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 WEE WILLIE WINKIE 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING 
 
 NEW YORK 
 MANHATTAN PRESS 
 
 474 WEST BROADWAY
 
 WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 
 
 " AN officer and a gentleman." 
 
 His full name was Percival William Wil- 
 liams, but he picked up the other name in a 
 nursery-book, and that was the end of the 
 christened titles. His mother's ayah called 
 him W\\\ie-l?al>a, but as he never paid the 
 faintest attention to anything that the ayah 
 said, her wisdom did not help matters. 
 
 His father was the Colonel of the i95th, 
 and as soon as Wee Willie Winkie was old 
 enough to understand what Military Discipline 
 meant, Colonel Williams put him under it. 
 There was no other way of managing the child. 
 When he was good for a week, he drew good- 
 conduct pay ; and when he was bad, he was- 
 deprived of his good-conduct stripe. Generally 
 he was bad, for India offers so many chances* 
 to little six-year-olds of going wrong. 
 
 Children resent familiarity from strangers, 
 and Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular 
 child. Once he accepted an acquaintance, 
 he was graciously pleased to thaw. He ac- 
 cepted Brandis, a subaltern of the igsth, on. 
 
 2234735
 
 8 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 sight. Brandis was having tea at the Col- 
 onel's, and Wee Willie Winkie entered strong 
 in the possession of a good-conduct badge 
 won for not chasing the hens round the com- 
 pound. He regarded Brandis with gravity for 
 at least ten minutes, and then delivered him- 
 self of his opinion. 
 
 " I like you," said he slowly, getting off his 
 chair and coming over to Brandis. " I like 
 you. I shall call you Coppy, because of your 
 hair. Do you mind being called Coppy ? it 
 is because of ve hair, you know." 
 
 Here was one of the most embarrassing of 
 Wee Willie Winkie's peculiarities. He would 
 look at a stranger for some time, and then, 
 without warning or explanation, would give 
 him a name. And the name stuck. No regi- 
 mental penalties could break Wee Willie 
 Winkie of this habit. He lost his good-con- 
 duct badge for christening the Commissioner's 
 wife " Fobs ; " but nothing that the Colonel 
 could do made the Station forego the nick- 
 name, and Mrs. Collen remained Mrs. " Fobs " 
 till the end of her stay. So Brandis was 
 christened " Coppy," and rose, therefore, in 
 the estimation of the regiment. 
 
 If Wee Willie Winkie took an interest in 
 any one, the fortunate man was envied alike 
 by the mess and the rank and file. And in 
 their envy lay no suspicion of self-interest. 
 " The Colonel's son " was idolized on his 
 own merits entirely. Yet Wee Willie Winkie
 
 Wee Willie Winkie 9 
 
 was not lovely. His face was permanently 
 freckled, as his legs were permanently 
 scratched, and in spite of his mother's almost 
 tearful remonstrances he had insisted upon 
 having his long yellow locks cut short in 
 the military fashion. " I want my hair like 
 Sergeant Tummil's," said Wee Willie Winkie, 
 and, his father abetting, the sacrifice was ac- 
 complished. 
 
 Three weeks after the bestowal of his 
 youthful affections on Lieutenant Brandis 
 henceforward to be called " Coppy " for 
 the sake of brevity Wee Willie Winkie was 
 destined to behold strange things and far 
 beyond his comprehension. 
 
 Coppy returned his liking with interest 
 Coppy had let him wear for five rapturous 
 minutes his own big sword just as tall as 
 Wee Willie Winkie. Coppy had promised him 
 a terrier puppy ; and Coppy had permitted 
 him to witness the miraculous operation of 
 shaving. Nay, more Coppy had said that 
 even he, Wee Willie Winkie, would rise in 
 time to the ownership of a box of shiny knives, 
 a silver soap-box and a silver-handled " sput- 
 ter-brush," as Wee Willie Winkie called it. 
 Decidedly, there was no one except his father, 
 who could give or take away good-conduct 
 badges at pleasure, half so wise, strong, and 
 valiant as Coppy with the Afghan and 
 Egyptian medals on his breast. Why, then, 
 should Coppy be guilty of the unmanly weak-
 
 io Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 ness of kissing vehemently kissing a " big 
 girl," Miss Allardyce to wit ? In the course of 
 a morning ride, Wee Willie Winkie had seen 
 Coppy so doing, and, like the gentleman he 
 was, had promptly wheeled round and can- 
 tered back to his groom, lest the groom 
 should also see. 
 
 Under ordinary circumstances he would 
 have spoken to his father, but he felt instinct- 
 ively that this was a matter on which Coppy 
 ought first to be consulted. 
 
 " Coppy," shouted Wee Willie Winkie, rein- 
 ing up outside that subaltern's bungalow early 
 one morning " I want to see you, Coppy 1 " 
 
 " Come in, young 'un," returned Coppy, 
 who was at early breakfast in the midst of his 
 dogs. " What mischief have you been getting 
 into now ? " 
 
 Wee Willie Winkie had done nothing notor- 
 iously bad for three days, and so stood on a 
 pinnacle of virtue. 
 
 " I've been doing nothing bad," said he, 
 curling himself into a long chair with a studious 
 affectation of the Colonel's languor after a hot 
 parade. He buried his freckled nose in a 
 teacup and, with eyes staring roundly over the 
 rim, asked : " I say, Coppy, is it pwoper to 
 kiss big girls ? " 
 
 " By Jove 1 You're beginning early. Who 
 do you want to kiss ? " 
 
 " No one. My muvver's always kissing me 
 if I don't stop her. If it isn't pwoper, how
 
 Wee Willie Winkie u 
 
 was you kissing Major Allardyce's big girl last 
 morning, by ve canal ? " 
 
 Coppy's brow wrinkled. He and Miss 
 Allardyce had with great craft managed to 
 keep their engagement secret for a fortnight. 
 There were urgent and imperative reasons why 
 Major Allardyce should not know how mat- 
 ters stood for at least another month, and this 
 small marplot had discovered a great deal too 
 much. 
 
 "I saw you," said Wee Willie Winkie 
 calmly. " But ve groom didn't see. I said, 
 ' Hutjao? " 
 
 " Oh, you had that much sense, you young 
 Rip," groaned poor Coppy, half amused and 
 half angry. " And how many people may you 
 have told about it ? " 
 
 " Only me myself. You didn't tell when I 
 twied to wide ve buffalo ven my pony was 
 lame ; and I fought you wouldn't like." 
 
 " Winkie," said Coppy enthusiastically, shak- 
 ing the small hand, " you're the best of good 
 fellows. Look here, you can't understand all 
 these things. One of these days hang it, 
 how can I make you see it I I'm going to 
 marry Miss Allardyce, and then she'll be Mrs. 
 Coppy, as you say. If your young mind is so 
 scandalized at the idea of kissing big girls, go 
 and tell your father." 
 
 " What will happen ? " said Wee Willie 
 Winkie, who firmly believed that his father 
 was omnipotent.
 
 12 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 " I shall get into trouble," said Coppy,, play- 
 ing his trump card with an appealing look 
 at the holder of the ace. 
 
 "Ven I won't," said Wee Willie Winkie 
 briefly. " But my faver says it's un-man-ly 
 to be always kissing, and I didn't fink you'd 
 do vat, Coppy." 
 
 " I'm not always kissing, old chap. It's 
 only ' now and then, and when you're bigger 
 you'll do it too. Your father meant it's not 
 good : for little boys." 
 
 " Ah' I " said Wee Willie Winkie, now fully 
 enlightened. " It's like ve sputter-brush ? " 
 
 " Exactly," said Coppy gravely. 
 
 "But I don't fink I'll ever want to kiss 
 big girls, nor no one, 'cept my muvver. And 
 I must vat, you know." 
 
 There was a long pause, broken by Wee 
 Willie Winkie. 
 
 " Are you fond of vis big girl, Coppy ? " 
 
 '" Awfully 1 " said Coppy. 
 
 " Fonder van you are of Bell or ve Butcha 
 or me ? " 
 
 " Jt's in a different way," said Coppy. 
 " You see, one of these days Miss Allardyce 
 will belong to me, but you'll grow up and com- 
 mand the Regiment and all sorts of things. 
 It's quite different, you see." 
 
 "Very well," said Wee Willie Winkie, 
 rising 1 ; " If you're fond of ve big girl, I won't 
 tell 'any one. 1 I must go now." 
 
 Coppy rose and escorted his small guest to
 
 Wee Willie Winkie 13 
 
 the door, adding : " You're the best of little 
 fellows, Winkie. I tell you what. In thirty 
 days from now you can tell if you like tell 
 any one you like." 
 
 Thus the secret of the Brandis-Allardyce 
 engagement was dependent on a little child's 
 word. Coppy, who knew Wee Willie Winkie's 
 idea of truth, was at ease, for he felt that he 
 would not break promises. Wee Willie Winkie 
 betrayed a special and unusual interest in 
 Miss Allardyce, and, slowly revolving round 
 that embarrassed young lady, was used to 
 regard her gravely with unwinking eye. He 
 was trying to discover why Coppy should have 
 kissed her. She was not half so nice as his 
 own mother. On the other hand, she was 
 Coppy's property, and would in time belong 
 to him. Therefore it behooved him to treat 
 her with as much respect as Coppy's big sword 
 or shiny pistol. 
 
 The idea that he shared a great secret in 
 common with Coppy kept Wee Willie Winkie 
 unusually virtuous for three weeks. Then the 
 Old Adam broke out, and he made what he 
 called a " camp-fire " at the bottom of the 
 garden. How could he have foreseen that 
 the flying sparks would have lighted the Col- 
 onel's little hayrick and consumed a week's 
 store for the horses ? Sudden and swift was 
 the punishment deprivation of the good- 
 conduct badge and, most sorrowful of all, two 
 days confinement to barracks the house and
 
 14 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 veranda coupled with the withdrawal of the 
 light of his father's countenance. 
 
 He took the sentence like the man he strove 
 to be, drew himself up with a quivering under- 
 lip, saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran to 
 weep bitterly in his nursery called by him 
 " my quarters." Coppy came in the after- 
 noon and attempted to console the culprit. 
 
 " I'm under awwest," said Wee Willie 
 Winkie mournfully, " and I didn't ought to 
 speak to you." 
 
 Very early the next morning he climbed on 
 to the roof of the house that was not for- 
 bidden and beheld Miss Allardyce going for 
 a ride. 
 
 " Where are you going " cried Wee Willie 
 Winkie. 
 
 " Across the river," she answered, and trot- 
 ted forward. 
 
 Now the cantonment in which the i95th lay 
 was bounded on the north by a river dry in 
 the winter. From his earliest years, Wee 
 Willie Winkie had been forbidden to go across 
 the river, and had noted that even Coppy 
 the almost almighty Coppy had never set 
 foot beyond it Wee Willie Winkie had once 
 been read to, out of a big blue book, the his- 
 tory of the Princess and the Goblins a most 
 wonderful tale of a land where the Goblins 
 were always warring with the children of men 
 until they were defeated by one Curdie. Ever 
 since that date it seemed to him that the bare
 
 Wee Willie Winkie 15 
 
 black and purple hills across the river were 
 inhabited by Goblins, and, in truth, every one 
 had said that there lived the Bad Men. Even 
 in his own house the lower halves of the win- 
 dows were covered with green paper on ac- 
 count of the Bad Men who might, if allowed 
 clear view, fire into peaceful drawing-rooms 
 and comfortable bedrooms. Certainly, beyond 
 the river, which was the end of all the Earth, 
 lived the Bad Men. And here was Major Al- 
 lardyce's big girl, Coppy's property, preparing 
 to venture into their borders ! What would 
 Coppy say if anything happened to her ? If 
 the Goblins ran off with her as they did with 
 Curdie's Princess ? She must at all hazards 
 be turned back. 
 
 The house was still. Wee Willie Winkie 
 reflected for a moment on the very terrible 
 wrath of his father ; and then broke his arrest! 
 It was a crime unspeakable. The low sun 
 threw his shadow, very large and very black, 
 on the trim garden-paths, as he went down to 
 the stables and ordered his pony. It seemed 
 to him in the hush of the dawn that all the big 
 world had been bidden to stand still and look 
 at Wee Willie Winkie guilty of mutiny. The 
 drowsy groom handed him his mount, and, 
 since the one great sin made all others insig- 
 nificant, Wee Willie Winkie said that he was 
 going to ride over to Coppy Sahib, and went 
 out at a foot-pace, stepping on the soft mould 
 of the flower-borders.
 
 16 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 The devastating track of the pony's feet was 
 the last misdeed that cut him off from all 
 sympathy of Humanity. He turned into the 
 road, leaned forward, and rode as fast as the 
 pony could put foot to the ground in the direc- 
 tion of the river. 
 
 But the liveliest of twelve-two ponies can do 
 little against the long canter of a Waler. Miss 
 Allardyce was far ahead, had passed through 
 the crops, beyond the Police-post, when all the 
 guards were asleep, and her mount was 
 scattering the pebbles of the river bed as Wee 
 Willie Winkie left the cantonment and British 
 India behind him. Bowed forward and still 
 flogging, Wee Willie Winkie shot into Afghan 
 territory, and could just see Miss Allardyce, a 
 black speck, flickering across the stony plain. 
 The reason of her wandering was simple 
 enough. Coppy, in a tone of too-hastily-as- 
 sumed authority, had told her over night that 
 she must not ride out by the river. And she 
 had gone to prove her own spirit and teach 
 Coppy a lesson. 
 
 Almost at the foot of the inhospitable hills, 
 Wee Willie Winkie saw the Waler blunder and 
 come down heavily. Miss Allardyce struggled 
 clear, but her ankle had been severely twisted, 
 and she could not stand. Having thus demon- 
 strated her spirit, she wept copiously, and 
 was surprised by the apparition of a white, 
 wide-eyed child in khaki, on a nearly spent 
 pony.
 
 Wee Willie Winkie 17 
 
 " Are you badly, badly hurted ? " shouted 
 Wee Willie Winkie, as soon as he was within 
 range. " You didn't ought to be here." 
 
 "I don't know," said Miss Allardyce rue- 
 fully, ignoring the reproof. " Good gracious, 
 child, what are you doing here ? " 
 
 " You said you was going acwoss ve wiver," 
 panted Wee Willie Winkie, throwing himself 
 off his pony. " And nobody not even Cop- 
 py must go acwoss ve wiver, and I came 
 after you ever so hard, but you wouldn't stop, 
 and now you've hurted yourself, and Coppy 
 will be angwy wiv me, and I've bwoken my 
 awwest 1 I've bwoken my awwest 1 " 
 
 The future Colonel of the igsth sat down 
 and sobbed. In spite of the pain in her ankle 
 the girl was moved. 
 
 " Have you ridden all the way from canton- 
 ments, little man ? What for ? " 
 
 " You belonged to Coppy. Coppy told me 
 so 1 " wailed Wee Willie Winkie disconsolately. 
 " I saw him kissing you, and he said he was 
 fonder of you van Bell or ve Butcha or me. 
 And so I came. You must get up and come 
 back. You didn't ought to be here. Vis is a 
 bad place, and I've bwoken my awwest." 
 
 " I can't move, Winkie," said Miss Allar- 
 dyce, with a groan. " I've hurt my foot. 
 What shall I do ? " 
 
 She showed a readiness to weep afresh, 
 which steadied Wee Willie Winkie, who had 
 been brought up to believe that tears were the 
 
 2
 
 r8 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 depth of unmanliness. Still, when one is as 
 great a sinner as Wee Willie Winkie, even a 
 man may be permitted to break down. 
 
 " Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, " when 
 you've rested a little, ride back and tell them 
 to send out something to carry me back in. 
 It hurts fearfully." 
 
 The child sat still for a little time and Miss 
 Allardyce closed her eyes ; the pain was nearly 
 making her faint. She was roused by Wee 
 Willie Winkie tying up the reins on his pony's 
 neck and setting it free with a vicious cut of 
 his whip that made it whicker. The little 
 animal headed towards the cantonments. 
 
 " Oh, Winkie I What are you doing ? " 
 
 " Hush 1 " said Wee Willie Winkie. "Vere's 
 a man coming one of ve Bad Men. I must 
 stay wiv you. My faver says a man must 
 always look after a girl. Jack will go home, 
 and ven vey'll come and look for us. Vat's 
 why I let him go." 
 
 Not one man but two or three had appeared 
 ifrom behind the rocks of the hills, and the 
 'heart of Wee Willie Winkie sank within him, 
 for just in this manner were the Goblins wont 
 to steal out and vex Curdie's soul. Thus had 
 they played in Curdie's garden, he had seen 
 the picture, and thus had they frightened the 
 Princess's nurse. He heard them talking to 
 each other, and recognized with joy the bastard 
 Pushto that he had picked up from one of his 
 father's grooms lately dismissed. People who
 
 Wee Willie Winkie 19 
 
 spoke that tongue could not be the Bad Men. 
 They were only natives after all. 
 
 They came up to the boulders on which 
 Miss Allardyce's horse had blundered. 
 
 Then rose from the rock Wee Willie 
 Winkie, child of the Dominant Race, aged 
 six and three-quarters, and said briefly and 
 emphatically "Jaof" The pony had crossed 
 the river-bed. 
 
 The men laughed, and laughter from na- 
 tives was the one thing Wee Willie Winkie 
 could not tolerate. He asked them what they 
 wanted and why they did not depart. Other 
 men with most evil faces and crooked-stocked 
 guns crept out of the shadows of the hills, till, 
 soon, Wee Willie Winkie was face to face 
 with an audience some twenty strong. Miss 
 Allardyce screamed. 
 
 " Who are you ? " said one of the men. 
 
 " I am the Colonel Sahib's son, and my 
 order is that you go at once. You black 
 men are frightening the Miss Sahib. One of 
 you must run into cantonments and take the 
 news that the Miss Sahib has hurt herself, 
 and that the Colonel's son is here with her." 
 
 " Put our feet into the trap ? " was the 
 laughing reply. " Hear this boy's speech ! " 
 
 "Say that I sent you I, the Colonel's 
 son. They will give you money." 
 
 " What is the use of this talk ? Take up 
 the child and the girl, and we can at least 
 ask for the ransom. Ours are the villages
 
 2O Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 on the heights," said a voice in the back 
 ground. 
 
 These were the Bad Men worse than Gob- 
 lins and it needed all Wee Willie Winkie's 
 training to prevent him from bursting into 
 tears. But he felt that to cry before a. native, 
 excepting only his mother's ayah, would be 
 an infamy greater than any mutiny. More- 
 over, he, as future Colonel of the. i95th, had 
 that grim regiment at his back. 
 
 " Are you going to carry us away ? " said 
 Wee Willie Winkie, very blanched and un- 
 comfortable. 
 
 " Yes, my little Sahib Bahadur" said the 
 tallest of the men, " and eat you afterwards." 
 
 "That is child's talk," said Wee Willie 
 Winkie. " Men do not eat men." 
 
 A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he 
 went on firmly, " And if you do carry us 
 away, I tell you that all my regiment will 
 come up in a day and kill you all without 
 leaving one. Who will take my message to 
 the Colonel Sahib ? " 
 
 Speech in any vernacular and Wee Willie 
 Winkie had a colloquial acquaintance with 
 three -was easy to the boy who could not 
 yet manage his " r's " and " th's " aright. 
 
 Another man joined the conference, cry- 
 ing : " O foolish men ! What this babe 
 says is true. He is the heart's heart of 
 those white troops. For the sake of peace 
 let them go both, for if he be taken, the reg*
 
 Wee Willie Winkie 21 
 
 imeit will break loose and gut the valley. 
 Our villages are in the valley, and we shall 
 not escape. That regiment are devils. They 
 broke Khoda Yar's breast-bone with kicks 
 when he tried to take the rifles ; and if we 
 touch this child they will fire and rape and 
 plunder for a month, till nothing remains. 
 Better to send a man back to take the mes- 
 sage and get a reward. I say that this child 
 is their God, and that they will spare none of 
 us, nor our women, if we harm him." 
 
 It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed 
 groom of the Colonel, who made the diver- 
 sion, and an angry and heated discussion 
 followed. Wee Willie Winkie, standing over 
 Miss Allardyce, waited the upshot Surely 
 his " wegimcnt, ' his own " wegiment," would 
 not desert him if they knew of his extrem- 
 ity 
 
 The riderless pony brought the news to the 
 1 95th, though there had been consternation 
 in the Colonel's household for an hour be- 
 fore. The little beast came in through the 
 parade-ground in front of the main barracks, 
 where the .men were settling down to play 
 Spoil-five till the afternoon. Devlin, the 
 color Sergeant of E Company, glanced at 
 the empty saddle and tumbled through the 
 barrack-rooms, kicking up each Room Cor- 
 poml as he passed. " Up, ye beggars I
 
 22 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 There's something happened to the Colonel's 
 son," he shouted. 
 
 " He couldn't fall off 1 S'elp me, 'e 
 couldn't fall off," blubbered a drummer-boy. 
 " Go an' hunt acrost the river. He's over 
 there if he's anywhere, an* maybe those 
 Pathans have got 'im. For the love o* Gawd 
 don't look for 'im in the nullahs 1 Let's go 
 over the river." 
 
 " There's sense in Mott yet," said Devlin. 
 " E Company, double out to the river sharp 1" 
 
 So E Company, in its shirt-sleeves mainly, 
 double for the dear life, and in the rear 
 toiled the perspiring Sergeant, adjuring it 
 to double yet faster. The cantonment was 
 alive with the men of the igsth hunting for 
 Wee Willie Winkie, and the Colonel finally 
 overtook E Company, far too exhausted to 
 swear, struggling in the pebbles of the river-bed. 
 
 Up the hill under which Wee Willie 
 Winkie's Bad Men were discussing the wis- 
 dom of carrying off the child and the girl, 
 a lookout fired two shots. 
 
 t'What have I said?" shouted Din Ma- 
 hommed. " There is the warning 1 The 
 pulton are out already and are coming across 
 the plain 1 Get away 1 Let us not be seen 
 with the boy 1 " 
 
 The men waited for an instant, and then, 
 as another shot was fired, withdrew into the 
 hills, silently as they had appeared. 
 
 " The wegiment is coming," said Wee
 
 Wee Willie Winkie 23 
 
 Willie Winkie confidently to Miss Allardyce, 
 " and it's all wight. Don't cwy 1 " 
 
 He needed the advice himself, for ten min- 
 utes later, when his father came up, he was 
 weeping bitterly with his head in Miss Allar- 
 dyce's lap. 
 
 And the men of the iQ5th carried him 
 home with shouts and rejoicings ; and Coppy, 
 who had ridden a horse into a lather, met him, 
 and, to his intense disgust, kissed him openly 
 in the presence of the men. 
 
 But there was balm for his dignity. His 
 father assured him that not only would the 
 breaking of arrest be condoned, but that the 
 good-conduct badge would be restored as soon 
 as his mother could sew it on his blouse-sleeve. 
 Miss Allardyce had told the Colonel a story 
 that made him proud of his son. 
 
 " She belonged to you, Coppy," said Wee 
 Willie Winkie, indicating Miss Allardyce 
 with a grimy forefinger. " I knew she didn't 
 ought to go acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve 
 wegiment would come to me if I sent Jack 
 home." 
 
 " You're a hero, Winkie," said Coppy " a 
 pukka hero 1 " 
 
 " I don't know what vat means," said 
 Wee Willie Winkie, " but you mustn't call me 
 Winkie any no more. I'm Percival Will'am 
 Will'ams."' 
 
 And in this manner did Wee Willie Win- 
 kle enter into his manhood.
 
 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP. 
 
 BAA Baa, Black Sheep, 
 
 Have you any wool ? 
 
 Yes, Sir, yes, Sir, three bags full. 
 
 One for the Master, one for the Dame 
 
 None for the Little Boy that cries down the lane. 
 
 THE FIRST BAG. 
 
 * WHEN I was in my father's house, I was in a better 
 place." 
 
 THEY were putting Punch to bed the ayah 
 and the hamal and Meeta, the big Surti 
 boy with the red and gold turban. Judy, 
 already tucked inside her mosquito-curtains, 
 was nearly asleep. Punch had been allowed 
 to stay up for dinner. Many privileges had 
 been accorded to Punch within the last ten 
 days, and a greater kindness from the people 
 of his world had encompassed his ways and 
 works, which were mostly obstreperous. He 
 sat on the edge of his bed and swung his bare 
 legs defiantly. 
 24
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 25 
 
 " Punch-/W><j going to bye-lo ? " said the 
 ayah suggestively. 
 
 " No," said Punch. " Punch-fata wants 
 the story about the Ranee that was turned 
 into a tiger. Meeta must tell it, and the 
 hamal shall hide behind the door and make 
 tiger noises at the proper time." 
 
 " But ]udy-l>al>a will wake up," said the 
 ayah. 
 
 "]\idy-baba is waking," piped a small voice 
 from the mosquito-curtains. " There was a 
 Ranee that lived at Delhi. Go on, Meeta," 
 and she fell fast asleep again while Meeta 
 began the story. 
 
 Never had Punch secured the telling of 
 that tale with so little opposition. He reflected 
 for a long time. The hamal made the tiger- 
 noises in twenty different keys. 
 
 " 'Top ! " said Punch, authoritatively. 
 " Why doesn't Papa come in and say he is 
 going to give me put-put 1 " 
 
 " Punch-&al>a is going away," said the ayah. 
 " In another week there will be no Punch- 
 baba to pull my hair any more." She sighed 
 softly, for the boy of the household was very 
 dear to her heart. 
 
 "Up the Ghauts in a train ? " said Punch, 
 standing on his bed. " All the way to Nas- 
 sick where the Ranee-Tiger lives ? " 
 
 " Not to Nassick this year, little Sahib," 
 said Meeta, lifting him on his shoulder. 
 " Down to the sea where the cocoanuts are
 
 26 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 thrown, and across the sea in a big ship, 
 Will you take Meeta with you to Belait ? " 
 
 " You shall all come," said Punch, from 
 the height of Meeta's strong arms. " Meeta 
 and the ayah and the hamal and Bhini-in-the- 
 Garden, and the salaam-Captain-Sahib-snake- 
 man." 
 
 There was no mockery in Meeta's voice 
 when he replied " Great is the Sahib's favor," 
 and laid the little man down in the bed, while 
 the ayah, sitting in the moonlight at the door- 
 way, lulled him to sleep with an interminable 
 canticle such as they sing in the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church at Parel. Punch curled himself 
 into a ball and slept. 
 
 Next morning Judy shouted that there was 
 a rat in the nursery, and thus he forgot to 
 tell her the wonderful news. It did not much 
 matter, for Judy was only three, and she would 
 not have understood. But Punch was five ; 
 and he knew that going to England would be 
 much nicer than a trip to Nassick. 
 
 And Papa and Mama sold the brougham 
 and the piano, and stripped the house, and 
 curtailed the allowance of crockery for the 
 daily meals, and took long council together 
 over a bundle of letters bearing the Rockling- 
 ton postmark. 
 
 " The worst of it is that one can't be cer- 
 tain of anything," said Papa, pulling his
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 27 
 
 mustache. " The letters in themselves are ex- 
 cellent, and the terms are moderate enough." 
 
 " The worst of it is that the children will 
 grow up away from me," thought Mama ; but 
 she did not say it aloud. 
 
 " We are only one case among hundreds," 
 said Papa, bitterly. " You shall go Home 
 again in five years, dear." 
 
 " Punch will be ten then and Judy eight. 
 Oh, how long and long and long the time 
 will be 1 And we have to leave them among 
 strangers." 
 
 " Punch is a cheery little chap. He's sure 
 to make friends wherever he goes." 
 
 " And who could help loving my Ju ? " 
 
 They were standing over the cots in the 
 nursery late at night, and I think that Mama 
 was crying softly. After Papa had gone 
 away, she knelt down by the side of Judy's 
 cot. The ayah saw her and put up a prayer 
 that the memsahib might never find the love 
 of her children taken away from her and 
 given to a stranger. 
 
 Mama's own prayer was a slightly illog- 
 ical one. Summarized it ran : " Let stran- 
 gers love my children and be as good to them 
 as I should be, but let me preserve their love 
 and their confidence for ever and ever. 
 Amen." Punch scratched himself in his sleep, 
 and Judy moaned a little. That seems to be 
 the only answer to the prayer : and, next day, 
 they all went down, to the sea, and there was
 
 28 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 a scene at the Apollo Bunder when Punch 
 discovered that Meeta could not. come too, 
 and Judy learned that the ayah. must be left 
 behind. But Punch found a thousand fasci- 
 nating things in the rope, block, and steam- 
 pipe line , on the big P. and O. Steamer, long 
 before Meeta and the ayah had dried their 
 tears. 
 
 " Come back, Punch-&z&z," said the ayah. 
 
 " Come back," said Meeta, " and be a Burra 
 Sahib." 
 
 " Yes," said Punch, lifted up in his father's 
 arms to wave good-by. "Yes, I will come 
 back, and 'I will be a Burra Sahib Baha 
 dur > " 
 
 At the end of the first day Punch demanded 
 to be set down in England, which, he was 
 certain must be close at hand. Next day 
 there was a merry breeze, and Punch was very 
 sick. " When I come back to Bombay," said 
 Punch on his recovery, " I will come by the 
 road in a broom-gtiarri. This is a very 
 naughty ship." 
 
 The Swedish boatswain consoled him, and 
 he modified his opinions as the voyage went 
 on. There was so much to see and to handle 
 and ask questions about that Punch nearly 
 forgot the ayah and Meeta and the hamal, and 
 with difficulty remembered a few words of 
 the Hindustani, once his second-speech. 
 
 But Judy was much worse. The day before 
 the steamer reached Southampton, Mama
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 29 
 
 asked her if she would not like to see the ttya/t 
 again. Judy's blue eyes turned to the stretch 
 of sea that had swallowed all her tiny past, 
 and she said : 
 
 " Ayah ! What ayah ? " 
 
 Mama cried over her and Punch marveled. 
 It was then that he heard for the first time 
 Mama's passionate appeal to him never to let 
 Judy forget Mama. Seeing that Judy was 
 young, ridiculously young, and that Mama, 
 every evening for four weeks past, had come 
 into the cabin to sing her and Punch to sleep 
 with a mysterious rune that he called " Sonny, 
 my soul," Punch could not understand what 
 Mama meant. But he strove to do his duty ; 
 for, the moment Mama left the cabin, he said 
 to Judy : " Ju, you bemember Mama ? " 
 
 " 'Torse I do," said Judy. 
 
 " Then always bemember Mama, 'r else I 
 won't give you the paper ducks that the red- 
 haired Captain Sahib cut out for me." 
 
 So Judy promised always to " bemember 
 Mama." 
 
 Many and many a time was Mama's com- 
 mand laid upon Punch, and Papa would say 
 the same thing with an insistence that awed 
 the child. 
 
 " You must make haste and learn to write, 
 Punch," said Papa, " and then you'll be able 
 to write letters to us in Bombay." 
 
 " I'll come into your room," said Punch, and 
 Papa choked.
 
 30 Wee Willie Winkle 
 
 Papa and Mama were always choking in 
 those days. If Punch took Judy to task for 
 not " bemembering," they choked. If Punch 
 sprawled on the sofa in the Southampton 
 lodging-house and sketched his future in purple 
 and gold, they choked ; and so they did if Judy 
 put up her mouth for a kiss. 
 
 Through many days all four were vagabonds 
 on the face of the earth : Punch with no one 
 to give orders to, Judy too young for any- 
 thing, and Papa and Mama grave, distracted, 
 and choking. 
 
 " Where," demanded Punch, wearied of a 
 loathsome contrivance on four wheels with a 
 mound of luggage atop " where is our broom- 
 gharri? This thing talks so much that / 
 can't talk. Where is our own broom-gftarri ? 
 When I was at Bandstand before we corned 
 away, I asked Inverarity Sahib why he was 
 sitting in it, and he said it was his own. 
 And I said, ' I will give it you ' I like Inver- 
 arity Sahib and I said, ' Can you put your 
 legs through the pully-wag loops by the win- 
 dows ? ' And Inverarity Sahib said No, and 
 laughed. / can put my legs through the pully- 
 wag loops. I can put my legs through these 
 pully-wag loops. Look ! Oh, Mama's cry- 
 ing again I I didn't know. I wasn't not to 
 do so." 
 
 Punch drew his legs out of the loops of 
 the four-wheeler : the door opened and he slid 
 to the earth, in a cascade of parcels, at the
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 31 
 
 door of an austere little villa whose gates bore 
 the legend " Downe Lodge." Punch gathered 
 himself together and eyed the house with 
 disfavor. It stood on a sandy road, and a 
 cold wind tickled his knickerbockered legs. 
 
 " Let us go away," said Punch. " This is 
 not a pretty place." 
 
 But Mama and Papa and Judy had quitted 
 the cab, and all the luggage was being taken 
 into the house. At the doorstep stood a 
 woman in black, and she smiled largely, with 
 dry chapped lips. Behind her was a man, big, 
 bony, gray, and lame as to one leg behind 
 him a boy of twelve, black-haired and oily 
 in appearance. Punch surveyed the trio, and 
 advanced without fear, as he had been ac- 
 customed to do in Bombay when callers came 
 and he happened to be playing in the veranda. 
 
 " How do you do ? " said he. " I am 
 Punch." But they were all looking at the 
 luggage all except the gray man, who shook 
 hands with Punch and said he was " a smart 
 little fellow." There was much running about 
 and banging of boxes, and Punch curled him- 
 self up on the sofa in the dining-room and 
 considered things. 
 
 " I don't like these people," said Punch. 
 " But never mind. We'll go away soon. We 
 have always went away soon from everywhere. 
 I wish we was gone back to Bombay soon." 
 
 The wish bore no fruit. For six days 
 Mama wept at intervals, and showed the woman
 
 32 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 in black all Punch's clothes a liberty which 
 Punch resented. " But p'r'aps she's a new 
 white ayah" he thought. " I'm to call her 
 Antirosa, but she doesn't call me Sahib. She 
 says just Punch," he confided to Judy. " What 
 is Antirosa ? " 
 
 Judy didn't know. Neither she nor Punch 
 had heard anything of an animal called an 
 aunt. Their world had been Papa and Mama, 
 who knew everything, permitted everything, 
 and loved everybody even Punch when he 
 used to go into the garden at Bombay and 
 fill his nails with mold after the weekly nail- 
 cutting, because, as he explained between two 
 strokes of the slipper to his sorely tried Father, 
 his fingers " felt so new at the ends." 
 
 In an undefined way Punch judged it advis- 
 able to keep both parents between himself 
 and the woman in black and the boy in black 
 hair. He did not approve of them. He 
 liked the gray man, who had expressed a 
 wish to be called " Uncleharri." They nodded 
 at each other when they met, and the gray man 
 showed him a little ship with rigging that took 
 up and down. 
 
 " She is a model of the Brisk the little 
 Brisk that was sore exposed that day at 
 Navarino." The gray man hummed the last 
 words and fell into a reverie. "I'll tell you 
 about Navarino, Punch, when we go for walks 
 together ; and you mustn't touch the ship, be- 
 cause she's the Brisk."
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 33 
 
 Long before that walk, the first of many, 
 was taken, they roused Punch and Judy in 
 the chill dawn of a February morning to say 
 Good-by ; and of all people in the wide earth 
 to Papa and Mama both crying this time. 
 Punch was very sleepy and Judy was cross. 
 
 " Don't forget us," pleaded Mama. " Oh, 
 my little son, don't forget us, and see that 
 Judy remembers too." 
 
 " I've told Judy to bemember," said Punch, 
 wriggling, for his father's beard, tickled his 
 neck. " I've told Judy ten forty 'leven 
 thousand times. But Ju's so young quite a 
 baby isn't she ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Papa, " quite a baby, and 
 you must be good to Judy, and make haste 
 to learn to write and and and "... 
 
 Punch was back in his bed again. Judy 
 was fast asleep, and there was the rattle of 
 a., cab below. Papa and Mama had gone 
 away. Not to Nassick ; that was across the 
 sea. To some place much nearer, of course, 
 and equally of course they would return. 
 They came back after dinner-parties, and 
 Papa had come back after he had been to 
 a place called " The Snows," and Mama 
 with him, to Punch and Judy at Mrs, Inver- 
 arity's house in Marine Lines. Assuredly they 
 would come back again. So Punch fell 
 asleep till the true morning, when the black- 
 haired boy ,met him with the information that 
 Papa and Mama had gone to Bombay, and 
 3
 
 34 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 that he and Judy were to stay at Downe 
 Lodge " forever." Antirosa, tearfully appealed 
 to for a contradiction, said that Harry had 
 spoken the truth, and that it behooved Punch 
 to fold up his clothes neatly on going to bed. 
 Punch went out and wept bitterly with Judy, 
 into whose fair head he had driven some ideas 
 of the meaning of separation. 
 
 When a matured man discovers that he 
 has been deserted by Providence, deprived 
 of his God, and cast without help, comfort, 
 or sympathy, upon a world which is new and 
 strange to him, his despair, which may find 
 expression in evil-living, the writing of his 
 experiences, or the more satisfactory diversion 
 of suicide, is generally supposed to be im- 
 pressive. A child, under exactly similar 
 circumstances as far as its knowledge goes, 
 cannot very well curse God and die. It 
 howls till its nose is red, its eyes are sore, and 
 its head aches. Punch and Judy, through 
 no fault of their own, had lost all their world, 
 They sat in the hall and cried ; the black- 
 haired boy looking on from afar. 
 
 The model of the ship availed nothing, 
 though the gray man assured Punch that he 
 might pull the rigging up and down as much 
 as he pleased ; and Judy was promised free 
 entry into the kitchen. They wanted Papa 
 and Mama gone to Bombay beyond the seas, 
 and their grief while it lasted was withoul 
 remedy.
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 35 
 
 When the tears ceased the house was very 
 still. Antirosa had decided it was better to 
 let the children " have their cry out," and the 
 boy had gone to school. Punch raised his 
 head from the floor and sniffed mournfully. 
 Judy was nearly asleep. Three short years 
 had not taught her how to bear sorrow with 
 full knowledge. There was a distant, dull 
 boom in the air a repeated heavy thud. 
 Punch knew that sound in Bombay in the 
 Monsoon. It was the sea the sea that must 
 be traversed before any one could get to 
 Bombay. 
 
 " Quick, Ju 1 " he cried, " we're close to the 
 sea. I can hear it 1 Listen 1 That's where 
 they've went. P'r'aps we can catch them if 
 we was in time. They didn't mean to go 
 without us. They've only forgot." 
 
 " Iss," said Judy. " They've only forgotted. 
 Less go to the sea." 
 
 The hall-door was open and so was the 
 garden-gate. 
 
 41 It's very, very big, this place," he said, 
 looking cautiously down the road, " and we 
 will get lost; but /will find a man and order 
 him to take me back to my house like I did 
 in Bombay." 
 
 He took Judy by the hand, and the two 
 fled hatless in the direction of the sound of 
 the sea. Downe Villa was almost the last of 
 a range of newly-built houses running out, 
 through a chaos of brick-mounds, to a heath
 
 36 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 where gipsies occasionally camped and where 
 the Garrison Artillery of Rocklington prac- 
 tised. There were few people to be seen, 
 and the children might have been taken for 
 those of the soldiery who ranged far. Half an 
 hour the wearied little legs tramped across 
 heath, potato-field, and sand-dune. 
 
 " I'se so tired," said Judy, " and Mama 
 will be angry." 
 
 " Mama's never angry. I suppose she is 
 waiting at the sea now while Papa gets tickets. 
 We'll find them and go along with. Ju, you 
 mustn't sit down. Only a little more and we'll 
 come to the sea. Ju, if you sit down I'll 
 thmack you ! " said Punch. 
 
 They climbed another dune, and came 
 upon the great gray sea at low tide. Hun- 
 dreds of crabs were scuttling about the beach, 
 but there was no trace of Papa and Mama, 
 not even of a ship upon the waters nothing 
 but sand and mud for miles and miles. 
 
 And " Uncleharri " found them by chance 
 very muddy and very forlorn Punch dis- 
 solved in tears, but trying to divert Judy with 
 an " ickle trab," and Judy wailing to the piti- 
 less horizon for " Mama, Mama I " and 
 again " Mama 1
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 37 
 
 THE SECOND BAG. 
 
 AH, well-a-day, for we are souls bereaved ! 
 Of all the creatures under Heaven's wide scope 
 We are most hopeless, who had once most hope, 
 And most belierless, who had most believed. 
 
 The City of Dreadful Night. 
 
 ALL this time not a word about Black 
 Sheep. He came later, and Harry the black- 
 haired boy was mainly responsible for his 
 coming. 
 
 Judy who could help loving little Judy ? 
 passed, by special permit, into the kitchen 
 and thence straight to Aunty Rosa's heart. 
 Harry was Aunty Rosa's one child, and Punch 
 was the extra boy about the house. There 
 was no special place for him or his little 
 affairs, and he was forbidden to sprawl on 
 sofas and explain his ideas about the manu- 
 facture of this world and his hopes for his 
 future. Sprawling was lazy and wore out 
 sofas, and little boys were not expected to 
 talk. They were talked to, and the talking to 
 was intended for the benefit of their morals. 
 As the unquestioned despot of the house at 
 Bombay, Punch could not quite understand 
 how he came to be of no account in this his 
 new life. 
 
 Harry might reach across the table and 
 take what he wanted ; Judy might point and
 
 38 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 get what she wanted. Punch was forbidden 
 to do either. The gray man was his great 
 hope and stand-by for many months after 
 Mama and Papa left, and he had forgotten 
 to tell Judy to " bemember Mama." 
 
 This lapse was excusable, because in the 
 interval he had been introduced by Aunty 
 Rosa to two very impressive things an ab- 
 straction called God, the intimate friend and 
 ally of Aunty Rosa, generally believed to live 
 behind the kitchen range because it was hot 
 there and a dirty brown book filled with un- 
 intelligible dots and marks. Punch was al- 
 ways anxious to oblige everybody. He, there- 
 fore, welded the story of the Creation on to 
 what he could recollect of his Indian fairy 
 tales, and scandalized Aunty Rosa by repeat- 
 ing the result to Judy. It was a sin, a griev- 
 ous sin, and Punch was talked to for a quarter 
 of an hour. He could not understand where 
 the iniquity came in, but was careful not to 
 repeat the offense, because Aunty Rosa told 
 him that God had heard every word he had 
 said and was very angry. If this were true 
 why didn't God come and say so, thought 
 Punch, and dismissed the matter from his 
 mind. Afterwards he learned to know the 
 Lord as the only thing in the world more aw- 
 ful than Aunty Rosa as a Creature that stood 
 in the background and counted the strokes of 
 the cane. 
 
 But the reading was, just then, a much more
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 39 
 
 serious matter than any creed. Aunty Rosa 
 sat him upon a table and told him that A B 
 meant ab. 
 
 " Why ? " said Punch. " A is a and B i 
 bee. Why does A B mean ab ? " 
 
 " Because I tell you it does," said Aunty 
 Rosa, " and you've got to say it." 
 
 Punch said it accordingly, and for a month* 
 hugely against his will, stumbled through the 
 brown book, not in the least comprehending* 
 what it meant. But Uncle Harry, who walked 
 much and generally alone, was wont to come 
 into the nursery and suggest to Aunty Roso> 
 that Punch should walk with him. He sel- 
 dom spoke, but he showed Punch all Rock- 
 lington, from the mud-banks and the sand oi 
 the back-bay to the great harbors where ship* 
 lay at anchor, and the dockyards where the 
 hammers were never still, and the marine-store 
 shops, and the shiny brass counters in the 
 Offices where Uncle Harry went once every 
 three months with a slip of blue paper and 1 
 received sovereigns in exchange ; for he held a 
 wound-pension. Punch heard, too, from his' 
 lips the story of the battle of Navarino, where 
 the sailors of the Fleet, for three days after- 
 wards, were deaf as posts and could only sign* 
 to each other. " That was because of the 
 noise of the guns," said Uncle Harry, " and t- 
 have got the wadding of a bullet somewhere 
 inside me now." 
 
 Punch regarded him with curiosity. He
 
 4O Wee Willie Winkle 
 
 had not the least idea what wadding was, and 
 his notion of a bullet was a dockyard cannon- 
 ball bigger than his own head. How could 
 Uncle Harry keep a cannon-ball inside him ? 
 He was ashamed to ask, for fear Uncle Harry 
 might be angry. 
 
 Punch had never known what anger real 
 anger meant until one terrible day when 
 Harry had taken his paint-box to paint a boat 
 with, and Punch had protested with a loud 
 and lamentable voice. Then Uncle Harry had 
 appeared on the scene and, muttering some- 
 thing about " stranger's children," had with a 
 stick smitten the black-haired boy across the 
 shoulders till he wept and yelled, and Aunty 
 Rosa came in and abused Uncle Harry for 
 cruelty to his own flesh and blood, and Punch 
 shuddered to the tips of his shoes. " It wasn't 
 my fault," he explained to the boy, but both 
 Harry and Aunty Rosa said that it was, and that 
 Punch had told tales, and for a week there 
 were no more walks with Uncle Harry. 
 
 But that week brought a great joy to 
 Punch. 
 
 He had repeated till he was thrice weary 
 the statement that " the Cat lay on the Mat 
 and the Rat came in." 
 
 " Now I can truly read," said Punch, " and 
 now I will never read anything in the world." 
 
 He put the brown book in the cupboard 
 where his school-books lived and accidentally 
 tumbled out a venerable volume, without cov-
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 41 
 
 ers, labeled Sharpe's Magazine. There was 
 the most portentous picture of a griffin on 
 the first page, with verses below. The griffin 
 carried off one sheep a day from a German 
 village, till a man came with a " falchion " and 
 split the griffin open. Goodness only knew 
 what a falchion was, but there was the Griffin, 
 and his history was an improvement upon the 
 eternal Cat 
 
 " This," said Punch, " means things, and 
 now I will know all about everything in all 
 the world." He read till the light failed, not 
 understanding a tithe of the meaning, but 
 tantalized by glimpses of new worlds here- 
 after to be revealed. 
 
 " What is a ' falchion ' ? What is a ' e-wee 
 lamb ' ? What is a ' base #,mirper ' ? What 
 is a ' verdant me-ad ' ? " he demanded, with 
 flushed cheeks, at bedtime, of the astonished 
 Aunt Rosa. 
 
 " Say your prayers and go to sleep," she 
 replied, and that was all the help Punch then 
 or afterwards found at her hands in the new 
 and delightful exercise of reading. 
 
 " Aunt Rosa only knows about God and 
 things like that," argued Punch. "Uncle 
 Harry will tell me." 
 
 The next walk proved that Uncle Harry 
 could not help either ; but he allowed Punch 
 to talk, and even sat down on a bench to hear 
 about the Griffin. Other walks brought othei 
 stories as Punch ranged further afield, for the
 
 42 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 house held large store of old books that no 
 one ever opened from Frank Fairlegh in 
 serial numbers, and the earlier poems of Ten- 
 nyson, contributed anonymously to Sharpe's 
 Magazine, to '62 Exhibition Catalogues, gay 
 with colors and delightfully incomprehensible, 
 and odd leaves of Gulliver's Travels. 
 
 As soon as Punch could string a few pot- 
 hooks together, he wrote to Bombay, demand- 
 ing by return of post " all the books in all the 
 world." Papa could not comply with this 
 <nodest indent, but sent Grimm's Fairy Tales 
 and a Hans Andersen. That was enough. 
 If he were only left alone Punch could pass, 
 at any hour he chose, into a land of his own, 
 beyond reach of Aunty Rosa and her God, 
 Harry and his teasements, and Judy's claims 
 to be played with. 
 
 " Don't disturve me, I'm reading. Go and 
 play in the kitchen," grunted Punch. " Aunty 
 Rosa lets you go there." Judy was cutting 
 her second teeth and was fretful. She ap- 
 pealed to Aunty Rosa, who descended on 
 Punch. 
 
 " 1 was reading," he exclaimed, " reading a 
 book. I ivant to read." 
 
 " You're only doing that to show off," said 
 Aunty Rosa. " But we'll see. Play with 
 Judy now, and don't open a book for a week." 
 
 Judy did not pass a very enjoyable play- 
 time with Punch, who was consumed with 
 indignation. There was a pettiness at the
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 43 
 
 bottom of the prohibition which puzzled 
 him. 
 
 " It's what I like to do," he said, " and 
 she's found out that and stopped me. Don't 
 cry, Ju it wasn't your fault please don't cry, 
 or she'll say I made you." 
 
 Ju loyally mopped up her tears, and the two 
 played in their nursery, a room in the base- 
 ment and half underground, to which they 
 were regularly sent after the midday dinner 
 while Aunty Rosa slept. She drank wine 
 that is to say, something from a bottle in the 
 cellaret for her stomach's sake, but if she 
 did not fall asleep she would sometimes come 
 into the nursery to see that the children were 
 really playing. Now bricks, wooden hoops, 
 ninepins, and chinaware cannot amuse for- 
 ever, especially when all Fairyland is to be 
 won by the mere opening of a book, and, as 
 often as not, Punch would be discovered read- 
 ing to Judy or telling her interminable tales. 
 That was an offense in the eyes of the law, 
 and Judy would be whisked off by Aunty 
 Rosa, while Punch was left to play alone, 
 " and be sure that I hear you doing it." 
 
 It was not a cheering employ, for he had to 
 make a playful noise. At last, with infinite 
 craft, he devised an arrangement whereby the 
 table could be supported as to three legs on 
 toy bricks, leaving the fourth clear to bring 
 down on the floor. He could work the table 
 with one hand and hold a book with the other.
 
 44 
 
 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 This he did till an evil day when Aunty Rosa 
 pounced upon him unawares and told him that 
 he was " acting a lie." 
 
 " If you're old enough to do that," she said 
 her temper was always worst after dinner 
 " you're old enough to be beaten." 
 
 " But I'm I'm not a animal 1 " said Punch, 
 .aghast. He remembered Uncle Harry and 
 the stick, and turned white. Aunty Rosa had 
 hidden a light cane behind her, and Punch 
 was beaten then and there over the shoulders. 
 It was a revelation to him. The room-door 
 was shut, and he was left to weep himself into 
 repentance and work out his own Gospel of 
 Life. 
 
 Aunty Rosa, he argued, had the power to 
 beat him with many stripes. It was unjust 
 and cruel, and Mama and Papa would never 
 have allowed it. Unless perhaps, as Aunty 
 Rosa seemed to imply, they had sent secret 
 orders. In which case he was abandoned in- 
 deed. It would be discreet in the future to 
 propitiate Aunty Rosa, but, then, again, even 
 in matters in which he was innocent, he had 
 been accused of wishing to " show off." He 
 had " shown off " before visitors when he had 
 attacked a strange gentleman Harry's uncle, 
 not his own with requests for information 
 about the Griffin and the falchion, and the 
 precise nature of the Tilbury in which Frank 
 Fairlegh rode all points of paramount in- 
 terest which he was bursting to understand
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 45 
 
 Clearly it would not do to pretend to care for 
 Aunty Rosa. 
 
 At this point Harry entered and stood afar 
 off, eying Punch, a disheveled heap in the 
 corner of the room, with disgust. 
 
 " You're a liar a young liar," said Harry, 
 with great unction, " and you're to have tea 
 down here because you're not fit to speak to 
 us. And you're not to speak to Judy again 
 till Mother gives you leave. You'll corrupt 
 her. You're only fit to associate with the 
 servant. Mother says so." ** 
 
 Having reduced Punch to a second agony 
 of tears, Harry departed up-stairs with the 
 news that Punch was still rebellious. 
 
 Uncle Harry sat uneasily in the dining- 
 room. " Damn it all, Rosa," said he at last, 
 " can't you leave the child alone ? He's a 
 good enough little chap when I meet him." 
 
 " He puts on his best manners with you, 
 Henry," said Aunty Rosa, " but I'm afraid, 
 I'm very much afraid, that he is the Black 
 Sheep of the family." 
 
 Harry heard and stored up the name for 
 future use. Judy cried till she was bidden 
 to stop, her brother not being worth tears ; 
 and the evening concluded with the return of 
 Punch to the upper regions and a private sit- 
 ting at which all the blinding horrors of Hell 
 were revealed to Punch with such store of 
 imagery as Aunty Rosa's narrow mind pos- 
 sessed.
 
 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 Most grievous of all was Judy's round-eyed 
 reproach, and Punch went to bed in the depths 
 of the Valley of Humiliation. He shared his 
 room with Harry and knew the torture in store. 
 For an hour and a half he had to answer that 
 young gentleman's question as to his motives 
 for telling a lie, and a grievous lie, the precise 
 quantity of punishment inflicted by Aunty 
 Rosa, and had also to profess his deep grati- 
 tude for such religious instruction as Harry 
 thought fit to impart. 
 
 From that day began the downfall of Punch, 
 now Black Sheep. 
 
 " Untrustworthy in one thing, untrustworthy 
 in all," said Aunty Rosa, and Harry felt that 
 Black Sheep was delivered into his hands. 
 He would wake him up in the night to ask 
 him why he was such a liar. 
 
 " I don't know," Punch would reply. 
 
 " Then don't you think you ought to get 
 up and pray to God for a new heart ? " 
 
 " Y-yess." 
 
 " Get out and pray, then ! " And Punch 
 would get out of bed with raging hate in his 
 heart against all the world, seen and unseen. 
 He was always tumbling into trouble. Harry 
 had a knack of cross-examining him as to his 
 day's doings, which seldom failed to lead him, 
 sleepy and savage, into half a dozen contradic- 
 tions all duly reported to Aunty Rosa next 
 morning. 
 
 " But it wasn't a lie," Punch would begin.
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep ^7 
 
 charging into a labored explanation that landed 
 him more hopelessly in the mire. " I said 
 that I didn't say my prayers twice over in the 
 day, and that was on Tuesday. Once I did. 
 I know I did, but Harry said I didn't," and so 
 forth, till the tension brought tears, and he 
 was dismissed from the table in disgrace. 
 
 " You usen't to be as bad as this ? " said 
 Judy, awe-stricken at the catalogue of Black 
 Sheep's crimes. " Why are you so bad 
 now ? " 
 
 " I don't know," Black Sheep would reply. 
 "I'm not, if I only wasn't bothered upside 
 down. I knew what I did, and 1 want to say 
 so ; but Harry always makes it out different 
 somehow, and Aunty Rosa doesn't believe a 
 word I say. ' Oh, Ju 1 don't you say I'm bad 
 too." 
 
 "Aunty Rosa says you are," said Judy. 
 " She told the Vicar so when he came yester- 
 day." 
 
 " Why does she tell all the people outside 
 the house about me ? It isn't fair," said 
 Black Sheep. " When I was in Bombay, and 
 was bad doing bad, not made-up bad like 
 this Mama told Papa, and Papa told me 
 he knew, and that was all. Outside people 
 didn't know too even Meeta didn't know." 
 
 "I don't remember," said Judy wistfully. 
 " I was all little then. Mama was just 
 as fond of you as she was of me, wasn't 
 8he ? "
 
 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 " 'Course she was. So was Papa. So was 
 everybody." 
 
 " Aunty Rosa likes me more than she does 
 you. She says that you are a Trial and a 
 Black Sheep, and I'm not to speak to you 
 more than I can help." 
 
 " Always ? Not outside of the times when 
 you mustn't speak to me at all ? " 
 
 Judy nodded her head mournfully. Black 
 Sheep turned away in despair, but Judy's arms 
 were round his neck. 
 
 " Never mind, Punch," she whispered. " I 
 will speak to you just the same as ever and 
 ever. You're my own brother though you 
 are though Aunty Rosa says you're Bad, 
 and Harry says you're a little coward. He 
 says that if I pulled your hair hard, you'd 
 cry." 
 
 Pull, then," said Punch. 
 
 Judy pulled gingerly. 
 
 " Pull harder as hard as you can ! There I 
 I don't mind how much you pull it now. If 
 you'll speak to me same as ever I'll let you 
 pull it as much as you like pull it out if you 
 like. But I know if Harry came and stood by 
 and made you do it I'd cry." 
 
 So the two children sealed the compact with 
 a kiss, and Black Sheep's heart was cheered 
 within him, and by extreme caution and care- 
 ful avoidance of Harry he acquired virtue, and 
 was allowed to read undisturbed for a week. 
 Uncle Harry took him for walks and consoled
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 49 
 
 him with rough tenderness, never calling him 
 Black Sheep. " It's good for you, I suppose, 
 Punch," he used to say. " Let us sit down. 
 I'm getting tired." His steps led him now not 
 to the beach, but to the Cemetery of Rock- 
 lington, amid the potato-fields. For hours the 
 gray man would sit on a tombstone, while 
 Black Sheep read epitaphs, and then with a 
 sigh would stump home again. 
 
 " I shall lie there soon," said he to Black 
 Sheep, one winter evening, when his face 
 showed white as a worn silver coin under the 
 lights of the chapel-lodge. " You needn't tell 
 Aunty Rosa." 
 
 A month later, he turned sharp round, ere 
 half a morning walk was completed, and 
 stumped back to the house. " Put me to bed, 
 Rosa," he muttered. " I've walked my last. 
 The wadding has found me out." 
 
 They put him to bed, and for a fortnight 
 the shadow of his sickness lay upon the house, 
 and Black Sheep went to and fro unobserved. 
 Papa had sent him some new books, and he 
 was told to keep quiet. He retired into his 
 own world, and was perfectly happy. Even 
 at night his felicity was unbroken. He could 
 lie in bed and string himself tales of travel 
 and adventure while Harry was down- 
 stairs. 
 
 " Uncle Harry's going to die," said Judy, 
 who now lived almost entirely with Aunty 
 Rosa.
 
 50 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 " I'm very sorry," said Black Sheep soberly. 
 " He told me that a long time ago." 
 
 Aunty Rosa heard the conversation. " Will 
 nothing check your wicked tongue ? " she said 
 angrily. There were blue circles round her 
 eyes. 
 
 Black Sheep retreated to the nursery and 
 read " Cometh up as a flower" with deep 
 and uncomprehending interest. He had been 
 forbidden to read it on account of its " sinful- 
 ness," but the bonds of the Universe were 
 crumbling, and Aunty Rosa was in great 
 grief. 
 
 "I'm glad," said Black Sheep. "She's 
 unhappy now. It wasn't a lie, though. J 
 knew. He told me not to tell." 
 
 That night Black Sheep woke with a start 
 Harry was not in the room and there was a 
 sound of sobbing on the next floor. Then 
 the voice of Uncle Harry, singing the song of 
 the Battle of Navarino, cut through the dark- 
 ness : 
 
 " Our vanship was the Asia 
 The Albion and Genoa 1 " 
 
 " He's getting well," thought Black Sheep, 
 who knew the song through all its seven- 
 teen verses. But the blood froze at his lit 
 tie heart as he thought. The voice leapt 
 an octave and rang shrill as a boatswain's 
 pipe :
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 51 
 
 " And next came on the lovely Rose, 
 The Philomel, her fire-ship, closed, 
 And the little Brisk was sore exposed 
 That day at Navarino." 
 
 " That day at Navarino, Uncle Harry 1 " 
 shouted Black Sheep, half wild with excite- 
 ment and fear of he knew not what. 
 
 A door opened and Aunty Rosa screamed 
 up the staircase : " Hush 1 For God's sake 
 hush, you little devil. Uncle Harry is deadl" 
 
 THE THIRD BAG. 
 
 JOURXEYS end In lovers* meeting, 
 Every wise man's son doth know. 
 
 " I WONDER what will happen to me now," 
 thought Black Sheep, when the semi-pagan 
 rites peculiar to the burial of the Dead in 
 middle-class houses had been accomplished, 
 and Aunty Rosa, awful in black crape, had 
 returned to this life. " I don't think I've 
 done anything bad that she knows of. I 
 suppose I will soon. She will be very cross 
 after Uncle Harry's dying, and Harry will be 
 cross too. I'll keep in the nursery." 
 
 Unfortunately for Punch's plans, it was 
 decided that he should be sent to a day-school 
 which Harrv attended. This meant a morn.
 
 52 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 ing walk with Harry, and perhaps an evening 
 one ; but the prospect of freedom in the 
 interval was refreshing. " Harry'll tell every- 
 thing I do, but I won't do anything," said 
 Black Sheep. Fortified with this virtuous res- 
 olution, he went to school only to find that 
 Harry's version of his character had preceded 
 him, and that life was a burden in "conse- 
 quence. He took stock of his associates. 
 Some of them were unclean, some of them 
 talked in dialect, many dropped their h's, and 
 there were two Jews and a negro, or some one 
 quite as dark, in the assembly. " That's a 
 hubshi" said Black Sheep to himself. " Even 
 Meeta used to laugh at a hubshi. I don't 
 think this is a proper place." He was indig- 
 nant for at least an hour, till he reflected that 
 any expostulation on his part would be by 
 Aunty Rosa construed into " showing off," 
 and that Harry would tell the boys. 
 
 " How do you like school ? " said Aunty 
 Rosa at the end of the day. 
 
 " I think it is a very nice place," said Punch 
 quietly. 
 
 " I suppose you warned the boys of Black 
 Sheep's character ? " said Aunty Rosa to 
 Harry. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said the censor of Black Sheep's 
 morals. " They know all about him." 
 
 " If I was with my father," said Black 
 Sheep, stung to the quick, " I shouldn't speak 
 to those boys. He wouldn't let me. They
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 53 
 
 five in shops. I saw them go into shops 
 where their fathers live and sell things." 
 
 "You're too good for that school, are 
 you ? " said Aunty Rosa, with a bitter smile. 
 " You ought to be grateful, Black Sheep, that 
 those boys speak to you at all. It isn't every 
 school that takes little liars." 
 
 Harry did not fail to make much capital out 
 of Black Sheep's ill-considered remark ; with 
 the result that several boys, including the hub- 
 s/ii, demonstrated to Black Sheep the eternal 
 equality of the human race by smacking his 
 head, and his consolation from Aunty Rosa 
 was that it " served him right for being vain." 
 He learned, however, to keep his opinions to 
 himself, and by propitiating Harry in carrying 
 books and the like to secure a little peace. 
 His existence was not too joyful. From nine 
 till twelve he was at school, and from two to 
 four, except on Saturdays. In the evenings 
 he was sent down into the nursery to prepare 
 his lessons for the next day, and every night 
 came the dreaded cross-questionings at 
 Harry's hand. Of Judy he saw but little. 
 She was deeply religious at six years of age 
 Religion is easy to come by and sorely 
 divided between her natural love for Black 
 Sheep and her love for Aunty Rosa, who 
 could do wrong. 
 
 The lean woman returned that love with 
 interest, and Judy, when she dared, took 
 advantage of this for the remission of Black
 
 54 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 Sheep's penalties. Failures in lessons at 
 school were punished at home by a week 
 without reading other than schoolbooks, and 
 Harry brought the news of such a failure with 
 glee. Further, Black Sheep was then bound 
 to repeat his lessons at bedtime to Harry, who 
 generally succeeded in making him break 
 down, and consoled him by gloomiest fore- 
 bodings for the morrow. Harry was at once 
 spy, practical joker, inquisitor, and Aunty 
 Rosa's deputy executioner. He filled his many 
 posts to admiration. From his actions now 
 that Uncle Harry was dead, there was no ap- 
 peal. Black Sheep had not been permitted to 
 keep any self-respect at school : at home he was 
 of course utterly discredited, and grateful for 
 any pity that the servant girls they changed 
 frequently at Downe Lodge, because they, too, 
 were liars might show. " You're just fit to 
 row in the same boat with Black Sheep," was 
 a sentiment that each new Jane or Eliza might 
 expect to hear, before a month was over, from 
 Aunty Rosa's lips ; and Black Sheep was used 
 to ask new girls whether they had yet been 
 compared to him. Harry was " Master 
 Harry " in their mouths ; Judy was officially 
 " Miss Judy " ; but Black Sheep was never 
 anything more than Black Sheep tout court. 
 
 As time went on and the memory of Papa 
 and Mama became wholly overlaid by the 
 unpleasant task of writing them letters, under 
 Aunty Rosa's eye, each Sunday, Black Sheep
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 55 
 
 forgot what manner of life he had led in the 
 beginning of things. Even Judy's appeals to 
 " try and remember about Bombay " failed to 
 quicken him. 
 
 " I can't remember," he said. " I know I 
 used to give orders and Mama kissed me." 
 
 " Aunty Rosa will kiss you if you are good," 
 pleaded Judy. 
 
 " Ugh 1 I don't want to be kissed by Aunty 
 Rosa. She'd say I was doing it to get some- 
 thing more to eat." 
 
 The weeks lengthened into months, and the 
 holidays came ; but just before the holidays 
 Black Sheep fell into deadly sin. 
 
 Among the many boys whom Harry had 
 incited to " punch Black Sheep's head because 
 he daren't hit back," was one more aggravat- 
 ing than the rest, who, in an unlucky moment, 
 fell upon Black Sheep when Harry was not 
 near. The blows stung, and Black Sheep 
 struck back at random with all the power at 
 his command. The boy dropped and whim- 
 pered. Black Sheep was astounded at his 
 own act, but, feeling the unresisting body un- 
 der him, shook it with both his hands in blind 
 fury and then began to throttle his enemy ; 
 meaning honestly to slay him. There was a 
 scuffle, and Black Sheep was torn off the body 
 by Harry and some colleagues, and cuffed 
 home tingling but exultant. Aunty Rosa 
 was out : pending her arrival, Harry set 
 himself to lecture Black Sheep on the sin of
 
 56 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 murder which he described as the offense of 
 Cain. 
 
 " Why didn't you fight him fair ? What did 
 you hit him when he was down for, you little 
 cur?" 
 
 Black Sheep looked up at Harry's throat 
 and then at a knife on the dinner-table. 
 
 " I don't understand," he said wearily. 
 " You always set him on me and told me I 
 was a coward when I blubbed. Will you leave 
 me alone until Aunty Rosa comes in ? She'll 
 beat me if you tell her I ought to be beaten ; 
 so it's all right." 
 
 " It's all wrong," said Harry, magisterially. 
 " You nearly killed him, and I shouldn't won- 
 der if he dies." 
 
 " Will he die ? " said Black Sheep. 
 
 " I dare say," said Harry, " and then you'll 
 be hanged." 
 
 "All right," said Black Sheep, possessing 
 himself of the table-knife. "Then I'll kill 
 you now. You say things and do things and 
 . . and / don't know how things happen, 
 and you never leave me alone and I don't 
 care what happens 1 " 
 
 He ran at the boy with the knife, and 
 Harry fled up-stairs to his room, promising 
 Black Sheep the finest thrashing in the world 
 when Aunty Rosa returned. Black Sheep sat 
 at the bottom of the stairs, the table-knife in 
 his hand, and wept for that he had not killed 
 Harry. The servant-girl came up from the
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 57 
 
 kitchen, took the knife away, and consoled 
 him. But Black Sheep was beyond consola- 
 tion. He would be badly beaten by Aunty- 
 Rosa; then there would be another beating 
 at Harry's hands; then Judy would not be 
 allowed to speak to him ; then the tale would 
 be told at school and then . . . 
 
 There was no one to help and no one 
 to care, and the best way out of the 
 business was by death. A knife would 
 hurt, but Aunty Rosa had told him, a year 
 ago, that if he sucked paint he would die. 
 He went into the nursery, unearthed the now 
 disused Noah's Ark, and sucked the paint off 
 as many animals as remained. It tasted 
 abominable, but he had licked Noah's dove 
 clean by the time Aunty Rosa and Judy re- 
 turned. He went up-stairs and greeted them 
 with : " Please, Aunty Rosa, I believe I've 
 nearly killed a boy at school, and I've tried to 
 kill Harry, and when you've done all about 
 God and hell, will you beat me and get it 
 over ? " 
 
 The tale of the assault as told by Harry 
 could only be explained on the ground of pos- 
 session by the devil. Wherefore Black Sheep 
 was not only most excellently beaten, once 
 by Aunty Rosa and once, when thoroughly 
 cowed down, by Harry, but he was further 
 prayed for at family prayers, together with 
 Jane, who had stolen a cold rissole from the 
 pantry and snuffled audibly as her enormity
 
 58 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 was brought before the Throne of Grace, 
 Black Sheep was sore and stiff but triumphant. 
 He would die that very night and be rid of 
 them all. No, he would ask for no forgiveness 
 from Harry, and at bedtime would stand no 
 questioning at Harry's hands, even though 
 addressed as " Young Cain." 
 
 " I've been beaten," said he, " and I've done 
 other things. I don't care what I do. If you 
 speak to me to-night, Harry, I'll get out and 
 try to kill you. Now you can kill me if you 
 like." 
 
 Harry took his bed into the spare room, 
 and Black Sheep lay down to die. 
 
 It may be that the makers of Noah's Arks 
 know that their animals are likely to find their 
 way into young mouths, and paint them ac- 
 cordingly. Certain it is that the common, 
 weary next morning broke through the win- 
 dows and found Black Sheep quite well and a 
 good deal ashamed of himself, but richer by 
 the knowledge that he could, in extremity, 
 secure himself against Harry for the future. 
 
 When he descended to breakfast on the 
 first day of the holidays, he was greeted with 
 the news that Harry, Aunty Rosa, and Judy 
 were going away to Brighton, while Black 
 Sheep was to stay in the house with the serv- 
 ant. His latest outbreak suited Aunty 
 Rosa's plans admirably. It gave her good 
 excuse for leaving the extra boy behind. Papa 
 in Bombay, who really seemed to know a
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 59 
 
 young sinner's wants to the hour, sent, that 
 week, a package of new books. And with 
 these, and the society of Jane on board- 
 wages, Black Sheep was left alone for a month. 
 
 The books lasted for ten days. They were 
 eaten too quickly, in long gulps of four-and- 
 tvventy hours at a time. Then came days of 
 doing absolutely nothing, of dreaming dreams 
 and marching imaginary armies up and down 
 stairs, of counting the number of banisters, 
 and of measuring the length and breadth of 
 every room in handspans fifty down the side, 
 thirty across, and fifty back again. Jane made 
 many friends, and, after receiving Black Sheep's 
 assurance that he would not tell of her ab- 
 sences, went out daily for long hours. Black 
 Sheep would follow the rays of the sinking 
 sun from the kitchen to the dining-room and 
 thence upward to his own bedroom until all 
 was gray dark, and he ran down to the kitchen 
 fire and read by its light. He was happy in 
 that he was left alone and could read as much 
 as he pleased. But, later, he grew afraid of 
 the shadows of window-curtains and the flap- 
 ping of doors and the creaking of shutters. He 
 went out into the garden, and the rustling of 
 the laurel-bushes frightened him. 
 
 He was glad when they all returned Aunty 
 Rosa, Harry, and Judy full of news, and Judy 
 laden with gifts. Who could help loving loyal 
 little Judy ? In return for all her merry bab- 
 blement, Black Sheep confided to her that the
 
 60 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 distance from the hall-door to the top of the 
 first landing was exactly one hundred and 
 eighty-four handspans. He had found it out 
 himself. 
 
 Then the old life recommenced ; but with a 
 difference, and a new sin. To his other 
 iniquities Black Sheep had now added a phe- 
 nomenal clumsiness was as unfit to trust in 
 action as he was in word. He himself could 
 not account for spilling everything he touched, 
 upsetting glasses as he put his hand out, and 
 bumping his head against doors that were 
 manifestly shut. There was a gray haze upon 
 all his world, and it narrowed month by month, 
 until at last it left Black Sheep almost alone 
 with the flapping curtains that were so like 
 ghosts, and the nameless terrors of broad day- 
 light that were only coats on pegs after all. 
 
 Holidays came and holidays went, and Black 
 Sheep was taken to see many people whose 
 faces were all exactly alike ; was beaten when 
 occasion demanded, and tortured by Harry on 
 all possible occasions ; but defended by Judy 
 through good and evil report, though she 
 hereby drew upon herself the wrath of Aunty 
 Rosa. 
 
 The weeks were interminable and Papa and 
 Mama were clean forgotten. Harry had left 
 school and was a clerk in a Banking-Office. 
 Freed from his presence, Black Sheep resolved 
 that he should no longer be deprived of his 
 allowance of pleasure-reading. Consequently
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 61 
 
 when he failed at school he reported that al? 
 was well, and conceived a large contempt for 
 Aunty Rosa as he saw how easy it was to de- 
 ceive her. " She says I'm a little liar when I 
 don't tell lies, and now I do, she doesn't know," 
 thought Black Sheep. Aunty Rosa had cred- 
 ited him in the past with petty cunning and 
 stratagem that had never entered into his head. 
 By the light of the sordid knowledge that she 
 had revealed to him he paid her back full tale. 
 In a household where the most innocent of his 
 motives, his natural yearning for a little affec- 
 tion, had been interpreted into a desire for 
 more bread and jam or to ingratiate himself 
 with strangers and so put Harry into the back- 
 ground, his work was easy. Aunty Rosa could 
 penetrate certain kinds of hypocrisy, but not 
 all. He set his child's wits against hers and 
 was no more beaten. It grew monthly more 
 and more of a trouble to read the schoolbooks, 
 and even the pages of the open-print story- 
 books danced and were dim. So Black Sheep 
 brooded in the shadows that fell about him 
 and cut him off from the world, inventing 
 horrible punishments for " dear Harry," or 
 plotting another line of the tangled web of 
 deception that he wrapped round Aunty Rosa. 
 Then the crash came and the cobwebs were 
 broken. It was impossible to foresee every- 
 thing. Aunty Rosa made personal inquiries 
 as to Black Sheep's progress and received in- 
 formation that startled her. Step by step,
 
 62 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 with a delight as keen as when she convicted 
 an underfed housemaid of the theft of cold 
 meats, she followed the trail of Black Sheep's 
 delinquencies. For weeks and weeks, in order 
 to escape banishment from the book-shelves, 
 he had made a fool of Aunty Rosa, of Harry, 
 of God, of all the world 1 Horrible, most 
 horrible, and evidence of an utterly depraved 
 mind. 
 
 Black Sheep counted the cost. " It will 
 only be one big beating and then she'll put a 
 card with ' Liar ' on my back, same as she did 
 before. Harry will whack me and pray for 
 me, and she will pray for me at prayers and 
 tell me I'm a Child of the Devil and give me 
 hymns to learn. But I've done all my reading 
 and she never knew. She'll say she knew all 
 along. She's an old liar too," said he. 
 
 For three days Black Sheep was shut in his 
 own bedroom to prepare his heart. " That 
 means two beatings. One at school and one 
 here. That one will hurt most." And it fell 
 even as he thought. He was thrashed at 
 school before the Jews and the hubshi, for the 
 heinous crime of bringing home false reports 
 of progress. He was thrashed at home by 
 Aunty Rosa on the same count, and then the 
 placard was produced. Aunty Rosa stitched 
 it between his shoulders and bade him go for 
 a walk with it upon him. 
 
 " If you make me do that," said Black Sheep 
 very quietly, " I shall burn this house down,
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 63 
 
 and perhaps I'll kill you. I don't know 
 whether I can kill you you're so bony but 
 I'll try." 
 
 No punishment followed this blasphemy, 
 though Black Sheep held himself ready to work 
 his way to Aunty Rosa's withered throat, and 
 grip there till he was beaten off. Perhaps 
 Aunty Rosa was afraid, for Black Sheep, hav- 
 ing reached the Nadir of Sin, bore himself 
 with a new recklessness. 
 
 In the midst of all the trouble there came 
 a visitor from over the seas to Downe Lodge, 
 who knew Papa and Mama, and was com- 
 missioned to see Punch and Judy. Black 
 Sheep was sent to the drawing-room and 
 charged into a solid tea-table laden with 
 china. 
 
 " Gently, gently, little man," said the visitor, 
 turning Black Sheep's face to the light slowly. 
 " What's that big bird on the palings ? " 
 
 " What bird ? " asked Black Sheep. 
 
 The visitor looked deep down into Black 
 Sheep's eyes for half a minute, and then said 
 suddenly : " Good God, the little chap's 
 nearly blind 1 " 
 
 It was a most business-like visitor. He 
 gave orders, on his own responsibility, that 
 Black Sheep was not to go to school or open 
 a book until Mama came home. " She'll be 
 here in three weeks, as you know of course," 
 said he, " and I'm Inverarity Sahib. I 
 ushered you into this wicked world, young
 
 64 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 man, and a nice use you seem to have made 
 of your time. You must do nothing whatever. 
 Can you do that ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Punch in a dazed way. He 
 had known that Mama was coming. There 
 was a chance, then, of another beating. 
 Thank Heaven, Papa wasn't coming too. 
 Aunty Rosa had said of late that he ought to 
 be beaten by a man. 
 
 For the next three weeks Black Sheep was 
 strictly allowed to do nothing. He spent his 
 time in the old nursery looking at the broken 
 toys, for all of which account must be ren- 
 dered to Mama. Aunty Rosa hit him over 
 the hands if even a wooden boat were broken. 
 But that sin was of small importance com- 
 pared to the other revelations, so darkly hinted 
 at by Aunty Rosa. " When your Mother 
 comes, and hears what I have to tell her, she 
 may appreciate you properly," she said grimly, 
 and mounted guard over Judy lest that small 
 maiden should attempt to comfort her brother, 
 to the peril of her own soul. 
 
 And Mama came in a four-wheeler and 
 a flutter of tender excitement. Such a Mama I 
 She was young, frivolously young, and beau- 
 tiful, with delicately flushed cheeks, eyes that 
 shone like stars, and a voice that needed no 
 additional appeal of outstretched arms to 
 draw little ones to her heart. Judy ran 
 straight to her, but Black Sheep hesitated. 
 Could this wonder be " showing off " ? She
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 65 
 
 would not put out her arms when she knev 
 of his crimes. Meantime was it possible that 
 by fondling she wanted to get anything out of 
 Black Sheep ? Only all his love and all his 
 confidence ; but that Black Sheep did not 
 know. Aunty Rosa withdrew and left Mama, 
 kneeling between her children, half laughing, 
 half crying, in the very hall where Punch and 
 Judy had wept five years before. 
 
 " Well, chicks, do you remember me ? " 
 
 " No," said Judy frankly, " but I said ' God 
 bless Papa and Mama,' ev'vy night." 
 
 " A little," said Black Sheep. " Remem- 
 ber I wrote to you every week, anyhow. That 
 isn't to show off, but 'cause of what comes 
 afterwards." 
 
 " What comes after ! What should come 
 after, my darling boy ? " And she drew him 
 to her again. He came awkwardly, with 
 many angles. " Not used to petting," said 
 the quick Mother-soul. " The girl is." 
 
 " She's too little to hurt any one," thought 
 Black Sheep, " and if I said I'd kill her, she'd 
 be afraid. I wonder what Aunty Rosa will 
 tell." 
 
 There was a constrained late dinner, at the 
 end of which Mama picked up Judy and put 
 her to bed with endearments manifold. Faith- 
 less little Judy had shown her defection from 
 Aunty Rosa already. And that lady resented 
 it bitterly. Black Sheep rose to leave the 
 room.
 
 66 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 " Come and say good night," said Aunty 
 Rosa, offering a withered cheek. 
 
 " Huh I " said Black Sheep. " I never kiss 
 you, and I'm not going to show off. Tell 
 that woman what I've done, and see what she 
 says." 
 
 Black Sheep climbed into bed feeling that 
 he had lost Heaven after a glimpse through 
 the gates. In half an hour " that woman " 
 was bending over him. Black Sheep flung 
 up his right arm. It wasn't fair to come and 
 hit him in the dark. Even Aunty Rosa never 
 tried that. But no blow followed. 
 
 "Are you showing off? I won't tell you 
 anything more than Aunty Rosa has, and she 
 doesn't know everything," said Black Sheep 
 as clearly as he could for the arms round his 
 neck. 
 
 " Oh, my son my little, little son I It was 
 my fault my fault, darling and yet how 
 could we help it ? Forgive me, Punch." The 
 voice died out in a broken whisper, and two 
 hot tears fell on Black Sheep's forehead. 
 
 " Has she been making you cry too ? " he 
 asked. " You should see Jane cry. But 
 you're nice, and Jane is a Born Liar Aunty 
 Rosa says so." 
 
 " Hush, Punch, hush ! My boy, don't talk 
 like that. Try to love me a little bit a little 
 bit. You don't know how I want it. Punch- 
 baba, come back to me 1 I am your Mother 
 your own Mother and never mind the
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 67 
 
 rest. I know yes, I know, dear. It doesn't 
 matter now. Punch, won't you care for me a 
 little ? " 
 
 It is astonishing how much petting a big 
 boy of ten can endure when he is quite sure 
 that there is no one to laugh at him. Black 
 Sheep had never been made much of before, 
 and here was this beautiful woman treating 
 him Black Sheep, the Child of the Devil and 
 the Inheritor of Undying Flame as though 
 he were a small God. 
 
 " I care for you a great deal, Mother dear," 
 he whispered at last, " and I'm glad you've 
 come back ; but are you sure Aunty Rosa told 
 you everything ? " 
 
 "Everything. What does it matter? But 
 " the voice broke with a sob that was also 
 laughter " Punch, my poor, dear, half-blind 
 darling, don't you think it was a little foolish 
 of you ? " 
 
 " No. It saved a lickin'." 
 
 Mama shuddered and slipped away in the 
 darkness to write a long letter to Papa. Here 
 is an extract : 
 
 . . . Judy is a dear, plump little prig who adores the 
 woman, and wears with as much gravity as her relig- 
 ious opinions only eight, Jack ! a venerable horse- 
 hair atrocity which she calls her Bustle 1 I have just 
 burnt it, and the child is asleep in my bed as I write. 
 She will come to me at once. Punch I cannot quite 
 understand. He is well nourished, but seems to have 
 been worried into a system of small deceptions which 
 the woman magnifies into deadly sins. Don't you
 
 68 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 recollect our own up-bringing, dear, when the Fear of 
 the Lord was so often the beginning of falsehood ? I 
 shall win Pus.ch to me before long. I am taking the 
 children away into the country to get them to know me, 
 and, on the whole, I am content, or shall be when you 
 come home, dear boy, and then, thank God, we shall 
 be all under one roof again at last 1 
 
 Three months later, Punch, no longer Black 
 Sheep, has discovered that he is the veritable 
 owner of a real, live, lovely Mama, who is 
 also a sister, comforter, and friend, and that 
 he must protect her till the Father comes 
 home. Deception does not suit the part of 
 a protector, and, when one can do anything 
 without question, where is the use of decep- 
 tion? 
 
 "Mother would be awfully cross if you 
 walked through that ditch," says Judy, con- 
 tinuing a conversation. 
 
 " Mother's never angry," says Punch. 
 " She'd just say, ' You're a little pagal; ' and 
 that's not nice, but I'll show." 
 
 Punch walks through the ditch and mires 
 himself to the knees. " Mother, dear," he 
 shouts, " I'm just as dirty as I can pos-j#-ly 
 be!" 
 
 " Then change your clothes as quickly as 
 you pos-j/My can ! " rings out Mother's clear 
 voice from the house. " And don't be a little 
 fagall" 
 
 " There ! Told you so," says Punch. " It's 
 all different now, and we are just as much 
 Mother's as if she had never gone. '
 
 Baa Baa, Black Sheep 69 
 
 Not altogether, O Punch, for when young 
 lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of 
 Hate, Suspicion, and Despair, all the Love in 
 the world will not wholly take away that 
 knowledge ; though it may turn darkened eyes 
 for a while to the light, and teach Faith where 
 no Faith was.
 
 HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 
 
 " WHERE the word of a King is, there is power : 
 And who may say unto him What doest thou ? " 
 
 " YETH ! And Chimo to sleep at ve foot 
 of ve bed, and ve pink pikky-book, and ve 
 bwead 'cause I will be hungwy in ve night 
 and vat's all, Miss Biddums. And now 
 give me one kiss and I'll go to sleep. So 1 
 Kite quiet. Ow 1 Ve pink pikky-book has 
 slidded under ve pillow and ve bwead is 
 cwumbling 1 Miss Biddums 1 Miss Bid- 
 dums 1 I'm so uncomfy ! Come and tuck 
 me up, Miss Biddums." 
 
 His Majesty the King was going to bed ; 
 and poor, patient Miss Biddums, who had 
 advertised herself humbly as a " young per- 
 son, European, accustomed to the care of little 
 children," was forced to wait upon his royal 
 caprices. The going to bed was always a 
 lengthy process, because His Majesty had a 
 convenient knack of forgetting which of his 
 many friends, from the mehter's son to the 
 Commissioner's daughter, he had prayed for, 
 and, lest the Deity should take offense, was 
 used to toil through his little prayers, in all 
 70
 
 His Majesty the King 71 
 
 reverence, five times in one evening. His 
 Majesty the King believed in the efficacy of 
 prayer as devoutly as he believed in Chimo 
 the patient spaniel, or Miss Biddums, who 
 could reach him down his gun " with cur- 
 suffun caps reel ones " from the upper 
 shelves of the big nursery cupboard. 
 
 At the door of the nursery his authority 
 stopped. Beyond lay the empire of his father 
 and mother two very terrible people who 
 had no time to waste upon His Majesty the 
 King. His voice was lowered when he passed 
 the frontier of his own dominions, his actions 
 were fettered, and his soul was filled with awe 
 because of the grim man who lived among a 
 wilderness of pigeon-holes and the most fas- 
 cinating pieces of red tape, and the wonder* 
 ful woman who was always getting into or 
 stepping out of the big carriage. 
 
 To the one belonged the mysteries of the 
 " du/tar-room " ; to the other the great, re- 
 flected wilderness of the " Memsahib's room " 
 where the shiny, scented dresses hung on 
 pegs, miles and miles up in the air, and the 
 just-seen plateau of the toilet-table revealed 
 an acreage of speckly combs, broidered " hanar 
 fitch-bags," and " white-headed " brushes. 
 
 There was no room for His Majesty the 
 King either in official reserve or mundane 
 gorgeousness. He had discovered that, ages 
 and ages ago before even Chimo came to 
 the house, or Miss Biddums had ceased griz
 
 72 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 zling over a packet of greasy letters whlcft 
 appeared to be her chief treasure on earth. 
 His Majesty the King, therefore, wisely con- 
 fined himself to his own territories, where 
 only Miss Biddums, and she feebly, disputed 
 his sway. 
 
 From Miss Biddums he had picked up his 
 simple theology and welded it to the legends 
 of gods and devils that he had learned in the 
 servants' quarters. 
 
 To Miss Biddums he confided with equal 
 trust his tattered garments and his more se- 
 rious griefs. She would make everything 
 whole. She knew exactly how the Earth had 
 been born, and had reassured the trembling 
 soul of His Majesty the King that terrible 
 time in July when it rained continuously for 
 seven days and seven nights, and there was 
 no Ark ready and all the ravens had flown 
 away 1 She was the most powerful person 
 with whom he was brought into contact al- 
 ways excepting the two remote and silent 
 people beyond the nursery door. 
 
 How was His Majesty the King to know 
 that, six years ago, in the summer of his birth, 
 Mrs. Austell, turning over her husband's 
 papers, had come upon the intemperate letter 
 of a foolish woman who had been carried 
 away by the silent man's strength and personal 
 beauty ? How could he tell what evil the 
 overlooked slip of note-paper had Avrought in 
 the mind of a desperately jealous wife ?
 
 His Majesty the King 73 
 
 could he, despite his wisdom, guess that his 
 mother had chosen to make of it excuse for a 
 bar and a division between herself and her 
 husband, that strengthened and grew harder 
 to break with each year ; that she, having un- 
 earthed this skeleton in the cupboard, had 
 trained it into a household God which should 
 be about their path and about their bed, and 
 poison all their ways ? 
 
 These things were beyond the province of 
 His Majesty the King. He only knew that 
 his father was daily absorbed in some mys- 
 terious work for a thing called the Sirkar and 
 that his mother was the victim alternately of 
 the Nautch and the Burrakhana. To these 
 entertainments she was escorted by a Captain- 
 Man for whom His Majesty the King had no 
 regard. 
 
 " He doesn't laugh," he argued with Miss 
 Biddums, who would fain have taught him 
 charity. " He only makes faces wiv his 
 mouf, and when he wants to o-muse me I am 
 not o-mused." And His Majesty the Kinjf 
 shook his head as one who knew the deceit- 
 fulness of the world. 
 
 Morning and evening it was his duty to 
 salute his father and mother the former with 
 a grave shake of the hand and the latter with 
 an equally grave kiss. Once, indeed, he had 
 put his arms round his mother's neck, in the 
 fashion he used towards Miss Biddums. 
 The openwork of his sleeve-edge caught in
 
 74 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 an earring, and the last stage of His Majesty's 
 little overture was a suppressed scream and 
 summary dismissal to the nursery. 
 
 " It is w'ong," thought His Majesty the 
 King, " to hug Memsahibs wiv fings in veir 
 ears. I will amember." He never repeated 
 the experiment. 
 
 Miss Biddums, it must be confessed, spoilt 
 him as much as his nature admitted, in some 
 sort of recompense for what she called " the 
 hard ways of his Papa and Mama." She, 
 like her charge, knew nothing of the trou- 
 ble between man and wife the savage con- 
 tempt for a woman's stupidity on the one 
 side, or the dull, rankling anger on the other. 
 Miss Biddums had looked after many little 
 children in her time, and served in many 
 establishments. Being a discreet woman, 
 she observed little and said less, and, when 
 her pupils went over the sea to the Great 
 Unknown which she, with touching confi- 
 dence in her hearers, called " Home," packed 
 up her slender belongings and sought for 
 employment afresh, lavishing all her love on 
 each successive batch of ingrates. Only His 
 Majesty the King had repaid her affection 
 with interest; and in his uncomprehending 
 ears she had told the tale of nearly all her 
 hopes, her aspirations, the hopes that were 
 dead, and the dazzling glories of her ances- 
 tral home in " CWcutta. close to Wellington 
 Square."
 
 His Majesty the King 75 
 
 Everything above the average was in the 
 eyes of His Majesty the King " Calcutta 
 good." When Miss Biddums had crossed 
 his royal will, he reversed the epithet to vex 
 that estimable lady, and all things evil were, 
 until the tears of repentance swept away 
 spite, " Calcutta bad." 
 
 Now and again Miss Biddums begged for 
 him the rare pleasure of a day in the society 
 of the Commissioner's child the wilful four- 
 year-old Patsie, who, to the intense amaze- 
 ment of His Majesty the King, was idolized 
 by her parents. On thinking the question 
 out at length, by roads unknown to those 
 who have left childhood behind, he came 
 to the conclusion that Patsie was petted 
 because she wore a big blue sash and yellow 
 hair. 
 
 This precious discovery he kept to himself. 
 The yellow hair was absolutely beyond his 
 power, his own tousled wig being potato- 
 brown ; but something might be done towards 
 the blue sash. He tied a large knot in his 
 mosquito-curtains in order to remember to 
 consult Patsie on their next meeting. She 
 was the only child he had ever spoken to, and 
 almost the only one that he had ever seen. 
 The little memory and the very large and 
 ragged knot held good. 
 
 " Patsie, lend me your blue wiband," said 
 His Majesty the King. 
 
 "You'll bewy it," said Patsie doubtfully,
 
 76 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 mindful of certain fearful atrocities committed 
 on her doll. 
 
 " No, I won't twoofanhonor. It's for me 
 to wear." 
 
 " Pooh 1 " said Patsie. " Boys don't wear 
 sa-ashes. Zey's only for dirls." 
 
 " I didn't know." The face of His Majesty 
 the King fell. 
 
 " Who wants ribands ? Are you playing 
 horses, chickabiddies ? " said the Commis- 
 sioner's wife, stepping into the veranda. 
 
 " Toby wanted my sash," explained Patsie, 
 
 " I don't now," said His Majesty the King 
 hastily, feeling that with one of these terrible 
 " grown-ups " his poor little secret would be 
 shamelessly wrenched from him, and perhaps 
 most burning desecration of all laughed 
 at. 
 
 "I'll give you a cracker-cap," said the 
 Commissioner's wife. " Come along with me, 
 Toby, and we'll choose it." 
 
 The cracker-cap was a stiff, three-pointed 
 vermilion-and-tinsel splendor. His Majesty 
 the King fitted it on his royal brow. The 
 Commissioner's wife had a face that children 
 instinctively trusted, and her action, as she 
 adjusted the toppling middle spike, was 
 tender. 
 
 " Will it do as well ? " stammered His 
 Majesty the King. 
 
 " As what, little one ? " 
 
 " As ve wiban ? "
 
 His Majesty the King 77 
 
 "Oh, quite. Go and look at yourself in 
 the glass." 
 
 The words were spoken in all sincerity and 
 to help forward any absurd " dressing-up " 
 amusement that the children might take into 
 their minds. But the young savage has a 
 keen sense of the ludicrous. His Majesty 
 the King swung the great cheval-glass down, 
 and saw his head crowned with the staring 
 horror of a fool's cap a thing which his 
 father would rend to pieces if it ever came 
 into his office. He plucked it off, and burst 
 into tears. 
 
 " Toby," said the Commissioner's wife 
 gravely, " you shouldn't give way to temper. 
 I am very sorry to see it. It's wrong." 
 
 His Majesty the King sobbed inconsolably, 
 and the heart of Patsie's mother was touched. 
 She drew the child on to her knee. Clearly 
 it was not temper alone. 
 
 " What is it, Toby ? Won't you tell me ? 
 Aren't you well ? " 
 
 The torrent of sobs and speech met, and 
 fought for a time, with chokings and gulp- 
 ings and gasps. Then, in a sudden rush, 
 His Majesty the King was delivered of a 
 few inarticulate sounds, followed by the 
 words: "Go a way you dirty little 
 debbil I " 
 
 " Toby I What do you mean ? " 
 
 " It's what he'd say. I know it is 1 He 
 said vat when vere was only a little, little
 
 78 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 eggy mess, on my t-t-unic; and he'd say it 
 again, and laugh, if I went in wif vat on my 
 head." 
 
 " Who would say that ? " 
 
 " M-m-my Papa 1 And I fought if I had ve 
 blue wiban, he'd let me play in ve waste-paper 
 basket under ve table." 
 
 " What blue riband, childie ? " 
 
 " Ve same vat Patsie had ve big blue 
 wiban w-w-wound my t-t-tummy 1 " 
 
 " What is it, Toby ? There's something on 
 your mind. Tell me all about it, and perhaps 
 I can help." 
 
 " Isn't anyfing," sniffed His Majesty, mind- 
 ful of his manhood, and raising his head from 
 the motherly bosom upon which it was rest- 
 ing. " I only fought vat you you petted 
 Patsie 'cause she had ve blue wiban and and if 
 I'd had ve blue wiban too, m-my Papaw-would 
 pet me." 
 
 The secret was out, and His Majesty the 
 King sobbed bitterly in spite of the arms 
 round him, and the murmur of comfort on his 
 heated little forehead. 
 
 Enter Patsie tumultuously, embarrassed by 
 several lengths of the Commissioner's pet 
 ma/iseer-rod. " Turn along, Toby 1 Zere's a 
 chu-chu lizard in ze chick, and I've told Chimo 
 to watch him till we turn. If we poke him 
 wiz zis his tail will go wiggle-wiggle and fall 
 off. Turn along 1 I can't weach." 
 
 " I'm comin'," said His Majesty the King,
 
 His Majesty the King 79 
 
 climbing down from the Commissioner's wife's 
 knee after a hasty kiss. 
 
 Two minutes later, the chu-chu lizard's tail 
 was wriggling on the matting of the veranda, 
 and the children were gravely poking it with 
 splinters from the chick, to urge its exhausted 
 vitality into " just one wiggle more, 'cause it 
 doesn't hurt chu-chu." 
 
 The Commissioner's wife stood in the door- 
 way and watched : " Poor little mite ! A 
 blue sash . . . and my own precious Patsie 1 
 I wonder if the best of us, or we who love 
 them best, ever understand what goes on in 
 their topsy-turvy little heads." 
 
 A big tear splashed on the Commissioner's 
 wife's wedding-ring, and she went indoors to 
 devise a tea for the benefit of His Majesty 
 the King. 
 
 " Their souls aren't in their tummies at 
 that age in this climate," said the Commis- 
 sioner's wife, " but they are not far off. I 
 wonder if I could make Mrs. Austell under- 
 stand. Poor little fellow I " 
 
 With simple craft, the Commissioner's wife 
 called on Mrs. Austell and spoke long and 
 lovingly about children ; inquiring specially 
 for His Majesty the King. 
 
 " He's with his governess," said Mrs. Aus- 
 tell, and the tone intimated that she was not 
 interested. 
 
 The Commissioner's wife, unskilled in the 
 art of war, continued her questionings. " I
 
 8o Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 don't know," said Mrs. Austell. " These 
 things are left to Miss Biddums, and, of course, 
 she does not ill-treat the child." 
 
 The Commissioner's wife left hastily. 
 The last sentence jarred upon her nerves. 
 " Doesn't ill-treat the child ! As if that were 
 all ! I wonder what Tom would say if I only 
 < didn't ill-treat ' Patsie 1 " 
 
 Thenceforward, His Majesty the King was 
 an honored guest at the Commissioner's house, 
 and the chosen friend of Patsie, with whom he 
 blundered into as many scrapes as the com- 
 pound and the servants' quarters afforded. 
 Patsie's Mama was always ready to give 
 counsel, help, and sympathy, and, if need were 
 and callers few, to enter into their games with 
 an abandon that would have shocked the sleek- 
 haired subalterns who squirmed painfully in 
 their chairs when they came to call on her 
 whom they profanely nicknamed " Mother 
 Bunch." 
 
 Yet, in spite of Patsie and Patsie's Mama, 
 and the love that these two lavished upon him, 
 His Majesty the King fell grievously from 
 grace, and committed no less a sin than that 
 of theft unknown, it is true, but burdensome. 
 
 There came a man to the door one day, 
 when His Majesty was playing in the hall and 
 the bearer had gone to dinner, with a packet 
 for his Majesty's Mama. And he put it upon 
 the hall-table, said that there was no answer, 
 and departed.
 
 His Majesty the King 81 
 
 Presently, the pattern of the dado ceased to 
 interest His Majesty, while the packet, a white, 
 neatly wrapped one of fascinating shape, in- 
 terested him very much indeed. His Mama 
 was out, so was Miss Biddums, and there was 
 pink string round the packet. He greatly de- 
 sired pink string. It would help him in many 
 of his little businesses the haulage across 
 the floor of his small cane-chair, the torturing 
 of Chimo, who could never understand harness 
 and so forth. If he took the string it would 
 be his own, and nobody would be any the 
 wiser. He certainly could not pluck up suffi- 
 cient courage to ask Mama for it. Wherefore, 
 mounting upon a chair, he carefully untied the 
 string and, behold, the stiff white paper spread 
 out in four directions, and revealed a beautiful 
 little leather box with gold lines upon it 1 He 
 tried to replace the string, but that was a 
 failure. So he opened the box to get full 
 satisfaction for his iniquity, and saw a most 
 beautiful Star that shone and winked, and was 
 altogether lovely and desirable. 
 
 " Vat," said His Majesty meditatively, "is a 
 'parkle cwown, like what I will wear when I 
 go to heaven. I will wear it on my head 
 Miss Biddums says so. I would like to wear 
 it now. I would like to play wiv it. I will 
 take it away and play wiv it, very careful, 
 until Mama asks for it. I fink it was bought 
 for me to play wiv same as my cart." 
 
 His Majesty the King was arguing against 
 6
 
 82 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 his conscience, and he knew it, for he thought 
 immediately after : " Never mind. I will keep 
 it to play wiv until Mama says where is it, and 
 then I will say : ' I tookt it and I am sorry.' 
 I will not hurt it because it is a 'parkle cwown. 
 But Miss Biddums will tell me to put it back. 
 I will not show it to Miss Biddums." 
 
 If Mama had come in at that moment 
 all would have gone well. She did not, and 
 His Majesty the King stuffed paper, case, and 
 $ewel into the breast of his blouse and marched 
 to the nursery. 
 
 " When Mama asks I will tell," was the 
 salve that he laid upon his conscience. But 
 Mama never asked, and for three whole 
 days His Majesty the King gloated over his 
 treasure. It was of no earthly use to him, but 
 it was splendid, and, for aught he knew, some- 
 thing dropped from the heavens themselves. 
 Still Mama made no inquiries, and it seemed 
 to him, in his furtive peeps, as though the 
 shiny stones grew dim. What was the use of 
 a 'parkle cwown if it made a little boy feel all 
 bad in his inside ? He had the pink string 
 as well as the other treasure, but greatly he 
 wished that he had not gone beyond the string. 
 It was his first experience of iniquity, and it 
 pained him after the flush of possession and 
 secret delight in the " 'parkle cwown " had 
 died away. 
 
 Each day that he delayed rendered confes- 
 sion to the people beyond the nursery doors
 
 His Majesty the King 83 
 
 more impossible. Now and again he deter- 
 mined to put himself in the path of the beau- 
 tifully attired lady as she was going out, and 
 explain that he and no one else was the pos- 
 sessor of a " 'parkle cwown," most beautiful 
 and quite uninquired for. But she passed 
 hurriedly to her carriage, and the opportunity 
 was gone before His Majesty the King could 
 draw the deep breath which clinches noble 
 resolve. The dread secret cut him off from 
 Miss Biddums, Patsie, and the Commissioner's 
 wife, and doubly hard fate when he brood- 
 ed over it Patsie said, and told her mother, 
 that he was cross. 
 
 The days were very long to His Majesty 
 the King, and the nights longer still. Miss 
 Biddums had informed him, more than once, 
 what was the ultimate destiny of " fieves," 
 and when he passed the interminable mud 
 flanks of the Central Jail, he shook in his little 
 strapped shoes. 
 
 But release came after an afternoon spent 
 in playing boats by the edge of the tank at 
 the bottom of the garden. His Majesty the 
 King went to tea, and, for the first time in 
 his memory, the meal revolted him. His 
 nose was very cold, and his cheeks were 
 burning hot. There was a weight about his 
 feet, and he pressed his head several times 
 to make sure that it was not swelling as he 
 sat. 
 
 " I feel vevy funny," said His Majesty the
 
 84 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 King, rubbing his nose. " Vere's a buzz-buzz 
 in my head." 
 
 He went to bed quietly. Miss Biddums 
 was out and the bearer undressed him. 
 
 The sin of the " 'parkle cwown " was for- 
 gotten in the acuteness of the discomfort to 
 which he roused after a leaden sleep of some 
 hours. He was thirsty, and the bearer had 
 forgotten to leave the drinking-water. " Miss 
 Biddums! Miss Biddums! I'm so kirsty! " 
 
 No answer. Miss Biddums had leave to 
 attend the wedding of a Calcutta schoolmate. 
 His Majesty the King had forgotten that. 
 
 " I want a dwink of water 1 " he cried, but 
 his voice was dried up in his throat. " I want 
 a dwink ! Vere is ve glass ? " 
 
 He sat up in bed and looked round. There 
 was a murmur of voices from the other side 
 of the nursery door. It was better to face the 
 terrible unknown than to choke in the dark. 
 He slipped out of bed, but his feet were 
 strangely wilful, and he reeled once or twice. 
 Then he pushed the door open and staggered 
 a puffed and purple-faced little figure into 
 the brilliant light of the dining-room full of 
 pretty ladies. 
 
 " I'm vevy hot ! I'm vevy uncomfitivle," 
 moaned His Majesty the King, clinging to 
 the portiere, " and vere's no water in ve glass, 
 and I'm so kirsty. Give me a dwink of water." 
 
 An apparition in black and white His 
 Majesty the King could hardly see distinctly
 
 His Majesty the King 85 
 
 lifted him up to the level of the table, and 
 felt his wrists and forehead. The water came, 
 and he drank deeply, his teeth chattering 
 against the edge of the tumbler. Then every 
 one seemed to go away every one except the 
 huge man in black and white, who carried him 
 back to his bed ; the mother and father follow- 
 ing. And the sin of the " 'parkle cwown " 
 rushed back and took possession of the ter- 
 rified soul. 
 
 " I'm a fief ! " he gasped. " I want to tell 
 Miss Biddums vat I'm a fief. Vere is Miss 
 Biddums ? " 
 
 Miss Biddums had come and was bending 
 over him. " I'm a fief," he whispered. "A 
 fief like ve men in the pwison. But I'll tell 
 now. I tookt ... I tookt ve 'parkle cwown 
 when the man that came left it in ve hall. I 
 bwoke ve paper and ve little bwown box, and 
 it looked shiny, and I tookt it to play wif, 
 and I was afwaid. It's in ve dooly-box at ve 
 bottom. No one never asked for it, but I was 
 afwaid. Oh, go an' get ve dooly-box ! " 
 
 Miss Biddums obediently stooped to the 
 lowest shelf of the almirah and unearthed the 
 big paper box in which His Majesty the King 
 kept his dearest possessions. Under the tin 
 soldiers, and a layer of mud pellets for a pellet- 
 bow, winked and blazed a diamond star, 
 wrapped roughly in a half-sheet of note-paper 
 whereon were a few words. 
 
 Somebody was crying at the head of the
 
 86 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 bed, and a man's hand touched the forehead 
 of His Majesty the King, who grasped the 
 packet and spread it on the bed. 
 
 "Vat is ve 'parkle cvvown," he said and 
 wept bitterly ; for now that he had made res- 
 titution he would fain have kept the shining 
 splendor with him. 
 
 " It concerns you too," said a voice at the 
 head of the bed. " Read the note. This is 
 not the time to keep back anything." 
 
 The note was curt, very much to the point, 
 and signed by a single initial. " Jf you wear 
 this to-morrow night I shall know what to ex- 
 pect." The date was three weeks old. 
 
 A whisper followed, and the deeper voice 
 returned : " And you drifted as far apart as 
 that ! I think it makes us quits now, doesn't 
 it ? Oh, can't we drop this folly once and for 
 all ? Is it worth it, darling ? " 
 
 " Kiss me too," said His Majesty the King, 
 dreamily. " You isn't vevy angwy, is you ? " 
 
 The fever burned itself out, and His Maj- 
 esty the King slept. 
 
 When he waked, it was in a new world 
 peopled by his father and mother as well as 
 Miss Biddums : and there was much love in 
 that world and no morsel of fear, and more 
 petting than was good for several little boys. 
 His Majesty the King was too young to 
 moralize on the uncertainty of things hu- 
 man, or he would have been impressed with 
 the singular advantages of crime aye, black
 
 His Majesty the King 87 
 
 sin. Behold, he had stolen the " 'parkle 
 cwown," and his reward was Love, and the 
 right to play in the waste-paper basket under 
 the table " for always." 
 
 He trotted over to spend an afternoon with 
 Patsie, and the Commissioner's wife would 
 have kissed him. " No, not vere," said His 
 Majesty the King, with superb insolence, 
 fencing one corner of his mouth with his 
 hand. " Vat's my Mama's place vere she 
 kisses me." 
 
 " Oh 1 " said the Commissioner's wife 
 briefly. Then to herself : " Well, I suppose 
 I ought to be glad for his sake. Children are 
 selfish little grubs and I've got my Patsie."
 
 THE DRUMS OF THE FORE 
 AND AFT. 
 
 " AND a little child shall lead them." 
 
 IN the Army List they still stand as " The 
 Fore and Fit Princess Hohenzollern-Sigma- 
 ringen-Auspach's Merther-Tydfilshire Own 
 Royal Loyal Light Infantry, Regimental Dis- 
 trict 329A," but the Army through all its bar- 
 racks and canteens knows them now as the 
 " Fore and Aft." They may in time do 
 something that shall make their new title 
 honorable, but at present they are bitterly 
 ashamed, and the man who calls them " Fore 
 and Aft" does so at the risk of the head 
 which is on his shoulders. 
 
 Two words breathed into the stables of a 
 certain Cavalry Regiment will bring the men 
 out into the streets with belts and mops and 
 bad language ; but a whisper of " Fore and 
 Aft " will bring out this regiment with rifles. 
 
 Their one excuse is that they came again 
 and did their best to finish the job in style. 
 But for a time all their world knows that 
 they were openly beaten, whipped, dumb- 
 cowed, shaking and afraid. The men know
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 89 
 
 it ; their officers know it ; the Horse Guards 
 know it ; and when the next war comes the 
 enemy will know it also. There are two or 
 three regiments of the Line that have a black 
 mark against their names which they will 
 then wipe out, and it will be excessively in- 
 convenient for the troops upon whom they 
 do their wiping. 
 
 The courage of the British soldier is offi- 
 cially supposed to be above proof, and, as a 
 general rule, it is so. The exceptions are 
 decently shoveled out of sight, only to be 
 referred to in the freshet of unguarded talk 
 that occasionally swamps a Mess-table at mid- 
 night. Then one hears strange and horrible 
 stories of men not following their officers, of 
 orders being given by those who had no right 
 to give them, and of disgrace that, but for the 
 standing luck of the British Army, might 
 have ended in brilliant disaster. These are 
 unpleasant stories to listen to, and the Messes 
 tell them under their breath, sitting by the 
 big wood fires, and the young officer bows his 
 head and thinks to himself, please God, his 
 men shall never behave unhandily. 
 
 The British soldier is not altogether to be 
 blamed for occasional lapses ; but this ver- 
 dict he should not know. A moderately in- 
 telligent General will waste six months in 
 mastering the craft of the particular war that 
 he may be waging; a Colonel may utterly 
 misunderstand the capacity of his regiment
 
 9o Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 for three months after it has taken the field ; 
 and even a Company Commander may err 
 and be deceived as to the temper and tem- 
 perament of his own handful : wherefore the 
 soldier, and the soldier of to-day, more par- 
 ticularly, should not be blamed for falling 
 back. He should be shot or hanged after- 
 wards -pour encourager les autres ; but he 
 should not be vilified in newspapers, for that 
 is want of tact and waste of space. 
 
 He has, let us say, been in the service of 
 the Empress for, perhaps, four years. He 
 will leave in another two years. He has no 
 inherited morals, and four years are not suffi- 
 cient to drive toughness into his fiber, or to 
 teach him how holy a thing is his Regiment. 
 He wants to drink, he wants to enjoy himself 
 in India he wants to save money and he 
 does not in the least like getting hurt. He 
 has received just sufficient education to make 
 him understand half the purport of the orders 
 he receives, and to speculate on the nature of 
 clean, incised, and shattering wounds. Thus, 
 if he is told to deploy under fire preparatory 
 to an attack, he knows that he runs a very 
 great risk of being killed while he is deploy- 
 ing, and suspects that he is being thrown 
 away to gain ten minutes' time. He may 
 either deploy with desperate swiftness, or he 
 may shuffle, or bunch, or break, according to 
 the discipline under which he has lain for 
 four years.
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 91 
 
 Armed with imperfect knowledge, cursed 
 with the rudiments of an imagination, ham- 
 pered by the intense selfishness of the lower 
 classes, and unsupported by any regimental 
 associations, this young man is suddenly in- 
 troduced to an enemy who in eastern lands 
 is always ugly, generally tall and hairy, and 
 frequently noisy. If he looks to the right and 
 the left and sees old soldiers men of twelve 
 years' service, who, he knows, know what 
 they are about taking a charge, rush, or 
 demonstration without embarrassment, he is 
 consoled and applies his shoulder to the butt 
 of his rifle with a stout heart. His peace is 
 the greater if he hears a senior, who has 
 taught him his soldiering and broken his head 
 on occasion, whispering : " They'll shout and 
 carry on like this for five minutes. Then 
 they'll rush in, and then we've got 'em by the 
 short hairs ! " 
 
 But, on the other hand, if he sees only men 
 of his own term of service, turning white and 
 playing with their triggers and saying: 
 "What the Hell's up now? " while the Com- 
 pany Commanders are sweating into their 
 sword-hilts and shouting : " Front-rank, fix 
 bayonets. Steady there steady ! Sight for 
 three hundred no, for five 1 Lie down, all I 
 Steady 1 Front-rank, kneel 1 " and so forth, 
 he becomes unhappy ; and grows acutely mis- 
 erable when he hears a comrade turn over 
 with the rattle of fire-irons falling into the
 
 92 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 fender, and the grunt of a pole-axed ox. If 
 he can be moved about a little and allowed to 
 watch the effect of his own fire on the enemy 
 he feels merrier, and may be then worked up 
 to the blind passion of fighting, which is, con- 
 trary to general belief, controlled by a chilly 
 Devil and shakes men like ague. If he is not 
 moved about, and begins to feel cold at the 
 pit of the stomach, and in that crisis is badly 
 mauled and hears orders that were never 
 given, he will break, and he will break badly ; 
 and of all things under the sight of the Sun 
 there is nothing more terrible than a broken 
 British regiment. When the worst comes to 
 the worst and the panic is really epidemic, 
 the men must be e'en let go, and the Com- 
 pany Commanders had better escape to the 
 enemy and stay there for safety's sake. If 
 they can be made to come again they are not 
 pleasant men to meet, because they will not 
 break twice. 
 
 About thirty years from this date, when we 
 have succeeded in half-educating everything 
 that wears trousers, our Army will be a beau- 
 tifully unreliable machine. It will know too 
 much and it will do too little. Later still, 
 when all men are at the mental level of the 
 officer of to-day it will sweep the earth. 
 Speaking roughly, you must employ either 
 blackguards or gentlemen, or, best of all, 
 blackguards commanded by gentlemen, to do 
 Butcher's work with efficiency and despatch.
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 93 
 
 The ideal soldier should, of course, think for 
 himself the Pocket-book says so. Unfortu- 
 nately, to attain this virtue, he has to pass 
 through the phase of thinking of himself, and 
 that is misdirected genius. A blackguard may 
 be slow to think for himself, but he is genuinely 
 anxious to kill, and a little punishment teaches 
 him how to guard his own skin and perforate 
 another's. A powerfully prayerful Highland 
 Regiment, officered by rank Presbyterians, is, 
 perhaps, one degree more terrible in action 
 than a hard-bitten thousand of irresponsible 
 Irish ruffians led by most improper young 
 unbelievers. But these things prove the rule 
 which is that the midway men are not to 
 be trusted alone. They have ideas about the 
 value of life and an up-bringing that has not 
 taught them to go on and take the chances. 
 They are carefully unprovided with a backing 
 of comrades who have been shot over, and 
 until that backing is re-introduced, as a great 
 many Regimental Commanders intend it shall 
 be, they are more liable to disgrace themselves 
 than the size of the Empire or the dignity of 
 the Army allows. Their officers are as good 
 as good can be, because their training begins 
 early, and God has arranged that a clean-run 
 youth of the British middle classes shall, in 
 the matter of backbone, brains, and bowels, 
 surpass all other youths. For this reason a 
 child of eighteen will stand up, doing noth- 
 ing, with a tin sword in his hand and joy in
 
 94 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 his heart until he is dropped. If he dies, he 
 dies like a gentleman. If he lives, he writes 
 Home that he has been " potted," ' sniped," 
 " chipped " or " cut over," and sits down to 
 besiege Government for a wound-gratuity un- 
 til the next little war breaks out, when he per- 
 jures himself before a Medical Board, blar- 
 neys his Colonel, burns incense round his 
 Adjutant, and is allowed to go to the Front 
 once more. 
 
 Which homily brings me directly to a brace 
 of the most finished little fiends that ever 
 banged drum or tooted fife in the Band of a 
 British Regiment. They ended their sinful 
 career by open and flagrant mutiny and were 
 shot for it. Their names were Jakin and Lew 
 Piggy Lew and they were bold, bad drum- 
 mer-boys, both of them frequently birched by 
 the Drum-Major of the Fore and Aft. 
 
 Jakin was a stunted child of fourteen, and 
 Lew was about the same age. When not 
 looked after, they smoked and drank. They 
 swore habitually after the manner of the Bar- 
 rack-room, which is cold-swearing and comes 
 from between clinched teeth ; and they fought 
 religiously once a week. Jakin had sprung 
 from some London gutter and may or may not 
 have passed through Dr. Barnado's hands ere 
 he arrived at the dignity of drummer-boy. 
 Lew could remember nothing except the Regi- 
 ment and the delight of listening to the Band 
 from his earliest years. He hid somewhere
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 95 
 
 in his grimy little soul a genuine love for 
 music, and was most mistakenly furnished with 
 the head of a cherub ; insomuch that beauti- 
 ful ladies who watched the Regiment in 
 church were wont to speak of him as a 
 "darling." They never heard his vitriolic 
 comments on their manners and morals, as he 
 walked back to barracks with the Band and 
 matured fresh causes of offense against 
 Jakin. 
 
 The other drummer-boys hated both lads on 
 account of their illogical conduct. Jakin might 
 be pounding Lew, or Lew might be rubbing 
 Jakin's head in the dirt, but any attempt at 
 aggression on the part of an outsider was met 
 by the combined forces of Lew and Jakin ; 
 and the consequences were painful. The boys 
 were the Ishmaels of the corps, but wealthy 
 Ishmaels, for they sold battles in alternate 
 weeks for the sport of the barracks when they 
 were not pitted against other boys ; and thus 
 amassed money. 
 
 On this particular day there was dissension 
 in the camp. They had just been convicted 
 afresh of smoking, which is bad for little boys 
 who use plug-tobacco, and Lew's contention 
 was that Jakin had " stunk so 'orrid bad from 
 keepin' the pipe in pocket," that he and he 
 alone was responsible for the birching they 
 were both tingling under. 
 
 " I tell you I 'id the pipe back o' barracks," 
 said Jakin pacifically.
 
 96 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 " You're a bloomin' liar," said Lew without 
 heat. 
 
 " You're a bloomin' little barstard," said 
 Jakin, strong in the knowledge that his own 
 ancestry was unknown. 
 
 Now there is one word in the extended 
 vocabulary of barrack-room abuse that cannot 
 pass without comment. You may call a man 
 a thief and risk nothing. You may even call 
 him a coward without finding more than a 
 boot whiz past your ear, but you must not call 
 a man a bastard unless you are prepared to 
 prove it on his front teeth. 
 
 " You might ha' kep' that till I wasn't so 
 sore," said Lew sorrowfully, dodging around 
 Jakin's guard. 
 
 " I'll make you sorer," said Jakin genially, 
 and got home on Lew's alabaster forehead. 
 All would have gone well and this story, as 
 the books say, would never have been written, 
 had not his evil fate prompted the Bazar- 
 Sergeant's son, a long, employless man of five 
 and twenty, to put in an appearance after 
 the first round. He was eternally in need 
 of money, and knew that the boys had 
 silver. 
 
 " Fighting again," said he. " I'll report 
 you to my father, and he'll report you to the 
 C olor-S ergean t. ' ' 
 
 " What's that to you ? " said Jakin with an 
 unpleasant dilation of the nostrils. 
 
 " Oh 1 nothing to me. You'll get into
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 97 
 
 trouble, and you've been up too often to 
 afford that." 
 
 " What the Hell do you know about what 
 we've done ? " asked Lew the Seraph. " You 
 aren't in the Army, you lousy, cadging civil- 
 ian." 
 
 He closed in on the man's left flank. 
 
 " Jes' 'cause you find two gentlemen settlin* 
 their diff'rences with their fistes you stick in 
 your ugly nose where you aren't wanted. 
 Run 'ome to your 'arf-caste slut of a Ma or 
 we'll give you what-for," said Jakin. 
 
 The man attempted reprisals by knocking 
 the boys' heads together. The scheme would 
 have succeeded had not Jakin punched him 
 vehemently in the stomach, or had Lew re- 
 frained from kicking his shins. They fought 
 together, bleeding and breathless, for half an 
 hour, and, after heavy punishment, trium- 
 phantly pulled down their opponent as terriers 
 pull down a jackal. 
 
 " Now," gasped Jakin, " I'll give you what 
 for." He proceeded to pound the man's fea- 
 tures while Lew stamped on the outlying por- 
 tions of his anatomy. Chivalry is not a strong 
 point in the composition of the average drum- 
 mer-boy. He fights, as do his betters, to 
 make his mark. 
 
 Ghastly was the ruin that escaped, and 
 
 awful was the wrath of the Bazar-Sergeant. 
 
 Awful too was the scene in Orderly-room 
 
 when the two reprobates appeared to an- 
 
 7
 
 98 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 swer the charge of half-murdering a " civil- 
 Ian." The Bazar-Sergeant thirsted for a 
 criminal action, and his son lied. The boys 
 stood to attention while the black clouds of 
 evidence accumulated. 
 
 "You little devils are more trouble than 
 the rest of the Regiment put together," said 
 the Colonel angrily. " One might as well ad- 
 monish thistledown, and I can't well put you 
 in cells or under stoppages. You must be 
 flogged again." 
 
 " Beg y' pardon, Sir. Can't we say nothin* 
 in our own defense, Sir ? " shrilled Jakin. 
 
 " Hey 1 What ? Are you going to argue 
 with me ? " said the Colonel. 
 
 " No, Sir," said Lew. " But if a man come 
 to you, Sir, and said he was going to report you, 
 Sir, for 'aving a bit of a turn-up with a friend, 
 Sir, an' wanted to get money out o'you, Sir " 
 
 The Orderly-room exploded in a roar of 
 laughter. " Well ? " said the Colonel. 
 
 " That was what that measly jam-war 
 there did, Sir, and, 'e'd 'a' done it, Sir, if we 
 'adn't prevented 'im. We didn't 'it 'im much, 
 Sir. 'E 'adn't no manner o* right to interfere 
 with us, Sir. I don't mind bein' flogged by 
 the Drum-Major, Sir, nor yet reported by any 
 Corp'ral, but I'm but I don't think it's fair, 
 Sir, for a civilian to come an' talk over a man 
 in the Army." 
 
 A second shout of laughter shook the 
 Orderly-room, but the Colonel was grave.
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 99 
 
 " What sort of characters have these boys ? " 
 he asked of the Regimental Sergeant-Major. 
 
 "Accordin' to the Bandmaster, Sir," re- 
 turned that revered official the only soul in 
 the Regiment whom the boys feared " they 
 do everything but lie, Sir." 
 
 " Is it like we'd go for that man for fun, 
 Sir ? " said Lew, pointing to the plaintiff. 
 
 " Oh, admonished, admonished ! " said 
 the Colonel testily, and when the boys had 
 gone he read the Bazar- Sergeant's son a lec- 
 ture on the sin of unprofitable meddling, and 
 gave orders that the Bandmaster should keep 
 the Drums in better discipline. 
 
 " If either of you come to practise again 
 with so much as a scratch on your two ugly 
 little faces," thundered the Bandmaster, " I'll 
 tell the Drum-Major to take the skin off your 
 backs. Understand that, you young devils." 
 
 Then he repented of his speech for just the 
 length of time that Lew, looking like a Seraph 
 in red worsted embellishments, took the place 
 of one of the trumpets in hospital and 
 rendered the echo of a battle-piece. Lew 
 certainly was a musician, and had often in his 
 more exalted moments expressed a yearning 
 to master every instrument of the Band. 
 
 " There's nothing to prevent your becoming 
 a Bandmaster, Lew," said the Bandmaster, 
 who had composed waltzes of his own, and 
 worked day and night in the interests of the 
 Band.
 
 ioo Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 " What did he say ? " demanded Jakin after 
 practise. 
 
 " 'Said I might be a bloomin' Bandmaster, 
 an' be asked in to 'ave a glass o' sherry- wine 
 on Mess-nights." 
 
 " Ho ! 'Said you might be a bloomin' non- 
 combatant, did 'e 1 That's just about wot 'e 
 would say. When I've put in my boy's service 
 it's a bloomin' shame that doesn't count for 
 pension I'll take on a privit. Then I'll be a 
 Lance in a year knowin' what I know about 
 the ins an' outs o' things. In three years I'll 
 be a bloomin' Sergeant. I won't marry then, 
 not I ! I'll 'old on and learn the orf 'cers' ways 
 an' apply for exchange into a reg'ment that 
 doesn't know all about me. Then I'll be a 
 bloomin' orf'cer. Then I'll ask you to 'ave a 
 glass o' sherry-wine, Mister Lew, an' you'll 
 bloomin' well 'ave to stay in the hanty-room 
 while the Mess-Sergeant brings it to your dirty 
 'ands." 
 
 " S'pose 7'm going to be a Bandmaster ? 
 Not I, quite. I'll be a orf'cer too. There's 
 nothin' like taking to a thing an' stickin* to it, 
 the Schoolmaster says. The reg'ment don't 
 go 'ome for another seven years. I'll be a 
 Lance then or near to." 
 
 Thus the boys discussed their futures, and 
 conducted themselves with exemplary piety 
 for a week. That is to say, Lew started a 
 flirtation with the Color-Sergeant's daughter, 
 aged thirteen " not," as he explained to Jakin,
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 101 
 
 " with any intention o' matrimony, but by way 
 o' keepin' my 'and in." And the black-haired 
 Cris Delighan enjoyed that flirtation more than 
 previous ones, and the other drummer-boys 
 raged furiously together, and Jakin preached 
 sermons on the dangers of " bein' tangled 
 along o' petticoats." 
 
 But neither love nor virtue would have held 
 Lew long in the paths of propriety had not the 
 rumor gone abroad that the Regiment was to 
 be sent on active service, to take part in a war 
 which, for the sake of brevity, we will call 
 " The War of the Lost Tribes." 
 
 The barracks had the rumor almost before 
 the Mess-room, and of all the nine hundred 
 men in barracks not ten had seen a shot fired 
 in anger. The Colonel had, twenty years ago, 
 assisted at a Frontier expedition ; one of the 
 Majors had seen service at the Cape ; a con- 
 firmed deserter in E Company had helped to 
 clear streets in Ireland ; but that was all. The 
 Regiment had been put by for many years. 
 The overwhelming mass of its rank and file 
 had from three to four years' service ; the non- 
 commissioned officers were under thirty years 
 old; and men and sergeants alike had for- 
 gotten to speak of the stories written in brief 
 upon the Colors the New Colors that had 
 been formally blessed by an Archbishop in 
 England ere the Regiment came away. 
 
 They wanted to go to the Front they were 
 enthusiastically anxious to go but they had
 
 IO2 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 no knowledge of what war meant, and there 
 was none to tell them. They were an educated 
 regiment, the percentage of school-certificates 
 in their ranks was high, and most of the men 
 could do more than read and write. They 
 had been recruited in loyal observance of the 
 territorial idea; but they themselves had no 
 notion of that idea. They were made up of 
 drafts from an overpopulated manufacturing 
 district. The system had put flesh and muscle 
 upon their small bones, but it could not put 
 heart into the sons of those who for genera- 
 tions had done overmuch work for overscanty 
 pay, had sweated in drying-rooms, stooped 
 over looms, coughed among white lead and 
 shivered on lime-barges. The men had found 
 food and rest in the Army, and now they were 
 going to fight " niggers " people who ran 
 away if you shook a stick at them. Where- 
 fore they cheered lustily when the rumor ran, 
 and the shrewd, clerkly non-commissioned 
 officers speculated on the chances of batta and 
 of saving their pay. At Headquarters, men 
 said : " The Fore and Fit have never been 
 under fire within the last generation. Let us, 
 therefore, break them in easily by setting them 
 to guard lines of communication." And this 
 would have been done but for the fact that 
 British Regiments were wanted badly wanted 
 at the Front, and there were doubtful Native 
 Regiments that could fill the minor duties. 
 "Brigade 'em with two strong Regiments,"
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 103 
 
 said Headquarters. " They may be knocked 
 about a bit, but they'll learn their business 
 before they come through. Nothing like a 
 night-alarm and a little cutting-up of stragglers 
 to make a Regiment smart in the field. Wait 
 till they've had half a dozen sentries' throats 
 cut." 
 
 The Colonel wrote with delight that the 
 temper of his men was excellent, that the Reg- 
 iment was all that could be wished and as 
 sound as a bell. The Majors smiled with a 
 sober joy, and the subalterns waltzed in pairs 
 down the Mess-room after dinner and nearly 
 shot themselves at revolver-practise. But 
 there was consternation in the hearts of Jakin 
 and Lew. What was to be done with the 
 drums ? Would the Band go to the Front ? 
 How many of the drums would accompany the 
 Regiment ? 
 
 They took council together, sitting in a tree 
 and smoking. 
 
 " It's more than a bloomin' toss-up they'll 
 leave us be'ind at the Depot with the womem 
 You'll like that," said Jakin sarcastically. 
 
 " 'Cause o' Cris, y' mean ? Wot's a woman, 
 or a 'ole bloomin 1 depot o' women, 'longside 
 o' the chanst of field-service ? You know I'm 
 as keen on goin' as you," said Lew. 
 
 " 'Wish I was a bloomin' bugler," said Jakin 
 sadly. " They'll take Tom Kidd along, that 
 I can plaster a wall with, an' like as not they 
 won't take us."
 
 104 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 "Then let's go an' make Tom Kidd so 
 bloomin' sick 'e can't bugle no more. You 
 'old 'is 'ands an' I'll kick him," said Lew, wrig- 
 gling on the branch. 
 
 " That ain't no good neither. We ain't the 
 sort o' characters to presoom on our rep'tations 
 they're bad. If they have the Band at the 
 Depot we don't go, and no error there. If 
 they take the Band we may get cast for med- 
 ical unfitness. Are you medical fit, Piggy ? " 
 said Jakin, digging Lew in the ribs with force. 
 
 " Yus," said Lew with an oath. " The 
 Doctor says your 'cart's weak through smokin' 
 on an empty stummick. Throw a chest an* 
 I'll try yer." 
 
 Jakin threw out his chest, which Lew smote 
 with all his might. Jakin turned very pale, 
 gasped, crowed, screwed up his eyes, and said, 
 " That's all right." 
 
 " You'll do," said Lew. " I've 'eard o' men 
 dyin' when you 'it 'em fair on the breastbone." 
 
 " 'Don't bring us no nearer goin', though," 
 said Jakin. " Do you know where we're 
 ordered ? " 
 
 " Gawd knows, an' 'e won't split on a pal. 
 Somewheres up to the Front to kill Paythans 
 hairy big beggars that turn you inside out 
 if they get 'old o' you. They say their women 
 are good-looking, too." 
 
 " Any loot ? " asked the abandoned Jakin. 
 
 " Not a bloomin' anna, they say, unless you 
 dig up the ground an' see what the niggers
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 105 
 
 'ave 'id. They're a poor lot." Jakin stood, 
 upright on the branch and gazed across the 
 plain. 
 
 "Lew," said he, "there's the Colonel 
 coming. 'Colonel's a good old beggar. Let's 
 go an' talk to 'im." 
 
 Lew nearly fell out of the tree at the audac- 
 ity of the suggestion. Like Jakin he feared 
 not God, neither regarded he Man, but there 
 are limits even to the audacity of drummer- 
 boy, and to speak to a Colonel was . . . 
 
 But Jakin had slid down the trunk and 
 doubled in the direction of the Colonel. That 
 officer was walking wrapped in thought and 
 visions of a C. B. yes, even a K. C. B., for 
 had he not at command one of the best Reg- 
 iments of the Line the Fore and Fit ? And 
 he was aware of two small boys charging 
 down upon him. Once before it had been 
 solemnly reported to him that " the Drums 
 were in a state of mutiny " ; Jakin and Lew 
 being the ringleaders. This looked like an 
 organized conspiracy. 
 
 The boys halted at twenty yards, walked 
 to the regulation four paces, and saluted 
 together, each as well set-up as a ramrod and 
 little taller. 
 
 The Colonel was in a genial mood ; the 
 boys appeared very forlorn and unprotected 
 on the desolate plain, and one of them was 
 handsome. 
 
 " Well 1 " said the Colonel, recognizing
 
 io6 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 them. " Are you going to pull me down in 
 the open ? I'm sure I never interfere with 
 you> even though " he sniffed suspiciously 
 " you have been smoking." 
 
 It was time to strike while the iron was hot. 
 Their hearts beat tumultuously. 
 
 " Beg y' pardon, Sir," began Jakin. " The 
 Reg'ment's ordered on active service, Sir ? " 
 
 " So I believe," said the Colonel cour- 
 teously. 
 
 " Is the Band goin', Sir ? " said both to- 
 gether. Then, without pause, " We're goin', 
 Sir, ain't we ? " 
 
 " You 1 " said the Colonel, stepping back 
 the more fully to take in the two small fig- 
 ures. " You! You'd die in the first march.' 
 
 " No, we wouldn't, Sir. We can march 
 with the Regiment anywheres p'rade an' 
 anywhere else," said Jakin. 
 
 " If Tom Kidd goes 'e'll shut up like a 
 clasp-knife," said Lew. " Tom 'as very close 
 veins in both 'is legs, sir." 
 
 " Very how much ? " 
 
 "Very close veins, Sir. That's why they 
 swells after long p'rade, Sir. If 'e can go, 
 we can go, Sir." 
 
 Again the Colonel looked at them long 
 and intently. 
 
 "Yes, the Band is going," he said as 
 gravely as though he had been addressing a 
 brother officer. " Have you any parents, 
 either of you two ? "
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 107 
 
 " No, Sir," rejoicingly from Lew and Jakin. 
 "We're both orphans, Sir. There's no one 
 to be considered of on our account, Sir." 
 
 " You poor little sprats, and you want to 
 go up to the Front with the Regiment, do 
 you ? Why ? " 
 
 " I've wore the Queen's Uniform for two 
 years," said Jakin. " It's very 'ard, Sir, that 
 a man don't get no recompense for doin' 'is 
 dooty, Sir." 
 
 " An' an' if I don't go, Sir," interrupted 
 Lew, " the Bandmaster 'e says 'e'll catch an* 
 make a bloo a blessed musician o' me, Sir. 
 Before I've seen any service, Sir." 
 
 The Colonel made no answer for a long 
 time. Then he said quietly : " If you're 
 passed by the Doctor I dare say you can go. 
 I shouldn't smoke if I were you." 
 
 The boys saluted and disappeared. The 
 Colonel walked home and told the story to 
 his wife, who nearly cried over it. The Colo- 
 nel was well pleased. If that was the tem- 
 per of the children, what would not the men 
 do? 
 
 Jakin and Lew entered the boys' barrack- 
 room with great stateliness, and refused to 
 hold any conversation with their comrades 
 for at least ten minutes. Then, bursting 
 with pride, Jakin drawled : " I've bin inter- 
 vooin* the Colonel. Good old beggar is the 
 Colonel. Says I to 'im, ' Colonel/ says I, 
 ' let me go to the Front, along o' the Reg'-
 
 io8 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 ment.' ' To the Front you shall go,' says 'e, 
 4 an' I only wish there was more like you 
 among the dirty little devils that bang the 
 bloomin' drums.' Kidd, if you throw your 
 'coutrements at me for tellin* you the truth 
 to your own advantage, your legs'll swell." 
 
 None the less there was a Battle-Royal in 
 the barrack-room, for the boys were consumed 
 with envy and hate, and neither Jakin nor 
 Lew behaved in conciliatory wise. 
 
 " I'm goin' out to say adoo to my girl," 
 said Lew, to cap the climax. " Don't none o' 
 you touch my kit because it's wanted for 
 active service, me bein' specially invited to 
 go by the Colonel." 
 
 He strolled forth and whistled in the clump 
 of trees at the back of the Married Quarters 
 till Cris came to him, and, the preliminary 
 kisses being given and taken, Lew began to 
 explain the situation. 
 
 " I'm goin' to the Front with the Reg'- 
 ment," he said, valiantly. 
 
 " Piggy > you're a little liar," said Cris, but 
 her heart misgave her, for Lew was not in the 
 habit of lying. 
 
 " Liar yourself, Cris," said Lew, slipping an 
 arm round her. "I'm goin'. When the 
 Reg'ment marches out you'll see me with 'em, 
 all galliant and gay. Give us another kiss, 
 Cris, on the strength of it." 
 
 " If you'd on'y a-stayed at the Depot where 
 you ought to ha' bin you could get as many
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 109 
 
 of 'em as as you dam please," whimpered 
 Cris, putting up her mouth. 
 
 " It's 'ard, Cris. I grant you it's 'ard. But 
 what's a man to do? If I'd a-stayed at the 
 Depot, you wouldn't think anything of me." 
 
 " Like as not, but I'd 'ave you with me, 
 Piggy- A 11 ' a ^ th e thinkin' in the world isn't 
 like kissift'." 
 
 " An' all the kissin' in the world isn't like 
 'avin' a medal to wear on the front o' your 
 coat" 
 
 " You won't get no medal." 
 
 " Oh, yus, I shall though. Me an* Jakin 
 are the only acting-drummers that'll be took 
 along. All the rest is full men, an' we'll get 
 our medals with them." 
 
 " They might ha' taken anybody but you, 
 Piggy. You'll get killed you're so venture- 
 some. Stay with me, Piggy darlin', down at 
 the Depot, an' I'll love you true forever." 
 
 " Ain't you goin' to do that now, Cris ? You 
 said you was." 
 
 " O* course I am, but th' other's more com- 
 fortable. Wait till you've growed a bit, 
 Piggy. You aren't no taller than me now." 
 
 " I've bin in the Army for two years an' I'm 
 not goin' to get out of a chanst o' seein' serv- 
 ice, an' don't you try to make me do so. I'll 
 come back, Cris, an' when I take on as a 
 man I'll marry you marry you when I'm a 
 Lance." 
 
 " Promise, Piggy ? "
 
 no Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 Lew reflected on the future as arranged by 
 Jakin a short time previously, but Cris's 
 mouth was very near to his own. 
 
 " I promise, s'elp me Gawd 1 " said he. 
 
 Cris slid an arm round his neck. 
 
 " I won't 'old you back no more, Piggy. 
 Go away an' get your medal, an' I'll make you 
 a new button-bag as nice as I know how," she 
 whispered. 
 
 " Put some o' your 'air into it, Cris, an' I'll 
 keep it in my pocket so long's I'm alive." 
 
 Then Cris wept anew, and the interview 
 ended. Public feeling among the drummer- 
 boys rose to fever pitch, and the lives of Jakin 
 and Lew became unenviable. Not only had 
 they been permitted to enlist two years before 
 the regulation boy's age fourteen but, by 
 virtue, it seemed, of their extreme youth, they 
 were allowed to go to the front which thing 
 had not happened to acting-drummers within 
 the knowledge of boy. The Band which was 
 to accompany the Regiment had been cut 
 down to the regulation twenty men, the sur- 
 plus returning to the ranks. Jakin and Lew 
 were attached to the Band as supernumeraries, 
 though they would much have preferred being 
 Company buglers. 
 
 " Don't matter much," said Jakin after the 
 medical inspection. " Be thankful that we're 
 'lowed to go at all. The Doctor 'e said that if we 
 could stand what we took from the Bazar Ser 
 geant's son we'd stand pretty nigh anything."
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft in 
 
 " Which we will," said Lew, looking ten- 
 derly at the ragged and ill-made housewife 
 that Cris had given him, with a lock of her 
 hair worked into a sprawling " L" upon the 
 cover. 
 
 " It was the best I could," she sobbed. " I 
 wouldn't let mother nor the Sergeant's tailor 
 'elp me. Keep it always, Piggy, an' remem- 
 ber I love you true." 
 
 They marched to the railway station, nine 
 hundred and sixty strong, and every soul in 
 cantonments turned out to see them go. The 
 drummers gnashed their teeth at Jakin and 
 Lew marching with the Band, the married wo- 
 men wept upon the platform, and the Regiment 
 cheered its noble self black in the face. 
 
 " A nice level lot," said the Colonel to the 
 Second-in-Command, as they watched the first 
 four companies entraining. 
 
 " Fit to do anything," said the Second-in- 
 Command enthusiastically. " But it seems to 
 me they're a thought too young and tender for 
 the work in hand. It's bitter cold up at the 
 Front now." 
 
 " They're sound enough," said the Colonel. 
 " We must take our chance of sick casual- 
 ties." 
 
 So they went northward, ever northward, 
 past droves and droves of camels, armies of 
 camp followers, and legions of laden mules, 
 the throng thickening day by day, till with a 
 shriek the train pulled up at a hopelessly con-
 
 H2 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 gested junction where six lines of temporary 
 track accommodated six forty-wagon trains ; 
 where whistles blew, Babus sweated and Com- 
 missariat officers swore from dawn till far into 
 the night amid the wind-driven chaff of the 
 fodder-bales and the lowing of a thousand 
 steers. 
 
 " Hurry up you're badly wanted at the 
 Front," was the message that greeted the Fore 
 and Aft, and the occupants of the Red Cross 
 carriages told the same tale. 
 
 " 'Tisn't so much the bloomin' fighting," 
 gasped a headbound trooper of Hussars to a 
 knot of admiring Fore and Afts. " 'Tisn't so 
 much the bloomin' fightin', though there's 
 enough o' that. It's the bloomin' food an' 
 the bloomin' climate. Frost all night 'cept 
 when it hails, and biling sun all day, and the 
 water stinks fit to knock you down. I got my 
 'ead chipped like a egg ; I've got pneumonia 
 too, an' my guts is all out o' order. 'Tain't 
 no bloomin' picnic in those parts, I can tell 
 you." 
 
 " Wot are the niggers like ? " demanded a 
 private. 
 
 " There's some prisoners in that train 
 yonder. Go an' look at 'em. They're the 
 aristocracy o' the country. The common folk 
 are a dashed sight uglier. If you want to 
 know what they fight with, reach under my 
 seat an' pull out the long knife that's there." 
 
 They dragged out and beheld for the first
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 113 
 
 time the grim, bone-handled, triangular 
 Afghan knife. It was almost as long as 
 Lew. 
 
 "That's the thing to jint ye," said the 
 trooper feebly. 
 
 '* It can take off a man's arm at the shoul- 
 der as easy as slicing butter. I halved the 
 beggar that used that 'un, but there's more of 
 his likes up above. They don't understand 
 thrustin', but they're devils to slice." 
 
 The men strolled across the tracks to inspect 
 the Afghan prisoners. They were unlike any 
 " niggers " that the Fore and Aft had ever 
 met these huge, black-haired, scowling sons 
 of the Beni-Israel. As the men stared the 
 Afghans spat freely and muttered one to 
 another with lowered eyes. 
 
 " My eyes ! Wot awful swine 1 " said Jakin, 
 who was in the rear of the procession. " Say, 
 old man, how you got puckrowed, eh? Kis- 
 wasti you wasn't hanged for your ugly face, 
 hey?" 
 
 The tallest of the company turned, his leg- 
 irons clanking at .the movement, and stared at 
 the boy. " See 1 " he cried to his fellows in 
 Pushto. " They send children against us, 
 What a people, and what fools 1 " 
 
 " Hya /" said Jakin, nodding his head cheer- 
 ily. "You go down-country. Khana get, 
 peenikapanec get live like a bloomin' Raja ke 
 marfik. That's a better bandobust than baynit 
 get it in your innards. Good-by, ole man. 
 8
 
 ri4 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 Take care o' your beautiful figure'ed, an* try 
 to look kushy" 
 
 The men laughed and fell in for their first 
 march when they began to realize that a 
 soldier's life was not all beer and skittles. 
 They were much impressed with the size and 
 bestial ferocity of the niggers whom they had 
 now learned to call " Paythans," and more 
 with the exceeding discomfort of their own 
 surroundings. Twenty old soldiers in the 
 .corps would have taught them how to make 
 themselves moderately snug at night, but they 
 !had no old soldiers, and, as the troops on the 
 fline of march said, " they lived like pigs." 
 They learned the heart-breaking cussedness of 
 camp-kitchens and camels and the depravity 
 of an E. P. tent and a wither-wrung mule. 
 They studied animalculae in water, and de- 
 veloped a few cases of dysentery in their 
 study. 
 
 At the end of their third march they were 
 disagreeably surprised by the arrival in their 
 camp of a hammered iron slug which, fired 
 from a steady-rest at seven hundred yards, 
 flicked out the brains of a private seated by 
 the fire. This robbed them of their peace 
 for a night, and was the beginning of a long- 
 range fire carefully calculated to that end. 
 In the daytime they saw nothing except an 
 occasional puff of smoke from a crag above 
 the line of march. At night there were dis- 
 tant spurts of flame and occasional casualties,
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 115 
 
 which set the whole camp blazing into the 
 gloom, and, occasionally, into opposite tents. 
 Then they swore vehemently and vowed that 
 this was magnificent but not war. 
 
 Indeed it was not. The Regiment could 
 not halt for reprisals against the franc-tireurs 
 of the country side. Its duty was to go for- 
 ward and make connection with the Scotch 
 and Gurkha troops with which it was brigaded. 
 The Afghans knew this, and knew too, after 
 their first tentative shots, that they were deal- 
 ing with a raw regiment. Thereafter they 
 devoted themselves to the task of keeping 
 the Fore and Aft on the strain. Not for any- 
 thing would they have taken equal liberties 
 with a seasoned corps with the wicked little 
 Gurkhas, whose delight it was to lie out on 
 the open on a dark night and stalk their 
 stalkers with the terrible, big men dressed 
 in women's clothes, who could be heard pray- 
 ing to their God in the night-watches, and 
 whose peace of mind no amount of " sniping " 
 could shake or with those vile Sikhs, who 
 marched so ostentatiously unprepared and 
 who dealt out such grim reward to those 
 who tried to profit by that unpreparedness. 
 This white regiment was different quite dif- 
 ferent It slept like a hog, and, like a hog, 
 charged in every direction when it was roused. 
 Its sentries walked with a footfall that could 
 be heard for a quarter of a mile ; would fire 
 at anything that moved even a driven don;
 
 n6 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 key and when they had once fired, could be 
 scientifically " rushed " and laid out a horror 
 and an offense against the morning sun. 
 Then there were camp-followers who straggled 
 and could be cut up without fear. Their 
 shrieks would disturb the white boys, and the 
 loss of their services would inconvenience 
 them sorely. 
 
 Thus, at every march, the hidden enemy 
 became bolder and the regiment writhed and 
 twisted under attacks it could not avenge. 
 The crowning triumph was a sudden night- 
 rush ending in the cutting of many tent-ropes, 
 the collapse of the sodden canvas, and a glori- 
 ous knifing of the men who struggled and 
 kicked below. It was a great deed, neatly 
 carried out, and it shook the already shaken 
 nerves of the Fore and Aft. All the courage 
 that they had been required to exercise up to 
 this point was the " two o'clock in the morn- 
 ing courage " ; and they, so far, had only 
 succeeded in shooting their comrades and 
 losing their sleep. 
 
 Sullen, discontented, cold, savage, sick, 
 with their uniforms dulled and unclean, the 
 " Fore and Aft " joined their Brigade. 
 
 " I hear you had a tough time of it coming 
 up," said the Brigadier. But when he saw 
 the hospital-sheets his face fell. 
 
 " This is bad," said he to himself. " They're 
 as rotten as sheep." And aloud to the 
 Colonel, " I'm afraid we can't spare you
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 117 
 
 just yet. We want all we have, else I should 
 have given you ten days to recruit in." 
 
 The Colonel winced. " On my honor, 
 Sir," he returned, " there is not the least 
 necessity to think of sparing us. My men 
 have been rather mauled and upset without a 
 fair return. They only want to go in some- 
 where where they can see what's before 
 them." 
 
 "Can't say I think much of the Fore and 
 Fit," said the Brigadier in confidence to his 
 Brigade-Major. " They've lost all their sol- 
 diering, and, by the trim of them, might have 
 marched through the country from the other 
 side. A more fagged-out set of men I never 
 put eyes on." 
 
 " Oh, they'll improve as the work goes on. 
 The parade gloss has been rubbed off a little s 
 but they'll put on field polish before long," 
 said the Brigade-Major. " They've been 
 mauled, and they quite don't understand it" 
 
 They did not. All the hitting was on one 
 side, and it was cruelly hard hitting with ac- 
 cessories that made them sick. There was 
 also the real sickness that laid hold of a 
 strong man and dragged him howling to the 
 grave. Worst of all, their officers knew just 
 as little of the country as the men themselves, 
 and looked as if they did. The Fore and Aft 
 were in a thoroughly unsatisfactory condition, 
 but they believed that all would be well if they 
 could once get a fair go-in at the enemy. Pot
 
 u8 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 shots up and down the valleys were unsatis- 
 factory, and the bayonet never seemed to get 
 a chance. Perhaps it was as well, for a long- 
 limbed Afghan with a knife had a reach of 
 eight feet, and could carry away enough lead 
 to disable three Englishmen. The Fore and 
 Fit would like some rifle-practise at the enemy 
 all seven hundred rifles blazing together. 
 That wish showed the mood of the men. 
 
 The Gurkhas walked into their camp, and 
 in broken, barrack-room English strove to 
 fraternize with them ; offered them pipes of 
 tobacco and stood them treat at the canteen. 
 But the Fore and Aft, not knowing much of 
 the nature of the Gurkhas, treated them as 
 they would treat any other "niggers," and 
 the little men in green trotted back to their 
 firm friends the Highlanders, and with many 
 grins confided to them : " That dam white 
 regiment no dam use. Sulky ugh I Dirty 
 ugh 1 Hya, any tot for Johnny ? " Whereat 
 the Highlanders smote the Gurkhas as to the 
 head, and told them not to vilify a British 
 Regiment, and the Gurkhas grinned cavern- 
 ously, for the Highlanders were their elder 
 brothers and entitled to the privileges of kin- 
 ship. The common soldier who touches a 
 Gurkha is more than likely to have his head 
 sliced open. 
 
 Three days later the Brigadier arranged a 
 battle according to the rules of war and the 
 peculiarity of the Afghan temperament. The
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 119 
 
 enemy were massing in inconvenient strength 
 among the hills, and the moving of many 
 green standards warned him that the tribes 
 were " up " in aid of the Afghan regular 
 troops. A Squadron and a half of Bengal 
 Lancers represented the available Cavalry, 
 and two screw-guns borrowed from a column 
 thirty miles away, the Artillery at the Gen- 
 eral's disposal. 
 
 " If they stand, as I've a very strong notion 
 that they will, I fancy we shall see an infantry 
 fight that will be worth watching," said the 
 Brigadier. " We'll do it in style. Each 
 regiment shall be played into action by its 
 Band, and we'll hold the Cavalry in reserve." 
 
 " For all the reserve ? " somebody asked. 
 
 " For all the reserve ; because we're going 
 to crumple them up," said the Brigadier, who 
 was an extraordinary Brigadier, and did not 
 believe in the value of a reserve when deal- 
 ing with Asiatics. And, indeed, when you 
 come to think of it, had the British Army con- 
 sistently waited for reserves in all its little 
 affairs, the boundaries of Our Empire would 
 have stopped at Brighton beach. 
 
 That battle was to be a glorious battle. 
 
 The three regiments debouching from three 
 separate gorges, after duly crowning the 
 heights above, were to converge from the cen- 
 ter, left, and right upon what we will call the 
 Afghan army, then stationed towards the 
 lower extremity of a flat-bottomed valley.
 
 I2O Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 Thus it will be seen that three sides of the 
 valley practically belonged to the English, 
 while the fourth was strictly Afghan property. 
 In the event of defeat the Afghans had the 
 rocky hills to fly to, where the fire from the 
 guerilla tribes in aid would cover their retreat. 
 In the event of victory these same tribes 
 would rush down and lend their weight to the 
 rout of the British. 
 
 The screw-guns were to shell the head of 
 each Afghan rush that was made in close 
 formation, and the Cavalry, held in reserve 
 >.n the right valley, were to gently stimulate 
 the break-up which would follow on the com- 
 bined attack. The Brigadier, sitting upon a 
 rock overlooking the valley, would watch the 
 battle unrolled at his feet. The Fore and 
 Aft would debouch from the central gorge, 
 the Gurkhas from the left, and the Highlanders 
 from the right, for the reason that the left 
 flank of the enemy seemed as though it 
 required the most hammering. It was not 
 every day that an Afghan force would take 
 ground in the open, and the Brigadier was 
 resolved to make the most of it. 
 
 " If we only had a few more men," he said 
 plaintively, " we could surround the creatures 
 and crumble 'em up thoroughly. As it is, I'm 
 afraid we can only cut them up as they run. 
 It's a great pity." 
 
 The Fore and Aft had enjoyed unbroken 
 peace far five days, and were beginning, ic
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 121 
 
 spite of dysentery, to recover their nerve. 
 But they were not happy, for they did not 
 know the work in hand, and had they known, 
 would not have known how to do it. Through- 
 out those five days in which old soldiers might 
 have taught them the craft of the game, they 
 discussed together their misadventures in the 
 past how such an one was alive at dawn and 
 dead ere the dusk, and with what shrieks and 
 struggles such another had given up his soul 
 under the Afghan knife. Death was a new 
 and horrible thing to the sons of mechanics 
 who were used to die decently of zymotic 
 disease ; and their careful conservation in 
 barracks had done nothing to make them look 
 upon it with less dread. 
 
 Very early in the dawn the bugles began to 
 blow, and the Fore and Aft, filled with a mis- 
 guided enthusiasm, turned out without waiting 
 for a cup of coffee and a biscuit ; and were 
 rewarded by being kept under arms in the 
 cold while the other regiments leisurely pre- 
 pared for the fray. All the world knows that 
 it is ill taking the breeks off a Highlander. 
 It is much iller to try to make him stir unless 
 he is convinced of the necessity for haste. 
 
 The Fore and Aft waited, leaning upon 
 their rifles and listening to the protests of 
 their empty stomachs. The Colonel did his 
 best to remedy the default of lining as soon 
 as it was borne in upon him that the affair 
 would not begin at once, and so well did he
 
 122 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 succeed that the coffee was just ready when 
 the men moved off, their Band leading. 
 Even then there had been a mistake in time, 
 and the Fore and Aft came out into the valley 
 ten minutes before the proper hour. Their 
 Band wheeled to the right after reaching the 
 open, and retired behind a little rocky knoll 
 still playing while the regiment went past. 
 
 It was not a pleasant sight that opened on 
 the uninstructed view, for the lower end of the 
 valley appeared to be filled by an army in 
 position real and actual regiments attired in 
 red coats, and of this there was no doubt 
 firing Martini-Henry bullets which cut up the 
 ground a hundred yards in front of the leading 
 company. Over that pock-marked ground the 
 regiment had to pass, and it opened the ball 
 with a general and profound courtesy to the 
 piping pickets ; ducking in perfect time, as 
 though it had been brazed on a rod. Being 
 half-capable of thinking for itself, it fired a 
 volley by the simple process cf pitching its 
 rifle into its shoulder and pulling the trigger. 
 The bullets may have accounted for some of 
 the watchers on the hillside, but they certainly 
 did not affect the mass of enemy in front, while 
 the noise of the rifles drowned any orders that 
 might have been given. 
 
 " Good God ! " said the Brigadier, sitting on 
 the rock high above all. " That regiment lias 
 spoilt the whole show. Hurry up the others, 
 and let the screw-guns get off."
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 123 
 
 But the screw-guns, in working round the 
 heights, had stumbled upon a wasp's nest of 
 a small mud fort which they incontinently 
 shelled at eight hundred yards, to the huge 
 discomfort of the occupants, who were unac- 
 customed to weapons of such devilish preci- 
 sion. 
 
 The Fore and Aft continued to go forward 
 but with shortened stride. Where were the 
 other regiments, and why did these niggers 
 use Martinis ? They took open order instinc- 
 tively, lying down and firing at random, rush- 
 ing a few paces forward and lying down again, 
 according to the regulations. Once in this 
 formation, each man felt himself desperately 
 alone, and edged in towards his fellow for 
 comfort's sake. 
 
 Then the crack of his neighbor's rifle at his 
 ear led him to fire as rapidly as he could 
 again for the sake of the comfort of the noise. 
 The reward was not long delayed. Five vol- 
 leys plunged the files in banked smoke im- 
 penetrable to the eye, and the bullets began 
 to take ground twenty or thirty yards in front 
 of the firers, as the weight of the bayonet 
 dragged down, and to the right arms wearied 
 with holding the kick of the leaping Martini. 
 The Company Commanders peered helplessly 
 through the smoke, the more nervous mechan- 
 ically trying to fan it away with their hel- 
 mets. 
 
 " High and to the left I " bawled a Captain
 
 124 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 till he was hoarse. " No good ! Cease fir 
 ing, and let it drift away a bit." 
 
 Three and four times the bugles shrieked 
 the order, and when it was obeyed the Fore 
 and Aft looked that their foe should be lying 
 before them in mown swaths of men. A light 
 wind drove the smoke to leeward, and showed 
 the enemy still in position and apparently un- 
 affected. A quarter of a ton of lead had been 
 buried a furlong in front of them, as the ragged 
 earth attested. 
 
 That was not demoralizing. They were 
 waiting for the mad riot to die down, and were 
 firing quietly into the heart of the smoke. A 
 private of the Fore and Aft spun up his com- 
 pany shrieking with agony, another was kick- 
 ing the earth and gasping, and a third, ripped 
 through the lower intestines by a jagged bullet, 
 was calling aloud on his comrades to put him 
 out of his pain. These were the casualties, 
 and they were not soothing to hear or see. 
 The smoke cleared to a dull haze. 
 
 Then the foe began to shout with a great 
 shouting and a mass a black mass detached 
 itself from the main body, and rolled over the 
 ground at horrid speed. It was composed of, 
 perhaps, three hundred men, who would shout 
 and fire and slash if the rush of their fifty 
 comrades who were determined to die carried 
 home. The fifty were Ghazis, half-maddened 
 with drugs and wholly mad with religious 
 fanaticism. When they rushed the British
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 125 
 
 fire ceased, and in the lull the order was given 
 to close ranks and meet them with the bayonet. 
 
 Any one who knew the business could have 
 told the Fore and Aft that the only way of 
 dealing with a Ghazi rush is by volleys at long 
 ranges ; because a man who means to die, who 
 desires to die, who will gain heaven by dying, 
 must, in nine cases out of ten, kill a man who 
 has a lingering prejudice in favor of life if he 
 can close with the latter. Where they should 
 have closed and gone forward, the Fore and 
 Aft opened out and skirmished, and where 
 they should have opened out and fired, they 
 closed and waited. 
 
 A man dragged from his blankets half awake 
 and unfed is never in a pleasant frame of 
 mind. Nor does his happiness increase when 
 he watches the whites of the eyes of three 
 hundred six-foot fiends upon whose beards 
 the foam is lying, upon whose tongues is a 
 roar of wrath, and in whose hands are three- 
 foot knives. 
 
 The Fore and Aft heard the Gurkha bugles 
 bringing that regiment forward at the double, 
 while the neighing of the Highland pipes came 
 from the left. They strove to stay where they 
 were, though the bayonets wavered down the 
 line like the oars of a ragged boat. Then 
 they felt body to body the amazing physical 
 strength of their foes ; a shriek of pain ended 
 the rush, and the knives fell amid scenes not 
 to be told. The men clubbed together and
 
 126 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 smote blindly as often as not at their own 
 fellows. Their 'front crumpled like paper, and 
 the fifty Ghazis passed on ; their backers, 
 now drunk with success, fighting as madly 
 as they. 
 
 Then the rear-ranks were bidden to close 
 up, and the subalterns dashed into the stew 
 alone. For the rear-rank had heard the 
 clamor in front, the yells and the howls of 
 pain, and had seen the dark stale blood that 
 makes afraid. They were not going to stay. 
 It was the rushing of the camps over again. 
 Let their officers go to Hell, if they chose ; 
 they would get away from the knives. 
 
 " Come on ! " shrieked the subalterns, and 
 their men, cursing them, drew back, each clos- 
 ing into his neighbor and wheeling round. 
 
 Charteris and Devlin, subalterns of the last 
 company, faced their death alone in the belief 
 that their men would follow. ' 
 
 " You've killed me, you cowards," sobbed 
 Devlin and dropped, cut from the shoulder- 
 strap to the center of the chest, and a fresh 
 detachment of his men retreating, always re- 
 treating, trampled him under foot as they 
 made for the pass whence they had emerged. 
 
 I kissed her in the kitchen and I kissed her in the hall, 
 
 Child'un, child'un, follow me I 
 Oh Golly, said the cook, is he gwine to kiss us all ? 
 
 Halla Halla Halla Hallelujah ! 
 
 The Gurkhas were pouring through the left
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 127 
 
 gorge and over the heights at the double to 
 the invitation of their regimental Quick-step. 
 The black rocks were crowned with dark 
 green spiders as the bugles gave tongue jubi- 
 lantly : 
 
 In the morning ! In the morning by the bright light 1 
 When Gabriel blows his trumpet in the morning 1 
 
 The Gurkha rear-companies tripped and 
 blundered over loose stones. The front-files 
 halted for a moment to take stock of the val- 
 ley and to settle stray boot-laces. Then a 
 happy little sigh of contentment soughed down 
 the ranks, and it was as though the land 
 smiled, for behold, there below was the enemy, 
 and it was to meet them that the Gurkhas had 
 doubled so hastily. There was much enemy. 
 There would be amusement. The little men 
 hitched their kukris well to hand, and gaped 
 expectantly at their officers as terriers grin ere 
 the stone is cast for them to fetch. The 
 Gurkhas' ground sloped downward to the val- 
 ley, and they enjoyed a fair view of the pro- 
 ceedings. They sat upon the boulders to 
 watch, for their officers were not going to 
 waste their wind in assisting to repulse a Ghazi 
 rush more than half a mile away. Let the 
 white men look to their own front. 
 
 " Hi ! yi 1 " said the Subadar-Major, who was 
 sweating profusely. " Dam fools yonder, 
 stand close order 1 This is no time for close 
 order, it's the time for volleys. Ugh I "
 
 128 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 Horrified, amused, and indignant, the Gur 
 khas beheld the retirement let us be gentle 
 of the Fore and Aft with a running chorus of 
 oaths and commentaries. 
 
 " They run ! The white men run 1 Col- 
 onel Sahib, may we also do a little running ? " 
 murmured Runbir Thappa, the Senior Jema- 
 dar. 
 
 But the Colonel would have none of it. 
 " Let the beggars be cut up a little," said he 
 wrathfully. " 'Serves 'em right. They'll be 
 prodded into facing round in a minute." He 
 looked through his field-glasses, and caught 
 the glint of an officer's sword. 
 
 " Bering 'em with the flat damned con- 
 scripts ! How the Ghazis are walking into 
 them 1 " said he. 
 
 The Fore and Aft, heading back, bore with 
 them their officers. The narrowness of the 
 pass forced the mob into solid formation, and 
 the rear-rank delivered some sort of a waver- 
 ing volley. The Ghazis drew off, for they did 
 not know what reserves the gorge might hide. 
 Moreover, it was never wise to chase white 
 men too far. They returned as wolves re- 
 turn to cover, satisfied with the slaughter that 
 they had done, and only stopping to slash at 
 the wounded on the ground. A quarter of a 
 mile had the Fore and Aft retreated, and now, 
 jammed in the pass, was quivering with pain, 
 shaken and demoralized with fear, while the 
 officers, maddened beyond control, smote the
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 129 
 
 men with the hilts and the flats of their 
 swords. 
 
 " Get back. Get back, you cowards you 
 women I Right about face column of com- 
 panies, form you hounds ! " shouted the 
 Colonel, and the subalterns swore aloud. But 
 the Regiment wanted to go to go anywhere 
 out of the range of those merciless knives. 
 It swayed to and fro irresolutely with shouts 
 and outcries, while from the right the Gurkhas 
 dropped volley after volley of cripple-stopper 
 Snider bullets at long range into the mob of 
 the Ghazis returning to their own troops. 
 
 The Fore and Aft Band, though protected 
 from direct fire by the rocky knoll under 
 which it had sat down, lied at the first rush. 
 Jakin and Lew would have fled also, but their 
 short legs left them fifty yards in the rear, and 
 by the time the Band had mixed with the reg- 
 iment, they were painfully aware that they 
 would have to close in alone and unsupported. 
 
 " Get back to that rock," gasped Jakin. 
 " They won't see us there." 
 
 And they returned to the scattered instru- 
 ments of the Band ; their hearts nearly burst- 
 ing their ribs. 
 
 " Here's a nice show for us," said Jakin. 
 throwing himself full length on the ground. 
 " A bloomin' fine show for British Infantry I 
 Oh, the devils 1 They've gone an' left us 
 alone here I Wot'll we do ? " 
 
 Lew took possession of a cast-off water 
 9
 
 130 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 bottle, which naturally was full of canteen 
 rum, and drank till he coughed again. 
 
 " Drink," said he shortly. " They'll come 
 back in a minute or two you see." 
 
 Jakin drank, but there was no sign of the 
 regiment's return. They could hear a dull 
 clamor from the head of the valley of retreat, 
 and saw the Ghazis slink back, quickening 
 their pace as the Gurkhas fired at them. 
 " We're all that's left of the Band, an' we'll 
 be cut up as sure as death," said Jakin. 
 
 " I'll die game, then," said Lew thickly, 
 fumbling with his tiny drummer's sword. 
 The drink was working on his brain as it was 
 on Jakin's. 
 
 " ' Old on ! I know something better than 
 fightin'," said Jakin, " stung by the splendor 
 of a sudden thought " due chiefly to rum. 
 " Tip our bloomin' cowards yonder the word 
 to come back. The Paythan beggars are well 
 away. Come on, Lew 1 We won't get hurt. 
 Take the fife an' give me the drum. The 
 Old Step for all your bloomin' guts are worth ! 
 There's a few of our men coming back now. 
 Stand up, ye drunken little defaulter. By 
 your right quick march 1 " 
 
 He slipped the drum-sling over his shoul- 
 der, thrust the fife into Lew's hand, and the 
 two boys marched out of the cover of the 
 rock into the open, making a hideous hash of 
 the first bars of the " British Grenadiers." 
 
 As Lew had said, a few of the Fore and
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 131 
 
 Aft were coming back sullenly and shame- 
 facedly under the stimulus of blows and 
 abuse ; their red coats shone at the head of 
 the valley, and behind them were wavering 
 bayonets. But between this shattered line 
 and the enemy, who with Afghan suspicion 
 feared that the hasty retreat meant an am- 
 bush, and had not moved therefore, lay half 
 a mile of level ground dotted only by the 
 wounded. 
 
 The tune settled into full swing and the 
 boys kept shoulder to shoulder, Jakin bang- 
 ing the drum as one possessed. The one 
 fife made a thin and pitiful squeaking, but the 
 tune carried far, even to the Gurkhas. 
 
 " Come on, you dogs ! " muttered Jakin to 
 himself. " Are we to play forhever ? " Lew 
 was staring straight in front of him and 
 marching more stiffly than ever he had done 
 on parade. 
 
 And in bitter mockery of the distant 'mob, 
 the old tune of the Old Line shrilled and 
 rattled : 
 
 Some talk of Alexander, 
 
 And some of Hercules ; 
 Of Hector and Lysander, 
 
 And such great names as these t 
 
 There was a far-off clapping of hands from 
 the Gurkhas, and a roar from the Highlanders 
 in the distance, but never a shot was fired by 
 British or Afghan. The two little red dots
 
 132 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 moved forward in the open parallel to the 
 enemy's front. 
 
 But of all the world's great heroes, 
 There's none that can compare, 
 
 With a tow-row-row-row-row-row, 
 To the British Grenadier I 
 
 The men of the Fore and Aft were gather- 
 ing thick at the entrance into the plain. The 
 Brigadier on the heights far above was 
 speechless with rage. Still no movement 
 from the enemy. The day stayed to watch 
 the children. 
 
 Jakin halted and beat the long roll of the 
 Assembly, while the fife squeaked despair- 
 ingly. 
 
 " Right about face ! Hold up, Lew, you're 
 drunk," said Jakin. They wheeled and 
 marched back : 
 
 Those heroes of antiquity 
 Ne'er saw a cannon-ball, 
 Nor knew the force o' powder, 
 
 " Here they come 1 :> said Jakin. " Go on 
 Lew " : 
 
 To scare their foes withal ! 
 
 The Fore and Aft were pouring out of the 
 valley. What officers had said to men in 
 that time of shame and humiliation will never 
 be known ; for neither officers nor men speak 
 of it now.
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 133 
 
 " They are coming anew ! " shouted a priest 
 among the Afghans. " Do not kill the boys I 
 Take them alive and they shall be of our 
 faith." 
 
 But the first volley had been fired, and 
 Lew dropped on his face. Jakin stood for a 
 minute, spun round and collapsed, as the 
 Fore and Aft came forward, the maledictions 
 of their officers in their ears, and in their 
 hearts the shame of open shame. 
 
 Half the men had seen the drummers die, 
 and they made no sign. They did not even 
 shout. They doubled out straight across the 
 plain in open order, and they did not fire. 
 
 "This," said the Colonel of Gurkhas, 
 softly, " is the real attack as it ought to 
 have been delivered. Come on, my children." 
 
 " Ulu-lu-lu-lu 1 " squealed the Gurkhas, and 
 came down with a joyful clicking of kukris 
 those vicious Gurkha knives. 
 
 On the right there was no rush. The 
 Highlanders, cannily commending their souls 
 to God (for it matters as much to a dead 
 man whether he has been shot in a Border 
 scuffle or at Waterloo), opened out and fired 
 according to their custom, that is to say with- 
 out heat and without intervals, while the 
 screw-guns, having disposed of the imperti- 
 nent mud fort aforementioned, dropped shell 
 after shell into the clusters round the flicker- 
 ing green standards on the heights. 
 
 " Charrging is an unfortunate necessity,"
 
 134 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 murmured the Color-Sergeant of the right 
 company of the Highlanders. 
 
 " It makes the men sweer so, but I am 
 thinkin' that it will come to a charrge if these 
 black devils stand much longer. Stewarrt, 
 man, you're firing into the eye of the sun, 
 and he'll not take any harm for Government 
 ammuneetion. A foot lower and a great 
 deal slower 1 What are the English doing? 
 They're very quiet there in the center. Run- 
 ning again ? " 
 
 The English were not running. They were 
 hacking and hewing and stabbing, for though 
 one white man is seldom physically a match 
 for an Afghan in a sheepskin or wadded coat, 
 yet, through the pressure of many white men 
 behind, and a certain thirst for revenge in his 
 heart, he becomes capable of doing much 
 with both ends of his rifle. The Fore and 
 Aft held their fire till one bullet could drive 
 through five or six men, and the front of the 
 Afghan force gave on the volley. They then 
 selected their men, and slew them with 
 deep gasps and short hacking coughs, and 
 groanings of leather belts against strained 
 bodies, and realized for the first time that an 
 Afghan attacked is far less formidable than an 
 Afghan attacking; which fact old soldiers 
 might have told them. 
 
 But they had no old soldiers in their ranks. 
 
 The Gurkhas' stall at the bazar was the 
 noisiest, for the men were engaged to a
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 135 
 
 nasty noise as of beef being cut on the block 
 with the kukri, which they preferred to the 
 bayonet ; well knowing how the Afghan hates 
 the half-moon blade. 
 
 As the Afghans wavered, the green stand- 
 ards on the mountain moved down to assist 
 them in a last rally. Which was unwise. 
 The Lancers chafing in the right gorge had 
 thrice despatched their only subaltern as 
 galloper to report on the progress of affairs. 
 On the third occasion he returned with a 
 bullet-graze on his knee, swearing strange 
 oaths in Hindustani, and saying that all 
 things were ready. So that Squadron swung 
 round the right of the Highlanders with a 
 wicked whistling of wind in the pennons of 
 its lances, and fell upon the remnant just 
 when, according to all the rules of war, it 
 should have waited for the foe to show more 
 signs of "wavering. 
 
 But it was a dainty charge, deftly delivered, 
 and it ended by the Cavalry finding itself at 
 the head of the pass by which the Afghans 
 intended to retreat ; and down the track that 
 the lances had made streamed two companies 
 of the Highlanders, which was never intended 
 by the Brigadier. The new development was 
 successful. It detached the enemy from his 
 base as a sponge is torn from a rock, and left 
 him ringed about with fire in that pitiless 
 plain. And as a sponge is chased round the 
 bath-tub by the hand of the bather, so vrert
 
 136 Wee Willie Winkle 
 
 the Afghans chased till they broke into little 
 detachments much more difficult to dispose of 
 than large masses. 
 
 " See 1 " quoth the Brigadier. " Everything 
 has come as I arranged. We've cut their 
 base, and now we'll bucket 'em to pieces." 
 
 A direct hammering was all that the Brig- 
 adier had dared to hope for, considering the 
 size of the force at his disposal ; but men who 
 stand or fall by the errors of their opponents 
 may be forgiven for turning Chance into 
 Design. The bucketing went forward mer- 
 rily. The Afghan forces were upon the run 
 the run of wearied wolves who snarl and 
 bite over their shoulders. The red lances 
 dipped by twos and threes, and, with a shriek, 
 up rose the lance-butt, like a spar on a stormy 
 sea, as the trooper cantering forward cleared 
 his point. The Lancers kept between their 
 prey and the steep hills, for all who could 
 .vere trying to escape from the valley of death- 
 The Highlanders gave the fugitives two hun- 
 dred yards' law, and then brought them down, 
 gasping and choking ere they could reach 
 the protection of the boulders above. The 
 Gurkhas followed suit ; but the Fore and Aft 
 were killing on their own account, for they 
 had penned a mass of men between their 
 bayonets and a wall of rock, and the flash of 
 the rifles was lighting the wadded coats. 
 
 " We cannot hold them, Captain Sahib 1 " 
 panted a Ressaidar of Lancers. " Let us try
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 137 
 
 the carbine. The lance is good, but it wastes 
 time." 
 
 They tried the carbine, and still the enemy 
 melted away fled up the hills by hundreds 
 when there were only twenty bullets to stop 
 them. On the heights the screw-guns ceased 
 firing they had run out of ammunition and 
 the Brigadier groaned, for the musketry fire 
 could not sufficiently smash the retreat. 
 Long before the last volleys were fired, the 
 litters were out in force looking for the 
 wounded. The battle was over, and, but for 
 want of fresh troops, the Afghans would have 
 been wiped off the earth. As it was they 
 counted their dead by hundreds, and nowhere 
 were the dead thicker than in the track of the 
 Fore and Aft. 
 
 But the Regiment did not cheer with the 
 Highlanders, nor did they dance uncouth 
 dances with the Gurkhas among the dead. 
 They looked under their brows at the Colonel 
 as they leaned upon their rifles and panted. 
 
 " Get back to camp, you. Haven't you 
 disgraced yourself enough for one day I Go 
 and look to the wounded. It's all you're fit 
 for," said the Colonel. Yet for the past hour 
 the Fore and Aft had been doing all that 
 mortal commander could expect. They had 
 lost heavily because they did not know how 
 to set about their business with proper skill, 
 but they had borne themselves gallantly, and 
 this was their reward.
 
 ^38 Wee Willie Winkle 
 
 A young and sprightly Color-Sergeant, who 
 had begun to imagine himself a hero, offered 
 his water-bottle to a Highlander, whose 
 tongue was black with thirst. " I drink with 
 no cowards," answered the youngster huskily, 
 and, turning to a Gurkha, said, " Hya, Johnny ! 
 Drink water got it ? " The Gurkha grinned 
 and passed his bottle. The Fore and Aft said 
 no word. 
 
 They went back to camp when the field of 
 strife had been a little mopped up and made 
 presentable, and the Brigadier, who saw him- 
 self a Knight in three months, was the only 
 soul who was complimentary to them. The 
 Colonel was heart-broken and the officers were 
 savage and sullen. 
 
 " Well," said the Brigadier, " they are young 
 troops of course, and it was not unnatural that 
 they should retire in disorder for a bit." 
 
 " Oh, my only Aunt Maria ! " murmured a 
 junior Staff Officer. " Retire in disorder ! It 
 was a bally run 1 " 
 
 " But they came again as. we all know," 
 cooed the Brigadier, the Colonel's ashy-white 
 face before him, " and they behaved as well 
 as could possibly be expected. Behaved 
 beautifully, indeed. I was watching them. 
 It's not a matter to take to heart, Colonel. 
 As some German General said of his men, 
 they wanted to be shooted over a little, 
 that was all." To himself he said : " Now 
 they're blooded I can give 'em responsible
 
 The Drums of the Fore and Aft 139 
 
 work. It's as well that they got what they 
 did. 'Teach 'em more than half a dozen rifle 
 flirtations, that will later run alone and 
 bite. Poor old Colonel, though." 
 
 All that afternoon the heliograph winked 
 and flickered on the hills, striving to tell the 
 good news to a mountain forty miles away. 
 And in the evening there arrived, dusty, sweat- 
 ing, and sore, a misguided Correspondent who 
 had gone out to assist at a trumpery village- 
 burning and who had read off the message 
 from afar, cursing his luck the while. 
 
 " Let's have the details somehow as full 
 as ever you can, please. It's the first time 
 I've ever been left this campaign," said the 
 Correspondent to the Brigadier; and the 
 Brigadier, nothing loath, told him how an 
 Army of Communication had been crumpled 
 up, destroyed, and all but annihilated by the 
 craft, strategy, wisdom, and foresight of the 
 Brigadier. 
 
 But some say, and among these be the 
 Gurkhas who watched on the hillside, that 
 that battle was won by Jakin and Lew, whose 
 little bodies were borne up just in time to fit 
 two gaps at the head of the big ditch-grave 
 for the dead under the heights of Jagai.
 
 WITHOUT BENEFIT OF 
 CLERGY, 
 
 " BUT if it be a girl ? " 
 
 " Lord of my life, it cannot be 1 I have 
 prayed for so many nights, and sent gifts to 
 Sheikh Badl's shrine so often, that I know 
 God will give us a son a man-child that shall 
 grow into a man. Think of this and be glad. 
 My mother shall be his mother till I can take 
 him again, and the mullah of the Pattan 
 Mosque shall cast his nativity God send he 
 be born in an auspicious hour ! and then, 
 and then thou wilt never weary of me, thy 
 slave." 
 
 " Since when hast thou been a slave, my 
 queen ? " 
 
 " Since the beginning till this mercy came 
 to me. How could I be sure of thy love when 
 I knew that I had been bought with silver ? " 
 
 " Nay, that was the dowry. I paid it to 
 thy mother." 
 
 " And she has buried it, and sits upon it all 
 day long like a hen. What talk is yours of 
 140
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 141 
 
 dowry ? I was bought as though I had been 
 a Lucknow dancing-girl instead of a child." 
 
 " Art thou sorry for the sale ? " 
 
 " I have sorrowed ; but to-day I am glad. 
 Thou wilt never cease to love me now ? An- 
 swer, my king." 
 
 " Never never. No." 
 
 " Not even though the mem-log the white 
 women of thy own blood love thee ? And 
 remember, I have watched them driving in 
 the evening; they are very fair." 
 
 " I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred, 
 I have seen the moon, and then I saw no 
 more fire-balloons." 
 
 Ameera clapped her hands and laughed. 
 " Very good talk," she said. Then, with an 
 assumption of great stateliness : " It is enough. 
 Thou hast my permission to depart if thou 
 wilt." 
 
 The man did not move. He was sitting on 
 a low red-lacquered couch in a room fur- 
 nished only with a blue-and-white floor-cloth, 
 some rugs, and a very complete collection of 
 native cushions. At his feet sat a woman of 
 sixteen, and she was all but all the world in 
 his eyes. By every rule and law she should 
 have been otherwise, for he was an English- 
 man and she a Mussulman's daughter, bought 
 two years before from her mother, who, being 
 left without money, would have sold Ameera, 
 shrieking to the Prince of Darkness, if the 
 price had been sufficient
 
 142 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 It was a contract entered into with a light 
 heart. But even before the girl had reached 
 her bloom she came to fill the greater portion 
 of John Holden's life. For her and the with- 
 ered hag her mother he had taken a little 
 house overlooking the great red-walled city, 
 and found, when the marigolds had sprung up 
 by the well in the courtyard, and Ameera had 
 established herself according to her own ideas 
 of comfort, and her mother had ceased grum- 
 bling at the inadequacy of the cooking-places, 
 the distance from the daily market, and mat- 
 ters of housekeeping in general, that the 
 house was to him his home. Any one could 
 enter his bachelor's bungalow by day or night, 
 and the life that he led there was an unlovely 
 one. In the house in the city his feet only 
 could pass beyond the outer courtyard to the 
 women's rooms; and when the big wooden 
 gate was bolted behind him he was king in 
 his own territory, with Ameera for queen. 
 And there was going to be added to this king- 
 dom a third person, whose arrival Holden 
 felt inclined to resent. It interfered with his 
 perfect happiness. It disarranged the or- 
 derly peace of the house that was his own. 
 But Ameera was wild with delight at the 
 thought of it, and her mother not less so. 
 The love of a man, and particularly a white 
 man, was at the best an inconstant affair, 
 but it might, both women argued, be held fast 
 by a baby's hands. "And then," Ameerq
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 143 
 
 would always say " then he will never care 
 for the white mem-log, I hate them all I 
 hate them all 1 " 
 
 " He will go back to his own people in 
 time," said the mother, " but, by the blessing 
 of God, that time is yet afar off." 
 
 Holden sat silent on the couch, thinking of 
 the future, and his thoughts were not pleasant. 
 The drawbacks of a double life are manifold. 
 The government, with singular care, had or- 
 dered him out of the station for a fortnight on 
 special duty, in the place of a man who was 
 watching by the bedside of a sick wife. The 
 verbal notification of the transfer had been 
 edged by a cheerful remark that Holden 
 ought to think himself lucky in being a bach- 
 elor and a free man. He came to break the 
 news to Ameera. 
 
 " It is not good," she said, slowly, " but it 
 is not all bad. There is my mother here, and 
 no harm will come to me unless, indeed, I 
 die of pure joy. Go thou to thy work, and 
 think no troublesome thoughts. When the 
 days are done, I believe . . . nay, I am sure. 
 And and then I shall lay him in thy arms, 
 and thou wilt love me forever. The train 
 goes to-night at midnight, is it not? Go 
 now, and do not let thy heart be heavy by 
 cause of me. But thou wilt not delay in re- 
 turning 1 Thou wilt not stay on the road to 
 talk to the bold white mem-log ! Come back 
 to me swiftly, my life I "
 
 144 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 As he left the courtyard to reach his horse 
 that was tethered to the gate-post, Holden 
 spoke to the white-haired old watchman who 
 guarded the house, and bid him under certain 
 contingencies despatch the filled-up telegraph 
 form that Holden gave him. It was all that 
 could be done, and, with the sensations of a 
 man who has attended his own funeral, Holden 
 went away by the night mail to his exile. 
 Every hour of the day he dreaded the arrival 
 of the telegram, and every hour of the night 
 he pictured to himself the death of Ameera. 
 In consequence, his work for the state was 
 not of first-rate quality, nor was his temper 
 toward his colleagues of the most amiable. 
 The fortnight ended without a sign from his 
 home, and, torn to pieces by his anxieties, 
 Holden returned to be swallowed up for two 
 precious hours by a dinner at the club, where- 
 in he heard, as a man hears in a swoon, voices 
 telling him how execrably he had performed 
 the other man's duties, and how he had en- 
 deared himself to all his associates. Then he 
 fled on horseback through the night with his 
 heart in his mouth. There was no answer at 
 first to his blows on the gate, and he had just 
 wheeled his horse round to kick it in, when 
 Pir Khan appeared with a lantern and held 
 his stirrup. 
 
 " Has aught occurred ? " said Holden. 
 
 " The news does not come from my mouth, 
 Protector of the Poor, but " He held out
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 145 
 
 his shaking hand, as befitted the bearer of 
 good news who is entitled to a reward. 
 
 Holden hurried through the courtyard, 
 A light burned in the upper room. His 
 horse neighed in the gateway, and he heard 
 a pin-pointed wail that sent all the blood into 
 the apple of his throat. It was a new 
 voice, but it did not prove that Ameera was 
 alive. 
 
 " Who is there ? " he called up the narrow 
 brick staircase. 
 
 There was a cry of delight from Ameera, 
 and then the voice of her mother, tremulous 
 with old age and pride : " We be two women, 
 and the man thy son." 
 
 On the threshold of the room Holden 
 stepped on a naked dagger that was laid there 
 to avert ill-luck, and it broke at the hilt under 
 his impatient heel. 
 
 " God is great I " cooed Ameera in the 
 half-light. " Thou hast taken his misfortunes 
 on thy head." 
 
 " Aye, but how is it with thee, life of my 
 life ? Old woman, how is it with her ? " 
 
 " She has forgotten her sufferings for joy 
 that the child is born. There is no harm ; 
 but speak softly," said the mother. 
 
 " It only needed thy presence to make me 
 all well," said Ameera. "My king, thou 
 hast been very long away. What gifts hast 
 thou for me ? Ah 1 ah I It is I that bring 
 gifts this time. Look, my life, look I Was 
 10
 
 146 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 there ever such a babe ? Nay, I am too weak 
 even to clear my arm from him." 
 
 " Rest, then, and do not talk. I am here, 
 bachheri " (little woman). 
 
 " Well said, for there is a bond and a heel- 
 rope [peecharee] between us now that nothing 
 can break. Look canst thou see in this 
 light ? He is without spot or blemish. Never 
 was such a man-child. Ya Illah I he shall be 
 a pundit no, a trooper of the queen. And, 
 my life, dost thou love me as well as ever, 
 though I am faint and sick and worn ? Answer 
 truly." 
 
 " Yea. I love as I have loved, with all my 
 soul. Lie still, pearl, and rest." 
 
 " Then do not go. Sit by my side here 
 so. Mother, the lord of this house needs a 
 cushion. Bring it." There was an almost 
 imperceptible movement on the part of the 
 new life that lay in the hollow of Ameera's 
 arm. " Aho 1 " she said, her voice breaking 
 with love. " The babe is a champion from 
 his birth. He is kicking me in the side with 
 mighty kicks. Was there ever such a babe ? 
 And he is ours to us thine and mine. Put 
 thy hand on his head, but carefully, for he is 
 very young, and men are unskilled in such 
 matters." 
 
 Very cautiously Holden touched with the 
 tips of his fingers the downy head. 
 
 " He is of the Faith," said Ameera ; " for, 
 lying here in the night-watches, I whispered
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 147 
 
 the Call to Prayer and the Profession of Faith 
 into his ears. And it is most marvelous that 
 he was born upon a Friday, as I was born. 
 Be careful of him, my life ; but he can almost 
 grip with his hands." 
 
 Holden found one helpless little hand that 
 closed feebly on his ringer. And the clutch 
 ran through his limbs till it settled about his 
 heart. Till then his sole thought had been 
 for Ameera. He began to realize that there 
 was some one else in the world, but he could 
 not feel that it was a veritable son with a soul. 
 He sat down to think, and Ameera dozed 
 lightly. 
 
 " Get hence, sahib," said her mother, under 
 her breath. " It is not good that she should 
 find you here on waking. She must be still." 
 
 " I go," said Holden, submissively. " Here 
 be rupees. See that my baba gets fat and 
 finds all that he needs." 
 
 The chink of the silver roused Ameera. 
 " I am his mother, and no hireling," she said, 
 weakly. " Shall I look to him more or less 
 for the sake of money ? Mother, give it back. 
 I have borne my lord a son." 
 
 The deep sleep of weakness came upon her 
 almost before the sentence was completed. 
 Holden went down to the courtyard very 
 softly, with his heart at ease. Pir Khan, the 
 old watchman, was chuckling with delight 
 
 " This house is now complete," he said, 
 and without further comment thrust into Hoi-
 
 148 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 den's hands the hilt of a saber worn man/ 
 years ago, when Pir Khan served the queen 
 in the police. The bleat of a tethered goat 
 came from the well-curb. 
 
 " There be two," said Pir Khan" two 
 goats of the best. I bought them, and they 
 cost much money ; and since there is no 
 birth-party assembled, their flesh will be all 
 mine. Strike carefully, sahib. 'Tis an ill-bal- 
 anced saber at the best. Wait till they raise 
 their heads from cropping the marigolds." 
 
 " And why ? " said Holden, bewildered. 
 
 " For the birth sacrifice. What else ? 
 Otherwise the child, being unguarded from 
 fate, may die. The Protector of the Poor 
 knows the fitting words to be said." 
 
 Holden had learned them once, with little 
 thought that he would ever say them in 
 earnest. The touch of the cold saber-hilt in 
 his palm turned suddenly to the clinging grip 
 of the child up-stairs the child that was his 
 own son and a dread of loss rilled him. 
 
 " Strike 1 " said Pir Khan. " Never life 
 came into the world but life was paid for it. 
 See, the goats have raised their heads. Now 1 
 With a drawing cut 1 " 
 
 Hardly knowing what he did, Holden cut 
 twice as he muttered the Mohammedan prayer 
 that runs : " Almighty I In place of this my 
 son I offer life for life, blood for blood, head 
 for head, bone for bone, hair for hair, skin for 
 skin." The waiting horse snorted and bound'
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 149 
 
 ed in his pickets at the smell of the raw blood 
 that spurted over Holden's riding-boots. 
 
 "Well smitten I " said Pir Khan, wiping the 
 saber. " A swordsman was lost in thee. Go 
 with a light heart, heaven born. I am thy 
 servant and the servant of thy son. May the 
 Presence live a thousand years, and . . . the 
 flesh of the goats is all mine ? " 
 
 Pir Khan drew back richer by a month's 
 pay. Holden swung himself into the saddle 
 and rode off through the low-hanging wood 
 smoke of the evening. He was full of riotous 
 exultation, alternating with a vast vague ten- 
 derness directed toward no particular object, 
 that made him choke as he bent over the neck 
 of his uneasy horse. " I never felt like this in 
 my life," he thought. " I'll go to the club and 
 pull myself together." 
 
 A game of pool was beginning, and the 
 room was full of men. Holden entered, eager 
 to get to the light and the company of his 
 fellows, singing at the top of his voice : 
 
 " ' In Baltimore a-walking, a lady I did meet.' " 
 
 " Did you ? " said the club secretary from 
 his corner. " Did she happen to tell you that 
 your boots were wringing wet ? Great good- 
 ness, man, it's blood ! " 
 
 " Bosh 1 " said Holden, picking his cue from 
 the rack. " May I cut in ? It's dew. I've 
 been riding through high crops. My faith I 
 my boots are in a mess, though 1
 
 150 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 " ' And if it be a girl, she shall wear a wedding-ring; 
 And if it be a boy, he shall fight for his king ; 
 With his dirk and his cap, and his little jacket blue, 
 He shall walk the quarter-deck ' " 
 
 " Yellow and blue green next player," said 
 the marker, monotonously. 
 
 " ' He shall walk the quarter-deck ' am I 
 green, marker ? ' he shall walk the quarter- 
 deck ' ouch 1 that's a bad shot 1 ' as his 
 daddy used to do 1 " 
 
 " I don't see that you have anything to 
 crow about," said a zealous junior civilian, 
 acidly. " The government is not exactly 
 pleased with your work when you relieved 
 Sanders." 
 
 " Does that mean a wigging from head- 
 quarters ? " said Holden, with an abstracted 
 smile. " I think I can stand it." 
 
 The talk beat up round the ever-fresh sub- 
 ject of each man's work, and steadied Holden 
 till it was time to go to his dark, empty bun- 
 galow, where his butler received him as one 
 who knew all his affairs. Holden remained 
 awake for the greater part of the night, and 
 his dreams were pleasant ones. 
 
 II. 
 
 " How old is he now ? " 
 " Ya illah ! What a man's question 1 He 
 is all but six weeks old ; and on this night I
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 151 
 
 go up to the housetop with thee, my life, to 
 count the stars. For that is auspicious. And 
 he was born on a Friday, under the sign of 
 the Sun, and it has been told to me that he 
 will outlive us both and get wealth. Can we 
 wish for aught better, beloved ? " 
 
 " There is nothing better. Let us go up to 
 the roof, and thou shalt count the stars but 
 a few only, for the sky is heavy with cloud." 
 
 " The winter rains are late, and maybe they 
 come out of season. Come, before all the 
 stars are hid. I have put on my richest 
 jewels." 
 
 " Thou hast forgotten the best of all." 
 
 " Ai 1 Ours. He comes also. He has 
 never yet seen the skies." 
 
 Ameera climbed the narrow staircase that 
 let to the flat roof. The child, placid and un- 
 winking, lay in the hollow of her right arm, 
 gorgeous in silver-fringed muslin, with a small 
 skull-cap on his head. Ameera wore all that 
 she valued most. The diamond nose-stud 
 that takes the place of the Western patch in 
 drawing attention to the curve of the nostril, 
 the gold ornament in the center of the fore- 
 head studded with tallow-drop emeralds and 
 flawed rubies, the heavy circlet of beaten gold 
 that was fastened round her neck by the soft- 
 ness of the pure metal, and the chinking curb- 
 patterned silver anklets hanging low over the 
 rosy ankle-bone. She was dressed in jade- 
 green muslin, as befitted a daughter of the
 
 152 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 Faith, and from shoulder to elbow and elbow 
 to wrist ran bracelets of silver tied with floss 
 silk, frail glass bangles slipped over the wrist 
 in proof of the slenderness of the hand, and 
 certain heavy gold bracelets that had no part 
 in her country's ornaments, but since they 
 were Holden's gift, and fastened with a cun- 
 ning European snap, delighted her immensely. 
 
 They sat down by the low white parapet of 
 the roof, overlooking the city and its lights. 
 
 " They are happy down there," said 
 Ameera. " But I do not think that they are 
 as happy as we. Nor do I think the white 
 mem-log are as happy. And thou ? " 
 
 " I know they are not." 
 
 " How dost thou know ? " 
 
 "They give their children over to the 
 nurses." 
 
 " I have never seen that," said Ameera, 
 with a sigh ; " nor do I wish to see. Ahi 1 " 
 she dropped her head on Holden's shoulder 
 " I have counted forty stars, and I am 
 tired. Look at the child, love of my life. He 
 is counting, too." 
 
 The baby was staring with round eyes at 
 the dark of the heavens. Ameera placed him 
 in Holden's arms, and he lay there without a 
 cry. 
 
 " What shall we call him among ourselves ? " 
 she said. " Look 1 Art thou ever tired of 
 looking ? He carries thy very eyes 1 But 
 the mouth "
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 153 
 
 " Is thine, most dear. Who should know 
 better than I ? " 
 
 " 'Tis such a feeble mouth. Oh, so small I 
 And yet it holds my heart between its lips. 
 Give him to me now. He has been too long 
 away." 
 
 " Nay, let him lie ; he has not yet begun to 
 cry." 
 
 " When he cries thou wilt give him back, 
 eh ? What a man of mankind thou art 1 If 
 he cried, he were only the dearer to me. But, 
 my life, what little name shall we give him ? " 
 
 The small body lay close to Holden's 
 heart. It was utterly helpless and very soft. 
 He scarcely dared to breathe for fear of 
 crushing it. The caged green parrot, that is 
 regarded as a sort of guardian spirit in most 
 native households, moved on its perch and 
 fluttered a drow. c y wing. 
 
 " There is . the answer," said Holden. 
 " Mian Mittu has spoken. He shall be the 
 parrot. When he is ready he will talk might- 
 ily, and run about. Mian Mittu is the parrot 
 in thy in the Mussulman tongue, is it not ? " 
 
 " Why put me so far off ? " said Ameera, 
 fretfully. " Let it be like unto some English 
 name but not wholly. For he is mine." 
 
 "Then call him Tota, for that is likest 
 English." 
 
 " Aye, Tota ; and that is still the parrot. 
 Forgive me, my lord, for a minute ago ; but, 
 in truth, he is too little to wear all the weight
 
 1 54 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 of Mian Mittu for name. He shall be Tota 
 our Tota to us. Hearest thou, oh, small 
 one ? Littlest, thou art Tota." 
 
 She touched the child's cheek, and, he 
 waking, wailed, and it was necessary to return 
 him to his mother, who soothed him with the 
 wonderful rhyme of " Art koko, Ja rt koko ! " 
 which says : 
 
 " Oh, crow ! Go crow ! Baby's sleeping sound, 
 And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny 
 
 a pound 
 Only a penny a pound, Babaon\y a penny a 
 
 pound." 
 
 Reassured many times as to the price of 
 those plums, Tota cuddled himself down to 
 sleep. The two sleek white well-bullocks in 
 the courtyard were steadily chewing the cud 
 of their evening meal ; old Pir Khan squatted 
 at the head of Holden's horse, his police saber 
 across his knees, pulling drowsily at a big 
 water-pipe that croaked like a bull-frog in 
 a pond. Ameera's mother sat spinning in the 
 lower veranda, and the wooden gate was shut 
 and barred. The music of a marriage proces- 
 sion came to the roof above the gentle hum of 
 the city, and a string of flying foxes crossed 
 the face of the low moon. 
 
 " I have prayed," said Ameera, after a long 
 pause, with her chin in her hand " I have 
 prayed for two things. First, that I may die 
 in thy stead, if thy death is demanded ; and
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 155 
 
 in the second, that I may die in the place of 
 the child. I have prayed to the Prophet and 
 to Beebee Miriam.* Thinkest thou either 
 will hear ? " 
 
 " From thy lips who would not hear the 
 lightest word ? " 
 
 " I asked for straight talk, and thou hast 
 given me sweet talk. Will my prayers be 
 heard ? " 
 
 " How can I say ? God is very good." 
 
 " Of that I am not sure. Listen now. 
 When I die or the child dies, what is thy 
 fate ? Living, thou wilt return to the bold 
 white mem-log, for kind calls to kind." 
 
 " Not always." 
 
 " With a woman, no. With a man it is 
 otherwise. Thou wilt in this life, later on, 
 go back to thine own folk. That I could al- 
 most endure, for I should be dead. But in thy 
 very death thou wilt be taken away to a strange 
 place and a paradise that I do not know." 
 
 " Will it be paradise ? " 
 
 " Surely ; for what God would harm thee ? 
 But we two I and the child shall be else- 
 where, and we cannot come to thee, nor canst 
 thou come to us. In the old days, before 
 the child was born, I did not think of these 
 things ; but now I think of them perpetu- 
 ally. It is very hard talk." 
 
 " It will fall as it will fall. To-morrow we 
 
 The Virgin Mary.
 
 ^156 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 do not know, but to-day and love we know 
 well. Surely we are happy now." 
 
 " So happy that it were well to make our hap- 
 piness assured. And thy Beebee Miriam 
 should listen to me ; for she is also a woman. 
 But then she would envy me It is not seemly 
 for men to worship a woman." 
 
 Holden laughed aloud at Ameera's little 
 spasm of jealousy. 
 
 " Is it not seemly ? Why didst thou not 
 turn me from worship of thee, then ? " 
 
 " Thou a worshiper 1 And of me ! My 
 king, for all thy sweet words, well I know that 
 I am thy servant and thy slave, and the dust 
 under thy feet. And I would not have it 
 otherwise. See 1 " 
 
 Before Holden could prevent her she 
 stooped forward and touched his feet ; re- 
 covering herself with a little laugh, she hugged 
 Tota closer to her bosom. Then, almost sav- 
 agely : 
 
 " Is it true that the bold white mem-log live 
 for three times the length of my life ? Is it 
 true that they make their marriages not before 
 they are old women ? " 
 
 " They marry as do others when they are 
 women." 
 
 " That I know, but they wed when they are 
 twenty-five. Is that true ? " 
 
 " That is true." 
 
 " Ya illah ! At twenty-five Who would 
 of his own will take a wife even of eighteen ?
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 157 
 
 She is a woman aging every hour. Twenty- 
 five I I shall be an old woman at that age, 
 and Those mem-log remain young forever. 
 How I hate them 1 " 
 
 " What have they to do with us ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell. I know only that there may 
 now be alive on this earth a woman ten years 
 older than I who may come to thee and take 
 thy love ten years after I am an old woman, 
 grayheaded, and the nurse of Tola's son. 
 That is unjust and evil. They should die too." 
 
 " Now, for all thy years thou art a child, 
 and shalt be picked up and carried down the 
 staircase." 
 
 " Tota 1 Have a care for Tota, my lord 1 
 Thou, at least, art as foolish as any babe I " 
 Ameera tucked Tota out of harm's way 
 in the hollow in her neck, and was carried 
 down-stairs, laughing, in Holden's arms, while 
 Tota opened his eyes and smiled, after the 
 manner of the lesser angels. 
 
 He was a silent infant, and almost before 
 Holden could realize that he was in the world, 
 developed into a small gold-colored godling 
 and unquestioned despot of the house over- 
 looking the city. Those were months of ab- 
 solute happiness to Holden and Ameera 
 happiness withdrawn from the world, shut 
 in behind the wooden gate that Pir Khan 
 guarded. By day Holden did his work, with 
 an immense pity for such as were not so for- 
 tunate as himself, and a sympathy for small
 
 158 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 children that amazed and amused many 
 mothers at the little station gatherings. At 
 nightfall he returned to Ameera Ameera full 
 of the wondrous doings of Tota : how he had 
 been seen to clap his hands together and move 
 his fingers with intention and purpose, which 
 was manifestly a miracle ; how later he had 
 of his own initiative crawled out of his low 
 bedstead on to the floor, and swayed on both 
 feet for the space of three breaths. " And 
 they were long breaths, for my heart stood 
 still with delight," said Ameera. 
 
 Then he took the beasts into his councils 
 the well-bullocks, the little gray squirrels, the 
 mongoose that lived in a hole near the well, 
 and especially Mian Mittu, the parrot, whose 
 tail he grievously pulled, and Mian Mittu 
 screamed till Ameera and Holden arrived. 
 
 " Oh, villain 1 Child of strength ! This to 
 thy brother on the house-top 1 Tobah, tobah / 
 Fy 1 fy 1 But I know a charm to make him 
 wise as Suleiman and Aflatoun.* Now look," 
 said Ameera. She drew from an embroidered 
 bag a handful of almonds. " See ! we count 
 seven. In the name of God 1 " She placed 
 Mian Mittu, very angry and rumpled, on the 
 top of his cage, and, seating herself between 
 the babe and the bird, cracked and peeled an 
 almond less white than her teeth. " This is 
 a true charm, my life; and do not laugh. 
 See 1 I give the parrot one half and Tota the 
 * Solomon and Plato.
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 159 
 
 other." Mian Mittu, with careful beak, took 
 his share from between Ameera's lips, and she 
 kissed the other half into the mouth of the 
 child, who eat it slowly, with wondering eyes. 
 " This I will do each day of seven, and without 
 doubt he who is ours will be a bold speaker 
 and wise. Eh, Tota, what wilt thou be when 
 thou art a man and I am gray-headed ? " 
 Tota tucked his fat legs into adorable creases. 
 He could crawl, but he was not going to waste 
 the spring of his youth in idle speech. He 
 wanted Mian Mittu's tail to tweak. 
 
 When he was advanced to the dignity of a 
 silver belt which, with a magic square en- 
 graved on silver and hung round his neck, 
 made up the greater part of his clothing he 
 staggered on a perilous journey down the 
 garden to Pir Khan, and proffered him all his 
 jewels in exchange for one little ride on Hoi- 
 den's horse. He had seen his mother's mother 
 chaffering with pedlers in the veranda. Pir 
 Khan wept, set the untried feet on his own 
 gray head in sign of fealty, and brought the 
 bold adventurer to his mother's arms, vowing 
 that Tota would be a leader of men ere his 
 beard was grown. 
 
 One hot evening, while he sat on the roof 
 between his father and mother, watching the 
 never-ending warfare of the kites that the city 
 boys flew, he demanded a kite of his own, 
 with Pir Khan to fly it, because he had a fear 
 of dealing with anything larger than himself ;
 
 160 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 and when Holden called him a " spark," he 
 rose to his feet and answered slowly, in defense 
 of his new-found individuality : " Hum 'park 
 nahin hai. Hum admi fiat." (I am no spark, 
 but a man.) 
 
 The protest made Holden choke, and devote 
 himself very seriously to a consideration of 
 Tota's future. 
 
 He need hardly have taken the trouble. 
 The delight of that life was too perfect to 
 endure. Therefore it was taken away, as 
 many things are taken away in India, suddenly 
 and without warning. The little lord of the 
 house, as Pir Khan called him, grew sorrowful 
 and complained of pains, who had never 
 known the meaning of pain. Ameera, wild 
 with terror, watched him through the night, 
 and in the dawning of the second day the life 
 was shaken out of him by fever the seasonal 
 autumn fever. It seemed altogether impos- 
 sible that he could die, and neither Ameera 
 nor Holden at first believed the evidence of 
 the body on the bedstead. Then Ameera 
 beat her head against the wall, and would 
 have flung herself down the well in the garden 
 had Holden not restrained her by main force. 
 
 One mercy only was granted to Holden. 
 He rode to his office in broad daylight, and 
 found waiting him an unusually heavy mail 
 that demanded concentrated attention and 
 hard work. He was not, however, alive to 
 this kindness of the gods.
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 161 
 
 III. 
 
 THE first shock of a bullet is no more than 
 a brisk pinch. The wrecked body does not 
 send in its protest to the soul till ten or fifteen 
 seconds later. Then comes thirst, throbbing, 
 and agony, and a ridiculous amount of scream- 
 ing. Holden realized his pain slowly, exactly 
 as he had realized his happiness, and with the 
 same imperious necessity for hiding all trace 
 of it. In the beginning he only felt that there 
 had been a loss, and that Ameera needed 
 comforting where she sat with her head on her 
 knees, shivering as Mian Mittu, from the 
 house-top, called "Total Total Total" 
 Later all his world and the daily life of it rose 
 up to hurt him. It was an outrage that any 
 one of the children at the band-stand in the 
 evening should be alive and clamorous when 
 his own child lay dead. It was more than 
 mere pain when one of them touched him, 
 and stories told by overfond fathers of their 
 children's latest performances cut him to the 
 quick. He could not declare his pain. He 
 had neither help, comfort, nor sympathy, and 
 Ameera, at the end of each weary day, would 
 lead him through the hell of self-questioning 
 reproach which is reserved for those who have 
 lost a child, and believe that with a little 
 just a little more care it might have been 
 ii
 
 162 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 saved. There are not many hells worse than 
 this, but he knows one who has sat down 
 temporarily to consider whether he is or is not 
 responsible for the death of his wife. 
 
 " Perhaps," Ameera would say, " I did not 
 take sufficient heed. Did I, or did I not ? 
 The sun on the roof that day when he played 
 so long alone, and I was ahi! braiding my 
 hair it may be that the sun then bred the 
 fever. If I had warned him from the sun he 
 might have lived. But, oh, my life, say that 
 I am guiltless ! Thou knowest that I loved 
 him as I love thee 1 Say that there is no 
 blame on me, or I shall die I shall die 1 " 
 
 " There is no blame. Before God, none. 
 It was written, and how could we do aught to 
 save ? What has been, has been. Let it go, 
 beloved." 
 
 " He was all my heart to me. How can I 
 let the thought go when my arm tells me 
 every night that he is not here. Ahit ahil 
 Oh, Tota, come back to me come back 
 again, and let us be all together as it was 
 before 1 " 
 
 " Peace 1 peace 1 For thine own sake, and 
 for mine also, if thou lovest me, rest." 
 
 " By this I know thou dost not care ; and 
 how shouldst thou? The white men have 
 hearts of stone and souls of iron. Oh, that I 
 had married a man of mine own people 
 though he beat me and had never eaten the 
 bread of an alien 1 "
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 163 
 
 " Am I an alien, mother of my son ? " 
 
 " What else, sahib ? . . . Oh, forgive me 
 forgive 1 The death has driven me mad. 
 Thou art the life of my heart, and the light of 
 my eyes, and the breath of my life, and and 
 I have put thee from me, though it was but 
 for a moment. If thou goest away, to whom 
 shall I look for help? Do not be angry. 
 Indeed, it was the pain that spoke, and not 
 thy slave." 
 
 " I know I know. We be two who were 
 three. The greater need, therefore, that we 
 should be one." 
 
 They were sitting on the roof, as of custom. 
 The night was a warm one in early spring, 
 and sheet-lightning was dancing on the horizon 
 to a broken tune played by far-off thunder. 
 Ameera settled herself in Holden's arms. 
 
 " The dry earth is lowing like a cow for the 
 rain, and I I am afraid. It was not like 
 this when we counted the stars. But thou 
 lovest me as much as before, though a bond 
 is taken away ? Answer." 
 
 " I love more, because a new bond has 
 come out of the sorrow that we have eaten to- 
 gether; and that thou knowest." 
 
 " Yea, I know," said Ameera, in a very 
 small whisper. " But it is good to hear thee 
 say so, my life, who art so strong to help. I 
 will be a child no more, but a woman, and an 
 aid to thee. Listen. Give me my sitar, and 
 I will sing bravely."
 
 164 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 She took the light silver-studded sitar, and 
 began a song of the great hero Raja Rasalu. 
 The hand failed on the strings, the tune 
 halted, checked, and at a low note turned off 
 to the poor little nursery rhyme about the 
 wicked crow : 
 
 " ' And the wild plums grow in the jungle- 
 Only a penny a pound, 
 Only a penny a pound, Baba only ' " 
 
 Then came the tears and the piteous rebel- 
 lion against fate, till she slept, moaning a 
 little in her sleep, with the right arm thrown 
 clear of the body, as though it protected 
 something that was not there. 
 
 It was after this night that life became a 
 little easier for Holden. The ever-present 
 pain of loss drove him into his work, and the 
 work repaid him by filling up his mind for 
 eight or nine hours a day. Ameera sat alone 
 in the house and brooded, but grew hap- 
 pier when she understood that Holden was 
 more at ease, according to the custom of 
 women. They touched happiness again, but 
 this time with caution. 
 
 " It was because we loved Tota that he died. 
 The jealousy of God was upon us," said 
 Ameera. " I have hung up a large black jar 
 before our window to turn the Evil Eye from 
 us, and we must make no protestations of de- 
 light, but go softly underneath the stars, lest
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 165 
 
 God find us out. Is that not good talk, worth- 
 less one ? " 
 
 She had shifted the accent of the word that 
 means " beloved," in proof of the sincerity of 
 her purpose. But the kiss that followed the 
 new christening was a thing that any deity 
 might have envied. They went about hence- 
 forth saying : " It is naught it is naught," 
 and hoping that all the powers heard. 
 
 The powers were busy on other things. 
 They had allowed thirty million people four 
 years of plenty, wherein men fed well and the 
 crops were certain and the birth-rate rose 
 year by year ; the districts reported a purely 
 agricultural population varying from nine 
 hundred to two thousand to the square mile of 
 the overburdened earth. It was time to make 
 room. And the Member of the Lower Toot- 
 ing, wandering about India in top-hat and 
 frock-coat, talked largely of the benefits of 
 British rule, and suggested as the one thing 
 needful the establishment of duly qualified 
 electoral system and a general bestowal of the 
 franchise. His long-suffering hosts smiled 
 and made him welcome, and when he paused 
 to admire, with pretty picked words, the 
 blossom of the blood-red dhak-tree, that had 
 flowered untimely for a sign of the sickness 
 that was coming, they smiled more than 
 ever. 
 
 It was the Deputy Commissioner of Kot- 
 Kumharsen, staying at the club for a day, who
 
 1 66 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 lightly told a tale that made Holden's blood 
 run cold as he overheard the end. 
 
 " He won't bother any one any more. 
 Never saw a man so astonished in my life. 
 By Jove 1 I thought he meant to ask a 
 question in the House about it. Fellow-pas- 
 senger in his ship dined next him bowled 
 over by cholera, and died in eighteen hours. 
 You needn't laugh, you fellows. The Mem- 
 ber for Lower Tooting is awfully angry about 
 it ; but he's more scared. I think he's going 
 to take his enlightened self out of India." 
 
 " I'd give a good deal if he were knocked 
 over. It might keep a few vestrymen of his 
 kidney to their parish. But what's this about 
 cholera ? It's full early for anything of that 
 kind," said a warden of an unprofitable salt- 
 lick. 
 
 " Dunno," said the deputy commissioner, 
 reflectively. " We've got locusts with us. 
 There's sporadic cholera all along the north 
 at least, we're calling it sporadic for decency's 
 sake. The spring crops are short in five dis- 
 tricts, and nobody seems to know where the 
 winter rains are. It's nearly March now. I 
 don't want to scare anybody, but it seems to 
 me that Nature's going to audit her accounts 
 with a big red pencil this summer." 
 
 "Just when I wanted to take leave, too," 
 said a voice across the room. 
 
 " There won't be much leave this year, but 
 there ought to be a great deal of promotion.
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy r6; 
 
 I've come in to persuade the government to 
 put my pet canal on the list of famine-relief 
 works. It's an ill wind that blows no good. 
 I shall get that canal finished at last." 
 
 " Is it the old program, then," said Holden 
 " famine, fever, and cholera ? " 
 
 " Oh, no 1 Only local scarcity and an un- 
 usual prevalence of seasonal sickness. You'll 
 find it all in the reports if you live till next 
 year. You're a lucky chap. You haven't got 
 a wife to put you out of harm's way. The hill- 
 stations ought to be full of women this year." 
 
 " I think you're inclined to exaggerate the 
 talk in the bazars," said a young civilian in 
 the secretariat. " Now, I have observed : 
 
 " I dare say you have," said the deputy 
 commissioner, " but you're a great deal more 
 to observe, my son. In the meantime, I wish to 
 
 observe to you " And he drew him aside 
 
 to discuss the construction of the canal thrt 
 was so dear to his heart. 
 
 Holden went to his bungalow, and began tov 
 understand that he was not alone in the world, 
 and also that he was afraid for the sake of' 
 another, which is the most soul-satisfying fear 
 known to man. 
 
 Two months later, as the deputy had fore- 
 told, Nature began to audit her accounts with- 
 a red pencil. On the heels of the spring 
 reapings came a cry for bread, and the gov- 
 ernment, which had decreed that no man 
 should die of want, sent wheat. Then came-
 
 i68 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 the cholera from all four quarters of the 
 compass. It struck a pilgrim gathering of 
 half a million at a sacred shrine. Many died 
 at the feet of their god. the others broke and 
 ran over the face of the land, carrying the 
 pestilence with them. It smote a walled city 
 and killed two hundred a day. The people 
 crowded the trains, hanging on to the foot- 
 boards and squatting on the roofs of the car- 
 riages ; and the cholera followed them, for at 
 each station they dragged out the dead and 
 the dying on the platforms reeking of lime-wash 
 and carbolic acid. They died by the road- 
 side, and the horses of the Englishmen shied 
 at the corpses in the grass. The rains did not 
 come, and the earth turned to iron lest man 
 should escape by hiding in her. The English 
 sent their wives away to the Hills, and went 
 about their work, coming forward as they were 
 bidden to fill the gaps in the fighting line. 
 Holden, sick with fear of losing his chiefest 
 treasure on earth, had done his best to per- 
 suade Ameera to go away with her mother to 
 the Himalayas. 
 
 " Why should I go ? " said she one evening 
 on the roof. 
 
 " There is sickness, and the people are 
 dying, and all the white mem-log have gone." 
 
 " All of them ? " 
 
 " All unless, perhaps, there remain some 
 old scald-head who vexes her husband's heart 
 by running risk of death."
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 169 
 
 " Nay ; who stays is my sister, and thou 
 must not abuse her, for I will be a scald-head 
 too. I am glad all the bold white mem-log are 
 gone." 
 
 " Do I speak to a woman or a babe ? Go 
 to the Hills, and I will see to it that thou 
 goest like a queen's daughter. Think, child I 
 In a red-lacquered bullock-cart, veiled and 
 curtained, with brass peacocks upon the pole 
 and red-cloth hangings. I will send two 
 orderlies for guard, and " 
 
 " Peace 1 Thou art the babe in speaking 
 thus. What use are those toys to me ? He 
 would have patted the bullocks and played 
 with the housings. For his sake, perhaps 
 thou hast made me very English I might 
 have gone. Now I will not. Let the mem- 
 log run." 
 
 "Their husbands are sending them, be- 
 loved." 
 
 "Very good talk. Since when hast thou 
 been my husband to tell me what to do ? I 
 have but borne thee a son. Thou art only 
 all the desire of my soul to me. How shall 
 I depart when I know that if evil befall thee 
 by the breadth of so much as my littlest finger- 
 nail is that not small ? I should be aware 
 of it though I were in Paradise ? And here, 
 this summer thou mayest die ai, janee, 
 diel and in dying they might call to tend 
 thee a white woman, and she would rob me 
 in the last of thy love,"
 
 170 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 " But love is not born in a moment, or on 
 a death-bed." 
 
 " What dost thou know of love, stone-heart ? 
 She would take thy thanks at least, and, by 
 God and the Prophet and Beebee Miriam, the 
 mother of thy Prophet, that I will never 
 endure. My lord and my love, let there be 
 no more foolish talk of going away. Where 
 thou art, I am. It is enough." She put an 
 arm around his neck and a hand on his mouth. 
 
 There are not many happinesses so com- 
 plete as those that are snatched under the 
 shadow of the sword. They sat together and 
 laughed, calling each other openly by every 
 pet name that could move the wrath of the 
 gods. The city below them was locked up 
 in its own torments. Sulphur-fires blazed in 
 the streets ; the conches in the Hindoo 
 temples screamed and bellowed, for the gods 
 were inattentive in those days. There was a 
 service in the great Mohammendan shrine, 
 and the call to prayer from the minarets was 
 almost unceasing. They heard the wailing 
 in the houses of the dead, and once the shriek 
 of a mother who had lost a child and was 
 calling for its return. In the gray dawn they 
 saw the dead borne out through the city gates, 
 each litter with its own little knot of mourn- 
 ers. Wherefore they kissed each other and 
 shivered. 
 
 It was a red and heavy audit, for the land 
 was very sick and needed a little breathing*
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 171 
 
 space ere the torrent of cheap life should 
 flood it anew. The children of immature 
 fathers and undeveloped mothers made no 
 resistance. They were cowed and sat still, 
 waiting till the sword should be sheathed in 
 November, if it were so willed. There were 
 gaps among the English, but the gaps were 
 filled. The work of superintending famine 
 relief, cholera-sheds, medicine distribution, 
 and what little sanitation was possible, went 
 forward because it was so ordered. 
 
 Holden had been told to hold himself in 
 readiness to move to replace the next man 
 who should fall. There were twelve hours 
 in each day when he could not see Ameera, 
 and she might die in three. He was con- 
 sidering what his pain would be if he could 
 not see her for three months, or if she died 
 out of his sight. He was absolutely certain 
 that her death would be demanded so certain 
 that, when he looked up from the telegram 
 and saw Pir Khan breathless in the doorway, 
 he laughed aloud, " And ? " said he. 
 
 " When there is a cry in the night and the 
 spirit flutters into the throat, who has a charm 
 that will restore ? Come swiftly, heaven born. 
 It is the black cholera." 
 
 Holden galloped to his home. The sky 
 was heavy with clouds, for the long-deferred 
 rains were at hand, and the heat was stifling. 
 Ameera's mother met him in the courtyard, 
 whimpering : " She is dying. She is nursing
 
 172 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 herself into death. She is all but dead. What 
 shall I do, sahib ? " 
 
 Ameera was lying in the room in which 
 Tota had been born. She made no sign when 
 Holden entered, because the human soul is a 
 very lonely thing, and when it is getting ready 
 to go away hides itself in a misty border-land 
 where the living may not follow. The black 
 cholera does its work quietly and without ex- 
 planation. Ameera was being thrust out of 
 life as though the Angel of Death had himself 
 put his hand upon her. The quick breathing 
 seemed to show that she was either afraid or 
 in pain, but neither eyes nor mouth gave any 
 answer to Holden's kisses. There was noth- 
 ing to be said or done. Holden could only 
 wait and suffer. The first drops of the rain 
 began to fall on the roof, and he could hear 
 shouts of joy in the parched city. 
 
 The soul came back a little and the lips 
 moved. Holden bent down to listen. " Keep 
 nothing of mine," said Ameera. " Take no 
 hair from my head. She would make thee 
 burn it later on. That flame I should feel. 
 Lower 1 Stoop lower 1 Remember only that 
 I was thine and bore thee a son. Though 
 thou wed a white woman to-morrow, the 
 pleasure of taking in thy arms thy first son is 
 taken from thee forever. Remember me when 
 thy son is born the one that shall carry thy 
 name before all men. His misfortunes be on 
 my head. I bear witness I bear witness "
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 173 
 
 the lips were forming the words on his ear 
 " that there is no God but thee, beloved." 
 
 Then she died. Holden sat still, and 
 thought of any kind was taken from him till 
 he heard Ameera's mother lift the curtain. 
 
 " Is she dead, sahib ? " 
 
 " She is dead." 
 
 " Then I will mourn, and afterward take an 
 inventory of the furniture in this house ; for 
 that will be mine. The sahib does not mean 
 to resume it. It is so little, so very little, 
 sahib, and I am an old woman. I would like 
 to lie softly." 
 
 " For the mercy of God, be silent awhile 1 
 Go out and mourn where I cannot hear." 
 
 " Sahib, she will be buried in four hours." 
 
 " I know the custom. I shall go ere she is 
 taken away. That matter is in thy hands. 
 Look to it that the bed on which on 
 which she lies " 
 
 " Aha I That beautiful red-lacquered bed. 
 I have long desired " 
 
 " That the bed is left here untouched for 
 my disposal. All else in the house is thine. 
 Hire a cart, take everything, go hence, and 
 before sunrise let there be nothing in this 
 house but that which I have ordered thee to 
 respect." 
 
 " I am an old woman. I would stay at least 
 for the days of mourning, and the rains have 
 just broken. Whither shall I go ? " 
 
 " What is that to me ? My order is that
 
 174 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 there is a going. The house-gear is worth a 
 thousand rupees, and my orderly shall bring 
 thee a hundred rupees to-night." 
 
 " That is very little. Think of the cart- 
 hire." 
 
 " It shall be nothing unless thou goest, and 
 with speed. Oh, woman, get hence, and 
 leave me to my dead 1 " 
 
 The mother shuffled down the staircase, 
 and in her anxiety to take stock of the house- 
 fittings forgot to mourn. Holden stayed by 
 Ameera's side, and the rain roared on the 
 roof. He could not think connectedly by 
 reason of the noise, though he made many 
 attempts to do so. Then four sheeted ghosts 
 glided dripping into the room and stared at 
 him through their veils. They were the 
 washers of the dead. Holden left the room 
 and went out to his horse. He had come in 
 a dead, stifling calm, through ankle-deep dust. 
 He found the courtyard a rain-lashed pond 
 alive with frogs, a torrent of yellow water ran 
 under the gate, and a roaring wind drove the 
 bolts of the rain like buckshot against the 
 mud walls. Pir Khan was shivering in his 
 little hut by the gate, and the horse was 
 stamping uneasily in the water. 
 
 " I have been told the sahib's order," said 
 he. " It is well. This house is now desolate. 
 I go also, for my monkey face would be a re- 
 minder of that which has been. Concerning 
 the bed, I will bring that to thy house yonder
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 175 
 
 in the morning. But remember, sahib, it will 
 be to thee as a knife turned in a green wound. 
 I go upon a pilgrimage and I will take no 
 money. I have grown fat in the protection of 
 the Presence, whose sorrow is my sorrow. 
 For the last time I hold his stirrup." 
 
 He touched Holden's foot with both hands, 
 and the horse sprung out into the road, where 
 the creaking bamboos were whipping the sky 
 and all the frogs were chuckling. Holden 
 could not see for the rain in his face. He 
 put his hands before his eyes and muttered : 
 " Oh, you brute 1 You utter brute 1 " 
 
 The news of his trouble was already in his 
 bungalow. He read the knowledge in his 
 butler's eyes when Ahmed Khan brought in 
 food, and for the first and last time in his life 
 laid a hand upon his master's shoulder, say- 
 ing : " Eat, sahib, eat. Meat is good against 
 sorrow. I also have known. Moreover, -the 
 shadows come and go, sahib. The shadows 
 come and go. These be curried eggs." 
 
 Holden could neither eat nor sleep. The 
 heavens sent down eight inches of rain in that 
 night and scoured the earth clean. The 
 waters tore down walls, broke roads, and 
 washed open the shallow graves in the Moham- 
 medan burying-ground. All next day it 
 rained, and Holden sat still in his house 
 considering his sorrow. On the morning 
 of the third day he received a telegram 
 which said only : " Ricketts, Myndonie.
 
 176 Wee Willie Winkie 
 
 Dying. Holden. Relieve. Immediate." 
 Then he thought that before he departed he 
 would look at the house wherein he had been 
 master and lord. There was a break in the 
 weather. The rank earth steamed with 
 vapor, and Holden was vermilion from head 
 to heel with the prickly-heat born of sultry 
 moisture. 
 
 He found that the rains had torn down the 
 mud-pillars of the gateway, and the heavy 
 wooden gate that had guarded his life hung 
 drunkenly from one hinge. There was grass 
 three inches high in the courtyard ; Pir 
 Khan's lodge was empty, and the sodden 
 thatch sagged between the beams. A gray 
 squirrel was in possession of the veranda, as 
 if the house had been untenanted for thirty 
 years instead of three days. Ameera's mother 
 had removed everything except some mildewed 
 matting. The tick-tick of the little scorpions 
 as they hurried across the floor was the only 
 sound in the house. Ameera's room and that 
 other one where Tota had lived were heavy 
 with mildew, and the narrow staircase leading 
 to the roof was streaked and stained with rain- 
 borne mud. Holden saw all these things, and 
 came out again to meet in the road Durga 
 Dass, his landlord portly, affable, clothed in 
 white muslin, and driving a C-spring buggy. 
 He was overlooking his property, to see how 
 the roofs withstood the stress of the first 
 rains.
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 177 
 
 " I have heard," said he, " you will not take 
 this place any more, sahib ? " 
 
 " What are you going to do with it ? " 
 
 "Perhaps I shall let it again." 
 
 " Then I will keep it on while I am away. w 
 
 Durga Dass was silent for some time. 
 " You shall not take it on, sahib," he said. 
 " When I was a young man I also But to- 
 day I am a member of the municipality. Hoi 
 ho 1 No. When the birds have gone, what 
 need to keep the nest ? I will have it pulled 
 down ; the timber will sell for something al- 
 ways. It shall be pulled down, and the mu- 
 nicipality shall make a road across, as they 
 desire, from the burning-ghat to the city wall. 
 So that no man may say where this house 
 stood."
 
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