Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (626 page)

‘I stubborn? I stiff-necked? I ascribed all my poor success, under God’s good providence, to Divine Astrology. Not to me the glory! You talk as that dear weeping ass Jack Marget preached before I went back to my work in Red Lion House, Spitalfields.’

‘Oh! Stammering Jack preached, did he? They say he loses his stammer in the pulpit.’

‘And his wits with it. He delivered a most idolatrous discourse when the plague was stayed. He took for his text: “The wise man that delivered the city.” I could have given him a better, such as: “There is a time for — ”‘

‘But what made you go to church to hear him?’ Puck interrupted. ‘Wail Attersole was your lawfully appointed preacher, and a dull dog he was!’

Mr Culpeper wriggled uneasily.

‘The vulgar,’ said he, ‘the old crones and — ahem! — -the children, Alison and the others, they dragged me to the House of Rimmon by the hand. I was in two minds to inform on Jack for maintaining the mummeries of the falsely-called Church, which, I’ll prove to you, are founded merely on ancient fables — ’

‘Stick to your herbs and planets,’ said Puck, laughing. ‘You should have told the magistrates, Nick, and had Jack fined. Again, why did you neglect your plain duty?’

‘Because — because I was kneeling, and praying, and weeping with the rest of ‘em at the Altar-rails. In medicine this is called the Hysterical Passion. It may be — it may be.’

‘That’s as may be,’ said Puck. They heard him turn the hay. ‘Why, your hay is half hedge-brishings,’ he said. ‘You don’t expect a horse to thrive on oak and ash and thorn leaves, do you?’

Ping-ping-ping went the bicycle bell round the corner. Nurse was coming back from the mill.

‘Is it all right?’ Una called.

‘All quite right,’ Nurse called back. ‘They’re to be christened next Sunday.’

‘What? What?’ They both leaned forward across the half-door. It could not have been properly fastened, for it opened, and tilted them out with hay and leaves sticking all over them.

‘Come on! We must get those two twins’ names,’ said Una, and they charged uphill shouting over the hedge, till Nurse slowed up and told them. When they returned, old Middenboro had got out of his stall, and they spent a lively ten minutes chasing him in again by starlight.

‘Our Fathers of Old’

     Excellent herbs had our fathers of old —

     Excellent herbs to ease their pain —

     Alexanders and Marigold,

     Eyebright, Orris, and Elecampane,

     Basil, Rocket, Valerian, Rue,

     (Almost singing themselves they run)

     Vervain, Dittany, Call-me-to-you —

     Cowslip, Melilot, Rose of the Sun.

     Anything green that grew out of the mould

     Was an excellent herb to our fathers of old.

     Wonderful tales had our fathers of old —

     Wonderful tales of the herbs and the stars —

     The Sun was Lord of the Marigold,

     Basil and Rocket belonged to Mars.

     Pat as a sum in division it goes —

     (Every plant had a star bespoke) —

     Who but Venus should govern the Rose?

     Who but Jupiter own the Oak?

     Simply and gravely the facts are told

     In the wonderful books of our fathers of old.

     Wonderful little, when all is said,

     Wonderful little our fathers knew.

     Half their remedies cured you dead —

     Most of their teaching was quite untrue —

     ‘Look at the stars when a patient is ill,

     (Dirt has nothing to do with disease,)

     Bleed and blister as much as you will,

     Blister and bleed him as oft as you please.’

     Whence enormous and manifold

     Errors were made by our fathers of old.

     Yet when the sickness was sore in the land,

     And neither planet nor herb assuaged,

     They took their lives in their lancet-hand

     And, oh, what a wonderful war they waged!

     Yes, when the crosses were chalked on the door —

     Yes, when the terrible dead-cart rolled,

     Excellent courage our fathers bore —

     Excellent heart had our fathers of old.

     Not too learned, but nobly bold,

     Into the fight went our fathers of old.

     If it be certain, as Galen says,

     And sage Hippocrates holds as much —

     ‘That those afflicted by doubts and dismays

     Are mightily helped by a dead man’s touch,’

     Then, be good to us, stars above!

     Then, be good to us, herbs below!

     We are afflicted by what we can prove;

     We are distracted by what we know —

     So — ah, so!

     Down from your Heaven or up from your mould,

     Send us the hearts of our fathers of old!

SIMPLE SIMON

The Thousandth Man

     One man in a thousand, Solomon says,

       Will stick more close than a brother.

     And it’s worth while seeking him half your days

       If you find him before the other.

     Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend

       on what the world sees in you,

     But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend

       With the whole round world agin you.

     ‘Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show

       Will settle the finding for ‘ee.

     Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em go

       By your looks or your acts or your glory.

     But if he finds you and you find him,

       The rest of the world don’t matter;

     For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim

       With you in any water.

     You can use his purse with no more shame

       Than he uses yours for his spendings;

     And laugh and mention it just the same

       As though there had been no lendings.

     Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em call

       For silver and gold in their dealings;

     But the Thousandth Man he’s worth ‘em all,

       Because you can show him your feelings!

     His wrong’s your wrong, and his right’s your right,

       In season or out of season.

     Stand up and back it in all men’s sight —

       With that for your only reason!

     Nine hundred and ninety-nine can’t bide

       The shame or mocking or laughter,

     But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side

       To the gallows-foot — and after!

Simple Simon

Cattiwow came down the steep lane with his five-horse timber-tug. He stopped by the wood-lump at the back gate to take off the brakes. His real name was Brabon, but the first time the children met him, years and years ago, he told them he was ‘carting wood,’ and it sounded so exactly like ‘cattiwow’ that they never called him anything else.

‘HI!’ Una shouted from the top of the wood-lump, where they had been watching the lane. ‘What are you doing? Why weren’t we told?’

‘They’ve just sent for me,’ Cattiwow answered. ‘There’s a middlin’ big log stacked in the dirt at Rabbit Shaw, and’ — he flicked his whip back along the line — ’so they’ve sent for us all.’

Dan and Una threw themselves off the wood-lump almost under black Sailor’s nose. Cattiwow never let them ride the big beam that makes the body of the timber-tug, but they hung on behind while their teeth thuttered.

The Wood road beyond the brook climbs at once into the woods, and you see all the horses’ backs rising, one above another, like moving stairs. Cattiwow strode ahead in his sackcloth woodman’s petticoat, belted at the waist with a leather strap; and when he turned and grinned, his red lips showed under his sackcloth-coloured beard. His cap was sackcloth too, with a flap behind, to keep twigs and bark out of his neck. He navigated the tug among pools of heather-water that splashed in their faces, and through clumps of young birches that slashed at their legs, and when they hit an old toadstooled stump, they never knew whether it would give way in showers of rotten wood, or jar them back again.

At the top of Rabbit Shaw half-a-dozen men and a team of horses stood round a forty-foot oak log in a muddy hollow. The ground about was poached and stoached with sliding hoofmarks, and a wave of dirt was driven up in front of the butt.

‘What did you want to bury her for this way?’ said Cattiwow. He took his broad-axe and went up the log tapping it.

‘She’s sticked fast,’ said ‘Bunny’ Lewknor, who managed the other team.

Cattiwow unfastened the five wise horses from the tug. They cocked their ears forward, looked, and shook themselves.

‘I believe Sailor knows,’ Dan whispered to Una.

‘He do,’ said a man behind them. He was dressed in flour sacks like the others, and he leaned on his broad-axe, but the children, who knew all the wood-gangs, knew he was a stranger. In his size and oily hairiness he might have been Bunny Lewknor’s brother, except that his brown eyes were as soft as a spaniel’s, and his rounded black beard, beginning close up under them, reminded Una of the walrus in ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter.’

‘Don’t he justabout know?’ he said shyly, and shifted from one foot to the other.

‘Yes. “What Cattiwow can’t get out of the woods must have roots growing to her.”‘ Dan had heard old Hobden say this a few days before.

At that minute Puck pranced up, picking his way through the pools of black water in the ling.

‘Look out!’ cried Una, jumping forward. ‘He’ll see you, Puck!’

‘Me and Mus’ Robin are pretty middlin’ well acquainted,’ the man answered with a smile that made them forget all about walruses.

‘This is Simon Cheyneys,’ Puck began, and cleared his throat. ‘Shipbuilder of Rye Port; burgess of the said town, and the only — ’

‘Oh, look! Look ye! That’s a knowing one,’ said the man.

Cattiwow had fastened his team to the thin end of the log, and was moving them about with his whip till they stood at right angles to it, heading downhill. Then he grunted. The horses took the strain, beginning with Sailor next the log, like a tug-of-war team, and dropped almost to their knees. The log shifted a nail’s breadth in the clinging dirt, with the noise of a giant’s kiss.

‘You’re getting her!’ Simon Cheyneys slapped his knee. ‘Hing on! Hing on, lads, or she’ll master ye! Ah!’

Sailor’s left hind hoof had slipped on a heather-tuft. One of the men whipped off his sack apron and spread it down. They saw Sailor feel for it, and recover. Still the log hung, and the team grunted in despair.

‘Hai!’ shouted Cattiwow, and brought his dreadful whip twice across Sailor’s loins with the crack of a shot-gun. The horse almost screamed as he pulled that extra last ounce which he did not know was in him. The thin end of the log left the dirt and rasped on dry gravel. The butt ground round like a buffalo in his wallow. Quick as an axe-cut, Lewknor snapped on his five horses, and sliding, trampling, jingling, and snorting, they had the whole thing out on the heather.

‘Dat’s the very first time I’ve knowed you lay into Sailor — to hurt him,’ said Lewknor.

‘It is,’ said Cattiwow, and passed his hand over the two wheals. ‘But I’d ha’ laid my own brother open at that pinch. Now we’ll twitch her down the hill a piece — she lies just about right — and get her home by the low road. My team’ll do it, Bunny; you bring the tug along. Mind out!’

He spoke to the horses, who tightened the chains. The great log half rolled over, and slowly drew itself out of sight downhill, followed by the wood-gang and the timber-tug. In half a minute there was nothing to see but the deserted hollow of the torn-up dirt, the birch undergrowth still shaking, and the water draining back into the hoof-prints.

‘Ye heard him?’ Simon Cheyneys asked. ‘He cherished his horse, but he’d ha’ laid him open in that pinch.’