Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (721 page)

‘Armine,’ said the old gentleman. ‘He’s my nephew by marriage.’

‘That’s all that’s wanted!’ said Keede.

Brother Armine looked a little puzzled. Keede hastened to explain. ‘As I was saying, all he wants now is to be kept quiet till he wakes.’

Gow’s Watch

Act V. scene 3

After the Battle. The PRINCESS by the Standard on the Ravelin.

Enter Gow, with the Crown of the Kingdom.

GOW. Here’s earnest of the Queen’s submission.

This by her last herald-and in haste.

PRINCESS. ‘Twas ours already. Where is the woman?

GOW. ‘Fled with her horse. They broke at dawn.

Noon has not struck, and you’re Queen questionless.

PRINCESS. By you-through you. How shall I honour you?

GOW. Me? But for what?

PRINCESS. For all-all-all —

Since the realm sunk beneath us! Hear him! For what?’

Your body ‘twixt my bosom and her knife.

Your lips on the cup she proffered for my death;

Your one cloak over me, that night in the snows

We held the Pass at Bargi. Every hour

New strengths, to this most unbelievable last.

‘Honour him?’ I will honour-will honour you — ...

‘Tis at your choice.

GOW. Child, mine was long ago.

(Enter FERDINAND, as from horse.)

But here’s one worthy honour. Welcome, Fox!

FERDINAND. And to you, Watchdog. This day clenches all.

We’ve made it and seen it.

GOW. Is the city held?

FERDINAND. Loyally. Oh, they’re drunk with loyalty yonder.

A virtuous mood. Your bombards helped ‘em to it...

But here’s my word for you. The Lady Frances —

PRINCESS. I left her sick in the city. No harm, I pray.

FERDINAND. Nothing that she called harm. In truth, so little

That (to Gow) I am bidden tell you, she’ll be here

Almost as soon as I.

GOW. She says it?

FERDINAND. Writes.

This. (Gives him letter.) Yester eve. ‘Twas given me by the priest-

He with her in her hour.

GOW. So? (Reads) So it is.

She will be here. (To Ferdinand) And all is safe in the city?

FERDINAND. As thy long sword and my lean wits can make it.

You’ve naught to stay for. Is it the road again?

GOW. Ay. This time, not alone...She will be here.

PRINCESS. I am here. You have not looked at me awhile.

GOW. The rest is with you, Ferdinand...

Then free.

PRINCESS. And at my service more than ever. I claim —

(Our wars have taught me)-being your Queen, now, claim

You wholly mine.

GOW. Then free...She will be here! A little while —

PRINCESS (to FERDINAND). He looks beyond, not at me.

FERDINAND. Weariness.

We are not so young as once was. ‘Two days’ fight-

A worthy servitor-to be allowed

Some freedom.

PRINCESS. I have offered him all he would.

FERDINAND. He takes what he has taken.

(The Spirit of the LADY FRANCES appears to Gow.)

GOW. Frances

PRINCESS. Distraught!

FERDINAND. An old head-blow, maybe. He has dealt in them.

GOW (to the Spirit). What can the Grave against us, O my Heart.

Comfort and light and reason in all things

Visible and invisible-my one God?

Thou that wast I these barren unyoked years

Of triflings now at end! Frances!

PRINCESS. She’s old.

FERDINAND. True. By most reckonings old.

They must keep other count.

PRINCESS. He kisses his hand to the air!

FERDINAND. His ring, rather, he kisses. Yes-for sure-the ring.

GOW. Dear and most dear. And now, those very arms. (Dies.)

PRINCESS. Oh, look! He faints. Haste, you! Unhelm him! Help!

FERDINAND. Needless. No help

Avails against that poison. He is sped.

PRINCESS. By his own hand? This hour? When I had offered —

FERDINAND. He had made other choice-an old, old choice.

Ne’er swerved from, and now patently sealed in death.

PRINCESS. He called on-the Lady Frances was it? Wherefore?

FERDINAND. Because she was his life. Forgive, my friend — (covers Gow’s face)

God’s uttermost beyond me in all faith.

Service and passion-if I unveil at last

The secret. (To the Princess) Thought-dreamed you, it was for you

He poured himself-for you resoldered the Crown?

Struck here, held there, amended, broke, built up

His multiplied imaginings for you?

PRINCESS. I thought-I thought he —

FERDINAND. Looked beyond. Her wish

Was the sole Law he knew. She did not choose

Your House should perish. Therefore he bade it stand.

Enough for him when she had breathed a word

‘Twas his to make it iron, stone, or fire.

Driving our flesh and blood before his ways

As the wind straws. Her one face unregarded

Waiting you with your mantle or your glove-

That is the God whom he is gone to worship.

(Trumpets without. Enter the Prince’s Heralds.)

And here’s the work of Kingship begun again.

These from the Prince of Bargi-to whose sword

You owe such help as may, he thinks, be paid...

He’s equal in blood, in fortune more than peer.

Young, most well favoured, with a heart to love-

And two States in the balance. Do you meet him?

PRINCESS. God and my Misery! I have seen Love at last.

What shall content me after?

The Birthright

THE miracle of our land’s speech-so known

And long received, none marvel when ‘tis shown!

We have such wealth as Rome at her most pride

Had not or (having) scattered not so wide;

Nor with such arrant prodigality

Beneath her any pagan’s foot let lie...

Lo! Diamond that cost some half their days

To find and t’other half to bring to blaze

Rubies of every heat, wherethrough we scan

The fiercer and more fiery heart of man

Emerald that with the uplifted billow vies.

And Sapphires evening remembered skies

Pearl perfect, as immortal tears must show.

Bred, in deep waters, of a piercing woe;

And tender Turkis, so with charms y-writ.

Of woven gold, Time dares not bite on it.

Thereafter, in all manners worked and set.

Jade, coral, amber, crystal, ivories, jet,-

Showing no more than various fancies, yet

Each a Life’s token or Love’s amulet...

Which things, through timeless arrogance of use.

We neither guard nor garner, but abuse;

So that our scholars-nay, our children-fling

In sport or jest treasure to arm a King;

And the gross crowd, at feast or market, hold

Traffic perforce with dust of gems and gold!

The Propagation of Knowledge

THE Army Class ‘English,’ which included the Upper Fifth, was trying to keep awake; for ‘English’ (Literature-Augustan epoch-eighteenth century came at last lesson, and that, on a blazing July afternoon; meant after every one had been bathing. Even Mr. King found it hard to fight against the snore of the tide along the Pebble Ridge, and spurred himself with strong words.

Since, said he, the pearls of English Literature existed only to be wrenched from their settings and cast before young swine rooting for marks, it was his loathed business-in anticipation of the Army Preliminary Examination which, as usual, would be held at the term’s end, under the auspices of an official examiner sent down ad hoc-to prepare for the Form a General Knowledge test-paper, which he would give them next week. It would cover their studies, up to date, of the Augustans and King Lear, which was the selected-and strictly expurgated-Army Exam, play for that year. Now, English Literature, as he might have told them, was not divided into water-tight compartments, but flowed like a river. For example, Samuel Johnson, glory of the Augustans and no mean commentator of Shakespeare, was but one in a mighty procession which —

At this point Beetle’s nodding brows came down with a grunt on the desk. He had been soaking and sunning himself in the open sea-baths built out on the rocks under the cliffs, from two-fifteen to four- forty.

The Army Class took Johnson off their minds. With any luck, Beetle would last King till the tea-bell. King rubbed his hands and began to carve him. He had gone to sleep to show his contempt (a) for Mr. King, who might or might not matter, and (b) for the Augustans, who none the less were not to be sneered at by one whose vast and omnivorous reading, for which such extraordinary facilities had been granted (this was because the Head had allowed Beetle the run of his library), naturally overlooked such epigonoi as Johnson, Swift, Pope, Addison, and the like. Harrison Ainsworth and Marryat doubtless appealed —

Even so, Beetle salt-encrusted all over except his spectacles, and steeped in delicious languors, was sliding back to sleep again, when ‘Taffy’ Howell, the leading light of the Form, who knew his Marryat as well as Stalky did his Surtees, began in his patent, noiseless whisper: ‘“Allow me to observe-in the most delicate manner in the world-just to hint — ”‘

‘Under pretext of studying literature, a desultory and unformed mind would naturally return, like the dog of Scripture — ’

‘“You’re a damned trencher-scrapin’, napkin-carryin’, shillin’- seekin’, up-an’-down-stairs.”‘ Howell breathed.

Beetle choked aloud on the sudden knowledge that King was the ancient and eternal Chucks-later Count Shucksen-of Peter Simple. He had not realised it before.

‘Sorry, sir. I’m afraid I’ve been asleep, sir,’ he sputtered.

The shout of the Army Class diverted the storm. King was grimly glad that Beetle had condescended to honour truth so far. Perhaps he would now lend his awakened ear to a summary of the externals of Dr. Johnson, as limned by Macaulay. And he read, with intention, the just historian’s outline of a grotesque figure with untied shoe-strings, that twitched and grunted, gorged its food, bit its finger-nails, and neglected its ablutions. The Form hailed it as a speaking likeness of Beetle; nor were they corrected.

Then King implored him to vouchsafe his comrades one single fact connected with Dr. Johnson which might at any time have adhered to what, for decency’s sake, must, Mr. King supposed, be called his mind.

Beetle was understood to say that the only thing he could remember was in French.

‘You add, then, the Gallic tongue to your accomplishments? The information plus the accent?’Tis well! Admirable Crichton, proceed!’

And Beetle proceeded with the text of an old Du Maurier drawing in a back-number of Punch:

De tous ces defunts cockolores

Le moral Fenelon.

Michel Ange et Johnson

(Le Docteur) sont les plus awful bores.’

To which Howell, wooingly, just above his breath: