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 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/daysworkmanyinveOOkipliala 
 
THE NEW WORLD EDITION 
 
 OF THE WORKS OF 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING 
 
 THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 BY 
 RUDYARD KIPLING 
 
 THIS AUTHORIZED EDITION IS 
 
 PUBLISHED EXCLUSIVELY 
 
 FOR 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK AND TORONTO 
 
THE DAY S WORK 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1894, 1895, 1896, 1S97, 1898, 1905 
 
 BY RUDYARD KIPLING 
 
 MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 COPYRIGHT, l8i^ 
 
 BY D. APPLETON & COMPANY 
 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Bridge-Builders 3 
 
 A Walking Delegate 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 The Ship That Found Herself 
 
 
 
 72 
 
 The Tomb of His Ancestors 
 
 
 
 . 94 
 
 The Devil and the Deep Sea 
 
 
 
 136 
 
 William the Conqueror 
 
 
 
 166 
 
 •007 
 
 
 
 209 
 
 The Maltese Cat 
 
 
 
 231 
 
 'Bread Upon the Waters' 
 
 
 
 256 
 
 An Error in the Fourth Dimension 
 
 
 
 . 289 
 
 My Sunday at Home . 
 
 
 
 310 
 
 The Brushwood Boy .... 
 
 . 
 
 
 327 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 (1893) 
 
 THE least that Findlayson, of the Public Works 
 Department, expected was a C. I. E.; he dreamed 
 of a C. S. I.: indeed his friends told him that he 
 deserved more. For three years he had endured heat 
 and cold, disappointment, discomfort, danger, and dis- 
 ease, with responsibility almost too heavy for one pair of 
 shoulders; and day by day, through that time, the great 
 Kashi Bridge over the Ganges had grown under his 
 charge. Now, in less than three months, if all went well. 
 His Excellency the Viceroy would open the bridge in 
 state, an archbishop would bless it, the first train-load 
 of soldiers would come over it, and there would be 
 speeches. 
 
 Findlayson, C. E., sat in his trolley on a construction- 
 line that ran along one of the main revetments — the 
 huge stone-faced banks that flared away north and south 
 for three miles on either side of the river — and permitted 
 himself to think of the end. With its approaches, his 
 work was one mile and three-quarters in length; a lattice- 
 girder bridge, trussed with the Findlayson truss, stand- 
 ing on seven-and-twenty brick piers. Each one of 
 those piers was twenty-four feet in diameter, capped 
 with red Agra stone and sunk eighty feet below the 
 shifting sand of the Ganges' bed. Above them ran the 
 
 3 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 railway-line fifteen feet broad; above that, again, a cart- 
 road of eighteen feet, flanked with footpaths. At either 
 end rose towers of red brick, loopholed for musketry and 
 pierced for big guns, and the ramp of the road was being 
 pushed forward to their haunches. The raw earth-ends 
 were crawling and alive with hundreds upon hundreds 
 of tiny asses climbing out of the yawning borrow-pit 
 below with sackfuls of stuff; and the hot afternoon air 
 was filled with the noise of hooves, the rattle of the 
 drivers' sticks, and the swish and roll-down of the dirt. 
 The river was very low, and on the dazzling white sand 
 between the three centre piers stood squat cribs of rail- 
 way-sleepers, filled within and daubed without with 
 mud, to support the last of the girders as those were 
 riveted up. In the little deep water left by the drought, 
 an overhead-crane travelled to and fro along its spile- 
 pier, jerking sections of iron into place, snorting and 
 backing and grunting as an elephant grunts in the 
 timber-yard. Riveters by the hundred swarmed about 
 the lattice side-work and the iron roof of the railway- 
 line, hung from invisible staging under the bellies of the 
 girders, clustered round the throats of the piers, and rode 
 on the overhang of the footpath-stanchions; their fire- 
 pots and the spurts of flame that answered each hammer- 
 stroke showing no more than pale yellow in the sun's 
 glare. East and west and north and south the con- 
 struction-trains rattled and shrieked up and down the 
 embankments, the piled trucks of brown and white 
 stone banging behind them till the sideboards were un- 
 pinned, and with a roar and a grumble a few thousand 
 tons more material w^ere thrown out to hold the river in 
 place. 
 
 Findlayson, C. E., turned on his trolley and looked 
 
 4 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 over the face of the country that he had changed for 
 seven miles around. Looked back on the humming 
 village of five thousand workmen; up-stream and down, 
 along the vista of spurs and sand; across the river to the 
 far piers, lessening in the haze; overhead to the guard- 
 towers — and only he knew how strong those were — and 
 with a sigh of contentment saw that his work was good. 
 There stood his bridge before him in the sunlight, lack- 
 ing only a few weeks' work on the girders of the three 
 middle piers— ^his bridge, raw and ugly as original sin, 
 but pukka — permanent — to endure when all memory of 
 the builder, yea, even of the splendid Findlayson truss, 
 had perished. Practically, the thing was done. 
 
 Hitchcock, his assistant, cantered along the line on 
 a little switch-tailed Kabuli pony, who, through long 
 practice, could have trotted securely over a trestle, and 
 nodded to his chief. 
 
 'AH but,' said he, with a smile. 
 
 'I've been thinking about it,' the senior answered. 
 *Not half a bad job for two men, is it? ' 
 
 'One — and a half. 'Gad, what a Cooper's Hill cub I 
 was when I came on the works!' Hitchcock felt very 
 old in the crowded experiences of the past three years, 
 that had taught him power and responsibility. 
 
 'You were rather a colt,' said Findlayson. ' I wonder 
 how you'll like going back to office work when this job's 
 over.' 
 
 'I shall hate it!' said the young man, and as he went 
 on his eye followed Findlayson's, and he muttered, ' Isn't 
 it damned good? ' 
 
 'I think we'll go up the service together,' Findlayson 
 said to himself. 'You're too good a youngster to waste 
 on another man. Cub thou wast; assistant thou art. 
 
 5 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 Personal assistant, and at Simla, thou shalt be, if any 
 credit comes to me out of the business!' 
 
 Indeed, the burden of the work had fallen altogether 
 on Findlayson and his assistant, the young man whom 
 he had chosen because of his rawness to break to his own 
 needs. There were labour-contractors by the half-hun- 
 dred — fitters and riveters, European, borrowed from 
 railway work-shops, with perhaps twenty white and 
 half-caste subordinates to direct, under direction, the 
 bevies of workmen — but none knew better than these 
 two, who trusted each other, how the underlings were 
 not to be trusted. They had been tried many times in 
 sudden crises — by slipping of booms, by breaking of 
 tackle, failure of cranes, and the wrath of the river — 
 but no stress had brought to light any man among them 
 whom Findlayson and Hitchcock would have honoured 
 by working as remorselessly as they worked themselves. 
 Findlayson thought it over from the beginning: the 
 months of office work destroyed at a blow when the 
 Government of India, at the last moment, added two 
 feet to the width of the bridge, under the impression 
 that bridges were cut out of paper, and so brought to 
 ruin at least half an acre of calculations — and Hitchcock, 
 new to disappointment, buried his head in his arms and 
 wept; the heart-breaking delays over the filling of the 
 contracts in England ; the futile correspondences hinting 
 at great wealth of commission if one, only one, rather 
 doubtful consignment were passed; the war that fol- 
 lowed the refusal; the careful, polite obstruction at the 
 other end that followed the war, till young Hitchcock, 
 putting one month's leave to another month, and borrow- 
 ing ten days from Findlayson, spent his poor little savings 
 of a year in a wild dash to London, and there, as his own 
 
 6 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 tongue asserted and the later consignments proved, put 
 the Fear of God into a man so great that he feared only 
 Parhament, and said so till Hitchcock wrought with him 
 across his own dinner-table, and — he feared the Kashi 
 Bridge and all who spoke in its name. Then there was 
 the cholera that came in the night to the village by the 
 bridge-works; and after the cholera smote the smallpox. 
 The fever they had always with them. Hitchcock had 
 been appointed a magistrate of the third class with 
 whipping powers, for the better government of the com- 
 munity, and Findlayson watched him wield his powers 
 temperately, learning what to overlook and what to 
 look after. It was a long, long reverie, and it covered 
 storm, sudden freshets, death in every manner and 
 shape, violent and awful rage against red tape half 
 frenzying a mind that knows it should be busy on other 
 things; drought, sanitation, finance; birth, wedding, 
 burial, and riot in the village of twenty warring castes; 
 argument, expostulation, persuasion, and the blank de- 
 spair that a man goes to bed upon, thankful that his rifle 
 is all in pieces in the gun-case. Behind everything rose 
 the black frame of the Kashi Bridge — plate by plate, 
 girder by girder, span by span — and each pier of it re- 
 called Hitchcock, the all-round man, who had stood by 
 his chief without failing from the very first to this last. 
 So the bridge was two men's work — unless one counted 
 Peroo, as Peroo certainly counted himself. He was a 
 Lascar, a Kharva from Bulsar, familiar with every port 
 between Rockhampton and London, who had risen to 
 the rank of serang on the British India boats, but weary- 
 ing of routine musters and clean clothes had thrown up 
 the service and gone inland, where men of his calibre 
 were sure of employment. For his knowledge of tackle 
 
 7 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 and the handling of heavy weights, Peroo was worth 
 almost any price he might have chosen to put upon his 
 services; but custom decreed the wage of the overhead- 
 men, and Peroo was not within many silver pieces of 
 his proper value. Neither running water nor extreme 
 heights made him afraid; and, as an ex-serang, he knew 
 how to hold authority. No piece of iron was so big or 
 so badly placed that Peroo could not devise a tackle to 
 lift it — a loose-ended, sagging arrangement, rigged with 
 a scandalous amount of talking, but perfectly equal to 
 the work in hand. It was Peroo who had saved the 
 girder of Number Seven Pier from destruction when 
 the new wire rope jammed in the eye of the crane, and 
 the huge plate tilted in its slings, threatening to slide 
 out sideways. Then the native workmen lost their 
 heads with great shoutings, and Hitchcock's right arm 
 was broken by a falling T-plate, and he buttoned it up 
 in his coat and swooned, and came to and directed for 
 four hours till Peroo, from the top of the crane, reported, 
 'All's well,' and the plate swung home. There was no 
 one like Peroo, serang, to lash and guy and hold, to 
 control the donkey-engines, to hoist a fallen locomotive 
 craftily out of the borrow-pit into which it had tumbled ; 
 to strip and dive, if need be, to see how the concrete 
 blocks round the piers stood the scouring of Mother 
 Gunga, or to adventure up-stream on a monsoon night 
 and report on the state of the embankment-facings. 
 He would interrupt the field-councils of Findlayson and 
 Hitchcock without fear, till his wonderful English, or 
 his still more wonderful lingua-franca, half Portuguese 
 and half Malay, ran out and he was forced to take string 
 and show the knots that he would recommend. He 
 controlled his own gang of tacklemen — mysterious rel- 
 
 8 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 atives from Kutch Mandvi gathered month by month 
 and tried to the uttermost. No consideration of family 
 or kin allowed Peroo to keep weak hands or a giddy 
 head on the pay-roll. 'My honour is the honour of this 
 Bridge,' he would say to the about-to-be dismissed. 
 'What do I care for your honour? Go and work on a 
 steamer. That is all you are fit for.' 
 
 The little cluster of huts where he and his gang lived 
 centred round the tattered dwelling of a sea-priest — one 
 who had never set foot on Black Water, but had been 
 chosen as ghostly counsellor by two generations of sea- 
 rovers, all unaffected by port missions or those creeds 
 which are thrust upon sailors by agencies along Thames' 
 bank. The priest of the Lascars had nothing to do with 
 their caste, or indeed with anything at all. He ate the 
 offerings of his church, and slept and smoked, and slept 
 again, 'for,' said Peroo, who had haled him a thousand 
 miles inland, 'he is a very holy man. He never cares 
 what you eat so long as you do not eat beef, and that is 
 good, because on land we worship Shiva, we Kharvas; 
 but at sea on the Kumpani's boats we attend strictly to 
 the orders of the Burra Malum (the first mate), and on 
 this bridge we observe what Finlinson Sahib says.' 
 
 Findlayson Sahib had that day given orders to clear 
 the scaffolding from the guard-tower on the right bank, 
 and Peroo with his mates was casting loose and lowering 
 down the bamboo poles and planks as swiftly as ever 
 they had whipped the cargo out of a coaster. 
 
 From his trolley he could hear the whistle of the 
 serang's silver pipe and the creak and clatter of the 
 pulleys. Peroo was standing on the topmost coping of 
 the tower, clad in the blue dungaree of his abandoned 
 service, and as Findlayson motioned to him to be care- 
 
 9 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 ful, for his was no life to throw away, he gripped the 
 last pole, and, shading his eyes ship-fashion, answered 
 with the long-drawn wail of the fo'c'sle look-out: 'Ham 
 dekhta hai' ('I am looking out'). Findlayson laughed, 
 and then sighed. It was years since he had seen a 
 steamer, and he was sick for home. As his trolley 
 passed under the tower, Peroo descended by a rope, ape- 
 fashion, and cried: 'It looks well now, Sahib. Our 
 bridge is all but done. What think you Mother Gunga 
 will say when the rail runs over? ' 
 
 'She has said little so far. It never was Mother 
 Gunga that delayed us.' 
 
 'There is always time for her; and none the less there 
 has been delay. Has the Sahib forgotten last autumn's 
 flood, when the stone-boats were sunk without warning 
 — or only a half-day's warning?' 
 
 'Yes, but nothing save a big flood could hurt us now. 
 The spurs are holding well on the west bank.' 
 
 'Mother Gunga eats great allowances. There is al- 
 ways room for more stone on the revetments. I tell this 
 to the Chota Sahib' — he meant Hitchcock — 'and he 
 laughs.' 
 
 'No matter, Peroo. Another year thou wilt be able 
 to build a bridge in thine own fashion.' 
 
 The Lascar grinned. 'Then it will not be in this way 
 — with stonework sunk under water, as the "Quetta" 
 was sunk. I like sus-sus-pen-sheen bridges that fly from 
 bank to bank, with one big step, like a gang-plank. Then 
 no water can hurt. When does the Lord Sahib come 
 to open the bridge? ' 
 
 ' In three months, when the weather is cooler.' 
 
 'Ho! ho! He is like the Burra Malum. He sleeps 
 below while the work is being done. Then he comes 
 
 10 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 upon the quarter-deck and touches with his finger, and 
 says : ' ' This is not clean ! Dam j iboonwallah ! " ' 
 
 'But the Lord Sahib does not call me a dam jiboon- 
 wallah, Peroo.' 
 
 'No, Sahib; but he does not come on deck till the work 
 is all finished. Even the Burra Malum of the "Ner- 
 budda " said once at Tuticorin — ' 
 
 'Bah! Go! I am busy.' 
 
 'I, also!' said Peroo, with an unshaken countenance. 
 'May I take the light dinghy now and row along the 
 spurs?' 
 
 'To hold them with thy hands? They are, I think, 
 sufficiently heavy.' 
 
 * Nay, Sahib. It is thus. At sea, on the Black Water, 
 we have room to be blown up and down without care. 
 Here we have no room at all. Look you, we have put 
 the river into a dock, and run her between stone sills.' 
 
 Findlayson smiled at the 'we.' 
 
 'We have bitted and bridled her. She is not like the 
 sea, that can beat against a soft beach. She is Mother 
 Gunga — in irons.' His voice fell a little. 
 
 ' Peroo, thou hast been up and down the world more 
 even than I. Speak true talk, now. How much dost 
 thou in thy heart believe of Mother Gunga?' 
 
 'All that our priest says. London is London, Sahib.. 
 Sydney is Sydney, and Port Darwin is Port Darwin, 
 Also Mother Gunga is Mother Gunga, and when I come 
 back to her banks I know this and worship. In London 
 I did poojah to the big temple by the river for the sake 
 of the God within. . . . Yes, I will not take the 
 cushions in the dinghy.' 
 
 Findlayson mounted his horse and trotted to the shed 
 of a bungalow that he shared with his assistant. The 
 
 11 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 place had become home to him in the last three years. 
 He had grilled in the heat, sweated in the rains, and 
 shivered with fever under the rude thatch roof; the 
 limewash beside the door was covered with rough draw- 
 ings and formulae, and the sentry-path trodden in the 
 matting of the veranda showed where he had walked 
 alone. There is no eight-hour limit to an engineer's 
 work, and the evening meal with Hitchcock was eaten 
 booted and spurred. Over their cigars they listened to 
 the hum of the village as the gangs came up from the 
 river-bed and the lights began to twinkle. 
 
 *Peroo has gone up the spurs in your dinghy. He's 
 taken a couple of nephews with him, and he's lolling in 
 the stern like a commodore,' said Hitchcock. 
 
 * That's all right. He's got something on his mind. 
 You'd think that ten years in the British India boats 
 would have knocked most of his religion out of him.' 
 
 *So it has,' said Hitchcock, chuckling. 'I overheard 
 him the other day in the middle of a most atheistical talk 
 with that fat old guru of theirs. Peroo denied the efficacy 
 of prayer; and wanted the guru to go to sea and watch a 
 gale out with him, and see if he could stop a monsoon.' 
 
 'All the same, if you carried off his guru he'd leave us 
 like a shot. He was yarning away to me about praying 
 to the dome of St. Paul's when he was in London.' 
 
 *He told me that the first time he went into the engine- 
 room of a steamer, when he was a boy, he prayed to the 
 low-press cylinder.' 
 
 'Not half a bad thing to pray to, either. He's pro- 
 pitiating his own Gods now, and he wants to know what 
 Mother Gunga will think of a bridge being run across 
 her. Who's there? ' A shadow darkened the doorway, 
 and a telegram was put into Hitchcock's hand. 
 
 12 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 ' She ought to be pretty well used to it by this time. 
 Only a tar. It ought to be Ralli's answer about the new 
 rivets. . . . Great Heavens! 'Hitchcock jumped to his feet. 
 
 'What is it?' said the senior, and took the form. 
 'That's what Mother Gunga thinks, is it,' he said, read- 
 ing. 'Keep cool, young 'un. We've got all our work 
 cut for us. Let's see. Muir wires, half an hour ago: 
 "Floods on the Ramgunga. Look out." Well, that 
 gives us — one, two — nine and a half for the flood to 
 reach Melipur Ghaut and seven's sixteen and a half to 
 Latodi — say fifteen hours before it comes down to us.' 
 
 ' Curse that hill-fed sewer of a Ramgunga ! Findlay- 
 son, this is two months before anything could have been 
 expected, and the left bank is littered up with stuff still. 
 Two full months before the time ! ' 
 
 'That's why it happens. I've only known Indian 
 rivers for five and twenty years, and I don't pretend 
 to understand. Here comes another tar.' Findlayson 
 opened the telegram. 'Cockran, this time, from the 
 Ganges Canal: "Heavy rains here. Bad." He might 
 have saved the last word. W^ell, we don't want to know 
 any more. We've got to work the gangs all night and 
 clean up the river-bed. You'll take the east bank and 
 work out to meet me in the middle. Get everything 
 that floats below the bridge: we shall have quite enough 
 river-craft coming down adrift anyhow, without letting 
 the stone-boats ram the piers. What have you got on 
 the east bank that needs looking after? ' 
 
 'Pontoon, one big pontoon with the overhead crane 
 on it. T'other overhead crane on the mended pontoon, 
 with the cart-road rivets from Twenty to Twenty-three 
 piers — two construction lines, and a turning-spur. The 
 pile-work must take its chance,' said Hitchcock. 
 
 13 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'All right. Roll up everything you can lay hands on. 
 We'll give the gang fifteen minutes more to eat their 
 grub.' 
 
 Close to the veranda stood a big night-gong, never 
 used except for flood, or fire in the village. Hitchcock 
 had called for a fresh horse, and was off to his side of the 
 bridge when Findlayson took the cloth-bound stick and 
 smote with the rubbing stroke that brings out the full 
 thunder of the metal. 
 
 Long before the last rumble ceased every night-gong 
 in the village had taken up the warning. To these were 
 added the hoarse screaming of conchs in the little tem- 
 ples; the throbbing of drums and tomtoms; and from 
 the European quarters, where the riveters lived, M'Cart- 
 ney's bugle, a weapon of offence on Sundays and festi- 
 vals, brayed desperately, calling to 'Stables.' Engine 
 after engine toiling home along the spurs after her day's 
 work whistled in answer till the whistles were answered 
 from the far bank. Then the big gong thundered thrice 
 for a sign that it was flood and not fire; conch, drum, 
 and whistle echoed the call, and the village quivered to 
 the sound of bare feet running upon soft earth. The 
 order in all cases was to stand by the day's work and 
 wait instructions. The gangs poured by in the dusk; 
 men stopping to knot a loin-cloth or fasten a sandal; 
 gang-foremen shouting to their subordinates as they 
 ran or paused by the tool-issue sheds for bars and mat- 
 tocks; locomotives creeping down their tracks wheel- 
 deep in the crowd, till the brown torrent disappeared 
 into the dusk of the river-bed, raced over the pile-work, 
 swarmed along the lattices, clustered by the cranes, and 
 stood still, each man in his place. 
 
 Then the troubled beating of the gong carried the 
 
 14 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 order to take up everything and bear it beyond high- 
 water mark, and the flare-lamps broke out by the hun- 
 dred between the webs of dull-iron as the riveters began 
 a night's work racing against the flood that was to come. 
 The girders of the three centre piers — those that stood 
 on the cribs — were all but in position. They needed 
 just as many rivets as could be driven into them, for the 
 flood would assuredly wash out the supports, and the 
 iron-work would settle down on the caps of stone if 
 they were not blocked at the ends. A hundred crow- 
 bars strained at the sleepers of the temporary line that 
 fed the unfinished piers. It was heaved up in lengths, 
 loaded into trucks, and backed up the bank beyond 
 flood-level by the groaning locomotives. The tool- 
 sheds on the sands melted away before the attack of 
 shouting armies, and with them went the stacked ranks 
 of Government stores, iron-bound boxes of rivets, pliers, 
 cutters, duplicate parts of the riveting-machines, spare 
 pumps and chains. The big crane would be the last to 
 be shifted, for she was hoisting all the heavy stuff up to 
 the main structure of the bridge. The concrete blocks 
 on the fleet of stone-boats were dropped overside, where 
 there was any depth of water, to guard the piers, and 
 the empty boats themselves were poled under the bridge 
 down-stream. It was here that Peroo's pipe shrilled 
 loudest, for the first stroke of the big gong had brought 
 back the dinghy at racing speed, and Peroo and his people 
 were stripped to the waist, working for the honour and 
 credit which are better than life. 
 
 'I knew she would speak,' he cried. *I knew, but the 
 telegraph gave us good warning. sons of unthinkable 
 begetting — children of unspeakable shame — are we here 
 for the look of the thing? ' It was two feet of wire rope 
 
 15 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 frayed at the ends, and it did wonders as Peroo leaped 
 from gunnel to gunnel, shouting the language of the sea. 
 
 Findlayson was more troubled for the stone-boats 
 than anything else. M'Cartney, with his gangs, was 
 blocking up the ends of the three doubtful spans, but 
 boats adrift, if the flood chanced to be a high one, might 
 endanger the girders; and there was a very fleet in the 
 shrunken channels. 
 
 'Get them behind the swell of the guard-tower,' he 
 shouted to Peroo, 'It will be dead-water there; get 
 them below the bridge.' 
 
 'Accha! [Very good.] I know. We are mooring 
 them with wire rope,' was the answer. 'Heh! Listen 
 to the Chota Sahib. He is working hard.' 
 
 From across the river came an almost continuous 
 whistling of locomotives, backed by the rumble of stone. 
 Hitchcock at the last minute was spending a few hun- 
 dred more trucks of Tarakee stone in reinforcing his 
 spurs and embankments. 
 
 'The bridge challenges Mother Gunga,' said Peroo, 
 with a laugh. 'But when she talks I know whose voice 
 will be the loudest.' 
 
 For hours the naked men worked, screaming and 
 shouting under the lights. It was a hot, moonless night ; 
 the end of it was darkened by clouds and a sudden squall 
 that made Findlayson very grave. 
 
 'She moves!' said Peroo, just before the dawn. 
 * Mother Gunga is awake ! Hear ! ' He dipped his hand 
 over the side of a boat and the current mumbled on it. 
 A little wave hit the side of a pier with a crisp slap. 
 
 'Six hours before her time,' said Findlayson, mopping 
 his forehead savagely. *Now we can't depend on any- 
 thing. We'd better clear all hands out of the river-bed.' 
 
 16 
 
THE BRIDGE -BUILDERS 
 
 Again the big gong beat, and a second time there was 
 the rushing of naked feet on earth and ringing iron; the 
 clatter of tools ceased. In the silence, men heard the 
 dry yawn of water crawling over thirsty sand. 
 
 Foreman after foreman shouted to Findlayson, who 
 had posted himself by the guard-tower, that his section 
 of the river-bed had been cleaned out, and when the last 
 voice dropped Findlayson hurried over the bridge till 
 the iron plating of the permanent way gave place to 
 the temporary plank-walk over the three centre piers, 
 and there he met Hitchcock. 
 
 ' 'All clear your side?' said Findlayson. The whisper 
 rang in the box of latticework. 
 
 ' Yes, and the east channel's filling now. We're utterly 
 out of our reckoning. When is this thing down on us? ' 
 
 * There's no saying. She's filling as fast as she can. 
 Look ! ' Findlayson pointed to the planks below his feet, 
 where the burned sand, defiled by months of work, was 
 beginning to whisper and fizz. 
 
 'What orders?' said Hitchcock. 
 
 'Call the roll — count stores — sit on your hunkers — 
 and pray for the bridge. That's all I can think of. 
 Good-night. Don't risk your life trying to fish out any- 
 thing that may go down-stream.' 
 
 'Oh, I'll be as prudent as you are! 'Night. Heavens, 
 how she's filling! Here's the rain in earnest!' Find- 
 layson picked his way back to his bank, sweeping the 
 last of M'Cartney's riveters before him. The gangs 
 had spread themselves along the embankments, regard- 
 less of the cold rain of the dawn, and there they waited 
 for the flood. Only Peroo kept his men together behind 
 the swell of the guard-tower, where the stone-boats lay 
 tied fore and aft with hawsers, wire-rope, and chains. 
 
 17 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 A shrill wail ran along the line, growing to a yell, half 
 fear and half w^onder: the face of the river whitened from 
 bank to bank between the stone facings, and the far- 
 away spurs went out in spouts of foam. Mother Gunga 
 had come bank-high in haste, and a wall of chocolate- 
 coloured water was her messenger. There was a shriek 
 above the roar of the water, the complaint of the spans 
 coming down on their blocks as the cribs were whirled 
 out from under their bellies. The stone-boats groaned 
 and ground each other in the eddy that swung round 
 the abutment, and their clumsy masts rose higher and 
 higher against the dim sky-line. 
 
 'Before she was shut between these walls we knew 
 what she would do. Now she is thus cramped God 
 only knows what she will do ! ' said Peroo, watching the 
 furious turmoil round the guard-tower. ' Ohe ! Fight, 
 then! Fight hard, for it is thus that a woman wears 
 herself out.' 
 
 But Mother Gunga would not fight as Peroo desired. 
 After the first down-stream plunge there came no more 
 walls of water, but the river lifted herself bodily, as a 
 snake when she drinks in midsummer, plucking and 
 fingering along the revetments, and banking up behind 
 the piers till even Findlayson began to recalculate the 
 strength of his work. 
 
 When day came the village gasped. ' Only last night,' 
 men said, turning to each other, ' it was as a town in the 
 river-bed ! Look now ! ' 
 
 And they looked and wondered afresh at the deep 
 water, the racing water that licked the throat of the 
 piers. The farther bank was veiled by rain, into which 
 the bridge ran out and vanished; the spurs up-stream 
 were marked by no more than eddies and spoutings, and 
 
 18 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 down-stream the pent river, once free of her guide-lines, 
 had spread like a sea to the horizon. Then hurried by, 
 rolling in the water, dead men and oxen together, with 
 here and there a patch of thatched roof that melted 
 when it touched a pier. 
 
 'Big flood,' said Peroo, and Findlayson nodded. It 
 was as big a flood as he had any wish to watch. His 
 bridge would stand what was upon her now, but not 
 very much more; and if by any of a thousand chances 
 there happened to be a weakness in the embankments, 
 Mother Gunga would carry his honour to the sea with 
 the other raffle. Worst of all, there was nothing to do 
 except to sit stifl; and Findlayson sat still under his 
 macintosh till his helmet became pulp on his head, and 
 his boots were over-ankle in mire. He took no count of 
 time, for the river was marking the hours, inch by inch 
 and foot by foot, along the embankment, and he listened, 
 numb and hungry, to the straining of the stone-boats, 
 the hollow thunder under the piers, and the hundred 
 noises that make the full note of a flood. Once a drip- 
 ping servant brought him food, but he could not eat; 
 and once he thought that he heard a faint toot from a 
 locomotive across the river, and then he smiled. The 
 bridge's failure would hurt his assistant not a little, but 
 Hitchcock was a young man with his big work yet to do. 
 For himself the crash meant everything — everything 
 that made a hard life worth the living. They would 
 say, the men of his own profession — he remembered the 
 half-pitying things that he himself had said when Lock- 
 hart's big water-works burst and broke down in brick 
 heaps and sludge, and Lockhart's spirit broke in him 
 and he died. He remembered what he himself had 
 said when the Sumao Bridge went out in the big cyclone 
 
 19 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 by the sea; and most he remembered poor Hartopp's face 
 three weeks later, when the shame had marked it. His 
 bridge was twice the size of Hartopp's, and it carried 
 the Findlayson truss as well as the new pier-shoe — 
 the Findlayson bolted shoe. There were no excuses in 
 his service. Government might listen, perhaps, but his 
 own kind would judge him by his bridge, as that stood 
 or fell. He went over it in his head, plate by plate, 
 span by span, brick by brick, pier by pier, remember- 
 ing, comparing, estimating, and recalculating, lest there 
 should be any mistake; and through the long hours and 
 through the flights of formulas that danced and wheeled 
 before him a cold fear would come to pinch his heart. 
 His side of the sum was beyond question; but what man 
 knew Mother Gunga's arithmetic? Even as he was 
 making all sure by the multiplication-table, the river 
 might be scooping pot-holes to the very bottom of any 
 one of those eighty-foot piers that carried his reputation. 
 Again a servant came to him with food, but his mouth 
 was dry, and he could only drink and return to the deci- 
 mals in his brain. And the river was still rising. Peroo, 
 in a mat shelter-coat, crouched at his feet, watching now 
 his face and now the face of the river, but saying nothing. 
 
 At last the Lascar rose and floundered through the 
 mud towards the village, but he was careful to leave 
 an ally to watch the boats. 
 
 Presently he returned, most irreverently driving before 
 him the priest of his creed — a fat old man, with a gray 
 beard that whipped the wind with the wet cloth that 
 blew over his shoulder. Never was seen so lamentable 
 a guru. 
 
 'What good are offerings and little kerosene lamps 
 and dry grain,' shouted Peroo, 'if squatting in the mud 
 
 20 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 is all that thou canst do? Thou hast dealt long with 
 the Gods when they were contented and well-wishing. 
 Now they are angry. Speak to them ! ' 
 
 'What is a man against the wrath of Gods?' whined 
 the priest, cowering as the wind took him. 'Let me go 
 to the temple, and I will pray there.' 
 
 'Son of a pig, pray here! Is there no return for salt 
 fish and curry powder and dried onions? Call aloud! 
 Tell Mother Gunga we have had enough. Bid her be 
 still for the night. I cannot pray, but I have served 
 in the Kumpani's boats, and when men did not obey my 
 orders I — ' A flourish of the wire-rope colt rounded the 
 sentence, and the priest, breaking from his disciple, fled 
 to the village. 
 
 'Fat pig!' said Peroo. 'After all that we have done 
 for him ! When the flood is down I will see to it that we 
 get a new guru. Finlinson Sahib, it darkens for night 
 now, and since yesterday nothing has been eaten. Be 
 wise. Sahib. No man can endure watching and great 
 thinking on an empty belly. Lie down, Sahib. The 
 river wfll do what the river will do.' 
 
 'The bridge is mine; I cannot leave it.' 
 
 'Wilt thou hold it up with thy hands, then?' said 
 Peroo, laughing. 'I was troubled for my boats and 
 sheers before the flood came. Now we are in the hands 
 of the Gods. The Sahib will not eat and lie down? 
 Take these, then. They are meat and good toddy to- 
 gether, and they kill all weariness, besides the fever that 
 follows the rain. I have eaten nothing else to-day at all.' 
 
 He took a small tin tobacco-box from his sodden waist- 
 belt and thrust it into Findlayson's hand, saying, 'Nay, 
 do not be afraid. It is no more than opium — clean 
 Malwa opium ! ' 
 
 21 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 Findlayson shook two or three of the dark-brown 
 pellets into his hand, and hardly knowing what he did, 
 swallowed them. The stuff was at least a good guard 
 against fever — the fever that was creeping upon him 
 out of the wet mud — and he had seen what Peroo could 
 do in the stewing mists of autumn on the strength of a 
 dose from the tin box. 
 
 Peroo nodded with bright eyes. 'In a little — in a 
 little the Sahib will find that he thinks well again. I too 
 will — ' He dived into his treasure-box, resettled the 
 rain-coat over his head, and squatted down to watch 
 the boats. It was too dark now to see beyond the first 
 pier, and the night seemed to have given the river new 
 strength. Findlayson stood with his chin on his chest, 
 thinking. There was one point about one of the piers — - 
 the Seventh — that he had not fully settled in his mind. 
 The figures would not shape themselves to the eye 
 except one by one and at enormous intervals of time. 
 There was a sound, rich and mellow in his ears, like the 
 deepest note of a double-bass — an entrancing sound upon 
 which he pondered for several hours, as it seemed. 
 Then Peroo was at his elbow, shouting that a wire haw- 
 ser had snapped and the stone-boats were loose. Find- 
 layson saw the fleet open and swing out fan-wise to a 
 long-drawn shriek of wire straining across gunnels. 
 
 'A tree hit them. They will all go,' cried Peroo. ' The 
 main hawser has parted. What does the Sahib do? ' 
 
 An immensely complex plan had suddenly flashed 
 into Findlayson's mind. He saw the ropes running 
 from boat to boat in straight lines and angles — each 
 rope a line of white fire. But there was one rope which 
 was the master-rope. He could see that rope. If he 
 could pull it once, it was absolutely and mathematically 
 
 22 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 certain that the disordered fleet would reassemble itself 
 in the backwater behind the guard-tower. But why, 
 he wondered, was Peroo clinging so desperately to his 
 waist as he hastened down the bank? It was necessary 
 to put the Lascar aside, gently and slowly, because it 
 was necessary to save the boats, and, further, to demon- 
 strate the extreme ease of the problem that looked so 
 difficult. And then — but it was of no conceivable im- 
 portance — a wire rope raced through his hand, burning 
 it, the high bank disappeared, and with it all the slowly 
 dispersing factors of the problem. He was sitting in 
 the rainy darkness — sitting in a boat that spun like a 
 top, and Peroo was standing over him. 
 
 *I had forgotten,' said the Lascar slowly, 'that to 
 those fasting and unused the opium is worse than any 
 wine. Those who die in Gunga go to the Gods. Still, 
 I have no desire to present myself before such great 
 ones. Can the Sahib swim? ' 
 
 ' What need? He can fly — fly as swiftly as the wind,' 
 was the thick answer. 
 
 *He is mad!' muttered Peroo under his breath. 'And 
 he threw me aside like a bundle of dung-cakes. Well, 
 he will not know his death. The boat cannot live an 
 hour here even if she strike nothing. It is not good to 
 look at death with a clear eye.' 
 
 He refreshed himself again from the tin box, squatted 
 down in the bows of the reeling, pegged, and stitched 
 craft, staring through the mist at the nothing that was 
 there. A warm drowsiness crept over Findlayson, the 
 Chief Engineer, whose duty was with his bridge. The 
 heavy raindrops struck him with a thousand tingling 
 little thrills, and the weight of all time since time was 
 made hung heavy on his eyelids. He thought and per- 
 
 23 
 
TIIK DAY'S WORK 
 
 ceived that he was perfectly secure, for the water was so 
 solid that a man could surely step out upon it, and, stand- 
 ing still with his legs apart to keep his balance — this was 
 the most important point — would be borne with great 
 and easy speed to the shore. But yet a better plan 
 came to him. It needed only an exertion of will for the 
 soul to hurl the body ashore as wind drives paper; to 
 waft it kite-fashion to the bank. Thereafter — the boat 
 spun dizzily — suppose the high wind got under the 
 freed body? Would it tower up like a kite and pitch 
 headlong on the far-away sands, or would it duck 
 about beyond control through all eternity? Findlayson 
 gripped the gunnel to anchor himself, for it seemed that 
 he was on the edge of taking the flight before he had 
 settled all his plans. Opium has more effect on the 
 white man than the black. Peroo was only comfortably 
 indifferent to accidents. 'She cannot live,' he grunted. 
 'Her seams open already. If she were even a dinghy 
 with oars we could have ridden it out; but a box with 
 holes is no good. Finlinson Sahib, she fills.' 
 
 ' Accha ! I am going away. Come thou also.' 
 
 In his mind Findlayson had already escaped from the 
 boat, and was circling high in air to find a rest for the 
 sole of his foot. His body — he was really sorry for its 
 gross helplessness — lay in the stern, the water rushing 
 about its knees. 
 
 'How very ridiculous!' he said to himself, from his 
 eyrie ; ' that — is Findlayson — chief of the Kashi Bridge. 
 The poor beast is going to be drowned, too. Drowned 
 when it's close to shore. I'm — I'm on shore already. 
 Why doesn't it come along? ' 
 
 To his intense disgust, he found his soul back in his 
 body again, and that body spluttering and choking in 
 
 24 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 deep water. The pain of the reunion was atrocious, 
 but it was necessary, also, to fight for the body. He 
 was conscious of grasping wildly at wet sand, and strid- 
 ing prodigiously, as one strides in a dream, to keep foot- 
 hold in the swirling water, till at last he hauled himself 
 clear of the hold of the river, and dropped, panting, on 
 wet earth. 
 
 'Not this night,' said Peroo in his ear. 'The Gods 
 have protected us.' The Lascar moved his feet cau- 
 tiously, and they rustled among dried stumps. 'This 
 is some island of last year's indigo crop,' he went on. 
 'We shall find no men here; but have great care. Sahib; 
 all the snakes of a hundred miles have been flooded out. 
 Here comes the lightning, on the heels of the wind. Now 
 we shall be able to look; but walk carefully.' 
 
 Findlayson was far and far beyond any fear of snakes, 
 or indeed any merely human emotion. He saw, after 
 he had rubbed the water from his eyes, with an immense 
 clearness, and trod, so it seemed to himself, with world- 
 encompassing strides. Somewhere in the night of time 
 he had built a bridge — a bridge that spanned illimitable 
 levels of shining seas; but the Deluge had swept it away, 
 leaving this one island under heaven for Findlayson and 
 his companion, sole survivors of the breed of man. 
 
 An incessant lightning, forked and blue, showed all 
 that there was to be seen on the little patch in the flood 
 — a clump of thorn, a clump of swaying, creaking bam- 
 boos, and a gray gnarled peepul overshadowing a Hindoo 
 shrine, from whose dome floated a tattered red flag. 
 The holy man whose summer resting-place it was had 
 long since abandoned it, and the weather had broken 
 the red-daubed image of his God. The two men stum- 
 bled, heavy-limbed and heavy-eyed, over the ashes of a 
 
 25 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 brick-set cooking-place, and dropped down under the 
 shelter of the branches, while the rain and river roared 
 together. 
 
 The stumps of the indigo crackled, and there was a 
 smell of cattle, as a huge and dripping Brahminee Bull 
 shouldered his w^ay under the tree. The flashes re- 
 vealed the trident mark of Shiva on his flank, the inso- 
 lence of head and hump, the luminous stag-like eyes, 
 the brow crowned with a wreath of sodden marigold 
 blooms, and the silky dewlap that nigh swept the ground. 
 There was a noise behind him of other beasts coming up 
 from the flood-line through the thicket, a sound of heavy 
 feet and deep breathing. 
 
 'Here be more beside ourselves,' said Findlayson, his 
 head against the tree-pole, looking through half-shut eyes, 
 wholly at ease. 
 
 'Truly,' said Peroo thickly, 'and no small ones.' 
 
 ' What are they, then? I do not see clearly.' 
 
 ' The Gods. W^ho else? Look ! ' 
 
 'Ah, true! The Gods surely — the Gods.' Findlay- 
 son smiled as his head fell forward on his chest. Peroo 
 was eminently right. After the Flood, who should be 
 alive in the land except the Gods that made it — the 
 Gods to whom his village prayed nightly — the Gods who 
 were in all men's mouths and about all men's ways? 
 He could not raise his head or stir a finger for the trance 
 that held him, and Peroo was smiling vacantly at the 
 lightning. 
 
 The Bull paused by the shrine, his head lowered to 
 the damp earth. A green Parrot in the branches preened 
 his wet wings and screamed against the thunder as the 
 circle under the tree filled with the shifting shadows of 
 beasts. There was a Blackbuck at the Bull's heels — 
 
 26 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 such a buck as Findlayson in his far-away life upon earth 
 might have seen in dreams — a buck with a royal head, 
 ebon back, silver belly, and gleaming straight horns. 
 Beside him, her head bowed to the ground, the green 
 eyes burning under the heavy brows, with restless tail 
 switching the dead grass, paced a Tigress, full-bellied 
 and deep-jowled. 
 
 The Bull crouched beside the shrine, and there leaped 
 from the darkness a monstrous gray Ape, who seated 
 himself man-wise in the place of the fallen image, and 
 the rain spilled like jewels from the hair of his neck and 
 shoulders. 
 
 Other shadows came and went behind the circle, 
 among them a drunken Man flourishing staff and drink- 
 ing-bottle. Then a hoarse bellow broke out from near 
 the ground. 'The flood lessens even now,' it cried. 
 'Hour by hour the water falls, and their bridge still 
 stands ! ' 
 
 'My bridge,' said Findlayson to himself. 'That must 
 be very old work now. What have the Gods to do with 
 my bridge? ' 
 
 His eyes rolled in the darkness following the roar. A 
 Crocodile — the blunt-nosed, ford-haunting Mugger of 
 the Ganges — draggled herself before the beasts, lashing 
 furiously to right and left with her tail. 
 
 'They have made it too strong for me. In all this 
 night I have only torn away a handful of planks. The 
 walls stand! The towers stand! They have chained 
 my flood, and my river is not free any more. Heavenly 
 Ones, take this yoke away! Give me clear water be- 
 tween bank and bank! It is I, Mother Gunga, that 
 speak. The Justice of the Gods! Deal me the Justice 
 of the Gods!' 
 
 27 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 •What said I?' whispered Peroo. 'This is in truth a 
 Punchayet of the Gods. Now we know that all the 
 world is dead, save you and I, Sahib.' 
 
 The Parrot screamed and fluttered again, and the 
 Tigress, her ears flat to her head, snarled wickedly. 
 
 Somewhere in the shadow a great trunk and gleaming 
 tusks swayed to and fro, and a low gurgle broke the 
 silence that followed on the snarl. 
 
 ' We be here,' said a deep voice, ' the Great Ones. One 
 only and very many. Shiv, my father, is here, with Indra. 
 Kali has spoken already. Hanuman listens also.' 
 
 'Kashi is without her Kotwal to-night,' shouted the 
 Man with the drinking-bottle, flinging his staff to the 
 ground, while the island rang to the baying of hounds. 
 ' Give her the Justice of the Gods.' 
 
 'Ye were still when they polluted my waters,' the 
 great Crocodile bellowed. 'Y^e made no sign when my 
 river was trapped between the walls. I had no help 
 save my own strength, and that failed — the strength 
 of Mother Gunga failed — before their guard-towers. 
 What could I do? I have done everything. Finish 
 now, Heavenly Ones ! ' 
 
 ' I brought the death; I rode the spotted sickness from 
 hut to hut of their workmen, and yet they would not 
 cease.' A nose-slitten, hide- worn Ass, lame, scissor- 
 legged, and galled, limped forward. 'I cast the death 
 at them out of my nostrils, but they would not cease.' 
 
 Peroo would have moved, but the opium lay heavy 
 upon him. 
 
 'Bah!' he said, spitting. 'Here is Sitala herself; Mata 
 — the small-pox. Has the Sahib a handkerchief to put 
 over his face? ' 
 
 'Small help!' said the Crocodile. 'They fed me the 
 
 28 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 corpses for a month, and I flung them out on my sand- 
 bars, but their work went forward. Demons they are, 
 and sons of demons! And ye left Mother Gunga alone 
 for their fire-carriage to make a mock of. The Justice 
 of the Gods on the bridge-builders!' 
 
 The Bull turned the cud in his mouth and answered 
 slowly, ' If the Justice of the Gods caught all who made 
 a mock of holy things, there would be many dark altars 
 in the land, mother.' 
 
 'But this goes beyond a mock,' said the Tigress, dart- 
 ing forward a griping paw. 'Thou knowest, Shiv, and 
 ye too, Heavenly Ones; ye know that they have defiled 
 Gunga. Surely they must come to the Destroyer. 
 Let Indra judge.' 
 
 The Buck made no movement as he answered, 'How 
 long has this evil been?' 
 
 'Three years, as men count years,' said the Mugger, 
 close pressed to the earth. 
 
 'Does Mother Gunga die, then, in a year, that she is 
 so anxious to see vengeance now? The deep sea was 
 where she runs but yesterday, and to-morrow the sea 
 shall cover her again as the Gods count that which men 
 call time. Can any say that this their bridge endures 
 till to-morrow? ' said the Buck. 
 
 There was a long hush, and in the clearing of the storm 
 the full moon stood up above the dripping trees. 
 
 'Judge ye, then,' said the Mugger sullenly. 'I have 
 spoken my shame. The flood falls still. I can do no 
 more.' 
 
 ' For my own part' — it was the voice of the great Ape 
 seated within the shrine — 'it pleases me well to watch 
 these men, remembering that I also builded no small 
 bridge in the world's youth.' 
 
 29 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 *They say, too,' snarled the Tiger, 'that these men 
 came of the wreck of thy armies, Hanuman, and there- 
 fore thou hast aided — ' 
 
 'They toil as my armies toiled in Lanka, and they 
 believe that their toil endures. Indra is too high, but 
 Shiv, thou knowest how the land is threaded with their 
 fire-carriages.' 
 
 'Yea, I know,' said the Bull. 'Their Gods instructed 
 them in the matter.' 
 
 A laugh ran round the circle. 
 
 'Their Gods! What should their Gods know? They 
 were born yesterday, and those that made them are 
 scarcely yet cold,' said the Mugger. 'To-morrow their 
 Gods will die.' 
 
 'Ho!' said Peroo. 'Mother Gunga talks good talk. 
 I told that to the padre-sahib who preached on the 
 "Mombassa," and he asked the Burra Malum to put 
 me in irons for a great rudeness.' 
 
 'Surely they make these things to please their Gods,' 
 said the Bull again. 
 
 'Not altogether,' the Elephant rolled forth. 'It is 
 for the profit of my mahajuns — my fat money-lenders 
 that worship me at each new year, when they draw my 
 image at the head of the account-books. I, looking 
 over their shoulders by lamp-light, see that the names 
 in the books are those of men in far places — for all the 
 towns are drawn together by the fire-carriage, and the 
 money comes and goes swiftly, and the account-books 
 grow as fat as — myself. And I, who am Ganesh of 
 Good Luck, I bless my peoples.' 
 
 'They have changed the face of the land — which is 
 my land. They have killed and made new towns on my 
 banks,' said the Mugger. 
 
 30 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 ' It is but the shifting of a Httle dirt. Let the dirt dig 
 in the dirt if it pleases the dirt,' answered the Elephant. 
 
 'But afterwards?' said the Tiger. 'Afterwards they 
 will see that Mother Gunga can avenge no insult, and 
 they fall away from her first, and later from us all, one 
 by one. In the end, Ganesh, we are left with naked 
 altars.' 
 
 The drunken Man staggered to his feet, and hiccupped 
 vehemently in the face of the assembled Gods. 
 
 * Kali lies. My sister lies. Also this my stick is the 
 Kotwal of Kashi, and he keeps tally of my pilgrims. 
 When the time comes to worship Bhairon — and it is 
 always time — the fire-carriages move one by one, and 
 each bears a thousand pilgrims. They do not come 
 afoot any more, but rolling upon wheels, and my honour 
 is increased.' 
 
 ' Gunga, I have seen thy bed at Pryag black with the 
 pilgrims,' said the Ape, leaning forward, 'and but for 
 the fire-carriage they would have come slowly and in 
 fewer numbers. Remember.' 
 
 'They come to me always,' Bhairon went on thickly. 
 *By day and night they pray to me, all the Common 
 People in the fields and the roads. Who is like Bhairon 
 to-day? What talk is this of changing faiths? Is my 
 staff Kotwal of Kashi for nothing? He keeps the tally, 
 and he says that never were so many altars as to-day, 
 and the fire-carriage serves them well. Bhairon am I — 
 Bhairon of the Common People, and the chief est of the 
 Heavenly Ones to-day. Also my staff says — ' 
 
 * Peace, thou!' lowed the Bull. 'The worship of the 
 schools is mine, and they talk very wisely, asking whether 
 I be one or many, as is the delight of my people, and ye 
 know what I am. Kali, my wife, thou knowest also.' 
 
 31 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 * Yea, I know,' said the Tigress, with lowered head. 
 
 'Greater am I than Gunga also. For ye know who 
 moved the minds of men that they should count Gunga 
 holy among the rivers. Who die in that water — yc 
 know how men say — come to Us without punishment, 
 and Gunga knows that the fire-carriage has borne to her 
 scores upon scores of such anxious ones; and Kali knows 
 that she has held her chiefest festivals among the pil- 
 grimages that are fed by the fire-carriage. W^ho smote 
 at Pooree, under the Image there, her thousands in a 
 day and a night, and bound the sickness to the wheels 
 of the fire-carriages, so that it ran from one end of the 
 land to the other? W^ho but Kali? Before the fire- 
 carriage came it was a heavy toil. The fire-carriages 
 have served thee well, Mother of Death. But I speak 
 for mine own altars, who am not Bhairon of the Common 
 Folk, but Shiv. Men go to and fro, making words and 
 telling talk of strange Gods, and I listen. Faith follows 
 faith among my people in the schools, and I have no 
 anger; for when the words are said, and the new talk is 
 ended, to Shiv men return at the last.' 
 
 *True. It is true,' murmured Hanuman. 'To Shiv 
 and to the others, mother, they return. I creep from 
 temple to temple in the North, where they worship one 
 God and His Prophet; and presently my image is alone 
 within their shrines.' 
 
 'Small thanks,' said the Buck, turning his head slowly. 
 'I am that One and His Prophet also.' 
 
 'Even so, father,' said Hanuman. 'And to the South 
 I go who am the oldest of the Gods as men know the 
 Gods, and presently I touch the shrines of the new faith 
 and the Woman whom we know is hewn twelve-armed, 
 and still they call her Mary.' 
 
 32 
 
illH BRIDGE-BUILDEHS 
 
 ' Small thanks, brother,' said the Tigress. ' 1 am that 
 Woman.' 
 
 ' Even so, sister ; and I go West among the fire-carriages, 
 and stand before the bridge-builders in many shapes, 
 and because of me they change their faiths and are very 
 wise. Ho! ho! I am the builder of bridges indeed — 
 bridges between this and that, and each bridge leads 
 surely to Us in the end. Be content, Gunga. Neither 
 these men nor those that follow them mock thee at 
 all.' 
 
 'Am I alone, then, Heavenly Ones? Shall I smooth 
 out my flood lest unhappily I bear away their walls? 
 Will Indra dry my springs in the hills and make me 
 crawl humbly between their wharfs? Shall I bury me 
 in the sand ere I offend? ' 
 
 'And all for the sake of a little iron bar with the fire- 
 carriage atop. Truly, Mother Gunga is always young!' 
 said Ganesh the Elephant. 'A child had not spoken 
 more foolishly. Let the dirt dig in the dirt ere it return 
 to the dirt. I know only that my people grow rich and 
 praise me. Shiv has said that the men of the schools do 
 not forget; Bhairon is content for his crowd of the Com- 
 mon People: and Hanuman laughs.' 
 
 'Surely I laugh,' said the Ape. 'My altars are few 
 beside those of Ganesh or Bhairon, but the fire-carriages 
 bring me new worshippers from beyond the Black Water 
 — the men who believe that their God is toil. I run 
 before them beckoning, and they follow Hanuman.' 
 
 'Give them the toil that they desire, then,' said the 
 Mugger. *Make a bar across my flood and throw the 
 water back upon the bridge. Once thou wast strong 
 in Lanka, Hanuman. Stoop and lift my bed.' 
 
 'Who gives life can take life.* The Ape scratched in 
 
 33 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 the mud with a long forefinger. 'And yet, who would 
 profit by the killing? Very many would die.' 
 
 There came up from the water a snatch of a love-song 
 such as the boys sing when they watch their cattle in 
 the noon heats of late spring. The Parrot screamed 
 joyously, sidling along his branch with lowered head as 
 the song grew louder, and in a patch of clear moonlight 
 stood revealed the young herd, the darling of the Gopis, 
 the idol of dreaming maids and of mothers ere their chil- 
 dren are born — Krishna the Well-beloved. He stooped 
 to knot up his long wet hair, and the Parrot fluttered 
 to his shoulder. 
 
 'Fleeting and singing, and singing and fleeting,' hic- 
 cupped Bhairon. ' Those make thee late for the council, 
 brother.' 
 
 'And then?' said Krishna, with a laugh, throwing 
 back his head. 'Ye can do little without me or Karma 
 here.' He fondled the Parrot's plumage and laughed 
 again. 'What is this sitting and talking together? I 
 heard Mother Gunga roaring in the dark, and so came 
 quickly from a hut where I lay warm. And what have 
 ye done to Karma, that he is so wet and silent? And 
 what does Mother Gunga here? Are the heavens full 
 that ye must come paddling in the mud beast-wise? 
 Karma, what do they do?' 
 
 'Gunga has prayed for a vengeance on the bridge- 
 builders, and Kali is with her. Now she bids Hanuman 
 whelm the bridge, that her honour may be made great,' 
 cried the Parrot. 'I waited here, knowing that thou 
 wouldst come, my master!' 
 
 'And the Heavenly Ones said nothing? Did Gunga 
 and the Mother of Sorrows outtalk them? Did none 
 speak for my people? ' 
 
 34 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 *Nay,' said Ganesh, moving uneasily from foot to 
 foot; *I said it was but dirt at play, and why should we 
 stamp it flat? ' 
 
 'I was content to let them toil — well content,' said 
 Hanuman. 
 
 'What had I to do with Gunga's anger?' said the Bull. 
 
 *I am Bhairon of the Common Folk, and this my staff 
 is Kotwal of all Kashi. I spoke for the Common People.' 
 
 ' Thou? ' The young God's eyes sparkled. 
 
 *Am I not the first of the Gods in their mouths to- 
 day?' returned Bhairon, unabashed. ' For the sake of the 
 Common People I said — very many wise things which I 
 have now forgotten — but this my staff — ' 
 
 Krishna turned impatiently, saw the Mugger at his 
 feet, and kneeling, slipped an arm round the cold neck. 
 'Mother,' he said gently, 'get thee to thy flood again. 
 The matter is not for thee. What harm shall thy hon- 
 our take of this live dirt? Thou hast given them their 
 fields new year after year, and by thy flood they are 
 made strong. They come all to thee at the last. What 
 need to slay them now? Have pity, mother, for a little 
 — and it is only for a little.' 
 
 ' If it be only for a little — ' the slow beast began. 
 
 'Are they Gods, then?' Krishna returned with a laugh, 
 his eyes looking into the dull eyes of the Mugger. 'Be 
 certain that it is only for a little. The Heavenly Ones 
 have heard thee, and presently justice will be done. 
 Go now, mother, to the flood again. Men and cattle 
 are thick on the waters — the banks fall — the villages 
 melt because of thee.' 
 
 'But the bridge — the bridge stands.' The Mugger 
 turned grunting into the undergrowth as Krishna rose. 
 
 'It is ended,' said the Tigress, viciously. 'There is 
 
 35 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 no more justice from the Heavenly Ones. Ye have 
 made shame and sport of Gunga, who asked no more 
 than a few score Hves.' 
 
 'Of my people — who lie under the leaf-roofs of the 
 village yonder — of the young girls, and the young men 
 who sing to them in the dark — of the child that will be 
 born next morn — of that which was begotten to-night,' 
 said Krishna. 'And when all is done, what profit? To- 
 morrow sees them at work. Ay, if ye swept the bridge 
 out from end to end they would begin anew. Hear 
 me! Bhairon is drunk always. Hanuman mocks his 
 people with new riddles.' 
 
 ' Nay, but they are very old ones, ' the Ape said, laughing. 
 
 *Shiv hears the talk of the schools and the dreams of 
 the holy men. Ganesh thinks only of his fat traders; 
 but I — I live with these my people, asking for no gifts, 
 and so receiving them hourly.' 
 
 'And very tender art thou of thy people,' said the 
 Tigress. 
 
 'They are my own. The old women dream of me, 
 turning in their sleep ; the maids look and listen for me 
 when they go to fill their lotahs by the river. I walk 
 by the young men waiting without the gates at dusk, 
 and I call over my shoulder to the white-beards. Ye 
 know. Heavenly Ones, that I alone of us all walk upon 
 the earth continually, and have no pleasure in our 
 heavens so long as a green blade springs here, or there 
 are two voices at twilight in the standing crops. Wise 
 are ye, but ye live far off, forgetting whence ye came. 
 So do I not forget. And the fire-carriage feeds your 
 shrines, ye say? And the fire-carriages bring a thousand 
 pilgrimages where but ten came in the old years? True. 
 That is true to-day.' 
 
 36 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 'But to-morrow they are dead, brother,' said Ganesh. 
 
 'Peace!' said the Bull, as Hanuman leaned forward 
 again. 'And to-morrow, beloved — what of to-morrow?' 
 
 'This only. A new word creeping from mouth to 
 mouth among the Common Folk — a word that neither 
 man nor God can lay hold of — an evil word — a little 
 lazy word among the Common Folk, saying (and none 
 know who set that word afoot) that they weary of ye. 
 Heavenly Ones.' 
 
 The Gods laughed together softly. 'And then, be- 
 loved?' they said. 
 
 'And to cover that weariness they, my people, will 
 bring to thee, Shiv, and to thee, Ganesh, at first greater 
 offerings and a louder noise of worship. But the word 
 has gone abroad, and, after, they will pay fewer dues to 
 your fat Brahmins. Next they will forget your altars, 
 but so slowly that no man can say how his forgetfulness 
 began.' 
 
 *I knew — I knew! I spoke this also, but they would 
 not hear,' said the Tigress. 'We should have slain — 
 we should have slain!' 
 
 ' It is too late now. Ye should have slain at the be- 
 ginning, when the men from across the water had taught 
 our folk nothing. Now my people see their work, and 
 go away thinking. They do not think of the Heavenly 
 Ones altogether. They think of the fire-carriage and 
 the other things that the bridge-builders have done, and 
 when your priests thrust forward hands asking alms, 
 they give unwillingly a little. That is the beginning, 
 among one or two, or five or ten — for I, moving among 
 my people, know what is in their hearts.' 
 
 'And the end. Jester of the Gods? What shall the 
 end be?' said Ganesh. 
 
 37 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 *The end shall be as it was in the beginning, sloth- 
 ful son of Shiv! The flame shall die upon the altars and 
 the prayer upon the tongue till ye become little Gods 
 again — Gods of the jungle — names that the hunters of 
 rats and noosers of dogs whisper in the thicket and 
 among the caves — rag-Gods, pot Godlings of the tree, 
 and the village-mark, as ye were at the beginning. 
 That is the end, Ganesh, for thee, and for Bhairon — 
 Bhairon of the Common People.' 
 
 'It is very far away,' grunted Bhairon. 'Also, it is a 
 lie.' 
 
 'Many women have kissed Krishna. They told him 
 this to cheer their own hearts when the gray hairs came, 
 and he has told us the tale,' said the Bull, below his 
 breath. 
 
 'Their Gods came, and we changed them. I took the 
 Woman and made her twelve-armed. So shall we twist 
 all their Gods,' said Hanuman. 
 
 'Their Gods! This is no question of their Gods — one 
 or three — man or woman. The matter is with the 
 people. They move, and not the Gods of the bridge- 
 builders,' said Krishna. 
 
 'So be it. I have made a man worship the fire-car- 
 riage as it stood still breathing smoke, and he knew not 
 that he worshipped me,' said Hanuman the Ape. ' They 
 will only change a little the names of their Gods. I 
 shall lead the builders of the bridges as of old; Shiv shall 
 be worshipped in the schools by such as doubt and 
 despise their fellows; Ganesh shall have his mahajuns, 
 and Bhairon the donkey-drivers, the pilgrims, and the 
 sellers of toys. Beloved, they will do no more than 
 change the names, and that we have seen a thousand 
 times.' 
 
 33 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 'Surely they will do no more than change the names,' 
 echoed Ganesh: but there was an uneasy movement 
 among the Gods. 
 
 'They will change more than the names. Me alone 
 they cannot kill, so long as maiden and man meet to- 
 gether or the spring follows the winter rains. Heavenly 
 Ones, not for nothing have I walked upon the earth. 
 My people know^ not now what they know; but I, who 
 live with them, I read their hearts. Great Kings, the 
 beginning of the end is born already. The fire-carriages 
 shout the names of new Gods that are not the old under 
 new names. Drink now and eat greatly! Bathe your 
 faces in the smoke of the altars before they grow cold! 
 Take dues and listen to the cymbals and the drums, 
 Heavenly Ones, while yet there are flowers and songs. 
 As men count time the end is far off; but as we who 
 know reckon it is to-day. I have spoken.' 
 
 The young God ceased, and his brethren looked at 
 each other long in silence. 
 
 'This I have not heard before,' Peroo whispered in his 
 companion's ear. 'And yet sometimes, when I oiled 
 the brasses in the engine-room of the "Goorkha," I have 
 wondered if our priests were so wise — so wise. The day 
 is coming. Sahib. They will be gone by the morning.' 
 
 A yellow light broadened in the sky, and the tone of 
 the river changed as the darkness withdrew. 
 
 Suddenly the Elephant trumpeted aloud as though 
 man had goaded him. 
 
 'Let Indra judge. Father of all, speak thou! What 
 of the things we have heard? Has Krishna lied indeed? 
 Or—' 
 
 'Ye know,' said the Buck, rising to his feet. 'Ye 
 know the Riddle of the Gods. When Brahm ceases to 
 
 39 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 dream the Heavens and the Hells and Earth disappear. 
 Be content. Brahm dreams still. The dreams come 
 and go, and the nature of the dreams changes, but still 
 Brahm dreams. Krishna has walked too long upon 
 earth, and yet I love him the more for the tale he has 
 told. The Gods change, beloved — all save One!' 
 
 ' Ay, all save one that makes love in the hearts of men, ' 
 said Krishna, knotting his girdle. 'It is but a little 
 time to wait, and ye shall know if I lie.' 
 
 'Truly it is but a little time, as thou sayest, and we 
 shall know. Get thee to thy huts again, beloved, and 
 make sport for the young things, for still Brahm dreams. 
 Go, my children! Brahm dreams — and till He wakes 
 the Gods die not.' 
 
 * Whither went they?' said the Lascar, awestruck, 
 shivering a little with the cold. 
 
 'God knows!' said Findlayson. The river and the 
 island lay in full daylight now, and there was never 
 mark of hoof or pug on the wet earth under the peepul. 
 Only a parrot screamed in the branches, bringing down 
 showers of water-drops as he fluttered his wings. 
 
 *Up! We are cramped with cold! Has the opium 
 died out? Canst thou move, Sahib?' 
 
 Findlayson staggered to his feet and shook himself. 
 His head swam and ached, but the work of the opium 
 was over, and, as he sluiced his forehead in a pool, the 
 Chief Engineer of the Kashi Bridge was wondering how 
 he had managed to fall upon the island, what chances the 
 day offered of return, and, above all, how his work stood. 
 
 'Peroo, I have forgotten much. I was under the 
 guard-tower watching the river; and then — Did the 
 flood sweep us away? ' 
 
 40 
 
thf: bridge builders 
 
 'No. The boats broke loose, Sahib, and' (if the 
 Sahib had forgotten about the opium, decidedly Peroo 
 would not remind him) 'in striving to retie them, so it 
 seemed to me — but it was dark — a rope caught the 
 Saliib and threw him upon a boat. Considering that 
 we two, with Hitchcock Sahib, built, as it were, that 
 bridge, I came also upon the boat, which came riding 
 on horseback, as it were, on the nose of this island, and 
 so, splitting, cast us ashore. I made a great cry when 
 the boat left the wharf, and without doubt Hitchcock 
 Sahib will come for us. As for the bridge, so many have 
 died in the building that it cannot fall.' 
 
 A fierce sun, that drew out all the smell of the sodden 
 land, had followed the storm, and in that clear light 
 there was no room for a man to think of dreams of the 
 dark. Findlayson stared up-stream, across the blaze of 
 moving water, till his eyes ached. There was no sign of 
 any bank to the Ganges, much less of a bridge-line. 
 
 ' We came down far,' he said. ' It was wonderful that 
 we were not drowned a hundred times.' 
 
 'That was the least of the wonder, for no man dies 
 before his time. I have seen Sydney, I have seen Lon- 
 don, and twenty great ports, but' — Peroo looked at the 
 damp, discoloured shrine under the peepul — 'never man 
 has seen that we saw here.' 
 
 'What?' 
 
 'Has the Sahib forgotten; or do we black men only 
 seethe Gods?' 
 
 'There was a fever upon me.' Findlayson was still 
 looking uneasily across the water. ' It seemed that the 
 island was full of beasts and men talking, but I do not 
 remember. A boat could live in this water now, I 
 think.' 
 
 41 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Oho! Then it is true. "When Brahm ceases to 
 dream, the Gods die." Now I know, indeed, what he 
 meant. Once, too, the guru said as much to me; but 
 then I did not understand. Now I am wise.' 
 
 ' What?' said Findlayson over his shoulder. 
 
 Peroo went on as if he were talking to himself. ' Six — 
 seven — ten monsoons since, I was watch on the fo'c'sle 
 of the "Rewah" — the Kumpani's big boat — and there 
 was a big tufan, green and black water beating; and I 
 held fast to the life-lines, choking under the waters. 
 Then I thought of the Gods — of Those whom we saw 
 to-night' — he stared curiously at Findlayson's back, 
 but the white man was looking across the flood. 'Yes, 
 I say of Those whom we saw this night past, and I called 
 upon Them to protect me. And while I prayed, still 
 keeping my look-out, a big wave came and threw me 
 forward upon the ring of the great black bow-anchor, 
 and the "Rewah" rose high and high, leaning towards 
 the left-hand side, and the water drew away from be- 
 neath her nose, and I lay upon my belly, holding the 
 ring, and looking down into those great deeps. Then I 
 thought, even in the face of death, if I lose hold I die, 
 and for me neither the "Rewah" nor my place by the 
 galley where the rice is cooked, nor Bombay, nor Cal- 
 cutta, nor even London, will be any more for me. " How 
 shall I be sure," I said, "that the Gods to whom I pray 
 will abide at all?" This I thought, and the "Rewah" 
 dropped her nose as a hammer falls, and all the sea came 
 in and slid me backwards along the fo'c'sle and over the 
 break of the fo'c'sle, and I very badly bruised my shin 
 against the donkey-engine : but I did not die, and I have 
 seen the Gods. They are good for live men, but for the 
 dead — They have spoken Themselves. Therefore, 
 
 42 
 
THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS 
 
 when I come to the village I will beat the guru for talk- 
 ing riddles which are no riddles. When Brahm ceases 
 to dream, the Gods go.' 
 
 'Lookup-stream. The light blinds. Is there smoke 
 yonder?' 
 
 Peroo shaded his eyes with his hands. 'He is a wise 
 man and quick. Hitchcock Sahib would not trust a row- 
 boat. He has borrowed the Rao Sahib's steam-launch, 
 and comes to look for us. I have always said that there 
 should have been a steam-launch on the bridge-works 
 for us.' 
 
 The territory of the Rao of Baraon lay within ten 
 miles of the bridge; and Findlayson and Hitchcock had 
 spent a fair portion of their scanty leisure in playing 
 billiards and shooting blackbuck with the young man. 
 He had been bear-led by an English tutor of sporting 
 tastes for some five or six years, and was now royally 
 wasting the revenues accumulated during his minority by 
 the Indian Government. His steam-launch, with its silver- 
 plated rails, striped silk awning, and mahogany decks, 
 was a new toy which Findlayson had found horribly in 
 the way when the Rao came to look at the bridge-works. 
 
 'It's great luck,' murmured Findlayson, but he was 
 none the less afraid, wondering what news might be of 
 the bridge. 
 
 The gaudy blue and white funnel came down-stream 
 swiftly. They could see Hitchcock in the bows, with a 
 pair of opera-glasses, and his face was unusually white. 
 Then Peroo hailed, and the launch made for the tail of 
 the island. The Rao Sahib, in tweed shooting-suit and 
 a seven-hued turban, waved his royal hand, and Hitch- 
 cock shouted. But he need have asked no questions, 
 for Findlayson's first demand was for his bridge. 
 
 43 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'All serene! 'Gad, I never expected to see you again, 
 Findlayson. You're seven koss down-stream. Yes, 
 there's not a stone shifted anywhere; but how are you? 
 I borrowed the Rao Sahib's launch, and he was good 
 enough to come along. Jump in.' 
 
 ' Ah, Finlinson, you are very well, eh? That was most 
 unprecedented calamity last night, eh? My royal pal- 
 ace, too, it leaks like the devil, and the crops will also 
 be short all about my country. Now you shall back her 
 out, Hitchcock. I — I do not understand steam-engines. 
 You are wet? You are cold, Finlinson? I have some 
 things to eat here, and you will take a good drink.' 
 
 ' I'm immensely grateful, Rao Sahib. I believe you've 
 saved my life. How did Hitchcock — ' 
 
 'Oho! His hair was upon end. He rode to me in 
 the middle of the night and woke me up in the arms of 
 Morphus. I was most truly concerned, Finlinson, so I 
 came too. My head-priest he is very angry just now. 
 We will go quick, Mister Hitchcock. I am due to 
 attend at twelve forty-five in the state temple, where 
 we sanctify some new idol. If not so I would have 
 asked you to spend the day with me. They are dam- 
 bore, these religious ceremonies, Finlinson, eh?' 
 
 Peroo, well known to the crew, had possessed himself 
 of the wheel, and was taking the launch craftily up^ 
 stream. But while he steered he was, in his mind, 
 handling two feet of partially untwisted wire rope; and 
 the back upon which he beat was the back of his guru. 
 
 44 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 (1894) 
 
 4 CCORDING to the custom of Vermont, Sunday 
 ZA afternoon is salting-time on the farm, and, un- 
 1. jL less something very important happens, we at- 
 tend to the salting ourselves. Dave and Pete, the red 
 oxen, are treated first; they stay in the home meadow, 
 ready for work on Monday. Then come the cows, with 
 Pan, the calf, who should have been turned into veal 
 long ago, but survived on account of his manners; and, 
 lastly, the horses, scattered through the seventy acres 
 of the Back Pasture. 
 
 You must go down by the brook that feeds the click- 
 ing, bubbling water-ram; up through the sugar-bush, 
 where the young maple undergrowth closes round you 
 like a shallow sea; next follow the faint line of an old 
 county-road running past two green hollows fringed 
 with wild rose that mark the cellars of two ruined houses ; 
 then by Lost Orchard, where nobody ever comes except 
 in cider-time; then across another brook, and so into the 
 Back Pasture. Half of it is pine and hemlock and 
 spruce, with sumach and little juniper-bushes, and the 
 other half is gray rock and boulder and moss, with green 
 streaks of brake and swamp ; but the horses like it well 
 enough — our own, and the others that are turned down 
 there to feed at fifty cents a week. Most people walk 
 
 45 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 to the Back Pasture, and find it very rough work; but 
 one can get there in a buggy, if the horse knows what 
 is expected of him. The safest conveyance is our coupe. 
 This began life as a buckboard, and we bought it for 
 five dollars from a sorrowful man who had no other sort 
 of possessions; and the seat came off one night when we 
 were turning a corner in a hurry. After that alteration 
 it made a beautiful salting-machine, if you held tight, 
 because there was nothing to catch your feet when you 
 fell out, and the slats rattled tunes. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon we went out with the salt as 
 usual. It was a broiling hot day, and we could not find 
 the horses anywhere till we let Tedda Gabler, the bob- 
 tailed mare who throws up the dirt with her big hoofs 
 exactly as a tedder throws hay, have her head. Clever 
 as she is, she tipped the coupe over in a hidden brook 
 before she came out on a ledge of rock where all the 
 horses had gathered and were switching flies. The Dea- 
 con was the first to call to her. He is a very dark 
 iron-gray four-year-old, son of Grandee. He has been 
 handled since he was two, was driven in a light cart 
 before he was three, and now ranks as an absolutely 
 steady lady's horse — proof against steam rollers, grade- 
 crossings, and street processions. 
 
 'Salt!' said the Deacon, joyfully. 'You're dreffle 
 late, Tedda.' 
 
 'Any — any place to cramp the coupe?' Tedda panted. 
 'It draws turr'ble this weather. I'd 'a' come sooner, 
 but they didn't know what they wanted — ner haow. 
 Fell out twice, both of them. I don't understand sech 
 foolishness.' 
 
 'You look consider'ble het up. Guess you'd better 
 cramp her under them pines, an' cool off a piece.' 
 
 46 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 Tedda scrambled on the ledge, and cramped the coupe 
 in the shade of a tiny little wood of pines, while my com- 
 panion and I lay down among the brown, silky needles, 
 and gasped. All the home horses were gathered round 
 us, enjoying their Sunday leisure. 
 
 There were Rod and Rick, the seniors on the farm. 
 They were the regular road-pair, bay with black points, 
 full brothers, aged, sons of a Hambletonian sire and a 
 Morgan dam. There were Nip and Tuck, seal-browns, 
 rising six, brother and sister. Black Hawks by birth, 
 perfectly matched, just finishing their education, and as 
 handsome a pair as man could wish to find in a forty- 
 mile drive. There was Muldoon, our ex-car-horse, 
 bought at a venture, and any colour you choose that is 
 not white; and Tweezy, who comes from Kentucky, 
 with an affliction of his left hip, which makes him a little 
 uncertain how his hind legs are moving. He and Mul- 
 doon had been hauling gravel all the week for our new 
 road. The Deacon you know already. Last of all, and 
 eating something, was our faithful Marcus Aurelius 
 Antoninus, the black buggy-horse, who had seen us 
 through every state of weather and road, the horse who 
 was always standing in harness before some door or 
 other — a philosopher with the appetite of a shark and 
 the manners of an archbishop. Tedda Gabler was a 
 new 'trade,' with a reputation for vice which was really 
 the result of bad driving. She had one working gait, 
 which she could hold till further notice; a Roman nose; 
 a large, prominent eye ; a shaving-brush of a tail ; and an 
 irritable temper. She took her salt through her bridle; 
 but the others trotted up nuzzling and wickering for 
 theirs, till we emptied it on the clean rocks. They were 
 all standing at ease, on three legs for the most part, talk- 
 
 47 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 ing the ordinar>^ gossip of the Back Pasture— about the 
 scarcity of water, and gaps in the fence, and how the 
 early windfalls tasted that season — when little Rick 
 blew the last few grains of his allowance into a crevice, 
 and said: 
 
 'Hurry, boys! Might ha' knowed that Livery-plug 
 would be around.' 
 
 We heard a clatter of hoofs, and there climbed up 
 from the ravine below a fifty-center transient — a wall- 
 eyed, yellow frame-house of a horse, sent up to board 
 from a livery-stable in town, where they called him 'The 
 Lamb,' and never let him out except at night and to 
 strangers. My companion, who knew and had broken 
 most of the horses, looked at the ragged hammer-head 
 as it rose, and said quietly : 
 
 'Nice beast, Man-eater, if he gets the chance — see his 
 eye. Kicker, too — see his hocks. Western horse.' 
 
 The animal lumbered up, snuffling and grunting. 
 His feet showed that he had not worked for weeks and 
 weeks, and our creatures drew together significantly. 
 
 'As usual,' he said, with an underhung sneer — 'bowin' 
 your heads before the Oppressor, that comes to spend 
 his leisure gloatin' over you.' 
 
 * Mine's done,' said the Deacon; he licked up the rem- 
 nant of his salt, dropped his nose in his master's hand, 
 and sang a little grace all to himself. The Deacon has 
 the most enchanting manners of any one I know. 
 
 'An' fawnin' on them for what is your inalienable 
 right. It's humiliatin',' said the yellow horse, sniffing 
 to see if he could find a few spare grains. 
 
 'Go daown hill, then, Boney,' the Deacon replied. 
 'Guess you'll find somefin' to eat still, if yer hain't 
 hogged it all. You've ett more'n any three of us to-day 
 
 48 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 — an' day 'fore that — an' the last two months — sence 
 you've been here.' 
 
 ' I am not addressin' myself to the young an' imma- 
 ture. I am speakin' to those whose opinion an' experi- 
 ence commands respect.' 
 
 I saw Rod raise his head as though he were about to 
 make a remark; then he dropped it again, and stood 
 three-cornered, like a plough-horse. Rod can cover his 
 mile in a shade under three minutes on an ordinary road 
 to an ordinary buggy. He is tremendously powerful 
 behind, but, like most Hambletonians, he grows a trifle 
 sullen as he gets older. No one can love Rod very much ; 
 but no one can help respecting him. 
 
 'I wish to wake those,' the yellow horse went on, *to 
 an abidin' sense o' their wrongs an' their injuries an' 
 their outrages.' 
 
 *Haow's that?' said Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 
 dreamily. He thought Boney was talking of some kind 
 of feed. 
 
 'An' when I say outrages and injuries' — Boney waved 
 his tail furiously — ' I mean 'em, too. Great Oats ! That's 
 just what I do mean, plain an' straight.' 
 
 *Thegentleman talks quiteearnest,' said Tuck themare, 
 to Nip, her brother. ' There's no doubt thinkin' broadens 
 the horizons o' the mind. His language is right lofty.' 
 
 ' Hesh, sis,' Nip answered. * He hain't widened nothin' 
 'cep' the circle he's ett in pasture. They feed words fer 
 beddin' where he comes from.' 
 
 'It's elegant talkin', though,' Tuck returned, with an 
 unconvinced toss of her pretty, lean little head. 
 
 The yellow horse heard her, and struck an attitude 
 which he meant to be extremely impressive. It made 
 him look as though he had been badly stuffed. 
 
 49 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Now I ask you — I ask you without prejudice an' 
 without favour — what has Man the Oppressor ever done 
 for you? Are you not inahenably entitled to the free 
 air o' heaven, blowin' acrost this boundless prairie?' 
 
 'Hev ye ever wintered here?' said the Deacon, mer- 
 rily, while the others snickered. ' It's kinder cool.' 
 
 'Not yet,' said Boney. 'I come from the boundless 
 confines o' Kansas, where the noblest of our kind have 
 their abidin'-place among the sunflowers on the thres- 
 hold o' the settin' sun in his glory.' 
 
 'An' they sent you ahead as a sample?' said Rick, 
 with an amused quiver of his long, beautifully-groomed 
 tail, as thick and as fine and as wavy as a quadroon's 
 back hair. 
 
 'Kansas, sir, needs no adver-tise-ment. Her native 
 sons rely on themselves an' their native sires. Yes, sir.' 
 
 Then Tweezy lifted up his wise and polite old face. 
 His affliction makes him bashful as a rule, but he is ever 
 the most courteous of horses. 
 
 'Excuse me, suh,' he said slowly, 'but, unless I have 
 been misinfohmed, most of your prominent siahs, suh, 
 are impo'ted from Kentucky; an' I'm from Paduky.' 
 
 There was the least little touch of pride in the last 
 words. 
 
 'Any horse dat knows beans,' said Muldoon, suddenly 
 (he had been standing with his hairy chin on Tweezy's 
 broad quarters), 'gets outer Kansas 'fore dey crip his 
 shoes. I blew in dere frum loway in de days o' me 
 youth an' innocence, and I wuz grateful when dey 
 boxed me fer N' York. You can't tell me anything 
 about Kansas I don't wanter fergit. De Belt Line 
 stables ain't no Hoffman House, but dey're Vanderbilt's 
 'longside o' Kansas.' 
 
 50 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 *What the horses o' Kansas think to-day, the horses 
 of America will think to-morrow; an' I tell you that 
 when the horses of America rise in their might, the day 
 o' the Oppressor is ended.' 
 
 There was a pause, till Rick said, with a little grunt: 
 
 ' Ef you put it that way, every one of us has riz in his 
 might, 'cep' Marcus, mebbe. Marky, 'j ever rise in yer 
 might?' 
 
 'Nope,' said Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, thought- 
 fully quidding over a mouthful of grass. ' I seen a heap 
 o' fools try, though.' 
 
 'You admit that you riz?' said the Kansas horse, 
 excitedly. 'Then why — why in Kansas did you ever 
 go under again?' 
 
 'Horse can't walk on his hind legs all the time,' said 
 the Deacon. 
 
 'Not when he's jerked over on his back 'fore he knows 
 what fetched him. We've all done it, Boney,' said 
 Rick. 'Nip an' Tuck, they tried it, spite o' what the 
 Deacon told 'em; and the Deacon, he tried it, spite o' 
 what me an' Rod told him; an' me an' Rod tried it, 
 spite o' what Grandee told us; an' I guess Grandee he 
 tried it, spite o' what his dam told him. It's the same 
 old circus from generation to generation. 'Colt can't 
 see why he's called on to back. Same old rearin' on end 
 — straight up. Same old feelin' that you've bested 'em 
 this time. Same old little yank at yer mouth when 
 you're up good an' tall. Same old Pegasus-act, won- 
 derin' where you'll 'light. Same old wop when you hit 
 the dirt with your head where your tail should be, and 
 your in'ards shook up like a bran-mash. Same old 
 .voice in your ear, "Waal, ye little fool, an' what did you 
 reckon to make by that?" We're through with risin' 
 
 51 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 in our might on this farm. We go to pole er single, ac- 
 cordin' ez we're hitched.' 
 
 'An' Man the Oppressor sets an' gloats over you, 
 same as he's settin' now. Hain't that been your ex- 
 perience, madam?' 
 
 This last remark was addressed to Tedda, and any one 
 could see with half an eye that poor, old, anxious, fidgety 
 Tedda, stamping at the flies, must have left a wild and 
 tumultuous 3^outh behind her. 
 
 ' 'Pends on the man,' she answered, shifting from one 
 foot to the other, and addressing herself to the home 
 horses. 'They abused me dreffle when I was young. I 
 guess I was sperrity an' nervous some, but they didn't 
 allow for that. 'Twas in Monroe County, Noo York, 
 an' sence then till I come here, I've run away with more 
 men than 'u'd fill a boardin'-house. Why, the man 
 that sold me here he says to the boss, s' he: "Mind, now, 
 I've warned you. 'Twon't be none of my fault if she 
 sheds you daown the road. Don't you drive her in a 
 top-buggy, ner 'thout winkers," s' he, "ner 'thout this 
 bit, ef you look to come home behind her." 'N' the 
 fust thing the boss did was to git the top-buggy.' 
 
 'Can't say as I like top-buggies,' said Rick; 'they 
 don't balance good.' 
 
 * 'Suit me to a harr,' said Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 
 ' Top-buggy means the baby's in behind, an' I kin stop 
 while she gathers the pretty flowers — ^yes, an' pick a 
 maouthful, too. The women-folk all say I hev to be 
 humoured, an' — I don't kerry things to the sweatin'- 
 point.' 
 
 * 'Course I've no pre-ju-dice against a top-buggy s' 
 long's I can see it,* Tedda went on quickly. ' It's ha'f- 
 seein' the pesky thing bobbin' an' balancin' behind the 
 
 52 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 winkers gets on my nerves. Then the boss looked at 
 the bit they'd sold with me, an' s' he: "Jiminy Christ- 
 mas! This 'u'd make a clothes-h:rse stan' 'n end!" 
 Then he gave me a plain bar bit, an' fitted it 's if there 
 was some feelin' to my maouth.' 
 
 'Hain't ye got any. Miss Tedda?' said Tuck, who has 
 a mouth like velvet, and knows it. 
 
 ' Might 'a' had, Miss Tuck, but I've forgot. Then he 
 gave me an open bridle,^ — my style's an open bridle — an' 
 — I dunno as I ought to tell this by rights — he give — me 
 — a kiss.' 
 
 'My!' said Tuck, 'I can't tell fer the shoes o' me what 
 makes some men so fresh.' 
 
 'Pshaw, sis,' said Nip, 'what's the sense in actin' so? 
 You git a kiss reg'lar's hitchin'-up time.' 
 
 'Well, you needn't tell, smarty,' said Tuck, with a 
 squeal and a kick. 
 
 'I'd heard o' kisses, o' course,' Tedda went on, 'but 
 they hadn't come my way specially. I don't mind tell- 
 in' I was that took aback at that man's doin's he might 
 ha' lit fire-crackers on my saddle. Then we went out 
 jest's if a kiss was nothin', an' I wasn't three strides into 
 my gait 'fore I felt the boss knoo his business, an' was 
 trustin' me. So I studied to please him, an' he never 
 took the whip from the dash — a whip drives me nlumb 
 distracted — an' the upshot was that — waal, I've come 
 up the Back Pasture to-day, an' the coupe's tipped 
 clear over twice, an' I've waited till 'twuz fixed each 
 time. You kin judge for yourselves. I don't set up to 
 be no better than my neighbours, — specially with my 
 tail snipped off the way 'tis, — but I want you all to know 
 Tedda's quit fightin' in harness or out of it, 'cep' when 
 there's a born fool in the pasture, stuffin' his stummick 
 
 53 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 with board that ain't rightly hisn, 'cause he hain't earned 
 it.' 
 
 'Meanin' me, madam?' said the yellow horse. 
 
 'Ef the shoe fits, clinch it,' said Tedda, snorting. 'I 
 named no names, though, to be sure, some folks are mean 
 enough an' greedy enough to do 'thout 'em.' 
 
 'There's a deal to l^e forgiven to ignorance,' said the 
 yellow horse, with an ugly look in his blue eye. 
 
 'Seemin'ly, yes; or some folks 'u'd ha' been kicked 
 raound the pasture 'bout onct a minute sence they came 
 — board er no board.' 
 
 'But what you do not understand, if you will excuse 
 me, madam, is that the whole principle o' servitood, 
 which includes keep an' feed, starts from a radically 
 false basis; an' I am proud to say that me an' the major- 
 ity o' the horses o' Kansas think the entire concern 
 should be relegated to the limbo of exploded supersti- 
 tions. I say we're too progressive for that. I say 
 we're too enlightened for that. 'Twas good enough's 
 long's we didn't think, but now — but naow — a new 
 loominary has arisen on the horizon!' 
 
 'Meanin' you?' said the Deacon. 
 
 'The horses o' Kansas are behind me with their mul- 
 titoodinous thunderin' hoofs, an' we say, simply but 
 grandly, that we take our stand with all four feet on the 
 inalienable rights of the horse, pure and simple, — the 
 high-toned child o' nature, fed by the same wavin' grass, 
 cooled by the same ripplin' brook, — yes, an' warmed 
 by the same gen'rous sun as falls impartially on the 
 outside an' the inside of the pampered machine o' the 
 trottin'-track, or the bloated coupe-horses o' these 
 yere Eastern cities. Are we not the same flesh and 
 blood?' 
 
 54 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 'Not by a bushel an' a half,' said the Deacon, under 
 his breatli. ' Grandee never was in Kansas.' 
 
 'My! Ain't that elegant, though, abaout the wavin' 
 grass an' the ripplin' brooks?' Tuck whispered in Nip's 
 ear. 'The gentleman's real convincin', I think.' 
 
 *I say we are the same flesh an' blood! Are we to be 
 separated, horse from horse, by the artificial barriers 
 of a trottin'-record, or are we to look down upon each 
 other on the strength o' the gifts o' nature — an extry 
 inch below the knee, or slightly more powerful quarters? 
 What's the use o' them advantages to you? Man the 
 Oppressor comes along, an' sees you're likely an' good- 
 lookin', an' grinds you to the face o' the earth. W^hat 
 for? For his own pleasure: for his own convenience! 
 Young an' old, black an' bay, white an' gray, there's no 
 distinctions made between us. We're ground up to- 
 gether under the remorseless teeth o' the engines of 
 oppression!' 
 
 'Guess his brichin' must ha' broke goin' daown-hill,' 
 said the Deacon. 'Slippery road, maybe, an' the buggy 
 come outer him, an' he didn't know 'nough to hold back. 
 That don't feel like teeth, though. Maybe he busted a 
 shaft, an' it pricked him.' 
 
 'An' I come to you from Kansas, wavin' the tail o' 
 friendship to all an' sundry, an' in the name of the un- 
 counted millions o' pure-minded high-toned horses now 
 strugglin' toward the light o' freedom, I say to you, rub 
 noses with us in our sacred an' holy cause. The power 
 is yourn. Without you, I say, Man the Oppressor can- 
 not move himself from place to place. Without you he 
 cannot reap, he cannot sow, he cannot plough.' 
 
 'Mighty odd place, Kansas!' said Marcus Aurelius 
 Antoninus. 'Seemin'ly they reap in the spring an' 
 
 55 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 plough in the fall. 'Guess it's right fer them, but 'twould 
 make me kinder giddy.' 
 
 *The produc's of your untirin' industry would rot on 
 the ground if you did not weakly consent to help them. 
 Let 'em rot, I say ! Let him call you to the stables in 
 vain an' nevermore I Let him shake his ensnarin' oats 
 under your nose in vain ! Let the Brahmas roost in the 
 buggA', an' the rats run riot round the reaper! Let him 
 walk on his two hind feet till they blame well drop off! 
 Win no more soul-destroyin' races for his pleasure! 
 Then, an' not till then, will Man the Oppressor know 
 where he's at. Quit workin', fellows-sufferers an' slaves! 
 Kick! Rear! Plunge! Lie down on the shafts, an' 
 woller! Smash an' destroy! The conflict will be but 
 short, an' the victory is certain. After that we can 
 press our inalienable rights to eight quarts o' oats a day, 
 two good blankets, an' a fly-net an' the best o' stablin'.' 
 
 The yellow horse shut his yellow teeth with a triumph- 
 ant snap; and Tuck said, with a sigh: 'Seems 's if some- 
 thin' ought to be done. Don't seem right, somehow, — 
 oppressin' us an' all, — to my way o' thinkin'.' 
 
 Said Muldoon, in a far-away and sleepy voice: 'Who 
 in Vermont's goin' to haul de inalienable oats? Dey 
 weigh like Sam Hill, an' sixty bushel at dat allowance 
 ain't goin' to last free weeks here. An' dere's de winter 
 hay for five mont's ! ' 
 
 'We can settle those minor details when the great 
 cause is won,' said the yellow horse. 'Let us return 
 simply but grandly to our inalienable rights — the right 
 o' freedom on these yere verdant hills, an' no invijjus 
 distinctions o' track an' pedigree.' 
 
 * What in stables 'jer call an invijjus distinction?' said 
 the Deacon, stiffly. 
 
 56 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 'Per one thing, bein' a bloated, pampered trotter jest 
 because you happen to be raised that way, an' couldn't 
 no more help trottin' than eatin'.' 
 
 'Do ye know anythin' about trotters?' said the Dea- 
 con. 
 
 'I've seen 'em trot. That was enough for me. I 
 don't want to know any more. Trottin' 's immoral.' 
 
 'Waal, I'll tell you this much. They don't bloat, an' 
 they don't pamp — much. I don't hold out to be no 
 trotter myself, though I am free to say I had hopes that 
 way — onct. But I do say, fer I've seen 'em trained, 
 that a trotter don't trot with his feet; he trots with his 
 head ; an' he does more work — ef you know what that is 
 ^n a week than you er your sire ever done in all your 
 lives. He's everlastingly at it, a trotter is; an' when he 
 isn't, he's studyin' haow. You seen 'em trot? Much 
 you hev! You was hitched to a rail, back o' the stand, 
 in a buckboard with a soap-box nailed on the slats, an' a 
 frowy buff'lo atop, while your man peddled rum for 
 lemonade to little boys as thought they was actin' manly, 
 till you was both run off the track and jailed — you in- 
 toed, shufflin', sway-backed, wind-suckin' skate, you!' 
 
 'Don't get het up, Deacon,' said Tweezy, quietly. 
 'Now, suh, would you consider a fox-trot, an' single- 
 foot, an' rack, an' pace, an' amble, distinctions not worth 
 distinguishin'? I assuah you, gentlemen, there was a 
 time befo' I was afflicted in my hip, if you'll pardon me, 
 Miss Tuck, when I was quite celebrated in Paduky for 
 all those gaits; an' in my opinion the Deacon's co'rect 
 when he says that a ho'se of any position in society gets 
 his gaits by his haid, an' not by — his, ah, limbs. Miss 
 Tuck. I reckon I'm very little good now, but I'm re- 
 memberin' the things I used to do befo' I took to trans- 
 
 57 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 po'tin' real estate with the help and assistance of this 
 gentleman here.' He looked at Miildoon. 
 
 'Invijjus arterficial hind-legs!' said the ex-car-horse, 
 with a grunt of contempt. 'On de Belt Line we don't 
 reckon no horse wiith his keep 'less he kin switch de car 
 off de track, run her round on de cobbles, an' dump her 
 in ag'in ahead o' de truck what's blockin' him. Dere's 
 a way o' swinging yer quarters when de drivers says, 
 "Yank her out, boys!" dat takes a year to learn. Onct 
 yer git outer it, youse kin yank a cable-car outer a man- 
 hole. I don't advertise myself for no circus-horse, but 
 I knew dat trick better than most, an' dey was good to 
 me in de stables, fer I saved time on de Belt — an' time's 
 what dey hunt in N' York.' 
 
 'But the simple child o' nature — ' the yellow horse 
 began. 
 
 'Oh, go an' unscrew your splints! You're talkin' 
 through yer bandages,' said Muldoon, with a horse- 
 laugh. 'Dere ain't no loose-box for de simple child o' 
 nature on de Belt Line, wid de "Paris" comin' in an' de 
 "Teutonic" goin' out, an' de trucks an' de coupes sayin' 
 things, an' de heavy freight movin' down fer de Boston 
 boat 'bout free o'clock of an August afternoon, in de 
 middle of a hot wave when de fat Kanucks an' Western 
 horses drops dead on de block. De simple child o' 
 nature had better chase himself inter de water. Every 
 man at de end of his lines is mad or loaded or silly, an' 
 de cop's madder an' loadeder an' sillier than de rest. 
 Dey all take it outer de horses. Dere's no wavin' brooks 
 ner ripplin' grass on de Belt Line. Run her out on de 
 cobbles wid de sparks tlyin', an' stop when de cop slugs 
 you on de bone o' yer nose. Dat's N' York; see? ' 
 
 *I was always told s'ciety in Noo York was dreffle 
 
 58 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 refined an' high-toned,' said Tuck. 'We're lookin' to 
 go there one o' these days, Nip an' me.' 
 
 'Oh, you won't see no Belt business where you'll go, 
 miss. De man dat wants you'll want you bad, an' he'll 
 summer you on Long Island er at Newport, wid a winky- 
 pinky silver harness an' an English coachman. You'll 
 make a star-hitch, you an' yer brother, miss. But I 
 guess you won't have no nice smooth bar bit. Dey 
 checks 'em, an' dey bangs deir tails, an' dey bits 'em, 
 de city folk, an' dey says it's English, ye know, and dey 
 darsen't cut a horse loose 'ca'se o' de cops. N' York's 
 no place fer a horse, 'less he's on de Belt, an' can go 
 round wid de boys. Yusht I was in de Fire Depart- 
 ment!' 
 
 'But did you never stop to consider the degradin' ser- 
 vitood of it all?' said the yellow horse. 
 
 'You don't stop on the Belt, cully. You're stopped. 
 An' we was all in de servitood business, man an' horse, 
 an' Jimmy dat sold de papers. Guess de passengers 
 weren't out to grass neither, by de way dey acted. I 
 done my turn, an' I'm none o' Barnum's crowd; but any 
 horse dat's worked on de Belt four years don't train wid 
 no simple child o' nature — not by de whole length o' N' 
 York.' 
 
 'But can it be possible that with your experience, and 
 at your time of life, you do not believe that all horses 
 are free and equal?' said the yellow horse. 
 
 'Not till they're dead,' Muldoon answered quietly. 
 'An' den it depends on de gross total o' buttons an' 
 mucilage dey gits outer youse at Barren Island.' 
 
 'They tell me you're a prominent philosopher.' The 
 yellow horse turned to Marcus. ' Can you deny a basic 
 and pivotal statement such as this? ' 
 
 59 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'I don't deny anythin',' said Marcus Aurelius An- 
 toninus, cautiously; 'but ef you ast me, I should say 
 'twuz more different sorts o' clipped oats of a lie than 
 anythin' I've had my teeth into sence I wuz foaled.' 
 
 ' Are you a horse? ' said the yellow horse. 
 
 'Them that knows me best 'low I am.' 
 
 'Ain't I a horse?' 
 
 'Yep; one kind of.' 
 
 'Then ain't you an' me equal?' 
 
 *How fer kin you go in a day to a loaded buggy, draw- 
 in' five hundred pounds? ' Marcus asked carelessly. 
 
 'That has nothing to do with the case,' the yellow 
 horse answered excitedly. 
 
 'There's nothing I know hez more to do with the 
 case,' Marcus replied. 
 
 *Kin ye yank a full car outer de tracks ten times in de 
 mornin' ? ' said Muldoon. 
 
 * Kin ye go to Keene — forty-two mile in an afternoon 
 — with a mate,' said Rick, 'an' turn out bright an' early 
 next mornin'?' 
 
 'Was there evah any time in your careah, suh — I am 
 not referrin' to the present circumstances, but our 
 mutual glorious past — when you could carry a pretty 
 girl to market hahnsome, an' let her knit all the way on 
 account o' the smoothness o' the motion?' said Tweezy. 
 
 'Kin you keep your feet through the West River 
 Bridge, with the narrer-gage comin' in on one side, an' 
 the Montreal flyer the other, an' the old bridge teeterin' 
 between?' said the Deacon. 'Kin you put your nose 
 down on the cow-catcher of a locomotive when you're 
 waitin' at the depot an' let 'em play "Curfew shall not 
 ring to-night" with the big brass bell?' 
 
 *Kin you hold back when the brichin' breaks? Kin 
 
 60 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 you stop fer orders when your nigh hind leg's over your 
 trace an' ye feel good of a frosLy mornin*?' said Nij). 
 who had only learned that trick last winter, and thought 
 it was the crown of horsely knowledge. 
 
 'What's the use o' talkin'?' said Tedda Gabler, scorn- 
 fully. 'What kin ye do?' 
 
 ' I rely on my simple rights — the inalienable rights o' 
 my unfettered horsehood. An' I am proud to say I 
 have never, since my first shoes, lowered myself to obey- 
 in' the will o' man.' 
 
 'Must ha' had a heap o' whips broke over yer yaller 
 back,' said Tedda. ' Hev ye found it paid any? ' 
 
 ' Sorrer has been my portion since the day I was foaled. 
 Blows an' boots an' whips an' insults — injury, outrage, 
 an' oppression. I would not endoor the degradin' badges 
 o' servitood that connect us with the buggj^ an' the 
 farm-wagon.' 
 
 'It's amazin' difficult to draw a buggy 'thout traces 
 er collar er breast-strap er somefin',' said Marcus. 'A 
 Power-machine for sawin' wood is 'most the only thing 
 there's no straps to. I've helped saw's much as three 
 cord in an afternoon in a Power-machine. Slep', too, 
 most o' the time, I did; but 'tain't half as inte-res-tin' 
 ez goin' daown-taown in the Concord.' 
 
 'Concord don't hender you goin' to sleep any,' said 
 Nip. 'My throat-lash! D' you remember when you 
 lay down in the sharves last week, waitin' at the 
 piazza? ' 
 
 'Pshaw! That didn't hurt the sharves. They wuz 
 good an' wide, an' I lay down keerful. The folks kep' 
 me hitched up nigh an hour 'fore they started; an' larfed 
 — why, they all but lay down themselves with larfm'. 
 Say, Boney, if you've got to be hitched to anything 
 
 61 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 that goes on wheels, you've got to be hitched with some- 
 fm'.' 
 
 ' Go an' jine a circus,' said Muldoon, ' an' walk on your 
 hind legs. All de horses dat knows too much to work [he 
 pronounced it 'woik,' New York fashion] jine de circus.' 
 
 ' I am not sayin' anythin' again' work,' said the yellow 
 horse; 'work is the finest thing in the world.' 
 
 'Seems too fme fer some of us,' Tedda snorted. 
 
 'I only ask that each horse should work for himself, 
 an' enjoy the profit of his labours. Let him work in- 
 telligently, an' not as a machine.' 
 
 'There ain't no horse that works like a machine,' 
 Marcus began. 
 
 'There's no way o' workin' that doesn't mean goin' to 
 pole or single — they never put me in the Power-machine 
 — er under saddle,' said Rick. 
 
 'Oh, shucks! We're talkin' same ez we graze,' said 
 Nip, 'raound an' raound in circles. Rod, we hain't 
 heard from you yet, an' you've more knowhow than any 
 span here.' 
 
 Rod, the off-horse of the pair, had been standing with 
 one hip lifted, like a tired cow; and you could only tell 
 by the quick flutter of the haw across his eye, from time 
 to time, that he was paying any attention to the argu- 
 ment. He thrust his jaw out sidewise, as his habit is 
 when he pulls, and changed his leg. His voice was hard 
 and heavy, and his ears were close to his big, plain 
 Hambletonian head. 
 
 'How old are you?' he said to the yellow horse. 
 
 'Nigh thirteen, I guess.' 
 
 'Mean age; ugly age; I'm gettin' that way myself. 
 How long hev ye been pawin' this fire-fanged stable 
 litter?' 
 
 62 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 *If you mean my principles, I've held 'em since I was 
 three.' 
 
 ' Mean age; ugly age; teeth give heaps o' trouble then. 
 Set a colt to actin' crazy fer a while. You've kep' it up, 
 seemin'ly. D'ye talk much to your neighbours fer a 
 steady thing?' 
 
 'I uphold the principles o' the Cause wherever I am 
 pastured.' 
 
 'Done a heap o' good, I guess?' 
 
 'I am proud to say I have taught a few of my com- 
 panions the principles o' freedom an' liberty.' 
 
 ' Meanin' they ran away er kicked when they got the 
 chanst?' 
 
 'I was talkin' in the abstrac', an' not in the concrete. 
 My teachin's educated them.' 
 
 'What a horse, specially a young horse, hears in the 
 abstrac', he's liable to do in the Concord. You wuz 
 handled late, I presoom.' 
 
 'Four, risin' five.' 
 
 'That's where the trouble began. Driv' by a woman, 
 like ez not — eh? ' 
 
 'Not fer long,' said the yellow horse, with a snap of 
 his teeth. 
 
 'Spilled her?' 
 
 ' I heerd she never drove again.' 
 
 'Any children?' 
 
 'Buckboards full of 'em.' 
 
 'Men too?' 
 
 ' I have shed consid'ble men in my time.* 
 
 'Bykickin'?' 
 
 'Any way that come along. Fallin' back over the 
 dash is as handy as most.' 
 
 'They must be turr'ble afraid o' you daown-taown? ' 
 
 63 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 ' They've sent me here to get rid o' me. I guess they 
 spend their time talkin' over my campaigns.' 
 
 ' I wanter know ! ' 
 
 'Yes, sir. Now, all you gentlemen have asked me 
 what I can do. I'll just show you. See them two 
 fellers lyin' down by the buggy? ' 
 
 'Yep; one of 'em owns me. T'other broke me,' said 
 Rod. 
 
 'Get 'em out here in the open, an' I'll show you some- 
 thing. Lemme hide back o' you peoples, so's they won't 
 see what I'm at.' 
 
 'Meanin' ter kill 'em?' Rod drawled. There was a 
 shudder of horror through the others; but the yellow 
 horse never noticed. 
 
 'I'll catch 'em by the back o' the neck, an' pile-drive 
 'em a piece. They can suit 'emselves about livin' when 
 I'm through with 'em.' 
 
 'Shouldn't wonder ef they did,' said Rod. 
 
 The yellow horse had hidden himself very cleverly 
 behind the others as they stood in a group, and was 
 swaying his head close to the ground with a curious 
 scythe-like motion, looking sideways out of his wicked 
 eyes. You can never mistake a man-eater getting ready 
 to knock a man down. We had had one to pasture the 
 year before. 
 
 'See that?' said my companion, turning over on the 
 pine-needles. *Nice for a woman walking 'cross lots, 
 wouldn't it be?' 
 
 'Bring 'em out!* said the yellow horse, hunching his 
 sharp back. 'There's no chance among them tall trees. 
 Bring out the — oh ! Ouch ! ' 
 
 It was a right-and-left kick from Muldoon. I had no 
 idea that the old car-horse could lift so quickly. Both 
 
 64 
 
 ti 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 blows caught the yellow horse full and fair in the ribs, 
 and knocked the breath out of him. 
 
 'What's that for?' he said angrily, when he recovered 
 himself; but I noticed he did not draw any nearer to 
 Muldoon than was necessary. 
 
 Muldoon never answered, but discoursed to himself 
 in the whining grunt that he uses when he is going down- 
 hill in front of a heavy load. We call it singing; but I 
 think it's something much worse, really. The yellow 
 horse blustered and squealed a little, and at last said 
 that, if it was a horse-fly that had stung Muldoon, he 
 would accept an apology. 
 
 'You'll get it,' said Muldoon, 'in de sweet by-and-by 
 — all de apology you've any use for. Excuse me inter- 
 ruptin' you, Mr. Rod, but I'm like Tweezy — I've a 
 Southern drawback in me hind legs.' 
 
 'Naow, I want you all here to take notice, and you'll 
 learn something,' Rod went on. 'This yaller-backed 
 skate comes to our pastur' — ' 
 
 'Not havin' paid his board,' put in Tedda. 
 
 'Not havin' earned his board, an' talks smooth to us 
 abaout ripplin' brooks an' wavin' grass, an' his high- 
 toned, pure-souled horsehood, which don't hender him 
 sheddin' women an' children, an' fallin' over the dash 
 onter men. You heard his talk, an' you thought it 
 mighty fme, some o' you.' 
 
 Tuck looked guilty here, but she did not say anything. 
 
 'Bit by bit he goes on ez you have heard.' 
 
 ' I was talkin' in the abstrac',' said the yellow horse, in 
 an altered voice. 
 
 'Abstrac' be switched! Ez I've said, it's this yer 
 blamed abstrac' business that makes the young uns cut 
 up in the Concord; an' abstrac' or no abstrac', he crep' 
 
 65 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 on an' on till he comes to killin' plain an' straight — 
 killin' them as never done him no harm, jest beca'se 
 they owned horses.' 
 
 'An' knowed how to manage 'em,' said Tedda. 'That 
 makes it worse.' 
 
 'Waal, he didn't kill 'em, anyway,' said Marcus. 
 'He'd ha' been half killed if he had tried.' 
 
 'Makes no differ,' Rod answered. 'He meant to; an' 
 ef he hadn't — s'pose we want the Back Pasture turned 
 into a biffm'-ground on our only day er rest? 'S'pose 
 we want our men walkin' round with bits er lead pipe 
 an' a twitch, an' their hands full o' stones to throw at us, 
 same's if we wuz hogs er hooky keows? More'n that, 
 leavin' out Tedda here — an' I guess it's more her maouth 
 than her manners stands in her light — there ain't a 
 horse on this farm that ain't a woman's horse, an' proud 
 of it. An' this yer bog-spavined Kansas sunflower goes 
 up an' daown the length o' the country, traded off and 
 traded on, boastin' as he's shed women — an' children. 
 I don't say as a woman in a buggy ain't a fool. I don't 
 say as she ain't the lastin'est kind er fool, ner I don't say 
 a child ain't worse — spattin' the lines an' standin' up an' 
 hollerin' — but I do say, 'tain't none of our business to 
 shed 'em daown the road.' 
 
 'We don't,' said the Deacon. 'The baby tried to git 
 some o' my tail for a sooveneer last fall when I was up 
 to the haouse, an' I didn't kick. Boney's talk ain't 
 goin' to hurt us any. We ain't colts.' 
 
 'Thet's what you think. Bimeby you git into a 
 tight corner, 'Lection day er Valley Fair, like's not, 
 daown-taown, when you're all het an' lathery, an' pes- 
 tered with flies, an' thirsty, an' sick o' bein' worked in 
 an' aout 'tween buggies. Then somethin' whispers 
 
 66 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 inside o' yer winkers, bringin' up all that talk abaout 
 servitood an' inalienable truck an' sech like, an' jest 
 then a Militia gun goes off, er your wheels hit, an' — 
 waaJ, you're only another horse ez can't be trusted! 
 I've been there time an' again. Boys — fer I've seen 
 you all bought er broke — on my solemn repitation fer a 
 three-minute clip, I ain't givin' you no bran-mash o' 
 my own fixin'. I'm tellin' you my experiences, an' I've 
 had ez heavy a load an' ez high a check's any horse here. 
 I wuz born with a splint on my near fore ez big's a wal- 
 nut, an' the cussed, three-cornered Hambletonian tem- 
 per that sours up an' curdles daown ez you git older. 
 I've favoured my splint; even little Rick he don't know 
 what it's cost me to keep my end up sometimes; an' I've 
 fit my temper in stall an' harness, hitched up an' at 
 pasture, till the sweat trickled off my hoofs, an' they 
 thought I wuz off condition, an' drenched me.' 
 
 'When my affliction came,' said Tweezy, gently, 'I 
 was very near to losin' my manners. Allow me to ex- 
 tend to you my sympathy, suh.' 
 
 Rick said nothing, but he looked at Rod curiously. 
 Rick is a sunny-tempered child who never bears malice, 
 and I don't think he quite understood. He gets his 
 temper from his mother, as a horse should. 
 
 'I've been there too, Rod,' said Tedda. 'Open con- 
 fession's good for the soul, an' all Monroe County knows 
 I've had my experiences.' 
 
 * But if you will excuse me, suh, that pusson ' — Tweezy 
 looked unspeakable things at the yellow horse — 'that 
 pusson who has insulted our intelligences comes from 
 Kansas. An' what a ho'se of his position, an' Kansas 
 at that, says cannot, by any stretch of the halter, con- 
 cern gentlemen of our position. There's no shadow of 
 
 67 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 equal'ty, suh, not even for one kick. He's beneath our 
 contempt.' 
 
 'Let him talk,' said Marcus. 'It's always inte-res- 
 tin' to know what another horse thinks. It don't tech 
 us.' 
 
 'An' he talks so, too,' said Tuck. 'I've never heard 
 anythin' so smart for a long time.' 
 
 Again Rod stuck out his jaws sidewise, and went on 
 slowly as though he were slugging on a plain bit at the 
 end of a thirty-mile drive : 
 
 ' I want you all here ter understand thet ther ain't no 
 Kansas, ner no Kentucky, ner yet no Vermont, in our 
 business. There's jest two kind o' horse in the United 
 States — them ez can an' will do their w^ork after bein' 
 properly broke an' handled, an' them as won't. I'm 
 sick an' tired o' this everlastin' tail-switchin' an' wicker- 
 in' abaout one State er another. A horse kin be proud 
 o' his State, an' swap lies abaout it in stall or when he's 
 hitched to a block, ef he keers to put in fly-time that 
 way; but he hain't no right to let that pride o' hisn inter- 
 fere with his work, ner to make it an excuse fer claimin' 
 he's different. That's colt's talk, an' don't you fergit 
 it, Tweezy. An', Marcus, you remember that bein' a 
 philosopher, an' anxious to save trouble, — fer you are — 
 don't excuse you from jumpin' with all your feet on 
 a slack-jawed, crazy clay-bank like Boney here. It's 
 leavin' 'em alone that gives 'em their chance to ruin 
 colts an' kill folks. An', Tuck, waal, you're a mare 
 anyways — but when a horse comes along an' covers up 
 all his talk o' killin' with ripplin' brooks, an' wavin' grass, 
 an' eight quarts of oats a day free, after killin' his man, 
 don't you be run away with by his yap. You're too 
 young an' too nervous.' 
 
 68 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 'I'll — ril have nervous prostration sure ef there's a 
 fight here,' said Tuck, who saw what was in Rod's eye; 
 'I'm — I'm that sympathetic I'd run away clear to next 
 caounty.' 
 
 ' Yep ; I know that kind o' sympathy. Jest lasts long 
 enough to start a fuss, an' then lights aout to make new 
 trouble. I hain't been ten years in harness fer nuthin'. 
 Naow, we're goin' to keep school with Boney fer a spell.' 
 
 'Say, look a-here, you ain't goin' to hurt me, are you? 
 Remember, I belong to a man in town,' cried the yellow 
 horse, uneasily. Muldoon kept behind him so that he 
 could not run away. 
 
 ' I know it. There must be some pore delooded fool 
 in this State hez a right to the loose end o' your hitchin'- 
 strap. I'm blame sorry fer him, but he shall hev his 
 rights when we're through with you,' said Rod. 
 
 'If it's all the same, gentlemen, I'd ruther change 
 pasture. Guess I'll do it now.' 
 
 ' Can't always have your 'druthers. Guess you won't,' 
 said Rod. 
 
 ' But look a-here. All of you ain't so blame unfriendly 
 to a stranger. S'pose we count noses.' 
 
 ' What in Vermont fer? ' said Rod, putting up his eye- 
 brows. The idea of settling a question by counting 
 noses is the very last thing that ever enters the head of a 
 well-broken horse. 
 
 'To see how many's on my side. Here's Miss Tuck, 
 anyway; an' Colonel Tweezy yonder's neutral; an' 
 Judge Marcus, an' I guess the Reverend [the yellow 
 horse meant the Deacon] might see that I had my rights. 
 He's the likeliest-lookin' trotter I've ever set eyes on. 
 Pshaw, boys! You ain't goin' to pound me, be you? 
 Why, we've gone round in pasture, all colts together, 
 
 69 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 this month o' Sundays, hain't we, as friendly as could 
 be. There ain't a horse alive — I don't care who he is — 
 has a higher opinion o' you, Mr. Rod, than I have. 
 Let's do it fair an' true an' above the exe. Let's count 
 noses same's they do in Kansas.' Here he dropped his 
 voice a little and turned to Marcus: 'Say, Judge, there's 
 some green food I know, back o' the brook, no one hain't 
 touched yet. After this little fracas is fixed up, you an' 
 me'll make up a party an' 'tend to it.' 
 
 Marcus did not answer for a long time, then he said: 
 'There's a pup up to the haouse 'bout eight weeks old. 
 He'll yap till he gits a lickin', an' when he sees it comin' 
 he lies on his back an' yowls. But he don't go through 
 no cir-kit-uous nose-counting first. I've seen a noo light 
 sence Rod spoke. You'll better stand up to what's 
 served. I'm goin' to philosophise all over your carcass.' 
 
 ' I'm goin' to do yer up in brown paper,' said Muldoon. 
 'I can fit you on apologies.' 
 
 'Hold on. Ef we all biffed you now, these same men 
 you've been so dead anxious to kill 'u'd call us off. 
 Guess we'll wait till they go back to the haouse, an' 
 you'll have time to think cool an' quiet,' said Rod. 
 
 ' Have you no respec' whatever f er the dignity o' our 
 common horsehood?' the yellow horse squealed. 
 
 'Nary respec' onless the horse kin do something. 
 America's paved with the kind er horse you are — ^jist 
 plain yaller-dog horse — waitin' ter be whipped inter 
 shape. We call 'em yearlings an' colts when they're 
 young. When they're aged we pound 'em — in this 
 pastur'. Horse, sonny, is what you start from. We 
 know all about horse here, an' he ain't any high-toned, 
 pure-souled child o' nature. Horse, plain horse, same 
 ez you, is chock-full o' tricks, an' meannesses, an' cussed- 
 
 70 
 
 m 
 
A WALKING DELEGATE 
 
 nesses, an' shirkin's, an' monkey-shines, which he's took 
 over from his sire an' his dam, an' thickened up with his 
 own special fancy in the way o' goin' crooked. Thet's 
 horse, an' thet's about his dignity an' the size of his soul 
 'fore he's been broke an' raw-hided a piece. Now we 
 ain't goin' to give ornery unswitched horse, that hain't 
 done nawthin' wuth a quart of oats sence he wuz foaled, 
 pet names that would be good enough fer Nancy Hanks, 
 or Alix, or Directum, who hev. Don't you try to back 
 off acrost them rocks. ^Yait where you are! Ef I let 
 my Hambletonian temper git the better o' me I'd frazzle 
 you out finer than rye-straw inside o' three minutes, 
 you woman-scarin', kid-killin', dash-breakin', unbroke, 
 unshod, ungaited, pastur'-hoggin', saw-backed, shark- 
 mouthed, hair-trunk-thrown-in-with-a-trade son of a 
 bronco an' a sewin'-machine!' 
 
 'I think we'd better get home,' I said to my compan- 
 ion when Rod had finished; and we climbed into the 
 coupe, Tedda whinnying, as we bumped over the ledges : 
 'Well, I'm dreffle sorry I can't stay fer the sociable; but 
 I hope an' trust my friends '11 take a ticket fer me.' 
 
 'Bet your natchul!' said Muldoon, cheerfully, and 
 the horses scattered before us, trotting into the ravine. 
 
 Next morning we sent back to the livery-stable what 
 was left of the yellow horse. It seemed tired, but anx- 
 ious to go. 
 
 71 
 
THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF 
 
 (1895) 
 
 We now, held in captivity, 
 
 Spring to our labour nor grieve! 
 See now, how it is blesseder, 
 
 Brothers, to give than receive ! 
 Keep trust, wherefore ye were made, 
 
 Paying the duty ye owe ; 
 For a clean thrust and the sheer of the blade 
 
 Shall carry us where we should go. 
 
 * Song of the Engines.' 
 
 IT was her first voyage, and though she was but a cargo- 
 steamer of twelve hundred tons, she was the very 
 best of her kind, the outcome of forty years of ex- 
 periments and improvements in framework and ma- 
 chinery; and her designers and owner thought as much 
 of her as though she had been the ' Lucania.' Any one 
 can make a floating hotel that will pay expenses, if he 
 puts enough money into the saloon, and charges for 
 private baths, suites of rooms, and such like; but in 
 these days of competition and low freights every square 
 inch of a cargo-boat must be built for cheapness, great 
 hold-capacity, and a certain steady speed. This boat 
 was, perhaps, two hundred and forty feet long and 
 thirty-two feet wide, with arrangements that enabled 
 
 72 
 
THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF 
 
 her to carry cattle on her main and sheep on her upper 
 deck if she wanted to; but her great glory was the 
 amount of cargo that she could store away in her holds. 
 Her owners — they were a very well known Scotch firm 
 — came round with her from the north, where she had 
 been launched and christened and fitted, to Liverpool, 
 where she was to take cargo for New York; and the 
 owner's daughter, Miss Frazier, went to and fro on the 
 clean decks, admiring the new paint and the brass work, 
 and the patent winches, and particularly the strong, 
 straight bow, over which she had cracked a bottle of 
 champagne when she named the steamer the 'Dimbula.' 
 It was a beautiful September afternoon, and the boat 
 in all her newness — she was painted lead-colour with a 
 red funnel — looked very fine indeed. Her house-flag 
 was flying, and her whistle from time to time acknowl- 
 edged the salutes of friendly boats, who saw that she 
 was new to the High and Narrow Seas and wished to 
 make her welcome. 
 
 'And now,' said Miss Frazier delightedly, to the 
 captain, 'she's a real ship, isn't she? It seems only the 
 . other day father gave the order for her, and now — and 
 now — isn't she a beauty!' The girl was proud of the 
 firm, and talked as though she were the controlling 
 partner. 
 
 'Oh, she's no so bad,' the skipper replied cautiously. 
 'But I'm sayin' that it takes more than christenin' to 
 mak' a ship. In the nature o' things. Miss Frazier, if 
 ye follow me, she's just irons and rivets and plates put 
 into the form of a ship. She has to find herself yet.' 
 P 'I thought father said she was exceptionally well 
 found.' 
 
 'So she is,' said the skipper, with a laugh. 'But it's 
 
 73 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 this way wi' ships, Miss Frazier. She's all here, but 
 the parrts of her have not learned to work together yet. 
 They've had no chance.' 
 
 'The engines are working beautifully. I can hear 
 them.' 
 
 'Yes, indeed. But there's more than engines to a 
 ship. Every inch of her, ye'll understand, has to be 
 livened up and made to work wi' its neighbour — sweet- 
 enin' her, we call it, technically.' 
 
 'And how will you do it?' the girl asked. 
 
 'We can no more than drive and steer her, and so 
 forth; but if we have rough weather this trip — it's likely 
 — she'll learn the rest by heart! For a ship, ye'll ob- 
 sairve, Miss Frazier, is in no sense a reegid body closed 
 at both ends. She's a highly complex structure o' various 
 an' conflictin' strains, wi' tissues that must give an' tak 
 accordin' to her personal modulus of elasteecity.' Mr. 
 Buchanan, the chief engineer, was coming towards them. 
 'I'm sayin' to Miss Frazier, here, that our little "Dim- 
 bula" has to be sweetened yet, and nothin' but a gale 
 will do it. How's all wi' your engines, Buck? ' 
 
 *W'ell enough — true by plumb an' rule, o' course; but 
 there's no spontaneeity yet.' He turned to the girl. 
 'Take my word, Miss Frazier, and maybe ye'll com- 
 prehend later; even after a pretty girl's christened a 
 ship it does not follow that there's such a thing as a ship 
 under the men that work her.' 
 
 'I was sayin' the very same, Mr. Buchanan,' the 
 skipper interrupted. 
 
 * That's more metaphysical than I can follow,' said 
 Miss Frazier, laughing. 
 
 'Why so? Ye're good Scotch, an' — I knew your 
 mother's father, he was fra' Dumfries — ^ye've a vested 
 
 74 
 
THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF 
 
 right in metapheesics, Miss Frazier, just as ye have in 
 the " Dimbula," ' the engineer said. 
 
 'Eh, well, we must go down to the deep watters, an' 
 earn Miss Frazier her deevidends. Will you not come 
 to my cabin for tea?' said the skipper. 'We'll be in 
 dock the night, and when you're goin' back to Glasgie 
 ye can think of us loadin' her down an' drivin' her forth 
 —all for your sake.' 
 
 In the next few days they stowed some two thousand 
 tons' dead weight into the 'Dimbula,' and took her out 
 from Liverpool. As soon as she met the lift of the open 
 water, she naturally began to talk. If you lay your ear 
 to the side of the cabin the next time you are in a steamer, 
 you will hear hundreds of little voices in every direction, 
 thrilling and buzzing, and whispering and popping, and 
 gurgling and sobbing and squeaking exactly like a tele- 
 phone in a thunder-storm. Wooden ships shriek and 
 growl and grunt, but iron vessels throb and quiver 
 through all their hundreds of ribs and thousands of rivets. 
 The ' Dimbula ' was very strongly built, and every piece 
 of her had a letter or number, or both, to describe it; 
 and every piece had been hammered, or forged, or rolled, 
 or punched by man, and had lived in the roar and rattle 
 of the ship-yard for months. Therefore, every piece 
 had its own separate voice in exact proportion to the 
 amount of trouble spent upon it. Cast-iron, as a rule, 
 says very little; but mild steel plates and wrought-iron, 
 and rib and beams that have been much bent and welded 
 and riveted, talk continuously. Their conversation, of 
 course, is not half as wise as our human talk, because they 
 are all, though they do not know it, bound down one to the 
 other in a black darkness, where they cannot tell what is 
 happening near them, nor what will overtake them next. 
 
 75 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 As soon as she had cleared the Irish coast a sullen, 
 gray-headed old wave of the Atlantic climbed leisurely 
 over her straight bow, and sat down on her steam-cap- 
 stan used for hauling up the anchor. Now the capstan 
 and the engine that drove it had been newly painted red 
 and green; besides which, nobody likes being ducked. 
 
 'Don't you do that again,' the capstan sputtered 
 through the teeth of his cogs. ' Hi ! Where's the fellow 
 gone? ' 
 
 The wave had slouched overside with a plop and a 
 chuckle; but 'Plenty more where he came from,' said a 
 brother-wave, and went through and over the capstan, 
 who was bolted firmly to an iron plate on the iron deck- 
 beams below. 
 
 'Can't you keep still up there?' said the deck-beams. 
 'What's the matter with you? One minute you weigh 
 twice as much as you ought to, and the next you don't ! ' 
 
 ' It isn't my fault,' said the capstan. ' There's a green 
 brute outside that comes and hits me on the head.' 
 
 'Tell that to the shipwrights. You've been in posi- 
 tion for months and you've never wriggled like this before. 
 If you aren't careful you'll strain us.' 
 
 'Talking of strain,' said a low, rasping, unpleasant 
 voice, 'are any of you fellows — you deck-beams, we 
 mean — aware that those exceedingly ugly knees of yours 
 happen to be riveted into our structure — ours? ' 
 
 'Who might you be?' the deck-beams inguired. 
 
 'Oh, nobody in particular,' was the answer. 'We're 
 only the port and starboard upper-deck stringers ; and if 
 you persist in heaving and hiking like this, we shall be 
 reluctantly compelled to take steps.' 
 
 Now the stringers of the ship are long iron girders, so 
 to speak, that run lengthways from stern to bow. They 
 
 76 
 
THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF 
 
 keep the iron frames (what are called ribs in a wooden 
 ship) in place, and also help to hold the ends of the 
 deck-beams, which go from side to side of the ship. 
 Stringers always consider themselves most important, 
 because they are so long. 
 
 'You will take steps — will you?' This was a long 
 echoing rumble. It came from the frames — scores and 
 scores of them, each one about eighteen inches distant 
 from the next, and each riveted to the stringers in four 
 places. 'We think you will have a certain amount of 
 trouble in that'; and thousands and thousands of little 
 rivets that held everything together whispered: 'You 
 will. You will! Stop quivering and be quiet. Hold 
 on, brethren ! Hold on ! Hot Punches ! What's that?' 
 
 Rivets have no teeth, so they cannot chatter with 
 fright; but they did their best as a fluttering jar swept 
 along the ship from stern to bow, and she shook like a 
 rat in a terrier's mouth. 
 
 An unusually severe pitch, for the sea was rising, had 
 lifted the big throbbing screw nearly to the surface, and 
 it was spinning round in a kind of soda-water — half sea 
 and half air — going much faster than was proper, be- 
 cause there was no deep water for it to work in. As it 
 sank again, the engines — and they were triple expansion, 
 three cylinders in a row — snorted through all their three 
 pistons. 'Was that a joke, you fellow outside? It's 
 an uncommonly poor one. How are we to do our work 
 if you fly off the handle that way? ' 
 
 'I didn't fly ofl" the handle,' said the screw, twirling 
 huskily at the end of the screw-shaft. ' If I had, you'd 
 have been scrap-iron by this time. The sea dropped 
 away from under me, and I had nothing to catch on to. 
 That's all.' 
 
 77 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'That's all, d'you call it?' said the thrust-block, 
 whose business it is to take the push of the screw; for if a 
 screw had nothing to hold it back it would crawl right 
 into the engine-room. (It is the holding back of the 
 screwing action that gives the drive to a ship.) * I know 
 I do my work deep down and out of sight, but I warn 
 you I expect justice. All I ask for is bare justice. 
 Why can't you push steadily and evenly, instead of 
 whizzing like a whirligig, and making me hot under all 
 my collars.' The thrust-block had six collars, each 
 faced with brass, and he did not wish to get them heated. 
 
 All the bearings that supported the fifty feet of screw- 
 shaft as it ran to the stern whispered: 'Justice — give us 
 justice.' 
 
 'I can only give you what I can get,' the screw an- 
 swered. ' Look out ! It's coming again ! ' 
 
 He rose with a roar as the *Dimbula' plunged, and 
 * whack — flack — whack — whack' went the engines, fu- 
 riously, for they had little to check them. 
 
 *rm the noblest outcome of human ingenuity — Mr. 
 Buchanan says so,' squealed the high-pressure cylinder. 
 *This is simply ridiculous!' The piston went up sav- 
 agely, and choked, for half the steam behind it was mixed 
 with dirty water. 'Help! Oiler! Fitter! Stoker! Help! 
 I'm choking,' it gasped. 'Never in the history of mari- 
 time invention has such a calamity overtaken one so 
 young and strong. And if I go, who's to drive the 
 ship?' 
 
 'Hush! oh, hush!' whispered the Steam, who, of 
 course, had been to sea many times before. He used to 
 spend his leisure ashore in a cloud, or a gutter, or a 
 flower-pot, or a thunder-storm, or anywhere else where 
 water was needed. * That's only a little priming, a little 
 
 78 
 
THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF 
 
 carrying-over, as they call it. It'll happen all night, on 
 and off. I don't say it's nice, but it's the best we can 
 do under the circumstances.' 
 
 'What difference can circumstances make? I'm here 
 to do my work — on clean, dry steam. Blow circum- 
 stances!' the cylinder roared. 
 
 'The circumstances will attend to the blowing. I've 
 worked on the North Atlantic run a good many times — 
 it's going to be rough before morning.' 
 
 'It isn't distressingly calm now,' said the extra-strong 
 frames — they were called web-frames — in the engine- 
 room. 'There's an upward thrust that we don't un- 
 derstand, and there's a twist that is very bad for our 
 brackets and diamond-plates, and there's a sort of west- 
 north-westerly pull that follows the twist, which seri- 
 ously annoys us. We mention this because we happened 
 to cost a good deal of money, and we feel sure that the 
 owner would not approve of our being treated in this 
 frivolous way.' 
 
 'I'm afraid the matter is out of the owner's hands for 
 the present,' said the Steam, slipping into the condenser. 
 'You're left to your own devices till the weather betters.' 
 
 'I wouldn't mind the weather,' said a flat bass voice 
 below; 'it's this confounded cargo that's breaking my 
 heart. I'm the garboard-strake, and I'm twice as thick 
 as most of the others, and I ought to know something.' 
 
 The garboard-strake is the lowest plate in the bottom 
 of a ship, and the 'Dimbula's' garboard-strake was nearly 
 three-quarters of an inch mild steel. 
 
 'The sea pushes me up in a way I should never have 
 expected,' the strake grunted, 'and the cargo pushes me 
 down, and, between the two, I don't know what I'm 
 supposed to do.' 
 
 79 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'When in doubt, hold on,' rumbled the Steam, making 
 head in the boilers. 
 
 'Yes; but there's only dark, and cold, and hurry, down 
 here; and how do I know whether the other plates are 
 doing their duty? Those bulwark-plates up above, I've 
 heard, ain't more than five-sixteenths of an inch thick — 
 scandalous, I call it.' 
 
 'I agree with you,' said a huge web-frame by the 
 main cargo-hatch. He was deeper and thicker than all 
 the others, and curved half-way across the ship in the 
 shape of half an arch, to support the deck where deck- 
 beams would have been in the way of cargo coming up 
 and down. 'I work entirely unsupported, and I ob- 
 serve that I am the sole strength of this vessel, so far as 
 my vision extends. The responsibility, I assure you, is 
 enormous. I believe the money-value of the cargo is 
 over one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Think of 
 that!' 
 
 'And every pound of it is dependent on my personal 
 exertions.' Here spoke a sea-valve that communicated 
 directly with the water outside, and was seated not very 
 far from the garboard-strake. 'I rejoice to think that 
 I am a Prince-Hyde Valve, with best Para rubber fac- 
 ings. Five patents cover me — I mention this without 
 pride — five separate and several patents, each one finer 
 than the other. At present I am screwed fast. Should 
 I open, you would immediately be swamped. This is 
 incontrovertible ! ' 
 
 Patent things always use the longest words they can. 
 It is a trick that they pick up from their inventors. 
 
 'That's news,' said a big centrifugal bilge-pump. 'I 
 had an idea that you were employed to clean decks and 
 things with. At least, I've used you for that more than 
 
 80 
 
THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF 
 
 once. I forget the precise number, in thousands, of 
 gallons which I am guaranteed to throw per hour; but I 
 assure you, my complaining friends, that there is not the 
 least danger. I alone am capable of clearing any water 
 that may find its way here. By my Biggest Deliveries, 
 we pitched then ! ' 
 
 The sea was getting up in a workmanlike style. It 
 was a dead westerly gale, blown from under a ragged 
 opening of green sky, narrowed on all sides by fat, gray 
 clouds; and the wind bit like pincers as it fretted the 
 spray into lacework on the flanks of the waves. 
 
 'I tell you what it is,' the foremast telephoned down 
 its wire-stays. 'I'm up here, and I can take a dispas- 
 sionate view of things. There's an organised conspiracy 
 against us. I'm sure of it, because every single one of 
 these waves is heading directly for our bows. The whole 
 sea is concerned in it — and so's the wind. It's awful ! ' 
 
 'What's awful?' said a wave, drowning the capstan 
 for the hundredth time. 
 
 'This organised conspiracy on your part,' the capstan 
 gurgled, taking his cue from the mast. 
 
 'Organised bubbles and spindrift! There has been a 
 depression in the Gulf of Mexico. Excuse me!' He 
 leaped overside; but his friends took up the tale one 
 after another. 
 
 'Which has advanced — ' That wave hove green 
 water over the funnel. 
 
 ' As far as Cape Hatteras — ' He drenched the bridge. 
 
 ' And is now going out to sea — to sea — to sea ! ' The 
 third wave went free in three surges, making a clean 
 sweep of a boat, which turned bottom up and sank in 
 the darkening troughs alongside, while the broken falls 
 whipped the davits. 
 
 81 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'That's all there is to it,' seethed the white water roar- 
 ing through the scuppers. 'There's no animus in our 
 proceedings. We're only meteorological corollaries.' 
 
 'Is it going to get any worse?' said the bow-anchor 
 chained down to the deck, where he could only breathe 
 once in five minutes. 
 
 'Not knowing, can't say. Wind may blow a bit by 
 midnight. Thanks awfully. Good-bye.' 
 
 The wave that spoke so politely had travelled some 
 distance aft, and found itself all mixed up on the deck 
 amidships, which was a well-deck sunk between high 
 bulwarks. One of the bulwark plates, which was hung on 
 hinges to open outward, had swung out, and passed the 
 bulk of the water back to the sea again with a clean smack. 
 
 'Evidently that's what I'm made for,' said the plate, 
 closing again with a sputter of pride. ' Oh no, you don't, 
 my friend!' 
 
 The top of a wave was trying to get in from the out- 
 side, but as the plate did not open in that direction, the 
 defeated water spurted back. 
 
 'Not bad for five-sixteenths of an inch,' said the bul- 
 wark-plate. ' My work, I see, is laid down for the night' ; 
 and it began opening and shutting with the motion of 
 the ship as it was designed to do. 
 
 ' W^e are not what you might call idle,' groaned all the 
 frames together, as the 'Dimbula' climbed a big wave, 
 lay on her side at the top, and shot into the next hollow, 
 twisting in the descent. A huge swell pushed up ex- 
 actly under her middle, and her bow and stern hung 
 free with nothing to support them. Then one joking 
 wave caught her up at the bow, and another at the stern, 
 while the rest of the water slunk away from under her 
 just to see how she would like it; so she was held up at 
 
 82 
 
THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF 
 
 her two ends only, and the weight of the cargo and the 
 machinery fell on the groaning iron keels and bilge- 
 stringers. 
 
 'Ease off! Ease off, there!' roared the garboard- 
 strake. ' I want one-eighth of an inch fair play. D'you 
 hear me, you rivets ! ' 
 
 'Ease off! Easeoff!' cried the bilge-stringers. 'Don't 
 hold us so tight to the frames!' 
 
 'Ease off!' grunted the deck-beams, as the 'Dimbula' 
 rolled fearfully. 'You've cramped our knees into the 
 stringers, and we can't move. Ease off, you flat-headed 
 little nuisances.' 
 
 Then two converging seas hit the bows, one on each 
 side, and fell away in torrents of streaming thunder. 
 
 'Ease off!' shouted the forward collision-bulkhead. 
 'I want to crumple up, but Fm stiffened in every di- 
 rection. Ease off, you dirty little forge-filings. Let me 
 breathe!' 
 
 All the hundreds of plates that are riveted to the 
 frames, and make the outside skin of every steamer, 
 echoed the call, for each plate wanted to shift and creep 
 a little, and each plate, according to its position, com- 
 plained against the rivets. 
 
 ' We can't help it ! We can't help it ! ' they murmured 
 in reply. 'We're put here to hold you, and we're going 
 to do it; you never pull us twice in the same direction. 
 If you'd say what you were going to do next, we'd try 
 to meet your views.' 
 
 'As far as I could feel,' said the upper-deck planking, 
 and that was four inches thick, 'every single iron near 
 me was pushing or pulling in opposite directions. Now, 
 what's the sense of that? My friends, let us all pull 
 together.' 
 
 83 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Pull any way you please,' roared the funnel, 'so long 
 as you don't try your experiments on me. I need seven 
 wire ropes, all pulling in different directions, to hold me 
 steady. Isn't that so?' 
 
 'We believe you, my boy!' whistled the funnel-stays 
 through their clinched teeth, as they twanged in the wind 
 from the top of the funnel to the deck. 
 
 'Nonsense! We must all pull together,' the decks 
 repeated. 'Pull lengthways.' 
 
 'Very good,' said the stringers; 'then stop pushing 
 sideways when you get wet. Be content to run grace- 
 fully fore and aft, and curve in at the ends as we do.' 
 
 'No — no curves at the end ! A very slight workman- 
 like curve from side to side, with a good grip at each 
 knee, and little pieces welded on,' said the deck-beams. 
 
 'Fiddle!' cried the iron pillars of the deep, dark hold. 
 'Who ever heard of curves? Stand up straight; be a 
 perfectly round column, and carry tons of good solid 
 weight — like that! There!' A big sea smashed on the 
 deck above, and the pillars stiffened themselves to the 
 load. 
 
 'Straight up and dow^n is not bad,' said the frames, 
 who ran that way in the sides of the ship, 'but you must 
 also expand yourselves sideways. Expansion is the law 
 of life, children. Open out ! open out ! ' 
 
 'Come back!' said the deck-beams savagely, as the 
 upward heave of the sea made the frames try to open. 
 'Come back to your bearings, you slack-jawed irons!' 
 
 'Rigidity! Rigidity! Rigidity!' thumped the en- 
 gines. * Absolute, unvarying rigidity — rigidity ! ' 
 
 'You see!' whined the rivets in chorus. 'No two of 
 you will ever pull alike, and — and you blame it all on us. 
 We only know how to go through a plate and bite down 
 
 84 
 
THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF 
 
 on both sides so that it can't, and mustn't, and shan't 
 move.' 
 
 'Eve got one-fraction of an inch play, at any rate,' 
 said the garboard-strake, triumphantly. So he had, 
 and all the bottom of the ship felt the easier for it. 
 
 'Then we're no good,' sobbed the bottom rivets. 'We 
 were ordered — we were ordered — never to give; and 
 we've given, and the sea will come in, and we'll all go to 
 the bottom together ! First we're blamed for everything 
 unpleasant, and now we haven't the consolation of hav- 
 ing done our work.' 
 
 'Don't say I told you,' whispered the Steam consol- 
 ingly; 'but, between you and me and the last cloud I 
 came from, it was bound to happen sooner or later. 
 You had to give a fraction, and you've given without 
 knowing it. Now, hold on, as before.' 
 
 'What's the use?' a few hundred rivets chattered. 
 'We've given — we've given; and the sooner we confess 
 that we can't keep the ship together, and go off our little 
 heads, the easier it will be. No rivet forged can stand 
 this strain.' 
 
 'No one rivet was ever meant to. Share it among 
 you,' the Steam answered. 
 
 'The others can have my share. Em going to pull 
 out,' said a rivet in one of the forward plates. 
 
 'If you go, others will follow,' hissed the Steam. 
 'There's nothing so contagious in a boat as rivets going. 
 Why, I knew a little chap like you — he was an eighth of 
 an inch fatter, though — on a steamer — to be sure, she 
 was only nine hundred tons, now I come to think of it — 
 in exactly the same place as you are. He pulled out in 
 a bit of a bobble of a sea, not half as bad as this, and he 
 started all his friends on the same butt-strap, and the 
 
 85 
 
THE DAY'S ^YORK 
 
 plates opened like a furnace door, and I had to climb 
 into the nearest fog-bank, while the boat went down.' 
 
 'Now that's peculiarly disgraceful,' said the rivet. 
 'Fatter than me, was he, and in a steamer half our ton- 
 nage? Reedy little peg! I blush for the family, sir.' 
 He settled himself more firmly than ever in his place, 
 and the Steam chuckled. 
 
 'You see,' he went on, quite gravely, 'a rivet, and 
 especially a rivet in your position, is really the one in- 
 dispensable part of the ship.' 
 
 The Steam did not say that he had whispered the very 
 same thing to every single piece of iron aboard. There 
 is no sense in telling too much truth. 
 
 And all that while the little 'Dimbula' pitched and 
 chopped, and swung and slewed, and lay down as though 
 she were going to die, and got up as though she had been 
 stung, and threw her nose round and round in circles 
 half a dozen times as she dipped; for the gale was at its 
 worst. It was inky black, in spite of the tearing white 
 froth on the waves, and, to top everything, the rain 
 began to fall in sheets, so that you could not see your 
 hand before your face. This did not make much differ- 
 ence to the ironwork below, but it troubled the foremast 
 a good deal. 
 
 'Now it's all finished,' he said dismally. 'The con- 
 spiracy is too strong for us. There is nothing left but 
 to—' 
 
 'Hurraar! Brrrraaah! Brrrrrrp !' roared the Steam 
 through the fog-horn, till the decks quivered. 'Don't 
 be frightened, below. It's only me, just throwing out a 
 few words, in case any one happens to be rolling round 
 to-night.' 
 
 'You don't mean to say there's any one except us on 
 
 86 
 
THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF 
 
 the sea in such weather?' said the funnel in a husl^y 
 snuffle. 
 
 'Scores of 'em,' said the Steam, clearing its throat; 
 ' Rrrrrraaa ! Brraaaaa ! Prrrrp ! It's a trifle windy up 
 here and, Great Boflers! how it rains!' 
 
 'We're drowning,' said the scuppers. They had been 
 doing nothing else all night, but this steady thrash of 
 rain above them seemed to be the end of the world. 
 
 'That's all right. We'll be easier in an hour or 
 two. First the wind and then the rain : Soon you may 
 make sail again ! Grrraaaaaah ! Drrrraaaa ! Drrrp ! I 
 have a notion that the sea is going down already. If 
 it does you'll learn something about rolling. We've 
 only pitched till now. By the way, aren't you chaps in 
 the hold a little easier than you were? ' 
 
 There was just as much groaning and straining as 
 ever, but it was not so loud or squeaky in tone; and 
 when the ship quivered she did not jar stiffly, like a 
 poker hit on the floor, but gave with a supple little wag- 
 gle, like a perfectly balanced golf -club. 
 
 'We have made a most amazing discovery,' said the 
 stringers, one after another. ' A discovery that entirely 
 changes the situation. We have found, for the first 
 time in the history of shipbuilding, that the inward pull 
 of the deck-beams and the outward thrust of the frames 
 lock us, as it were, more closely in our places, and enables 
 us to endure a strain which is entirely without parallel 
 in the records of marine architecture.' 
 
 The Steam turned a laugh quickly into a roar up the 
 fog-horn. ' What massive intellects you great stringers 
 have,' he said softly, when he had finished. 
 
 * We also,' began the deck-beams, 'are discoverers and 
 geniuses. We are of opinion that the support of the 
 
 87 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 hold-pillars materially helps us. We find that we lock 
 up on them when we are subjected to a heavy and singu- 
 lar weight of sea above.' 
 
 Here the 'Dimbula' shot down a hollow, lying almost 
 on her side— righting at the bottom with a wrench and a 
 spasm. 
 
 ' In these cases — are you aware of this, Steam? — the 
 plating at the bows, and particularly at the stern — we 
 would also mention the floors beneath us — help us to 
 resist any tendency to spring.' The frames spoke in 
 the solemn, awed voice which people use when they 
 have just come across something entirely new for the 
 very first time. 
 
 ' I'm only a poor puffy little flutterer,' said the Steam, 
 ' but I have to stand a good deal of pressure in my busi- 
 ness. It's all tremendously interesting. Tell us some 
 more. You fellows are so strong.' 
 
 * Watch us and you'll see,' said the bow-plates, proudly. 
 'Ready, behind there! Here's the Father and Mother 
 of Waves coming ! Sit tight, rivets all ! ' A great sluic- 
 ing comber thundered by, but through the scuffle and 
 confusion the Steam could hear the low, quick cries 
 of the ironwork as the various strains took them — cries 
 like these: 'Easy, now — easy! Now push for all your 
 strength! Holdout! Give a fraction ! Holdup! Pull 
 in! Shove crossways! Mind the strain at the ends! 
 Grip, now ! Bite tight ! Let the water get away from 
 under — and there she goes!' 
 
 The wave raced off into the darkness, shouting, 'Not 
 bad, that, if it's your first run!' and the drenched and 
 ducked ship throbbed to the beat of the engines inside 
 her. All three cylinders were white with the salt spray 
 that had come down through the engine-room hatch; 
 
 88 
 
THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF 
 
 there was white fur on the canvas-bound steam-pipes, 
 and even the bright-work deep below was speckled and 
 soiled; but the cylinders had learned to make the most 
 of steam that was half water, and were pounding along 
 cheerfully. 
 
 ' How's the noblest outcome of human ingenuity hitting 
 it?' said the Steam, as he whirled through the engine-room. 
 
 'Nothing for nothing in this world of woe,' the cylin- 
 ders answered, as though they had been working for 
 centuries, 'and precious little for seventy-five pounds' 
 head. We've made two knots this last hour and a 
 quarter! Rather humiliating for eight hundred horse- 
 power, isn't it? ' 
 
 'Well, it's better than drifting astern, at any rate. 
 You seem rather less — how shall I put it? — stiff in the 
 back than you were.' 
 
 'If you'd been hammered as we've been this night, 
 you wouldn't be stiff — iff — ^iff , either. Theo-reti — retti — 
 retti — cally, of course, rigidity is the thing. Purrr — 
 purr — practically, there has to be a little give and take. 
 We found that out by working on our sides for five 
 minutes at a stretch — chch — chh. How's the weather?' 
 
 'Sea's going down fast,' said the Steam. 
 
 'Good business,' said the high-pressure cylinder. 
 'Whack her up, boys. They've given us five pounds 
 more steam'; and he began humming the first bars of 
 'Said the young Obadiah to the old Obadiah,' which, as 
 you may have noticed, is a pet tune among engines not 
 built for high speed. Racing-liners with twin-screws 
 sing 'The Turkish Patrol' and the overture to 'The 
 Bronze Horse,' and 'Madame Angot,' till something 
 goes wrong, and then they render Gounod's 'Funeral 
 March of a Marionette,' with variations. 
 
 89 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'You'll learn a song of your own some fine day,' said 
 the Steam, as he flew up the fog-horn for one last bellow. 
 
 Next day the sky cleared and the sea dropped a little, 
 and the 'Dimbula' began to roll from side to side till 
 every inch of iron in her was sick and giddy. But 
 luckily they did not all feel ill at the same time: other- 
 wise she would have opened out like a w^et paper box. 
 
 The Steam whistled warnings as he went about his 
 business: it is in this short, quick roll and tumble that 
 follows a heavy sea that most of the accidents happen, 
 for then everything thinks that the worst is over and 
 goes off guard. So he orated and chattered till the 
 beams and frames and floors and stringers and things 
 had learned how to lock down and lockup on one another, 
 and endure this new kind of strain. 
 
 They found ample time to practise, for they were 
 sixteen days at sea, and it was foul weather till within 
 a hundred miles of New York. The ' Dimbula ' picked 
 up her pilot, and came in covered with salt and red rust. 
 Her funnel was dirty gray from top to bottom; two 
 boats had been carried away; three copper ventilators 
 looked like hats after a flght with the police; the bridge 
 had a dimple in the middle of it ; the house that covered 
 the steam steering-gear was split as with hatchets; there 
 was a bill for small repairs in the engine-room almost as 
 long as the screw-shaft; the forward cargo-hatch fell into 
 bucket-staves when they raised the iron cross-bars ; and 
 the steam-capstan had been badly wrenched on its bed. 
 Altogether, as the skipper said, it was ' a pretty general 
 average.' 
 
 'But she's soupled,' he said to Mr. Buchanan. 'For 
 all her dead weight she rode like a yacht. Ye mind 
 that last blow off the Banks? I am proud of her, Buck.' 
 
 90 
 
THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF 
 
 'It's vara good,' said the chief engineer, looking along 
 the dishevelled decks. 'Now, a man judgin' superfee- 
 cially would say we were a wreck, but we know otherwise 
 — by experience.' 
 
 Naturally everything in the ' Dimbula' fairly stiffened 
 with pride, and the foremast and the forward collision- 
 bulkhead, who are pushing creatures, begged the Steam 
 to warn the Port of New York of their arrival. 'Tell 
 those big boats all about us,' they said. 'They seem to 
 take us quite as a matter of course.' 
 
 It was a glorious, clear, dead calm morning, and in 
 single file, with less than half a mile between each, their 
 bands playing and their tug-boats shouting and waving 
 handkerchiefs, were the 'Majestic,' the 'Paris,' the 
 'Touraine,' the 'Servia,' the 'Kaiser Wilhelm II.,' and 
 the 'Werkendam,' all statelily going out to sea. As 
 the 'Dimbula' shifted her helm to give the great boats 
 clear way, the Steam (who knows far too much to mind 
 making an exhibition of himself now and then) shouted : 
 
 'Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Princes, Dukes, and Barons 
 of the High Seas! Know ye by these presents, we are 
 the "Dimbula, " fifteen days nine hours from Liverpool, 
 having crossed the Atlantic with three thousand ton of 
 cargo for the first time in our career! We have not 
 foundered. We are here. 'Eer! 'Eer! We are not 
 disabled. But we have had a time wholly unparalleled 
 in the annals of shipbuilding! Our decks were swept! 
 We pitched; we rolled! We thought we were going to 
 die! Hi! Hi! But we didn't. We wish to give notice 
 that we have come to New York all the way across 
 the Atlantic, through the worst weather in the world; 
 and we are the "Dimbula"! We are — arr — ha — ha — 
 ha-r-r-r!' 
 
 91 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 The beautiful line of boats swept by as steadily as 
 the procession of the Seasons. The 'Dimbula' heard 
 the 'Majestic' say, 'Hmph!' and the 'Paris' grunted, 
 'How!' and the 'Touraine' said, 'Oui!' with a little co- 
 quettish flicker of steam; and the 'Servia' said, 'Haw!' 
 and the 'Kaiser' and the 'Werkendam' said, 'Hoch!' 
 Dutch-fashion — and that was absolutely all. 
 
 'I did my best,' said the Steam, gravely, 'but I don't 
 think they were much impressed with us, somehow. 
 Do you?' 
 
 'It's simply disgusting,' said the bow^-plates. 'They 
 might have seen what we've been through. There isn't 
 a ship on the sea that has suffered as we have — is there, 
 now?' 
 
 'Well, I wouldn't go so far as that,' said the Steam, 
 'because I've worked on some of those boats, and sent 
 them through weather quite as bad as the fortnight that 
 we've had, in six days; and some of them are a little 
 over ten thousand tons, I believe. Now I've seen the 
 "Majestic," for instance, ducked from her bows to her 
 funnel; and I've helped the "Arizona," I think she was, 
 to back off an iceberg she met with one dark night; and 
 I had to run out of the "Paris's" engine-room, one day, 
 because there was thirty foot of water in it. Of course, 
 I don't deny — ' The Steam shut off suddenly, as a tug- 
 boat, loaded with a political club and a brass band, that 
 had been to see a New York Senator off to Europe, 
 crossed their bows, going to Hoboken. There was a 
 long silence that reached, without a break, from the cut- 
 water to the propeller-blades of the 'Dimbula.' 
 
 Then a new, big voice said slowly and thickly, as 
 though the owner had just waked up: 'It's my convic- 
 tion that I have made a fool of myself.' 
 
 92 
 
THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF 
 
 The Steam knew what had happened at once; for 
 when a ship finds herself all the talking of the separate 
 pieces ceases and melts into one voice, which is the soul 
 of the ship. 
 
 'Who are you?' he said, with a laugh. 
 
 T am the "Dimbula,"of course. Eve never been any- 
 thing else except that — and a fool!' 
 
 The tug-boat, which was doing its very best to be run 
 down, got away just in time, its band playing clashily 
 and brassily a popular but impolite air: 
 
 In the days of old Rameses— are you on? 
 
 In the days of old Rameses — are you on? 
 
 In the days of old Rameses, 
 
 That story had paresis. 
 
 Are you on — are you on — are you on? 
 
 'Well, I'm glad you've found yourself,' said the 
 Steam. 'To tell the truth I was a little tired of talking 
 to all those ribs and stringers. Here's Quarantine. 
 After that we'll go to our wharf and clean up a little, 
 and — next month we'll do it all over again.' 
 
 93 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 (1897) 
 
 SOME people will tell you that if there were but a 
 single loaf of bread in all India it would be di- 
 vided equally between the Plowdens, the Trevors, 
 the Beadons, and the Rivett-Carnacs. That is only 
 one way of saying that certain families serve India 
 generation after generation as dolphins follow in line 
 across the open sea. 
 
 Let us take a small and obscure case. There has been 
 at least one representative of the Devonshire Chinns in 
 or near Central India since the days of Lieutenant- 
 Fireworker Humphrey Chinn, of the Bombay European 
 Regiment, who assisted at the capture of Seringapa- 
 tam in 1799. Alfred Ellis Chinn, Humphrey's younger 
 brother, commanded a regiment of Bombay grenadiers 
 from 1804 to 1813, when he saw some mixed fighting; 
 and in 1834 John Chinn of the same family — we will call 
 him John Chinn the First — came to light as a level- 
 headed administrator in time of trouble at a place called 
 Mundesur. He died young, but left his mark on the 
 new country, and the Honourable the Board of Directors 
 of the Honourable the East India Company embodied 
 his virtues in a stately resolution, and paid for the ex- 
 penses of his tomb among the Satpura hills. 
 
 He was succeeded by his son, Lionel Chinn, who left 
 
 94 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 the little old Devonshire home just in time to be severely 
 wounded in the Mutiny. He spent his working life 
 within a hundred and fifty miles of John Chinn's grave, 
 and rose to the command of a regiment of small, wild 
 hill-men, most of whom had known his father. His son 
 John was born in the small thatched-roofed, mud-walled 
 cantonment, which is, even to-day, eighty miles from 
 the nearest railway, in the heart of a scrubby, tigerish 
 country. Colonel Lionel Chinn served thirty years and 
 retired. In the Canal his steamer passed the outward- 
 bound troopship carrying his son John Chinn the Second 
 eastward to the family duties. 
 
 The Chinns are luckier than most folk, because they 
 know exactly what they must do. A clever Chinn 
 passes for the Bombay Civil Service, and gets away to 
 Central India, where everybody is glad to see him. A 
 dull Chinn enters the Police Department or the Woods 
 and Forests, and sooner or later he, too, appears in 
 Central India, and that is what gave rise to the saying, 
 'Central India is inhabited by Bhils, Mairs, and Chinns, 
 all very much alike.' The breed is small-boned, dark, 
 and silent, and the stupidest of them are good shots. 
 John Chinn the Second was rather clever, but as the 
 eldest son he entered the army, according to Chinn tra- 
 dition. His duty was to abide in his father's regiment 
 for the term of his natural life, though the corps was one 
 which most men would have paid heavily to avoid. 
 They were irregulars, small, dark, and blackish, clothed 
 in rifle-green with black-leather trimmings; and friends 
 called them the 'Wuddars,' which means a race of low- 
 caste people who dig up rats to eat. But the Wuddars 
 did not resent it. They were the only Wuddars, and 
 their points of pride were these: 
 
 95 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 Firstly, they had fewer EngUsh officers than any 
 native regiment. Secondly, their subalterns were not 
 mounted on parade, as is the general rule, but walked 
 at the head of their men. A man who can hold his own 
 with the Wuddars at their quickstep must be sound in 
 wind and limb. Thirdly, they were the most pukka 
 shikarries (out-and-out hunters) in all India. Fourthly 
 —up to one hundredthly — they were the Wuddars — 
 Chinn's Irregular Bhil Levies of the old days, but now, 
 henceforward and for ever, the Wuddars. 
 
 No Englishman entered their mess except for love 
 or through family usage. The officers talked to their 
 soldiers in a tongue not two hundred white folk in India 
 understood; and the men were their children, all drawn 
 from the Bhils, who are, perhaps, the strangest of the 
 many strange races in India. They were, and at heart 
 are, wild men, furtive, shy, full of untold superstitions. 
 The races whom we call natives of the country found 
 the Bhil in possession of the land when they first broke 
 into that part of the world thousands of years ago. 
 The books call them Pre-Aryan, Aboriginal, Dravidian, 
 and so forth; and, in other words, that is what the Bhils 
 call themselves. When a Rajput chief, whose bards 
 can sing his pedigree backwards for twelve hundred 
 years, is set on the throne, his investiture is not com- 
 plete till he has been marked on the forehead with blood 
 from the veins of a Bhil. The Rajputs say the cere- 
 mony has no meaning, but the Bhil knows that it is the 
 last, last shadow of his old rights as the long-ago owner 
 of the soil. 
 
 Centuries of oppression and massacre made the Bhil a 
 cruel and half-crazy thief and cattle-stealer, and when 
 the English came he seemed to be almost as open to 
 
 96 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 civilisation as tlic tigers of his own jungles. But John 
 Chinn the First, father of Lionel, grandfather of our 
 John, went into his country, lived with him, learned his 
 language, shot the deer that stole his poor crops, and 
 won his confidence, so that some Bhils learned to plough 
 and sow, while others were coaxed into the Company's 
 service to police their friends. 
 
 When they understood that standing in line did not 
 mean instant execution, they accepted soldiering as a 
 cumbrous but amusing kind of sport, and were zealous 
 to keep the wild Bhils under control. That was the thin 
 edge of the wedge. John Chinn the First gave them 
 written promises that, if they were good from a certain 
 date, the Government would overlook previous off ences ; 
 and since John Chinn was never known to break his 
 word — he promised once to hang a Bhil locally esteemed 
 invulnerable, and hanged him in front of his tribe for 
 seven proved murders — the Bhils settled down as steadily 
 as they knew how. It was slow, unseen work, of the 
 sort that is being done all over India to-day; and though 
 John Chinn' s only reward came, as I have said, in the 
 shape of a grave at Government expense, the little peo- 
 ple of the hills never forgot him. 
 
 Colonel Lionel Chinn knew and loved them too, and 
 they were very fairly civilised, for Bhils, before his 
 service ended. Many of them could hardly be distin- 
 guished from low-caste Hindoo farmers; but in the 
 south, where John Chinn the First was buried, the wild- 
 est still clung to the Satpura ranges, cherishing a legend 
 that some day Jan Chinn, as they called him, would re- 
 turn to his own. In the meantime they mistrusted the 
 white man and his ways. The least excitement would 
 stampede them plundering at random, and now and 
 
 97 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 then killing; but if they were handled discreetly they 
 grieved like children, and promised never to do it again. 
 
 The Bhils of the regiment— the uniformed men- 
 were virtuous in many ways, but they needed humour- 
 ing. They felt bored and homesick unless taken after 
 tigers as beaters; and their cold-blooded daring — all 
 Wuddars shoot tigers on foot: it is their caste-mark — 
 made even the ofTicers wonder. They would follow up 
 a wounded tiger as unconcernedly as though it were a 
 sparrow with a broken wing; and this through a country 
 full of caves and rifts and pits, where a wild beast could 
 hold a dozen men at his mercy. Now and then some 
 little man was brought to barracks with his head smashed 
 in or his ribs torn away; but his companions never 
 learned caution. They contented themselves with set- 
 tling the tiger. 
 
 Young John Chinn was decanted at the veranda of 
 the Wuddars' lonely mess-house from the back seat of a 
 two-wheeled cart, his gun-cases cascading all round him. 
 The slender, little, hookey-nosed boy looked forlorn as a 
 strayed goat when he slapped the white dust off his 
 knees, and the cart jolted down the glaring road. But 
 in his heart he was contented. After all, this was the 
 place where he had been born, and things were not much 
 changed since he had been sent to England, a child, 
 fifteen years ago. 
 
 There were a few new buildings, but the air and the 
 smell and the sunshine were the same; and the little 
 green men who crossed the parade-ground looked very 
 familiar. Three weeks ago John Chinn would have said 
 he did not remember a word of the Bhil tongue, but at 
 the mess-door he found his lips moving in sentences that 
 he did not understand — bits of old nursery rhymes, and 
 
 98 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 tail-ends of such orders as his father used to give the 
 men. 
 
 The Colonel watched him come up the steps, and 
 laughed. 
 
 'Look!' he said to the Major. 'No need to ask the 
 young un's breed. He's a pukka Chinn. Might be his 
 father in the Fifties over again.' 
 
 'Hope he'll shoot as straight,' said the Major. 'He's 
 brought enough ironmongery with him.' 
 
 ' 'Wouldn't be a Chinn if he didn't. Watch him 
 blowin' his nose. Regular Chinn beak. Flourishes his 
 handkerchief like his father. It's the second edition- 
 line for line.' 
 
 'Fairy tale, by Jove!' said the Major, peering through 
 the slats of the jalousies. 'If he's the lawful heir, he'll 
 . . . Now old Chinn could no more pass that chick 
 without fiddling with it than . . . 
 
 'His son!' said the Colonel, jumping up. 
 
 'Well, I be blowed!' said the Major. The boy's eye 
 had been caught by a split reed screen that hung on a 
 slew between the veranda pillars, and mechanically he 
 had tweaked the edge to set it level. Old Chinn had 
 sworn three times a day at that screen for many years ; 
 he could never get it to his satisfaction. His son en- 
 tered the anteroom in the middle of a five-fold silence. 
 They made him welcome for his father's sake and, as 
 they took stock of him, for his own. He was ridicu- 
 lously like the portrait of the Colonel on the wall, and 
 when he had washed a little of the dust from his throat 
 he went to his quarters with the old man's short, noise- 
 less jungle-step. 
 
 'So much for heredity,' said the Major. 'That comes 
 of three generations among the Bhils.' 
 
 99 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 ' And the men know it,' said a Wing-officer. ' They've 
 been waiting for this youth with their tongues hanging 
 out. I am persuaded that, unless he absolutely beats 
 'em over the head, they'll lie down by companies and 
 worship him.' 
 
 'Nothin' like havin' a father before you,' said the 
 Major. *rm a parvenu with my chaps. I've only 
 been twenty years in the regiment, and my revered 
 parent he was a simple squire. There's no getting at 
 the bottom of a Bhil's mind. Now, why is the superior 
 bearer that young Chin brought with him fleeing across 
 country with his bundle? ' He stepped into the veranda, 
 and shouted after the man — a typical new-joined sub- 
 altern's servant who speaks English and cheats his mas- 
 ter. 
 
 'What is it?' he called. 
 
 'Plenty bad men here. I going, sar,' was the reply. 
 'Have taken Sahib's keys, and say will shoot.' 
 
 'Doocid lucid — doocid convincin'. How those up- 
 country thieves can leg it ! He has been badly frightened 
 by some one.' The Major strolled to his quarters to 
 dress for mess. 
 
 Young Chinn, walking like a man in a dream, had 
 fetched a compass round the entire cantonment before 
 going to his own tiny cottage. The captain's quarters, 
 in which he had been born, delayed him for a little; then 
 he looked at the well on the parade-ground, where he had 
 sat of evenings with his nurse, and at the ten-by-four- 
 teen church, where the oflficers went to service if a chap- 
 lain of any official creed happened to come along. It 
 seemed very small compared with the gigantic building 
 he used to stare up at, but it was the same place. 
 
 From time to time he passed a knot of silent soldiers, 
 
 100 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 who saluted. They might have been the very men who 
 had carried him on their backs when he was in his first 
 knickerbockers. A faint Hght burned in his room, and, 
 as he entered, hands clasped his feet, and a voice mur- 
 mured from the floor. 
 
 'Who is it?' said young Chinn, not knowing that he 
 spoke in the Bhil tongue. 
 
 'I bore you in my arms. Sahib, when I was a strong 
 man and you were a small one — crying, crying, crying! 
 I am your servant, as I was your father's before you. 
 We are all your servants.' 
 
 Young Chinn could not trust himself to reply, and the 
 voice went on : 
 
 ' I have taken your keys from that fat foreigner, and 
 sent him away; and the studs are in the shirt for mess. 
 Who should know, if I do not know? And so the baby 
 has become a man, and forgets his nurse; but my nephew 
 shall make a good servant, or I will beat him twice a day.' 
 
 Then there rose up, with a rattle, as straight as a Bhil 
 arrow, a little white-haired wizened ape of a man, with 
 medals and orders on his tunic, stammering, saluting, 
 and trembling. Behind him a young and wiry Bhil, in 
 uniform, was taking the trees out of Chinn's mess-boots. 
 
 Chinn's eyes were full of tears. The old man held 
 out his keys. 
 
 'Foreigners are bad people. He will never come 
 back again. W> are all servants of your father's son. 
 Has the Sahib forgotten who took him to see the trapped 
 tiger in the village across the river, when his mother was 
 so frightened and he was so brave? ' 
 
 The scene came back to Chinn in great magic-lan- 
 tern flashes. 'Bukta!' he cried; and all in a breath: 
 'You promised nothing should hurt me. Is it Bukta?' 
 
 101 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 The man was at his feet a second time. *He has not 
 forgotten. He remembers his own people as his father 
 remembered. Now can I die. But first I will live and 
 show the Sahib how to kill tigers. That that yonder 
 is my nephew. If he is not a good servant, beat him 
 and send him to me, and I wall surely kill him, for now 
 the Sahib is with his own people. Ai, Jan baba — Jan 
 baba! My Jan baba! I will stay here and see that 
 this does his work well. Take off his boots, fool. Sit 
 down upon the bed. Sahib, and let me look. It is Jan 
 baba?' 
 
 He pushed forward the hilt of his sword as a sign of 
 service, which is an honour paid only to viceroys, gov- 
 ernors, generals, or to little children whom one loves 
 dearly. Chinn touched the hilt mechanically with 
 three fmgers, muttering he knew not what. It hap- 
 pened to be the old answer of his childhood, when Bukta 
 in jest called him the little General Sahib. 
 
 The Major's quarters were opposite Chinn' s, and when 
 he heard his servant gasp with surprise he looked 
 across the room. Then the Major sat on the bed and 
 whistled; for the spectacle of the senior native com- 
 missioned officer of the regiment, an 'unmixed' Bhil, 
 a Companion of the Order of British India, with thirty- 
 five years' spotless service in the army, and a rank 
 among his own people superior to that of many Bengal 
 princelings, valeting the last-joined subaltern, was a little 
 too much for his nerves. 
 
 The throaty bugles blew the Mess-call that has a long 
 legend behind it. First a few piercing notes like the 
 shrieks of beaters in a far-away cover, and next, large, 
 full, and smooth, the refrain of the wild song: 'And oh, 
 and oh, the green pulse of Mundore — Mundore ! ' 
 
 102 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 'All little children were in bed when the Sahib heard 
 that call last,' said Bukta, passing Chinn a clean hand- 
 kerchief. The call brought back memories of his cot 
 under the mosquito-netting, his mother's kiss, and the 
 sound of footsteps growing fainter as he dropped asleep 
 among his men. So he hooked the dark collar of his 
 new mess-jacket, and went to dinner like a prince who 
 has newly inherited his father's crown. 
 
 Old Bukta swaggered forth curling his whiskers. He 
 knew his own value, and no money and no rank within 
 the gift of the Government would have induced him to 
 put studs in young officers' shirts, or to hand them 
 clean ties. Yet, when he took off his uniform that night, 
 and squatted among his fellows for a quiet smoke, he 
 told them what he had done, and they said that he was 
 entirely right. Thereat Bukta propounded a theory 
 which to a white mind would have seemed raving in- 
 sanity; but the whispering, level-headed little men of 
 war considered it from every point of view, and thought 
 that there might be a great deal in it. 
 
 At mess under the oil-lamps the talk turned as usual 
 to the unfailing subject of shikar — big-game shooting 
 of every kind and under all sorts of conditions. Young 
 Chinn opened his eyes when he understood that each 
 one of his companions had shot several tigers in the 
 Wuddar style — on foot, that is — making no more of the 
 business than if the brute had been a dog. 
 
 'In nine cases out of ten,' said the Major, 'a tiger is 
 almost as dangerous as a porcupine. But the tenth 
 time you come home feet first.' 
 
 That set all talking, and long before midnight Chinn's 
 brain was in a whirl with stories of tigers — man-eaters 
 and cattle-killers each pursuing his own business as 
 
 103 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 methodically as clerks in an office; new tigers that had 
 lately come into such-and-such a district; and old, 
 friendly beasts of great cunning, known by nicknames 
 in the mess — such as 'Puggy,' who was lazy, with huge 
 paws, and 'Mrs. Malaprop,' who turned up when you 
 never expected her, and made female noises. Then 
 they spoke of Bhil superstitions, a wide and picturesque 
 field, till young Chinn hinted that they must be pulling 
 his leg. 
 
 ' 'Deed we aren't,' said a man on his left. 'We know 
 all about you. You're a Chinn and all that, and you've 
 a sort of vested right here; but if you don't believe what 
 we're telling you, what will you do when old Bukta 
 begins his stories? He knows about ghost-tigers, and 
 tigers that go to a hell of their own ; and tigers that walk 
 on their hind feet; and your grandpapa's riding-tiger, as 
 well. Odd he hasn't spoken of that yet.' 
 
 'You know you've an ancestor buried down Satpura 
 way, don't you?' said the Major, as Chinn smiled irres- 
 olutely. 
 
 'Of course I do,' said Chinn, who had the chronicle 
 of the Book of Chinn by heart. It lies in a worn old 
 ledger on the Chinese lacquer table behind the piano in 
 the Devonshire home, and the children are allowed to 
 look at it on Sundays. 
 
 * Well, I wasn't sure. Your revered ancestor, my boy, 
 according to the Bhils, has a tiger of his own — a sad- 
 dle-tiger that he rides round the country whenever he 
 feels inclined. I don't call it decent in an ex-Collector's 
 ghost; but that is what the Southern Bhils believe. 
 Even our men, who might be called moderately cool, 
 don't care to beat that country if they hear that Jan 
 Chinn is running about on his tiger. It is supposed to 
 
 104 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 be a clouded animal — not slripy, l)ut blotchy, like a 
 tortoise-shell tom-cat. No end of a brute, it is, and a 
 sure sign of war or pestilence or — or something. There's 
 a nice family legend for you.' 
 
 'What's the origin of it, d'you suppose?' said Chinn. 
 
 ' Ask the Satpura Bhils. Old Jan Chinn was a mighty 
 hunter before the Lord. Perhaps it was the tiger's 
 revenge, or perhaps he's huntin' 'em still. You must 
 go to his tomb one of these days and inquire. Bukta 
 will probably attend to that. He was asking me before 
 you came whether by any ill-luck you had already 
 bagged your tiger. If not, he is going to enter you under 
 his own wing. Of course, for you of all men it's im- 
 perative. You'll have a first-class time with Bukta.' 
 
 The Major was not wrong. Bukta kept an anxious 
 eye on young Chinn at drill, and it was noticeable that 
 the first time the new officer lifted up his voice in an 
 order the whole line quivered. Even the Colonel was 
 taken aback, for it might have been Lionel Chinn re- 
 turned from Devonshire with a new lease of life. Bukta 
 had continued to develop his peculiar theory among 
 his intimates, and it was accepted as a matter of faith 
 in the lines, since every word and gesture on young 
 Chinn's part so confirmed it. 
 
 The old man arranged early that his darling should 
 wipe out the reproach of not having shot a tiger; but he 
 was not content to take the first or any beast that hap- 
 pened to arrive. In his own villages he dispensed the 
 high, low, and middle justice, and when his people — 
 naked and fluttered — came to him with word of a beast 
 marked down, he bade them send spies to the kills and 
 the watering-places, that he might be sure the quarry 
 was such an one as suited the dignity of such a man. 
 
 105 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 Three or four times the reckless trackers returned, 
 most truthfully saying that the beast was mangy, under- 
 sized- — a tigress worn with nursing, or a broken-toothed 
 old male — and Bukta would curb young Chinn's im- 
 patience. 
 
 At last, a noble animal was marked down — a ten-foot 
 cattle-killer with a huge roll of loose skin along the belly, 
 glossy-hided, full-frilled about the neck, whiskered, frisky, 
 and young. He had slain a man in pure sport, they 
 said. 
 
 'Let him be fed,' quoth Bukta, and the villagers duti- 
 fully drove out cows to amuse him, that he might lie up 
 near by. 
 
 Princes and potentates have taken ship to India and 
 spent great moneys for the mere glimpse of beasts one- 
 half as fme as this of Bukta's. 
 
 'It is not good,' said he to the Colonel, when he asked 
 for shooting-leave, 'that my Colonel's son who may be 
 — that my Colonel's son should lose his maidenhead on 
 any small jungle beast. That may come after. I have 
 waited long for this which is a tiger. He has come in 
 from the Mair country. In seven days we will return 
 with the skin.' 
 
 The mess gnashed their teeth enviously. Bukta, 
 had he chosen, might have invited them all. But he 
 went out alone with Chinn, two days in a shooting-cart 
 and a day on foot, till they came to a rocky, glary valley 
 with a pool of good water in it. It was a parching day, 
 and the boy very naturally stripped and went in for a 
 bathe, leaving Bukta by the clothes. A white skin 
 shows far against brown jungle, and what Bukta beheld 
 on Chinn's back and right shoulder dragged him forward 
 step by step with staring eyeballs. 
 
 106 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 'I'd forgotten it isn't decent to strip before a man of 
 his position,' said Chinn, flouncing in the water. 'How 
 the little devil stares ! What is it, Bukta? ' 
 
 'The Mark!' was the whispered answer. 
 
 ' It is nothing. You know how it is with my people!' 
 Chinn was annoyed. The dull-red birth-mark on his 
 shoulder, something like a conventionalised Tartar cloud, 
 had slipped his memory, or he would not have bathed. It 
 occurred, so they said at home, in alternate generations, 
 appearing, curiously enough, eight or nine years after 
 birth, and, save that it was part of the Chinn inheri- 
 tance, would not be considered pretty. He hurried 
 ashore, dressed again, and went on till they met two or 
 three Bhils, who promptly fell on their faces. 'My 
 people,' grunted Bukta, not condescending to notice 
 them. 'And so your people, Sahib. When I was a 
 young man we were fewer, but not so weak. Now we 
 are many, but poor stock. As may be remembered. 
 How will you shoot him, Sahib? From a tree; from a 
 shelter which my people shall build; by day or by night? ' 
 
 ' On foot and in the daytime,' said young Chinn. 
 
 *That was your custom, as I have heard,' said Bukta 
 to himself. ' I will get news of him. Then you and I 
 will go to him. I will carry one gun. You have yours. 
 There is no need of more. What tiger shall stand against 
 thee?' 
 
 He was marked down by a little water-hole at the head 
 of a ravine, full-gorged and half asleep in the May sun- 
 light. He was walked up like a partridge, and he turned 
 to do battle for his life. Bukta made no motion to raise 
 his rifle, but kept his eyes on Chinn, who met the shat- 
 tering roar of the charge with a single shot — it seemed 
 to him hours as he sighted — which tore through the 
 
 107 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 throat, smashing the backbone below the neck and 
 between the shoulders. The brute crouched, choked, 
 and fell, and before Chinn knew well what had hap- 
 pened Bukta bade him stay still while he paced the 
 distance between his feet and the ringing jaws. 
 
 'Fifteen,' said Bukta. 'Short paces. No need for a 
 second shot, Sahib. He bleeds cleanly where he lies, 
 and we need not spoil the skin. I said there would be 
 no need of these, but they came — in case.' 
 
 Suddenly the sides of the ravine were crowned with 
 the heads of Bukta's people — a force that could have 
 blown the ribs out of the beast had Chinn's shot failed; 
 but their guns were hidden, and they appeared as in- 
 terested beaters, some five or six, waiting the word to 
 skin. Bukta watched the life fade from the wild eyes, 
 lifted one hand, and turned on his heel. 
 
 'No need to show that we care,' said he. 'Now, after 
 this, we can kill what we choose. Put out your hand. 
 Sahib.' 
 
 Chinn obeyed. It was entirely steady, and Bukta 
 nodded. 'That also was your custom. My men skin 
 quickly. They will carry the skin to cantonments. Will 
 the Sahib come to my poor village for the night and, 
 perhaps, forget that I am his officer? ' 
 
 'But those men — the beaters. They have worked 
 hard, and perhaps — ' 
 
 'Oh, if they skin clumsily, we will skin them. They 
 are my people. In the Lines I am one thing. Here I 
 am another.' 
 
 This was very true. When Bukta doffed uniform 
 and reverted to the fragmentary dress of his own people, 
 he left his civilisation of drill in the next world. That 
 night, after a little talk with his subjects, he devoted 
 
 108 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 to an orgie; and a Bhil orgie is a thing not to be safely 
 written about. Chinn, flushed with triumph, was in the 
 thick of it, but the meaning of the mysteries was hidden. 
 Wild folk came and pressed about his knees with olTer- 
 ings. He gave his flask to the elders of the village. 
 They grew eloquent, and wreathed him about with 
 flowers. Gifts and loans, not all seemly, were thrust 
 upon him, and infernal music rolled and maddened 
 round red fires, while singers sang songs of the ancient 
 times, and danced peculiar dances. The aboriginal 
 liquors are very potent, and Chinn was compelled to 
 taste them often, but, unless the stuff had been drugged, 
 how came he to fall asleep suddenly, and to waken late 
 the next day — half a march from the village? 
 
 'The Sahib was very tired. A little before dawn he 
 went to sleep,' Bukta explained. 'My people carried 
 him here, and now it is time we should go back to can- 
 tonments.' 
 
 The voice, smooth and deferential, the step, steady 
 and silent, made it hard to believe that only a few hours 
 before Bukta was yelling and capering with naked fellow- 
 devils of the scrub. 
 
 ' My people were very pleased to see the Sahib. They 
 will never forget. When next the Sahib goes out recruit- 
 ing, he will go to my people, and they will give him as 
 many men as we need.' 
 
 Chinn kept his own counsel, except as to the shooting 
 of the tiger, and Bukta embroidered that tale with a 
 shameless tongue. The skin was certainly one of the 
 finest ever hung up in the mess, and the first of many. 
 When Bukta* could not accompany his boy on shoot- 
 ing-trips, he took care to put him in good hands, and 
 Chinn learned more of the mind and desire of the wild 
 
 109 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 Bhil in his marches and campings, by talks at twilight 
 or at wayside pools, than an uninstructed man could 
 have come at in a lifetime. 
 
 Presently his men in the regiment grew bold to speak 
 of their relatives — mostly in trouble — and to lay cases 
 of tribal custom before him. They would say, squat- 
 ting in his veranda at twilight, after the easy, confiden- 
 tial style of the Wuddars, that such-and-such a bachelor 
 had run away with such-and-such a wife at a far-off 
 village. Now, how many cows would Chinn Sahib 
 consider a just fine? Or, again, if written order came 
 from the Government that a Bhil was to repair to a 
 walled city of the plains to give evidence in a law-court, 
 would it be wise to disregard that order? On the other 
 hand, if it were obeyed, would the rash voyager return 
 alive? 
 
 ' But what have I to do with these things? ' Chinn de- 
 manded of Bukta, impatiently. ' I am a soldier. I do 
 not know the Law.' 
 
 'Hoo! Law is for fools and white men. Give them 
 a large and loud order and they will abide by it. Thou 
 art their Law.' 
 
 ' But wherefore? ' 
 
 Every trace of expression left Bukta's countenance. 
 The idea might have smitten him for the first time. 
 *How can I say?' he replied. * Perhaps it is on account 
 of the name. A Bhil does not love strange things. 
 Give them orders. Sahib — two, three, four words at a 
 time — such as they can carry away in their heads. 
 That is enough.' 
 
 Chinn gave orders then, valiantly, not realising that a 
 word spoken in haste before mess became the dread 
 unappealable law of villages beyond the smoky hills — 
 
 110 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 was, in truth, no less than the Law of Jan Chinn the 
 First, who, so the whispered legend ran, had come back 
 to earth to oversee the third generation in the body and 
 bones of his grandson. 
 
 There could be no sort of doubt in this matter. All 
 the Bhils knew that Jan Chinn reincarnated had hon- 
 oured Bukta's village with his presence after slaying his 
 first — in this life — tiger; that he had eaten and drunk 
 with the people, as he was used; and — Bukta must have 
 drugged Chinn's liquor very deeply — upon his back and 
 right shoulder all men had seen the same angry red 
 Flying Cloud that the high Gods had set on the flesh of 
 Jan Chinn the First when first he came to the Bhil. 
 As concerned the foolish white world which has no eyes, 
 he was a slim and young officer in the Wuddars ; but his 
 own people knew he was Jan Chinn, who had made the 
 Bhil a man; and, believing, they hastened to carry his 
 words, careful never to alter them on the way. 
 
 Because the savage and the child who plays lonely 
 games have one horror of being laughed at or questioned, 
 the little folk kept their convictions to themselves; and 
 the Colonel, who thought he knew his regiment, never 
 guessed that each one of the six hundred quick-footed, 
 beady-eyed rank-and-file, at attention beside their rifles, 
 believed serenely and unshakenly that the subaltern on 
 the left flank of the line was a demigod twice born — 
 tutelary deity of their land and people. The Earth- 
 gods themselves had stamped the incarnation, and who 
 would dare to doubt the handiwork of the Earth-gods? 
 
 Chinn, being practical above all things, saw that his 
 family name served him well in the lines and in camp. 
 His men gave no trouble — one does not commit regi- 
 mental offences with a god in the chair of justice — and 
 
 111 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 he was sure of the best beaters in the district when he 
 needed them. They beheved that the protection of Jan 
 Chinn the First cloaked them, and were bold in that 
 belief beyond the utmost daring of excited Bhils. 
 
 His quarters began to look like an amateur natural- 
 history museum, in spite of duplicate heads and horns 
 and skulls that he sent home to Devonshire. The 
 people, very humanly, learned the weak side of their 
 god. It is true he was unbribable, but bird-skins, 
 butterflies, beetles, and, above all, news of big game 
 pleased him. In other respects, too, he lived up to the 
 Chinn tradition. He was fever-proof. A night's sit- 
 ting out over a tethered goat in a damp valley, that 
 would have filled the Major with a month's malaria, 
 had no effect on him. He was, as they said, 'salted 
 before he was born.' 
 
 Now in the autumn of his second year's service an 
 uneasy rumour crept out of the earth and ran about 
 among the Bhils. Chinn heard nothing of it till a 
 brother-officer said across the mess-table: 'Your revered 
 ancestor's on the rampage in the Satpura country. 
 You'd better look him up.' 
 
 ' I don't want to be disrespectful, but I'm a little sick 
 of my revered ancestor. Bukta talks of nothing else. 
 What's the old boy supposed to be doing now?' 
 
 'Riding cross-country by moonlight on his proces- 
 sional tiger. That's the story. He's been seen by about 
 two thousand Bhils, skipping along the tops of the 
 Satpuras, and scaring people to death. They believe it 
 devoutly, and all the Satpura chaps are worshipping 
 away at his shrine — tomb, I mean — like good 'uns. 
 You really ought to go down there. 'Must be a queer 
 thing to see your grandfather treated as a god.' 
 
 112 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 'What makes you think there's any truth in the tale?' 
 said Chinn. 
 
 'Because all our men deny it. They say they've 
 never heard of Chinn's tiger. Now that's a manifest 
 lie, because every Bhil has.' 
 
 'There's only one thing you've overlooked,' said the 
 Colonel, thoughtfully. 'When a local god reappears on 
 earth it's always an excuse for trouble of some kind; and 
 those Satpura Bhils are about as wild as your grand- 
 father left them, young 'un. It means something.' 
 
 'Meanin' they may go on the war-path?' said Chinn. 
 
 ' 'Can't say — as yet. 'Shouldn't be surprised one little 
 bit.' 
 
 'I haven't been told a syllable.' 
 
 ' 'Proves it all the more. They are keeping something 
 back.' 
 
 'Bukta tells me everything, too, as a rule. Now, whjf 
 didn't he tell me that?' 
 
 Chinn put the question directly to the old man that 
 night, and the answer surprised him. 
 
 'Why should I tell what is well known? Yes, the 
 Clouded Tiger is out in the Satpura country.' 
 
 'What do the wild Bhils think that it means?' 
 
 ' They do not know. They wait. Sahib, what is com- 
 ing? Say only one little word, and we will be content.' 
 
 'We? What have tales from the south, where the 
 jungly Bhils live, to do with drilled men?' 
 
 'When Jan Chinn wakes is no time for any Bhil to be 
 quiet.' 
 
 'But he has not waked, Bukta.' 
 
 'Sahib' — the old man's eyes were full of tender re- 
 proof — 'if he does not wish to be seen, why does he go 
 abroad in the moonlight? We know he is awake, but 
 
 113 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 we do not know what he desires. Is it a sign for all the 
 Bhils, or one that concerns the Satpura folk alone? 
 Say one little word, Sahib, that I may carry it to the 
 lines, and send on to our villages. Why does Jan Chinn 
 ride out? Who has done wrong? Is it pestilence? Is 
 it murrain? Will our children die? Is it a sword? 
 Remember, Sahib, we are thy people and thy servants, 
 and in this life I bore thee in my arms— not knowing.' 
 
 'Bukta had evidently looked on the cup this evening,' 
 Chinn thought; 'but if I can do anything to soothe the 
 old chap I must. It's like the Mutiny rumours on a 
 small scale.' 
 
 He dropped into a deep wicker chair, over which was 
 thrown his first tiger-skin, and his w^eight on the cushion 
 flapped the clawed paws over his shoulders. He laid 
 hold of them mechanically as he spoke, drawing the 
 painted hide, cloak-fashion, about him. 
 
 'Now will I tell the truth, Bukta,' he said, leaning 
 forward, the dried muzzle on his shoulder, to invent a 
 specious lie. 
 
 'I see that it is the truth,' was the answer, in a shak- 
 ing voice. 
 
 'Jan Chinn goes abroad among the Satpuras, riding 
 on the Clouded Tiger, ye say? Be it so. Therefore the 
 sign of the wonder is for the Satpura Bhils only, and does 
 not touch the Bhils who plough in the north and east, 
 the Bhils of the Khandesh, or any others, except the 
 Satpura Bhils, who, as we know, are wild and foolish.' 
 
 * It is, then, a sign for them. Good or bad? ' 
 
 * Beyond doubt, good. For why should Jan Chinn 
 make evil to those whom he has made men? The nights 
 over yonder are hot; it is ill to lie in one bed over long 
 without turning, and Jan Chinn would look again upon 
 
 114 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 his people. So he rises, whistles his Clouded Tiger, and 
 goes abroad a little to breathe the cool air. If the Sat- 
 pura Bhils kept to their villages, and did not wander 
 after dark, they would not see him. Indeed, Bukta, it 
 is no more than that he would see the light again in his 
 own country. Send this news south, and say that it is 
 my w^ord.' 
 
 Bukta bowed to the floor. ' Good Heavens ! ' thought 
 Chinn, 'and this blinking pagan is a first-class officer, 
 and as straight as a die! I may as well round it off 
 neatly.' He went on : 
 
 ' If the Satpura Bhils ask the meaning of the sign, tell 
 them that Jan Chinn would see how they kept their old 
 promises of good living. Perhaps they have plundered; 
 perhaps they mean to disobey the orders of the Govern- 
 ment; perhaps there is a dead man in the jungle; and so 
 Jan Chinn has come to see.' 
 
 ' Is he, then, angry? ' 
 
 'Bah! Am I ever angry with my Bhils? I say angry 
 words, and threaten many things. Thou knowest, 
 Bukta. I have seen thee smile behind the hand. I 
 know, and thou knowest. The Bhils are my children. 
 I have said it many times.' 
 
 ' Ay. We be thy children,' said Bukta. 
 
 'And no otherwise is it with Jan Chinn, my father's 
 father. He would see the land he loved and the people 
 once again. It is a good ghost, Bukta, I say it. Go 
 and tell them. And I do hope devoutly,' he added, 
 'that it will calm 'em down.' Flinging back the tiger- 
 skin, he rose with a long, unguarded yawn that showed 
 his well-kept teeth. 
 
 Bukta fled, to be received in the lines by a knot of 
 panting inquirers. 
 
 115 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'It is true,' said Bukta. 'He wrapped himself in the 
 skin and spoke from it. He would see his own country 
 again. The sign is not for us; and, indeed, he is a young 
 man. How should he lie idle of nights? He says his 
 bed is too hot and the air is bad. He goes to and fro for 
 the love of night-running. He has said it.' 
 
 The gray-whiskered assembly shuddered. 
 
 'He says the Bhils are his children. Ye know he does 
 not lie. He has said it to me.' 
 
 'But what of the Satpura Bhils? What means the 
 sign for them?' 
 
 'Nothing. It is only night-running, as I have said. 
 He rides to see if they obey the Government, as he 
 taught them to do in his first life.' 
 
 'And what if they do not?' 
 
 'He did not say.' 
 
 The light went out in Chinn's quarters. 
 
 'Look,' said Bukta. 'Now he goes away. None the 
 less it is a good ghost, as he has said. How shall we fear 
 Jan Chinn, who made the Bhil a man? His protection 
 is on us; and ye know Jan Chinn never broke a protec- 
 tion spoken or written on paper. When he is older and 
 has found him a wife he will lie in his bed till morning.' 
 
 A commanding officer is generally aware of the regi- 
 mental state of mind a little before the men ; and this is 
 why the Colonel said a few days later that some one had 
 been putting the fear of God into the Wuddars. As he 
 was the only person ofTicially entitled to do this, it dis- 
 tressed him to see such unanimous virtue. 'It's too 
 good to last,' he said. 'I only wish I could find out 
 what the little chaps mean.' 
 
 The explanation, as it seemed to him, came at the 
 change of the moon, when he received orders to hold 
 
 116 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 himself in readiness to 'allay any possible excitement' 
 among the Satpura Bhils, who were, to put it mildly, 
 uneasy because a paternal Government had sent up 
 against them a Mahratta State-educated vaccinator, 
 with lancets, lymph, and an officially registered calf. In 
 the language of State, they had 'manifested a strong 
 objection to all prophylactic measures,' had 'forcibly 
 detained the vaccinator,' and 'were on the point of 
 neglecting or evading their tribal obligations.' 
 
 'That means they are in a blue funk — same as they 
 were at census-time,' said the Colonel; 'and if we stam- 
 pede them into the hills we'll never catch 'em, in the first 
 place, and, in the second, they'll whoop off plundering 
 till further orders. 'Wonder who the God-forsaken idiot 
 is who is trying to vaccinate a Bhil. I knew trouble 
 was coming. One good thing is that they'll only use 
 local corps, and we can knock up something we'll call a 
 campaign, and let them down easy. Fancy us potting 
 our best beaters because they don't want to be vac- 
 cinated ! They're only crazy with fear.' 
 
 'Don't you think, sir,' said Chinn the next day, 'that 
 perhaps you could give me a fortnight's shooting-leave? ' 
 
 'Desertion in the face of the enemy, by Jove!' The 
 Colonel laughed. ' I might, but I'd have to antedate it 
 a little, because we're warned for service, as you might 
 say. However, we'll assume that you applied for leave 
 three days ago, and are now well on your way south.' 
 
 ' I'd like to take Bukta with me.' 
 
 'Of course, yes. I think that will be the best plan. 
 You've some kind of hereditary influence with the little 
 chaps, and they may listen to you when a glimpse of our 
 uniforms would drive them wild. You've never been 
 in that part of the world before, have you? Take care 
 
 117 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 they don't send you to your family vault in your youth 
 and innocence. I believe you'll be all right if you can 
 get 'em to listen to you.' 
 
 ' I think so, sir ;but if — if they should accidentally put an 
 — make asses of 'emselves — they might, you know — I hope 
 you'll represent that they were only frightened. There 
 isn't an ounce of real vice in 'em, and I should never forgive 
 myself if any one of — of my name got them into trouble.' 
 
 The Colonel nodded, but said nothing. 
 
 Chinn and Bukta departed at once. Bukta did not 
 say that, ever since the official vaccinator had been 
 dragged into the hills by indignant Bhils, runner after 
 runner had skulked up to the lines, entreating, with fore- 
 head in the dust, that Jan Chinn should come and ex- 
 plain this unknown horror that hung over his people. 
 
 The portent of the Clouded Tiger was now too clear. 
 Let Jan Chinn comfort his own, for vain was the help of 
 mortal man. Bukta toned down these beseechings to a 
 simple request for Chinn's presence. Nothing would 
 have pleased the old man better than a rough-and- 
 tumble campaign against the Satpuras, whom he, as an 
 * unmixed' Bhil, despised; but he had a duty to all his 
 nation as Jan Chinn's interpreter, and he devoutly 
 believed that forty plagues would fall on his village if 
 he tampered with that obligation. Besides, Jan Chinn 
 knew all things, and he rode the Clouded Tiger. 
 
 They covered thirty miles a day on foot and pony, 
 raising the blue wall-like line of the Satpuras as swiftly 
 as might be. Bukta was very silent. 
 
 They began the steep climb a little after noon, but it 
 was near sunset ere they reached the stone platform 
 clinging to the side of a rifted, jungle-covered hill, where 
 Jan Chinn the First was laid, as he had desired, that he 
 
 118 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 might overlook his people. All India is full of neglected 
 graves that date from the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century — tombs of forgotten colonels of corps long 
 since disbanded; mates of East Indiamen who went on 
 shooting expeditions and never came back; factors, 
 agents, writers, and ensigns of the Honourable the East 
 India Company by hundreds and thousands and tens 
 of thousands. English folk forget quickly, but natives 
 have long memories, and if a man has done good in his 
 life it is remembered after his death. The weathered 
 marble four-square tomb of Jan Chinn was hung about 
 with wild flowers and nuts, packets of wax and honey, 
 bottles of native spirits, and infamous cigars, with buffalo 
 horns and plumes of dried grass. At one end was a rude 
 clay image of a white man, in the old-fashioned top-hat, 
 riding on a bloated tiger. 
 
 Bukta salaamed reverently as they approached. 
 Chinn bared his head and began to pick out the blurred 
 inscription. So far as he could read it ran thus — word 
 for word, and letter for letter: — 
 
 To the Memory of John Chinn, Esq. 
 
 Late Collector of 
 
 .... ithout Bloodshed or . . . error of Authority 
 
 Employ . only . . eans of Conciliat . . . andConfiden. 
 
 accomplished the . . . tire Subjection . . . 
 
 a Lawless and Predatory Peop . . . 
 .... taching them to . . . . ish Government 
 by a Conque . . over .... Minds 
 The most perma . . . and rational Mode of Domini . . 
 . . . Governor-General and Counc . . . engal 
 
 have ordered thi erected 
 
 . . . arted this Life Aug. 19, 184 . Ag . . . 
 119 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 On the other side of the grave were ancient A^erses, 
 also very worn. As much as Chinn could decipher said : 
 
 .... the savage band 
 Forsook their Haunts and b .... is Command 
 .... mended . . rals check a . . . st for spoil 
 And . s . ing Hamlets prove his gene .... toil 
 
 Humanit . . . survey ights restore . . 
 
 A nation . . ield . . subdued without a Sword. 
 
 For some little time he leaned on the tomb thinking of 
 this dead man of his own blood, and of the house in 
 Devonshire; then, nodding to the plains: 'Yes; it's a big 
 work — all of it — even my little share. He must have 
 been worth knowing. . . . Bukta, where are my 
 people?' 
 
 'Not here, Sahib. No man comes here except in full 
 sun. They wait above. Let us climb and see.' 
 
 But Chinn, remembering the first law of Oriental 
 diplomacy, in an even voice answered: 'I have come 
 this far only because the Satpura folk are foolish, and 
 dared not visit our lines. Now bid them wait on me 
 here. I am not the servant, but the master of Bhils.' 
 
 ' I go — I go,' clucked the old man. Night was falling, 
 and at any moment Jan Chinn might whistle up his 
 dreaded steed from the darkening scrub. 
 
 Now for the first time in a long life Bukta disobeyed 
 a lawful command and deserted his leader; for he did 
 not come back, but pressed to the flat table-top of the 
 hill, and called softly. Men stirred all about him — 
 little trembling men with bows and arrows who had 
 watched the two since noon. 
 
 ' Where is he? ' whispered one. 
 
 120 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 'At his own place. He bids you come,' said Bukta. 
 
 'Now?' 
 
 'Now.' 
 
 'Rather let him loose the Clouded Tiger upon us. 
 We do not go.' 
 
 'Nor I, though I bore him in my arms when he was a 
 child in this his life. Wait here till the day.' 
 
 'But surely he will be angry.' 
 
 ' He will be very angry, for he has nothing to eat. But 
 he has said to me many times that the Bhils are his 
 children. By sunlight I believe this, but — by moon- 
 light I am not so sure. What folly have ye Satpura 
 pigs compassed that ye should need him at all? ' 
 
 ' One came to us in the name of the Government with 
 little ghost-knives and a magic calf, meaning to turn us 
 into cattle by the cutting off of our arms. We were 
 greatly afraid, but we did not kill the man. He is here, 
 bound — a black man; and we think he comes from the 
 West. He said it was an order to cut us all with knives 
 — especially the women and the children. We did not 
 hear that it was an order, so we were afraid, and kept to 
 our hills. Some of our men have taken ponies and 
 bullocks from the plains, and others pots and cloths and 
 ear-rings.' 
 
 ' Are any slain? ' 
 
 'By our men? Not yet. But the young men are 
 blown to and fro by many rumours like flames upon a 
 hill. I sent runners asking for Jan Chinn lest worse 
 should come to us. It was this fear that he foretold by 
 the sign of the Clouded Tiger.' 
 
 'He says it is otherwise,' said Bukta; and he repeated, 
 with amplifications, all that young Chinn had told him 
 at the conference of the wicker chair. 
 
 121 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Think you,' said the questioner, at last, 'that the 
 Government will lay hands on us? ' 
 
 'Not I,' Bukta rejoined. 'Jan Chinn will give an 
 order, and ye will obey. The rest is between the Gov- 
 ernment and Jan Chinn. I myself know something of 
 the ghost-knives and the scratching. It is a charm 
 against the Smallpox. But how it is done I cannot tell. 
 Nor need that concern you.' 
 
 ' If. he stands by us and before the anger of the Gov- 
 ernment we will most strictly obey Jan Chinn, except — 
 except we do not go down to that place to-night.' 
 
 They could hear young Chinn below them shouting 
 for Bukta; but they cowered and sat still, expecting the 
 Clouded Tiger. The tomb had been holy ground for 
 nearly half a century. If Jan Chinn chose to sleep there, 
 who had better right? But they would not come within 
 eyeshot of the place till broad day. 
 
 At first Chinn was exceedingly angry, till it occurred 
 to him that Bukta most probably had a reason (which 
 indeed, he had), and his own dignity might suffer if he 
 yelled without answer. He propped himself against the 
 foot of the grave, and, alternately dozing and smoking, 
 came through the warm night proud that he was a law- 
 ful, legitimate, fever-proof Chinn. 
 
 He prepared his plan of action much as his grand- 
 father would have done; and when Bukta appeared in 
 the morning with a most liberal supply of food, said 
 nothing of the overnight desertion. Bukta would have 
 been relieved by an outburst of human anger; but Chinn 
 finished his victual leisurely, and a cheroot, ere he made 
 any sign. 
 
 *They are very much afraid,' said Bukta, who was not 
 too bold himself. 'It remains only to give orders. 
 
 122 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 They said they will obey if thou wilt only stand between 
 them and the Government.' 
 
 'That I know,' said Chinn, strolHng slowly to the 
 tableland. A few of the elder men stood in an irregular 
 semicircle in an open glade; but the ruck of people — 
 women and children — were hidden in the thicket. They 
 had no desire to face the first anger of Jan Chinn the 
 First. 
 
 Seating himself on a fragment of split rock, he smoked 
 his cheroot to the butt, hearing men breathe hard all 
 about him. Then he cried, so suddenly that they j umped : 
 
 ' Bring the man that was bound ! ' 
 
 A scuffle and a cry were followed by the appearance 
 of a Hindoo vaccinator, quaking with fear, bound hand 
 and foot, as the Bhils of old were accustomed to bind 
 their human sacrifices. He was pushed cautiously before 
 the presence; but young Chinn did not look at him. 
 
 'I said — the man that was bound. Is it a jest to 
 bring me one tied like a buffalo? Since when could the 
 Bhil bind folk at his pleasure? Cut ! ' 
 
 Half a dozen hasty knives cut away the thongs, and 
 the man crawled to Chinn, who pocketed his case of 
 lancets and tubes of lymph. Then, sweeping the semi- 
 circle with one comprehensive forefinger, and in the 
 voice of compliment, he said, clearly and distinctly: 
 *Pigs!' 
 
 'Ai!' whispered Bukta. 'Now he speaks. Woe to 
 foolish people ! ' 
 
 'I have come on foot from my house' (the assembly 
 shuddered) 'to make clear a matter which any other 
 
 I than a Satpura Bhil would have seen with both eyes 
 from a distance. Ye know the Smallpox, who pits and 
 scars your children so that they look like wasp-combs. 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 It is an order of the Government that whoso is scratched 
 on the arm with these little knives which I hold up is 
 charmed against Her. All Sahibs are thus charmed, and 
 very many Hindoos. This is the mark of the charm. 
 Look!' 
 
 He rolled back his sleeve to the armpit and showed 
 the white scars of the vaccination-mark on the white 
 skin. 'Come, all, and look.' 
 
 A few daring spirits came up, and nodded their heads 
 wisely. There was certainly a mark, and they knew 
 well what other dread marks were hidden by the shirt. 
 Merciful was Jan Chinn, that he had not then and there 
 proclaimed his godhead. 
 
 'Now all these things the man whom ye bound told 
 you.' 
 
 'I did — a hundred times; but they answered with 
 blows,' groaned the operator, chafmg his wrists and 
 ankles. 
 
 'But, being pigs, ye did not believe; and so came I 
 here to save you, first from Smallpox, next from a great 
 folly of fear, and lastly, it may be, from the rope and the 
 jail. It is no gain to me; it is no pleasure to me; but for 
 the sake of that one who is yonder, who made the Bhil a 
 man' — he pointed down the hill — 'I, who am of his 
 blood, the son of his son, come to turn your people. 
 And I speak the truth, as did Jan Chinn.' 
 
 The crowd murmured reverently, and men stole out 
 of the thicket by twos and threes to join it. There was 
 no anger in their god's face. 
 
 ' These are my orders. (Heaven send they'll take 'em, 
 but I seem to have impressed them so far!) I myself 
 will stay among you while this man scratches your arms 
 with knives, after the order of the Government. In 
 
 124 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 three, or it may be five or seven, days, your arms will 
 swell and itch and burn. That is the power of Smallpox 
 fighting in your base blood against the orders of the 
 Government. I will therefore stay among you till I see 
 that Smallpox is conquered, and I will not go away till 
 the men and the women and the little children show 
 me upon their arms such marks as I have even now 
 showed you. I bring with me two very good guns, and 
 a man whose name is known among beasts and men. 
 We will hunt together, I and he, and your young men 
 and the others shall eat and lie still. This is my order.' 
 
 There was a long pause while victory hung in the 
 balance. A white-haired old sinner, standing on one 
 uneasy leg, piped up : 
 
 'There are ponies and some few bullocks and other 
 things for which we need a kowl [protection]. They 
 were not taken in the way of trade.' 
 
 The battle was won, and John Chinn drew a breath of 
 relief. The young Bhils had been raiding, but if taken 
 swiftly all could be put straight. 
 
 * I will write a kowl as soon as the ponies, the bullocks, 
 and the other things are counted before me and sent 
 back whence they came. But first we will put the 
 Government mark on such as have not been visited by 
 Smallpox.' In an undertone, to the vaccinator: 'If you 
 show you are afraid you'll never see Poona again, my 
 friend.' 
 
 ' There is not sufficient ample supply of vaccine for all 
 this population,' said the man. *They have destroyed 
 the offeecial calf.' 
 
 'They won't know the difference. Scrape 'em all 
 round, and give me a couple of lancets; I'll attend to the 
 elders.' 
 
 125 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 The aged diplomat who had demanded protection was 
 the first victim. He fell to Chinn's hand, and dared 
 not cry out. As soon as he was freed he dragged up a 
 companion, and held him fast, and the crisis became, as 
 it were, a child's sport; for the vaccinated chased the 
 unvaccinated to treatment, vowing that all the tribe 
 must suffer equally. The women shrieked, and the chil- 
 dren ran howling; but Chinn laughed, and waved the 
 pink-tipped lancet. 
 
 'It is an honour,' he cried. 'Tell them, Bukta, how 
 great an honour it is that I myself should mark them. 
 Nay, I cannot mark every one — the Hindoo must also 
 do his work — but I will touch all marks that he makes, 
 so there will be an equal virtue in them. Thus do the 
 Rajputs stick pigs. Ho, brother with one eye! Catch 
 that girl and bring her to me. She need not run away 
 yet, for she is not married, and I do not seek her in mar- 
 riage. She will not come? Then she shall be shamed 
 by her little brother, a fat boy, a bold boy. He puts 
 out his arm like a soldier. Look ! He does not flinch 
 at the blood. Some day he shall be in my regiment. 
 And now, mother of many, we will lightly touch thee, 
 for Smallpox has been before us here. It is a true thing, 
 indeed, that this charm breaks the power of Mata. 
 There will be no more pitted faces among the Satpuras, 
 and so ye can ask many cows for each maid to be wed.' 
 
 And so on and so on — quick-poured showman's patter, 
 sauced in the Bhil hunting proverbs and tales of their' 
 own brand of coarse humour — till the lancets weres 
 blunted and both operators worn out. 
 
 But, nature being the same the world over, the un- 
 vaccinated grew jealous of their marked comrades, and 
 came near to blows about it. Then Chinn declared 
 
 126 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 himself a court of justice, no longer a medical board, and 
 made formal inquiry into the late robberies. 
 
 *We are the thieves of Mahadeo,' said the Bhils, 
 simply. * It is our fate, and we were frightened. When 
 we are frightened we always steal.' 
 
 Simply and directly as children, they gave in the tale 
 of the plunder, all but two bullocks and some spirits 
 that had gone amissing (these Chinn promised to make 
 good out of his own pocket), and ten ringleaders were 
 despatched to the lowlands with a wonderful document, 
 written on the leaf of a note-book, and addressed to an 
 assistant district superintendent of police. There was 
 warm calamity in that note, as Jan Chinn warned them, 
 but anything was better than loss of liberty. 
 
 Armed with this protection, the repentant raiders 
 went down-hill. They had no desire whatever to meet 
 Mr. Dundas Fawne of the Police, aged twenty-two, and 
 of a cheerful countenance, nor did they wish to revisit 
 the scene of their robberies. Steering a middle course, 
 they ran into the camp of the one Government chaplain 
 allowed to the various irregular corps through a district 
 of some fifteen thousand square miles, and stood before 
 him in a cloud of dust. He was by way of being a priest, 
 they knew, and, what was more to the point, a good 
 sportsman who paid his beaters generously. 
 
 When he read Chinn's note he laughed, which they 
 deemed a lucky omen, till he called up policemen, who 
 tethered the ponies and the bullocks by the piled house- 
 gear, and laid stern hands upon three of that smiling 
 band of the thieves of Mahadeo. The chaplain himself 
 addressed them magisterially with a riding-whip. That 
 was painful, but Jan Chinn had prophesied it. They 
 submitted, but would not give up the written protection, 
 
 127 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 fearing the jail. On their way back they met Mr. D. 
 Fawne, who had heard about the robberies, and was not 
 pleased. 
 
 'Certainly,' said the eldest of the gang, when the 
 second interview was at an end, 'certainly Jan Chinn's 
 protection has saved us our liberty, but it is as though 
 there were many beatings in one small piece of paper. 
 Put it away.' 
 
 One climbed into a tree, and stuck the letter into a 
 cleft forty feet from the ground, where it could do no 
 harm. Warmed, sore, but happy, the ten returned to 
 Jan Chinn next day, where he sat among uneasy Bhils, 
 all looking at their right arms, and all bound under 
 terror of their god's disfavour not to scratch. 
 
 'It was a good kowl,' said the leader. 'First the 
 chaplain, who laughed, took away our plunder, and beat 
 three of us, as was promised. Next, we meet Fawne 
 Sahib, who frowned, and asked for the plunder. We 
 spoke the truth, and so he beat us all, one after another, 
 and called us chosen names. He then gave us these 
 two bundles' — they set down a bottle of whisky and a 
 box of cheroots — ' and we came away. The kowl is left 
 in a tree, because its virtue is that so soon as we show 
 it to a Sahib we are beaten.' 
 
 'But for that kowl,' said Jan Chinn, sternly, *ye 
 would all have been marching to jail with a policeman 
 on either side. Ye come now to serve as beaters for 
 me. These people are unhappy, and we will go hunting 
 till they are well. To-night we will make a feast.' 
 
 It is written in the chronicles of the Satpura Bhils, 
 together with many other matters not fit for print, that 
 through five days, after the day that he had put his 
 mark upon them, Jan Chinn the First hunted for his 
 
 128 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 people; and on the five nights of those days the tribe 
 was gloriously and entirely drunk. Jan Chinn bought 
 country spirits of an awful strength, and slew wild pig 
 and deer beyond counting, so that if any fell sick they 
 might have two good reasons. 
 
 Between head- and stomach-aches they found no time 
 to think of their arms, but followed Jan Chinn obedi- 
 ently through the jungles, and with each day's returning 
 confidence men, women, and children stole away to 
 their villages as the little army passed by. They carried 
 news that it was good and right to be scratched with 
 ghost-knives; that Jan Chinn was indeed reincarnated 
 as a god of free food and drink, and that of all nations the 
 Satpura Bhils stood first in his favour, if they would only 
 refrain from scratching. Henceforward that kindly demi- 
 god would be connected in their minds with great gorgings 
 and the vaccine and lancets of a paternal Government. 
 
 'And to-morrow I go back to my home,' said Jan 
 Chinn to his faithful few, whom neither spirits, over- 
 eating, nor swollen glands could conquer. It is hard 
 for children and savages to behave reverently at all times 
 to the idols of their make-belief, and they had frolicked 
 excessively with Jan Chinn. But the reference to his 
 home cast a gloom on the people. 
 
 'And the Sahib will not come again?' said he who had 
 been vaccinated first. 
 
 'That is to be seen,' answered Chinn, warily. 
 
 'Nay, but come as a white man — come as a young 
 man whom we know and love; for, as thou alone know- 
 est, we are a weak people. If we again saw thy — thy 
 horse — ' They were picking up their courage. 
 
 * I have no horse. I came on foot — with Bukta, yon- 
 der. What is this?' 
 
 129 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Thou knowest — the Thing that thou hast chosen for 
 a night-horse.' The Uttle men squirmed in fear and 
 awe. 
 
 'Night-horses? Bukta, what is this last tale of chil- 
 dren?' 
 
 Bukta had been a silent leader in Chinn's presence 
 since the night of his desertion, and was grateful for a 
 chance-flung question. 
 
 ' They know, Sahib,' he whispered. ' It is the Clouded 
 Tiger. That which comes from the place where thou 
 didst once sleep. It is thy horse— as it has been these 
 three generations.' 
 
 ' My horse ! That was a dream of the Bhils.' 
 
 'It is no dream. Do dreams leave the tracks of 
 broad pugs on earth? Why make two faces before thy 
 people? They know of the night-ridings, and they — 
 and they — ' 
 
 'Are afraid, and would have them cease.' 
 
 Bukta nodded. ' If thou hast no further need of him. 
 He is thy horse.' 
 
 'The thing leaves a trail, then?' said Chinn. 
 
 *W^e have seen it. It is like a village road under the 
 tomb.' 
 
 * Can ye find and follow it for me? ' 
 
 'By daylight — if one comes with us, and, above all, 
 stands near by.' 
 
 ' I will stand close, and we will see to it that Jan Chinn 
 does not ride any more.' 
 
 The Bhils shouted the last words again and again. 
 
 From Chinn's point of view the stalk was nothing 
 more than an ordinary one — down-hill, through split 
 and crannied rocks, unsafe, perhaps, if a man did not 
 keep his wits by him, but no worse than twenty others 
 
 130 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 he had undertaken. Yet his men — they refused ab- 
 solutely to beat, and would only trail — dripped sweat 
 at every move. They showed the marks of enormous 
 pugs that ran, always down-hill, to a few hundred feet 
 below Jan Chinn's tomb, and disappeared in a narrow- 
 mouthed cave. It was an insolently open road, a do- 
 mestic highway, beaten without thought of concealment. 
 
 'The beggar might be paying rent and taxes,' Chinn 
 muttered ere he asked whether his friend's taste ran to 
 cattle or man. 
 
 'Cattle,' was the answer. 'Two heifers a week. We 
 drive them for him at the foot of the hill. It is his cus- 
 tom. If we did not, he might seek us.' 
 
 'Blackmail and piracy,' said Chinn. 'I can't say I 
 fancy going into the cave after him. What's to be done? ' 
 
 The Bhils fell back as Chinn lodged himself behind a 
 rock with his rifle ready. Tigers, he knew, were shy 
 beasts, but one who had been long cattle-fed in this 
 sumptuous style might prove overbold. 
 
 ' He speaks ! ' some one whispered from the rear. ' He 
 knows, too.' 
 
 'Well, of all the infernal cheek!' said Chinn. There 
 was an angry growl from the cave — a direct challenge. 
 
 ' Come out, then,' Chinn shouted. ' Come out of that ! 
 Let's have a look at you.' 
 
 The brute knew well enough that there was some con- 
 nection between brown nude Bhils and his weekly 
 allowance ; but the white helmet in the sunlight annoyed 
 him, and he did not approve of the voice that broke his 
 rest. Lazily as a gorged snake he dragged himself out 
 of the cave, and stood yawning and blinking at the en- 
 trance. The sunlight fell upon his flat right side, and 
 Chinn wondered. Never had he seen a tiger marked 
 
 131 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 after this fashion. Except for his head, which was star- 
 ingly barred, he was dappled — not striped, but dappled 
 like a child's rocking-horse in rich shades of smoky 
 black on red gold. That portion of his belly and throat 
 which should have been white was orange, and his tail 
 and paws were black. 
 
 He looked leisurely for some ten seconds, and then 
 deliberately lowered his head, his chin dropped and 
 drawn in, staring intently at the man. The effect of 
 this was to throw forward the round arch of his skull, 
 with two broad bands across it, while below the bands 
 glared the unwinking eyes; so that, head on, as he stood, 
 he showed something like a diabolically scowling pan- 
 tomime-mask. It was a piece of natural mesmerism 
 that he had practised many times on his quarry, and 
 though Chinn was by no means a terrified heifer, he 
 stood for a while, held by the extraordinary oddity of 
 the attack. The head — the body seemed to have been 
 packed away behind it — the ferocious, skull-like head, 
 crept nearer to the switching of an angry tail-tip in the 
 grass. Left and right the Bhils had scattered to let 
 John Chinn subdue his own horse. 
 
 *My word!' he thought. 'He's trying to frighten 
 me!' and fired between the saucer-like eyes, leaping 
 aside upon the shot. 
 
 A big coughing mass, reeking of carrion, bounded past 
 him up the hill, and he followed discreetly. The tiger 
 made no attempt to turn into the jungle; he was hunting 
 for sight and breath — nose up, mouth open, the tremen- 
 dous fore-legs scattering the gravel in spurts. 
 
 * Scuppered!' said John Chinn, watching the flight. 
 'Now if he was a partridge he'd tower. Lungs must be 
 full of blood.' 
 
 132 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 The brute had jerked himself over a boulder and 
 fallen out of sight the other side. John Chinn looked 
 over with a ready barrel. But the red trail led straight 
 as an arrow even to his grandfather's tomb, and there, 
 among the smashed spirit bottles and the fragments of 
 the mud image, the life left with a flurry and a grunt. 
 
 'If my worthy ancestor could see that,' said John 
 Chinn, 'he'd have been proud of me. Eyes, lower jaw, 
 and lungs. A very nice shot.' He whistled for Bukta 
 as he drew the tape over the stiffening bulk. 
 
 'Ten — six — eight — by Jove! It's nearly eleven — 
 call it eleven. Fore-arm, twenty-four — five — seven and 
 a half. A short tail, too; three feet one. But what 
 a skin! Oh, Bukta! Bukta! The men with the knives 
 swiftly.' 
 
 'Is he beyond question dead?' said an awe-stricken 
 voice behind a rock. 
 
 'That was not the way I killed my first tiger,' said 
 Chinn. ' I did not think that Bukta would run. I had 
 no second gun.' 
 
 ' It — it is the Clouded Tiger,' said Bukta, unheeding 
 the taunt. ' He is dead.' 
 
 Whether all the Bhils, vaccinated and unvaccinated, 
 of the Satpuras had lain by to see the kill, Chinn could 
 not say; but the whole hill's flank rustled with little men, 
 shouting, singing, and stamping. And yet, till he had 
 made the first cut in the splendid skin, not a man would 
 take a knife; and, when the shadows fell, they ran from 
 the red-stained tomb, and no persuasion would bring 
 them back till dawn. So Chinn spent a second night 
 in the open, guarding the carcass from jackals, and 
 thinking about his ancestor. 
 
 He returned to the lowlands, to the triumphal chant 
 
 133 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 of an escorting army three hundred strong, the Mahratta 
 vaccinator close at his elbow, and the rudely dried skin 
 a trophy before him. When that army suddenly and 
 noiselessly disappeared, as do quail in high corn, he 
 argued he was near civilisation, and a turn in the road 
 brought him upon the camp of a wing of his own corps. 
 He left the skin on a cart-tail for the world to see, and 
 sought the Colonel. 
 
 'They're perfectly right,' he explained earnestly. 
 'There isn't an ounce of vice in 'em. They were only 
 frightened. I've vaccinated the whole boiling, and 
 they like it awfully. What are — what are we doing 
 here, sir.?' 
 
 'That's what I'm trying to find out,' said the Colonel. 
 * I don't know yet whether we're a piece of a brigade or a 
 police force. However, I think we'll call ourselves a 
 police force. How did you manage to get a Bhil vac- 
 cinated?' 
 
 'Well, sir,' said Chinn, 'I've been thinking it over, 
 and, as far as I can make out, I've got a sort of heredi- 
 tary influence over 'em.' 
 
 *So I know, or I wouldn't have sent you; but what, 
 exactly? ' 
 
 * It's rather rummy. It seems, from what I can make 
 out, that I'm my own grandfather reincarnated, and I've 
 been disturbing the peace of the country by riding a 
 pad-tiger of nights. If I hadn't done that, I don't think 
 they'd have objected to the vaccination; but the two 
 together were more than they could stand. And so, sir, 
 I've vaccinated 'em, and shot my tiger-horse as a sort o' 
 proof of good faith. You never saw such a skin in your 
 life.' 
 
 The Colonel tugged his moustache thoughtfully. 
 
 134 
 
THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 
 
 'Now, how the deuce,' said he, 'am I to inckide that in 
 my report? ' 
 
 Indeed, the official version of the Bhils' anti-vacci- 
 nation stampede said nothing about Lieutenant John 
 Chinn, his godship. But Bukta knew, and the corps 
 knew, and every Bhil in the Satpura hills knew. 
 
 And now Bukta is zealous that John Chinn shall 
 swiftly be wedded and impart his powers to a son; for if 
 the Chinn succession fails, and the little Bhils are left 
 to their own imaginings, there will be fresh trouble in the 
 Satpuras. 
 
 135 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 (1895) 
 
 All supplies very bad and dear, and there are no facili- 
 ties for even the smallest repairs. — 'Sailing Directions.' 
 
 HER nationality was British, but you will not find 
 her house-flag in the list of our mercantile marine- 
 She was a nine-hundred-ton, iron, schooner- 
 rigged, screw cargo-boat, differing externally in no way 
 from any other tramp of the sea. But it is with steamers 
 as it is with men. There are those who will for a con- 
 sideration sail extremely close to the wind; and, in the 
 present state of a fallen world, such people and such 
 steamers have their use. From the hour that the 
 'Aglaia' first entered the Clyde — new, shiny, and inno- 
 cent, with a quart of cheap champagne trickling down 
 her cutwater — Fate and her owner, who was also her 
 captain, decreed that she should deal with embarrassed 
 crowned heads, fleeing Presidents, financiers of over- 
 extended ability, women to whom change of air was 
 imperative, and the lesser law-breaking Powers. Her 
 career led her sometimes into the Admiralty Courts, 
 where the sworn statements of her skipper filled his 
 brethren with envy. The mariner cannot tell or act a 
 lie in the face of the sea, or mislead a tempest; but, as 
 lawyers have discovered, he makes up for chances with- 
 
 136 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 held when he returns to shore, an affidavit in either 
 hand. 
 
 The 'Aglaia' figured with distinction in the great 
 'Mackinaw' salvage case. It was her first slip from 
 virtue, and she learned how to change her name, but not 
 her heart, and to run across the sea. As the 'Guiding 
 Light' she was very badly wanted in a South American 
 port for the little matter of entering harbour at full 
 speed, colliding with a coal-hulk and the State's only 
 man-of-war, just as that man-of-war was going to coal. 
 She put to sea without explanations, though three forts 
 fired at her for half an hour. As the 'Julia M'Gregor' 
 she had been concerned in picking up from a raft certain 
 gentlemen who should have stayed in Noumea, but who 
 preferred making themselves vastly unpleasant to 
 authority in quite another quarter of the world; and as 
 the 'Shah-in-Shah' she had been overtaken on the high 
 seas, indecently full of munitions of war, by the cruiser 
 of an agitated Power at issue with its neighbour. That 
 time she was very nearly sunk, and her riddled hull gave 
 eminent lawyers of two countries great profit. After a 
 season she reappeared as the ' Martin Hunt,' painted a 
 dull slate colour, with pure saffron funnel, and boats of 
 sparrow's-egg blue, engaging in the Odessa trade till she 
 was invited (and the invitation could not well be dis- 
 regarded) to keep away from Black Sea ports altogether. 
 
 She had ridden through many waves of depression. 
 Freights might drop out of sight. Seamen's Unions throw 
 spanners and nuts at certificated masters, or stevedores 
 combine till cargo perished on the dockhead; but the 
 boat of many names came and went, busy, alert, and 
 inconspicuous always. Her skipper made no complaint 
 of hard times, and port officers observed that her crew 
 
 137 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 signed and signed again with the regularity of Atlantic 
 liner boatswains. Her name she changed as occasion 
 called; her well-paid crew never; and a large percentage 
 of the profits of her voyages was spent with an open 
 hand on her engine-room. She never troubled the 
 underwriters, and very seldom stopped to talk with a 
 signal-station; for her business was urgent and private. 
 
 But an end came to her tradings, and she perished in 
 this manner. Deep peace brooded over Europe, Asia, 
 Africa, America, Australasia, and Polynesia. The Pow- 
 ers dealt together more or less honestly; banks paid 
 their depositors to the hour; diamonds of price came 
 safely to the hands of their owners; republics rested 
 content with their dictators; diplomats found no one 
 whose presence in the least incommoded them; mon- 
 archs lived openly with their lawfully wedded wives. 
 It was as though the whole earth had put on its best 
 Sunday bib and tucker; — and business was very bad for 
 the * Martin Hunt.' The great, virtuous calm engulfed 
 her, slate sides, yellow funnel, and all, but cast up in 
 another hemisphere the steam-whaler 'Haliotis,' black 
 and rusty, with a manure-coloured funnel, a litter of 
 dingy white boats, and an enormous stove, or furnace, 
 for boiling blubber on her forward well-deck. There 
 could be no doubt that her trip was successful, for she 
 lay at several ports not too well known, and the smoke 
 of her trying-out insulted the beaches. 
 
 Anon she departed, at the speed of the average Lon- 
 don four-wheeler, and entered a semi-inland sea, warm, 
 still, and blue, which is, perhaps, the most strictly pre- 
 served water in the world. There she stayed for a 
 certain time, and the great stars of those mild skies 
 beheld her playing puss-in-the-corner among islands 
 
 138 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 where whales are never found. All that time she smelt 
 abominably, and the smell, though fishy, was not whale- 
 some. One evening calamity descended upon her from 
 the island of Pygang-Watai, and she fled, while her crew 
 jeered at a fat black-and-brown gunboat pufTmg far 
 behind. They knew to the last revolution the capacity 
 of every boat, on those seas, that they were anxious to 
 avoid. A British ship with a good conscience dees not, 
 as a rule, flee from the man-of-war of a foreign Power, 
 and it is also considered a breach of etiquette to stop 
 and search British ships at sea. These things the skip- 
 per of the 'Haliotis' did not pause to prove, but held 
 on at an inspiriting eleven knots till nightfall. One 
 thing only he overlooked. 
 
 The Power that kept an expensive steam-patrol mov- 
 ing up and down those waters (they had dodged the two 
 regular ships of the station with an ease that bred con- 
 tempt) had newly brought up a third and a fourteen- 
 knot boat with a clean bottom to help the work; and 
 that was why the 'Haliotis,' driving hard from the east 
 to the west, found herself at daylight in such a position 
 that she could not help seeing an arrangement of four 
 flags, a mile and a half behind, which read: 'Heave to, or 
 take the consequences!' 
 
 She had her choice, and she took it, and the end came 
 when, presuming on her lighter draught, she tried to 
 draw away northward over a friendly shoal. The shell 
 that arrived by way of the Chief Engineer's cabin was 
 some five inches in diameter, with a practice, not a 
 bursting, charge. It had been intended to cross her 
 bows, and that was why it knocked the framed portrait 
 of the Chief Engineer's wife — and she was a very pretty 
 girl — on to the floor, splintered his wash-hand stand, 
 
 139 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 crossed the alleyway into the engine-room, and striking 
 on a grating, dropped directly in front of the forward 
 engine, where it burst, neatly fracturing both the bolts 
 that held the connecting-rod to the forward crank. 
 
 What follows is worth consideration. The forward 
 engine had no more work to do. Its released piston-rod, 
 therefore, drove up fiercely, with nothing to check it, 
 and started most of the nuts of the cylinder-cover. It 
 came down again, the full weight of the steam behind it, 
 and the foot of the disconnected connecting-rod, useless 
 as the leg of a man with a sprained ankle, flung out to 
 the right and struck the starboard, or right-hand, cast- 
 iron supporting-column of the forward engine, cracking 
 it clean through about six inches above the base, and 
 wedging the upper portion outwards three inches 
 towards the ship's side. There the connecting-rod 
 jammed. Meantime, the after engine, being as yet 
 unembarrassed, went on with its work, and in so doing 
 brought round at its next revolution the crank of the 
 forward engme, which smote the already jammed con- 
 necting-rod, bending it and therewith the piston-rod 
 cross-head — the big cross-piece that slides up and down 
 so smoothly. 
 
 The cross-head jammed sideways in the guides, and 
 in addition to putting further pressure on the already 
 broken starboard supporting-column, cracked the port, 
 or left-hand, supporting-column in two or three places. 
 There being nothing more that could be made to move, 
 the engines brought up, all standing, with a hiccup that 
 seemed to lift the *Haliotis' afoot out of the water; and 
 the engine-room stafi, opening every steam outlet that 
 they could find in the confusion, arrived on deck some- 
 what scalded, but calm. There was a sound below of 
 
 140 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 things happening — a rushing, clicking, purring, grunt- 
 ing, rattling noise that did not last for more than a 
 minute. It was the machinery adjusting itself, on the 
 spur of the moment, to a hundred altered conditions. 
 Mr. Wardrop, one foot on the upper grating, inclined 
 his ear sideways and groaned. You cannot stop en- 
 gines working at twelve knots in three seconds without 
 disorganising them. The 'Haliotis' slid forward in a 
 cloud of steam, shrieking like a wounded horse. There 
 was nothing more to do. The five-inch shell with a 
 reduced charge had settled the situation. And when 
 you are full, all three holds, of strictly preserved pearls; 
 when you have cleaned out the Tanna Bank, the Sea- 
 Horse Bank, and four other banks from one end to the 
 other of the Amanala Sea — when you have ripped out 
 the very heart of a rich Government monopoly so that 
 five years will not repair your wrong-doings — you must 
 smile and take what is in store. But the skipper reflected, 
 as a launch put out from the man-of-war, that he had 
 been bombarded on the high seas, with the British flag 
 — several of them — picturesquely disposed above him, 
 and tried to find comfort in the thought. 
 
 * Where,' said the stolid naval lieutenant hoisting him- 
 self aboard, 'where are those dam' pearls?' 
 
 They were there beyond evasion. No affidavit could 
 do away with the fearful smell of decayed oysters, the 
 diving-dresses, and the shell-littered hatches. They 
 were there to the value of seventy thousand pounds, 
 more or less; and every pound poached. 
 
 The man-of-war was annoyed; for she had used up 
 many tons of coal, she had strained her tubes, and, 
 worse than all, her officers and crew had been hurried. 
 Every one on the 'Haliotis' was arrested and rearrested 
 
 141 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 several times, as each officer came aboard; then they 
 were told by what they esteemed to be the equivalent 
 of a midshipman that they were to consider themselves 
 prisoners, and finally were put under arrest. 
 
 'It's not the least good,' said the skipper, suavely. 
 'You'd much better send us a tow — ' 
 
 'Be still — you are arrest!' was the reply. 
 
 * Where the devil do you expect we are going to escape 
 to? We're helpless. You've got to tow us somewhere, 
 and explain why you fired on us. Mr. Wardrop, we're 
 helpless, aren't we? ' 
 
 'Ruined from end to end,' said the man of machinery. 
 *If she rolls, the forward cylinder will come down and 
 go through her bottom. Both columns are clean cut 
 through. There's nothing to hold anything up.' 
 
 The council of w^ar clanked ofT to see if Mr. Wardrop' s 
 words were true. He warned them that it was as much 
 as a man's life was worth to enter the engine-room, and 
 they contented themselves with a distant inspection 
 through the thinning steam. The 'Haliotis' lifted to 
 the long, easy swell, and the starboard supporting- 
 column ground a trifle, as a man grits his teeth under 
 the knife. The forward cylinder was depending on that 
 unknown force men call the pertinacity of materials, 
 which now and then balances that other heart-breaking 
 power, the perversity of inanimate things. 
 
 'You see!' said Mr. Wardrop, hurrying them away. 
 'The engines aren't worth their price as old iron.' 
 
 'We tow,' was the answer. 'Afterwards we shall 
 confiscate.' 
 
 The man-of-war was short-handed, and did not see 
 the necessity for putting a prize-crew aboard the 
 * Haliotis.' So she sent one sub-lieutenant, w^hom the 
 
 142 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 skipper kept very drunk, for he did not wish to make the 
 tow too easy, and, moreover, he had an inconspicuous 
 little rope hanging from the stern of his ship. 
 
 Then they began to tow at an average speed of four 
 knots. The 'Haliotis' was very hard to move, and the 
 gunnery-lieutenant, who had fired the five-inch shell, 
 had leisure to think upon consequences. Mr. Wardrop 
 was the busy man. He borrowed all the crew to shore 
 up the cyhnders, with spars and blocks, from the bottom 
 and sides of the ship. It was a day's risky work; but 
 anything was better than drowning at the end of a tow- 
 rope; and if the forward cylinder had fallen, it would 
 have made its way to the sea-bed, and taken the 'Hal- 
 iotis' after. 
 
 'Where are we going to, and how long will they tow 
 us?' he asked of the skipper. 
 
 ' God knows ! and this prize-lieutenant's drunk. What 
 do you think you can do?' 
 
 'There's just the bare chance' Mr. Wardrop whispered, 
 though no one was within hearing — 'there's just the 
 bare chance o' repairin' her, if a man knew how. They've 
 twisted the very guts out of her, bringing her up with 
 that jerk; but I'm saying that, with time and patience, 
 there's just the chance of making steam yet. W^e could 
 do it.' 
 
 The skipper's eye brightened. 'Do you mean,' he 
 began, ' that she is any good? ' 
 
 *0h no,' said Mr. Wardrop. 'She'll need three thou- 
 sand pounds in repairs, at the lowest, if she's to take the 
 sea again, an' that apart from any injury to her struct- 
 ure. She's like a man fallen down five pair o' stairs. 
 We can't tell for months what has happened; but we 
 know she'll never be good again without a new inside. 
 
 143 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 Ye should see the condenser-tubes an' the steam con- 
 nections to the donkey, for two things only. I'm not 
 afraid of them repairin' her. I'm afraid of them stealin' 
 things.' 
 
 'They've fired on us. They'll have to explain that.' 
 
 ' Our reputation's not good enough to ask for explana- 
 tions. Let's take what we have and be thankful. Ye 
 would not have consuls rememberin' the "Guidin' 
 Light," an' the "Shah-in-Shah," an' the "Aglaia" at 
 this most alarmin' crisis. We've been no better than 
 pirates these ten years. Under Providence we're no 
 worse than thieves now. W^e've much to be thankful 
 for — if we e'er get back to her.' 
 
 'Make it your own way, then,' said the skipper, 'if 
 there's the least chance — ' 
 
 'I'll leave none,' said Mr. Wardrop — 'none that 
 they'll dare to take. Keep her heavy on the tow, for 
 we need time.' 
 
 The skipper never interfered with the affairs of the 
 engine-room, and Mr. Wardrop — an artist in his pro- 
 fession — turned to and composed a work terrible and 
 forbidding. His background was the dark-grained sides 
 of the engine-room; his material the metals of power 
 and strength, helped out with spars, baulks, and ropes. 
 The man-of-war towed sullenly and viciously. The 
 * Haliotis ' behind her hummed like a hive before swarm- 
 ing. With extra and totally unneeded spars her crew 
 blocked up the space round the forward engine till it 
 resembled a statue in its scaffolding, and the butts of the 
 shores interfered with every view that a dispassionate 
 eye might wish to take. And that the dispassionate 
 mind might be swiftly shaken out of its calm, the well- 
 sunk bolts of the shores were wrapped round untidily 
 
 144 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 with loose ends of ropes, giving a studied effect of most 
 dangerous insecurity. Next, Mr. Wardrop took up a 
 collection from the after engine, which, as you will re- 
 member, had not been affected in the general wreck. 
 The cylinder escape-valve he abolished with a flogging- 
 hammer. It is difTicult in far-off ports to come by such 
 valves, unless, like Mr. Wardrop, you keep duplicates 
 in store. At the same time men took off the nuts of two 
 of the great holding-down bolts that serve to keep the 
 engines in place on their solid bed. An engine violently 
 arrested in mid-career may easily jerk off the nut of a 
 holding-down bolt, and this accident looked very nat- 
 ural. 
 
 Passing along the tunnel, he removed several shaft 
 coupling-bolts and nuts, scattering other and ancient 
 pieces of iron under foot. Cylinder-bolts he cut off to 
 the number of six from the after engine cylinder, so that 
 it might match its neighbour, and stuffed the bilge- and 
 feed-pumps with cotton-waste. Then he made a neat 
 bundle of the various odds and ends that he had gathered 
 from the engines — little things like nuts and valve- 
 spindles, all carefully tallowed — and retired with them 
 under the floor of the engine-room, where he sighed, 
 being fat, as he passed from manhole to manhole of the 
 double bottom, and in a fairly dry submarine compart- 
 ment hid them. Any engineer, particularly in an un- 
 friendly port, has a right to keep his spare stores where 
 he chooses; and the foot of one of the cylinder shores 
 blocked all entrance into the regular storeroom, even if 
 that had not been already closed with steel wedges. In 
 conclusion, he disconnected the after engine, laid piston 
 and connecting-rod, carefully tallowed, where it would 
 be most inconvenient to the casual visitor, took out 
 
 145 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 three of the eight collars of the thrust-block, hid them 
 where only he could find them again, filled the boilers by 
 hand, wedged the sliding doors of the coal-bunkers, 
 and rested from his labours. The engine-room was a 
 cemetery, and it did not need the contents of an ash-lift 
 through the skylight to make it any worse. 
 
 He invited the skipper to look at the completed work. 
 
 'Saw ye ever such a forsaken wreck as that?' said 
 he proudly. 'It almost frights me to go under those 
 shores. Now, what d 'you think they'll do to us? ' 
 
 'Wait till we see,' said the skipper. 'It'll be bad 
 enough when it comes.' 
 
 He was not wrong. The pleasant days of towing 
 ended all too soon, though the 'Haliotis' trailed behind 
 her a heavily weighted jib stayed out into the shape of a 
 pocket; and Mr. Wardrop was no longer an artist of 
 imagination, but one of seven-and-twenty prisoners in 
 a prison full of insects. The man-of-war had towed 
 them to the nearest port, not to the headquarters of the 
 colony, and when Mr. Wardrop saw the dismal little 
 harbour, with its ragged line of Chinese junks, its one 
 crazy tug, and the boat-building shed that, under the 
 charge of a philosophical Malay, represented a dock- 
 yard, he sighed and shook his head. 
 
 ' I did well,' he said. ' This is the habitation o' wreckers 
 an' thieves. We're at the uttermost ends of the earth. 
 Think you they'll ever know in England?' 
 
 'Doesn't look like it,' said the skipper. 
 
 They were marched ashore with what they stood up 
 in, under a generous escort, and were judged according 
 to the customs of the country, which, though excellent, 
 are a little out of date. There were the pearls; there 
 were the poachers; and there sat a small but hot Gover- 
 
 146 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 nor. He consulted for a while, and then things began 
 to move with speed, for he did not wish to keep a hungry 
 crew at large on the beach, and the man-of-war had gone 
 up the coast. With a wave of his hand — a stroke of the 
 pen was not necessary — he consigned them to the 
 blakgang-tana, the back country, and the hand of the 
 Law removed them from his sight and the knowledge of 
 men. They were marched into the palms, and the back 
 country swallowed them up — all the crew of the 'Hal- 
 iotis.' 
 
 Deep peace continued to brood over Europe, Asia, 
 Africa, America, Australasia, and Polynesia. 
 
 It was the firing that did it. They should have kept 
 their counsel; but when a few thousand foreigners are 
 bursting with joy over the fact that a ship under the 
 British flag had been fired at on the high seas, news 
 travels quickly; and when it came out that the pearl- 
 stealing crew had not been allowed access to their consul 
 (there was no consul within a few hundred miles of that 
 lonely port) even the friendliest of Powers has a right to 
 ask questions. The great heart of the British public 
 was beating furiously on account of the performance of 
 a notorious race-horse, and had not a throb to waste on 
 distant accidents; but somewhere deep in the hull of the 
 ship of State there is machinery which more or less 
 accurately takes charge of foreign affairs. That ma- 
 chinery began to revolve, and who so shocked and sur- 
 prised as the Power that had captured the 'Haliotis'? 
 It explained that colonial governors and far-away men- 
 of-war were difficult to control, and promised that it 
 would most certainly make an example both of the 
 Governor and the vessel. As for the crew, reported to 
 
 147 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 be pressed into military service in tropical climes, it 
 would produce them as soon as possible, and it would 
 apologise, if necessary. Now, no apologies were needed. 
 When one nation apologises to another, millions of 
 amateurs who have no earthly concern with the difficulty 
 hurl themselves into the strife and embarrass the trained 
 specialist. It was requested that the crew be found, if 
 they were still alive — they had been eight months 
 beyond knowledge — and it was promised that all would 
 be forgotten. 
 
 The little Governor of the little port was pleased with 
 himself. Seven-and-twenty white men made a very 
 compact force to throw away on a war that had neither 
 beginning nor end — a jungle-and-stockade fight that 
 flickered and smouldered through the wet, hot years in 
 the hills a hundred miles away, and was the heritage of 
 every wearied official. He had, he thought, deserved 
 well of his country; and if only some one would buy the 
 unhappy 'Haliotis,' moored in the harbour below his 
 veranda, his cup would be full. He looked at the neatly 
 silvered lamps that he had taken from her cabins, and 
 thought of much that might be turned to account. 
 But his countrymen in that moist climate had no spirit. 
 They would peep into the silent engine-room, and shake 
 their heads. Even the men-of-war would not tow her 
 farther up the coast, where the Governor believed that 
 she could be repaired. She was a bad bargain; but her 
 cabin carpets were undeniably beautiful, and his wife 
 approved of her mirrors. 
 
 Three hours later cables were bursting round him 
 like shells, for, though he knew it not, he was being 
 offered as a sacrifice by the nether to the upper mill- 
 stone, and his superiors had no regard for his feelings. 
 
 148 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 He had, said the cables, grossly exceeded his power, and 
 failed to report on events. He would, therefore, — at 
 this he cast himself back in his hammock — produce the 
 crew of the 'Haliotis.' He would send for them, and, if 
 that failed, he would put his dignity on a pony and fetch 
 them himself. He had no conceivable right to make 
 pearl-poachers serve in any war. He would be held 
 responsible. 
 
 Next morning the cables wished to know whether he 
 had found the crew of the 'Haliotis.' They were to be 
 found, freed and fed — he was to feed them — till such 
 time as they could be sent to the nearest English port in 
 a man-of-war. If you abuse a man long enough in great 
 words flashed over the sea-beds, things happen. The 
 Governor sent inland swiftly for his prisoners, who were 
 also soldiers; and never was a militia regiment more 
 anxious to reduce its strength. No power short of 
 death could make these mad men wear the uniform of 
 their service. They would not fight, except with their 
 fellows, and it was for that reason the regiment had not 
 gone to war, but stayed in a stockade, reasoning with the 
 new troops. The autumn campaign had been a fiasco, 
 but here were the Englishmen. All the regiment marched 
 back to guard them, and the hairy enemy, armed with 
 blow-pipes, rejoiced in the forest. Five of the crew had 
 died, but there lined up on the Governor's veranda two- 
 and-twenty men marked about the legs with the scars of 
 leech-bites. A few of them wore fringes that had once 
 been trousers; the others used loin-cloths of gay patterns; 
 and they existed beautifully but simply in the Governor's 
 veranda; and when he came out they sang at him. 
 When you have lost seventy thousand pounds' worth of 
 pearls, your pay, your ship, and all your clothes, and 
 
 149 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 have lived in bondage for eight months beyond the 
 faintest pretences of civilisation, you know what true 
 independence means, for you become the happiest of 
 created things — natural man. 
 
 The Governor told the crew that they were evil, and 
 they asked for food. When he saw how they ate, and 
 when he remembered that none of the pearl patrol-boats 
 were expected for two months, he sighed. But the crew 
 of the 'Haliotis' lay down in the veranda, and said that 
 they were pensioners of the Governor's bounty. A 
 gray-bearded man, fat and bald-headed, his one garment 
 a green and yellow loin-cloth, saw the 'Haliotis' in the 
 harbour, and bellowed with joy. The men crowded to 
 the veranda-rail, kicking aside the long cane chairs. 
 They pointed, gesticulated, and argued freely, without 
 shame. The militia regiment sat down in the Governor's 
 garden. The Governor retired to his hammock — it 
 was as easy to be killed lying as standing — and his 
 women squeaked from the shuttered rooms. 
 
 *She sold?' said the gray-bearded man, pointing to 
 the ' Haliotis.' He was Mr. Wardrop. 
 
 *No good,' said the Governor, shaking his head. *No 
 one come buy.' 
 
 'He's taken my lamps, though,' said the skipper. 
 He wore one leg of a pair of trousers, and his eye wan- 
 dered along the veranda. The Governor quailed. There 
 were cuddy camp-stools and the skipper's writing-table 
 in plain sight. 
 
 'They've cleaned her out, o' course,' said Mr. War- 
 drop. 'They would. We'll go aboard and take an in- 
 ventory. See ! ' He waved his hands over the harbour. 
 ' We — live — there — now. Sorry? ' 
 
 The Governor smiled a smile of relief, 
 
 150 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 *He's glad of that,' said one of the crew, reflectively. 
 *I don't wonder.' 
 
 They flocked down to the harbour-front, the militia 
 regiment clattering behind, and embarked themselves 
 in what they found — it happened to be the Governor's 
 boat. Then they disappeared over the bulwarks of the 
 *Haliotis,' and the Governor prayed that they might 
 fmd occupation inside. 
 
 Mr. Wardrop's first bound took him to the engine- 
 room; and when the others were patting the well-re- 
 membered decks, they heard him giving God thanks 
 that things were as he had left them. The wrecked 
 engines stood over his head untouched; no inexpert 
 hand had meddled with his shores; the steel wedges of 
 the storeroom were rusted home; and, best of all, the 
 hundred and sixty tons of good Australian coal in the 
 bunkers had not diminished. 
 
 'I don't understand it,' said Mr. Wardrop. *Any 
 Malay knows the use o' copper. They ought to have 
 cut away the pipes. And with Chinese junks coming 
 here, too. It's a special interposition o' Providence.' 
 
 'You think so,' said the skipper, from above. 'There's 
 only been one thief here, and he's cleaned her out of all 
 my things, anyhow.' 
 
 Here the skipper spoke less than the truth, for under 
 the planking of his cabin, only to be reached by a chisel, 
 lay a little money which never drew any interest — his 
 sheet-anchor to windward. It was all in clean sover- 
 eigns that pass current the world over, and might have 
 amounted to more than a hundred pounds. 
 
 'He's left me alone. Let's thank God,' repeated Mr. 
 Wardrop. 
 
 'He's taken everything else; look!' 
 
 151 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 The 'Haliotis,' except as to her engine-room, had 
 been systematically and scientifically gutted from one 
 end to the other, and there was strong evidence that an 
 unclean guard had camped in the skipper's cabin to 
 regulate that plunder. She lacked glass, plate, crockery, 
 cutlery, mattresses, cuddy carpets and chairs, all boats, 
 and her copper ventilators. These things had been 
 removed, with her sails and as much of the wire rigging 
 as would not imperil the safety of the masts. 
 
 'He must have sold those,' said the skipper. 'The 
 other things are in his house, I suppose.' 
 
 Every fitting that could be prized or screwed out was 
 gone. Port, starboard, and masthead lights; teak 
 gratings; sliding sashes of the deck-house; the captain's 
 chest of drawers, with charts and chart-table; photo- 
 graphs, brackets, and looking-glasses; cabin doors; 
 rubber cuddy-mats; hatch irons; half the funnel-stays; 
 cork fenders; carpenter's grindstone and tool-chest; 
 holy-stones, swabs, squeegees; all cabin and pantry 
 lamps; galley fittings en bloc; flags and flag-locker; 
 clocks, chronometers; the forward compass and the 
 ship's bell and belfry, were among the missing. 
 
 There were great scarred marks on the deck-planking, 
 over which the cargo-derricks had been hauled. One 
 must have fallen by the way, for the bulwark-rails were 
 smashed and bent and the side-plates bruised. 
 
 'It's the Governor,' said the skipper. 'He's been 
 selling her on the instalment plan.' 
 
 'Let's go up with spanners and shovels, and kill 'email,' 
 shouted the crew. 'Let's drown him, and keep the woman !' 
 
 'Then we'll be shot by that black-and-tan regiment — 
 our regiment. What's the trouble ashore? They've 
 camped our regiment on the beach.' 
 
 152 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 'We're cut off, that's all. Go and see what they 
 want,' said Mr. Wardrop. 'You've the trousers.' 
 
 In his simple way the Governor was a strategist. He 
 did not desire that the crew of the 'Haliotis' should 
 come ashore again, either singly or in detachments, and 
 he proposed to turn their steamer into a convict-hulk. 
 They would wait — he explained this from the quay to 
 the skipper in the barge — and they would continue to 
 wait till the man-of-war came along, exactly where they 
 were. If one of them set foot ashore, the entire regi- 
 ment would open fire, and he would not scruple to use 
 the two cannon of the town. Meantime food would be 
 sent daily in a boat under an armed escort. The skipper, 
 bare to the waist, and rowing, could only grind his teeth; 
 and the Governor improved the occasion, and revenged 
 himself for the bitter words in the cables, by telling 
 what he thought of the morals and manners of the crew. 
 The barge returned to the 'Haliotis' in silence, and the 
 skipper climbed aboard, white on the cheek-bones and 
 blue about the nostrils. 
 
 'I knew it,' said Mr. Wardrop; 'and they won't give 
 us good food, either. We shall have bananas morning, 
 noon, and night, an' a man can't work on fruit. We 
 know that.' 
 
 Then the skipper cursed Mr. Wardrop for importing 
 frivolous side-issues into the conversation; and the crew 
 cursed one another, and the 'Haliotis,' the voyage, and 
 all that they knew or could bring to mind. They sat 
 down in silence on the empty decks, and their eyes 
 burned in their heads. The green harbour water chuckled 
 at them overside. They looked at the palm-fringed 
 hills inland, at the white houses above the harbour road, 
 at the single tier of native craft by the quay, at the 
 
 153 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 stolid soldiery sitting round the two cannon, and, last 
 of all, at the blue bar of the horizon. Mr. Wardrop was 
 buried in thought, and scratched imaginary lines with 
 his untrimmed finger-nails on the planking. 
 
 'I make no promise,' he said at last, 'for I can't say 
 what may or may not have happened to them. But 
 here's the ship, and here's us.' 
 
 There was a little scornful laughter at this, and Mr. 
 Wardrop knitted his brows. He recalled that in the 
 days when he wore trousers he had been chief engineer 
 ofthe'Haliotis.' 
 
 *Harland, Mackesy, Noble, Hay, Naughton, Fink, 
 O'Hara, Trumbull.' 
 
 'Here, sir!' The instinct of obedience waked to an- 
 swer the roll-call of the engine-room. 
 
 'Below!' 
 
 They rose and went. 
 
 * Captain, I'll trouble you for the rest of the men as I 
 want them. W^e'll get my stores out, and clear away 
 the shores we don't need, and then we'll patch her up. 
 My men will remember that they're in the "Haliotis" — 
 under me.' 
 
 He went into the engine-room, and the others stared. 
 They were used to the accidents of the sea, but this 
 was beyond their experience. None who had seen the 
 engine-room believed that anything short of new en- 
 gines from end to end could stir the ' Haliotis ' from her 
 moorings. 
 
 The engine-room stores were unearthed, and Mr. 
 Wardrop' s face, red with the filth of the bilges and the 
 exertion of travelling on his stomach, lit with joy. The 
 spare gear of the ' Haliotis ' had been unusually complete, 
 and two-and-twenty men, armed with screw-jacks, dif- 
 
 154 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 ferential blocks, tackle, vices, and a forge or so, can 
 look Kismet between the eyes without winking. The 
 crew were ordered to replace the holding-down and 
 shaft-bearing bolts, and return the collars of the thrust- 
 block. When they had finished, Mr. Wardrop delivered 
 a lecture on repairing compound engines without the aid 
 of the shops while the men sat about on the cold ma- 
 chinery. The cross-head jammed in the guides leered 
 at them drunkenly, but offered no help. They ran their 
 fingers hopelessly into the cracks of the starboard sup- 
 porting-column, and picked at the ends of the ropes 
 round the shores, while Mr. Wardrop's voice rose and 
 fell echoing, till the quick tropic night closed down over 
 the engine-room skylight. 
 
 Next morning the work of reconstruction began. 
 
 It has been explained that the foot of the connecting- 
 rod was forced against the foot of the starboard support- 
 ing-column, which, it had cracked through and driven 
 outward towards the ship's skin. To all appearance 
 the job was more than hopeless, for rod and column 
 seemed to have been welded into one. But herein 
 Providence smiled on them for one moment to hearten 
 them through the weary weeks ahead. The second 
 engineer — more reckless than resourceful — struck at 
 random with a cold chisel into the cast-iron of the 
 column, and a greasy, gray flake of metal flew from under 
 the imprisoned foot of the connecting-rod, while the rod 
 itself fell away slowly, and brought up with a thunder- 
 ous clang somewhere in the dark of the crank-pit. The 
 guide-plates above were still jammed fast in the guides, 
 but the first blow had been struck. They spent the 
 rest of the day grooming the cargo-winch, which stood 
 immediately forward of the engine-room hatch. Its 
 
 155 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 tarpaulin, of course, had been stolen, and eight warm 
 months had not improved the working parts. Further, 
 the last dying hiccup of the 'Haliotis' seemed — or it 
 might have been the Malay from the boat-house — to 
 have lifted the thing bodily from its bolts, and set it 
 down inaccurately as regarded its steam connections. 
 
 ' If we only had one single cargo-derrick ! ' Mr. War- 
 drop sighed. 'We can take the cylinder-cover off by 
 hand, if we sweat; but to get the rod out o' the piston's 
 not possible unless we use steam. Well, there'll be 
 steam the morn, if there's nothing else. She'll fizzle ! ' 
 
 Next morning men from the shore saw the 'Haliotis' 
 through a cloud, for it was as though the decks smoked. 
 Her crew were chasing steam through the shaken and 
 leakypipestoitswork in the forward donkey-engine; and 
 where oakum failed to plug a crack, they stripped off 
 their loin-cloths for lapping, and swore, half-boiled and 
 mother-naked. The donkey-engine worked — at a price 
 — the price of constant attention and furious stoking — 
 worked long enough to allow a wire rope (it was made 
 up of a funnel and a foremast-stay) to be led into the 
 engine-room and made fast on the cylinder-cover of the 
 forward engine. That rose easily enough, and was 
 hauled through the skylight and on to the deck; many 
 hands assisting the doubtful steam. Then came the 
 tug of war, for it was necessary to get to the piston and 
 the jammed piston-rod. They removed two of the 
 piston junk-ring studs, screwed in two strong iron eye- 
 bolts by way of handles, doubled the wire rope, and set 
 half-a-dozen men to smite with an extemporised batter- 
 ing-ram at the end of the piston-rod, where it peered 
 through the piston, while the donkey-engine hauled 
 upwards on the piston itself. After four hours of this 
 
 156 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 killing work the piston-rod suddenly slipped, and the 
 piston rose with a jerk, knocking one or two men over 
 into the engine-room. But when Mr. Wardrop declared 
 that the piston had not split, they cheered, and thought 
 nothing of their wounds; and the donkey-engine was 
 hastily stopped; its boiler was no thing to tamper 
 with. 
 
 And day by day their supplies reached them by boat. 
 The skipper humbled himself once more before the 
 Governor, and as a concession had leave to get drinking- 
 water from the Malay boat-builder on the quay. It was 
 not good drinking-water, but the Malay was anxious to 
 supply anything in his power, if he were paid for it. 
 
 Now, when the jaws of the forward engine stood, as it 
 were, stripped and empty, they began to wedge up the 
 shores of the cylinder itself. That work alone filled the 
 better part of three days — warm and sticky days, when 
 the hands slipped and sweat ran into the eyes. When 
 the last wedge was hammered home there was no longer 
 an ounce of weight on the supporting-columns; and Mr. 
 Wardrop rummaged the ship for boiler-plate three- 
 quarters of an inch thick, where he could find it. There 
 was not much available, but what there was was more 
 than beaten gold to him. In one desperate forenoon 
 the entire crew, naked and lean, haled back, more or less 
 to place, the starboard supporting-column, which, as 
 you remember, was cracked clean through. Mr. War- 
 drop found them asleep where they had finished the 
 work, and gave them a day's rest, smiling upon them as 
 a father while he drew chalk-marks about the cracks. 
 They woke to new and more trying labour; for over each 
 one of those cracks a plate of three-quarter-inch boiler- 
 iron was to be worked hot, the rivet-holes being drilled 
 
 157 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 by hand. All that time they were fed on fruits, chiefly 
 bananas, with some sago. 
 
 Those were the days when the men swooned over the 
 ratchet-drill and the hand-forge, and where they fell 
 they had leave to lie unless their bodies were in the way 
 of their fellows' feet. And so, patch upon patch, and a 
 patch over all, the starboard supporting-column was 
 clouted; but w^hen they thought all was secure, Mr. 
 Wardrop decreed that the noble patchwork would never 
 support working engines; at the best, it could only hold 
 the guide-bars approximately true. The dead weight 
 of the cylinders must be borne by vertical struts; and, 
 therefore, a gang would repair to the bows, and take out, 
 with files, the big bow-anchor davits, each of which was 
 some three inches in diameter. They threw hot coals 
 at Wardrop, and threatened to kill him, those who did 
 not weep (they were ready to weep on the least provo- 
 cation); but he hit them with iron bars heated at the 
 end, and they limped forward, and the davits came with 
 them when they returned. They slept sixteen hours on 
 the strength of it, and in three days two struts were in 
 place, bolted from the foot of the starboard support- 
 ing-column to the under side of the cylinder. There 
 remained now the port, or condenser-column, which, 
 though not so badly cracked as its fellow, had also been 
 strengthened in four places with boiler-plate patches, 
 but needed struts. They took away the main stan- 
 chions of the bridge for that work, and, crazy with toil, 
 did not see till all was in place that the rounded bars of 
 iron must be flattened from top to bottom to allow the 
 air-pump levers to clear them. It was Wardrop's over- 
 sight, and he wept bitterly before the men as he gave 
 the order to unbolt the struts and flatten them with 
 
 158 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 hammer and the flame. Now the broken engine was 
 under-pinned firmly, and they took away the wooden 
 shores from under the cylinders, and gave them to the 
 robbed bridge, thanking God for even half a day's work 
 on gentle, kindly wood instead of the iron that had en- 
 tered into their souls. Eight months in the back country 
 among the leeches, at a temperature of 85 degrees moist, 
 is very bad for the nerves. 
 
 They had kept the hardest work to the last, as boys 
 save Latin prose, and, worn though they were, Mr. 
 Wardrop did not dare to give them rest. The piston- 
 rod and connecting-rod were to be straightened, and 
 this was a job for a regular dockyard with every appli- 
 ance. They fell to it, cheered by a little chalk-showing 
 of work done and time consumed which Mr. Wardrop 
 wrote up on the engine-room bulk-head. Fifteen days 
 had gone — fifteen days of killing labour — and there was 
 hope before them. 
 
 It is curious that no man knows how the rods were 
 straightened. The crew of the 'Haliotis' remember 
 that week very dimly, as a fever patient remembers the 
 delirium of a long night. There were fires everywhere, 
 they say; the whole ship was one consuming furnace, 
 and the hammers were never still. Now, there could 
 not have been more than one fire at the most, for Mr. 
 Wardrop distinctly recalls that no straightening was 
 done except under his own eye. They remember, too, 
 that for many years voices gave orders which they 
 obeyed with their bodies, but their minds were abroad 
 on all the seas. It seems to them that they stood 
 through days and nights slowly sliding a bar backwards 
 and forwards through a white glow that was part of the 
 ship. They remember an intolerable noise in their burn- 
 
 159 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 ing heads from the walls of the stoke-hole, and they 
 remember being savagely beaten by men whose eyes 
 seemed asleep. When their shift was over they would 
 draw straight lines in the air, anxiously and repeatedly, 
 and would question one another in their sleep, crying, 
 'Is she straight?' 
 
 At last — they do not remember whether this was by 
 day or by night — Mr. Wardrop began to dance clumsily, 
 and wept the while; and they too danced and wept, and 
 went to sleep twitching all over; and when they woke, 
 men said that the rods were straightened, and no one 
 did any work for two days, but lay on the decks and ate 
 fruit. Mr. Wardrop would go below from time to time, 
 and pat the two rods where they lay, and they heard 
 him singing hymns. 
 
 Then his trouble of mind went from him, and at the 
 end of the third day's idleness he made a drawing in 
 chalk upon the deck, with letters of the alphabet at the 
 angles. He pointed out that, though the piston-rod 
 was more or less straight, the piston-rod cross-head — 
 the thing that had been jammed sideways in the guides 
 — had been badly strained, and had cracked the lower 
 end of the piston-rod. He was going to forge and shrink 
 a wrought-iron collar on the neck of the piston-rod 
 where it joined the cross-head, and from the collar he 
 would bolt a Y-shaped piece of iron whose lower arms 
 should be bolted into the cross-head. If anything more 
 were needed, they could use up the last of the boiler- 
 plate. 
 
 So the forges were lit again, and men burned their 
 bodies, but hardly felt the pain. The finished connec- 
 tion was not beautiful, but it seemed strong enough — 
 at least, as strong as the rest of the machinery; and with 
 
 160 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 that job their labours came to an end. All that re- 
 mained was to connect up the engines, and to get food 
 and water. The skipper and four men dealt with the 
 Malay boat-builder — by night chiefly; it was no time 
 to haggle over the price of sago and dried fish. The 
 others stayed aboard and replaced piston, piston-rod, 
 cylinder-cover, cross-head, and bolts, with the aid of 
 the faithful donkey-engine. The cylinder-cover was 
 hardly steam-proof, and the eye of science might have 
 seen in the connecting-rod a flexure something like that 
 of a Christmas-tree candle which has melted and been 
 straightened by hand over a stove, but, as Mr. Wardrop 
 said, 'She didn't hit anything.' 
 
 As soon as the last bolt was in place, men tumbled 
 over one another in their anxiety to get to the hand 
 turning-gear, the wheel and the worm, by which some 
 engines can be moved when there is no steam aboard. 
 They nearly wrenched off the wheel, but it was evident 
 to the blindest eye that the engines stirred. They did 
 not revolve in their orbits with any enthusiasm, as good 
 machines should; indeed, they groaned not a little; but 
 they moved over and came to rest in a way which proved 
 that they still recognised man's hand. Then Mr. War- 
 drop sent his slaves into the darker bowels of the engine- 
 room and the stoke-hole, and followed them with a 
 flare-lamp. The boilers were sound, but would take no 
 harm from a little scaling and cleaning. Mr. Wardrop 
 would not have any one over-zealous, for he feared what 
 the next stroke of the tool might show. 'The less we 
 know about her now,' said he, 'the better for us all, I'm 
 thinkin'. Ye'll understand me when I say that this is 
 in no sense regular engineerin'.' 
 
 As his raiment, when he spoke, was his gray beard 
 
 161 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 and uncut hair, they believed him. They did not ask 
 too much of what they met, but poUshed and tallowed 
 and scraped it to a false brilliancy. 
 
 'A lick of paint would make me easier in my mind,' 
 said Mr. Wardrop, plaintively. ' I know half the con- 
 denser-tubes are started; and the propeller-shaftin' 's 
 God knows how far out of the true, and we'll need a new 
 air-pump, an' the main-steam leaks like a sieve, and 
 there's worse each way I look; but — paint's like clothes 
 to a man, an' ours is near all gone.' 
 
 The skipper unearthed some stale ropy paint of the 
 loathsome green that they used for the galleys of sailing- 
 ships, and Mr. Wardrop spread it abroad lavishly to 
 give the engines self-respect. 
 
 His own was returning day by day, for he wore his 
 loin-cloth continuously; but the crew, having worked 
 under orders, did not feel as he did. The completed 
 work satisfied Mr. Wardrop. He would at the last have 
 made shift to run to Singapore, and, gone home, without 
 vengeance taken, to show his engines to his brethren in 
 the craft; but the others and the captain forbade him. 
 They had not yet recovered their self-respect. 
 
 ' It would be safer to make what ye might call a trial 
 trip, but beggars mustn't be choosers; an' if the engines 
 will go over to the hand gear, the probability — I'm only 
 saying it's a probability — the chance is that they'll hold 
 up when we put steam on her.' 
 
 * How long will you take to get steam? ' said the skip- 
 per. 
 
 *God knows! Four hours — a day — half a week. If 
 I can raise sixty pound I'll not complain.' 
 
 *Be sure of her first; we can't afford to go out half a 
 mile, and break down.' 
 
 162 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 *My soul and body, man, we're one continuous break- 
 down, fore an' aft! We might fetch Singapore, though.' 
 
 'We'll break down at Pygang-Watai, where we can do 
 good,' was the answer, in a voice that did not allow 
 argument. * She's my boat, and — I've had eight months 
 to think in.' 
 
 No man saw the 'Haliotis' depart, though many heard 
 her. She left at two in the morning, having cut her 
 moorings, and it was none of her crew's pleasure that 
 the engines should strike up a thundering half-seas- 
 over chanty that echoed among the hills. Mr. Wardrop 
 wiped away a tear as he listened to the new song. 
 
 'She's gibberin' — she's just gibberin',' he whimpered. 
 ' Yon's the voice of a maniac' 
 
 And if engines have any soul, as their masters believe, 
 he was quite right. There were outcries and clamours, 
 sobs and bursts of chattering laughter, silences where 
 the trained ear yearned for the clear note, and torturing 
 reduplications where there should have been one deep 
 voice. Down the screw-shaft ran murmurs and warnings, 
 while a heart-diseased flutter without told that the 
 propeller needed re-keying. 
 
 'How does she make it?' said the skipper. 
 
 * She moves, but — but she's breakin' my heart. The 
 sooner we're at Pygang-Watai, the better. She's mad, 
 and we're waking the town.' 
 
 ' Is she at all near safe? ' 
 
 'What do I care how safe she is! She's mad. Hear 
 that, now! To be sure, nothing's hittin' anything, and 
 the bearin's are fairly cool, but — can ye not hear?' 
 
 'If she goes,' said the skipper, 'I don't care a curse. 
 And she's my boat, too.' 
 
 She went, trailing a fathom of weed behind her. 
 
 163 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 From a slow two knots an hour she crawled up to a 
 triumphant four. Anything beyond that made the 
 struts quiver dangerously, and filled the engine-room 
 with steam. Morning showed her out of sight of land, 
 and there was a visible ripple under her bows; but she 
 complained bitterly in her bowels, and, as though the 
 noise had called it, there shot along across the purple 
 sea a swift, dark proa, hawk-hke and curious, which 
 presently ranged alongside and wished to know if the 
 'Haliotis' were helpless. Ships, even the steamers of 
 the white men, had been known to break down in those 
 waters, and the honest Malay and Javanese traders 
 would sometimes aid them in their own peculiar way. 
 But this ship was not full of lady passengers and well- 
 dressed officers. Men, white, naked and savage, 
 swarmed down her sides — some with red-hot iron bars 
 and others with large hammers — threw themselves upon 
 those innocent inquiring strangers, and, before any man 
 could say what had happened, were in full possession 
 of the proa, while the lawful owners bobbed in the water 
 overside. Half an hour later the proa's cargo of sago 
 and tripang, as well as a doubtful-minded compass, 
 was in the 'Haliotis.' The two huge triangular mat 
 sails, with their seventy-foot yards, had followed the 
 cargo, and were being fitted to the stripped masts of the 
 steamer. 
 
 They rose, they swelled, they filled, and the empty 
 steamer visibly laid over as the wind took them. They 
 gave her nearly three knots an hour, and what better 
 could men ask? But if she had been forlorn before, this 
 new purchase made her horrible to see. Imagine a 
 respectable charwoman in the tights of a ballet-dancer 
 rolling drunk along the streets, and you will come to 
 
 164 
 
THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 
 
 some faint notion of the appearance of that nine-hun- 
 dred-ton well-decked once schooner-rigged cargo-boat as 
 she staggered under her new help, shouting and raving 
 across the deep. With steam and sail that marvellous 
 voyage continued; and the bright-eyed crew looked 
 over the rail, desolate, unkempt, unshorn, shamelessly 
 clothed — beyond the decencies. 
 
 At the end of the third week she sighted the island of 
 Pygang-Watai, whose harbour is the turning-point of a 
 pearling sea-patrol. Here the gunboats stay for a week 
 ere they retrace their line. There is no village at Py- 
 gang-Watai, only a stream of water, some palms, and a 
 harbour safe to rest in till the first violence of the south- 
 east monsoon has blown itself out. They opened up the 
 low coral beach, with its mound of whitewashed coal 
 ready for supply, the deserted huts for the sailors, and 
 the flagless flagstaff. 
 
 Next day there was no 'Haliotis' — only a little proa 
 rocking in the warm rain at the mouth of the harbour, 
 whose crew watched with hungry eyes the smoke of a 
 gunboat on the horizon. 
 
 Months afterwards there were a few lines in an Eng- 
 lish newspaper to the effect that some gunboat of some 
 foreign Power had broken her back at the mouth of some 
 far-away harbour by running at full speed into a sunken 
 wreck. 
 
 165 
 
I 
 
 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 (1895) 
 PART I 
 
 I have done one braver thing 
 
 Than all the worthies did; 
 And yet a braver thence doth spring, 
 
 Which is to keep that hid. 
 
 'The Undertaking.' 
 
 * '■' S it officially declared yet? ' 
 
 'They've gone as far as to admit extreme local 
 scarcity, and they've started relief-works in one or 
 two districts, the paper says.' 
 
 'That means it will be declared as soon as they can 
 make sure of the men and the rolling-stock. Shouldn't 
 wonder if it were as bad as the Big Famine.' 
 
 'Can't be,' said Scott, turning a little in the long cane 
 chair. 'We've had fifteen-anna crops in the north, and 
 Bombay and Bengal report more than they know what 
 to do with. They'll be able to check it before it gets 
 out of hand. It will only be local.' 
 
 Marty n picked up the 'Pioneer' from the table, read 
 through the telegrams once more, and put up his feet on 
 the chair-rests. It was a hot, dark, breathless evening, 
 heavy with the smell of the newly-watered Mall. The 
 flowers in the Club gardens were dead and black on 
 
 166 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 their stalks, the little lotus-pond was a circle of caked 
 mud, and the tamarisk-trees were white with the dust 
 of days. Most of the men were at the bandstand in the 
 public gardens — from the Club veranda you could hear 
 the native Police band hammering stale waltzes — or on 
 the polo-ground or in the high-walled fives-court, hotter 
 than a Dutch oven. Half a dozen grooms, squatted at 
 the heads of their ponies, waited their masters' return. 
 From time to time a man would ride at a foot-pace 
 into the Club compound, and listlessly loaf over to the 
 whitewashed barracks beside the main building. These 
 were supposed to be chambers. Men lived in them, 
 meeting the same faces night after night at dinner, 
 and drawing out their ofTice-work till the latest possible 
 hour, that they might escape that doleful company. 
 
 *What are you going to do?' said Martyn, with a 
 yawn. ' Let's have a swim before dinner.' 
 
 * Water's hot,' said Scott. ' I was at the bath to-day.' 
 *Play you game o' billiards — fifty up.' 
 
 * It's a hundred and five in the hall now. Sit still and 
 don't be so abominably energetic' 
 
 A grunting camel swung up to the porch, his badged 
 and belted rider fumbling a leather pouch. 
 
 * Kubber-kargaz — ki — yektraaa,' the man whined, 
 handing down the newspaper extra — a slip printed on 
 one side only, and damp from the press. It was pinned 
 on the green baize-board, between notices of ponies for 
 sale and fox-terriers missing. 
 
 Martyn rose lazily, read it, and whistled. 'It's 
 declared ! ' he cried. ' One, two, three — eight districts 
 go under the operations of the Famine Code ek dum. 
 They've put Jimmy Hawkins in charge.' 
 
 *Good business!' said Scott, with the first sign of 
 
 167 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 interest he had shown. ' When in doubt hire a Punjabi. 
 I worked under Jimmy when I first came out and he 
 belonged to the Punjab. He has more bundobust than 
 most men.' 
 
 * Jimmy's a Jubilee Knight now,' said Martyn. 'He 
 was a good chap, even though he is a thrice-born civilian 
 and went to the Benighted Presidency. What unholy 
 names these Madras districts rejoice in — all "ungas" or 
 "rungas" or "pillays" or "polliums."' 
 
 A dog-cart drove up, and a man entered, mopping his 
 head. He was editor of the one daily paper at the capi- 
 tal of a province of twenty-five million natives and a few 
 hundred white men, and as his staff was limited to him- 
 self and one assistant, his office hours ran variously from 
 ten to twenty a day. 
 
 *Hi, Raines; you're supposed to know everything,' said 
 Martyn, stopping him. 'How's this Madras "scarc- 
 ity" going to turn out?' 
 
 'No one knows as yet. There's a message as long as 
 your arm coming in on the telephone. I've left my cub 
 to fill it out. Madras has owned she can't manage it 
 alone, and Jimmy seems to have a free hand in getting 
 all the men he needs. Arbuthnot's warned to hold 
 himself in readiness.' 
 
 * "Badger" Arbuthnot?' 
 
 *The Peshawur chap. Yes, and the "Pi" wires that 
 Ellis and Clay have been moved from the North- West 
 already, and they've taken half a dozen Bombay men, 
 too. It's pukka famine, by the looks of it.' 
 
 * They're nearer the scene of action than we are; but 
 if it comes to indenting on the Punjab this early, there's 
 more in this than meets the eye,' said Martyn. 
 
 'Here to-day and gone to-morrow. Didn't come to 
 
 168 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 stay for ever,' said Scott, dropping one of Marryat's 
 novels, and rising to his feet. 'Martyn, your sister's 
 waiting for you.' 
 
 A rough gray horse was backing and shifting at the 
 edge of the veranda, where the hght of a kerosene-lamp 
 fell on a brown calico habit and a white face under a 
 gray felt hat. 
 
 'Right 0,' said Martyn. 'I'm ready. Better come 
 and dine with us if you've nothing to do, Scott. Wil- 
 liam, is there any dinner in the house? ' 
 
 'I'll go home first and see,' was the rider's answer. 
 'You can drive him over — at eight, remember.' 
 
 Scott moved leisurely to his room, and changed into 
 the evening-dress of the season and the country: spotless 
 white linen from head to foot, with a broad silk cummer- 
 bund. Dinner at the Martyns' was a decided improve- 
 ment on the goat-mutton, twiney-tough fowl, and tinned 
 entrees of the Club. But it was a great pity Martyn 
 could not afford to send his sister to the Hills for the 
 hot weather. As an Acting District Superintendent of 
 Police, Martyn drew the magnificent pay of six hundred 
 depreciated silver rupees a month, and his little four- 
 roomed bungalow said just as much. There were the 
 usual blue-and-white striped jail-made rugs on the 
 uneven floor; the usual glass-studded Amritsar phul- 
 karis draped to nails driven into the flaking whitewash 
 of the walls; the usual half-dozen chairs that did not 
 match, picked up at sales of dead men's effects; and 
 the usual streaks of black grease where the leather 
 punka-thong ran through the wall. It was as though 
 everything had been unpacked the night before to be 
 repacked next morning. Not a door in the house was 
 true to its hinges. The little windows, fifteen feet up, 
 
 169 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 were darkened with wasp-nests, and lizards hunted flies 
 between the beams of the wood-ceiled roof. But all 
 this was part of Scott's life. Thus did people live who 
 had such an income; and in a land where each man's 
 pay, age, and position are printed in a book, that all may 
 read, it is hardly worth while to play at pretences in 
 word or deed. Scott counted eight years' service in 
 the Irrigation Department, and drew eight hundred 
 rupees a month, on the understanding that if he served 
 the State faithfully for another twenty-two years he 
 could retire on a pension of some four hundred rupees a 
 month. His working life, which had been spent chiefly 
 under canvas or in temporary shelters where a man 
 could sleep, eat, and write letters, was bound up with 
 the opening and guarding of irrigation canals, the han- 
 dling of two or three thousand workmen of all castes and 
 creeds, and the payment of vast sums of coined silver. 
 He had finished that spring, not without credit, the last 
 section of the great Mosuhl Canal, and — ^much against 
 his will, for he hated office work — had been sent in to 
 serve during the hot weather on the accounts and supply 
 side of the Department, with sole charge of the swelter- 
 ing sub-office at the capital of the Province. Martyn 
 knew this; William, his sister, knew it; and everybody 
 knew it. 
 
 Scott knew, too, as well as the rest of the world, that 
 Miss Martyn had come out to India four years before, 
 to keep house for her brother, who, as every one, again, 
 knew, had borrowed the money to pay for her passage, 
 and that she ought, as all the world said, to have mar- 
 ried long ago. Instead of this, she had refused some 
 half a dozen subalterns, a civilian twenty years her 
 senior, one major, and a man in the Indian Medical 
 
 170 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 Department. This, too, was common property. She 
 had 'stayed down three hot weathers,' as the saying is, 
 because her brother was in debt and could not afford 
 the expense of her keep at even a cheap hill-station. 
 Therefore her face was white as bone, and in the centre 
 of her forehead was a big silvery scar about the size of a 
 shilling — the mark of a Delhi sore, which is the same as 
 a 'Bagdad date.' This comes from drinking bad water, 
 and slowly eats into the flesh till it is ripe enough to be 
 burned out with acids. 
 
 None the less William had enjoyed herself hugely in 
 her four years. Twice she had been nearly drowned 
 while fording a river on horseback; once she had been 
 run away with on a camel; had witnessed a midnight 
 attack of thieves on her brother's camp; had seen justice 
 administered, with long sticks, in the open under trees; 
 could speak Urdu and even rough Punjabi with a fluency 
 that was envied by her seniors; had altogether fallen 
 out of the habit of writing to her aunts in England, or 
 cutting the pages of the English magazines; had been 
 through a very bad cholera year, seeing sights unfit to 
 be told; and had wound up her experiences by six weeks 
 of typhoid fever, during which her head had been shaved; 
 and hoped to keep her twenty-third birthday that Sep- 
 tember. It is conceivable that her aunts would not have 
 approved of a girl who never set foot on the ground if a 
 horse were within hail ; who rode to dances with a shawl 
 thrown over her skirt; who wore her hair cropped and 
 curling all over her head ; who answered indifferently to 
 the name of William or Bill; whose speech was heavy 
 with the flowers of the vernacular; who could act in 
 amateur theatricals, play on the banjo, rule eight ser- 
 vants and two horses, their accounts and their diseases, 
 
 171 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 and look men slowly and deliberately between the eyes 
 — yea, after they had proposed to her and been rejected. 
 
 ' I like men who do things,' she had confided to a man 
 in the Educational Department, who was teaching the 
 sons of cloth merchants and dyers the beauty of Words- 
 worth's 'Excursion' in annotated cram-books; and when 
 he grew poetical, William explained that she 'didn't 
 understand poetry very much; it made her head ache,' 
 and another broken heart took refuge at the Club. 
 But it was all William's fault. She delighted in hearing 
 men talk of their own work, and that is the most fatal 
 way of bringing a man to your feet. 
 
 Scott had known her more or less for some three years, 
 meeting her, as a rule, under canvas when his camp and 
 her brother's joined for a day on the edge of the Indian 
 Desert. He had danced with her several times at the 
 big Christmas gatherings, when as many as five hundred 
 white people came into the station; and he had always 
 a great respect for her housekeeping and her dinners. 
 
 She looked more like a boy than ever when, after 
 their meal, she sat, one foot tucked under her, on the 
 leather camp-sofa, rolling cigarettes for her brother, her 
 low forehead puckered beneath the dark curls as she 
 twiddled the papers. She stuck out her rounded chin 
 when the tobacco stayed in place, and, with a gesture 
 as true as a school-boy's throwing a stone, tossed the 
 finished article across the room to Martyn, who caught 
 it with one hand, and continued his talk with Scott. It 
 was all 'shop,' — canals and the policing of canals; the 
 sins of villagers who stole more water than they had paid 
 for, and the grosser sin of native constables who con- 
 nived at the thefts; of the transplanting bodily of vil- 
 lages to newly irrigated ground, and of the coming fight 
 
 172 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 with the desert in the south when the Provincial funds 
 should warrant the opening of the long-surveyed Luni 
 Protective Canal System. And Scott spoke openly of 
 his great desire to be put on one particular section of 
 the work where he knew the land and the people, and 
 Martyn sighed for a billet in the Himalayan foot-hills, 
 and spoke his mind of his superiors, and William rolled 
 cigarettes and said nothing, but smiled gravely on her 
 brother because he was happy. 
 
 At ten Scott's horse came to the door, and the evening 
 was ended. 
 
 The lights of the two low bungalows in which the 
 daily paper was printed showed bright across the road. 
 It was too early to try to find sleep, and Scott drifted 
 over to the editor. Raines, stripped to the waist like a 
 sailor at a gun, lay in a long chair, waiting for night 
 telegrams. He had a theory that if a man did not stay 
 by his work all day and most of the night he laid him- 
 self open to fever; so he ate and slept among his files. 
 
 *Can you do it?' he said drowsily. 'I didn't mean to 
 bring you over.' 
 
 'About what? I've been dining at the Martyns'.' 
 
 *The famine, of course. Marty n's warned for it, too. 
 They're taking men where they can find 'em. I sent a 
 note to you at the Club just now, asking if you could do 
 us a letter once a week from the south — between two 
 and three columns, say. Nothing sensational, of course, 
 but just plain facts about who is doing what, and so 
 forth. Our regular rates — ten rupees a column.' 
 
 'Sorry, but it's out of my line,' Scott answered, star- 
 ing absently at the map of India on the wall. 'It's 
 rough on Martyn — very. Wonder what he'll do with 
 his sister. Wonder what the deuce they'll do with me. 
 
 173 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 I've no famine experience. This is the first I've heard 
 of it. Am I ordered? ' 
 
 ' Oh, yes. Here's the wire. They'll put you on relief- 
 works,' Raines went on, 'with a horde of Madrassis 
 dying like flies; one native apothecary and half a pint 
 of cholera-mixture among the ten thousand of you. It 
 comes of your being idle for the moment. Every man 
 who isn't doing two men's work seems to have been 
 called upon. Hawkins evidently believes in Punjabis. 
 It's going to be quite as bad as anything they have had 
 in the last ten years.' 
 
 'It's all in the day's work, worse luck. I suppose I 
 shall get my orders officially some time to-morrow. 
 I'm glad I happened to drop in. Better go and pack 
 my kit now. Who relieves me here — do you know? ' 
 
 Raines turned over a sheaf of telegrams. 'McEuan,' 
 said he, 'from Murree.' 
 
 Scott chuckled. 'He thought he was going to be cool 
 all summer. He'll be very sick about this. Well, no 
 good talking. 'Night.' 
 
 Two hours later, Scott, with a clear conscience, laid 
 himself down to rest on a string cot in a bare room. 
 Two worn bullock-trunks, a leather water-bottle, a tin 
 ice-box, and his pet saddle sewed up in sacking were 
 piled at the door, and the Club secretary's receipt for 
 last month's bill was under his pillow. His orders came 
 next morning, and with them an unofficial telegram 
 from Sir James Hawkins, who did not forget good men, 
 bidding him report himself with all speed at some un- 
 pronounceable place fifteen hundred miles to the south, 
 for the famine was sore in the land, and white men were 
 needed. 
 
 A pink and fattish youth arrived in the red-hot noon- 
 
 174 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 day, whimpering a little at fate and famines, which 
 never allowed any one three months' peace. He was 
 Scott's successor — another cog in the machinery, moved 
 forward behind his fellow, whose services, as the official 
 announcement ran, 'were placed at the disposal of the 
 Madras Government for famine duty until further 
 orders.' Scott handed over the funds in his charge, 
 showed him the coolest corner in the office, warned him 
 against excess of zeal, and, as twilight fell, departed 
 from the Club in a hired carriage with his faithful body- 
 servant, Faiz UUah, and a mound of disordered baggage 
 atop, to catch the Southern Mail at the loopholed and 
 bastioned railway-station. The heat from the thick 
 brick walls struck him across the face as if it had been a 
 hot towel, and he reflected that there were at least five 
 nights and four days of travel before him. Faiz Ullah, 
 used to the chances of service, plunged into the crowd 
 on the stone platform, while Scott, a black cheroot be- 
 tween his teeth, waited till his compartment should be 
 set away. A dozen native policemen, with their rifles 
 and bundles, shouldered into the press of Punjabi farm- 
 ers, Sikh craftsmen, and greasy-locked Afreedee ped- 
 lars, escorting with all pomp Martyn's uniform-case, 
 water-bottles, ice-box, and bedding-roll. They saw Faiz 
 Ullah's lifted hand, and steered for it. 
 
 'My Sahib and your Sahib,' said Faiz Ullah to Mar- 
 tyn's man, 'will travel together. Thou and I, brother, 
 will thus secure the servants' places close by, and be- 
 cause of our masters' authority none will dare to disturb 
 us.' 
 
 When Faiz Ullah reported all things ready, Scott 
 ' settled down coatless and bootless on the broad leather- 
 covered bunk. The heat under the iron-arched roof of 
 
 175 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 the station might have been anything over a hundred 
 degrees. At the last moment Martyn entered, hot and 
 dripping. 
 
 'Don't swear,' said Scott lazily; 'it's too late to change 
 your carriage; and we'll divide the ice.' 
 
 ' What are you doing here? ' said the policeman. 
 
 'Lent to the Madras Government, same as you. By 
 Jove, it's a bender of a night! Are you taking any of 
 your men down? ' 
 
 'A dozen. Suppose I'll have to superintend relief 
 distributions. Didn't know you were under orders 
 too.' 
 
 'I didn't till after I left you last night. Raines had 
 the news first. My orders came this morning. Mc- 
 Euan relieved me at four, and I got off at once. Shouldn't 
 wonder if it wouldn't be a good thing — this famine — if 
 we come through it alive.' 
 
 'Jimmy ought to put you and me to work together,' 
 said Martyn; and then, after a pause: 'My sister's here.' 
 
 'Good business,' said Scott, heartily. 'Going to get 
 off at Umballa, I suppose, and go up to Simla. Who'll 
 she stay with there? ' 
 
 ' No-o ; that's just the trouble of it. She's going down 
 with me.' 
 
 Scott sat bolt upright under the oil lamp as the train 
 jolted past Tarn-Taran station. 'What! You don't 
 mean you couldn't afford — ' 
 
 'Oh, I'd have scraped up the money somehow.' 
 
 'You might have come to me, to begin with,' said 
 Scott, stiffly; *we aren't altogether strangers.' 
 
 ' Well, you needn't be stuffy about it. I might, but — 
 you don't know my sister. I've been explaining and 
 exhorting and entreating and commanding and all the 
 
 176 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 rest of it all day — lost my temper since seven this morn- 
 ing, and haven't got it back yet — but she wouldn't 
 hear of any compromise. A woman's entitled to travel 
 with her husband if she wants to, and William says she's 
 on the same footing. You see, we've been together all 
 our lives, more or less, since my people died. It isn't as 
 if she were an ordinary sister.' 
 
 'All the sisters I've ever heard of would have stayed 
 where they were well off.' 
 
 'She's as clever as a man, confound her,' Martyn 
 went on. 'She broke up the bungalow over my head 
 while I was talking at her. 'Settled the whole subchiz 
 in three hours — servants, horses, and all. I didn't get 
 my orders till nine.' 
 
 'Jimmy Hawkins won't be pleased,' said Scott. 'A 
 famine's no place for a woman.' 
 
 'Mrs. Jim — I mean Lady Jim's in camp with him. 
 At any rate, she says she will look after my sister. 
 William wired down to her on her own responsibility, 
 asking if she could come, and knocked the ground from 
 under me by showing me her answer.' 
 
 Scott laughed aloud. ' If she can do that she can take 
 care of herself, and Mrs. Jim won't let her run into any 
 mischief. There aren't many women, sisters or wives, 
 who would walk into a famine with their eyes open. It 
 isn't as if she didn't know what these things mean. 
 She was through the Jaloo cholera last year.' 
 
 The train stopped at Amritsar, and Scott went back to 
 the ladies' compartment, immediately behind their car- 
 riage. William, a cloth riding-cap on her curls, nodded 
 affably. 
 
 'Come in and have some tea,' she said. 'Best thing 
 in the world for heat-apoplexy.' 
 
 177 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Do I look as if I were going to have heat-apoplexy?' 
 
 'Never can tell,' said William, wisely. 'It's always 
 best to be ready.' 
 
 She had arranged her belongings with the knowledge 
 of an old campaigner. A felt-covered water-bottle 
 hung in the draught of one of the shuttered windows; a 
 tea-set of Russian china, packed in a wadded basket, 
 stood ready on the seat; and a travelling spirit-lamp 
 was clamped against the woodwork above it. 
 
 William served them generously, in large cups, hot 
 tea, which saves the veins of the neck from swelling 
 inopportunely on a hot night. It was characteristic of 
 the girl that, her plan of action once settled, she asked 
 for no comments on it. Life with men who had a great 
 deal of work to do, and very little time to do it in, had 
 taught her the wisdom of effacing as well as of fending 
 for herself. She did not by word or deed suggest that 
 she would be useful, comforting, or beautiful in their 
 travels, but continued about her business serenely: put 
 the cups back without clatter when tea was ended, and 
 made cigarettes for her guests. 
 
 'This time last night,' said Scott, 'we didn't expect — 
 er — this kind of thing, did we? ' 
 
 'I've learned to expect anything,' said William. 
 'You know, in our service, we live at the end of the 
 telegraph; but, of course, this ought to be a good thing 
 for us all, departmentally — if we live.' 
 
 ' It knocks us out of the running in our own Province,' 
 Scott replied, with equal gravity. ' I hoped to be put 
 on the Luni Protective Works this cold weather; but 
 there's no saying how long the famine may keep us.' 
 
 'Hardly beyond October, I should think,' said Martyn. 
 *It will be ended, one way or the other, then.' 
 
 178 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 *And we've nearly a week of this,' said William. 
 'Shan't we be dusty when it's over?' 
 
 For a night and a day they knew their surroundings; 
 and for a night and a day, skirting the edge of the great 
 Indian Desert on a narrow-gauge line, they remembered 
 how in the days of their apprenticeship they had come 
 by that road from Bombay. Then the languages in 
 which the names of the stations were written changed, 
 and they launched south into a foreign land, where the 
 very smells were new. Many long and heavily-laden 
 grain trains were in front of them, and they could feel 
 the hand of Jimmy Hawkins from far off. They waited 
 in extemporised sidings blocked by processions of empty 
 trucks returning to the north, and were coupled on to 
 slow, crawling trains, and dropped at midnight, Heaven 
 knew where; but it was furiously hot; and they walked 
 to and fro among sacks, and dogs howled. 
 
 Then they came to an India more strange to them 
 than to the untravelled Englishman — the flat, red India 
 of palm-tree, palmyra-palm, and rice, the India of the 
 picture-books, of 'Little Henry and His Bearer' — all 
 dead and dry in the baking heat. They had left the 
 incessant passenger-trafTic of the north and west far 
 and far behind them. Here the people crawled to the 
 side of the train, holding their little ones in their arms; 
 and a loaded truck would be left behind, men and women 
 clustering round and above it like ants by spilled honey. 
 Once in the twilight they saw on a dusty plain a regi- 
 ment of little brown men, each bearing a body over his 
 shoulder; and when the train stopped to leave yet an- 
 other truck, they perceived that the burdens were not 
 corpses, but only foodless folk picked up beside their 
 dead oxen by a corps of Irregular troops. Now they 
 
 179 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 met more white men, here one and there two, whose 
 tents stood close to the line, and who came armed with 
 written authorities and angry words to cut off a truck. 
 They were too busy to do more than nod at Scott and 
 Martyn, and stare curiously at William, who could do 
 nothing except make tea, and watch how her men staved 
 off the rush of w^ailing, walking skeletons, putting them 
 down three at a time in heaps, with their own hands un- 
 coupling the marked trucks, or taking receipts from the 
 hollow-eyed, weary white men, who spoke another argot 
 than theirs. 
 
 They ran out of ice, out of soda-water, and out of tea; 
 for they were six days and seven nights on the road, and 
 it seemed to them like seven times seven years. 
 
 At last, in a dry, hot dawn, in a land of death, lit by 
 long red fires of railway sleepers, where they were burn- 
 ing the dead, they came to their destination, and were 
 met by Jim Hawkins, the Head of the Famine, unshaven, 
 unwashed, but cheery, and entirely in command of 
 affairs. 
 
 Martyn, he decreed, then and there, was to live on 
 trains till further orders; was to go back with empty 
 trucks, filling them with starving people as he found 
 them, and dropping them at a famine-camp on the edge 
 of the Eight Districts. He would pick up supplies and 
 return, and his constables would guard the loaded grain- 
 cars, also picking up people, and would drop them at a 
 camp a hundred miles south. Scott — Hawkins was very 
 glad to see Scott again — would, that same hour, take 
 charge of a convoy of bullock-carts, and would go south, 
 feeding as he went, to yet another famine-camp, far from 
 the rail, where he would leave his starving — there would 
 be no lack of starving on the route — and wait for orders 
 
 180 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 by telegraph. Generally, Scott was in all small things 
 to do what he thought best. 
 
 William bit her underlip. There was no one in the 
 wide world like her one brother, but Martyn's orders 
 gave him no discretion. She came out, masked with 
 dust from head to foot, a horseshoe wrinkle on her fore- 
 head, put here by much thinking during the past week, 
 but as self-possessed as ever. Mrs. Jim — who should 
 have been Lady Jim, but that no one remembered to 
 call her aright — took possession of her with a little gasp. 
 
 'Oh, I'm so glad you're here,' she almost sobbed. 
 'You oughtn't to, of course, but there — there isn't an- 
 other woman in the place, and we must help each other, 
 you know; and we've all the wretched people and the 
 little babies they are selling.' 
 
 'I've seen some,' said William. 
 
 ' Isn't it ghastly? I've bought twenty; they're in our 
 camp; but won't you have something to eat first? 
 We've more than ten people can do here; and I've got a 
 horse for you. Oh, I'm so glad you've come! You're 
 a Punjabi too, you know.' 
 
 'Steady, Lizzie,' said Hawkins, over his shoulder. 
 ' We'll look after you, Miss Martyn. Sorry I can't ask 
 you to breakfast, Martyn. You'll have to eat as you 
 go. Leave two of your men to help Scott. These poor 
 devils can't stand up to load carts. Saunders' (this to 
 the engine-driver, half asleep in the cab), 'back down 
 and get those empties away. You've "line clear" to 
 Anundrapillay; they'll give you orders north of that. 
 Scott, load up your carts from that B. P. P. truck, and 
 be off as soon as you can. The Eurasian in the pink 
 shirt is your interpreter and guide. You'll find an 
 apothecary of sorts tied to the yoke of the second wag- 
 
 181 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 gon. He's been trying to bolt; you'll have to look after 
 him. Lizzie, drive Miss Martyn to camp, and tell them 
 to send the red horse down here for me.' 
 
 Scott, with Faiz Ullah and two policemen, was already 
 busy on the carts, backing them up to the truck and 
 unbolting the sideboards quietly, while the others 
 pitched in the bags of millet and wheat. Hawkins 
 watched him for as long as it took to fill one cart. 
 
 'That's a good man,' he said. ' If all goes well I shall 
 work him — hard.' This was Jim Hawkins's notion of the 
 highest compliment one human being could pay another. 
 
 An hour later Scott was under way; the apothecary 
 threatening him with the penalties of the law for that he, 
 a member of the Subordinate Medical Department, had 
 been coerced and bound against his will and all laws 
 governing the liberty of the subject; the pink-shirted 
 Eurasian begging leave to see his mother, who happened 
 to be dying some three miles away: 'Only verree, verree 
 short leave of absence, and will presently return, sar — '; 
 the two constables, armed with staves, bringing up the 
 rear; and Faiz Ullah, a Muhammedan's contempt for 
 all Hindoos and foreigners in every line of his face, 
 explaining to the drivers that though Scott Sahib was a 
 man to be feared on all fours, he, Faiz Ullah, was Au- 
 thority itself. 
 
 The procession creaked past Hawkins's camp — three 
 stained tents under a clump of dead trees; behind them 
 the famine-shed where a crowd of hopeless ones tossed 
 their arms around the cooking-kettles. 
 
 *Wish to Heaven William had kept out of it,' said 
 Scott to himself, after a glance. 'We'll have cholera, 
 sure as a gun, when the Rains come.' 
 
 But William seemed to have taken kindly to the oper- 
 
 182 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 ations of the Famine Code, which, when famine is 
 declared, supersede the workings of the ordinary law. 
 Scott saw her, the centre of a mob of weeping women, in 
 a calico riding-habit and a blue-gray felt hat with a gold 
 puggaree. 
 
 'I want fifty rupees, please. I forgot to ask Jack 
 before he went away. Can you lend it me? It's for 
 condensed milk for the babies,' said she. 
 
 Scott took the money from his belt, and handed it 
 over without a word. 'For goodness sake take care of 
 yourself,' he said. 
 
 ' Oh, I shall be all right. We ought to get the milk in 
 two days. By the way, the orders are, I was to tell you, 
 that you're to take one of Sir Jim's horses. There's a 
 gray Cabuli here that I thought would be just your 
 style, so I've said you'd take him. Was that right? ' 
 
 'That's awfully good of you. We can't either of us 
 talk much about style, I'm afraid.' 
 
 Scott was in a weather-stained drill shooting-kit, very 
 white at the seams and a little frayed at the wrists. 
 William regarded him thoughtfully, from his pith hel- 
 met to his greased ankle-boots. 'You look very nice, I 
 think. Are you sure you've everything you'll need — 
 quinine, chlorodyne, and so on? ' 
 
 'Think so,' said Scott, patting three or four of his 
 shooting-pockets as the horse was led up, and he mounted 
 and rode alongside his convoy. 
 
 'Good-bye,' he cried. 
 
 ' Good-bye, and good luck,' said William. * I'm awfully 
 obliged for the money.' She turned on a spurred heel 
 and disappeared into the tent, while the carts pushed on 
 past the famine-sheds, past the roaring lines of the thick, 
 fat fires, down to the baked Gehenna of the South. 
 
 183 
 
PART II 
 
 So let us melt and make no noise, 
 
 No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move; 
 
 'Twere profanation of our joys 
 To tell the laity our love. 
 
 'A Valediction.' 
 
 IT was punishing work, even though he travelled by 
 night and camped by day; but within the limits of 
 his vision there was no man whom Scott could cali 
 master. He was as free as Jimmy Hawkins — freer, in 
 fact, for the Government held the Head of the Famine 
 tied neatly to a telegraph-wire, and if Jimmy had ever 
 regarded telegrams seriously, the death-rate of that 
 famine would have been much higher than it was. 
 
 At the end of a few days' crawling Scott learned some- 
 thing of the size of the India which he served; and it 
 astonished him. His carts, as you know, were loaded 
 with wheat, millet, and barley, good food-grains need- 
 ing only a little grinding. But the people to whom he 
 brought the life-giving stufTs were rice-eaters. They 
 knew how to hull rice in their mortars, but they knew 
 nothing of the heavy stone querns of the North, and less 
 of the material that the white man convoyed so labori- 
 ously. They clamoured for rice — unhusked paddy, 
 such as they were accustomed to — and, when the> 
 found that there was none, broke away weeping from 
 
 184 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 the sides' of the cart. What was the use of these strange 
 hard grains that choked their throats? They would die. 
 And then and there were many of them kept their word. 
 Others took their allowance, and bartered enough millet 
 to feed a man through a week for a few handfuls of 
 rotten rice saved by some less unfortunate. A few put 
 their shares into the rice-mortars, pounded it, and made 
 a paste with foul water, but they were very few. Scott 
 understood dimly that many people in the India of the 
 South ate rice, as a rule, but he had spent his service in a 
 grain Province, had seldom seen rice in the blade or the 
 ear, and least of all would have believed that, in time of 
 deadly need, men would die at arm's length of plenty, 
 sooner than touch food they did not know. In vain 
 the interpreters interpreted ; in vain his two policemen 
 showed by vigorous pantomime what should be done. 
 The starving crept away to their bark and weeds, grubs, 
 leaves, and clay, and left the open sacks untouched. 
 But sometimes the women laid their phantoms of 
 children at Scott's feet, looking back as they staggered 
 away. 
 
 Faiz UUah opined it was the will of God that these 
 foreigners should die, and therefore it remained only to 
 give orders to burn the dead. None the less there was 
 no reason why the Sahib should lack his comforts, and 
 Faiz Ullah, a campaigner of experience, had picked up a 
 few lean goats and had added them to the procession. 
 That they might give milk for the morning meal, he was 
 feeding them on the good grain that these imbeciles 
 rejected. 'Yes,' said Faiz Ullah; *if the Sahib thought 
 fit, a little milk might be given to some of the babies ' ; 
 but, as the Sahib well knew, babies were cheap, and, 
 for his own part, Faiz Ullah held that there was no 
 
 185 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 Government order as to babies. Scott spoke forcefully 
 to Faiz Ullah and the two policemen, and bade them 
 capture goats where they could fmd them. This they 
 most joyfully did, for it was a recreation, and many 
 ownerless goats were driven in. Once fed, the poor 
 brutes were willing enough to follow the carts, and a 
 few days' good food — food such as human beings died 
 for the lack of — set them in milk again. 
 
 'But I am no goatherd,' said Faiz Ullah. 'It is 
 against my izzat [my honour].' 
 
 'When we cross the Bias River again we will talk of 
 izzat,' Scott replied. 'Till that day thou and the 
 policemen shall be sweepers to the camp, if I give the 
 order.' 
 
 'Thus, then, it is done,' grunted Faiz Ullah, 'if the 
 Sahib will have it so ' ; and he showed how a goat should 
 be milked, while Scott stood over him. 
 
 'Now we will feed them,' said Scott; 'thrice a day we 
 will feed them'; and he bowed his back to the milking, 
 and took a horrible cramp. 
 
 When you have to keep connection unbroken between 
 a restless mother of kids and a baby who is at the point 
 of death, you suffer in all your system. But the babies 
 were fed. Morning, noon and evening Scott would 
 solemnly lift them out one by one from their nest of 
 gunny-bags under the cart-tilts. There were always 
 many who could do no more than breathe, and the milk 
 was dropped into their toothless mouths drop by drop, 
 with due pauses when they choked. Each morning, too, 
 the goats were fed ; and since they would straggle with- 
 out a leader, and since the natives were hirelings, Scott 
 was forced to give up riding, and pace slowly at the head 
 of his flocks, accommodating his step to their weak- 
 
 186 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 nesses. All this was sufficiently absurd, and he felt the 
 absurdity keenly; but at least he was saving life, and 
 when the women saw that their children did not die, 
 they made shift to eat a little of the strange foods, and 
 crawled after the carts, blessing the master of the goats. 
 
 'Give the women something to live for,' said Scott 
 to himself, as he sneezed in the dust of a hundred little 
 feet, *and they'll hang on somehow. But this beats 
 William's condensed-milk trick all to pieces. I shall 
 never live it down, though.' 
 
 He reached his destination very slowly, found that a 
 rice-ship had come in from Burmah, and that stores of 
 paddy were available; found also an overworked Eng- 
 lishman in charge of the shed, and, loading the carts, 
 set back to cover the ground he had already passed. 
 He left some of the children and half his goats at the 
 famine-shed. For this he was not thanked by the 
 Englishman, who had already more stray babies than he 
 knew what to do with. Scott's back was suppled to 
 stooping now, and he went on with his wayside minis- 
 trations in addition to distributing the paddy. More 
 babies and more goats were added unto him; but now 
 some of the babies wore rags, and beads round their 
 wrists or necks. 'That,' said the interpreter, as though 
 Scott did not know, 'signifies that their mothers hope 
 in eventual contingency to resume them offeecially.' 
 
 'The sooner the better,' said Scott; but at the same 
 time he marked, with the pride of ownership, how this 
 or that little Ramasawmy was putting on flesh like a 
 bantam. As the paddy-carts were emptied he headed 
 for Hawkins's camp by the railway, timing his arrival 
 to fit in with the dinner-hour, for it was long since he 
 had eaten at a cloth. He had no desire to make any 
 
 187 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 dramatic entry, but an accident of the sunset ordered it 
 that, when he had taken off his helmet to get the even- 
 ing breeze, the low light should fall across his forehead, 
 and he could not see what was before him; while one 
 waiting at the tent door beheld, with new eyes, a young 
 man, beautiful as Paris, a god in a halo of golden dust, 
 walking slowly at the head of his flocks, while at 
 his knee ran small naked Cupids. But she laughed — 
 William in a slate-coloured blouse, laughed consumedly 
 till Scott, putting the best face he could upon the matter, 
 halted his armies and bade her admire the kindergarten. 
 It was an unseemly sight, but the proprieties had been 
 left ages ago, with the tea-party at Amritsar Station, 
 fifteen hundred miles to the northward. 
 
 *They are coming on nicely,' said William. 'We've 
 only five-and-twenty here now. The women are be- 
 ginning to take them away again.' 
 
 'Are you in charge of the babies, then?' 
 
 'Yes— Mrs. Jim and I. We didn't think of goats, 
 though. We've been trying condensed milk and water.' 
 
 'Any losses?' 
 
 'More than I care to think of,' said William, with a 
 shudder. ' And you? ' 
 
 Scott said nothing. There had been many little 
 burials along his route — many mothers who had wept 
 when they did not find again the children they had 
 trusted to the care of the Government. 
 
 Then Hawkins came out carrying a razor, at which 
 Scott looked hungrily, for he had a beard that he did 
 not love. And when they sat down to dinner in the 
 tent he told his tale in few words, as it might have been 
 an official report. Mrs. Jim snuffied from time to time, 
 and Jim bowed his head judicially; but William's gray 
 
 188 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 eyes were on the clean-shaven face, and it was to her 
 that Scott seemed to speak. 
 
 'Good for the Pauper Province!' said William, her 
 chin in her hand, as she leaned forward among the wine- 
 glasses. Her cheeks had fallen in, and the scar on her 
 forehead was more prominent than ever, but the well- 
 turned neck rose roundly as a column from the ruffle of 
 the blouse which was the accepted evening-dress in camp. 
 
 'It was awfully absurd at times,' said Scott. 'You 
 see I didn't know much about milking or babies. They'll 
 chaff my head off, if the tale goes north.' 
 
 'Let 'em,' said William, haughtily. 'We've all done 
 coolie-work since we came. I know Jack has.' This 
 was to Hawkins's address, and the big man smiled 
 blandly. 
 
 'Your brother's a highly efficient officer, William,' 
 said he, 'and I've done him the honour of treating him 
 as he deserves. Remember, I write the confidential 
 reports.' 
 
 'Then you must say that William's worth her weight 
 in gold,' said Mrs. Jim. ' I don't know what we should 
 have done without her. She has been everything to us.' 
 She dropped her hand upon William's, which was rough 
 with much handling of reins, and William patted it 
 softly. Jim beamed on the company. Things were 
 going well with his world. Three of his more grossly 
 incompetent men had died, and their places had been 
 filled by their betters. Every day brought the rains 
 nearer. They had put out the famine in five of the 
 Eight Districts, and, after all, the death-rate had not 
 been too heavy — things considered. He looked Scott 
 over carefully, as an ogre looks over a man, and re- 
 joiced in his thews and iron-hard condition. 
 
 189 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'He's just the least bit in the world tucked up,' said 
 Jim to himself, 'but he can do two men's work yet.' 
 Then he was aware that Mrs. Jim was telegraphing to 
 him, and according to the domestic code the message 
 ran: 'A clear case. Look at them!' 
 
 He looked and listened. All that William was saying 
 was : ' What can you expect of a country where they call 
 a bhistee [a water-carrier] a tunni-cutch? ' and all that 
 Scott answered was: ' I shall be precious glad to get back 
 to the Club. Save me a dance at the Christmas ball, 
 won't you?' 
 
 'It's a far cry from here to the Lawrence Hall,' said 
 Jim. 'Better turn in early, Scott. It's paddy-carts 
 to-morrow; you'll begin loading at five.' 
 
 * Aren't you going to give Mr. Scott one day's rest?' 
 
 * Wish I could, Lizzie. 'Fraid I can't. As long as he 
 can stand up we must use him.' 
 
 'Well, I've had one Europe evening, at least. . . . 
 By Jove, I'd nearly forgotten! What do I do about 
 those babies of mine?' 
 
 'Leave them here,' said William — 'we are in charge of 
 that— and as many goats as you can spare. I must 
 learn how to milk now.' 
 
 'If you care to get up early enough to-morrow I'll 
 show you. I have to milk, you see; and, by the way, 
 half of 'em have beads and things round their necks. 
 You must be careful not to take 'em off, in case the 
 mothers turn up.' 
 
 'You forget I've had some experience here.' 
 
 'I hope to goodness you won't overdo.' Scott's 
 voice was unguarded. 
 
 'I'll take care of her,' said Mrs. Jim, telegraphing 
 hundred-word messages as she carried William off, while 
 
 190 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 Jim gave Scott his orders for the coming campaign. It 
 was very late — nearly nine o'clock. 
 
 'Jim, you're a brute,' said his wife, that night; and 
 the Head of the Famine chuckled. 
 
 'Not a bit of it, dear. I remember doing llie first 
 Jandiala Settlement for the sake of a girl in a crinoline; 
 and she was slender, Lizzie. I've never done as good a 
 piece of work since. He'll work like a demon.' 
 
 'But you might have given him one day.' 
 
 'And let things come to a head now? No, dear; it's 
 their happiest time.' 
 
 *I don't believe either of the dears know what's the 
 matter with them. Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it lovely?' 
 
 'Getting up at three to learn to milk, bless her heart! 
 Ye gods, why must we grow old and fat?' 
 
 'She's a darling. She has done more work under 
 me — ' 
 
 'Under you! The day after she came she was in 
 charge and you were her subordinate, and you've stayed 
 there ever since. She manages you almost as well as 
 you manage me.' 
 
 'She doesn't, and that's why I love her. She's as 
 direct as a man — as her brother.' 
 
 *Her brother's weaker than she is. He's always com- 
 ing to me for orders; but he's honest, and a glutton for 
 work. I confess I'm rather fond of William, and if I 
 had a daughter — ' 
 
 The talk ended there. Far away in the Derajat was 
 a child's grave more than twenty years old, and neither 
 Jim nor his wife spoke of it any more. 
 
 'All the same, you're responsible,' Jim added, after a 
 moment's silence. 
 
 * Bless 'em!' said Mrs. Jim sleepily. 
 
 191 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 Before the stars paled, Scott, who slept in an empty 
 cart, waked and went about his work in silence; it seemed 
 at that hour unkind to rouse Faiz Ullah and the inter- 
 preter. His head being close to the ground, he did not 
 hear William till she stood over him in the dingy old 
 riding-habit, her eyes still heavy with sleep, a cup of tea 
 and a piece of toast in her hands. There was a baby on 
 the ground, squirming on a piece of blanket, and a six- 
 year-old child peered over Scott's shoulder. 
 
 'Hai, you little rip,' said Scott, 'how the deuce do you 
 expect to get your rations if you aren't quiet?' 
 
 A cool white hand steadied the brat, who forthwith 
 choked as the milk gurgled into his mouth. 
 
 'Mornin',' said the milker. 'You've no notion how 
 these little fellows can wriggle.' 
 
 'Oh yes, I have.' She whispered, because the world 
 was asleep. 'Only I feed them with a spoon or a rag. 
 Yours are fatter than mine. . . . And you've been 
 doing this day after day, twice a day? ' The voice was 
 almost lost. 
 
 'Yes; it was absurd. Now you try,' he said, giving 
 place to the girl. ' Look out ! A goat's not a cow.' 
 
 The goat protested against the amateur, and there 
 was a scuffle, in which Scott snatched up the baby. 
 Then it was all to do over again, and William laughed 
 softly and merrily. She managed, however, to feed two 
 babies, and a third. 
 
 'Don't the little beggars take it well!' said Scott. 'I 
 trained 'em.' 
 
 They were very busy and interested, when, lo ! it was 
 broad daylight, and before they knew, the camp was 
 awake, and they kneeled among the goats, surprised by 
 the day, both flushed to the temples. Yet all the round 
 
 192 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 world rolling up out of the darkness might have heard 
 and seen all that had passed between them. 
 
 'Oh,' said William, unsteadily, snatching up the tea 
 and toast. 'I had this made for you. It's stone-cold 
 now. I thought you mightn't have anything ready so 
 early. Better not drink it. It's — it's stone-cold.' 
 
 'That's awfully kind of you. It's just right. It's 
 awfully good of you, really. I'll leave my kids and 
 goats with you and Mrs. Jim; and, of course, any one in 
 camp can show you about the rnilking.' 
 
 'Of course,' said William; and she grew pinker and 
 pinker and statelier and more stately, as she strode back 
 to her tent, fanning herself vigorously with the saucer. 
 
 There were shrill lamentations through the camp 
 when the elder children saw their nurse move off without 
 them. Faiz UUah unbent so far as to jest with the 
 policemen, and Scott turned purple with shame because 
 Hawkins, already in the saddle, roared. 
 
 A child escaped from the care of Mrs. Jim, and, run- 
 ning like a rabbit, clung to Scott's boot, William pursu- 
 ing with long, easy strides. 
 
 'I will not go — I will not go!' shrieked the child, twin- 
 ing his feet round Scott's ankle. 'They will kill me 
 here. I do not know these people.' 
 
 'I say,' said Scott, in broken Tamil, *I say, she will do 
 you no harm. Go with her and be well fed.' 
 
 'Come!' said William, panting, with a wrathful 
 glance at Scott, who stood helpless and, as it were, ham- 
 strung. 
 
 'Go back,' said Scott quickly to William. 'I'll send 
 the little chap over in a minute.' 
 
 The tone of authority had its effect, but in a way Scott 
 did not exactly intend. The boy loosened his grasp, 
 
 193 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 and said with gravity, ' I did not know the woman was 
 thine. I will go.' Then he cried to his companions, a 
 mob of three-, four-, and five-year-olds waiting on the 
 success of his venture ere they stampeded: 'Go back 
 and eat. It is our man's woman. She will obey his 
 orders.' 
 
 Jim collapsed where he sat; Faiz Ullah and the two 
 policemen grinned; and Scott's orders to the cartmen 
 flew like hail. 
 
 *That is the custom of the Sahibs when truth is told 
 in their presence,' said Faiz Ullah. 'The time comes 
 that I must seek new service. Young wives, especially 
 such as speak our language and have knowledge of the 
 ways of the Police, make great trouble for honest butlers 
 in the matter of weekly accounts. 
 
 What William thought of it all she did not say, but 
 when her brother, ten days later, came to camp for 
 orders, and heard of Scott's performances, he said, 
 laughing: 'Well, that settles it. He'll be Bakri Scott to 
 the end of his days' ('Bakri,' in the northern vernacular, 
 means a goat). 'What a lark! I'd have given a 
 month's pay to have seen him nursing famine babies. I 
 fed some with conjee [rice-water], but that was all right.' 
 
 'It's perfectly disgusting,' said his sister, with blazing 
 eyes. 'A man does something like — like that — and all 
 you other men think of is to give him an absurd nick- 
 name, and then you laugh and think it's funny.' 
 
 'Ah,' said Mrs. Jim, sympathetically. 
 
 'Well, you can't talk, William. You christened little 
 Miss Demby the Button-quail last cold weather; you 
 know you did. India's the land of nicknames.' 
 
 'That's different,' William replied. 'She was only a 
 girl, and she hadn't done anything except walk like a 
 
 194 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 quail, and she does. But it isn't fair to make fun of a 
 man.' 
 
 'Scott won't care,' said Martyn. 'You can't get a 
 rise out of old Scotty. I've been trying for eight years, 
 and you've only known him for three. How does he 
 look?' 
 
 'He looks very well,' said William, and went away 
 with a flushed cheek. 'Bakri Scott, indeed!' Then 
 she laughed to herself, for she knew the country of her 
 service. 'But it will be Bakri all the same'; and she 
 repeated it under her breath several times slowly, whis- 
 pering it into favour. 
 
 When he returned to his duties on the railway, Mar- 
 tyn spread the name far and wide among his associates, 
 so that Scott met it as he led his paddy-carts to war. 
 The natives believed it to be some English title of hon- 
 our, and the cart-drivers used it in all simplicity till 
 Faiz Ullah, who did not approve of foreign japes, broke 
 their heads. There was very little time for milking 
 now, except at the big camps, where Jim had extended 
 Scott's idea, and was feeding large flocks on the useless 
 northern grains. Enough paddy had come into the 
 Eight Districts to hold the people safe, if it were only 
 distributed quickly; and for that purpose no one was 
 better than the big Canal officer, who never lost his 
 temper, never gave an unnecessary order, and never 
 questioned an order given, Scott pressed on, saving his 
 cattle, washing their galled necks daily, so that no time 
 should be lost on the road; reported himself with his 
 rice at the minor famine-sheds, unloaded, and went 
 back light by forced night-march to the next distribut- 
 ing centre, to find Hawkins's unvarying telegram: 'Do 
 it again.' And he did it again and again, and yet again, 
 
 195 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 while Jim Hawkins, fifty miles away, marked off on a 
 big map the tracks of his wheels gridironing the stricken 
 lands. Others did well — Hawkins reported at the end 
 that they all did well — but Scott was the most excellent, 
 for he kept good coined rupees by him, and paid for his 
 own cart-repairs on the spot, and ran to meet all sorts 
 of unconsidered extras, trusting to be recouped later. 
 Theoretically, the Government should have paid for 
 every shoe and linchpin, for every hand employed in 
 the loading; but Government vouchers cash themselves 
 slowly, and intelligent and efficient clerks write at great 
 length, contesting unauthorised expenditures of eight 
 annas. The man who wishes to make his work a suc- 
 cess must draw on his own bank-account of money or 
 other things as he goes. 
 
 'I told you he'd work,' said Jimmy to his wife at the 
 end of six weeks. ' He's been in sole charge of a couple of 
 thousand men up north on the Mosuhl Canal for a year, 
 and he gives one less trouble than young Martyn with 
 his ten constables; and I'm morally certain — only Gov- 
 ernment doesn't recognise moral obligations — that 
 he's spent about half his pay to grease his wheels. 
 Look at this, Lizzie, for one week's work! Forty miles 
 in two days with twelve carts; two days' halt building 
 a famine-shed for young Rogers (Rogers ought to have 
 built it himself, the idiot!). Then forty miles back 
 again, loading six carts on the way, and distributiiig all 
 Sunday. Then in the evening he pitches in a twenty- 
 page demi-official to me, saying that the people where 
 he is might be "advantageously employed on relief- 
 work," and suggesting that he put 'em to work on some 
 broken-down old reservoir he's discovered, so as to have 
 a good water-supply w^hen the Rains come. He thinks 
 
 196 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 he can caulk the dam in a fortnight. Look at his mar- 
 ginal sketches — aren't they clear and good? I knew 
 he was pukka, but I didn't know he was as pukka as 
 this!' 
 
 'I must show these to William,' said Mrs. Jim. 'The 
 child's wearing herself out among the babies.' 
 
 'Not more than you are, dear. Well, another two 
 months ought to see us out of the wood. I'm sorry it's 
 not in my power to recommend you for a V. C 
 
 William sat late in her tent that night, reading through 
 page after page of the square handwriting, patting the 
 sketches of proposed repairs to the reservoir, and wrin- 
 kling her eyebrows over the columns of figures of esti- 
 mated water-supply. 
 
 'And he finds time to do all this,' she cried to herself, 
 'and . . . well, I also was present. I've saved 
 one or two babies.' 
 
 She dreamed for the twentieth time of the god in the 
 golden dust, and woke refreshed to feed loathsome black 
 children, scores of them, wastrels picked up by the way- 
 side, their bones almost breaking their skin, terrible and 
 covered with sores. 
 
 Scott was not allowed to leave his cart-work, but his 
 letter was duly forwarded to the Government, and he 
 had the consolation, not rare in India, of knowing that 
 another man was reaping where he had sown. That 
 also was discipline profitable to the soul. 
 
 'He's much too good to waste on canals,' said Jimmy. 
 'Any one can oversee coolies. You needn't be angry, 
 William: he can — but I need my pearl among bullock- 
 drivers, and I've transferred him to the Khanda district, 
 where he'll have it all to do over again. He should be 
 marching now.' 
 
 197 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 ' He's not a coolie,' said William, furiously. * He ought 
 to be doing his regulation work.' 
 
 'He's the best man in his service, and that's saying a 
 good deal; but if you must use razors to cut grindstones, 
 why, I prefer the best cutlery.' 
 
 'Isn't it almost time we saw him again?' said Mrs. 
 Jim. 'I'm sure the poor boy hasn't had a respectable 
 meal for a month. He probably sits on a cart and eats 
 sardines with his fingers.' 
 
 ' All in good time, dear. Duty before decency — wasn't 
 it Mr. Chucks said that?' 
 
 'No; it was Midshipman Easy,' William laughed. ' I 
 sometimes wonder how it will feel to dance or listen to a 
 band again, or sit under a roof. I can't believe that I 
 ever wore a ball-frock in my life.' 
 
 'One minute,' said Mrs. Jim, who was thinking. 'If 
 he goes to Khanda, he passes within five miles of us. 
 Of course he'll ride in.' 
 
 'Oh no, he won't,' said William. 
 
 'How do you know, dear?' 
 
 ' It'll take him off his work. He won't have time.' 
 
 'He'll make it,' said Mrs. Jim, with a twinkle. 
 
 'It depends on his own judgment. There's abso- 
 lutely no reason why he shouldn't, if he thinks fit,' said 
 Jim. 
 
 'He won't see fit,' William replied, without sorrow or 
 emotion. ' It wouldn't be him if he did.' 
 
 'One certainly gets to know people rather well in 
 times like these,' said Jim, drily; but William's face was 
 serene as ever, and, as she prophesied, Scott did not 
 appear. 
 
 The Rains fell at last, late, but heavily; and the dry, 
 gashed earth was red mud, and servants killed snakes in 
 
 198 
 
WILLIAiVI THE CONQUEROR 
 
 the camp, where every one was weather-bound for a 
 fortnight — all except Hawkins, who took horse and 
 splashed about in the wet, rejoicing. Now the Govern- 
 ment decreed that seed-grain should be distributed to 
 the people as well as advances of money for the purchase 
 of new oxen ; and the white men were doubly worked for 
 this new duty, while William skipped from brick to brick 
 laid down on the trampled mud, and dosed her charges 
 with warming medicines that made them rub their little 
 round stomachs; and the milch-goats throve on the rank 
 grass. There was never a word from Scott in the Khanda 
 district, away to the south-east, except the regular 
 telegraphic report to Hawkins. The rude country roads 
 had disappeared; his drivers were half mutinous; one of 
 Martyn's loaned policemen had died of cholera; and 
 Scott was taking thirty grains of quinine a day to 
 fight the fever that comes if one works hard in heavy 
 rain; but those were things he did not consider necessary 
 to report. He was, as usual, working from a base of 
 supplies on a railway line, to cover a circle of fifteen 
 miles radius, and since full loads were impossible, he 
 took quarter-loads, and toiled four times as hard by 
 consequence; for he did not choose to risk an epidemic 
 which might have grown uncontrollable by assembling 
 villagers in thousands at the relief-sheds. It was cheaper 
 to take Government bullocks, work them to death, 
 and leave them to the crows in the wayside sloughs. 
 
 That was the time when eight years of clean living 
 and hard condition told, though a man's head were ring- 
 ing like a bell from the cinchona, and the earth swayed 
 under his feet when he stood and under his bed when he 
 slept. If Hawkins had seen fit to make him a bullock- 
 driver, that, he thought, was entirely Hawkins's own 
 
 199 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 affair. There were men in the North who would know 
 what he had done; men of thirty years' service in his 
 own department who would say that it was 'not half 
 bad'; and above, immeasurably above all men of all 
 grades, there was William in the thick of the fight, who 
 would approve because she understood. He had so 
 trained his mind that it would holdfast to the mechanical 
 routine of the day, though his own voice sounded strange 
 in his own ears, and his hands, when he wrote, grew 
 large as pillows or small as peas at the end of his wrists. 
 That steadfastness bore his body to the telegraph-office 
 at the railway-station, and dictated a telegram to Hawk- 
 ins, saying that the Khanda district was, in his judg- 
 ment, now safe, and he 'waited further orders.' 
 
 The Madrassee telegraph-clerk did not approve of a 
 large, gaunt man falling over him in a dead faint, not so 
 much because of the weight, as because of the names 
 and blows that Faiz Ullah dealt him when he found the 
 body rolled under a bench. Then Faiz Ullah took blank- 
 ets and quilts and coverlets where he found them, and 
 lay down under them at his master's side, and bound 
 his arms with a tent-rope, and filled him with a horrible 
 stew of herbs, and set the policeman to fight him when 
 he wished to escape from the intolerable heat of his 
 coverings, and shut the door of the telegraph-office to 
 keep out the curious for two nights and one day; and 
 when a light engine came down the line, and Hawkins 
 kicked in the door, Scott hailed him weakly, but in a 
 natural voice, and Faiz Ullah stood back and took all 
 the credit. 
 
 'For two nights. Heaven-born, he was pagal,' said 
 Faiz Ullah. 'Look at my nose, and consider the eye of 
 the policeman. He beat us with his bound hands; but 
 
 200 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 we sat upon him, Heaven-born, and though his words 
 were tez, we sweated him. Heaven-born, never has 
 been such a sweat! He is weaker now than a child; but 
 the fever has gone out of him, by the grace of God. 
 There remains only my nose and the eye of the consta- 
 beel. Sahib, shall I ask for my dismissal because my 
 Sahib has beaten me?' And Faiz Ullah laid his long 
 thin hand carefully on Scott's chest to be sure that the 
 fever was all gone, ere he went out to open tinned soups 
 and discourage such as laughed at his swelled nose. 
 
 ' The district's all right,' Scott whispered. ' It doesn't 
 make any difference. You got my wire? I shall be fit 
 in a week. 'Can't understand how it happened. I shall 
 be fit in a few days.' 
 
 'You're coming into camp with us,' said Hawkins. 
 
 'But look here — but — ' 
 
 'It's all over except the shouting. We shan't need 
 you Punjabis any more. On my honour, we shan't. 
 Martyn goes back in a few weeks; Arbuthnot's re- 
 turned already; Ellis and Clay are putting the last 
 touches to a new feeder-line the Government's built as 
 relief-work. Morten's dead — he was a Bengal man, 
 though; you wouldn't know him. 'Pon my word, you 
 and Will — Miss Martyn — seem to have come through 
 it as well as anybody.' 
 
 ' Oh, how is she? ' The voice went up and down as he 
 spoke. 
 
 ' She was in great form when I left her. The Roman 
 Catholic Missions are adopting the unclaimed babies to 
 turn them into little priests; the Basil Mission is taking 
 some, and the mothers are taking the rest. You should 
 hear the little beggars howl when they're sent away 
 from William. She's pulled down a bit, but so are we 
 
 201 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 all. Now, when do you suppose you'll be able to 
 move? ' 
 
 'I can't come into camp in this state. I won't,' he 
 replied pettishly. 
 
 ' Well, you are rather a sight, but from what I gathered 
 there it seemed to me they'd be glad to see you under 
 any conditions. I'll look over your work here, if you 
 like, for a couple of days, and you can pull yourself 
 together while Faiz Ullah feeds you up.' 
 
 Scott could walk dizzily by the time Hawkins's in- 
 spection was ended, and he flushed all over when Jim 
 said of his work in the district that it was 'not half bad,' 
 and volunteered, further, that he had considered Scott 
 his right-hand man through the famine, and would feel 
 it his duty to say as much officially. 
 
 So they came back by rail to the old camp ; but there 
 were no crowds near it, the long fires in the trenches 
 were dead and black, and the famine-sheds stood almost 
 empty. 
 
 'You see!' said Jim. 'There isn't much more for us 
 to do. Better ride up and see the wife. They've pitched 
 a tent for you. Dinner's at seven. I'll see you then.' 
 
 Riding at a foot-pace, Faiz Ullah by his stirrup, Scott 
 came to William in the brown-calico riding-habit, sit- 
 ting at the dining-tent door, her hands in her lap, white 
 as ashes, thin and worn, with no lustre in her hair. 
 There did not seem to be any Mrs. Jim on the horizon, 
 and all that William could say was: 'My word, how 
 pulled down you look ! ' 
 
 'I've had a touch of fever. You don't look very well 
 yourself.' 
 
 'Oh, I'm fit enough. We've stamped it out. I sup- 
 pose you know? ' 
 
 2Q2 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 Scott nodded. 'We shall all be returned in a few 
 weeks. Hawkins told me.' 
 
 'Before Christmas, Mrs. Jim says. Shan't you be 
 glad to go back? I can smell the wood-smoke already'; 
 William sniffed. ' We shall be in time for all the Christ- 
 mas doings. I don't suppose even the Punjab Govern- 
 ment would be base enough to transfer Jack till the new 
 year?' 
 
 'It seems hundreds of years ago — the Punjab and all 
 that — doesn't it? Are you glad you came? ' 
 
 'Now it's all over, yes. It has been ghastly here. 
 You know we had to sit still and do nothing, and Sir Jim 
 was away so much.' 
 
 ' Do nothing ! How did you get on with the milking?' 
 
 *I managed it somehow — after you taught me.' 
 
 Then the talk stopped with an almost audible jar. 
 Still no Mrs. Jim. 
 
 'That reminds me I owe you fifty rupees for the con- 
 densed milk. I thought perhaps you'd be coming here 
 when you were transferred to the Khanda district, and 
 I could pay you then; but you didn't.' 
 
 'I passed within five miles of the camp. It was in 
 the middle of a march, you see, and the carts were break- 
 ing down every few minutes, and I couldn't get 'em 
 over the ground till ten o'clock that night. But I 
 wanted to come awfully. You knew I did, didn't you?* 
 
 'I — believe — I — did,' said William, facing him with 
 level eyes. She was no longer white. 
 
 * Did you understand? ' 
 
 'Why you didn't ride in? Of course I did.' 
 'Why?' 
 
 * Because you couldn't, of course. I knew that.' 
 
 * Did you care? ' 
 
 203 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'If you had come in — but I knew you wouldn't — but 
 if you had, I should have cared a great deal. You know 
 I should.' 
 
 'Thank God I didn't! Oh, but I wanted to! I 
 couldn't trust myself to ride in front of the carts, be- 
 cause I kept edging 'em over here, don't you know?' 
 
 'I knew you wouldn't,' said William, contentedly. 
 'Here's your fifty.' 
 
 Scott bent forward and kissed the hand that held the 
 greasy notes. Its fellow patted him awkwardly but 
 very tenderly on the head. 
 
 'And you knew, too, didn't you?' said William, in a 
 new voice. 
 
 'No, on my honour, I didn't. I hadn't the — the 
 cheek to expect anything of the kind, except . . . 
 I say, were you out riding anywhere the day I passed 
 bytoKhanda?' 
 
 William nodded, and smiled after the manner of an 
 angel surprised in a good deed. 
 
 'Then it was just a speck I saw of your habit in the — ' 
 
 'Palm-grove on the Southern cart-road. I saw your 
 helmet w^hen you came up from the nullah by the tem- 
 ple — ^just enough to be sure that you were all right. 
 D'you care?' 
 
 This time Scott did not kiss her hand, for they were 
 in the dusk of the dining-tent, and, because William's 
 knees were trembling under her, she had to sit down in 
 the nearest chair, where she wept long and happily, her 
 head on her arms; and when Scott imagined that it 
 would be well to comfort her, she needing nothing of the 
 kind, she ran to her own tent; and Scott went out into 
 the world, and smiled upon it largely and idiotically. 
 But when Faiz Ullah brought him a drink, he found it 
 
 204 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 necessary to support one hand with the other, or the 
 good whisky and soda would have been spilled abroad. 
 There are fevers and fevers. 
 
 But it was worse— much worse — the strained, eye- 
 shirking talk at dinner till the servants had withdrawn, 
 and worst of all when Mrs. Jim, who had been on the 
 edge of weeping from the soup down, kissed Scott and 
 William, and they drank one whole bottle of champagne, 
 hot, because there was no ice, and Scott and William sat 
 outside the tent in the starlight till Mrs. Jim drove them 
 in for fear of more fever. 
 
 Apropos of these things and some others William said : 
 'Being engaged is abominable, because, you see, one has 
 no official position. We must be thankful that we've 
 lots of things to do.' 
 
 'Things to do!' said Jim, when that was reported to 
 him. 'They're neither of them any good any more. I 
 can't get five hours' work a day out of Scott. He's in 
 the clouds half the time.' 
 
 'Oh, but they're so beautiful to watch, Jimmy. It 
 will break my heart when they go. Can't you do any- 
 thing for him? ' 
 
 'I've given the Government the impression — at least, 
 I hope I have — that he personally conducted the entire 
 famine. But all he wants is to get on to the Luni Canal 
 Works, and William's just as bad. Have you ever 
 heard 'em talking of barrage and aprons and waste- 
 water? It's their style of spooning, I suppose.' 
 
 Mrs. Jim smiled tenderly. 'Ah, that's in the inter- 
 vals — bless 'em.' 
 
 And so Love ran about the camp unrebuked in broad 
 daylight, while men picked up the pieces and put them 
 neatly away of the Famine in the Eight Districts. 
 
 205 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 Morning brought the penetrating chill of the North- 
 ern December, the layers of wood-smoke, the dusty 
 gray blue of the tamarisks, the domes of ruined tombs, 
 and all the smell of the white Northern plains, as the 
 mail-train ran on to the mile-long Sutlej Bridge. Wil- 
 liam, wrapped in a poshteen — a silk-embroidered sheep- 
 skin jacket trimmed with rough astrakhan — looked out 
 with moist eyes and nostrils that dilated joyously. 
 The South of pagodas and palm-trees, the over-popu- 
 lated Hindu South, was done with. Here was the land 
 she knew and loved, and before her lay the good life she 
 understood, among folk of her own caste and mind. 
 
 They were picking them up at almost every station 
 now — men and women coming in for the Christmas 
 Week, with racquets, with bundles of polo-sticks, with 
 dear and bruised cricket-bats, with fox-terriers and 
 saddles. The greater part of them wore jackets like 
 William's, for the Northern cold is as little to be trifled 
 with as the Northern heat. And William was among 
 them and of them, her hands deep in her pockets, her 
 collar turned up over her ears, stamping her feet on the 
 platforms as she walked up and down to get warm, 
 visiting from carriage to carriage, and everywhere being 
 congratulated. Scott was with the bachelors at the far 
 end of the train, where they chaffed him mercilessly 
 about feeding babies and milking goats; but from time 
 to time he would stroll up to William's window, and 
 murmur: 'Good enough, isn't it?' and William would 
 answer with sighs of pure delight: 'Good enough, in- 
 deed.' The large open names of the home towns were 
 good to listen to. Umballa, Ludianah, Phillour, Jullun- 
 dur, they rang like the coming marriage-bells in her ears, 
 and William felt deeply and truly sorry for all strangers 
 
 206 
 
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 and outsiders — visitors, tourists, and those fresh-caught 
 for the service of the country. 
 
 It was a glorious return, and when the bachelors gave 
 the Christmas ball, William was, unofTicially, you might 
 say, the chief and honoured guest among the stewards, 
 who could make things very pleasant for their friends. 
 She and Scott danced nearly all the dances together, 
 and sat out the rest in the big dark gallery overlooking 
 the superb teak floor, where the uniforms blazed, and the 
 spurs clinked, and the new frocks and four hundred 
 dancers went round and round till the draped flags on 
 the pillars flapped and bellied to the whirl of it. 
 
 About midnight half a dozen men who did not care for 
 dancing came over from the Club to play ' W'aits,' and — 
 that was a surprise the stewards had arranged- — before 
 any one knew what had happened, the band stopped, 
 and hidden voices broke into 'Good King Wenceslaus,' 
 and William in the gallery hummed and beat time with 
 her foot : 
 
 ' Mark my footsteps well, my page, 
 
 Tread thou in them boldly. 
 Thou shalt feel the winter's rage 
 
 Freeze thy blood less coldly ! ' 
 
 'Oh, I hope they are going to give us another! Isn't 
 it pretty, coming out of the dark in thai way? Look — 
 look down. There's Mrs. Gregory wiping her eyes ! ' 
 'It's like home, rather,' said Scott. 'I remember — ' 
 ' H'sh ! Listen ! — dear.' And it began again : 
 
 *When shepherds watched their flocks by night — ' 
 
 ' A-h-h!' said William, drawing closer to Scott. 
 
 207 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'All seated on the ground, 
 The Angel of the Lord came down, 
 And glory shone around. 
 "Fear not," said he (for mighty dread 
 Had seized their troubled mind) ; 
 " Glad tidings of great joy I bring 
 To you and all mankind." ' 
 
 This time it was William that wiped her eyes. 
 
 208 
 
•007 
 (1896) 
 
 A LOCOMOTIVE is, next to a marine engine, the 
 most sensitive thing man ever made; and No. 
 •007, besides being sensitive, was new. The red 
 paint was hardly dry on his spotless bumper-bar, his 
 headlight shone like a fireman's helmet, and his cab 
 might have been a hardwood-fmish parlour. They had 
 run him into the round-house after his trial — he had 
 said good-bye to his best friend in the shops, the over- 
 head travelling-crane — the big world was just outside; 
 and the other locos were taking stock of him. He looked 
 at the semicircle of bold, unwinking headlights, heard 
 the low purr and mutter of the steam mounting in the 
 gauges — scornful hisses of contempt as a slack valve 
 lifted a little — and would have given a month's oil for 
 leave to crawl through his own driving-wheels into 
 the brick ash-pit beneath him. '007 was an eight- 
 wheeled 'American' loco, slightly different from others 
 of his type, and as he stood he was worth ten thousand 
 dollars on the Company's books. But if you had 
 bought him at his own valuation, after half an hour's 
 waiting in the darkish, echoing round-house, you would 
 have saved exactly nine thousand nine hundred and 
 ninety-nine dollars and ninety-eight cents. 
 
 A heavy Mogul freight, with a short cow-catcher and 
 
 209 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 a fire-box that came down within three inches of the rail, 
 began the impoHte game, speaking to a Pittsburgh Con- 
 solidation, who was visiting. 
 
 ' Where did this thing blow in from? ' he asked, with a 
 dreamy puff of light steam. 
 
 ' It's all I can do to keep track of our own makes,' was the 
 answer, 'without lookin' after your back-numbers. 'Guess 
 it's something Peter Cooper left over when he died.' 
 
 •007 quivered; his steam was getting up, but he held 
 his tongue. Even a hand-car knows what sort of loco- 
 motive it was that Peter Cooper experimented upon in 
 the far-away Thirties. It carried its coal and water in 
 two apple-barrels, and was not much bigger than a bicycle. 
 
 Then up and spoke a small, newish switching-engine, 
 with a little step in front of his bumper-timber, and his 
 wheels so close together that he looked like a broncho 
 getting ready to buck. 
 
 'Something's wrong with the road when a Pennsyl- 
 vania gravel-pusher tells us anything about our stock, I 
 think. That kid's all right. Eustis designed him, and 
 Eustis designed me. Ain't that good enough? ' 
 
 '007 could have carried the switching-loco round the 
 yard in his tender, but he felt grateful for even this little 
 word of consolation. 
 
 ' We don't use hand-cars on the Pennsylvania,' said the 
 Consolidation. 'That — er — peanut-stand's old enough 
 and ugly enough to speak for himself.' 
 
 'He hasn't bin spoken to yet. He's bin spoken at. 
 Hain't ye any manners on the Pennsylvania?' said the 
 switching-loco. 
 
 'You ought to be in the yard, Poney,' said the Mogul, 
 severely. ' We're all long-haulers here.' 
 
 'That's what you think,' the little fellow replied. 
 
 210 
 
•007 
 
 * You'll know more 'fore the night's out. I've bin down 
 to Track 17, and the freight there — oh, Christmas!' 
 
 'I've trouble enough in my own division,' said a lean, 
 light suburban loco with very shiny brake-shoes. ' My 
 commuters wouldn't rest till they got a parlour-car. 
 They've hitched her back of all, and she hauls worse'n a 
 snow-plough. I'll snap her off some day sure, and then 
 they'll blame every one except their fool selves. They'll 
 be askin' me to haul a vestibuled next!' 
 
 'They made you in New Jersey, didn't they?' said 
 Poney. ' 'Thought so. Commuters and truck-waggons 
 ain't any sweet haulin', but I tell you they're a heap 
 better'n cuttin' out refrigerator-cars or oil-tanks. Why, 
 I've hauled — ■' 
 
 'Haul! You? ' said the Mogul contemptuously. 'It's 
 all you can do to bunt a cold-storage car up the 
 yard. Now, I' — he paused a little to let the words sink 
 in — 'I handle the Flying Freight — e-leven cars worth 
 just anything you please to mention. On the stroke 
 of eleven I pull out; and I'm timed for thirty-five an 
 hour. Costly — perishable — fragile — immediate — that's 
 me! Suburban traffic's only but one degree better than 
 switching. Express freight's what pays.' 
 
 'Well, I ain't given to blowing, as a rule,' began the 
 Pittsburgh Consolidation. 
 
 'No? You was sent in here because you grunted on 
 the grade,' Poney interrupted. 
 
 'Where I grunt, you'd lie down, Poney; but, as I was 
 saying, I don't blow much. Notwithstandin', if you 
 want to see freight that is freight moved lively, you 
 should see me warbling through the Alleghanies with 
 thirty-seven ore-cars behind me, and my brake-men 
 fightin' tramps so's they can't attend to my tooter. I 
 
 211 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 have to do all the holdin' back then, and, though I say 
 it, I've never had a load get away from me yet. No, 
 sir. Haulin' 's one thing, but judgment and discre- 
 tion's another. You want judgment in my business.' 
 
 'Ah! But — but are you not paralysed by a sense 
 of your overwhelming responsibilities? ' said a curious, 
 husky voice from a corner. 
 
 'Who's that?' '007 whispered to the Jersey commuter. 
 
 'Compound — experiment — N. G. She's bin switch- 
 in' in the B. & A. yards for six months, when she wasn't 
 in the shops. She's economical (I call it mean) in her 
 coal, but she takes it out in repairs. Ahem! I pre- 
 sume you found Boston somewhat isolated, madam, 
 after your New York season? ' 
 
 'I am never so well occupied as when I am alone.' 
 The Compound seemed to be talking from halfway up 
 her smoke-stack. 
 
 'Sure,' said the irreverent Poney, under his breath. 
 'They don't hanker after her any in the yard.' 
 
 'But, with my constitution and temperament — my 
 work lies in Boston — I fmd your outrecuidance — ' 
 
 'Outer which?' said the Mogul freight. 'Simple 
 cylinders are good enough for me.' 
 
 'Perhaps I should have said faroucherie,' hissed the 
 Compound. 
 
 'I don't hold with any make of papier-mache wheel,' 
 the Mogul insisted. 
 
 The Compound sighed pityingly, and said no more. 
 
 'Git 'em all shapes in this world, don't ye?' said 
 Poney. 'That's Mass'chusetts all over. They half 
 start, an' then they stick on a dead-centre, an' blame it 
 all on other folk's ways o' treatin' them. Talkin' o' 
 Boston, Comanche told me, last night, he had a hot-box 
 
 212 
 
•007 
 
 just beyond the Newtons, Friday. That was why, he 
 says, the Accommodation was held up. Made out no 
 end of a tale, Comanche did.' 
 
 'If I'd heard that in the shops, with my boiler out for 
 repairs, I'd know 't was one o' Comanche's lies,' the 
 New Jersey commuter snapped. 'Hot-box! Him! 
 \Yhat happened was they'd put an extra car on, and he 
 just lay down on the grade and squealed. They had to 
 send 127 to help him through. Made it out a hot-box, 
 did he? Time before that he said he was ditched! 
 Looked me square in the headlight and told me that 
 as cool as — as a water-tank in a cold wave. Hot-box! 
 You ask 127 about Comanche's hot-box. Why, Com- 
 anche he was side-tracked, and 127 (he was just about 
 as mad as they make 'em on account o' being called out 
 at ten o'clock at night) took hold and whirled her into 
 Boston in seventeen minutes. Hot-box! Hot fraud! 
 That's what Comanche is.' 
 
 Then '007 put both drivers and his pilot into it, as the 
 saying is, for he asked what sort of thing a hot-box 
 might be? 
 
 'Paint my bell sky-blue!' said Poney, the switcher. 
 *Make me a surface-railroad loco with a hardwood 
 skirtin'-board round my wheels! Break me up and 
 cast me into five-cent sidewalk-fakirs' mechanical toys ! 
 Here's an eight-wheel coupled "American" don't know 
 what a hot-box is ! Never heard of an emergency-stop 
 either, did ye? Don't know what ye carry jack-screws 
 for? You're too innocent to be left alone with your 
 own tender. Oh, you — you flat-car ! ' 
 
 There was a roar of escaping steam before any one 
 could answer, and "007 nearly blistered his paint off 
 with pure mortification. 
 
 213 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'A hot-box,' began the Compound, picking and 
 choosing the words as though they were coal, 'a hot-box 
 is the penalty exacted from inexperience by haste. 
 Ahem!' 
 
 'Hot-box!' said the Jersey Suburban. 'It's the price 
 you pay for going on the tear. It's years since I've 
 had one. It's a disease that don't attack short-haulers, 
 as a rule.' 
 
 'We never have hot-boxes on the Pennsylvania,' said 
 the Consolidation. 'They get 'em in New York — same 
 as nervous prostration.' 
 
 'Ah, go home on a ferry-boat,' said the Mogul. 'You 
 think because you use worse grades than our road 'ud 
 allow, you're a kind of Alleghany angel. Now, I'll tell 
 you what you . . . Here's my folk. Well, I can't 
 stop. See you later, perhaps.' 
 
 He rolled forward majestically to the turn-table, and 
 swung like a man-of-war in a tideway, till he picked up 
 his track. 'But as for you, you pea-green swivellin' 
 coffee-pot [this to '007], you go out and learn something 
 before you associate with those who've made more 
 mileage in a week than you'll roll up in a year. Costly 
 — perishable — fragile — immediate — that's me I S 'long.' 
 
 ' Split my tubes if that's actin' polite to a new member 
 o' the Brotherhood,' said Poney. 'There wasn't any 
 call to trample on ye like that. But manners was left 
 out when Moguls was made. Keep up your fire, kid, 
 an' burn your own smoke. 'Guess we'll all be wanted 
 in a minute.' 
 
 Men were talking rather excitedly in the round-house. 
 One man, in a dingy jersey, said that he hadn't any loco- 
 motives to waste on the yard. Another man, with a 
 piece of crumpled paper in his hand, said that the yard- 
 
 214 
 
•007 
 
 master said that he was to say that if the other man said 
 anything, he (the other man) was to shut his head. 
 Then the other man waved his arms, and wanted lo 
 know if he was expected to keep locomotives in his hip- 
 pocket. Then a man in a black Prince Albert coat, 
 without a collar, came up dripping, for it was a hot 
 August night, and said that what he said went; and 
 between the three of them the locomotives began to go, 
 too — first the Compound, then the Consolidation, then 
 •007. 
 
 Now, deep down in his fire-box, '007 had cherished a 
 hope that as soon as his trial was done, he would be led 
 forth with songs and shoutings, and attached to a green- 
 and-chocolate vestibuled flyer, under charge of a bold 
 and noble engineer, who would pat him on his back, and 
 weep over him, and call him his Arab steed. (The boys 
 in the shops where he was built used to read wonderful 
 stories of railroad life, and '007 expected things to 
 happen as he had heard.) But there did not seem to be 
 many vestibuled fliers in the roaring, rumbling, electric- 
 lighted yards, and his engineer only said : 
 
 *Now, what sort of a fool-sort of an injector has Eustis 
 loaded on to this rig this time? ' And he put the lever 
 over with an angry snap, crying: 'Am I supposed to switch 
 with this thing, hey? ' 
 
 The collarless man mopped his head, and replied that, 
 in the present state of the yard and freight and a few 
 other things, the engineer would switch and keep on 
 switching till the cows came home. '007 pushed out 
 gingerly, his heart in his headlight, so nervous that the 
 clang of his own bell almost made him jump the track. 
 Lanterns waved, or danced up and down, before and 
 behind him; and on every side, six tracks deep, sliding 
 
 215 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 backward and forward, with clashings of couplers and 
 squeals of hand-brakes, were cars^ — more cars than '007 
 had dreamed of. There were oil-cars, and hay-cars, 
 and stock-cars full of lowing beasts, and ore-cars, and 
 potato-cars with stovepipe-ends sticking out in the 
 middle; cold-storage and refrigerator cars dripping ice- 
 water on the tracks; ventilated fruit- and milk-cars; flat- 
 cars with truck-waggons full of market-stuff; flat-cars 
 loaded with reapers and binders, all red and green and 
 gilt under the sizzling electric lights; flat-cars piled high 
 with strong-scented hides, pleasant hemlock-plank, or 
 bundles of shingles; flat-cars creaking to the weight 
 of thirty-ton castings, angle-irons, and rivet-boxes for 
 some new bridge; and hundreds and hundreds and hun- 
 dreds of box-cars loaded, locked and chalked. Men — 
 hot and angry — crawled among and between and under 
 the thousand wheels; men took flying jumps through his 
 cab, when he halted for a moment; men sat on his pilot 
 as he went forward, and on his tender as he returned ; 
 and regiments of men ran along the tops of the box-cars 
 beside him, screwing down brakes, waving their arms, 
 and crying curious things. 
 
 He was pushed forward a foot at a time, whirled back- 
 wards, his rear drivers clinking and clanking, a quarter 
 of a mile; jerked into a switch (yard-switches are very 
 stubby and unaccommodating), bunted into a Red D, 
 or Merchant's Transport car, and, with no hint or knowl- 
 edge of the weight behind him, started up anew. 
 When his load was fairly on the move, three or four cars 
 would be cut off, and '007 would bound forward, only 
 to be held hiccupping on the brake. Then he would 
 wait a few minutes, watching the whirled lanterns, 
 deafened with the clang of the bells, giddy with the 
 
 216 
 
•007 
 
 vision of the sliding cars, his brake-pump panting forty 
 to the minute, his front coupler lying sideways on his 
 cow-catcher, like a tired dog's tongue in his mouth, and 
 the whole of him covered with half-burnt coal-dust. 
 
 ' 'Tisn't so easy switching with a straight-backed 
 tender,' said his little friend of the round-house, bustling 
 by at a trot. 'But you're comin' on pretty fair. Ever 
 seen a flyin' switch? No? Then watch me.' 
 
 Poney was in charge of a dozen heavy flat-cars. 
 Suddenly he shot away from them with asharp ' Whutt!' 
 A switch opened in the shadows ahead; he turned up it 
 like a rabbit, it snapped behind him, and the long line 
 of twelve-foot-high lumber jolted on into the arms of a 
 full-sized road-loco, who acknowledged receipt with a 
 dry howl. 
 
 'My man's reckoned the smartest in the yard at that 
 trick,' he said, returning. 'Gives me cold shivers when 
 another fool tries it, though. That's where my short 
 wheel-base comes in. Likes as not you'd have your 
 tender scraped off if you tried it.' 
 
 '007 had no ambitions that way, and said so. 
 
 'No? Of course this ain t your regular business, but 
 say, don't you think it's interestin'? Have you seen 
 the yard-master? Well, he's the greatest man on earth, 
 an' don't you forget it. When are we through? Why, 
 kid, it's always like this, day an' night — Sundays and 
 week-days. See that thirty-car freight slidin' in four, 
 no, five tracks off? She's all mixed freight, sent here to 
 be sorted out into straight trains. That's why we're 
 cuttin' out the cars one by one.' He gave a vigorous 
 push to a west-bound car as he spoke, and started back 
 with a little snort of surprise, for the car was an old 
 friend — an M. T. K. box-car. 
 
 217 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Jack my drivers, but it's Homeless Kate! Why, 
 Kate, ain't there no gettin' you back to your friends? 
 There's forty chasers out for you from your road, if 
 there's one. Who's holdin' you now?' 
 
 ''Wish I knew,' whimpered Homeless Kate. 'I be- 
 long in Topeka, but I've bin to Cedar Rapids; I've bin 
 to Winnipeg; I've bin to Newport News; I've bin all 
 down the old Atlanta and West Point; an' I've bin to 
 Buffalo. Maybe I'll fetch up at Haverstraw. I've only 
 bin out ten months, but I'm homesick — I'm just achin' 
 homesick.' 
 
 'Try Chicago, Katie,' said the switching-loco; and 
 the battered old car lumbered down the track, jolting: 
 'I want to be in Kansas when the sunflowers bloom.' 
 
 'Yard's full o' Homeless Kates an' Wanderin' Willies,' 
 he explained to '007. 'I knew an old Fitchburg flat-car 
 out seventeen months; an' one of ours was gone fifteen 
 'fore ever we got track of her. Dunno quite how our 
 men fix it. Swap around, I guess. Anyway, I've done 
 my duty. She's on her way to Kansas, via Chicago; 
 but I'll lay my next boilerful she'll be held there to wait 
 consignee's convenience, and sent back to us with wheat 
 in the fall.' 
 
 Just then the Pittsburgh Consolidation passed, at the 
 head of a dozen cars. 
 
 ' I'm goin' home,' he said proudly. 
 
 * Can't get all them twelve on to the flat. Break 'em 
 in half. Duchy!' cried Poney. But it was '007 who was 
 backed down to the last six cars, and he nearly blew up 
 with surprise when he found himself pushing them on to 
 a huge ferry-boat. He had never seen deep water be- 
 fore, and shivered as the flat drew away and left his 
 bogies within six inches of the black, shiny tide. 
 
 218 
 
•007 
 
 After this he was hurried to the freight-house, where 
 he saw the yard-master, a smallish, white-faced man in 
 shirt, trousers, and slippers, looking down upon a sea of 
 trucks, a mob of baw^ling truckmen, and squadrons of 
 backing, turning, sweating, spark-striking horses. 
 
 'That's shippers' carts loadin' on to the receivin' 
 trucks,' said the small engine reverently. 'But he don't 
 care. He lets 'em cuss. He's the Czar — King — Boss! 
 He says "Please," and then they kneel down an' pray. 
 There's three or four strings o' to-day's freight to be 
 pulled before he can attend to them. When he waves 
 his hand that way, things happen.' 
 
 A string of loaded cars slid out down the track, and a 
 string of empties took their place. Bales, crates, boxes, 
 jars, carboys, frails, cases, and packages, flew into them 
 from the freight-house as though the cars had been 
 magnets and they iron filings. 
 
 ' Ki-yah ! ' shrieked little Poney . ' Ain't it great? ' 
 
 A purple-faced truckman shouldered his way to the 
 yard-master, and shook his fist under his nose. The 
 yard-master never looked up from his bundle of freight- 
 receipts. He crooked his forefinger slightly, and a tall 
 young man in a red shirt, lounging carelessly beside him, 
 hit the truckman under the left ear, so that he dropped, 
 quivering and clucking, on a hay-bale. 
 
 'Eleven, seven, ninety-seven, L. Y. S.; fourteen ought 
 ought three; nineteen thirteen; one one four; seventeen 
 ought twenty-one M. B.; and the ten west-bound. All 
 straight except the two last. Cut 'em off at the junc- 
 tion. An' that's all right. Pull that string.' The 
 yard-master, with mild blue eyes, looked out over the 
 howling truckmen at the waters in the moonlight be- 
 yond, and hummed : 
 
 219 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'AH things bright and beautiful, 
 All creatures great and small, 
 All things wise and wonderful, 
 The Lawd Gawd He made all ! ' 
 
 •007 moved the cars out and delivered them to the 
 regular road-engine. He had never felt quite so limp 
 in his life. 
 
 'Curious, ain't it?' said Poney, puffing, on the next 
 track. 'You an' me, if we got that man under our 
 bumpers, we'd work him into red waste and not know 
 what we'd done; but — up there with the steam hum- 
 min' in his boiler that awful quiet way . . . ' 
 
 ' I know,' said '007. ' Makes me feel as if I'd dropped 
 my fire an' was getting cold. He is the greatest man 
 on earth.' 
 
 They were at the far north end of the yard now, under 
 a switch-tower, looking down on the four-track way of 
 the main traffic. The Boston Compound was to haul 
 •007's string to some far-away northern junction over 
 an indifferent road-bed, and she mourned aloud for the 
 ninety-six-pound rails of the B. & A. 
 
 'You're young; you're young,' she coughed. 'You 
 don't realise your responsibilities.' 
 
 'Yes, he does,' said Poney sharply; 'but he don't lie 
 down under 'em.' Then, with a side-spurt of steam, 
 exactly like a tough spitting: 'There ain't more than 
 fifteen thousand dollars' worth o' freight behind her 
 anyway, and she carries on as if 'twere a hundred 
 thousand — same as the Mogul's. Excuse me, madam, 
 but you've the track. . . . She's stuck on a dead- 
 centre again — bein' specially designed not to.' 
 
 The Compound crawled across the tracks on a long 
 
 220 
 
•007 
 
 slant, groaning horribly at each switch, and moving like 
 a cow in a snow-drift. There was a little pause along 
 the yard after her tail-lights had disappeared; switches 
 locked crisply, and every one seemed to be waiting. 
 
 'Now I'll show you something worth,' said Poney. 
 'When the Purple Emperor ain't on time, it's about 
 time to amend the Constitution. The first stroke of 
 twelve is — ' 
 
 'Boom!' went the clock in the big yard-tower, and far 
 away '007 heard a full vibrating 'Yah! Yah! Yah!' 
 A headlight twinkled on the horizon like a star, grew an 
 overpowering blaze, and whooped up the humming 
 track to the roaring music of a happy giant's song: 
 
 'With a michnai — ghignai — shtingal! Yah! Yah! 
 
 Yah! 
 Ein—zwei—drei— Mutter! Yah! Yah! Yah! 
 
 She climb upon der shteeple, 
 
 Und she frighten all der people. 
 Singin' michnai — ghignai — shtingal! Yah! Yah!' 
 
 The last defiant 'yah! yah!' was delivered a mile and a 
 half beyond the passenger-depot; but '007 had caught 
 one glimpse of the superb six-wheel-coupled racing- 
 locomotive, who hauled the pride and glory of the road 
 — the gilt-edged Purple Emperor, the millionaires' 
 south-bound express, laying the miles over his shoulder 
 as a man peels a shaving from a soft board. The rest 
 was a blur of maroon enamel, a bar of white light from 
 the electrics in the cars, and a flicker of nickel-plated 
 hand-rail on the rear platform. 
 
 'Ooh!' said -007. 
 
 ' Seventy-five miles an hour these five miles. Baths, 
 
 221 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 I've heard; barber's shop; ticker; and a Hbrary and the 
 rest to match. Yes, sir; seventy-five an hour! But 
 he'll talk to you in the round-house just as democratic 
 as I would. And I — cuss my wheel-base! — I'd kick 
 clean off the track at half his gait. He's the master of 
 our Lodge. Cleans up at our house. I'll introdooce 
 you some day. He's worth knowin ' ! There ain't many 
 can sing that song, either.' 
 
 ■007 was too full of emotions to answer. He did not 
 hear a raging of telephone-bells in the switch-tower, nor 
 the man, as he leaned out and called to 'OO/'s engineer: 
 'Got any steam?' 
 
 ' 'Nough to run her a hundred mile out o' this, if I 
 could,' said the engineer, who belonged to the open road 
 and hated switching. 
 
 'Then get. The Flying Freight's ditched forty mile 
 out, with fifty rod o' track ploughed up. No; no one's 
 hurt, but both tracks are blocked. Lucky the wreckin'- 
 car an' derrick are this end of the yard. Crew'll be 
 along in a minute. Hurry ! You've the track.' 
 
 'Well, I could jest kick my little sawed-off self,' said 
 Poney, as '007 was backed, with a bang, on to a grim 
 and grimy car like a caboose, but full of tools — a flat-car 
 and a derrick behind it. ' Some folks are one thing, and 
 some are another; but you're in luck, kid. They push a 
 wrecking-car. Now, don't get rattled. Your wheel- 
 base will keep you on the track, and there ain't any 
 curves worth mentionin'. Oh, say! Comanche told 
 me there's one section o' saw-edged track that's liable 
 to jounce ye a little. Fifteen an' a half out, after the 
 grade at Jackson's crossin'. You'll know it by a farm- 
 house an' a windmill and five maples in the dooryard. 
 Windmill's west o' the maples. An' there's an eighty- 
 
 222 
 
•007 
 
 loot iron bridge in the middle o' that section with no 
 guard-rails. See you later. Luck!' 
 
 Before he knew well what had happened, '007 was 
 flying up the track into the dumb dark world. Then 
 fears of the night beset him. He remembered all he 
 had ever heard of landslides, rain-piled boulders, blown 
 trees, and strayed cattle; all that the Boston Compound 
 had ever said of responsibility; and a great deal more 
 that came out of his own head. With a very quavering 
 voice he whistled for his first grade crossing (an event 
 in the life of a locomotive), and his nerves were in no 
 way restored by the sight of a frantic horse and a white- 
 faced man in a buggy less than a yard from his right 
 shoulder. Then he was sure he would jump the track; 
 felt his flanges mounting the rail at every curve; knew 
 that his first grade would make him lie down even as 
 Comanche had done at the Newtons. He swept down 
 the grade to Jackson's crossing, saw the windmill west 
 of the maples, felt the badly-laid rails spring under him, 
 and sweated big drops all over his boiler. At each jar- 
 ring bump he believed an axle had smashed ; and he took 
 the eighty-foot bridge without the guard-rail like a 
 hunted cat on the top of a fence. Then a wet leaf stuck 
 against the glass of his headlight and threw a flying 
 shadow on the track, so that he thought it was some 
 little dancing animal that would feel soft if he ran over 
 it; and anything soft underfoot frightens a locomotive 
 as it does an elephant. But the men behind seemed 
 quite calm. The wrecking-crew were climbing care- 
 lessly from the caboose to the tender — even jesting 
 with the engineer, for he heard a shuffling of feet among 
 the coal, and the snatch of a song, something like 
 this: 
 
 223 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Oh, the Empire State must learn to wait, 
 And the Cannon-ball go hang, 
 When the West-bound's ditched, and the tool-car's 
 
 hitched. 
 And it's 'way for the Breakdown Gang (Ta-rara!) 
 'Way for the Breakdown Gang!' 
 
 *Say! Eustis knew what he was doin' when he de- 
 signed this rig. She's a hummer. New, too.' 
 
 'Snff! Phew! She is new. That ain't paint. 
 That's—' 
 
 A burning pain shot through 'OOT's right rear driver— 
 a crippling, stinging pain. 
 
 'This,' said '007, as he flew, 'is a hot-box. Now I 
 know what it means. I shall go to pieces, I guess. My 
 first road-run, too ! ' 
 
 'Het a bit, ain't she?' the fireman ventured to suggest 
 to the engineer. 
 
 ' She'll hold for all we want of her. We're 'most there. 
 'Guess you chaps back had better climb into your car,' 
 said the engineer, his hand on the brake-lever. 'I've 
 seen men snapped off — ' 
 
 But the crew fled laughing. They had no wish to be 
 jerked on to the track. The engineer half turned his 
 wrist, and '007 found his drivers pinned firm. 
 
 'Now it's come!' said '007, as he yelled aloud, and 
 slid like a sleigh. For the moment he fancied that he 
 would jerk bodily from off his underpinning. 
 
 'That must be the emergency-stop Poney guyed me 
 about,' he gasped, as soon as he could think. 'Hot-box 
 — emergency-stop. They both hurt; but now I can 
 talk back in the round-house.' 
 
 He was halted, all hissing hot, a few feet in the rear of 
 
 224 
 
•007 
 
 what doctors would call a compound-comminuted car. 
 His engineer was kneeling down among his drivers, but 
 he did not call '007 his 'Arab steed,' nor cry over him, 
 as the engineers did in the newspapers. He just bad- 
 worded '007, and pulled yards of charred cotton-waste 
 from about the axles, and hoped he might some day 
 catch the idiot who had packed it. Nobody else at- 
 tended to him, for Evans, the Mogul's engineer, a little 
 cut about the head, but very angry, was exhibiting, by 
 lantern-light, the mangled corpse of a slim blue pig. 
 
 ' 'T weren't even a decent-sized hog,' he said. ' 'T were 
 a shote.' 
 
 'Dangerousest beasts they are,' said one of the crew. 
 ' Get under the pilot an' sort o' twiddle ye off the track, 
 don't they?' 
 
 'Don't they?' roared Evans, who was a red-headed 
 Welshman. 'You talk as if I was ditched by a hog 
 every fool-day o' the week. I ain't friends with all the 
 cussed half-fed shotes in the State o' New York, No, 
 indeed ! Yes, this is him — an' look what he's done ! ' 
 
 It was not a bad night's work for one stray piglet. 
 The Flying Freight seemed to have flown in every direc- 
 tion, for the Mogul had mounted the rails and run diag- 
 onally a few hundred feet from right to left, taking with 
 him such cars as cared to follow. Some had not. They 
 broke their couplers and lay down, while rear cars frol- 
 icked over them. In that game, they had ploughed up 
 and removed and twisted a good deal of the left-hand 
 track. The Mogul himself had waddled into a cornfield, 
 and there he knelt — fantastic wreaths of green twisted 
 round his crank-pins; his pilot covered with solid clods 
 of field, on which corn nodded drunkenly; his fire put 
 out with dirt (Evans had done that as soon as he re- 
 
 225 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 covered his senses); and his broken headlight half full 
 of half-burnt moths. His tender had thrown coal all 
 over him, and he looked like a disreputable bufTalo who 
 had tried to wallow in a general store. For there lay, 
 scattered over the landscape, from the burst cars, type- 
 writers, sewing-machines, bicycles in crates, a consign- 
 ment of silver-plated imported harness, French dresses 
 and gloves, a dozen finely moulded hard-wood mantels, 
 a fifteen-foot naphtha-launch, with a solid brass bed- 
 stead crumpled around her bows, a case of telescopes 
 and microscopes, two coffins, a case of very best candies, 
 some gilt-edged dairy produce, butter and eggs in an 
 omelette, a broken box of expensive toys, and a few 
 hundred other luxuries. A camp of tramps hurried up 
 from nowhere, and generously volunteered to help the 
 crew. So the brakemen, armed with coupler-pins, 
 walked up and down on one side, and the freight-con- 
 ductor and the fireman patrolled the other with their 
 hands in their hip-pockets. A long-bearded man came 
 out of a house beyond the cornfield, and told Evans that 
 if the accident had happened a little later in the year, 
 all his corn would have been burned, and accused Evans 
 of carelessness. Then he ran away, for Evans was at 
 his heels shrieking, ' 'Twas his hog done it — his hog 
 done it! Let me kill him! Let me kill him!' Then 
 the wrecking-crew laughed ; and the farmer put his head 
 out of a window and said that Evans was no gentleman. 
 But '007 was very sober. He had never seen a wreck 
 before, and it frightened him. The crew still laughed, 
 but they worked at the same time; and '007 forgot horror 
 in amazement at the way they handled the Mogul 
 freight. They dug round him with spades; they put 
 ties in front of his wheels, and jack-screws under him; 
 
 226 
 
 ill 
 
•007 
 
 they embraced him with the derrick-chain and tickled 
 him with crowbars; while "007 was hitched on to wrecked 
 cars and backed away till the knot broke or the cars 
 rolled clear of the track. By dawn thirty or forty men 
 were at work, replacing and ramming down the ties, 
 gauging the rails and spiking them. By daylight all 
 cars who could move had gone on in charge of another 
 loco; the track was freed for trafTic; and "007 had hauled 
 the old Mogul over a small pavement of ties, inch by 
 inch, till his flanges bit the rail once more, and he settled 
 down with a clank. But his spirit was broken, and his 
 nerve was gone. 
 
 ' 'T weren't even a hog,' he repeated dolefully; ' 't were 
 a shote; and you — you of all of 'em — had to help me on.' 
 
 *But how in the whole long road did it happen?' 
 asked '007 sizzling with curiosity. 
 
 'Happen! It didn't happen! It just come! I sailed 
 right on top of him around that last curve — thought he 
 was a skunk. Yes; he was all as little as that. He 
 hadn't more'n squealed once 'fore I felt my bogies lift 
 (he'd rolled right under the pilot), and I couldn't catch 
 the track again to save me. Swivelled clean off, I was. 
 Then I felt him sling himself along, all greasy, under my 
 left leadin' driver, and, oh. Boilers! that mounted the 
 rail. I heard my flanges zippin' along the ties, an' the 
 next I knew I was playin' "Sally, Sally Waters" in the 
 corn, my tender shuckin' coal through my cab, an' old 
 man Evans lyin' still an' bleedin' in front o' me. Shook? 
 There ain't a stay or a bolt or a rivet in me that ain't 
 sprung to glory somewhere.' 
 
 ' Umm ! ' said '007. * What d'you reckon you weigh? ' 
 
 'Without these lumps o' dirt I'm all of a hundred 
 thousand pound.' 
 
 227 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Andtheshote?' 
 
 'Eighty. Call him a hundred pounds at the outside. 
 He's worth about four'n a half dollars. Ain't it awful? 
 Ain't it enough to give you nervous prostration? Ain't 
 it paralysin'? Why, I come just around that curve^ — ■' 
 and the Mogul told the tale again, for he was very badly 
 shaken. 
 
 'Well, it's all in the day's run, I guess,' said '007, 
 soothingly; 'an' — an' a cornfield's pretty soft fallin'.' 
 
 ' If it had bin a sixty -foot bridge, an' I could ha' slid 
 off into deep water, an' blown up an' killed both men, 
 same as others have done, I wouldn't ha' cared; but to 
 be ditched by a shote — an' you to help me out — in a corn- 
 field — an' an old hayseed in his nightgown cussin' me 
 like as if I was a sick truck-horse! . . . Oh, it's 
 awful! Don't call me Mogul! I'm a sewin'-machine. 
 They'll guy my sand-box ofY in the yard.' 
 
 And '007, his hot-box cooled and his experience 
 vastly enlarged, hauled the Mogul freight slowly to the 
 round-house. 
 
 'Hello, old man! Bin out all night, hain't ye?' said 
 the irrepressible Poney, who had just come off duty. 
 'Well, I must say you look it. Costly — perishable — 
 fragile — immediate — that's you ! Go to the shops, take 
 them vine-leaves out o' your hair, an' git 'em to play 
 the hose on you.' 
 
 'Leave him alone, Poney,' said "007 severely, as he 
 was swung on the turn-table, 'or I'll — ' 
 
 * 'Didn't know the old granger was any special friend 
 o' yours, kid. He wasn't over civil to you last time I 
 saw him.' 
 
 'I know it; but I've seen a wreck since then, and it 
 has about scared the paint off me. I'm not going to guy 
 
 228 
 
•007 
 
 any one as long as I steam — not when they're new to the 
 business an' anxious to learn. And I'm not goin' to guy 
 the old Mogul either, though I did find him wreathed 
 around with roastin'-ears. 'Twas a little bit of a shote 
 — not a hog — just a shote, Poney— no bigger'n a lump 
 of anthracite — I saw it^ — that made all the mess. Any- 
 body can be ditched, I guess.' 
 
 'Found that out already, have you? Well, that's a 
 good beginnin'.' It was the Purple Emperor, with his 
 high, tight, plate-glass cab and green velvet cushion, 
 waiting to be cleaned for his next day's fly. 
 
 'Let me make you two gen'lemen acquainted,' said 
 Poney. 'This is our Purple Emperor, kid, whom you 
 were admirin' and, I may say, envyin' last night. This 
 is a new brother, worshipful sir, with most of his mileage 
 ahead of him, but so far as a serving-brother can, I'll 
 answer for him.' 
 
 ' 'Happy to meet you,' said the Purple Emperor, with 
 a glance round the crowded round-house. 'I guess 
 there are enough of us here to form a full meetin'. 
 Ahem ! By virtue of the authority vested in me as Head 
 of the Road, I hereby declare and pronounce No. '007 
 a full and accepted Brother of the Amalgamated 
 Brotherhood of Locomotives, and as such entitled to all 
 shop, switch, track, tank, and round-house privileges 
 throughout my jurisdiction, in the Degree of Superior 
 Flier, it bein' well known and credibly reported to me 
 that our Brother has covered forty-one miles in thirty- 
 nine minutes and a half on an errand of mercy to the 
 afflicted. At a convenient time, I myself will communi- 
 cate to you the Song and Signal of this Degree whereby 
 you may be recognised in the darkest night. Take 
 your stall, newly-entered Brother among Locomotives!' 
 
 229 
 
THE DAY'S \\ ORK 
 
 Now, in the darkest night, even as the Purple Em- 
 peror said, if you will stand on the bridge across the 
 freight-yard, looking down upon the four-track way, at 
 2.30 a. m., neither before nor after, when the \Yhite 
 Moth, that takes the overflow from the Purple Emperor, 
 tears south with her seven vestibuled cream-white cars, 
 you will hear, as the yard-clock makes the half-hour, a 
 far-away sound like the bass of a violoncello, and then, a 
 hundred feet to each word : 
 
 'With a michnai — ghignai — shtingal! Yah! Yah! 
 
 Yah! 
 Ein— zwei — drei— Mutter! Yah! Yah! Yah! 
 
 She climb upon der shteeple, 
 
 Und she frighten all der people, 
 Singin' michnai — ghignai — shtingal ! Yah ! Yah ! ' 
 
 That is '007 covering his one hundred and fifty-six miles 
 in two hundred and twenty-one minutes. 
 
 230 
 
THE MALTESE CAT 
 
 (1895) 
 
 THEY had good reason to be proud, and better 
 reason to be afraid, all twelve of them; for, 
 though they had fought their way, game by 
 game, up the teams entered for the polo tournament, 
 they were meeting the Archangels that afternoon in the 
 final match; and the Archangels' men were playing with 
 half-a-dozen ponies apiece. As the game was divided 
 into six quarters of eight minutes each, that meant a 
 fresh pony after every halt. The Skidars' team, even 
 supposing there were no accidents, could only supply 
 one pony for every other change; and two to one is 
 heavy odds. Again, as Shiraz, the gray Syrian, pointed 
 out, they were meeting the pink and pick of the polo- 
 ponies of Upper India; ponies that had cost from a 
 thousand rupees each, while they themselves were a 
 cheap lot gathered, often from country carts, by their 
 masters who belonged to a poor but honest native in- 
 fantry regiment. 
 
 'Money means pace and weight,' said Shiraz, rubbing 
 his black silk nose dolefully along his neat-fitting boot, 
 ' and by the maxims of the game as I know it — ' 
 
 'Ah, but we aren't playing the maxims,' said the 
 Maltese Cat. 'We're playing the game, and we've the 
 great advantage of knowing the game. Just think a 
 
 231 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 stride, Shiraz. We've pulled up from bottom to second 
 place in two weeks against all those fellows on the 
 ground here; and that's because we play with our heads 
 as well as with our feet.' 
 
 'It makes me feel undersized and unhappy all the 
 same,' said Kittiwynk, a mouse-coloured mare with a 
 red browband and the cleanest pair of legs that ever an 
 aged pony owned. 'They've twice our size, these 
 others.' 
 
 Kittiwynk looked at the gathering and sighed. The 
 hard, dusty Umballa polo-ground was lined with thou- 
 sands of soldiers, black and white, not counting hundreds 
 and hundreds of carriages, and drags, and dog-carts, and 
 ladies with brilliant-coloured parasols, and officers in 
 uniform and out of it, and crowds of natives behind 
 them; and orderlies on camels who had halted to watch 
 the game, instead of carrying letters up and down the 
 station, and native horse-dealers running about on thin- 
 eared Biluchi mares, looking for a chance to sell a few 
 first-class polo-ponies. Then there were the ponies of 
 thirty teams that had entered for the Upper India Free- 
 for-All Cup — nearly every pony of worth and dignity 
 from Mhow to Peshawar, from Allahabad to Multan; 
 prize ponies, Arabs, Syrian, Barb, country bred, Dec- 
 canee, W^aziri, and Kabul ponies of every colour and 
 shape and temper that you could imagine. Some of 
 them were in mat-roofed stables close to the polo- 
 ground, but most were under saddle while their masters, 
 who had been defeated in the earlier games, trotted in 
 and out and told each other exactly how the game should 
 be played. 
 
 It was a glorious sight, and the come-and-go of the 
 little quick hoofs, and the incessant salutations of ponies 
 
 232 
 
THE MALTESE CAT 
 
 that had met before on other polo-grounds or race- 
 courses, were enough to drive a four-footed thing wild. 
 
 But the Skidars' team were careful not to know their 
 neighbours, though half the ponies on the ground were 
 anxious to scrape acquaintance with the little fellows 
 that had come from the North, and, so far, had swept 
 the board. 
 
 'Let's see,' said a soft, golden-coloured Arab, who had 
 been playing very badly the day before, to the Maltese 
 Cat, 'didn't we meet in Abdul Rahman's stable in Bom- 
 bay four seasons ago? I won the Paikpattan Cup next 
 season, you may remember.' 
 
 'Not me,' said the Maltese Cat politely. 'I was at 
 Malta then, pulling a vegetable cart. I don't race. I 
 play the game.' 
 
 * 0-oh ! ' said the Arab, cocking his tail and swaggering 
 off. 
 
 'Keep yourselves to yourselves,' said the Maltese Cat 
 to his companions. 'We don't want to rub noses with 
 all those goose-rumped half-breeds of Upper India. 
 When we've won this cup they'll give their shoes to 
 know us.' 
 
 'We shan't win the cup,' said Shiraz. 'How do you 
 feel?' 
 
 'Stale as last night's feed when a musk-rat has run 
 over it,' said Polaris, a rather heavy-shouldered gray, 
 and the rest of the team agreed with him. 
 
 'The sooner you forget that the better,' said the Mal- 
 tese Cat cheerfully. 'They've finished tiffin in the big 
 tent. We shall be wanted now. If your saddles are 
 not comfy, kick. If your bits aren't easy, rear, and let 
 the saises know whether your boots are tight.' 
 
 Each pony had his sais, his groom, who lived and ate 
 
 233 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 and slept with the pony, and had betted a great deal 
 more than he could afford on the result of the game. 
 There was no chance of anythmg going wrong, and, to 
 make sure, each sais was shampooing the legs of his pony 
 to the last minute. Behind the saises sat as many of 
 the Skidars' regiment as had leave to attend that match 
 — about half the native officers, and a hundred or tw^o 
 dark, black-bearded men with the regimental pipers 
 nervously fingering the big be-ribboned bagpipes. The 
 Skidars were what they call a Pioneer regiment; and 
 the bagpipes made the national music of half the men. 
 The native officers held bundles of polo-sticks, long 
 cane-handled mallets, and as the grand-stand filled after 
 lunch they arranged themselves by ones and twos at 
 different points round the ground, so that if a stick were 
 broken the player would not have far to ride for a new 
 one. An impatient British cavalry band struck up 'If 
 you want to know the time, ask a p'leeceman!' and the 
 two umpires in light dust-coats danced out on two little 
 excited ponies. The four players of the Archangels' 
 team followed, and the sight of their beautiful mounts 
 made Shiraz groan again. 
 
 'Wait till we know,' said the Maltese Cat. 'Two of 
 'em are playing in blinkers, and that means they can't 
 see to get out of the way of their own side, or they may 
 shy at the umpires' ponies. They've all got white web 
 reins that are sure to stretch or slip ! ' 
 
 'And,' said Kittiwynk, dancing to take the stiffness 
 out of her, * they carry their whips in their hands instead 
 of on their wrists. Hah ! ' 
 
 'True enough. No man can manage his stick and his 
 reins, and his whip that way,' said the Maltese Cat. 
 ' I've fallen over every square yard of the Malta ground, 
 
 234 
 
THE MALTESE CAT 
 
 and I ought to know.' He quivered his little flea-bitten 
 withers just to show how satisfied he felt; but his heart 
 was not so light. Ever since he had drifted into India 
 on a troopship, taken, with an old rifle, as part payment 
 for a racing debt, the Maltese Cat had played and 
 preached polo to the Skidars' team on the Skidars' stony 
 polo-ground. Now a polo-pony is like a poet. If he is 
 born with a love for the game he can be made. The 
 Maltese Cat knew that bamboos grew solely in order 
 that polo-balls might be turned from their roots, that 
 grain was given to ponies to keep them in hard condi- 
 tion, and that ponies were shod to prevent them slipping 
 on a turn. But, besides all these things, he knew every 
 trick and device of the finest game of the world, and for 
 two seasons he had been teaching the others all he knew 
 or guessed. 
 
 'Remember,' he said for the hundredth time as the 
 riders came up, 'we must play together, and you must 
 play with your heads. Whatever happens, follow the 
 ball. Who goes out first? ' 
 
 Kittiwynk, Shiraz, Polaris, and a short high little bay 
 fellow with tremendous hocks and no withers worth 
 speaking of (he was called Corks) were being girthed up, 
 and the soldiers in the background stared with all their 
 eyes. 
 
 'I want you men to keep quiet,' said Lutyens, the 
 captain of the team, 'and especially not to blow your 
 pipes.' 
 
 'Not if we win, Captain Sahib?' asked a piper. 
 
 * If we win, you can do what you please,' said Lutyens, 
 with a smile, as he slipped the loop of his stick over his 
 wrist, and wheeled to canter to his place. The Arch- 
 angels' ponies were a little bit above themselves on 
 
 235 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 account of the many-coloured crowd so close to the 
 ground. Their riders were excellent players, but they 
 were a team of crack players instead of a crack team; 
 and that made all the difference in the world. They 
 honestly meant to play together, but it is very hard for 
 four men, each the best of the team he is picked from, 
 to remember that in polo no brilliancy of hitting or rid- 
 ing makes up for playing alone. Their captain shouted 
 his orders to them by name, and it is a curious thing 
 that if you call his name aloud in public after an English- 
 man you make him hot and fretty. Lutyens said 
 nothing to his men because it had all been said before. 
 He pulled up Shiraz, for he was playing 'back,' to guard 
 the goal. Powell on Polaris was half-back, and Mac- 
 namara and Hughes on Corks and Kittiwynk were 
 forwards. The tough bamboo-root ball was put into 
 the middle of the ground one hundred and fifty yards 
 from the ends, and Hughes crossed sticks, heads-up, 
 with the captain of the Archangels, who saw fit to play 
 forward, and that is a place from which you cannot 
 easily control the team. The little click as the cane- 
 shafts met was heard all over the ground, and then 
 Hughes made some sort of quick wrist-stroke that just 
 dribbled the ball a few yards. Kittiwynk knew that 
 stroke of old, and followed as a cat follows a mouse. 
 While the captain of the Archangels was wrenching his 
 pony round Hughes struck with all his strength, and next 
 instant Kittiwynk was away. Corks following close behind 
 her, their little feet pattering like rain-drops on glass. 
 
 *Pull out to the left,' said Kittiwynk between her 
 teeth, 'it's coming our way, Corks!' 
 
 The back and half-back of the Archangels were tearing 
 down on her just as she was within reach of the ball. 
 
 236 
 
THE MALTESE CAT 
 
 Hughes leaned forward with a loose rem, and cut it 
 away to the left almost under Kittiwynk's feet, and it 
 hopped and skipped off to Corks, who saw that, if he 
 were not quick, it would run beyond the boundaries. 
 That long bouncing drive gave the Archangels time to 
 wheel and send three men across the ground to head off 
 Corks. Kittiwynk stayed where she was, for she knew 
 the game. Corks was on the ball half a fraction of a 
 second before the others came up, and Macnamara, 
 with a back-handed stroke, sent it back across the 
 ground to Hughes, who saw the way clear to the Arch- 
 angels' goal, and smacked the ball in before any one 
 quite knew what had happened. 
 
 'That's luck,' said Corks, as they changed ends. 'A 
 goal in three minutes for three hits and no riding to 
 speak of.' 
 
 'Don't know,' said Polaris. 'We've made 'em angry 
 too soon. Shouldn't wonder if they try to rush us off 
 our feet next time.' 
 
 'Keep the ball hanging then,' said Shiraz. *That 
 wears out every pony that isn't used to it.' 
 
 Next time there was no easy galloping across the 
 ground. All the Archangels closed up as one man, but 
 there they stayed, for Corks, Kittiwynk, and Polaris 
 were somewhere on the top of the ball, marking time 
 among the rattling sticks, while Shiraz circled about 
 outside, waiting for a chance. 
 
 'We can do this all day,' said Polaris, ramming his 
 quarters into the side of another pony. 'Where do you 
 think you're shoving to? ' 
 
 'I'll — I'll be driven in an ekka if I know,' was the 
 gasping reply, 'and I'd give a week's feed to get my 
 blinkers off. I can't see anything.' 
 
 237 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'The dust is rather bad. Whew! That was one for 
 my off hock. Where's the ball, Corks? ' 
 
 ' Under my tail. At least a man's looking for it there. 
 This is beautiful. They can't use their sticks, and it's 
 driving 'em wild. Give old blinkers a push and he'll 
 go over ! ' 
 
 'Here, don't touch me! I can't see. I'll — I'll back 
 out, I think,' said the pony in blinkers, who knew that 
 if you can't see all round your head you cannot prop 
 yourself against a shock. 
 
 Corks was watching the ball where it lay in the dust 
 close to his near fore, with Macnamara's shortened stick 
 tap-tapping it from time to time. Kittiwynk was edg- 
 ing her way out of the scrimmage, whisking her stump 
 of a tail with nervous excitement. 
 
 'Ho! They've got it,' she snorted. 'Let me out!' 
 and she galloped like a rifle-bullet just behind a tall 
 lanky pony of the Archangels, whose rider was swinging 
 up his stick for a stroke. 
 
 'Not to-day, thank you,' said Hughes, as the blow 
 slid off his raised stick, and Kittiwynk laid her shoulder 
 to the tall pony's quarters, and shoved him aside just as 
 Lutyens on Shiraz sent the ball where it had come from, 
 and the tall pony went skating and slipping away to the 
 left. Kittiwynk, seeing that Polaris had joined Corks 
 in the chase for the ball up the ground, dropped into 
 Polaris's place, and then time was called. 
 
 The Skidars' ponies wasted no time in kicking or 
 fuming. They knew each minute's rest meant so 
 much gain, and trotted off to the rails and their saises, 
 who began to scrape and blanket and rub them at 
 once. 
 
 * Whew I' said Corks, stiffening up to get all the tickle 
 
 238 
 
11 IK MALTESl^: CiVl' 
 
 out of the big vulcanite scraper. *If we were playing 
 pony for pony we'd bend those Archangels double in 
 half an hour. But they'll bring out fresh ones and 
 fresh ones, and fresh ones after that— you see.' 
 
 ' Who cares? ' said Polaris. ' We've drawn first blood. 
 Is my hock swelling? ' 
 
 'Looks puffy,' said Corks. 'You must have had 
 rather a wipe. Don't let it stiffen. You'll be wanted 
 again in half an hour.' 
 
 'What's the game hke?' said the Maltese Cat. 
 
 ' Ground's like your shoe, except where they've put too 
 much water on it,' said Kittiwynk. 'Then it's slippery. 
 Don't play in the centre. There's a bog there. I don't 
 know how their next four are going to behave, but we kept 
 the ball hanging and made 'em lather for nothing. Who 
 goes out? Two Arabs and a couple of countrybreds ! 
 That's bad. What a comfort it is to wash your mouth 
 out!' 
 
 Kitty was talking with the neck of a leather-covered 
 soda-water bottle between her teeth and trying to look 
 over her withers at the same time. This gave her a 
 very coquettish air. 
 
 'What's bad?' said Gray Dawn, giving to the girth 
 and admiring his well-set shoulders. 
 
 'You Arabs can't gallop fast enough to keep your- 
 selves warm — that's what Kitty means,' said Polaris, 
 limping to show that his hock needed attention. 'Are 
 you playing "back," Gray Dawn?' 
 
 'Looks like it,' said Gray Dawn, as Lutyens swung 
 himself up. Powell mounted the Rabbit, a plain bay 
 countrybred much like Corks, but with mulish ears. 
 Macnamara took Faiz UUah, a handy short-backed little 
 red Arab with a long tail, and Hughes mounted Ben- 
 
 239 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 ami, an old and sullen brown beast, who stood over in 
 front more than a polo-pony should. 
 
 'Benami looks like business,' said Shiraz. 'How's 
 your temper, Ben?' The old campaigner hobbled off 
 without answering, and the Maltese Cat looked at the 
 new Archangel ponies prancing about on the ground. 
 They were four beautiful blacks, and they saddled big 
 enough and strong enough to eat the Skidars' team and 
 gallop away with the meal inside them. 
 
 ' Blinkers again,' said the Maltese Cat. ' Good enough ! ' 
 
 'They're chargers — cavalry chargers!' said Kittiwynk 
 indignantly. 'They'll never see thirteen three again.' 
 
 'They've all been fairly measured and they've all 
 got their certificates,' said the Maltese Cat, 'or they 
 wouldn't be here. We must take things as they come 
 along, and keep our eyes on the ball.' 
 
 The game began, but this time the Skidars were 
 penned to their own end of the ground, and the watch- 
 ing ponies did not approve of that. 
 
 'Faiz Ullah is shirking as usual,' said Polaris, with a 
 scornful grunt. 
 
 'Faiz Ullah is eating whip,' said Corks. They could 
 hear the leather-thonged polo-quirt lacing the little 
 fellow's well-rounded barrel. Then the Rabbit's shrill 
 neigh came across the ground. ' I can't do all the work,' 
 he cried. 
 
 'Play the game, don't talk,' the Maltese Cat whick- 
 ered; and all the ponies wriggled with excitement, and 
 the soldiers and the grooms gripped the railings and 
 shouted. A black pony with blinkers had singled out 
 old Benami, and was interfering with him in every 
 possible way. They could see Benami shaking his head 
 up and down and flapping his underlip. 
 
 240 
 
THE MALTESE CAT 
 
 ' There'll be a fall in a minu te, ' said Polaris. ' Benami 
 is getting stuffy.' 
 
 The game flickered up and down between goal-post 
 and goal-post, and the black ponies were getting more 
 confident as they felt they had the legs of the others. 
 The ball was hit out of a little scrimmage, and Benami 
 and the Rabbit followed it; Faiz Ullah only too glad to 
 be quiet for an instant. 
 
 The blinkered black pony came up like a hawk, with 
 two of his own side behind him, and Benami's eye glit- 
 tered as he raced. The question was which pony should 
 make way for the other; each rider was perfectly willing 
 to risk a fall in a good cause. The black who had been 
 driven nearly crazy by his blinkers trusted to his weight 
 and his temper; but Benami knew how to apply his 
 weight and how to keep his temper. They met, and 
 there was a cloud of dust. The black was lying on his 
 side with all the breath knocked out of his body. The 
 Rabbit was a hundred yards up the ground with the 
 ball, and Benami was sitting down. He had slid nearly 
 ten yards, but he had had his revenge, and sat cracking 
 his nostrils till the black pony rose. 
 
 'That's what you get for interfering. Do you want 
 any more?' said Benami, and he plunged into the game. 
 Nothing was done because Faiz Ullah would not gallop, 
 though Macnamara beat him whenever he could spare a 
 second. The fall of the black pony had impressed his 
 companions tremendously, and so the Archangels could 
 not profit by Faiz Ullah's bad behaviour. 
 
 But as the Maltese Cat said, when time was called 
 and the four came back blowing and dripping, Faiz 
 Ullah ought to have been kicked all round Umballa. 
 If he did not behave better next time, the Maltese Cat 
 
 241 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 promised to pull out his Arab tail by the root and eat 
 it. 
 
 There was no time to talk, for the third four were 
 ordered out. 
 
 The third quarter of a game is generally the hottest, 
 for each side thinks that the others must be pumped; 
 and most of the winning play in a game is made about 
 that time. 
 
 Lutyens took over the Maltese Cat with a pat and a 
 hug, for Lutyens valued him more than anything else in 
 the world. Powell had Shikast, a little gray rat with 
 no pedigree and no manners outside polo; Macnamara 
 mounted Bamboo, the largest of the team, and Hughes 
 took Who's Who, alias The Animal. He was supposed 
 to have Australian blood in his veins, but he looked like 
 a clothes-horse, and you could whack him on the legs 
 with an iron crowbar without hurting him. 
 
 They went out to meet the very flower of the Arch- 
 angels' team, and when Who's Who saw their elegantly 
 booted legs and their beautiful satiny skins he grinned a 
 grin through his light, well-worn bridle. 
 
 'My word!' said Who's Who. 'W^e must give 'em a 
 little football. Those gentlemen need a rubbing down.' 
 
 'No biting,' said the Maltese Cat warningly, for once 
 or twice in his career Who's Who had been known to 
 forget himself in that way. 
 
 'Who said anything about biting? I'm not playing 
 tiddly-winks. I'm playing the game.' 
 
 The Archangels came down like a wolf on the fold, for 
 they were tired of football and they wanted polo. They 
 got it more and more. Just after the game began, 
 Lutyens hit a ball that was coming towards him rapidly, 
 and it rose in the air, as a ball sometimes will, with the 
 
 242 
 
rHE MALTESE CAT 
 
 whirr of a frightened partridge. Shikast heard, but 
 could not see it for the minute, though he looked every- 
 where and up into the air as the Maltese Cat had taught 
 him. When he saw it ahead and overhead he went 
 forward with Powell as fast as he could put foot to 
 ground. It was then that Powell, a quiet and level- 
 headed man as a rule, became inspired and played a 
 stroke that sometimes comes off successfully on a quiet 
 afternoon of long practice. He took his stick in both 
 hands, and standing up in his stirrups, swiped at the 
 ball in the air, Munipore fashion. There was one second 
 of paralysed astonishment, and then all four sides of the 
 ground went up in a yell of applause and delight as the 
 ball flew true (you could see the amazed Archangels 
 ducking in their saddles to get out of the line of flight, 
 and looking at it with open mouths), and the regimental 
 pipes of the Skidars squealed from the railings as long as 
 the piper had breath. 
 
 Shikast heard the stroke; but he heard the head of the 
 stick fly off at the same time. Nine hundred and ninety- 
 nine ponies out of a thousand would have gone tearing 
 on after the ball with a useless player pulling at their 
 heads, but Powell knew him, and he knew Powell; and 
 the instant he felt Powell's right leg shift a trifle on the 
 saddle-flap he headed to the boundary, where a native 
 officer was frantically waving a new stick. Before the 
 shouts had ended Powell was armed again. 
 
 Once before in his life the Maltese Cat had heard that 
 very same stroke played off his own back, and had prof- 
 ited by the confusion it made. This time he acted on 
 experience, and leaving Bamboo to guard the goal in 
 case of accidents, came through the others like a flash, 
 head and tail low, Lutyens standing up to ease him — 
 
 243 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 swept on and on before the other side knew what was 
 the matter, and nearly pitched on his head between the 
 Archangels' goal-posts as Lutyens tipped the ball in after 
 a straight scurry of a hundred and fifty yards. If there 
 was one thing more than another upon which the Mal- 
 tese Cat prided himself it was on this quick, streaking 
 kind of run half across the ground. He did not believe 
 in taking balls round the field unless you were clearly 
 overmatched. After this they gave the Archangels 
 five minutes' football, and an expensive fast pony hates 
 football because it rumples his temper. 
 
 Who's Who showed himself even better than Polaris 
 in this game. He did not permit any wriggling away, 
 but bored joyfully into the scrimmage as if he had his 
 nose in a feed-box, and were looking for something nice. 
 Little Shikast jumped on the ball the minute it got 
 clear, and every time an Archangel pony followed it he 
 found Shikast standing over it asking what was the 
 matter. 
 
 'If we can live through this quarter,' said the Maltese 
 Cat, 'I shan't care. Don't take it out of yourselves. 
 Let them do the lathering.' 
 
 So the ponies, as their riders explained afterwards, 
 'shut up.' The Archangels kept them tied fast in front 
 of their goal, but it cost the Archangels' ponies all that 
 was left of their tempers; and ponies began to kick, and 
 men began to repeat compliments, and they chopped 
 at the legs of Who's Who, and he set his teeth and stayed 
 where he was, and the dust stood up like a tree over the 
 scrimmage till that hot quarter ended. 
 
 They found the ponies very excited and confident 
 when they went to their saises; and the Maltese Cat had 
 to warn them that the worst of the game was coming. 
 
 244 
 
 
THE MALTESE CAT 
 
 'Now we are all going in for the second time,' said he, 
 'and they are trotting out fresh ponies. You'll think 
 you can gallop, but you'll find you can't; and then you'll 
 be sorry.' 
 
 'But two goals to nothing is a halter-long lead,' said 
 Kittiwynk prancing. 
 
 'How long does it take to get a goal?' the Maltese 
 Cat answered. 'For pity sake, don't run away with 
 the notion that the game is half-won just because we 
 happen to be in luck now. They'll ride you into the 
 grand-stand if they can ; you must not give 'em a chance. 
 Follow the ball.' 
 
 ' Football as usual? ' said Polaris. ' My hock's half as 
 big as a nose-bag.' 
 
 'Don't let them have a look at the ball if you can help 
 it. Now leave me alone. I must get all the rest I can 
 before the last quarter.' 
 
 He hung down his head and let all his muscles go slack; 
 Shikast, Bamboo, and Who's Who copying his example. 
 
 'Better not watch the game,' he said. 'We aren't 
 playing, and we shall only take it out of ourselves if we 
 grow anxious. Look at the ground and pretend it's fly- 
 time.' 
 
 They did their best, but it was hard advice to follow. 
 The hoofs were drumming and the sticks were rattling 
 all up and down the ground, and yells of applause from 
 the English troops told that the Archangels were press- 
 ing the Skidars hard. The native soldiers behind the 
 ponies groaned and grunted, and said things in under- 
 tones, and presently they heard a long-drawn shout and 
 a clatter of hurrahs ! 
 
 ' One to the Archangels,' said Shikast, without raising 
 his head. ' Time's nearly up. Oh, my sire and — dam ! ' 
 
 245 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Faiz Ullah,' said the Maltese Cat, 'if you don't play 
 to the last nail in your shoes this time, I'll kick you on 
 the ground before all the other ponies.' 
 
 'I'll do my best when my time comes,' said the little 
 Arab sturdily. 
 
 The saises looked at each other gravely as they rubbed 
 their ponies' legs. This was the first time when long 
 purses began to tell, and everybody knew it. Kitti- 
 wynk and the others came back with the sweat drip- 
 ping over their hoofs and their tails telling sad stories. 
 
 'They're better than we are,' said Shiraz. 'I knew 
 howit would be.' 
 
 'Shut your big head,' said the Maltese Cat; 'we've 
 one goal to the good yet.' 
 
 'Yes, but it's two Arabs and two countrybreds to play 
 now,' said Corks. 'Faiz Ullah, remember!' He spoke 
 in a biting voice. 
 
 As Lutyens mounted Gray Dawn he looked at his 
 men, and they did not look pretty. They were covered 
 with dust and sweat in streaks. Their yellow boots 
 were almost black, their wrists were red and lumpy, and 
 their eyes seemed two inches deep in their heads, but 
 the expression in the eyes was satisfactory. 
 
 'Did you take anything at tiffin?' said Lutyens, and 
 the team shook their heads. They were too dry to talk. 
 
 'All right. The Archangels did. They are worse 
 pumped than we are.' 
 
 'They've got the better ponies,' said Powell. 'I 
 shan't be sorry when this business is over.' 
 
 That fifth quarter was a sad one in every way. Faiz 
 Ullah played like a little red demon; and the Rabbit 
 seemed to be everywhere at once, and Benami rode 
 straight at anything and everything that, came in his 
 
 246 
 
THE MALTESE CAT 
 
 way, while the umpires on their ponies wheeled like gulls 
 outside the shifting game. But the Archangels had the 
 better mounts — they had kept their racers till late in 
 the game — and never allowed the Skidars to play foot- 
 ball. They hit the ball up and down the width of the 
 ground till Benami and the res I were outpaced. Then 
 they went forward, and time and again Lutyens and 
 Gray Dawn were just, and only just, able to send the 
 ball away with a long splitting backhander. Gray 
 Dawn forgot that he was an Arab; and turned from 
 gray to blue as he galloped. Indeed, he forgot too well, 
 for he did not keep his eyes on the ground as an Arab 
 should, but stuck out his nose and scuttled for the dear 
 honour of the game. They had watered the ground 
 once or twice betw^een the quarters, and a careless water- 
 man had emptied the last of his skinful all in one place 
 near the Skidars' goal. It was close to the end of play, 
 and for the tenth time Gray Dawn was bolting after a 
 ball when his near hind foot slipped on the greasy mud 
 and he rolled over and over, pitching Lutyens just 
 clear of the goal-post; and the triumphant Archangels 
 made their goal. Then time was called — two goals all; 
 but Lutyens had to be helped up, and Gray Dawn rose 
 with his near hind leg strained somewhere. 
 
 'What's the damage?' said Powell, his arm round 
 Lutyens. 
 
 'Collar-bone, of course,' said Lutyens between his 
 teeth. It was the third time he had broken it in two 
 years, and it hurt him. 
 
 Powell and the others whistled. 'Game's up,' said 
 Hughes. 
 
 'Hold on. We've five good minutes yet, and it isn't 
 my right hand,' said Lutyens. ' We'll stick it out.' 
 
 247 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'I say,' said the captain of the Archangels, trotting 
 up. 'Are you hurt, Lutyens? We'll wait if you care 
 to put in a substitute. I wish — I mean — the fact is, 
 you fellows deserve this game if any team does. Wish 
 we could give you a man or some of our ponies — or 
 something.' 
 
 'You're awfully good, but we'll play to a finish, I 
 think.' 
 
 The captain of the Archangels stared for a little. 
 'That's not half bad,' he said, and went back to his own 
 side, while Lutyens borrowed a scarf from one of his 
 native officers and made a sling of it. Then an Arch- 
 angel galloped up with a big bath-sponge and advised 
 Lutyens to put it under his arm-pit to ease his shoulder, 
 and between them they tied up his left arm scientifically, 
 and one of the native officers leaped forward with four 
 long glasses that fizzed and bubbled. 
 
 The team looked at Lutyens piteously, and he nodded. 
 It was the last quarter, and nothing would matter after 
 that. They drank out the dark golden drink, and wiped" 
 their moustaches, and things looked more hopeful. 
 
 The Maltese Cat had put his nose into the front of 
 Lutyens' shirt, and was trying to say how sorry he was. 
 
 'He knows,' said Lutyens, proudly. 'The beggar 
 knows. I've played him without a bridle before now — 
 for fun.' 
 
 'It's no fun now,' said Powell. 'But we haven't a 
 decent substitute.' 
 
 'No,' said Lutyens. 'It's the last quarter, and we've 
 got to make our goal and win. I'll trust the Cat.' 
 
 'If you fall this time you'll suffer a little,' said Mac- 
 namara. 
 
 ' I'll trust the Cat,' said Lutyens. 
 
 248 
 
THE MALTESE CAT 
 
 *You hear that?' said the Maltese Cat proudly to the 
 others. 'It's worth while playing polo for ten years to 
 have that said of you. Now then, my sons, come along. 
 We'll kick up a little bit, just to show the Archangels 
 this team haven't suffered.' 
 
 And, sure enough, as they went on to the ground the 
 Maltese Cat, after satisfying himself that Lutyens was 
 home in the saddle, kicked out three or four times, and 
 Lutyens laughed. The reins were caught up anyhow 
 in the tips of his strapped hand, and he never pretended 
 to rely on them. He knew the Cat would answer to the 
 least pressure of the leg, and by way of showing off — 
 for his shoulder hurt him very much — he bent the little 
 fellow in a close figure-of-eight in and out between the 
 goal-posts. There was a roar from the native officers and 
 men, who dearly loved a piece of dugabashi (horse-trick 
 work), as they called it, and the pipes very quietly and 
 scornfully droned out the first bars of a common bazaar- 
 tune called 'Freshly Fresh and Newly New,' just as a 
 warning to the other regiments that the Skidars were fit. 
 All the natives laughed. 
 
 'And now,' said the Cat, as they took their place, 're- 
 member that this is the last quarter, and follow the ball!' 
 
 'Don't need to be told,' said Who's Who. 
 
 'Let me go on. All those people on all four sides will 
 begin to crowd in — ^just as they did at Malta. You'll 
 hear people calling out, and moving forward and being 
 pushed back, and that is going to make the Archangel 
 ponies very unhappy. But if a ball is struck to the 
 boundary, you go after it, and let the people get out of 
 your way. I went over the pole of a four-in-hand once, 
 and picked a game out of the dust by it. Back me up 
 when I run, and follow the ball.' 
 
 249 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 There was a sort of an all-round sound of sympathy 
 and wonder as the last quarter opened, and then there 
 began exactly what the Maltese Cat had foreseen. 
 People crowded in close to the l^oundaries, and the 
 Archangels' ponies kept looking sideways at the narrow- 
 ing space. If you know how a man feels to be cramped 
 at tennis — not because he wants to run out of the court, 
 but because he likes to know that he can at a pinch — 
 you will guess how ponies must feel when they are 
 playing in a box of human beings. 
 
 'I'll bend some of those men if I can get away,' said 
 Who's Who, as he rocketed behind the ball; and Bamboo 
 nodded without speaking. They were playing the last 
 ounce in them, and the Maltese Cat had left the goal 
 undefended to join them. Lutyens gave him every 
 order that he could to bring him back, but this was the 
 first time in his career that the little wise gray had ever 
 played polo on his own responsibility, and he was going 
 to make the most of it. 
 
 'What are you doing here?' said Hughes, as the Cat 
 crossed in front of him and rode off an Archangel. 
 
 'The Cat's in charge — mind the goal!' shouted Lut- 
 yens, and bowing forward hit the ball full, and followed 
 on, forcing the Archangels towards their own goal. 
 
 'No football,' said the Cat. 'Keep the ball by the 
 boundaries and cramp 'em. Play open order and drive 
 'em to the boundaries.' 
 
 Across and across the ground in big diagonals flew the 
 ball, and whenever it came to a flying rush and a stroke 
 close to the boundaries the Archangel ponies moved 
 stiffly. They did not care to go headlong at a wall of 
 men and carriages, though if the ground had been open 
 they could have turned on a sixpence. 
 
 250 
 
THE MALI KSE CA T 
 
 'Wriggle her up the sides,' said the Cat. 'Keep her 
 close to the crowd. They hate the carriages. Shikast, 
 keep her up this side.' 
 
 Shikast with Powell lay left and right behind the un- 
 easy scuffle of an open scrimmage, and every time the 
 ball was hit away Shikast galloped on it at such an 
 angle that Powell was forced to hit it towards the boun- 
 dary; and when the crowd had been driven away from 
 that side, Lutyens would send the ball over to the other, 
 and Shikast would slide desperately after it till his 
 friends came down to help. It was billiards, and no 
 football, this time — billiards in a corner pocket; and the 
 cues were not well chalked. 
 
 'If they get us out in the middle of the ground they'll 
 walk away from us. Dribble her along the sides,' cried 
 the Cat. 
 
 So they dribbled all along the boundary, where a pony 
 could not come on their right-hand side; and the Arch- 
 angels were furious, and the umpires had to neglect the 
 game to shout at the people to get back, and several 
 blundering mounted policemen tried to restore order, 
 all close to the scrimmage, and the nerves of the Arch- 
 angels' ponies stretched and broke like cobwebs. 
 
 Five or six times an Archangel hit the ball up into the 
 middle of the ground, and each time the watchful 
 Shikast gave Powell his chance to send it back, and after 
 each return, when the dust had settled, men could see 
 that the Skidars had gained a few yards. 
 
 Every now and again there were shouts of ''Side! 
 Off side!' from the spectators; but the teams were too 
 busy to care, and the umpires had all they could do to 
 keep their maddened ponies clear of the scuffle. 
 
 At last Lutyens missed a short easy stroke, and the 
 
 251 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 Skidars had to fly back helter-skelter to protect their 
 own goal, Shikast leading. Powell stopped the ball 
 with a backhander when it was not fifty yards from the 
 goal-posts, and Shikast spun round with a wrench that 
 nearly hoisted Powell out of his saddle. 
 
 'Now's our last chance,' said the Cat, wheeling like a 
 cock-chafer on a pin. ' We've got to ride it out. Come 
 along.' 
 
 Lutyens felt the little chap take a deep breath, and, as 
 it were, crouch under his rider. The ball was hopping 
 towards the right-hand boundary, an Archangel riding 
 for it with both spurs and a whip; but neither spur nor 
 whip would make his pony stretch himself as he neared 
 the crowd. The Maltese Cat glided under his very nose, 
 picking up his hind legs sharp, for there was not a foot 
 to spare between his quarters and the other pony's bit. 
 It was as neat an exhibition as fancy figure-skating. 
 Lutyens hit with all the strength he had left, but the 
 stick slipped a little in his hand, and the ball flew off 
 to the left instead of keeping close to the boundary. 
 Who's Who was far across the ground, thinking hard as 
 he galloped. He repeated, stride for stride, the Cat's 
 manoeuvres with another Archangel pony, nipping the 
 ball away from under his bridle, and clearing his opponent 
 by half a fraction of an inch, for Who's Who was clumsy 
 behind. Then he drove away towards the right as the 
 Maltese Cat came up from the left; and Bamboo held a 
 middle course exactly between them. The three were 
 making a sort of Government-broad-arrow-shaped 
 attack; and there was only the Archangels' back to 
 guard the goal; but immediately behind them were 
 three Archangels racing all they knew, and mixed up 
 with them was Powell, sending Shikast along on what 
 
 252 
 
THE MALTESE CAT 
 
 he felt was their last hope. It takes a very jgood man 
 to stand up to the rush of seven crazy ponies in the last 
 quarters of a cup game, when men are riding with their 
 necks for sale, and the ponies are delirious. The Arch- 
 angels' back missed his stroke, and pulled aside just in 
 time to let the rush go by. Bamboo and Who's Who 
 shortened stride to give the Maltese Cat room, and 
 Lutyens got the goal with a clean, smooth, smacking 
 stroke that was heard all over the field. But there was 
 no stopping the ponies. They poured through the goal- 
 posts in one mixed mob, winners and losers together, for 
 the pace had been terrific. The Maltese Cat knew by 
 experience what would happen, and, to save Lutyens, 
 turned to the right with one last effort that strained a 
 back-sinew beyond hope of repair. As he did so he 
 heard the right-hand goal-post crack as a pony can- 
 noned into it — crack, splinter, and fall like a mast. It 
 had been sawed three parts through in case of accidents, 
 but it upset the pony nevertheless, and he blundered 
 into another, who blundered into the left-hand post, 
 and then there was confusion and dust and wood. Bam- 
 boo was lying on the ground, seeing stars; an Archangel 
 pony rolled beside him, breathless and angry; Shikast 
 had sat down dog-fashion to avoid falling over the 
 others, and was sliding along on his little bobtail in a 
 cloud of dust; and Powell was sitting on the ground, 
 hammering with his stick and trying to cheer. All the 
 others were shouting at the top of what was left of their 
 voices, and the men who had been spilt were shouting too. 
 As soon as the people saw no one was hurt, ten thousand 
 native and English shouted and clapped and yelled, and 
 before any one could stop them the pipers of the Skidars 
 broke on to the ground, with all the native officers and 
 
 253 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 men behind them, and marched up and down, playing 
 a wild northern tune called 'Zakhme Bagan,' and 
 through the insolent blaring of the pipes and the high- 
 pitched native yells you could hear the Archangels' 
 band hammering, 'For they are all jolly good fellows,' 
 and then reproachfully to the losing team, ' Ooh, Kafoo- 
 zalum ! Kaf oozalum ! Kaf oozalum ! ' 
 
 Besides all these things and many more, there was a 
 Commander-in-Chief, and an Inspector-General of Cav- 
 alry, and the principal veterinary officer in all India, 
 standing on the top of a regimental coach, yelling like 
 schoolboys; and brigadiers and colonels and commis- 
 sioners, and hundreds of pretty ladies joined the chorus. 
 But the Maltese Cat stood with his head down, wonder- 
 ing how many legs were left to him ; and Lutyens watched 
 the men and ponies pick themselves out of the wreck of 
 the two goal-posts, and he patted the Cat very tenderly. 
 
 'I say,' said the captain of the Archangels, spitting 
 a pebble out of his mouth, 'will you take three thousand 
 for that pony — as he stands?' 
 
 'No, thank you. I've an idea he's saved my life,' 
 said Lutyens, getting off and lying down at full length. 
 Both teams were on the ground too, waving their boots 
 in the air, and coughing and drawing deep breaths, as 
 the saises ran up to take away the ponies, and an ofTi- 
 cious water-carrier sprinkled the players with dirty 
 water till they sat up. 
 
 * My Aunt ! ' said Powell, rubbing his back and looking 
 at the stumps of the goal-posts, 'that w^as a game!' 
 
 They played it over again, every stroke of it, that 
 night at the big dinner, when the Free-for-All Cup was 
 filled and passed down the table, and emptied and filled 
 again, and everybody made most eloquent speeches. 
 
 254 
 
THE MALTESE CAT 
 
 About two in the morning, when there might have been 
 some singing, a wise little, plain little, gray little head 
 looked in through the open door. 
 
 'Hurrah! Bring him in,' said the Archangels; and 
 his sais, who was very happy indeed, patted the Maltese 
 Cat on the flank, and he limped into the blaze of light 
 and the glittering uniforms, looking for Lutyens. He 
 was used to messes, and men's bedrooms, and places 
 where ponies are not usually encouraged, and in his 
 youth had jumped on and off a mess-table for a bet. 
 So he behaved himself very politely, and ate bread 
 dipped in salt, and was petted all round the table, mov- 
 ing gingerly; and they drank his health, because he had 
 done more to win the Cup than any man or horse on the 
 ground. 
 
 That was glory and honour enough for the rest of his 
 days, and the Maltese Cat did not complain much when 
 his veterinary surgeon said that he would be no good for 
 polo any more. When Lutyens married, his wife did 
 not allow him to play, so he was forced to be an umpire; 
 and his pony on these occasions was a flea-bitten gray 
 with a neat polo-tail, lame all round, but desperately 
 quick on his feet, and, as everybody knew, Past Pluper- 
 fect Prestissimo Player of the Game. 
 
 255 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 (1896) 
 
 IF you remember my improper friend Brugglesmith, 
 you will also bear in mind his friend McPhee, Chief 
 Engineer of the 'Breslau,' whose dingey Bruggle- 
 smith tried to steal. His apologies for the performance 
 of Brugglesmith may one day be told in their proper 
 place: the tale before us concerns McPhee. He was 
 never a racing engineer, and took special pride in saying 
 as much before the Liverpool men ; but he had a thirty- 
 two years' knowledge of machinery and the humours of 
 ships. One side of his face had been wrecked through 
 the bursting of a water-gauge in the days when men 
 knew less than they do now; and his nose rose grandly 
 out of the wreck, like a club in a public riot. There 
 were cuts and lumps on his head, and he would guide 
 your forefinger through his short iron-gray hair and tell 
 you how he had come by his trade-marks. He owned 
 all sorts of certificates of extra-competency, and at the 
 bottom of his cabin chest of drawers, where he kept the 
 photograph of his wife, were two or three Royal Humane 
 Society medals for saving lives at sea. Professionally — 
 it was different when crazy steerage-passengers jumped 
 overboard — professionally, McPhee does not approve of 
 saving life at sea, and he has often told me that a new 
 hell is awaiting stokers and trimmers who sign for a 
 
 256 
 
'BREAD UPON TIII^: WATERS' 
 
 strong man's pay and fall sick the second day out. He 
 believes in throwing boots at fourth and fifth engineers 
 when they wake him up at night with word that a bear- 
 ing is red-hot, all because a lamp's glare is reflected red 
 from the twirling metal. He believes that there are 
 only two poets in the world; one being Robert Burns, of 
 course, and the other Gerald Massey. When he has 
 time for novels he reads Wilkie Collins and Charles 
 Reade — chiefly the latter — and knows whole pages of 
 'Hard Cash' by heart. In the saloon his table is next 
 to the captain's, and he drinks only water while his en- 
 gines work. 
 
 He was good to me when we first met, because I did 
 not ask questions, and believed in Charles Reade as a 
 most shamefully neglected author. Later he approved 
 of my writings to the extent of one pamphlet of twenty- 
 four pages that I wrote for Holdock, Steiner, and Chase, 
 owners of the line, when they bought some ventilating 
 patent and fitted it to the cabins of the 'Breslau,' 
 ' Spandau,' and ' Koltzau.' The purser of the ' Breslau ' 
 recommended me to Holdock's secretary for the job; and 
 Holdock, who is a Wesleyan Methodist, invited me to 
 his house, and gave me dinner with the governess when 
 the others had finished, and placed the plans and specifi- 
 cations in my hand, and I wrote the pamphlet that same 
 afternoon. It was called 'Comfort in the Cabin,' and 
 brought me seven pound ten, cash down — an important 
 sum of money in those days; and the governess, who was 
 teaching Master John Holdock his scales, told me that 
 Mrs. Holdock had told her to keep an eye on me, in case 
 I went away with coats from the hat-rack. McPhee 
 liked that pamphlet enormously, for it was composed in 
 the Bouverie-Byzantine style, with baroque and rococo 
 
 257 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 embellishments; and afterward he introduced me to 
 Mrs. McPhee, who succeeded Dinah in my heart; for 
 Dinah was half a world away, and it is wholesome and 
 antiseptic to love such a w-oman as Janet McPhee. 
 They lived in a little twelve-pound house, close to the 
 shipping. When McPhee was away Mrs. McPhee read 
 the Lloyd's column in the papers, and called on the 
 wives of senior engineers of equal social standing. 
 Once or twice, too, Mrs. Holdock visited Mrs. McPhee 
 in a brougham with celluloid fittings, and I have reason 
 to believe that, after she had played owner's wife long 
 enough, they talked scandal. The Holdocks lived in 
 an old-fashioned house with a big brick garden not a 
 mile from the McPhees, for they stayed by their money 
 as their money stayed by them ; and in summ.er you met 
 their brougham solemnly junketing by Theydon Bois or 
 Loughton. But I was Mrs. McPhee's friend, for she 
 allowed me to convoy her westward, sometimes, to 
 theatres, where she sobbed or laughed or shivered with 
 a simple heart; and she introduced me to a new w^orld of 
 doctors' wives, captains' wives, and engineers' wives, 
 whose whole talk and thought centred in and about 
 ships and lines of ships you have never heard of. There 
 were sailing-ships, with stewards and mahogany and 
 maple saloons, trading to Australia, taking cargoes of 
 consumptives and hopeless drunkards for whom a sea- 
 voyage was recommended ; there were f rouzy little W^est 
 African boats, full of rats and cockroaches, w^here men 
 died anywhere but in their bunks; there w^ere Brazilian 
 boats whose cabins could be hired for merchandise that 
 went out loaded nearly awash ; there were Zanzibar and 
 Mauritius steamers, and wonderful reconstructed boats 
 that plied to the other side of Borneo. These were 
 
 258 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 loved and known, for they earned our bread and a little 
 butter, and we despised the big Atlantic boats, and made 
 fun of the P. and 0. and Orient liners, and swore by our 
 respected owners — Wesleyan, Baptist, or Presbyterian, 
 as the case might be. 
 
 I had only just come back to England when Mrs. 
 McPhee invited me to dinner at three o'clock in the 
 afternoon, and the notepaper was almost bridal in its 
 scented creaminess. When I reached the house I saw 
 that there w^ere new curtains in the window that must 
 have cost forty-five shillings a pair; and as Mrs. Mc- 
 Phee drew me into the little marble-paper hall, she 
 looked at me keenly, and cried : 
 
 'Have ye not heard? W^hat d'ye think o' the hat- 
 rack?' 
 
 Now, that hat-rack was oak — thirty shillings at least. 
 McPhee came downstairs with a sober foot— he steps as 
 lightly as a cat, for all his weight, when he is at sea — and 
 shook hands in a new and awful manner — a parody of 
 old Holdock's style when he says good-bye to his skip- 
 pers. I perceived at once that a legacy had come to 
 him, but I held my peace, though Mrs. McPhee begged 
 me every thirty seconds to eat a great deal and say 
 nothing. It was rather a mad sort of meal, because 
 McPhee and his wife took hold of hands like little chil- 
 dren (they always do after voyages), and nodded and 
 winked and choked and gurgled, and hardly ate a 
 mouthful. 
 
 A female servant came in and waited; though Mrs. 
 McPhee had told me time and again that she would 
 thank no one to do her housework while she had her 
 health. But this was a servant with a cap, and I saw 
 Mrs. McPhee swell and swell under her garance-coloured 
 
 259 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 gown. There is no small free-board to Janet McPhee, 
 nor is garance any subdued tint; and with all this un- 
 explained pride and glory in the air I felt like watch- 
 ing fireworks without knowing the festival. When the 
 maid had removed the cloth she brought a pineapple 
 that would have cost half a guinea at that season (only 
 McPhee has his own way of getting such things), and a 
 Canton china bowl of dried lichis, and a glass plate of 
 preserved ginger, and a small jar of sacred and imperial 
 chow-chow that perfumed the room. McPhee gets it 
 from a Dutchman in Java, and I think he doctors it 
 with liqueurs. But the crown of the feast w^as some 
 Madeira of the kind you can only come by if you know 
 the wine and the man. A little maize-wrapped fig of 
 clotted Madeira cigars went with the wine, and the rest 
 was a pale-blue smoky silence; Janet, in her splendour, 
 smiling on us two, and patting McPhee's hand. 
 
 'We'll drink,' said McPhee slowly, rubbing his chin, 'to 
 the eternal damnation o' Holdock, Steiner, and Chase.' 
 
 Of course I answered 'Amen,' though I had made 
 seven pound ten shillings out of the firm. McPhee's 
 enemies were mine, and I was drinking his Madeira. 
 
 ' Ye've heard nothing?' said Janet. 'Not a word, not 
 a whisper? ' 
 
 'Not a word, nor a whisper. On my word, I have 
 not.' 
 
 'Tell him, Mac,' said she; and that is another proof of 
 Janet's goodness and wifely love. A smaller woman 
 would have babbled first, but Janet is five feet nine in 
 her stockings. 
 
 'We're rich,' said McPhee. I shook hands all round. 
 
 * We're damned rich,' he added. I shook hands all 
 round a second time. 
 
 260 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 'I'll go to sea no more — unless — there's no sayin' — a 
 private yacht, maybe — wi' a small an' handy auxiliary.' 
 
 'It's not enough for that,' said Janet. 'We're fair 
 rich — well-to-do, but no more. A new gown for church, 
 and one for the theatre. We'll have it made west.' 
 
 'How much is it?' I asked. 
 
 'Twenty-five thousand pounds.' I drew a long 
 breath. 'An' I've been earnin' twenty-five an' twenty 
 pound a month!' The last words came away with a 
 roar, as though the wide world was conspiring to beat 
 him down. 
 
 'All this time I'm waiting,' I said. 'I know nothing 
 since last September. W^as it left you? ' 
 
 They laughed aloud together. 'It was left,' said 
 McPhee, choking. 'Ou, ay, it was left. That's vara 
 good. Of course it was left. Janet, d'ye note that? 
 It was left. Now if you'd put that in your pamphlet it 
 would have been vara jocose. It was left.' He slapped 
 his thigh and roared till the wine quivered in the de- 
 canter. 
 
 The Scotch are a great people, but they are apt to 
 hang over a joke too long, particularly when no one can 
 see the point but themselves. 
 
 'When I rewrite my pamphlet I'll put it in, McPhee. 
 Only I must know something more first.' 
 
 McPhee thought for the length of half a cigar, while 
 Janet caught my eye and led it round the room to one 
 new thing after another — the new vine-pattern carpet, 
 the new chiming rustic clock between the models of the 
 Colombo outrigger-boats, the new inlaid sideboard with 
 a purple cut-glass flower-stand, the fender of gilt and 
 brass, and last, the new black-and-gold piano. 
 
 *In October o' last year the Board sacked me,' began 
 
 261 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 McPhee. 'In October o' last year the "Breslau" came 
 in for winter overhaul. She'd been runnin' eight 
 months — two hunder an' forty days — an' I was three 
 days makin' up my indents, when she went to dry-dock. 
 All told, mark you, it was this side o' three hunder 
 pound — to be preceese, two hunder an' eighty-six 
 pound four shillings. There's not another man could 
 ha' nursed the "Breslau" for eight months to that tune. 
 Never again — never again ! They may send their boats 
 to the bottom, for aught I care.' 
 
 'There's no need,' said Janet softly. 'We're done wi' 
 Holdock, Steiner, and Chase.' 
 
 'It's irritatin', Janet, it's just irritatin'. I ha' been 
 justified from first to last, as the world knows, but — but 
 I canna' forgie 'em. Ay, wisdom is justified o' her 
 children ; an' any other man than me wad ha' made the 
 indent eight hunder. Hay was our skipper — ^ye'll have 
 met him. They shifted him to the "Torgau," an' bade 
 me wait for the "Breslau" under young Bannister. 
 Ye'll obsairve there'd been a new election on the Board. 
 I heard the shares were sellin' hither an' yon, an' the 
 major part of the Board was new to me. The old 
 Board would ne'er ha' done it. They trusted me. 
 But the new Board was all for reorganisation. Young 
 Steiner — Steiner' s son — the Jew, was at the bottom of 
 it, an' they did not think it worth their while to send 
 me word. The first I knew — an' I was Chief Engineer 
 — was the notice of the line's winter sailin's, and the 
 "Breslau" timed for sixteen days between port an' 
 port! Sixteen days, man! She's a good boat, but 
 eighteen is her summer time, mark you. Sixteen was 
 sheer, flytin', kitin' nonsense, an' so I told young Ban- 
 nister. 
 
 262 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 '"We've got to make it," he said. "Ye should not 
 ha' sent in a three-hunder-pound indent." 
 
 '"Do they look for their boats to be run on air?" I 
 said. "The Board is daft." 
 
 ' "E'en tell 'em so," he says. "I'm a married man, 
 an' my fourth's on the ways now, she says." ' 
 
 'A boy — wi' red hair,' Janet put in. Her own hair is 
 the splendid red-gold that goes with a creamy complex- 
 ion. 
 
 'My word, I was an angry man that day! Forbye I 
 was fond o' the old "Breslau," I look for a little con- 
 sideration from the Board after twenty years' service. 
 There was Board meetin' on Wednesday; an' I sat over- 
 night in the engine-room, takin' figures to support my 
 case. Well, I put it fair and square before them all. 
 "Gentlemen," I said, "I've run the 'Breslau' eight 
 seasons, an' I believe there's no fault to find wi' my 
 wark. But if ye baud to this" — I waggled the adver- 
 tisement at 'em — "this that I've never heard of till I 
 read it at breakfast, I do assure you on my professional 
 reputation, she can never do it. That is to say, she can 
 for a while, but at a risk no thinkin' man would run." 
 
 ' "What the deil d'ye suppose we pass your indent 
 for?" says old Holdock. "Man, we're spendin' money 
 like watter." 
 
 ' "I'll leave it in the Board's hands," I said, "if two 
 hunder an' eighty-seven pound is anything beyond right 
 and reason for eight months." I might ha' saved my 
 breath, for the Board was new since the last election, 
 an' there they sat, the damned deevidend-huntin' ship- 
 chandlers, deaf as the adders o' Scripture. 
 
 ' "We must keep faith wi' the public," said young 
 Steiner. 
 
 263 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 ' "Keep faith wi' the 'Breslau' then," I said. "She's 
 served you well, an' your father before you. She'll 
 need her bottom restilTenin', an' new bed-plates, an' 
 turnin' out the forward boilers, an' re-borin' all three 
 cylinders, an' refacin' all guides, to begin with. It's a 
 three months' job." 
 
 ' "Because one employee is afraid?" says young 
 Steiner. "Maybe a piano in the Chief Engineer's cabin 
 would be more to the point." 
 
 'I crushed my cap in my hands, an' thanked God 
 we'd no bairns an' a bit put by. 
 
 * "Understand, gentlemen," I said. "If the 'Bres- 
 lau' is made a sixteen-day boat, ye'll find another en- 
 gineer." 
 
 ' "Bannister makes no objection," said Holdock. 
 
 ' "I'm speakin' for myself," I said. "Bannister has 
 bairns." An' then I lost my temper. "Ye can run her 
 into Hell an' out again if ye pay pilotage," I said, "but 
 ye run without me." 
 
 ' "That's insolence," said young Steiner. 
 
 ' "At your pleasure," I said, turnin' to go. 
 
 ' "Ye can consider yourself dismissed. We must 
 preserve discipline among our employees," said old 
 Holdock, an' he looked round to see that the Board was 
 with him. They knew nothin' — God forgie 'em — an' 
 they nodded me out o' the Line after twenty years — 
 after twenty years. 
 
 ' I went out an' sat down by the hall porter to get my 
 wits again. I'm thinkin' I swore at the Board. Then 
 auld McRimmon — o' McNaughton and McRimmon — 
 came oot o' his office, that's on the same floor, an' looked 
 at me, proppin' up one eyelid wi' his forefinger. Ye know 
 they call him the Blind Deevil, forbye he's onythin' but 
 
 264 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 blind, an' no deevil in his dealin's wi' me — McRimmon 
 o' the Black Bird Line. 
 
 ' "What's here, Mister McPhee?" said he. 
 
 *I was past prayin' for by then. "A Chief Engineer 
 sacked after twenty years' service because he'll not risk 
 the 'Breslau' on the new timin', an' be damned to ye, 
 McRimmon," I said. 
 
 'The auld man sucked in his lips an' whistled. "Ah,'* 
 said he, "the new timin'. I see!" He doddered into 
 the Board-room I'd just left, an' the Dandie-dog that is 
 just his blind man's leader stayed wi' me. That was 
 providential. In a minute he was back again. "Ye've 
 cast your bread on the watter, McPhee, an' be damned 
 to you," he says. " Whaur's my dog? My word, is he 
 on your knee? There's more discernment in a dog than 
 a Jew. What garred ye curse your Board, McPhee? 
 It's expensive." 
 
 ' "They'll pay more for the 'Breslau,'" I said. "Get 
 off my knee, ye smotherin' beastie." 
 
 ' "Bearin's hot, eh?" said McRimmon. "It's thirty 
 year since a man daur curse me to my face. Time was 
 I'd ha' cast ye doon the stairway for that." 
 
 ' "Forgie's all!" I said. He was wearin' to eighty, as 
 I knew. " I was wrong, McRimmon; but when a man's 
 shown the door for doin' his plain duty he's not always 
 ceevil." 
 
 ' "So I hear," says McRimmon. "Ha' ye ony ob- 
 jection to a tramp freighter? It's only fifteen a month, 
 but they say the Blind Deevil feeds a man better than 
 others. She's my 'Kite.' Come ben. Ye can thank 
 Dandie, here. I'm no used to thanks. An' noo," says 
 he, "what possessed ye to throw up your berth wi* 
 Holdock?" 
 
 265 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 ' "The new timin'," said I. "The 'Breslau' will not 
 stand it." 
 
 ' "Hoot, oot," said he. "Ye might ha' crammed her 
 a little — enough to show ye were drivin' her — an' 
 brought her in tw^a days behind. What's easier than to 
 say ye slowed for bearin's, eh? All my men do it, and — 
 I believe 'em." 
 
 ' "McRimmon," says I, "what's her virginity to a 
 lassie?" 
 
 'He puckered his dry face an' twisted in his chair. 
 "The warld an' a'," says he. "My God, the vara warld 
 an' a' ! But what ha' you or me to do wi' virginity, this 
 late along?" 
 
 ' "This," I said. "There's just one thing that each 
 one of us in his trade or profession wdll not do for ony 
 consideration whatever. If I run to time I run to time, 
 barrin' always the risks o' the high seas. Less than 
 that, under God, I have not done. More than that, by 
 God, I wall not do! There's no trick o' the trade I'm 
 not acquaint wi' — " 
 
 ' "So I've heard," says McRimmon, dry as a biscuit. 
 
 ' "But yon matter o' fair runnin' 's just my Shekinah, 
 ye'll understand. I daurna tamper wi' that. Nursing 
 weak engines is fair craftsmanship ; but what the Board 
 ask is cheatin', wi' the risk o' manslaughter addeetional. 
 Ye'll note I know my business." 
 
 'There was some more talk, an' next week I went 
 aboard the "Kite," twenty-five hunder ton, ordinary 
 compound, a Black Bird tramp. The deeper she rode, 
 the better she'd steam. I've snapped as much as nine 
 out of her, but eight point three was her fair normal. 
 Good food forward an' better aft, all indents passed 
 wi' out marginal remarks, the best coal, new donkeys, and 
 
 266 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 good crews. There was nothin' the old man would not 
 do, except paint. That was his deeficulty. Ye could 
 no more draw paint than his last teeth from him. He'd 
 come down to dock, an' his boats a scandal all along the 
 watter, an' he'd whine an' cry an' say they looked all he 
 could desire. Every owner has his non plus ultra, I've 
 obsairved. Paint was McRimmon's. But you could 
 get round his engines without riskin' your life, an', for 
 all his blindness, I've seen him reject five flawed inter- 
 mediates, one after the other, on a nod from me; an' his 
 cattle-fittin's were guaranteed for North Atlantic winter 
 weather. Ye ken what that means? McRimmon an' 
 the Black Bird Line, God bless him! 
 
 'Oh, I forgot to say she would lie down an' fill her 
 forward deck green, an' snore away into a twenty-knot 
 gale forty-five to the minute, three an' a half knots an 
 hour, the engines runnin' sweet an' true as a bairn 
 breathin' in its sleep. Bell was skipper; an' forbye 
 there's no love lost between crews an' owners, we were 
 fond o' the auld Blind Deevil an' his dog, an' I'm think- 
 in' he liked us. He was worth the windy side o' twa 
 million sterlin', an' no friend to his own blood-kin. 
 Money's an awfu' thing — overmuch — for a lonely man. 
 
 'I'd taken her out twice, there an' back again, when 
 word came o' the "Breslau's" breakdown, just as I 
 prophesied. Calder was her engineer — he's not fit to 
 run a tug down the Solent — and he fairly lifted the en- 
 gines off the bed-plates, an' they fell down in heaps, by 
 what I heard. So she filled from the after-stuffin'-box 
 to the after-bulkhead, an' lay star-gazing, with seventy- 
 nine squealin' passengers in the saloon, till the "Camar- 
 alzaman" o' Ramsey and Gold's Carthagena Line gave 
 her a tow to the tune o' five thousand seven hunder an' 
 
 267 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 forty pound, wi' costs in the Admiralty Court. She 
 was helpless, ye'll understand, an' in no case to meet 
 ony weather. Five thousand seven hunder an' forty 
 pounds, with costs, an' exclusive o' new engines! They 
 ha' done better to ha' kept me — on the old timin'. 
 
 'But, even so, the new Board were all for retrenchment. 
 Young Steiner, the Jew, was at the bottom of it. They 
 sacked men right an' left that would not eat the dirt the 
 Board gave 'em. They cut down repairs; they fed 
 crews wi' leavin's and scrapin's; and, reversin' McRim- 
 mon's practice, they hid their defeeciencies wd' paint an' 
 cheap gildin'. "Quem Deus vult perrdere prrius de- 
 mentat," ye remember. 
 
 'In January we went to dry-dock, an' in the next 
 dock lay the "Grotkau," their big freighter that was 
 the "Dolabella" o' Piegan, Piegan, and Walsh's Line 
 in '84 — a Clyde-built iron boat, a flat-bottomed, pigeon- 
 breasted, under-engined, bull-nosed bitch of a five- 
 thousand-ton freighter, that would neither steer, nor 
 steam, nor stop when ye asked her. Whiles she'd at- 
 tend to her helm, whiles she'd take charge, whiles she'd 
 wait to scratch herself, an' whiles she'd buttock into a 
 dock-head. But Holdock and Steiner had bought her 
 cheap, and painted her all over like the Hoor o' Babylon, 
 an' we called her the "Hoor" for short.' (By the way, 
 McPhee kept to that name throughout the rest of his 
 tale; so you must read accordingly.) 'I went to see 
 young Bannister — he had to take what the Board gave 
 him, an' he an' Calder were shifted together from the 
 "Breslau" to this abortion — an' talkin' to' him I went 
 into the dock under her. Her plates were pitted till the 
 men that were paint, paint, paintin' her laughed at it. 
 But the warst was at the last. She'd a great clumsy 
 
 268 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 iron nineLeen-fool Thresher propeller^ — Aitcheson de- 
 signed the "Kite's" — and just on the tail o' the shaft, 
 before the boss, was a red weepin' crack ye could ha' put 
 a penknife to. Man, it was an awful crack! 
 
 ' "When d'ye ship a new tail-shaft?" I said to Ban- 
 nister. 
 
 'He knew what I meant. "Oh, yon's a superfeecial 
 flaw," says he, not lookin' at me. 
 
 ' "Superfeecial Gehenna!" I said. "Ye'll not take 
 her oot wi' a solution o' continuity that like." 
 
 ' "They'll putty it up this evening," he said. "I'm 
 a married man, an' — ye used to know the Board." 
 
 ' I e'en said what was gie'd me in that hour. Ye know 
 how a dry-dock echoes. I saw young Steiner standin' 
 listenin' above me, an', man, he used language provoca- 
 tive of a breach o' the peace. I was a spy and a dis- 
 graced employee, an' a corrupter o' young Bannister's 
 morals, an' he'd persecute me for libel. He went away 
 when I ran up the steps — I'd ha' thrown him into the 
 dock if I'd caught him^ — an' there I met McRimmon, 
 wi' Dandie pullin' on the chain, guidin' the auld man 
 among the railway lines. 
 
 ' "McPhee," said he, "ye're no paid to fight Holdock, 
 Steiner, Chase, and Company, Limited, when ye meet. 
 What's wrong between you? " 
 
 * "No more than a tail-shaft rotten as a kail-stump. 
 For ony sakes go and look, McRimmon. It's a come- 
 dietta." 
 
 ' "I'm feared o' yon conversational Hebrew," said he. 
 " Whaur's the flaw, an' what like?" 
 
 * "A seven-inch crack just behind the boss. There's 
 no power on earth will fend it just jarrin' off." 
 
 ' "When?" 
 
 269 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 ' "That's beyon' my knowledge," I said. 
 
 ' "So it is; so it is," said McRimmon. "We've all 
 oor leemitations. Ye're certain it was a crack? " 
 
 ' "Man, it's a crevasse," I said, for there were no 
 words to describe the magnitude of it. "An' young 
 Bannister's sayin' it's no more than a superfeecial 
 flaw!" 
 
 ' " Weel, I tak' it oor business is to mind oor business. 
 If ye've ony friends aboard her, McPhee, why not bid 
 them to a bit dinner at Radley's?" 
 
 ' "I was thinkin' o' tea in the cuddy," I said. "En- 
 gineers o' tramp freighters cannot afford hotel prices." 
 
 ' "Na! na!" says the auld man, whimperin'. "Not 
 the cuddy. They'll laugh at my 'Kite,' for she's no 
 plastered with paint like the 'Hoor.' Bid them to 
 Radley's, McPhee, an' send me the bill. Thank Dandie, 
 here, man. I'm no used to thanks." Then he turned 
 him round. (I was just thinkin' the vara same thing.) 
 
 ' "Mister McPhee," said he, "this is not senile de- 
 mentia." 
 
 ' "Preserve 's!" I said, clean jumped oot o' mysel'. 
 "I was but thinkin' you're fey, McRimmon." 
 
 ' Dod, the auld deevil laughed till he nigh sat down on 
 Dandie. "Send me the bill," says he. "I'm lang past 
 champagne, but tell me how it tastes the morn." 
 
 'Bell and I bid young Bannister and Calder to dinner 
 at Radley's. They'll have no laughin' an' singin' there, 
 but we took a private room — like yacht-owners fra' 
 Cowes.' 
 
 McPhee grinned all over, and lay back to think. 
 
 'And then?' said I. 
 
 ' We were no drunk in ony preceese sense o' the word, 
 but Radley's showed me the dead men. There were 
 
 270 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 six magnums o' dry champagne an' maybe a bottle o' 
 whisky.' 
 
 ' Do you mean to tell me that you four got away with a 
 magnum and a half apiece, besides whisky? ' I demanded. 
 
 McPhee looked down upon me from between his 
 shoulders with toleration. 
 
 'Man, we were not settin' down to drink,' he said. 
 ' They no more than made us wutty . To be sure, young 
 Bannister laid his head on the table an' greeted like a 
 bairn, an' Calder was all for callin' on Steiner at two in 
 the morn' an' painting him galley-green; but they'd 
 been drinkin' the afternoon. Lord, how they twa 
 cursed the Board, an' the "Grotkau," an' the tail-shaft, 
 an' the engines, an' a' ! They didna talk o' superfeecial 
 flaws that night. I mind young Bannister an' Calder 
 shakin' hands on a bond to be revenged on the Board at 
 ony reasonable cost this side o' losing their certificates. 
 Now mark ye how false economy ruins business. The 
 Board fed them like swine (I have good reason to know 
 it), an' I've obsairved wi' my ain people that if ye touch 
 his stomach ye wauken the deil in a Scot. Men will 
 tak' a dredger across the Atlantic if they're well fed, and 
 fetch her somewhere on the broadside o' the Americas; 
 but bad food's bad service the world over. 
 
 'The bill went to McRimmon, an' he said no more to 
 me till the week-end, when I was at him for more paint, 
 for we'd heard the "Kite" was chartered Liverpool-side. 
 
 ' "Bide whaur ye're put," said the Blind Deevil. 
 "Man, do ye wash in champagne? The 'Kite's' no 
 leavin' here till I gie the order, an' — how am I to waste 
 paint on her, wi' the 'Lammergeyer' docked for who 
 knows how long, an' a'?" 
 
 'She was our big freighter — Mclntyre was engineer — 
 
 271 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 an' I knew she'd come from overhaul not three months. 
 That morn I met McRimmon's head-clerk — ye'll not 
 know him — fair bitin' his nails off wi' mortification. 
 
 ' "The auld man's gone gyte," says he. "He's with- 
 drawn the ' Lammergeyer.' " 
 
 ' "Maybe he has reasons," says I. 
 
 ' "Reasons! He's daft!" 
 
 ' "He'll no be daft till he begins to paint," I said. 
 
 * "That's just what he's done — and South American 
 freights higher than we'll live to see them again. He's 
 laid her up to paint her — to paint her — to paint her!" 
 says the little clerk, dancin' like a hen on a hot plate. 
 "Five thousand ton o' potential freight rottin' in dry- 
 dock, man; an' he dolin' the paint out in quarter-pound- 
 tins, for it cuts him to the heart, mad though he is. 
 An' the 'Grotkau' — the 'Grotkau' of all conceivable 
 bottoms — soaking up every pound that should be ours 
 at Liverpool!" 
 
 ' I was staggered wi' this folly — considerin' the dinner 
 at Radley's in connection wi' the same. 
 
 ' "Ye may well stare, McPhee," says the head-clerk. 
 "There's engines, an' rollin' stock, an' iron bridges — 
 d'ye know what freights are noo? — an' pianos, an' 
 millinery, an' fancy Brazil cargo o' every species pourin' 
 into the 'Grotkau' — the 'Grotkau' o' the Jerusalem 
 firm — and the ' Lammergeyer' s' bein' painted!" 
 
 ' Losh, I thought he'd drop dead wi' the fits. 
 
 *I could say no more than "Obey orders, if ye break 
 owners," but on the "Kite" we believed McRimmon 
 was mad; an' Mclntyre of the "Lammergeyer" was for 
 lockin' him up by some patent legal process he'd found 
 in a book o' maritime law. An' a' that week South 
 American freights rose an' rose. It was sinf u' 1 
 
 272 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 'Syne Bell got orders to tak' the "Kite" round to 
 Liverpool in water-ballast, and McRimmon came to 
 bid's good-bye, yammerin' an' whinin 'o'er the acres o' 
 paint he'd lavished on the "Lammergeyer," 
 
 ' "I look to you to retrieve it," says he. "I look to 
 you to reimburse me! 'Fore God, why are ye not cast 
 off? Are ye dawdlin' in dock for a purpose?" 
 
 ' "What odds, McRimmon?" says Bell. "We'll be a 
 day behind the fair at Liverpool. The 'Grotkau's' got 
 all the freight that might ha' been ours an' the 'Lam- 
 mergeyer's.' " McRimmon laughed an' chuckled — the 
 pairfect eemage o' senile dementia. Ye ken his eye- 
 brows wark up an' down like a gorilla's. 
 
 ' "Ye're under sealed orders," said he, tee-heein' an' 
 scratchin' himself. " Yon's they" — to be opened seriatim. 
 
 ' Says Bell, shufflin' the envelopes when the auld man 
 had gone ashore: "We're to creep round a' the south 
 coast, standin' in for orders — this weather, too. There's 
 no question o' his lunacy now." 
 
 * Well, we buttocked the auld " Kite " along — vara bad 
 weather we made — standin' in alongside for telegraphic 
 orders, which are the curse o' skippers. Syne we made 
 over to Holyhead, an' Bell opened the last envelope for 
 the last instructions. I was wi' him in the cuddy, an' 
 he threw it over to me, cryin': "Did ye ever know the 
 like, Mac?" 
 
 'I'll no say what McRimmon had written, but he was 
 far from mad. There was a sou'-wester brewin' when 
 we made the mouth o' the Mersey, a bitter cold morn 
 wi' a gray-green sea and a gray-green sky — Liverpool 
 weather, as they say; an' there we lay choppin', an' the 
 men swore. Ye canna keep secrets aboard ship. They 
 thought McRimmon was mad, too. 
 
 273 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Syne we saw the "Grotkau" rollin' oot on the top o' 
 flood, deep an' double deep, wi' her new-painted funnel 
 an' her new-painted boats an' a'. She looked her name, 
 an', moreover, she coughed like it. Calder tauld me 
 at Radley's what ailed his engines, but my own ear 
 would ha' told me twa mile awa', by the beat o' them. 
 Round we came, plungin' an' squatterin' in her wake, 
 an' the wind cut wi' good promise o' more to come. By 
 six it blew hard but clear, an' before the middle watch 
 it was a sou'-wester in airnest. 
 
 ' "She'll edge into Ireland, this gait," says BelL I 
 was with him on the bridge, watchin' the "Grotkau's" 
 port light. Ye canna see green so far as red, or we'd ha' 
 kept to leeward. We'd no passengers to consider, an' 
 (all eyes being on the "Grotkau") we fair walked into a 
 liner rampin' home to Liverpool. Or, to be preceese, 
 Bell no more than twisted the "Kite" oot from under 
 her bows, and there was a little damnin' betwix' the twa 
 bridges. Noo a passenger' — McPhee regarded me be- 
 nignantly — 'wad ha' told the papers that as soon as 
 he got to the Customs. We stuck to the "Grotkau's" 
 tail that night an' the next twa days — she slowed down 
 to five knots by my reckonin' — and we lapped along the 
 weary way to the Fastnet.' 
 
 'But you don't go by the Fastnet to get to any South 
 American port, do you? ' I said. 
 
 'We do not. We prefer to go as direct as may be. 
 But we were followin' the "Grotkau," an' she'd no walk 
 into that gale for ony consideration. Knowin' what I 
 did to her discredit, I couldna' blame young Bannister. 
 It was warkin' up to a North Atlantic winter gale, snow 
 an' sleet an' a perishin' wind. Eh, it was like the deil 
 walkin' abroad o' the surface o' the deep, whuppin' off 
 
 274 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 the top o' the waves before he made up his mind. 
 They'd bore up against it so far, but the minute she was 
 clear o' the Skelligs she fair tucked up her skirts an' ran 
 for it by Dunmore Head. Wow, she rolled ! 
 
 ' "She'll be makin' Smerwick," says Bell. 
 
 ' "She'd ha' tried for Ventry by noo if she meant 
 that," I said. 
 
 ' "They'll roll the funnel oot o' her, this gait," says 
 Bell. "Why canna Bannister keep her head to sea?" 
 
 ' "It's the tail-shaft. Ony rollin's better than pitch- 
 in' wi' superfeecial cracks in the tail-shaft. Calder 
 knows that much," I said. 
 
 ' "It's ill wark retreevin' steamers this weather," said 
 Bell. His beard and whiskers were frozen to his oilskin, 
 an' the spray was white on the weather side of him. 
 Pairfect North Atlantic winter weather! 
 
 'One by one the sea raxed away our three boats, an' 
 the davits were crumpled like rams' horns. 
 
 ' " Yon's bad," said Bell, at the last. "Ye canna pass 
 a hawser wi'oot a boat." Bell was a vara judeecious 
 man — for an Aberdonian. 
 
 'I'm not one that fashes himself for eventualities 
 outside the engine-room, so I e'en slipped down betwixt 
 waves to see how the "Kite" fared. Man, she's the 
 best-geared boat of her class that ever left the Clyde! 
 Kinloch, my second, knew her as well as I did. I found 
 him dryin' his socks on the main-steam, an' combin' his 
 whiskers wi' the comb Janet gied me last year, for the 
 warld an' a' as though we were in port. I tried the 
 feed, speered into the stoke-hole, thumbed all bearin's, 
 spat on the thrust for luck, gied 'em my blessin', an' took 
 Kinloch's socks before I went up to the bridge again. 
 
 'Then Bell handed me the wheel, an' went below to 
 
 275 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 warm himself. When he came up my gloves were frozen 
 to the spokes, an' the ice clicked over my eyelids. Pair- 
 feet North Atlantic winter weather, as I was sayin'. 
 
 'The gale blew out by night, but we lay in smotherin' 
 cross-seas that made the auld "Kite" chatter from 
 stem to stern. I slowed to thirty-four, I mind — no, 
 thirty-seven. There was a long swell the morn, an' the 
 "Grotkau" was headin' into it west awa'. 
 
 ' "She'll win to Rio yet, tail-shaft or no tail-shaft," 
 says Bell. 
 
 ' "Last night shook her," I said. "She'll jar it off 
 yet, mark my word." 
 
 'We were then, maybe, a hunder and fifty mile west- 
 sou'-west o' Slyne Head, by dead reckonin'. Next day 
 we made a hunder an' thirty — ye'll note we were not 
 racin' boats — an' the day after a hunder and sixty-one, 
 an' that made us, we'll say. Eighteen an' a bittock west, 
 an' maybe Fifty-one an' a bittock north, crossin' all the 
 North Atlantic liner lanes on the long slant, always in 
 sight o' the "Grotkau," creepin' up by night and fallin' 
 awa' by day. After the gale, it was cold weather wi' 
 dark nights. 
 
 ' I was in the engine-room on Friday night, just before 
 the middle watch, when Bell whustled down the tube: 
 "She's done it"; an' up I came. 
 
 *The "Grotkau" was just a fair distance south, an' 
 one by one she ran up the three red lights in a vertical 
 line — the sign of a steamer not under control. 
 
 * '*Yon's a tow for us," said Bell, lickin' his chops. 
 "She'll be worth more than the 'Breslau.' We'll go 
 down to her, McPhee!" 
 
 * "Bide a while," I said. "The seas fair throng wi' 
 ships here." 
 
 276 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 '"Reason why," said Bell. "It's a fortune gaun 
 beggin'. What d'ye think, man? " 
 
 ' "Gie her till daylight. She knows w-e're here. If 
 Bannister needs help he'll loose a rocket." 
 
 ' "Wha told ye Bannister's need? W'e'll ha' some 
 rag-an'-bone tramp snappin' her up under oor nose," 
 said he; an' he put the w^heel over. We were gaun slow. 
 
 ' "Bannister wad like better to go home on a liner an' 
 eat in the saloon. Mind ye what they said o' Holdock 
 and Steiner's food that night at Radley's? Keep her 
 aw^a', man — keep her aw^a'. A tow's a tow, but a dere- 
 lict's big salvage." 
 
 ' "E-eh!" said Bell. "Yon's an inshoto' yours, Mac. 
 I love ye like a brother. We'll bide whaur we are till 
 daylight" ; an' he kept her awa'. 
 
 ' Syne up went a rocket forward, an' twa on the bridge, 
 an' a blue light aft. Syne a tar-barrel forward again. 
 
 ' "She's sinkin'," said Bell. "It's all gaun, an' I'll 
 get no more than a pair o' night-glasses for pickin' up 
 young Bannister — the fool ! " 
 
 ' "Fair an' soft again," I said. "She's signallin' to 
 the south of us. Bannister knows as well as I that one 
 rocket would bring the 'Kite.' He'll no be wastin' fire- 
 works for nothin'. Hear her ca' ! " 
 
 'The "Grotkau" whustled an' whustled for five min- 
 utes, an' then there were more fireworks — a regular ex- 
 hibeetion. 
 
 ' "That's no for men in the regular trade," says Bell. 
 "Ye're right, Mac. That's for a cuddy full o' passen- 
 gers.' ' He blinked through the night-glasses where it lay 
 a bit thick to southward. 
 
 ' "What d'ye make of it?" I said. 
 
 '"Liner," he says. "Yon's her rocket. Ou, ay; 
 
 277 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 they've waukened the gold-strapped skipper, an' — noo 
 they've waukened the passengers. They're turnin' on 
 the electrics, cabin by cabin. Yon's anither rocket! 
 They're comin' up to help the perishin' in deep watters." 
 
 ' "Gie me the glass," I said. But Bell danced on the 
 bridge, clean dementit. " Mails— mails — mails!" said 
 he. "Under contract wi' the Government for the due 
 conveyance o' the mails; an' as such, Mac, ye'll note, 
 she may rescue life at sea, but she canna tow! — she 
 canna tow! Yon's her night-signal. She'll be up in 
 half an hour!" 
 
 ' "Gowk!" I said, "an' we blazin' here wi' all oor 
 lights. Oh, Bell, but ye're a fool." 
 
 'He tumbled off the bridge forward, an' I tumbled aft, 
 an' before ye could wink our lights were oot, the engine- 
 room hatch was covered, an' we lay pitch-dark, watchin' 
 the lights o' the liner come up that the "Grotkau" 'd 
 been signallin' for. Twenty knot an hour she came, 
 every cabin lighted, an' her boats swung awa'. It was 
 grandly done, an' in the inside of an hour. She stopped 
 like Mrs. Holdock's machine; down went the gangway, 
 down went the boats, an' in ten minutes we heard the 
 passengers cheerin', an' awa' she fled. 
 
 ' "They'll tell o' this all the days they live," said Bell. 
 "A rescue at sea by night, as pretty as a play. Young 
 Bannister an' Calder will be drinkin' in the saloon, an' 
 six months hence the Board o' Trade '11 gie the skipper 
 a pair o' binoculars. It's vara philanthropic all round." 
 
 ' We lay by till day — ye may think we waited for it wi' 
 sore eyes — an' there sat the "Grotkau," her nose a bit 
 cocked, just leerin' at us. She looked pairfectly ridee- 
 culous. 
 
 ' "She'll be fillin' aft," says Bell; "for why is she down 
 
 278 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 by the stern? The tail-shaft's punched a hole in her, 
 an' — we've no boats. There's three hunder thousand 
 pound sterlin', at a conservative estimate, droonin' 
 before our eyes. What's to do?" An' his bearin's got 
 hot again in a minute; for he was an incontinent man. 
 
 ' "Run her as near as ye daur," I said. "Gie me a 
 jacket an' a life-line, an' I'll swum for it." There was a 
 bit lump of a sea, an' it was cold in the wind — vara cold; 
 but they'd gone overside like passengers, young Bannis- 
 ter an' Calder an' a', leaving the gangway down on the 
 lee-side. It would ha' been a flyin' in the face o' mani- 
 fest Providence to overlook the invitation. We were 
 within fifty yards o' her while Kinloch was garmin' me 
 all over wi' oil behind the galley; an' as we ran past I 
 went overboard for the salvage o' three hunder thousand 
 pound. Man, it was perishin' cold, but I'd done my job 
 judgmatically, an' came scrapin' all along her side slap 
 on to the lower gratin' o' the gangway. No one more 
 astonished than me, I assure ye. Before I'd caught 
 my breath I'd skinned both my knees on the gratin', an' 
 was climbin' up before she rolled again. I made my 
 line fast to the rail, an' squattered aft to young Bannis- 
 ter's cabin, whaur I dried me wi' everything in his bunk, 
 an' put on every conceivable sort o' rig I found till the 
 blood was circulatin'. Three pair drawers, I mind I 
 found — to begin upon — an' I needed them all. It was 
 the coldest cold I remember in all my experience. 
 
 ' Syne I went aft to the engine-room. The " Grotkau" 
 sat on her own tail, as they say. She was vara short- 
 shafted, an' her gear was all aft. There was four or five 
 foot o' water in the engine-room slummockin' to and fro, 
 black an' greasy ; maybe there was six foot. The stoke- 
 hold doors were screwed home, an' the stokehold was 
 
 279 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 tight enough, but for a minute the mess in the engine- 
 room deceived me. Only for a minute, though, an' that 
 was because I was not, in a manner o' speakin', as calm 
 as ordinar'. I looked again to mak' sure. 'Twas just 
 black wi' bilge: dead watter that must ha' come in for- 
 tuitously, ye ken.' 
 
 'McPhee, I'm only a passenger,' I said, 'but you don't 
 persuade me that six foot o' water can come into an 
 engine-room fortuitously.' 
 
 'Who's tryin' to persuade one way or the other?' 
 McPhee retorted. 'I'm statin' the facts o' the case — 
 the simple, natural facts. Six or seven foot o' dead 
 watter in the engine-room is a vara depressin' sight if ye 
 think there's like to be more comin'; but I did not con- 
 sider that such was likely, and so, ye'll note, I was not 
 depressed.' 
 
 * That's all very well, but I want to know about the 
 water,' I said. 
 
 *rve told ye. There was six feet or more there, wi' 
 Calder's cap floatin' on top.' 
 
 ' Where did it come from? ' 
 
 *Weel, in the confusion o' things after the propeller 
 had dropped off an' the engines were racin' an' a', it's 
 vara possible that Calder might ha' lost it off his head 
 an' no troubled himself to pick it up again. I remember 
 seein' that cap on him at Southampton.' 
 
 'I don't want to know about the cap. I'm asking 
 where the water came from, and what it was doing 
 there, and why you were so certain that it wasn't a leak, 
 McPhee?' 
 
 *For good reason — for good an' sufficient reason.' 
 
 * Give it to me, then.' 
 
 *Well, it's a reason that does not properly concern 
 
 280 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 myself only. To be preceese, I'm of opinion that it was 
 due, the watter, in part to an error o' judgment in 
 another man. We can a' mak' mistakes.' 
 
 'Oh, I beg your pardon! Goon.' 
 
 'I got me to the rail again, an', "What's wrang?" 
 said Bell, hailin'. 
 
 ' "She'll do," I said. "Send's o'er a hawser, an' a 
 man to help steer. I'll pull him in by the life-line." 
 
 ' I could see heads bobbin' back an' forth, an' a whuff 
 or two o' strong words. Then Bell said: "They'll not 
 trust themselves— one of 'em — in this watter — except 
 Kinloch, an' I'll no spare him." 
 
 ' "The more salvage to me, then," I said. "I'll make 
 shift solo." 
 
 'Says one dock-rat at this: "D'ye think she's safe?" 
 
 ' "I'll guarantee ye nothing," I said, "except, maybe, 
 a hammerin' for keepin' me this long." 
 
 'Then he sings out: "There's no more than one life- 
 belt, an' they canna find it, or I'd come." 
 
 ' "Throw him over, the Jezebel," I said, for I was oot 
 o' patience; an' they took baud o' that volunteer before 
 he knew what was in store, and hove him over in the 
 bight of the life-line. So I e'en hauled him upon the 
 sag of it, hand-over-fist — a vara welcome recruit when 
 I'd tilted the salt watter out of him; for, by the way, he 
 could not swum. 
 
 ' Syne they bent a twa-inch rope to the life-line, an* a 
 hawser to that, an' I led the rope o'er the drum of a 
 hand-winch forward, an' we sweated the hawser inboard 
 an' made it fast to the "Grotkau's" bitts. 
 
 'Bell brought the "Kite" so close I feared she'd roll 
 in an' do the "Grotkau's" plates a mischief. He hove 
 anither life-line to me, an' went astern, an' we had all 
 
 281 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 the weary winch-work to do again wi' a second hawser. 
 For all that, Bell was right: we'd a long tow before us, 
 an' though Providence had helped us that far, there was 
 no sense in leavin' too much to its keepin'. When the 
 second hawser was fast, I was wet wi' sweat, an' I cried 
 Bell to tak' up his slack an' go home. The other man 
 was by way o' helpin' the work wi' askin' for drinks, but 
 I e'en told him he must hand reef an' steer, beginnin' 
 with steerin', for I was goin to turn in. He steered — 
 ou, ay, he steered, in a manner o' speakin'. At the 
 least, he grippit the spokes an' twiddled 'em an' looked 
 wise, but I doubt if the "Hoor" ever felt it. I turned 
 in there an' then to young Bannister's bunk, an' slept 
 past expression. I waukened ragin' wi' hunger, a fair 
 lump o' sea runnin', the "Kite" snorin' awa' four knots 
 an hour; an' the "Grotkau" slappin' her nose under, an' 
 yawin' an' standin' over at discretion. She was a most 
 disgracefu' tow. But the shameful thing of all was the 
 food. I raxed me a meal fra galley-shelves an' pantries 
 an' lazareetes an' cubby-holes that I would not ha' gied 
 to the mate of a Cardiff collier; an' ye ken we say a Car- 
 diff mate will eat clinkers to save waste. I'm sayin' it 
 was simply vile! The crew had written what they 
 thought of it on the new paint o' the fo'c'sle, but I had 
 not a decent soul wi' me to complain on. There was 
 nothin' for me to do save watch the hawsers an' the 
 "Kite's" tail squatterin' down in white watter when 
 she lifted to a sea; so I got steam on the after donkey- 
 pump, an' pumped oot the engine-room. There's no 
 sense in leavin' watter loose in a ship. When she was 
 dry, I went doun the shaft-tunnel, an' found she v/as 
 leakin' a little through the stufTm'-box, but nothin' to 
 make wark. The propeller had e'en jarred off, as I 
 
 282 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 knew it must, an' Calder had been waitin' for it to go wi' 
 his hand on the gear. He told me as much when I met 
 him ashore. There was nothin' started or strained. It 
 had just sHpped awa' to the bed o' the Atlantic as easy 
 as a man dyin' wi' due warnin'^a most providential 
 business for all concerned. Syne I took stock o' the 
 "Grotkau's" upper works. Her boats had been smashed 
 on the davits, an' here an' there was the rail missin', an' 
 a ventilator or two had fetched awa', an' the bridge-rails 
 were bent by the seas; but her hatches were tight, and 
 she'd taken no sort of harm. Dod, I came to hate her 
 like a human bein', for I was eight weary days aboard, 
 starvin' — ay, starvin' — within a cable's length o' plenty. 
 All day I lay in the bunk reading the "Woman-Hater," 
 the grandest book Charlie Reade ever wrote, an' pickin' 
 a toothful here an' there. It was weary, weary work. 
 Eight days, man, I was aboard the "Grotkau," an' not 
 one full meal did I make. Sma' blame her crew would 
 not stay by her. The other man? Oh, I warked him 
 to keep him crack. I warked him wi' a vengeance. 
 
 ' It came on to blow when we fetched soundin's, an' 
 that kept me standin' by the hawsers, lashed to the 
 capstan, breathin' betwixt green seas. I near died o' 
 cauld an' hunger, for the "Grotkau" towed like a barge, 
 an' Bell howkit her along through or over. It was vara 
 thick up-Channel, too. We were standin' in to make 
 some sort o' light, and we near walked over twa three 
 fishin'-boats, an' they cried us we were o'erclose to Fal- 
 mouth. Then we were near cut down by a drunken 
 foreign fruiter that was blunderin' between us an' the 
 shore, and it got thicker and thicker that night, an' I 
 could feel by the tow Bell did not know whaur he was. 
 Losh, we knew in the morn, for the wind blew the fog 
 
 283 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 oot like a candle, an' the sun came clear; and as surely 
 as McRimmon gied me my cheque, the shadow o' the 
 Eddystone lay across our tow-rope! We were that 
 near — ay, we were that near! Bell fetched the "Kite" 
 round with a jerk that came close to tearin' the bitts out 
 o' the "Grotkau"; an' I mind I thanked my Maker in 
 young Bannister's cabin when we w^ere inside Plymouth. 
 
 'The first to come aboard was McRimmon, wi' Dan- 
 die. Did I tell you our orders were to take anything 
 found into Plymouth? The auld deil had just come 
 down overnight, puttin' tw^o an' two together from 
 what Calder had told him w^hen the liner landed the 
 "Grotkau's" men. He had preceesely hit oor time. 
 I'd hailed Bell for something to eat, an' he sent it o'er 
 in the same boat wi' McRimmon, when the auld man 
 came to me. He grinned an' slapped his legs and 
 worked his eyebrows the while I ate. 
 
 ' "How do Holdock, Steiner, and Chase feed their 
 men?" said he. 
 
 ' "Ye can see," I said, knockin' the top ofT another 
 beer-bottle. " I did not sign to be starved, McRimmon." 
 
 ' "Nor to swim, either," said he, for Bell had tauld 
 him how I carried the line aboard. "W^ll, I'm thinkin' 
 you'll be no loser. What freight could we ha' put into 
 the 'Lammergeyer' would equal salvage on four hun- 
 der thousand pounds — hull and cargo? Eh, McPhee? 
 This cuts the liver out o' Holdock, Steiner, Chase, and 
 Company, Limited. Eh, McPhee? An' I'm sufferin' 
 from senile dementia now? Eh, McPhee? An' I'm 
 not daft, am I, till I begin to paint the 'Lammergeyer'? 
 Eh, McPhee? Ye may weel lift your leg, Dandie! I 
 ha' the laugh o' them all. Ye found watter in the 
 engine-room?" 
 
 284 
 
'BRKAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 ' "To speak wi'oot prejudice," I said, "there was 
 some waiter." 
 
 ' "They thought she was sinkin' after the propeller 
 went. She filled with extraordinary rapeedity. Galder 
 said it grieved him an' Bannister to abandon her." 
 
 ' I thought o' the dinner at Radley's, an' what like o' 
 food I'd eaten for eight days. 
 
 * "It would grieve them sore," I said. 
 
 ' "But the crew would not hear o' stayin' an' takin' 
 their chances. They're gaun up an' down sayin' they'd 
 ha' starved first." 
 
 ' "They'd ha' starved if they'd stayed," said I. 
 
 ' "I tak' it, fra Calder's account, there was a mutiny 
 a'most." 
 
 ' "Ye know more than I, McRimmon," I said. 
 "Speakin' wi'oot prejudice, for we're all in the same 
 boat, who opened the bilge-cock?" 
 
 ' "Oh, that's it — is it?" said the auld man, an' I could 
 see he was surprised. "A bilge-cock, ye say? " 
 
 ' "I believe it was a bilge-cock. They were all shut 
 when I came aboard, but some one had flooded the 
 engine-room eight feet over all, and shut it off with the 
 worm-an'-wheel gear from the second gratin' after- 
 wards." 
 
 ' " Losh ! " said McRimmon. " The ineequity o' man's 
 beyond belief. But it's awfu' discreditable to Holdock, 
 Steiner, and Chase, if that came oot in court." 
 
 ' "It's just my own curiosity," I said. 
 
 ' "Aweel, Dandie's afflicted wi' the same disease. 
 Dandie, strive against curiosity, for it brings a little dog 
 into traps an' suchlike. Whaur was the 'Kite' when 
 yon painted liner took off the *Grotkau's' people? " 
 
 * "Just there or thereabouts," I said. 
 
 285 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 ' "An' which o' you twa thought to cover your lights?'* 
 said he, winkin'. 
 
 ' "Dandie," I said to the dog, "we must both strive 
 against curiosity. It's an unremunerative business. 
 What's our chance o' salvage, Dandie?" 
 
 'He laughed till he choked. "Tak' what I gie you, 
 McPhee, an' be content," he said. "Lord, how a man 
 wastes time w^hen he gets old. Get aboard the 'Kite,' 
 mon, as soon as ye can. I've clean forgot there's a 
 Baltic charter yammerin' for you at London. That'll 
 be your last voyage, I'm thinkin', excep' by way o' 
 pleasure." 
 
 'Steiner's men were comin' aboard to take charge an' 
 tow her round, an' I passed young Steiner in a boat as I 
 went to the "Kite." He looked down his nose; but 
 McRimmon pipes up: "Here's the man ye owe the 
 'Grotkau' to — at a price, Steiner — at a price! Let me 
 introduce Mister McPhee to you. Maybe ye've met 
 before; but ye've vara little luck in keeping your men — 
 ashore or afloat!" 
 
 'Young Steiner looked angry enough to eat him as he 
 chuckled an' whustled in his dry old throat. 
 
 ' "Ye've not got your award yet," Steiner says. 
 
 ' "Na, na," says the auld man, in a screech ye could 
 hear to the Hoe, "but I've twa million sterlin', an' no 
 bairns, ye Judeeas Apella, if ye mean to fight; an' I'll 
 match ye p'und for p'und till the last p'und's cot. Ye 
 ken me, Steiner? I'm McRimmon o' McNaughton and 
 McRimmon!" 
 
 ' '*Dod!" he said betwix' his teeth, sittin' back in the 
 boat, "I've waited fourteen year to break that Jew-firm, 
 an' God be thankit I'll do it now." 
 
 'The "Kite" was in the Baltic while the auld man 
 
 286 
 
'BREAD UPON THE WATERS' 
 
 was warkin his warks, but I know the assessors valued 
 the "Grotkau," all told, at over three hunder and sixty 
 thousand — her manifest was a treat o' richness — and 
 McRimmon got a third for salvin' an abandoned ship. 
 Ye see, there's vast deeference between towin' a ship wi' 
 men on her and pickin' up a derelict — a vast deeference 
 — in pounds sterlin'. Moreover, twa three o' the " Grot- 
 kau's" crew w^ere burnin' to testify about the food, an' 
 there was a note o' Calder to the Board in regard to 
 the tail-shaft that would ha' been vara damagin' if it had 
 come into court. They knew better than to fight. 
 
 'Syne the "Kite" came back, and McRimmon paid 
 off me an' Bell personally, and the rest of the crew pro 
 rata. My share— oor share, I should say — was just 
 twenty-five thousand pounds sterlin'.' 
 
 At this point Janet jumped up and kissed him. 
 
 ' Five-and-twenty thousand pound sterlin'. Noo, I'm 
 fra the North, and I'm not the like to fling money 
 awa' rashly, but I'd gie six months' pay — one hunder 
 an' twenty pound — to know who flooded the engine- 
 room of the "Grotkau." I'm fairly well acquaint wi' 
 McRimmon's eediosyncrasies, and he'd no hand in it. 
 It was not Calder, for I've asked him, an' he wanted to 
 fight me. It would be in the highest degree unprofes- 
 sional o' Calder — not fightin', but openin' bilge-cocks— 
 but for a while I thought it was him. Ay, I judged it 
 might be him — under temptation.' 
 
 'What's your theory?' I demanded. 
 
 * Weel, I'm inclined to think it was one o' those singu- 
 lar providences that remind us we're in the hands o' 
 Higher Powers.' 
 
 ' It couldn't open and shut itself?' 
 
 'I did not mean that; but some half-starvin' oiler or, 
 
 287 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 maybe, trimmer must ha' opened it awhile to mak' sure 
 o' leavin' the "Grotkau." It's a demoralisin' thing to 
 see an engine-room flood up after any accident to the 
 gear — demoralisin' and deceptive both. Aweel, the 
 man got what he wanted, for they went aboard the liner 
 cryin' that the " Grotkau " was sinkin'. But it's curious 
 to think o' the consequences. In a' human probability, 
 he's bein' damned in heaps at the present moment 
 aboard another tramp-freighter; an' here am I, wi' five- 
 an' -twenty thousand pounds invested, resolute to go to 
 sea no more — providential' s the preceese word — except 
 as a passenger, ye'll understand, Janet.' 
 
 McPhee kept his word. He and Janet went for a 
 voyage as passengers in the first-class saloon. They 
 paid seventy pounds for their berths; and Janet found 
 a very sick woman in the second-class saloon, so that for 
 sixteen days she lived below, and chattered with the 
 stewardesses at the foot of the second-saloon stairs 
 while her patient slept. McPhee was a passenger for 
 exactly twenty-four hours. Then the engineers' mess — 
 where the oil-cloth tables are — joyfully took him to its 
 bosom, and for the rest of the voyage that company was 
 richer by the unpaid services of a highly certificated 
 engineer. 
 
 288 
 
AN ERROR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 (1894) 
 
 BEFORE he was thirty he discovered that there 
 was no one to play with him. Though the 
 wealth of three toilsome generations stood to his 
 account, though his tastes in the matter of books, bind- 
 ings, rugs, swords, bronzes, lacquer, pictures, plate, 
 statuary, horses, conservatories, and agriculture were 
 educated and catholic, the public opinion of his country 
 wanted to know why he did not go to office daily, as his 
 father had before him. 
 
 So he fled, and they howled behind him that he was an 
 unpatriotic Anglomaniac, born to consume fruits, one 
 totally lacking in public spirit. He wore an eye-glass; 
 he had built a wall round his country house, with a high 
 gate that shut, instead of inviting America to sit on his 
 flower-beds; he ordered his clothes from England; and 
 the press of his abiding city cursed him, from his eye- 
 glass to his trousers, for two consecutive days. 
 
 When he rose to light again, it was where nothing less 
 than the tents of an invading army in Piccadilly would 
 make any difference to anybody. If he had money and 
 leisure, England stood ready to give him all that money 
 and leisure could buy. That price paid, she would ask 
 no questions. He took his cheque-book and accumu- 
 lated things — ^warily at first, for he remembered that 
 
 289 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 in America things own the man. To his delight, he dis- 
 covered that in England he could put his belongings 
 under his feet; for classes, ranks, and denominations of 
 people rose, as it were, from the earth, and silently and 
 discreetly took charge of his possessions. They had 
 been born and bred for that sole purpose — servants of 
 the cheque-book. When that was at an end they would 
 depart as mysteriously as they had come. 
 
 The impenetrability of this regulated life irritated 
 him, and he strove to learn something of the human side 
 of these people. He retired baffled, to be trained by his 
 menials. In America, the native demoralises the Eng- 
 lish servant. In England, the servant educates the 
 master. Wilton Sargent strove to learn all they taught 
 as ardently as his father had striven to wreck, before 
 capture, the railways of his native land; and it must 
 have been some touch of the old bandit railway blood 
 that bade him buy, for a song. Holt Hangars, whose 
 forty-acre lawn, as every one knows, sweeps down in 
 velvet to the quadruple tracks of the Great Buchonian 
 Railway. Their trains flew by almost continuously, 
 with a bee-like drone in the day and a flutter of strong 
 wings at night. The son of Merton Sargent had good 
 right to be interested in them. He owned controlling 
 interests in several thousand miles of track — not per- 
 manent-way — built on altogether different plans, where 
 locomotives eternally whistled for grade-crossings, and 
 parlour-cars of fabulous expense and unrestful design 
 skated round curves that the Great Buchonian would 
 have condemned as unsafe in a construction-line. From 
 the edge of his lawn he could trace the chaired metals 
 falling away, rigid as a bowstring, into the valley of the 
 Prest, studded with the long perspective of the block- 
 
 290 
 
AN ERROR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 signals, buttressed with stone, and carried, high above 
 all possible risk, on a forty-foot embankment. 
 
 Left to himself, he would have builded a private car, 
 and kept it at the nearest railway station, Amberley 
 Royal, five miles away. But those into whose hands 
 he had committed himself for his English training had 
 little knowledge of railways and less of private cars. 
 The one they knew as something that existed in the 
 scheme of things for their convenience. The other they 
 held to be 'distinctly American'; and, with the versatil- 
 ity of his race, Wilton Sargent had set out to be just a 
 little more English than the English. 
 
 He succeeded to admiration. He learned not to re- 
 decorate Holt Hangars, though he warmed it; to leave 
 his guests alone; to refrain from superfluous introduc- 
 tions; to abandon manners, of which he had great store, 
 and to hold fast by manner which can after labour be 
 acquired. He learned to let other people, hired for the 
 purpose, attend to the duties for which they were paid. 
 He learned — this he got from a ditcher on the estate — 
 that every man with whom he came in contact had his 
 decreed position in the fabric of the realm, which posi- 
 tion Wilton would do well to consult. Last mystery of 
 all, he learned to golf — well; and when an American 
 knows the innermost meaning of 'Don't press, slow 
 back, and keep your eye on the ball,' he is, for practical 
 purposes, denationalised. 
 
 His other education proceeded on the pleasantest 
 lines. Was he interested in any conceivable thing in 
 heaven above, or the earth beneath, or the waters under 
 the earth? Forthwith appeared at his table, guided by 
 those safe hands into whichhehadfallen, the very men who 
 had best said, done, written, explored, excavated, built, 
 
 291 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 launched, created, or studied that one thing — herders 
 of books and prints in the British Museum; speciaUsts 
 in scarabs, cartouches, and dynasties Egyptian; rovers 
 and raiders from the heart of unknown lands; toxicolo- 
 gists; orchid-hunters; monographers on flint implements, 
 carpets, prehistoric man, or early Renaissance music. 
 They came, and they played with him. They asked 
 no questions; they cared not so much as a pin who or 
 what he was. They demanded only that he should be 
 able to talk and listen courteously. Their work was 
 done elsewhere and out of his sight. 
 
 There were also women. 
 
 'Never,' said Wilton Sargent to himself, 'has an 
 American seen England as I'm seeing it'; and he 
 thought, blushing beneath the bedclothes, of the unre- 
 generate and blatant days when he would steam to office, 
 down the Hudson, in his twelve-hundred-ton ocean- 
 going steam-yacht, and arrive by gradations, at Bleecker 
 Street, hanging on to a leather strap between an Irish 
 washerwoman and a German anarchist. If any of his 
 guests had seen him then they would have said, 'How 
 distinctly American ! ' and — Wilton did not care for that 
 tone. He had schooled himself to an English walk, and 
 so long as he did not raise it, an English voice. He did 
 not gesticulate with his hands; he sat down on most of 
 his enthusiasms, but he could not rid himself of The 
 Shibboleth. He would ask for the Worcestershire sauce. 
 Even Howard, his immaculate butler, could not break 
 him of this. 
 
 It was decreed that he should complete his education 
 in a wild and wonderful manner, and that I should be in 
 at that death. 
 
 Wilton had more than once asked me to Holt Hangars, 
 
 292 
 
AN ERROR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 for the purpose of showing how well the new life fitted 
 him; and each time I had declared it creaseless. His 
 third invitation was more informal than the others, and 
 he hinted of some matter in which he was anxious for my 
 sympathy or counsel, or both. There is room for an 
 infinity of mistakes when a man begins to take liberties 
 with his nationality; and I went down expecting things. 
 A seven-foot dog-cart and a groom in the black Holt 
 Hangars livery met me at Amberley Royal. At Holt 
 Hangars I was received by a person of elegance and true 
 reserve, and piloted to my luxurious chamber. There 
 were no other guests in the house, and this set me think- 
 ing. 
 
 Wilton came into my room about half-an-hour before 
 dinner, and though his face was masked with a drop- 
 curtain of highly embroidered indifference, I could see 
 that he was not at ease. In time, for he was then almost 
 as difficult to move as one of my own countrymen, I ex- 
 tracted the tale — simple in its extravagance, extrava- 
 gant in its simplicity. It seemed that Hackman of the 
 British Museum had been staying with him about ten 
 days before, boasting of scarabs. Hackman has a way 
 of carrying really priceless antiquities on his tie-ring 
 and in his trouser pockets. Apparently, he had inter- 
 cepted something on its way to the Boulak Museum 
 which, he said, was 'a genuine Amen-Hotep — a queen's 
 scarab of the Fourth Dynasty.' Now Wilton had 
 bought from Cassavetti, whose reputation is not above 
 suspicion, a scarab of much the same scarabeousness, 
 and had left it in his London chambers. Hackman at a 
 venture, but knowing Cassavetti, pronounced it an im- 
 position. There was long discussion — savant versus 
 millionaire, one saying: 'But I know it cannot be'; and 
 
 293 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 the other: 'But I can and will prove it.' Wilton found 
 it necessary for his soul's satisfaction to go up to town, 
 then and there— a forty-mile run — and bring back the 
 scarab before dinner. It was at this point that he be- 
 gan to cut corners with disastrous results. Amberley 
 Royal station being five miles away, and the putting in 
 of horses a matter of time, Wilton had told Howard, the 
 immaculate butler, to signal the next train to stop; and 
 Howard, who was more of a man of resource than his 
 master gave him credit for, had, with the red flag of the 
 ninth hole of the links which crossed the bottom of the 
 lawn, signalled vehemently to the first up-train, and it 
 had stopped. Here Wilton's account became confused. 
 He attempted, it seems, to get into that highly indignant 
 express, and a guard restrained him with more or less 
 force — hauled him, in fact, backwards from the window 
 of a locked carriage. Wilton must have struck the 
 gravel with some vehemence, for the consequences, he 
 admitted, were a free fight on the line, in which he lost 
 his hat, and was at last dragged into the guard's van and 
 set down breathless. 
 
 He had pressed money upon the man, and very 
 foolishly had explained everything but his name. This 
 he clung to, for he had a vision of tall head-lines in the 
 New York papers, and well knew no son of Merton 
 Sargent could expect mercy that side the water. The 
 guard, to Wilton's amazement, refused the money on 
 the grounds that this was a matter for the Company to 
 attend to. Wilton insisted on his incognito, and, there- 
 fore, found two policemen waiting for him at St. Botolph 
 terminus. When he expressed a wish to buy a new hat 
 and telegraph to his friends, both policemen with one 
 voice warned him that whatever he said would be used 
 
 294 
 
AN ERROR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 as evidence against him; and this had impressed Wilton 
 tremendously. 
 
 'They were so infernally polite,' he said. 'If they 
 had clubbed me I wouldn't have cared; but it was, 
 "Step this way, sir," and, "Up those stairs, please, sir," 
 till they jailed me — jailed me like a common drunk, and I 
 had to stay in a filthy little cubby-hole of a ceil all night.' 
 
 'That comes of not giving your name and not wiring 
 your lawyer,' I replied. ' What did you get? ' 
 
 'Forty shillings or a month,' said Walton, promptly, 
 — ' next morning bright and early. They were working 
 us off, three a minute. A girl in a pink hat — she was 
 brought in at three in the morning — got ten days. I 
 suppose I was lucky. I must have knocked his senses 
 out of the guard. He told the old duck on the bench 
 that I had told him I was a sergeant in the army, and 
 that I was gathering beetles on the track. That comes 
 of trying to explain to an Englishman.' 
 
 'And you?' 
 
 'Oh, I said nothing. I wanted to get out. I paid 
 my fme, and bought a new hat, and came up here before 
 noon next morning. There were a lot of people in the 
 house, and I told 'em I'd been unavoidably detained, 
 and then they began to recollect engagements elsewhere. 
 Hackman must have seen the fight on the track and 
 made a story of it. I suppose they thought it was dis- 
 tinctly American — confound 'em! It's the only time 
 in my life that I've ever flagged a train, and I wouldn't 
 have done it but for that scarab. 'Twouldn't hurt their 
 old trains to be held up once in a while.' 
 
 ' Well, it's all over now,' I said, choking a little. ' And 
 your name didn't get into the papers. It is rather trans- 
 atlantic when you come to think of it.' 
 
 295 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Over!' Wilton grunted savagely. 'It's only just 
 begun. That trouble with the guard was just common, 
 ordinary assault — merely a little criminal business. The 
 flagging of the train is civil, and means something quite 
 dilTerent. They're after me for that now.' 
 
 'Who?' 
 
 'The Great Buchonian. There was a man in court 
 watching the case on behalf of the Company. I gave 
 him my name in a quiet corner before I bought my hat, 
 and — come to dinner now; I'll show you the results 
 afterwards.' 
 
 The telling of his wrongs had worked Wilton Sargent 
 into a very fme temper, and I do not think that my 
 conversation soothed him. In the course of the dinner, 
 prompted by a devil of pure mischief, I dwelt with lov- 
 ing insistence on certain smells and sounds of New York 
 which go straight to the heart of the native in foreign 
 parts; and Wilton began to ask many questions about 
 his associates aforetime — men of the New York Yacht 
 Club, Storm King, or the Restigouche, owners of rivers, 
 ranches, and shipping in their playtime, lords of railways, 
 kerosene, wheat, and cattle in their ofTices. When the 
 green mint came, I gave him a peculiarly oily and atro- 
 cious cigar, of the brand they sell in the tessellated, 
 electric-lighted, with expensive-pictures-of-the-nude- 
 adorned bar of the Pandemonium, and Wilton chewed 
 the end for several minutes ere he lit it. The butler 
 left us alone, and the chimney of the oak-panelled dining- 
 room began to smoke. 
 
 'That's another!' said he, poking the fire savagely, 
 and I knew what he meant. One cannot put steam- 
 heat in houses where Queen Elizabeth slept. The 
 steady beat of a night-mail, whirling down the valley, 
 
 296 
 
AN ERROR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 recalled me to business. 'What about the Great Bu- 
 chonian?' I said. 
 
 ' Come into my study. That's all — as yet.' 
 
 It was a pile of Seidlitz-powders-coloured correspon- 
 dence, perhaps nine inches high, and it looked very 
 business-like. 
 
 'You can go through it,' said Wilton. 'Now I could 
 take a chair and a red flag and go into Hyde Park and 
 say the most atrocious things about your Queen, and 
 preach anarchy and all that, y' know, till I was hoarse, 
 and no one would take any notice. The Police — damn 
 'em ! — would protect me if I got into trouble. But for a 
 little thing like flagging a dirty little sawed-off train, — 
 running through my own grounds, too, — I get the whole 
 British Constitution down on me as if I sold bombs. I 
 don't understand it.' 
 
 'No more does the Great Buchonian — apparently.' 
 I was turning over the letters. 'Here's the traflTic 
 superintendent writing that it's utterly incompre- 
 hensible that any man should . . . Good Heavens, 
 Wilton, you have done it!' I giggled, as I read 
 on. 
 
 'What's funny now?' said my host. 
 
 'It seems that you, or Howard for you, stopped the 
 three-forty Northern up.' 
 
 ' I ought to know that ! They all had their knife into 
 me, from the engine-driver up.' 
 
 'But it's the three-forty — the "Induna." Surely 
 you've heard of the Great Buchonian's "Induna"?' 
 
 ' How the deuce am I to know one train from another? 
 They come along about every two minutes.' 
 
 'Quite so. But this happens to be the "Induna," 
 the one train of the whole line. She's timed for fifty- 
 
 297 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 seven miles an hour. She was put on early in the Six- 
 ties, and she has never been stopped — ' 
 
 'I know! Since William the Conqueror came over, 
 or King Charles hid in her smoke-stack. You're as bad 
 as the rest of these Britishers. If she's been run all that 
 while, it's time she was flagged once or twice.' 
 
 The American was beginning to ooze out all over 
 Wilton, and his small-boned hands were moving rest- 
 lessly. 
 
 ' Suppose you flagged the Empire State Express, or the 
 Western Cyclone? ' 
 
 'Suppose I did. I know Otis Harvey — or used to. 
 I'd send him a wire, and he'd understand it was a ground- 
 hog case with me. That's exactly what I told this 
 British fossil company here.' 
 
 ' Have you been answering their letters without legal 
 advice, then? ' 
 
 * Of course I have.' 
 
 ' Oh, my sainted Country ! Go ahead, Wilton.' 
 
 ' I wrote 'em that I'd be very happy to see their presi- 
 dent and explain to him in three words all about it; but 
 that wouldn't do. 'Seems their president must be a 
 god. He was too busy, and — well, you can read for 
 yourself — they wanted explanations. The station- 
 master at Amberley Royal — and he grovels before me, 
 as a rule — wanted an explanation, and quick, too. The 
 head sachem at St. Botolph's wanted three or four, and 
 the Lord High Mukkamuk that oils the locomotives 
 wanted one every fine day. I told 'em — I've told 'em 
 about fifty times — I stopped their holy and sacred train 
 because I wanted to board her. Did they think I 
 wanted to feel her pulse? ' 
 
 *You didn't say that?' 
 
 298 
 
AN ERROR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 ' "Feel her pulse"? Of course not.' 
 
 'No. "Board her.'" 
 
 'What else could I say?' 
 
 'My dear Wilton, what is the use of Mrs. Sherborne, 
 and the Clays, and all that lot working over you for four 
 years to make an Englishman out of you, if the very 
 first time you're rattled you go back to the vernacular?' 
 
 'I'm through with Mrs. Sherborne and the rest of the 
 crowd. America's good enough for me. What ought 
 I to have said? "Please," or "thanks awf'ly," or how?' 
 
 There was no chance now of mistaking the man's 
 nationality. Speech, gesture, and step, so carefully 
 drilled into him, had gone away with the borrowed mask 
 of indifference. It was a lawful son of the Youngest 
 People, whose predecessors were the Red Indian. His 
 voice had risen to the high, throaty crow of his breed 
 when they labour under excitement. His close-set eyes 
 showed by turns unnecessary fear, annoyance beyond 
 reason, rapid and purposeless flights of thought, the 
 child's lust for immediate revenge, and the child's pa- 
 thetic bewilderment, who knocks his head against the 
 bad, wicked table. And on the other side, I knew, 
 stood the Company, as unable as Wilton to understand. 
 
 'And I could buy their old road three times over,' he 
 muttered, playing with a paper-knife, and moving rest- 
 lessly to and fro. 
 
 'You didn't tell 'em that, I hope!' 
 
 There was no answer; but as I went through the 
 letters, I felt that Wilton must have told them many 
 surprising things. The Great Buchonian had first 
 asked for an explanation of the stoppage of their Induna, 
 and had found a certain levity in the explanation ten- 
 dered. It then advised 'Mr. W. Sargent' to refer his 
 
 299 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 solicitor to their solicitor, or whatever the legal phrase 
 is. 
 
 'And you didn't?' I said, looking up. 
 
 'No. They were treating me exactly as if I had been 
 a kid playing on the cable-tracks. There was not the 
 least necessity for any solicitor. Five minutes' quiet 
 talk would have settled everything.' 
 
 I returned to the correspondence. The Great Bu- 
 chonian regretted that owing to pressure of business none 
 of their directors could accept Mr. \V. Sargent's invita- 
 tion to run down and discuss the difficulty. The Great 
 Buchonian was careful to point out that no animus 
 underlay their action, nor was money their object. 
 Their duty was to protect the interests of their line, and 
 these interests could not be protected if a precedent 
 were established whereby any of the Queen's subjects 
 could stop a train in mid-career. Again (this was an- 
 other branch of the correspondence, not more than five 
 heads of departments being concerned), the Company 
 admitted that there was some reasonable doubt as to 
 the duties of express-trains in all crises, and the matter 
 was open to settlement by process of law till an authori- 
 tative ruling was obtained — from the House of Lords, if 
 necessary. 
 
 'That broke me all up,' said Wilton, who was reading 
 over my shoulder. 'I knew I'd struck the British Con- 
 stitution at last. The House of Lords — my Lord! 
 And, anyway, I'm not one of the Queen's subjects.' 
 
 * W'hy, I had a notion that you'd got yourself natural- 
 ised.' 
 
 Wilton blushed hotly as he explained that very many 
 things must happen to the British Constitution ere he 
 took out his papers. 
 
 300 
 
AN ERROR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 'How does it all strike you?' he said. 'Isn't the 
 Great Buchonian crazy?' 
 
 'I don't know. You've done something that no one 
 ever thought of doing before, and the Company don't 
 know what to make of it. I see they offer to send down 
 their solicitor and another official of the Company to 
 talk things over informally. Then here's another letter 
 suggesting that you put up a fourteen-foot wall, crowned 
 with bottle-glass, at the bottom of the garden.' 
 
 'Talk of British insolence! The man who recom- 
 mends that (he's another bloated functionary) says 
 that I shall "derive great pleasure from watching the 
 wall going up day by day"! Did you ever dream of 
 such gall? I've offered 'em money enough to buy a 
 new set of cars and pension the driver for three genera- 
 tions; but that doesn't seem to be what they want. 
 They expect me to go to the House of Lords and get a 
 ruling, and build walls between times. Are they all 
 stark, raving mad? One 'ud think I made a profession 
 of flagging trains. How in Tophet was I to know their 
 old Induna from a way-train? I took the first that 
 came along, and I've been jailed and fined for that once 
 already.' 
 
 'That was for slugging the guard.' 
 
 *He had no right to haul me out when I was half-way 
 through a window.' 
 
 * What are you going to do about it? ' 
 
 'Their lawyer and the other official (can't they trust 
 their men unless they send 'em in pairs?) are coming 
 here to-night. I told 'em I was busy, as a rule, till after 
 dinner, but they might send along the entire directorate 
 if it eased 'em any.' 
 
 Now, after-dinner visiting, for business or pleasure, 
 
 301 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 is the custom of the smaller American town, and not 
 that of England, where the end of the day is sacred to 
 the owner. Verily, Wilton Sargent had hoisted the 
 striped flag of rebellion ! 
 
 ' Isn't it time that the humour of the situation began 
 to strike you, Wilton?' I asked. 
 
 'Where's the humour of baiting an American citizen 
 just because he happens to be a millionaire — poor devil ! ' 
 He was silent for a little time, and then went on: 'Of 
 course. Now I see!' He spun round and faced me 
 excitedly. ' It's as plain as mud. These ducks are lay- 
 ing their pipes to skin me.' 
 
 'They say explicitly they don't want money!' 
 
 ' That's all a blind. So's their addressing me as W. Sar- 
 gent. They know well enough who I am. They know I'm 
 the old man's son. Why didn't I think of that before? ' 
 
 'One minute, Wilton. If you climbed to the top of 
 the dome of St. Paul's, and offered a reward to any 
 Englishman who could tell you who or what Merton 
 Sargent had been, there wouldn't be twenty men in all 
 London to claim it.' 
 
 'That's their insular provincialism, then. I don't 
 care a cent. The old man would have wrecked the 
 Great Buchonian before breakfast for a pipe-opener. 
 My God, I'll do it in dead earnest! I'll show 'em that 
 they can't bulldose a foreigner for flagging one of their 
 little tin-pot trains, and — I've spent fifty thousand a 
 year here, at least, for the last four years.' 
 
 I was glad I was not his lawyer. I re-read the corre- 
 spondence, notably the letter which recommended him — 
 almost tenderly, I fancied — to build a fourteen-foot 
 brick wall at the end of his garden, and half-way through 
 it a thought struck me which filled me with pure joy. 
 
 302 
 
AN ERROR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 The footman ushered in two men, frock-coated, gray- 
 trousered, smooth-shaven, heavy of speech and gait. It 
 was nearly nine o'clock, but they looked as newly come 
 from a bath. I could not understand why the elder 
 and taller of the pair glanced at me as though we had an 
 understanding, nor why he shook hands with an un- 
 English warmth. 
 
 'This simplifies the situation,' he said in an undertone, 
 and, as I stared, he whispered to his companion : ' I fear I 
 shall be of very little service at present. Perhaps Mr. 
 Folsom had better talk over the affair with Mr. Sargent.' 
 
 'That is what I am here for,' said Wilton. 
 
 The man of law smiled pleasantly, and said that he 
 saw no reason why the difTiculty should not be arranged 
 in two minutes' quiet talk. His air, as he sat down 
 opposite Wilton, was soothing to the last degree. His 
 companion drew me up-stage. The mystery was deep- 
 ening, but I followed meekly, and heard Wilton say, with 
 an uneasy laugh : 
 
 'I've had insomnia over this affair, Mr. Folsom. 
 Let's settle it one way or the other, for heaven's sake!' 
 
 *Ah! Has he suffered much from this lately?' said 
 my man, with a preliminary cough. 
 
 ' I really can't say,' I replied. 
 
 'Then I suppose you have only taken charge here?' 
 
 ' I came this evening. I am not exactly in charge of 
 anything.' 
 
 *I see. Merely to observe the course of events — in 
 case — ' He nodded. 
 
 'Exactly.' Observation, after all, is my trade. 
 
 He coughed again slightly, and then came to business. 
 
 'Now, — I am asking solely for information's sake, — 
 do you find the delusions persistent? ' 
 
 303 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 * Which delusions? ' 
 
 'They are variable, then. That is distinctly curious, 
 because — but do I understand that the type of the 
 delusion varies? For example, Mr. Sargent believes 
 that he can buy the Great Buchonian.' 
 
 ' Did he write you that? ' 
 
 'He made the offer to the Company — on a half-sheet 
 of notepaper. Now, has he by chance gone to the 
 other extreme, and believed that he is in danger of be- 
 coming a pauper? The curious economy in the use of a 
 half-sheet of paper shows that some idea of that kind 
 might have flashed through his mind; and the two de- 
 lusions can coexist, but it is not common. As you must 
 know, the delusion of vast wealth — the folly of gran- 
 deurs, I believe our friends the French call it — is, as a 
 rule, persistent, to the exclusion of all others.' 
 
 Then I heard Wilton's best English voice at the end 
 of the study : 
 
 ' My dear sir, I have explained twenty times already, I 
 wanted toget that scarab in time for dinner. Supposeyou 
 had left an important legal document in the same way? ' 
 
 'That touch of cunning is very significant,' my fellow- 
 practitioner — since he insisted on it — muttered. 
 
 ' I am very happy, of course, to meet you ; but if you 
 had only sent your president down to dinner here, I 
 could have settled the thing in half a minute. Wliy, I 
 could have bought the Buchonian from him while your 
 clerks were sending me this.' Wilton dropped his hand 
 heavily on the blue and white correspondence, and the 
 lawyer started. 
 
 'But, speaking frankly,' the lawyer replied, 'it is, if I 
 may say so, perfectly inconceivable, even in the case of 
 the most important legal documents, that any one 
 
 304 
 
AN ERROR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 should stop the three-forty express — the Induna — our 
 Induna, my dear sir.' 
 
 'Absolutely!' my companion echoed; then to me in a 
 lower tone: 'You notice, again, the persistent delusion 
 of wealth. I was called in when he wrote us that. 
 You can see it is utterly impossible for the Company to 
 continue to run their trains through the property of a 
 man who may at any moment fancy himself divinely 
 commissioned to stop all traffic. If he had only referred 
 us to his lawyer — but, naturally, that he would not do 
 under the circumstances. A pity — a great pity. He 
 is so young. By the way, it is curious, is it not, to note 
 the absolute conviction in the voice of those who are 
 similarly afflicted, — heart-rending, I might say, — and 
 the inability to follow a chain of connected thought.' 
 
 ' I can't see what you want,' Wilton was saying to the 
 lawyer. 
 
 ' It need not be more than fourteen feet high — a really 
 desirable structure, and it would be possible to grow 
 pear-trees on the sunny side.' The lawyer was speak- 
 ing in an unprofessional voice. 'There are few things 
 pleasanter than to watch, so to say, one's own vine and 
 fig-tree in full bearing. Consider the profit and amuse- 
 ment you would derive from it. If you could see your 
 way to doing this, we could arrange all the details with 
 your lawyer, and it is possible that the Company might 
 bear some of the cost. I have put the matter, I trust, 
 in a nutshell. If you, my dear sir, will interest yourself 
 in building that wall, and will kindly give us the name 
 of your lawyers, I dare assure you that you will hear no 
 more from the Great Buchonian.' 
 
 * But why am I to disfigure my lawn with a new brick 
 wall?' 
 
 305 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Gray flint is extremely picturesque.' 
 
 'Gray flint, then, if you put it that way. Why the 
 dickens must I go building towers of Babylon just be- 
 cause I have held up one of your trains — once?' 
 
 'The expression he used in his third letter w^as that he 
 wished to "board her,"' said my companion in my ear. 
 'That was very curious — a marine delusion impinging, 
 as it were, upon a land one. What a marvellous world 
 he must move in — and will before the curtain falls. So 
 young, too — so very young ! ' 
 
 'Well, if you want the plain English of it, I'm damned 
 if I go wall-building to your order. You can fight it all 
 along the line, into the House of Lords and out again, 
 and get your rulings by the running foot if you like,' 
 said Wilton, hotly. ' Great heavens, man, I only did it 
 once!' 
 
 ' We have at present no guarantee that you may not 
 do it again; and, with our traffic, we must, in justice to 
 our passengers, demand some form of guarantee. It 
 must not serve as a precedent. All this might have 
 been saved if you had only referred us to your legal 
 representative.' The lawyer looked appealingly around 
 the room. The deadlock was complete. 
 
 'Wilton,' I asked, 'may I try my hand now?' 
 
 'Anything you like,' said Wilton. 'It seems I can't 
 talk English. I won't build any wall, though.' He 
 threw himself back in his chair. 
 
 'Gentlemen,' I said deliberately, for I perceived that 
 the doctor's mind would turn slowly, ' Mr. Sargent has 
 very large interests in the chief railway systems of his 
 own country.' 
 
 ' His own country? ' said the lawyer. 
 
 'At that age?' said the doctor. 
 
 306 
 
AN ERROR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 'Certainly. He inherited them from his father, Mr. 
 Sargent, who is an American.' 
 
 'And proud of it,' said Wilton, as though he had been 
 a Western Senator let loose on the Continent for the first 
 time. 
 
 'My dear sir,' said the lawyer, half rising, 'why did 
 you not acquaint the Company with this fact — this 
 vital fact — early in our correspondence? We should 
 have understood. We should have made allowances.' 
 
 'Allowances be damned! Am I a Red Indian or a 
 lunatic?' 
 
 The two men looked guilty. 
 
 'If Mr. Sargent's friend had told us as much in the 
 beginning,' said the doctor, very severely, 'much might 
 have been saved.' Alas! I had made a life's enemy of 
 that doctor. 
 
 'I hadn't a chance,' I replied. 'Now, of course, you 
 can see that a man who owns several thousand miles of 
 line, as Mr. Sargent does, would be apt to treat railways 
 a shade more casually than other people.' 
 
 'Of course; of course. He is an American; that ac- 
 counts. Still, it was the Induna; but I can quite under- 
 stand that the customs of our cousins across the water 
 differ in these particulars from ours. And do you al- 
 ways stop trains in this way in the States, Mr. Sar- 
 gent?' 
 
 'I should if occasion ever arose; but I've never had to 
 yet. Are you going to make an international complica- 
 tion of the business? ' 
 
 'You need give yourself no further concern whatever 
 in the matter. We see that there is no likelihood of 
 this action of yours establishing a precedent, which was 
 the only thing we were afraid of. Now that you under- 
 
 307 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 stand that we cannot reconcile our system to any sudden 
 stoppages, we feel quite sure that — ' 
 
 ' I shan't be staying long enough to flag another train,' 
 Wilton said pensively. 
 
 'You are returning, then, to our fellow-kinsmen across 
 the — ah — big pond, you call it?' 
 
 'No, sir. The ocean-^the North Atlantic Ocean. 
 It's three thousand miles broad, and three miles deep in 
 places. I wish it were ten thousand.' 
 
 'I am not so fond of sea-travel myself; but I think it 
 is every Englishman's duty once in his life to study the 
 great branch of our Anglo-Saxon race across the ocean,' 
 said the lawyer. 
 
 ' If ever you come over, and care to flag any train on 
 my system, I'll — I'll see you through,' said Wilton. 
 
 'Thank you — ah, thank you. You're very kind. 
 I'm sure I should enjoy myself immensely.' 
 
 'We have overlooked the fact,' the doctor whispered 
 to me, 'that your friend proposed to buy the Great 
 Buchonian.' 
 
 'He is worth anything from twenty to thirty million 
 dollars — four to five million pounds,' I answered, know- 
 ing that it would be hopeless to explain. 
 
 'Really! That is enormous wealth, but the Great 
 Buchonian is not in the market.' 
 
 ' Perhaps he does not want to buy it now.' 
 
 'It would be impossible under any circumstances,' 
 said the doctor. 
 
 'How characteristic!' murmured the lawyer, review- 
 ing matters in his mind. 'I always understood from 
 books that your countrymen were in a hurry. And 
 so you would have gone forty miles to town and back — 
 before dinner — to get a scarab? How intensely Ameri- 
 
 308 
 
AN EHFxOR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION 
 
 can! But you talk exactly like an Englishman, Mr. 
 Sargent.' 
 
 'That is a fault that can be remedied. There's only 
 one question I'd like to ask you. You said it was in- 
 conceivable that any man should stop a train on your 
 system?' 
 
 'And so it is — absolutely inconceivable.' 
 
 'Any sane man, that is?' 
 
 'That is what I meant, of course. I mean, with 
 excep — ' 
 
 'Thank you.' 
 
 The two men departed. Wilton checked himself as 
 he was about to fill a pipe, took one of my cigars instead, 
 and was silent for fifteen minutes. 
 
 Then said he: 'Have you got a list of the Southamp- 
 ton sailings on you?' 
 
 Far away from the graystone wings, the dark cedars, 
 the faultless gravel drives, and the mint-sauce lawns 
 of Holt Hangars runs a river called the Hudson, whose 
 unkempt banks are covered with the palaces of those 
 wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. Here, where the 
 hoot of the Haverstraw brick-barge-tug answers the howl 
 of the locomotive on either shore, you shall find, with a 
 complete installation of electric-light, nickel-plated bin- 
 nacles, and a calliope attachment to her steam-whistle, 
 the twelve-hundred-ton ocean-going steam-yacht 'Co- 
 lumbia,' lying at her private pier, to take to his office 
 at an average speed of seventeen knots, — and the barges 
 can look out for themselves, — Wilton Sargent, Amer- 
 ican. 
 
 309 
 
MY SUNDAY AT HOME 
 
 (1895) 
 
 If the Red Slayer thinks he slays, 
 Or if the slain thinks he is slain, 
 
 They know not well the subtle way 
 I keep and pass and turn again. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 IT was the unreproducible slid 'r,' as he said this was 
 his 'fy-ist' visit to England, that told me he was a 
 New Yorker from New York; and when, in the 
 course of our long, lazy journey westward from Water- 
 loo, he enlarged upon the beauties of his city, I, profess- 
 ing ignorance, said no word. He had, amazed and de- 
 lighted at the man's civility, given the London porter a 
 shilling for carrying his bag nearly fifty yards; he had 
 thoroughly investigated the first-class lavatory com- 
 partment, which the London and South- Western some- 
 times supply without extra charge; and now, half awed, 
 half contemptuous, but wholly interested, he looked 
 out upon the ordered English landscape wrapped in its 
 Sunday peace, while I watched the wonder grow upon 
 his face. Why were the cars so short and stilted? 
 Why had every other freight car a tarpaulin drawn over 
 it? What wages would an engineer get now? Where 
 was the swarming population of England he had read so 
 
 310 
 
MY SUNDAY AT HOME 
 
 much about? What was the rank of all those men on 
 tricycles along the roads? When were we due at Plym- 
 outh? 
 
 I told him all I knew, and very much that I did not. 
 He was going to Plymouth to assist in a consultation 
 upon a fellow-countryman who had retired to a place 
 called The Hoe — was that up town or down town? — to 
 recover from nervous dyspepsia. Yes, he himself was a 
 doctor by profession, and how any one in England could 
 retain any nervous disorder passed his comprehension. 
 Never had he dreamed of an atmosphere so soothing. 
 Even the deep rumble of London traffic was monastical 
 by comparison with some cities he could name; and the 
 country — why, it was Paradise. A continuance of it, 
 he confessed, would drive him mad; but for a few months 
 it was the most sumptuous rest cure in his knowledge. 
 
 'I'll come over every year after this,' he said, in a 
 burst of delight, as we ran between two ten-foot hedges 
 of pink and white may. 'It's seeing all the things I've 
 ever read about. Of course it doesn't strike you that 
 way. I presume you belong here? What a finished 
 land it is! It's arrived. Must have been born this 
 way. Now, where I used to live — Hello! What's up?' 
 
 The train stopped in a blaze of sunshine at Framlyng- 
 hame Admiral, which is made up entirely of the name- 
 board, two platforms, and an overhead bridge, without 
 even the usual siding. I had never known the slowest 
 of locals stop here before; but on Sunday all things are 
 possible to the London and South- Western. One could 
 hear the drone of conversation along the carriages, and, 
 scarcely less loud, the drone of the bumble-bees in the 
 wallflowers up the bank. My companion thrust his 
 head through the window and sniffed luxuriously. 
 
 311 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Where are we now?' said he. 
 
 'In Wiltshire,' said I. 
 
 ' Ah ! A man ought to be able to write novels with his 
 left hand in a country like this. Well, w^ell! And so 
 this is about Tess's country, ain't it? I feel just as if I 
 were in a book. Say, the conduc — the guard has some- 
 thing on his mind. What's he getting at? ' 
 
 The splendid badged and belted guard was striding 
 up the platform at the regulation official pace, and in 
 the regulation official voice was saying at each door — 
 
 'Has any gentleman here a bottle of medicine? A 
 gentleman has taken a bottle of poison (laudanum) by 
 mistake.' 
 
 Between each five paces he looked at an official tele- 
 gram in his hand, refreshed his memory, and said his say. 
 The dreamy look on my companion's face — he had gone 
 far away with Tess — passed with the speed of a snap- 
 shutter. After the manner of his countrymen, he had 
 risen to the situation, jerked his bag down from the over- 
 head rail, opened it, and I heard the click of bottles. 
 *Find out where the man is,' he said briefly. 'I've got 
 something here that will fix him — if he can swallow still.' 
 
 Swiftly I fled up the line of carriages in the wake of 
 the guard. There was clamour in a rear compartment 
 — the voice of one bellowing to be let out, and the feet 
 of one who kicked. With the tail of my eye I saw the 
 New York doctor hastening thither, bearing in his hand 
 a blue and brimming glass from the lavatory compart- 
 ment. The guard I found scratching his head unofficially, 
 by the engine, and murmuring: 'Well, I put a bottle of 
 medicine off at Andover, I'm sure I did.' 
 
 'Better say it again, any'ow,' said the driver. 'Or- 
 ders is orders. Say it again.' 
 
 312 
 
MY SUNDAY AT HOME 
 
 Once more the guard paced back, I, anxious to at- 
 tract his attention, trotting at his heels. 
 
 'In a minute — in a minute, sir,' he said, waving an 
 arm capable of starting all the traffic on the London and 
 South-Western Railway at a wave. 'Has any gentle- 
 man here got a bottle of medicine? A gentleman has 
 taken a bottle of poison (laudanum) by mistake.' 
 
 'Where's the man?' I gasped. 
 
 'Woking. 'Ere's my orders.' He showed me the 
 telegram, on which were the w^ords to be said. ' 'E 
 must have left 'is bottle in the train, an' took another 
 by mistake. 'E's been wirin' from W^oking awful, an', 
 now I come to think of it, I'm nearly sure I put a bottle 
 of medicine off at Andover.' 
 
 'Then the man that took the poison isn't in the train?' 
 
 'Lord, no, sir. No one didn't take poison that way. 
 'E took it away with 'im, in 'is 'ands. 'E's wirin' from 
 Wokin'. My orders was to ask everybody in the train, 
 and I 'ave, an' we're four minutes late now. Are you 
 comin' on, sir? No? Right be'ind!' 
 
 There is nothing, unless, perhaps, the English lan- 
 guage, more terrible than the workings of an English 
 railway line. An instant before it seemed as though we 
 were going to spend all eternity at Framlynghame Ad- 
 miral, and now I was watching the tail of the train dis- 
 appear round the curve of the cutting. 
 
 But I was not alone. On the one bench of the down 
 platform sat the largest navvy I have ever seen in my 
 life, softened and made affable (for he smiled gener- 
 ously) with liquor. In his huge hands he nursed an 
 empty tumbler marked *L. S. W. R.' — marked also, 
 internally, with streaks of blue-gray sediment. Before 
 him, a hand on his shoulder, stood the doctor, and as I 
 
 313 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 came within earshot this is what I heard him say: 'Just 
 you hold on to your patience for a minute or two longer, 
 and you'll be as right as ever you were in your life. I'll 
 stay with you till you're better.' 
 
 'Lord! I'm comfortable enough,' said the navv3\ 
 'Never felt better in my life.' 
 
 Turning to me, the doctor lowered his voice. 'He 
 might have died while that fool conduc — guard was 
 saying his piece. I've fixed him, though. The stuff's 
 due in about five minutes, but there's a heap to him. I 
 don't see how we can make him take exercise.' 
 
 For the moment I felt as though seven pounds of 
 crushed ice had been neatly applied in the form of a 
 compress to my lower stomach. 
 
 'How — how did you manage it?' I gasped. 
 
 ' I asked him if he'd have a drink. He was knocking 
 spots out of the car— strength of his constitution, I 
 suppose. He said he'd go 'most anywhere for a drink, 
 so I lured him on to the platform, and loaded him up. 
 Cold-blooded people you Britishers are. That train's 
 gone, and no one seemed to care a cent.' 
 
 'We've missed it,' I said. 
 
 He looked at me curiously. 
 
 * We'll get another before sundown, if that's your only 
 trouble. Say, porter, when's the next train down? ' 
 
 'Seven forty-five,' said the one porter, and passed out 
 through the wicket-gate into the landscape. It was 
 then three-twenty of a hot and sleepy afternoon. The 
 station was absolutely deserted. The navvy had closed 
 his eyes, and now nodded. 
 
 'That's bad,' said the doctor. 'The man, I mean, 
 not the train. We must make him walk somehow — 
 walk up and down.' 
 
 314 
 
MY SUNDAY AT HOME 
 
 Swiftly as might be, I explained the delicacy of the 
 situation, and the doctor from New York turned a full 
 bronze-green. Then he swore comprehensively at the 
 entire fabric of our glorious Constitution, cursing the 
 English language, root, branch, and paradigm, through 
 its most obscure derivatives. His coat and bag lay on 
 the bench next to the sleeper. Thither he edged cau- 
 tiously, and I saw treachery in his eye. 
 
 What devil of delay possessed him to slip on his spring 
 overcoat, I cannot tell. They say a slight noise rouses a 
 sleeper more surely than a heavy one, and scarcely had 
 the doctor settled himself in his sleeves than the giant 
 waked and seized that silk-faced collar in a hot right 
 hand. There was rage in his face — rage and the realisa- 
 tion of new emotions. 
 
 'I'm — I'm not so comfortable as I were,' he said from 
 the deeps of his interior. 'You'll wait along o' me, you 
 will.' He breathed heavily through shut lips. 
 
 Now, if there was one thing more than another upon 
 which the doctor had dwelt in his conversation with me, 
 it was upon the essential law-abidingness, not to say 
 gentleness, of his much-misrepresented country. And 
 yet (truly, it may have been no more than a button that 
 irked him) I saw his hand travel backwards to his right 
 hip, clutch at something, and come away empty. 
 
 'He won't kill you,' I said. 'He'll probably sue you 
 in court, if I know my own people. Better give him 
 some money from time to time.' 
 
 'If he keeps quiet till the stuff gets in its work,' the 
 doctor answered, ' I'm all right. If he doesn't . . . 
 my name is Emory — Julian B. Emory — 193 'Steenth 
 Street, corner of Madison and — ' 
 
 *I feel worse than I've ever felt,' said the navvy, 
 
 315 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 with suddenness. 'What — did — you — give — me — the — 
 drink— for?' 
 
 The matter seemed to be so purely personal that I 
 withdrew to a strategic position on the overhead bridge, 
 and, abiding in the exact centre, looked on from afar. 
 
 I could see the white road that ran across the shoulder 
 of Salisbury Plain, unshaded for mile after mile, and a 
 dot in the middle distance, the back of the one porter 
 returning to Framlynghame Admiral, if such a place 
 existed, till seven forty-five. The bell of a church in- 
 visible clanked softly. There was a rustle in the horse- 
 chestnuts to the left of the line, and the sound of sheep 
 cropping close. 
 
 The peace of Nirvana lay upon the land, and, brood- 
 ing in it, my elbow on the warm iron girder of the foot- 
 bridge (it is a forty-shilling fme to cross by any other 
 means), I perceived, as never before, how the conse- 
 quences of our acts run eternal through time and through 
 space. If we impinge never so slightly upon the life of 
 a fellow-mortal, the touch of our personality, like the 
 ripple of a stone cast into a pond, widens and widens in 
 unending circles across the aeons, till the far-off gods 
 themselves cannot say where action ceases. Also, it 
 was I who had silently set before the doctor the tumbler 
 of the first-class lavatory compartment now speeding 
 Plymouthward. Yet I was, in spirit at least, a million 
 leagues removed from that unhappy man of another 
 nationality, who had chosen to thrust an inexpert finger 
 into the workings of an alien life. The machinery was 
 dragging him up and down the sunlit platform. The 
 two men seemed to be learning polka-mazurkas to- 
 gether, and the burden of their song, borne by one deep 
 voice, was : * What did you give me the drink for? ' 
 
 316 
 
MY SUNDAY AT HOME 
 
 I saw the flash of silver in the doctor's hand. The 
 navvy took it and pocketed it with his left; but never 
 for an instant did his strong right leave the doctor's coat- 
 collar, and as the crisis approached, louder and louder 
 rose his bull-like roar: 'What did you give me the drink 
 for?' 
 
 They drifted under the great twelve-inch pinned 
 timbers of the footbridge towards the bench, and, I 
 gathered, the time was very near at hand. The stuff 
 was getting in its work. Blue, white, and blue again, 
 rolled over the navvy's face in waves, till all settled to 
 one rich clay-bank yellow and- -that fell which fell. 
 
 I thought of the blowing-up of Hell Gate; of the geysers 
 in the Yellowstone Park; of Jonah and his whale; but 
 the lively original, as I watched it foreshortened from 
 above, exceeded all these things. He staggered to the 
 bench, the heavy wooden seat cramped with iron cramps 
 into the enduring stone, and clung there with his left 
 hand. It quivered and shook, as a breakwater-pile 
 quivers to the rush of landward-racing seas; nor was 
 there lacking, when he caught his breath, the 'scream of 
 a maddened beach dragged down by the tide.' His 
 right hand was upon the doctor's collar, so that the two 
 shook to one paroxysm, pendulums vibrating together, 
 while I, apart, shook with them. 
 
 It was colossal — immense; but of certain manifesta- 
 tions the English language stops short. French only, 
 the caryatid French of Victor Hugo, would have de- 
 scribed it ; so I mourned while I laughed, hastily shuffling 
 and discarding inadequate adjectives. The vehemence 
 of the shock spent itself, and the sufferer half fell, half 
 knelt, across the bench. He was calling now upon God 
 and his wife, huskily, as the wounded bull calls upon the 
 
 317 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 unscathed herd to stay. Curiously enough, he used no 
 bad language: that had gone from him with the rest. 
 The doctor exhibited gold. It was taken and retained. 
 So, too, was the grip on the coat-collar. 
 
 'If I could stand,' boomed the giant despairingly. 
 'I'd smash you — you an' your drinks. I'm dyin' — 
 dyin' — dyin'!' 
 
 'That's what you think,' said the doctor. 'You'll 
 fmd it will do you a lot of good' ; and, making a virtue 
 of a somewhat imperative necessity, he added: 'I'll stay 
 by you. If you'd let go of me a minute I'd give you 
 something that would settle you.' 
 
 'You've settled me now, you damned anarchist. 
 Takin' the bread out of the mouth of an English workin' 
 man! But I'll keep 'old of you till I'm well or dead. I 
 never did you no harm. S'pose I were a little full. 
 They pumped me out once at Guy's with a stummick- 
 pump. I could see that, but I can't see this 'ere, an' it's 
 killin' of me by slow degrees.' 
 
 'You'll be all right in half an hour. What do you 
 suppose I'd want to kill you for?' said the doctor, who 
 came of a logical breed. 
 
 ' 'Ow do I know? Tell 'em in court. You'll get 
 seven years for this, you body-snatcher. That's what 
 you are — a bloomin' body-snatcher. There's justice, I 
 tell you, in England; and my Union'U prosecute, too. 
 We don't stand no tricks with people's insides *ere. 
 They gave a woman ten years for a sight less than this. 
 An' you'll 'ave to pay 'undreds an' 'undreds o' pounds, 
 besides a pension to the missus. You'll see, you phys- 
 ickin' furriner. Where's your licence to do such? You'll 
 catch it, I tell you!* 
 
 Then I observed, what I had frequently observed 
 
 318 
 
MY SUNDAY AT HOME 
 
 before, that a man who is but reasonably afraid of an 
 altercation with an alien has a most poignant dread of 
 the operations of foreign law. The doctor's voice was 
 flute-like in its exquisite politeness, as he answered : 
 
 'But I've given you a very great deal of money — fif — 
 three pounds, I think.' 
 
 'An' what's three pounds for poisonin' the likes o' 
 me? They told me at Guy's I'd fetch twenty — cold — 
 on the slates. Ouh! It's comin' again.' 
 
 A second time he was cut down by the foot, as it were, 
 and the straining bench rocked to and fro as I averted 
 my eyes. 
 
 It was the very point of perfection in the heart of an 
 English May-day. The unseen tides of the air had 
 turned, and all nature was setting its face with the 
 shadows of the horse-chestnuts towards the peace of the 
 coming night. But there were hours yet, I knew — long, 
 long hours of the eternal English twilight — to the ending 
 of the day. I was well content to be alive — to abandon 
 myself to the drift of Time and Fate; to absorb great 
 peace through my skin, and to love my country with the 
 devotion that three thousand miles of intervening sea 
 bring to fullest flower. And what a garden of Eden it 
 was, this fatted, clipped, and washen land! A man 
 could camp in any open field with more sense of home 
 and security than the stateliest buildings of foreign cities 
 could afford. And the joy was that it was all mine in- 
 alienably — groomed hedgerow, spotless road, decent 
 graystone cottage, serried spinney, tasselled copse, apple- 
 bellied hawthorn, and well-grown tree. A light puff of 
 wind — it scattered flakes of may over the gleaming rails 
 — gave me a faint whiff as it might have been of fresh 
 cocoanut, and I knew that the golden gorse was in bloom 
 
 319 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 somewhere out of sight. Linnaeus had thanked God on 
 his bended knees when he first saw a field of it; and, by 
 the way, the navvy was on his knees too. But he was 
 by no means praying. He was purely disgustful. 
 
 The doctor was compelled to bend over him, his face 
 towards the back of the seat, and from what I had seen 
 I supposed the navvy was now dead. If that were the 
 case it would be time for me to go ; but I knew that so 
 long as a man trusts himself to the current of Circum- 
 stance, reaching out for and rejecting nothing that 
 comes his way, no harm can overtake him. It is the 
 contriver, the schemer, who is caught by the law, and 
 never the philosopher. I knew that when the play was 
 played. Destiny herself would move me on from the 
 corpse; and I felt very sorry for the doctor. 
 
 In the far distance, presumably upon the road that 
 led to Framlynghame Admiral, there appeared a vehicle 
 and a horse — the one ancient fly that almost every 
 village can produce at need. This thing was advancing, 
 unpaid by me, towards the station; would have to pass 
 along the deep-cut lane, below the railway-bridge, and 
 come out on the doctor's side. I was in the centre of 
 things, so all sides were alike to me. Here, then, was 
 my machine from the machine. When it arrived, some- 
 thing would happen, or something else. For the rest, 
 I owned my deeply interested soul. 
 
 The doctor, by the seat, turned so far as his cramped 
 position allowed, his head over his left shoulder, and 
 laid his right hand upon his lips. I threw back my hat 
 2nd elevated my eyebrows in the form of a question. 
 The doctor shut his eyes and nodded his head slowly 
 twice or thrice, beckoning me to come. I descended 
 cautiously, and it was as the signs had told. The navvy 
 
 320 
 
MY SUNDAY AT HOME 
 
 was asleep, empty to the lowest notch; yet his hand 
 clutched still the doctor's collar, and at the lightest 
 movement (the doctor was really very cramped) tight- 
 ened mechanically, as the hand of a sick woman tightens 
 on that of the watcher. He had dropped, squatting 
 almost upon his heels, and, falling lower, had dragged the 
 doctor over to the left. 
 
 The doctor thrust his right hand, which was free, into 
 his pocket, drew forth some keys, and shook his head. 
 The navvy gurgled in his sleep. Silently I dived into 
 my pocket, took out one sovereign, and held it up be- 
 tween fmger and thumb. Again the doctor shook his 
 head. Money was not what was lacking to his peace. 
 His bag had fallen from the seat to the ground. He 
 looked towards it, and opened his mouth — 0-shape. 
 The catch was not a difficult one, and when I had mas- 
 tered it, the doctor's right forefinger was sawing the air. 
 With an immense caution, I extracted from the bag such 
 a knife as they use for cutting coUops off legs. The 
 doctor frowned, and with his first and second fingers 
 imitated the action of scissors. Again I searched, and 
 found a most diabolical pair of cock-nosed shears, capa- 
 ble of vandyking the interiors of elephants. The doctor 
 then slowly lowered his left shoulder till the navvy's 
 right wrist was supported by the bench, pausing a mo- 
 ment as the spent volcano rumbled anew. Lower and 
 lower the doctor sank, kneeling now by the navvy's side, 
 till his head was on a level with, and just in front of the 
 great hairy fist, and — there was no tension on the coat- 
 collar. Then light dawned on me. 
 
 Beginning a little to the right of the spinal column, I 
 cut a huge demilune out of his new spring overcoat, 
 bringing it round as far under his left side (which was 
 
 321 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 the right side of the navvy) as I dared. Passing thence 
 swiftly to the back of the seat, and reaching between 
 the splines, I sawed through the silk-faced front on the 
 left-hand side of the coat till the two cuts joined. 
 
 Cautiously as the box-turtle of his native heath, the 
 doctor drew away sideways and to the right, with the 
 air of a frustrated burglar coming out from under a bed, 
 and stood up free, one black diagonal shoulder project- 
 ing through the gray of his ruined overcoat. I returned 
 the scissors to the bag, snapped the catch, and held all 
 out to him as the wheels of the fly rang hollow under the 
 railway arch. 
 
 It came at a footpace past the wicket-gate of the 
 station, and the doctor stopped it with a whisper. It 
 was going some Ave miles across country to bring home 
 from church some one — I could not catch the name — 
 because his own carriage-horses were lame. Its destina- 
 tion happened to be the one place in all the world that 
 the doctor was most burningly anxious to visit, and he 
 promised the driver untold gold to drive to some ancient 
 flame of his — Helen Blazes, she was called. 
 
 'Aren't you coming, too?' he said, bundling his over- 
 coat into his bag. 
 
 Now the fly had been so obviously sent to the doctor, 
 and to no one else, that I had no concern with it. Our 
 roads, I saw, divided, and there was, further, a need 
 upon me to laugh. 
 
 ' I shall stay here,' I said. ' It's a very pretty country.' 
 
 *My God!' he murmured, as softly as he shut the 
 door, and I felt that it was a prayer. 
 
 Then he went out of my life, and I shaped my course 
 for the railway-bridge. It was necessary to pass by the 
 bench once more, but the wicket was between us. The 
 
 322 
 
MY SUNDAY AT HOME 
 
 departure of the fly had waked the navvy. He crawled 
 on to the seat, and with mahgnant eyes watched the 
 driver flog down the road. 
 
 'The man inside o' that,' he called, ' 'as poisoned me. 
 'E's a body-snatcher. 'E's comin' back again when I'm 
 cold. 'Ere's my evidence ! ' 
 
 He waved his share of the overcoat, and I went my 
 way, because I was hungry. Framlynghame Admiral 
 village is a good two miles from the station, and I waked 
 the holy calm of the evening every step of that way with 
 shouts and yells, casting myself down in the flank of the 
 good green hedge when I was too weak to stand. There 
 was an inn, — a blessed inn with a thatched roof, and 
 peonies in the garden, — and I ordered myself an upper 
 chamber in which the Foresters held their courts, for the 
 laughter was not all out of me. A bewildered woman 
 brought me ham and eggs, and I leaned out of the mul- 
 lioned window, and laughed between mouthfuls. I sat 
 long above the beer and the perfect smoke that followed, 
 till the light changed in the quiet street, and I began to 
 think of the seven forty-five down, and all that world 
 of the 'Arabian Nights' I had quitted. 
 
 Descending, I passed a giant in moleskins who filled 
 the low-ceiled tap-room. Many empty plates stood 
 before him, and beyond them a fringe of the Framlyng- 
 hame Admiralty, to whom he was unfolding a won- 
 drous tale of anarchy, of body-snatching, of bribery, 
 and the Valley of the Shadow from the which he was 
 but newly risen. And as he talked he ate, and as he ate 
 he drank, for there was much room in him; and anon 
 he paid royally, speaking of justice and the law, before 
 whom all Englishmen are equal, and all foreigners and 
 anarchists vermin and slime. 
 
 323 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 On my way to the station he passed me with great 
 strides, his head high among the low-flying bats, his feet 
 firm on the packed road metal, his fists clenched, and 
 his breath coming sharply. There was a beautiful 
 smell in the air — the smell of white dust, bruised nettles, 
 and smoke, that brings tears to the throat of a man who 
 sees his country but seldom — a smell like the echoes of 
 the lost talk of lovers; the infinitely suggestive odour of 
 an immemorial civilisation. It was a perfect walk; and, 
 lingering on every step, I came to the station just as the 
 one porter lighted the last of a truck-load of lamps, and 
 set them back in the lamp-room, while he dealt tickets 
 to four or five of the population, who, not contented 
 with their own peace, thought fit to travel. It was no 
 ticket that the navvy seemed to need. He was sitting 
 on a bench wrathfully grinding a tumbler into fragments 
 with his heel. I abode in obscurity at the end of the 
 platform, interested as ever, thank heaven, in my sur- 
 roundings. There was a jar of wheels on the road. 
 The navvy rose as they approached, strode through the 
 wicket, and laid a hand upon a horse's bridle that brought 
 the beast up on his hireling hind-legs. It was the prov- 
 idential fly coming back, and for a moment I wondered 
 whether the doctor had been mad enough to revisit his 
 practice. 
 
 *Get away ; you're drunk,' said the driver. 
 
 *rm not,' said the navvy. 'I've been waitin' 'ere 
 hours and hours. Come out, you beggar inside there.' 
 
 *Go on, driver,' said a voice I did not know — a crisp, 
 clear English voice. 
 
 *A11 right,' said the navvy. *You wouldn't 'ear me 
 when I was polite. Now will you come? ' 
 
 There was a chasm in the side of the fly, for he had 
 
 324 
 
MY SUNDAY AT HOME 
 
 wrenched the door bodily off its hinges, and was feeling 
 within purposefully. A well-booted leg rewarded him, 
 and there came out, not with delight, hopping on one 
 foot, a round and gray-haired Englishman, from whose 
 armpits dropped hymn-books, but from his mouth an 
 altogether different service of song. 
 
 ' Come on, you bloomin' body-snatcher ! You thought 
 I was dead, did you?' roared the navvy. And the 
 respectable gentleman came accordingly, inarticulate 
 with rage. 
 
 ' 'Ere's a man murderin' the Squire,' the driver 
 shouted, and fell from his box upon the navvy's neck. 
 
 To do them justice, the people of Framlynghame 
 Admiral, so many as were on the platform, rallied to the 
 call in the best spirit of feudalism. It was the one porter 
 who beat the navvy on the nose with a ticket-punch, 
 but it was the three third-class tickets who attached 
 themselves to his legs and freed the captive. 
 
 *Send for a constable! Icck him up!' said that man, 
 adjusting his collar; and unitedly they cast him into the 
 lamp-room, and turned the key, while the driver mourned 
 over the wrecked fly. 
 
 Till then the navvy, whose only desire was justice, 
 had kept his temper nobly. Then he went Berserk 
 before our amazed eyes. The door of the lamp-room 
 was generously constructed, and would not give an inch, 
 but the window he tore from its fastenings and hurled 
 outwards. The one porter counted the damage in a 
 loud voice, and the others, arming themselves with agri- 
 cultural implements from the station garden, kept up a 
 ceaseless winnowing before the window, themselves 
 backed close to the wall, and hade the prisoner think 
 of the gaol. He answered little to the point, so far as 
 
 325 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 they could understand; but seeing that his exit was 
 impeded, he took a lamp and hurled it through the 
 wrecked sash. It fell on the metals and went out. 
 With inconceivable velocity, the others, fifteen in all, 
 followed looking like rockets in the gloom, and with the 
 last (he could have had no plan) the Berserk rage left 
 him as the doctor's deadly brewage waked up, under the 
 stimulus of violent exercise and a very full meal, to one 
 last cataclysmal exhibition, and — we heard the whistle 
 of the seven forty-five down. 
 
 They were all acutely interested in as much of the 
 wreck as they could see, for the station smelt to heaven 
 of oil, and the engine skittered over broken glass like a 
 terrier in a cucumber frame. The guard had to hear of 
 it, and the Squire had his version of the brutal assault, and 
 heads were out all along the carriages as I found me a seat. 
 
 'What is the row?' said a young man, as I entered. 
 'Man drunk?' 
 
 * Well, the symptoms, so far as my observation has gone, 
 more resemble those of Asiatic cholera than anything 
 else,' I answered, slowly and judicially, that every word 
 might carry weight in the appointed scheme of things. Till 
 then, you will observe, I had taken no part in that war. 
 
 He was an Englishman, but he collected his belong- 
 ings as swiftly as had the American, ages before, and 
 leaped upon the platform, crying, 'Can I be of any 
 service? I'm a doctor.' 
 
 From the lamp-room I heard a wearied voice wailing : 
 * Another bloomin' doctor!' 
 
 And the seven forty-five carried me on, a step nearer to 
 Eternity, by the road that is worn and seamed and chan- 
 nelled with the passions, and weaknesses, and warring 
 interests of man who is immortal and master of his fate. 
 
 326 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 (1895) 
 
 * Girls and boys, come out to play: 
 The moon is shining as bright as day! 
 Leave your supper and leave your sleep, 
 And come with your playfellows out in the street ! 
 Up the ladder and down the wall — ' 
 
 A CHILD of three sat up in his crib and screamed 
 at the top of his voice, his fists clinched and his 
 eyes full of terror. At first no one heard, for 
 his nursery lay in the west wing, and the nurse was talk- 
 ing to a gardener among the laurels. Then the house- 
 keeper passed that way, and hurried to soothe him. 
 He was her special pet, and she disapproved of the 
 nurse. 
 
 'What was it, then? What was it, then? There's 
 nothing to frighten him, Georgie dear.' 
 
 ' It was — it was a policeman ! He was on the Down — 
 I saw him ! He came in. Jane said he would.' 
 
 'Policemen don't come into houses, dearie. Turn 
 over, and take my hand.' 
 
 'I saw him — on the Down. He came here. Where 
 is your hand, Harper? ' 
 
 The housekeeper waited till the sobs changed to the 
 regular breathing of sleep before she stole out. 
 
 327 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 *Jane, what nonsense have you been telling Master 
 Georgie about policemen?' 
 
 ' I haven't told him anything.' 
 
 * You have. He's been dreaming about them.' 
 
 *We met Tisdall on Dowhead when we were in the 
 donkey-cart this morning. P'raps that's what put it 
 into his head.' 
 
 ' Oh ! Now you aren't going to frighten the child into 
 fits with your silly tales, and the master know nothing 
 about it. If ever I catch you again,' etc. 
 
 A child of six was telling himself stories as he lay in 
 bed. It was a new power, and he kept it a secret. A 
 month before it had occurred to him to carry on a nur- 
 sery tale left unfinished by his mother, and he was de- 
 lighted to find the tale as it came out of his own head 
 just as surprising as though he were listening to it 'all 
 new from the beginning.' There was a prince in that 
 tale, and he killed dragons, but only for one night. Ever 
 afterwards Georgie dubbed himself prince, pasha, giant- 
 killer, and all the rest (you see, he could not tell any 
 one, for fear of being laughed at), and his tales faded 
 gradually into dreamland, where adventures were so 
 many that he could not recall the half of them. They 
 all began in the same way, or, as Georgie explained to 
 the shadows of the night-light, there was 'the same 
 starting-off place' — a pile of brushwood stacked some- 
 where near a beach; and round this pile Georgie found 
 himself running races with little boys and girls. These 
 ended, ships ran high up the dry land and opened into 
 cardboard boxes; or gilt-and-green iron railings, that 
 surrounded beautiful gardens, turned all soft, and could 
 be walked through and overthrown so long as he remem- 
 
 328 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 bered it was only a dream. He could never hold that 
 knowledge more than a few seconds ere things became 
 real, and instead of pushing down houses full of grown- 
 up people (a just revenge), he sat miserably upon gigan- 
 tic door-steps trying to sing the multiplication-table up 
 to four times six. 
 
 The princess of his tales was a person of wonderful 
 beauty (she came from the old illustrated edition of 
 Grimm, now out of print), and as she always applauded 
 Georgie's valour among the dragons and buffaloes, he 
 gave her the two finest names he had ever heard in his 
 life — Annie and Louise, pronounced 'Annie-an-louise.' 
 When the dreams swamped the stories, she would 
 change into one of the little girls round the brushwood- 
 pile, still keeping her title and crown. She saw Georgie 
 drown once in a dream-sea by the beach (it was the day 
 after he had been taken to bathe in a real sea by his 
 nurse); and he said as he sank: 'Poor Annie-an-louise! 
 She'll be sorry for me now!' But * Annie-an-louise,' 
 walking slowly on the beach, called, ' "Ha! ha! said the 
 duck, laughing,"' which to a waking mind might not 
 seem to bear on the situation. It consoled Georgie at 
 once, and must have been some kind of spell, for it 
 raised the bottom of the deep, and he waded out with a 
 twelve-inch flower-pot on each foot. As he was strictly 
 forbidden to meddle with flower-pots in real life, he felt 
 triumphantly wicked. 
 
 The movements of the grown-ups, whom Georgie 
 tolerated, but did not pretend to understand, removed 
 his world, when he was seven years old, to a place called 
 ' Oxford-on-a-visit.' Here were huge buildings sur- 
 rounded by vast prairies, with streets of infinite length, 
 
 329 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 and, above all, something called the 'buttery,' which 
 Georgie was dying to see, because he knew it must be 
 greasy, and therefore delightful. He perceived how 
 correct were his judgments when his nurse led him 
 through a stone arch into the presence of an enormously 
 fat man, who asked him if he would like some bread and 
 cheese. Georgie was used to eat all round the clock, so 
 he took what 'buttery' gave him, and would have taken 
 some brown liquid called *auditale,' but that his nurse 
 led him away to an afternoon performance of a thing 
 called 'Pepper's Ghost.' This was intensely thrilling. 
 People's heads came off and flew all over the stage, and 
 skeletons danced bone by bone, while Mr. Pepper him- 
 self, beyond question a man of the worst, waved his 
 arms and flapped a long gown, and in a deep bass voice 
 (Georgie had never heard a man sing before) told of his 
 sorrows unspeakable. Some grown-up or other tried to 
 explain that the illusion was made with mirrors, and 
 that there was no need to be frightened. Georgie did 
 not know what illusions were, but he did know that a 
 mirror was the looking-glass with the ivory handle on 
 his mother's dressing-table. Therefore the 'grown-up' 
 was 'just saying things' after the distressing custom of 
 'grown-ups,' and Georgie cast about for amusement 
 between scenes. Next to him sat a little girl dressed 
 all in black, her hair combed off her forehead exactly 
 like the girl in the book called 'Alice in Wonderland,' 
 which had been given him on his last birthday. The 
 little girl looked at Georgie, and Georgie looked at her. 
 There seemed to be no need of any further introduction. 
 'I've got a cut on my thumb,' said he. It was the 
 first work of his first real knife, a savage triangular hack, 
 and he esteemed it a most valuable possession. 
 
 330 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 'I'm tho thorry ! ' she lisped. ' Let me look — pleathe.' 
 
 'There's a di-ack-lum plaster on, but it's all raw under,' 
 Georgie answered, complying. 
 
 'Dothent it hurt?' — her gray eyes were full of pity 
 and interest. 
 
 ' Awf'ly. Perhaps it will give me lockjaw.' 
 
 'It lookth very horrid. I'm tho thorry!' She put a 
 forefinger to his hand, and held her head sidewise for a 
 better view. 
 
 Here the nurse turned and shook him severely. 'You 
 mustn't talk to strange little girls. Master Georgie.' 
 
 'She isn't strange. She's very nice. I like her, an' 
 I've showed her my new cut.' 
 
 ' The idea ! You change places with me.' 
 
 She moved him over, and shut out the little girl from 
 his view, while the grown-up behind renewed the futile 
 explanations. 
 
 'I am not afraid, truly,' said the boy, wriggling in 
 despair; 'but why don't you go to sleep in the afternoon 
 same as Provostof oriel? ' 
 
 Georgie had been introduced to a grown-up of that 
 name, who slept in his presence without apology. 
 Georgie understood that he was the most important 
 grown-up in Oxford; hence he strove to gild his rebuke 
 with flatteries. This grown-up did not seem to like it, 
 but he collapsed, and Georgie lay back in his seat, silent 
 and enraptured. Mr. Pepper was singing again, and 
 the deep, ringing voice, the red fire, and the misty, 
 waving gown all seemed to be mixed up with the little 
 girl who had been so kind about his cut. When the 
 performance was ended she nodded to Georgie, and 
 Georgie nodded in return. He spoke no more than was 
 necessary till bedtime, but meditated on new colours, 
 
 331 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 and sounds, and lights, and music, and things as far as 
 he understood them; the deep-mouthed agony of Mr. 
 Pepper mingling with the little girl's lisp. That night 
 he made a new tale, from which he shamelessly removed 
 the Rapunzel-Rapunzel-let-down-your-hair princess, 
 gold crown, Grimm edition, and all, and put a new 
 Annie-an-louise in her place. So it was perfectly right 
 and natural that when he came to the brushwood-pile 
 he should find her waiting for him, her hair combed off 
 her forehead, more like Alice in Wonderland than ever, 
 and the races and adventures began. 
 
 Ten years at an English public school do not encourage 
 dreaming. Georgie won his growth and chest measure- 
 ment, and a few other things which did not appear in 
 the bills, under a system of cricket, football, and paper- 
 chases, from four to five days a week, which provided 
 for three lawful cuts of a ground-ash if any boy absented 
 himself from these entertainments. He became a rum- 
 ple-coUared, dusty-hatted fag of the Lower Third, and 
 a light half-back at Little Side football; was pushed 
 and prodded through the slack back-waters of the 
 Lower Fourth, where the raffle of a school generally 
 accumulates; won his 'second fifteen' cap at football, 
 enjoyed the dignity of a study with two companions in 
 it, and began to look forward to office as a sub-prefect. 
 At last he blossomed into full glory as head of the school, 
 ex-officio captain of the games ; head of his house, where 
 he and his lieutenants preserved discipline and decency 
 among seventy boys from twelve to seventeen; general 
 arbiter in the quarrels that spring up among the touchy 
 Sixth — and intimate friend and ally of the Head him- 
 self. When he stepped forth in the black jersey, white 
 
 332 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 knickers, and black stockings of the First Fifteen, the 
 new match-ball under his arm, and his old and frayed 
 cap at the back of his head, the small fry of the lower 
 forms stood apart and worshipped, and the 'new caps' 
 of the team talked to him ostentatiously, that the world 
 might see. And so, in summer, when he came back to 
 the pavilion after a slow but eminently safe game, it 
 mattered not whether he had made nothing or, as once 
 happened, a hundred and three, the school shouted 
 just the same, and womenfolk who had come to look at 
 the match looked at Cottar — Cottar major; 'that's 
 Cottar!' Above all, he was responsible for that thing 
 called the tone of the school, and few realise with what 
 passionate devotion a certain type of boy throws him- 
 self into this work. Home was a far-away country, 
 full of ponies and fishing, and shooting, and men-visitors 
 who interfered with one's plans; but school was his real 
 world, where things of vital importance happened, and 
 crises arose that must be dealt with promptly and quietly. 
 Not for nothing was it written, ' Let the Consuls look to 
 it that the Republic takes no harm,' and Georgie was 
 glad to be back in authority when the holidays ended. 
 Behind him, but not too near, was the wise and tem- 
 perate Head, now suggesting the wisdom of the serpent, 
 now counselling the mildness of the dove; leading him 
 on to see, more by half-hints than by any direct word, 
 how boys and men are all of a piece, and how he who 
 can handle the one will assuredly in time control the 
 other. 
 
 For the rest, the school was not encouraged to dwell 
 on its emotions, but rather to keep in hard condition, 
 to avoid false quantities, and to enter the army 
 direct, without the help of the expensive London cram- 
 
 333 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 mer, under whose roof young blood learns too much. 
 Cottar major went the way of hundreds before him. 
 The Head gave him six months' final polish, taught him 
 what kind of answers best please a certain kind of ex- 
 aminers, and handed him over to the properly consti- 
 tuted authorities, who passed him into Sandhurst. 
 Here he had sense enough to see that he was in the 
 Lower Third once more, and behaved with respect 
 towards his seniors, till they in turn respected him, and 
 he was promoted to the rank of corporal, and sat in 
 authority over mixed peoples with all the vices of men 
 and boys combined. His reward was another string of 
 athletic cups, a good-conduct sword, and, at last, Her 
 Majesty's Commission as a subaltern in a first-class line 
 regiment. He did not know that he bore with him 
 from school and college a character worth much fine 
 gold, but was pleased to find his mess so kindly. He 
 had plenty of money of his own ; his training had set the 
 public-school mask upon his face, and had taught him 
 how many were the 'things no fellow can do.' By 
 virtue of the same training he kept his pores open and 
 his mouth shut. 
 
 The regular working of the Empire shifted his world 
 to India, where he tasted utter loneliness in subaltern's 
 quarters — one room and one bullock-trunk — and, with 
 his mess, learned the new life from the beginning. But 
 there were horses in the land — ponies at reasonable 
 price; there was polo for such as could afford it; there 
 were the disreputable remnants of a pack of hounds, 
 and Cottar worried his way along without too much 
 despair. It dawned on him that a regiment in India 
 was nearer the chance of active service than he had con- 
 ceived, and that a man might as well study his profes- 
 
 334 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 sion. A major of the new school backed this idea with 
 enthusiasm, and he and Cottar accumulated a library 
 of military works, and read and argued and disputed far 
 into the nights. But the adjutant said the old thing: 
 'Get to know your men, young 'un, and they'll follow 
 you anywhere. That's all you want — know your men.' 
 Cottar thought he knew them fairly well at cricket and 
 the regimental sports, but he never realised the true 
 inwardness of them till he was sent off with a detach- 
 ment of twenty to sit down in a mud fort near a rushing 
 river which was spanned by a bridge of boats. When 
 the floods came they went forth and hunted strayed 
 pontoons along the banks. Otherwise there was noth- 
 ing to do, and the men got drunk, gambled, and quar- 
 relled. They were a sickly crew, for a junior subaltern 
 is by custom saddled with the worst men. Cottar en- 
 dured their rioting as long as he could, and then sent 
 down-country for a dozen pairs of boxing-gloves. 
 
 'I wouldn't blame you for fightin',' said he, *if you 
 only knew how to use your hands; but you don't. Take 
 these things and I'll show you.' The men appreciated 
 his efforts. Now, instead of blaspheming and swearing 
 at a comrade, and threatening to shoot him, they could 
 take him apart and soothe themselves to exhaustion. 
 As one explained whom Cottar found with a shut eye 
 and a diamond-shaped mouth spitting blood through an 
 embrasure : * We tried it with the gloves, sir, for twenty 
 minutes, and that done us no good, sir. Then we took 
 off the gloves and tried it that way for another twenty 
 minutes, same as you showed us, sir, an' that done us 
 a world o' good. 'Twasn't fightin', sir; there was a bet 
 on.' 
 
 Cottar dared not laugh, but he invited his men to 
 
 335 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 other sports, such as racing across country in shirt and 
 trousers after a trail of torn paper, and to single-stick in 
 the evenings, till the native population, who had a lust 
 for sport in every form, wished to know whether the 
 white men understood wrestling. They sent in an am- 
 bassador, who took the soldiers by the neck and threw 
 them about the dust; and the entire command were all 
 for this new game. 1 hey spent money on learning new 
 falls and holds, which was better than buying other 
 doubtful commodities; and the peasantry grinned five 
 deep round the tournaments. 
 
 That detachment, who had gone up in bullock-carts, 
 returned to headquarters at an average rate of thirty 
 miles a day, fair heel-and-toe; no sick, no prisoners, and 
 no court-martials pending. They scattered themselves 
 among their friends, singing the praises of their lieuten- 
 ant and looking for causes of offence. 
 
 'How did you do it, young 'un?' the adjutant asked. 
 
 'Oh, I sweated the beef off 'em, and then I sweated 
 some muscle on to 'em. It was rather a lark.' 
 
 'If that's your way of lookin' at it, we can give you 
 all the larks you want. Young Davies isn't feelin' quite 
 fit, and he's next for detachment duty. Care to go for 
 him?' 
 
 ' 'Sure he wouldn't mind? I don't want to shove my- 
 self forward, you know.' 
 
 'You needn't bother on Davies's account. We'll 
 give you the sweepin's of the corps, and you can see 
 what you can make of 'em.' 
 
 *A11 right,' said Cottar. *It's better fun than loafin' 
 about cantonments.' 
 
 'Rummy thing,' said the adjutant, after Cottar had 
 returned to his wilderness with twenty other devils 
 
 336 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 worse than the first. * If Cottar only knew it, half the 
 women in the station would give their eyes — confound 
 'em! — to have the young 'un in tow.' 
 
 'That accounts for Mrs. Elery sayin' I was workin' 
 my nice new boy too hard,' said a wing commander. 
 
 'Oh yes; and "Why doesn't he come to the band-stand 
 in the evenings?" and "Can't I get him to make up a 
 four at tennis with the Hammon girls?"' the adjutant 
 snorted. 'Look at young Davies makin' an ass of him- 
 self over mutton-dressed-as-lamb old enough to be his 
 mother!' 
 
 'No one can accuse young Cottar of runnin' after 
 women, white or black,' the major replied thoughtfully. 
 'But, then, that's the kind that generally gees the worst 
 mucker in the end.' 
 
 'Not Cottar. I've only run across one of his muster 
 before — a fellow called Ingles, in South Africa. He 
 was just the same hard-trained, athletic-sports build of 
 animal. Always kept himself in the pink of condition. 
 Didn't do him much good, though. Shot at Wessel- 
 stroom the week before Majuba. Wonder how the 
 young 'un will lick his detachment into shape.' 
 
 Cottar turned up six weeks later, on foot, with his 
 pupils. He never told his experiences, but the men 
 spoke enthusiastically, and fragments of it leaked back 
 to the colonel through sergeants, batmen, and the like. 
 
 There was great jealousy between the first and second 
 detachments, but the men united in adoring Cottar, 
 and their way of showing it was by sparing him all the 
 trouble that men know how to make for an unloved 
 ofTicer. He sought popularity as little as he had sought 
 it at school, and therefore it came to him. He favoured 
 no one — not even when the company sloven pulled the 
 
 337 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 company cricket-match out of the fire with an unex- 
 pected forty-three at the last moment. There was very 
 little getting round him, for he seemed to know by 
 instinct exactly when and where to head off a malingerer; 
 but he did not forget that the difference between a 
 dazed and sulky junior of the upper school and a bewil- 
 dered, browbeaten lump of a private fresh from the 
 depot was very small indeed. The sergeants, seeing 
 these things, told him secrets generally hid from young 
 officers. His words were quoted as barrack authority 
 on bets in canteen and at tea; and the veriest shrew of 
 the corps, bursting with charges against other women 
 who had used the cooking-ranges out of turn, forbore to 
 speak when Cottar, as the regulations ordained, asked 
 of a morning if there were *any complaints.' 
 
 'I'm full o' complaints,' said Mrs. Corporal Morri- 
 son, 'an' I'd kill O'Halloran's fat cow of a wife any day, 
 but ye know how it is. 'E puts 'is head just inside the 
 door, an' looks down 'is blessed nose so bashful, an' 'e 
 whispers, "Any complaints?" Ye can't complain after 
 that. I want to kiss him. Some day I think I will. 
 Heigho-ho ! She'll be a lucky woman that gets Young 
 Innocence. See 'im now, girls. Do yer blame me?' 
 
 Cottar was cantering across to polo, and he looked a 
 very satisfactory figure of a man as he gave easily to the 
 first excited bucks of his pony, and slipped over a low 
 mud wall to the practice-ground. There were more 
 than Mrs. Corporal Morrison who felt as she did. But 
 Cottar was busy for eleven hours of the day. He did 
 not care to have his tennis spoiled by petticoats in the 
 court; and after one long afternoon at a garden-party, 
 he explained to his major that this sort of thing was 
 'futile piffle,' and the major laughed. Theirs was not a 
 
 338 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 married mess, except for the colonel's wife, and Cottar 
 stood in awe of the good lady. She said 'my regiment,' 
 and the world knows what that means. None the less, 
 when they wanted her to give away the prizes after a 
 shooting-match, and she refused because one of the 
 prize-winners was married to a girl who had made a jest 
 of her behind her broad back, the mess ordered Cottar 
 to 'tackle her,' in his best calling-kit. This he did, 
 simply and laboriously, and she gave way altogether. 
 
 'She only wanted to know the facts of the case,' he 
 explained. ' I just told her, and she saw at once.' 
 
 'Ye-es,' said the adjutant. 'I expect that's what she 
 did. 'Comin' to the Fusiliers' dance to-night, Galahad?' 
 
 'No, thanks. I've got a fight on with the major.' 
 The virtuous apprentice sat up till midnight in the 
 major's quarters, with a stop-watch and a pair of com- 
 passes, shifting little painted lead blocks about a four- 
 inch map. 
 
 Then he turned in and slept the sleep of innocence, 
 which is full of healthy dreams. One peculiarity of his 
 dreams he noticed at the beginning of his second hot 
 weather. Two or three times a month they duplicated 
 or ran in series. He would find himself sliding into 
 dreamland by the same road — a road that ran along a 
 beach near a pile of brushwood. To the right lay the 
 sea, sometimes at full tide, sometimes withdrawn to the 
 very horizon; but he knew it for the same sea. By that 
 road he would travel over a swell of rising ground cov- 
 ered with short, withered grass, into valleys of wonder 
 and unreason. Beyond the ridge, which was crowned 
 with some sort of street-lamp, anything was possible; 
 but up to the lamp it seemed to him that he knew the 
 road as well as he knew the parade-ground. He learned 
 
 339 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 to look forward to the place; for, once there, he was sure 
 of a good night's rest, and Indian hot weather can be 
 rather trying. First, shadowy under closing eyelids, 
 would come the outline of the brushwood-pile; next the 
 white sand of the beach road, almost overhanging the 
 black, changeful sea; then the turn inland and uphill to 
 the single light. When he was unrestful for any reason, 
 he would tell himself how he was sure to get there — sure 
 to get there — if he shut his eyes and surrendered to the 
 drift of things. But one night after a foolishly hard 
 hour's polo (the thermometer was 94 degrees in his quar- 
 ters at ten o'clock), sleep stood away from him alto- 
 gether, though he did his best to fmd the well-known 
 road, the point where true sleep began. At last he saw 
 the brushwood-pile, and hurried along to the ridge, for 
 behind him he felt was the wide-awake, sultry world. 
 He reached the lamp in safety, tingling with drowsiness, 
 when a policeman — a common country policeman — 
 sprang up before him and touched him on the shoulder 
 ere he could dive into the dim valley below. He was 
 filled with terror, — the hopeless terror of dreams, — for 
 the policeman said, in the awful, distinct voice of the 
 dream-people, ' I am Policeman Day coming back from 
 the City of Sleep. You come with me.' Georgie knew 
 it was true — that just beyond him in the valley lay the 
 lights of the City of Sleep, where he would have been 
 sheltered, and that this Policeman Thing had full power 
 and authority to head him back to miserable wakeful- 
 ness. He found himself looking at the moonlight on the 
 wall, dripping with fright; and he never overcame that 
 horror, though he met the policeman several times that 
 hot weather, and his coming was always the forerunner 
 of a bad night. 
 
 340 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 But other dreams — perfectly absurd ones — filled him 
 with an incommunicable delight. All those that he 
 remembered began by the brushwood-pile. For in- 
 stance, he found a small clockwork steamer (he had 
 noticed it many nights before) lying by the sea-road, 
 and stepped into it, whereupon it moved with surpass- 
 ing swiftness over an absolutely level sea. This was 
 glorious, for he felt he was exploring great matters; and 
 it stopped at a lily carved in stone, which, most natu- 
 rally, floated on the water. Seeing the lily was labelled 
 'Hong-Kong,' Georgie said: 'Of course. This is pre- 
 cisely what I expected Hong-Kong would be like. How 
 magnificent!' Thousands of miles farther on it halted 
 at yet another stone lily, labelled 'Java'; and this again 
 delighted him hugely, because he knew that now he was 
 at the world's end. But the little boat ran on and on 
 till it stopped in a deep fresh-water lock, the sides of 
 which were carven marble, green with moss. Lily-pads 
 lay on the water, and reeds arched above. Some one 
 moved among the reeds — some one whom Georgie knew 
 he had travelled to this world's end to reach. There- 
 fore everything was entirely well with him. He was 
 unspeakably happy, and vaulted over the ship's side to 
 find this person. When his feet touched that still water, 
 it changed, with the rustle of unrolling maps, to nothing 
 less than a sixth quarter of the globe, beyond the most 
 remote imaginings of man — a place where islands were 
 coloured yellow and blue, their lettering strung across 
 their faces. They gave on unknown seas, and Georgie's 
 urgent desire was to return swiftly across this floating 
 atlas to known bearings. He told himself repeatedly 
 that it was no good to hurry; but still he hurried des- 
 perately, and the islands slipped and slid under his feet, 
 
 341 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 the straits yawned and widened, till he found himself 
 utterly lost in the world's fourth dimension, with no 
 hope of return. Yet only a little distance away he 
 could see the old world with the rivers and mountain- 
 chains marked according to the Sandhurst rules of map- 
 making. Then that person for whom he had come to 
 the Lily Lock (that was its name) ran up across unex- 
 plored territories, and showed him a way. They fled 
 hand in hand till they reached a road that spanned ra- 
 vines, and ran along the edge of precipices, and was 
 tunnelled through mountains. 'This goes to our brush- 
 wood-pile,' said his companion; and all his trouble was 
 at an end. He took a pony, because he understood that 
 this was the Thirty-Mile-Ride, and he must ride swiftly ; 
 and raced through the clattering tunnels and round the 
 curves, always downhill, till he heard the sea to his left, 
 and saw it raging under a full moon against sandy cliffs. 
 It was heavy going, but he recognised the nature of the 
 country, the dark purple downs inland, and the bents 
 that whistled in the wind. The road was eaten away 
 in places, and the sea lashed at him — black, foamless 
 tongues of smooth and glossy rollers ; but he was sure 
 that there was less danger from the sea than from 
 *Them,' whoever 'They' were, inland to his right. He 
 knew, too, that he would be safe if he could reach the 
 down with the lamp on it. This came as he expected: 
 he saw the one light a mile ahead along the beach, dis- 
 mounted, turned to the right, walked quietly over to the 
 brushwood-pile, found the little steamer had returned 
 to the beach whence he had unmoored it, and — must 
 have fallen asleep, for he could remember no more. 
 'I'm gettin' the hang of the geography of that place,' 
 he said to himself, as he shaved next morning. ' I must 
 
 342 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 have made some sort of circle. Let's see. The Thirty- 
 Mile-Ride (now how the deuce did I know it was called 
 the Thirty-Mile Ride?) joins the sea-road beyond the 
 first down where the lamp is. And that atlas-country 
 lies at the back of the Thirty-Mile-Ride, somewhere out 
 to the right beyond the hills and tunnels. Rummy 
 thing, dreams. 'Wonder what makes mine fit into each 
 other so?' 
 
 He continued on his solid way through the recurring 
 duties of the seasons. The regiment was shifted to 
 another station, and he enjoyed road marching for two 
 months, with a good deal of mixed shooting thrown in; 
 and when they reached their new cantonments he be- 
 came a member of the local Tent Club, and chased the 
 mighty boar on horseback with a short stabbing-spear. 
 There he met the mahseer of the Poonch, beside whom 
 the tarpon is as a herring, and he who lands him can say 
 that he is a fisherman. This was as new and as fascinat- 
 ing as the big-game shooting that fell to his portion, 
 when he had himself photographed for the mother's 
 benefit, sitting on the flank of his first tiger. 
 
 Then the adjutant was promoted, and Cottar rejoiced 
 with him, for he admired the adjutant greatly, and won- 
 dered who might be big enough to fill his place; so that 
 he nearly collapsed when the mantle fell on his own 
 shoulders, and the colonel said a few sweet things that 
 made him blush. An adjutant's position does not differ 
 materially from that of head of the school, and Cottar 
 stood in the same relation to the colonel as he had to his 
 old Head in England. Only, tempers wear out in hot 
 weather, and things were said and done that tried him 
 sorely, and he made glorious blunders, from which the 
 regimental sergeant-major pulled him with a loyal soul 
 
 343 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 and a shut mouth. Slovens and incompetents raged 
 against him; the weak-minded strove to lure him from 
 the ways of justice; the small-minded — yea, men who 
 Cottar believed would never do 'things no fellow can do' 
 — imputed motives mean and circuitous to actions that 
 he had not spent a thought upon; and he tasted injustice, 
 and it made him very sick. But his consolation came 
 on parade, when he looked down the full companies, 
 and reflected how few were in hospital or cells, and 
 wondered when the time would come to try the machine 
 of his love and labour. But they needed and expected 
 the whole of a man's working-day, and maybe three or 
 four hours of the night. Curiously enough, he never 
 dreamed about the regiment as he was popularly sup- 
 posed to. The mind, set free from the day's doings, 
 generally ceased working altogether, or, if it moved at 
 all, carried him along the old beach road to the downs, 
 the lamp-post, and, once in a while, to terrible Police- 
 man Day. The second time that he returned to the 
 world's lost continent (this was a dream that repeated 
 itself again and again, with variations, on the same 
 ground) he knew that if he only sat still the person from 
 the Lily Lock would help him; and he was not disap- 
 pointed. Sometimes he was trapped in mines of vast 
 depth hollowed out of the heart of the world, where men 
 in torment chanted echoing songs; and he heard this 
 person coming along through the galleries, and every- 
 thing was made safe and delightful. They met again 
 in low-roofed Indian railway carriages that halted in 
 a garden surrounded by gilt-and-green railings, where a 
 mob of stony white people, all unfriendly, sat at break- 
 fast-tables covered with roses, and separated Georgie 
 from his companion, while underground voices sang 
 
 344 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 deep-voiced songs. Georgie was filled with enormous 
 despair till they two met again. They forgathered in 
 the middle of an endless hot tropic night, and crept into 
 a huge house that stood, he knew, somewhere north of 
 the railway station where the people ate among the 
 roses. It was surrounded with gardens, all moist and 
 dripping; and in one room, reached through leagues of 
 whitewashed passages, a Sick Thing lay in bed. Now 
 the least noise, Georgie knew, would unchain some wait- 
 ing horror, and his companion knew it too; but when 
 their eyes met across the bed, Georgie was disgusted to 
 see that she was a child — a little girl in strapped shoes, 
 with her black hair combed back from her forehead. 
 
 'What disgraceful folly!' he thought. 'Now she 
 could do nothing whatever if Its head came off.' 
 
 Then the thing coughed, and the ceiling shattered 
 down in plaster on the mosquito-netting, and 'They' 
 rushed in from all quarters. He dragged the child 
 through the stifling garden, voices chanting behind 
 them, and they rode the Thirty-Mile-Ride under whip 
 and spur along the sandy beach by the booming sea, 
 till they came to the downs, the lamp-post, and the 
 brushwood-pile, which was safety. Very often dreams 
 would break up about them in this fashion, and they 
 would be separated, to endure awful adventures alone. 
 But the most amusing times were when he and she had a 
 clear understanding that it was all make-believe, and 
 walked through mile-wide roaring rivers without even 
 taking off their shoes, or set light to populous cities to 
 see how they would burn, and were rude as any children 
 to the vague shadows met in their rambles. Later in 
 the night they were sure to suffer for this, either at the 
 hands of the Railway People eating among the roses, or 
 
 345 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 in the tropic uplands at the far end of the Thirty-Mile- 
 Ride. Together, this did not much affright them; but 
 often Georgie would hear her shrill cry of 'Boy! Boy!' 
 half a world away, and hurry to her rescue before 'They' 
 maltreated her. 
 
 He and she explored the dark purple downs as far 
 inland from the brushwood-pile as they dared, but that 
 was always a dangerous matter. The interior was 
 filled with 'Them,' and 'They' went about singing in 
 the hollows, and Georgie and she felt safer on or near 
 the seaboard. So thoroughly had he come to know the 
 place of his dreams that even waking he accepted it as a 
 real country, and made a rough sketch of it. He kept his 
 own counsel, of course; but the permanence of the land 
 puzzled him. His ordinary dreams were as formless 
 and as fleeting as any healthy dreams could be, but once 
 at the brushwood-pile he moved within known limits 
 and could see where he was going. There were months 
 at a time when nothing notable crossed his sleep. Then 
 the dreams would come in a batch of five or six, and 
 next morning the map that he kept in his writing-case 
 would be written up to date, for Georgie was a most 
 methodical person. There was, indeed, a danger — his 
 seniors said so — of his developing into a regular ' Auntie 
 Fuss' of an adjutant, and when an officer once takes to 
 old-maidism there is more hope for the virgin of seventy 
 than for him. 
 
 But fate sent the change that was needed, in the 
 shape of a little winter campaign on the border, which, 
 after the manner of little campaigns, flashed out into a 
 very ugly war; and Cottar's regiment was chosen among 
 the first. 
 
 'Now,' said a major, 'this'fl shake the cobwebs out of 
 
 346 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 us all — especially you, Galahad; and we can see what your 
 hen-with-one-chick attitude has done for the regiment.' 
 Cottar nearly wept with joy as the campaign went for- 
 ward. They were fit — physically fit beyond the other 
 troops; they were good children in camp, wet or dry, fed 
 or unfed ; and they followed their officers with the quick 
 suppleness and trained obedience of a first-class football 
 fifteen. They were cut off from their apology for a base, 
 and cheerfully cut their way back to it again; they 
 crowned and cleaned out hills full of the enemy with the 
 precision of well-broken dogs of chase; and in the hour 
 of retreat, when, hampered with the sick and wounded 
 of the column, they were persecuted down eleven miles 
 of waterless valley, they, serving as rearguard, covered 
 themselves with a great glory in the eyes of fellow- 
 professionals. Any regiment can advance, but few know 
 how to retreat with a sting in the tail. Then they 
 turned to and made roads, most often under fire, and 
 dismantled some inconvenient mud redoubts. They 
 were the last corps to be withdrawn when the rubbish 
 of the campaign was all swept up ; and after a month in 
 standing camp, which tries morals severely, they de- 
 parted to their own place singing — 
 
 ' 'E's goin' to do without 'em — 
 'Don't want 'em any more; 
 'E's goin' to do without 'em, 
 As 'e's often done before; 
 'E's goin' to be a martyr 
 On a 'ighly novel plan, 
 An' all the boys and girls will say, 
 
 * ' w ! what a nice young man — ^man — man ! 
 Ow ! what a nice young man ! " ' 
 347 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 There came out a 'Gazette,' in which Cottar found that 
 he had been behaving with 'courage and coolness and 
 discretion' in all his capacities; that he had assisted the 
 wounded under fire, and blown in a gate, also under fire. 
 Net result, his captaincy and a brevet majority, coupled 
 with the Distinguished Service Order. 
 
 As to his wounded, he explained that they were both 
 heavy men, whom he could lift more easily than any one 
 else. ' Otherwise, of course, I should have sent out one 
 of my chaps; and, of course, about that gate business, 
 we were safe the minute we were well under the walls.' 
 But this did not prevent his men from cheering him 
 furiously whenever they saw him, or the mess from 
 giving him a dinner on the eve of his departure to Eng- 
 land. (A year's leave was among the things he had 
 'snaffled out of the campaign,' to use his own words.) 
 The doctor, who had taken quite as much as was good 
 for him, quoted poetry about ' a good blade carving the 
 casques of men,' and so on, and everybody told Cottar 
 that he was an excellent person; but when he rose to 
 make his maiden speech they shouted so that he was 
 understood to say, ' It isn't any use tryin' to speak with 
 you chaps rottin' me like this. Let's have some pool.' 
 
 It is not unpleasant to spend eight-and-twenty days 
 in an easy-going steamer on warm waters, in the com- 
 pany of a woman who lets you see that you are head and 
 shoulders superior to the rest of the world, even though 
 that woman may be, and most often is, ten counted 
 years your senior. P. 0. boats are not lighted with the 
 disgustful particularity of Atlantic liners. There is 
 more phosphorescence at the bows, and greater silence 
 and darkness by the hand-steering gear aft. 
 
 348 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 Awful things might have happened to Georgie, but 
 for the little fact that he had never studied the first 
 principles of the game he was expected to play. So 
 when Mrs. Zuleika, at Aden, told him how motherly 
 an interest she felt in his welfare, medals, brevet, and 
 all, Georgie took her at the foot of the letter, and 
 promptly talked of his own mother, three hundred miles 
 nearer each day, of his home, and so forth, all the way 
 up the Red Sea. It was much easier than he had sup- 
 posed to converse with a woman for an hour at a time. 
 Then Mrs. Zuleika, turning from parental affection, 
 spoke of love in the abstract as a thing not unworthy of 
 study, and in discreet twilights after dinner demanded 
 confidences. Georgie would have been delighted to 
 supply them, but he had none, and did not know it 
 was his duty to manufacture them. Mrs. Zuleika ex- 
 pressed surprise and unbelief, and asked those questions 
 which deep asks of deep. She learned all that was 
 necessary to conviction, and, being very much a woman, 
 resumed (Georgie never knew that she had abandoned) 
 the motherly attitude. 
 
 *Do you know,' she said, somewhere in the Mediter- 
 ranean, 'I think you're the very dearest boy I have ever 
 met in my life, and I'd like you to remember me a 
 little. You will when you are older, but I want you 
 to remember me now. You'll make some girl very 
 happy.' 
 
 'Oh! 'Hope so,' said Georgie, gravely; 'but there's 
 heaps of time for marry in', an' all that sort of thing, 
 ain't there?' 
 
 'That depends. Here are your bean-bags for the 
 Ladies' Competition. I think I'm growing too old to 
 care for these tamashas.' 
 
 349 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 They were getting up sports, and Georgie was on the 
 committee. He never noticed how perfectly the bags 
 were sewn, but another woman did, and smiled — once. 
 He liked Mrs. Zuleika greatly. She was a bit old, of 
 course, but uncommonly nice. There was no nonsense 
 about her. 
 
 A few nights after they passed Gibraltar his dream 
 returned to him. She who waited by the brushwood- 
 pile was no longer a little girl, but a woman with black 
 hair that grew into a 'widow's peak,' combed back from 
 her forehead. He knew her for the child in black, the 
 companion of the last six years, and, as it had been in 
 the time of the meetings on the Lost Continent, he 
 was filled with delight unspeakable. 'They,' for some 
 dreamland reason, were friendly or had gone away that 
 night, and the two flitted together over all their country, 
 from the brushwood-pile up the Thirty-Mile-Ride, till 
 they saw the House of the Sick Thing, a pin-point in the 
 distance to the left; stamped through the Railway 
 Waiting-room where the roses lay on the spread break- 
 fast-tables; and returned, by the ford and the city they 
 had once burned for sport, to the great swells of the 
 downs under the lamp-post. Wherever they moved a 
 strong singing followed them underground, but this 
 night there was no panic. All the land was empty 
 except for themselves, and at the last (they were sitting 
 by the lamp-post hand in hand) she turned and kissed 
 him. He woke with a start, staring at the waving 
 curtain of the cabin door; he could almost have sworn 
 that the kiss was real. 
 
 Next morning the ship was rolling in a Biscay sea, 
 and people were not happy; but as Georgie came to 
 breakfast, shaven, tubbed, and smelling of soap, several 
 
 350 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 turned to look at him because of the light in his eyes 
 and the splendour of his countenance. 
 
 'Well, you look beastly fit,' snapped a neighbour. 
 'Any one left you a legacy in the middle of the Bay? ' 
 
 Georgie reached for the curry, with a seraphic grin. ' I 
 suppose it's the gettin' so near home, and all that. I do 
 feel rather festive this mornin'. 'Rolls a bit, doesn't she? ' 
 
 Mrs. Zuleika stayed in her cabin till the end of the 
 voyage, when she left without bidding him farewell, and 
 wept passionately on the dock-head for pure joy of meet- 
 ing her children, who, she had often said, were so like 
 their father. 
 
 Georgie headed for his own country, wild with delight 
 of first long furlough after the lean seasons. Nothing 
 was changed in that orderly life, from the coachman 
 who met him at the station to the white peacock that 
 stormed at the carriage from the stone wall above the 
 shaven lawns. The house took toll of him with due 
 regard to precedence — first the mother; then the father; 
 then the housekeeper, who wept and praised God; then 
 the butler; and so on down to the under-keeper, who 
 had been dog-boy in Georgie's youth, and called him 
 * Master Georgie,' and was reproved by the groom who 
 had taught Georgie to ride. 
 
 'Not a thing changed,' he sighed contentedly, when 
 the three of them sat down to dinner in the late sunlight, 
 while the rabbits crept out upon the lawn below the 
 cedars, and the big trout in the ponds by the home pad- 
 dock rose for their evening meal. 
 
 'Our changes are all over, dear,' cooed the mother; 
 *and now I am getting used to your size and your tan 
 (you're very brown, Georgie), I see you haven't changed 
 in the least. You're exactly like the pater.' 
 
 351 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 The father beamed on this man after his own heart, — 
 'Youngest major in the army, and should have had the 
 V. C, sir,' — and the butler listened with his professional 
 mask off when Master Georgie spoke of war as it is 
 waged to-day, and his father cross-questioned. 
 
 They went out on the terrace to smoke among the 
 roses, and the shadow of the old house lay long across 
 the wonderful English foliage, which is the only living 
 green in the world. 
 
 ' Perfect ! By Jove, it's perfect ! ' Georgie was looking 
 at the round-bosomed woods beyond the home paddock, 
 where the white pheasant-boxes were ranged; and the 
 golden air was full of a hundred sacred scents and sounds. 
 Georgie felt his father's arm tighten in his. 
 
 'It's not half bad — but "hodie mihi, eras tibi," isn't 
 it? I suppose you'll be turning up some fine day with a 
 girl under your arm, if you haven't one now, eh?' 
 
 'You can make your mind easy, sir. I haven't one.' 
 
 'Not in all these years?' said the mother. 
 
 'I hadn't time, mummy. They keep a man pretty 
 busy, these days, in the service, and most of our mess 
 are unmarried, too.' 
 
 'But you must have met hundreds in society — at 
 balls, and so on? ' 
 
 * I'm like the Tenth, mummy : I don't dance.' 
 
 'Don't dance! What have you been doing with 
 yourself, then — backing other men's bills?' said the 
 father. 
 
 'Oh yes; I've done a little of that too; but you see, as 
 things are now, a man has all his work cut out for him 
 to keep abreast of his profession, and my days were 
 always too full to let me lark about half the night.* 
 
 ' Hmm ! ' — suspiciously. 
 
 352 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 *It's never too late to learn. We ought to give some 
 kind of house-warming for the people about, now you've 
 come back. Unless you want to go straight up to town, 
 dear?' 
 
 'No. I don't want anything better than this. Let's 
 sit still and enjoy ourselves. I suppose there will be 
 something for me to ride if I look for it?' 
 
 'Seeing I've been kept down to the old brown pair for 
 the last six weeks because all the others were being got 
 ready for Master Georgie, I should say there might be,' 
 the father chuckled. 'They're reminding me in a hun- 
 dred ways that I must take the second place now.' 
 
 'Brutes!' 
 
 'The pater doesn't mean it, dear; but everyone has 
 been trying to make your home-coming a success; and 
 you do like it, don't you?' 
 
 'Perfect! Perfect! There's no place like England — 
 when you've done your work.' 
 
 'That's the proper way to look at it, my son.' 
 
 And so up and down the flagged walk till their shad- 
 ows grew long in the moonlight, and the mother went 
 indoors and played such songs as a small boy once 
 clamoured for, and the squat silver candlesticks were 
 brought in, and Georgie climbed to the two rooms in the 
 west wing that had been his nursery and his play-room 
 in the beginning. Then who should come to tuck him 
 up for the night but the mother? And she sat down on 
 the bed, and they talked for a long hour, as mother and 
 son should, if there is to be any future for our Empire. 
 With a simple woman's deep guile she asked questions 
 and suggested answers that should have waked some 
 sign in the face on the pillow, but there was neither 
 quiver of eyelid nor quickening of breath, neither eva- 
 
 353 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 sion nor delay in reply. So she blessed him and kissed 
 him on the mouth, which is not always a mother's 
 property, and said something to her husband later, at 
 which he laughed profane and incredulous laughs. 
 
 All the establishment waited on Georgie next morning, 
 from the tallest six-year-old, 'with a mouth like a kid 
 glove. Master Georgie,' to the under-keeper strolling 
 carelessly along the horizon, Georgie's pet rod in his 
 hand, and ' There's a four-pounder risin' below the lasher. 
 You don't 'ave 'em in Injia, Mast — Major Georgie.' 
 It was all beautiful beyond telling, even though the 
 mother insisted on taking him out in the landau (the 
 leather had the hot Sunday smell of his youth), and 
 showing him off to her friends at all the houses for six 
 miles round; and the pater bore him up to town and a 
 lunch at the club, where he introduced him, quite care- 
 lessly, to not less than thirty ancient warriors whose 
 sons were not the youngest majors in the army, and had 
 not the D. S. 0. After that, it was Georgie's turn; and 
 remembering his friends, he filled up the house with that 
 kind of officer who lived in cheap lodgings at Southsea 
 or Montpelier Square, Brompton — good men all, but 
 not well off. The mother perceived that they needed 
 girls to play with ; and as there was no scarcity of girls, 
 the house hummed like a dovecote in spring. They 
 tore up the place for amateur theatricals; they disap- 
 peared in the gardens when they ought to have been 
 rehearsing; they swept off every available horse and 
 vehicle, especially the governess-cart and the fat pony; 
 they fell into the trout-pond; they picnicked and they 
 tennised; and they sat on gates in the twilight, two by 
 two, and Georgie found that he was not in the least 
 necessary to their entertainment. 
 
 354 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 ' My word ! ' said he, when he had seen the last of their 
 dear backs. 'They told me they've enjoyed 'emselves, 
 but they haven't done half the things they said they 
 would.' 
 
 'I know they've enjoyed themselves — immensely,' 
 said the mother. 'You're a public benefactor, dear.' 
 
 'Now w^e can be quiet again, can't we?' 
 
 'Oh, quite. I've a very dear friend of mine that I 
 want you to know. She couldn't come with the house 
 so full, because she's an invalid, and she was away when 
 you first came. She's a Mrs. Lacy.' 
 
 ' Lacy ! I don't remember the name about here.' 
 
 'No; they came after you went to India — from Ox- 
 ford. Her husband died there, and she lost some money, 
 I believe. They bought The Firs on the Bassett Road. 
 She's a very sweet woman, and we're very fond of them 
 both.' 
 
 ' She's a widow, didn't you say? ' 
 
 'She has a daughter. Surely I said so, dear?' 
 
 'Does she fall into trout-ponds, and gas and giggle, 
 and "Oh, Majah Cottah!" and all that sort of thing?' 
 
 *No, indeed. She's a very quiet girl, and very musi- 
 cal. She always came over here with her music-books 
 — composing, you know; and she generally works all 
 day, so you won't — ' 
 
 ' 'Talking about Miriam?' said the pater, coming up. 
 The mother edged toward him within elbow reach. There 
 was no finesse about Georgie's father. 'Oh, Miriam's 
 a dear girl. Plays beautifully. Rides beautifully, too. 
 She's a regular pet of the household. 'Used to call 
 me — ' The elbow went home, and ignorant, but obe- 
 dient always, the pater shut himself off. 
 
 * What used she to call you, sir? ' 
 
 355 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 * All sorts of pet names. I'm very fond of Miriam.' 
 
 ' Sounds Jewish — Miriam.' 
 
 'Jew! You'll be calling yourself a Jew next. She's 
 one of the Herefordshire Lacys. When her aunt dies — ' 
 Again the elbow. 
 
 'Oh, you won't see anything of her, Georgie. She's 
 busy with her music or her mother all day. Besides, 
 you're going up to town to-morrow, aren't you? I 
 thought you said something about an Institute meeting? ' 
 The mother spoke. 
 
 'Going up to town now? What nonsense!' Once 
 more the pater was silenced. 
 
 'I had some idea of it, but I'm not quite sure,' said 
 the son of the house. Why did the mother try to get 
 him away because a musical girl and her invalid parent 
 were expected? He did not approve of unknown fe- 
 males calling his father pet names. He would observe 
 these pushing persons who had been only seven years 
 in the county. 
 
 All of which the delighted mother read in his counte- 
 nance, herself keeping an air of sweet disinterestedness. 
 
 'They'll be here this evening for dinner. I'm sending 
 the carriage over for them, and they won't stay more 
 than a week.' 
 
 'Perhaps I shall go up to town. I don't quite know 
 yet.' George moved away irresolutely. There was a 
 lecture at the United Services Institute on the supply 
 of ammunition in the field, and the one man whose 
 theories most irritated Major Cottar would deliver it. 
 A heated discussion was sure to follow, and perhaps he 
 might find himself moved to speak. He took his rod 
 that afternoon and went down to thrash it out among 
 the trout. 
 
 356 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 *Good sport, dear!' said the mother, from the terrace. 
 
 ' 'Fraid it won't be, mummy. AH those men from 
 town, and the girls particularly, have put every trout 
 off his feed for weeks. There isn't one of 'em that cares 
 for fishin' — really. Fancy stampin' and shoutin' on 
 the bank, and tellin' every fish for half a mile exactly 
 what you're goin' to do, and then chuckin' a brute of a 
 fly at him ! By Jove, it would scare me if I was a trout ! ' 
 
 But things were not as bad as he had expected. The 
 black gnat was on the water, and the water was strictly 
 preserved. A three-quarter-pounder at the second cast 
 set him for the campaign, and he worked down-stream, 
 crouching behind the reed and meadow-sweet; creeping 
 between a hornbeam hedge and a foot-wide strip of 
 bank, where he could see the trout, but where they could 
 not distinguish him from the background; lying on his 
 stomach to switch the blue-upright sidewise through 
 the checkered shadows of a gravelly ripple under over- 
 arching trees. But he had known every inch of the 
 water since he was four feet high. The aged and astute 
 between sunk roots, with the large and fat that lay in 
 the frothy scum below some strong rush of water, suck- 
 ing lazily as carp, came to trouble in their turn, at the 
 hand that imitated so delicately the flicker and wimple 
 of an egg-dropping fly. Consequently, Georgie found 
 himself five miles from home when he ought to have 
 been dressing for dinner. The housekeeper had taken 
 good care that her boy should not go empty; and before 
 he changed to the white moth he sat down to excellent 
 claret with sandwiches of potted egg and things that 
 adoring women make and men never notice. Then 
 back, to surprise the otter grubbing for fresh-water 
 mussels, the rabbits on the edge of the beechwoodb 
 
 357 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 foraging in the clover, and the poHceman-like white owl 
 stooping to the Uttle field-mice, till the moon was strong, 
 and he took his rod apart, and went home through well- 
 remembered gaps in the hedges. He fetched a compass 
 round the house, for, though he might have broken 
 every law of the establishment every hour, the law of 
 his boyhood was unbreakable: after fishing you went 
 in by the south garden back-door, cleaned up in the 
 outer scullery, and did not present yourself to your 
 elders and your betters till you had washed and changed. 
 
 'Half-past ten, by Jove! Well, we'll make the sport 
 an excuse. They wouldn't want to see me the first even- 
 ing, at any rate. 'Gone to bed, probably.' He skirted 
 by the open French windows of the drawing-room. ' No, 
 they haven't. They look very comfy in there.' 
 
 He could see his father in his own particular chair, 
 the mother in hers, and the back of a girl at the piano by 
 the big potpourri-jar. The garden showed half divine 
 in the moonlight, and he turned down through the roses 
 to finish his pipe. 
 
 A prelude ended, and there floated out a voice of the 
 kind that in his childhood he used to call 'creamy' — a 
 full, true contralto; and this is the song that he heard, 
 every syllable of it : 
 
 * Over the edge of the purple Down, 
 
 Where the single lamplight gleams. 
 Know ye the road to the Merciful Town 
 That is hard by the Sea of Dreams — 
 Where the poor may lay their wrongs away, 
 
 And the sick may forget to weep? 
 But we — pity us ! Oh, pity us ! — 
 We wakeful ; ah, pity us ! — 
 358 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 We must go back with Policeman Day — 
 Back from the City of Sleep ! 
 
 * Weary they turn from the scroll and crown, 
 
 Fetter and prayer and plough — 
 They that go up to the Merciful Town, 
 
 For her gates are closing now. 
 It is their right in the Baths of Night 
 
 Body and soul to steep : 
 But we — pity us! ah, pity us! — 
 
 We wakeful ; oh, pity us ! — 
 We must go back with Policeman Day — 
 
 Back from the City of Sleep ! 
 
 *Over the edge of the purple Down, 
 
 Ere the tender dreams begin, 
 Look — we may look — at the Merciful Town, 
 
 But we may not enter in ! 
 Outcasts all, from her guarded wall 
 
 Back to our watch we creep : 
 We — pity us! ah, pity us! — 
 
 We wakeful ; oh, pity us ! — 
 We that go back with Policeman Day — 
 
 Back from the City of Sleep !* 
 
 , At the last echo he was aware that his mouth was dry 
 and unknown pulses were beating in the roof of it. 
 The housekeeper, who would have it that he must have 
 fallen in and caught a chill, was waiting to advise him 
 on the stairs, and, since he neither saw nor answered 
 her, carried a wild tale abroad that brought his mother 
 knocking at the door. 
 
 'Anything happened, dear? Harper said she thought 
 you weren't — ' 
 
 359 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'No; it's nothing. I'm all right, mummy. Please 
 don't bother.' 
 
 He did not recognise his own voice, but that was a 
 small matter beside what he was considering. Obviously, 
 most obviously, the whole coincidence was crazy lunacy. 
 He proved it to the satisfaction of Major George Cottar, 
 who was going up to town to-morrow to hear a lecture 
 on the supply of ammunition in the field; and having 
 so proved it, the soul and brain and heart and body of 
 Georgie cried joyously: 'That's the Lily Lock girl — 
 the Lost Continent girl — the Thirty-Mile-Ride girl^ 
 the Brushwood girl ! I know her ! ' 
 
 He waked, stiff and cramped in his chair, to recon- 
 sider the situation by sunlight, when it did not appear 
 normal. But a man must eat, and he went to breakfast, 
 his heart between his teeth, holding himself severely in 
 hand. 
 
 ' Late, as usual,' said the mother. ' My boy, Miriam.' 
 
 A tall girl in black raised her eyes to his, and Georgie' s 
 life training deserted him — just as soon as he realised 
 that she did not know. He stared coolly and critically. 
 There was the abundant black hair, growing in a widow's 
 peak, turned back from the forehead, with that peculiar 
 ripple over the right ear; there were the gray eyes set a 
 little close together; the short upper lip, resolute chin, 
 and the known poise of the head. There was also the 
 small, well-cut mouth that had kissed him. 
 
 'Georgie — dear!' said the mother, amazedly, for Mir^ 
 iam was flushing under the stare. 
 
 *I — I beg your pardon!' he gulped. 'I don't know 
 whether the mother has told you, but I'm rather an 
 idiot at times, specially before I've had my breakfast. 
 It's — it's a family failing.' He turned to explore among 
 
 360 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 the hot-water dishes on the sideboard, rejoicing that she 
 did not know — she did not know. 
 
 His conversation for the rest of the meal was mildly 
 insane, though the mother thought she had never seen 
 her boy look half so handsome. How could any girl, 
 least of all one of Miriam's discernment, forbear to fall 
 down and worship? But deeply Miriam was displeased. 
 She had never been stared at in that fashion before, and 
 promptly retired into her shell when Georgie announced 
 that he had changed his mind about going to town, and 
 would stay to play with Miss Lacy if she had nothing 
 better to do. 
 
 'Oh, but don't let me throw you out. I'm at work. 
 I've things to do all the morning.' 
 
 'What possessed Georgie to behave so oddly?' the 
 mother sighed to herself. 'Miriam's a bundle of feel- 
 ings — like her mother.' 
 
 ' You compose, don't you? Must be a fine thing to be* 
 able to do that. ['Pig — oh, pig!' thought Miriam.] I 
 think I heard you singin' when I came in last night after 
 fishin'. All about a Sea of Dreams, wasn't it? [Miriam 
 shuddered to the core of the soul that afflicted her.] 
 Awfully pretty song. How d'you think of such things?' 
 
 'You only composed the music, dear, didn't you?' 
 
 ' The words too, mummy. I'm sure of it,' said Georgie, 
 with a sparkling eye. No; she did not know. 
 
 ' Yeth ; I wrote the words too.' Miriam spoke slowly, 
 for she knew she lisped when she was nervous. 
 
 'Now how could you tell, Georgie?' said the mother, 
 as delighted as though the youngest major in the army 
 were ten years old, showing off before company. 
 
 'I was sure of it, somehow. Oh, there are heaps of 
 things about me, mummy, that you don't understand. 
 
 361 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 'Looks as if it were goin' to be a hot day — for England. 
 Would you care for a ride this afternoon, Miss Lacy? 
 We can start out after tea, if you'd like it.' 
 
 Miriam could not in decency refuse, but any woman 
 might see she was not filled with delight. 
 
 *That will be very nice, if you take the Bassett Road. 
 It will save me sending Martin down to the village,' said 
 the mother, filling in gaps. 
 
 Like all good managers, the mother had her one weak- 
 ness — a mania for little strategies that should economise 
 horses and vehicles. Her men-folk complained that she 
 turned them into common carriers, and there was a leg- 
 end in the family that she had once said to the pater on 
 the morning of a meet : ' If you should kill near Bassett, 
 dear, and if it isn't too late, would you mind just pop- 
 ping over and matching me this? ' 
 
 * I knew that was coming. You'd never miss a chance, 
 mother. If it's fish or a trunk, I won't.' Georgie 
 laughed. 
 
 * It's only a duck. They can do it up very neatly at 
 Mallett's,' said the mother simply. *You won't mind, 
 will you? We'll have a scratch dinner at nine, because 
 it's so hot.' 
 
 The long summer day dragged itself out for centuries; 
 but at last there was tea on the lawn, and Miriam ap- 
 peared. 
 
 She was in the saddle before he could offer to help, 
 with the clean spring of the child who mounted the pony 
 for the Thirty-Mile-Ride. The day held mercilessly, 
 though Georgie got down thrice to look for imaginary 
 stones in Rufus's foot. One cannot say even simple 
 things in broad light, and this that Georgie meditated 
 was not simple. So he spoke seldom, and Miriam was 
 
 362 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 divided between relief and scorn. It annoyed her that 
 the great hulking thing should know she had written 
 the words of the over-night song; for though a maiden 
 may sing her most secret fancies aloud, she does not care 
 to have them trampled over by the male Philistine. 
 They rode into the little red-brick street of Bassett, and 
 Georgie made untold fuss over the disposition of that 
 duck. It must go in just such a package, and be fast- 
 ened to the saddle in just such a manner, though eight 
 o'clock had passed and they were miles from dinner. 
 
 ' We must be quick ! ' said Miriam, bored and angry. 
 
 'There's no great hurry; but we can cut over Dow- 
 head Down, and let 'em out on the grass. That will 
 save us half an hour.' 
 
 The horses capered on the short, sweet-smelling turf, 
 and the delaying shadows gathered in the valley as they 
 cantered over the great dun down that overhangs Bas- 
 sett and the Western coaching-road. Insensibly the 
 pace quickened without thought of mole-hills; Rufus, 
 gentleman that he was, waiting on Miriam's Dandy till 
 they should have cleared the rise. Then down the two- 
 mile slope they raced together, the wind whistling in 
 their ears, to the steady throb of eight hoofs and the 
 light click-click of the shifting bits. 
 
 'Oh, that was glorious!' Miriam cried, reining in. 
 'Dandy and I are old friends, but I don't think we've 
 ever gone better together.' 
 
 'No; but you've gone quicker, once or twice.' 
 
 'Really? When?' 
 
 Georgie moistened his lips. 'Don't you remember 
 the Thirty-Mile-Ride — with me — when "They" were 
 after us — on the beach road, with the sea to the left — 
 going toward the lamp-post on the Downs?' 
 
 363 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 The girl gasped. 'What — what do you mean?' she 
 said hysterically. 
 
 'The Thirty-Mile-Ride, and— and all the rest of 
 it.' 
 
 'You mean — ? I didn't sing anything about the 
 Thirty-Mile-Ride. I know I didn't. I have never told 
 a living soul.' 
 
 'You told about Policeman Day, and the lamp at the 
 top of the downs, and the City of Sleep. It all joins on, 
 you know — it's the same country — and it was easy 
 enough to see where you had been.' 
 
 'Good God! — It joins on — of course it does; but — I 
 have been — you have been — Oh, let's walk, please, or 
 I shall fall off!' 
 
 Georgie ranged alongside, and laid a hand that shook 
 below her bridle-hand, pulling Dandy into a walk. 
 Miriam was sobbing as he had seen a man sob under the 
 touch of the bullet. 
 
 'It's all right — it's all right,' he whispered feebly. 
 ' Only — only it's true, you know.' 
 
 'True! Am I mad?' 
 
 *Not unless I'm mad as well. Do try to think a 
 minute quietly. How could any one conceivably know 
 anything about the Thirty-Mile-Ride having anything 
 to do with you, unless he had been there? ' 
 
 ' But where? But where? Tell me ! ' 
 
 'There — wherever it may be. In our country, I 
 suppose. Do you remember the first time you rode it — 
 the Thirty-Mile-Ride, I mean? You must.' 
 
 * It was all dreams — all dreams ! ' 
 
 'Yes, but tell, please; because I know.' 
 
 'Let me think. I — we were on no account to make 
 any noise — on no account to make any noise.' She was 
 
 364 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 staring between Dandy's ears with eyes that did not 
 see, and a suffocating heart. 
 
 'Because "It" was dying in the big house?' Georgie 
 went on, reining in again. 
 
 'There was a garden with green-and-gilt railings — all 
 hot. Do you remember? ' 
 
 'I ought to. I was sitting on the other side of the 
 bed before "It" coughed and "They" came in.' 
 
 'You!' — the deep voice was unnaturally full and 
 strong, and the girl's wide-opened eyes burned in the 
 dusk as she stared him through and through. 'Then 
 you're the Boy — my Brushwood Boy, and I've known 
 you all my life ! ' 
 
 She fell forward on Dandy's neck. Georgie forced 
 himself out of the weakness that was overmastering his 
 limbs, and slid an arm round her waist. The head 
 dropped on his shoulder, and he found himself with 
 parched lips saying things that up till then he believed 
 existed only in printed works of fiction. Mercifully the 
 horses were quiet. She made no attempt to draw her- 
 self away when she recovered, but lay still, whispering, 
 'Of course you're the Boy, and I didn't know — I didn't 
 know.' 
 
 'I knew last night; and when I saw you at break- 
 fast—' 
 
 'Oh, that was why! I wondered at the time. You 
 would, of course.' 
 
 ' I couldn't speak before this. Keep your head where 
 it is, dear. It's all right now — all right now, isn't it? ' 
 
 'But how was it I didn't know — after all these years 
 and years? I remember — oh, what lots of things I 
 remember ! ' 
 
 'Tell me some. I'll look after the horses.' 
 
 365 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 * I remember waiting for you when the steamer came 
 in. Do you?' 
 
 'At the Lily Lock, beyond Hong-Kong and Java?' 
 
 'Do you call it that, too?' 
 
 'You told me it was when I was lost in the continent. 
 That was you that showed me the way through the 
 mountains?' 
 
 'When the islands slid? It must have been, because 
 you're the only one I remember. All the others were 
 "Them."' 
 
 'Awful brutes they were, too.' 
 
 ' Yes, I remember showing you the Thirty-Mile-Ride 
 the first time. You ride just as you used to — then. 
 You are you!' 
 
 'That's odd. I thought that of you this afternoon. 
 Isn't it wonderful? ' 
 
 'What does it all mean? Why should you and I of 
 the millions of people in the world have this — this thing 
 between us? What does it mean? I'm frightened.' 
 
 'This!' said Georgie. The horses quickened their 
 pace. They thought they had heard an order. 'Per- 
 haps when we die we may find out more, but it means 
 this now.' 
 
 There was no answer. What could she say? As the 
 world went, they had known each other rather less than 
 eight and a half hours, but the matter was one that did 
 not concern the world. There was a very long silence, 
 while the breath in their nostrils drew cold and sharp 
 as it might have been fumes of ether. 
 
 'That's the second,' Georgie whispered. 'You re- 
 member, don't you?' 
 
 ' It's not ! '—furiously. ' It's not ! ' 
 
 'On the downs the other night — months ago. You 
 
 366 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 were just as you are now, and we went over the country 
 for miles and miles.' 
 
 ' It was all empty, too. They had gone away. No- 
 body frightened us. I wonder why, Boy? ' 
 
 'Oh, if you remember that, you must remember the 
 rest. Confess!' 
 
 'I remember lots of things, but I know I didn't. I 
 never have — till just now.' 
 
 'You did, dear.' 
 
 'I know I didn't, because — oh, it's no use keeping 
 anything back! — because I truthfully meant to.' 
 
 'And truthfully did.' 
 
 'No; meant to; but some one else came by.' 
 
 'There wasn't any one else. There never has been.' 
 
 ' There was — there always is. It was another woman 
 — out there on the sea. I saw her. It was the 26th of 
 May. I've got it written down somewhere.' 
 
 ' Oh, you've kept a record of your dreams, too? That's 
 odd about the other woman, because I happened to be 
 on the sea just then.' 
 
 'I was right. How do I know what you've done — 
 when you were awake. And I thought it was only you ! ' 
 
 'You never were more wrong in your life. What a 
 little temper you've got! Listen to me a minute, dear.' 
 And Georgie, though he knew it not, committed black 
 perjury. ' It — it isn't the kind of thing one says to any 
 one, because they'd laugh; but on my word and honour, 
 darling, I've never been kissed by a living soul outside 
 my own people in all my life. Don't laugh, dear. I 
 wouldn't tell any one but you, but it's the solemn truth.* 
 
 ' I knew ! You are you. Oh, I knew you'd come some 
 day; but I didn't know you were you in the least till you 
 spoke.' 
 
 367 
 
THE DAY'S WORK 
 
 *Then give me another.' 
 
 'And you never cared or looked anywhere? Why, all 
 the round world must have loved you from the very 
 minute they saw you, Boy.' 
 
 'They kept it to themselves if they did. No; I never 
 cared.' 
 
 ' And we shall be late for dinner — horribly late. Oh, 
 how can I look at you in the light before your mother — 
 and mine ! ' 
 
 'We'll play you're Miss Lacy till the proper time 
 comes. What's the shortest limit for people to get 
 engaged? S'pose we have got to go through all the 
 fuss of an engagement, haven't we?' 
 
 ' Oh, I don't want to talk about that. It's so common- 
 place. I've thought of something that you don't know. 
 I'm sure of it. What's my name? ' 
 
 ' Miri — no, it isn't, by Jove ! Wait half a second, and 
 it'll come back to me. You aren't — ^you can't? Why, 
 those old tales — before I went to school! I've never 
 thought of 'em from that day to this. Are you the 
 original, only Annie-an-louise? ' 
 
 'It was what you always called me ever since the 
 beginning. Oh! We've turned into the avenue, and 
 we must be an hour late.' 
 
 ' What does it matter? The chain goes as far back as 
 those days? It must, of course — of course it must. 
 I've got to ride round with this pestilent old bird — 
 confound him!' 
 
 * " Ha ! ha ! said the duck, laughing." Do you remem- 
 ber that?' 
 
 'Yes, I do — flower-pots on my feet, and all. We've 
 been together all this while; and I've got to say good- 
 bye to you till dinner. 'Sure I'll see you at dinner- 
 
 368 
 
THE BRUSHWOOD BOY 
 
 time? 'Sure you won't sneak up to your room, darling, 
 and leave me all the evening? Good-bye, dear — good- 
 bye.' 
 
 'Good-bye, Boy, good-bye. Mind the arch! Don't 
 let Rufus bolt into his stable. Good-bye. Yes, I'll 
 come down to dinner; but — what shall I do when I see 
 you in the light!' 
 
 THE END 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Disturber of Traffic 3 
 
 A Conference of the Powers 
 
 
 
 23 
 
 My Lord the Elephant 
 
 
 
 41 
 
 One View of the Question . 
 
 
 
 66 
 
 'The Finest Story in the World' 
 
 
 
 88 
 
 His Private Honour 
 
 ' 
 
 
 126 
 
 A Matter of Fact .... 
 
 
 
 150 
 
 The Lost Legion .... 
 
 
 
 167 
 
 In the Rukh .... 
 
 
 
 183 
 
 'Brugglesmith' .... 
 
 
 
 218 
 
 ' Love-o '-Women ' 
 
 
 
 238 
 
 The Record of Badalia Herodsfoot 
 
 
 
 . 268 
 
 Judson and the Empire 
 
 
 
 . 297 
 
 The Children of the Zodiac 
 
 
 
 . 329 
 
 Envoy 
 
 
 
 . 349 
 
TO THE TRUE ROMANCE 
 
 THY face is far from this our war, 
 Our call and counter-cry, 
 ;I shall not find Thee quick and kind, 
 Nor know Thee till I die. 
 Enough for me in dreams to see 
 
 And touch Thy garments' hem: 
 Thy feet have trod so near to God 
 I may not follow them. 
 
 Through wantonness if men profess 
 
 They weary of Thy parts, 
 E'en let them die at blasphemy 
 
 And perish with their arts; 
 But we that love, but we that prove 
 
 Thine excellence august. 
 While we adore discover more 
 
 Thee perfect, wise, and just. 
 
 Since spoken word Man's spirit stirred 
 
 Beyond his belly-need. 
 What is is Thine of fair design 
 
 In thought and craft and deed; 
 Each stroke aright of toil and fight, 
 
 That was and that shall be, 
 And hope too high wherefore we die, 
 
 Has birth and worth in Thee. 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee 
 
 To gild his dross thereby, 
 And knowledge sure that he endure 
 
 A child until he die — 
 For to make plain that man's disdain 
 
 Is but new Beauty's birth — 
 For to possess in cheerfulness 
 
 The joy of all the earth. 
 
 As Thou didst teach all lovers speech 
 
 And Life her mystery, 
 So shalt Thou rule by every school 
 
 Till love and longing die, 
 Who wast or yet the lights were set, 
 
 A whisper in the Void, 
 Who shalt be sung through planets young 
 
 When this is clean destroyed. 
 
 Beyond the bounds our staring rounds. 
 
 Across the pressing dark, 
 The children wise of outer skies 
 
 Look hitherward and mark 
 A light that shifts, a glare that drifts. 
 
 Rekindling thus and thus, 
 Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne 
 
 Strange tales to them of us. 
 
 Time hath no tide but must abide 
 
 The servant of Thy will; 
 Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme 
 
 The ranging stars stand still — 
 Regent of spheres that lock our fears 
 
 Our hopes invisible, 
 Oh 'twas certes at Thy decrees 
 
 We fashioned Heaven and Hell! 
 
TO THE TRUE ROMANCE 
 
 Pure Wisdom hath no certain path 
 
 That lacks thy morning-eyne, 
 And captains bold by Thee controlled 
 
 Most like to Gods design; 
 Thou art the Voice to kingly boys 
 
 To lift them through the fight, 
 And Comfortress of Unsuccess, 
 
 To give the dead good-night — 
 
 A veil to draw 'twixt God His Law 
 
 And Man's infirmity, 
 A shadow kind to dumb and blind 
 
 The shambles where we die; 
 A sum to trick th' arithmetic 
 
 Too base of leaguing odds, 
 The spur of trust, the curb of lust, 
 
 Thou handmaid of the Gods! 
 
 Oh Charity, all patiently 
 
 Abiding wrack and scaith! 
 Oh Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats 
 
 Yet drops no jot of faith ! 
 Devil and brute Thou dost transmute 
 
 To higher, lordlier show. 
 Who art in sooth that utter Truth 
 
 The careless angels know ! 
 
 Thy face is far from this our war. 
 
 Our call and counter-cry, 
 I may not find Thee quick and kind, 
 
 Nor know Thee till I die. 
 
 Yet may I look with heart unshook 
 On blow brought home or missed — 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Yet may I hear with equal ear 
 The clarions down the List; 
 
 Yet set my lance above mischance 
 And ride the barriere — 
 
 Oh, hit or miss, how little 'tis, 
 My lady is not there ! 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC 
 
 (1891) 
 
 From the wheel and the drift of Things 
 
 Deliver us, good Lord ; 
 And we will face the wrath of Kings, 
 
 The faggot, and the sword. 
 
 Lay not Thy toil before our eyes, 
 
 Nor vex us with Thy wars, 
 Lest we should feel the straining skies 
 
 O'ertrod by trampling stars. 
 
 A veil 'twixt us and Thee, dread Lord, 
 
 A veil 'twixt us and Thee : 
 Lest we should hear too clear, too clear. 
 
 And unto madness see ! 
 
 Miriam Cohen. 
 
 HE Brothers of the Trinity order that none un- 
 connected with their service shall be found in or 
 on one of their Lights during the hours of dark- 
 ness; but their servants can be made to think otherwise. 
 If you are fair-spoken and take an interest in their duties, 
 they will allow you to sit with them through the long 
 night and help to scare the ships into mid-channel. 
 
 Of the English south-coast Lights, that of St. Cecilia- 
 under-the-Cliff is the most powerful, for it guards a very 
 
 3 
 
 .T 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 foggy coast. When the sea-mist veils all, St. Cecilia 
 turns a hooded head to the sea and sings a song of two 
 words once every minute. From the land that song re- 
 sembles the bellowing of a brazen bull ; but off-shore they 
 understand, and the steamers grunt gratefully in answer. 
 
 Fenwick, who was on duty one night, lent me a pair 
 of black glass spectacles, without which no man can look 
 at the Light unblinded, and busied himself in last touches 
 to the lenses before twilight fell. The width of the 
 English Channel beneath us lay as smooth and as many- 
 coloured as the inside of an oyster shell. A little Sun- 
 derland cargo-boat had made her signal to Lloyd's 
 Agency, half a mile up the coast, and was lumbering 
 down to the sunset, her wake lying white behind her. 
 One star came out over the cliffs, the waters turned to 
 lead colour, and St. Cecilia's Light shot out across the 
 sea in eight long pencils that wheeled slowly from right 
 to left, melted into one beam of solid light laid down di- 
 rectly in front of the tower, dissolved again into eight, 
 and passed away. The light-frame of the thousand 
 lenses circled on its rollers, and the compressed-air en- 
 gine that drove it hummed like a blue-bottle under a 
 glass. The hand of the indicator on the wall pulsed 
 from mark to mark. Eight pulse-beats timed one half- 
 revolution of the Light; neither more nor less. 
 
 Fenwick checked the first few revolutions carefully; 
 opened the engine's feed-pipe a trifle, looked at the rac- 
 ing governor, and again at the indicator, and said: 
 * She'll do for the next few hours. We've just sent our 
 regular engine to London, and this spare one's not by 
 any manner so accurate.' 
 
 *And what would happen if the compressed air gave 
 out?' I asked. 
 
 4 
 
THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC 
 
 'We'd have to turn the flash by hand, keeping an eye 
 on the indicator. There's a regular crank for that. 
 But it hasn't happened yet. We'll need all our com- 
 pressed air to-night.' 
 
 'Why?' said I. I had been watching him for not 
 more than a minute. 
 
 'Look,' he answered, and I saw that the dead sea-mist 
 had risen out of the lifeless sea and wrapped us while my 
 back had been turned. The pencils of the Light marched 
 staggeringly across tilted floors of white cloud. From 
 the balcony round the light-room the white walls of the 
 lighthouse ran down into swirling, smoking space. The 
 noise of the tide coming in very lazily over the rocks was 
 choked down to a thick drawl. 
 
 'That's the way our sea-fogs come,' said Fenwick, 
 with an air of ownership. ' Hark, now, to that little fool 
 calling out 'fore he's hurt.' 
 
 Something in the mist was bleating Hke an indignant 
 calf; it might have been half a mile or half a hundred 
 miles away. 
 
 'Does he suppose we've gone to bed?' continued Fen- 
 v.ick. 'You'll hear us talk to him in a minute. He 
 knows pufTickly where he is, and he's carrying on to be 
 told like if he was insured.' 
 
 'Who is "he"?' 
 
 * That Sunderland boat, o' course. Ah ! ' 
 
 I could hear a steam-engine hiss down below in the 
 mist where the dynamos that fed the Light were clack- 
 ing together. Then there came a roar that split the fog 
 and shook the lighthouse. 
 
 * Git-toot!' blared the fog-horn of St. Cecilia. The 
 bleating ceased. 
 
 'Little fool!' Fenwick repeated. Then, listening: 
 
 5 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 'Blest if that aren't another of them! Well, well, they 
 always say that a fog do draw the ships of the sea to- 
 gether. They'll be calling all night, and so'U the siren. 
 We're expecting some tea-ships up-Channel. . . . 
 If you put my coat on that chair, you'll feel more so-fash, 
 sir.' 
 
 It is no pleasant thing to thrust your company upon a 
 man for the night. I looked at Fenwick, and Fenwick 
 looked at me; each gauging the other's capacities for 
 boring and being bored. Fenwick was an old, clean- 
 shaven, gray-haired man who had followed the sea for 
 thirty years, and knew nothing of the land except the 
 lighthouse in which he served. He fenced cautiously to 
 find out the little that I knew and talked down to my 
 level, till it came out that I had met a captain in the 
 merchant service who had once commanded a ship in 
 which Fenwick's son had served; and further, that I had 
 seen some places that Fenwick had touched at. He be- 
 gan with a dissertation on pilotage in the Hugli. I had 
 been privileged to know a Hugli pilot intimately. Fen- 
 wick had only seen the imposing and masterful breed 
 from a ship's chains, and his intercourse had been cut 
 down to 'Quarter less five,' and remarks of a strictly 
 business-like nature. Hereupon he ceased to talk down 
 to me, and became so amazingly technical that I was 
 forced to beg him to explain every other sentence. This 
 set him fully at his ease; and then we spoke as men to- 
 gether, each too interested to think of anything except 
 the subject in hand. And that subject was wrecks, and 
 voyages, and old-time trading, and ships cast away in 
 desolate seas, steamers we both had known, their merits 
 and demerits, lading, Lloyd's, and, above all. Lights. 
 The talk always came back to Lights: Lights of the 
 
 6 
 
THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC 
 
 Channel; Lights on forgotten islands, and men forgotten 
 on them ; Light-ships — two months' duty and one month's 
 leave — tossing on kinked cables in ever troubled tide- 
 ways; and Lights that men had seen where never light- 
 house was marked on the charts. 
 
 Omitting all those stories, and omitting also the won- 
 derful ways by which he arrived at them, I tell here, from 
 Fenwick's mouth, one that was not the least amazing. 
 It was delivered in pieces between the roller-skate rattle 
 of the revolving lenses, the bellowing of the fog-horn be- 
 low, the answering calls from the sea, and the sharp tap 
 of reckless night-birds that flung themselves at the 
 glasses. It concerned a man called Dowse, once an in- 
 timate friend of Fenwick, now a waterman at Ports- 
 mouth, believing that the guilt of blood is on his head, 
 and finding no rest either at Portsmouth or Gosport 
 Hard. 
 
 . . . ' And if anybody was to come to you and say, 
 "I know the Javva currents," don't you listen to him; 
 for those currents is never yet known to mortal man. 
 Sometimes they're here, sometimes they're there, but 
 they never runs less than five knots an hour through and 
 among those islands of the Eastern Archipelagus. There's 
 reverse currents in the Gulf of Boni — and that's up north 
 in Celebes — which no man can explain ; and through all 
 those Jawa passages from the Bali Narrows, Dutch 
 Gut, and Ombay, which I take it is the safest, they chop 
 and they change, and they banks the tides fust on one 
 shore and then on another, till your ship's tore in two. 
 I've come through the Bali Narrows, stern first, in the 
 heart o' the southeast monsoon, with sou'-sou'-west 
 wind blowing atop of the northerly flood, and our skipper 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 said he wouldn't do it again, not for all Jamrach's. 
 You've heard o' Jamrach's, sir?' 
 
 'Yes; and was Dowse stationed in the Bah Narrows?' 
 I said. 
 
 'No; he was not at Bali, but much more east o' them 
 passages, and that's Flores Strait, at the east end o' 
 Flores. It's all on the way south to Australia when you're 
 running through that Eastern Archipelagus. Some- 
 times you go through Bali Narrows if you're full-powered, 
 and sometimes through Flores Strait, so as to stand 
 south at once, and fetch round Timor, keeping well clear 
 o' the Sahul Bank. Elseways, if you aren't full-powered, 
 why it stands to reason you go round by the Ombay 
 Passage, keeping careful to the north side. You under- 
 stand that, sir? ' 
 
 I was not full-powered, and judged it safer to keep to 
 the north side — of Silence. 
 
 ' And on Flores Strait, in the fairway between Adonare 
 Island and the mainland, they put Dowse in charge of a 
 screw-pile Light called the Wurlee Light. It's less than 
 a mile across the head of Flores Strait. Then it opens 
 out to ten or twelve mile for Solar Strait, and then it 
 narrows again to a three-mile gut, with a topplin' flamin' 
 volcano by it. That's old Loby Toby by Loby Toby 
 Strait, and if you keep his Light and the Wurlee Light in 
 a line you won't take much harm, not on the darkest 
 night. That's what Dowse told me, and I can well be- 
 lieve him, knowing these seas myself; but you must ever 
 be mindful of the currents. And there they put Dowse, 
 since he was the only man that that Dutch Government 
 which owns Flores could find that would go to Wurlee 
 and tend a fixed Light. Mostly they uses Dutch and 
 Italians; Englishmen being said to drink when alone. 
 
THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC 
 
 I never could rightly find out what made Dowse accept 
 of that position, but accept he did, and used to sit for to 
 watch the tigers come out of the forests to hunt for crabs 
 and such like round about the lighthouse at low tide. 
 The water was always warm in those parts, as I know 
 well, and uncommon sticky, and it ran with the tides as 
 thick and smooth as hogwash in a trough. There was 
 another man along with Dowse in the Light, but he 
 wasn't rightly a man. He was a Kling. No, nor yet a 
 Kling he wasn't, but his skin was in little flakes and 
 cracks all over, from living so much in the salt water as 
 was his usual custom. His hands was all webby-foot, 
 too. He was called, I remember Dowse saying now, an 
 Orange-Lord, on account of his habits. You've heard 
 of an Orange-Lord, sir? ' 
 
 *Orang-Laut?' I suggested. 
 
 'That's the name,' said Fenwick, smacking his knee. 
 'An Orang-Laut, of course, and his name was Challong; 
 what they call a sea-gipsy. Dowse told me that that 
 man, long hair and all, would go swimming up and down 
 the straits just for something to do; running down on 
 one tide and back again with the other, swimming side- 
 stroke, and the tides going tremenjus strong. Elseways 
 he'd be skipping about the beach along with the tigers 
 at low tide, for he was most part a beast; or he'd sit in a 
 little boat praying to old Loby Toby of an evening when 
 the volcano was spitting red at the south end of the strait. 
 Dowse told me that he wasn't a companionable man, 
 like you and me might have been to Dowse. 
 
 *Now I can never rightly come at what it was that 
 began to ail Dowse after he had been there a year or 
 something less. He was saving of all his pay and tend- 
 ing to his Light, and now and again he'd have a fight with 
 
 9 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Challong and tip him off the Light into the sea. Then, 
 he told me, his head began to feel streaky from looking 
 at the tide so long. He said there was long streaks of 
 white running inside it; like wall-paper that hadn't been 
 properly pasted up, he said. The streaks, they would 
 run with the tides, north and south, twice a day, accord- 
 in' to them currents, and he'd lie down on the planking 
 — it was a screw-pile Light — with his eye to a crack and 
 watch the water streaking through the piles >ust so quiet 
 as hogwash. He said the only comfort he got was at 
 slack water. Then the streaks in his head went round 
 and round like a sampan in a tide-rip ; but that was heaven, 
 he said, to the other kind of streaks — the straight ones that 
 looked like arrows on a wind-chart, but much more regu- 
 lar, and that was the trouble of it. No more he couldn't 
 ever keep his eyes off the tides that ran up and down so 
 strong, but as soon as ever he looked at the high hills 
 standing all along Flores Strait for rest and comfort, his 
 eyes would be pulled down like to the nesty streaky 
 water ; and when they once got there he couldn't pull them 
 away again till the tide changed. He told me ail this 
 himself, speaking just as though he was talking of some- 
 body else.' 
 
 * Where did you meet him?' I asked. 
 
 * In Portsmouth harbour, a-cleaning the brasses of a 
 Ryde boat, but I'd known him off and on through follow- 
 ing the sea for many years. Yes, he spoke about him- 
 self very curious, and all as if he was in the next room 
 laying there dead. Those streaks, they preyed upon his 
 intellecks, he said ; and he made up his mind, every time 
 that the Dutch gunboat that attends to the Lights in 
 those parts come along, that he'd ask to be took off. 
 But as soon as she did come something went click in his 
 
 10 
 
THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC 
 
 throat, and he was so took up with watching her masts, 
 because they ran longways, in the contrary direction to 
 his streaks, that he could never say a word until she was 
 gone away and her masts was under sea again. Then, 
 he said, he'd cry by the hour; and Challong swum round 
 and round the Light, laughin' at him and splashin' water 
 with his webby-foot hands. At last he took it into his 
 pore sick head that the ships, and particularly the steam- 
 ers that came by, — there wasn't many of them, — made 
 the streaks, instead of the tides as was natural. He used 
 to sit, he told me, cursing every boat that come along, — 
 sometimes a junk, sometimes a Dutch brig, and now and 
 again a steamer rounding Flores Head and poking about 
 in the mouth of the strait. Or there'd come a boat from 
 Australia running north past old Loby Toby hunting for 
 a fair current, but never throwing out any papers that 
 Challong might pick up for Dowse to read. Generally 
 speaking, the steamers kept more westerly, but now and 
 again they came looking for Timor and the west coast of 
 Australia. Dowse used to shout to them to go round by 
 the Ombay Passage, and not to come streaking past him 
 making the water all streaky, but it wasn't likely they'd 
 hear. He says to himself after a month, "I'll give them 
 one more chance," he says. "If the next boat don't 
 attend to my just representations," — he says he remem- 
 bers using those very words to Challong, — " I'll stop the 
 fairway." 
 
 'The next boat was a Two-streak cargo-boat very 
 anxious to make her northing. She waddled through 
 under old Loby Toby at the south end of the strait, and 
 she passed within a quarter of a mile of the Wurlee Light 
 at the north end, in seventeen fathom o' water, the tide 
 against her. Dowse took the trouble to come out with 
 
 11 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Challong in a little prow that they had, — all bamboos 
 and leakage, — and he lay in the fairway waving a palm 
 branch, and, so he told me, wondering why and what for 
 he was making this fool of himself. Up come the Two- 
 streak boat, and Dowse shouts : " Don't you come this 
 way again, making my head all streaky! Go round by 
 Ombay, and leave me alone." Some one looks over the 
 port bulwarks and shies a banana at Dowse, and that's 
 all. Dowse sits down in the bottom of the boat and 
 cries fit to break his heart. Then he says, "Challong, 
 what am I a-crying for?" and they fetches up by the 
 Wurlee Light on the half-flood. 
 
 ' "Challong," he says, "there's too much traffic here, 
 and that's why the water's so streaky as it is. It's the 
 junks and the brigs and the steamers that do it," he says; 
 and all the time he was speaking he was thinking, "Lord, 
 Lord, what a crazy fool I am!" Challong said nothing, 
 because he couldn't speak a word of English except say 
 "dam," and he said that where you or me would say 
 "yes." Dowse lay down on the planking of the Light 
 with his eye to the crack, and he saw the muddy water 
 streaking below, and he never said a word till slack 
 water, because the streaks kept him tongue-tied at such 
 times. At slack water he says, " Challong, we must buoy 
 this fairway for wrecks," and he holds up his hands sev- 
 eral times, showing that dozens of wrecks had come 
 about in the fairway; and Challong says, "Dam." 
 
 ' That very afternoon he and Challong rows to Wurlee, 
 the village in the woods that the Light was named after, 
 and buys canes, — stacks and stacks of canes, and coir 
 rope thick and fine, all sorts, — and they sets to work 
 making square floats by lashing of the canes together. 
 Dowse said he took longer over those floats than might 
 
 12 
 
THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC 
 
 have been needed, because he rejoiced m the corners, 
 they being square, and the streaks in his head all run- 
 ning longways. He lashed the canes together, criss- 
 cross and thwartways, — any way but longways, — and 
 they made up a dozen twelve-foot-square floats, like 
 rafts. Then he stepped a twelve-foot bamboo or a bun- 
 dle of canes in the centre, and to the head of that he 
 lashed a big six-foot W letter, all made of canes, and 
 painted the float dark green and the W white, as a wreck 
 buoy should be painted. Between them two they makes 
 a round dozen of these new kind of wreck-buoys, and it 
 was a two months' job. There was no big traffic, owing 
 to it being on the turn of the monsoon, but what there 
 was Dowse cursed at, and the streaks in his head, they 
 ran with the tides, as usual. 
 
 ' Day after day, so soon as a buoy was ready, Challong 
 would take it out, with a big rock that half sunk the 
 prow and a bamboo grapnel, and drop it dead in the fair- 
 way. He did this day or night, and Dowse could see 
 him of a clear night, when the sea brimed, climbing about 
 the buoys with the sea-fire dripping off him. They was 
 all put into place, twelve of them, in seventeen-fathom 
 water; not in a straight line, on account of a well-known 
 shoal there, but slantways, and two, one behind the 
 other, mostly in the centre of the fairway. You must 
 keep the centre of those Jawa currents, for currents at 
 the side is different, and in narrow water, before you can 
 turn a spoke, you get your nose took round and rubbed 
 upon the rocks and the woods. Dowse knew that just 
 as well as any skipper. Likeways he knew that no skip- 
 per daren't run through uncharted wrecks in a six-knot 
 current. He told me he used to lie outside the Light 
 watching his buoys ducking and dipping so friendly with 
 
 13 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 the tide; and the motion was comforting to him on ac- 
 count of its being different from the run of the streaks in 
 his head. 
 
 'Three weeks after he'd done his business up comes a 
 steamer through Loby Toby Straits, thinking she'd run 
 into Flores Sea before night. He saw her slow down; 
 then she backed. Then one man and another come up 
 on the bridge, and he could see there was a regular pow- 
 wow, and the flood was driving her right on to Dowse's 
 wreck-buoys. After that she spun round and went back 
 south, and Dowse nearly killed himself with laughing. 
 But a few weeks after that a couple of junks came shoul- 
 dering through from the north, arm in arm, like junks 
 go. It takes a good deal to make a Chinaman under- 
 stand danger. They junks set well in the current, and 
 went down the fairway, right among the buoys, ten 
 knots an hour, blowing horns and banging tin pots all 
 the time. That made Dowse very angry; he having 
 taken so much trouble to stop the fairway. No boats 
 run Flores Straits by night, but it seemed to Dowse that 
 if junks'd do that in the day, the Lord knew but what a 
 steamer might trip over his buoys at night; and he sent 
 Challong to run a coir rope between three of the buoys 
 in the middle of the fairway, and he fixed naked lights 
 of coir steeped in oil to that rope. The tides was the 
 only things that moved in those seas, for the airs was 
 dead still till they began to blow, and then they would 
 blow your hair off. Challong tended those lights ever>^ 
 night after the junks had been so impident, — four lights 
 in about a quarter of a mile hung up in iron skillets on 
 the rope ; and when they was alight, — and coir burns well, 
 very like a lamp wick, — the fairway seemed more mad- 
 -der than anything else in the world. First there was the 
 
 14 
 
THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC 
 
 Wurlee Light, then these four queer lights that couldn't 
 be riding-lights, almost flush with the water, and behind 
 them, twenty mile off, but the biggest light of all, there 
 was the red top of old Loby Toby volcano. Dowse told 
 me that he used to go out in the prow and look at his 
 handiwork, and it made him scared, being like no lights 
 that ever was flxed. 
 
 'By and by some more steamers came along, snorting 
 and snifting at the buoys, but never going through, and 
 Dowse says to himself: "Thank goodness I've taught 
 them not to come streaking through my water. Ombay 
 Passage is good enough for them and the like of them." 
 But he didn't remember how quick that sort of news 
 spreads among the shipping. Every steamer that 
 fetched up by those buoys told another steamer and all 
 the port ofTicers concerned in those seas that there was 
 something wrong with Flores Straits that hadn't been 
 charted yet. It was block-buoyed for wrecks in the 
 fairway, they said, and no sort of passage to use. Well, 
 the Dutch, of course they didn't know anything about it. 
 They thought our Admiralty Survey had been there, 
 and they thought it very queer but neighbourly. You 
 understand us English are always looking up marks and 
 lighting sea-ways all the world over, never asking with 
 your leave or by your leave, seeing that the sea concerns 
 us more than any one else. So the news went to and 
 back from Flores to Bali, and Bali to Probolingo, where 
 the railway is that runs to Batavia. All through them 
 Jawa seas everybody got the word to keep clear o' 
 Flores Straits, and Dowse, he was left alone except for 
 such steamers and small craft as didn't know. They'd 
 come up and look at the straits like a bull over a gate, 
 but those nodding wreck-buoys scared them away. By 
 
 15 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 and by the Admiralty Survey ship — the "Britomarte" 
 I think she was — lay in Macassar Roads off Fort Rotter- 
 dam, alongside of the "Amboina," a dirty little Dutch 
 gunboat that used to clean there; and the Dutch captain 
 says to our captain, "What's wrong with Flores Straits?" 
 he says. 
 
 ' "Blowed if I know," says our captain, who'd just 
 come up from the Angelica Shoal. 
 
 ' "Then why did you go and buoy it? " says the Dutch- 
 man. 
 
 ' "Blowed if I have," says our captain. "That's your 
 lookout." 
 
 ' "Buoyed it is," says the Dutch captain, "according 
 to what they tell me; and a whole fleet of wreck-buoys, 
 too." 
 
 ' "Gummy!" says our captain. "It's a dorg's life at 
 sea, any way. I must have a look at this. You come 
 along after me as soon as you can " ; and down he skipped 
 that very night, round the heel of Celebes, three days' 
 steam to Flores Head, and he met a Two-streak liner, 
 very angry, backing out of the head of the strait; and 
 the merchant captain gave our Survey ship something 
 of his mind for leaving wrecks uncharted in those narrow 
 waters and wasting his company's coal. 
 
 ' " It's no fault o* mine," says our captain. 
 
 ' "I don't care whose fault it is," says the merchant 
 captain, who had come aboard to speak to him just at 
 dusk. "The fairway's choked with wreck enough to 
 knock a hole through a dock-gate. I saw their big ugly 
 masts sticking up just under my forefoot. Lord ha' 
 mercy on us!" he says, spinning round. "The place is 
 like Regent Street of a hot summer night." 
 
 'And so it was. They two looked at Flores Straits, 
 
 16 
 
THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC 
 
 and they saw lights one after the other stringing across 
 the fairway. Dowse, he had seen the steamers hanging 
 about there before dark, and he said to Challong: "We'll 
 give 'em something to remember. Get all the skillets 
 and iron pots you can and hang them up alongside o' the 
 regular four lights. We must teach 'em to go round by 
 the Ombay Passage, or they'll be streaking up our water 
 again ! " Challong took a header off the lighthouse, got 
 aboard the little leaking prow, with his coir soaked in oil 
 and all the skillets he could muster, and be began to show 
 his lights, four regulation ones and half-a-dozen new 
 lights hung on that rope which was a little above the 
 water. Then he went to all the spare buoys with all his 
 spare coir, and hung a skillet-flare on every pole that he 
 could get at, — about seven poles. So you see, taking 
 one with another, there was the Wurlee Light, four lights 
 on the rope between the three centre fairway wreck- 
 buoys that was hung out as a usual custom, six or eight 
 extry ones that Challong had hung up on the same rope, 
 and seven dancing flares that belonged to seven wreck- 
 buoys, — eighteen or twenty lights in all crowded into a 
 mile of seventeen-fathom water, where no tide'd ever 
 let a wreck rest for three weeks, let alone ten or twelve 
 wrecks, as the flares showed. 
 
 'The Admiralty captain, he saw the lights come out 
 one after another, same as the merchant skipper did who 
 was standing at his side, and he said : — 
 
 ' "There's been an international cata-strophe here or 
 elseways," and then he whistled. "I'm going to stand 
 on and off all night till the Dutchman comes," he says. 
 
 ' " I'm off," says the merchant skipper. " My owners 
 don't wish for me to watch illuminations. That strait's 
 choked with wreck, and I shouldn't wonder if a typhoon 
 
 17 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 hadn't driven half the junks o' China there." With 
 that he went away; but the Survey ship, she stayed all 
 night at the head o' Flores Strait, and the men admired 
 of the lights till the lights was burning out, and then they 
 admired more than ever. 
 
 'A little bit before morning the Dutch gunboat come 
 flustering up, and the two ships stood together watching 
 the lights burn out and out, till there was nothing left 
 'cept Flores Straits, all green and wet, and a dozen wreck- 
 buoys, and Wurlee Light. 
 
 * Dowse had slept very quiet that night, and got rid of 
 his streaks by means of thinking of the angry steamers 
 outside. Challong was busy, and didn't come back to 
 his bunk till late. In the gray early morning Dowse 
 looked out to sea, being, as he said, in torment, and saw 
 all the navies of the world riding outside Flores Strait 
 fairway in a half-moon, seven miles from wing to wing, 
 most wonderful to behold. Those were the words he 
 used to me time and again in telling the tale. 
 
 'Then, he says, he heard a gun fired with a most tre- 
 menjus explosion, and all them great navies crumbled to 
 little pieces of clouds, and there was only two ships re- 
 maining, and a man-o'-war's boat rowing to the Light, 
 with the oars going sideways instead o' longways as the 
 morning tides, ebb or flow, would continually run. 
 
 * "What the devil's wrong with this strait?" says a 
 man in the boat as soon as they was in hailing distance. 
 '*Has the whole English Navy sunk here, or what?" 
 
 * "There's nothing wrong," says Dowse, sitting on 
 the platform outside the Light, and keeping one eye 
 very watchful on the streakiness of the tide, which he 
 always hated, 'specially in the mornings. "You leave 
 me alone and I'll leave you alone. Go round by the Om- 
 
 18 
 
THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC 
 
 bay Passage, and don't cut up my water. You're mak- 
 ing it streaky." All the time he was saying that he kept 
 on thinking to himself, "Now that's fooUshness, — now 
 that's nothing but fooHshness"; and all the time he was 
 holding tight to the edge of the platform in case the 
 streakiness of the tide should carry him away. 
 
 ' Somebody answers from the boat, very soft and quiet, 
 "We're going round by Ombay in a minute, if you'll just 
 come and speak to our captain and give him his bearings." 
 
 ' Dowse, he felt very highly flattered, and he slipped 
 into the boat, not paying any attention to Ghallong. 
 But Ghallong swum along to the ship after the boat. 
 When Dowse was in the boat, he found, so he says, he 
 couldn't speak to the sailors 'cept to call them "white 
 mice with chains about their neck," and Lord knows he 
 hadn't seen or thought o' white mice since he was a little 
 bit of a boy with them in his hankerchief. So he kept 
 himself quiet, and so they come to the Survey ship; and 
 the man in the boat hails the quarter-deck with some- 
 thing that Dowse could not rightly understand, but 
 there was one word he spelt out again and again, — 
 m-a-d, mad, — and he heard some one behind him saying 
 of it backwards. So he had two words, — m-a-d, mad, 
 d-a-m, dam; and he put the two words together as he 
 come on the quarter-deck, and he says to the captain 
 very slowly, "I be damned if I am mad," but all the 
 time his eye was held like by the coils of rope on the be- 
 laying pins, and he followed those ropes up and up with 
 his eye till he was quite lost and comfortable among the 
 rigging, which ran criss-cross, and slopeways, and up and 
 down, and any way but straight along under his feet 
 north and south. The deck-seams, they ran that way, 
 and Dowse daresn't look at them. They was the same 
 
 19 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 as the streaks of the water under the planking of the 
 lighthouse. 
 
 'Then he heard the captain talking to him very kind, 
 and for the life of him he couldn't tell why; and what he 
 wanted to tell the captain was that Flores Strait was too 
 streaky, like bacon, and the steamers only made it worse; 
 but all he could do was to keep his eye very careful on 
 the rigging and sing : — 
 
 ' " I saw a ship a-sailing, 
 A-sailing on the sea; 
 And oh, it was all lading 
 With pretty things for me ! " 
 
 Then he remembered that was foolishness, and he started 
 off to say about the Ombay Passage, but all he said was : 
 "The captain was a duck, — meaning no offence to you, 
 sir, — but there was something on his back that I've for- 
 gotten. 
 
 "And when the ship began to move 
 The captain says, * Quack-quack ! ' " 
 
 ' He notices the captain turns very red and angry, and 
 he says to himself, "My foolish tongue's run away with 
 me again. I'll go forward"; and he went forward, and 
 catched the reflection of himself in the binnacle brasses; 
 and he saw that he was standing there and talking mother- 
 naked in front of all them sailors, and he ran into the 
 fo'c's'le howling most grievous. He must ha' gone naked 
 for weeks on the Light, and Challong o' course never 
 noticed it. Challong was swimmin' round and round 
 the ship, say in' "dam" for to please the men and to be 
 took aboard, because he didn't know any better. 
 
 20 
 
THE DISTURBER OF TRAFFIC 
 
 'Dowse didn't tell what happened after this, but 
 seemingly our Survey ship lowered two boats and went 
 over to Dowse's buoys. They took one sounding, and 
 then finding it was all correct they cut the buoys that 
 Dowse and Challong had made, and let the tide carr>^ 
 'em out through the Loby Toby end of the strait; and 
 the Dutch gunboat, she sent two men ashore to take 
 care o' the Wurlee Light, and the "Britomarte," she 
 we.it away with Dowse, leaving Challong to try to follow 
 them, a-calling "dam — dam" all among the wake of the 
 screw, and half heaving himself out of water and joining 
 his webby-foot hands together. He dropped astern in 
 five minutes, and I suppose he went back to the Wurlee 
 Light. You can't drown an Orange-Lord, not even in 
 Flores Strait on flood-tide. 
 
 'Dowse come across me when he came to England 
 with the Survey ship, after being more than six months 
 in her, and cured of his streaks by working hard and not 
 looking over the side more than he could help. He told 
 me what I've told you, sir, and he was very much ashamed 
 of himself; but the trouble on his mind was to know 
 whether he hadn't sent something or other to the bottom 
 with his buoyings and his lightings and such like. He 
 put it to me many times, and each time more and more 
 sure he was that something had happened in the straits 
 because of him. I think that distructed him, because I 
 found him up at Fratton one day, in a red jersey, a-p ray- 
 ing before the Salvation Army, which had produced him 
 in their papers as a Reformed Pirate. They knew from 
 his mouth that he had committed evil on the deep waters, 
 — that was what he told them, — and piracy, which no 
 one does now except Chineses, was all they knew of. I 
 says to him : '* Dowse, don't be a fool. Take off that 
 
 21 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 jersey and come along with me." He says: "Fenwick, 
 I'm a-saving of my soul ; for I do believe that I have killed 
 more men in Flores Strait than Trafalgar." I says: "A 
 man that thought he'd seen all the navies of the earth 
 standing round in a ring to watch his foolish false wreck- 
 buoys" (those was my very words I used) "ain't fit to 
 have a soul, and if he did he couldn't kill a louse with it. 
 John Dowse, you was mad then, but you are a damn 
 sight madder now. Take off that there jersey ! " 
 
 *He took it off and come along with me, but he never 
 got rid o' that suspicion that he'd sunk some ships a- 
 cause of his foolishnesses at Flores Straits; and now he's 
 a wherryman from Portsmouth to Gosport, where the 
 tides run crossways and you can't row straight for ten 
 strokes together. ... So late as all this ! Look ! ' 
 
 Fenwick left his chair, passed to the Light, touched 
 something that clicked, and the glare ceased with a sud- 
 denness that was pain. Day had come, and the Channel 
 needed St. Cecilia no longer. The sea-fog rolled back 
 from the cliffs in trailed wreaths and dragged patches, 
 as the sun rose and made the dead sea alive and splendid. 
 The stillness of the morning held us both silent as we 
 stepped on the balcony. A lark went up from the cliffs 
 behind St. Cecilia, and we smelt a smell of cows in the 
 lighthouse pastures below. 
 
 Then we were both at liberty to thank the Lord fo" 
 another day of clean and wholesome life 
 
 22 
 
A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 
 
 (1890) 
 
 Life liveth but in life, and doth not roam 
 To other lands if all be well at home : 
 'Solid as ocean foam,' quotii ocean foam. 
 
 THE room was blue with the smoke of three pipes 
 and a cigar. The leave-season had opened in 
 India, and the firstfruits on this side of the water 
 were 'Tick' Boileau, of the 45th Bengal Cavalry, who 
 called on me, after three years' absence, to discuss old 
 things which had happened. Fate, who always does 
 her work handsomely, sent up the same staircase within 
 the same hour The Infant, fresh from Upper Burma, 
 and he and Boileau looking out of my window saw walk' 
 ing in the street one Nevin, late in a Gurkha regiment 
 which had been through the Black Mountain Expedition. 
 They yelled to him to come up, and the whole street was 
 aware that they desired him to come up, and he came up, 
 and there followed Pandemonium in my room because we 
 had forgathered from the ends of the earth, and three of 
 us were on a holiday, and none of us were twenty-five, and 
 all the delights of all London lay waiting our pleasure. 
 
 Boileau took the only other chair, The Infant, by right 
 of his bulk, the sofa; and Nevin, being a little man, sat 
 cross-legged on the top of the revolving bookcase, and we 
 
 ^3 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 all said, 'Who'd ha' thought it!' and 'What are you 
 doing here?' till speculation was exhausted and the talk 
 went over to inevitable 'shop.' Boileau was full of a 
 great scheme for winning a military attache-ship at St. 
 Petersburg; Nevin had hopes of the Staff College, and 
 The Infant had been moving heaven and earth and the 
 Horse Guards for a commission in the Egyptian army. 
 
 'What's the use o' that?' said Nevin, twirling round 
 on the bookcase. 
 
 'Oh, heaps! 'Course, if you get stuck with a Fella- 
 heen regiment, you're sold; but if you are appointed to a 
 Soudanese lot, you're in clover. They are first-class 
 fighting-men — and just think of the eligible central po- 
 sition of Egypt in the next row.' 
 
 This was putting the match to a magazine. We all 
 began to explain the Central Asian question off-hand, 
 flinging army corps from the Helmund to Kashmir with 
 more than Russian recklessness. Each of the boys made 
 for himself a war to his own liking, and when we had 
 settled all the details of Armageddon, killed all our 
 senior officers, handled a division apiece, and nearly torn 
 the Atlas in two in attempts to explain our theories, 
 Boileau needs must lift up his voice above the clamour, 
 and cry, * Anyhow it'll be the Hell of a row ! ' in tones that 
 carried conviction far down the staircase. 
 
 Entered, unperceived in the smoke, William the Si- 
 lent. 'Gen'elman to see you, sir,' said he, and disap- 
 peared, leaving in his stead none other than Mr. Eustace 
 Cleever. William would have introduced the Dragon 
 of Wantley with equal disregard of present company. 
 
 ' I — I beg your pardon. I didn't know that there was 
 anybody — with you . I — ' 
 
 But it was not seemly to allow Mr. Cleever to depart: 
 
 24 
 
A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 
 
 he was a great man. The boys remained where they 
 were, for any movement would have choked up the Uttle 
 room. Only when they saw his gray hairs they stood on 
 their feet, and when The Infant caught the name, he said : 
 
 'Are you — did you write that book called "As it was 
 in the Beginning"?' 
 
 Mr. Cleever admitted that he had written the book. 
 
 'Then — then I don't know how to thank you, sir,' 
 said The Infant, flushing pink. 'I was brought up in 
 the country you wrote about — all my people live there ; 
 and I read the book in camp on the Hlinedatalone, and I 
 knew every stick and stone, and the dialect too; and, by 
 Jove! it was just like being at home and hearing the 
 country-people talk. Nevin, you know "As it was in 
 the Beginning"? So does Ti — Boileau.' 
 
 Mr. Cleever has tasted as much praise, public and 
 private, as one man may safely swallow; but it seemed 
 to me that the outspoken admiration in The Infant's 
 eyes and the little stir in the little company came home 
 to him very nearly indeed. 
 
 'Won't you take the sofa?' said The Infant. 'I'll 
 sit on Boileau's chair; and' — here he looked at me to 
 spur me to my duties as a host; but I was watching the 
 novelist's face. Cleever had not the least intention of 
 going away, but settled himself on the sofa. 
 
 Following the first great law of the Army, which says 
 ' all property is common except money, and you've only 
 got to ask the next man for that,' The Infant offered 
 tobacco and drink. It was the least he could do; but 
 not the most lavish praise in the world held half as much 
 appreciation and reverence as The Infant's simple 'Say 
 when, sir,' above the long glass. 
 
 Cleever said 'when,' and more thereto, for he was a 
 
 25 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 golden talker, and he sat in the midst of hero-worship 
 devoid of all taint of self-interest. The boys asked him 
 of the birth of his book and whether it was hard to write, 
 and how his notions came to him; and he answered with 
 the same absolute simplicity as he was questioned. His 
 big eyes twinkled, he dug his long thin hands into his 
 gray beard and tugged it as he grew animated. He 
 dropped little by little from the peculiar pinching of the 
 broader vowels — the indefmable ' Euh,' that runs through 
 the speech of the pundit caste — and the elaborate choice 
 of words, to freely-mouthed ' ows' and ' ois,' and, for him at 
 least, unfettered colloquialisms. He could not altogether 
 understand the boys, who hung upon his words so rever- 
 ently. The line of the chin-strap, that still showed 
 white and untanned on cheek-bone and jaw, the stead- 
 fast young eyes puckered at the corners of the lids with 
 much staring through red-hot sunshine, the slow, un- 
 troubled breathing, and the curious, crisp, curt speech 
 seemed to puzzle him equally. He could create men 
 and women, and send them to the uttermost ends of the 
 earth, to help delight and comfort ; he knew every mood 
 of the fields, and could interpret them to the cities, and 
 he knew the hearts of many in city and the country, but 
 he had hardly, in forty years, come into contact with 
 the thing which is called a Subaltern of the Line. He 
 told the boys this in his own way. 
 
 'Well, how should you?' said The Infant. 'You — 
 you're quite different, y' see, sir.' 
 
 The Infant expressed his ideas in his tone rather than 
 his words, but Cleever understood the compliment. 
 
 'We're only Subs,' said Nevin, 'and we aren't exactly 
 the sort of men you'd meet much in your life, I s'pose.' 
 
 'That's true,' said Cleever. 'I live chiefly among 
 
 26 
 
A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 
 
 men who write and paint, and sculp, and so forth. We 
 have our own talk and our own interests, and the outer 
 world doesn't trouble us much.' 
 
 'That must be awfully jolly,' said Boileau, at a ven- 
 ture. 'We have our own shop, too, but 'tisn't half as 
 interesting as yours, of course. You know all the men 
 who've ever done anything; and we only knock about 
 from place to place, and we do nothing.' 
 
 ' The Army's a very lazy profession if you choose to 
 make it so,' said Nevin. 'When there's nothing going 
 on, there is nothing going on, and you lie up.' 
 
 ' Or try to get a billet somewhere, to be ready for the 
 next show,' said The Infant with a chuckle. 
 
 'To me,' said Cleever softly, 'the whole idea of war- 
 fare seems so foreign and unnatural, so essentially vul- 
 gar, if I may say so, that I can hardly appreciate your 
 sensations. Of course, though, any change from life in 
 garrison towns must be a godsend to you.' 
 
 Like many home-staying Englishmen, Cleever be- 
 lieved that the newspaper phrase he quoted covered the 
 whole duty of the Army whose toils enabled him to en- 
 joy his many-sided life in peace. The remark was not a 
 happy one, for Boileau had just come off the Frontier, 
 The Infant had been on the warpath for nearly eighteen 
 months, and the little red man Nevin two months before 
 had been sleeping under the stars at the peril of his life. 
 But none of them tried to explain, till I ventured to 
 point out that they had all seen service and were not 
 used to idling. Cleever took in the idea slowly. 
 
 *Seen service?' said he. Then, as a child might ask. 
 ' Tell me. Tell me everything about everything.' 
 
 'How do you mean?' said The Infant, delighted at be- 
 ing directly appealed to by the great man. 
 
 27 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 ' Good Heavens ! How am I to make you understand 
 if you can't see. In the first place, what is your age? ' 
 
 'Twenty-three next July,' said The Infant promptly. 
 
 Cleever questioned the others with his eyes. 
 
 'I'm twenty-four,' said Nevin. 
 
 'And I'm twenty-two,' said Boileau. 
 
 ' And you've all seen service? ' 
 
 ' We've all knocked about a little bit, sir, but The In- 
 fant's the war-worn veteran. He's had two years' work 
 in Upper Burma,' said Nevin. 
 
 ' When you say work, what do you mean, you extra- 
 ordinary creatures?' 
 
 'Explain it. Infant,' said Nevin. 
 
 'Oh, keeping things in order generally, and running 
 about after little dakus — that's dacoits — and so on. 
 There's nothing to explain.' 
 
 'Make that young Leviathan speak,' said Cleever im- 
 patiently, above his glass. 
 
 'How can he speak?' said I. 'He's done the work. 
 The two don't go together. But, Infant, you're ordered 
 to bukh.' 
 
 'What about? I'll try.' 
 
 'Bukh about a daur. You've been on heaps of 'em,' 
 said Nevin. 
 
 ' What in the world does that mean? Has the Army 
 a language of its own? ' 
 
 The Infant turned very red. He was afraid he was 
 being laughed at, and he detested talking before out- 
 siders; but it was the author of 'As it was in the Begin- 
 ning' who waited. 
 
 *It's all so new to me,' pleaded Cleever; 'and — and 
 you said you liked my book.' 
 
 This was a direct appeal that The Infant could under- 
 
 28 
 
A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 
 
 stand, and he began rather flurriedly, with much slang 
 bred of nervousness — 
 
 *Pull me up, sir, if I say anything you don't follow. 
 About six months before I took my leave out of Burma, 
 I was on the Hlinedatalone, up near the Shan States, with 
 sixty Tommies — private soldiers, that is — and another 
 subaltern, a year senior to me. The Burmese business 
 was a subaltern's war, and our forces were split up into 
 little detachments, all running about the country and 
 trying to keep the dacoits quiet. The dacoits were hav- 
 ing a first-class time, y'know — filling women up with ker- 
 osene and setting 'em alight, and burning villages, and 
 crucifying people.' 
 
 The wonder in Eustace Cleever's eyes deepened. He 
 could not quite realise that the Cross still existed in any 
 form. 
 
 'Have you ever seen a crucifixion?' said he. 
 
 *0f course not. 'Shouldn't have allowed it if I had; 
 but I've seen the corpses. The dacoits had a trick of 
 sending a crucified corpse down the river on a raft, just 
 to show they were keeping their tails up and enjoying 
 themselves. Well, that was the kind of people I had to 
 deal with.' 
 
 'Alone?' said Cleever. Solitude of the soul he could 
 understand — none better — but he had never in the body 
 moved ten miles from his fellows. 
 
 * I had my men, but the rest of it was pretty much 
 alone. The nearest post that could give me orders was 
 fifteen miles away, and we used to heliograph to them, 
 and they used to give us orders same way — too many 
 orders.* 
 
 * Who was your CO.?' said Boileau. 
 
 * Bounderby — Major. Pukka Bounderby ; more Boun- 
 
 29 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 der than pukka. He went out up Bhamo way. Shot, 
 or cut down, last year,' said The Infant. 
 
 'What are these interludes in a strange tongue?' said 
 Cleever to me. 
 
 'Professional information — like the Mississippi pilots' 
 talk,' said I. 'He did not approve of his major, who 
 died a violent death. Go on, Infant.' 
 
 'Far too many orders. You couldn't take the Tom- 
 mies out for a two days' daur — that's expedition — with- 
 out being blown up for not asking leave. And the whole 
 country was humming with dacoits. I used to send out 
 spies, and act on their information. As soon as a man 
 came in and told me of a gang in hiding, I'd take thirty 
 men with some grub, and go out and look for them, 
 while the other subaltern lay doggo in camp.' 
 
 'Lay! Pardon me, but how did he lie?' said Cleever. 
 
 'Lay doggo — lay quiet, with the other thirty men. 
 When I came back, he'd take out his half of the men, 
 and have a good time of his own.' 
 
 'Who was he?' said Boileau. 
 
 ' Carter-Deecey, of the Aurungabadis. Good chap, 
 but too zubberdusty, and went bokhar four days out of 
 seven. He's gone out, too. Don't interrupt a man.' 
 
 Cleever looked helplessly at me. 
 
 'The other subaltern,' I translated swiftly, 'came 
 from a native regiment, and was overbearing in his de- 
 meanour. He sufTered much from the fever of the coun- 
 try, and is now dead. Go on. Infant.' 
 
 'After a bit we got into trouble for using the men on 
 frivolous occasions, and so I used to put my signaller 
 under arrest to prevent him reading the helio-orders. 
 Then I'd go out and leave a message to be sent an hour 
 after I got clear of the camp, something like this: "Re- 
 
 30 
 
A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 
 
 ceived important information; start in an hour unless 
 countermanded." If I was ordered back, it didn't 
 much matter. I swore the C.O.'s watch was wrong, or 
 something, when I came back. The Tommies enjoyed 
 the fun, and — Oh, yes, there was one Tommy who was 
 the bard of the detachment. He used to make up verses 
 on everything that happened.' 
 
 ' What sort of verses?' said Cleever. 
 
 'Lovely verses; and the Tommies used to sing 'em. 
 There was one song with a chorus, and it said something 
 like this.' The Infant dropped into the true barrack- 
 room twang: 
 
 'Theebaw, the Burma king, did a very foolish thing, 
 W^hen 'e mustered 'ostile forces in ar-rai, 
 
 'E little thought that we, from far across the sea, 
 W' ould send our armies up to Mandalai ! ' 
 
 ' gorgeous ! ' said Cleever. ' And how magnificently 
 direct ! The notion of a regimental bard is new to me, 
 but of course it must be so.' 
 
 *He was awf'ly popular with the men,' said The In- 
 fant. *He had them all down in rhyme as soon as ever 
 they had done anything. He was a great bard. He 
 was always ready with an elegy when we picked up a 
 Boh — that's a leader of dacoits.' 
 
 'How did you pick him up?' said Cleever. 
 
 ' Oh ! shot him if he wouldn't surrender.' 
 
 ' You ! Have you shot a man? ' 
 
 There was a subdued chuckle from all three boys, and 
 it dawned on the questioner that one experience in life 
 which was denied to himself, and he weighed the souls 
 of men in a balance, had been shared by three very young 
 
 31 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 gentlemen of engaging appearance. He turned round 
 on Nevin, who had climbed to the top of the bookcase, 
 and was sitting cross-legged as before. 
 
 'And have you, too?' 
 
 ' Think so,' said Nevin sweetly. ' In the Black Moun- 
 tain. He was rolling cliffs on to my half-company, and 
 spoiling our formation. I took a rifle from a man, and 
 brought him down at the second shot.' 
 
 'Good heavens! And how did you feel afterwards?' 
 
 ' Thirsty. • I wanted a smoke, too.' 
 
 Cleever looked at Boileau — the youngest. Surely his 
 hands were guiltless of blood. 
 
 Boileau shook his head and laughed. 'Go on. Infant,' 
 said he. 
 
 'And you too?' said Cleever. 
 
 ' 'Fancy so. It was a case of cut, cut or be cut, with 
 me; so I cut — One. I couldn't do any more, sir.' 
 
 Cleever looked as though he would like to ask many 
 questions, but The Infant swept on, in the full tide of his 
 tale. 
 
 ' Well, we were called insubordinate young whelps at 
 last, and strictly forbidden to take the Tommies out any 
 more without orders. I wasn't sorry, because Tommy 
 is such an exacting sort of creature. He wants to live 
 as though he were in barracks all the time. I was grub- 
 bing on fowls and boiled corn, but my Tommies wanted 
 their pound of fresh meat, and their half ounce of this, 
 and their two ounces of t'other thing, and they used to 
 come to me and badger me for plug-tobacco when we 
 were four days in jungle. I said : " I can get you Burma 
 tobacco, but I don't keep a canteen up my sleeve." 
 They couldn't see it. They wanted all the luxuries of 
 the season, confound 'em.' 
 
 32 
 
A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 
 
 *You were alone when you were dealing with these 
 men?' said Cleever, watching The Infant's face under 
 the palm of his hand. He was getting new ideas, and 
 they seemed to trouble him. 
 
 * Of course, unless you count the mosquitoes. They 
 were nearly as big as the men. After I had to lie doggo 
 I began to look for something to do; and I was great pals 
 with a man called Hicksey in the Police, the best man 
 that ever stepped on earth — a first-class man.' 
 
 Cleever nodded applause. He knew how to appreciate 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 * Hicksey and I were as thick as thieves. He had some 
 Burma mounted police — rummy chaps, armed with 
 sword and Snider carbine. They rode punchy Burma 
 ponies with string stirrups, red cloth saddles, and red 
 bell-rope head-stalls. Hicksey used to lend me six or 
 eight of them when I asked him — nippy little devils, 
 keen as mustard. But they told their wives too much, 
 and all my plans got known, till I learned to give false 
 marching orders overnight, and take the men to quite 
 a different village in the morning. Then we used to 
 catch the simple daku before breakfast, and made him 
 very sick. It's a ghastly country on the Hlinedatalone ; 
 all bamboo jungle, with paths about four feet wide wind- 
 ing through it. The dakus knew all the paths, and 
 potted at us as we came round a corner; but the mounted 
 police knew the paths as well as the dakus, and we used 
 to go stalking 'em in and out. Once we flushed 'em, 
 the men on the ponies had the advantage of the men on 
 foot. We held all the country absolutely quiet, for ten 
 miles round, in about a month. Then we took Boh Na- 
 ghee, Hicksey and I and the Civil officer. That was a 
 lark!' 
 
 33 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 'I think I am beginning to understand a little,* said 
 Cleever. * It was a pleasure to you to administer and 
 fight?' 
 
 'Rather! There's nothing nicer than a satisfactory 
 little expedition, when you find your plans fit together, 
 and your conformation's teek — correct, you know, and 
 the whole subchiz — I mean, when everything works out 
 like formulae on a blackboard. Hicksey had all the in- 
 formation about the Boh. He had been burning villages 
 and murdering people right and left, and cutting up 
 Government convoys and all that. He was lying doggo 
 in a village about fifteen miles off, waiting to get a fresh 
 gang together. So we arranged to take thirty mounted 
 police, and turn him out before he could plunder into 
 our newly-settled villages. At the last minute, the Civil 
 officer in our part of the world thought he'd assist at the 
 performance.' 
 
 'Who was he?' said Nevin. 
 
 ' His name was Dennis,' said The Infant slowly. ' And 
 we'll let it stay so. He's a better man now than he was 
 then.' 
 
 'But how old was the Civil power?' said Cleever. 
 'The situation is developing itself.' 
 
 'He was about six-and-twenty, and he was awf'ly 
 clever. He knew a lot of things, but I don't think he 
 was quite steady enough for dacoit-hunting. We started 
 overnight for Boh Na-ghee's village, and we got there 
 just before morning, without raising an alarm. Dennis 
 had turned out armed to his teeth — two revolvers, a car- 
 bine, and all sorts of things. I was talking to Hicksey 
 about posting the men, and Dennis edged his pony in 
 between us, and said, "What shall I do? What shall I 
 do? Tell me what to do, you fellows." We didn't take 
 
 34 
 
A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 
 
 much notice; but his pony tried to bite me in the leg, 
 and I said, "Pull out a bit, old man, till we've settled 
 the attack." He kept edging in, and fiddling with his 
 reins and his revolvers, and saying, "Dear me! Dear 
 me! Oh, dear me! What do you think I'd better do?" 
 The man was in a deadly funk, and his teeth were chat- 
 tering.' 
 
 'I sympathise with the Civil power,' said Cleever. 
 'Continue, young Clive.' 
 
 'The fun of it was, that he was supposed to be our su- 
 perior officer. Hicksey took a good look at him, and 
 told him to attach himself to my party. 'Beastly mean 
 of Hicksey, that. The chap kept on edging in and 
 bothering, instead of asking for some men and taking up 
 his own position, till I got angry, and the carbines began 
 popping on the other side of the village. Then I said, 
 "For God's sake be quiet, and sit down where you are! 
 If you see anybody come out of the village, shoot at 
 him." I knew he couldn't hit a hayrick at a yard. Then 
 I took my men over the garden wall — over the palisades, 
 y' know — somehow or other, and the fun began. Hicksey 
 had found the Boh in bed under a mosquito-curtain, 
 and he had taken a flying jump on to him.' 
 
 * A flying jump ! ' said Cleever. ' Is that also war?' 
 
 *Yes,' said The Infant, now thoroughly warmed. 
 'Don't you know how you take a flying jump on to a 
 fellow's head at school, when he snores in the dormitory? 
 The Boh was sleeping in a bedful of swords and pistols, 
 and Hicksey came down like Zazel through the netting, 
 and the net got mixed up with the pistols and the Boh 
 and Hicksey, and they all rolled on the floor together. 
 I laughed till I couldn't stand, and Hicksey was cursing 
 me for not helping him; so I left him to fight it out and 
 
 35 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 went into the village. Our men were slashing about and 
 firing, and so were the dacoits, and in the thick of the 
 mess some ass set fire to a house, and we all had to clear 
 out. I froze on to the nearest daku and ran to the pali- 
 sade, shoving him in front of me. He wriggled loose, 
 and bounded over the other side. I came after him; 
 but when I had one leg one side and one leg the other of 
 the palisade, I saw that the daku had fallen flat on Den- 
 nis's head. That man had never moved from where I 
 left him. They rolled on the ground together, and 
 Dennis's carbine went off and nearly shot me. The daku 
 picked himself up and ran, and Dennis buzzed his 
 carbine after him, and it caught him on the back of his 
 head, and knocked him silly. You never saw anything 
 so funny in your life. I doubled up on the top of the 
 palisade and hung there, yelling with laughter. But 
 Dennis began to weep like anything. " Oh, I've killed a 
 man," he said. "I've killed a man, and I shall never 
 know another peaceful hour in my life ! Is he dead? 
 Oh, is he dead? Good Lord, I've killed a man!" I 
 came down and said, "Don't be a fool"; but he kept on 
 shouting, "Is he dead?" till I could have kicked him. 
 The daku was only knocked out of time with the carbine. 
 He came to after a bit, and I said, "Are you hurt much?" 
 He groaned and said "No." His chest was all cut with 
 scrambling over the palisade. "The white man's gun 
 didn't do that," he said, "I did that, and I knocked the 
 white man over." Just like a Burman, wasn't it? But 
 Dennis wouldn't be happy at any price. He said : "Tie 
 up his wounds. He'll bleed to death. Oh, he'll bleed 
 to death!" "Tie 'em up yourself," I said, "if you're so 
 anxious." "I can't touch him," said Dennis, "but 
 here's my shirt." He took off his shirt, and fixed the 
 
 36 
 
A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 
 
 braces again over his bare shoulders. I ripped the shirt 
 up, and bandaged the dacoit quite professionally. He 
 was grinning at Dennis all the time; and Dennis's haver- 
 sack was lying on the ground, bursting full of sandwiches. 
 Greedy hog! I took some, and offered some to Dennis. 
 "How can I eat?" he said. "How can you ask me to 
 eat? His very blood is on your hands now, and you're 
 eating my sandwiches!" "All right," I said; "I'll give 
 'em to the daku." So I did, and the little chap was 
 quite pleased, and wolfed 'em down like one o'clock.' 
 
 Cleever brought his hand down on the table with a 
 thump that made the empty glasses dance. 'That's 
 Art!' he said. 'Flat, flagrant mechanism! Don't tell 
 me that happened on the spot ! ' 
 
 The pupils of The Infant's eyes contracted to two 
 pin-points. 'I beg your pardon,' he said, slowly and 
 stiffly, *but I am telling this thing as it happened.' 
 
 Cleever looked at him a moment. ' My fault entirely, ' 
 said he ; * I should have known. Please go on.' 
 
 *Hicksey came out of what was left of the village with 
 his prisoners and captives, all neatly tied up. Boh Na- 
 ghee was first, and one of the villagers, as soon as he 
 found the old ruffian helpless, began kicking him quietly. 
 The Boh stood it as long as he could, and then groaned, 
 and we saw what was going on. Hicksey tied the vil- 
 lager up, and gave him a half-a-dozen, good, with a bam- 
 boo, to remind him to leave a prisoner alone. You 
 should have seen the old Boh grin. Oh! but Hicksey 
 was in a furious rage with everybody. He'd got a wipe 
 over the elbow that had tickled up his funny-bone, and 
 he was rabid with me for not having helped him with 
 the Boh and the mosquito-net. I had to explain that I 
 couldn't do anything. If you'd seen 'em both tangled 
 
 37 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 up together on the floor in one kicking cocoon, you'd 
 have laughed for a week. Hicksey swore that the only 
 decent man of his acquaintance was the Boh, and all the 
 way to camp Hicksey was talking to the Boh, and the 
 Boh was complaining about the soreness of his bones. 
 When we got back, and had had a bath, the Boh wanted 
 to know when he was going to be hanged. Hicksey said 
 he couldn't oblige him on the spot, but had to send him 
 to Rangoon. The Boh went down on his knees, and 
 reeled off a catalogue of his crimes — he ought to have 
 been hanged seventeen times over, by his own confession 
 — and implored Hicksey to settle the business out of 
 hand. "If I'm sent to Rangoon," said he, "they'll 
 keep me in jail all my life, and that is a death every time 
 the sun gets up or the wind blows." But we had to 
 send him to Rangoon, and, of course, he was let ofT down 
 there, and given penal servitude for life. When I came 
 to Rangoon I went over the jail — I had helped to fill it, 
 y' know — and the old Boh was there, and he spotted me 
 at once. He begged for some opium first, and I tried to 
 get him some, but that was against the rules. Then he 
 asked me to have his sentence changed to death, because 
 he was afraid of being sent to the Andamans. I couldn't 
 do that either, but I tried to cheer him, and told him how 
 things were going up-country, and the last thing he 
 said was — "Give my compliments to the fat white man 
 who jumped on me. If I'd been awake I'd have killed 
 him." I wrote that to Hicksey next mail, and — and 
 that's all. I'm 'fraid I've been gassing awf'ly, sir.' 
 
 Cleever said nothing for a long time. The Infant 
 looked uncomfortable. He feared that, misled by en- 
 thusiasm, he had filled up the novelist's time with un- 
 profitable recital of trivial anecdotes. 
 
 38 
 
A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 
 
 Then said Cleever, ' I can't understand. Why should 
 you have seen and done all these things before you have 
 cut your wisdom-teeth? ' 
 
 'Don't know,' said The Infant apologetically. 'I 
 haven't seen much — only Burmese jungle.' 
 
 'And dead men, and war, and power, and responsi- 
 bility,' said Cleever, under his breath. 'You won't 
 have any sensations left at thirty, if you go on as you 
 have done. But I want to hear more tales — more tales !' 
 He seemed to forget that even subalterns might have 
 engagements of their own. 
 
 'We're thinking of dining out somewhere — the lot of 
 us — and going on to the Empire afterwards,' said Nevin, 
 with hesitation. He did not like to ask Cleever to come 
 too. The invitation might be regarded as perilously 
 near to 'cheek.' And Cleever, anxious not to wag a 
 gray beard unbidden among boys at large, said nothing 
 on his side. 
 
 Boileau solved the little difficulty by blurting out: 
 'Won't you come too, sir?' 
 
 Cleever almost shouted 'Yes,' and while he was being 
 helped into his coat,continued to murmur 'Good heavens !' 
 at intervals in a way that the boys could not understand. 
 
 'I don't think I've been to the Empire in my life,' 
 said he ; ' but — what is my life after all? Let us go.' 
 
 They went out with Eustace Cleever, and I sulked at 
 home because they had come to see me but had gone 
 over to the better man; which was humiliating. They 
 packed him into a cab with utmost reverence, for was he 
 not the author of 'As it was in the Beginning,' and a 
 person in whose company it was an honour to go abroad? 
 From all I gathered later, he had taken less interest in 
 the performance before him than in their conversations, 
 
 3d 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 and they protested with emphasis that he was *as good 
 a man as they make. 'Knew what a man was driving 
 at almost before he said it; and yet he's so damned sim- 
 ple about things that any man knows.' That was one 
 of many comments. 
 
 At midnight they returned, announcing that they 
 were 'highly respectable gondoliers,' and that oysters 
 and stout were what they chiefly needed. The eminent 
 novelist was still with them, and I think he was calling 
 them by their shorter names. I am certain that he said 
 he had been moving in worlds not realised, and that 
 they had shown him the Empire in a new light. 
 
 Still sore at recent neglect, I answered shortly, 'Thank 
 heaven we have within the land ten thousand as good as 
 they,' and when he departed, asked him what he thought 
 of things generally. 
 
 He replied with another quotation, to the effect that 
 though singing was a remarkably fine performance, I 
 was to be quite sure that few lips would be moved to 
 song if they could find a sufficiency of kissing. 
 
 Whereby I understood that Eustace Cleever, decorator 
 and colourman in words, was blaspheming his own Art, 
 and would be sorry for this in the morning. 
 
 40 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 (1892) 
 
 'Less you want your toes trod off you'd better get back 
 at once, 
 For the bullocks are walkin' two by two, 
 The byles are walkin' two by two. 
 The bullocks are walkin' two by two, 
 An' the elephants bring the guns! 
 
 HoIYuss! 
 Great — big — long — black forty-pounder guns: 
 Jiggery-jolty to and fro. 
 Each as big as a launch in tow — 
 Blind — dumb — broad-breeched beggars o' batterin' 
 guns! 
 
 'Barrack-Room Ballad.' 
 
 TOUCHING the truth of this tale there need be 
 no doubt at all, for it was told to me by Mul- 
 vaney at the back of the elephant-lines, one 
 warm evening when we were taking the dogs out for 
 exercise. The twelve Government elephants rocked at 
 their pickets outside the big mud-walled stables (one 
 arch, as wide as a bridge-arch, to each restless beast), 
 and the mahouts were preparing the evening meal. Now 
 and again some impatient youngster would smell the 
 cooking flour-cakes and squeal; and the naked little 
 
 41 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 children of the elephant-lines would strut down the row 
 shouting and commanding silence, or, reaching up, would 
 slap at the eager trunks. Then the elephants feigned to 
 be deeply interested in pouring dust upon their heads, 
 but, so soon as the children passed, the rocking, fidget- 
 ing, and muttering broke out again. 
 
 The sunset was dying, and the elephants heaved and 
 swayed dead black against the one sheet of rose-red low 
 down in the dusty gray sky. It was at the beginning 
 of the hot weather, just after the troops had changed 
 into their white clothes, so Mulvaney and Ortheris looked 
 like ghosts walking through the dusk. Learoyd had 
 gone off to another barrack to buy sulphur ointment for 
 his last dog under suspicion of mange, and with delicacy 
 had put his kennel into quarantine at the back of the 
 furnace where they cremate the anthrax cases. 
 
 *You wouldn't like mange, little woman?' said Or- 
 theris, turning my terrier over on her fat white back 
 with his foot. 'You're no end bloomin' partic'lar, you 
 are. 'Oo wouldn't take no notice o' me t'other day 
 'cause she was goin' 'ome all alone in 'er dorg-cart, eh? 
 Settin' on the box-seat like a bloomin' little tart, you 
 was, Viccy. Now you run along an' make them 'uttees 
 'oiler. Sick 'em, Viccy, loo!' 
 
 Elephants loathe little dogs. Vixen barked herself 
 down the pickets, and in a minute all the elephants were 
 kicking and squealing and clucking together. 
 
 'Oh, you soldier-men,' said a mahout angrily, 'call 
 off your she-dog. She is frightening our elephant-folk.' 
 
 * Rummy beggars ! ' said Ortheris meditatively. ' 'Call 
 'em people, same as if they was. An' they are too. 
 Not so bloomin' rummy when you come to think of it, 
 neither.' 
 
 42 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 Vixen returned yapping to show that she could do it 
 again if she liked, and established herself between Or- 
 theris's knees, smiling a large smile at his lawful dogs 
 who dared not fly at her. 
 
 "Seed the battery this mornin'?' said Ortheris. 
 He meant the newly-arrived elephant-battery; other- 
 wise he would have said simply ' guns.' Three elephants 
 harnessed tandem go to each gun, and those who have 
 not seen the big forty-pounders of position trundling 
 along in the wake of their gigantic team have yet some- 
 thing to behold. The lead-elephant had behaved very 
 badly on parade; had been cut loose, sent back to the 
 lines in disgrace, and was at that hour squealing and 
 lashing out with his trunk at the end of the line; a pic- 
 ture of blind, bound bad temper. His mahout, stand- 
 ing clear of the flail-like blows, was trying to soothe him. 
 
 'That's the beggar that cut up on p'rade. 'E's must,' 
 said Ortheris pointing. 'There'll be murder in the lines 
 soon, and then, per'aps, 'e'll get loose an' we'll 'ave to 
 be turned out to shoot 'im, same as when one o' they 
 native king's elephants musted last June. 'Ope 'e will.' 
 
 'Must be sugared!' said Mulvaney contemptuously 
 from his resting-place on the pile of dried bedding. * He's 
 no more than in a powerful bad timper wid bein' put 
 upon. I'd lay my kit he's new to the gun-team, an' by 
 natur' he hates haulin'. Ask the mahout, sorr.' 
 
 I hailed the old white-bearded mahout who was lavish- 
 ing pet words on his sulky red-eyed charge. 
 
 'He is not musth,' the man replied indignantly; 'only 
 his honour has been touched. Is an elephant an ox or 
 a mule that he should tug at a trace? His strength is in 
 his head — Peace, peace, my Lord ! It was not my fault 
 that they yoked thee this morning! — Only a low-caste 
 
 43 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 elephant will pull a gun, and he is a Kumeria of the Doon. 
 It cost a year and the life of a man to break him to bur- 
 den. They of the Artillery put him in the gun-team 
 because one of their base-born brutes had gone lame. 
 No wonder that he was, and is wrath.' 
 
 'Rummy! Most unusual rum,' said Ortheris. 'Gawd, 
 'e is in a temper, though ! S'pose 'e got loose ! ' 
 
 Mulvaney began to speak, but checked himself, and I 
 asked the mahout what would happen if the heel-chains 
 broke. 
 
 'God knows, who made elephants,' he said simply. 
 ' In his now state peradventure he might kill you three, 
 or run at large till his rage abated. He would not kill 
 me except he were musth. Then would he kill me be- 
 fore any one in the world, because he loves me. Such 
 is the custom of the elephant-folk; and the custom of us 
 mahout-people matches it for foolishness. We trust 
 each our own elephant, till our own elephant kills us. 
 Other castes trust women, but we the elephant-folk. I 
 have seen men deal with enraged elephants and live; but 
 never was man yet born of woman that met my lord the 
 elephant in his musth and lived to tell of the taming. 
 They are enough bold who meet him angry.' 
 
 I translated. Then said Terence: 'Ask the heathen 
 if he iver saw a man tame an elephint, — anyways — a 
 white man.' 
 
 'Once,' said the mahout, 'I saw a man astride of such 
 a beast in the town of Cawnpore; a bareheaded man, a 
 white man, beating it upon the head with a gun. It was 
 said he was possessed of devils or drunk.' 
 
 *Is ut like, think you, he'd be doin' it sober?' said 
 Mulvaney after interpretation, and the chained elephant 
 roared. 
 
 44 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 'There's only one man top of earth that would be the 
 partic'lar kind o' sorter bloomin' fool to do itl' said Or- 
 theris. ' When was that, Mulvaney? ' 
 
 'As the naygur sez, in Cawnpore; an' I was that fool 
 — in the days av my youth. But it came about as nat- 
 uril as wan thing leads to another, — me an' the elephint, 
 and the elephint and me; an' the fight betune us was the 
 most naturil av all.' 
 
 'That's just wot it would ha' been,' said Ortheris. 
 'Only you must ha' been more than usual full. You 
 done one queer trick with an elephant that I know of, 
 why didn't you never tell us the other one?' 
 
 'Bekase, onless you had heard the naygur here say 
 what he has said spontaneous, you'd ha' called me for a 
 liar, Stanley, my son, an' it would ha' bin my duty an' 
 my delight to give you the father an' mother avabeltin'. 
 There's only wan fault about you, little man, an' that's 
 thinking you know all there is in the world, an' a little 
 more. 'Tis a fault that has made away wid a few orf - 
 cers I've served undher, not to spake av ivry man but 
 two that I iver thried to make into a privit.' 
 
 *Ho!' said Ortheris with ruffled plumes, 'an' 'oo was 
 your two bloomin' little Sir Garnets, eh?' 
 
 'Wan was mesilf,' said Mulvaney with a grin that 
 darkness could not hide; 'an' — seein' that he's not here 
 there's no harm speakin' av' him — t'other was Jock.' 
 
 'Jock's no more than a 'ayrick in trousies. 'E be- 
 'aves like one ; an' 'e can't 'it one at a 'undred ; 'e was born 
 on one, an' s'welp me 'e'll die under one for not bein' 
 able to say wot 'e wants in a Christian lingo,' said Or- 
 theris, jumping up from the piled fodder only to be 
 swept off his legs. Vixen leaped upon his stomach, and 
 the other dogs followed and sat down there. 
 
 45 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 'I know what Jock is like,' I said. 'I want to hear 
 about the elephant, though.' 
 
 *It's another o' Mulvaney's bloomin' panoramas,' 
 said Ortheris, gasping under the dogs. ' 'Im an' Jock 
 for the 'ole bloomin' British Army! You'll be sayin' 
 you won Waterloo next, — you an' Jock. Garn ! ' 
 
 Neither of us thought it worth while to notice Ortheris. 
 The big gun-elephant threshed and muttered in his 
 chains, giving tongue now and again in crashing trumpet- 
 peals, and to this accompaniment Terence went on: 'In 
 the beginnin',' said he, 'me bein' what I was, there was 
 a misunderstandin' wid my sergeant that was then. He 
 put his spite on me for various reasons, — ' 
 
 The deep-set eyes twinkled above the glow of the pipe- 
 bowl, and Ortheris grunted, 'Another petticoat!' 
 
 — 'For various an' promiscuous reasons; an' the up- 
 shot av it was that he come into barricks wan afternoon 
 whin' I was settlin' my cow-lick before goin' walkin', 
 called me a big baboon (which I was not), an' a demoral- 
 isin' beggar (which I was), an' bid me go on fatigue thin 
 an' there, helpin' shift E. P. tents, fourteen av thim from 
 the rest-camps. At that, me bein' set on my walk — ' 
 
 *Ah!' from under the dogs, "e's a Mormon, Viccy. 
 Don't you 'ave nothin' to do with 'im, little dorg.' 
 
 — ' Set on my walk, I tould him a few things that came 
 up in my mind, an' wan thing led on to another, an' be- 
 tune talkin' I made time for to hit the nose av him so 
 that he'd be no Venus to any woman for a week to come. 
 'Twas a fine big nose, and well it paid for a little groom- 
 in'. Afther that I was so well pleased wid my handi- 
 craftfulness that I niver raised fist on the gyard that 
 came to take me to Clink. A child might ha' led me 
 along, for I knew old Kearney's nose was ruined. That 
 
 415 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 summer the Ould Rig'ment did not use their own Clink, 
 bekase the cholera was hangin' about there like mildew 
 on wet boots, an' 'twas murdher to confine in ut. We 
 borrowed the Clink that belonged to the Holy Christians 
 (the rig'ment that has never seen service yet), and that 
 lay a matther av a mile away, acrost two p'rade-grounds 
 an' the main road, an' all the ladies av Cawnpore goin' 
 out for their afternoon dhrive. So I moved in the best 
 av society, my shadow dancin' along forninst me, an' 
 the gyard as solemn as putty, the bracelets on my wrists, 
 an' my heart full contint wid the notion av Kearney's 
 pro — pro — probosculum in a shling. 
 
 ' In the middle av ut all I perceived a gunner-orf 'cer 
 in full rig'mentals perusin' down the road, hell-f or-leather, 
 wid his mouth open. He fetched wan woild despairin" 
 look on the dog-kyarts an' the polite society av Cawn- 
 pore, an' thin he dived like a rabbut into a dhrain by the 
 side av the road. 
 
 ' "Bhoys," sez I, "that orf'cer's dhrunk. 'Tisscand- 
 'lus. Let's take him to Clink too." 
 
 'The corp'ril of the gyard made a jump for me, un- 
 locked my stringers, an' he sez : " If it comes to runnin', 
 run for your life. If it doesn't, I'll trust your honour. 
 Anyways," sez he, "come to Clink whin you can." 
 
 'Then I behild him runnin' wan way, stuffin' the brace- 
 lets in his pocket, they bein' Gov'ment property, and 
 the gyard runnin' another, an' all the dog-kyarts run- 
 nin' all ways to wanst, an' me alone lookin' down the red 
 bag av a mouth av an elephint forty-two feet high at the 
 shoulder, tin feet wide, wid tusks as long as the Ochter- 
 lony Monumint. That was my first reconnaissance. 
 Maybe he was not quite so contagious, nor quite so tall, 
 but I didn't stop to throw out pickets. Mother av 
 
 47 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Hiven, how I ran down the road ! The baste began to 
 inveshtigate the dhrain wid the gunner-orf'cer in ut; an' 
 that was the makin' av me. I tripped over wan of the 
 rifles that my gyard had discarded (onsoldierly black- 
 guards they was!), and whin I got up I was facin' t'other 
 way about an' the elephint was huntin' for the gunner- 
 orf'cer. I can see his big fat back yet. Excipt that he 
 didn't dig, he car'ied on for all the world like little Vixen 
 here at a rat-hole. He put his head down (by my sowl 
 he nearly stood on ut !) to shquint down the dhrain; thin 
 he'd grunt, and run round to the other ind in case the 
 orf'cer was gone out by the back door; an' he'd shtuff 
 his trunk down the flue an' get ut filled wid mud, an' 
 blow ut out, an' grunt, an' swear! My troth, he swore 
 all hiven down upon that orf'cer; an' what a commissariat 
 elephint had to do wid a gunner-orf'cer passed me. Me 
 havin' nowhere to go except to Clink, I stud in the road wid 
 the rifle, a Snider an' no amm'nition, philosophisin' upon 
 the rear ind av the animal. All round me, miles and miles, 
 there was howlin' desolation, for ivry human sowl wid two 
 legs, or four for the matther av that, was ambuscadin', an' 
 this ould rapparee stud on his head tuggin' and gruntin' 
 above the dhrain, his tail stickin' up to the sky, an' he 
 thryin' to thrumpet through three feet av road-sweepin's 
 up his thrunk. Begad, 'twas wickud to behold I 
 
 * Subsequint he caught sight av me standin' alone in 
 the wide, wide world lanin' on the rifle. That dishcom- 
 posed him, bekase he thought I was the gunner-orf'cer 
 got out unbeknownst. He looked betune his feet at 
 the dhrain, an' he looked at me, an' I sez to myself: 
 "Terence, my son, you've been watchin' this Noah's 
 arlc too long. Run for your life!" Dear knows I 
 wanted to tell him I was only a poor privit on my way to 
 
 48 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 Clink, an' no orf cer at all, at all; but he put his ears for- 
 ward av his thick head, an' I rethreated down the road 
 grippin' the rifle, my back as cowld as a tombstone, and 
 the slack av my trousies, where I made sure he'd take 
 hould, crawhn' wid, — wid invidjus apprehension. 
 
 ' I might ha' run till I dhropped, bekase I was betune 
 the two straight lines av the road an' a man, or a thou- 
 sand men for the matther av that, are the like av sheep 
 in keepin' betune right an' left marks.' 
 
 'Same as canaries,' said Ortheris from the darkness. 
 * Draw a line on a bloomin' little board, put their bloom- 
 in' little beakses there ; stay so for hever and hever, amen, 
 they will. 'Seed a 'ole reg'ment, I 'ave, walk crabways 
 along the edge of a two-foot water-cut 'stid o' thinkin' 
 to cross it. Men is sheep — bloomin' sheep. Go on.' 
 
 'But I saw his shadow wid the tail av my eye,' con- 
 tinued the man of experiences, 'an' "Wheel," I sez, 
 "Terence, wheel ! " an' I wheeled. 'Tis truth that I cud 
 hear the shparks flyin' from my heels; an' I shpun into 
 the nearest compound, fetched wan jump from the gate 
 to the veranda av the house, an' fell over a tribe of nay- 
 gurs wid a half-caste boy at a desk, all manufacturin' 
 harness. 'Twas Antonio's Carriage Emporium at Cawn- 
 pore. You know ut, sorr? 
 
 *Ould Grambags must ha' wheeled abreast wid me, 
 for his thrunk came lickin' into the veranda like a belt in 
 a barrick-room row, before I was in the shop. The nay- 
 gurs an' the half-caste boy howled an' wint out at the 
 backdoor, an' I stud lone as Lot's wife among the har- 
 ness. A powerful thirsty thing is harness, by reason av 
 the smell to ut. 
 
 * I wint into the backroom, nobody bein' there to invite, 
 an' I found a bottle av whisky and a goglet av wather. 
 
 49 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 The first an' the second dhrink I never noticed bein' 
 dhry, but the fourth an' the fifth tuk good hould av me 
 an' I began to think scornful av elephints. "Take the 
 upper ground in manoe'vrin', Terence," I sez ; " an' you'll 
 be a gen'ral yet." sez I. An' wid that I wint up to the 
 flat mud roof av the house an' looked over the edge av 
 the parapit, threadin' deUcate. Ould Barrel-belly was 
 in the compound, walkin' to an ' fro, pluckin' a piece av 
 grass here an' a weed there, for all the world like our 
 colonel that is now whin his wife's given him a talkin' 
 down an' he's prom'nadin' to ease his timper. His back 
 was to me, an' by the same token I hiccupped. He 
 checked in his walk, wan ear forward like a deaf ould 
 lady wid an ear-thrumpet, an' his thrunk hild out in a 
 kind av fore-reaching hook. Thin he wagged his ear 
 sayin', "Do my sinses deceive me?" as plain as print, 
 an he recomminst promenadin'. You know Antonio's 
 compound? 'Twas as full thin as 'tis now av new kyarts 
 and ould kyarts, an' second-hand kyarts an' kyarts for 
 hire, — landos, an' b'rooshes, an' brooms, an' wag'nettes 
 av ivry description. Thin I hiccupped again, an' he be- 
 gan to study the ground beneath him, his tail whistlin' 
 wid emotion. Thin he lapped his thrunk round the shaft 
 av a wag'nette an' dhrew it out circumspectuous an' 
 thoughtful. "He's not there," he sez, fumblin' in the 
 cushions wid his thrunk. Thin I hiccupped again, an' 
 wid that he lost his patience good an' all, same as this 
 wan in the lines here.' 
 
 The gun-elephant was breaking into peal after peal of 
 indignant trumpetings, to the disgust of the other animals 
 who had finished their food and wished to drowse. Be- 
 tween the outcries we could hear him picking restlessly 
 at his ankle ring. 
 
 50 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 'As I was sayin',' Mulvaney went on, 'he behaved 
 dishgraceful. He let out wid his fore-fut like a steam- 
 hammer, bein' convinced that I was in ambuscade ad- 
 jacent; an' that wag'nette ran back among the other 
 carriages like a field-gun in charge. Thin he hauled ut 
 out again an' shuk ut, an' by nature it came all to little 
 pieces. Afther that he went sheer damn, slam, dancin', 
 lunatic, double-shuflle demented wid the whole of An- 
 tonio's shtock for the season. He kicked, an' he strad- 
 dled, and he stamped, an' he pounded all at wanst, his 
 big bald head bobbin' up an' down, solemn as a rigadoon. 
 He tuk a new shiny broom an' kicked ut on wan corner, 
 an' ut opened out like a blossomin' lily; an' he shtuck 
 wan fool-foot through the flure av ut an' a wheel was 
 shpinnin' on his tusk. At that he got scared, an' by 
 this an' that he fair sat down plump among the carriages, 
 an' they pricked 'im wid splinters till he was a boundin' 
 pincushin. In the middle av the mess, whin the kyarts 
 was climbin' wan on top av the other, an' rickochettin' off 
 the mud walls, an' showin' their agility, wid him tearin' 
 their wheels off, I heard the sound of distrestf ul wailin' on 
 the housetops, an' the whole Antonio firm an' f am'ly was 
 cursin' me an' him from the roof next door; me bekase I'd 
 taken refuge wid them, and him bekase he was playin' 
 shtep-dances wid the carriages av the aristocracy. 
 
 ' "Divart his attention," sez Antonio, dancin' on the 
 roof in his big white waistcoat. '* Divart his attention," 
 he sez, "or I'll prosecute you." An the whole f am'ly 
 shouts, "Hit him a kick, mister soldier." 
 
 * "He's divartin' himself," I sez, for it was just the 
 worth av a man's life to go down into the compound. 
 But by way av makin' show I threw the whisky-bottle 
 ('twas not full whin I came there) at him. He shpun 
 
 51 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 round from what was left av the last kyart, an' shtuck 
 his head into the veranda not three feet below me. 
 Maybe 'twas the temptin'ness av his back or the whisky. 
 Anyways, the next thing I knew was me, wid my hands 
 full av mud an' mortar, all fours on his back, an' the 
 Snider just slidin' off the slope av his head. I grabbed 
 that an' scuffled on to his neck, dhruv my knees undher 
 his big flappin' ears, an' we wint to glory out av that 
 compound wid a shqueal that crawled up my back an' 
 down my belly. Thin I remimbered the Snider, an' I 
 grup ut by the muzzle an' hit him on the head. 'Twas 
 most forlorn — like tappin' the deck av a throopship wid 
 a cane to stop the engines whin you're seasick. But I 
 parsevered till I sweated, an' at last from takin' no notice 
 at all he began to grunt. I hit wid the full strength that 
 was in me in those days, an' it might ha' discommoded 
 him. We came back to the p'rade-groun' forty miles 
 an hour, trumpetin' vainglorious. I never stopped ham- 
 merin' him for a minut'; 'twas by way av divartin' 
 him from runnin' undher the trees an' scrapin' me off 
 like a poultice. The p'rade-groun' an' the road was all 
 empty, but the throops was on the roofs av the barricks, 
 an' betune Ould Thrajectory's gruntin' an' mine (for I 
 was winded wid my stone-breakin'), I heard them clap- 
 pin' an' cheerin'. He was growin' more confused an' 
 tuk to runnin' in circles. 
 
 * "Begad," sez I to mysilf, "there's dacincy in all 
 things, Terence. 'Tis like you've shplit his head, and 
 whin you come out av Clink you'll be put under stop- 
 pages for killin' a Gov'ment elephint." At that I ca- 
 ressed him.' 
 
 * 'Ow the devil did you do that? Might as well pat a 
 barrick,' said Ortheris. 
 
 52 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 * Thried all manner av endearin' epitaphs, but bein* 
 more than a little shuk up I disremimbered what the divil 
 would answer to. So, " Good dog," I sez; " Pretty puss," 
 sez I; *'Whoa mare," I sez; an' at that I fetched him a 
 shtroke av the butt for to conciliate him, an' he stud still 
 among the barricks. 
 
 ' "Will no one take me off the top av this murderin' 
 volcano?" I sez at the top av my shout; an' I heard a 
 man yellin', "Hould on, faith an' patience, the other 
 elephints are comin'." "Mother av Glory," I sez, "will 
 I rough-ride the whole stud? Come an' take me down, 
 ye cowards!" 
 
 'Thin a brace av fat she-elephints wid mahouts an' a 
 commissariat sergint came shuffling round the corner av 
 the barricks; an' the mahouts was abusin' ould Poti- 
 phar's mother an' blood-kin. 
 
 * " Obsarve my reinforcemints," I sez. "They're goin' 
 to take you to Clink, my son" ; an' the child av calamity 
 put his ears forward an' swung head on to those females. 
 The pluck av him, afther my oratorio on his brain-pan, 
 wint to the heart av me. "I'm in dishgrace mesilf," I 
 sez, "but I'll do what I can for ye. WiUye go to Clink 
 like a man, or fight like a fool whin there's no chanst?" 
 Wid that I fetched him wan last lick on the head, an' he 
 fetched a tremenjus groan an' dhropped his thrunk. 
 "Think," sez I to him, an' "Halt!" I sez to the mahouts. 
 They was anxious so to do. I could feel the ould reprobit 
 meditating undher me. At last he put his thrunk straight 
 out an' gave a most melancholious toot (the like av a sigh 
 wid an elephint) ; an' by that I knew the white flag was up 
 an' the rest was no more than considherin' his feelin's. 
 
 * "He's done," I sez. "Kape open ordher left an' 
 right alongside. We'll go to Clink quiet." 
 
 53 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 *Sez the commissariat sergeant to me from his ele- 
 phint, "Are you a man or a mericle?" sez he. 
 
 ' "I'm betwixt an' betune," I sez, thryin' to set up 
 stiff-back. "An' what," sez I, "may ha' set this animal 
 off in this opprobrious shtyle?" I sez, the gun-butt light 
 an' easy on my hip an' my left hand dhropped, such as 
 throopers behave. We was bowlin' on to the elephint- 
 lines under escort all this time. 
 
 ' "I was not in the lines whin the throuble began," 
 sez the sergeant. "They tuk him off carryin' tents an' 
 such like, an' put him to the gun-team. I knew he would 
 not like ut, but by token it fair tore his heart out." 
 
 ' "Faith, wan man's meat is another's poison," I sez. 
 " 'Twas bein' put on to carry tents that was the ruin av 
 me." An' my heart warrumed to Ould Double Ends 
 bekase he had been put upon. 
 
 ' "We'll close on him here," sez the sergeant, whin we 
 got to the elephint-lines. All the mahouts an' their 
 childher was round the pickets cursin' my poney from a 
 mile to hear. "You skip off on to my elephint's back," 
 he sez. "There'll be throuble." 
 
 ' "Sind that howlin' crowd away," I sez, "or he'll 
 thrample the life out av thim." I cud feel his ears be- 
 ginnin' to twitch. "An' do you an' your immoril she- 
 elephints go well clear away. I will get down here. He's 
 an Irishman," I sez, "for all his long Jew's nose, an he 
 shall be threated like an Irishman." 
 
 ' "Are ye tired av lif e? " sez the sergeant. 
 
 ' "Divil a bit," I sez; "but wan av us has to win, an 
 I'm av opinion 'tis me. Get back," I sez. 
 
 *The two elephints wint off, an' Smith O'Brine came 
 to a halt dead above his own pickuts. "Down," sez I, 
 whackin' him on the head, an' down he wint, shoul- 
 
 54 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 dher over shouldher like a hill-side slippin' afther rain. 
 "Now," sez I, slidin' down his nose an' runnin' to the front 
 av him, "you will see the man that's betther than you." 
 
 'His big head was down betune his fore-feet, an' they 
 was twisted in sideways like a kitten's. He looked the 
 picture av innocince an' forlornsomeness, an' by this an' 
 that hisbighairy undherhp was thremblin', an' he winked 
 his eyes together to kape from cryin'. " For the love av 
 God," I sez, clean forgettin' he was a dumb baste, "don't 
 take ut to heart so! Aisy, be aisy," I sez; an' wid that I 
 rubbed his cheek an' betune his eyes an' the top av his 
 thrunk, talkin' all the time. "Now," sez I, "I'll make 
 you comfortable for the night. Send wan or two chil- 
 dher here," I sez to the sergeant who was watchin' for to 
 see me killed. " He'll rouse at the sight av a man." ' 
 
 ' You got bloomin' clever all of a sudden,' said Ortheris. 
 ' 'Ow did you come to know 'is funny little ways that 
 soon?' 
 
 'Bekase,' said Terence with emphasis, 'bekase I had 
 conquered the beggar, my son.' 
 
 'Ho!' said Ortheris between doubt and derision. 
 'G'on.' 
 
 'His mahout's child an' wan or two other line-babies 
 came runnin' up, not bein' afraid av anything, an' some 
 got wather, an' I washed the top av his poor sore head 
 (begad, I had done him to a turn!), an' some picked the 
 pieces av carts out av his hide, an' we scraped him, an' 
 handled him all over, an' we put a thunderin' big poul- 
 tice av neem-leaves (the same that we stick on a pony's 
 gall) on his head, an' it looked like a smokin'-cap, an' we 
 put a pile av young sugar-cane forninst him, an' he be- 
 gan to pick at ut. "Now," sez I, settin' down on his 
 fore-foot, "we'll have a dhrink, an' let bygones be." I 
 
 55, 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 sent a naygur-child for a quart av arrack, an' the 
 sergeant's wife she sint me out four fingers av whisky, 
 an' when the liquor came I cud see by the twinkle in 
 Ould Typhoon's eye that he was no m.ore a stranger to 
 ut than me, — worse luck, than me ! So he tuk his quart 
 like a Christian, an' thin I put his shackles on, chained 
 him fore an' aft to the pickets, an' gave him my blessin' 
 an wint back to barricks.' 
 
 *And after?' I said in the pause. 
 
 *Ye can guess,' said Mulvaney. 'There was confu- 
 sion, an' the colonel gave me ten rupees, an' the adj'tant 
 gave me five, an' my comp'ny captain gave me five, an' 
 the men carried me round the barricks shoutin'.' 
 
 *Did you go to Clink?' said Ortheris. 
 
 *I niver heard a word more about the misundher- 
 standin' wid Kearney's beak, if that's what you mane; 
 but sev'ril av the bhoys was tuk off sudden to the Holy 
 Christians' Hotel that night. Small blame to thim, — 
 they had twenty rupees in dhrinks. I wint to lie down 
 an' sleep ut off, for I was as done an' double done as him 
 there in the lines. 'Tis no small thing to go ride ele- 
 phints. 
 
 * Subsequint, me an' the Venerable Father av Sin be- 
 came mighty friendly. I wud go down to the lines, 
 whin I was in dishgrace, an' spend an afthernoon col- 
 login' wid him; he chewin' wan stick av sugar-cane an' 
 me another, as thick as thieves. He'd take all I had 
 out av my pockets an' put ut back again, an' now an' 
 thin I'd bring him beer for his dijistin', an' I'd give him 
 advice about bein' well behaved an' keepin' off the books. 
 Afther that he wint the way av the Army, an' that's 
 bein' thransferred as soon as you've made a good friend.' 
 
 *So you never saw him again?' I demanded. 
 
 56 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 *Do you belave the first half av the affair?' said Ter- 
 ence. 
 
 *ril wait till Learoyd comes,' I said evasively. Ex- 
 cept when he was carefully tutored by the other two and 
 the immediate money-benefit explained, the Yorkshire- 
 man did not tell lies; and Terence, I knew, had a pro- 
 fligate imagination. 
 
 * There's another part still,' said Mulvaney . * Ortheris 
 was in that.' 
 
 'Then I'll believe it all,' I answered, not from any 
 special belief in Ortheris's word, but from desire to learn 
 the rest. Ortheris stole a pup from me when our ac- 
 quaintance was new, and with the little beast stifling 
 under his overcoat, denied not only the theft, but that 
 he ever was interested in dogs. 
 
 *That was at the beginnin' av the Afghan business,' 
 said Mulvaney; 'years afther the men that had seen me 
 do the thrick was dead or gone home. I came not to 
 speak av ut at the last, — bekase I do not care to knock 
 the face av ivry man that calls me a liar. At the very 
 beginnin' av the marchin' I wint sick like a fool. I had 
 a boot-gall, but I was all for keepin' up wid the rig'mint 
 and such like foolishness. So I finished up wid a hole in 
 my heel that you cud ha' dhruv a tent-peg into. Faith, 
 how often have I preached that to recruities since, for 
 a warnin' to thim to look afther their feet ! Our docthor, 
 who knew our business as well as his own, he sez to me, 
 in the middle av the Tangi Pass it was: "That's sheer 
 damned carelessness," sez he. " How often have I tould 
 you that a marchin' man is no stronger than his feet, — 
 his feet, — his feet I " he sez. "Now to hospital you go," 
 he sez, "for three weeks, an expense to your Quane an' a 
 nuisince to your counthry. Next time," sez he, "per- 
 
 57 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 haps you'll put some av the whisky you pour down your 
 throat, an' some av the tallow you put into your hair, 
 into your socks," sez he. Faith he was a just man. So 
 soon as we come to the head av the Tangi I wint to hos- 
 pital, hoppin' on wan fut, woild wid disappointment. 
 'Twas a field-hospital (all flies an' native apothecaries 
 an' liniment) dhropped, in a way av speakin', close by 
 the head av the Tangi. The hospital guard was ravin' 
 mad wid us sick for keepin' thim there, an' we was ravin' 
 mad at bein' kept; an' through the Tangi, day an' night 
 an' night an' day, the fut an' horse an' guns an' com- 
 missariat an' tents an' followers av the brigades was 
 pourin' like a colTee-mill. The doolies caire dancin' 
 through, scores an' scores av thim, an' they'd turn up 
 the hill to hospital wid their sick, an' I lay in bed nursin' 
 my heel, an' hearin' the men bein' tuk out. I remimber 
 wan night (the time I was tuk wid fever) a man came 
 rowlin' through the tents an', "Is there any room to die 
 here?" he sez; "there's none wid the columns"; an' at 
 that he dhropped dead acrost a cot, an' thin the man in 
 ut began to complain against dyin' all alone in the dust 
 undher dead men. Thin I must ha' turned mad wid the 
 fever, an' for a week I was prayin' the saints to stop the 
 noise av the columns movin' through the Tangi. Gun- 
 wheels it was that wore my head thin. Ye know how 
 'tis wid fever? ' 
 
 We nodded; there was no need to explain. 
 
 'Gun-wheels an' feet an' people shoutin', but mostly 
 gun-wheels. 'Twas neither night nor day to me for a 
 week. In the mornin' they'd rowl up the tent-flies, an' 
 we sick cud look at the Pass an' considher what was 
 comin' next. Horse, fut, or guns, they'd be sure to 
 dhrop wan or two sick wid us an' we'd get news. Wan 
 
 58 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 mornin', whin the fever hild off of me, I was walchin' 
 the Tangi, an' 'twas just like the picture on the back- 
 side av the Afghan medal, — men an' elephints an' guns 
 comin' wan at a time crawlin' out of a dhrain.' 
 
 'It were a dhrain,' said Ortheris with feeling. 'I've 
 fell out an' been sick in the Tangi twice; an' wot turns 
 my innards ain't no bloomin' vi'lets neither.' 
 
 'The Pass gave a twist at the ind, so everything shot 
 out suddint, an' they'd built a throop-bridge (mud an' 
 dead mules) over a nullah at the head av ut. I lay an' 
 counted the elephints (gun-elephints) thryin' the bridge 
 wid their thrunks an' rolling out sagacious. The fifth 
 elephint's head came round the corner, an' he threw up 
 his thrunk, an' he fetched a toot, an' there he shtuck at 
 the head of the Tangi like a cork in a bottle. "Faith," 
 thinks I to mysilf, "he will not thrust the bridge; there 
 will be throuble." ' 
 
 'Trouble! My Gawd!' said Ortheris. 'Terence, I 
 was be'ind that blooming 'uttee up to my stock in dust. 
 Trouble ! ' 
 
 'Tell on then, little man; I only saw the hospital ind 
 av ut.' Mulvaney knocked the ashes out of his pipe, as 
 Ortheris heaved the dogs aside and went on. 
 
 'We was escort to them guns, three comp'niesof us,' 
 he said. 'Dewey was our major, an' our orders was to 
 roll up anything we come across in the Tangi an' shove 
 it out t'other end. Sort o' pop-gun picnic, see? We'd 
 rolled up a lot o' lazy beggars o' native followers, an' 
 some commissariat supplies that was bivoo-whackin' 
 for ever seemin'ly, an' all the sweepin's of 'arf a dozen 
 things what ought to 'ave bin at the front weeks ago, 
 an' Dewey, he sez to us: "You're most *eart-breakin' 
 sweeps," 'e sez. "For 'eving's sake," sez 'e, "do a 
 
 59 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 little sweepin* now." So we swep', — s'welp me, 'ow we 
 did sweep 'em along I There was a full reg'ment be'ind 
 us; most anxious to get on they was; an' they kep' on 
 sendin' to us with the colonel's compliments, an' what 
 in 'ell was we stoppin' the way for, please? Oh, they 
 was partic'lar poUte! So was Dewey! 'E sent 'em 
 back wot-for, an' 'e give us wot-for, an' we give the guns 
 wot-for, an' they give the commissariat wot-for, an' the 
 commissariat give first-class extry wot-for to the native 
 followers, an' on we'd go again till we was stuck, an' the 
 'ole Pass 'ud be swimmin' Allelujah for a mile an' a 'arf. 
 We 'adn't no tempers nor no seats to our trousies, an' our 
 coats an' our rifles was chucked in the carts, so as we might 
 ha' been cut up any minute, an' we wasdoin' drover-work. 
 That was wot it was; drovin' on the Islin'ton road ! 
 
 * I was close up at the 'ead of the column when we saw 
 the end of the Tangi openin' out ahead of us, an' I sez : 
 "The door's open, boys. 'Oo'll git to the gall'ry fust?" 
 I sez. Then I saw Dewey screwin' 'is bloomin' eyeglass 
 in 'is eye an' lookin' straight on. "Propped, — ther 
 beggar!" he sez; an' the be'ind end o' that bloomin' old 
 'uttee was shinin' through the dust like a bloomin' old 
 moon made o' tarpaulin. Then we 'alted, all chock-a- 
 block, one atop o ' the other, an' right at the back o' the 
 guns there sails in a lot o' silly grinnin' camels, what the 
 commissariat was in charge of — sailin' away as if they 
 was at the Zoological Gardens an' squeezin' our men most 
 awful. The dust was that up you couldn't see your 'and ; 
 an' the more we 'it 'em on the 'ead the more their drivers 
 sez, "Accha! Accha!" an' by Gawd it was "at yer" 
 before you knew where you was. An' that 'uttee's be- 
 'ind end stuck in the Pass good an' tight, an' no one 
 knew wot for. 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 *Fust thing we *ad to do was to fight they bloomin' 
 camels. I wasn't goin' to be eat by no buU-oont, so I 
 'eld up my trousies with one 'and, standin' on a rock, 
 an' 'it away with my belt at every nose I saw bobbin' 
 above me. Then the camels fell back, an' they 'ad to 
 fight to keep the rear-guard an' the native followers from 
 crushin' into them; an' the rear-guard 'ad to send down 
 the Tangi to warn the other reg'ment that we was blocked. 
 I 'eard the mahouts shoutin' in front that the 'uttee 
 wouldn't cross the bridge; an' I saw Dewey skippin' 
 about through the dust like a musquito-worm in a tank. 
 Then our comp'nies got tired o' waitin' an' begun to 
 mark time, an' some goat struck up "Tommy, make 
 room for your Uncle." After that, you couldn't neither 
 see nor breathe nor 'ear; an' there we was, singin' bloomin' 
 serenades to the end of a' elephant that don't care for 
 tunes! I sung too. I couldn't do nothin' else. They 
 was strengthenin' the bridge in front, all for the sake of 
 the 'uttee. By an' by a' orf'cer caught me by the throat 
 an' choked the sing out of me. So I caught the next 
 man I could see by the throat an' choked the sing out of 
 'im.' 
 
 'What's the difference between being choked by an 
 officer and being hit?' I asked, remembering a little 
 affair in which Ortheris's honour had been injured by his 
 lieutenant. 
 
 'One's a bloomin' lark, an' one's a bloomin' insult!' 
 said Ortheris. 'Besides, we was on service, an' no one 
 cares what an orf'cer does then, s'long as 'e gets our ra- 
 tions an' don't get us unusual cut up. After that we got 
 quiet, an' I 'eard Dewey say that 'e'd court-martial the 
 lot of us soon as we was out of the Tangi. Then we 
 give three cheers for Dewey an' three more for the Tangi; 
 
 ei 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 an' the 'uttee's be'ind end was stickin' in the Pass, so we 
 cheered that. Then they said the bridge had been 
 strengthened, an' we give three cheers for the bridge ; 
 but the 'uttee wouldn't move a bloomin' hinch. Not 
 'im! Then we cheered 'im again, an' Kite Dawson, 
 that was corner-man at all the sing-songs ('e died on the 
 way down), began to give a nigger lecture on the be'ind 
 ends of elephants, an' Dewey, 'e tried to keep 'is face 
 for a minute, but, Lord, you couldn't do such when Kite 
 was playin' the fool an' askin' whether 'e mightn't 'ave 
 leave to rent a villa an' raise 'is orphan children in the 
 Tangi, 'cos 'e couldn't get 'ome no more. Then up come 
 a orf'cer (mounted, like a fool, too) from the reg'ment 
 at the back with some more of his colonel's pretty little 
 compliments, an' what was this delay, please. We 
 sung 'im "There's another bloomin' row downstairs" 
 till 'is 'orse bolted, an' then we give 'im three cheers; 
 an' Kite Dawson sez 'e was goin' to write to "The 
 Times" about the awful state of the streets in Afghanis- 
 tan. The 'uttee's be 'ind end was stickin' in the Pass all 
 the time. At last one o' the mahouts came to Dewey 
 an' sez something. "Oh Lord!" sez Dewey, "I don't 
 know the beggar's visiting-list! I'll give 'im another 
 ten minutes an' then I'll shoot 'im." Things was gettin' 
 pretty dusty in the Tangi, so we all listened. " 'E 
 wants to see a friend," said Dewey out loud to the men, 
 an' 'e mopped 'is forehead an' sat down on a gun-tail. 
 
 'I leave it to you to judge 'ow the reg'ment shouted. 
 "That's all right," we sez. "Three cheers for Mister 
 Winterbottom's friend," sez we. "Why didn't you say 
 so at first? Pass the word for old Swizzletail's wife," 
 — and such like. Some o' the men they didn't laugh. 
 They took it same as if it might have been a' introduc- 
 
 62 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 tion like, 'cos they knew about 'uttees. Then we all 
 run forward over the guns an' in an' out among the 
 elephants' legs, — Lord, I wonder 'arf the comp'nies 
 wasn't squashed — an' the next thing I saw was Terence 
 'ere, lookin' like a sheet o' wet paper, comin' down the 
 'illside wid a sergeant. " 'Strewth," I sez. "I might 
 ha' knowed 'e'd be at the bottom of any cat's trick," sez 
 L Now you tell wot 'appened your end? ' 
 
 * I lay be the same as you did, little man, listenin' to 
 the noises an' the bhoys singin'. Presintly I heard whis- 
 perin' an' the docthor sayin', " Get out av this, wakin' my 
 sick wid your jokes about elephints." An' another man 
 sez, all angry: " 'Tis a joke that is stoppin' two thou- 
 sand men in the Tangi. That son av sin av a haybag av 
 an elephint sez, or the mahouts sez for him, that he 
 wants to see a friend, an' he'll not lift hand or fut till he 
 finds him. I'm wore out wid inthrojucin' sweepers an' 
 coolies to him, an' his hide's as full o' bay'net pricks as a 
 musquito-net av holes, an' I'm here undher ordhers, 
 docthor dear, to ask if any one, sick or well, or alive or 
 dead, knows an elephint. I'm not mad," he sez, settin' 
 on a box av medical comforts. " 'Tis my ordhers, an' 
 'tis my mother," he sez, ''that would laugh at me for 
 the father av all fools to-day. Does any wan here know 
 an elephint? " We sick was all quiet. 
 
 * **Now you've had your answer," sez the docthor. 
 "Go away." 
 
 * "Hould on," I sez, thinkin' mistiways in my cot, an' 
 I did not know my own voice. "I'm by way av bein' 
 acquainted wid an elephint, myself," I sez. 
 
 '"That's delirium," sez the docthor. "See what 
 you've done, sergeant. Lie down, man," he sez, seein' 
 me thryin' to get up. 
 
 63 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 * '*Tis not," I sez. "I rode him round Cawnpore 
 barricks. He will not ha' forgotten. I bruk his head 
 wid a rifle." 
 
 ' "Mad as a coot," sez the docthor, an' thin he felt my 
 head. "It's quare," sez he. "Man," he sez. "if you 
 go, d'you know 'twill either kill or cure?" 
 
 ' "What do I care?" sez I. "If I'm mad, 'tis better 
 dead." 
 
 ' "Faith, that's sound enough," sez the docthor. 
 "You've no fever on you now." 
 
 ' "Come on," sez the sergeant. "We're all mad to- 
 day, an' the throops are wantin' their dinner." He put 
 his arm round av me an' I came into the sun, the hills 
 an' the rocks skippin' big giddy-go-rounds. "Seven- 
 teen years have I been in the army," sez the sergeant, 
 "an' the days av mericles are not done. They'll be giv- 
 in' us more pay next. Begad," he sez, "the brute knows 
 you!" 
 
 'Ould Obstructionist was screamin' like all possist 
 whin I came up, an' I heard forty million men up the 
 Tangi shoutin', " He knows him ! " Thin the big thrunk 
 came round me an' I was nigh fainting wid weakness. 
 "Are you well, Malachi?" I sez, givin' him the name he 
 answered to in the lines. "Malachi, my son, are you 
 well?" sez I, "for I am not." At that he thrumpeted 
 again till the Pass rang to ut, an' the other elephints tuk 
 it up. Thin I got a little strength back. "Down, 
 Malachi," I sez, "an' put me up, but touch me tendher 
 for I am not good." He was on his knees in a minut an' 
 he slung me up as gentle as a girl. " Go on now, my son, ' ' 
 I sez. "You're blockin' the road." He fetched wan 
 more joyous toot, an' swung grand out av the head av 
 the Tangi, his gun-gear clankin' on his back; an' at the 
 
 64 
 
MY LORD THE ELEPHANT 
 
 back av him there wint the most amazin' shout I iver 
 heard. An' thin I felt my head shpin, an' a mighty 
 sweat bruk out on me, an' Malachi was growin' taller an' 
 taller to me settin' on his back, an' I sez, foolish like an' 
 weak, smilin' all round an' about, "Take me down," I 
 sez, "or I'll fall." 
 
 'The next I remimber was lyin' in my cot again, limp 
 as a chewed rag, but cured av the fever, an' the Tangi 
 as empty as the back av my hand. They'd all gone up 
 to the front, an' ten days later I wint up too, havin' 
 blocked an' unblocked an entire army corps. What do 
 you think av ut, sorr?' 
 
 'I'll wait till I see Learoyd,' I repeated. 
 
 ' Ah'm here,' said a shadow from among the shadows. 
 ' Ah've heard t' tale too.' 
 
 'Is it true, Jock?' 
 
 'Ay; true as t' owd bitch has getten t' mange. Or- 
 th'ris, yo' maun't let t' dawgs hev owt to do wi' her.' 
 
 65 
 
ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION 
 
 (1890) 
 
 From Shafiz Ullah Khan, son of Hyat Ullah Khan, in 
 the honoured service of His Highness the Rao Sahib 
 of Jagesur, which is in the northern borders of Hin- 
 dustan, and Orderly to his Highness, this to Kazi 
 Jamal-ud-Din, son of Kazi Ferisht-ud-Din Khan, 
 in the service of the Rao Sahib, a minister much 
 honoured. From that place which they call the 
 Northbrook Club, in the town of London, under 
 the shadow of the Empress, it is written : 
 
 Between brother and chosen brother be no long protes- 
 tations of Love and Sincerity. Heart speaks naked 
 to Heart, and the Head answers for all. Glory and 
 Honour on thy house till the ending of the years 
 and a tent in the borders of Paradise. 
 
 MY Brother, — In regard to that for which I was 
 despatched follows the account. I have pur- 
 chased for the Rao Sahib, and paid sixty pounds 
 in every hundred, the things he most desired. Thus: 
 two of the great fawn-coloured tiger-dogs, male and fe- 
 male, their pedigree being written upon paper, and silver 
 collars adorning their necks. For the Rao Sahib's greater 
 pleasure I send them at once by the steamer, in charge 
 
 @6 
 
ONE VIEW OF THE QUESl ION 
 
 of a man who will render account of them at Bombay tc 
 Lhe bankers there. They are the best of all dogs in this 
 place. Of guns I have bought five — two silver-sprigged 
 in the stock, with gold scroll-work about the hammer, 
 both double-barrelled, hard-striking, cased in velvet 
 and red leather; three of unequalled workmanship, but 
 lacking adornment; a pump-gun that fires fourteen times 
 — this when the Rao Sahib drives pig; a double-barrelled 
 shell-gun for tiger, and that is a miracle of workmanship ; 
 and a fowling-piece no lighter than a feather, with green 
 and blue cartridges by the thousand. Also a very small 
 rifle for blackbuck, that yet would slay a man at four 
 hundred paces. The harness with the golden crests for 
 the Rao Sahib's coach is not yet complete, by reason of 
 the difficulty of lining the red velvet into leather; but 
 the two-horse harness and the great saddle with the 
 golden holsters that is for state use have been put with 
 camphor into a tin box, and I have signed it with my 
 ring. Of the grained leather case of women's tools and 
 tweezers for the hair and beard, of the perfumes and the 
 silks, and all that was wanted by the women behind the 
 curtains, I have no knowledge. They are matters of 
 long coming, and the hawk-bells, hoods, and jesses with 
 the golden lettering are as much delayed as they. Read 
 this in the Rao Sahib's ear, and speak of my diligence 
 and zeal, that favour may not be abated by absence, and 
 keep the eye of constraint upon that jesting dog without 
 teeth — Bahadur Shah^ — for by thy aid and voice, and 
 what I have done in regard to the guns, I look, as thou 
 knowest, for the headship of the army of Jagesur. That 
 conscienceless one desires it also, and I have heard that 
 the Rao Sahib leans thatward. Have ye done, then, 
 with the drinking of wine in your house, my brother, or 
 
 67 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 has Bahadur Shah become a forswearer of brandy? I 
 would not that drink should end him; but the well-mixed 
 draught leads to madness. Consider. 
 
 And now in regard to this land of the Sahibs, follows 
 that thou hast demanded. God is my witness that I 
 have striven to understand all that I saw and a little of 
 what I heard. My w^ords and intention are those of 
 truth, yet it may be that I write of nothing but lies. 
 
 Since the first wonder and bewilderment of my behold- 
 ing is gone — we note the jew^els in the ceiling-dome, but 
 later the filth on the floor — I see clearly that this town, 
 London, which is as large as all Jagesur, is accursed, be- 
 ing dark and unclean, devoid of sun, and full of low-born, 
 who are perpetually drunk, and howl in the streets like 
 jackals, men and women together. At nightfall it is the 
 custom of countless thousands of women to descend into 
 the streets and sweep them, roaring, making jests, and 
 demanding liquor. At the hour of this attack it is the 
 custom of the householders to take their wives and 
 children to the playhouses and the places of entertain- 
 ment; evil and good thus returning home together as do 
 kine from the pools at sundown. I have never seen any 
 sight like this sight in all the world, and I doubt if a double 
 is to be found on the hither side of the gates of Hell. 
 Touching the mystery of their craft, it is an ancient one, 
 but the householders assemble in herds, being men and 
 women, and cry aloud to their God that it is not there; 
 the said women pounding at the doors without. More- 
 over, upon the day when they go to prayer the drink- 
 places are only opened when the mosques are shut; as 
 who should dam the Jumna river for Friday only. There- 
 fore the men and women, being forced to accomplish 
 their desires in the shorter space, become the more furi- 
 
 68 
 
ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION 
 
 ously drunk, and roll in the gutter together. They are 
 there regarded by those going to pray. Further, and 
 for visible sign that the place is forgotten of God, there 
 falls upon certain days, without warning, a cold dark- 
 ness, whereby the sun's light is altogether cut off from 
 all the city, and the people, male and female, and the 
 drivers of the vehicles, grope and howl in this Pit at high 
 noon, none seeing the other. The air being filled with 
 the smoke of Hell — sulphur and pitch as it is written — 
 they die speedily with gaspings, and so are buried in the 
 dark. This is a terror beyond the pen, but, by my head, 
 I write of what I have seen ! 
 
 It is not true that the Sahibs worship one God, as do 
 we of the Faith, or that the differences in their creed be 
 like those now running between Shiah and Sunni. I am 
 but a fighting man, and no darvesh, caring, as thou 
 knowest, as much for Shiah as Sunni. But I have 
 spoken to many people of the nature of their Gods. 
 One there is who is the head of the Mukht-i-Fauj,^ and 
 he is worshipped by men in blood-red clothes, who shout 
 and become without sense. Another is an image, before 
 whom they burn candles and incense in just such a place 
 as I have seen when I went to Rangoon to buy Burma 
 ponies for the Rao. Yet a third has naked altars facing 
 a great assembly of dead. To him they sing chiefly; 
 and for others there is a woman who was the mother of 
 the great prophet that was before Mahommed. The 
 common folk have no God, but worship those who may 
 speak to them hanging from the lamps in the street. 
 The most wise people worship themselves and such things 
 as they have made with their mouths and their hands, 
 
 ^Salvation Army. 
 69 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 and this is to be found notably among the barren women, 
 of whom there are many. It is the custom of men and 
 women to make for themselves such God as they desire; 
 pinching and patting the very soft clay of their thought 
 into the acceptable mould of their lusts. So each is fur- 
 nished with a Godling after his own heart; and this God- 
 ling is changed in a little, as the stomach turns or the 
 health is altered. Thou wilt not believe this tale, my 
 brother. Nor did I when I was first told, but now it is 
 nothing to me; so greatly has the foot of travel let out 
 the stirrup-holes of belief. 
 
 But thou wilt say, 'What matter to us whether Ah- 
 med's beard or Mahmud's be the longer! Speak what 
 thou canst of the Accomplishment of Desire.' Would 
 that thou wert here to talk face to face and w^alk abroad 
 with me and learn. 
 
 To this people it is a matter of Heaven and Hell 
 whether Ahmed's beard and Mahmud's tally or differ 
 but by a hair. Thou knowest the system of their state- 
 craft? It is this. Certain men, appointing themselves, 
 go about and speak to the low-born, the peasants, the 
 leather-workers, and the cloth-dealers, and the w^omen, 
 saying : ' Give us leave by your favour to speak for you 
 in the council.' Securing that permission by large prom- 
 ises, they return to the council-place, and, sitting un- 
 armed, some six hundred together, speak at random 
 each for himself and his own ball of low^-born. The 
 viziers and dewans of the Empress must ever beg money 
 at their hands, for unless more than a half of the six hun- 
 dred be of one heart towards the spending of the revenues, 
 neither horse can be shod, rifle loaded, nor man clothed 
 throughout the land. Remember this very continually. 
 The six hundred are above the Empress, above the Vice- 
 
 70 
 
ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTIOiN 
 
 roy of India, above the Head of the Army and every 
 other power that thou hast ever known. Because they 
 hold the revenues. 
 
 They are divided into two hordes — the one perpet- 
 ually hurling abuse at the other, and bidding the low- 
 born hamper and rebel against all that the other may 
 devise for government. Except that they are unarmed, 
 and so call each other liar, dog, and bastard without fear, 
 even under the shadow of the Empress's throne, they 
 are at bitter war which is without any end. They put 
 lie against lie, till the low-born and common folk grow 
 drunk with lies, and in their turn begin to lie and refuse 
 to pay the revenues. Further, they divide their women 
 into bands, and send them into this fight with yellow 
 flowers in their hands, and since the belief of a woman is 
 but her lover's belief stripped of judgment, very many 
 wild words are added. Well said the slave-girl to Ma- 
 mun in the delectable pages of the Son of Abdullah: — 
 
 ' Oppression and the sword slay fast — 
 Thy breath kills slowly but at last.' 
 
 If they desire a thing they declare that it is true. If 
 they desire it not, though that were Death itself, they 
 cry aloud, 'It has never been.' Thus their talk is the 
 talk of children, and like children they snatch at what 
 they covet, not considering whether it is their own or 
 another's. And in their councils, when the army of un- 
 reason has come to the defile of dispute, and there is no 
 more talk left on either side, they, dividing, count heads, 
 and the will of that side which has the larger number of 
 heads makes that law. But the outnumbered side run 
 speedily among the common people and bid them tram- 
 
 71 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 pie on that law, and slay the officers thereof. Follows 
 slaughter by night of men unarmed, and the slaughter of 
 cattle and insults to women. They do not cut off the 
 noses of women, but they crop their hair and scrape the 
 flesh with pins. Then those shameless ones of the coun- 
 cil stand up before the judges wiping their mouths and 
 making oath. They say: 'Before God we are free from 
 blame. Did we say, "Heave that stone out of that road 
 and kill that one and no other"?' So they are not made 
 shorter by the head because they said only : ' Here are 
 stones and yonder is such a fellow obeying the Law which 
 is no law because we do not desire it.' 
 
 Read this in the Rao Sahib's ear, and ask him if he 
 remembers that season w^ien the Manglot headmen re- 
 fused revenue, not because they could not pay, but be- 
 cause they judged the cess extreme. I and thou went 
 out with the troopers all one day, and the black lances 
 raised the thatch, so that there w^as hardly any need of 
 firing; and no man was slain. But this land is at secret 
 war and veiled killing. In five years of peace they have 
 slain within their own borders and of their own kin more 
 men than would have fallen had the ball of dissension 
 been left to the mallet of the army. And yet there is no 
 hope of peace, for soon the sides again divide, and then 
 they will cause to be slain more men unarmed and in the 
 fields. And so much for that matter, which is to our 
 advantage. There is a better thing to be told, and one 
 tending to the Accomplishment of Desire. Read here 
 with a fresh mind after sleep. I write as I understand. 
 
 Above all this war without honour lies that which I 
 find hard to put into writing, and thou knowest I am 
 unhandy of the pen. I will ride the steed of Inability 
 sideways at the wall of Expression. The earth under 
 
 72 
 
ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION 
 
 foot is sick and sour with tlie much handling of man, as a 
 grazing ground sours under cattle; and the air is sick 
 too. Upon the ground they have laid in this town, as it 
 were, the stinking boards of a stable, and through these 
 boards, between a thousand thousand houses, the rank 
 humours of the earth sweat through to the over-burdened 
 air that returns them to their breeding-place; for the 
 smoke of their cooking fires keeps all in as the cover the 
 juices of the sheep. And in like manner there is a green 
 sickness among the people, and especially among the 
 six hundred men who talk. Neither winter nor autumn 
 abates that malady of the soul. I have seen it among 
 women in our own country, and in boys not yet blooded 
 to the sword; but I have never seen so much thereof be- 
 fore. Through the peculiar operation of this thing the 
 people, abandoning honour and steadfastness, question 
 all authority, not as men question, but as girls, whim- 
 peringly, with pinching in the back when the back is 
 turned, and mowing. If one cries in the streets, 'There 
 has been an injustice,' they take him not to make com- 
 plaint to those appointed, but all who pass, drinking his 
 words, fly clamorously to the house of the accused and 
 write evil things of him, his wives and his daughters; for 
 they take no thought to the weighing of evidence, but 
 are as women. And with one hand they beat their con- 
 stables who guard the streets, and with the other beat 
 the constables for resenting that beating, and fine them. 
 When they have in all things made light of the State 
 they cry to the State for help, and it is given, so that 
 the next time they will cry more. Such as are oppressed 
 riot through the streets, bearing banners that hold four 
 days' labour and a week's bread in cost and toil; and 
 when neither horse nor foot can pass by they are satis- 
 
 73 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 fied. Others receiving wages, refuse to work till they 
 get more, and the priests help them, and also men of the 
 six hundred — for where rebellion is, one of those men 
 will come as a kite to a dead bullock — and priests, talker, 
 and men together declare that it is right because these 
 will not work that no others may attempt. In this 
 manner they have so confused the loading and the unload- 
 ing of the ships that come to this town that, in sending 
 the Rao Sahib's guns and harness, I saw fit to send the 
 cases by the train to another ship that sailed from another 
 place. There is now no certainty in any sending. But 
 who injures the merchants shuts the door of well-being 
 on the city and the army. And ye know what Sa'adi 
 saith : — 
 
 'How may the merchant westward fare 
 When he hears the tale of the tumults there? ' 
 
 No man can keep faith, because he cannot tell how his 
 underlings will go. They have made the servant greater 
 than the master, for that he is the servant; not reckon- 
 ing that each is equal under God to the appointed task. 
 That is a thing to be put aside in the cupboard of the 
 mind. 
 
 Further, the misery and outcry of the common folk of 
 whom the earth's bosom is weary has so wrought upon 
 the minds of certain people who have never slept under 
 fear nor seen the flat edge of the sword on the heads of a 
 mob, that they cry out : ' Let us abate everything that is, 
 and altogether labour with our bare hands.' Their 
 hands in that employ would fester at the second stroke ; 
 and I have seen, for all their unrest at the agonies of 
 others, they abandon no whit of soft living. Unknow- 
 
 74 
 
ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION 
 
 ina, the common folk, or indeed the minds of men, they 
 oiYer strong drink of words, such as they themselves use, 
 to empty bellies; and that wine breeds drunkenness of 
 soul. The distressful persons stand all day long at the 
 door of the drink-places to the number of very many 
 thousands. The well-wishing people of small discern- 
 ment give them words or pitifully attempt in schools to 
 turn them into craftsmen, weavers, or builders, of whom 
 there be more than enough. Yet they have not the wis- 
 dom to look at the hands of the taught, whereon a man's 
 craft and that of his father is written by God and Neces- 
 sity. They believe that the son of a drunkard shall drive 
 a straight chisel and the charioteer do plaster-work. 
 They take no thought in the dispensation of generosity, 
 which is as the closed fingers of a water-scooping palm. 
 Therefore the rough timber of a very great army drifts 
 unhewn through the slime of their streets. If the Gov- 
 ernment, which is to-day and to-morrow changes, spent 
 on these hopeless ones some money to clothe and equip, I 
 should not write what I write. But these people despise 
 the trade of arms, and rest content with the memory of 
 old battles; the women and the talking men aiding them. 
 Thou wilt say: 'Why speak continually of women 
 and fools?' I answer by God, the Fashioner of the 
 Heart, the fools sit among the six hundred, and the wo- 
 men sway their councils. Hast thou forgotten when the 
 order came across the seas that rotted out the armies of 
 the English with us, so that soldiers fell sick by the hun- 
 dred where but ten had sickened before? That was the 
 work of not more than twenty of the men and some fifty 
 of the barren women. I have seen three or four of them, 
 male and female, and they triumph openly, in the name 
 of their God, because three regiments of the white troops 
 
 75 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 are not. This is to our advantage; because the sword 
 with the rust-spot breaks over the turban of the enemy. 
 But if they thus tear their own flesh and blood ere their 
 madness be risen to its height, what will they do when 
 the moon is full? 
 
 Seeing that power lay in the hands of the six hundred, 
 and not in the Viceroy or elsewhere, I have throughout 
 my stay sought the shadow of those among them who 
 talk most and most extravagantly. They lead the com- 
 mon folk, and receive permission from their good-will. 
 It is the desire of some of these men — indeed, of almost 
 as many as caused the rotting of the English army — 
 that our lands and peoples should accurately resemble 
 those of the English upon this very day. May God, the 
 Contemner of Folly, forbid! I myself am accounted a 
 show among them, and of us and ours they know naught, 
 some calling me Hindu and others Rajput, and using 
 towards me, in ignorance, slave-talk and expressions of 
 great disrespect. Some of them are well-born, but the 
 greater part are low-born, coarse-skinned, waving their 
 arms, high-voiced, without dignity, slack in the mouth, 
 shifty-eyed, and, as I have said, swayed by the wind of a 
 woman's cloak. 
 
 Now this is a tale but two days old. There was a com- 
 pany at meat, and a high-voiced woman spoke to me, in 
 the face of the men, of the affairs of our womankind. It 
 was her ignorance that made each word an edged insult. 
 Remembering this I held my peace till she had spoken a 
 new law as to the control of our zenanas, and all who are 
 behind the curtains. 
 
 Then I — 'Hast thou ever felt the life stir under thy 
 heart or laid a little son between thy breasts, most un- 
 happy? ' Thereto she hotly, with a haggard eye — ' No, 
 
 76 
 
ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION 
 
 for I am a free woman, and no servant of babes.' Then 
 I softly — ' God deal lightly with thee, my sister, for thou 
 art in heavier bondage than any slave, and the fuller 
 half of the earth is hidden from thee. The first ten 
 years of the life of a man are his mother's, and from the 
 dusk to the dawn surely the wife may command the hus- 
 band. Is it a great thing to stand back in the waking 
 hours while the men go abroad unhampered by thy 
 hands on the bridle-rein?' Then she wondered that a 
 heathen should speak thus: yet she is a woman honoured 
 among these men, and openly professes that she hath no 
 profession of faith in her mouth. Read this in the ear 
 of the Rao Sahib, and demand how it would fare with 
 me if I brought such a woman for his use. It were worse 
 than that yellow desert-bred girl from Cutch, who set 
 the girls to fighting for her own pleasure, and slippered 
 the young prince across the mouth. Rememberest 
 thou? 
 
 In truth the fountain-head of power is putrid with 
 long standing still. These men and women would make 
 of all India a dung-cake, and would fain leave the mark 
 of the fingers upon it. And they have power and the 
 control of the revenues, and that is why I am so particu- 
 lar in description. They have power over all India. Of 
 what they speak they understand nothing, for the low- 
 born's soul is bounded by his field, and he grasps not the 
 connection of affairs from pole to pole. They boast 
 openly that the Viceroy and the others are their servants. 
 When the masters are mad, what shall the servants do? 
 
 Some hold that all war is sin, and Death the greatest 
 fear under God. Others declare w^ith the Prophet that 
 it is evil to drink, to which teaching their streets bear 
 evident witness; and others there are, specially thelow- 
 
 77 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 born, who aver that all dominion is wicked and sover- 
 eignty of the sword accursed. These protested to me, 
 making, as it were, an excuse that their kin should hold 
 Hindustan, and hoping that upon a day they will depart. 
 Knowing well the breed of white man in our borders I 
 would have laughed, but forbore, remembering that 
 these speakers had power in the counting of heads. Yet 
 others cry aloud against the taxation of Hindustan under 
 the Sahib's rule. To this I assent, remembering the 
 yearly mercy of the Rao Sahib when the turbans of the 
 troopers come through the blighted corn, and the wo- 
 men's anklets go into the melting-pot. But I am no 
 good speaker. That is the duty of the boys from Bengal 
 • — hill asses with an eastern bray — Mahrattas from Poona, 
 and the like. These, moving among fools, represent 
 themselves as the sons of some one, being beggar-taught 
 ofTspring of grain-dealers, curriers, sellers of bottles, and 
 money-lenders, as thou knowest. Now, we of Jagesur 
 owe naught save friendship to the English, who took us 
 by the sword, and having taken us let us go, assuring the 
 Rao Sahib's succession for all time. But these base- 
 born, having won their learning through the mercy of 
 the Government, attired in English clothes, forswearing 
 the faith of their fathers for gain, spread rumour and de- 
 bate against the Government, and are, therefore, very 
 dear to certain of the six hundred. I have heard these 
 cattle speak as princes and rulers of men, and I have 
 laughed ; but not altogether. 
 
 Once it happened that a son of some grain-bag sat 
 with me at meat, who was arrayed and speaking after the 
 manner of the English. At each mouthful he committed 
 perjury against the Salt that he had eaten; the men and 
 womea applauding. When, craftily falsifying, he had 
 
 78 
 
ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION 
 
 magnified oppression and invented untold wrong, to- 
 gether with the desecration of his tun-bellied gods, he 
 demanded in the name of his people the government of 
 all our land, and turning, laid palm to my shoulder, say- 
 ing — 'Here is one who is with us, albeit he professes 
 another faith; he will bear out my words.' This he de- 
 livered in English, and, as it were, exhibited me to that 
 company. Preserving a smiling countenance, I answered 
 in our own tongue— 'Take away that hand, man with- 
 out a father, or the folly of these folk shall not save thee, 
 nor my silence guard thy reputation. Sit off, herd.' 
 And in their speech I said — 'He speaks truth. When 
 the favour and wisdom of the English allows us yet a 
 little larger share in the burden and the reward, the Mus- 
 sulman will deal with the Hindu.' He alone saw what 
 was in my heart. I was merciful towards him because 
 he was accomplishing our desires; but remember that 
 his father is one Durga Charan Laha, in Calcutta. Lay 
 thy hand upon his shoulder if ever chance sends. It is 
 not good that bottle-dealers and auctioneers should paw 
 the sons of princes. I walk abroad sometimes with the 
 man that all this world may know the Hindu and Mus- 
 sulman are one, but when we come to the unfrequented 
 streets I bid him walk behind me, and that is sufficient 
 honour. 
 
 And why did I eat dirt? 
 
 Thus, my brother, it seems to my heart, which has 
 almost burst in the consideration of these matters. The 
 Bengalis and the beggar-taught boys know well that the 
 Sahib's power to govern comes neither from the Viceroy 
 nor the head of the army, but from the hands of the six 
 hundred in this town, and peculiarly those who talk 
 most. They will therefore yearly address themselves 
 
 79 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 more and more to that protection, and working on the 
 green-sickness of the land, as has ever been their custom, 
 will in time cause, through the perpetually instigated 
 interference of the six hundred, the hand of the Indian 
 Government to become inoperative, so that no measure 
 nor order may be carried through without clamour and 
 argument on their part; for that is the delight of the 
 English at this hour. Have I overset the bounds of 
 possibility? No. Even thou must have heard that 
 one of the six hundred, having neither knowledge, fear, 
 nor reverence before his eyes, has made in sport a new 
 and a written scheme for the government of Bengal, and 
 openly shows it abroad as a king might read his crown- 
 ing proclamation. And this man, meddling in affairs of 
 State, speaks in the council for an assemblage of leather- 
 dressers, makers of boots and harness, and openly glories 
 in that he has no God. Has either minister of the Em- 
 press, Empress, Viceroy, or any other raised a voice 
 against this leather-man? Is not his power therefore 
 to be sought, and that of his like-thinkers with it? Thou 
 seest. 
 
 The telegraph is the servant of the six hundred, and 
 all the Sahibs in India, omitting not one, are the servants 
 of the telegraph. Yearly, too, thou knowest, the beggar- 
 taught will hold that which they call their Congress, 
 first at one place and then at another, leavening Hindu- 
 stan with rumour, echoing the talk among the low-born 
 people here, and demanding that they, like the six hun- 
 dred, control the revenues. And they will bring every 
 point and letter over the heads of the Governors and the 
 Lieutenant-Governors, and whoever hold authority, and 
 cast it clamorously at the feet of the six hundred here; 
 and certain of those word-confounders and the barren 
 
 80 
 
ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION 
 
 women will assent to their demands, and others will 
 weary of disagreement. Thus fresh confusion will be 
 thrown inlo the councils of the Empress even as the is- 
 land near by is helped and comforted into the smothered 
 war of which I have written. Then yearly, as they have 
 begun and we have seen, the low-born men of the six 
 hundred anxious for honour will embark for our land, 
 and, stay ing a little while, will gather round them and fawn 
 before the beggar-taught, and these departing from their 
 side will assuredly inform the peasants, and the fighting 
 men for whom there is no employ, that there is a change 
 toward and a coming of help from over the seas. That 
 rumour will not grow smaller in the spreading. And, 
 most of all, the Congress, when it is not under the eye of 
 the six hundred — who, though they foment dissension 
 and death, pretend great reverence for the law which is 
 no law — will, stepping aside, deliver uneasy words to 
 the peasants, speaking, as it has done already, of the re- 
 mission of taxation, and promising a new rule. That is 
 to our advantage, but the flower of danger is in the seed 
 of it. Thou knowest what evil a rumour may do ; though 
 in the Black Year when thou and I were young our stand- 
 ing to the English brought gain to Jagesur and enlarged 
 our borders, for the Government gave us land on both 
 sides. Of the Congress itself nothing is to be feared 
 that ten troopers could not remove; but if its words too 
 soon perturb the minds of those waiting or of princes in 
 idleness, a flame may come before the time, and since 
 there are now many white hands to quench it, all will re- 
 turn to the former condition. If the flame be kept under, 
 we need have no fear, because, sweating and panting, the 
 one trampling on the other, the white people here are 
 digging their own graves. The hand of the Viceroy will 
 
 61 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 be tied, the hearts of the Sahibs will be downcast, and all 
 eyes will turn to England disregarding any orders. 
 Meantime, keeping tally on the sword-hilt against the 
 hour when the score must be made smooth by the blade, 
 it is well for us to assist and greatly befriend the Bengali 
 that he may get control of the revenues and the posts. 
 We must even write to England that we be of one blood 
 with the school-men. It is not long to wait ; by my head 
 it is not long! This people are like the great king Fe- 
 risht, who, eaten with the scabs of long idleness, plucked 
 off his crown and danced naked among the dunghills. 
 But I have not forgotten the profitable end of that tale. 
 The vizier set him upon a horse and led him into battle. 
 Presently his health returned and he caused to be en- 
 graven on the crown : — 
 
 'Though I was cast away by the king. 
 Yet, through God, I returned and he added to my bril- 
 liance 
 Two great rubies (Balkh and Iran).' 
 
 If this people be purged and bled out by battle, their 
 sickness may go and their eyes be cleared to the necessi- 
 ties of things. But they are now far gone in rottenness. 
 Even the stallion, too long heel-roped, forgets how to 
 fight; and these men are mules. I do not lie when I say 
 that unless they are bled and taught with the whip, they 
 will hear and obey all that is said by the Congress and 
 the black men here, hoping to turn our land into their 
 own orderless Jehannum. For the men of the six hun- 
 dred, being chiefly low-born and unused to authority, 
 desire much to exercise rule, extending their arms to the 
 sun and moon, and shouting very greatly in order to 
 
 82 
 
ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION 
 
 hear the echo of their voices, each one saying some new 
 strange thing, and parting the goods and honour of 
 others among the rapacious, that he may obtain the fa- 
 vour of the common folk. And all this is to our advantage. 
 
 Therefore write, that they may read, of gratitude and 
 of love and the law. I myself, when I return, will show 
 how the dish should be dressed to take the taste here; 
 for it is here that we must come. Cause to be estab- 
 lished in Jagesur a newspaper, and fill it with transla- 
 tions of their papers. A beggar-taught may be brought 
 from Calcutta for thirty rupees a month, and if he writes 
 in Gurmukhi our people cannot read. Create, further, 
 councils other than the panchayats of headmen, village 
 by village and district by district, instructing them be- 
 forehand what to say according to the order of the Rao. 
 Print all these things in a book in English, and send it 
 to this place, and to every man of the six hundred. Bid 
 the beggar-taught write in front of all that Jagesur fol- 
 lows fast on the English plan. If thou squeezest the 
 Hindu shrine at Theegkot, and it is ripe, remit the head- 
 tax, and perhaps the marriage-tax, with great publicity. 
 But above all things keep the troops ready, and in good 
 pay, even though we glean the stubble with the wheat 
 and stint the Rao Sahib's women. All must go softly. 
 Protest thou thy love for the voice of the common people 
 in all things, and affect to despise the troops. That 
 shall be taken for a witness in this land. The headship 
 of the troops must be mine. See that Bahadur Shah's 
 wits go wandering over the wine, but do not send him 
 to God. I am an old man, but I may yet live to lead. 
 
 If this people be not bled out and regain strength, we, 
 watching how the tide runs, when we see that the shadow 
 of their hand is all but lifted from Hindustan, must 
 
 83 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 bid the Bengali demand the removal of the residue or 
 set going an uneasiness to that end. We must have a 
 care neither to hurt the life of the Englishmen nor the 
 honour of their women, for in that case six times the six 
 hundred here could not hold those who remain from 
 making the land swim. We must care that they are 
 not mobbed by the Bengalis, but honourably escorted, 
 while the land is held down with the threat of the sword 
 if a hair of their heads fall. Thus we shall gain a good 
 name, and when rebellion is unaccompanied by blood- 
 shed, as has lately befallen in a far countr\', the English, 
 disregarding honour, call it by a new name: even one 
 who has been a minister of the Empress, but is now at 
 war against the law, praises it openly before the common 
 folk. So greatly are they changed since the days of 
 Nikhal Seyn!^ And then, if all go well and the Sahibs 
 who through continual checking and browbeating will 
 have grown sick at heart, see themselves abandoned by 
 their kin — for this people have allowed their greatest to 
 die on dr^^ sand through delay and fear of expense — we 
 may go forward. This people are swayed by names. 
 A new name, therefore, must be given to the rule of Hin- 
 dustan (and that the Bengalis may settle among them- 
 selves), and there will be many writings and oaths oi 
 love, such as the little island over seas makes when it 
 would fight more bitterly; and after that the residue are 
 diminished the hour comes, and we must strike so that 
 the sword is never any more questioned. 
 
 By the favour of God and the conservation of the Sa- 
 hibs these many years, Hindustan contains very much 
 plunder, which we can in no way eat hurriedly. There 
 
 ^Nicholson, a gentleman once of some notoriety in India. 
 
 84 
 
ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION 
 
 will be to our hand the scaffolding of the house of State, 
 for the Bengali shall continue to do our work, and must 
 account to us for the revenue, and learn his seat in the 
 order of things. Whether the Hindu kings of the west 
 will break in to share that spoil before we have swept it 
 altogether, thou knowest better than I ; but be certain 
 that, then, strong hands will seek their own thrones, and 
 it may be that the days of the king of Delhi will return 
 if we only, curbing our desires, pay due obedience to the 
 outward appearances and the names. Thou remem- 
 berest the old song — 
 
 'Hadst thou not called it Love, I*had said it were a drawn 
 
 sword, 
 But since thou hast spoken, I believe and — I die.' 
 
 It is in my heart that there will remain in our land a 
 few Sahibs undesirous of returning to England. These 
 we must cherish and protect, that by their skill and cun- 
 ning we may hold together and preserve unity in time 
 of war. The Hindu kings will never trust a Sahib in the 
 core of their counsels. I say again that if we of the Faith 
 confide in them, we shall trample upon our enemies. 
 
 Is all this a dream to thee, gray fox of my mother's 
 bearing? I have written of what I have seen and heard, 
 but from the same clay two men will never fashion plat- 
 ters alike, nor from the same facts draw equal conclu- 
 sions. Once more, there is a green-sickness upon all the 
 people of this country. They eat dirt even now to stay 
 their cravings. Honour and stability have departed 
 from their councils, and the knife of dissension has 
 brought down upon their heads the flapping tent-flies of 
 confusion. The Empress is old. They speak disre- 
 
 85 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 spectfuUy of her and hers in the street. They despise 
 the sword, and believe that the tongue and the pen sway 
 all. The measure of their ignorance and their soft be- 
 lief is greater than the measure of the wisdom of Solomon, 
 the son of David. All these things I have seen whom 
 they regard as a wild beast and a spectacle. By God 
 the Enlightener of Intelligence, if the Sahibs in India 
 could breed sons who lived so that their houses might be 
 established, I would almost fling my sword at the Vice- 
 roy's feet, saying: 'Let us here fight for a kingdom to- 
 gether, thine and mine, disregarding the babble across 
 the water. Write a letter to England, saying that we 
 love them, but would depart from their camps and make 
 all clean under a new crown.' But the Sahibs die out at 
 the third generation in our land, and it may be that I 
 dream dreams. Yet not altogether. Until a white ca- 
 lamity of steel and bloodshed, the bearing of burdens, 
 the trembling for life, and the hot rage of insult — for 
 pestilence would unman them if eyes not unused to men 
 see clear — befall this people, our path is safe. They are 
 sick. The Fountain of Power is a gutter which all may 
 defile; and the voices of the men are overborne by the 
 squealings of mules and the whinnying of barren mares. 
 If through adversity they become wise, then, my brother, 
 strike with and for them, and later, when thou and I are 
 dead, and the disease grows up again (the young men 
 bred in the school of fear and trembling and word-con- 
 founding have yet to live out their appointed span), 
 those who have fought on the side of the English may 
 ask and receive what they choose. At present seek 
 quietly to confuse, and delay, and evade, and make of 
 no effect. In this business four score of the six hundred 
 are our true helpers. 
 
 86 
 
ONE VIEW OE THE QUESTION 
 
 Now the pen, and the ink, and the hand weary to- 
 gether, as thy eyes will weary in this reading. Be it 
 known to my house that I return soon, but do not speak 
 of the hour. Letters without name have come to me 
 touching my honour. The honour of my house is thine. 
 If they be, as I Ijclieve, the work of a dismissed groom, 
 Futteh Lai, that ran at the tail of my wine-coloured 
 Kathiawar staUion, his village is beyond Manglot; look 
 to it that his tongue no longer lengthens itself on the 
 names of those who are mine. If it be otherwise, put a 
 guard upon my house till I come, and especially see that 
 no sellers of jewellery, astrologers, or mid wives have en- 
 trance to the women's rooms. We rise by our slaves, 
 and by our slaves we fall, as it was said. To all who are 
 of my remembrance I bring gifts according to their 
 worth. I have written twice of the gift that I would 
 cause to be given to Bahadur Shah. 
 
 The blessing of God and his Prophet on thee and thine 
 till the end which is appointed. Give me felicity by in- 
 forming me of the state of thy health. My head is at 
 the Rao Sahib's feet; my sword is at his left side, a little 
 above my heart. Follows my seal. 
 
 87 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 (1891) 
 
 ' Or ever the knightly years were gone 
 
 With the old world to the grave, 
 I was a king in Babylon 
 And you were a Christian slave.' 
 
 W. E. Henley. 
 
 HIS name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son 
 of his mother who was a widow, and he lived in 
 the north of London, coming into the City every 
 day to work in a bank. He was twenty years old and 
 was full of aspirations. I met him in a public billiard- 
 saloon where the marker called him by his first name, 
 and he called the marker 'Bullseye.' Charlie explained 
 a little nervously, that he had only come to the place to 
 look on, and since looking on at games of skill is not a 
 cheap amusement for the young, I suggested that Charlie 
 should go back to his mother. 
 
 That was our first step towards better acquaintance. 
 He would call on me sometimes in the evenings instead 
 of running about London with his fellow-clerks ; and be- 
 fore long, speaking of himself as a young man must, he 
 told me of his aspirations, which were all literary. He 
 desired to make himself an undying name chiefly through 
 verse, though he was not above sending stories of love 
 
 88 
 
*TPIE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 and death to the penny-in-the-slot journals. It was my 
 fate to sit still while Charlie read me poems of many 
 hundred lines, and bulky fragments of plays that would 
 surely shake the world. My reward was his unreserved 
 confidence, and the self-revelations and troubles of a 
 young man are almost as holy as those of a maiden. 
 Charlie had never fallen in love, but was anxious to do 
 so on the first opportunity; he believed in all things good 
 and all things honourable, but at the same time, was 
 curiously careful to let me see that he knew his way 
 about the world as befitted a bank-clerk on twenty-five 
 shillings a week. He rhymed 'dove' with 'love' and 
 'moon' with 'June,' and devoutly believed that they 
 had never so been rhymed before. The long lame gaps 
 in his plays he filled up with hasty words of apology and 
 description, and swept on, seeing all that he intended to 
 do so clearly that he esteemed it already done, and turned 
 to me for applause. 
 
 I fancy that his mother did not encourage his aspira- 
 tions; and I know that his writing-table at home was the 
 edge of his washstand. This he told me almost at the 
 outset of our acquaintance — when he was ravaging my 
 bookshelves, and a little before I was implored to speak 
 the truth as to his chances of 'writing something really 
 great, you know.' Maybe I encouraged him too much, 
 for, one night, he called on me, his eyes flaming with ex- 
 citement, and said breathlessly : 
 
 * Do you mind — can you let me stay here and write all 
 this evening? I won't interrupt you, I won't really. 
 There's no place for me to write in at my mother's.' 
 
 'What's the trouble?' I said, knowing well what that 
 trouble was. 
 
 * I've a notion in my head that would make the most 
 
 89 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 splendid story that was ever written. Do let me write 
 it out here. It's such a notion ! ' 
 
 There was no resisting the appeal. I set him a table; 
 he hardly thanked me, but plunged into his work at 
 once. For half an hour the pen scratched without stop- 
 ping. Then Charlie sighed and tugged his hair. The 
 scratching grew slower, there were more erasures, and at 
 last ceased. The finest story in the world would not 
 come forth. 
 
 'It looks such awful rot now,' he said mournfully. 
 'And yet it seemed so good when I was thinking about 
 it. What's wrong?' 
 
 I could not dishearten him by saying the truth. So I 
 answered: 'Perhaps you don't feel in the mood for 
 writing.' 
 
 'Yes I do — except when I look at this stuff. Ugh!' 
 
 'Read me what you've done,' I said. 
 
 He read, and it was wondrous bad, and he paused at 
 all the specially turgid sentences, expecting a little ap- 
 proval; for he was proud of those sentences, as I knew 
 he would be. 
 
 'It needs compression,' I suggested cautiously. 
 
 'I hate cutting my things down. I don't think you 
 could alter a word here without spoiling the sense. It 
 reads better aloud than when I was writing it.' 
 
 'Charlie, you're suffering from an alarming disease 
 afflicting a numerous class. Put the thing by, and 
 tackle it again in a week.' 
 
 ' I want to do it at once. What do you think of it? ' 
 
 'How can I judge from a half- writ ten tale? Tell me 
 the story as it lies in your head.' 
 
 Charlie told, and in the telling there was everything 
 that his ignorance had so carefully prevented from es- 
 
 90 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 caping into the written word. I looked at him, wonder- 
 ing whether it were possible that he did not know the 
 originality, the power of the notion that had come in his 
 way? It was distinctly a Notion among notions. Men 
 had been puffed up with pride by ideas not a tithe as ex- 
 cellent and practicable. But Charlie babbled on serenely, 
 interrupting the current of pure fancy with samples of 
 horrible sentences that he purposed to use. I heard 
 him out to the end. It would be folly to allow his thought 
 to remain in his own inept hands, when I could do so 
 much with it. Not all that could be done indeed; but, 
 oh so much! 
 
 ' What do you think? ' he said at last. ' I fancy I shall 
 call it "The Story of a Ship." ' 
 
 ' I think the idea's pretty good; but you won't be able 
 to handle it for ever so long. Now I — ' 
 
 ' Would it be of any use to you? W^ould you care to 
 take it? I should be proud,' said Charlie promptly. 
 
 There are few things sweeter in this world than the 
 guileless, hot-headed, intemperate, open admiration of a 
 junior. Even a woman in her blindest devotion does 
 not fall into the gait of the man she adores, tilt her bon- 
 net to the angle at which he wears his hat, or interlard 
 her speech with his pet oaths. And Charlie did all these 
 things. Still it was necessary to salve my conscience 
 before I possessed myself of Charlie's thoughts. 
 
 'Let's make a bargain. I'll give you a fiver for the 
 notion,' I said. 
 
 Charlie became a bank-clerk at once. 
 
 ' Oh, that's impossible. Between two pals, you know, 
 if I may call you so, and speaking as a man of the world, 
 I couldn't. Take the notion if it's any use to you. 
 I've heaps more.' 
 
 91 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 He had — none knew this better than I — but they were 
 the notions of other men. 
 
 ' Look at it as a matter of business — between men of 
 the world,' I returned. 'Five pounds will buy you any 
 number of poetry-books. Business is business, and you 
 may be sure I shouldn't give that price unless — ' 
 
 ' Oh, if you put it that way,' said Charlie, visibly moved 
 by the thought of the books. The bargain was clinched 
 with an agreement that he should at unstated intervals 
 come to me with all the notions that he possessed, should 
 have a table of his own to write at, and unquestioned 
 right to inflict upon me all his poems and fragments of 
 poems. Then I said, 'Now tell me how you came by 
 this idea.' 
 
 ' It came by itself.' Charlie's eyes opened a little. 
 
 'Yes, but you told me a great deal about the hero that 
 you must have read before somewhere.' 
 
 ' I haven't any time for reading, except when you let 
 me sit here, and on Sundays I'm on my bicycle or down 
 the river all day. There's nothing wrong about the hero, 
 is there? ' 
 
 'Tell me again and I shall understand clearly. You 
 say that your hero went pirating. How did he live? ' 
 
 'He was on the lower deck of this ship-thing that I was 
 telling you about.' 
 
 'What sort of ship?' 
 
 ' It was the kind rowed with oars, and the sea spurts 
 through the oar-holes, and the men row sitting up to their 
 knees in water. Then there's a bench running down be- 
 tween the two lines of oars, and an overseer with a whip 
 walks up and down the bench to make the men work.' 
 
 'How do you know that?' 
 
 'It's in the tale. There's a rope running overhead, 
 
 92 
 
*TIIE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 looped to the upper deck, for the overseer to catch hold 
 of when the ship rolls. When the overseer misses the 
 rope once and falls among the rowers, remember the 
 hero laughs at him and gets licked for it. He's chained 
 to his oar, of course — the hero.' 
 
 ' How is he chained? ' 
 
 ' With an iron band round his waist fixed to the bench 
 he sits on, and a sort of handcuff on his left wrist chain- 
 ing him to the oar. He's on the lower deck where the 
 worst men are sent, and the only light comes from the 
 hatchways and through the oar-holes. Can't you im- 
 agine the sunlight just squeezing through betw^cen the 
 handle and the hole and wobbling about as the ship 
 moves?' 
 
 ' I can, but I can't imagine your imagining it.' 
 
 'How could it be any other way? Now you listen to 
 me. The long oars on the upper deck are managed by 
 four men to each bench, the lower ones by three, and the 
 lowest of all by two. Remember it's quite dark on the 
 lowest deck and all the men there go mad. When a man 
 dies at his oar on that deck he isn't thrown overboard, 
 but cut up in his chains and stuffed through the oar-hole 
 in little pieces.' 
 
 'Why?' I demanded amazed, not so much at the infor- 
 mation as the tone of command in which it was flung out. 
 
 'To save trouble and to frighten the others. It needs 
 two overseers to drag a man's body up to the top deck; 
 and if the men at the lower-deck oars were left alone, of 
 course they'd stop rowing and try to pull up the benches 
 by all standing up together in their chains.' 
 
 'You've a most provident imagination. Where have 
 you been reading about galleys and galley-slaves? ' 
 
 ' Nowhere that I remember. I row a little when I get 
 
 93 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 the chance. But, perhaps, if you say so, I may have 
 read something.' 
 
 He went away shortly afterwards to deal with book- 
 sellers, and I wondered how a bank-clerk aged twenty 
 could put into my hands with a profligate abundance of 
 detail, all given with absolute assurance, the story of ex- 
 travagant and blood-thirsty adventure, riot, piracy, and 
 death in unnamed seas. He had led his hero a desper- 
 ate dance through revolt against the overseers, to com- 
 mand of a ship of his own, and at last to the establishment 
 of a kingdom on an island 'somewhere in the sea, you 
 know'; and, delighted with my paltry five pounds, had 
 gone out to buy the notions of other men, that these 
 might teach him how to write. I had the consolation of 
 knowing that this notion was mine by right of purchase, 
 and I thought that I could make something of it. 
 
 When next he came to me he was drunk — royally 
 drunk on many poets for the first time revealed to him. 
 His pupils were dilated, his words tumbled over each 
 other, and he wrapped himself in quotations — as a beg- 
 gar would enfold himself in the purple of emperors. 
 Most of all was he drunk with Longfellow. 
 
 'Isn't it splendid? Isn't it superb?' he cried, after 
 hasty greetings. ' Listen to this — 
 
 ' *' Wouldst thou," — so the helmsman answered, 
 *' Know the secret of the sea? 
 Only those who brave its dangers 
 Comprehend its mystery." 
 
 By gum! 
 
 Only those who brave its dangers 
 Comprehend its mystery." ' 
 94 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 he repeated twenty times, walking up and down the 
 room and forgetting me. ' But I can understand it too,' 
 he said to himself. ' I don't know how to thank you for 
 that fiver. And this; Hsten — 
 
 ' " I remember the black wharves and the slips 
 And the sea-tides tossing free; 
 And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 
 And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 
 And the magic of the sea." 
 
 I haven't braved any dangers, but I feel as if I knew all 
 about it.' 
 
 'You certainly seem to have a grip of the sea. Have 
 you ever seen it? ' 
 
 'When I was a little chap I went to Brighton once; we 
 used to live in Coventry, though, before we came to 
 London. I never saw it, 
 
 ' "When descends on the Atlantic 
 The gigantic 
 Storm-wind of the Equinox." ' 
 
 He shook me by the shoulder to make me understand 
 the passion that was shaking himself. 
 
 'When. that storm comes,' he continued, 'I think that 
 all the oars in the ship that I was talking about get 
 broken, and the rowers have their chests smashed in by 
 the oar-heads bucking. By the way, have you done 
 anything with that notion of mine yet? ' 
 
 'No. I was waiting to hear more of it from you. Tell 
 me how in the world you're so certain about the fittings 
 of the ship. You know nothing of ships.' 
 
 * I don't know. It's as real as anything to me until I 
 
 95 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 try to write it down. I was thinking about it only last 
 night in bed, after you had lent me "Treasure Island"; 
 and I made up a whole lot of new things to go into the 
 story.' 
 
 'What sort of things?' 
 
 'About the food the men ate; rotten figs and black 
 beans and wine in a skin bag, passed from bench to 
 bench.' 
 
 ' Was the ship built so long ago as that? ' 
 
 'As what? I don't know whether it was long ago or 
 not. It's only a notion, but sometimes it seems just as 
 real as if it was true. Do I bother you with talking 
 about it?' 
 
 'Not in the least. Did you make up anything else?' 
 
 'Yes, but it's nonsense.' Charlie flushed a little. 
 
 'Never mind; let's hear about it.' 
 
 ' Well, I was thinking over the story, and after awhile 
 I got out of bed and wrote down on a piece of paper the 
 sort of stuff the men might be supposed to scratch on 
 their oars with the edges of their handcuffs. It seemed 
 to make the thing more life-like. It is so real to me, 
 y'know.' 
 
 ' Have you the paper on you? ' 
 
 'Ye — es, but what's the use of showing it? It's only 
 a lot of scratches. All the same, we might have 'em 
 reproduced in the book on the front page.' 
 
 ' I'll attend to those details. Show me what your men 
 wrote.' 
 
 He pulled out of his pocket a sheet of notepaper, with 
 a single line of scratches upon it, and I put this carefully 
 away. 
 
 * What is it supposed to mean in English?' I said. 
 
 *0h, I don't know. I mean it to mean "I'm beastly 
 
 96 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 tired." It's great nonsense,' he repeated, 'but all those 
 men in the ship seem as real as real people to me. Do 
 do something to the notion soon ; I should like to see it 
 written and printed.' 
 
 'But all you've told me would make a long book.' 
 
 'Make it then. You've only to sit down and write it 
 out.' 
 
 ' Give me a little time. Have you any more notions? ' 
 
 ' Not just now. I'm reading all the books I've bought. 
 They're splendid.' 
 
 When he had left I looked at the sheet of notepaper 
 with the inscription upon it. Then I took my head ten- 
 derly between both hands, to make certain that it was 
 not coming off or turning round. Then . . . but 
 there seemed to be no interval between quitting my 
 rooms and finding myself arguing with a policeman out- 
 side a door marked 'Private' in a corridor of the British 
 Museum. All I demanded, as politely as possible, was 
 'the Greek antiquity man.' The policeman knew no- 
 thing except the rules of the Museum, and it became 
 necessary to forage through all the houses and offices in- 
 side the gates. An elderly gentleman called away from 
 hib lunch put an end to my search by holding the note- 
 paper between finger and thumb and sniffing at it scorn- 
 fully. 
 
 'What does this mean? H'mm,' said he. 'So far as 
 I can ascertain it is an attempt to write extremely cor- 
 rupt Greek on the part' — here he glared at me with in- 
 tention — 'of an extremely illiterate — ah — person.' He 
 read slowly from the paper, ' Pollock, Erckmann, Tauch- 
 nitz, Henniker' — four names familiar to me. 
 
 ' Can you tell me what the corruption is supposed to 
 mean — the gist of the thing?' I asked. 
 
 97 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 ' "I have been — many times — overcome with weari- 
 ness in this particular employment." That is the mean- 
 ing.' He returned me the paper, and I fled without a 
 word of thanks, explanation, or apology. 
 
 I might have been excused for forgetting much. To 
 me of all men had been given the chance to write the 
 most marvellous tale in the world, nothing less than the 
 story of a Greek galley-slave, as told by himself. Small 
 wonder that his dreaming had seemed real to Charlie. 
 The Fates that are so careful to shut the doors of each 
 successive life behind us had, in this case, been neglect- 
 ful, and Charlie was looking, though that he did not 
 know, where never man had been permitted to look with 
 full knowledge since Time began. Above all, he was ab- 
 solutely ignorant of the knowledge sold to me for five 
 pounds; and he would retain that ignorance, for bank- 
 clerks do not understand metempsychosis, and a sound 
 commercial education does not include Greek. He would 
 supply me — here I capered among the dumb gods of 
 Egypt and laughed in their battered faces — with material 
 to make my tale sure — so sure that the world would hail 
 it as an impudent and vamped fiction. And I — I alone 
 would know that it was absolutely and literally true. 
 I — I alone held this jewel to my hand for the cutting and 
 polishing! Therefore I danced again among the gods of 
 the Egyptian court till a policeman saw me and took 
 steps in my direction. 
 
 It remained now only to encourage Charlie to talk, 
 and here there was no difficulty. But I had forgotten 
 those accursed books of poetry. He came to me time 
 after time, as useless as a surcharged phonograph — drunk 
 on Byron, Shelley, or Keats. Knowing now what the 
 boy had been in his past lives, and desperately anxious 
 
 98 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 not to lose one word of his babble, I could not hide from 
 him my respect and interest. He misconstrued both 
 into respect for the present soul of Charlie Mears, to 
 whom life was as new as it was to Adam, and interest in 
 his readings; and stretched my patience to breaking 
 point by reciting poetry — not his own now, but that of 
 others. I wished every English poet blotted out of the 
 memory of mankind. I blasphemed the mightiest 
 names of song because they had drawn Charlie from the 
 path of direct narrative, and would, later, spur him to 
 imitate them; but I choked down my impatience until 
 the first flood of enthusiasm should have spent itself and 
 the boy returned to his dreams. 
 
 'What's the use of my telling you what I think, when 
 these chaps wrote things for the angels to read?' he 
 growled, one evening. ' Why don't you write something 
 like theirs?' 
 
 'I don't think you're treating me quite fairly,' I said, 
 speaking under strong restraint. 
 
 'I've given you the story,' he said shortly, replunging 
 into 'Lara.' 
 
 'But I want the details.' 
 
 'The things I make up about that damned ship that 
 you call a galley? They're quite easy. You can just 
 make 'em up for yourself. Turn up the gas a little, I 
 want to go on reading.' 
 
 I could have broken the gas globe over his head for 
 his amazing stupidity. I could indeed make up things 
 for myself did I only know what Charlie did not know 
 that he knew. But since the doors were shut behind 
 me I could only wait his youthful pleasure and strive to 
 keep him in good temper. One minute's want of guard 
 might spoil a priceless revelation : now and again he would 
 
 99 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 toss his books aside — he kept Ihem in my rooms, for his 
 mother would have been shocked at the waste of good 
 money had she seen them — and launched into his sea- 
 dreams. Again I cursed all the poets of England. The 
 plastic mind of the bank-clerk had been overlaid, col- 
 oured, and distorted by that which he had read, and the 
 result as delivered was a confused tangle of other voices 
 most like the mutter and hum through a City telephone 
 in the busiest part of the day. 
 
 He talked of the galley — his own galley had he but 
 known it — with illustrations borrowed from 'The Bride 
 of Abydos.' He pointed the experiences of his hero 
 with quotations from 'The Corsair,' and threw in deep 
 and desperate moral reflections from 'Cain' and 'Man- 
 fred,' expecting me to use them all. Only when the talk 
 turned on Longfellow were the jarring cross-currents 
 dumb, and I knew that Charlie was speaking the truth 
 as he remembered it. 
 
 'What do you think of this?' I said one evening, as 
 soon as I understood the medium in which his memory 
 worked best, and, before he could expostulate, read him 
 nearly the whole of 'The Saga of King Olaf ' ! 
 
 He listened open-mouthed, flushed, his hands drum- 
 ming on the back of the sofa where he lay, till I came to 
 the Song of Einar Tamberskelver and the verse : — 
 
 * Einar then, the arrow taking 
 From the loosened string, 
 Answered, "That was Norway breaking 
 'Neath thy hand, King." ' 
 
 He gasped with pure delight o£ sound. 
 
 'That's better than Byron, a little?' I ventured. 
 
 100 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 ' Better ! Why it's true ! How could he have known?' 
 I went back and repeated : — 
 
 ' "What was that?" said Olaf, standing 
 On the quarter-deck, 
 "Something heard I like the stranding 
 Of a shattered wreck." ' 
 
 'How could he have known how the ships crash and 
 the oars rip out and go "z-zzp" all along the line? Why 
 only the other night . . . But go back, please, and 
 read "The Skerry of Shrieks" again.' 
 
 'No, I'm tired. Let's talk. What happened the 
 other night? ' 
 
 ' I had an awful dream about that galley of ours. I 
 dreamed I was drowned in a fight. You see we ran 
 alongside another ship in harbour. The water was dead 
 still except where our oars whipped it up. You know 
 where I always sit in the galley?' He spoke haltingly 
 at first, under a fine English fear of being laughed at. 
 
 'No. That's news to me,' I answered meekly, my 
 heart beginning to beat. 
 
 ' On the fourth oar from the bow on the right side on 
 the upper deck. There were four of us at that oar, all 
 chained. I remember watching the water and trying to 
 get my handcuffs ofT before the row began. Then we 
 closed up on the other ship, and all their fighting men 
 jumped over our bulwarks, and my bench broke and I 
 was pinned down with the three other fellows on top of 
 me, and the big oar jammed across our backs.' 
 
 'Well?' Charlie's eyes were alive and alight. He 
 was looking at the wall behind my chair. 
 
 ' I don't know how we fought. The men were tram- 
 
 101 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 pling all over my back, and I lay low. Then our rowers 
 on the left side — tied to their oars, you know — began to 
 yell and back water. I could hear the water sizzle, and 
 we spun round like a cockchafer, and I knew, lying where 
 I was, that there was a galley coming up bow-on to ram 
 us on the left side. I could just lift up my head and see 
 her sail over the bulwarks. We wanted to meet her bow 
 to bow, but it was too late. We could only turn a little 
 bit because the galley on our right had hooked herself on 
 to us and stopped our moving. Then, by gum! there 
 was a crash! Our left oars began to break as the other 
 galley, the moving one y'know, stuck her nose into 
 them. Then the lower-deck oars shot up through the 
 deck planking, butt first, and one of them jumped clear 
 up into the air and came down again close at my head.' 
 
 ' How was that managed? ' 
 
 'The moving galley's bow was plunking them back 
 through their own oar-holes, and I could hear no end of 
 a shindy on the decks below. Then her nose caught us 
 nearly in the middle, and we tilted sideways, and the 
 fellows in the right-hand galley unhitched their hooks 
 and ropes, and threw things on to our upper deck — 
 arrows, and hot pitch or something that stung, and we 
 went up and up and up on the left side, and the right 
 side dipped, and I twisted my head round and saw the 
 water stand still as it topped the right bulwarks. Then 
 it curled over and crashed down on the whole lot of us 
 on the right side, and I felt it hit my back, and I woke.' 
 
 ' One minute, Charlie. When the sea topped the bul- 
 warks, what did it look like?' I had my reasons for asking. 
 A man of my acquaintance had once gone down with a 
 leaking ship in a still sea, and had seen the water-level 
 pause for an instant ere it fell on the deck. 
 
 102 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 'It looked just like a banjo-string drawn tight, and it 
 seemed to stay there for years,' said Charlie. 
 
 Exactly! The other man had said: 'It looked Hke a 
 silver wire laid down along the bulwarks, and I thought 
 it was never going to break.' He had paid everything 
 except the bare life for this little valueless piece of knowl- 
 edge, and I had travelled ten thousand weary miles to 
 meet him and take his knowledge at second hand. But 
 Charlie, the bank-clerk on twenty-five shillings a week, 
 who had never been out of sight of a made road, knew it 
 all. It was no consolation to me that once in his lives 
 he had been forced to die for his gains. I also must 
 have died scores of times, but behind me, because I could 
 have used my knowledge, the doors were shut. 
 
 'And then?' I said, trying to put away the devil of 
 envy. 
 
 'The funny thing was, though, in all the row I didn't 
 feel a bit astonished or frightened. It seemed as if I'd 
 been in a good many fights, because I told my next man 
 so when the row began. But that cad of an overseer on 
 my deck wouldn't unloose our chains and give us a chance. 
 He always said that we'd all be set free after a battle, 
 but we never were — we never were.' Charlie shook 
 his head mournfully. 
 
 * What a scoundrel ! ' 
 
 ' I should say he was ! He never gave us enough to 
 eat, and sometimes we were so thirsty that we used to 
 drink salt-water. I can taste that salt-water still.' 
 
 'Now tell me something about the harbour where the 
 fight was fought.' 
 
 ' I didn't dream about that. I know it was a harbour, 
 though; because we were tied up to a ring on a white 
 wall and all the face of the stone under water was covered 
 
 103 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 with wood to prevent our ram getting chipped when the 
 lide made us rock.' 
 
 'That's curious. Our hero commanded the galley, 
 didn't he?' 
 
 'Didn't he just! He stood by the bows and shouted 
 like a good 'un. He was the man who killed the over- 
 seer.' 
 
 'But you were all drowned together, Charlie, weren't 
 you?' 
 
 'I can't make that fit quite,' he said, with a puzzled 
 look. 'The galley must have gone down with all hands, 
 and yet I fancy that the hero went on living afterwards. 
 Perhaps he climbed into the attacking ship. I wouldn't 
 see that, of course. I was dead, you know.' 
 
 He shivered slightly and protested that he could re- 
 member no more. 
 
 I did not press him further, but to satisfy myself that 
 he lay in ignorance of the workings of his own mind, de- 
 liberately introduced him to Mortimer Collins's 'Trans- 
 migration,' and gave him a sketch of the plot before he 
 opened the pages. 
 
 * What rot it all is ! ' he said frankly, at the end of an 
 hour. ' I don't understand his nonsense about the Red 
 Planet Mars and the King, and the rest of it. Chuck 
 me the Longfellow again.' 
 
 I handed him the book and wrote out as much as I 
 could remember of his description of the sea-fight, ap- 
 pealing to him from time to time for confirmation of fact 
 or detail. He would answer without raising his eyes 
 from the book, as assuredly as though all his knowledge 
 lay before him on the printed page. I spoke under the 
 normal key of my voice that the current might not be 
 broken, and I knew that he was not aware of what he 
 
 104 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 was saying, for his thoughts were out on the sea with 
 Longfellow. 
 
 'Charlie,' I asked, 'when the rowers on the galleys 
 mutinied how did they kill their overseers? ' 
 
 ' 'Tore up the benches and brained 'em. That hap- 
 pened when a heavy sea was running. An overseer on 
 the lower deck slipped from the centre plank and fell 
 among the rowers. They choked him to death against 
 the side of the ship with their chained hands quite quietly, 
 and it was too dark for the other overseer to see what 
 had happened. When he asked, he was pulled down 
 too and choked, and the lower deck fought their way up 
 deck by deck, with the pieces of the broken benches 
 banging behind 'em. How they howled ! ' 
 
 'And what happened after that?' 
 
 'I don't know. The hero went away — red hair and 
 red beard and all. That was after he had captured our 
 galley, I think.' 
 
 The sound of my voice irritated him, and he motioned 
 slightly with his left hand as a man does when interrup- 
 tion jars. 
 
 'You never told me he was red-headed before, or 
 that he captured your galley,' I said, after a discreet 
 interval. 
 
 Charlie did not raise his eyes. 
 
 'He was as red as a red bear,' said he abstractedly. 
 'He came from the north; they said so in the galley when 
 he looked for rowers — not slaves, but free men. After- 
 wards^ — years and years afterwards — news came from 
 another ship, or else he came back — ' 
 
 His hps moved in silence. He was rapturously retast- 
 ing some poem before him. 
 
 ' Where had he been, then? ' I was almost whispering 
 
 105 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 that the sentence might come gently to whichever sec- 
 tion of CharHe's brain was working on my behalf. 
 
 *To the Beaches — the Long and Wonderful Beaches!' 
 was the reply after a minute of silence. 
 
 ' To Furdurstrandi? ' I asked, tingling from head to foot. 
 
 *Yes, to Furdurstrandi,' he pronounced the word in a 
 new fashion. ' And I too saw — ' The voice failed. 
 
 'Do you know what you have said?' I shouted in- 
 cautiously. 
 
 He lifted his eyes, fully roused now. ' No ! ' he snapped, 
 * I wish you'd let a chap go on reading. Hark to this : — 
 
 ' "But Othere, the old sea captain. 
 He neither paused nor stirred 
 Till the king listened, and then 
 Once more took up his pen 
 And wrote down every word. 
 
 ' "And to the King of the Saxons 
 In witness of the truth. 
 Raising his noble head. 
 He stretched his brown hand and said, 
 'Behold this walrus tooth. ' " 
 
 By Jove, what chaps those must have been, to go sailing 
 all over the shop never knowing where they'd fetch the 
 land! Hah!' 
 
 'Charlie,' I pleaded, 'if you'll only be sensible for a 
 minute or two I'll make our hero in our tale every inch 
 as good as Othere.' 
 
 'Umph! Longfellow wrote that poem. I don't care 
 about writing things any more. I want to read.' He 
 was thoroughly out of tune now, and raging over my 
 own ill-luck, I left him. 
 
 106 
 
*THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 Conceive yourself at the door of the world's treasure- 
 house guarded by a child — an idle, irresponsible child 
 playing knuckle-bones — on whose favour depends the 
 gift of the key, and you will imagine one-half my tor- 
 ment. Till that evening Charlie had spoken nothing 
 that might not lie within the experiences of a Greek 
 galley-slave. But now, or there was no virtue in books, 
 he had talked of some desperate adventure of the Vi- 
 kings, of Thorfm Karlsefne's sailing to Wineland, which 
 is America, in the ninth or tenth century. The battle 
 in the harbour he had seen; and his own death he had 
 described. But this was a much more startling plunge 
 into the past. Was it possible that he had skipped half 
 a dozen lives, and was then dimly remembering some 
 episode of a thousand years later? It was a maddening 
 jumble, and the worst of it was that Charlie Mears in 
 his normal condition was the last person in the world to 
 clear it up. I could only wait and watch, but I went to 
 bed that night full of the wildest imaginings. There was 
 nothing that was not possible if Charlie's detestable 
 memory only held good. 
 
 I might rewrite the Saga of Thorfm Karlsefne as it 
 had never been written before, might tell the story of 
 the first discovery of America, myself the discoverer. 
 But I was entirely at Charlie's mercy, and so long as 
 there was a three-and-sixpenny Bohn volume within his 
 reach Charlie would not tell. I dared not curse him 
 openly; I hardly dared jog his memory, for I was deal- 
 ing with the experiences of a thousand years ago, told 
 through the mouth of a boy of to-day; and a boy is 
 alTected by every change of tone and gust of opinion, 
 so that he must lie even when he most desires to speak 
 the truth. 
 
 107 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 I saw no more of Charlie for nearly a week. When 
 next I met him it was in Gracechiirch Street with a bill- 
 book chained to his waist. Business took him over 
 London Bridge, and I accompanied him. He was very 
 full of the importance of that book and magnified it. 
 As we passed over the Thames we paused to look at a 
 steamer unloading great slabs of white and brown marble. 
 A barge drifted under the steamer's stern and a lonely 
 ship's cow in that barge bellowed. Charlie's face changed 
 from the face of the bank-clerk to that of an unknown 
 and — though he would not have believed this — a much 
 shrewder man. He flung out his arm across the parapet 
 of the bridge and laughing very loudly, said : — 
 
 ' When they heard our bulls bellow the Skroelings ran 
 away ! ' 
 
 I waited only for an instant, but the barge and the 
 cow had disappeared under the bows of the steamer be- 
 fore I answered. 
 
 'Charlie, what do you suppose are Skroelings?' 
 
 'Never heard of 'em before. They sound Hke a new 
 kind of sea-gull. W'hat a chap you are for asking ques- 
 tions!' he replied. 'I have to go to the cashier of the 
 Omnibus Company yonder. Will you wait for me and 
 we can lunch somewhere together? I've a notion for a 
 poem.' 
 
 'No, thanks. I'm olT. You're sure you know no- 
 thing about Skroelings? ' 
 
 'Not unless he's been entered for the Liverpool Handi- 
 cap.' He nodded and disappeared in the crowd. 
 
 Now it is written in the Saga of Eric the Red or that 
 of Thorfm Karlsefne, that nine hundred years ago when 
 Karlsefne's galleys came to Leif 's booths, which Leif had 
 erected in the unknown land called Markland, which 
 
 108 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 may or may not have been Rhode Island, the SkroeUngs 
 — and the Lord He knows who these may or may not 
 have been— came to trade with the Vikings, and ran 
 away because they were frightened at the bellowing of 
 the cattle which Thorfin had brought with him in the 
 ships. But what in the world could a Greek slave know 
 of that affair? I wandered up and down among the 
 streets trying to unravel the mystery, and the more I 
 considered it the more baffling it grew. One thing only 
 seemed certain, and that certainty took away my breath 
 for the moment. If I came to full knowledge of any- 
 thing at all, it would not be one life of the soul in Charlie 
 Mears's body, but half a dozen — half a dozen several 
 and separate existences spent on blue water in the morn- 
 ing of the world ! 
 
 Then I reviewed the situation. 
 
 Obviously if I used my knowledge I should stand alone 
 and unapproachable until all men were as wise as myself. 
 That would be something, but, manlike, I was ungrate- 
 ful. It seemed bitterly unfair that Charlie's memory 
 should fail me when I needed it most. Great Powers 
 Above ! — I looked up at them through the fog-smoke — 
 did the Lords of Life and Death know what this meant 
 to me? Nothing less than eternal fame of the best kind, 
 that comes from One, and is shared by one alone. I 
 would be content— remembering Clive, I stood astounded 
 at my own moderation — with the mere right to tell one 
 story, to work out one little contribution to the light 
 literature of the day. If Charlie were permitted full 
 recollection for one hour — for sixty short minutes — of 
 existences that had extended over a thousand years — I 
 would forego all profit and honour from all that I should 
 make of his speech. I would take no share in the com- 
 
 109 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 motion that would follow throughout the particular cor- 
 ner of the earth that calls itself 'the world.' The thing 
 should be put forth anonymously. Nay, I would make 
 other men believe that they had written it. They would 
 hire bull-hided self-advertising Englishmen to bellow it 
 abroad. Preachers would found a fresh conduct of life 
 upon it, swearing that it was new and that they had 
 lifted the fear of death from all mankind. Every Orien- 
 talist in Europe would patronise it discursively with 
 Sanskrit and Pali texts. Terrible women would invent 
 unclean variants of the men's belief for the elevation of 
 their sisters. Churches and religions would war over 
 it. Between the hailing and restarting of an omnibus I 
 foresaw the scuffles that would arise among half a dozen 
 denominations all professing 'the doctrine of the True 
 Metempsychosis as applied to the world and the New 
 Era'; and saw, too, the respectable English newspapers 
 shying, like frightened kine, over the beautiful simplicity 
 of the tale. The mind leaped forward a hundred — two 
 hundred — a thousand years. I saw with sorrow that 
 men would mutilate and garble the story; that rival 
 creeds would turn it upside down till, at last, the western 
 world which clings to the dread of death more closely 
 than the hope of life, would set it aside as an interesting 
 superstition and stampede after some faith so long for- 
 gotten that it seemed altogether new. Upon this I 
 changed the terms of the bargain that I would make with 
 the Lords of Life and Death. Only let me know, let me 
 write, the story with sure knowledge that I wrote the 
 truth, and I would burn the manuscript as a solemn sac- 
 rifice. Five minutes after the last line was written I 
 would destroy it all. But I must be allowed to write it 
 with absolute certainty. 
 
 110 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD- 
 
 There was no answer. The flaming colours of an 
 Aquarium poster caught my eye, and I wondered whether 
 it would be wise or prudent to lure Charlie into the hands 
 of the professional mesmerist then, and whether, if he were 
 under his power, he would speak of his past lives. If he 
 did, and if people believed him . . . but Charlie 
 would be frightened and flustered, or made conceited by 
 the interviews. In either case he would begin to lie 
 through fear or vanity. He was safest in my own hands. 
 
 'They are very funny fools, your English,' said a voice 
 at my elbow, and turning round I recognised a casual 
 acquaintance, a young Bengali law student, called Grish 
 Chunder, whose father had sent him to England to be- 
 come civilised. The old man was a retired native official, 
 and on an income of five pounds a month contrived to 
 allow his son two hundred pounds a year, and the run of 
 his teeth in a city where he could pretend to be the cadet 
 of a royal house, and tell stories of the brutal Indian 
 bureaucrats who ground the faces of the poor. 
 
 Grish Chunder was a young, fat, full-bodied Bengali, 
 dressed with scrupulous care in frock coat, tall hat, light 
 trousers, and tan gloves. But I had known him in the 
 days when the brutal Indian Government paid for his 
 university education, and he contributed cheap sedition 
 to the 'Sachi Durpan,' and intrigued with the wives of 
 his fourteen-year-old school-mates. 
 
 'That is very funny and very foolish,' he said, nod- 
 ding at the poster. 'I am going down to the North- 
 brook Club. Will you come too? ' 
 
 I walked with him for some time. ' You are not well, ' he 
 said. ' What is there on your mind? You do not talk.' 
 
 ' Grish Chunder, you've been too well educated to be- 
 lieve in a God, haven't you? ' 
 
 111 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 'Oah, yes, here! But when I go home I must con- 
 ciliate popular superstition, and make ceremonies of 
 purification, and my women will anoint idols.' 
 
 'And hang up tulsi and feast the purohit, and take 
 you back into caste again, and make a good khuttri of 
 you again, you advanced Freethinker. And you'll eat 
 desi food, and like it all, from the smell in the courtyard 
 to the mustard oil over you.' 
 
 'I shall very much like it,' said Grish Chunder un- 
 guardedly. 'Once a Hindu — always a Hindu. But I 
 like to know what the English think they know.' 
 
 'I'll tell you something that one Englishman knows. 
 It's an old tale to you.' 
 
 I began to tell the story of Charlie in English, but Grish 
 Chunder put a question in the vernacular, and the history 
 went forward naturally in the tongue best suited for its 
 telling. After all, it could never have been told in English. 
 Grish Chunder heard me, nodding from time to time, and 
 then came up to my rooms, where I fmished the tale. 
 
 'Beshak,' he said philosophically. 'Lekin darwaza 
 band hai. (Without doubt. But the door is shut.) I 
 have heard of this remembering of previous existences 
 among my people. It is of course an old tale with us, 
 but, to happen to an Englishman — a cow-fed Mlechh — 
 an outcast. By Jove, that is most peculiar ! ' 
 
 'Outcast yourself, Grish Chunder! You eat cow- 
 beef every day. Let's think the thing over. The boy 
 remembers his incarnations.' 
 
 'Does he know that?' said Grish Chunder quietly, 
 swinging his legs as he sat on my table. He was speak- 
 ing in his English now. 
 
 'He does not know anything. Would I speak to you 
 if he did? Goon!' 
 
 112 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 'There is no going on at all. If you tell that to your 
 friends they will say you are mad and put it in the papers. 
 Suppose, now, you prosecute for libel.' 
 
 ' Let's leave that out of the question entirely. Is there 
 any chance of his being made to speak?' 
 
 'There is a chance. Oah, ycss! But if he spoke it 
 would mean that all this world would end now — instanto 
 — fall down on your head. These things are not al- 
 lowed, you know. As I said, the door is shut.' 
 
 'Not a ghost of a chance?' 
 
 'How can there be? You are a Christi-an, and it is 
 forbidden to eat, in your books, of the Tree of Life, or 
 else you would never die. How shall you all fear death 
 if you all know^ what your friend does not know that he 
 knows? I am afraid to be kicked, but I am not afraid 
 to die, because I know what I know. You are not afraid 
 to be kicked, but you are afraid to die. If you were not, by 
 God ! you English would be all over the shop in an hour, up- 
 setting the balances of power, and making commotions. 
 It would not be good. But no fear. He will remember a 
 little and a little less, and he will call it dreams. Then he 
 will forget altogether. When I passed my First Arts Ex- 
 amination in Calcutta that was all in the cram-book on 
 Wordsworth. "Trailing clouds of glory," you know.' 
 
 'This seems to be an exception to the rule.' 
 
 'There are no exceptions to rules. Some are not so 
 hard-looking as others, but they are all the same when 
 you touch. If this friend of yours said so-and-so and so- 
 and-so, indicating that he remembered all his lost lives, 
 or one piece of a lost life, he would not be in the bank 
 another hour. He would be what you called sack be- 
 cause he was mad, and they would send him to an asylum 
 for lunatics. You can see that, my friend.' 
 
 113 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 *0f course I can, but I wasn't thinking of him. His 
 name need never appear in the story.' 
 
 'Ah! I see. That story will never be written. You 
 can try.' 
 
 'I am going to.' 
 
 'For your own credit and for the sake of money, of 
 course?' 
 
 'No. For the sake of writing the story. On my 
 honour that will be all' 
 
 'Even then there is no chance. You cannot play 
 with the gods. It is a very pretty story now. As they 
 say, Let it go on that — I mean at that. Be quick; he 
 will not last long.' 
 
 'How do you mean?' 
 
 'What I say. He has never, so far, thought about a 
 woman.* 
 
 ' Hasn't he, though ! ' I remembered some of Charlie's 
 confidences. 
 
 'I mean no woman has thought about him. When 
 that comes; bus — hogya — all up! I know. There are 
 millions of women here. Housemaids, for instance. 
 They kiss you behind doors.' 
 
 I winced at the thought of my story being ruined by a 
 housemaid. And yet nothing was more probable. 
 
 Grish Chunder grinned. 
 
 *Yes — also pretty girls — cousins of his house, and 
 perhaps not of his house. One kiss that he gives back 
 again and remembers will cure all this nonsense, or 
 else — ' 
 
 * Or else what? Remember he does not know that he 
 knows.' 
 
 * I know that. Or else, if nothing happens he will be- 
 come immersed in the trade and the financial speculation 
 
 114 
 
*THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 like the rest. It must be so. You can see that it must 
 be so. But the woman will come first, I think.' 
 
 There was a rap at the door, and Charlie charged in 
 impetuously. He had been released from office, and by 
 the look in his eyes I could see that he had come over for 
 a long talk; most probably with poems in his pockets. 
 Charlie's poems were very wearying, but sometimes 
 they led him to speak about the galley. 
 
 Grish Chunder looked at him keenly for a minute. 
 
 'I beg your pardon,' Charlie said uneasily; 'I didn't 
 know you had any one with you.' 
 
 'I am going,' said Grish Chunder. 
 
 He drew me into the lobby as he departed. 
 
 'That is your man,' he said quickly. 'I tell you he 
 will never speak all you wish. That is rot — bosh. But 
 he would be most good to make to see things. Suppose 
 now we pretend that it was only play' — I had never seen 
 Grish Chunder so excited — 'and pour the ink-pool into 
 his hand. Eh, what do you think? I tell you that he 
 could see anything that a man could see. Let me get 
 the ink and the camphor. He is a seer and he will tell 
 us very many things.' 
 
 'He may be all you say, but I'm not going to trust 
 him to your gods and devils.' 
 
 * It will not hurt him. He will only feel a little stupid 
 and dull when he wakes up. You have seen boys look 
 into the ink-pool before.' 
 
 'That is the reason why I am not going to see it any 
 more. You'd better go, Grish Chunder.' 
 
 He went, insisting far down the staircase that it was 
 throwing away my only chance of looking into the future. 
 
 This left me unmoved, for I was concerned for the past, 
 and no peering of hypnotised boys into mirrors and ink- 
 
 115 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 pools would help me to that. But I recognised Grish 
 Chunder's point of view and sympathised with it. 
 
 'What a big black brute that was!' said Charlie, when 
 I returned to him.. 'Well, look here, I've just done a 
 poem; did it instead of playing dominoes after lunch. 
 May I read it? ' 
 
 'Let me read it to myself.' 
 
 'Then you miss the proper expression. Besides, you 
 always make my things sound as if the rhymes were all 
 wrong.' 
 
 ' Read it aloud, then. You're like the rest of 'em.' 
 
 Charlie mouthed me his poem, and it was not much 
 worse than the average of his verses. He had been read- 
 ing his books faithfully, but he was not pleased when I 
 told him that I preferred my Longfellow undiluted with 
 Charlie. 
 
 Then we began to go through the MS. line by line, 
 Charlie parrying every objection and correction with: 
 
 'Yes, that may be better, but you don't catch what 
 I'm driving at.' 
 
 Charlie was, in one way at least, very like one kind of 
 poet. 
 
 There was a pencil scrawl at the back of the paper, 
 and 'What's that?' I said. 
 
 'Oh, that's not poetry at all. It's some rot I wrote 
 last night before I went to bed, and it was too much 
 bother to hunt for rhymes; so I made it a sort of blank 
 verse instead.' 
 
 Here is Charlie's 'blank verse' : — 
 
 ' W^e pulled for you when the wind was against us and 
 the sails were low. 
 
 Will you never let us go? 
 116 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 We ate bread and onions when you took towns, or ran 
 aboard quickly when you were beaten back by the foe. 
 
 The captains walked up and down the deck in fair 
 weather singing songs, but we were below. 
 
 We fainted with our chins on the oars and you did 
 not see that we were idle for we still swung to and fro. 
 Will you never let us go? 
 
 The salt made the oar-handles like shark-skin; our 
 knees were cut to the bone w^th salt cracks; our hair was 
 stuck to our foreheads; and our lips were cut to our 
 gums, and you whipped us because we could not row. 
 Will you never let us go? 
 
 But in a little time we shall run out of the portholes as 
 the water runs along the oar-blade, and though you tell 
 the others to row after us you will never catch us till you 
 catch the oar-thresh and tie up the winds in the belly of 
 the sail. Aho! 
 
 Will you never let us go?' 
 
 'H'm. What's oar-thresh, Charlie?' 
 
 'The water washed up by the oars. That's the sort 
 of song they might sing in the galley, y' know. Aren't 
 you ever going to finish that story and give me some of 
 the profits?' 
 
 'It depends on yourself. If you had only told me 
 more about your hero in the first instance it might have 
 been finished by now. You're so hazy in your notions.' 
 
 ' I only want to give you the general notion of it — the 
 knocking about from place to place and the fighting and 
 all that. Can't you fill in the rest yourself? Make the 
 hero save a girl on a pirate-galley and marry her or do 
 something.' 
 
 * You're a really helpful collaborator. I suppose the 
 
 117 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 hero went through some few adventures before he mar- 
 ried.' 
 
 * Well, then, make him a very artful card — a low sort 
 of man — a sort of political man who went about making 
 treaties and breaking them — a black-haired chap who 
 hid behind the mast when the fighting began.' 
 
 'But you said the other day that he was red-haired.' 
 
 'I couldn't have. Make him black-haired of course. 
 You've no imagination.' 
 
 Seeing that I had just discovered the entire principles 
 upon which the half-memory falsely called imagination 
 is based, I felt entitled to laugh, but forbore for the sake 
 of the tale. 
 
 'You're right. You're the man with imagination. 
 A black-haired chap in a decked ship,' I said. 
 
 'No, an open ship — like a big boat.' 
 
 This was maddening. 
 
 'Your ship has been built and designed, closed and 
 decked in; you said so yourself,' I protested. 
 
 * No, no, not that ship. That was open or half-decked 
 because — By Jove, you're right. You made me think 
 of the hero as a red-haired chap. Of course if he were 
 red, the ship would be an open one with painted sails.' 
 
 Surely, I thought, he would remember now that he 
 had served in two galleys at least — in a three-deci<:ed 
 Greek one under the black-haired 'political man,' and 
 again in a Viking's open sea-serpent under the man 'red 
 as a red bear' who went to Markland. The devil 
 prompted me to speak. 
 
 *\Vhy "of course," Charlie?' said I. 
 
 * I don't know. Are you making fun of me? ' 
 
 The current was broken for the time being. I took 
 up a note-book and pretended to make many entries in it. 
 
 118 
 
*THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 ' It's a pleasure to work with an imaginative chap like 
 yourself,' I said, after a pause. 'The way that you've 
 brought out the character of the hero is simply wonderful.' 
 
 'Do you think so?' he answered, with a pleased flush. 
 ' I often tell myself that there's more in me than my 
 mo — than people think.' 
 
 'There's an enormous amount in you.' 
 
 'Then, won't you let me send an essay on "The Ways 
 of Bank-Clerks" to "Tit-Bits," and get the guinea prize?' 
 
 'That wasn't exactly what I meant, old fellow: per- 
 haps it would be better to wait a little and go ahead with 
 the galley-story.' 
 
 'Ah, but I shan't get the credit of that. "Tit-Bits" 
 would publish my name and address if I win. What 
 are you grinning at? They would.' 
 
 *I know it. Suppose you go for a walk. I want to 
 look through my notes about our story.' 
 
 Now this reprehensible youth who left me, a little hurt 
 and put back, might for aught he or I knew have been 
 one of the crew of the Argo — had been certainly slave or 
 comrade to Thorfm Karlsefne. Therefore he was deeply 
 interested in guinea competitions. Remembering what 
 Grish Chunder had said I laughed aloud. The Lords of 
 Life and Death would never allow Charlie Mears to 
 speak with full knowledge of his pasts, and I must even 
 piece out what he had told me with my own poor inven- 
 tions while Charlie wrote of the ways of bank-clerks. 
 
 I got together and placed on one file all my notes; and 
 the net result was not cheering. I read them a second 
 time. There was nothing that might not have been com- 
 piled at second hand from other people's books — except, 
 perhaps, the story of the fight in the harbour. The ad- 
 ventures of a Viking had been written many times be- 
 
 119 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 fore; the history of a Greek galley-slave was no new 
 thing, and though I wrote both, who could challenge or 
 confirm the accuracy of my details? I might as well tell 
 a tale of two thousand years hence. The Lords of Life 
 and Death were as cunning as Grish Chunder had hinted. 
 They would allow nothing to escape that might trouble 
 or make easy the minds of men. Though I was con- 
 vinced of this, yet I could not leave the tale alone. Ex- 
 altation followed reaction, not once, but twenty times 
 in the next few weeks. My moods varied with the March 
 sunlight and flying clouds. By night or in the beauty 
 of a spring morning I perceived that I could write that 
 tale and shift continents thereby. In the wet windy af- 
 ternoons I saw that the tale might indeed be written, but 
 would be nothing more than a faked, false-varnished, 
 sham-rusted piece of Wardour Street work in the end. 
 Then I blessed Charlie in many ways — though it was no 
 fault of his. He seemed to be busy with prize competi- 
 tions, and I saw less and less of him as the weeks went 
 by and the earth cracked and grew ripe to spring, and 
 the buds swelled in their sheaths. He did not care to 
 read or talk of what he had read, and there was a new 
 ring of self-assertion in his voice. I hardly cared to re- 
 mind him of the galley when we met; but Charlie alluded 
 to it on every occasion, always as a story from w^hich 
 money was to be made. 
 
 'I think I deserve twenty-five per cent, don't I, at 
 least? ' he said, with beautiful frankness. * I supplied all 
 the ideas, didn't I?' 
 
 This greediness for silver was a new side in his nature. 
 I assumed that it had been developed in the City, where 
 Charlie was picking up the curious nasal drawl of the 
 underbred City man. 
 
 120 
 
*TIIK FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 'When the thing's done we'll talk about it. I can't 
 make anything of it at present. Red-haired or black- 
 haired heroes are equally difficult.' 
 
 He was sitting by the fire staring at the red coals. ' I 
 can't understand what you find so difficult. It's all as 
 clear as mud to me,' he replied. A jet of gas puffed out 
 between the bars, took light, and whistled softly. ' Sup- 
 pose we take the red-haired hero's adventures first, from 
 the time that he came south to my galley and captured 
 it and sailed to the Beaches.' 
 
 I knew better now than to interrupt Charlie. I was 
 out of reach of pen and paper, and dared not move to get 
 them lest I should break the current. The gas-jet pulled 
 and whinnied, Charlie's voice dropped almost to a whis- 
 per, and he told a tale of the sailing of an open galley to 
 Furdurstrandi, of sunsets on the open sea, seenunderthe 
 curve of the one sail evening after evening when the gal- 
 ley's beak was notched into the centre of the sinking 
 disc, and 'we sailed by that for we had no other guide,' 
 quoth Charlie. He spoke of a landing on an island and 
 explorations in its woods, where the crew killed three 
 men whom they found asleep under the pines. Their 
 ghosts, Charlie said, followed the galley, swimming and 
 choking in the water, and the crew cast lots and threw 
 one of their number overboard as a sacrifice to the strange 
 gods whom they had offended. Then they ate sea-weed 
 when their provisions failed, and their legs swelled, and 
 their leader, the red-haired man, killed two rowers who 
 mutinied, and after a year spent among the woods they 
 set sail for their own country, and a wind that never 
 failed carried them back so safely that they all slept at 
 night. This, and much more Charlie told. Sometimes 
 the voice fell so low that I could not catch the words, 
 
 121 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 though every nerve was on the strain. He spoke of 
 their leader, the red-haired man, as a pagan speaks of 
 his God; for it was he who cheered them and slew them 
 impartially as he thought best for their needs; and it 
 was he who steered them for three days among floating 
 ice, each floe crowded with strange beasts that 'tried to 
 sail with us,' said Charlie, 'and we beat them back with 
 the handles of the oars.' 
 
 The gas-jet went out, a burnt coal gave way, and the 
 fire settled with a tiny crash to the bottom of the grate. 
 Charlie ceased speaking, and I said no word. 
 
 'By Jove!' he said at last, shaking his head. 'I've 
 been staring at the fire till I'm dizzy. What was I go- 
 ing to say? ' 
 
 'Something about the galley-book.' 
 
 'I remember now. It's twenty-five per cent of the 
 profits, isn't it?' 
 
 ' It's anything you like when I've done the tale.' 
 
 ' I wanted to be sure of that. I must go now. I've — 
 I've an appointment.' And he left me. 
 
 Had not my eyes been held I might have known that 
 that broken muttering over the fire was the swan-song of 
 Charlie Mears. But I thought it the prelude to fuller 
 revelation. At last and at last I should cheat the Lords 
 of Life and Death! 
 
 When next Charlie came to me I received him with 
 rapture. He was nervous and embarrassed, but his 
 eyes were very full of light, and his lips a little parted. 
 
 *rve done a poem,' he said; and then, quickly: 'It's 
 the best I've ever done. Read it.' He thrust it into 
 my hand and retreated to the window. 
 
 I groaned inwardly. It would be the work of half an 
 hour to criticise — that is to say, praise — the poem suffi- 
 
 122 
 
'THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD' 
 
 ciently to please Charlie. Then I had good reason to 
 groan, for Charlie, discarding his favourite centipede 
 metres, had launched into shorter and choppier verse, 
 and verse with a motive at the back of it. This is what 
 I read : — 
 
 'The day is most fair, the cheery wind 
 
 Halloos behind the hill. 
 Where he bends the wood as seemeth good, 
 
 And the sapling to his will ! 
 Riot, wind; there is that in my blood 
 
 That would not have thee still! 
 
 *She gave me herself, Earth, O Sky; 
 
 Gray sea, she is mine alone ! 
 Let the sullen boulders hear my cry. 
 
 And rejoice tho' they be but stone! 
 
 ' Mine ! I have won her, good brown Earth, 
 
 Make merry ! 'Tis hard on Spring; 
 Make merry — my love is doubly worth 
 All worship your fields can bring! 
 Let the hind that tills you feel my mirth 
 At the early harrowing ! ' 
 
 'Yes, it's the early harrowing, past a doubt,' I said, 
 with a dread at my heart. Charlie smiled, but did not 
 answer. 
 
 'Red cloud of the sunset, tell it abroad; 
 
 I am victor. Greet me, Sun, 
 Dominant master and absolute lord 
 
 Over the soul of one ! ' 
 
 * Well? ' said Charlie, looking over my shoulder. 
 
 123 
 
iMANY INVENTIONS 
 
 I thought it far from well, and very evil indeed, when 
 he silently laid a photograph on the paper — the photo- 
 graph of a girl with a curly head and a foolish slack 
 mouth. 
 
 'Isn't it — isn't it wonderful?' he whispered, pink to 
 the tips of his ears, wrapped in the rosy mystery of first 
 love. 'I didn't know; I didn't think — it came like a 
 thunderclap.' 
 
 'Yes. It comes like a thunderclap. Are you very 
 happy, Charlie?' 
 
 'My God — she — she loves me!' He sat down re- 
 peating the last words to himself. I looked at the hairless 
 face, the narrow shoulders already bowed by desk-work, 
 and wondered when, where, and how he had loved in his 
 past lives. 
 
 ' What will your mother say? ' I asked cheerfully. 
 
 ' I don't care a damn what she says!' 
 
 At twenty the things for which one does not care a 
 damn should, properly, be many, but one must not in- 
 clude mothers in the list. I told him this gently; and he 
 described Her, even as Adam must have described to the 
 newly-named beasts the glory and tenderness and beauty 
 of Eve, Incidentally I learned that She was a tobac- 
 conist's assistant with a weakness for pretty dress, and 
 had told him four or five times already that She had 
 never been kissed by a man before. 
 
 Charlie spoke on and on, and on; while I, separated 
 from him by thousands of years, was considering the be- 
 ginnings of things. Now I understood why the Lords 
 of Life and Death shut the doors so carefully behind us. 
 It is that we may not remember our first and most beau- 
 tiful wooings. Were this not so, our world would be 
 without inhabitants in a hundred years. 
 
 124 
 
'TIII^ FTNi:S'l STORY IN TIIK WORLD' 
 
 'Now, about that .^alley-story,' I said still more cheer- 
 fully, in a pause in the rush of the speech. 
 
 Charlie looked up as though he had been hit. 'The 
 galley— what galley? Good heavens, don't joke, man! 
 This is serious! You don't know how serious it is!' 
 
 Grish Chunder was right. Charlie had tasted the 
 love of woman that kills remembrance, and the finest 
 story in the world would never be written. 
 
 125 
 
HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 
 
 (1891) 
 
 THE autumn batch of recruits for the Old Regi- 
 ment had just been uncarted. As usual they were 
 said to be the worst draft that had ever come from 
 the Depot. Mulvaney looked them over, grunted scorn- 
 fully, and immediately reported himself very sick. 
 
 'Is it the regular autumn fever?' said the doctor, who 
 knew something of Terence's ways. 'Your tempera- 
 ture's normal.' 
 
 ' 'Tis wan hundred and thirty-seven rookies to the 
 bad, sorr. I'm not very sick now, but I will be dead if 
 these boys are thrown at me in my rejuced condition. 
 Doctor, dear, supposin' you was in charge of three cholera 
 camps an' — ' 
 
 'Go to hospital then, you old contriver,' said the doc- 
 tor, laughing. 
 
 Terence bundled himself into a blue bedgown, — Dinah 
 Shadd was away attending to a major's lady, who pre- 
 ferred Dinah without a diploma to anybody else with a 
 hundred, — put a pipe in his teeth, and paraded the hos- 
 pital balcony, exhorting Ortheris to be a father to the 
 new recruits. 
 
 'They're mostly your own sort, little man,' he said, 
 with a grin ; * the top-spit av Whitechapel. I '11 interogue 
 
 126 
 
HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 
 
 them whin they're more Hke something they never will 
 be, — an' that's a good honest soldier like me.' 
 
 Ortheris yapped indignantly. He knew as well as 
 Terence what the coming work meant, and he thought 
 Terence's conduct mean. Then he strolled off to look 
 at the new cattle, who were staring at the unfamiliar 
 landscape with large eyes, and asking if the kites were 
 eagles and the pariah-dogs jackals. 
 
 'Well, you are a holy set of bean-faced beggars, you 
 are,' he said genially to a knot in the barrack square. 
 Then, running his eye over them, — 'Fried fish an' 
 whelks is about your sort. Blimy if they haven't sent 
 some pink-eyed Jews too. You chap with the greasy 
 'ed, which o' the Solomons was your father, Moses?' 
 
 'My name's Anderson,' said a voice sullenly. 
 
 'Oh, Samuelson! All right, Samuelson! An' 'ow 
 many o' the likes o' you Sheenies are comin' to spoil B 
 Company? ' 
 
 There is no scorn so complete as that of the old soldier 
 for the new. It is right that this should be so. A re- 
 cruit must learn first that he is not a man but a thing, 
 which in time, and by the mercy of Heaven, may develop 
 into a soldier of the Queen if it takes care and attends to 
 good advice. Ortheris's tunic was open, his cap over- 
 lopped one eye, and his hands were behind his back as he 
 walked round, growing more contemptuous at each step. 
 The recruits did not dare to answer, for they were new 
 boys in a strange school, who had called themselves sol- 
 diers at the Depot in comfortable England. 
 
 ' Not a single pair o' shoulders in the whole lot. F ve seen 
 some bad drafts in my time, — some bloomin' bad drafts; 
 but this 'ere draft beats any draft I've ever known. Jock, 
 come an' look at these squidgy, ham-shanked beggars.' 
 
 127 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Learoyd was walking across the square. He arrived 
 slowly, circled round the knot as a whale circles round 
 a shoal of small fry, said nothing, and went away whis- 
 tling. 
 
 'Yes, you may well look shcepy,' Ortheris squeaked 
 to the boys. ' It's the likes of you breaks the 'earts of 
 the likes of us. We've got to lick you into shape, and 
 never a ha'penny extry do we get for so doin', and you 
 ain't never grateful neither. Don't you go thinkin' it's 
 the Colonel nor yet the company orf 'cer that makes you . 
 It's us, you Johnnie Raws — you Johnnie bloomin' Raws!' 
 
 A company officer had come up unperceived behind 
 Ortheris at the end of this oration. ' Y'ou may be right, 
 Ortheris,' he said quietly, 'but I shouldn't shout it.' 
 The recruits grinned as Ortheris saluted and collapsed. 
 
 Some days afterwards I was privileged to look over 
 the new batch, and they were everything that Ortheris 
 had said, and more. B Company had been devastated 
 by forty or fifty of them; and B Company's drill on pa- 
 rade was a sight to shudder at. Ortheris asked them 
 lovingly whether they had not been sent out by mistake, 
 and whether they had not better post themselves back 
 to their friends. Learoyd thrashed them methodically 
 one by one, without haste but without slovenliness; and 
 the older soldiers took the remnants from Learoyd and 
 went over them in their own fashion. Mulvaney stayed 
 in hospital, and grinned from the balcony when Ortheris 
 called him a shirker and other worse names. 
 
 'By the grace av God we'll brew men av them yet,' 
 Terence said one day. 'Be vartuous an' parsevere, me 
 son. There's the makin's av colonels in that mob if we 
 only go deep enough — wid a belt.' 
 
 *\Ve!' Ortheris replied, dancing with rage. 'I just 
 
 128 
 
TTIS PRIVATE ITONOrR 
 
 love you and your "we's." ILra'^ B Company drillin' 
 like a drunk Militia reg'ment.' 
 
 'So I've been officially acquent,' was the answer from 
 on high; 'but I'm too sick this tide to make certain.' 
 
 'An' you, you fat H'irishman, sniftin' an' shirkin' up 
 there among the arrerroot an' the sago!' 
 
 'An' the port wine,— you've forgot the port wine, Or- 
 th'ris: 'tis none so l)ad.' Terence smacked his lips pro- 
 vokingly. 
 
 'And we're wore off our feet wdth these 'ere — kan- 
 garoos. Come out o' that, an' earn your pay. Come 
 on down outer that, an' do somethin', 'stead o' grinnin' 
 up there like a Jew monkey, you frowsy- 'eaded Fenian !' 
 
 'When I'm better av my various complaints I'll have a 
 little private talkin' wid you. In the meanwhile, — duck ! ' 
 
 Terence flung an empty medicine bottle at Ortheris's 
 head and dropped into a long chair, and Ortheris came 
 to tell me his opinion of Mulvaney three times over, — 
 each time entirely varying all the words. 
 
 'There'll be a smash one o' these days,' he concluded. 
 'Well, it's none o' my fault, but it's 'ard on B Company.' 
 
 It was very hard on B Company, for twenty seasoned 
 men cannot push twice that number of fools into their 
 places and keep their own places at the same time. The 
 recruits should have been more evenly distributed through 
 the regiment, but it seemed good to the Colonel to mass 
 them in a company where there was a fair proportion 
 of old soldiers. He found his reward early one morn- 
 ing when the battalion was advancing by companies in 
 echelon from the right. The order was given to form 
 company scfuares, which are compact little bricks of men 
 very unpleasant for a line of charging cavalry to deal 
 with. B Company was on the left flank, and had ample 
 
 129 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 time to know what was going on. For that reason, pre- 
 sumably, it gathered itself into a thing like a decayed 
 aloe-clump, the bayonets pointing anywhere in general 
 and nowhere in particular; and in that clump, roundel, 
 or mob it stayed till the dust had gone down and the 
 Colonel could see and speak. He did both, and the 
 speaking part was admitted by the regiment to be the 
 finest thing that the 'old man' had ever risen to since 
 one delightful day at a sham-fight, when a cavalry divi- 
 sion had occasion to walk over his line of skirmishers. 
 He said, almost w^eeping, that he had given no order for 
 rallying groups, and that he preferred to see a little dress- 
 ing among the men occasionally. He then apologised 
 for having mistaken B Company for men. He said that 
 they were but little children weak, and that since he 
 could not offer them each a perambulator and a nurse- 
 maid (this may sound comic to read, but B Company 
 heard it by word of mouth and winced) perhaps the best 
 thing for them to do would be to go back to squad-drill. 
 To that end he proposed sending them, out of their turn, 
 to garrison duty in Fort Amara, five miles away, — D 
 Company were next for this detestable duty and nearly 
 cheered the Colonel. There he devoutly hoped that 
 their own subalterns would drill them to death, as they 
 were of no use in their present life. 
 
 It was an exceedingly painful scene, and I made haste 
 to be near B Company barracks when parade was dis- 
 missed and the men were free to talk. There was no 
 talking at first, because each old soldier took a new draft 
 and kicked him very severely. The non-commissioned 
 officers had neither eyes nor ears for these accidents. 
 They left the barracks to themselves, and Ortheris im- 
 proved the occasion by a speech. I did not hear that 
 
 130 
 
HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 
 
 speech, but fragments of it were quoted for weeks after- 
 wards. It covered the birth, parentage, and education 
 of every man in the company by name; it gave a com- 
 plete account of Fort Amara from a sanitary and social 
 point of view; and it wound up with an abstract of the 
 whole duty of a soldier, each recruit his use in life, and 
 Ortheris's views on the use and fate of the recruits of B 
 Company. 
 
 'You can't drill, you can't walk, you can't shoot, — 
 you, — you awful rookies ! Wot's the good of you? You 
 eats and you sleeps, and you eats, and you goes to the 
 doctor for medicine when your innards is out o' order for 
 all the world as if you was bloomin' generals. An' now 
 you've topped it all, you bats'-eyed beggars, with get- 
 ting us druv out to that stinkin' Fort 'Ammerer. We'll 
 fort you when we get out there; yes, an' we'll 'ammer 
 you too. Don't you think you've come into the Harmy 
 to drink Heno, an' club your comp'ny, an' lie on your 
 cots an' scratch your fat heads. You can do that at 
 'ome sellin' matches, which is all you're fit for, you keb- 
 huntin', penny-toy, bootlace, baggage-tout, 'orse-'oldin', 
 sandwich-backed se-werss, you.^ I've spoke you as fair 
 as I know 'ow, and you give good 'eed, 'cause if Mul- 
 vaney stops skrimshanking — gets out o' 'orspital — when 
 we're in the Fort, I lay your lives will be trouble to you.' 
 
 That was Ortheris's peroration, and it caused B Com- 
 pany to be christened the Boot-black Brigade. With 
 this disgrace on their slack shoulders they went to garri- 
 son duty at Fort Amara with their officers, who were 
 under instructions to twist their little tails. The army, 
 unlike every other profession, cannot be taught through 
 
 ^Ortheris meant 'soors' — which means pigs. 
 131 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 shilling books. First a man must suiTer, then he must 
 learn his work, and the self-respect that that knowledge 
 brings. The learning is hard, in a land where the army 
 is not a red thing that walks down the street to be looked 
 at, but a living tramping reahty that may be needed at 
 the shortest notice, when there is no time to say, 'Hadn't 
 you better?' and 'Won't you please?' 
 
 The company officers divided themselves into three. 
 When Brander the captain was wearied, he gave over to 
 Maydew, and when Maydew was hoarse he ordered the 
 junior subaltern Ouless to bucket the men through squad 
 and company drill, till Brander could go on again. Out 
 of parade hours the old soldiers spoke to the recruits as 
 old soldiers will, and between the four forces at work on 
 them, the new draft began to stand on their feet and feel 
 that they belonged to a good and honourable service. 
 This was proved by their once or twice resenting Or- 
 theris's technical lectures. 
 
 * Drop it now, lad,' said Learoyd, coming to the rescue. 
 'Th' pups are biting back. They're none so rotten as 
 we looked for.' 
 
 ' Ho ! Yuss ! You think yourself soldiers now, 'cause 
 you don't fall over each other on p'rade, don't you? 
 You think 'cause the dirt don't cake off you week's end 
 to week's end that you're clean men. You think 'cause 
 you can fire your rifle without more nor shuttin' both 
 eyes, you're something to fight, don't you? You'll know 
 later on,' said Ortheris to the barrack-room generally. 
 'Not but what you're a little better than you was,' he 
 added, with a gracious wave of his cutty. 
 
 It was in this transition-stage that I came across the 
 new draft once more. Their officers, in the zeal of youth 
 forgetting that the old soldiers who stiffened the sections 
 
 132 
 
HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 
 
 must suffer equally with the raw material under ham- 
 mering, had made all a little stale and unhandy with 
 continuous drill in the square, instead of marching the 
 men into the open, and supplying them with skirmishing 
 drill. The month of garrison-duty in the Fort was nearly 
 at an end, and B Company were quite fit for a self-re- 
 specting regiment to drill with. They had no style or 
 spring, — that would come in time, — but so far as they 
 went they were passable. I met Maydew one day and 
 inquired after their health. He told me that young 
 Ouless was putting a polish on a half-company of them 
 in the great square by the east bastion of the Fort that 
 afternoon. Because the day was Saturday I went off to 
 taste the full beauty of leisure in watching another man 
 hard at work. 
 
 The fat forty-pound muzzle-loaders on the east bas- 
 tion made a very comfortable resting-place. You could 
 sprawl full length on the iron warmed by the afternoon 
 sun to blood heat, and command an easy view of the 
 parade-ground which lay between the powder-magazine 
 and the curtain of the bastion. 
 
 I saw a half-company called over and told off for drill, 
 saw Ouless come from his quarters, tugging at his gloves, 
 and heard the first ' 'Shun!' that locks the ranks and 
 shows that work has begun. Then I went off on my 
 own thoughts; the squeaking of the boots and the rattle 
 of the rifles making a good accompaniment, and the line 
 of red coats and black trousers a suitable background to 
 them all. They concerned the formation of a territorial 
 army for India, — an army of specially paid men enlisted 
 for twelve years' service in Her Majesty's Indian posses- 
 sions, with the option of extending on medical certificate 
 for another five and the certainty of a pension at the end. 
 
 133 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 They would be such an army as the world had never 
 seen, — one hundred thousand trained men drawing an- 
 nually five, no, fifteen thousand men from England, mak- 
 ing India their home, and allowed to marry in reason. 
 Yes, I thought, watching the line shift to and fro, break 
 and re-form, we would buy back Cashmere from the 
 drunken imbecile who was turning it into a hell, and 
 there we would plant our much-married regiments, — 
 the men who had served ten years of their time, — and 
 there they should breed us white soldiers, and perhaps a 
 second fighting-line of Eurasians. At all events Cash- 
 mere was the only place in India that the Englishman 
 could colonise, and if we had foothold there we could 
 . . . Oh, it was a beautiful dream! I left that 
 territorial army swelled to a quarter of a million men far 
 behind, swept on as far as an independent India, hiring 
 warships from the mother-country, guarding Aden on 
 the one side and Singapore on the other, paying interest 
 on her loans with beautiful regularity, but borrowing no 
 men from beyond her own borders — a colonised, manu- 
 facturing India with a permanent surplus and her own 
 flag. I had just installed myself as Viceroy, and by 
 virtue of my office had shipped four million sturdy thrifty 
 natives to the Malayan Archipelago, where labour is 
 always wanted and the Chinese pour in too quickly, 
 when I became aware that things were not going smoothly 
 with the half-company. There was a great deal too 
 much shuffling and shifting and ' as you were'-ing. The 
 non-commissioned officers were snapping at the men, and 
 I fancied Ouless backed one of his orders with an oath. 
 He was in no position to do this, because he was a junior 
 who had not yet learned to pitch his word of command 
 in the same key twice running. Sometimes he squeaked, 
 
 134 
 
HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 
 
 and sometimes he grunted; and a clear full voice with a 
 ring in it has more to do with drill than people think. 
 He was nervous both on parade and in mess, because he 
 was unproven and knew it. One of his majors had said 
 in his hearing, ' Ouless has a skin or two to slough yet, 
 and he hasn't the sense to be aware of it.' That remark 
 had stayed in Ouless's mind and caused him to think 
 about himself in little things, which is not the best train- 
 ing for a young man. He tried to be cordial at mess, 
 and became over-effusive. Then he tried to stand on 
 his dignity, and appeared sulky and boorish. He was 
 only hunting for the just medium and the proper note, 
 and had found neither because he had never faced him- 
 self in a big thing. With his men he was as ill at ease as 
 he was with his mess, and his voice betrayed him. I 
 heard two orders and then: — 'Sergeant, what is that 
 rear-rank man doing, damn him? ' That was sufficiently 
 bad. A company officer ought not to ask sergeants for 
 information. He commands, and commands are not 
 held by syndicates. 
 
 It was too dusty to see the drill accurately, but I could 
 hear the excited little voice pitching from octave to oc- 
 tave, and the uneasy ripple of badgered or bad-tempered 
 files running down the ranks. Ouless had come on 
 parade as sick of his duty as were the men of theirs. The 
 hot sun had told on everybody's temper, but most of all 
 on the youngest man's. He had evidently lost his self- 
 control, and not possessing the nerve or the knowledge 
 to break off till he had recovered it again, was making 
 bad worse by ill-language. 
 
 The men shifted their ground and came close under 
 the gun I was lying on. They were wheeling quarter- 
 right and they did it very badly, in the natural hope of 
 
 135 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 hearing Ouless swear again. He could have taught 
 them nothing new, but they enjoyed the exhibition. 
 Instead of swearing Ouless lost his head completely, and 
 struck out nervously at the wheeling flank-man with a 
 little Malacca riding-cane, that he held in his hand for a 
 pointer. The cane was topped with thin silver over lac- 
 quer, and the silver had worn through in one place, leav- 
 ing a triangular flap sticking up. I had just time to see 
 that Ouless had thrown away his commission by striking 
 a soldier, when I heard the rip of cloth and a piece of 
 gray shirt showed under the torn scarlet on the man's 
 shoulder. It had been the merest nervous flick of an 
 exasperated boy, but quite enough to forfeit his com- 
 mission, since it had been dealt in anger to a volunteer 
 and no pressed man, who could not under the rules of 
 the Service reply. The eflect of it, thanks to the natural 
 depravity of things, was as though Ouless had cut the 
 man's coat off his back. Knowing the new draft by 
 reputation, I was fairly certain that every one of them 
 would swear with many oaths that Ouless had actually 
 thrashed the man. In that case Ouless would do well to 
 pack his trunk. His career as a servant of the Queen in 
 any capacity was ended. The wheel continued, and the 
 men halted and dressed immediately opposite my rest- 
 ing-place. Ouless's face was perfectly bloodless. The 
 flanking man was a dark red, and I could see his lips 
 moving in wicked words. He was Ortheris! After 
 seven years' service and three medals, he had been struck 
 by a boy younger than himself! Further, he was my 
 friend and a good man, a proved man, and an English- 
 man. The shame of the thing made me as hot as it 
 made Ouless cold, and if Ortheris had slipped in a car- 
 tridge and cleared the account at once I should have 
 
 136 
 
HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 
 
 rejoiced. The fact that Ortheris, of all men, had been 
 struck, proved that the boy could not have known whom 
 he was hitting; but he should have remembered that he 
 was no longer a boy. And then I was sorry for him, and 
 then I was angry again, and Ortheris stared in front of 
 him and grew redder and redder. 
 
 The drill halted for a moment. No one knew why, for 
 not three men could have seen the insult, the wheel being 
 end-on to Ouless at the time. Then, led, I conceived, by 
 the hand of Fate, Brander, the captain, crossed the drill- 
 ground, and his eye was caught by not more than a square 
 foot of gray shirt over a shoulder-blade that should have 
 been covered by well-fitting tunic. 
 
 'Heavens and earth!' he said, crossing in three strides. 
 'Do you let your men come on parade in rags, sir? 
 What's that scarecrow doing here? Fall out, that flank- 
 man. What do you mean by — You, Ortheris! of all 
 men. What the deuce do you mean? ' 
 
 *Beg y' pardon, sir,' said Ortheris. 'I scratched it 
 against the guard-gate running up to parade.' 
 
 'Scratched it! Ripped it up, you mean. It's half 
 off your back.' 
 
 ' It was a little tear at first, sir, but in portin' arms it 
 got stretched, sir, an' — an' I can't look be'ind me — I felt 
 it givin', sir.' 
 
 'Hm!' said Brander. 'I should think you did feel it 
 give. I thought it was one of the new draft. You've 
 a good pair of shoulders. Go on ! ' 
 
 He turned to go. Ouless stepped after him, very white, 
 and said something in a low voice. 
 
 'Hey, what? What? Ortheris,' the voice dropped. I 
 saw Ortheris salute, say something, and stand at atten- 
 tion. 
 
 137 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 * Dismiss,' said Brander curtly. The men were dis- 
 missed. ' I can't make this out. You say — ? ' he nodded 
 at Ouless, who said something again. Ortheris stood 
 still, the torn flap of his tunic falling nearly to his waist- 
 belt. He had, as Brander said, a good pair of shoulders, 
 and prided himself on the fit of his tunic. 
 
 'Beg y' pardon, sir,' I heard him say, 'but I think 
 Lieutenant Ouless has been in the sun too long. He 
 don't quite remember things, sir. I come on p'rade with 
 a bit of a rip, and it spread, sir, through portin' arms, as 
 I 'ave said, sir.' 
 
 Brander looked from one face to the other and I sup- 
 pose drew his own conclusions, for he told Ortheris to go 
 with the other men who were flocking back to barracks. 
 Then he spoke to Ouless and went away, leaving the boy 
 in the middle of the parade-ground fumbling with his 
 sword-knot. 
 
 Ouless looked up, saw me lying on the gun, and came 
 to me biting the back of his gloved forefinger, so com- 
 pletely thrown off his balance that he had not sense 
 enough to keep his trouble to himself. 
 
 ' I say, you saw that, I suppose? ' He jerked his head 
 back to the square, where the dust left by the departing 
 men was settling down in white circles. 
 
 ' I did,' I answered, for I was not feeling polite. 
 
 'What the devil ought I to do?' He bit his finger 
 again. * I told Brander what I had done. I hit him.' 
 
 'I'm perfectly aware of that,' I said, 'and I don't sup- 
 pose Ortheris has forgotten it already.' 
 
 'Ye — es; but I'm dashed if I know what I ought to do. 
 Exchange into another company, I suppose. I can't 
 ask the man to exchange, I suppose. Hey?' 
 
 The suggestion showed the glimmerings of proper 
 
 138 
 
HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 
 
 sense, but he should not have come to me or any one else 
 for help. It was his own affair, and I told him so. He 
 seemed unconvinced, and began to talk of the possibili- 
 ties of being cashiered. At this point the spirit moved 
 me, on behalf of the unavenged Ortheris, to paint him a 
 beautiful picture of his insignificance in the scheme of 
 creation. He had a papa and a mamma seven thousand 
 miles away, and perhaps some friends. They would feel 
 his disgrace, but no one else would care a penny. He 
 would be only Lieutenant Ouless of the Old Regiment 
 dismissed the Queen's service for conduct unbecoming 
 an officer and a gentleman. The Commander-in-Chief, 
 who would confirm the orders of the court-martial, would 
 not know who he was; his mess would not speak of him; 
 he would return to Bombay, if he had money enough to 
 go home, more alone than when he had come out. Fi- 
 nally, — I rounded the sketch with precision, — he was 
 only one tiny dab of red in the vast gray field of the In- 
 dian Empire. He must work this crisis out alone, and 
 no one could help him, and no one cared — (this was un- 
 true, because I cared immensely: he had spoken the 
 truth to Brander on the spot) — whether he pulled through 
 it or did not pull through it. At last his face set and his 
 figure stiffened. 
 
 'Thanks, that's quite enough. I don't want to hear 
 any more,' he said in a dry grating voice, and went to his 
 own quarters. 
 
 Brander spoke to me afterwards and asked me some 
 absurd question as to whether I had seen Ouless cut the 
 coat off Ortheris's back. I knew that jagged sliver of 
 silver would do its work well, but I contrived to impress 
 on Brander the completeness, the wonderful complete- 
 ness, of my disassociation from that drill. I began to 
 
 139 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 tell him all about my dreams for the new territorial army 
 in India, and he left me. 
 
 I could not see Ortheris for some days, but I learnt 
 that when he returned to his fellows he had told the story 
 of the blow in vivid language. Samuelson, the Jew, then 
 asserted that it was not good enough to live in a regi- 
 ment where you were drilled off your feet and knocked 
 about like a dog. The remark was a perfectly innocent 
 one, and exactly tallied with Ortheris's expressed opin- 
 ions. Yet Ortheris had called Samuelson an unmen- 
 tionable Jew, had accused him of kicking women on the 
 head in London, and howling under the cat, had hustled 
 him, as a bantam hustles a barn-door cock, from one end 
 of the barrack-room to the other, and finally had heaved 
 every single article of Samuelson's valise and bedding- 
 roll into the veranda and the outer dirt, kicking Samuel- 
 son every time that the bewildered creature stooped to 
 pick anything up. My informant could not account for 
 this inconsistency, but it seemed to me that Ortheris 
 was working off his temper. 
 
 Mulvaney had heard the story in hospital. First his 
 face clouded, then he spat, and then laughed. I sug- 
 gested that he had better return to active duty, but he 
 saw it in another light, and told me that Ortheris was 
 quite capable of looking after himself and his own affairs. 
 'An' if I did come out,' said Terence, 'like as not I would 
 be catchin' young Ouless by the scruff av his trousies an' 
 makin' an example av him before the men. Whin Dinah 
 came back I would be under court-martial, an' all for 
 the sake av a little bit av a bhoy that'll make an orf'cer 
 yet. What's he goin' to do, sorr, do ye know?' 
 
 'Which?' said I. 
 
 ' Ouless, av course. I've no fear for the liian. Begad, 
 
 140 
 
HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 
 
 tho', if ut had come to me — but ut could not have so 
 come — I'd ha' made him cut his wisdom-teeth on his 
 own sword-hilt.' 
 
 ' I don't think he knows himself what he means to do,' 
 I said. 
 
 * I should not wonder,' said Terence. 'There's a dale 
 av thinkin' before a young man whin he's done wrong 
 an' knows ut, an' is studyin' how to put ut right. Give 
 the word from me to our little man there, that if he had 
 ha' told on his shuperior orf'cer I'd ha' come out to Fort 
 Am.ara to kick him into the Fort ditch, an' that's a forty- 
 fut drop.' 
 
 Ortheris was not in good condition to talk to. He 
 wandered up and down with Learoyd brooding, so far as 
 I could see, over his lost honour, and using, as I could 
 hear, incendiary language. Learoyd would nod and 
 spit and smoke and nod again, and he must have been 
 a great comfort to Ortheris — almost as great a comfort 
 as Samuelson, whom Ortheris bullied disgracefully. If 
 the Jew opened his mouth in the most casual remark 
 Ortheris would plunge down it with all arms and accou- 
 trements, while the barrack-room stared and wondered. 
 
 Ouless had retired into himself to meditate. I saw 
 him now and again, and he avoided me because I had 
 witnessed his shame and spoken my mind on it. He 
 seemed dull and moody, and found his half-company 
 anything but pleasant to drill. The men did their work 
 and gave him very little trouble, but just when they 
 should have been feeling their feet, and showing that 
 they felt them by spring and swing and snap, the elas- 
 ticity died out and it was only drilling with war-game 
 blocks. There is a beautiful little ripple in a well-made 
 line of men, exactly like the play of a perfectly-tempered 
 
 141 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 sword. Ouless's half-company moved as a broom-stick 
 moves, and would have broken as easily. 
 
 I was speculating whether Ouless had sent money to 
 Ortheris, which would have been bad, or had apologised 
 to him in private, which would have been w^orse, or had 
 decided to let the whole affair slide, which would have 
 been worst of all, when orders came to me to leave the 
 station for a while. I had not spoken directly to Ortheris, 
 for his honour was not my honour, and he was its only 
 guardian, and he would not say anything except bad 
 words. 
 
 I went away, and from time to time thought a great 
 deal of that subaltern and that private in Fort Amara, 
 and wondered what would be the upshot of everything. 
 
 When I returned it was early spring. B Company 
 had been shifted from the Fort to regular duty in can- 
 tonments, the roses were getting ready to bud on the 
 Mall, and the regiment, which had been at a camp of 
 exercise among other things, was going through its 
 spring musketry-course under an adjutant who had a 
 notion that its shooting average was low. He had stirred 
 up the company officers and they had bought extra am- 
 munition for their men — the Government allowance is 
 just sufficient to foul the rifling — and E Company, which 
 counted many marksmen, was vapouring and offering 
 to challenge all the other companies, and the third-class 
 shots were very sorry that they had ever been born, and 
 all the subalterns were a rich ripe saddle-colour from 
 sitting at the butts six and eight hours a day. 
 
 I went off to the butts after breakfast very full of 
 curiosity to see how the new draft had come forward. 
 Ouless was there with his men by the bald hillock that 
 marks the six hundred yards' range, and the men were 
 
 142 
 
HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 
 
 in gray-green khaki, that shows the best points of a sol- 
 dier and shades off into every background he may stand 
 against. Before I was in hearing distance I could see, 
 as they sprawled on the dusty grass, or stood up and 
 shook themselves, that they were men made over again 
 — wearing their helmets with the cock of self-possession, 
 swinging easily, and jumping to the word of command. 
 Coming nearer, I heard Ouless whistling 'Ballyhooly' 
 between his teeth as he looked down the range with his 
 binoculars, and the back of Lieutenant Ouless was the 
 back of a free man and an officer. He nodded as I 
 came up, and I heard him fling an order to a non-com- 
 missioned officer in a sure and certain voice. The flag 
 ran up from the target, and Ortheris threw himself down 
 on his stomach to put in his ten shots. He winked at 
 me over the breech-block as he settled himself, with the 
 air of a man who has to go through tricks for the benefit 
 of children. 
 
 'Watch, you men,' said Ouless to the squad behind. 
 'He's half your weight, Brannigan, but he isn't afraid of 
 his rifle.' 
 
 Ortheris had his little affectations and pet ways as 
 the rest of us have. He weighed his rifle, gave it a little 
 kick-up, cuddled down again, and fired across the ground 
 that was beginning to dance in the sun-heat. 
 
 *Miss!' said a man behind. 
 
 'Too much bloomin' background in front,' Ortheris 
 muttered. 
 
 'I should allow two feet for refraction,' said Ouless. 
 
 Ortheris fired again, made his outer, crept in, found 
 the bull and stayed there ; the non-commissioned officer 
 pricking off the shots. 
 
 * Can't make out 'ow I missed that first,' he said, ris- 
 
 143 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 ing, and stepping back to my side, as Learoyd took his 
 place. 
 
 'Is it company practice?' I asked. 
 
 'No. Only just knockin' about. Ouless, 'e's givin' 
 ten rupees for second-class shots. I'm outer it, of course, 
 but I come on to show 'em the proper style o' doin' things. 
 Jock looks like a sea-lion at the Brighton Aquarium 
 sprawlin' an' crawlin' down there, don't 'e? Gawd, 
 what a butt this end of 'im would make.' 
 
 'B Company has come up very well,' I said. 
 
 'They 'ad to. They're none so dusty now, are they? 
 Samuelson even, 'e can shoot sometimes. We're gettin' 
 on as well as can be expected, thank you.' 
 
 ' How do you get on with — ? ' 
 
 'Oh, 'im! First-rate! There's nothin' wrong with 
 'im.' 
 
 'Was it all settled then?' 
 
 ' 'Asn't Terence told you? I should say it was. 'E's 
 a gentleman, 'e is.' 
 
 'Let's hear,' I said. 
 
 Ortheris twinkled all over, tucked his rifle across his 
 knees and repeated, ' 'E's a gentleman. 'E's an ofTicer 
 too. You saw all that mess in Fort 'Ammerer. 'Twasn't 
 none o' my fault, as you can guess. Only some goat in 
 the drill judged it was be'yaviour or something to play 
 the fool on p'rade. That's why we drilled so bad. 
 When 'e 'it me, I was so took aback I couldn't do 
 nothing, an' when I wished for to knock 'im down the 
 wheel 'ad gone on, an' I was facin' you there lyin' on the 
 guns. After the captain had come up an' was raggin' 
 me about my tunic bein' tore, I saw the young beggar's 
 eye, an' 'fore I could 'elp myself I begun to lie like a 
 good 'un. You 'eard that? It was quite instinkive, 
 
 144 
 
HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 
 
 but, my ! I was in a lather. Then he said to the captain, 
 "I struck 'im!" sez 'e, 'an' I 'card Brander whistle, an' 
 then I come out with a new set o' Hes all about portin' 
 arms an' 'ow the rip growed, same as you 'card. I done 
 that too before I knew where I was. Then I give Sam- 
 uelson what-for in barricks when he was dismissed. 
 You should ha' seen 'is kit by the time I'd finished with 
 it. It was all over the bloomin' Fort! Then me an' 
 Jock went off to Mulvaney in 'orspital, five-mile walk, 
 an' I was hoppin' mad. Ouless, 'e knowed it was court- 
 martial for me if I 'it 'im back — 'e must ha' knowed. 
 Well, I sez to Terence, whisperin' under the 'orspital 
 balcony — "Terence," sez I, "what in 'ell am I to do?" 
 I told 'im all about the row same as you saw. Terence 
 'e whistles hke a bloomin' old bullfinch up there in 'orspi- 
 tal, an' 'e sez, "Youain'tto blame," sez 'e. " 'Strewth," 
 sez I, "d'you suppose I've come 'ere five mile in the sun 
 to take blame?" I sez. "I want that young beggar's 
 hide took off. I ain't a bloomin' conscrip'," I sez, 
 "I'm a private servin' of the Queen, an' as good a man 
 as 'e is," I sez, "for all 'is commission an' 'is airs an' 'is 
 money," sez I.' 
 
 'What a fool you were,' I interrupted. Ortheris, be- 
 ing neither a menial nor an American, but a free man, 
 had no excuse for yelping. 
 
 ' That's exactly what Terence said. I wonder you set 
 it the same way so pat if 'e 'asn't been talkin' to you. 
 'E sez to me — "You ought to 'ave more sense," 'e sez, 
 "at your time of life. What differ do it make to you," 
 'e sez, "whether 'e 'as a commission or no commission? 
 That's none o' your affair. It's between man an' man," 
 'e sez, "if 'e 'eld a general's commission. Moreover," 
 'e sez, "you don't look 'andsome 'oppin' about on your 
 
 145 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 *ind legs like that. Take him away, Jock." Then 'e 
 went inside, an' that's all I got outer Terence. Jock, 'e 
 sez as slow as a march in slow time, — "Stanley," 'e sez, 
 "that young beggar didn't go for to 'it you." " I don't 
 give a damn whether 'e did or 'e didn't. 'It me 'e did," 
 I sez. "Then you've only got to report to Brander," 
 sez Jock. "What d'yer take me for?" I sez, as I was so 
 mad I nearly 'it Jock. An' he got me by the neck an' 
 shoved my 'ead into a bucket o' water in the cook-'ouse 
 an' then we went back to the Fort, an' I give Samuelson 
 a little more trouble with 'is kit. 'E sez to me, " I haven't 
 been strook without 'ittin' back." "Well, you're goin' 
 to be now," I sez, an' I give 'im one or two for 'isself, 
 an' arxed 'im very polite to 'it back, but he didn't. I'd 
 ha' killed 'im if 'e 'ad. That done me a lot o' good. 
 
 ' Ouless 'e didn't make no show for some days, — not 
 till after you was gone ; an' I was f eelin' sick an' miser- 
 able, an' didn't know what I wanted, 'cept to black his 
 little eyes good. I 'oped 'e might send me some money 
 for my tunic. Then I'd ha' had it out with him on 
 p'rade and took my chance. Terence was in 'orspital 
 still, you see, an' 'e wouldn't give me no advice. 
 
 *The day after you left, Ouless come across me carry- 
 ing a bucket on fatigue, an' 'e sez to me very quietly, 
 "Ortheris, you've got to come out shootin' with me," 'e 
 sez. I felt like to bunging the bucket in 'is eye, but I 
 didn't. I got ready to go instead. Oh, 'e's a gentle- 
 man ! We went out together, neither sayin' nothin' to 
 the other till we was well out into the jungle beyond the 
 river with 'igh grass all round, — pretty near that place 
 where I went off my 'ead with you. Then 'e puts his 
 gun down an' sez very quietly : " Ortheris, I strook you 
 on p'rade," 'e sez. "Yes, sir," sez I, "you did." "I've 
 
 146 
 
HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 
 
 been studying it out by myself," 'e sez. " Oh, you 'ave, 
 'ave you?" sez I to myself, "an a nice time you've been 
 about it, you bun-faced little beggar." "Yes, sir," sez 
 I. "What made you screen me?" 'e sez. "I don't 
 know," I sez, an' no more I did, nor do. "I can't ask 
 you to exchange," 'e sez. "An' I don't want to ex- 
 change myself," sez 'e. " What's comin' now? " I thinks 
 to myself. "Yes, sir," sez I. He looks round at the 
 'igh grass all about, an' 'e sez to himself more than to 
 me, — " I've got to go through it alone, by myself!" 'E 
 looked so queer for a minute that, s'elp me, I thought 
 the little beggar was going to pray. Then he turned 
 round again an' 'e sez, "What do you think yourself?" 
 'e sez. "I don't quite see what you mean, sir," I sez. 
 "What would you hke?" 'e sez. An' I thought for a 
 minute 'e was goin' to give me money, but 'e run 'is 
 'and up to the top-button of 'is shootin' coat an' loosed 
 it. "Thank you, sir," I sez. "I'd hke that very well," 
 I sez, an' both our coats was off an' put down.' 
 
 ' Hooray ! ' I shouted incautiously. 
 
 * Don't make a noise on the butts,' said Ouless from 
 the shooting-place. ' It puts the men off.' 
 
 I apologised, and Ortheris went on. 
 
 *Our coats was off, an' 'e sez, "Are you ready?" sez 
 'e. "Come on then.'* I come on, a bit uncertain at 
 first, but he took me one under the chin that warmed 
 me up. I wanted to mark the little beggar an' I hit 
 high, but he went an' jabbed me over the heart like a 
 good one. He wasn't so strong as me, but he knew more, 
 an' in about two minutes I calls "Time." 'E steps 
 back, — it was in-fightin' then : " Come on when you're 
 ready," 'e sez; and when I had my wind I come on again, 
 an' I got *im one on the nose that painted 'is little aris- 
 
 147 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 tocratic white shirt for 'im. That fetched 'im, an' I 
 knew it quicker nor hght. He come all round me, close- 
 fightin', goin' steady for my heart. I held on all I could 
 an' spht 'is ear, but then I began to hiccup, an' the game 
 was up. I come in to feel if I could throw 'im, an' 'e 
 got me one on the mouth that downed me an' — look 
 'ere!' 
 
 Ortheris raised the left corner of his upper lip. An 
 eye-tooth was wanting. 
 
 * 'E stood over me an' 'e sez, "Have you 'ad enough?" 
 'e sez. "Thank you, I 'ave," sez I. He took my 'and 
 an' pulled me up, an' I was pretty shook. "Now," 'e 
 sez, " I'll apologise for 'ittin' you. It was all my fault," 
 'e sez, " an' it wasn't meant for you." " I knowed that, 
 sir," I sez, " an' there's no need for no apology." "Then 
 it's an accident," 'e sez; "an' you must let me pay for 
 thecoat; else it'll be stopped onto' your pay." I wouldn't 
 ha' took the money before, but I did then. 'E give me 
 ten rupees, — enough to pay for the coat twice over, an ' 
 we went down to the river to wash our faces, which was 
 well marked. His was special. Then he sez to himself, 
 sputterin' the water out of 'is mouth, "I wonder if I 
 done right?" 'e sez. "Yes, sir," sez I; "there's no fear 
 about that." " It's all well for you," 'e sez, "but what 
 about the comp'ny?" "Beggin' your pardon, sir," I 
 sez, "I don't think the comp'ny will give no trouble." 
 Then we went shootin', an' when we come back I was 
 feelin' as chirpy as a cricket, an' I took an' rolled Samuel- 
 son up an' down the veranda, an' give out to the com- 
 p'ny that the difficulty between me an' Lieutenant 
 Ouless was satisfactory put a stop to. I told Jock, o' 
 course, an' Terence. Jock didn't say nothing, but 
 Terence 'e sez: "You're a pair, you two. An', begad, I 
 
 148 
 
HIS PRIVATE HONOUR 
 
 don't know which was the better man." There ain't 
 nothin' wrong with Ouless. 'E's a gentleman all over, 
 an' 'e's come on as much as B Comp'ny. I lay 'e'd lose 
 'is commission, tho', if it come out that 'e'd been fightin' 
 with a private. Hoi ho! Fightin' all an afternoon 
 with a bloomin' private hke me! What do you think?' 
 he added, brushing the breech of his rifle. 
 
 ' I think what the umpires said at the sham fight ; both 
 sides deserve great credit. But I wish you'd tell me 
 what made you save him in the first place.' 
 
 'I was pretty sure that 'e 'adn't meant it for me, 
 though that wouldn't ha' made no difference if 'e'd been 
 copped for it. An' 'e was that young too that it wouldn't 
 ha' been fair. Besides, if I had ha' done that I'd ha' 
 missed the fight, and I'd ha' felt bad all my time. Don't 
 you see it that way, sir?' 
 
 ' It was your right to get him cashiered if you chose,' I 
 insisted. 
 
 ' My right ! ' Ortheris answered v/ith deep scorn. ' My 
 right ! I ain't a recruity to go whinin' about my rights 
 to this an' my rights to that, just as if I couldn't look 
 after myself . My rights! 'Strev/th A'mighty! I'm a 
 man.' 
 
 The last squad were finishing their shots in a storm of 
 low-voiced chaff. Ouless withdrew to a little distance 
 in order to leave the men at ease, and I saw his face in 
 the full sunlight for a moment, before he hitched up his 
 sword, got his men together, and marched them back to 
 barracks. It was all right. The boy was proven. 
 
 149 
 
A MATTER OF FACT 
 
 (1894) 
 
 And if ye doubt the tale I tell, 
 Steer through the South Pacific swell; 
 Go where the branching coral hives 
 Unending strife of endless lives, 
 Where, leagued about the 'wildered boat, 
 The rainbow jellies fill and float; 
 And, lilting where the laver lingers, 
 The starfish trips on all her fingers; 
 Where, 'neath his myriad spines ashock, 
 The sea-egg ripples down the rock ; 
 An orange wonder dimly guessed. 
 From darkness where the cuttles rest, 
 Moored o'er the darker deeps that hide 
 The blind white Sea-snake and his bride 
 Who, drowsing, nose the long-lost ships 
 Let down through darkness to their lips. 
 
 *The Palms.' 
 
 ONCE a priest, always a priest; once a mason, 
 always a mason; but once a journalist, always 
 and for ever a journalist. 
 There were three of us, all newspaper men, the only 
 passengers on a little tramp steamer that ran where her 
 owners told her to go. She had once been in the Bilbao 
 
 150 
 
A MATTER OF FACT 
 
 iron ore business, had been lent to tlie Spanish Govern- 
 ment for service at Manila; and was ending her days in 
 the Cape Town coolie-trade, with occasional trips to 
 Madagascar and even as far as England. We found her 
 going to Southampton in ballast, and shipped in her 
 because the fares were nominal. There was Keller, of 
 an American paper, on his way back to the States from 
 palace executions in Madagascar; there was a burly half- 
 Dutchman, called Zuyland, who owned and edited a 
 paper up country near Johannesburg; and there was my- 
 self, who had solemnly put away all journalism, vowing 
 to forget that I had ever known the difference between 
 an imprint and a stereo advertisement. 
 
 Ten minutes after Keller spoke to me, as the 'Rath- 
 mines' cleared Cape Town, I had forgotten the aloofness 
 I desired to feign, and was in heated discussion on the 
 immorality of expanding telegrams beyond a certain 
 fixed point. Then Zuyland came out of his cabin, and 
 we were all at home instantly, because we were men of 
 the same profession needing no introduction. We an- 
 nexed the boat formally, broke open the passengers' 
 bath-room door — on the Manila lines the Dons do not 
 wash — cleaned out the orange-peel and cigar-ends at the 
 bottom of the bath, hired a Lascar to shave us through- 
 out the voyage, and then asked each other's names. 
 
 Three ordinary men would have quarrelled through 
 sheer boredom before they reached Southampton. We, 
 by virtue of our craft, were anything but ordinary men. 
 A large percentage of the tales of the world, the thirty- 
 nine that cannot be told to ladies and the one that can, 
 are common property coming of a common stock. We 
 told them all as a matter of form, with all their local and 
 specific variants which are surprising. Then came, in 
 
 151 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 the intervals of steady card-play, more personal histories 
 of adventure and things seen and suffered : panics among 
 white folk, when the blind terror ran from man to man 
 on the Brooklyn Bridge, and the people crushed each 
 other to death they knew not why; fires, and faces that 
 opened and shut their mouths horribly at red-hot win- 
 dow frames; wrecks in frost and snow, reported from the 
 sleet-sheathed rescue-tug at the risk of frost-bite; long 
 rides after diamond thieves; skirmishes on the veldt and 
 in municipal committees with the Boers; glimpses of 
 lazy tangled Cape politics and the mule-rule in the 
 Transvaal; card-tales, horse-tales, woman-tales, by the 
 score and the half hundred; till the first mate, who had 
 seen more than us all put together, but lacked words to 
 clothe his tales with, sat open-mouthed far into the dawn. 
 
 When the tales were done we picked up cards till a 
 curious hand or a chance remark made one or other of us 
 say, 'That reminds me of a man who — or a business 
 which — ' and the anecdotes would continue while the 
 'Rathmines' kicked her way northward through the 
 warm water. 
 
 In the morning of one specially warm night we three 
 were sitting immediately in front of the wheel-house, 
 where an old Swedish boatswain whom we called ' Frit- 
 hiof the Dane' was at the wheel, pretending that he 
 could not hear our stories. Once or twice Frithiof spun 
 the spokes curiously, and Keller lifted his head from a 
 long chair to ask, ' What is it? Can't you get any steer- 
 age-way on her? ' 
 
 'There is a feel in the water,' said Frithiof, 'that I 
 cannot understand. I think that we run downhills or 
 somethings. She steers bad this morning.' 
 
 Nobody seems to know the laws that govern the pulse 
 
 152 
 
A MATTER OF FACT 
 
 of the big waters. Sometimes even a landsman can tell 
 that the solid ocean is atilt, and that the ship is working 
 herself up a long unseen slope; and sometimes the cap- 
 tain says, when neither full steam nor fair wind justifies 
 the length of a day's run, that the ship is sagging down- 
 hill; but how these ups and downs come about has not 
 yet been settled authoritatively. 
 
 'No, it is a following sea,' said Frithiof; 'and with a 
 following sea you shall not get good steerage-way.' 
 
 The sea was as smooth as a duck-pond, except for a 
 regular oily swell. As I looked over the side to see where 
 it might be following us from, the sun rose in a perfectly 
 clear sky and struck the water with its light so sharply 
 that it seemed as though the sea should clang like a bur- 
 nished gong. The wake of the screw and the little white 
 streak cut by the log-line hanging over the stern were 
 the only marks on the water as far as eye could reach. 
 
 Keller rolled out of his chair and went aft to get a 
 pineapple from the ripening stock that was hung inside 
 the after awning. 
 
 ' Frithiof, the log-line has got tired of swimming. It's 
 coming home,' he drawled. 
 
 'What?' said Frithiof, his voice jumping several oc- 
 taves. 
 
 * Coming home, ' Keller repeated, leaning over the stern . 
 I ran to his side and saw the log-line, which till then had 
 been drawn tense overthe stern railing, slacken, loop, and 
 come up off the port quarter. Frithiof called up the 
 speaking-tube to the bridge, and the bridge answered, 
 'Yes, nine knots.' Then Frithiof spoke again, and the 
 answer was, 'What do you want of the skipper?' and 
 Frithiof bellowed, ' Call him up.' 
 
 By this time Zuyland, Keller, and myself had caught 
 
 153 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 something of Frithiof's excitement, for any emotion on 
 shipboard is most contagious. The captain ran out of 
 his cabin, spoke to Frithiof , looked at the log-line, j umped 
 on the bridge, and in a minute we felt the steamer swing 
 round as Frithiof turned her. 
 
 * 'Going back to Cape Town?' said Keller. 
 
 Frithiof did not answer, but tore away at the wheel. 
 Then he beckoned us three to help, and we held the wheel 
 down till the 'Rathmines' answered it, and we found 
 ourselves looking into the white of our own wake, with 
 the still oily sea tearing past our bows, though we were 
 not going more than half steam ahead. 
 
 The captain stretched out his arm from the bridge 
 and shouted. A minute later I would have given a great 
 deal to have shouted too, for one-half of the sea seemed 
 to shoulder itself above the other half, and came on in 
 the shape of a hill. There was neither crest, comb, nor 
 curl-over to it; nothing but black water with little waves 
 chasing each other about the flanks. I saw it stream 
 past and on a level with the ' Rathmines' ' bow-plates be- 
 fore the steamer hove up her bulk to rise, and I argued 
 that this would be the last of all earthly voyages for me. 
 Then we lifted for ever and ever and ever, till I heard 
 Keller saying in my ear, 'The bowels of the deep, good 
 Lord!' and the 'Rathmines' stood poised, her screw rac- 
 ing and drumming on the slope of a hollow that stretched 
 downwards for a good half-mile. 
 
 We went down that hollow, nose under for the most 
 part, and the air smelt wet and muddy, like that of an 
 emptied aquarium. There was a second hill to climb: 
 I saw that much; but the water came aboard and carried 
 me aft till it jammed me against the wheel-house door, 
 and before I could catch breath or clear my eyes again 
 
 154 
 
A MATTER OF FACT 
 
 we were rolling to and fro in torn water, with the scuppers 
 pouring like eaves in a thunder-storm. 
 
 'There were three waves,' said Keller; 'and the stoke- 
 hold's flooded.' 
 
 The firemen were on deck waiting, apparently, to be 
 drowned. The engineer came and dragged them below, 
 and the crew, gasping, began to work the clumsy Board 
 of Trade pump. That showed nothing serious, and 
 when I understood that the 'Rathmines' was really on 
 the water, and not beneath it, I asked what had hap- 
 pened. 
 
 *The captain says it was a blow-up under the sea — a 
 volcano,' said Keller. 
 
 *It hasn't warmed anything,' I said. I was feeling 
 bitterly cold, and cold was almost unknown in those 
 waters. I went below to change my clothes, and when I 
 came up everything was wiped out in clinging white fog. 
 
 'Are there going to be any more surprises?' said Keller 
 to the captain. 
 
 ' I don't know. Be thankful you're alive, gentlemen. 
 That's a tidal wave thrown up by a volcano. Probably 
 the bottom of the sea has been lifted a few feet some- 
 where or other. I can't quite understand this cold spell. 
 Our sea-thermometer says the surface water is 44 degrees, 
 and it should be 68 degrees at least.' 
 
 * It's abominable,' said Keller, shivering. ' But hadn't 
 you better attend to the fog-horn? It seems to me that 
 I heard something.' 
 
 * Heard! Good heavens!' said the captain from the 
 bridge, 'I should think you did.' He pulled the string 
 of our fog-horn, which was a weak one. It sputtered 
 and choked, because the stokehold was full of water and 
 the fires were half-drowned, and at last gave out a moan. 
 
 155 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 It was answered from the fog by one of the most appall- 
 ing steam-sirens I have ever heard. Keller turned as 
 white as I did, for the fog, the cold fog, was upon us, and 
 any man may be forgiven for fearing a death he cannot 
 see. 
 
 'Give her steam there!' said the captain to the en- 
 gine-room. 'Steam for the whistle, if we have to go 
 dead slow.' 
 
 We bellowed again, and the damp dripped off the 
 awnings on to the deck as we listened for the reply. It 
 seemed to be astern this time, but much nearer than be- 
 fore. 
 
 'The "Pembroke Castle" on us!' said Keller; and 
 then, viciously, 'Well, thank God, we shall sink her too.' 
 
 'It's a side-wheel steamer,' I whispered. 'Can't you 
 hear the paddles?' 
 
 This time we whistled and roared till the steam gave 
 out, and the answer nearly deafened us. There was a 
 sound of frantic threshing in the water, apparently about 
 fifty yards away, and something shot past in the white- 
 ness that looked as though it were gray and red. 
 
 'The "Pembroke Castle" bottom up,' said Keller, 
 who, being a journalist, always sought for explanations. 
 'That's the colours of a Castle liner. We're in for a big 
 thing.' 
 
 'The sea is bewitched,' said Frithiof from the wheel- 
 house. ' There are two steamers ! ' 
 
 Another siren sounded on our bow, and the little 
 steamer rolled in the wash of something that had passed 
 unseen. 
 
 'We're evidently in the middle of a fleet,' said Keller 
 quietly. 'If one doesn't run us down, the other will. 
 Phew ! What in creation is that? ' 
 
 156 
 
A MATTER OF FACT 
 
 I sniffed, for there was a poisonous rank smell in the 
 cold air — a smell that I had smelt before. 
 
 • If I was on land I should say that it was an alligator. 
 It smells like musk,' I answered. 
 
 'Not ten thousand alligators could make that smell,' 
 said Zuyland; 'I have smelt them.' 
 
 'Bewitched! Bewitched!' said Frithiof. 'The sea 
 she is turned upside down, and we are walking along the 
 bottom.' 
 
 Again the 'Rathmines' rolled in the wash of some un- 
 seen ship, and a silver-gray wave broke over the bow, 
 leaving on the deck a sheet of sediment — the gray broth 
 that has its place in the fathomless deeps of the sea. A 
 sprinkling of the wave fell on my face, and it was so cold 
 that it stung as boihng water stings. The dead and 
 most untouched deep water of the sea had been heaved 
 to the top by the submarine volcano — the chill Stillwater 
 that kills all life and smells of desolation and emptiness. 
 We did not need either the blinding fog or that indescrib- 
 able smell of musk to make us unhappy — we were shiver- 
 ing with cold and wretchedness where we stood. 
 
 'The hot air on the cold water makes this fog,' said 
 the captain; 'it ought to clear in a little time.' 
 
 'Whistle, oh, whistle, and let's get out of it!' said 
 Keller. 
 
 The captain whistled again, and far and far astern the 
 invisible twin steam-sirens answered us. Their blast- 
 ing shriek grew louder, till at last it seemed to tear out 
 of the fog just above our quarter, and I cowered while 
 the ' Rathmines' plunged bows under on a double swell 
 that crossed. 
 
 *No more,' said Frithiof, 'it is not good any more. 
 Let us get away, in the name of God.' 
 
 157 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 'Now if a torpedo-boat with a "City of Paris" siren 
 went mad and broke her moorings and hired a friend to 
 help her, it's just conceivable that we might be carried 
 as we are now. Otherwise this thing is — ' 
 
 The last words died on Keller's lips, his eyes began to 
 start from his head, and his jaw fell. Some six or seven 
 feet above the port bulwarks, framed in fog, and as 
 utterly unsupported as the full moon, hung a Face. It 
 was not human, and it certainly was not animal, for it 
 did not belong to this earth as known to man. The 
 mouth was open, revealing a ridiculously tiny tongue — 
 as absurd as the tongue of an elephant; there were tense 
 wrinkles of white skin at the angles of the drawn lips, 
 white feelers like those of a barbel sprang from the lower 
 jaw, and there was no sign of teeth within the mouth. 
 But the horror of the face lay in the eyes, for those were 
 sightless — white, in sockets as white as scraped bone, 
 and blind. Yet for all this the face, wrinkled as the 
 mask of a lion is drawn in Assyrian sculpture, was alive 
 with rage and terror. One long white feeler touched 
 our bulwarks. Then the face disappeared with the 
 swiftness of a blindworm popping into its burrow, and 
 the next thing that I remember is my own voice in my 
 own ears, saying gravely to the mainmast, 'But the air- 
 bladder ought to have been forced out of its mouth, you 
 know.' 
 
 Keller came up to me, ashy white. He put his hand 
 into his pocket, took a cigar, bit it, dropped it,thrust his 
 shaking thumb into his mouth and mumbled, 'The giant 
 gooseberry and the raining frogs! Gimme a light — 
 gimme a light! Say, gimme a light.' A little bead of 
 blood dropped from his thumb-joint. 
 
 I respected the motive, though the manifestation was 
 
 158 
 
 Mi 
 
A MATTER OF FACT 
 
 absurd. 'Stop, you'll bite your thumb off,' I said, and 
 Keller laughed brokenly as he picked up his cigar. Only 
 Zuyland, leaning over the port bulwarks, seemed self- 
 possessed. He declared later that he was very sick. 
 'We've seen it,' he said, turning round. 'That is it.' 
 'What?' said Keller, chewing the unlighted cigar. 
 As he spoke the fog was blown into shreds, and we saw 
 the sea, gray with mud, rolling on every side of us and 
 empty of all life. Then in one spot it bubbled and be- 
 came like the pot of ointment that the Bible speaks of. 
 From that wide-ringed trouble a Thing came up — a gray 
 and red Thing with a neck — a Thing that bellowed and 
 writhed in pain. Frithiof drew in his breath and held 
 it till the red letters of the ship's name, woven across his 
 jersey, straggled and opened out as though they had 
 been type badly set. Then he said with a little cluck in 
 his throat, 'Ah me! It is blind. Hur ilia! That thing 
 is blind,' and a murmur of pity went through us all, for 
 we could see that the thing on the water was blind and 
 in pain. Something had gashed and cut the great sides 
 cruelly and the blood was spurting out. The gray ooze 
 of the undermost sea lay in the monstrous wrinkles of 
 the back, and poured away in sluices. The blind white 
 head flung back and battered the wounds, and the body 
 in its torment rose clear of the red and gray waves till we 
 saw a pair of quivering shoulders streaked with weed 
 and rough with shells, but as white in the clear spaces 
 as the hairless, maneless, bhnd, toothless head. After- 
 wards, came a dot on the horizon and the sound of a 
 shrill scream, and it was as though a shuttle shot all 
 across the sea in one breath, and a second head and neck 
 tore through the levels, driving a whispering wall of 
 water to right and left. The two Things met— the one 
 
 159 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 untouched and the other in its death-throe — male and 
 female, we said, the female coming to the male. She 
 circled round him bellowing, and laid her neck across 
 the curve of his great turtle-back, and he disappeared 
 under water for an instant, but flung up again, grunting 
 in agony while the blood ran. Once the entire head and 
 neck shot clear of the water and stiffened, and I heard 
 Keller saying, as though he was watching a street acci- 
 dent, 'Give him air. For God's sake, give him air.' 
 Then the death-struggle began, with crampings and 
 twistings and jerkings of the white bulk to and fro, till 
 our little steamer rolled again, and each gray wave coated 
 her plates with the gray slime. The sun was clear, there 
 was no wind, and we watched, the whole crew, stokers 
 and all, in wonder and pity, but chiefly pity. The 
 Thing was so helpless, and, save for his mate, so alone. 
 No human eye should have beheld him; it was monstrous 
 and indecent to exhibit him there in trade waters be- 
 tween atlas degrees of latitude. He had been spewed 
 up, mangled and dying, from his rest on the sea-floor, 
 where he might have lived till the Judgment Day, and 
 we saw the tides of his life go from him as an angry tide 
 goes out across rocks in the teeth of a landward gale. 
 His mate lay rocking on the water a little distance off, 
 bellowing continually, and the smell of musk came down 
 upon the ship making us cough. 
 
 At last the battle for life ended in a batter of coloured 
 seas. We saw the writhing neck fall like a flail, the car- 
 case turn sideways, showing the glint of a white belly 
 and the inset of a gigantic hind leg or flipper. Then all 
 sank, and sea boiled over it, while the mate swam round 
 and round, darting her head in every direction. Though 
 we might have feared that she would attack the steamer, 
 
 160 
 
A MATTER OF FACT 
 
 no power on earth could have drawn any one of us from 
 our places that hour. We watched, holding our breaths. 
 The mate paused in her search; we could hear the wash 
 beating along her sides; reared her neck as high as she 
 could reach, blind and lonely in all that loneliness of the 
 sea, and sent one desperate bellow booming across the 
 swells as an oyster-shell skips across a pond. Then she 
 made off to the westward, the sun shining on the white 
 head and the wake behind it, till nothing was left to see 
 but a little pin-point of silver on the horizon. We stood 
 on our course again; and the 'Rathmines,' coated with 
 the sea-sediment from bow to stern, looked like a ship 
 made gray with terror. 
 
 'We must pool our notes,' was the first coherent re- 
 mark from Keller. 'We're three trained journaHsts — 
 we hold absolutely the biggest scoop on record. Start 
 fair.' 
 
 I objected to this. Nothing is gained by collabora- 
 tion in j ournalism when all deal with the same facts, so we 
 went to work each according to his own lights. Keller 
 triple-headed his account, talked about our 'gallant 
 captain,' and wound up with an allusion to American 
 enterprise in that it was a citizen of Dayton, Ohio, that 
 had seen the sea-serpent. This sort of thing would have 
 discredited the Creation, much more a mere sea tale, 
 but as a specimen of the picture-writing of a half-civilised 
 people it was very interesting. Zuyland took a heavy 
 column and a half, giving approximate lengths and 
 breadths, and the whole list of the crew whom he had 
 sworn on oath to testify to his facts. There was nothing 
 fantastic or flamboyant in Zuyland. I wrote three- 
 quarters of a leaded bourgeois column, roughly speaking, 
 
 161 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 and refrained from putting any journalese into it for 
 reasons that had begun to appear to me. 
 
 Keller was insolent with joy. He was going to cable 
 from Southampton to the New York 'World,' mail his 
 account to America on the same day, paralyse London 
 with his three columns of loosely knitted headlines, and 
 generally efface the earth. 'You'll see how I work a big 
 scoop when I get it,' he said. 
 
 ' Is this your first visit to England?' I asked. 
 
 'Yes,' said he. 'You don't seem to appreciate the 
 beauty of our scoop. It's pyramidal— the death of the 
 sea-serpent! Good heavens alive, man, it's the biggest 
 thing ever vouchsafed to a paper!' 
 
 ' 'Curious to think that it will never appear in any 
 paper, isn't it?' I said. 
 
 Zuyland was near me, and he nodded quickly. 
 
 ' What do you mean? ' said Keller. ' If you're enough 
 of a Britisher to throw this thing away, I shan't. I 
 thought you were a newspaper-man.' 
 
 ' I am. That's why I know. Don't be an ass, Keller. 
 Remember, I'm seven hundred years your senior, and 
 what your grandchildren may learn five hundred years 
 hence, I learned from my grandfathers about five hun- 
 dred years ago. You won't do it, because you can't.' 
 
 This conversation was held in open sea, where every- 
 thing seems possible, some hundred miles from Southamp- 
 ton. We passed the Needles Light at dawn, and the 
 lifting day showed the stucco villas on the green and the 
 awful orderliness of England — line upon line, wall upon 
 wall, solid stone dock and monolithic pier. We waited 
 an hour in the Customs shed, and there was ample time 
 for the effect to soak in. 
 
 *Now, Keller, you face the music. The "Havel" 
 
 162 
 
A MATTER OF FACT 
 
 goes out to-day. Mail by her, and I'll take you to the 
 telegraph-office,' I said. 
 
 I heard Keller gasp as the influence of the land closed 
 about him, cowing him as they say Newmarket Heath 
 cows a young horse unused to open courses. 
 
 'I want to retouch my stuff. Suppose we wait till 
 we get to London?' he said. 
 
 Zuyland, by the way, had torn up his account and 
 thrown it overboard that morning early. His reasons 
 were my reasons. 
 
 In the train Keller began to revise his copy, and every 
 time that he looked at the trim little fields, the red villas, 
 and the embankments of the line, the blue pencil plunged 
 remorselessly through the slips. He appeared to have 
 dredged the dictionary for adjectives. I could think of 
 none that he had not used. Yet he was a perfectly 
 sound poker-player and never showed more cards than 
 were sufficient to take the pool. 
 
 'Aren't you going to leave him a single bellow?' I 
 asked sympathetically. 'Remember, everything goes 
 in the States, from a trouser-button to a double-eagle.' 
 
 'That's just the curse of it,' said Keller below his 
 breath. 'We've played 'em for suckers so often that 
 when it comes to the golden truth — I'd like to try this 
 on a London paper. You have first call there, though.' 
 
 'Not in the least. I'm not touching the thing in our 
 papers. I shall be happy to leave 'em all to you; but 
 surely you'll cable it home?' 
 
 'No. Not if I can make the scoop here and see the 
 Britishers sit up.' 
 
 'You won't do it with three columns of slushy head- 
 lines, believe me. They don't sit up as quickly as some 
 people.' 
 
 163 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 * I'm beginning to think that too. Does nothing make 
 any difference in this country?' he said, looking out of 
 the window. ' How old is that farmhouse? ' 
 
 'New. It can't be more than two hundred years at 
 the most.' 
 
 'Um. Fields, too?' 
 
 'That hedge there must have been clipped for about 
 eighty years.' 
 
 * Labour cheap — eh? ' 
 
 'Pretty much. Well, I suppose you'd like to try the 
 "Times," wouldn't you?' 
 
 'No,' said Keller, looking at Winchester Cathedral. 
 ' 'Might as well try to electrify a haystack. And to 
 think that the "World" would take three columns and 
 ask for more — with illustrations too ! It's sickening.' 
 
 'But the "Times" might,' I began. 
 
 Keller flung his paper across the carriage, and it opened 
 in its austere majesty of solid type — opened with the 
 crackle of an encyclopaedia. 
 
 'Might! You might work your way through the 
 bow-plates of a cruiser. Look at that first page ! ' 
 
 'It strikes you that way, does it?' I said. 'Then I'd 
 recommend you to try a light and frivolous journal.' 
 
 'With a thing like this of mine — of ours? It's sacred 
 history!' 
 
 I showed him a paper which I conceived would be 
 after his own heart, in that it was modelled on American 
 lines. 
 
 'That's homey,' he said, 'but it's not the real thing. 
 Now, I should like one of these fat old "Times" columns. 
 Probably there'd be a bishop in the office, though.' 
 
 When we reached London Keller disappeared in the 
 direction of the Strand. What his experiences may 
 
 164 
 
A MATTER OF FACT 
 
 have been I cannot tell, but it seems that he invaded the 
 office of an evening paper at 11.45 a. m. (I told him Eng- 
 lish editors were most idle at that hour), and mentioned 
 my name as that of a witness to the truth of his story. 
 
 'I was nearly fired out,' he said furiously at lunch, 
 'As soon as I mentioned you, the old man said that I was 
 to tell you that they didn't want any more of your prac- 
 tical jokes, and that you knew the hours to call if you 
 had anything to sell, and that they'd see you condemned 
 before they helped to puff one of your infernal yarns in 
 advance. Say, what record do you hold for truth in 
 this country, anyway? ' 
 
 'A beauty. You ran up against it, that's all. Why 
 don't you leave the English papers alone and cable to 
 New York? Everything goes over there.' 
 
 ' Can't you see that's just why? ' he repeated. 
 
 'I saw it a long time ago. You don't intend to cable, 
 then?' 
 
 'Yes, I do,' he answered, in the over-emphatic voice of 
 one who does not know his own mind. 
 
 That afternoon I walked him abroad and about, over 
 the streets that run between the pavements like channels 
 of grooved and tongued lava, over the bridges that are 
 made of enduring stone, through subways floored and 
 sided with yard-thick concrete, between houses that are 
 never rebuilt, and by river-steps hewn, to the eye, from 
 the living rock. A black fog chased us into Westminster 
 Abbey, and, standing there in the darkness, I could hear 
 the wings of the dead centuries circling round the head of 
 Litchfield A. Keller, journalist, of Dayton, Ohio, U. S. A., 
 whose mission it was to make the Britishers sit up. 
 
 He stumbled gasping into the thick gloom, and the 
 roar of the traffic came to his bewildered ears. 
 
 165 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 'Let's go to the telegraph-office and cable,' I said. 
 ' Can't you hear the New York "World " crying for news 
 of the great sea-serpent, blind, white, and smelling of 
 musk, stricken to death by a submarine volcano, and 
 assisted by his loving wife to die in mid-ocean, as visual- 
 ised by an American citizen, the breezy, newsy, brainy 
 newspaper man of Dayton, Ohio? 'Rah for the Buck- 
 eye State. Step lively! Both gates! Szz! Boom! 
 Aah!' Keller was a Princeton man, and he seemed to 
 need encouragement. 
 
 'You've got me on your own ground,' said he, tugging 
 at his overcoat pocket. He pulled out his copy, with 
 the cable forms — for he had written out his telegram — 
 and put them all into my hand, groaning, ' I pass. If I 
 hadn't come to your cursed country! — If I'd sent it off 
 at Southampton! — If I ever get you west of the Alle- 
 ghanies! If — ' 
 
 'Never mind, Keller. It isn't your fault. It's the 
 fault of your country. If you had been seven hundred 
 years older you'd have done what I am going to do.' 
 
 ' What are you going to do? ' 
 
 'Tell it as a lie.' 
 
 'Fiction?' This with the full-blooded disgust of a 
 journalist for the illegitimate branch of the profession. 
 
 'You can call it that if you like. I shall call it a lie.' 
 
 And a lie it has become ; for Truth is a naked lady, and 
 if by accident she is drawn up from the bottom of the sea, 
 it behoves a gentleman either to give her a print petti- 
 coat or to turn his face to the wall and vow that he did 
 not see. 
 
 166 
 
THE LOST LEGION 
 
 (1891) 
 
 WHEN the Indian Mutiny broke out, and a little 
 time before the siege of Delhi, a regiment of 
 Native Irregular Horse was stationed at Pesha- 
 wur on the frontier of India. That regiment caught 
 what John Lawrence called at the time 'the prevalent 
 mania,' and would have thrown in its lot with the mu- 
 tineers had it been allowed to do so. The chance never 
 came, for, as the regiment swept off down south, it was 
 headed up by a remnant of an English corps into the 
 hills of Afghanistan, and there the newly-conquered 
 tribesmen turned against it as wolves turn against buck. 
 It was hunted for the sake of its arms and accoutrements 
 from hill to hill, from ravine to ravine, up and down the 
 dried beds of rivers and round the shoulders of bluffs, 
 till it disappeared as water sinks in the sand — this officer- 
 less, rebel regiment. The only trace left of its existence 
 to-day is a nominal roll drawn up in neat round hand 
 and countersigned by an officer who called himself * Ad- 
 jutant, late — Irregular Cavalry.' The paper is yellow 
 with years and dirt, but on the back of it you can still 
 read a pencil note by John Lawrence, to this effect: 
 ' See that the two native officers who remained loyal are 
 not deprived of their estates. — J. L.' Of six hundred 
 and fifty sabres only two stood strain, and John Law- 
 
 167 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 rence in the midst of all the agony of the first months of 
 the Mutiny found time to think about their merits. 
 
 That was more than thirty years ago, and the tribes- 
 men across the Afghan border who helped to annihilate 
 the regiment are now old men. Sometimes a graybeard 
 speaks of his share in the massacre. 'They came,' he 
 will say, 'across the border, very proud, calling upon us 
 to rise and kill the English, and go down to the sack of 
 Delhi. But we who had just been conquered by the 
 same English knew that they were over bold, and that 
 the Government could account easily for those down- 
 country dogs. This Hindustani regiment, therefore, we 
 treated with fair words, and kept standing in one place 
 till the redcoats came after them very hot and angry. 
 Then this regiment ran forward a little more into our 
 hills to avoid the wrath of the English, and we lay upon 
 their flanks watching from the sides of the hills till we 
 were well assured that their path was lost behind them. 
 Then we came down, for we desired their clothes, and 
 their bridles, and their rifles, and their boots — more es- 
 pecially their boots. That was a great killing — done 
 slowly.' Here the old man will rub his nose, and shake 
 his long snaky locks, and lick his bearded lips, and grin 
 till the yellow tooth-stumps show. 'Yes, we killed 
 them because we needed their gear, and we knew that 
 their lives had been forfeited to God on account of their 
 sin — the sin of treachery to the salt which they had 
 eaten. They rode up and down the valleys, stumbling 
 and rocking in their saddles, and howling for mercy. 
 We drove them slowly like cattle till they were all as- 
 sembled in one place, the flat wide valley of Sheor Kot. 
 Many had died from want of water, but there still were 
 many left, and they could not make any stand. We 
 
 168 
 
THE LOST LEGION 
 
 went among them, pulling them down with our hands 
 two at a time, and our boys who were new to the sword 
 killed them. My share of the plunder was such and 
 such — so many guns, and so many saddles. The guns 
 were good in those days. Now we steal the Government 
 rifles, and despise smooth-bores. Yes, beyond doubt 
 we wiped that regiment from off the face of the earth, 
 and even the memory of the deed is now dying. But 
 men say — ' 
 
 At this point the tale would stop abruptly, and it was 
 impossible to fmd out what men said across the border. 
 The Afghans were always a secretive race, and vastly 
 preferred doing something wicked to saying anything at 
 all. They would be quiet and well-behaved for months, 
 till one night, without word or warning, they would rush 
 a police-post, cut the throats of a constable or two, dash 
 through a village, carry away three or four women, and 
 withdraw, in the red glare of burning thatch, driving the 
 cattle and goats before them to their own desolate hills. 
 The Indian Government would become almost tearful 
 on these occasions. First it would say, ' Please be good 
 and we'll forgive you.' The tribe concerned in the latest 
 depredation would collectively put its thumb to its nose 
 and answer rudely. Then the Government would say : 
 'Hadn't you better pay up a little money for those few 
 corpses you left behind you the other night? ' Here the 
 tribe would temporise, and lie and bully, and some of the 
 younger men, merely to show contempt of authority, 
 would raid another police-post and fire into some fron- 
 tier mud fort, and, if lucky, kill a real English officer. 
 Then the Government would say : ' Observe ; if you really 
 persist in this line of conduct you will be hurt.' If the 
 tribe knew exactly what was going on in India, it would 
 
 169 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 apologise or be rude, according as it learned whether the 
 Government was busy with other things, or able to de- 
 vote its full attention to their performances. Some of 
 the tribes knew to one corpse how far to go. Others be- 
 came excited, lost their heads, and told the Government 
 to come on. With sorrow and tears, and one eye on the 
 British taxpayer at home, who insisted on regarding 
 these exercises as brutal wars of annexation, the Govern- 
 ment would prepare an expensive little field-brigade and 
 some guns, and send all up into the hills to chase the 
 wicked tribe out of the valleys, where the corn grew, into 
 the hill-tops where there was nothing to eat. The tribe 
 would turn out in full strength and enjoy the campaign, 
 for they knew that their women would never be touched, 
 that their wounded would be nursed, not mutilated, and 
 that as soon as each man's bag of corn was spent they 
 could surrender and palaver with the English General 
 just as though they had been a real enemy. Afterwards, 
 years afterwards, they would pay the blood-money, 
 driblet by driblet, to the Government and tell their 
 children how they had slain the redcoats by thousands. 
 The only drawback to this kind of picnic-war was the 
 weakness of the redcoats for solemnly blowing up with 
 powder their fortified towers and keeps. This the tribes 
 always considered mean. 
 
 Chief among the leaders of the smaller tribes — the 
 little clans who knew to a penny the expense of moving 
 white troops against them^ — was a priest-bandit-chief 
 whom we will call the Gulla Kutta Mullah. His enthu- 
 siasm for border murder as an art was almost dignified. 
 He would cut down a mail-runner from pure wantonness, 
 or bombard a mud fort with rifle fire when he knew that 
 our men needed to sleep. In his leisure moments he 
 
 170 
 
THE LOST LEGION 
 
 would go on circuit among his neighbours, and try to 
 incite other tribes to devilry. Also, he kept a kind of 
 hotel for fellow-outlaws in his own village, which lay in a 
 valley called Bersund. Any respectable murderer on that 
 section of the frontier was sure to lie up at Bersund, for it 
 was reckoned an exceedingly safe place. The sole entry 
 to it ran through a narrowgorge which could be converted 
 into a death-trap in five minutes. It was surrounded 
 by high hills, reckoned inaccessible to all save born 
 mountaineers, and here the Gulla Kutta Mullah lived 
 in great state, the head of a colony of mud and stone huts, 
 and in each mud hut hung some portion of a red uniform 
 and the plunder of dead men. The Government par- 
 ticularly wished for his capture, and once invited him 
 formally to come out and be hanged on account of a few 
 of the murders in which he had taken a direct part. He 
 replied : — 
 
 ' I am only twenty miles, as the crow flies, from your 
 border. Come and fetch me.' 
 
 'Some day we will come,' said the Government, *and 
 hanged you will be.' 
 
 The Gulla Kutta Mullah let the matter from his mind. 
 He knew that the patience of the Government was as 
 long as a summer day; but he did not reaHse that its arm 
 was as long as a winter night. Months afterwards, 
 when there was peace on the border, and all India was 
 quiet, the Indian Government turned in its sleep and 
 remembered the Gulla Kutta Mullah at Bersund with 
 his thirteen outlaws. The movement against him of 
 one single regiment — which the telegrams would have 
 translated as war — would have been highly impolitic. 
 This was a time for silence and speed, and, above all, 
 absence of bloodshed. 
 
 171 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 You must know that all along the north-west frontier 
 of India there is spread a force of some thirty thousand 
 foot and horse, whose duty it is quietly and unostenta- 
 tiously to shepherd the tribes in front of them. They 
 move up and down, and down and up, from one desolate 
 Httle post to another; they are ready to take the field at 
 ten minutes' notice; they are always half in and half out 
 of a difficulty somewhere along the monotonous line; 
 their lives are as hard as their own muscles, and the pa- 
 pers never say anything about them. It was from this 
 force that the Government picked its men. 
 
 One night at a station where the mounted Night Pa- 
 trol fire as they challenge, and the wheat rolls in great 
 blue-green waves under our cold northern moon, the 
 officers were playing billiards in the mud-walled club- 
 house, when orders came to them that they were to go 
 on parade at once for a night-drill. They grumbled, and 
 went to turn out their men — a hundred English troops, 
 let us say, two hundred Goorkhas, and about a hundred 
 cavalry of the finest native cavalry in the world. 
 
 When they were on the parade-ground, it was explained 
 to them in whispers that they must set off at once across 
 the hills to Bersund.' The English troops were to post 
 themselves round the hills at the side of the valley; the 
 Goorkhas would command the gorge and the death-trap, 
 and the cavalry would fetch a long march round and get 
 to the back of the circle of hills, whence, if there were 
 any difficulty, they could charge down on the Mullah's 
 men. But ofders were very strict that there should be 
 no fighting and no noise. They were to return in the 
 morning with every round of ammunition intact, and 
 the Mullah and his thirteen outlaws bound in their midst. 
 If they were successful, no one would know or care any- 
 
 172 
 
THE LOST LEGION 
 
 thing about their work; but faihire meant probably a 
 small border war, in which the Gulla Kutta Mullah would 
 pose as a popular leader against a big bullying power, 
 instead of a common border murderer. 
 
 Then there was silence, broken only by the clicking of 
 the compass-needles and snapping of watch-cases, as the 
 heads of columns compared bearings and made appoint- 
 ments for the rendezvous. Five minutes later the pa- 
 rade-ground was empty ; the green coats of the Goorkhas 
 and the overcoats of the English troops had faded into 
 the darkness, and the cavalry were cantering away in 
 the face of a bhnding drizzle. 
 
 What the Goorkhas and the English did will be seen 
 later on. The heavy work lay with the horses, for they 
 had to go far and pick their way clear of habitations. 
 Many of the troopers were natives of that part of the 
 world, ready and anxious to fight against their kin, and 
 some of the officers had made private and unofficial ex- 
 cursions into those hills before. They crossed the bor- 
 der, found a dried river bed, cantered up that, walked 
 through a stony gorge, risked crossing a low hill under 
 cover of the darkness, skirted another hill, leaving their 
 hoof-marks deep in some ploughed ground, felt their 
 way along another watercourse, ran over the neck of a 
 spur, praying that no one would hear their horses grunt- 
 ing, and so worked on in the rain and the darkness, till 
 they had left Bersund and its crater of hills a little be- 
 hind them, and to the left, and it was time to swing round. 
 The ascent commanding the back of Bersund was steep, 
 and they halted to draw breath in a broad level valley 
 below the height. That is to say, the men reined up, but 
 the horses, blown as they were, refused to halt. There 
 was unchristian language, the worse for being delivered 
 
 173 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 in a whisper, and you heard the saddles squeaking in the 
 darkness as the horses plunged. 
 
 The subaltern at the rear of one troop turned in his 
 saddle and said very softly: — 
 
 'Carter, what the blessed heavens are you doing at 
 the rear? Bring your men up, man.' 
 
 There was no answer, till a trooper replied : — 
 
 ' Carter Sahib is forward — not there. There is noth- 
 ing behind us.' 
 
 ' There is,' said the subaltern. * The squadron's walk- 
 ing on its own tail.' 
 
 Then the Major in command moved down to the rear 
 swearing softly and asking for the blood of Lieutenant 
 Halley — the subaltern who had just spoken. 
 
 'Look after your rearguard,' said the Major. 'Some 
 of your infernal thieves have got lost. They're at the 
 head of the squadron, and you're a several kinds of 
 idiot.' 
 
 ' Shall I tell off my men, sir? ' said the subaltern sulkily, 
 for he was feeling wet and cold. 
 
 *Tell 'em of!!' said the Major. 'Whip 'em off, by 
 Gad! You're squandering them all over the place. 
 There's a troop behind you now!' 
 
 'So I was thinking,' said the subaltern calmly. 'I 
 have all my men here, sir. Better speak to Carter.' 
 
 * Carter Sahib sends salaam and wants to know why the 
 regiment is stopping, ' said a trooper to Lieutenant Halley. 
 
 * Where under heaven is Carter?' said the Major. 
 ' Forward with his troop,' was the answer. 
 
 'Are we walking in a ring, then, or are we the centre 
 of a blessed brigade?' said the Major. 
 
 By this time there was silence all along the column. 
 The horses were still; but, through the drive of the fine 
 
 174 
 
THE LOST LEGION 
 
 rain, men could hear the feet of many horses moving 
 over stony ground. 
 
 'We're being stalked,' said Lieutenant Halley. 
 
 'They've no horses here. Besides, they'd have fired 
 before this,' said the Major. 'It's — it's villagers' ponies.' 
 
 'Then our horses would have neighed and spoilt the 
 attack long ago. They must have been near us for half 
 an hour,' said the subaltern. 
 
 'Queer that we can't smell the horses,' said the Major, 
 damping his finger and rubbing it on his nose as he snifTed 
 up wind. 
 
 'Well, it's a bad start,' said the subaltern, shaking the 
 wet from his overcoat. ' What shall we do, sir? ' 
 
 ' Get on,' said the Major. ' We shall catch it to-night.' 
 
 The column moved forward very gingerly for a few 
 paces. Then there was an oath, a shower of blue sparks 
 as shod hooves crashed on small stones, and a man rolled 
 over with a jangle of accoutrements that would have 
 waked the dead. 
 
 'Now we've gone and done it,' said Lieutenant Halley. 
 'AH the hillside awake, and all the hillside to climb in the 
 face of musketry-fire. This comes of trying to do night- 
 hawk wprk.' 
 
 The trembling trooper picked himself up, and tried to 
 explain that his horse had fallen over one of the little 
 cairns that are built of loose stones on the spot where a 
 man has been murdered. There was no need for reasons. 
 The Major's big Australian charger blundered next, and 
 the column came to a halt in what seemed to be a very 
 graveyard of little cairns all about two feet high. The 
 manoeuvres of the squadron are not reported. Men 
 said that it felt like mounted quadrilles without training 
 and without the music; but at last the horses, breaking 
 
 175 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 rank and choosing their own way, walked clear of the 
 cairns, till every man of the squadron re-formed and 
 drew rein a few yards up the slope of the hill. Then, 
 according to Lieutenant Halley, there was another scene 
 very like the one which has been described. The Major 
 and Carter insisted that all the men had not joined rank, 
 and that there were more of them in the rear clicking 
 and blundering among the dead men's cairns. Lieu- 
 tenant Halley told off his own troopers once again and 
 resigned himself to wait. Later on he told me : — 
 
 'I didn't much know, and I didn't much care what 
 was going on. The row of that trooper falling ought to 
 have scared half the country, and I would take my oath 
 that we were being stalked by a full regiment in the rear, 
 and they were making row enough to rouse all Afghanis- 
 tan. I sat tight, but nothing happened.' 
 
 The mysterious part of the night's work was the silence 
 on the hillside. Everybody knew that the GuUa Kutta 
 Mullah had his outpost huts on the reverse side of the 
 hill, and everybody expected by the time that the Ma- 
 jor had sworn himself into a state of quiet that the watch- 
 men there would open fire. When nothing occurred, 
 they said that the gusts of the rain had deadened the 
 sound of the horses, and thanked Providence. At last 
 the Major satisfied himself (a) that he had left no one 
 behind among the cairns, and (b) that he was not being 
 taken in the rear by a large and powerful body of cavalry. 
 The men's tempers were thoroughly spoiled, the horses 
 were lathered and unquiet, and one and all prayed for 
 the daylight. 
 
 They set themselves to climb up the hill, each man 
 leading his mount carefully. Before they had covered 
 the lower slopes or the breastplates had begun to tighten, 
 
 176 
 
THE LOST LEGION 
 
 a thunder-storm came up behind, rolling across the low 
 hills and drowning any noise less than that of cannon. 
 The hrst flash of the lightning showed the bare ribs of 
 the ascent, the hill-crest standing steely blue against 
 the black sky, the little falling lines of the rain, and, a 
 few yards to their left flank, an Afghan watch-tower, 
 two-storied, built of stone, and entered by a ladder from 
 the upper story. The ladder was up, and a man with a 
 rifle was leaning from the window. The darkness and 
 the thunder rolled down in an instant, and, when the 
 lull followed, a voice from the watch-tower cried, *\Vho 
 goes there?' 
 
 The cavalry were very quiet, but each man gripped 
 his carbine and stood beside his horse. Again the voice 
 called, ' Who goes there? ' and in a louder key, ' 0, broth- 
 ers, give the alarm ! ' Now, every man in the cavalry 
 would have died in his long boots sooner than have asked 
 for quarter; but it is a fact that the answ^er to the second 
 call was a long wail of ' Marf karo ! Marf karo ! ' which 
 means, 'Have mercy! Have mercy!' It came from 
 the climbing regiment. 
 
 The cavalry stood dumbfoundered, till the big troopers 
 had time to w^hisper one to another: 'Mir Khan, was 
 that thy voice? Abdullah, didst thou call? ' Lieutenant 
 Halley stood beside his charger and waited. So long as 
 no firing was going on he was content. Another flash 
 of lightning showed the horses with heaving flanks and 
 nodding heads, the men, white-eyeballed, glaring beside 
 them, and the stone watch-tower to the left. This time 
 there was no head at the window, and the rude iron- 
 clamped shutter that could turn a rifle bullet was closed. 
 
 'Go on, men,' said the Major. 'Get up to the top at 
 any rate.' The squadron toiled forward, the horses 
 
 177 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 wagging their tails and the men pulling at the bridles, 
 the stones rolling down the hillside and the sparks flying. 
 Lieutenant Halley declares that he never heard a squad- 
 ron make so much noise in his life. They scrambled up, 
 he said, as though each horse had eight legs and a spare 
 horse to follow him. Even then there was no sound 
 from the watch-tower, and the men stopped exhausted 
 on the ridge that overlooked the pit of darkness in which 
 the village of Bersund lay. Girths were loosed, curb- 
 chains shifted, and saddles adjusted, and the men dropped 
 down among the stones. Whatever might happen now, 
 they had the upper ground of any attack. 
 
 The thunder ceased, and with it the rain, and the soft 
 thick darkness of a winter night before the dawn covered 
 them all. Except for the sound of falling water among 
 the ravines below, everything was still. They heard 
 the shutter of the watch-tower below them thrown back 
 with a clang, and the voice of the watcher calling: *0 
 HafizUllah!' 
 
 The echoes took up the call, ' La-la-la ! ' And an an- 
 swer came from the watch-tower hidden round the curve 
 of the hill, * What is it, Shahbaz Khan?' 
 
 Shahbaz Khan replied in the high-pitched voice of the 
 mountaineer: 'Hast thou seen?' 
 
 The answer came back: *Yes. God deliver us from 
 all evil spirits ! ' 
 
 There was a pause, and then : ' Hafiz UUah, I am alone ! 
 Come to me!' 
 
 * Shahbaz Khan, I am alone also, but I dare not leave 
 my post!' 
 
 *That is a lie; thou art afraid.' 
 
 A longer pause followed, and then: 'I am afraid. Be 
 silent ! They are below us still. Pray to God and sleep.' 
 
 178 
 
THE LOST LEGION 
 
 The troopers listened and wondered, for they could 
 not understand what save earth and stone could lie be- 
 low the watch-towers. 
 
 Shahbaz Khan began to call again: 'They are below 
 us. I can see them. For the pity of God come over to me, 
 HafizUllah! My father slew ten of them. Come over!' 
 
 Hafiz Ullah answered in a very loud voice, ' Mine was 
 guiltless. Hear, ye Men of the Night, neither my father 
 nor my blood had any part in that sin. Bear thou thy 
 own punishment, Shahbaz Khan.' 
 
 'Oh, some one ought to stop those two chaps crowing 
 away like cocks there,' said Lieutenant Halley, shiver- 
 ing under his rock. 
 
 He had hardly turned round to expose a new side of 
 him to the rain before a bearded, long-locked, evil-smell- 
 ing Afghan rushed up the hill, and tumbled into his arms. 
 Halley sat upon him, and thrust as much of a sword-hilt 
 as could be spared down the man's gullet. 'If you cry 
 out, I kill you,' he said cheerfully. 
 
 The man was beyond any expression of terror. He 
 lay and quaked, grunting. When Halley took the sword- 
 hilt from between his teeth, he was still inarticulate, but 
 clung to Halley's arm, feeling it from elbow to wrist. 
 
 'The Rissala! The dead Rissala!' he gasped. 'It is 
 down there ! ' 
 
 'No; the Rissala, the very much alive Rissala. It is 
 up here,' said Halley, unshipping his watering-bridle, 
 and fastening the man's hands. ' Why were you in the 
 towers so foolish as to let us pass?' 
 
 *The valley is full of the dead,' said the Afghan. ' It 
 is better to fall into the hands of the English than the 
 hands of the dead. They march to and fro below there. 
 I saw them in the lightning.' 
 
 179 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 He recovered his composure after a little, and whisper- 
 ing, because Halley's pistol was at his stomach, said: 
 'What is this? There is no war between us now, and 
 the Mullah will kill me for not seeing you pass!' 
 
 'Rest easy,' said Halley; 'we are coming to kill the 
 Mullah, if God please. His teeth have grown too long. 
 No harm will come to thee unless the daylight shows 
 thee as a face which is desired by the gallows for crime 
 done. But what of the dead regiment? ' 
 
 'I only kill within my own border,' said the man, im- 
 mensely relieved. 'The Dead Regiment is below. The 
 men must have passed through it on their journey — four 
 hundred dead on horses, stumbling among their own 
 graves, among the little heaps — dead men all, whom we 
 slew.' 
 
 'Whew!' said Halley. 'That accounts for my curs- 
 ing Carter and the Major cursing me. Four hundred 
 sabres, eh? No wonder we thought there were a few 
 extra men in the troop. Kurruk Shah,' he whispered 
 to a grizzled native officer that lay within a few feet of 
 him, ' hast thou heard anything of a dead Rissala in these 
 hills?' 
 
 'Assuredly,' said Kurruk Shah with a grim chuckle. 
 'Otherwise, why did I, who have served the Queen for 
 seven-and-twenty years, and killed many hill-dogs, shout 
 aloud for quarter when the lightning revealed us to the 
 watch-towers? When I was a young man I saw the 
 killing in the valley of Sheor-Kot there at our feet, and I 
 know the tale that grew up therefrom. But how can 
 the ghosts of unbelievers prevail against us who are of 
 the Faith? Strap that dog's hands a little tighter, Sa- 
 hib. An Afghan is like an eel.' 
 
 ' But a dead Rissala,' said Halley, jerking his captive's 
 
 180 
 
THE LOST LEGION 
 
 wrist. 'That is foolish talk, Kurruk Shah. The dead 
 are dead. Hold still, sag.' The Afghan wriggled. 
 
 'The dead are dead, and for that reason they walk at 
 night. What need to talk? We be men; we have our 
 eyes and ears. Thou canst both see and hear them, 
 down the hillside,' said Kurruk Shah composedly. 
 
 Halley stared and listened long and intently. The 
 valley was full of stifled noises, as every valley must be 
 at night; but whether he saw or heard more than was 
 natural Halley alone knows, and he does not choose to 
 speak on the subject. 
 
 At last, and just before the dawn, a green rocket shot 
 up from the far side of the valley of Bersund, at the head 
 of the gorge, to show that the Goorkhas were in position. 
 A red light from the infantry at left and right answered 
 it, and the cavalry burnt a white flare. Afghans in win- 
 ter are late sleepers, and it was not till full day that the 
 Gulla Kutta Mullah's men began to straggle from their 
 huts, rubbing their eyes. They saw men in green, and 
 red, and brown uniforms, leaning on their arms, neatly 
 arranged all round the crater of the village of Bersund, 
 in a cordon that not even a wolf could have broken. 
 They rubbed their eyes the more when a pink-faced 
 young man, who was not even in the Army, but repre- 
 sented the Political Department, tripped down the hill- 
 side with two orderlies, rapped at the door of the Gulla 
 Kutta Mullah's house, and told him quietly to step out 
 and be tied up for safe transport. That same young 
 man passed on through the huts, tapping here one 
 cateran and there another lightly with his cane; and as 
 each was pointed out, so he was tied up, staring hope- 
 lessly at the crowned heights around where the English 
 soldiers looked down with incurious eyes. Only the 
 
 181 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Mullah tried to carry it off with curses and high words, 
 till a soldier who was tying his hands said : — 
 
 'None o' your lip! Why didn't you come out when 
 you was ordered, instead o' keepin' us awake all night? 
 You're no better than my own barrack-sweeper, you 
 white- 'eaded old polyanthus ! Kim up ! ' 
 
 Half an hour later the troops had gone away with the 
 Mullah and his thirteen friends. The dazed villagers 
 were looking ruefully at a pile of broken muskets and 
 snapped swords, and wondering how in the world they 
 had come so to miscalculate the forbearance of the In- 
 dian Government. 
 
 It was a very neat little affair, neatly carried out, and 
 the men concerned were unofficially thanked for their 
 services. 
 
 Yet it seems to me that much credit is also due to 
 another regiment whose name did not appear in the 
 brigade orders, and whose very existence is in danger of 
 being forgotten. 
 
 182 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 (1892) 
 
 The Only Son lay down again and dreamed that he 
 
 dreamed a dream. 
 The last ash dropped from the dying fire with the chck 
 
 of a falling spark, 
 And the Only Son woke up again and called across the 
 
 dark : — 
 'Now, was I born of womankind and laid in a mother's 
 
 breast? 
 For I have dreamed of a shaggy hide whereon I went to 
 
 rest. 
 And was I born of womankind and laid on a father's arm? 
 For I have dreamed of long white teeth that guarded me 
 
 from harm. 
 Oh, was I born of womankind and did I play alone? 
 For I have dreamed of playmates twain that bit me to 
 
 the bone. 
 And did I break the barley bread and steep it in the tyre? 
 For I have dreamed of a youngling kid new riven from 
 
 the byre. 
 An hour it lacks and an hour it lacks to the rising of the 
 
 moon — 
 But I can see the black roof-beams as plain as it were 
 
 noon! 
 
 183 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 *Tis a league and a league to the Lena Falls where the 
 
 trooping sambhur go, 
 But I can hear the little fawn that bleats behind the doe! 
 'Tis a league and a league to the Lena Falls where the 
 
 crop and the upland meet, 
 But I can smell the warm wet wind that whispers through 
 
 the wheat ! ' 
 
 'The Only Son.* 
 
 OF the wheels of public service that turn under the 
 Indian Government, there is none more impor- 
 tant than the Department of Woods and Forests. 
 The reboisement of all India is in its hands; or will be 
 when Government has the money to spend. Its ser- 
 vants wrestle with wandering sand-torrents and shifting 
 dunes: wattling them at the sides, damming them in 
 front, and pegging them down atop with coarse grass 
 and spindling pine after the rules of Nancy. They are 
 responsible for all the timber in the State forests of the 
 Himalayas, as well as for the denuded hillsides that the 
 monsoons wash into dry gullies and aching ravines; each 
 cut a mouth crying aloud what carelessness can do. 
 They experiment with battalions of foreign trees, and 
 coax the blue gum to take root, and, perhaps, dry up the 
 Canal fever. In the plains the chief part of their duty 
 is to see that the belt fire-lines in the forest reserves are 
 kept clean, so that when drought comes and the cattle 
 starve, they may throw the reserve open to the villager's 
 herds and allow the man himself to gather sticks. They 
 poll and lop for the stacked railway-fuel along the lines 
 that burn no coal ; they calculate the profit of their plan- 
 tations to five points of decimals; they are the doctors 
 and midwives of the huge teak forests of Upper Burma, 
 
 184 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 the rubber of the Eastern Jungles, and the gall-nuts of 
 the South; and they are always hampered by lack of 
 funds. But since a Forest Officer's business takes him 
 far from the beaten roads and the regular stations, he 
 learns to grow wise in more than wood-lore alone; to 
 know the people and the polity of the jungle: meeting 
 tiger, bear, leopard, wild-dog, and all the deer, not once 
 or twice after days of beating, but again and again in 
 the execution of his duty. He spends much time in sad- 
 dle or under canvas — the friend of newly-planted trees, 
 the associate of uncouth rangers and hairy trackers — 
 till the woods, that show his care, in turn set their mark 
 upon him, and he ceases to sing the naughty French 
 songs he learned at Nancy, and grows silent with the 
 silent things of the underbrush. 
 
 Gisborne of the Woods and Forests had spent four 
 years in the service. At first he loved it without com- 
 prehension, because it led him into the open on horseback 
 and gave him authority. Then he hated it furiously, 
 and would have given a year's pay for one month of such 
 society as India affords. That crisis over, the forests 
 took him back again, and he was content to serve them, 
 to deepen and widen his fire-lines, to watch the green 
 mist of his new plantation against the older foliage, to 
 dredge outthe cnokedstream, and tofollowand strengthen 
 the last struggle of the forest where it broke down and 
 died among the long pig-grass. On some still day that 
 grass would be burned off, and a hundred beasts that 
 had their homes there would rush out before the pale 
 flames at high noon. Later, the forest would creep for- 
 ward over the blackened ground in orderly lines of sap- 
 lings, and Gisborne, watching, would be well pleased. 
 His bungalow, a thatched white-walled cottage of two 
 
 185 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 rooms, was set at one end of the great rukh and over- 
 looking it. He made no pretence at keeping a garden, 
 for the rukh swept up to his door, curled over in a thicket 
 of bamboo, and he rode from his veranda into its heart 
 without the need of any carriage-drive. 
 
 Abdul Gafur, his fat Mohammedan butler, fed him 
 when he was at home, and spent the rest of the time gos- 
 siping with the little band of native servants whose huts 
 lay behind the bungalow. There were two grooms, a 
 cook, a water-carrier, and a sweeper, and that was all. 
 Gisborne cleaned his own guns and kept no dog. Dogs 
 scared the game, and it pleased the man to be able to say 
 where the subjects of his kingdom would drink at moon- 
 rise, eat before dawn, and lie up in the day's heat. The 
 rangers and forest-guards lived in little huts far away in 
 the rukh, only appearing when one of them had been 
 injured by a falling tree or a wild beast. Thus Gisborne 
 was alone. 
 
 In spring the rukh put out few new leaves, but lay dry 
 and still untouched by the finger of the year, waiting for 
 rain. Only there was then more calling and roaring in 
 the dark on a quiet night; the tumult of a battle-royal 
 among the tigers, the bellowing of arrogant buck, or the 
 steady wood-chopping of an old boar sharpening his 
 tushes against a bole. Then Gisborne laid aside his 
 little-used gun altogether, for it was to him a sin to kill. 
 In summer, through the furious May heats, the rukh 
 reeled in the haze, and Gisborne watched for the first 
 sign of curling smoke that should betray a forest fire. 
 Then came the Rains with a roar, and the rukh was blotted 
 out in fetch after fetch of warm mist, and the broad 
 leaves drummed the night through under the big drops; 
 and there was a noise of running water, and of juicy 
 
 186 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 green stuff crackling where the wind struck it, and the 
 lightning wove patterns behind the dense matting of the 
 foHage, till the sun broke loose again and the rukh stood 
 with hot flanks smoking to the newly-washed sky. Then 
 the heat and the dry cold subdued everything to tiger- 
 colour again. So Gisborne learned to know his rukh and 
 was very happy. His pay came month by month, but 
 he had very little need for money. The currency notes 
 accumulated in the drawer where he kept his home- 
 letters and the recapping-machine. If he drew any- 
 thing, it was to make a purchase from the Calcutta 
 Botanical Gardens, or to pay a ranger's widow a sum 
 that the Government of India would never have sanc- 
 tioned for her man's death. 
 
 Payment was good, but vengeance was also necessary, 
 and he took that when he could. One night of many 
 nights a runner, breathless and gasping, came to him 
 with the news that a forest-guard lay dead by the Kanye 
 stream, the side of his head smashed in as though it had 
 been an egg-shell. Gisborne went out at dawn to look 
 for the murderer. It is only travellers, and now and 
 then young soldiers, who are known to the world as great 
 hunters. The Forest OfTicers take their shikar as part 
 of the day's work, and no one hears of it. Gisborne 
 went on foot to the place of the kill : the widow was wail- 
 ing over the corpse as it lay on a bedstead, while two or 
 three men were looking at footprints on the moist ground. 
 'That is the Red One,* said a man. 'I knew he would 
 turn to man in time, but surely there is game enough 
 even for him. This must have been done for devilry.' 
 
 *The Red One lies up in the rocks at the back of the sal 
 trees,' said Gisborne. He knew the tiger under suspicion. 
 
 *Not now, Sahib, not now. He will be raging and 
 
 187 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 ranging to and fro. Remember that the first kill is a 
 triple kill always. Our blood makes them mad. He 
 may be behind us even as we speak.' 
 
 'He may have gone to the next hut,' said another. 
 ' It is only four koss. Wallah, who is this? ' 
 
 Gisborne turned with the others. A man was walk- 
 ing down the dried bed of the stream, naked except for 
 the loin-cloth, but crowned with a wreath of the tasselled 
 blossoms of the white convolvulus creeper. So noise- 
 lessly did he move over the little pebbles that even Gis- 
 borne, used to the soft-footedness of trackers, started. 
 
 'The tiger that killed,' he began, without any salute, 
 'has gone to drink, and now he is asleep under a rock 
 beyond that hill.' His voice was clear and bell-like, 
 utterly different from the usual whine of the native, and 
 his face as he lifted it in the sunshine might have been 
 that of an angel strayed among the woods. The widow 
 ceased wailing above the corpse and looked round-eyed 
 at the stranger, returning to her duty with double 
 strength. 
 
 ' Shall I show the Sahib? ' he said simply. 
 
 ' If thou art sure — ' Gisborne began. 
 
 'Sure indeed. I saw him only an hour ago — the dog. 
 It is before his time to eat man's flesh. He has yet a 
 dozen sound teeth in his evil head.' 
 
 The men kneeling above the footprints slunk off 
 quietly, for fear that Gisborne should ask them to go 
 with him, and the young man laughed a little to himself. 
 
 'Come, Sahib,' he cried, and turned on his heel, walk- 
 ing before his companion. 
 
 ' Not so fast. I cannot keep that pace,' said the white 
 man. ' Halt there. Thy face is new to me.' 
 
 * That may be. I am but newly come into this forest. ' 
 
 188 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 ' From what village?' 
 
 'I am without a village. I came from over there.' 
 He flung out his arm towards the north. 
 
 'A gipsy then?' 
 
 'No, Sahib. I am a man without caste, and for mat- 
 ter of that without a father.' 
 
 'What do men call thee?' 
 
 ' Mowgli, Sahib. And what is the Sahib's name? ' 
 
 ' I am the warden of this rukh — Gisborne is my name.' 
 
 'How? Do they number the trees and the blades of 
 grass here? ' 
 
 ' Even so ; lest such gipsy fellows as thou set them afire . ' 
 
 'I! I would not hurt the jungle for any gift. That 
 is my home.' 
 
 He turned to Gisborne with a smile that was irresisti- 
 ble, and held up a warning hand. 
 
 'Now, Sahib, we must go a little quietly. There is no 
 need to wake the dog, though he sleeps heavily enough. 
 Perhaps it were better if I went forward alone and drove 
 him down wind to the Sahib.' 
 
 'Allah! Since when have tigers been driven to and 
 fro like cattle by naked men?' said Gisborne, aghast at 
 the man's audacity. 
 
 He laughed again softly. 'Nay, then, come along 
 with me and shoot him in thy own way with the big 
 English rifle.' 
 
 Gisborne stepped in his guide's track, twisted, crawled, 
 and clomb and stooped and suffered through all the 
 many agonies of a jungle-stalk. He was purple and 
 dripping with sweat when Mowgli at the last bade him 
 raise his head and peer over a blue baked rock near a 
 tiny hill pool. By the waterside lay the tiger extended 
 and at ease, lazily licking clean again an enormous elbow 
 
 189 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 and fore-paw. He was old, yellow-toothed, and not a 
 little mangy, but in that setting and sunshine, imposing 
 enough. 
 
 Gisborne had no false ideas of sport where the man- 
 eater was concerned. This thing was vermin, to be 
 killed as speedily as possible. He waited to recover his 
 breath, rested the rifle on the rock and whistled. The 
 brute's head turned slowly not twenty feet from the 
 rifle-mouth, and Gisborne planted his shots, business- 
 like, one behind the shoulder and the other a little below 
 the eye. At that range the heavy bones were no guard 
 against the rending bullets. 
 
 'Well, the skin was not worth keeping at any rate,' 
 said he, as the smoke cleared away and the beast lay 
 kicking and gasping in the last agony. 
 
 'A dog's death for a dog,' said Mowgli quietly. 'In- 
 deed there is nothing in that carrion worth taking away.' 
 
 ' The whiskers. Dost thou not take the whiskers? ' said 
 Gisborne, who knew how the rangers valued such things. 
 
 'I? Am I a lousy shikarri of the jungle to paddle 
 with a tiger's muzzle? Let him lie. Here come his 
 friends already.' 
 
 A dropping kite whistled shrilly overhead, as Gisborne 
 snapped out the empty shells, and wiped his face. 
 
 * And if thou art not a shikarri, where didst thou learn 
 thy knowledge of the tiger-folk?' said he. 'No tracker 
 could have done better.' 
 
 ' I hate all tigers,' said Mowgli curtly. ' Let the Sa- 
 hib give me his gun to carry. Arre, it is a very fine one ! 
 And where does the Sahib go now?' 
 
 'To my house.' 
 
 ' May I come? I have never yet looked withinsides 
 a white man's house.' 
 
 190 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 Gisborne returned to his bungalow, Mowgli striding 
 noiselessly before him, his brown skin glistening in the 
 sunlight. 
 
 He stared curiously at the veranda and the two chairs 
 there, fingered the split bamboo shade curtains with sus- 
 picion, and entered, looking always behind him. Gis- 
 borne loosed a curtain to keep out the sun. It dropped 
 with a clatter, but almost before it touched the flagging 
 of the veranda Mowgli had leaped clear, and was stand- 
 ing with heaving chest in the open. 
 
 * It is a trap,' he said quickly. 
 
 Gisborne laughed. 'White men do not trap men. 
 Indeed thou art altogether of the jungle.' 
 
 'I see,' said Mowgli, 'it has neither catch nor fall. I 
 — I never beheld these things till to-day.' 
 
 He came in on tiptoe and stared with large eyes at the 
 furniture of the two rooms. Abdul Gafur, who was lay- 
 ing lunch, looked at him with deep disgust. 
 
 'So much trouble to eat, and so much trouble to lie 
 down after you have eaten!' said Mowgli with a grin. 
 'We do better in the jungle. It is very wonderful. 
 There are very many rich things here. Is the Sahib not 
 afraid that he may be robbed? I have never seen such 
 wonderful things.' He was staring at a dusty Benares 
 brass plate on a rickety bracket. 
 
 'Only a thief from the jungle would rob here,' said 
 Abdul Gafur, setting down a plate with a clatter. Mow- 
 gli opened his eyes wide and stared at the white-bearded 
 Mohammedan. 
 
 'In my country when goats bleat very loud we cut 
 their throats,' he returned cheerfully. *But have no 
 fear, thou. I am going.* 
 
 He turned and disappeared into the rukh. Gisborne 
 
 191 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 looked after him with a laugh that ended in a little sigh. 
 There was not much outside his regular work to interest 
 the Forest Officer, and this son of the forest, who seemed 
 to know tigers as other people know dogs, would have 
 been a diversion. 
 
 'He's a most wonderful chap,' thought Gisborne; 'he's 
 like the illustrations in the Classical Dictionary. I wish 
 I could have made him a gun-boy. There's no fun in 
 shikarring alone, and this fellow would have been a per- 
 fect shikarri. I wonder what in the world he is.' 
 
 That evening he sat on the veranda under the stars 
 smoking as he wondered. A puff of smoke curled from 
 the pipe-bowl. As it cleared he was aware of Mowgli 
 sitting with arms crossed on the veranda edge. A ghost 
 could not have drifted up more noiselessly. Gisborne 
 started and let the pipe drop. 
 
 'There is no man to talk to out there in the rukh,' said 
 Mowgli. 'I came here, therefore.' He picked up the 
 pipe and returned it to Gisborne. 
 
 * Oh,' said Gisborne, and after a long pause, ' What news 
 is there in the rukh? Hast thou found another tiger? ' 
 
 'The nilghaiare changing their feeding-ground against 
 the new moon, as is their custom. The pig are feeding 
 near the Kanye river now, because they will not feed 
 with the nilghai, and one of their sows has been killed by 
 a leopard in the long grass at the water-head. I do not 
 know any more.' 
 
 'And how didst thou know all these things?' said Gis- 
 borne, leaning forward and looking at the eyes that glit- 
 tered in the starlight. 
 
 *How should I not know? The nilghai has his cus- 
 tom and his use, and a child knows that pig will not feed 
 with him.' 
 
 192 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 ' I do not know this,' said Gisborne. 
 
 'Tck ! Tck ! And thou art in charge — so the men of 
 the huts tell me— in charge of all this rukh? ' He laughed 
 to himself. 
 
 ' It is well enough to talk and to tell child's tales,' Gis- 
 borne retorted, nettled at the chuckle. 'To say that 
 this and that goes on in the rukh. No man can deny 
 thee.' 
 
 *As for the sow's carcase, I will show thee her bones 
 to-morrow,' Mowgli returned, absolutely unmoved. 
 'Touching the matter of the nilghai, if the Sahib will sit 
 here very still I will drive one nilghai up to this place, and 
 by listening to the sounds carefully, the Sahib can tell 
 whence that nilghai has been driven.' 
 
 'MowgU, the jungle has made thee mad,' said Gis- 
 borne. ' Who can drive nilghai? ' 
 
 'Still— sit still, then. I go.' 
 
 *Gad, the man's a ghost!' said Gisborne; for Mowgli 
 had faded out into the darkness and there was no sound 
 of feet. The rukh lay out in great velvety folds in the 
 uncertain shimmer of the star-dust — so still that the 
 least little wandering wind among the tree-tops came up 
 as the sigh of a child sleeping equably. Abdul Gafur in 
 the cook-house was clicking plates together. 
 
 *Be still there!' shouted Gisborne, and composed him- 
 self to listen as a man can who is used to the stillness of 
 the rukh. It had been his custom, to preserve his self- 
 respect in his isolation, to dress for dinner each night, 
 and the stilT white shirt-front creaked with his regular 
 breathing till he shifted a little sideways. Then the 
 tobacco of a somewhat foul pipe began to purr, and he 
 threw the pipe from him. Now, except for the night- 
 breath in the rukh, everything was dumb. 
 
 193 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 From an inconceivable distance, and drawled through 
 immeasurable darkness, came the faint, faint echo of a 
 wolf's howl. Then silence again for, it seemed, long 
 hours. At last, when his legs below the knees had lost all 
 feeling, Gisborne heard something that might have been 
 a crash far off through the undergrowth. He doubted 
 till it was repeated again and yet again. 
 
 'That's from the west,' he muttered; 'there's some- 
 thing on foot there.' The noise increased — crash on 
 crash, plunge on plunge — with the thick grunting of a 
 hotly pressed nilghai, flying in panic terror and taking 
 no heed to his course. 
 
 A shadow blundered out from between the tree-trunks, 
 wheeled back, turned again grunting, and with a clatter 
 on the bare ground dashed up almost within reach of 
 his hand. It was a bull nilghai, dripping with dew — his 
 withers hung with a torn trail of creeper, his eyes shining 
 in the light from the house. The creature checked at 
 sight of the man, and fled along the edge of the rukh till 
 he melted in the darkness. The first idea in Gisborne's 
 bewildered mind was the indecency of thus dragging out 
 for inspection the big blue bull of the rukh — the putting 
 him through his paces in the night which should have 
 been his own. 
 
 Then said a smooth voice at his ear as he stood staring: 
 
 'He came from the water-head where he was leading 
 the herd. From the west he came. Does the Sahib 
 believe now, or shall I bring up the herd to be counted? 
 The Sahib is in charge of this rukh.' 
 
 Mowgli had reseated himself on the veranda, breath- 
 ing a little quickly. Gisborne looked at him with open 
 mouth. ' How was that accomplished? ' he said. 
 
 'The Sahib saw. The bull was driven — driven as a 
 
 194 
 
IN THE RUKII 
 
 buffalo IS. Ho! ho! He will have a fine tale to tell 
 when he returns to the herd.' 
 
 ' That is a new trick to me. Canst thou run as swiftly 
 as the nilghai, then?' 
 
 ' The Sahib has seen . If the Sahib needs more knowl- 
 edge at any time of the movings of the game, I, Mowgli, 
 am here. This is a good rukh, and I shall stay.' 
 
 'Stay then, and if thou hast need of a meal at any 
 time my servants shall give thee one.' 
 
 'Yes, indeed, I am fond of cooked food,' Mowgli an- 
 swered quickly. 'No man may say that I do not eat 
 boiled and roast as much as any other man. I will come 
 for that meal. Now, on my part, I promise that the Sa- 
 hib shall sleep safely in his house by night, and no thief 
 shall break in to carry away his so rich treasures.' 
 
 The conversation ended itself on Mowgli's abrupt de- 
 parture. Gisborne sat long smoking, and the upshot of 
 his thoughts was that in Mowgli he had found at last 
 that ideal ranger and forest-guard for whom he and the 
 Department were always looking. 
 
 *I must get him into the Government service some- 
 how. A man who can drive nilghai would know more 
 about the rukh than fifty men. He's a miracle— a lusus 
 naturae — but a forest-guard he must be if he'll only settle 
 down in one place,' said Gisborne. 
 
 Abdul Gafur's opinion was less favourable. He con- 
 fided to Gisborne at bedtime that strangers from God- 
 knew-where were more than likely to be professional 
 thieves, and that he personally did not approve of naked 
 outcastes who had not the proper manner of addressing 
 white people. Gisborne laughed and bade him go to his 
 quarters, and Abdul Gafur retreated growling. Later 
 in the night he found occasion to rise up and beat his thir- 
 
 195 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 teen-year-old daughter. Nobody knew the cause of 
 dispute, but Gisborne heard the cry. 
 
 Through the days that followed Mowgli came and 
 went like a shadow. He had established himself and 
 his wild housekeeping close to the bungalow, but on the 
 edge of the rukh, where Gisborne, going out on to the 
 veranda for a breath of cool air, would see him some- 
 times sitting in the moonlight, his forehead on his knees, 
 or lying out along the fling of a branch, closely pressed 
 to it as some beast of the night. Thence Mowgli would 
 throw him a salutation and bid him sleep at ease, or de- 
 scending would weave prodigious stories of the manners of 
 the beasts in the rukh. Once he wandered into the stables 
 and was found looking at the horses with deep interest. 
 
 'That,' said Abdul Gafur pointedly, 'is sure sign that 
 some day he will steal one. Why, if he lives about this 
 house, does he not take an honest employment? But 
 no, he must wander up and down like a loose camel, 
 turning the heads of fools and opening the jaws of the 
 unwise to folly.' So Abdul Gafur would give harsh or- 
 ders to Mowgli when they met, would bid him fetch 
 water and pluck fowls, and Mowgli, laughing uncon- 
 cernedly, would obey. 
 
 'He has no caste,' said Abdul Gafur. 'He will do 
 anything. Look to it. Sahib, that he does not do too 
 much. A snake is a snake, and a jungle-gipsy is a thief 
 till the death.' 
 
 'Be silent, then,' said Gisborne. ' I allow thee to cor- 
 rect thy own household if there is not too much noise, 
 because I know thy customs and use. My custom thou 
 dost not know. The man is without doubt a little mad.' 
 
 'Very little mad indeed,' said Abdul Gafur. 'But we 
 shall see what comes thereof.' 
 
 196 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 A few days later on his business took Gisborne into 
 the rukh for three days. Abdul Gafur being old and 
 fat was left at home. He did not approve of lying up in 
 rangers' huts, and was inclined to levy contributions in 
 his master's name of grain and oil and milk from those 
 who could ill afford such benevolences. Gisborne rode 
 off early one dawn a little vexed that his man of the 
 woods was not at the veranda to accompany him. He 
 liked him — liked his strength, fleetness, and silence of 
 foot, and his ever-ready open smile; his ignorance of all 
 forms of ceremony and salutations, and the childlike 
 tales that he would tell (and Gisborne would credit now) 
 of what the game was doing in the rukh. After an hour's 
 riding through the greenery, he heard a rustle behind 
 him, and Mowgli trotted at his stirrup. 
 
 'We have a three days' work toward,' said Gisborne, 
 'among the new trees.' 
 
 'Good,' said Mowgli. 'It is always good to cherish 
 young trees. They make cover if the beasts leave them 
 alone. We must shift the pig again.' 
 
 'Again? How?' Gisborne smiled. 
 
 * Oh, they were rooting and tusking among the young 
 sal last night, and I drove them off. Therefore I did 
 not come to the veranda this morning. The pig should 
 not be on this side of the rukh at all. We must keep 
 them below the head of the Kanye river.' 
 
 * If a man could herd clouds he might do that thing ; 
 but, Mowgli, if, as thou sayest, thou art herder in the 
 rukh for no gain and for no pay — ' 
 
 'It is the Sahib's rukh,' said Mowgli, quickly looking 
 up. Gisborne nodded thanks and went on: 'Would 
 it not be better to work for pay from the Government? 
 There is a pension at the end of long service.' 
 
 197 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 ' Of that I have thought,' said Alowgli, ' but the rangers 
 live in huts with shut doors, and all that is all too much 
 a trap to me. Yet I think — ' 
 
 ' Think well then and tell me later. Here we will stay 
 for breakfast.' 
 
 Gisborne dismounted, took his morning meal from his 
 home-made saddle-bags, and saw the day open hot above 
 the rukh. Mowgli lay in the grass at his side staring up 
 to the sky. 
 
 Presently he said in a lazy whisper: 'Sahib, is there 
 any order at the bungalow to take out the white mare 
 to-day?' 
 
 ' No, she is fat and old and a little lame beside. Why?' 
 
 ' She is being ridden now and not slowly on the road 
 that runs to the railway line.' 
 
 ' Bah, that is two koss away. It is a woodpecker.' 
 
 Mowgli put up his forearm to keep the sun out of his 
 eyes. 
 
 'The road curves in with a big curve from the bunga- 
 low. It is not more than a koss, at the farthest, as the 
 kite goes; and sound flies with the birds. Shall we 
 see?' 
 
 ' What folly ! To run a koss in this sun to see a noise 
 in the forest.' 
 
 'Nay, the pony is the Sahib's pony. I meant only to 
 bring her here. If she is not the Sahib's pony, no matter. 
 If she is, the Sahib can do what he wills. She is certainly 
 being ridden hard.' 
 
 'And how wilt thou bring her here, madman?* 
 
 ' Has the Sahib forgotten? By the road of the nilghai 
 and no other.' 
 
 * Up then and run if thou art so full of zeal.' 
 
 'Oh, I do not run!' He put out his hand to sign for 
 
 198 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 silence, and still lying on his back called aloud thrice — 
 with a deep gurgling cry that was new to Gisborne. 
 
 'She will come,' he said at the end. *Let us wait in 
 the shade. The long eyelashes drooped over the wild 
 eyes as Mowgli began to doze in the morning hush. Gis- 
 borne waited patiently: Mowgli was surely mad, but as 
 entertaining a companion as a lonely Forest Officer could 
 desire. 
 
 ' Ho ! ho ! ' said Mowgli lazily, with shut eyes. ' He has 
 dropped off. Well, first the mare will come and then 
 the man.' Then he yawned as Gisborne's pony stal- 
 lion neighed. Three minutes later Gisborne's white mare, 
 saddled, bridled, but riderless, tore into the glade where 
 they were sitting, and hurried to her companion. 
 
 'She is not very warm,' said Mowgh, 'but in this heat 
 the sweat comes easily. Presently we shall see her rider, 
 for a man goes more slowly than a horse — especially if 
 he chance to be a fat man and old.' 
 
 'Allah! This is the devil's work,' cried Gisborne, 
 leaping to his feet, for he heard a yell in the jungle. 
 
 'Have no care. Sahib. He will not be hurt. He also 
 will say that it is devil's work. Ah! Listen! Who is 
 that?' 
 
 It was the voice of Abdul Gafur in an agony of terror, 
 crying out upon unknown things to spare him and his 
 gray hairs. 
 
 ' Nay, I cannot move another step,' he howled. ' I am 
 old and my turban is lost. Arre! Arre! But I will 
 move. Indeed I will hasten. I will run! Oh, Devils 
 of the Pit, I am a Mussulman ! ' 
 
 The undergrowth parted and gave up Abdul Gafur, 
 turbanless, shoeless, with his waist-cloth unbound, mud 
 and grass in his clutched hands, and his face purple. He 
 
 199 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 saw Gisborne, yelled anew, and pitched forward, ex- 
 hausted and quivering, at his feet. Mowgli watched 
 him with a sweet smile. 
 
 'This is no joke,' said Gisborne sternly. 'The man is 
 like to die, Mowgli.' 
 
 'He will not die. He is only afraid. There was no 
 need that he should have come out of a walk.' 
 
 Abdul Gafur groaned and rose up, shaking in every 
 limb. 
 
 'It was witchcraft — witchcraft and devildom!' he 
 sobbed, fumbling with his hand in his breast. ' Because 
 of my sin I have been whipped through the woods by 
 devils. It is all finished. I repent. Take them. Sa- 
 hib ! ' He held out a roll of dirty paper. 
 
 ' What is the meaning of this, Abdul Gafur? ' said Gis- 
 borne, already knowing what would come. 
 
 ' Put me in the jail-khana — the notes are all here — but 
 lock me up safely that no devils may follow. I have 
 sinned against the Sahib and his salt which I have eaten ; 
 and but for those accursed wood-demons, I might have 
 bought land afar off and lived in peace all my days.' 
 He beat his head upon the ground in an agony of despair 
 and mortification. Gisborne turned the roll of notes 
 over and over. It was his accumulated back-pay for 
 the last nine months — the roll that lay in the drawer 
 with the home-letters and the recapping-machine. Mow- 
 gli watched Abdul Gafur, laughing noiselessly to him- 
 self. * There is no need to put me on the horse again. I 
 will walk home slowly with the Sahib, and then he can 
 send me under guard to the jail-khana. The Govern- 
 ment gives many years for this offence,' said the butler 
 sullenly. 
 
 Loneliness in the rukh affects very many ideas about 
 
 200 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 very many things. Gisborne stared at Abdul Gafur, 
 remembering that he was a very good servant, and that 
 a new butler must be broken into the ways of the house 
 from the beginning, and at the best would be a new face 
 and a new tongue. 
 
 'Listen, Abdul Gafur,' he said. 'Thou hast done 
 great wrong, and altogether lost thy izzat and thy repu- 
 tation. But I think that this came upon thee suddenly.' 
 
 'Allah! I had never desired the notes before. The 
 Evil took me by the throat while I looked.' 
 
 'That also I can believe. Go then back to my house, 
 and when I return I will send the notes by a runner to 
 the Bank, and there shall be no more said. Thou art too 
 old for the jail-khana. Also thy household is guiltless.' 
 
 For answer Abdul Gafur sobbed between Gisborne's 
 cowhide riding-boots. 
 
 ' Is there no dismissal then? ' he gulped. 
 
 'That we shall see. It hangs upon thy conduct when 
 we return. Get upon the mare and ride slowly back.' 
 
 ' But the devils ! The rukh is full of devils.' 
 
 'No matter, my father. They will do thee no more 
 harm unless, indeed, the Sahib's orders be not obeyed,' 
 said Mowgli. 'Then, perchance, they may drive thee 
 home — by the road of the nilghai.' 
 
 Abdul Gafur's lower jaw dropped as he twisted up his 
 waist-cloth, staring at Mowgli. 
 
 ' Are they his devils? His devils ! And I had thought 
 to return and lay the blame upon this warlock!' 
 
 'That was well thought of, Huzrut; but before we 
 make a trap we see first how big the game is that may 
 fall into it. Now I thought no more than that a man 
 had taken one of the Sahib's horses. I did not know 
 that the design was to make me a thief before the Sahib, 
 
 201 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 or my devils had haled thee here by the leg. It is not 
 too late now.' 
 
 Mowgli looked inquiringly at Gisborne; but Abdul 
 Gafur waddled hastily to the white mare, scrambled on 
 he.r back and fled, the woodways crashing and echoing 
 behind him. 
 
 'That was well done; said Mowgli. But he will fall 
 again unless he holds by the mane.' 
 
 'Now it is time to tell me what these things mean,' 
 said Gisborne a little sternly. ' What is this talk of thy 
 devils? How can men be driven up and down the rukh 
 like cattle? Give answer.' 
 
 'Is the Sahib angry because I have saved him his 
 money? ' 
 
 'No, but there is trick- work in this that does not 
 please me.' 
 
 'Very good. Now if I rose and stepped three paces 
 into the rukh there is no one, not even the Sahib, could 
 fmd me till I choose. As I would not willingly do this, 
 so I would not willingly tell. Have patience a little, 
 Sahib, and some day I will show thee everything, for, if 
 thou wilt, some day we will drive the buck together. 
 There is no devil-work in the matter at all. Only . . . 
 I know the rukh as a man knows the cooking-place in his 
 house.' 
 
 Mowgli was speaking as he would speak to an impatient 
 child. Gisborne, puzzled, baffled, and a great deal 
 annoyed, said nothing, but stared on the ground and 
 thought. When he looked up the man of the woods had 
 gone. 
 
 *It is not good,' said a level voice from the thicket, 
 *for friends to be angry. Wait till the evening, Sahib, 
 when the air cools.' 
 
 202 
 
IN IHK RUKH 
 
 Left to himself thus, dropped as it were in the heart 
 of the rukh, Gisborne swore, then laughed, remounted 
 his pony, and rode on. He visited a ranger's hut, over- 
 looked a couple of new plantations, left some orders as 
 to the burning of a patch of dry grass, and set out for a 
 camping-ground of his own choice, a pile of spHntered 
 rocks roughly roofed over with branches and leaves, not 
 far from the banks of the Kanye stream. It was twi- 
 light when he came in sight of his resting-place, and the 
 rukh was waking to the hushed ravenous life of the night. 
 
 A camp-fire flickered on the knoll, and there was the 
 smell of a very good dinner in the wind. 
 
 'Um,' said Gisborne, 'that's better than cold meat at 
 any rate. Now the only man who'd be likely to be 
 here'd be Muller, and, officially, he ought to be looking 
 over the Changamanga rukh. I suppose that's why he's 
 on my ground.' 
 
 The gigantic German who was the head of the Woods 
 and Forests of all India, Head Ranger from Burma to 
 Bombay, had a habit of flitting bat-like without warn- 
 ing from one place to another, and turning up exactly 
 where he was least looked for. His theory was that 
 sudden visitations, the discovery of shortcomings and a 
 word-of-mouth upbraiding of a subordinate were infi- 
 nitely better than the slow processes of correspondence, 
 which might end in a written and official reprimand — a 
 thing in after years to be counted against a Forest Offi- 
 cer's record. As he explained it: 'If I only talk to my 
 boys like a Dutch uncle, dey say, "It was only dot 
 damned old Muller," and dey do better next dime. But 
 if my fat-head clerk he write and say dot Muller der 
 Inspecdor-General fail to onderstand and is much an- 
 noyed, first dot does no goot because I am not dere, 
 
 203 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 and, second, der fool dot comes after me he may say to 
 my best boys: "Look here, you haf been wigged by my 
 bredecessor." I tell you der big brass-hat pizness does 
 not make der trees grow.' 
 
 Muller's deep voice was coming out of the darkness 
 behind the firelight as he bent over the shoulders of his 
 pet cook. 'Not so much sauce, you son of Belial! 
 Worcester sauce he is a gondiment and not a fluid. Ah, 
 Gisborne, you haf come to a very bad dinner. Where 
 is your camp?' and he walked up to shake hands. 
 
 'I'm the camp, sir,' said Gisborne. 'I didn't know 
 you were about here.' 
 
 Muller looked at the young man's trim figure. * Goot! 
 That is very goot! One horse and some cold things to 
 eat. When I was young I did my camp so. Now you 
 shall dine with me. I went into Headquarters to make 
 up my rebort last month. I haf written half — ho! ho! 
 — and der rest I haf leaved to my glerks and come out for 
 a walk. Der Government is mad about dose reborts. 
 I dold der Viceroy so at Simla.' 
 
 Gisborne chuckled, remembering the many tales that 
 were told of Muller's conflicts with the Supreme Govern- 
 ment. He was the chartered libertine of all the offices, 
 for as a Forest Officer he had no equal. 
 
 * If I find you, Gisborne, sitting in your bungalow und 
 hatching reborts to me about der blantations instead of 
 riding der blantations, I will dransfer you to der middle 
 of der Bikaneer Desert to reforest him. I am sick of 
 reborts und chewing paper when we should do our work.' 
 
 'There's not much danger of my wasting time over 
 my annuals. I hate them as much as you do, sir.' 
 
 The talk went over at this point to professional mat- 
 ters. Muller had some questions to ask, and Gisborne 
 
 204 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 orders and hints to receive, till dinner was ready. It 
 was the most civilised meal Gisborne had eaten for 
 months. No distance from the base of supplies was 
 allowed to interfere with the work of Muller's cook; and 
 that table spread in the wilderness began with devilled 
 small fresh-water fish, and ended with coffee and cognac. 
 
 'Ah!' said Muller at the end, with a sigh of satisfac- 
 tion as he lighted a cheroot and dropped into his much- 
 worn camp-chair. 'When I am making reborts I am 
 Freethinker und Atheist, but here in der rukh I am more 
 than Christian. I am Bagan also.' He rolled the 
 cheroot-butt luxuriously under his tongue, dropped his 
 hands on his knees, and stared before him into the dim 
 shifting heart of the rukh, full of stealthy noises: the 
 snapping of twigs like the snapping of the fire behind 
 him; the sigh and rustle of a heat-bended branch re- 
 covering her straightness in the cool night; the incessant 
 mutter of the Kanye stream, and the undernote of the 
 many-peopled grass uplands out of sight beyond a swell 
 of hill. He blew out a thick puff of smoke, and began 
 to quote Heine to himself. 
 
 * Yes, it is very goot. Very goot. "Yes, I work mir- 
 acles, and, by Gott, dey come off too." I remember 
 when dere was no rukh more big than your knee, from 
 here to der plough-lands, und in drought-time der cattle 
 ate bones of dead cattle up and down. Now der trees 
 haf come back. Dey were planted by a Freethinker, be- 
 cause he know just de cause dot made der effect. But 
 der trees dey had der cult of der old gods— "und der 
 Christian Gods howl loudly." Dey could not live in 
 der rukh, Gisborne.' 
 
 A shadow moved in one of the bridle-paths — moved 
 and stepped out into the starlight. 
 
 205 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 'Ihafsaidtrue. Hush! Here is Faunus himself come 
 to see der Insbector-General. Himmel, he is der god! 
 Look!' 
 
 It was Mowgli, crowned with his wreath of white 
 flowers and walking with a half-peeled branch — Mowgli, 
 very mistrustful of the firelight and ready to fly back to 
 the thicket on the least alarm. 
 
 'That's a friend of mine,' said Gisborne. 'He's look- 
 ing for me. Ohe, Mowgli ! ' 
 
 Muller had barely time to gasp before the man was at 
 Gisborne's side, crying: 'I was wrong to go. I was 
 wrong, but I did not know then that the mate of him 
 that was killed by this river was awake looking for thee. 
 Else I should not have gone away. She tracked thee 
 from the back-range, Sahib.' 
 
 'He is a little mad,' said Gisborne, 'and he speaks of 
 all the beasts about here as if he was a friend of theirs.' 
 
 'Of course — of course. If Faunus does not know, 
 who should know?' said Muller gravely. 'What does 
 he say about tigers — dis god who knows you so well? ' 
 
 Gisborne relighted his cheroot, and before he had fin- 
 ished the story of Mowgli and his exploits it was burned 
 down to moustache-edge. Muller listened without in- 
 terruption. 'Dot is not madness,' he said at last when 
 Gisborne had described the driving of Abdul Gafur. 
 ' Dot is not madness at all.' 
 
 'What is it, then? He left me in a temper this morn- 
 ing because I asked him to tell how he did it. I fancy 
 the chap's possessed in some way.' 
 
 'No, dere is no bossession, but it is most wonderful. 
 Normally they die young — dese beople. Und you say 
 now dot your thief-servant did not say what drove der 
 poney, and of course der nilghai he could not speak.' 
 
 206 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 *No, but, confound it, there wasn't anything. I lis- 
 tened, and I can hear most things. The bull and the 
 man simply came headlong — mad with fright.' 
 
 For answer Muller looked Mowgli up and down from 
 head to foot, then beckoned him nearer. He came as a 
 buck treads a tainted trail. 
 
 'There is no harm,' said Muller in the vernacular. 
 'Hold out an arm.' 
 
 He ran his hand down to the elbow, felt that, and 
 nodded. 'So I thought. Now the knee.' Gisborne 
 saw him feel the knee-cap and smile. Two or three 
 white scars just above the ankle caught his eye. 
 
 'Those came when thou wast very young?' he said. 
 
 'Ay,' Mowgli answered with a smile. 'They were 
 love-tokens from the little ones.' Then to Gisborne 
 over his shoulder. 'This Sahib knows everything. 
 Who is he?' 
 
 ' That comes after, my friend. Now where are they? ' 
 said Muller. 
 
 Mowgli sv/ept his hand round his head in a circle. 
 
 'So! And thou canst drive nilghai? See! There is 
 my mare in her pickets. Canst thou bring her to me 
 without frightening her? ' 
 
 ' Can I bring the mare to the Sahib without frighten- 
 ing her ! ' Mowgli repeated, raising his voice a little above 
 its normal pitch. 'What is more easy if the heel-ropes 
 are loose?' 
 
 'Loosen the head and heel pegs,' shouted Muller to 
 the groom. They were hardly out of the ground before 
 the mare, a huge black Australian, flung up her head 
 and cocked her ears. 
 
 * Careful! I do not wish her driven into the rukh,' 
 said Muller. 
 
 207 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Mowgli stood still fronting the blaze of the fire — in 
 the very form and likeness of that Greek god who is so 
 lavishly described in the novels. The mare whickered, 
 drew up one hind leg, found that the heel-ropes were free, 
 and moved swiftly to her master, on whose bosom she 
 dropped her head, sweating lightly. 
 
 'She came of her own accord. My horses will do 
 that,' cried Gisborne. 
 
 'Feel if she sweats,' said Mowgli. 
 
 Gisborne laid a hand on the damp flank. 
 
 *It is enough,' said Muller. 
 
 *It is enough,' Mowgli repeated, and a rock behind 
 him threw back the word. 
 
 'That's uncanny, isn't it?' said Gisborne. 
 
 *No, only wonderful — most wonderful. Still you do 
 not know, Gisborne? ' 
 
 'I confess I don't.' 
 
 'Well then, I shall not tell. He says dot some day he 
 will show you what it is. It would be gruel if I told. 
 But why he is not dead I do not understand. Now listen, 
 thou.' Muller faced Mowgli, and returned to the ver- 
 nacular. ' I am the head of all the rukhs in the country 
 of India and others across the Black Water. I do not 
 know how many men be under me — perhaps five thou- 
 sand, perhaps ten. Thy business is this, — to wander 
 no more up and down the rukh and drive beasts for sport 
 or for show, but to take service under me, who am the 
 Government in the matter of Woods and Forests, and to 
 live in this rukh as a forest-guard ; to drive the villagers' 
 goats away when there is no order to feed them in the 
 rukh; to admit them when there is an order; to keep 
 down, as thou canst keep down, the boar and the nilghai 
 when they become too many; to tell Gisborne Sahib how 
 
 208 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 and where tigers move, and what game there is in the 
 forests; and to give sure warning of all the fires in the 
 rukh, for thou canst give warning more quickly than 
 any other. For that work there is a payment each 
 month in silver, and at the end, when thou hast 
 gathered a wife and cattle and, may be, children, a 
 pension. What answer?' 
 
 ^That's just what I — ' Gisborne began. 
 
 *My Sahib spoke this morning of such a service. I 
 walked all day alone considering the matter, and my 
 answer is ready here. I serve, if I serve in this rukh and 
 no other: with Gisborne Sahib and with no other.' 
 
 *It shall be so. In a week comes the written order 
 that pledges the honour of the Government for the pen- 
 sion. After that thou wilt take up thy hut where Gis- 
 borne Sahib shall appoint.' 
 
 *I was going to speak to you about it,' said Gisborne. 
 
 * I did not want to be told when I saw that man. Dere 
 will never be a forest-guard like him. He is a miracle. 
 I tell you, Gisborne, some day you will find it so. Lis- 
 ten, he is blood-brother to every beast in der rukh !' 
 
 ' I should be easier in my mind if I could understand 
 him.' 
 
 'Dot will come. Now I tell you dot only once in my 
 service, and dot is thirty years, haf I met a boy dot be- 
 gan as this man began. Und he died. Sometimes you 
 hear of dem in der census reports, but dey all die. Dis 
 man haf lived, and he is an anachronism, for he is before 
 der Iron Age, and der Stone Age. Look here, he is at 
 der beginnings of der history of man — Adam in der Gar- 
 den, und now we want only an Eva ! No ! He is older 
 than dot child-tale, shust as der rukh is older dan der 
 gods. Gisborne, I am a Bagan now, once for all.' 
 
 209 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Through the rest of the long evening Muller sat smok- 
 ing and smoking, and staring and staring into the dark- 
 ness, his lips moving in multiplied quotations, and great 
 wonder upon his face. He went to his tent, but pres- 
 ently came out again in his majestic pink sleeping-suit, 
 and the last words that Gisborne heard him address to 
 the rukh through the deep hush of midnight were these, 
 delivered with immense emphasis: — 
 
 ' Dough we shivt und bedeck und bedrape us, 
 
 Dou art noble und nude und andeek; 
 Libidina dy moder, Briapus 
 Dy fader, a God und a Greek. 
 
 Now I know dot, Bagan or Christian, I shall nefer know 
 der inwardness of der rukh ! ' 
 
 It was midnight in the bungalow a week later when 
 Abdul Gafur, ashy gray with rage, stood at the foot of 
 Gisborne's bed and whispering bade him awake. 
 
 'Up, Sahib,' he stammered. 'Up and bring thy gun. 
 Mine honour is gone. Up and kill before any see.' 
 
 The old man's face had changed, so that Gisborne 
 stared stupidly. 
 
 ' It was for this, then, that that jungle outcaste helped 
 me to polish the Sahib's table, and drew water and plucked 
 fowls. They have gone off together for all my beatings, 
 and now he sits among his devils dragging her soul to 
 the Pit. Up, Sahib, and come with me ! ' 
 
 He thrust a rifle into Gisborne's half-wakened hand 
 and almost dragged him from the room on to the 
 veranda. 
 
 *They are there in the rukh; even within gunshot of 
 the house. Come softly with me.' 
 
 210 
 
IN thp: rukh 
 
 ' But what is it? What is the trouble, Abdul? ' 
 
 'Mowgli, and his devils. Also my own daughter,' 
 said Abdul Gafur. Gisborne whistled and followed his 
 guide. Not for nothing, he knew, had Abdul Gafur 
 beaten his daughter of nights, and not for nothing had 
 Mowgli helped in the housework a man whom his own 
 powers, whatever those were, had convicted of theft. 
 Also, a forest wooing goes quickly. 
 
 There was the breathing of a flute in the rukh, as it 
 might have been the song of some wandering wood-god, 
 and, as they came nearer, a murmur of voices. The 
 path ended in a little semicircular glade walled partly 
 by high grass and partly by trees. In the centre, upon 
 a fallen trunk, his back to the w^atchers and his arm 
 round the neck of Abdul Gafur's daughter, sat Mowgli, 
 newly crowned with flowers, playing upon a rude bam- 
 boo flute, to whose music four huge wolves danced 
 solemnly on their hind legs. 
 
 'Those are his devils,' Abdul Gafur whispered. He 
 held a bunch of cartridges in his hand. The beasts 
 dropped to a long-drawn quavering note and lay still 
 with steady green eyes, glaring at the girl. 
 
 'Behold,' said MowgH, laying aside the flute. 'Is 
 there anything of fear in that? I told thee, little Stout- 
 heart, that there was not, and thou didst believe. Thy 
 father said — and oh, if thou couldst have seen thy father 
 being driven by the road of the nilghai! — thy father said 
 that they were devils; and by Allah, who is thy God, I 
 do not wonder that he so believed.' 
 
 The girl laughed a little rippling laugh, and Gisborne 
 heard Abdul grind his few remaining teeth. This was 
 not at all the girl that Gisborne had seen with a half-eye 
 slinking about the compound veiled and silent, but an- 
 
 211 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 other — a woman full blown in a night as the orchid puts 
 out in an hour's moist heat. 
 
 'But they are my playmates and my brothers, chil- 
 dren of that mother that gave me suck, as I told thee 
 behind the cook-house,' Mowgli went on. 'Children of 
 the father that lay between me and the cold at the mouth 
 of the cave when I was a little naked child. Look' — a 
 wolf raised his gray jowl, slavering at Mowgli' s knee — 
 *my brother knows that I speak of them. Yes, when I 
 was a little child he was a cub rolling with me on the 
 clay.' 
 
 'But thou hast said that thou art human-born,' cooed 
 the girl, nestling closer to the shoulder. 'Thou art 
 human-born?' 
 
 *Said! Nay, I know that I am human-born, because 
 my heart is in thy hold, little one.' Her head dropped 
 under Mowgli's chin. Gisborne put up a warning hand 
 to restrain Abdul Gafur, who was not in the least im- 
 pressed by the wonder of the sight. 
 
 'But I was a wolf among wolves none the less till a 
 time came when Those of the jungle bade me go because 
 I was a man.' 
 
 'Who bade thee go? That is not like a true man's 
 talk.' 
 
 ' The very beasts themselves. Little one, thou wouldst 
 never believe that telling, but so it was. The beasts of 
 the jungle bade me go, but these four followed me be- 
 cause I was their brother. Then was I a herder of cattle 
 among men, having learned their language. Ho! ho! 
 The herds paid toll to my brothers, till a woman, an old 
 woman, beloved, saw me playing by night with my 
 brethren in the crops. They said that I was possessed 
 of devils, and drove me from that village with sticks and 
 
 212 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 stones, and the four came with me by stealth and not 
 openly. That was when I had learned to eat cooked 
 meat and to talk boldly. From village to village I went, 
 heart of my heart, a herder of cattle, a tender of buffaloes, 
 a tracker of game, but there was no man that dared lift 
 a fmger against me twice.' He stooped down and patted 
 one of the heads. 'Do thou also like this. There is 
 neither hurt nor magic in them. See, they know thee.' 
 
 'The woods are full of all manner of devils,' said the 
 girl with a shudder. 
 
 'A lie. A child's lie,' Mowgli returned confidently. 
 *I have lain out in the dew under the stars and in the 
 dark night, and I know. The jungle is my house. 
 Shall a man fear his own roof-beams or a woman her 
 man's hearth? Stoop down and pat them.' 
 
 'They are dogs and unclean,' she murmured, bending 
 forward with averted head. 
 
 ' Having eaten the fruit, now we remember the Law ! ' 
 said Abdul Gafur bitterly. 'What is the need of this 
 waiting. Sahib? Kill!' 
 
 *H'sh, thou. Let us learn what has happened,' said 
 Gisborne. 
 
 'That is well done,' said Mowgli, slipping his arm 
 round the girl again. ' Dogs or no dogs, they were with 
 me through a thousand villages.' 
 
 *Ahi, and where was thy heart then? Through a 
 thousand villages. Thou hast seen a thousand maids. 
 I — that am — that am a maid no more, have I thy heart?' 
 
 'What shall I swear by? By Allah, of whom thou 
 speakest?' 
 
 'Nay, by the life that is in thee, and I am well content. 
 Where was thy heart in those days?* 
 
 Mowgli laughed a little. * In my belly, because I was 
 
 213 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 young and always hungry. So I learned to track and to 
 hunt, sending and calling my brothers back and forth as 
 a king calls his armies. Therefore I drove the nilghai 
 for the foolish young Sahib, and the big fat mare for the 
 big fat Sahib, when they questioned my power. It were 
 as easy to have driven the men themselves. Even now,' 
 his voice lifted a little — 'even now I know^ that behind 
 me stand thy father and Gisborne Sahib. Nay, do not 
 run, for no ten men dare move a paceforw^ard. Remem- 
 bering that thy father beat thee more than once, shall I 
 give the word and drive him again in rings through the 
 rukh? ' A wolf stood up with bared teeth. 
 
 Gisborne felt Abdul Gafur tremble at his side. Next, 
 his place was empty, and the fat man was skimming 
 down the glade. 
 
 'Remains only Gisborne Sahib,' said MowgH, still 
 without turning; 'but I have eaten Gisborne Sahib's 
 bread, and presently I shall be in his service, and my 
 brothers will be his servants to drive game and carry the 
 news. Hide thou in the grass.' 
 
 The girl fled, the tall grass closed behind her and the 
 guardian wolf that followed, and Mowgli turning with 
 his three retainers faced Gisborne as the Forest OfTicer 
 came forward. 
 
 'That is all the magic,' he said, pointing to the three. 
 * The fat Sahib knew that we who are bred among wolves 
 run on our elbows and our knees for a season. Feeling 
 my arms and legs, he felt the truth which thou didst not 
 know. Is it so wonderful, Sahib? ' 
 
 * Indeed it is all more wonderful than magic. These 
 then drove the nilghai? ' 
 
 *Ay, as they would drive Eblis if I gave the order. 
 They are my eyes and feet to me.' 
 
 214 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 'Look to it, then, that Ebhs does not carry a double 
 rifle. They have yet something to learn, thy devils, for 
 they stand one behind the other, so that two shots would 
 kill the three.' 
 
 'Ah, but they know they will be thy servants as soon 
 as I am a forest-guard.' 
 
 ' Guard or no guard, Mowgli, thou hast done a great 
 shame to Abdul Gafur. Thou hast dishonoured his house 
 and blackened his face.' 
 
 ' For that, it was blackened when he took thy money, 
 and made blacker still when he whispered in thy ear a 
 little while since to kill a naked man. I myself will talk 
 to Abdul Gafur, for I am a man of the Government ser- 
 vice, with a pension. He shall make the marriage by 
 whatsoever rite he will, or he shall run once more. I 
 will speak to him in the dawn. For the rest, the Sahib 
 has his house and this is mine. It is time to sleep again. 
 Sahib.' 
 
 Mowgli turned on his heel and disappeared into the 
 grass, leaving Gisborne alone. The hint of the wood- 
 god was not to be mistaken; and Gisborne went back to 
 the bungalow, where Abdul Gafur, torn by rage and fear, 
 was raving in the veranda. 
 
 'Peace, peace,' said Gisborne, shaking him, for he 
 looked as though he were going to have a fit. ' MuUer 
 Sahib has made the man a forest-guard, and as thou 
 knowest there is a pension at the end of that business, 
 and it is Government service.' 
 
 'He is an outcaste — a mlech — a dog among dogs; an 
 eater of carrion ! What pension can pay for that? ' 
 
 * Allah knows; and thou hast heard that the mischief is 
 done. Wouldst thou blaze it to all the other servants? 
 Make the shadi swiftly, and the girl will make him a 
 
 215: 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Mussulman. He is very comely. Canst thou wonder 
 that after thy beatings she went to him? ' 
 
 'Did he say that he would chase me with his beasts?' 
 
 ' So it seemed to me. If he be a wizard, he is at least 
 a very strong one.' 
 
 Abdul Gafur thought awhile, and then broke down 
 and howled, forgetting that he was a Mussulman : — 
 
 'Thou art a Brahmin. I am thy cow. Make thou 
 the matter plain, and save my honour if it can be saved!' 
 
 A second time then Gisborne plunged into the rukh 
 and called Mowgli. The answer came from high over- 
 head, and in no submissive tones. 
 
 * Speak softly,' said Gisborne, looking up. 'There is 
 yet time to strip thee of thy place and hunt thee with 
 thy wolves. The girl must go back to her father's house 
 to-night. To-morrow there will be the shadi, by the 
 Mussulman law, and then thou canst take her away. 
 Bring her to Abdul Gafur.' 
 
 ' I hear.* There was a murmur of two voices confer- 
 ring among the leaves. *Also, we will obey — for the 
 last time.' 
 
 A year later Muller and Gisborne were riding through 
 the rukh together, talking of their business. They came 
 out among the rocks near the Kanye stream; Muller 
 riding a little in advance. Under the shade of a thorn 
 thicket sprawled a naked brown baby, and from the 
 brake immediately behind him peered the head of a gray 
 wolf. Gisborne had just time to strike up MuUer's rifle, 
 and the bullet tore spattering through the branches above. 
 
 * Are you mad? ' thundered Muller. * Look ! ' 
 
 'I see,' said Gisborne quietly. 'The mother's some- 
 where near. You'll wake the whole pack, by Jove I ' 
 
 216 
 
IN THE RUKH 
 
 The bushes parted once more, and a woman unveiled 
 snatched up the child. 
 
 'Who fired, Sahib?' she cried to Gisborne. 
 
 'This Sahib. He had not remembered thy man's 
 people.' 
 
 'Not remembered? But indeed it may be so, for we 
 who live with them forget that they are strangers at all. 
 Mowgli is down the stream catching fish. Does the 
 Sahib wish to see him? Come out, ye lacking manners. 
 Come out of the bushes, and make your service to the 
 Sahibs.' 
 
 MuUer's eyes grew rounder and rounder. He swung 
 himself off the plunging mare and dismounted, while the 
 jungle gave up four wolves that fawned round Gisborne. 
 The mother stood nursing her child and spurning them 
 aside as they brushed against her bare feet. 
 
 'You were quite right about Mowgli,' said Gisborne. 
 'I meant to have told you, but I've got so used to these 
 fellows in the last twelvemonths that it slipped my mind.' 
 
 'Oh, don't apologise,' said Muller. 'It's nothing. 
 Gott in Himmel! "Und I work miracles — und dey 
 come off too!" ' 
 
 217 
 
'BRUGGLESMITH' 
 
 (1891) 
 
 This day the ship went down, and all hands was 
 drowned but me. — Clark Russell. 
 
 THE first officer of the 'Breslau' asked me to 
 dinner on board, before the ship went round to 
 Southampton to pick up her passengers. The 
 *Breslau' was lying below London Bridge, her fore- 
 hatches opened for cargo, and her deck littered with nuts 
 and bolts, and screws and chains. The Black M'Phee 
 had been putting some finishing touches to his adored 
 engines, and M'Phee is the most tidy of chief engineers. 
 If the leg of a cockroach gets into one of his slide-valves 
 the whole ship knows it, and half the ship has to clean 
 up the mess. 
 
 After dinner, which the first officer, M'Phee, and I 
 ate in one little corner of the empty saloon, M'Phee re- 
 turned to the engine-room to attend to some brass- 
 fitters. The first officer and I smoked on the bridge and 
 watched the lights of the crowded shipping till it was 
 time for me to go home. It seemed, in the pauses of our 
 conversation, that I could catch an echo of fearful bel- 
 lowings from the engine-room, and the voice of M'Phee 
 singing of home and the domestic affections. 
 
 * M'Phee has a friend aboard to-night — a man who 
 was a boiler-maker at Greenock when M'Phee was a 
 
 ?18 
 
'BRUGGLESMITH' 
 
 'prentice,' said the first officer. 'I didn't ask him to 
 dine with us because — ' 
 
 'I see — I mean, I hear,' I answered. We talked on 
 for a few minutes longer, and M'Phee came up from the 
 engine-room with his frijend on his arm. 
 
 'Let me present ye to this gentleman,' said M'Phee. 
 'He's a great admirer o' your wor-rks. He has just 
 hearrd o' them.' 
 
 M'Phee could never pay a comphment prettily. The 
 friend sat down suddenly on a bollard, saying that 
 M'Phee had understated the truth. Personally, he 
 considered that Shakespeare was trembling in the bal- 
 ance solely on my account, and if the first officer wished 
 to dispute this he was prepared to fight the first officer 
 then or later, 'as per invoice.' 'Man, if ye only knew,' 
 said he, wagging his head, 'the times I've lain in my 
 lonely bunk reading "Vanity Fair" an' sobbin' — ay, 
 weepin' bitterly at the pure fascination of it.' 
 
 He shed a few tears for guarantee of good faith, and 
 the first officer laughed. M'Phee resettled the man's 
 hat, that had tilted over one eyebrow. 
 
 'That'll wear off in a little. It's just the smell o' the 
 engine-room,' said M'Phee. 
 
 'I think I'll wear off myself,' I whispered to the first 
 officer. I s the dinghy ready? ' 
 
 The dinghy was at the gangway, which was down, and 
 the first officer went forward to find a man to row me to 
 the bank. He returned with a very sleepy Lascar, who 
 knew the river. 
 
 * Are you going? ' said the man on the bollard. * Well, 
 I'll just see ye home. M'Phee, help me down the gang- 
 way. It has as many ends as a cat-o'-nine-tails, and — 
 losh! — how innumerable are the dinghies!' 
 
 219 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 'You'd better let him come with you,' said the first 
 officer. ' Muhammad Jan, put the drunk sahib ashore 
 first. Take the sober sahib to the next stairs.' 
 
 I had my foot in the bow of the dinghy, the tide was 
 making up-stream, when the man cannoned against me, 
 pushed the Lascar back on the gangway, cast loose the 
 painter, and the dinghy began to saw, stern-first, along 
 the side of the 'Breslau.' 
 
 'We'll have no exter-r-raneous races here,' said the 
 man. ' I've known the Thames for thirty years — ' 
 
 There was no time for argument. We were drifting 
 under the ' Breslau's' stern, and I knew that her propeller 
 was half out of water, in the middle of an inky tangle of 
 buoys, low-lying hawsers, and moored ships, with the 
 tide ripping through them. 
 
 ' What shall I do? ' I shouted to the first officer. 
 
 ' Find the Police Boat as soon as you can, and for God's 
 sake get some way on the dinghy. Steer with the oar. 
 The rudder's unshipped and — ' 
 
 I could hear no more. The dinghy slid away, bumped 
 on a mooring-buoy, swung round and jigged off irrespon- 
 sibly as I hunted for the oar. The man sat in the bow, 
 his chin on his hands, smiling. 
 
 'Row, you ruffian,' I said. 'Get her out into the 
 middle of the river — ' 
 
 'It's a preevilege to gaze on the face o' genius. Let 
 me go on thinking. There was "Little Bar-rnaby 
 Dorrit" and "The Mystery o' the Bleak Druid." I 
 sailed in a ship called the "Druid" once — badly found 
 she was. It all comes back to me so sweet. It all 
 comes back to me. Man, ye steer like a genius.' 
 
 We bumped round another mooring-buoy and drifted 
 on to the bows of a Norwegian timber-ship — I could see 
 
 220 
 
'BRUGGLESMITH' 
 
 the great square holes on either side of the cut-water. 
 Then we dived into a string of barges and scraped through 
 them by the paint on our planks. It was a consolation 
 to think that the dinghy was being reduced in value at 
 every bump, but the question before me was when she 
 would begin to leak. The man looked ahead into the 
 pitchy darkness and whistled. 
 
 ' Yon's a Castle liner; her ties are black. She's swing- 
 ing across stream. Keep her port light on our starboard 
 bow, and go large,' he said. 
 
 'How can I keep anything anywhere? You're sit- 
 ting on the oars. Row, man, if you don't want to 
 drown.' 
 
 He took the sculls, saying sweetly: 'No harm comes 
 to a drucken man. That's why I wished to come wi' 
 you. Man, ye're not fit to be alone in a boat.' 
 
 He flirted the dinghy round the big ship, and for the 
 next ten minutes I enjoyed — positively enjoyed — an 
 exhibition of first-class steering. We threaded in and 
 out of the mercantile marine of Great Britain as a ferret 
 threads a rabbit-hole, and we, he that is to say, sang 
 joyously to each ship till men looked over bulwarks and 
 cursed us. When we came to some moderately clear 
 water he gave the sculls to me, and said : 
 
 'If ye could row as ye write, I'd respect you for all 
 your vices. Yon's London Bridge. Take her through.' 
 
 We shot under the dark ringing arch, and came out 
 the other side, going up swiftly with the tide, chanting 
 songs of victory. Except that I wished to get home be- 
 fore morning, I was growing reconciled to the jaunt. 
 There were one or two stars visible, and by keeping into 
 the centre of the stream, we could not come to any very 
 serious danger. 
 
 221 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 The man began to sing loudly: — 
 
 'The smartest cHpper that you could find, 
 
 Yoho! Oho! 
 Was the " Marg'ret Evans" of the Black X Line, 
 
 A hundred years ago! 
 
 Incorporate that in your next book, which is marvellous.' 
 Here he stood up in the bows and declaimed : — 
 
 'Ye Towers o' Julia, London's lasting wrong, 
 By mony a foul an' midnight murder fed — 
 Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song — 
 And yon's the grave as little as my bed. 
 
 I'm a poet mysel' an' I can feel for others.' 
 
 ' Sit down,' said I. ' You'll have the boat over.' 
 'Ay, I'm settin' — settin' like a hen.' He plumped 
 
 down heavily, and added, shaking his forefinger at me : — 
 
 ' Lear-rn, prudent, cautious self-control 
 Is wisdom's root. 
 
 How did a man o' your parts come to be so drunk? Oh, 
 it's a sinfu' thing, an' ye may thank God on all fours 
 that I'm with you. What's yon boat? ' 
 
 We had drifted far up the river, and a boat manned 
 by four men, who rowed with a soothingly regular stroke, 
 was overhauling us. 
 
 * It's the River Police,' I said at the top of my voice. 
 *0h ay! If your sin do not find you out on dry land, 
 
 it will find you out in the deep waters. Is it like they'll 
 give us drink? ' 
 
 * Exceedingly likely . I'll hail them.' I hailed. 
 
 * What are you doing? ' was the answer from the boat. 
 
 222 
 
'BRUGGLESMITH' 
 
 'It's the "Breslau's" dinghy broken loose,' I began. 
 
 'It's a vara drunken man broke loose,' roared my 
 companion, 'and I'm taking him home by water, for he 
 cannot stand on dry land.' Here he shouted my name 
 twenty times running, and I could feel the blushes rac- 
 ing over my body three deep. 
 
 'You'll be locked up in ten minutes, my friend,' I said, 
 'and I don't think you'll be bailed either.' 
 
 'H'sh, man, h'sh. They think I'm your uncle.' He 
 caught up a scull and began splashing the boat as it 
 ranged alongside. 
 
 'You're a nice pair,' said the sergeant at last. 
 
 'I am anything you please so long as you take this 
 fiend away. Tow us in to the nearest station, and I'll 
 make it worth your while,' I said. 
 
 'Corruption — corruption,' roared the man, throwing 
 himself flat in the bottom of the boat. ' Like unto the 
 worms that perish, so is man! And all for the sake of a 
 filthy half-crown to be arrested by the river police at my 
 time o' life!' 
 
 'For pity's sake, row,' I shouted. 'The man's drunk.' 
 
 They rowed us to a flat — a fire or a police station ; it 
 was too dark to see which. I could feel that they regarded 
 me in no better light than the other man. I could not 
 explain, for I was holding the far end of the painter, and 
 feeling cut off from all respectability. 
 
 We got out of the boat, my companion falling flat on 
 his wicked face, and the sergeant asked us rude ques- 
 tions about the dinghy. My companion washed his 
 hands of all responsibility. He was an old man; he had 
 been lured into a stolen boat by a young man — prob- 
 ably a thief — he had saved the boat from wreck (this was 
 absolutely true), and now he expected salvage in the 
 
 223 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 shape of hot whisky and water. The sergeant turned 
 to me. Fortunately, I was in evening dress, and had a 
 card to show. More fortunately still, the sergeant hap- 
 pened to know the 'Breslau' and M'Phee. He prom- 
 ised to send the dinghy down next tide, and was not 
 beyond accepting my thanks, in silver. 
 
 As this was satisfactorily arranged, I heard my com- 
 panion say angrily to a constable, ' If you will na give it to 
 a dry man, ye maun to a drookit.' Then he walked de- 
 liberately off the edge of the flat into the water. Somebody 
 stuck a boat-hook into his clothes and hauled him out. 
 
 'Now,' said he triumphantly, 'under the rules o' the 
 R-royal Humane Society, ye must give me hot whisky 
 and water. Do not put temptation before the laddie. 
 He's my nephew an' a good boy i' the main. Tho' why 
 he should masquerade as Mister Thackeray on the high 
 seas is beyond my comprehension. Oh the vanity o' 
 youth! M'Phee told me ye were as vain as a peacock. 
 I mind that now.' 
 
 'You had better give him something to drink and 
 wrap him up for the night. I don't know who he is,' I 
 said desperately, and when the man had settled down to 
 a drink supplied on my representations, I escaped and 
 found that I was near a bridge. 
 
 I went towards Fleet Street, intending to take a han- 
 som and go home. After the first feeling of indignation 
 died out, the absurdity of the experience struck me fully 
 and I began to laugh aloud in the empty streets, to the 
 scandal of a policeman. The more I reflected the more 
 heartily I laughed, till my mirth was quenched by a 
 hand on my shoulder, and turning I saw him who should 
 have been in bed at the river police-station. He was 
 damp all over; his wet silk hat rode far at the back of 
 
 224 
 
'BRUGGLESMITH' 
 
 his head, and round his shoulders hung a striped yellow 
 blanket, evidently the property of the State. 
 
 ' The crackling o' thorns under a pot,' said he, solemnly. 
 'Laddie, have ye not thought o' the sin of idle laughter? 
 My heart misgave me that ever ye'd get home, an' I've 
 just come to convoy you a piece. They're sore unedu- 
 cate down there by the river. They wouldna listen to 
 me when I talked o' your worrks, so I e'en left them. 
 Cast the blanket about you, laddie. It's fine and cold.' 
 
 I groaned inwardly. Providence evidently intended 
 that I should frolic through eternity with M'Phee's in- 
 famous acquaintance. 
 
 'Go away,' I said; 'go home, or I'll give you in charge!' 
 
 He leaned against a lamp-post and laid his finger to 
 his nose — his dishonourable, carnelian neb. 
 
 ' I mind now that M'Phee told me ye were vainer than 
 a peacock, an' your castin' me adrift in a boat shows ye 
 were drunker than an owl. A good name is as a savoury 
 bakemeat. I ha' nane.' He smacked his lips joyously. 
 
 'Well, I know that,' I said. 
 
 'Ay, but ye have. I mind now that M'Phee spoke o' 
 your reputation that you're so proud of. Laddie, if ye 
 gie me in charge — I'm old enough to be your father — I'll 
 bla-ast your reputation as far as my voice can carry; for 
 I'll call you by name till the cows come hame. It's no 
 jestin' matter to be a friend to me. If you discard my 
 friendship, ye must come to Vine Street wi' me for steal- 
 in' the "Breslau's" dinghy.' 
 
 Then he sang at the top of his voice : — 
 
 ' In the morrnin' 
 r the morrnin' by the black van — 
 We'll toodle up to Vine Street i' the morrnin' ! 
 
 225 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Yon's my own composeetion, but I'm not vain. We'll 
 go home together, laddie, we'll go home together.' And 
 he sang ' Auld Lang Syne' to show that he meant it. 
 
 A policeman suggested that we had better move on, 
 and we moved on to the Law Courts near St. Clement 
 Danes. My companion w^as quieter now, and his speech, 
 which up till that time had been distinct — it was a marvel 
 to hear how in his condition he could talk dialect — began 
 to slur and slide and slummock. He bade me observe the 
 architecture of the Law Courts and linked himself lov- 
 ingly to my arm. Then he saw a policeman, and before 
 I could shake him off, whirled me up to the man singing : — 
 
 ' Every member of the Force 
 
 Has a watch and chain of course — ' 
 
 and threw his dripping blanket over the helmet of the 
 Law. In any other country in the world we should have 
 run an exceedingly good chance of being shot, or dirked, 
 or clubbed — and clubbing is worse than being shot. But 
 I reflected in that wet-cloth tangle that this was England, 
 where the police are made to be banged and battered 
 and bruised, that they may the better endure a police- 
 court reprimand next morning. We three fell in a fes- 
 toon, he calling on me by name — that was the tingling 
 horror of it — to sit on the policeman's head and cut the 
 traces. I wriggled clear first and shouted to the police- 
 man to kill the blanket-man. 
 
 Naturally the policeman answered: 'You're as bad as 
 'im,' and chased me, as the smaller man, round St. 
 Clement Danes into Holywell Street, where I ran into 
 the arms of another policeman. That flight could not 
 have lasted more than a minute and a half, but it seemed 
 
 226 
 
'BRUGGLESMITH' 
 
 to me as long and as wearisome as the foot-bound flight 
 of a nightmare. I had leisure to think of a thousand 
 things as I ran; but most I thought of the great and god- 
 like man who held a sitting in the north gallery of St. 
 Clement Danes a hundred odd years ago. I know that 
 he at least would have felt for me. So occupied was I 
 with these considerations, that when the other police- 
 man hugged me to his bosom and said : ' What are you 
 tryin' to do?' I answered with exquisite pohteness: 'Sir, 
 let us take a walk down Fleet Street.' 'Bow Street'U 
 do your business, I think,' was the answer, and for a 
 moment I thought so too, till it seemed I might scuffle 
 out of it. Then there was a hideous scene, and it was 
 complicated by my companion hurrying up with the 
 blanket and telling me — always by name — that he would 
 rescue me or perish in the attempt. 
 
 'Knock him down,' I pleaded. 'Club his head open 
 first and I'll explain afterwards.' 
 
 The first policeman, the one who had been outraged, 
 drew his truncheon and cut at my companion's head. 
 The high silk hat crackled and the owner dropped like a 
 log. 
 
 'Now you've done it,' I said. 'You've probably 
 killed him.' 
 
 Holywell Street never goes to bed. A small crowd 
 gathered on the spot and some one of German extrac- 
 tion shrieked: 'You haf killed the man.' 
 
 Another cried: 'Take his bloomin' number. I saw 
 him strook cruel 'ard. Yah!' 
 
 Now the street was empty when the trouble began, 
 and, saving the two policemen and myself, no one had 
 seen the blow. I said, therefore, in a loud and cheerful 
 voice : — 
 
 227 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 * The man's a friend of mine. He's fallen down in a fit. 
 Bobby, will you bring the ambulance?' Under my 
 breath I added : ' It's five shillings apiece, and the man 
 didn't hit you.' 
 
 'No, but 'im and you tried to scrob me,' said the po- 
 liceman. 
 
 This was not a thing to argue about. 
 
 ' Is Dempsey on duty at Charing Cross?' I said. 
 
 'Wot d'you know of Dempsey, you bloomin' garrot- 
 ter?' said the policeman. 
 
 'If Dempsey's there, he knows me. Get the am- 
 bulance quick, and I'll take him to Charing Cross.' 
 
 'You're coming to Bow Street, you are,' said the po- 
 liceman crisply. 
 
 'The man's dying' — he lay groaning on the pavement 
 — 'get the ambulance,' said I. 
 
 There is an ambulance at the back of St. Clement 
 Danes, whereof I know more than most people. The 
 policeman seemed to possess the keys of the box in which 
 it lived. We trundled it out — it was a three-wheeled 
 affair with a hood — and we bundled the body of the man 
 upon it. 
 
 A body in an ambulance looks very extremely dead. 
 The policemen softened at the sight of the stiff boot- 
 heels. 
 
 'Now then,' said they, and I fancied that they still 
 meant Bow Street. 
 
 ' Let me see Dempsey for three minutes if he*s on duty,' 
 I answered. 
 
 'Very good. He is.' 
 
 Then I knew that all would be well, but before we 
 started I put my head under the ambulance-hood to see if 
 the man were alive. A guarded whisper came to my ear. 
 
 228 
 
'BRUGGLESMITH' 
 
 * Laddie, you maun pay me for a new hat. They've 
 broken it. Dinna desert me now, laddie. I'm o'er old 
 to go to Bow Street in my gray hairs for a fault of yours. 
 Laddie, dinna desert me.' 
 
 'You'll be lucky if you get off under seven years,' I 
 said to the policeman. 
 
 Moved by a very lively fear of having exceeded their 
 duty, the two policemen left their beats, and the mourn- 
 ful procession wound down the empty Strand. Once 
 west of the Adelphi, I knew I should be in my own coun- 
 try; and the policemen had reason to know that too, for 
 as I was pacing proudly a little ahead of the catafalque, 
 another policeman said 'Good-night, sir,' to me as he 
 passed. 
 
 'Now, you see,' I said, with condescension, ' I wouldn't 
 be in your shoes for something. On my word, I've a 
 great mind to march you two down to Scotland Yard.' 
 
 'If the gentleman's a friend o' yours, per'aps — 'said 
 the policeman who had given the blow, and was reflect- 
 ing on the consequences. 
 
 'Perhaps you'd like me to go away and say nothing 
 about it,' I said. Then there hove into view the figure 
 of Constable Dempsey, glittering in his oil-skins, and an 
 angel of light to me. I had known him for months; he 
 was an esteemed friend of mine, and we used to talk to- 
 gether in the early mornings. The fool seeks to ingra- 
 tiate himself with Princes and Ministers; and courts and 
 cabinets leave him to perish miserably. The wise man 
 makes allies among the police and the hansoms, so that 
 his friends spring up from the round-house and the cab- 
 rank, and even his offences become triumphal proces- 
 sions. 
 
 * Dempsey,' said I, 'have the police been on strike 
 
 229 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 again? They've put some things on duty at St. Clement 
 Danes that want to take me to Bow Street for garrot- 
 ting.' 
 
 'Lor, sir!' said Dempsey indignantly. 
 
 'Tell them I'm not a garrotter, nor a thief. It's sim- 
 ply disgraceful that a gentleman can't walk down the 
 Strand without being man-handled by these roughs. 
 One of them has done his best to kill my friend here; and 
 I'm taking the body home. Speak for me, Dempsey.' 
 
 There was no time for the much-misrepresented po- 
 licemen to say a word. Dempsey spoke to them in lan- 
 guage calculated to frighten. They tried to explain, 
 but Dempsey launched into a glowing catalogue of my 
 virtues, as noted by gas in the early hours. 'And,' he 
 concluded vehemently, ' 'e writes for the papers, too. 
 How'd you like to be written about in the papers — in 
 verse, too, which is 'is 'abit. You leave 'im alone. 
 'Im an' me have been friends for months.' 
 
 'What about the dead man?' said the policeman who 
 had not given the blow. 
 
 'I'll tell you,' I said relenting, and to the three police- 
 men under the lights of Charing Cross assembled, I re- 
 counted faithfully and at length the adventures of the 
 night, beginning with the 'Breslau' and ending at St. 
 Clement Danes. I described the sinful old ruffian in the 
 ambulance in words that made him wriggle where he lay, 
 and never since the Metropolitan Police was founded 
 did three policemen laugh as those three laughed. The 
 Strand echoed to it, and the unclean birds of the night 
 stood and wondered. 
 
 *0h lor'!' said Dempsey, wiping his eyes, 'I'd ha' 
 given anything to see that old man runnin' about with a 
 wet blanket an' all ! Excuse me, sir, but you ought to 
 
 230 
 
•BHUGGLESMnir 
 
 get took up every night for to make us 'appy.' He dis- 
 solved into fresh guffaws. 
 
 There was a chnking of silver and the two policemen 
 of St. Clement Danes hurried back to their beats, laugh- 
 ing as they ran. 
 
 'Take 'im to Charing Cross,' said Dempsey between 
 shouts. 'They'll send the ambulance back in the morn- 
 ing.' 
 
 'Laddie, ye've misca'ed me shameful names, but I'm 
 o'er old to go to a hospital. Dinna desert me, laddie. 
 Tak me home to my wife,' said the voice in the ambu- 
 lance. 
 
 'He's none so bad. 'Is wife'll comb 'is hair for 'im 
 proper,' said Dempsey, who was a married man. 
 
 'Where d'you live?' I demanded. 
 
 'Brugglesmith,' was the answer. 
 
 'What's that?' I said to Dempsey, more skilled than 
 I in portmanteau-words. 
 
 'Brook Green, 'Ammersmith,' Dempsey translated 
 promptly. 
 
 'Of course,' I said. 'That's just the sort of place he 
 would choose to live in. I only wonder that it was not 
 Kew.' 
 
 'Are you going to wheel him 'ome, sir,' said Dempsey. 
 
 ' I'd wheel him home if he lived in — Paradise. He's 
 not going to get out of this ambulance while I'm here. 
 He'd drag me into a murder for tuppence.' 
 
 'Then strap 'im up an' make sure,' said Dempsey, 
 and he deftly buckled two straps that hung by the side 
 of the ambulance over the man's body. Brugglesmith 
 — I know not his other name — was sleeping deeply. He 
 even smiled in his sleep. 
 
 'That's all right,' said Dempsey, and I moved off, 
 
 231 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 wheeling my devil's perambulator before me. Trafal- 
 gar Square was empty except for the few that slept in 
 the open. One of these wretches ranged alongside and 
 begged for money, asserting that he had been a gentle- 
 man once. 
 
 'So have I,' I said. 'That was long ago. I'll give 
 you a shilling if you'll help me to push this thing.' 
 
 'Is it a murder?' said the vagabond, shrinking back. 
 ' I've not got to that yet.' 
 
 'No, it's going to be one,' I answered. ' I have.' 
 
 The man slunk back into the darkness and I pressed 
 on, through Cockspur Street, and up to Piccadilly Circus, 
 wondering what I should do with my treasure. All 
 London was asleep, and I had only this drunken carcase 
 to bear me company. It was silent — silent as chaste 
 Piccadilly. A young man of my acquaintance came 
 out of a pink brick club as I passed. A faded carnation 
 drooped from his button-hole; he had been playing 
 cards, and was walking home before the dawn, when he 
 overtook me. 
 
 'What are you doing?' he said. 
 
 I was far beyond any feeling of shame. 'It's for a 
 bet,' said I. ' Come and help.' 
 
 'Laddie, who's yon?' said the voice beneath the hood. 
 
 'Good Lord!' said the young man, leaping across the 
 pavement. Perhaps card-losses had told on his nerves. 
 Mine were steel that night. 
 
 'The Lord, The Lord?' the passionless, incurious voice 
 went on. ' Dinna be profane, laddie. He'll come in His 
 ain good time.' 
 
 The young man looked at me with horror. 
 
 'It's all part of the bet,' I answered. 'Do come and 
 push!' 
 
 232 
 
*BRUGGLESMITH' 
 
 *W — where are you going to?' said he. 
 
 *Brugglesmith,' said the voice within. 'Laddie, d'ye 
 ken my wife? ' 
 
 'No,' said I. 
 
 'Well, she's just a tremenjus wumman. Laddie, I 
 want a drink. Knock at one o' those braw houses, lad- 
 die, an' — an' — ye may kiss the girrl for your pains.' 
 
 'Lie still, or I'll gag you,' I said, savagely. 
 
 The young man with the carnation crossed to the 
 other side of Piccadilly, and hailed the only hansom visi- 
 ble for miles. What he thought I cannot tell. 
 
 I pressed on — wheeling, eternally wheeling — to Brook 
 Green, Hammersmith. There I would abandon Brug- 
 glesmith to the gods of that desolate land. We had 
 been through so much together that I could not leave 
 him bound in the street. Besides, he would call after 
 me, and oh! it is a shameful thing to hear one's name 
 ringing down the emptiness of London in the dawn. 
 
 So I went on, past Apsley House, even to the cof- 
 fee-stall, but there was no coffee for Brugglesmith. 
 And into Knightsbridge — respectable Knightsbridge — I 
 wheeled my burden, the body of Brugglesmith. 
 
 'Laddie, what are ye going to do wi' me?' he said 
 when opposite the barracks. 
 
 'Kill you,' I said briefly, 'or hand you over to your 
 wife. Be quiet.' 
 
 He would not obey. He talked incessantly — sliding 
 in one sentence from clear-cut dialect to wild and drunken 
 jumble. At the Albert Hall he said that I was the 
 'Hattle Gardle buggle,' which I apprehend is the Hatton 
 Garden burglar. At Kensington High Street he loved 
 me as a son, but when my weary legs came to the Addi- 
 son Road Bridge he implored me with tears to unloose 
 
 233 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 the straps and to fight against the sin of vanity. No 
 man molested us. It was as though a bar had been set 
 between myself and all humanity till I had cleared my 
 account with Brugglesmith. The glimmering of light 
 grew in the sky; the cloudy brown of the wood pavement 
 turned to heather-purple; I made no doubt that I should 
 be allowed vengeance on Brugglesmith ere the evening. 
 
 At Hammersmith the heavens were steel-gray, and 
 the day came weeping. All the tides of the sadness of 
 an unprofitable dawning poured into the soul of Bruggle- 
 smith. He wept bitterly, because the puddles looked 
 cold and houseless. I entered a half-waked public- 
 house — in evening dress and an ulster, I marched to the 
 bar — and got him whisky on condition that he should 
 cease kicking at the canvas of the ambulance. Then he 
 wept more bitterly, for that he had ever been associated 
 with me, and so seduced into stealing the 'Breslau's' 
 dinghy. 
 
 The day was white and wan when I reached my long 
 journey's end, and, putting back the hood, bade Brug- 
 glesmith declare where he lived. His eyes wandered dis- 
 consolately round the red and gray houses till they fell on 
 a villa in whose garden stood a staggering board with the 
 legend 'To Let.' It needed only this to break him down 
 utterly, and with the breakage fled his fine fluency in his 
 guttural northern tongue; for liquor levels all. 
 
 'Olely HI while,' he sobbed. 'Olely lil while. Home 
 — falmy — besht of falmies — wife too — ^you dole know 
 my wife! Left them all a lil while ago. Now eT'ery- 
 thmg's sold — all sold. Wife — falmy — all sold. Lem- 
 megellup ! ' 
 
 I unbuckled the straps cautiously. Brugglesmith 
 rolled off his resting-place and staggered to the house. 
 
 234 
 
'BRUGGLESiMITH' 
 
 'Wattle I do?' he said. 
 
 Then I understood the baser depths in the mind of 
 Mephistopheles. 
 
 'Ring,' I said; 'perhaps they are in the attic or the 
 cellar.' 
 
 'You do' know my wife. She shleeps on soful in the 
 dorlin' room, waiting meculhome. You do' know my 
 wife.' 
 
 He took off his boots, covered them with his tall hat, 
 and craftily as a Red Indian picked his way up the gar- 
 den path and smote the bell marked 'Visitors' a severe 
 blow with the clenched fist. 
 
 'Bell sole too. Sole electick bell! Wassor bell this? 
 I can't riggle bell,' he moaned despairingly. 
 
 'You pull it — pull it hard,' I repeated, keeping a wary 
 eye down the road. Vengeance was coming and I de- 
 sired no witnesses. 
 
 'Yes, I'll pull it hard.' He slapped his forehead with 
 inspiration. ' I'll put it out.' 
 
 Leaning back he grasped the knob with both hands 
 and pulled. A wild ringing in the kitchen was his an- 
 swer. Spitting on his hands he pulled with renewed 
 strength, and shouted for his wife. Then he bent his 
 ear to the knob, shook his head, drew out an enormous 
 yellow and red handkerchief, tied it round the knob, 
 turned his back to the door, and pulled over his shoulder. 
 
 Either the handkerchief or the wire, it seemed to me, 
 was bound to give way. But I had forgotten the bell. 
 Something cracked in the kitchen, and Brugglesmith 
 moved slowly down the doorsteps, pulling valiantly. 
 Three feet of wire followed him. 
 
 * Pull, oh pull ! ' I cried. ' It's coming now.' 
 
 ' Qui' ri',' he said. ' I'll riggle bell.' 
 
 235 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 He bowed forward, the wire creaking and straining 
 behind him, the bell-knob clasped to his bosom, and 
 from the noises within I fancied the bell was taking away 
 with it half the woodwork of the kitchen and all the 
 basement banisters. 
 
 'Get a purchase on her,' I shouted, and he spun round, 
 lapping that good copper wire about him. I opened the 
 garden gate politely, and he passed out, spinning his own 
 cocoon. Still the bell came up, hand over hand, and 
 still the wire held fast. He was in the middle of the road, 
 now, whirling like an impaled cockchafer, and shouting 
 madly for his wife and family. There he met with the 
 ambulance, the bell within the house gave one last peal, 
 and bounded from the far end of the hall to the inner 
 side of the hall-door, where it stayed fast. So did not 
 my friend Brugglesmith. He fell upon his face, em- 
 bracing the ambulance as he did so, and the two turned 
 over together in the toils of the never-sufTiciently-to-be- 
 advertised copper wire. 
 
 'Laddie,' he gasped, his speech returning, 'have I a 
 legal remedy? ' 
 
 *I will go and look for one,' I said, and, departing, 
 found two policemen. These I told that daylight had 
 surprised a burglar in Brook Green while he was engaged 
 in stealing lead from an empty house. Perhaps they 
 had better take care of that bootless thief. He seemed 
 to be in difficulties. 
 
 I led the way to the spot, and behold ! in the splen- 
 dour of the dawning, the ambulance, wheels uppermost, 
 was walking down the muddy road on two stockinged 
 feet — was shuffling to and fro in a quarter of a circle 
 whose radius was copper wire, and whose centre was the 
 bell-plate of the empty house. 
 
 236 
 
'BRUGGLESMITH' 
 
 Next to the amazing ingenuity with which Bruggle- 
 smith had contrived to lash himself underthe ambulance, 
 the thing that appeared to impress the constables most 
 was the fact of the St. Clement Danes ambulance being 
 at Brook Green, Hammersmith. 
 
 They even asked me, of all people in the world, 
 whether I knew anything about it! 
 
 They extricated him; not without pain and dirt. He 
 explained that he was repelling boarding-attacks by a 
 'Hattle Gardle buggle' who had sold his house, wife, and 
 family. As to the bell-wire, he offered no explanation, 
 and was borne off shoulder-high between the two police- 
 men. Though his feet were not within six inches of the 
 ground, they paddled swiftly, and I saw that in his 
 magnificent mind he was running — furiously running. 
 
 Sometimes I have wondered whether he wished to 
 find me. 
 
 237 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 (1893) 
 
 'A lamentable tale of things 
 Done long ago, and ill done.' 
 
 THE horror, the confusion, and the separation of 
 the murderer from his comrades were all over be- 
 fore I came. There remained only on the bar- 
 rack-square the blood of man calling from the ground. 
 The hot sun had dried it to a dusky goldbeater-skin film, 
 cracked lozenge-wise by the heat; and as the wind rose, 
 each lozenge, rising a little, curled up at the edges as if it 
 were a dumb tongue. Then a heavier gust blew all 
 away down wind in grains of dark-coloured dust. It 
 was too hot to stand in the sunshine before breakfast. 
 The men were in barracks talking the matter over. A 
 knot of soldiers' wives stood by one of the entrances to 
 the married quarters, while inside a woman shrieked 
 and raved with wicked filthy words. 
 
 A quiet and well-conducted sergeant had shot down, 
 in broad daylight just after early parade, one of his own 
 corporals, had then returned to barracks and sat on a 
 cot till the guard came for him. He Would, therefore, in 
 due time be handed over to the High Court for trial. 
 Further, but this he could hardly have considered in his 
 scheme of revenge, he would horribly upset my work; 
 
 238 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 for Ihc reporting of that trial would fall on me without a 
 relief. What that trial would be like I knew even to 
 weariness. There would be the rifle carefully uncleaned, 
 with the fouling marks about breech and muzzle, to be 
 sworn to by half a dozen superfluous privates; there 
 would be heat, reeking heat, till the wet pencil slipped 
 sideways between the fingers; and the punkah would 
 swish and the pleaders would jabber in the verandas, and 
 his Commanding Officer would put in certificates to the 
 prisoner's moral character, while the jury would pant 
 and the summer uniforms of the witnesses would smell 
 of dye and soaps; and some abject barrack-sweeper 
 would lose his head in cross-examination, and the young 
 barrister who always defended soldiers' cases for the 
 credit that they never brought him, would say and do 
 wonderful things, and would then quarrel with me be- 
 cause I had not reported him correctly. At the last, for 
 he surely would not be hanged, I might meet the pris- 
 oner again, ruling blank account-forms in the Central 
 Jail, and cheer him with the hope of his being made a 
 warder in the Andamans. 
 
 The Indian Penal Code and its interpreters do not 
 treat murder, under any provocation whatever, in a 
 spirit of jest. Sergeant Raines would be very lucky 
 indeed if he got off with seven years, I thought. He 
 had slept the night upon his wrongs, and killed his man 
 at twenty yards before any talk was possible. That 
 much I knew. Unless, therefore, the case was doctored 
 a little, seven years would be his least; and I fancied it 
 was exceedingly well for Sergeant Raines that he had 
 been liked by his Company. 
 
 That same evening — no day is so long as the day of a 
 murder — I met Ortheris with the dogs, and he plunged 
 
 239 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 defiantly into the middle of the matter. 'I'll be one o' 
 the witnesses,' said he. 'I was in the veranda when 
 Mackie come along. 'E come from Mrs. Raines's quar- 
 ters. Quigley, Parsons, an' Trot, they was in the inside 
 veranda, so they couldn't 'ave 'card nothing. Sergeant 
 Raines was in the veranda talkin' to me, an' Mackie 'e 
 come along acrost the square an' 'e sez, "Well," sez 'e, 
 '"ave they pushed your 'elmet off yet. Sergeant?" 'e 
 sez. An' at that Raines 'e catches 'is breath an' 'e sez, 
 "My Gawd, I can't stand this!" sez 'e, an' 'e picks up 
 my rifle an' shoots Mackie. See? ' 
 
 'But what were you doing with your rifle in the outer 
 veranda an hour after parade?' 
 
 'Cleanin' 'er,' said Ortheris, with the sullen brassy 
 stare that always went with his choicer lies. 
 
 He might as well have said that he was dancing naked, 
 for at no time did his rifle need hand or rag on her twenty 
 minutes after parade. Still, the High Court would not 
 know his routine. 
 
 *Are you going to stick to that — on the Book?' I 
 asked. 
 
 'Yes. Like a bloomin' leech.' 
 
 'All right, I don't want to know any more. Only re- 
 member that Quigley, Parsons, and Trot couldn't have 
 been where you say without hearing something; and 
 there's nearly certain to be a barrack-sweeper who was 
 knocking about the square at the time. There always 
 is.' 
 
 ' 'Twasn't the sweeper. It was the beastie. 'E's 
 all right.' 
 
 Then I knew that there was going to be some spirited 
 doctoring, and I felt sorry for the Government Advo- 
 cate who would conduct the prosecution. 
 
 240 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 When the trial came on I pitied him more, for he was 
 always quick to lose his temper and made a personal 
 matter of each lost cause. Raines's young barrister had 
 for once put aside his unslaked and welling passion for 
 alibis and insanity, had forsworn gymnastics and fire- 
 works, and worked soberly for his client. Mercifully 
 the hot weather was yet young, and there had been no 
 flagrant cases of barrack-shootings up to the time; and 
 the jury was a good one, even for an Indian jury, where 
 nine men out of every twelve are accustomed to weigh- 
 ing evidence. Ortheris stood firm and was not shaken 
 by any cross-examination. The one weak point in his 
 tale — the presence of his rifle in the outer veranda — 
 went unchallenged by civilian wisdom, though some of 
 the witnesses could not help smiling. The Government 
 Advocate called for the rope, contending throughout 
 that the murder had been a deliberate one. Time had 
 passed, he argued, for that reflection which comes so 
 naturally to a man whose honour is lost. There was 
 also the Law, ever ready and anxious to right the wrongs 
 of the common soldier if, indeed, wrong had been done. 
 But he doubted much whether there had been any suffi- 
 cient wrong. Causeless suspicion over-long brooded 
 upon had led, by his theory, to deliberate crime. But 
 his attempts to minimise the motive failed. The most 
 disconnected witness knew — had known for weeks — the 
 causes of offence; and the prisoner, who naturally was 
 the last of all to know, groaned in the dock while he lis- 
 tened. The one question that the trial circled round 
 was whether Raines had fired under sudden and blind- 
 ing provocation given that very morning; and in the 
 summing-up it was clear that Ortheris's evidence told. 
 He had contrived most artistically to suggest that he 
 
 241 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 personally hated the Sergeant, who had come into the 
 veranda to give him a talking to for insubordination. 
 In a weak moment the Government Advocate asked one 
 question too many. 'Beggin' your pardon, sir,' Or- 
 theris replied, ' 'e was callin' me a dam' impudent little 
 lawyer.' The Court shook. The jury brought it in a 
 killing, but with every provocation and extenuation 
 known to God or man, and the Judge put his hand to his 
 brow before giving sentence, and the Adam's apple in 
 the prisoner's throat went up and down like mercury 
 pumping before a cyclone. 
 
 In consideration of all considerations, from his Com- 
 manding Officer's certificate of good conduct to the sure 
 loss of pension, service, and honour, the prisoner would 
 get two years, to be served in India, and — there need be 
 no demonstration in Court. The Government Advocate 
 scowled and picked up his papers; the guard wheeled 
 with a clash, and the prisoner was relaxed to the Secular 
 Arm, and driven to the jail in a broken-down ticca- 
 gharri. 
 
 His guard and some ten or twelve military witnesses, 
 being less important, were ordered to wait till what was 
 officially called the cool of the evening before marching 
 back to cantonments. They gathered together in one 
 of the deep red-brick verandas of a disused lock-up and 
 congratulated Ortheris, who bore his honours modestly. 
 I sent my work into the office and joined them. Ortheris 
 watched the Government Advocate driving off to lunch. 
 
 * That's a nasty little bald-'eaded little butcher, that 
 is,* he said. * 'E don't please me. 'E's got a colley dot 
 wot do, though. I'm goin' up to Murree in a week. 
 That dawg'll bring fifteen rupees anywheres.' 
 
 *You had better spend ut in Masses,' said Terence, 
 
 242 
 
•LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 unbuckling his belt; for he had been on the prisoner's 
 guard, standing helmeted and bolt upright for three 
 long hours. 
 
 'Not me,' said Ortheris cheerfully. 'Gawd'll put it 
 down to B Comp'ny's barrick-damages one o' these 
 days. You look strapped, Terence.' 
 
 'Faith, I'm not so young as I was. That guard- 
 mountin' wears on the sole av the fut, and this' — he 
 sniffed contemptuously at the brick veranda — 'is as 
 hard setting as standin' !' 
 
 ' Wait a minute. I'll get the cushions out of my cart,' 
 I said. 
 
 ' 'Strewth — sofies. We're going it gay,' said Ortheris, 
 as Terence dropped himself section by section on the 
 leather cushions, saying prettily, 'May ye niver want a 
 soft place wheriver you go, an' power to share ut wid a 
 frind. Another for yourself? That's good. It lets me 
 sit longways. Stanley, pass me a pipe. Augrrh! An' 
 that's another man gone all to pieces bekaze av a woman. 
 I must ha' been on forty or fifty prisoners' gyards, first 
 an' last; an' I hate ut new ivry time.' 
 
 'Let's see. You were on Losson's, Lancey's, Du- 
 gard's, and Stebbins's, that I can remember,' I said. 
 
 * Ay, an' before that an' before that — scores av thim,' 
 he answered with a worn smile. ' 'Tis better to die than 
 to live for them, though. Whin Raines comes out — 
 he'll be changin' his kit at the jail now — he'll think that 
 too. He shud ha' shot himself an' the woman by rights 
 an' made a clean bill av all. Now he's left the woman 
 — she tuk tay wid Dinah Sunday gone last — an' he's 
 left himself. Mackie's the lucky man.' 
 
 'He's probably getting it hot where he is,* I ventured, 
 for I knew something of the dead Corporal's record. 
 
 243 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 *Be sure av that,' said Terence, spitting over the edge 
 of the veranda. 'But fwhat he'll get there is light 
 marchin'-ordher to fwhat he'd ha' got here if he'd lived.' 
 
 ' Surely not. He'd have gone on and forgotten — like 
 the others.' 
 
 'Did ye know Mackie well, sorr?' said Terence. 
 
 'He was on the Pattiala guard of honour last winter, 
 and I went out shooting with him in an ekka for the day, 
 and I found him rather an amusing man.' 
 
 'Well, he'll ha' got shut av amusemints, excipt turnin' 
 from wan side to the other, these few years to come. I 
 knew Mackie, an' I've seen too many to be mistuk in 
 the muster av wan man. He might ha' gone on an' for- 
 got as you say, sorr, but he was a man wid an educashin, 
 an' he used ut for his schames; an' the same educashin, 
 an' talkin', an' all that made him able to do fwhat he 
 had a mind to wid a woman, that same wud turn back 
 again in the long-run an' tear him alive. I can't say 
 fwhat that I mane to say bekaze I don't know how, but 
 Mackie was the spit an' livin' image av a man that I saw 
 march the same march all but; an' 'twas worse for him 
 that he did not come by Mackie's ind. Wait while I re- 
 member now. 'Twas whin I was in the Black Tyrone, 
 an' he was drafted us from Portsmouth ; an' fwhat was 
 his misbegotten name? Larry — Larry Tighe ut was; 
 an' wan of the draft said he was a gentleman-ranker, an' 
 Larry tuk an' three-parts killed him for saying so. An' 
 he was a big man, an' a strong man, an' a handsome man, 
 an' that tells heavy in practice wid some women, but, 
 takin' them by and large, not wid all. Yet 'twas wid all 
 that Larry dealt — all — for he cud put the comether on 
 any woman that trod the green earth av God, an' he 
 knew ut. Like Mackie that's roastin' now, he knew ut, 
 
 244 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 an' niver did he put the comether on any woman save 
 an' excipt for the black shame. 'Tis not me that shud be 
 talkin', dear knows, dear knows, but the most av my 
 mis — misallinces was for pure devilry, an' mighty sorry 
 I have been whin harm came; an' time an' again wid a 
 girl, ay, an' a woman too, for the matter av that, whin 
 I have seen by the eyes av her that I was makin' more 
 throuble than I talked, I have hild off an' let be for the 
 sake av the mother that bore me. But Larry, I'm 
 thinkin', he was suckled by a she-devil, for he never let 
 wan go that came nigh to listen to him. 'Twas his busi- 
 ness, as if it might ha' ben sinthry-go. He was a good 
 soldier too. Now there was the Colonel's governess — 
 an' he a privit too! — that was never known in barricks; 
 an' wan av the Major's maids, and she was promised to 
 a man; an' some more outside; an' fwhat ut was amongst 
 us we'll never know till Judgment Day. 'Twas the na- 
 ture av the baste to put the comether on the best av 
 thim — not the prettiest by any manner av manes^but 
 the like av such women as you cud lay your hand on the 
 Book an' swear there was niver thought av foolishness 
 in. An' for that very reason, mark you, he was niver 
 caught. He came close to ut wanst or twice, but caught 
 he niver was, an' that cost him more at the ind than the 
 beginnin'. He talked to me more than most, bekaze he 
 tould me, barrin' the accident av my educashin, I'd av 
 been the same kind av divil he was. "An' is ut like," 
 he wud say, houldin' his head high — "is ut like that Vd 
 iver be thrapped? For fwhat am I when all's said an' 
 done?" he sez. "A damned privit," sez he. "An' is 
 ut like, think you, that thim I know wud be connect wid 
 a privit like me? Number tin thousand four hundred 
 an' sivin," he sez grinnin'. I knew by the turn av his 
 
 245 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 spache when he was not takin' care to talk rough-shod 
 that he was a gentleman-ranker. 
 
 ' "I do not undherstan' ut at all," I sez; "but I know, 
 sez I, "that the divil looks out av your eyes, an' I'll 
 have no share wid you. A little fun by way av amuse- 
 mint where 'twill do no harm, Larry, is right and fair, 
 but I am mistook if 'tis any amusemint to you," I sez. 
 
 ' "You are much mistook," he sez. "An' I counsel 
 you not to judge your betters." 
 
 ' "My betthers!" I sez. "God help you, Larry. 
 There's no betther in this; 'tis all bad, as ye will find for 
 yoursilf." 
 
 ' "You're not like me," he says, tossin' his head. 
 
 * "Praise the Saints, I am not," I sez. "Fwhat I 
 have done I have done an' been crool sorry for. Fwhin 
 your time comes," sez I, "ye'll remimber fwhat I say." 
 
 ' "An' whin that time comes," sez he, "I'll come to 
 you for ghostly consolation. Father Terence," an' at 
 that he wint off afther some more divil's business — for 
 to get expayrience, he tould me. He was wicked — rank 
 wicked — wicked as all Hell ! I'm not construct by na- 
 ture to go in fear av any man, but, begad, I was afraid 
 av Larry. He'd come in to barricks wid his cap on three 
 hairs, an' lie on his cot and stare at the ceilin', and now 
 an' again he'd fetch a little laugh, the like av a splash in 
 the bottom av a well, an' by that I knew he was schamin' 
 new wickedness, an' I'd be afraid. All this was long an' 
 long ago, but ut hild me straight — for a while. 
 
 * I tould you, did I not, sorr, that I was caressed an' 
 pershuadedto lave the Tyrone on account ava throuble?' 
 
 * Something to do with a belt and a man's head, wasn't 
 it? * Terence had never given the tale in full. 
 
 *It was. Faith, ivry time I go on prisoner's gyard in 
 
 246 
 
* LOVE-0- WOMEN' 
 
 coort I wondher fwhy I was not where the pris'ner is. 
 But the man I struk tuk it in fair fight, an' he had the 
 good sinse not to die. Considher now, fwhat wud ha' 
 come to the Arrmy if he had ! I was enthreated to ex- 
 change, an' my Commandin' Orf cer pled wid me. I 
 wint, not to be disobhgin', an' Larry tould me he was 
 powerful sorry to lose me, though fwhat I'd done to 
 make him sorry I do not know. So to the Ould Reg'- 
 mint I came, lavin' Larry to go to the divil his own way, 
 an' niver expectin' to see him again excipt as a shootin'- 
 case in barracks. . . . Who's that quittin' the com- 
 pound?' Terence's quick eye had caught sight of a 
 white uniform skulking behind the hedge. 
 
 'The Sergeant's gone visiting,' said a voice. 
 
 'Thin I command here, an' I will have no sneakin' 
 away to the bazar, an' huntin' for you wid a pathrol at 
 midnight. Nalson, for I know ut's you, come back to 
 the veranda.' 
 
 Nalson, detected, slunk back to his fellows. There 
 was a grumble that died away in a minute or two, and 
 Terence turning on the other side went on : — 
 
 'That was the last I saw av Larry for a while. Ex- 
 change is the same as death for not thinkin', an' by 
 token I married Dinah, an' that kept me from remim- 
 berin' ould times. Thin we went up to the Front, an* 
 ut tore my heart in tu to lave Dinah at the Depot in 
 Pindi. Consequint, whin I was at the Front I fought 
 circumspectuous till I warrmed up, an' thin I fought 
 double tides. You remember fwhat I tould you in the 
 gyard-gate av the fight at Silver's Theatre?' 
 
 'Wot's that about Silver's Theayter?' said Ortheris 
 quickly, over his shoulder. 
 
 * Nothin', little man. A tale that ye know. As I was 
 
 247 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 sayin', afther that fight, us av the Ould Rig'mint an' the 
 Tyrone was all mixed together takin' shtock av the dead, 
 an' av coorse I wint about to find if there was any man 
 that remembered me. The second man I came acrost — 
 an' how I'd missed him in the fight I do not know — was 
 Larry, an' a fine man he looked, but oulder, by reason 
 that he had fair call to be. "Larry," sez I, "how is ut 
 widyou?" 
 
 ' " Ye're callin' the wrong man," he sez, wid his gentle- 
 man's smile, "Larry has been dead these three years. 
 They call him ' Love-o'-Women ' now," he sez. By that 
 I knew the ould divil was in him yet, but the ind av a 
 fight is no time for the beginnin' av confession, so we sat 
 down an' talked av times. 
 
 ' "They tell me you're a married man," he sez, puffin' 
 slow at his poipe. "Are ye happy? " 
 
 * " I will be whin I get back to Depot," I sez. " 'Tis a 
 reconnaissance-honeymoon now." 
 
 ' " I'm married too," he sez, puffin' slow an' more slow, 
 an' stopperin' wid his forefinger. 
 
 ' "Send you happiness," I sez. "That's the best 
 hearin' for a long time." 
 
 ' "Are ye av that opinion?" he sez; an' thin he began 
 talkin' av the campaign. The sweat av Silver's Theatre 
 was not dhry upon him an' he was prayin' for more work. 
 I was well contint to lie and listen to the cook-pot lids. 
 
 ' Whin he got up off the ground he shtaggered a little, 
 an' laned over all twisted. 
 
 ' '^Ye've got more than ye bargained for," I sez. 
 "Take an inventory, Larry. 'Tis like you're hurt." 
 
 *He turned round stiff as a ramrod an' damned the 
 eyes av me up an' down for an impartinent Irish-faced 
 ape. If that had been in barracks, I'd ha' stretched 
 
 248 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 him an' no more said; but 'twas at the Front, an' afther 
 such a fight as Silver's Theatre I knew there was no 
 callin' a man to account for his tempers. He might as 
 well ha' kissed me. Aftherwards I was well pleased I 
 kept my fists home. Thin our Captain Crook — Cruik- 
 na-bulleen — came up. He'd been talkin' to the little 
 orf'cer bhoy av the Tyrone. "We're all cut to windy- 
 straws," he sez, "but the Tyrone are damned short for 
 non-coms. Go you over there, Mulvaney, an' be Dep- 
 uty-Sergeant, Corp'ral, Lance, an' everything else ye can 
 lay hands on till I bid you stop." 
 
 ' I wint over an' tuk hould. There was wan sergeant 
 left standin', an' they'd pay no heed to him. The rem- 
 nint was me, an' 'twas full time I came. Some I talked 
 to, an' some I did not, but before night the bhoys av the 
 Tyrone stud to attention, begad, if I sucked on my poipe 
 above a whishper. Betune you an' me an' Bobbs I was 
 commandin' the Company, an' that was what Crook 
 had thransferred me for; an' the little orf'cer bhoy knew 
 ut, and I knew ut, but the Comp'ny did not. And there, 
 mark you, is the vartue that no money an' no dhrill can 
 buy — the vartue av the ould soldier that knows his orf '- 
 cer's work an' does ut for him at the salute ! 
 
 'Thin the Tyrone, wid the Ould Rig'mint in touch, 
 was sint maraudin' an' prowlin' acrost the hills promish- 
 cuous an' onsatisfactory. 'Tis my privit opinion that a 
 gin'ral does not know half his time fwhat to do wid 
 three-quarthers his command. So he shquats on his 
 hunkers an' bids them run round an' round forninst him 
 while he considhers on it. Whin by the process av na- 
 ture they get sejuced into a big fight that was none av 
 their seekin', he sez: "Obsarve my shuperior janius. I 
 meant ut to come so." We ran round an' about, an' all 
 
 249 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 we got was shootin' into the camp at night, an' rushin' 
 empty sungars wid the long bradawl, an' bein' hit from 
 behind rocks till we was wore out — all excipt Love-o'- 
 Women. That puppy-dog business was mate an' dhrink 
 to him. Begad he cud niver get enough av ut. Me well 
 knowin' that it is just this desultorial campaignin' that 
 kills the best men, an' suspicionin' that if I was cut, the 
 little orf'cer bhoy wud expind all his men in thryin' to 
 get out, I wud lie most powerful doggo whin I heard a 
 shot, an' curl my long legs behind a bowlder, an' run 
 like blazes whin the ground was clear. Faith, if I led 
 the Tyrone in rethreat wanst I led thim forty times! 
 Love-o'-Women wud stay pottin' an' pottin' from behind 
 a rock, and wait till the fire was heaviest, an' thin stand 
 up an' fire man-height clear. He wud lie out in camp 
 too at night, snipin' at the shadows, for he never tuk a 
 mouthful av slape. My commandin' orf'cer — save his 
 little soul! — cud not see the beauty av my strategims, 
 an' whin the Ould Rig'mint crossed us, an' that was 
 wanst a week, he'd throt off to Crook, wid his big blue 
 eyes as round as saucers, an' lay an information against 
 me. I heard thim wanst talkin' through the tent-wall, 
 an' I nearly laughed. 
 
 ' "He runs — runs like a hare," sez the little orf'cer 
 bhoy. " 'Tis demoralisin' my men." 
 
 ' "Ye damned little fool," sez Crook, laughin', "he's 
 larnin' you your business. Have ye been rushed at 
 night yet?" 
 
 ' "No," sez that child ; wishful he had been. 
 
 * "Have you any wounded?" sez Crook. 
 
 ' "No," he sez. "There was no chanst for that. 
 They follow Mulvaney too quick," he sez. 
 
 * "Fwhat more do you want, thin?" sez Crook. 
 
 250 
 
'LOVE-0'- WOMEN' 
 
 "Terence is bloodin' you neat an' handy," he sez. "He 
 knows fwhat you do not, an' that's that there's a time 
 for ivrything. He'll not lead you wrong," he sez, "but 
 I'd give a month's pay to larn fwhat he thinks av you." 
 
 'That kept the babe quiet, but Love-o'-Women was 
 pokin' at me for ivrything I did, an' specially my ma- 
 noeuvres. 
 
 ' " Mr. Mulvaney," he sez wan evenin', very contemp- 
 shus, "you're growin' very jeldy on your feet. Among 
 gentlemen," he sez, "among gentlemen that's called no 
 pretty name." 
 
 ' "Among privits 'tis different," I sez. "Get back to 
 your tent. I'm sergeant here," I sez. 
 
 'There was just enough in the voice av me to tell him 
 he was playin' wid his life betune his teeth. He wint 
 off, an' I noticed that this man that was contempshus 
 set off from the halt wid a shunt as tho' he was bein' 
 kicked behind. That same night there was a Paythan 
 picnic in the hills about, an' firin' into our tents fit to 
 wake the livin' dead. "Lie down all," I sez. "Lie 
 down an' kape still. They'll no more than waste am- 
 munition." 
 
 'I heard a man's feet on the ground, an' thin a 'Tini 
 joinin' in the chorus. I'd been lyin' warm, thinkin' av 
 Dinah an' all, but I crup out wid the bugle for to look 
 round in case there was a rush; an' the 'Tini was flashin' 
 at the fore-ind av the camp, an' the hill near by was 
 fair flickerin' wid long-range fire. Undher the starlight 
 I behild Love-o'-Women settin' on a rock wid his belt 
 and helmet off. He shouted wanst or twice, an' thin I 
 heard him say : "They shud ha' got the range long ago. 
 Maybe they'll fire at the flash." Thin he fired again, 
 an' that dhrew a fresh volley, and the long slugs that 
 
 251 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 they chew in their teeth came floppin' among the rocks 
 like tree-toads av a hot night. "That's better," sez 
 Love-o'-Women. "Oh Lord, how long, how long!" 
 he sez, an' at that he lit a match an' held ut above his 
 head. 
 
 ' "Mad," thinks I, "mad as a coot," an' I tuk wan 
 stip forward, an' the nixt I knew was the sole av my boot 
 flappin' like a cavalry gydon an' the funny-bone av my 
 toes tinglin'. 'Twas a clane-cut shot — a slug — that 
 niver touched sock or hide, but set me barefut on the 
 rocks. At that I tuk Love'-o- Women by the scruff an' 
 threw him under a bowlder, an' whin I sat down I heard 
 the bullets patterin' on that same good stone. 
 
 ' "Ye may dhraw your own wicked fire," I sez, shakin' 
 him, "but I'm not goin' to be kilt too." 
 
 ' "Ye've come too soon," he sez. "Ye've come too 
 soon. In another minute they cudn't ha' missed me. 
 Mother av God," he sez, "fwhy did ye not lave me be? 
 Now 'tis all to do again," an' he hides his face in his 
 hands. 
 
 * "So that's it," I sez, shakin' him again. "That's 
 the manin' av your disobeyin' ordhers." 
 
 * "I dare not kill meself," he sez, rockin' to and fro. 
 "My own hand wud not let me die, and there's not a 
 bullet this month past wud touch me. I'm to die slow," 
 he sez. "I'm to die slow. But I'm in hell now," he 
 sez, shriekin' like a woman. " I'm in hell now!" 
 
 ' "God be good to us all," I sez, for I saw his face. 
 "Will ye tell a man the throuble? If 'tis not murder, 
 maybe we'll mend it yet." 
 
 ' At that he laughed. " D'you remember fwhat I said 
 in the Tyrone barricks about comin' to you for ghostly 
 consolation? I have not forgot," he sez. "That came 
 
 252 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 back, and the rest av my time is on me now, Terence. 
 I've fought ut off for months an' months, but the liquor 
 will not bite any more. Terence," he sez, "I can't get 
 dhrunk!" 
 
 'Thin I knew he spoke the truth about bein' in hell, 
 for whin liquor does not take hould the sowl ava man is 
 rotten in him. But me bein' such as I was, fwhat could 
 I say to him? 
 
 ' "Di'monds an' pearls," he begins again. "Di'- 
 monds an' pearls I have thrown away wid both hands — - 
 an' fwhat have I left? Oh, fwhat have I left? " 
 
 'He was shakin' an' tremblin' up against my shoul- 
 dher, an' the slugs were singin' overhead, an' I was won- 
 derin' whether my little bhoy wud have sinse enough to 
 kape his men quiet through all this firin'. 
 
 ' "So long as I did not think," sez Love-o'-Women, 
 "so long I did not see — I wud not see, but I can now, 
 what I've lost. The time an' the place," he sez, "an' 
 the very words I said whin ut pleased me to go off alone 
 to hell. But thin, even thin," he sez, wrigglin' tremen- 
 jous, " I wud not ha' been happy. There was too much 
 behind av me. How cud I ha' believed her sworn oath 
 — me that have bruk mine again an' again for the sport 
 av seein' thim cry? An' there are the others," he sez. 
 " Oh, what will I do— what will I do? " He rocked back 
 an' forward again, an' I think he was cryin' like wan av 
 the women he talked av. 
 
 *The full half of fwhat he said was Brigade Ordhers to 
 me, but from the rest an' the remnint I suspicioned some- 
 thin' av his throuble. 'Twas the judgmint av God had 
 grup the heel av him, as I tould him 'twould in the 
 Tyrone barricks. The slugs was singin' over our rock 
 more an' more, an' I sez for to divart him: "Let bad 
 
 253 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 alone," I sez. "They'll be tryin' to rush the camp in a 
 minut'." 
 
 ' I had no more than said that whin a Paythan man 
 crep' up on his belly wid his knife betune his teeth, not 
 twinty yards from us. Love-o'-Women jumped up an' 
 fetched a yell, an' the man saw him an' ran at him (he'd 
 left his rifle under the rock) wid the knife. Love-o'- 
 Women niver turned a hair, but by the Living Power, 
 for I saw ut, a stone twisted under the Paythan man's 
 feet an' he came down full sprawl, an' his knife wint 
 tinkling acrost the rocks! "I tould you I was Cain," 
 sez Love-o'-Women. "Fwhat's the use av killin' him? 
 He's an honust man — by compare." 
 
 'I was not dishputin' about the morils av Paythans 
 that tide, so I dhropped Love-o'-Women's butt acrost 
 the man's face, an' "Hurry into camp," I sez, "for this 
 may be the first av a rush." 
 
 'There was no rush after all, though we waited undher 
 arms to give them a chanst. The Paythan man must 
 ha' come alone for the mischief, an' afther a while Love- 
 o'-Women wint back to his tint wid that quare lurchin' 
 sind-off in his walk that I cud niver understand. Begad, 
 I pitied him, an' the more bekaze he made me think for 
 the rest av the night av the day whin I was confirmed 
 Corp'ril, not actin' Lef'tinant, an' my thoughts was not 
 good to me. 
 
 'Ye can ondersthand that afther that night we came to 
 talkin' a dale together, an' bit by bit ut came out fwhat 
 I'd suspicioned. The whole av his carr'in's on an' divil- 
 ments had come back on him hard, as liquor comes back 
 whin you've been on the dhrink for a wake. All he'd 
 said an' all he'd done, an' only he cud tell how much that 
 was, come back, and there was niver a minut's peace 
 
 254 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 in his sowl. 'Twas the Horrors widout any cause to see, 
 an' yet, an' yet — fwhat am I talkin' av? He'd ha' taken 
 the Horrors wid thankfulness. Beyon' the repentince 
 av the man, an' that was beyon' the nature av man — 
 awful, awful, to behould !— there was more that was 
 worst than any repentince. Av the scores an' scores 
 that he called over in his mind (an' they were drivin' 
 him mad), there was, mark you, wan woman av all, an' 
 she was not his wife, that cut him to the quick av his 
 marrow. 'Twas there he said that he'd thrown away 
 di'monds an' pearls past count, an' thin he'd begin again 
 like a blind byle in an oil-mill, walkin' round and round, 
 to considher (him that was beyond all touch av bein' 
 happy this side hell!) how happy he wud ha' been wid 
 her. The more he considhered, the more he'd consate 
 himself that he'd lost mighty happiness, an' thin he wud 
 work ut all backwards, an' cry that he niver cud ha' 
 been happy anyway. 
 
 'Time an' time an' again in camp, on p'rade, ay, an' 
 in action, I've seen that man shut his eyes an' duck his 
 head as ye wud duck to the flicker av a bay'nit. For 
 'twas thin, he tould me, that the thought av all he'd 
 missed came an' stud forninst him like red-hot irons. 
 For what he'd done wid the others he was sorry, but he 
 did not care; but this wan woman that I've tould of, by 
 the Hilts av God, she made him pay for all the others 
 twice over! Niver did I know that a man cud enjure 
 such tormint widout his heart crackin' in his ribs, an' I 
 have been' — Terence turned the pipe-stem slowly be- 
 tween his teeth — * I have been in some black cells. All 
 I iver sufYered tho' was not to be talked of alongside av 
 him . . . an' what could I do? Paternosters was 
 no more than peas on plates for his sorrows. 
 
 255 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 'Evenshually we finished our prom'nade acrost the 
 hills, and, thanks to me for the same, there was no 
 casualties an' no glory. The campaign was comin' to 
 an ind, an' all the rig'mints was being drawn together 
 for to be sint back home. Love-o'-Women was mighty 
 sorry bekaze he had no work to do, an' all his time to 
 think in. I've heard that man talkin' to his belt-plate 
 an' his side-arms while he was soldierin' thim, all to pre- 
 vent himself from thinkin', an' ivry time he got up afther 
 he had been settin' down or wint on from the halt, he'd 
 start wid that kick an' traverse that I tould you of — his 
 legs sprawlin' all ways to wanst. He wud niver go see 
 the docthor, tho' I tould him to be wise. He'd curse me 
 up an' down for my advice ; but I knew he was no more 
 a man to be reckoned wid than the little bhoy was a 
 commandin' orf'cer, so I let his tongue run if it aised 
 him. 
 
 'Wan day — 'twas on the way back — I was walkin' 
 round camp wid him, an' he stopped an' struck ground 
 wid his right fut three or four times doubtful. "Fwhat 
 is ut? " I sez. " Is that ground? " sez he ; an' while I was 
 thinkin' his mind was goin', up comes the docthor, who'd 
 been anatomisin' a dead bullock. Love-o'-Women starts 
 to go on quick, an' lands me a kick on the knee while 
 his legs was gettin' into marchin' ordher. 
 
 '"Hould on there," sez the docthor; an' Love-o'- 
 Women's face, that was lined like a gridiron, turns red as 
 brick. 
 
 ' " 'Tention," says the docthor; an' Love-o'-Women 
 stud so. "Now shut your eyes," sez the docthor. "No, 
 ye must not hould by your comrade." 
 
 * " 'Tis all up," sez Love-o'-Women, thrying to smile. 
 "I'd fall, docthor, an' you know ut." 
 
 256 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN ^ 
 
 C i( 
 
 Fall?" I sez. "Fall at attention wid your eyes 
 shut! Fwhat do you mane? " 
 
 ' "The docthor knows," he sez. " I've hild up as long 
 as I can, but begad I'm glad 'tis all done. But I will die 
 slow," he sez, " I will die very slow." 
 
 'I cud see by the docthor's face that he was mortial 
 sorry for the man, an' he ordered him to hospital. We 
 wint back together, an' I was dumb-struck. Love-o'- 
 Women was cripplin' and crumblin' at ivry step. He 
 walked wid a hand on my shoulder all slued sideways, 
 an' his right leg swingin' like a lame camel. Me not 
 knowin' more than the dead fwhat ailed him, 'twas just 
 as though the docthor's word had done ut all — as if 
 Love-o'-Women had but been waitin' for the word to 
 let go. 
 
 *In hospital he sez somethin' to the docthor that I 
 could not catch. 
 
 * "Holy Shmoke!" sez the docthor, "an' who are you 
 to be givin' names to your diseases? 'Tis agin all the 
 reg'lations." 
 
 * "I'll not be a privit much longer," sez Love-o'-Wo- 
 men in his gentleman's voice, an' the docthor jumped. 
 
 * "Thrate me as a study, Doctor Lowndes," he sez; 
 an' that was the first time I'd iver heard a docthor called 
 his name. 
 
 * "Good-bye, Terence," sez Love-o'-Women. "'Tis 
 a dead man I am widout the pleasure av dyin'. You'll 
 come an' set wid me sometimes for the peace avmysowl." 
 
 'Now I had been minded for to ask Crook to take me 
 back to the Ould Rig'mint; the fightin' was over, an' I 
 was wore out wid the ways av the bhoys in the Tyrone ; 
 but I shifted my will, an' hild on, and wint to set wid 
 Love-o'-Women in the hospital. As I have said, sorr, 
 
 257 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 the man bruk all to little pieces under my hand. How 
 long he had hild up an' forced himself fit to march I can- 
 not tell, but in hospital but two days later he was such 
 as I hardly knew. I shuk hands wid him, an' his grip 
 was fair strong, but his hands wint all ways to wanst, 
 an' he cud not button his tunic. 
 
 ' "I'll take long an' long to die yet," he sez, "for the 
 wages av sin they're like interest in the rig'mintal savin's 
 bank — sure, but a damned long time bein' paid." 
 
 'The docthor sez to me, quiet one day, "Has Tighe 
 there anythin' on his mind?" he sez. "He's burnin' 
 himself out." 
 
 ' "How shud I know, sorr?" I sez, as innocint as 
 putty. 
 
 ' "They call him Love-o'- Women in the Tyrone, do 
 they not?" he sez. "I was a fool to ask. Be wid him 
 all you can. He's houldin' on to your strength." 
 
 ' "But fwhat ails him, docthor?" I sez. 
 
 ' "They call ut Locomotus attacks-us," he sez, "be- 
 kaze," sez he, "ut attacks us like a locomotive, if ye 
 know fwhat that manes. An' ut comes," sez he, lookin' 
 at me, "ut comes from bein' called Love-o'- Women." 
 
 * "You're jokin', docthor," I sez. 
 
 ' "Jokin' !" sez he. " If iver you feel that you've got 
 a felt sole in your boot instid av a Government bull's- 
 wool, come to me," he sez, "an' I'll show you whether 
 'tis a joke." 
 
 'You would not belave ut, sorr, but that, an' seein' 
 Love-o'- Women overtuk widout warnin', put the cowld 
 fear av Attacks-us on me so strong that for a week an' 
 more I was kickin' my toes against stones an' stumps 
 for the pleasure av feelin' thim hurt. 
 
 'An' Love-o'-Women lay in the cot (he might have 
 
 258 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 gone down wid the wounded before an' before, but he 
 asked to stay wid me), and fwhat there was in his mind 
 had full swing at him night an' day an' ivry hour av the 
 day an' the night, and he shrivelled like beef-rations in a 
 hot sun, an' his eyes was like owls' eyes, an' his hands 
 was mut'nous. 
 
 'They was gettin' the rig'mints away wan by wan, the 
 campaign bein' inded, but as ushuil they was behavin' 
 as if niver a rig'mint had been moved before in the mem- 
 'ry av man. Now, fwhy is that, sorr? There's fightin', 
 in an' out, nine months av the twelve somewhere in the 
 army. There has been — for years an' years an' years; 
 an' I wud ha' thought they'd begin to get the hang av 
 providin' for throops. But no ! Ivry time 'tis like a girls' 
 school meetin' a big red bull whin they're goin' to church; 
 an' "Mother av God," sez the Commissariat an' the 
 Railways an' the Barrick-masters, "fwhat will we do 
 now?" The ordhers came to us av the Tyrone an' the 
 Ould Rig'mint an' half a dozen more to go down, an' 
 there the ordhers stopped dumb. We went down, by 
 the special grace av God — down the Khaiber anyways. 
 There was sick wid us, an' I'm thinkin' that some av 
 thim was jolted to death in the doolies, but they was 
 anxious to be kilt so if they cud get to Peshawur alive 
 the sooner. I walked by Love-o'-Women — there was 
 no marchin', an' Love-o'-Women was not in a stew to 
 get on. "If I'd only ha' died up there," sez he through 
 the dooli-curtains, an' thin he'd twist up his eyes an' 
 duck his headier the thoughts that come an' raked him. 
 
 'Dinah was in Depot at Pindi, but I wint circum- 
 spectuous, for well I knew 'tis just at the rump-ind av 
 all things that his luck turns on a man. By token I had 
 seen a dhriver of a batthery goin' by at a trot singin' 
 
 259 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 " Home, swate home " at the top av his shout, and takin' 
 no heed to his bridle-hand — I had seen that man dhrop 
 under the gun in the middle of a word, and come out by 
 the limber like — like a frog on a pave-stone. No. I 
 wud not hurry, though, God knows, my heart was all in 
 Pindi. Love-o'-Women saw fwhat was in my mind, 
 an' "Go on, Terence," he sez, "I know fwhat's waitin' 
 for you." "I will not," I sez. '"Twill kape a little 
 yet." 
 
 'Ye know the turn of the pass forninst Jumrood and 
 the nine-mile road on the flat to Peshawur? All Pesha- 
 wur was along that road day and night waitin' for frinds 
 — men, women, childer, and bands. Some av the throops 
 was camped round Jumrood, an' some wint on to Pesha- 
 wur to get away down to their cantonmints. We came 
 through in the early mornin', havin' been awake the 
 night through, and we dhruv sheer into the middle av 
 the mess. Mother av Glory, will I iver forget that 
 comin' back? The light was not fair lifted, and the first 
 we heard was "For 'tis my delight av a shiny night," 
 frum a band that thought we was the second four com- 
 p'nies av the Lincolnshire. At that we was forced to 
 sind them a yell to say who we was, an' thin up wint 
 *'The wearin' av the Green." It made me crawl all up 
 my backbone, not havin' taken my brequist. Then 
 right smash into our rear came fwhat was left av the 
 Jock Elliotts — wid four pipers an' not half a kilt among 
 thim, playin' for the dear life, an' swingin' their rumps 
 like buck-rabbits, an' a native rig'mint shriekin' blue 
 murther. Ye niver heard the like! There was men 
 cryin' like women that did — an' faith I do not blame 
 them! Fwhat bruk me down was the Lancers' Band — 
 shinin' an' spick like angils, wid the ould dhrum-horse 
 
 260 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 at the head an' the silver kettle-dhrums an' all an' all, 
 waitin' for their men that was behind us. They shtruck 
 up the Cavalry Canter; an' begad those poor ghosts that 
 had not a sound fut in a throop they answered to ut; the 
 men rockin' in their saddles. We thried to cheer them 
 as they wint by, but ut came out like a big gruntin' 
 cough, so there must have been many that was feelin' 
 like me. Oh, but I'm forgettin'! The Fly-by-Nights 
 was waitin' for their second battalion, an' whin ut came 
 out, there was the Colonel's horse led at the head — 
 saddle-empty. The men fair worshipped him, an' he'd 
 died at Ali Musjid on the road down. They waited till 
 the remnint av the battalion was up, and thin — clane 
 against ordhers, for who wanted that chune that day? — 
 they wint back to Peshawur slow-time an' tearin' the 
 bowils out av ivry man that heard, wid "The Dead 
 March." Right acrost our line they wint, an' ye know 
 their uniforms are as black as the Sweeps, crawlin' past 
 like the dead, an' the other bands damnin' them to let 
 be. 
 
 'Little they cared. The carpse was wid them, an' 
 they'd ha' taken ut so through a Coronation. Our or- 
 dhers was to go into Peshawur, an' we wint hot-fut past 
 the Fly-by-Nights, not singin', to lave that chune be- 
 hind us. That was how we tuk the road of the other 
 corps. 
 
 ' 'Twas ringin' in my ears still whin I felt in the bones 
 of me that Dinah was comin', an' I heard a shout, an' 
 thin I saw a horse an' a tattoo latherin' down the road, 
 hell-to-shplit, under women. I knew — I knew! Wan 
 was the Tyrone Colonel's wife — ould Becker's lady — 
 her gray hair flyin' an' her fat round carkiss rowlin' in 
 the saddle, an' the other was Dinah, that shud ha' been 
 
 261 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 at Pindi. The Colonel's lady she charged the head av 
 our column like a stone wall, an' she all but knocked 
 Beeker off his horse, throwin' her arms round his neck 
 an' blubberin', " Me bhoy ! me bhoy ! " an' Dinah wheeled 
 left an' came down our flank, an' I let a yell that had 
 suffered inside av me for months and — Dinah came! 
 Will I iver forget that while I live! She'd come on pass 
 from Pindi, an' the Colonel's lady had lint her the tattoo. 
 They'd been huggin' an' cryin' in each other's arms all 
 the long night. 
 
 'So she walked along wid her hand in mine, asking 
 forty questions to wanst, an' beggin' me on the Virgin 
 to make oath that there was not a bullet consaled in me, 
 unbeknownst somewhere, an' thin I remembered Love- 
 o'-Women. He was watchin' us, an' his face was like 
 the face av a divil that has been cooked too long. I did 
 not wish Dinah to see ut, for whin a woman's runnin' 
 over with happiness she's like to be touched, for harm 
 afterwards, by the laste little thing in life. So I dhrew 
 the curtain, an' Love-o'-Women lay back and groaned. 
 
 * Whin we marched into Peshawur Dinah wint to bar- 
 racks to wait for me, an', me feelin' so rich that tide, I 
 wint on to take Love-o'-Women to hospital. It was the 
 last I cud do, an' to save him the dust an' the smother I 
 turned the dooli-men down a road well clear av the rest 
 av the throops, an' we wint along, me talkin' through 
 the curtains. Av a sudden I heard him say: 
 
 ' "Let me look. For the mercy av Hiven, let me 
 look." I had been so tuk up wid gettin' him out av the 
 dust an' thinkin' av Dinah that I had not kept my eyes 
 about me. There was a woman ridin' a little behind av 
 us; an', talkin' ut over wid Dinah aftherwards, that same 
 woman must ha' rid out far on the Jumrood road. Di- 
 
 262 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 nah said that she had been hoverin' Hke a kite on the 
 left flank av the columns. 
 
 ' I halted the dooli to set the curtains, an' she rode by, 
 walkin' pace, an Love-o'-Women's eyes wint afther her 
 as if he wud fair haul her down from the saddle. 
 
 ' "Follow there," was all he sez, but I niver heard a 
 man speak in that voice before or since; an' I knew by 
 those two wan words an' the look in his face that she 
 was Di'monds-an'-Pearls that he'd talked av in his 
 disthresses. 
 
 'We followed till she turned into the gate av a little 
 house that stud near the Edwardes Gate. There was 
 two girls in the veranda, an' they ran in whin they saw 
 us. Faith, at long eye-range it did not take me a wink 
 to see fwhat kind av house ut was. The throops bein' 
 there an' all, there was three or four such; but afther- 
 wards the polls bade thim go. At the veranda Love-o'- 
 Women sez, catchin' his breath, "Stop here," an' thin, 
 an' thin, wid a grunt that must ha' tore the heart up 
 from his stummick, he swung himself out av the dooli, 
 an' my troth he stud up on his feet wid the sweat pourin' 
 down his face! If Mackie was to walk in here now I'd 
 be less tuk back than I was thin. Where he'd dhrawn 
 his power from, God knows — or the Divil — but 'twas 
 a dead man walkin' in the sun, wid the face av a dead 
 man and the breath av a dead man, hild up by the 
 Power, an' the legs an' the arms av the carpse obeyin' 
 ordhers. 
 
 'The woman stud in the veranda. She'd been a 
 beauty too, though her eyes was sunk in her head, an' 
 she looked Love-o'-Women up an' down terrible. "An'/ 
 she sez, kicking back the tail av her habit, — "An'," she 
 sez, "fwhat are you doin' here, married man?" 
 
 263 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 ' Love-o' -Women said nothin', but a little froth came 
 to his lips, an' he wiped ut off wid his hand an' looked at 
 her an' the paint on her, an' looked, an' looked, an' 
 looked. 
 
 ' "An' yet," she sez, wid a laugh. (Did you hear 
 Raines's wife laugh whin Mackie died? Ye did not? 
 Well for you.) "An' yet," she sez, "who but you have 
 betther right," sez she. "You taught me the road. 
 You showed me the way," she sez. "Ay, look," she sez, 
 "for 'tis your work; you that tould me — d' you remim- 
 ber it? — that a woman who was false to wan man cud be 
 false to two. I have been that," she sez, "that an' more, 
 for you always said I was a quick learner, Ellis. Look 
 well," she sez, "for it is me that you called your wife in 
 the sight av God long since." An' she laughed. 
 
 ' Love-o'-Women stud still in the sun widout answer- 
 in'. Thin he groaned an coughed to wanst, an' I thought 
 'twas the death-rattle, but he niver tuk his eyes off her 
 face, not for a blink. Ye cud ha' put her eyelashes 
 through the flies av an E. P. tent, they were so long. 
 
 ' "Fwhat do you do here?" she sez, word by word, 
 "that have taken away my joy in my man this five 
 years gone — that have broken my rest an' killed my 
 body an' damned my soul for the sake av seein' how 
 'twas done. Did your expayrience aftherwards bring 
 you acrost any woman that give you more than I did? 
 Wud I not ha' died for you, an' wid you, Ellis? Ye 
 know that, man! If iver your lyin' sowl saw truth in 
 uts life ye know that." 
 
 'An' Love-o'-Women lifted up his head and said, "I 
 knew," an' that was all. While she was spakin' the 
 Power hild him up parade-set in the sun, an' the sweat 
 dhripped undher his helmet. 'Twas more an' more 
 
 264 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 throuble for him to talk, an' his mouth was running 
 twistways. 
 
 ' "Fwhat do you do here?" she sez, an' her voice wint 
 up. 'Twas hke bells tollin' before. "Time was whin 
 you were quick enough wid your words, — you that 
 talked me down to hell. Are ye dumb now?" An' 
 Love-o'-Women got his tongue, an' sez simple, like a 
 little child, "May I come in?" he sez. 
 
 ' "The house is open day an' night," she sez, wid a 
 laugh; an' Love-o'-Women ducked his head an' hild up 
 his hand as tho' he was gyardin'. The Power was on 
 him still — it hild him up still, for, by my sowl, as I'll 
 never save ut, he walked up the veranda steps that had 
 been a livin' carpse in hospital for a month! 
 
 * "An' now?" she sez, lookin' at him; an' the red paint 
 stud lone on the white av her face like a bull's-eye on a 
 target. 
 
 *He lifted up his eyes, slowan' very slow, an' helooked 
 at her long an' very long, an' he tuk his spache betune 
 his teeth wid a wrench that shuk him. 
 
 * "I'm dyin', Aigypt — dyin'," he sez. Ay, those 
 were his words, for I remimber the name he called her. 
 He was turnin' the death-colour, but his eyes niver 
 rowled. They were set — set on her. Widout word or 
 warnin' she opened her arms full stretch, an' "Here!" 
 she sez. (Oh, fwhat a golden mericle av a voice ut was !) 
 "Die here!" she sez; an' Love-o'-Women dhropped for- 
 ward, an' she hild him up, for she was a fine big woman. 
 
 ' I had no time to turn, bekaze that minut I heard the 
 sowl quit him — tore out in the death-rattle — an' she 
 laid him back in a long chair, an' she sez to me, "Mis- 
 ther soldier," she sez, "will ye not wait an' talk to wan 
 av the girls? This sun's too much for him." 
 
 265 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 * Well I knew there was no sun he'd iver see, but I cud 
 not spake, so I wint away wid the empty dooli to find 
 the docthor. He'd been breakfastin' an' lunchin' iver 
 since we'd come in, an' he was full as a tick. 
 
 ' "Faith, ye've got dhrunk mighty soon," he sez, when 
 I'd tould him, "to see that man walk. Barrin' a puff or 
 two av life, he was a carpse before we left Jumrood. 
 I've a great mind," he sez, "to confine you." 
 
 ' "There's a dale av liquor runnin' about, docthor," I 
 sez, solemn as a hard-boiled egg. "Maybe 'tis so; but 
 will ye not come an' see the carpse at the house?" 
 
 ' " 'Tis dishgraceful," he sez, "that I would be ex- 
 pected to go to a place like that. Was she a pretty 
 woman?" he sez, an' at that he set off double-quick. 
 
 ' I cud see that the two was in the veranda where I'd 
 left them, an' I knew by the hang av her head an' the 
 noise av the crows fwhat had happened. 'Twas the 
 first and the last time that I'd iver known woman to use 
 the pistol. They fear the shot as a rule, but Di'monds- 
 an'-Pearls she did not — she did not. 
 
 'The docthor touched the long black hair av her head 
 ('twas all loose upon Love-o'- Women's tunic), an' that 
 cleared the liquor out av him. He stud considherin' a 
 long time, his hands in his pockets, an' at last he sez to 
 me, "Here's a double death from naturil causes, most 
 naturil causes; an' in the present state av affairs the rig'- 
 mint will be thankful for wan grave the less to dig. Is- 
 siwasti," he sez. "Issiwasti, Privit Mulvaney, these 
 two will be buried together in the Civil Cemet'ry at my 
 expinse; an' may the good God," he sez, "make it so 
 much for me whin my time comes. Go you to your 
 wife," he sez. "Go an' be happy. I'll see to this all." 
 
 * I left him still considherin'. They was buried in the 
 
 266 
 
'LOVE-0 '-WOMEN' 
 
 Civil Cemet'ry together, wid a Church av England ser- 
 vice. There was too many buryin's thin to ask ques- 
 tions, an' the docthor — he ran away wid Major — Major 
 Van Dyce's lady that year — he saw to ut all. Fwhat 
 the right an' the wrong av Love-o'-Women an' Di'monds- 
 an'-Pearls was I niver knew, an' I will niver know; but 
 I've tould ut as I came acrost ut — here an there in little 
 pieces. So, being fwhat I am, an' knowin' fwhat I knew, 
 that's fwhy I say in this shootin'-case here, Mackic 
 that's dead an' in hell is the lucky man. There are 
 times, sorr, whin' tis betther for the man to die than to 
 live, an' by consequince forty million times betther for 
 the woman.' 
 
 ' H'up there ! ' said Ortheris. ' It's time to go.' 
 The witnesses and guard formed up in the thick white 
 dust of the parched twilight and swung off, marching 
 easy and whistling. Down the road to the green by 
 the church I could hear Ortheris, the black Book-lie 
 still uncleansed on his lips, setting, with a fme sense of 
 the fitness of things, the shrill quickstep that runs — 
 
 ' Oh, do not despise the advice of the wise, 
 
 Learn wisdom from those that are older. 
 And don't try for things that are out of your reach — 
 An' that's what the Girl told the Soldier ! 
 
 Soldier! soldier! 
 Oh, that's what the Girl told the Soldier!' 
 
 267 
 
THE RFXORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 (1890) 
 
 The year's at the spring 
 And day's at the dawn; 
 Morning's at seven; 
 The hill-side's dew-pearled; 
 The lark's on the wing; 
 The snail's on the thorn: 
 God's in His heaven — 
 All's right with the world ! 
 
 'Pippa Passes.' 
 
 THIS is not that Badalia whose spare names were 
 Joanna, Pugnacious, and M'Ganna, as the song 
 says, but another and a much nicer lady. 
 In the beginning of things she had been unregenerate ; 
 had worn the heavy fluffy fringe which is the ornament 
 of the costermonger's girl, and there is a legend in Gun- 
 nison Street that on her wedding-day she, a flare-lamp 
 in either hand, danced dances on a discarded lover's 
 winkle-barrow, till a policeman interfered, and then 
 Badalia danced with the Law amid shoutings. Those 
 were her days of fatness, and they did not last long, for 
 her husband after two years took to himself another 
 woman, and passed out of Badalia's life, over Badalia's 
 senseless body; for he stifled protest with blows. While 
 
 268 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 she was enjoying her widowhood the baby that the hus- 
 band had not taken away died of croup, and BadaUa 
 was altogether alone. With rare fidelity she listened to 
 no proposals for a second marriage according to the cus- 
 toms of Gunnison Street, which do not differ from those 
 of the Barralong. 'My man,' she explained to her 
 suitors, ' 'e'll come back one o' these days, an' then, like 
 as not, 'e'll take an' kill me if I was livin' 'long o' you. 
 You don't know Tom; I do. Now you go. I can do for 
 myself — not 'avin' a kid.' She did for herself with a 
 mangle, some tending of babies, and an occasional sale 
 of flowers. This latter trade is one that needs capital, 
 and takes the vendor very far westward, insomuch that 
 the return journey from, let us say, the Burlington Ar- 
 cade to Gunnison Street, E., is an excuse for drink, and 
 then, as Badalia pointed out, 'You come 'ome with your 
 shawl arf off of your back, an' your bonnick under your 
 arm, and the price of nothing-at-all in your pocket, let 
 alone a slop takin' care o' you.' Badalia did not drink, 
 but she knew her sisterhood, and gave them rude coun- 
 sel. Otherwise she kept herself to herself, and meditated 
 a great deal upon Tom Herodsfoot, her husband, who 
 would come back some day, and the baby who would 
 never return. In what manner these thoughts wrought 
 upon her mind will not be known. 
 
 Her entry into society dates from the night when she 
 rose literally under the feet of the Reverend Eustace 
 Hanna, on the landing of No. 17 Gunnison Street, and 
 told him that he was a fool without discernment in the 
 dispensation of his district charities. 
 
 'You give Lascar Loo custids,' said she, without the 
 formality of introduction; 'give her pork-wine. Garn! 
 Give 'er blankits. Garn 'ome! 'Er mother, she eats 
 
 269 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 'em all, and drinks the blankits. Gits 'em back from 
 the shop, she does, before you come visiting again, so as 
 to 'ave 'em all handy an' proper; an' Lascar Loo she sez 
 to you, "Oh, my mother's that good to me!" she do. 
 Lascar Loo 'ad better talk so, bein' sick abed, 'r else 'er 
 mother would kill 'er. Garn ! you're a bloomin' gardener 
 — you an' yer custids ! Lascar Loo don't never smell of 
 'em even.' 
 
 Thereon the curate, instead of being offended, recog- 
 nised in the heavy eyes under the fringe the soul of a 
 fellow-worker, and so bade Badalia mount guard over 
 Lascar Loo, when the next jelly or custard should arrive, 
 to see that the invalid actually ate it. This Badalia did, 
 to the disgust of Lascar Loo's mother, and the sharing 
 of a black eye between the three; but Lascar Loo got her 
 custard, and coughing heartily, rather enjoyed the fray. 
 
 Later on, partly through the Reverend Eustace Han- 
 na's swift recognition of her uses, and partly through 
 certain tales poured out with moist eyes and flushed 
 cheeks by Sister Eva, youngest and most impressionable 
 of the Little Sisters of the Red Diamond, it came to pass 
 that Badalia, arrogant, fluffy-fringed, and perfectly un- 
 licensed in speech, won a recognised place among such as 
 labour in Gunnison Street. 
 
 These were a mixed corps, zealous or hysterical, faint- 
 hearted or only very wearied of battle against misery, 
 according to their lights. The most part were consumed 
 with small rivalries and personal jealousies, to be re- 
 tailed confidentially to their own tiny cliques in the 
 pauses between wrestling with death for the body of a 
 moribund laundress, or scheming for further mission- 
 grants to resole a consumptive compositor's very con- 
 sumptive boots. There was a rector that lived in dread 
 
 270 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 of pauperising the poor, would fain have held bazars for 
 fresh altar-cloths, and prayed in secret for a large new 
 brass bird, with eyes of red glass, fondly believed to be 
 carbuncles. There was Brother Victor, of the Order of 
 Little Ease, who knew a great deal about altar-cloths, 
 but kept his knowledge in the background while he 
 strove to propitiate Mrs. Jessel, the Secretary of the 
 Tea Cup Board, who had money to dispense, but hated 
 Rome — even though Rome would, on its honour, do no 
 more than fill the stomach, leaving the dazed soul to the 
 mercies of Mrs. Jessel. There were all the Little Sisters 
 of the Red Diamond, daughters of the horseleech, cry- 
 ing 'Give' when their own charity was exhausted, and 
 pitifully explaining to such as demanded an account of 
 their disbursements in return for one half-sovereign, 
 that relief-work in a bad district can hardly be system- 
 atised on the accounts side without expensive duplica- 
 tion of staff. There was the Reverend Eustace Hanna, 
 who worked impartially with Ladies' Committees, An- 
 drogynous Leagues and Guilds, Brother Victor, and any- 
 body else who could give him money, boots, or blankets, 
 or that more precious help that allows itself to be di- 
 rected by those who know. And all these people learned, 
 one by one, to consult Badalia on matters of personal 
 character, right to relief, and hope of eventual reforma- 
 tion in Gunnison Street. Her answers were seldom 
 cheering, but she possessed special knowledge and com- 
 plete confidence in herself. 
 
 'I'm Gunnison Street,' she said to the austere Mrs. 
 Jessel. 'I know what's what, I do, an' they don't want 
 your religion, Mum, not a single — . Excuse me. It's 
 all right when they comes to die, Mum, but till they die 
 what they wants is things to eat. The men they'll shif ' 
 
 271 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 for themselves. That's why Nick Lapworth sez to you 
 that 'e wants to be confirmed an' all that. 'E won't 
 never lead no new life, nor 'is wife won't get no good out 
 o' all the money you gives 'im. No more you can't 
 pauperise them as 'asn't things to begin with. They're 
 bloomin' well pauped. The women they can't shif 
 for themselves — 'specially bein' always confined. 'Ow 
 should they? They wants things if they can get 'em 
 anyways. If not they dies, and a good job too, for 
 women is cruel put upon in Gunnison Street.' 
 
 'Do you believe that — that Mrs. Herodsfoot is alto- 
 gether a proper person to trust funds to?' said Mrs. Jes- 
 sel to the curate after this conversation. 'She seems to 
 be utterly godless in her speech at least.' 
 
 The curate agreed. She was godless according to Mrs. 
 Jessel's views, but did not Mrs. Jessel think that since 
 Badalia knew Gunnison Street and its needs, as none 
 other knew it, she might in a humble way be, as it were, 
 the scullion of charity from purer .sources, and that 
 if, say, the Tea Cup Board could give a few shillings a 
 week, and the Little Sisters of the Red Diamond a few 
 more, and, yes, he himself could raise yet a few more, 
 the total, not at all likely to be excessive, might be 
 handed over to Badalia to dispense among her associates. 
 Thus Mrs. Jessel herself would be set free to attend 
 more directly to the spiritual wants of certain large- 
 limbed hulking men who sat picturesquely on the lower 
 benches of her gatherings and sought for truth — which 
 is quite as precious as silver, when you know the market 
 for it. 
 
 ' She'll favour her own friends,' said Mrs. Jessel. The 
 curate refrained from mirth, and, after wise flattery, 
 carried his point. To her unbounded pride Badalia was 
 
 272 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 appointed the dispenser of a grant — a weekly trust, to be 
 held for the benefit of Gunnison Street. 
 
 'I don't know what we can get together each week,' 
 said the curate to her. ' But here are seventeen shillings 
 to start with. You do what you like with them among 
 your people, only let me know how it goes so that we 
 shan't get muddled in the accounts. D'you see? ' 
 
 'Ho yuss! 'Tain't much though, is it?' said Badalia, 
 regarding the white coins in her palm. The sacred fever 
 of the administrator, only known to those who have 
 tasted power, burned in her veins. 'Boots is boots, un- 
 less they're give you, an' then they ain't fit to wear un- 
 less they're mended top an' bottom; an' jellies is jellies; 
 an' I don't think anything o' that cheap pork-wine, but 
 it all comes to something. It'll go quicker 'n a quartern 
 of gin — seventeen bob. An' I'll keep a book — same as I 
 used to do before Tom went an' took up 'long o' that 
 pan-faced slut in Hennessy's Rents. We was the only 
 barrer that kep' regular books, me an' — 'im.' 
 
 She bought a large copy-book — her unschooled hand- 
 writing demanded room — and in it she wrote the story 
 of her war; boldly, as befits a general, and for no other 
 eyes than her own and those of the Reverend Eustace 
 Hanna. Long ere the pages were full the mottled cover 
 had been soaked in kerosene — Lascar Loo's mother, 
 defrauded of her percentage on her daughter's custards, 
 invaded Badalia's room in 17 Gunnison Street, and 
 fought with her to the damage of the lamp and her own 
 hair. It was hard, too, to carry the precious ' pork-wine' 
 in one hand and the book in the other through an eter- 
 nally thirsty land; so red stains were added to those of 
 the oil. But the Reverend Eustace Hanna, looking at 
 the matter of the book, never objected. The generous 
 
 273 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 scrawls told their own tale, Badalia every Saturday 
 night supplying the chorus between the written state- 
 ments thus: — ■ 
 
 'Mrs. Hikkey, very ill brandy 3d. Cab for hospital, 
 she had to go, Is. Mrs. Poone confined. In money for 
 tea (she took it I know, sir) 6d. Met her husband out 
 looking for work.' 
 
 'I slapped 'is face for a bone-idle beggar! 'E won't 
 get no work becos 'e's — excuse me, sir. Won't you go 
 on?' The curate continued — 
 
 ' Mrs. Vincent. Confid. No linning for baby. Most 
 untidy. In money 2s. 6d. Some cloths from Miss 
 Evva.' 
 
 'Did Sister Eva do that?' said the curate very softly. 
 Now charity was Sister Eva's bounden duty, yet to one 
 man's eyes each act of her daily toil was a manifestation 
 of angelic grace and goodness — a thing to perpetually 
 admire. 
 
 'Yes, sir. She went back to the Sisters' 'Ome an' 
 took 'em off 'er own bed. Most beautiful marked too. 
 Go on, sir. That makes up four and thruppence.' 
 
 ' Mrs. Junnet to keep good fire coals is up. 7d. 
 
 'Mrs. Lockhart took a baby to nurse to earn a triffle 
 but mother can'd pay husband summons over and over. 
 He won't help. Cash 2s. 2d. Worked in a ketchin but 
 had to leave. Fire, tea, and shin of beef Is. TJd.' 
 
 * There was a fight there, sir,' said Badalia. ' Not me, 
 sir. 'Er 'usband, o' course 'e come in at the wrong 
 time, was wishful to 'ave the beef, so I calls up the next 
 floor an' down comes that mulatter man wot sells the 
 sword-stick canes, top o' Ludgate-'ill. "Muley," sez I, 
 "you big black beast, you, take an' kill this big white 
 beast 'ere." I knew I couldn't stop Tom Lockart 'alf 
 
 274 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 drunk, with the beef in 'is 'ands. "I'll beef 'm," sez 
 Muley, an' 'e did it, with that pore woman a-cryin' in 
 the next room, an' the top banisters on that landin' is 
 broke out, but she got 'er beef-tea, an' Tom 'e's got 'is 
 gruel. Will you go on, sir? ' 
 
 'No, I think it will be all right. I'll sign for the week,' 
 said the curate. One gets so used to these things pro- 
 fanely called human documents. 
 
 'Mrs. Churner's baby's got diptheery,' said Badalia, 
 turning to go. 
 
 'Where's that? The Churners of Painter's Alley, or 
 the other Churners in Houghton Street?' 
 
 'Houghton Street. The Painter's Alley people, they're 
 sold out an' left.' 
 
 'Sister Eva's sitting one night a week with old Mrs. 
 Probyn in Houghton Street — isn't she?' said the curate 
 uneasily. 
 
 'Yes; but she won't sit no longer. I've took up Mrs. 
 Probyn. I can't talk 'er no religion, but she don't want 
 it; an' Miss Eva she don't want no diptheery, tho' she 
 says she does. Don't you be afraid for Miss Eva.' 
 
 'But — but you'll get it, perhaps.' 
 
 'Like as not.' She looked the curate between the 
 eyes, and her own eyes flamed under the fringe. ' May- 
 be I'd like to get it, for aught you know.' 
 
 The curate thought upon these words for a little time 
 till he began to think of Sister Eva in the gray cloak with 
 the white bonnet ribbons under the chin. Then he 
 thought no more of Badalia. 
 
 What Badalia thought was never expressed in words, 
 but it is known in Gunnison Street that Lascar Loo's 
 mother, sitting blind drunk on her own doorstep, was 
 that night captured and wrapped up in the war-cloud of 
 
 275 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Badalia's wrath, so that she did not know whether she 
 stood on her head or her heels, and after being soundly 
 bumped on every particular stair up to her room, was 
 set down on Badalia's bed, there to whimper and quiver 
 till the dawn, protesting that all the world was against 
 her, and calling on the names of children long since slain 
 by dirt and neglect. Badalia, snorting, w^ent out to war, 
 and since the hosts of the enemy were many, found 
 enough work to keep her busy till the dawn. 
 
 As she had promised, she took Mrs. Probyn into her 
 own care, and began by nearly startling the old lady into 
 a fit with the announcement that 'there ain't no God 
 like as not, an' if there is it don't matter to you or me, 
 an' any'ow you take this jelly.' Sister Eva objected to 
 being shut off from her pious work in Houghton Street, 
 but Badalia insisted, and by fair words and the promise 
 of favours to come so prevailed on three or four of the 
 more sober men of the neighbourhood, that they block- 
 aded the door whenever Sister Eva attempted to force 
 an entry, and pleaded the diphtheria as an excuse. 
 'I've got to keep 'er out 'o 'arm's way,' said Badalia, 
 * an' out she keeps. The curick won't care a — for me, 
 but — he wouldn't any'ow.' 
 
 The effect of that quarantine was to shift the sphere 
 of Sister Eva's activity to other streets, and notably 
 those most haunted by the Reverend Eustace Hanna 
 and Brother Victor, of the Order of Little Ease. There 
 exists, for all their human bickerings, a very close broth- 
 erhood in the ranks of those whose work lies in Gunni- 
 son Street. To begin with, they have seen pain — pain 
 that no word or deed of theirs can alleviate — life born 
 into Death, and Death crowded down by unhappy life. 
 Also they understand the full significance of drink, which 
 
 276 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 is a knowledge hidden from very many well-meaning 
 people, and some of them have fought with the beasts at 
 Ephesus. They meet at unseemly hours in unseemly 
 places, exchange a word or two of hasty counsel, advice, 
 or suggestion, and pass on to their appointed toil, since 
 time is precious and lives hang in the balance of five 
 minutes. For many, the gas-lamps are their sun, and 
 the Covent Garden wains the chariots of the twilight. 
 They have all in their station begged for money, so that 
 the freemasonry of the mendicant binds them together. 
 To all these influences there was added in the case of 
 two workers that thing which men have agreed to call 
 Love. The chance that Sister Eva might catch diph- 
 theria did not enter into the curate's head till Badalia 
 had spoken. Then it seemed a thing intolerable and 
 monstrous that she should be exposed not only to this 
 risk, but any accident whatever of the streets. A wain 
 coming round a corner might kill her; the rotten stair- 
 cases on which she trod daily and nightly might collapse 
 and maim her; there was danger in the tottering coping- 
 stones of certain crazy houses that he knew well; danger 
 more deadly within those houses. What if one of a 
 thousand drunken men crushed out that precious life? 
 A woman had once flung a chair at the curate's head. 
 Sister Eva's arm would not be strong enough to ward 
 off a chair. There were also knives that were quick to 
 fly. These and other considerations cast the soul of the 
 Reverend Eustace Hanna into torment that no leaning 
 upon Providence could relieve. God was indubitably 
 great and terrible — one had only to walk through Gunni- 
 son Street to see that much — but it would be better, 
 vastly better, that Eva should have the protection of 
 his own arm. And the world that was not too busy to 
 
 277 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 watch might have seen a woman, not too young, Hght- 
 haired and light-eyed, sHghtly assertive in her speech, 
 and very Hmited in such ideas as lay beyond the imme- 
 diate sphere of her duty, where the eyes of the Reverend 
 Eustace Hanna turned to follow the footsteps of a Queen 
 crowned in a little gray bonnet with white ribbons under 
 the chin. 
 
 If that bonnet appeared for a moment at the bottom 
 of a courtyard, or nodded at him on a dark staircase, 
 then there was hope yet for Lascar Loo, living on one 
 lung and the memory of past excesses, hope even for 
 whining sodden Nick Lapworth, blaspheming, in the 
 hope of money, over the pangs of a ' true conversion this 
 time, s'elp me Gawd, sir.' If that bonnet did not ap- 
 pear for a day, the mind of the curate was filled with 
 lively pictures of horror, visions of stretchers, a crowd 
 at some villainous crossing, and a policeman — he could 
 see that policeman — jerking out over his shoulder the 
 details of the accident, and ordering the man who would 
 have set his body against the wheels — heavy dray wheels, 
 he could see them — to 'move on.' Then there was less 
 hope for the salvation of Gunnison Street and all in it. 
 
 This agony Brother Victor beheld one day when he 
 was coming from a death-bed. He saw the light in the 
 eye, the relaxing muscles of the mouth, and heard a new 
 ring in the voice that had told flat all the forenoon. 
 Sister Eva had turned into Gunnison Street after a forty- 
 eight hours' eternity of absence. She had not been run 
 over. Brother Victor's heart must have suffered in some 
 human fashion, or he would never have seen what he 
 saw. But the Law of his Church made suffering easy. 
 His duty was to go on with his work until he died, even 
 as Badalia went on. She, magnifying her office, faced 
 
 278 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 the drunken husband; coaxed the doubly shiftless, thrift- 
 less girl-wife into a little forethought, and begged clothes 
 when and where she could for the scrofulous babes that 
 multiplied like the green scum on the untopped water- 
 cisterns. 
 
 The story of her deeds was written in the book that 
 the curate signed weekly, but she never told him any 
 more of fights and tumults in the street. 'Mis' Eva 
 does 'er work 'er way. I does mine mine. But I do 
 more than Mis' Eva ten times over, an' "Thank yer, 
 Badalia," sez 'e, "that'll do for this week." I wonder 
 what Tom's doin' now long o' that — other woman. 
 'Seems like as if I'd go an' look at 'im one o' these days. 
 But I'd cut 'er liver out — couldn't 'elp myself. Better 
 not go, p'raps.' 
 
 Hennessy's Rents lay more than two miles from Gun- 
 nison Street, and were inhabited by much the same class 
 of people. Tom had established himself there with 
 Jenny Wabstow, his new woman, and for weeks lived in 
 great fear of Badalia's suddenly descending upon him. 
 The prospect of actual fighting did not scare him; but 
 he objected to the police-court that would follow, and 
 the orders for maintenance and other devices of a law 
 that cannot understand the simple rule that 'when a 
 man's tired of a woman 'e ain't such a bloomin' fool as 
 to live with 'er no more, an' that's the long an' short of 
 it.' For some months his new wife wore very well, and 
 kept Tom in a state of decent fear and consequent order- 
 liness. Also work was plentiful. Then a baby was 
 born, and, following the law of his kind, Tom, little in- 
 terested in the children he helped to produce, sought dis- 
 traction in drink. He had confined himself, as a rule, 
 to beer, which is stupefying and comparatively innocu- 
 
 279 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 ous: at least, it clogs the legs, and though the heart may 
 ardently desire to kill, sleep comes swiftly, and the 
 crime often remains undone. Spirits, being more vola- 
 tile, allow both the flesh and the soul to work together — 
 generally to the inconvenience of others. Tom discov- 
 ered that there was merit in whisky — if you only took 
 enough of it — cold. He took as much as he could pur- 
 chase or get given him, and by the time that his woman 
 was fit to go abroad again, the two rooms of their house- 
 hold were stripped of many valuable articles. Then 
 the woman spoke her mind, not once, but several times, 
 with point, fluency and metaphor; and Tom was in- 
 dignant at being deprived of peace at the end of his 
 day's work, which included much whisky. He therefore 
 withdrew himself from the solace and companionship of 
 Jenny Wabstow, and she therefore pursued him with 
 more metaphors. At the last, Tom would turn round 
 and hit her — sometimes across the head, and sometimes 
 across the breast, and the bruises furnished material for 
 discussion on doorsteps among such women as had been 
 treated in like manner by their husbands. They were 
 not few. 
 
 But no very public scandal had occurred till Tom one 
 day saw fit to open negotiations with a young woman for 
 matrimony according to the laws of free selection. He 
 was getting very tired of Jenny, and the young woman 
 was earning enough from flower-selling to keep him in 
 comfort, whereas Jenny was expecting another baby, 
 and most unreasonably expected consideration on this 
 account. The shapelessness of her figure revolted him, 
 and he said as much in the language of his breed . Jenny 
 cried till Mrs. Hart, lineal descendant, and Irish of the 
 * mother to Mike of the donkey-cart,' stopped her on her 
 
 280 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 own staircase and whispered: 'God be good to you, 
 Jenny, my woman, for I see how 'tis with you.' Jenny 
 wept more than ever, and gave Mrs. Hart a penny and 
 some kisses, while Tom was conducting his own wooing 
 at the corner of the street. 
 
 The young woman, prompted by pride, not by virtue, 
 told Jenny of his offers, and Jenny spoke to Tom that 
 night. The altercation began in their own rooms, but 
 Tom tried to escape; and in the end all Hennessy's Rents 
 gathered themselves upon the pavement and formed a 
 court to which Jenny appealed from time to time, her 
 hair loose on her neck, her raiment in extreme disorder, 
 and her steps astray from drink. 'When your man 
 drinks, you'd better drink too! It don't 'urt so much 
 when 'e 'its you then,' says the Wisdom of the W^omen. 
 And surely they ought to know. 
 
 'Look at 'im!' shrieked Jenny. 'Look at 'im, stand- 
 in' there without any word to say for himself, that 'ud 
 smitch off and leave me an' never so much as a shillin' 
 lef be'ind! You call yourself a man — you call yourself 
 the bleedin' shadow of a man? I've seen better men 
 than you made outer chewed paper and spat out arter- 
 wards. Look at 'im! 'E's been drunk since Thursday 
 last, an' 'e'll be drunk s' long's 'e can get drink. 'E's 
 took all I've got, an' me — an' me — as you see — ' 
 
 A murmur of sympathy from the women. 
 
 'Took it all, he did, an' atop of his blasted pickin' an' 
 stealin' — yes, you, you thief — 'e goes off an' tries to take 
 up long o' that' — here followed a complete and minute 
 description of the young woman. Luckily, she was not 
 on the spot to hear. ' 'E'll serve 'er as 'e served me! 
 'E'll drink every bloomin' copper she makes an' then 
 leave 'er alone, same as 'e done me! women, look 
 
 281 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 you, I've bore 'im one an' there's another on the way, 
 an' 'e'd up an' leave me as I am now — the stinkin' dorg. 
 An' you mxay leave me. I don't want none o' your 
 leavin's. Go away. Get away!' The hoarseness of 
 passion overpowered the voice. The crowd attracted a 
 policeman as Tom began to slink away. 
 
 ' Look at 'im,' said Jenny, grateful for the new listener. 
 'Ain't there no law for such as 'im? 'E's took all my 
 money, 'e's beat me once, twice an' over. 'E's swine 
 drunk when 'e ain't mad drunk, an' now, an' now 'e's 
 trying to pick up along o' another woman. 'Im I give 
 up a four times better man for. Ain't there no law? ' 
 
 'What's the matter now? You go into your 'ouse. 
 I'll see to the man. 'As 'e been 'itting you?' said the 
 policeman. 
 
 ' 'Ittin' me? 'E's cut my 'eart in two, an' 'e stands 
 there grinnin' as tho' 'twas all a play to 'im.' 
 
 'You go on into your 'ouse an' lie down a bit.' 
 
 'I'm a married woman, I tell you, an' I'll 'ave my 
 'usband!' 
 
 'I ain't done her no bloomin' 'arm,' said Tom from 
 the edge of the crowd. He felt that public opinion was 
 running against him. 
 
 'You ain't done me any bloomin' good, you dorg. 
 I'm a married woman, I am, an' I won't 'ave my 'us- 
 band took from me.' 
 
 'Well, if you are a married woman, cover your breasts,' 
 said the policeman soothingly. He was used to domes- 
 tic brawls. 
 
 ' Shan't — thank you for your impidence. Look 'ere ! ' 
 She tore open her dishevelled bodice and showed such 
 crescent-shaped bruises as are made by a well-applied 
 chair-back. 'That's what 'e done to me acause my 
 
 282 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 heart wouldn't break quick enough! 'E's tried to get 
 in an' break it. Look at that, Tom, that you gave me 
 last night; an' I made it up with you. But that was 
 before I knew what you were tryin' to do long o' that 
 woman — ' 
 
 *D'you charge 'im?' said the policeman. ' 'E'll get a 
 month for it, per'aps.' 
 
 *No,' said Jenny firmly. It was one thing to expose 
 her man to the scorn of the street, and another to lead 
 him to jail. 
 
 *Then you go in an' lie down, and you' — this to the 
 crowd — 'pass along the pavement, there. Pass along. 
 'Tain't nothing to laugh at.' To Tom, who was being 
 sympathised with by his friends, ' It's good for you she 
 didn't charge you, but mind this now, the next time,' 
 etc. 
 
 Tom did not at all appreciate Jenny's forbearance, 
 nor did his friends help to compose his mind. He had 
 whacked the woman because she was a nuisance. For 
 precisely the same reason he had cast about for a new 
 mate. And all his kind acts had ended in a truly pain- 
 ful scene in the street, a most unjustifiable exposure by 
 and of his woman, and a certain loss of caste — this he 
 realised dimly — among his associates. Consequently, 
 all women were nuisances, and consequently whisky was 
 a good thing. His friends condoled with him. Perhaps 
 he had been more hard on his woman than she deserved, 
 but her disgraceful conduct under provocation excused 
 all offence. 
 
 *I wouldn't 'ave no more to do with 'er — a woman 
 like that there,' said one comforter. 
 
 * Let 'er go an' dig for her bloomin' self. A man wears 
 'isself out to 'is bones shovin' meat down their mouths, 
 
 283 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 while they sit at 'ome easy all day; an' the very fust 
 time, mark you, you 'as a bit of a difference, an' very 
 proper too for a man as is a man, she ups an' 'as you out 
 into the street, callin' you Gawd knows what all. What's 
 the good o' that, I arx you?' So spoke the second com- 
 forter. 
 
 The whisky was the third, and his suggestion struck 
 Tom as the best of all. He would return to Badalia, his 
 wife. Probably she would have been doing something 
 wrong while he had been away, and he could then vindi- 
 cate his authority as a husband. Certainly she would 
 have money. Single women always seemed to possess 
 the pence that God and the Government denied to hard- 
 working men. He refreshed himself with more whisky. 
 It was beyond any doubt that Badalia would have done 
 something wrong. She might even have married an- 
 other man. He would wait till the new husband was 
 out of the way, and, after kicking Badalia, would get 
 money and a long absent sense of satisfaction. There 
 is much virtue in a creed or a law, but when all is prayed 
 and suffered, drink is the only thing that will make clean 
 all a man's deeds in his own eyes. Pity it is that the 
 effects are not permanent. 
 
 Tom parted with his friends, bidding them tell Jenny 
 that he was going to Gunnison Street, and would return 
 to her arms no more. Because this was the devil's mes- 
 sage, they remembered and severally delivered it, with 
 drunken distinctness, in Jenny's ears. Then Tom took 
 more drink till his drunkenness rolled back and stood 
 off from him as a wave rolls back and stands off the 
 wreck it will swamp. He reached the trafTic-polished 
 black asphalte of a side-street and trod warily among 
 the reflections of the shop-lamps that burned in gulfs of 
 
 284 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 pitchy darkness, fathoms beneath his boot-heels. He 
 was very sober indeed. Looking down his past, he be- 
 held that he was justified of all his actions so entirely 
 and perfectly that if Badalia had in his absence dared to 
 lead a blameless life he would smash her for not having 
 gone wrong. 
 
 Badalia at that moment was in her own room aftei 
 the regular nightly skirmish with Lascar Loo's mothei-. 
 To a reproof as stinging as a Gunnison Street tongue 
 could make it, the old woman, detected for the hun- 
 dredth time in the theft of the poor delicacies meant for 
 the invalid, could only cackle and answer— 
 
 'D'you think Loo's never bilked a man in 'er life? 
 She's dyin' now— on'y she's so cunning long about it. 
 Me ! I'll live for twenty years yet.' 
 
 Badalia shook her, more on principle than in any hope 
 of curing her, and thrust her into the night, where she 
 collapsed on the pavement and called upon the devil to 
 slay Badalia. 
 
 He came upon the word in the shape of a man with a 
 very pale face who asked for her by name. Lascar 
 Loo's mother remembered. It was Badalia's husband 
 — and the return of a husband to Gunnison Street was 
 generally followed by beatings. 
 
 ' Where's my wife? ' said Tom. ' Where's my slut of a 
 wife?' 
 
 'Upstairs an' be — to her,' said the old woman, falling 
 over on her side. ' 'Ave you come back for 'er, Tom?' 
 
 ' Yes. 'Oo's she took up while I bin gone? ' 
 
 'All the bloomin' curicks in the parish. She's that 
 set up you wouldn't know 'er.' 
 
 "Strewthsheis!' 
 
 ' Oh, yuss. Mor'n that, she's always round an' about 
 
 285 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 with them sniffin' Sisters of Charity an' the curick. 
 Mor'n that, 'e gives 'er money — pounds an' pounds a 
 week. Been keepin' her that way for months, 'e 'as. 
 No wonder you wouldn't 'ave nothin' to do with 'er 
 when you left. An' she keeps me outer the food-stuff 
 they gets for me lyin' dyin' out 'ere like a dorg. She's 
 been a blazin' bad un has Badalia since you lef'.' 
 
 *Got the same room still, 'as she?' said Tom, striding 
 over Lascar Loo's mother, who was picking at the chinks 
 between the pave-stones. 
 
 * Yes, but so fine you wouldn't know it.' 
 
 Tom went up the stairs and the old lady chuckled. 
 Tom was angry. Badalia would not be able to bump 
 people for some time to come, or to interfere with the 
 heaven-appointed distribution of custards. 
 
 Badalia, undressing to go to bed, heard feet on the 
 stair that she knew well. Ere they stopped to kick at 
 her door she had, in her own fashion, thought over very 
 many things. 
 
 * Tom's back,' she said to herself. 'An' I'm glad 
 . . . spite o' the curick an' everythink.' 
 
 She opened the door, crying his name. 
 The man pushed her aside. 
 
 * I don't want none o' your kissin's an' slaverin's. I'm 
 sick of 'em,' said he. 
 
 * You ain't 'ad so many neither to make you sick these 
 two years past.' 
 
 * I've 'ad better. Got any money? ' 
 
 * On'y a little— orful little.' 
 'That's a — lie, an' you know it.' 
 
 * 'Taint — and, oh Tom, what's the use o' talkin* money 
 the minute you come back? Didn't you like Jenny? I 
 kjiowed you wouldn't.' 
 
 286 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 'Shut your 'ead. Ain't you got enough to make a 
 man drunk fair?' 
 
 ' You don't want bein' made more drunk any. You're 
 drunk a'ready. You come to bed, Tom.' 
 
 'To you?' 
 
 'Ay, to me. Ain't I nothin' — spite o' Jenny?' 
 
 She put out her arms as she spoke. But the drink 
 held Tom fast. 
 
 'Not for me,' said he, steadying himself against the 
 wall. 'Don't I know 'ow you've been goin' on while I 
 was away, yah!' 
 
 'Arsk about!' said Badalia indignantly, drawing her- 
 self together. ' 'Oo sez anythink agin me 'ere? ' 
 
 "Oo sez? Wy, everybody. I ain't come back 
 more'n a minute fore I finds you've been with the curick 
 Gawd knows where. Wot curick was 'e? ' 
 
 'The curick that's 'ere always,' said Badalia hastily. 
 She was thinking of anything rather than the Rev. Eus- 
 tace Hanna at that moment. Tom sat down gravely 
 in the only chair in the room. Badalia continued her 
 arrangements for going to bed. 
 
 ' Pretty thing that,' said Tom, 'to tell your own lawful 
 married 'usband — an' I guv five bob for the weddin'- 
 ring. Curick that's 'ere always! Cool as brass you 
 are. Ain't you got no shame? Ain't 'e under the bed 
 now?' 
 
 *Tom, you're bleedin' drunk. I ain't done nothin' to 
 be 'shamed of.' 
 
 *You! You don't know wot shame is. But I ain't 
 come 'ere to mess with you. Give me wot you've got, 
 an' then I'll dress you down an' go to Jenny.' 
 
 ' I ain't got nothin' 'cept some coppers an' a shillin' or 
 so.' 
 
 287 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 * Wot's that about the curick keepin' you on five poun' 
 a week? ' 
 
 "Oo told you that?' 
 
 'Lascar Loo's mother, lyin' on the pavemint outside, 
 an' more honest than you'll ever be. Give me wot 
 you've got!' 
 
 Badalia passed over to a little shell pin-cushion on the 
 mantelpiece, drew thence four shillings and threepence 
 — the lawful earnings of her trade — and held them out 
 to the man who was rocking in his chair and surveying 
 the room with wide-opened, rolling eyes. 
 
 'That ain't five poun',' said he drowsily. 
 
 'I ain't got no more. Take it an' go — if you won't 
 stay.' 
 
 Tom rose slowly, gripping the arms of the chair. 
 'Wot about the curick's money that 'e guv you?' said 
 h.e. 'Lascar Loo's mother told me. You give it over 
 to me now, or I'll make you.' 
 
 'Lascar Loo's mother don't know anything about it.' 
 
 ' She do, an' more than you want her to know.' 
 
 'She don't. I've bumped the 'eart out of 'er, and I 
 can't give you the money. Anythin' else but that, 
 Tom, an' every thin' else but that, Tom, I'll give willin' 
 and true. 'Taint my money. Won't the dollar be 
 enough? That money's my trust. There's a book 
 along of it too.' 
 
 'Your trust? Wot are you doin' with any trust that 
 your 'usband don't know of? You an' your trust! 
 Take you that ! ' 
 
 Tom stepped towards her and delivered a blow of the 
 clenched fist across the mouth. 'Give me wot you've 
 got,' said he, in the thick, abstracted voice of one talking 
 in dreams. 
 
 288 
 
THE RECORD OE BADALIA IIERODSFOOT 
 
 'I won't,' said Badalia, staggering to the washstand. 
 With any other man than her husband she would have 
 fought savagely as a wild cat; but Tom had been absent 
 two years, and, perhaps, a little timely submission would 
 win him back to her. None the less, the weekly trust 
 was sacred. 
 
 The wave that had so long held back descended on 
 Tom's brain. He caught Badalia by the throat and 
 forced her to her knees. It seemed just to him in that 
 hour to punish an erring wife for two years of wilful de- 
 sertion; and the more, in that she had confessed her 
 guilt by refusing to give up the wage of sin. 
 
 Lascar Loo's mother waited on the pavement without 
 for the sounds of lamentation, but none came. Even if 
 Tom had released her gullet Badalia would not have 
 screamed. 
 
 'Give it up, you slut!' said Tom. 'Is that 'ow you 
 pay me back for all I've done?' 
 
 'I can't. 'Tain't my money. Gawd forgive you, 
 Tom, for wot you're — ,' the voice ceased as the grip 
 tightened, and Tom heaved Badalia against the bed. 
 Her forehead struck the bed-post, and she sank, half 
 kneeling, on the floor. It was impossible for a self-re- 
 specting man to refrain from kicking her: so Tom kicked 
 with the deadly intelligence born of whisky. The head 
 drooped to the floor, and Tom kicked at that tfll the 
 crisp tingle of hair striking through his nafled boot with 
 the chill of cold w^ater, warned him that it might be as 
 well to desist. 
 
 'Where's the curick's money, you kep' woman?' he 
 whispered in the blood-stained ear. But there was no 
 answer — only a rattling at the door, and the voice of 
 Jenny Wabstow crying ferociously, ' Come out o' that, 
 
 289 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Tom, an' come 'ome with me! An' you, Badalia, I'll 
 tear your face off its bones ! ' 
 
 Tom's friends had delivered their message, and Jenny, 
 after the first flood of passionate tears, rose up to follow 
 Tom, and, if possible, to win him back. She was pre- 
 pared even to endure an exemplary whacking for her 
 performances in Hennessy's Rents. Lascar Loo's mother 
 guided her to the chamber of horrors, and chuckled as she 
 retired down the staircase. If Tom had not banged 
 the soul out of Badalia, there would at least be a royal 
 fight between that Badalia and Jenny. And Lascar Loo's 
 mother knew well that Hell has no fury like a woman 
 fighting above the life that is quick in her. 
 
 Still there was no sound audible in the street. Jenny 
 swung back the unbolted door, to discover her man stu- 
 pidly regarding a heap by the bed. An eminent mur- 
 derer has remarked that if people did not die so untidily, 
 most men, and all women, would commit at least one 
 murder in their lives. Tom was reflecting on the pres- 
 ent untidiness, and the whisky was fighting with the 
 clear current of his thoughts. 
 
 * Don't make that noise,' he said. 'Come in quick.' 
 
 * My Gawd ! ' said Jenny, checking like a startled wild 
 beast. ' Wot's all this 'ere? You ain't—' 
 
 *Dunno. 'Spose I did it.' 
 
 * Did it ! You done it a sight too well this time.* 
 'She was aggravatin',' said Tom thickly, dropping 
 
 back into the chair. 'That aggravatin' you'd never be- 
 lieve. Livin' on the fat o' the land among these aristo- 
 cratic parsons an' all. Look at them white curtings on 
 the bed. We ain't got no white curtings. What I 
 want to know is — ' The voice died as Badalia's had 
 died, but from a different cause. The whisky was 
 
 290 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 tightening its grip after the accompUshed deed, and 
 Tom's eyes were beginning to close. Badaha on the 
 floor breathed heavily. 
 
 'No, nor like to 'ave,' said Jenny. 'You've done for 
 'er this time. You go!' 
 
 'Not me. She won't hurt. Do 'er good. I'm goin' 
 to sleep. Look at those there clean sheets! Ain't you 
 comin' too?' 
 
 Jenny bent over Badalia, and there was intelligence in 
 the battered woman's eyes — intelligence and much hate. 
 
 'I never told 'im to do such,' Jenny whispered. ' 'Twas 
 Tom's own doin' — none o' mine. Shall I get 'im took, 
 dear?' 
 
 The eyes told their own story. Tom, who was begin- 
 ning to snore, must not be taken by the Law. 
 
 'Go,' said Jenny. 'Get out! Get out of 'ere.' 
 
 'You — told — me — that — this afternoon,' said the 
 man very sleepily. ' Lemme go asleep.' 
 
 ' That wasn't nothing. You'd only 'it me. This time 
 it's murder — murder-murder! Tom, you've killed 'er 
 now.' She shook the man from his rest, and understand- 
 ing with cold terror filled his fuddled brain. 
 
 ' I done it for your sake, Jenny,' he whimpered feebly, 
 trying to take her hand. 
 
 'You killed 'er for the money, same as you would ha' 
 killed me. Get out o' this. Lay 'er on the bed first, 
 you brute!' 
 
 They lifted Badalia on to the bed, and crept forth si- 
 lently. 
 
 'I can't be took along o' you — and if you was took 
 you'd say I made you do it, an' try to get me 'anged. 
 Go away — anywhere outer 'ere,' said Jenny, and she 
 dragged him down the stairs. 
 
 291 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 'Goin' to look for the curick?' said a voice from the 
 pavement. Lascar Loo's mother was still waiting pa- 
 tiently to hear Badalia squeal. 
 
 *Wot curick?' said Jenny swiftly. There was a 
 chance of salving her conscience yet in regard to the 
 bundle upstairs. 
 
 ' 'Anna — 63 Roomer Terrace — close 'ere,' said the old 
 woman. She had never been favourably regarded by 
 the curate. Perhaps, since Badalia had not squealed, 
 Tom preferred smashing the man to the woman. There 
 was no accounting for tastes. 
 
 Jenny thrust her man before her till they reached the 
 nearest main road. 'Go away, now,' she gasped. *Go 
 off anywheres, but don't come back to me. I'll never 
 go with you again; an', Tom — Tom, d'you 'ear me? — 
 clean your boots.' 
 
 Vain counsel. The desperate thrust of disgust which 
 she bestowed upon him sent him staggering face-down 
 into the kennel, where a policeman showed interest in 
 his welfare. 
 
 'Took for a common drunk. Gawd send they don't 
 look at 'is boots! 'Anna, 63 Roomer Terrace!' Jenny 
 settled her hat and ran. 
 
 The excellent housekeeper of the Roomer Chambers 
 still remembers how there arrived a young person, blue- 
 lipped and gasping, who cried only: 'Badalia, 17 Gunni- 
 son Street. Tell the curick to come at once — at once — 
 at once!' and vanished into the night. This message 
 was borne to the Rev. Eustace Hanna, then enjoying 
 his beauty-sleep. He saw there was urgency in the de- 
 mand, and unhesitatingly knocked up Brother Victor 
 across the landing. As a matter of etiquette, Rome 
 and England divided their cases in the district according 
 
 292 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 to the creeds of the sufferers; but Badalia was an institu- 
 tion, and not a case, and there was no district-relief eti- 
 quette to be considered. 'Something has happened to 
 Badaha,' the curate said, 'and it's your affair as well as 
 mine. Dress and come along.' 
 
 'I am ready,' was the answer. 'Is there any hint of 
 what's wrong?' 
 
 'Nothing beyond a runaway-knock and a call.' 
 
 ' Then it's a confinement or a murderous assault. Bada- 
 lia wouldn't wake us up for anything less. I'm qualified 
 for both, thank God.' 
 
 The two men raced to Gunnison Street, for there were 
 no cabs abroad, and under any circumstances a cab-fare 
 means two days' good firing for such as are perishing 
 with cold. Lascar Loo's mother had gone to bed, and 
 the door was naturally on the latch. They found con- 
 siderably more than they had expected in Badalia's 
 room, and the Church of Rome acquitted itself nobly 
 with bandages, while the Church of England could only 
 pray to be delivered from the sin of envy. The Order 
 of Little Ease, recognising that the soul is in most cases 
 accessible through the body, take their measures and 
 train their men accordingly. 
 
 'She'll do now,' said Brother Victor, in a whisper. 
 'It's internal bleeding, I fear, and a certain amount of 
 injury to the brain. She has a husband, of course? ' 
 
 *They all have, more's the pity.' 
 
 *Yes, there's a domesticity about these injuries that 
 shows their origin.' He lowered his voice. ' It's a per- 
 fectly hopeless business, you understand. Twelve hours 
 at the most.' 
 
 Badalia's right hand began to beat on the counterpane, 
 palm down. 
 
 293 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 *I think you are wrong,' said the Church of England. 
 'She is going.' 
 
 'No, that's not the picking at the counterpane,' said 
 the Church of Rome. 'She wants to say something; 
 you know her better than I.' 
 
 The curate bent very low. 
 
 'Send for Miss Eva,' said Badalia, with a cough. 
 
 * In the morning. She will come in the morning,' said 
 the curate, and Badalia was content. Only the Church 
 of Rome, who knew something of the human heart, 
 knitted his brows and said nothing. After all, the law 
 of his Order was plain. His duty was to watch till the 
 dawn while the moon went down. 
 
 It was a little before her sinking that the Rev. Eustace 
 Hanna said, 'Hadn't we better send for Sister Eva? 
 She seems to be going fast.' 
 
 Brother Victor made no answer, but as early as de- 
 cency admitted there came one to the door of the house of 
 the Little Sisters of the Red Diamond and demanded 
 Sister Eva, that she might soothe the pain of Badalia 
 Herodsfoot. That man, saying very little, led her to 
 Gunnison Street, No. 17, and into the room where Ba- 
 dalia lay. Then he stood on the landing, and bit the 
 flesh of his fingers in agony, because he was a priest 
 trained to know, and knew how the hearts of men and 
 women beat back at the rebound, so that Love is born 
 out of horror, and passion declares itself when the soul is 
 quivering with pain. 
 
 Badalia, wise to the last, husbanded her strength till 
 the coming of Sister Eva. It is generally maintained by 
 the Little Sisters of the Red Diamond that she died in 
 delirium, but since one Sister at least took a half of her 
 dying advice, this seems uncharitable. 
 
 294 
 
THE RECORD OF BADALIA HERODSFOOT 
 
 She tried to turn feebly on the bed, and the poor bro- 
 ken human machinery protested according to its nature. 
 
 Sister Eva started forward, thinking that she heard 
 the dread forerunner of the death-rattle. Badalia lay 
 still conscious, and spoke with startling distinctness, the 
 irrepressible irreverence of the street-hawker, the girl 
 who had danced on the winkle-barrow, twinkling in her 
 one available eye. 
 
 'Sounds jest like Mrs. Jessel, don't it? Before she's 
 'ad 'er lunch an' 'as been talkin' all the mornin' to her 
 classes.' 
 
 Neither Sister Eva nor the curate said anything. 
 Brother Victor stood without the door, and the breath 
 came harshly between his teeth, for he was in pain. 
 
 *Put a cloth over my 'ead,' said Badalia. 'I've got 
 it good, an' I don't want Miss Eva to see. I ain't pretty 
 this time.' 
 
 'Who was it?' said the curate. 
 
 * Man from outside. Never seed 'im no mor'n Adam. 
 Drunk, I s'pose. S'elp me Gawd that's truth ! Is Miss 
 Eva 'ere? I can't see under the towel. I've got it 
 good, Miss Eva. Excuse my not shakin' 'ands with 
 you, but I'm not strong, an' it's fourpence for Mrs. 
 Imeny's beef-tea, an' wot you can give 'er for baby- 
 linning. Alius 'avin' kids, these people. I 'adn't 
 oughter talk, for my 'usband 'e never come a-nigh me 
 these two years, or I'd a-bin as bad as the rest; but 'e 
 never come a-nigh me. ... A man come and 'it 
 me over the 'ead, an' 'e kicked me. Miss Eva; so it was 
 just the same's if I had ha' had a 'usband, ain't it? The 
 book's in the drawer. Mister 'Anna, an' it's all right, an' 
 I never guv up a copper o' the trust money — not a cop- 
 per. You look under the chist o' drawers — all wot isn't 
 
 295 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 spent this week is there. . . . An', Miss Eva, don't 
 you wear that gray bonnick no more. I kep' you from 
 the diptheery, an' — an' I didn't want to keep you so, but 
 the curick said it 'ad to be done. I'd a sooner ha' took 
 up with 'im than any one, only Tom 'e come, an' then — 
 you see, Miss Eva, Tom 'e never come a-nigh me for two 
 years, nor I 'aven't seen 'im yet. S'elp me — , I 'aven't. 
 Do you 'ear? But you two go along, and make a match 
 of it. I've wished otherways often, but o' course it was 
 not for the likes o' me. If Tom 'ad come back, which 'e 
 never did, I'd ha' been like the rest — sixpence for beef- 
 tea for the baby, an' a shilling for layin' out the baby. 
 You've seen it in the books. Mister 'Anna. That's 
 what it is; an' o' course, you couldn't never 'ave nothing 
 to do with me. But a woman she wishes as she looks, 
 an' never you 'ave no doubt about 'im. Miss Eva. I've 
 seen it in 'is face time an' agin — time an' agin. . . . 
 Make it a four pound ten funeral — with a pall.' 
 
 It was a seven pound fifteen shilling funeral, and all 
 Gunnison Street turned out to do it honour. All but 
 two; for Lascar Loo's mother saw that a Power had de- 
 parted, and that her road lay clear to the custards. 
 Therefore, when the carriages rattled off, the cat on the 
 doorstep heard the wail of the dying prostitute who 
 could not die — 
 
 ' Oh, mother, mother, won't you even let me lick the 
 spoon ! ' 
 
 296 
 
 m 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 (1892) 
 
 Gloriana ! The Don may attack us 
 Whenever his stomach be fain; 
 He must reach us before he can rack us . . . 
 And where are the galleons of Spain? 
 
 Dobson. 
 
 ONE of the many beauties of a democracy is its al- 
 most superhumanskill in developingtroubles with 
 other countries and finding its honour abraded 
 in the process. A true democracy has a large contempt 
 for all other lands that are governed by Kings and Queens 
 and Emperors; and knows little and thinks less of their 
 internal affairs. All it regards is its own dignity, which is 
 its King, Queen, and Knave. So, sooner or later, its in- 
 ternational differences end in the common people, who 
 have no dignity, shouting the common abuse of the 
 street, which also has no dignity, across the seas in order 
 to vindicate their new dignity. The consequences may 
 or may not be war; but the chances do not favour peace. 
 One advantage in living in a civilised land which is 
 really governed lies in the fact that all the Kings and 
 Queens and Emperors of the Continent are closely re- 
 lated by blood or marriage; are, in fact, one large family. 
 A. wise head among them knows that what appears to be 
 
 297 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 a studied insult may be no more than some man's indi- 
 gestion or woman's indisposition, to be treated as such, 
 and explained by quiet talk. Again, a popular demon- 
 stration, headed by King and Court, may mean nothing 
 more than that so-and-so's people are out of hand for 
 the minute. When a horse falls to kicking in a hunt- 
 crowd at a gate, the rider does not dismount, but puts 
 his open hand behind him, and the others draw aside. 
 It is so with the rulers of men. In the old days they 
 cured their own and their people's bad temper with fire 
 and slaughter; but now that the fire is so long of range 
 and the slaughter so large, they do other things; and few 
 among their people guess how much they owe of mere 
 life and money to what the slang of the minute calls 
 * puppets' and 'luxuries.' 
 
 Once upon a time there was a little Power, the half- 
 bankrupt wreck of a once great empire, that lost its tem- 
 per with England, the whipping-boy of all the world, 
 and behaved, as every one said, most scandalously. 
 But it is not generally known that that Power fought a 
 pitched battle with England and won a glorious victo^>^ 
 The trouble began with the people. Their own misfor- 
 tunes had been many, and for private rage it is always 
 refreshing to find a vent in public swearing. Their na- 
 tional vanity had been deeply injured, and they thought 
 of their ancient glories and the days when their fleets 
 had first rounded the Cape of Storms, and their own 
 newspapers called upon Camoens and urged them to 
 extravagances. It was the gross, smooth, sleek, lying 
 England that was checking their career of colonial ex- 
 pansion. They assumed at once that their ruler was in 
 league with England, so they cried with great heat that 
 they would forthwith become a Republic and colonially 
 
 298 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 expand themselves as a free people should. This made 
 plam, the people threw stones at the English Consuls and 
 spat at English ladies, and cut olT drunken sailors of Our 
 fleet in their ports and hammered them with oars, and 
 made things very unpleasant for tourists at their cus- 
 toms, and threatened awful deaths to the consumptive 
 invalids of Madeira, while the junior officers of the army 
 drank fruit-extracts and entered into most blood-curd- 
 ling conspiracies against their monarch; all with the 
 object of being a Republic. Now the history of the 
 South American Republics shows that it is not good 
 that Southern Europeans should be also Republicans. 
 They glide too quickly into military despotism ; and the 
 propping of men against walls and shooting them in de- 
 tachments can be arranged much more economically 
 and with less effect on the death-rate by a hide-bound 
 monarchy. Still the performances of the Power as rep- 
 resented by its people were extremely inconvenient. 
 It was the kicking horse in the crowd, and probably the 
 rider explained that he could not check it. So the people 
 enjoyed all the glory of war with none of the risks, and 
 the tourists who were stoned in their travels returned 
 stolidly to England and told the ' Times ' that the police 
 arrangements of foreign towns were defective. 
 
 This, then, was the state of affairs north the Line. 
 South it was more strained, for there the Powers were at 
 direct issue : England, unable to go back because of the 
 pressure of adventurous children behind her, and the ac- 
 tions of far-away adventurers who would not come to 
 heel, but offering to buy out her rival; and the other 
 Power, lacking men or money, stiff in the conviction that 
 three hundred years of slave-holding and intermingling 
 with the nearest natives gave an inalienable right to 
 
 299 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 hold slaves and issue half-castes to all eternity. They 
 had built no roads. Their towns were rotting under their 
 hands; they had no trade worth the freight of a crazy 
 steamer; and their sovereignty ran almost one musket- 
 shot inland when things were peaceful. For these very 
 reasons they raged all the more, and the things that they 
 said and wrote about the manners and customs of the 
 English would have driven a younger nation to the guns 
 with a long red bill for wounded honour. 
 
 It was then that Fate sent down in a twin-screw 
 shallow-draft gunboat, of some 270 tons displacement, 
 designed for the defence of rivers. Lieutenant Harrison 
 Edward Judson, to be known for the future as Bai-Jove- 
 Judson. His type of craft looked exactly like a flat-iron 
 with a match stuck up in the middle ; it drew five feet of 
 water or less; carried a four-inch gun forward, which was 
 trained by the ship; and, on account of its persistent 
 rolling, was, to live in, three degrees worse than a tor- 
 pedo-boat. When Judson was appointed to take charge 
 of the thing on her little trip of six or seven thousand 
 miles southward, his first remark as he went to look her 
 over in dock was, 'Bai Jove, that topmast wants staying 
 forward ! ' The topmast was a stick about as thick as a 
 clothes-prop; but the flat-iron was Judson's first com- 
 mand, and he would not have exchanged his position for 
 second post on the 'Anson' or the 'Howe.' He navi- 
 gated her, under convoy, tenderly and lovingly to the 
 Cape (the story of the topmast came with him), and he 
 was so absurdly in love with his wallowing wash-tub 
 when he reported himself, that the Admiral of the sta- 
 tion thought it would be a pity to kill a new man on her, 
 and allowed Judson to continue in his unenvied rule. 
 
 The Admiral visited her once in Simon's Bay, and she 
 
 300 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 was bad, even for a flat-iron gunboat, strictly designed 
 for river and harbour defence. She sweated clammy 
 drops of dew between decks in spite of a preparation of 
 powdered cork that was sprinkled over her inside paint. 
 She rolled in the long Cape swell like a buoy; her foc's'le 
 was a dog-kennel; Judson's cabin was practically under 
 the water-line; not one of her dead-lights could ever be 
 opened; and her compasses, thanks to the influence of 
 the four-inch gun, were a curiosity even among Ad- 
 miralty compasses. But Bai-Jove-Judson was radiant 
 and enthusiastic. He had even contrived to fill Mr. 
 Davies, the second-class engine-room artificer, who was 
 his chief engineer, with the glow of his passion. The Ad- 
 miral, who remembered his own first command, when 
 pride forbade him to slack off a single rope on a dewy 
 night, and he had racked his rigging to pieces in conse- 
 quence, looked at the flat-iron keenly. Her fenders were 
 done all over with white sennit, which was truly white; 
 her big gun was varnished with a better composition 
 than the Admiralty allowed ; the spare sights were cased 
 as carefully as the chronometers; the chocks for spare 
 spars, two of them, were made of four-inch Burma teak 
 carved with dragons' heads (that was one result of Bai- 
 Jove-Judson's experiences with the naval brigade in the 
 Burmese war), the bow-anchor was varnished instead of 
 being painted, and there were charts other than the Ad^ 
 miralty scale supplied. The Admiral was well pleased, 
 for he loved a ship's husband — a man who had a little 
 money of his own and was willing to spend it on his com- 
 mand. Judson looked at him hopefully. He was only 
 a Junior Navigating Lieutenant under eight years' 
 standing. He might be kept in Simon's Bay for six 
 months, and his ship at sea was his delight. The dream 
 
 301. 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 of his heart was to enliven her dismal official gray with a 
 line of gold-leaf and, perhaps, a little scroll-work at her 
 blunt barge-like bows. 
 
 * There's nothing like afirst command, is there? ' said the 
 Admiral, reading his thoughts. ' You seem to have rather 
 queer compasses though. Better get them adjusted.' 
 
 'It's no use, sir,' said Judson. 'The gun would throw 
 out the Pole itself. But — but I've got the hang of most 
 of the weaknesses.' 
 
 * Will you be good enough to lay that gun over thirty 
 degrees, please?' The gun was put over. Round and 
 round and round went the needle merrily, and the Ad- 
 miral whistled. 
 
 'You must have kept close to your convoy?' 
 
 'Saw her twice between here and Madeira, sir,' said 
 Judson with a flush, for he resented the slur on his steam- 
 ship. 'She's — she's a little out of hand now, but she 
 will settle down after a while.' 
 
 The Admiral went over the side, according to the rules 
 of the Service, but the Staff-Captain must have told the 
 other men of the squadron in Simon's Bay, for they one 
 and all made light of the flat-iron for many days. ' What 
 can you shake out of her, Judson? ' said the Lieutenant 
 of the 'Mongoose,' a real white-painted ram-bow gun- 
 boat with quick-firing guns, as he came into the upper 
 veranda of the little naval Club overlooking the dock- 
 yard one hot afternoon. It is in that club, as the cap- 
 tains come and go, that you hear all the gossip of all the 
 Seven Seas. 
 
 'Ten point four,' said Bai-Jove-Judson. 
 
 ' Ah ! That was on her trial trip. She's too much by 
 the head now. I told you staying that topmast would 
 throw her out.' 
 
 302 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 'You leave my top-hamper alone,' said Judson, for 
 the joke was beginning to pall on him. 
 
 *0h, mysoul! Listen to him. Juddy's top-hamper. 
 Keate, have you heard of the flat-iron's top-hamper? 
 You're to leave it alone. Commodore Judson's feelings 
 are hurt.' 
 
 Keate was the Torpedo Lieutenant in the big *Vor- 
 tigern,' and he despised small things. * His top-hamper/ 
 said he slowly. 'Oh, ah yes, of course. Juddy, there's 
 a shoal of mullet in the bay, and I think they're foul of 
 your screws. Better go down, or they'll carry away 
 something.' 
 
 ' I don't let things carry away as a rule. You see I've 
 no Torpedo Lieutenant aboard, thank God.' 
 
 Keate within the past week had so managed to bungle 
 the slinging-in of a small torpedo-boat on the ' Vortigern' 
 that the boat had broken the crutches on which she 
 rested, and was herself being repaired in the dockyard 
 under the Club windows. 
 
 'One for you, Keate. Never mind, Juddy, you're 
 hereby appointed dockyard-tender for the next three 
 years, and if you're very good and there's no sea on, you 
 shall take me round the harbour. Waitabeechee, Com- 
 modore. What'll you take? Vanderhum for the " Cook 
 and the captain bold. And the mate o' the 'Nancy' 
 brig, And the bo'sun tight" [Juddy, put that cue down 
 or I'll put you under arrest for insulting the lieutenant 
 of a real ship], "And the midshipmite, And the crew of 
 the captain's gig." ' 
 
 By this time Judson had pinned him in a corner, and 
 was prodding him with the half-butt. The Admiral's 
 Secretary entered, and saw the scuffle from the door. 
 
 *Ouch! Juddy, I apologise. Take that — er — top- 
 
 303 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 mast of yours away! Here's the man with the bow- 
 string. I wish I were a Staff-Captain instead of a bloody 
 lootenant. Sperril sleeps below every night. That's 
 what makes Sperril tumble home from the waist up- 
 wards. Sperril, I defy you to touch me. I'm under 
 orders for Zanzibar. Probably I shall annex it!' 
 
 'Judson, the Admiral wants to see you!' said the Staff- 
 Captain, disregarding the scoffer of the ' Mongoose.' 
 
 'I told you you'd be a dockyard-tender yet, Juddy. 
 A side of fresh beef to-morrow and three dozen snapper 
 on ice. On ice, you understand, Juddy?' 
 
 Bai-Jove-Judson and the Staff-Captain went out to- 
 gether. 
 
 'Now, what does the old man want with Judson?' 
 said Keate from the bar. 
 
 * Don't know. Juddy 's a damned good fellow, though. 
 I wish to goodness he was in the "Mongoose" with us.' 
 
 The Lieutenant of the 'Mongoose' dropped into a 
 chair and read the mail-papers for an hour. Then he 
 saw Bai-Jove-Judson in the street and shouted to him. 
 Judson's eyes were very bright, and his figure was held 
 very straight, and he moved joyously. Except for the 
 Lieutenant of the 'Mongoose,' the Club was empty. 
 
 'Juddy, there will be a beautiful row,' said that young 
 man when he had heard the news delivered in an under- 
 tone. 'You'll probably have to fight, and yet I can't 
 see what the old man's thinking of to — ' 
 
 * My orders are not to row under any circumstances,' 
 said Judson. 
 
 * Go-look-see? That all? When do you go? ' 
 
 * To-night if I can. I must go down and see about 
 things. I say, I may want a few men for the day.' 
 
 - *Any thing on the ' ' Mongoose" at your service. There's 
 
 304 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 my gig come over now. I know that coast, dead, drunk, 
 or asleep, and you'll need all the knowledge you can get. 
 If it had only been us two together ! Come along with me.' 
 
 For one whole hour Judson remained closeted in the 
 stern cabin of the 'Mongoose,' listening, poring over 
 chart upon chart and taking notes, and for an hour the 
 marine at the door heard nothing but things like these: 
 'Now you'll have to lie in here if there's any sea on. 
 That current is ridiculously under-estimated, and it sets 
 west at this season of the year, remember. Their boats 
 never come south of this, see? So it's no good looking 
 out for them.' And so on and so forth, while Judson 
 lay at length on the locker by the three-pounder, and 
 smoked and absorbed it all. 
 
 Next morning there was no flat-iron in Simon's Bay; 
 only a little smudge of smoke off Cape Hangklip to show 
 that Mr. Davies, the second-class engine-room artificer, 
 was giving her all she could carry. At the Admiral's 
 house the ancient and retired bo'sun who had seen many 
 admirals come and go, brought out his paint and brushes 
 and gave a new coat of pure raw pea-green to the two 
 big cannon balls that stood one on each side of the Ad- 
 miral's entrance-gate. He felt dimly that great events 
 were stirring. 
 
 And the flat-iron, constructed, as has been before said, 
 solely for the defence of rivers, met the great roll off 
 Cape Agulhas and was swept from end to end, and sat 
 upon her twin screws, and leaped as gracefully as a cow 
 in a bog from one sea to another, till Mr. Davies began 
 to fear for the safety of his engines, and the Kroo boys 
 that made the majority of the crew were deathly sick. 
 She ran along a very badly-lighted coast, past bays that 
 were no bays, where ugly flat-topped rocks lay almost 
 
 305 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 level with the water, and very many extraordinary things 
 happened that have nothing to do with the story, but 
 they were all duly logged by Bai-Jove-Judson. 
 
 At last the coast changed and grew green and low and 
 exceedingly muddy, and there were broad rivers whose 
 bars were little islands standing three or four miles out 
 at sea, and Bai-Jove-Judson hugged the shore more 
 closely than ever, remembering what the lieutenant of 
 the 'Mongoose' had told him. Then he found a river 
 full of the smell of fever and mud, with green stuff grow- 
 ing far into its waters, and a current that made the flat- 
 iron gasp and grunt. 
 
 'We will turn up here,' said Bai-Jove-Judson, and 
 they turned up accordingly; Mr. Davies wondering 
 what in the world it all meant, and the Kroo boys grin- 
 ning merrily. Bai-Jove-Judson went forward to the 
 bows and meditated, staring through the muddy waters. 
 After two hours of rooting through this desolation at an 
 average rate of five miles an hour, his eyes were cheered 
 by the sight of one white buoy in the coffee-hued mid- 
 stream. The flat-iron crept up to it cautiously, and a 
 leadsman took soundings all round it from a dinghy, 
 while Bai-Jove-Judson smoked and thought, with his 
 head on one side. 
 
 'About seven feet, isn't there?' said he. 'That must 
 be the tail-end of the shoal. There's four fathom in the 
 fairway. Knock that buoy down with axes. I don't 
 think it's picturesque, somehow.' The Kroo men hacked 
 the wooden sides to pieces in three minutes, and the 
 mooring-chain sank with the last splinters of wood. 
 Bai-Jove-Judson laid the flat-iron carefully over the site, 
 while Mr. Davies watched, biting his nails nervously. 
 
 *Can you back her against this current?' said Bai- 
 
 306 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 Jove-Judson. Mr. Davies could, inch by inch, but only 
 inch by inch, and Bai-Jove-Judson stood in the bows and 
 gazed at various things on the bank as they came into 
 line or opened out. The flat-iron dropped down over 
 the tail of the shoal, exactly where the buoy had been, 
 and backed once more before Bai-Jove-Judson was satis- 
 fied. Then they went up-stream for half an hour, put 
 into shoal water by the bank and waited, with a slip-rope 
 on the anchor. 
 
 ' 'Seems to me,' said Mr. Davies deferentially, 'like as 
 if I heard some one a-firing off at intervals, so to say.' 
 
 There was beyond doubt a dull mutter in the air. 
 
 ' 'Seems to me,' said Bai-Jove-Judson, 'as if I heard a 
 screw. Stand by to slip her moorings.' 
 
 Another ten minutes passed and the beat of engines 
 grew plainer. Then round the bend of the river came a 
 remarkably prettily-built white-painted gunboat with 
 a blue and white flag bearing a red boss in the centre. 
 
 'Unshackle abaft the windlass! Stream both buoys! 
 Easy astern. Let go, all!' The slip-rope flew out, the 
 two buoys bobbed in the water to mark where anchor 
 and cable had been left, and the flat-iron waddled out 
 into midstream with the white ensign at her one mast- 
 head. 
 
 * Give her all you can. That thing has the legs of us,' 
 said Judson. ' And down we go.' 
 
 'It's war — bloody war! He's going to fire,' said Mr. 
 Davies, looking up through the engine-room hatch. 
 
 The white gunboat without a word of explanation 
 fired three guns at the flat-iron, cutting the trees on the 
 banks into green chips. Bai-Jove-Judson was at the 
 wheel, and Mr. Davies and the current helped the boat 
 to an almost respectable degree of speed. 
 
 307 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 It was an exciting chase, but it did not last for more 
 than five minutes. The white gunboat fired again, and 
 Mr. Davies in his engine-room gave a wild shout. 
 
 ' What's the matter? Hit? ' said Bai-Jove-Judson. 
 
 'No, I've just seized of your roos-de-gare. Beg y' 
 pardon, sir.' 
 
 'Right 0! Just the half a fraction of a point more.' 
 The v.heel turned under the steady hand, as Bai-Jove- 
 Judson watched his marks on the bank falling in line 
 swiftly as troops anxious to aid. The flat-iron smelt 
 the shoal-water under her, checked for an instant, and 
 went on. 'Now we're over. Come along, you thieves, 
 there ! ' said Judson. 
 
 The white gunboat, too hurried even to fire, was storm- 
 ing in the wake of the flat-iron, steering as she steered. 
 This was unfortunate, because the lighter craft was 
 dead over the missing buoy. 
 
 ' What you do here? ' shouted a voice from the bows. 
 
 'I'm going on. Sit tight. Now you're arranged for.' 
 
 There was a crash and a clatter as the white gunboat's 
 nose took the shoal, and the brown mud boiled up in 
 oozy circles under her forefoot. Then the current caught 
 her stern on the starboard side and drove her broadside 
 on to the shoal, slowly and gracefully. There she heeled 
 at an undignified angle, and her crew yelled aloud. 
 
 'Neat! Oh, damn neat!' quoth Mr. Davies, dancing 
 on the engine-room plates, while the Kroo stokers beamed. 
 
 The flat-iron turned up-stream again, and passed 
 under the hove-up starboard side of the white gunboat, 
 to be received with howls and imprecations in a strange 
 tongue. The stranded boat, exposed even to her lower 
 strakes, was as defenceless as a turtle on its back, with- 
 out the advantage of the turtle's plating. And the one 
 
 308 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 big bluff gun in the bows of the flat-iron was unpleasantly 
 near. 
 
 But the captain was valiant and swore mightily. Bai- 
 Jove-Judson took no sort of notice. His business was 
 to go up the river. 
 
 'We will come in a flotilla of boats and ecrazer your 
 vile tricks,' said the captain, with language that need 
 not be published. 
 
 Then said Bai-Jove-Judson, who was a linguist: 'You 
 stayo where you areo, or I'll leave a holo in your bottomo 
 that will make you muchos perforatados.' 
 
 There was a great deal of mixed language in reply, but 
 Bai-Jove-Judson was out of hearing in a few minutes, 
 and Mr. Davies, himself a m.an of few words, confided to 
 one of his subordinates that Lieutenant Judson was 'a 
 most remarkable prompt officer in a way of putting it.' 
 
 For two hours the flat-iron pawed madly through the 
 muddy water, and that which had been at first a mutter 
 became a distinct rumble. 
 
 'Was war declared?' said Mr. Davies, and Bai-Jove- 
 Judson laughed. 'Then, damn his eyes, he might have 
 spoilt my pretty little engines. There's war up there, 
 though.' 
 
 The next bend brought them full in sight of a small 
 but lively village, built round a whitewashed mud house 
 of some pretensions. There were scores and scores of 
 saddle-coloured soldiery in dirty white uniforms run- 
 ning to and fro and shouting round a man in a litter, and 
 on a gentle slope that ran inland for four or five miles 
 something like a brisk battle was raging round a rude 
 stockade. A smell of unburied carcases floated through 
 the air and vexed the sensitive nose of Mr. Davies, who 
 spat over the side. 
 
 309 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 *I want to get this gun on that house,' said Bai-Jove- 
 Judson, indicating the superior dwelling over whose flat 
 roof floated the blue and white flag. The little twin- 
 screws kicked up the water exactly as a hen's legs kick 
 in the dust before she settles down to a bath. The little 
 boat moved uneasily from left to right, backed, yawed 
 again, went ahead, and at last the gray, blunt gun's nose 
 was held as straight as a rifle-barrel on the mark indi- 
 cated. Then Mr. Davies allowed the whistle to speak 
 as it is not allowed to speak in Her Majesty's service on 
 account of waste of steam. The soldiery of the village 
 gathered into knots and groups and bunches, and the 
 firing up the hill ceased, and every one except the crew 
 of the flat-iron yelled aloud. Something like an English 
 cheer came down wind. 
 
 'Our chaps in mischief for sure, probably,' said Mr. 
 Davies. 'They must have declared war weeks ago, in a 
 kind of way, seems to me.' 
 
 'Hold her steady, you son of a soldier!' shouted Bai- 
 Jove-Judson, as the muzzle fell off the white house. 
 
 Something rang as loudly as a ship's bell on the for- 
 ward plates of the flat-iron, something spluttered in the 
 water, and another thing cut a groove in the deck plank- 
 ing an inch in front of Bai-Jove-Judson's left foot. The 
 saddle-coloured soldiery were flring as the mood took 
 them, and the man in the litter waved a shining sword. 
 The muzzle of the big gun kicked down a fraction as it 
 was laid on the mud wall at the bottom of the house 
 garden. Ten pounds of gunpowder shut up in a hun- 
 dred pounds of metal was its charge. Three or four 
 yards of the mud wall jumped up a little, as a man jumps 
 when he is caught in the small of the back with a knee- 
 cap, and then fell forward, spreading fan-wise in the fall. 
 
 310 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 The soldiery fired no more that day, and Judson saw an 
 old black woman climb to the flat roof of the house. 
 She fumbled for a time with the flag halliards, then, find- 
 ing that they were jammed, took off her one garment, 
 which happened to be an Isabella-coloured petticoat, 
 and waved it impatiently. The man in the litter flour- 
 ished a white handkerchief, and Bai-Jove-Judson grinned. 
 'Now we'll give 'em one up the hill. Round with her, 
 Mr. Davies. Curse the man who invented these float- 
 ing gun-platforms ! When can I pitch in a notice with- 
 out slaying one of those little devils? ' 
 
 The side of the slope was speckled with men returning 
 in a disorderly fashion to the river-front. Behind them 
 marched a small but very compact body of men who had 
 filed out of the stockade. These last dragged quick- 
 firing guns with them. 
 
 ' Bai Jove, it's a regular army. I wonder whose,' said 
 Bai-Jove-Judson, and he waited developments. The 
 descending troops met and mixed with the troops in the 
 village, and, with the litter in the centre, crowded down 
 to the river, till the men with the quick-firing guns came 
 up behind them. Then they divided left and right and 
 the detachment marched through. 
 
 * Heave these damned things over!' said the leader 
 of the party, and one after another ten little gatlings 
 splashed into the muddy water. The flat-iron lay close 
 to the bank. 
 
 *Wn[ien you're quite done,' said Bai-Jove-Judson po- 
 litely, 'would you mind telling me what's the matter? 
 I'm in charge here.' 
 
 'We're the Pioneers of the General Development 
 Company,' said the leader. 'These little bounders 
 have been hammering us in lager for twelve hours, and 
 
 311 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 we're getting rid of their gatlings. Had to climb out 
 and take them; but they've snaffled the lock-actions. 
 Glad to see you.' 
 
 'Any one hurt?' 
 
 *No one killed exactly; but we're very dry.' 
 
 ' Can you hold your men? ' 
 
 The man turned round and looked at his command 
 with a grin. There were seventy of them, all dusty and 
 unkempt. 
 
 'We shan't sack this ash-bin if that's what you mean. 
 We're mostly gentlemen here, though we don't look it.' 
 
 'All right. Send the head of this post, or fort, or 
 village, or whatever it is, aboard, and make what ar- 
 rangements you can for your men.' 
 
 ' We'll find some barrack accommodation somewhere. 
 Hullo ! You in the litter there, go aboard the gunboat.' 
 The command wheeled round, pushed through the dis- 
 located soldiery, and began to search through the village 
 for spare huts. 
 
 The little man in the litter came aboard smiling ner- 
 vously. He was in the fullest of full uniform, with many 
 yards of gold lace and dangling chains. Also he wore 
 very large spurs; the nearest horse being not more than 
 four hundred miles away. 'My children,' said he, fac- 
 ing the silent soldiery, 'lay aside your arms.' 
 
 Most of the men had dropped them already and were 
 sitting down to smoke. 'Let nothing,' he added in his 
 own tongue, 'tempt you to kill these who have sought 
 your protection.' 
 
 *Now,' said Bai-Jove-Judson, on whom the last re- 
 mark was lost, 'will you have the goodness to explain 
 what the deuce you mean by all this nonsense? ' 
 
 * It was of a necessitate,' said the little man. ' The oper- 
 
 312 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 ations of war are unconformible. I am the Governor 
 and I operate Captain. Be 'old my little sword ! ' 
 
 'Confound your little sword, sir. I don't want it. 
 You've fired on our flag. You've been firing at our 
 people here for a week, and I've been fired at coming up 
 the river.' 
 
 *Ah! The "Guadala." She have misconstrued you 
 for a slaver possibly. How are the " Guadala "? ' 
 
 'Mistook a ship of Her Majesty's navy for a slaver! 
 You mistake any craft for a slaver. Bai Jove, sir, I've 
 a good mind to hang you at the yard-arm ! ' 
 
 There was nothing nearer that terrible spar than the 
 walking-stick in the rack of Judson's cabin. The Gov- 
 ernor looked at the one mast and smiled a deprecating 
 smile. 
 
 'The position is embarrassment,' he said. 'Captain, 
 do you think those illustrious traders burn my capital? 
 My people will give them beer.' 
 
 'Never mind the traders, I want an explanation.' 
 
 'Hum! There are popular uprising in Europe, Cap- 
 tain — in my country.' His eye wandered aimlessly 
 round the horizon. 
 
 ' What has that to do with— ' 
 
 * Captain, you are very young. There is still uproari- 
 ment. But I,' — here he slapped his chest till his epau- 
 lets jingled — 'I am loyalist to pits of all my stomachs.' 
 
 'Go on,' said Judson, and his mouth quivered. 
 
 'An order arrive to me to establish a custom-houses 
 here, and to collect of the taximent from the traders 
 when she are come here necessarily. That was on ac- 
 count of political understandings with your country and 
 mine. But to that arrangement there was no money 
 also. Not one damn little cowrie! I desire damnably 
 
 313 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 to extend all commercial things, and why? I am loyal- 
 ist and there is rebellion — yes, I tell you — Republics in 
 my country for to j ust begin . You do not believe? See 
 some time how it exist. I cannot make this custom- 
 houses and pay so the high-paid officials. The people 
 too in my country they say the King she has no regard- 
 ance into Honour of her nation. He throw away every- 
 thing — Gladstone her all, you say, hey?' 
 
 * Yes, that's what we say,' said Judson with a grin. 
 'Therefore they say, let us be Republics on hot cakes. 
 
 But I — I am loyalist to all my hands' ends. Captain, 
 once I was attache at Mexico. I say the Republics are 
 no good. The peoples have her stomach high. They 
 desire — they desire — Oh, course for the bills.' 
 
 'What on earth is that?' 
 
 *The cock-fight for pay at the gate. You give some- 
 thing, pay for see bloody-row. Do I make my compre- 
 hension? ' 
 
 *A run for their money — is that what you mean? 
 Gad, you're a sporting Governor!' 
 
 * So I say. I am loyalist too.' He smiled more easily. 
 'Now how can anything do herself for the customs- 
 houses; but when the Company's mens she arrives, then 
 a cock-fight for pay-at-gate that is quite correct. My 
 army he says it will Republic and shoot me off upon 
 walls if I have not give her blood. An army. Captain, 
 are terrible in her angries — especialment when she are 
 not paid. I know too,' here he laid his hand on Judson's 
 shoulder, 'I know too we are old friends. Yes! Ba- 
 dajos, Almeida, Fuentes d'Onor — time ever since; and a 
 little, little cock-fight for pay-at-gate that is good for my 
 King. More sit her tight on throne behind, you see? 
 Now,' he waved his free hand round the decayed village, 
 
 314 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 'I say to my armies, Fight! Fight the Company's men 
 when she come, but fight not so very strong that you are 
 any dead. It is all in the raporta that I send. But you 
 understand, Captain, we are good friends all the time. 
 Ah! Ciudad Rodrigo, you remember? No? Perhaps 
 your father then? So you see no one are dead, and we 
 fight a fight, and it is all in the raporta, to please the 
 people in our country; and my armies they do not put 
 me against the walls, you see?' 
 
 'Yes; but the "Guadala." She fired on us. Was 
 that part of your game, my joker? ' 
 
 *The "Guadala." Ah! No, I think not. Her cap- 
 tain he is too big fool. But I thought she have gone 
 down the coast. Those your gunboats poke her nose 
 and shove her oar in every place. How is " Guadala "? ' 
 
 * On a shoal. Stuck till I take her off.' 
 
 * There are any deads? ' 
 *No.' 
 
 The Governor drew a breath of deep relief. 'There 
 are no deads here. So you see none are deads anywhere, 
 and nothing is done. Captain, you talk to the Com- 
 pany's mens. I think they are not pleased.' 
 
 'Naturally.' 
 
 'They have no senses. I thought to go backwards 
 again they would. I leave her stockade alone all night 
 to let them out, but they stay and come facewards to me, 
 not backwards. They did not know we must conquer 
 much in all these battles, or the King, he is kicked off 
 her throne. Now we have won this battle — this great 
 battle,' he waved his arms abroad, ' and I think you will 
 say so that we have won, Captain. You are loyalist 
 also? You would not disturb to the peaceful Europe? 
 Captain, I tell you this. Your Queen she know too. 
 
 315 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 She would not fight her cousin. It is a — a hand-up 
 thing.' 
 
 'What?' 
 
 ' Hand-up thing. Jobe you put. How you say? ' 
 
 'Put-up job?' 
 
 'Yes. Put-up job. Who is hurt? We win. You 
 lose. Allrighta!' 
 
 Bai-Jove-Judson had been exploding at intervals for 
 the last five minutes. Here he broke down completely 
 and roared aloud. 
 
 'But look here, Governor,' he said at last, ' I've got to 
 think of other things than your riots in Europe. You've 
 fired on our flag.' 
 
 ' Captain, if you are me, you would have done how? 
 And also, and also,' he drew himself up to his full height, 
 'we are both brave men of bravest countries. Our 
 honour is the honour of our King,' here he uncovered, 
 'and of our Queen,' here he bowed low. 'Now, Captain, 
 you shall shell my palace and I will be your prisoner.' 
 
 'Skittles!' said Bai-Jove-Judson. 'I can't shell that 
 old hen-coop.' 
 
 'Then come to dinner. Madeira, she are still to us, 
 and I have of the best she manufac' 
 
 He skipped over the side beaming, and Bai-Jove-Jud- 
 son went into the cabin to laugh his laugh out. When 
 he had recovered a little he sent Mr. Davies to the head 
 of the Pioneers, the dusty man with the gatlings, and 
 the troops who had abandoned the pursuit of arms 
 watched the disgraceful spectacle of two men reeling 
 with laughter on the quarter-deck of a gunboat. 
 
 ' I'll put my men to build him a custom-house,' said 
 the head of the Pioneers gasping. ' We'll make him one 
 decent road at least. That Governor ought to be 
 
 316 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 knighted. I'm glad now that we didn't fight 'em in the 
 open, or we'd have killed some of them. So he's won 
 great battles, has he? Give him the compliments of the 
 victims, and tell him I'm coming to dinner. You haven't 
 such a thing as a dress-suit, have you? I haven't seen 
 one for six months.' 
 
 That evening there was a dinner in the village — a 
 general and enthusiastic dinner, whose head was in 
 the Governor's house, and whose tail threshed at large 
 throughout all the streets. The Madeira was every- 
 thing that the Governor had said, and more, and it was 
 tested against two or three bottles of Bai-Jove-Judson's 
 best Vanderhum, which is Cape brandy ten years in the 
 bottle, flavoured with orange-peel and spices. Before 
 the coffee was removed (by the lady who had made the 
 flag of truce) the Governor had given the whole of his 
 governorship and its appurtenances, once to Bai-Jove- 
 Judson for services rendered by Judson's grandfather in 
 the Peninsular War, and once to the head of the Pioneers, 
 in consideration of that gentleman's good friendship. 
 After the negotiation he retreated for a while into an 
 inner apartment, and there evolved a true and complete 
 account of the defeat of the English arms, which he read 
 with his cocked hat over one eye to Judson and his com- 
 panion. It was Judson who suggested the sinking of 
 the flat-iron with all hands, and the head of the Pioneers 
 who supplied the list of killed and wounded (not more 
 than two hundred) in his command. 
 
 ' Gentlemen,' said the Governor from under his cocked 
 hat, 'the peace of Europe are saved by this raporta. 
 You shall all be Knights of the Golden Hide. She shall 
 gobythe"Guadala."' 
 
 * Great Heavens!' said Bai-Jove-Judson, flushed but 
 
 317 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 composed. 'That reminds me that I've left that boat 
 stuck on her broadside down the river. I must go down 
 and soothe the commandante. He'll be blue with rage. 
 Governor, let us go a sail on the river to cool our heads. 
 A picnic, you understand.' 
 
 'Ya — as: everything I understand. Ho! A picnica! 
 You are all my prisoner, but I am a good gaoler. We 
 shall picnic on the river, and we shall take all the girls. 
 Come on, my prisoners.' 
 
 'I do hope,' said the head of the Pioneers, staring 
 from the veranda into the roaring village, 'that my 
 chaps won't set the town alight by accident. Hullo! 
 Hullo ! A guard of honour for His Excellency, the most 
 illustrious Governor ! ' 
 
 Some thirty men answered the call, made a swaying 
 line upon a more swaying course, and bore the Governor 
 most swayingly of all high in their arms as they staggered 
 down to the river. And the song that they sang bade 
 them, * Swing, swing together, their body between their 
 knees' ; and they obeyed the words of the song faithfully, 
 except that they were anything but ' steady from stroke 
 to bow.' His Excellency the Governor slept on his un- 
 easy litter, and did not wake when the chorus dropped 
 him on the deck of the flat-iron. 
 
 * Good-night and good-bye,' said the head of the Pio- 
 neers to Judson. ' I'd give you my card if I had it, but 
 I'm so damned drunk I hardly know my own Club. Oh 
 yes! It's the Travellers. If ever we meet in town, re- 
 member me. I must stay here and look after my fellows. 
 We're all right in the open, now. I s'pose you'll return 
 the Governor some time. This is a political crisis. 
 Good-night.' 
 
 The flat-iron went down-stream through the dark. 
 
 318 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 The Governor slept on deck, and Judson took the wheel, 
 but how he steered, and why he did not run into each 
 bank many times, that officer does not remember. Mr. 
 Davies did not note anything unusual, for there are two 
 ways of taking too much, and Judson was only ward- 
 room, not fo'c's'le drunk. As the night grew colder the 
 Governor woke up, and expressed a desire for whisky 
 and soda. When that came they were nearly abreast of 
 the stranded 'Guadala,' and His Excellency saluted the 
 flag that he could not see with loyal and patriotic strains. 
 
 ' They do not see. They do not hear,' he cried. ' Ten 
 thousand saints! They sleep, and I have won battles! 
 Ha!' 
 
 He started forward to the gun, which, very naturally, 
 was loaded, pulled the lanyard, and woke the dead night 
 with the roar of the full charge behind a common shell. 
 That shell, mercifully, just missed the stern of the ' Gua- 
 dala,' and burst on the bank. 'Now you shall salute 
 your Governor,' said he, as he heard feet running in all 
 directions within the iron skin. 'Why you demand so 
 base a quarter? I am here with all my prisoners.' 
 
 In the hurly-burly and the general shriek for mercy 
 his reassurances were not heard. 
 
 'Captain,' said a grave voice from the ship, 'we have 
 surrendered. Is it the custom of the English to fire on a 
 helpless ship? ' 
 
 * Surrendered ! Holy Virgin ! I go to cut off all their 
 heads. You shall be ate by wild ants — flog and drowned ! 
 Throw me a balcony. It is I, the Governor! You shall 
 never surrender. Judson of my soul, ascend her inside, 
 and send me a bed, for I am sleepy; but, oh, I will multi- 
 ple time kill that captain ! ' 
 
 *0h!' said the voice in the darkness, 'I begin to com- 
 
 319 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 prehend.' And a rope-ladder was thrown, up which the 
 Governor scrambled, with Judson at his heels. 
 
 'Now we will enjoy executions,' said the Governor on 
 the deck. 'All these Republicans shall be shot. Little 
 Judson, if I am not drunk, why are so sloping the boards 
 which do not support?' 
 
 The deck, as I have said, was at a very stifT cant. 
 His Excellency sat down, slid to leeward, and fell asleep 
 again. 
 
 The captain of the 'Guadala' bit his moustache furi- 
 ously, and muttered in his own tongue : ' "This land is 
 the father of great villains and the step-father of honest 
 men." You see our material. Captain. It is so every- 
 where with us. You have killed some of the rats, I 
 hope?' 
 
 'Not a rat,' said Judson genially. 
 
 ' That is a pity. If they were dead, our country might 
 send us men, but our country is dead too, and I am dis- 
 honoured on a mud-bank through your English treachery. ' 
 
 ' Well, it seems to me that firing on a little tub of our 
 size without a word of warning when you knew that the 
 countries were at peace is treachery enough in a small 
 way.' 
 
 ' If one of my guns had touched you, you would have 
 gone to the bottom, all of you. I would have taken the 
 risk with my Government. By that time it would have 
 been — ' 
 
 *A Republic. So you really did mean fighting on 
 your own hook! You're rather a dangerous officer to 
 cut loose in a navy like yours. Well, what are you go- 
 ing to do now? ' 
 
 * Stay here. Go away in boats. What does it matter? 
 That drunken cat' — he pointed to the shadow in which 
 
 320 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 the Governor slept — 'is here. I must take him back to 
 his hole.' 
 
 'Very good. I'll tow you off at daylight if you get 
 steam up.' 
 
 'Captain, I warn you that as soon as she floats again 
 I will fight you.' 
 
 ' Humbug ! You'll have lunch with me, and then you'll 
 take the Governor up the river.' 
 
 The captain was silent for some time. Then he said: 
 ' Let us drink. What must be, must be, and after all we 
 have not forgotten the Peninsular. You will admit, 
 Captain, that it is bad to be run upon a shoal like a mud- 
 dredger? ' 
 
 * Oh, we'll pull you off before you can say knife. Take 
 care of His Excellency. I shall try to get a little sleep 
 now.' 
 
 They slept on both ships till the morning, and then 
 the work of towing off the ' Guadala ' began. With the 
 help of her own engines, and the tugging and puffmg of 
 the flat-iron, she slid off the mud-bank sideways into 
 deep water, the flat-iron immediately under her stern, 
 and the big eye of the four-inch gun almost peering 
 through the window of the captain's cabin. 
 
 Remorse in the shape of a violent headache had over- 
 taken the Governor. He was uneasily conscious that he 
 might perhaps have exceeded his powers, and the cap- 
 tain of the 'Guadala,' in spite of all his patriotic senti- 
 ments, remembered distinctly that no war had been 
 declared between the two countries. He did not need 
 the Governor's repeated reminders that war, serious 
 war, meant a Republic at home, possible supersession in 
 his command, and much shooting of living men against 
 dead walls. 
 
 321 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 * We have satisfied our honour,' said the Governor in 
 confidence. 'Our army is appeased, and the raporta 
 that you take home will show that we were loyal and 
 brave. That other captain? Bah! He is a boy. He 
 will call this a — a — Judson of my soul, how you say this 
 is — all this affairs which have transpirated between us? ' 
 
 Judson was watching the last hawser slipping through 
 the fairlead. 'Call it? Oh, I should call it rather a 
 lark. Now your boat's all right, captain. When will 
 you come to lunch?' 
 
 'I told you,' said the Governor, 'it would be a larque 
 to him.' 
 
 'Mother of the Saints! then what is his seriousness?' 
 said the captain. 'We shall be happy to come when 
 you will. Indeed, we have no other choice,' he added 
 bitterly. 
 
 'Not at all,' said Judson, and as he looked at the three 
 or four shot-blisters on the bows of his boat a brilliant 
 idea took him. ' It is we who are at your mercy. See 
 how His Excellency's guns knocked us about.' 
 
 'Senor Capitan,' said the Governor pityingly, 'that is 
 very sad. You are most injured, and your deck too, it 
 is all shot over. We shall not be too severe on a beat 
 man, shall we. Captain?' 
 
 'You couldn't spare us a little paint, could you? I'd 
 like to patch up a little after the — action,' said Judson 
 meditatively, fingering his upper lip to hide a smile. 
 
 'Our storeroom is at your disposition,' said the cap- 
 tain of the 'Guadala,' and his eye brightened; for a few 
 lead splashes on gray paint make a big show. 
 
 *Mr. Davies, go aboard and see what they have to 
 spare — to spare, remember. Their spar-colour with a 
 little working up should be just our freeboard tint.' 
 
 322 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 'Oh yes. I'll spare them,' said Mr. Davies savagely. 
 * I don't understand this how-d'you-do and damn-your- 
 eyes business coming one atop of the other, in a manner 
 o' speaking! By all rights, they're our lawful prize, 
 after a manner o' sayin'.' 
 
 The Governor and the captain came to lunch in the 
 absence of Mr. Davies. Bai-Jove-Judson had not much 
 to offer them, but what he had was given as by a beaten 
 foeman to a generous conqueror. When they were a 
 little warmed — the Governor genial and the captain 
 almost effusive — he explained quite casually over the 
 opening of a bottle that it would not be to his interest to 
 report the affair seriously, and it was in the highest de- 
 gree improbable that the Admiral would treat it in any 
 grave fashion. 
 
 'When my decks are cut up' (there was one groove 
 across four planks), 'and my plates buckled' (there were 
 five lead patches on three plates), 'and I meet such a 
 boat as the " Guadala," and a mere accident saves me 
 from being blown out of the water — ' 
 
 *Yes. A mere accident, Captain. The shoal-buoy 
 has been lost,' said the captain of the * Guadala.' 
 
 * Ah? I do not know this river. That was very sad. 
 But as I was saying, when an accident saves me from 
 being sunk, what can I do but go away — if that is possi- 
 ble? But I fear that I have no coal for the sea-voyage. 
 It is very sad .' Judson had compromised on what he knew 
 of the French tongue as a medium of communication. 
 
 'It is enough,' said the Governor, waving a generous 
 hand. 'Judson of my soul, the coal is yours and you 
 shall be repaired — ^yes, repaired all over, of your battle's 
 wounds. You shall go with all the honours of all the 
 wars. Your flag shall fly. Your drum shall beat. 
 
 323 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Your, ah! — jolly-boys shall spoke their bayonets! Is it 
 not so, Captain?' 
 
 ": *As you say. Excellency. But those traders in the 
 town. What of them? ' 
 
 The Governor looked puzzled for an instant. He 
 could not quite remember what had happened to those 
 jovial men who had cheered him overnight. Judson in- 
 terrupted swiftly: 'His Excellency has set them to 
 forced works on barracks and magazines, and, I think, a 
 custom-house. When that is done they will be released, 
 I hope. Excellency.' 
 
 ' Yes, they shall be released for your sake, little Jud- 
 son of my heart.' Then they drank the health of their 
 respective sovereigns, while Mr. Davies superintended 
 the removal of the scarred plank and the shot-marks on 
 the deck and the bow-plates. 
 
 . *0h, this is too bad,' said Judson when they went on 
 deck. 'That idiot has exceeded his instructions, but — 
 but you must let me pay for this ! ' 
 
 Mr. Davies, his legs in the water as he sat on a staging 
 slung over the bows, was acutely conscious that he was 
 being blamed in a foreign tongue. He twisted uneasily, 
 and went on with his work. 
 
 * What is it? ' said the Governor. 
 
 *That thick-head has thought that we needed some 
 gold-leaf, and he has borrowed that from your store- 
 room, but I must make it good.' Then in English, 
 * Stand up, Mr. Davies! What the Furnace in Tophet 
 do you mean by taking their gold-leaf? My — , are we 
 a set of hairy pirates to scoff the storeroom out of a 
 painted Levantine bumboat. Look contrite, you butt- 
 ended, broad-breeched, bottle-bellied, swivel-eyed son of 
 a tinker, you ! My Soul alive, can't I maintain discipline 
 
 324 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 in my own ship without a hired blacksmith of a boiler- 
 riveter putting me to shame before a yellow-nosed pica- 
 roon! Get off the staking, Mr. Davies, and go to the 
 engine-room! Put down that leaf first, though, and 
 leave the books where they are. I'll send for you in a 
 minute. Go aft!' 
 
 Now, only the upper half of Mr. Davies's round face 
 was above the bulwarks when this torrent of abuse de- 
 scended upon him; and it rose inch by inch as the shower 
 continued, blank amazement, bewilderment, rage, and 
 injured pride chasing each other across it till he saw his 
 superior officer's left eyelid flutter on the cheek twice. 
 Then he fled to the engine-room, and wiping his brow 
 with a handful of cotton-waste, sat down to overtake 
 circumstances. 
 
 'I am desolated,' said Judson to his companions, 'but 
 you see the material that they give us. This leaves me 
 more in your debt than before. The stuff I can replace 
 [gold-leaf is never carried on floating gun-platforms], 
 'but for the insolence of that man how shall I apologise?' 
 
 Mr. Davies's mind moved slowly, but after a while he 
 transferred the cotton-waste from his forehead to his 
 mouth and bit on it to prevent laughter. He began a 
 second dance on the engine-room plates. 'Neat! Oh, 
 damned neat!' he chuckled. 'I've served with a good 
 few, but there never was one so neat as him» And I 
 thought he was the new kind that don't know how to 
 throw a few words, as it were.' 
 
 *Mr. Davies, you can continue your work,' said Jud- 
 son down the engine-room hatch. 'These officers have 
 been good enough to speak in your favour. Make a 
 thorough job of it while you are about it. Slap on every 
 man you have. Where did you get hold of it? ' : : 
 
 325 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 * Their storeroom is a regular theatre, sir. You couldn't 
 miss it. There's enough for two first-rates, and I've 
 scoffed the best half of it.' 
 
 'Look sharp then. We shall be coaling from her this 
 afternoon. You'll have to cover it all up.' 
 
 'Neat! Oh, damned neat!' said Mr. Davies under 
 his breath, as he gathered his subordinates together, and 
 set about accomplishing the long-deferred wish of Jud- 
 son's heart. 
 
 It was the 'Martin Frobisher,' the flagship, a great 
 war-boat when she was new, in the days when men built 
 for sail as well as for steam. She could turn twelve 
 knots under full sail, and it was under that that she 
 stood up the mouth of the river, a pyramid of silver be- 
 neath the moon. The Admiral, fearing that he had given 
 Judson a task beyond his strength, was coming to look 
 for him, and incidentally to do a little diplomatic work 
 along the coast. There was hardly wind enough to 
 move the 'Frobisher' a couple of knots an hour, and the 
 silence of the land closed about her as she entered the 
 fairway. Her yards sighed a little from time to time, 
 and the ripple under her bows answered the sigh. The 
 full moon rose over the steaming swamps, and the Ad- 
 miral gazing upon it thought less of Judson and more of 
 the softer emotions. In answer to the very mood of his 
 mind there floated across the silver levels of the water, 
 mellowed by distance to a most poignant sweetness, the 
 throb of a mandolin, and the voice of one who called 
 upon a genteel Julia — upon Julia, and upon Love. The 
 song ceased, and the sighing of the yards was all that 
 broke the silence of the big ship. 
 
 Again the mandolin began, and the commander on 
 
 326 
 
JUDSON AND THE EMPIRE 
 
 the lee side of the quarter-deck grinned a grin that was 
 reflected in the face of the signal-midshipman. Not a 
 word of the song was lost, and the voice of the singer 
 was the voice of Judson. 
 
 ' Last week down our alley came a tolY, 
 Nice old geyser with a nasty cough, 
 Sees my missus, takes his topper off, 
 Quite in a gentlemanly way ' — 
 
 and so on to the end of the verse. The chorus was borne 
 by several voices, and the signal-midshipman's foot be- 
 gan to tap the deck furtively. 
 
 ' "What cheer!" all the neighbours cried. 
 " Oo are you goin' to meet. Bill? 
 'Ave you bought the street. Bill?" 
 Laugh? — I thought I should ha' died 
 When I knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road.' 
 
 It was the Admiral's gig, rowing softly, that came into 
 the midst of that merry little smoking-concert. It was 
 Judson, with the beribboned mandolin round his neck, 
 who received the Admiral as he came up the side of the 
 * Guadala,' and it may or may not have been the Admiral 
 who stayed till three in the morning and delighted the 
 hearts of the captain and the Governor. He had come 
 as an unbidden guest, and he departed as an honoured 
 one, but strictly unofficial throughout. Judson told his 
 tale next day in the Admiral's cabin as well as he could 
 in the face of the Admiral's gales of laughter; but the 
 most amazing tale was that told by Mr. Davies to his 
 friends in the dockyard at Simon's Town from the point 
 
 327 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 of view of a second-class engine-room artificer, all un- 
 versed in diplomacy. 
 
 And if there be no truth either in my tale, which is 
 Judson's tale, or the tales of Mr. Davies, you will not 
 fmd in harbour at Simon's Town to-day a flat-bottomed, 
 twin-screw gunboat, designed solely for the defence of 
 rivers, about two hundred and seventy tons displace- 
 ment and five feet draught, wearing in open defiance of 
 the rules of the Service a gold line on her gray paint. It 
 follows also that you will be compelled to credit that 
 version of the fray which, signed by His Excellency the 
 Governor and despatched in the 'Guadala,' satisfied the 
 self-love of a great and glorious people, and saved a 
 monarchy from the ill-considered despotism which is 
 called a Republic. 
 
 328 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC 
 
 (1891) 
 
 Though thou love her as thyself, 
 As a self of purer clay, ; 
 
 Though her parting dim the day, 
 Stealing grace from all alive. 
 
 Heartily know 
 
 When half Gods go 
 The Gods arrive. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 THOUSANDS of years ago, when men were greater 
 than they are to-day, the Children of the Zodiac 
 lived in the world. There were six Children of 
 the Zodiac — the Ram, the Bull, Leo, the Twins, and 
 the Girl; and they were afraid of the Six Houses which 
 belonged to the Scorpion, the Balance, the Crab, the 
 Fishes, the Archer, and the Waterman. Even when 
 they first stepped down upon the earth and knew that 
 they were immortal Gods, they carried this fear with 
 them ; and the fear grew as they became better acquainted 
 with mankind and heard stories of the Six Houses. 
 Men treated the Children as Gods and came to them 
 with prayers and long stories of wrong, while the Children 
 of the Zodiac listened and could not uiiderstatid. ' 
 
 A mother would fling herself before the feet of the 
 
 329 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Twins, or the Bull, crying: ' My husband was at work in 
 the fields and the Archer shot him and he died; and my 
 son will also be killed by the Archer. Help me!' The 
 Bull would lower his huge head and answer: *What is 
 that to me?' Or the Twins would smile and continue 
 their play, for they could not understand why the water 
 ran out of people's eyes. At other times a man and a 
 woman would come to Leo or the Girl crying: 'We two 
 are newly married and we are very happy. Take these 
 flowers.' As they threw the flowers they would make 
 mysterious sounds to show that they were happy, and 
 Leo and the Girl wondered even more than the Twins 
 why people shouted ' Ha ! ha ! ha ! ' for no cause. 
 
 This continued for thousands of years by human reck- 
 oning, till on a day, Leo met the Girl walking across 
 the hills and saw that she had changed entirely since he 
 had last seen her. The Girl, looking at Leo, saw that 
 he too had changed altogether. Then they decided 
 that it would be well never to separate again, in case 
 even more startling changes should occur when the one 
 was not at hand to help the other. Leo kissed the Girl 
 and all Earth felt that kiss, and the Girl sat down on a 
 hill and the water ran out of her eyes ; and this had never 
 happened before in the memory of the Children of the 
 Zodiac. 
 
 As they sat together a man and a woman came by, 
 and the man said to the woman : 
 
 * What is the use of wasting flowers on those dull Gods? 
 They will never understand, darling.' 
 
 The Girl jumped up and put her arms round the wo- 
 man, crying, * I understand. Give me the flowers and I 
 will give you a kiss.' 
 
 Leo said beneath his breath to the man: *What was 
 
 330 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC 
 
 the new name that I heard you give to your woman just 
 now?' 
 
 The man answered, *Darhng, of course.' 
 
 'Why "of course"?' said Leo; 'and if of course, what 
 does it mean?' 
 
 'It means "very dear," and you have only to look at 
 your wife to see why.' 
 
 'I see,' said Leo; 'you are quite right'; and when the 
 man and the woman had gone on he called the Girl ' dar- 
 ling wife' ; and the Girl wept again from sheer happiness. 
 
 'I think,' she said at last, wiping her eyes, 'I think 
 that we two have neglected men and women too much. 
 What did you do with the sacrifices they made to you, 
 Leo?' 
 
 'I let them burn,' said Leo; 'I could not eat them. 
 What did you do with the flowers? ' 
 
 * I let them wither. I could not wear them, I had so 
 many of my own,' said the Girl, 'and now I am sorry.' 
 
 'There is nothing to grieve for,' said Leo; 'we belong 
 to each other.' 
 
 As they were talking the years of men's life slipped by 
 unnoticed, and presently the man and the woman came 
 back, both white-headed, the man carrying the woman. 
 
 'We have come to the end of things,' said the man 
 quietly. ' This that was my wife — ' 
 
 'As I am Leo's wife,' said the Girl quickly, her eyes 
 staring. 
 
 ' — was my wife, has been killed by one of your Houses.' 
 The man set down his burden, and laughed. 
 
 ' Which House? ' said Leo angrily, for he hated all the 
 Houses equally. 
 
 'You are Gods, you should know,' said the man. 
 *W^e have lived together and loved one another, and I 
 
 331 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 have left a good farm for my son. What have I to com- 
 plain of except that I still live? ' 
 
 As he was bending over his wife's body there came a 
 whistling through the air, and he started and tried to 
 run away, crying, 'It is the arrow of the Archer. Let 
 me live a little longer — only a little longer!' The arrow 
 struck him and he died. Leo looked at the Girl and she 
 looked at him, and both were puzzled. 
 
 ' He wished to die,' said Leo. ' He said that he wished 
 to die, and when Death came he tried to run away. He 
 is a coward.' 
 
 *No, he is not,' said the Girl; 'I think I feel what he 
 felt. Leo, we must learn more about this for their sakes.' 
 
 'For their sakes,' said Leo, very loudly. 
 
 'Because we are never going to die,' said the Girl and 
 Leo together, still more loudly. 
 
 'Now sit you still here, darling wife,' said Leo, 'while 
 I go to the Houses whom we hate, and learn how to make 
 these men and women live as we do.' 
 
 'And love as we do,' said the Girl. 
 
 * I do not think they need to be taught that,' said Leo, 
 and he strode away very angry, with his lion-skin swing- 
 ing from his shoulder, till he came to the House where 
 the Scorpion lives in the darkness, brandishing his tail 
 over his back. 
 
 'Why do you trouble the children of men?' said Leo, 
 with his heart between his teeth. 
 
 'Are you so sure that I trouble the children of men 
 alone?' said the Scorpion. 'Speak to your brother the 
 Bull, and see what he says.' 
 
 'I come on behalf of the children of men,' said Leo. 
 *I have learned to love as they do, and I wish them to 
 live as I — as we do.' 
 
 332 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC 
 
 * Your wish was granted long ago. Speak to the Bull. 
 He is under my special care,' said the Scorpion. 
 
 Leo dropped back to the earth again, and saw the 
 great star Aldebaran, that is set in the forehead of the 
 Bull, blazing very near to the earth. When he came up 
 to it he saw that his brother the Bull, yoked to a country- 
 man's plough, was toiling through a wet rice-field with 
 his head bent down, and the sweat streaming from his 
 flanks. The countryman was urging him forward with 
 a goad. 
 
 *Gore that insolent to death,' cried Leo, 'and for the 
 sake of our honour come out of the mire.' 
 
 'I cannot,' said the Bull, 'the Scorpion has told me 
 that some day, of which I cannot be sure, he will sting 
 me where my neck is set on my shoulders, and that I 
 shall die bellowing.' 
 
 * What has that to do with this disgraceful work?' said 
 Leo, standing on the dyke that bounded the wet field. 
 
 'Everything. This man could not plough without 
 my help. He thinks that I am a stray beast.' 
 
 'But he is a mud-crusted cottar with matted hair,' in- 
 sisted Leo. ' We are not meant for his use.' 
 
 'You may not be. I am. I cannot tell when the 
 Scorpion may choose to sting me to death — perhaps be- 
 fore I have turned this furrow.' The Bull flung his bulk 
 into the yoke, and the plough tore through the wet 
 ground behind him, and the countryman goaded him till 
 his flanks were red. 
 
 'Do you like this?' Leo called down the dripping fur- 
 rows. 
 
 'No,' said the Bull over his shoulder as he lifted his 
 hind legs from the clinging mud and cleared his nostrils. 
 
 Leo left him scornfully and passed to another country, 
 
 333 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 where he found his brother the Ram in the centre of a 
 crowd of country people who were hanging wreaths 
 round his neck and feeding him on freshly-plucked green 
 corn. 
 
 'This is terrible,' said Leo. 'Break up that crowd 
 and come away, my brother. Their hands are spoiling 
 your fleece.' 
 
 'I cannot,' said the Ram. 'The Archer told me that 
 on some day of which I had no knowledge, he would 
 send a dart through me, and that I should die in very 
 great pain.' 
 
 'What has that to do with this disgraceful show?' 
 said Leo, but he did not speak as confidently as before. 
 
 'Everything in the world,' said the Ram. 'These 
 people never saw a perfect sheep before. They think 
 that I am a stray, and they will carry me from place to 
 place as a model to all their flocks.' 
 
 'But they are greasy shepherds; we are not intended 
 to amuse them,' said Leo. 
 
 'You may not be, I am,' said the Ram. ' I cannot tell 
 when the Archer may choose to send his arrow at me — 
 perhaps before the people a mile down the road have 
 seen me.' The Ram lowered his head that a yokel 
 newly arrived might throw a wreath of wild garlic-leaves 
 over it, and waited patiently while the farmers tugged 
 his fleece. 
 
 * Do you like this?' cried Leo over the shoulders of the 
 crowd. 
 
 *No,' said the Ram, as the dust of the tramphng feet 
 made him sneeze, and he snuffed at the fodder piled be- 
 fore him. 
 
 Leo turned back intending to retrace his steps to the 
 Houses, but as he was passing down a street he saw two 
 
 334 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC 
 
 small children, very dusty, rolling outside a cottage 
 door, and playing with a cat. They were the Twins. 
 
 ' What are you doing here? ' said Leo, indignant. 
 
 'Playing,' said the Twins calmly. 
 
 'Cannot you play on the banks of the Milky Way?' 
 said Leo. 
 
 ' We did,' said they, ' till the Fishes swam down and 
 told us that some day they would come for us and not 
 hurt us at all and carry us away. So now we are play- 
 ing at being babies down here. The people like it.' 
 
 ' Do you like it? ' said Leo. 
 
 *No,' said the Twins, 'but there are no cats in the 
 Milky Way,' and they pulled the cat's tail thoughtfully. 
 A woman came out of the doorway and stood behind 
 them, and Leo saw in her face a look that he had some- 
 times seen in the Girl's. 
 
 'She thinks that we are foundlings,' said the Twins, 
 and they trotted indoors to the evening meal. 
 
 Then Leo hurried as swiftly as possible to all the 
 Houses one after another; for he could not understand 
 the new trouble that had come to his brethren. He spoke 
 to the Archer, and the Archer assured him that so far as 
 that House was concerned Leo had nothing to fear. The 
 Waterman, the Fishes, and the Scorpion gave the same 
 answer. They knew nothing of Leo, and cared less. They 
 were the Houses, and they were busied in killing men. 
 
 At last he came to that very dark House where Cancer 
 the Crab lies so still that you might think he was asleep 
 if you did not see the ceaseless play and winnowing mo- 
 tion of the feathery branches round his mouth. That 
 movement never ceases. It is like the eating of a 
 smothered fire into rotten timber in that it is noiseless 
 and without haste. 
 
 335 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Leo stood in front of the Crab, and the half darkness 
 allowed him a glimpse of that vast blue-black back and 
 the motionless eyes. Now and again he thought that 
 he heard some one sobbing, but the noise was very faint. 
 
 'Why do you trouble the children of men?' said Leo. 
 There was no answer, and against his will Leo cried, 
 * Why do you trouble us? What have we done that you 
 should trouble us?' 
 
 This time Cancer replied, ' What do I know or care? 
 You were born into my House, and at the appointed 
 time I shall come for you.' 
 
 * When is the appointed time? ' said Leo, stepping back 
 from the restless movement of the mouth. 
 
 ' When the full moon fails to call the full tide,' said the 
 Crab, 'I shall come for the one. When the other has 
 taken the earth by the shoulders, I shall take that other 
 by the throat.' 
 
 Leo lifted his hand to the apple of his throat, moist- 
 ened his lips, and recovering himself, said : 
 
 ' Must I be afraid for two, then?' 
 
 'For two,' said the Crab, 'and as many more as may 
 come after.' 
 
 'My brother, the Bull, had a better fate,' said Leo, 
 sullenly; 'he is alone.' 
 
 A hand covered his mouth before he could finish the 
 sentence, and he found the Girl in his arms. Woman- 
 like, she had not stayed where Leo had left her, but had 
 hastened off at once to know the worst, and passing all 
 the other Houses, had come straight to Cancer. 
 
 'That is fooUsh,' said the Girl, whispering. 'I have 
 been waiting in the dark for long and long before you 
 came. Then I was afraid. But now — ' She put her head 
 down on his shoulder and sighed a sigh of contentment. 
 
 336 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC 
 
 'I am afraid now,' said Leo. 
 
 'That is on my account,' said the Girl. ' I know it is, 
 because I am afraid for your sake. Let us go, husband.' 
 
 They went out of the darkness together and came 
 back to the Earth, Leo very silent, and the Girl striving 
 to cheer him. ' My brother's fate is the better one,' Leo 
 would repeat from time to time, and at last he said: 
 ' Let us each go our own way and live alone till we die. 
 We were born into the House of Cancer, and he will 
 come for us.' 
 
 ' I know; I know. But where shall I go? And where 
 will you sleep in the evening? But let us try. I will 
 stay here. Do you go on? ' 
 
 Leo took six steps forward very slowly, and three long 
 steps backward very quickly, and the third step set him 
 again at the Girl's side. This time it was she who was 
 begging him to go away and leave her, and he was forced 
 to comfort her all through the night. That night de- 
 cided them both never to leave each other for an instant, 
 and when they had come to this decision they looked 
 back at the darkness of the House of Cancer high above 
 their heads, and with their arms round each other's neck 
 laughed, 'Ha! ha! ha!' exactly as the children of men 
 laughed. And that was the first time in their lives that 
 they had ever laughed. 
 
 Next morning they returned to their proper home, 
 and saw the flowers and the sacrifices that had been laid 
 before their doors by the villagers of the hills. Leo 
 stamped down the fire with his heel, and the Girl flung 
 the flower-wreaths out of sight, shuddering as she did so. 
 When the villagers returned, as of custom, to see what 
 had become of their offerings, they found neither roses 
 nor burned flesh on the altars, but only a man and a wo- 
 
 337 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 man, with frightened white faces, sitting hand in hand 
 on the altar-steps. 
 
 'Are you not Virgo?' said a woman to the Girl. 'I 
 sent you flowers yesterday.' 
 
 'Little sister,' said the Girl, flushing to her forehead, 
 *do not send any more flowers, for I am only a woman 
 like yourself.' The man and the woman went away 
 doubtfully. 
 
 'Now, what shall we do?' said Leo. 
 
 'We must try to be cheerful, I think,' said the Girl. 
 * We know the very worst that can happen to us, but we 
 do not know the best that love can bring us. We have 
 a great deal to be glad of.' 
 
 'The certainty of death,' said Leo. 
 
 ' All the children of men have that certainty also ; yet 
 they laughed long before we ever knew how to laugh. 
 We must learn to laugh, Leo. We have laughed once 
 already.' 
 
 People who consider themselves Gods, as the Children 
 of the Zodiac did, find it hard to laugh, because the Im- 
 mortals know nothing worth laughter or tears. Leo 
 rose up with a very heavy heart, and he and the Girl 
 together went to and fro among men ; their new fear of 
 death behind them. First they laughed at a naked baby 
 attempting to thrust its fat toes into its foolish pink 
 mouth; next they laughed at a kitten chasing her own 
 tail; and then they laughed at a boy trying to steal a kiss 
 from a girl, and getting his ears boxed. Lastly, they 
 laughed because the wind blew in their faces as they ran 
 down a hill-side together, and broke panting and breath- 
 less into a knot of villagers at the bottom. The villagers 
 laughed too at their flying clothes and wind-reddened 
 faces; and in the evening gave them food and invited 
 
 338 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC 
 
 them to a dance on the grass, where everybody laughed 
 through the mere joy of being able to dance. 
 
 That night Leo jumped up from the Girl's side crying: 
 'Every one of those people we met just now will die — ' 
 
 * So shall we,' said the Girl sleepily. ' Lie down again, 
 dear.' Leo could not see that her face was wet with tears. 
 
 But Leo was up and far across the fields, driven for- 
 ward by the fear of death for himself and for the Girl, 
 who was dearer to him than himself. Presently he came 
 across the Bull drowsing in the moonlight after a hard 
 day's work, and looking through half-shut eyes at the 
 beautiful straight furrows that he had made. 
 
 'Ho!' said the Bull, 'so you have been told these 
 things too. Which of the Houses holds your death? ' 
 
 Leo pointed upwards to the dark House of the Crab and 
 groaned. * And he will come for the Girl too,' he said. 
 
 'Well,' said the Bull, 'what will you do?' 
 
 Leo sat down on the dyke and said that he did not know. 
 
 * You cannot pull a plough,' said the Bull, with a little 
 touch of contempt. * I can, and that prevents me from 
 thinking of the Scorpion.' 
 
 Leo was angry and said nothing till the dawn broke, 
 and the cultivator came to yoke the Bull to his work. 
 
 'Sing,' said the Bull, as the stiff muddy ox-bow creaked 
 and strained. 'My shoulder is galled. Sing one of the 
 songs that we sang when we thought we were all Gods to- 
 gether.' 
 
 Leo stepped back into the cane-brake and lifted up 
 his voice in a song of the Children of the Zodiac — the 
 war-whoop of the young Gods who are afraid of nothing. 
 At first he dragged the song along unwillingly, and then 
 the song dragged him, and his voice rolled across the 
 fields, and the Bull stepped to the tune, and the cultiva- 
 
 339 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 tor banged his flanks out of sheer Hght-heartedness, and 
 the furrows rolled away behind the plough more and 
 more swiftly. Then the Girl came across the fields look- 
 ing for Leo and found him singing in the cane. She 
 joined her voice to his, and the cultivator's wife brought 
 her spinning into the open and listened with all her chil- 
 dren round her. When it was time for the nooning, Leo 
 and the Girl had sung themselves both thirsty and hun- 
 gry, but the cultivator and his wife gave them rye-bread 
 and milk and many thanks, and the Bull found occasion 
 to say : ' You have helped me to do a full half-field more 
 than I should have done. But the hardest part of the 
 day is to come, brother.' 
 
 Leo wished to lie down and brood over the words of 
 the Crab. The Girl went away to talk to the cultiva- 
 tor's wife and baby, and the afternoon ploughing began. 
 
 *Help us now,' said the Bull. 'The tides of the day 
 are running down. My legs are very stiff. Sing if you 
 never sang before.' 
 
 * To a mud-spattered villager? ' said Leo. 
 
 'He is under the same doom as ourselves. Are you a 
 coward?' said the Bull. Leo flushed and began again 
 with a sore throat and a bad temper. Little by little he 
 dropped away from the songs of the Children and made 
 up a song as he went along; and this was a thing he could 
 never have done had he not met the Crab face to face. 
 He remembered facts concerning cultivators, and bul- 
 locks, and rice-fields, that he had not particularly noticed 
 before the interview, and he strung them all together, 
 growing more interested as he sang, and he told the cul- 
 tivator much more about himself and his work than the 
 cultivator knew. The Bull grunted approval as he toiled 
 down the furrows for the last time that day, and the song 
 
 340 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC 
 
 ended, leaving the cultivator with a very good opinion 
 of himself in his aching bones. The Girl came out of the 
 hut where she had been keeping the children quiet, and 
 talking woman-talk to the wife, and they all ate the even- 
 ing meal together. 
 
 'Now yours must be a very pleasant life,' said the cul- 
 tivator, ' sitting as you do on a dyke all day and singing 
 just what comes into your head. Have you been at it 
 long, you two — gipsies?' 
 
 'Ah!' lowed the Bull from his byre. 'That's all the 
 thanks you will ever get from men, brother.' 
 
 'No. We have only just begun it,' said the Girl; 'but 
 we are going to keep to it as long as we live. Are we not, 
 Leo?' 
 
 'Yes,' said he, and they went away hand-in-hand. 
 
 'You can sing beautifully, Leo,' said she, as a wife will 
 to her husband. 
 
 ' What were you doing? ' said he. 
 
 ' I was talking to the mother and the babies,' she said. 
 ' You would not understand the little things that make 
 us women laugh.' 
 
 ' And — and I am to go on with this — this gipsy- work? ' 
 said Leo. 
 
 'Yes, dear, and I will help you.' 
 
 There is no written record of the life of Leo and of the 
 Girl, so we cannot tell how Leo took to his new employ- 
 ment which he detested. We are only sure that the Girl 
 loved him when and wherever he sang; even when, after 
 the song was done, she went round with the equivalent 
 of a tambourine, and collected the pence for the daily 
 bread. There were times too when it was Leo's very 
 hard task to console the Girl for the indignity of horrible 
 praise that people gave him and her — for the silly wag- 
 
 341 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 ging peacock feathers that they stuck in his cap, and the 
 buttons and pieces of cloth that they sewed on his coat. 
 Woman-like, she could advise and help to the end, but 
 the meanness of the means revolted. 
 
 'What does it matter,' Leo would say, 'so long as the 
 songs make them a little happier? ' And they would go 
 down the road and begin again on the old, old refrain : 
 that whatever came or did not come the children of men 
 must not be afraid. It was heavy teaching at first, but 
 in process of years Leo discovered that he could make 
 men laugh and hold them listening to him even when 
 the rain fell. Yet there were people who would sit down 
 and cry softly, though the crowd was yelling with de- 
 light, and there were people who maintained that Leo 
 made them do this; and the Girl would talk to them in 
 the pauses of the performance and do her best to com- 
 fort them. People would die too, while Leo was talking 
 and singing, and laughing, for the Archer, and the Scor- 
 pion, and the Crab, and the other Houses were as busy 
 as ever. Sometimes the crowd broke, and were frightened, 
 and Leo strove to keep them steady by telling them 
 that this was cowardly; and sometimes they mocked at 
 the Houses that were killing them, and Leo explained 
 that this was even more cowardly than running away. 
 
 In their wanderings they came across the Bull, or the 
 Ram, or the Twins, but all were too busy to do more 
 than nod to each other across the crowd, and go on with 
 their work. As the years rolled on even that recogni- 
 tion ceased, for the Children of the Zodiac had forgotten 
 that they had ever been Gods working for the sake of 
 men. The star Aldebaran was crusted with caked dirt 
 on the Bull's forehead, the Ram's fleece was dusty and 
 torn, and the Twins were only babies fighting over the 
 
 342 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC 
 
 cat on the doorstep. It was then that Leo said : ' Let us 
 stop singing and making jokes.' And it was then that 
 the Girl said: 'No—' but she did not know why she said 
 'No' so energetically. Leo maintained that it was per- 
 versity, till she herself, at the end of a dusty day, made 
 the same suggestion to him, and he said 'most certainly 
 not,' and they quarrelled miserably between the hedge- 
 rows, forgetting the meaning of the stars above them. 
 Other singers and other talkers sprang up in the course 
 of the years, and Leo, forgetting that there could never 
 be too many of these, hated them for dividing the ap- 
 plause of the children of men, which he thought should 
 be all his own. The Girl would grow angry too, and 
 then the songs would be broken, and the jests fall flat 
 for weeks to come, and the children of men would shout : 
 ' Go home, you two gipsies. Go home and learn some- 
 thing worth singing ! ' 
 
 After one of these sorrowful shameful days, the Girl, 
 walking by Leo's side through the fields, saw the full 
 moon coming up over the trees, and she clutched Leo's 
 arm, crying : ' The time has come now. Oh, Leo, forgive 
 me!' 
 
 * What is it? ' said Leo. He was thinking of the other 
 singers. 
 
 *My husband!' she answered, and she laid his hand 
 upon her breast, and the breast that he knew so well was 
 hard as stone. Leo groaned, remembering what the 
 Crab had said. 
 
 * Surely we were Gods once,' he cried. 
 
 ' Surely we are Gods still,' said the Girl. ' Do you not 
 remember when you and I went to the house of the Grab 
 and — were not very much afraid? And since then 
 
 ... we have forgotten what we were singing for 
 
 343 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 — we sang for the pence, and, oh, we fought for them ! — 
 We, who are the Children of the Zodiac' 
 
 ' It was my fault,' said Leo. 
 
 'How can there be any fault of yours that is not mine 
 too? ' said the Girl. ' My time has come, but you will 
 live longer, and . . .' The look in her eyes said all 
 she could not say. 
 
 'Yes, I will remember that we are Gods,' said Leo. 
 
 It is very hard, even for a child of the Zodiac, who has 
 forgotten his Godhead, to see his wife dying slowly and 
 to know that he cannot help her. The Girl told Leo in 
 those last months of all that she had said and done among 
 the wives and the babies at the back of the roadside per- 
 formances, and Leo was astonished that he knew so little 
 of her who had been so much to him. When she was 
 dying she told him never to fight for pence or quarrel 
 with the other singers; and, above all, to go on with his 
 singing immediately after she was dead. 
 
 Then she died, and after he had buried her he went 
 down the road to a village that he knew, and the people 
 hoped that he would begin quarrelling with a new singer 
 that had sprung up while he had been away. But Leo 
 called him 'my brother.' The new singer was newly 
 married — and Leo knew it — and when he had finished 
 singing, Leo straightened himself and sang the ' Song of 
 the Girl,' which he had made coming down the road. 
 Every man who was married or hoped to be married, 
 whatever his rank or colour, understood that song — 
 even the bride leaning on the new husband's arm under- 
 stood it too — and presently when the song ended, and 
 Leo's heart was bursting in him, the men sobbed. ' That 
 was a sad tale,' they said at last, 'now make us laugh.' 
 Because Leo had known all the sorrow that a man could 
 
 344 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC 
 
 know, including the full knowledge of his own fall who 
 had once been a God — he, changing his song quickly, 
 made the people laugh till they could laugh no more. 
 They went away feeling ready for any trouble in reason, 
 and they gave Leo more peacock feathers and pence than 
 he could count. Knowing that pence led to quarrels 
 and that peacock feathers were hateful to the Girl, he 
 put them aside and went away to look for his brothers, 
 to remind them that they too were Gods. 
 
 He found the Bull goring the undergrowth in a ditch, 
 for the Scorpion had stung him, and he was dying, not 
 slowly, as the Girl had died, but quickly. 
 
 'I know all,' the Bull groaned, as Leo came up. 'I 
 had forgotten too, but I remember now. Go and look 
 at the fields I ploughed. The furrows are straight. I 
 forgot that I was a God, but I drew the plough perfectly 
 straight, for all that. And you, brother? ' 
 
 'I am not at the end of the ploughing,' said Leo. 
 *Does Death hurt?' 
 
 *No, but dying does,' said the Bull, and he died. The 
 cultivator who then owned him was much annoyed, for 
 there was a field still unploughed. 
 
 It was after this that Leo made the Song of the Bull 
 who had been a God and forgotten the fact, and he sang 
 it in such a manner that half the young men in the 
 world conceived that they too might be Gods without 
 I knowing it. A half of that half grew impossibly con- 
 f ceited and died early. A half of the remainder strove 
 to be Gods and failed, but the other half accomplished 
 four times more work than they would have done under 
 any other delusion. 
 
 Later, years later, always wandering up and down 
 and making the children of men laugh, he found the 
 
 345 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Twins sitting on the bank of a stream waiting for the 
 Fishes to come and carry them away. They were not 
 in the least afraid, and they told Leo that the woman of 
 the House had a real baby of her own, and that when 
 that baby grew old enough to be mischievous he would 
 fmd a well-educated cat waiting to have its tail pulled. 
 Then the Fishes came for them, but all that the people 
 saw was two children drowned in a brook; and though 
 their foster-mother was very sorry, she hugged her own 
 real baby to her breast and was grateful that it was only 
 the foundlings. 
 
 Then Leo made the Song of the Twins, who had for- 
 gotten that they were Gods and had played in the dust 
 to amuse a foster-mother. That song was sung far and 
 wide among the women. It caused them to laugh and 
 cry and hug their babies closer to their hearts all in one 
 breath; and some of the women who remembered the 
 Girl said : ' Surely that is the voice of Virgo. Only she 
 could know so much about ourselves.' 
 
 After those three songs were made, Leo sang them 
 over and over again till he was in danger of looking upon 
 them as so many mere words, and the people who listened 
 grew tired, and there came back to Leo the old tempta- 
 tion to stop singing once and for all. But he remem- 
 bered the Girl's dying words and persisted. 
 
 One of his listeners interrupted him as he was singing. 
 'Leo,' said he, 'I have heard you telling us not to be 
 afraid for the past forty years. Can you not sing some- 
 thing new now? ' 
 
 *No,' said Leo, *it is the only song that I am allowed 
 to sing. You must not be afraid of the Houses, even 
 when they kill you.' The man turned to go, wearily, 
 but there came a whistling through the air, and the ar- 
 
 346 
 
THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC 
 
 row of the Archer was seen skimming low above the 
 earth, pointing to the man's heart. He drew himself 
 up, and stood still waiting till the arrow struck home. 
 
 'I die,' he said quietly. 'It is well for me, Leo, that 
 you sang for forty years.' 
 
 'Are you afraid?' said Leo, bending over him. 
 
 'I am a man, not a God,' said the man. 'I should 
 have run away but for your songs. My work is done, and 
 I die without making a show of my fear.' 
 
 ' I am very well paid,' said Leo to himself. ' Now that 
 I see what my songs are doing, I will sing better ones.' 
 
 He went down the road, collected his little knot of lis- 
 teners, and began the Song of the Girl. In the middle 
 of his singing he felt the cold touch of the Crab's claw 
 on the apple of his throat. He lifted his hand, choked, 
 and stopped for an instant. 
 
 * Sing on, Leo,' said the crowd. ' The old song runs as 
 well as ever it did.' 
 
 Leo went on steadily till the end with the cold fear at his 
 heart. When his song was ended, he felt the grip on his 
 throat tighten. He was old, he had lost the Girl, he knew 
 that he was losing more than half his power to sing, he 
 could scarcely walk to the diminishing crowds that waited 
 for him, and could not see their faces when they stood 
 about him. None the less, he cried angrily to the Crab : 
 
 ' Why have you come for me now? ' 
 
 ' You were born under my care. How can I help com- 
 ing for you? ' said the Crab wearily. Every human be- 
 ing whom the Crab killed had asked that same question. 
 
 'But I was just beginning to know what my songs 
 were doing,' said Leo. 
 
 'Perhaps that is why,' said the Crab, and the grip 
 tightened. 
 
 347 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 'You said you would not come till I had taken the 
 world by the shoulders,' gasped Leo, falling back. 
 
 ' I always keep my word. You have done that three 
 times with three songs. What more do you desire? ' 
 
 'Let me live to see the world know it,' pleaded Leo. 
 ' Let me be sure that my songs — ' 
 
 ' Make men brave? ' said the Crab. ' Even then there 
 would be one man who was afraid. The Girl was braver 
 than you are. Come.' 
 
 Leo was standing close to the restless, insatiable mouth. 
 
 'I forgot,' said he simply. 'The Girl was braver. 
 But I am a God too, and I am not afraid.' 
 
 ' What is that to me? ' said the Crab. 
 
 Then Leo's speech was taken from him and he lay 
 still and dumb, watching Death till he died. 
 
 Leo was the last of the Children of the Zodiac. After 
 his death there sprang up a breed of little mean men, 
 whimpering and flinching and howHng because the 
 Houses killed them and theirs, who wished to live for 
 ever without any pain. They did not increase their 
 lives, but they increased their own torments miserably, 
 and there were no Children of the Zodiac to guide them; 
 and the greater part of Leo's songs were lost. 
 
 Only he had carved on the Girl's tombstone the last 
 verse of the Song of the Girl, which stands at the head o{ 
 this story. 
 
 One of the children of men, coming thousands of years 
 later, rubbed away the lichen, read the lines, and applied 
 them to a trouble other than the one Leo meant. Being 
 a man, men believed that he had made the verses him- 
 self; but they belong to Leo, the Child of the Zodiac, 
 and teach, as he taught, that whatever comes or does 
 not come we men must not be afraid. . n '• -:-. ; 
 
 348 
 
ENVOy 
 
 HEH! Walk her round. Heave, ah heave her 
 short again ! 
 Over, snatch her over, there, and hold her on 
 the pawl. 
 Loose all sail, and brace your yards aback and full — 
 Ready jib to pay her off and heave short all ! 
 
 Well, ah fare you well ! We can stay no more with 
 you, my love — 
 Down, set down your liquor and your girl from 
 off your knee; 
 
 For the wind has come to say : 
 'You must take me while you may, 
 If you'd go to Mother Carey where she feeds her 
 chicks at sea ! ' 
 
 Heh ! Walk her round. Break, ah break it out o' that ! 
 Break our starboard bower out, apeak, awash, aclear ! 
 Port — port she casts, with the harbour-mud beneath her 
 foot, 
 And that's the last o' bottom we shall see this year! 
 
 349 
 
MANY INVENTIONS 
 
 Well, ah fare you well, for we've got to take her out 
 again — 
 Take her out in ballast, riding light and cargo- 
 free. 
 
 And it's time to clear and quit 
 When the hawser grips the bitt, 
 So we'll pay you with the foresheet and a promise 
 from the sea ! 
 
 Heh ! Tally on. Aft and walk away with her ! 
 
 Handsome to the cathead, now; tally on the fall! 
 Stop, seize and fish, and easy on the davit-guy. 
 
 Up, well up the fluke of her, and inboard haul! 
 
 Well, ah fare you well, for the Channel wind's took 
 hold of us. 
 Choking down our voices as we snatch the gas- 
 kets free. 
 
 And it's blowing up for night, 
 And she's dropping Light on Light, 
 And she's snorting and she's snatching for a 
 breath of open sea. 
 
 Wheel, full and by; but she'll smell her road alone to- 
 night. 
 
 Sick she is and harbour-sick — sick to clear the land ! 
 Roll down to Brest with the old Red Ensign over us — 
 
 Carry on and thrash her out with all she'll stand ! 
 
 Well, ah fare you well, and it's Ushant gives the 
 door to us. 
 Whirling like a windmill on the dirty scud to lee : 
 Till the last, last flicker goes 
 350 
 
ENVOY 
 
 From the tumbling water-rows, 
 And we're off to Mother Carey 
 
 (Walk her down to Mother Carey !) 
 Oh, we're bound for Mother Carey where she 
 
 feeds her chicks at sea! 
 
 THE END 
 
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