poor Dad wouldn’t let well alone. He kept saying, “Philadelphia, what does all this mean?”

‘“Well, sir,” I said, “I’ve only just come down. As far as I could see, it looked as though Doctor Break had had a sudden seizure.” That was quite true — if you’d seen Rene seize him. Sir Arthur laughed. “Not much change there, Bucksteed,” he said. “She’s a lady — a thorough lady.”

‘“Heaven knows she doesn’t look like one,” said poor Dad. “Go home, Philadelphia.”

‘So I went home, my dear — don’t laugh so! — -right under Sir Arthur’s nose — a most enormous nose — feeling as though I were twelve years old, going to be whipped. Oh, I beg your pardon, child!’

‘It’s all right,’ said Una. ‘I’m getting on for thirteen. I’ve never been whipped, but I know how you felt. All the same, it must have been funny!’

‘Funny! If you’d heard Sir Arthur jerking out, “Good Ged, Bucksteed!” every minute as they rode behind me; and poor Dad saying, ‘“‘Pon my honour, Arthur, I can’t account for it!” Oh, how my cheeks tingled when I reached my room! But Cissie had laid out my very best evening dress, the white satin one, vandyked at the bottom with spots of morone foil, and the pearl knots, you know, catching up the drapery from the left shoulder. I had poor mother’s lace tucker and her coronet comb.’

‘Oh, you lucky!’ Una murmured. ‘And gloves?’

‘French kid, my dear’ — Philadelphia patted her shoulder — ’and morone satin shoes and a morone and gold crape fan. That restored my calm. Nice things always do. I wore my hair banded on my forehead with a little curl over the left ear. And when I descended the stairs, en grande tenue, old Amoore curtsied to me without my having to stop and look at her, which, alas! is too often the case. Sir Arthur highly approved of the dinner, my dear: the mackerel did come in time. We had all the Marklake silver out, and he toasted my health, and he asked me where my little bird’s-nesting sister was. I know he did it to quiz me, so I looked him straight in the face, my dear, and I said, “I always send her to the nursery, Sir Arthur, when I receive guests at Marklake Hall.”‘

‘Oh, how chee — clever of you. What did he say?’ Una cried. ‘He said, “Not much change there, Bucksteed. Ged, I deserved it,” and he toasted me again. They talked about the French and what a shame it was that Sir Arthur only commanded a brigade at Hastings, and he told Dad of a battle in India at a place called Assaye. Dad said it was a terrible fight, but Sir Arthur described it as though it had been a whist-party — I suppose because a lady was present.’

‘Of course you were the lady. I wish I’d seen you,’said Una.

‘I wish you had, child. I had such a triumph after dinner. Rene and Doctor Break came in. They had quite made up their quarrel, and they told me they had the highest esteem for each other, and I laughed and said, “I heard every word of it up in the tree.” You never saw two men so frightened in your life, and when I said, “What was ‘the subject of your remarks,’ Rene?” neither of them knew where to look. Oh, I quizzed them unmercifully. They’d seen me jump off the pigsty roof, remember.’

‘But what was the subject of their remarks?’ said Una.

‘Oh, Doctor Break said it was a professional matter, so the laugh was turned on me. I was horribly afraid it might have been something unladylike and indelicate. But that wasn’t my triumph. Dad asked me to play on the harp. Between just you and me, child, I had been practising a new song from London — I don’t always live in trees — for weeks; and I gave it them for a surprise.’

‘What was it?’said Una. ‘Sing it.’

‘“I have given my heart to a flower.” Not very difficult fingering, but r-r-ravishing sentiment.’

Philadelphia coughed and cleared her throat.

‘I’ve a deep voice for my age and size,’ she explained. ‘Contralto, you know, but it ought to be stronger,’ and she began, her face all dark against the last of the soft pink sunset:

     ‘I have given my heart to a flower,

     Though I know it is fading away,

     Though I know it will live but an hour

     And leave me to mourn its decay!

‘Isn’t that touchingly sweet? Then the last verse — I wish I had my harp, dear — goes as low as my register will reach.’She drew in her chin, and took a deep breath:

     ‘Ye desolate whirlwinds that rave,

     I charge you be good to my dear!

     She is all — she is all that I have,

     And the time of our parting is near!’

‘Beautiful!’ said Una. ‘And did they like it?’ ‘Like it? They were overwhelmed — accables, as Rene says. My dear, if I hadn’t seen it, I shouldn’t have believed that I could have drawn tears, genuine tears, to the eyes of four grown men. But I did! Rene simply couldn’t endure it! He’s all French sensibility. He hid his face and said, “Assez, Mademoiselle! C’est plus fort que moi! Assez!” And Sir Arthur blew his nose and said, “Good Ged! This is worse than Assaye!” While Dad sat with the tears simply running down his cheeks.’

‘And what did Doctor Break do?’

‘He got up and pretended to look out of the window, but I saw his little fat shoulders jerk as if he had the hiccoughs. That was a triumph. I never suspected him of sensibility.’

‘Oh, I wish I’d seen! I wish I’d been you,’said Una, clasping her hands. Puck rustled and rose from the fern, just as a big blundering cock-chafer flew smack against Una’s cheek.

When she had finished rubbing the place, Mrs Vincey called to her that Pansy had been fractious, or she would have come long before to help her strain and pour off. ‘It didn’t matter,’ said Una; ‘I just waited. Is that old Pansy barging about the lower pasture now?’

‘No,’ said Mrs Vincey, listening. ‘It sounds more like a horse being galloped middlin’ quick through the woods; but there’s no road there. I reckon it’s one of Gleason’s colts loose. Shall I see you up to the house, Miss Una?’

‘Gracious, no! thank you. What’s going to hurt me?’ said Una, and she put her stool away behind the oak, and strolled home through the gaps that old Hobden kept open for her.

Brookland Road

     I was very well pleased with what I knowed,

     I reckoned myself no fool —

     Till I met with a maid on the Brookland Road

     That turned me back to school.

          Low down — low down!

          Where the liddle green lanterns shine —

          Oh!  maids, I’ve done with ‘ee all but one,

          And she can never be mine!

     ‘Twas right in the middest of a hot June night,

     With thunder duntin’ round,

     And I seed her face by the fairy light

     That beats from off the ground.

     She only smiled and she never spoke,

     She smiled and went away;

     But when she’d gone my heart was broke,

     And my wits was clean astray.

     Oh!  Stop your ringing and let me be —

     Let be, O Brookland bells!

     You’ll ring Old Goodman * out of the sea,

     Before I wed one else!

     Old Goodman’s farm is rank sea sand,

     And was this thousand year;

     But it shall turn to rich plough land

     Before I change my dear!

     Oh!  Fairfield Church is water-bound

     From Autumn to the Spring;

     But it shall turn to high hill ground

     Before my bells do ring!

     Oh!  leave me walk on the Brookland Road,

     In the thunder and warm rain —

     Oh!  leave me look where my love goed

     And p’raps I’ll see her again!

          Low down — low down!

          Where the liddle green lanterns shine —

          Oh!  maids, I’ve done with ‘ee all but one,

          And she can never be mine!

               *Earl Godwin of the Goodwin Sands(?)

THE KNIFE AND THE NAKED CHALK

The Run of the Downs

     The Weald is good, the Downs are best —

     I’ll give you the run of ‘em, East to West.

     Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,

     They were once and they are still.

     Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount Harry

     Go back as far as sums’ll carry.

     Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring,

     They have looked on many a thing;

     And what those two have missed between ‘em

     I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen ‘em.

     Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down

     Knew Old England before the Crown.

     Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood

     Knew Old England before the Flood.

     And when you end on the Hampshire side —

     Butser’s old as Time and Tide.

     The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,

     You be glad you are Sussex born!

The Knife and the Naked Chalk

The children went to the seaside for a month, and lived in a flint village on the bare windy chalk Downs, quite thirty miles away from home. They made friends with an old shepherd, called Mr Dudeney, who had known their Father when their Father was little. He did not talk like their own people in the Weald of Sussex, and he used different names for farm things, but he understood how they felt, and let them go with him. He had a tiny cottage about half a mile from the village, where his wife made mead from thyme honey, and nursed sick lambs in front of a coal fire, while Old Jim, who was Mr Dudeney’s sheep-dog’s father, lay at the door. They brought up beef bones for Old Jim (you must never give a sheep-dog mutton bones), and if Mr Dudeney happened to be far in the Downs, Mrs Dudeney would tell the dog to take them to him, and he did.

One August afternoon when the village water-cart had made the street smell specially townified, they went to look for their shepherd as usual, and, as usual, Old Jim crawled over the doorstep and took them in charge. The sun was hot, the dry grass was very slippery, and the distances were very distant.