The Works of Rudyard Kipling Part 89

But the country that d.i.c.ky came to was a hard land, where "men" of twenty-one were reckoned very small boys indeed, and life was expensive.

The salary that loomed so large six thousand miles away did not go far.

Particularly when d.i.c.ky divided it by two, and remitted more than the fair half, at 1-6, to Montpelier Square. One hundred and thirty-five rupees out of three hundred and thirty is not much to live on; but it was absurd to suppose that Mrs. Hatt could exist forever on the 20 pounds held back by d.i.c.ky, from his outfit allowance. d.i.c.ky saw this, and remitted at once; always remembering that Rs. 700 were to be paid, twelve months later, for a first-cla.s.s pa.s.sage out for a lady. When you add to these trifling details the natural instincts of a boy beginning a new life in a new country and longing to go about and enjoy himself, and the necessity for grappling with strange work--which, properly speaking, should take up a boy's undivided attention--you will see that d.i.c.ky started handicapped. He saw it himself for a breath or two; but he did not guess the full beauty of his future.

As the hot weather began, the shackles settled on him and ate into his flesh. First would come letters--big, crossed, seven sheet letters--from his wife, telling him how she longed to see him, and what a Heaven upon earth would be their property when they met.

Then some boy of the chummery wherein d.i.c.ky lodged would pound on the door of his bare little room, and tell him to come out and look at a pony--the very thing to suit him. d.i.c.ky could not afford ponies. He had to explain this. d.i.c.ky could not afford living in the chummery, modest as it was. He had to explain this before he moved to a single room next the office where he worked all day. He kept house on a green oil-cloth table-cover, one chair, one charpoy, one photograph, one tooth-gla.s.s, very strong and thick, a seven-rupee eight-anna filter, and messing by contract at thirty-seven rupees a month. Which last item was extortion.

He had no punkah, for a punkah costs fifteen rupees a month; but he slept on the roof of the office with all his wife's letters under his pillow. Now and again he was asked out to dinner where he got both a punkah and an iced drink. But this was seldom, for people objected to recognizing a boy who had evidently the instincts of a Scotch tallow-chandler, and who lived in such a nasty fashion. d.i.c.ky could not subscribe to any amus.e.m.e.nt, so he found no amus.e.m.e.nt except the pleasure of turning over his Bank-book and reading what it said about "loans on approved security." That cost nothing. He remitted through a Bombay Bank, by the way, and the Station knew nothing of his private affairs.

Every month he sent Home all he could possibly spare for his wife--and for another reason which was expected to explain itself shortly and would require more money.

About this time, d.i.c.ky was overtaken with the nervous, haunting fear that besets married men when they are out of sorts. He had no pension to look to. What if he should die suddenly, and leave his wife unprovided for? The thought used to lay hold of him in the still, hot nights on the roof, till the shaking of his heart made him think that he was going to die then and there of heart-disease.

Now this is a frame of mind which no boy has a right to know. It is a strong man's trouble; but, coming when it did, it nearly drove poor punkah-less, perspiring d.i.c.ky Hatt mad. He could tell no one about it.

A certain amount of "screw" is as necessary for a man as for a billiard-ball. It makes them both do wonderful things. d.i.c.ky needed money badly, and he worked for it like a horse. But, naturally, the men who owned him knew that a boy can live very comfortably on a certain income--pay in India is a matter of age, not merit, you see, and if their particular boy wished to work like two boys, Business forbid that they should stop him! But Business forbid that they should give him an increase of pay at his present ridiculously immature age! So d.i.c.ky won certain rises of salary--ample for a boy--not enough for a wife and child--certainly too little for the seven-hundred-rupee pa.s.sage that he and Mrs. Hatt had discussed so lightly once upon a time. And with this he was forced to be content.

Somehow, all his money seemed to fade away in Home drafts and the crushing Exchange, and the tone of the Home letters changed and grew querulous. "Why wouldn't d.i.c.ky have his wife and the baby out? Surely he had a salary--a fine salary--and it was too bad of him to enjoy himself in India. But would he--could he--make the next draft a little more elastic?" Here followed a list of baby's kit, as long as a Pa.r.s.ee's bill. Then d.i.c.ky, whose heart yearned to his wife and the little son he had never seen--which, again, is a feeling no boy is ent.i.tled to--enlarged the draft and wrote queer half-boy, half-man letters, saying that life was not so enjoyable after all and would the little wife wait yet a little longer? But the little wife, however much she approved of money, objected to waiting, and there was a strange, hard sort of ring in her letters that d.i.c.ky didn't understand. How could he, poor boy?

Later on still--just as d.i.c.ky had been told--apropos of another youngster who had "made a fool of himself," as the saying is--that matrimony would not only ruin his further chances of advancement, but would lose him his present appointment--came the news that the baby, his own little, little son, had died, and, behind this, forty lines of an angry woman's scrawl, saying that death might have been averted if certain things, all costing money, had been done, or if the mother and the baby had been with d.i.c.ky. The letter struck at d.i.c.ky's naked heart; but, not being officially ent.i.tled to a baby, he could show no sign of trouble.

How d.i.c.ky won through the next four months, and what hope he kept alight to force him into his work, no one dare say. He pounded on, the seven-hundred-rupee pa.s.sage as far away as ever, and his style of living unchanged, except when he launched into a new filter.

There was the strain of his office-work, and the strain of his remittances, and the knowledge of his boy's death, which touched the boy more, perhaps, than it would have touched a man; and, beyond all, the enduring strain of his daily life. Gray-headed seniors, who approved of his thrift and his fashion of denying himself everything pleasant, reminded him of the old saw that says:

"If a youth would be distinguished in his art, art, art, He must keep the girls away from his heart, heart, heart."

And d.i.c.ky, who fancied he had been through every trouble that a man is permitted to know, had to laugh and agree; with the last line of his balanced Bank-book jingling in his head day and night.

But he had one more sorrow to digest before the end. There arrived a letter from the little wife--the natural sequence of the others if d.i.c.ky had only known it--and the burden of that letter was "gone with a handsomer man than you." It was a rather curious production, without stops, something like this:--"She was not going to wait forever and the baby was dead and d.i.c.ky was only a boy and he would never set eyes on her again and why hadn't he waved his handkerchief to her when he left Gravesend and G.o.d was her judge she was a wicked woman but d.i.c.ky was worse enjoying himself in India and this other man loved the ground she trod on and would d.i.c.ky ever forgive her for she would never forgive d.i.c.ky; and there was no address to write to."

Instead of thanking his lucky stars that he was free, d.i.c.ky discovered exactly how an injured husband feels--again, not at all the knowledge to which a boy is ent.i.tled--for his mind went back to his wife as he remembered her in the thirty-shilling "suite" in Montpelier Square, when the dawn of his last morning in England was breaking, and she was crying in the bed. Whereat he rolled about on his bed and bit his fingers. He never stopped to think whether, if he had met Mrs. Hatt after those two years, he would have discovered that he and she had grown quite different and new persons. This, theoretically, he ought to have done.

He spent the night after the English Mail came in rather severe pain.

Next morning, d.i.c.ky Hatt felt disinclined to work. He argued that he had missed the pleasure of youth. He was tired, and he had tasted all the sorrow in life before three-and-twenty. His Honor was gone--that was the man; and now he, too, would go to the Devil--that was the boy in him. So he put his head down on the green oil-cloth table-cover, and wept before resigning his post, and all it offered.

But the reward of his services came. He was given three days to reconsider himself, and the Head of the establishment, after some telegraphings, said that it was a most unusual step, but, in view of the ability that Mr. Hatt had displayed at such and such a time, at such and such junctures, he was in a position to offer him an infinitely superior post--first on probation, and later, in the natural course of things, on confirmation. "And how much does the post carry?" said d.i.c.ky. "Six hundred and fifty rupees," said the Head slowly, expecting to see the young man sink with grat.i.tude and joy.

And it came then! The seven hundred rupee pa.s.sage, and enough to have saved the wife, and the little son, and to have allowed of a.s.sured and open marriage, came then. d.i.c.ky burst into a roar of laughter--laughter he could not check--nasty, jangling merriment that seemed as if it would go on forever. When he had recovered himself he said, quite seriously:--"I'm tired of work. I'm an old man now. It's about time I retired. And I will."

"The boy's mad!" said the Head.

I think he was right; but d.i.c.ky Hatt never reappeared to settle the question.

PIG.

Go, stalk the red deer o'er the heather Ride, follow the fox if you can!

But, for pleasure and profit together, Allow me the hunting of Man,-- The chase of the Human, the search for the Soul To its ruin,--the hunting of Man.

--The Old Shikarri.

I believe the difference began in the matter of a horse, with a twist in his temper, whom Pinecoffin sold to Nafferton and by whom Nafferton was nearly slain. There may have been other causes of offence; the horse was the official stalking-horse. Nafferton was very angry; but Pinecoffin laughed and said that he had never guaranteed the beast's manners.

Nafferton laughed, too, though he vowed that he would write off his fall against Pinecoffin if he waited five years. Now, a Dalesman from beyond Skipton will forgive an injury when the Strid lets a man live; but a South Devon man is as soft as a Dartmoor bog. You can see from their names that Nafferton had the race-advantage of Pinecoffin. He was a peculiar man, and his notions of humor were cruel. He taught me a new and fascinating form of shikar. He hounded Pinecoffin from Mithankot to Jagadri, and from Gurgaon to Abbottabad up and across the Punjab, a large province and in places remarkably dry. He said that he had no intention of allowing a.s.sistant Commissioners to "sell him pups," in the shape of ramping, screaming countrybreds, without making their lives a burden to them.

Most a.s.sistant Commissioners develop a bent for some special work after their first hot weather in the country. The boys with digestions hope to write their names large on the Frontier and struggle for dreary places like Bannu and Kohat. The bilious ones climb into the Secretariat. Which is very bad for the liver.

Others are bitten with a mania for District work, Ghuznivide coins or Persian poetry; while some, who come of farmers' stock, find that the smell of the Earth after the Rains gets into their blood, and calls them to "develop the resources of the Province." These men are enthusiasts.

Pinecoffin belonged to their cla.s.s. He knew a great many facts bearing on the cost of bullocks and temporary wells, and opium-sc.r.a.pers, and what happens if you burn too much rubbish on a field, in the hope of enriching used-up soil. All the Pinecoffins come of a landholding breed, and so the land only took back her own again. Unfortunately--most unfortunately for Pinecoffin--he was a Civilian, as well as a farmer. Nafferton watched him, and thought about the horse. Nafferton said:--"See me chase that boy till he drops!" I said:--"You can't get your knife into an a.s.sistant Commissioner." Nafferton told me that I did not understand the administration of the Province.

Our Government is rather peculiar. It gushes on the agricultural and general information side, and will supply a moderately respectable man with all sorts of "economic statistics," if he speaks to it prettily.

For instance, you are interested in gold-washing in the sands of the Sutlej. You pull the string, and find that it wakes up half a dozen Departments, and finally communicates, say, with a friend of yours in the Telegraph, who once wrote some notes on the customs of the gold-washers when he was on construction-work in their part of the Empire. He may or may not be pleased at being ordered to write out everything he knows for your benefit. This depends on his temperament.

The bigger man you are, the more information and the greater trouble can you raise.

Nafferton was not a big man; but he had the reputation of being very "earnest." An "earnest" man can do much with a Government. There was an earnest man who once nearly wrecked... but all India knows THAT story. I am not sure what real "earnestness" is. A very fair imitation can be manufactured by neglecting to dress decently, by mooning about in a dreamy, misty sort of way, by taking office-work home after staying in office till seven, and by receiving crowds of native gentlemen on Sundays. That is one sort of "earnestness."

Nafferton cast about for a peg whereon to hang his earnestness, and for a string that would communicate with Pinecoffin. He found both.

They were Pig. Nafferton became an earnest inquirer after Pig. He informed the Government that he had a scheme whereby a very large percentage of the British Army in India could be fed, at a very large saving, on Pig. Then he hinted that Pinecoffin might supply him with the "varied information necessary to the proper inception of the scheme."

So the Government wrote on the back of the letter:--"Instruct Mr.

Pinecoffin to furnish Mr. Nafferton with any information in his power."

Government is very p.r.o.ne to writing things on the backs of letters which, later, lead to trouble and confusion.

Nafferton had not the faintest interest in Pig, but he knew that Pinecoffin would flounce into the trap. Pinecoffin was delighted at being consulted about Pig. The Indian Pig is not exactly an important factor in agricultural life; but Nafferton explained to Pinecoffin that there was room for improvement, and corresponded direct with that young man.

You may think that there is not much to be evolved from Pig. It all depends how you set to work. Pinecoffin being a Civilian and wishing to do things thoroughly, began with an essay on the Primitive Pig, the Mythology of the Pig, and the Dravidian Pig.

Nafferton filed that information--twenty-seven foolscap sheets--and wanted to know about the distribution of the Pig in the Punjab, and how it stood the Plains in the hot weather. From this point onwards, remember that I am giving you only the barest outlines of the affair--the guy-ropes, as it were, of the web that Nafferton spun round Pinecoffin.

Pinecoffin made a colored Pig-population map, and collected observations on the comparative longevity of the Pig (a) in the sub-montane tracts of the Himalayas, and (b) in the Rechna Doab.

Nafferton filed that, and asked what sort of people looked after Pig.

This started an ethnological excursus on swineherds, and drew from Pinecoffin long tables showing the proportion per thousand of the caste in the Derajat. Nafferton filed that bundle, and explained that the figures which he wanted referred to the Cis-Sutlej states, where he understood that Pigs were very fine and large, and where he proposed to start a Piggery. By this time, Government had quite forgotten their instructions to Mr. Pinecoffin.

They were like the gentlemen, in Keats' poem, who turned well-oiled wheels to skin other people. But Pinecoffin was just entering into the spirit of the Pig-hunt, as Nafferton well knew he would do. He had a fair amount of work of his own to clear away; but he sat up of nights reducing Pig to five places of decimals for the honor of his Service. He was not going to appear ignorant of so easy a subject as Pig.

Then Government sent him on special duty to Kohat, to "inquire into"

the big-seven-foot, iron-shod spades of that District. People had been killing each other with those peaceful tools; and Government wished to know "whether a modified form of agricultural implement could not, tentatively and as a temporary measure, be introduced among the agricultural population without needlessly or unduly exasperating the existing religious sentiments of the peasantry."

Between those spades and Nafferton's Pig, Pinecoffin was rather heavily burdened.

Nafferton now began to take up "(a) The food-supply of the indigenous Pig, with a view to the improvement of its capacities as a flesh-former.

(b) The acclimatization of the exotic Pig, maintaining its distinctive peculiarities." Pinecoffin replied exhaustively that the exotic Pig would become merged in the indigenous type; and quoted horse-breeding statistics to prove this.

The side-issue was debated, at great length on Pinecoffin's side, till Nafferton owned that he had been in the wrong, and moved the previous question. When Pinecoffin had quite written himself out about flesh-formers, and fibrins, and glucose and the nitrogenous const.i.tuents of maize and lucerne, Nafferton raised the question of expense. By this time Pinecoffin, who had been transferred from Kohat, had developed a Pig theory of his own, which he stated in thirty-three folio pages--all carefully filed by Nafferton. Who asked for more.

These things took ten months, and Pinecoffin's interest in the potential Piggery seemed to die down after he had stated his own views. But Nafferton bombarded him with letters on "the Imperial aspect of the scheme, as tending to officialize the sale of pork, and thereby calculated to give offence to the Mahomedan population of Upper India."

He guessed that Pinecoffin would want some broad, free-hand work after his niggling, stippling, decimal details.