Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (729 page)

‘Don’t blame me, Guv’nor,’ the man expostulated. ‘I ‘aven’t seen a woman, let alone angels, for umpteen months. I’m from Joppa. Where ‘you from?’

‘Northampton,’ was the answer. ‘Rein back and keep by me.’

‘What? You ain’t ever Charley B. that my dad used to tell about? I thought you always said — ’

‘I shall say a deal more soon. Your Sergeant’s talking to that woman in red. Fetch him in-quick!’

Meantime, a sunken-eyed Scots officer, utterly lost to the riot around, was being button-holed by a person of reverend aspect who explained to him that, by the logic of his own ancestral creed, not only was the Highlander irrevocably damned, but that his damnation had been predetermined before Earth was made.

‘It’s unanswerable-just unanswerable,’ said the young man sorrowfully. ‘I’ll be with ye.’ He was moving off, when a smallish figure interposed, not without dignity.

‘Monsieur,’ it said, ‘would it be of any comfort to you to know that I am-I was-John Calvin?’ At this the reverend one cursed and swore like the lost Soul he was, while the Highlander turned to discuss with Calvin, pacing towards The Gate, some alterations in the fabric of a work of fiction called the Institutio.

Others were not so easily held. A certain Woman, with loosened hair, bare arms, flashing eyes and dancing feet, shepherded her knot of waverers, hoarse and exhausted. When the taunt broke out against her from the opposing line: ‘Tell ‘em what you were! Tell ‘em if you dare!’ she answered unflinchingly, as did Judas, who, worming through the crowd like an Armenian carpet-vendor, peddled his shame aloud that it might give strength to others.

‘Yes,’ he would cry, ‘I am everything they say, but if I’m here it must be a moral cert for you gents. This way, please. Many mansions, gentlemen! Go-ood billets! Don’t you notice these low people, Sar. Plees keep hope, gentlemen!’

When there were cases that cried to him from the ground-poor souls who could not stick it but had found their way out with a rifle and a boot-lace, he would tell them of his own end, till he made them contemptuous enough to rise up and curse him. Here St. Luke’s imperturbable bedside manner backed and strengthened the other’s almost too oriental flux of words.

In this fashion and step by step, all the day’s Convoy were piloted past that danger-point where the Lower Establishment are, for reasons not given us, allowed to ply their trade. The pickets dropped to the rear, relaxed, and compared notes.

‘What always impresses me most,’ said Death to St. Peter, ‘is the sheeplike simplicity of the intellectual mind.’ He had been watching one of the pickets apparently overwhelmed by the arguments of an advanced atheist who-so hot in his argument that he was deaf to the offers of the Lower Establishment to make him a god-had stalked, talking hard-while the picket always gave ground before him-straight past the Broad Road.

‘He was plaiting of long-tagged epigrams,’ the sober-faced picket smiled. ‘Give that sort only an ear and they’ll follow ye gobbling like turkeys.’

‘And John held his peace through it all,’ a full fresh voice broke in. ‘“It may be so,” says John. “Doubtless, in your belief, it is so,” says John. “Your words move me mightily,” says John, and gorges his own beliefs like a pike going backwards. And that young fool, so busy spinning words-words-words-that he trips past Hell Mouth without seeing it!...Who’s yonder, Joan?’

‘One of your English. ‘Always late. Look!’ A young girl with short- cropped hair pointed with her sword across the plain towards a single faltering figure which made at first as though to overtake the Convoy, but then turned left towards the Lower Establishment, who were enthusiastically cheering him as a leader of enterprise.

‘That’s my traitor,’ said St. Peter. ‘He has no business to report to the Lower Establishment before reporting to Convoy.’

The figure’s pace slackened as he neared the applauding line. He looked over his shoulder once or twice, and then fairly turned tail and fled again towards the still Convoy.

‘Nobody ever gave me credit for anything I did,’ he began, sobbing and gesticulating. ‘They were all against me from the first. I only wanted a little encouragement. It was a regular conspiracy, but I showed ‘em what I could do! I showed ‘em! And-and-’ he halted again. ‘Oh, God! What are you going to do with me?’

No one offered any suggestion. He ranged sideways like a doubtful dog, while across the plain the Lower Establishment murmured seductively. All eyes turned to St. Peter.

‘At this moment,’ the Saint said half to himself, ‘I can’t recall any precise ruling under which — ’

‘My own case?’ the ever-ready Judas suggested.

‘No-o! That’s making too much of it. And yet — ’

‘Oh, hurry up and get it over,’ the man wailed, and told them all that he had done, ending with the cry that none had ever recognised his merits; neither his own narrow-minded people, his inefficient employers, nor the snobbish jumped-up officers of his battalion.

‘You see,’ said St. Peter at the end. ‘It’s sheer vanity. It isn’t even as if we had a woman to fall back upon.’

‘Yet there was a woman or I’m mistaken,’ said the picket with the pleasing voice who had praised John.

‘Eh-what? When?’ St. Peter turned swiftly on the speaker. ‘Who was the woman?’

‘The wise woman of Tekoah,’ came the smooth answer. ‘I remember, because that verse was the private heart of my plays-some of ‘em.’

But the Saint was not listening. ‘You have it!’ he cried. ‘Samuel Two, Double Fourteen. To think that I should have forgotten! “For we must needs die and are as water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Neither Both God respect any person, yet-” Here, you! Listen to this!’

The man stepped forward and stood to attention. Some one took his cap as Judas and the picket John closed up beside him.

‘“Yet doth He devise means (d’you understand that?) devise means that His banished be not expelled from Him!” This covers your case. I don’t know what the means will be. That’s for you to find out. They’ll tell you yonder.’ He nodded towards the now silent Lower Establishment as he scribbled on a pass. ‘Take this paper over to them and report for duty there. You’ll have a thin time of it; but they won’t keep you a day longer than I’ve put down. Escort!’

‘Does-does that mean there’s any hope?’ the man stammered.

‘Yes — I’ll show you the way,’ Judas whispered. ‘I’ve lived there-a very long time.’

‘I’ll bear you company a piece,’ said John, on his left flank. ‘There’ll be Despair to deal with. Heart up, Mr. Littlesoul!’

The three wheeled off, and the Convoy watched them grow smaller and smaller across the plain.

St. Peter smiled benignantly and rubbed his hands.

‘And now we’re rested,’ said he, ‘I think we might make a push for billets this evening, gentlemen, eh?’

The pickets fell in, guardians no longer but friends and companions all down the line. There was a little burst of cheering and the whole Convoy strode away towards the not so distant Gate.

The Saint and Death stayed behind to rest awhile. It was a heavenly evening. They could hear the whistle of the low-flighting Cherubim, clear and sharp, under the diviner note of some released Seraph’s wings, where, his errand accomplished, he plunged three or four stars deep into the cool Baths of Hercules; the steady dynamo-like hum of the nearer planets on their axes; and, as the hush deepened, the surprised little sigh of some new-born sun a universe of universes away. But their minds were with the Convoy that their eyes followed.

Said St. Peter proudly at last: ‘If those people of mine had seen that fellow stripped of all hope in front of ‘em, I doubt if they could have marched another yard to-night. Watch ‘em stepping out now, though! Aren’t they human?’

‘To whom do you say it?’ Death answered, with something of a tired smile. ‘I’m more than human. I’ve got to die some time or other. But all other created Beings-afterwards...’

‘I know,’ said St. Peter softly. ‘And that is why I love you, 0 Azrael!’

For now they were alone Death had, of course, returned to his true majestic shape-that only One of all created beings who is doomed to perish utterly, and knows it.

‘Well, that’s that-for me!’ Death concluded as he rose. ‘And yet-’ he glanced towards the empty plain where the Lower Establishment had withdrawn with their prisoner. ‘“Yet doth He devise means.”‘

The Supports

(Song of the Avaiting Seraphs.)

FULL Chorus.

To Him Who bade the Heavens abide, yet cease not from their motion.

To Him Who tames the moonstruck tide twice a day round Ocean-

Let His Names be magnified in all poor folks’ devotion!

Powers and Gifts.

Not for Prophecies or Powers, Visions, Gifts, or Graces.

But the unregardful hours that grind us in our places

With the burden on our backs, the weather in our faces.

Toils.

Not for any Miracle of easy Loaves and Fishes.

But for doing, ‘gainst our will, work against our wishes-

Such as finding food to fill daily-emptied dishes.

Glories.

Not for Voices, Harps or Wings or rapt illumination.

But the grosser Self that springs of use and occupation.

Unto which the Spirit clings as her last salvation.

Powers, Glories, Toils, and Gifts.

(He Who launched our Ship of Fools many anchors gave us.

Lest one gale should start them all-one collision stave us.

      Praise Him for the petty creeds

      That prescribe in paltry needs

Solemn rites to trivial deeds and, by small things, save us!)

Services and Loves.

Heart may fail, and Strength outwear, and Purpose turn to Loathing.

But the everyday affair of business, meals, and clothing.

Builds a bulkhead ‘twixt Despair and the Edge of Nothing.

Patiences.

(Praise Him, then, Who orders it that, though Earth be flaring

      And the crazy skies are lit

      By the searchlights of the Pit.

Man should not depart a whit from his wonted bearing.

Hopes.

He Who bids the wild-swans’ host still maintain their flight on

      Air-roads over islands lost —

      Ages since ‘neath Ocean lost —

Beaches of some sunken coast their fathers would alight on —

Faiths.

He shall guide us through this dark, not by new-blown glories.

But by every ancient mark our fathers used before us.

Till our children ground their ark where the proper shore is.

Services, Patiences, Faiths, Hopes, and Loves.

He Who used the clay that clings on our boots to make us.

Shall not suffer earthly things to remove or shake us:

      But, when Man denies His Lord.

      Habit without Fleet or Sword

      (Custom without threat or word)

Sees the ancient fanes restored-the timeless rites o’ertake us.

Full Chorus.

For He Who makes the Mountains smoke and rives the Hills asunder.

      And, to-morrow, leads the grass-

      Mere unconquerable grass-

Where the fuming crater was, to heal and hide it under.

      He shall not-He shall not-

Shall not lay on us the yoke of too long Fear and Wonder!

Untimely

NOTHING in life has been made by man for man’s using

But it was shown long since to man in ages

Lost as the name of the maker of it.

Who received oppression and scorn for his wages-

Hate, avoidance, and scorn in his daily dealings-

Until he perished, wholly confounded.

More to be pitied than he are the wise

Souls which foresaw the evil of loosing

Knowledge or Art before time, and aborted

Noble devices and deep-wrought healings.

Lest offence should arise.

Heaven delivers on earth the Hour that cannot be thwarted.

Neither advanced, at the price of a world or a soul, and its Prophet