KIM.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1531, 4 July 1901, Page 6

KIM.

BY RUDYARD KIPLING.

ALL RIGHTS STRICTLY RESERVED. (Copyright 1901, U.S.A.) CHAPTER IV. Good Luck, she is never a lady, But the cursedest quean alive, Tricksy, wincing, and jady— Kittle to lead or drive. Greet her—she’s hailing a stranger! Meet her—she’s buskiner to leave! Let her alone for a shrew to the bone And the hussy comes plucking your sleeve! Largesse; Largesse, O Fortune! Give or hold at vour will. If I’ve no care for Fortune. Fortune must follow me still! —“The Wishing Caps.” Then, lowering their voices, they spoke togeether. Kim came to rest under a tree, but the lama tugp-ed impatiently at his elbow. “Let us go on. Tb© River is not here.” “Hai mai! Have we not walked enough for a little ? Our River will not run away. Patience, and he will give us a dole.” “That, said the old soldier, suauenly, “is the Friend of the Stars. He brought me the news yesterday. Having seen the very man himself, in a vision, giving orders for the war.” “Hm,” said the son, all deep in liis broad chest. “He cam© by a bazaar rumour, and made profit of it.” His father laughed. “At least he did not come to me begging for a new. charger and the gods know how many rupees. Are thv brothers’ regiments also under orders ?” _ . , “I do not know. I took leave and came swiftly to thee in case ” “In case they ran before the© to beg. O gamblers and spendthrifts all! But thou hast never yet ridden in a charge.

for the marching. Let us see—let us see.” He thrummed on the pommel. “This is no place to cast accounts in, my father.” Let us go to t>.y house.” “At least pay the boy, then ; I have no pice with me, and he brought auspicious news. Ho! Friend of all the World, a war is toward as thou hast said.” “Nay, as I know, the war,” returned Kim composedly. “-tin?” said the lama, fingering his heads, all eager for the road. “My r master does not trouble the Stars for We brought the news, hear witness, we brought th© news, and now we go.” Kim half-orooked his hand at his side. The son tossed a silver coin through th e sunlight, grumbling something about beggars and jugglers. It was a fouranna piece, and would feed them well for some days. The lama, seeing the flash of the metal, droned a blessing. “Go thy way, Friend of all the _ World,” piped the old soldier, wheeling ’ his scrawny mount. “For once in all my days I have met a true prophet—who was not in the army.” Father and son swung round together, the old mail sitting as erect as the younger. A Punjabi constable in yellow linen trousers slouched across the road. H© had seen the monev pass. “Halt!” he cried, in impressive Eng- ~ lish. “Know ye not that there is a takkus of two annas a head, which is * A four annas, on those who enter the road from this side road? It is the order of the Sirkar, and the money is spent for th e planting of trees and the beautification of the ways.” “And the bellies of tha-police,” said Kim, skipping out of arm’s reach. “Con" sider for a while, man with the mud head. Think you we come from the nearest pond, like the frog, father-in-law ? Hast thou ever heard the name of thy brother ?” “And who was he ? Leave the boy. alone,” cried a senior constable, immensely delighted, as he squatted down to smoke his pipe in the verandah. “He took a label from a bottle of belaitee pani (soda water) and affixing it to a bridge, collected taxes for a month from those who passeed, saying that it was the Sirkar’s order. Then came an Englishman and broke his head. Ah, brother, I am a town crow, not a village crow.” The policeman drew back abashed, and Kim hooted at him all down tic road. “Was there ever such a disciple as I?” he cried merrily to the lama. “All earth would have picked thy bones wihitn ten miles of Lahore city if I had not guarded thee.” “I consider in my own mind whether thou art a spirit sometimes, or sometimes an evil imp,” said the lama, smiling slowly. “I am thy chela.” Kim dropped into step at his side —that indescribable gait of the longdistance tramp all the world oyer. “Now let us walk,” muttered the

they walked in , silence mile npon mile. The laina, as usual, was_ deep «n meditation, but Kim’s bright eyes were wide ©pen. The broad, smiling rivbr of life, he considered, was a, vast improvement ©n- the cramped and crowded Lahore streets. There were new people and new sights at. every, v side—castes he knew, and castes that were altogether ©ut of his experience. / . They meet a troop' of long-haired, strong-scented Sansis with bashers of lizards and other unclean food on their backs, the lean dogs snilimg at their heels. . These peoplekept their own side ©f the road,- moving at a quick, furtive jog-trot, and all other castes gave them ample room, for the.Sansi is deep pollu;tion. ’ Behind them, walking wide and etiffly across the str.mg shadows, rbe memory of his leg irons still on him, strode one newly released from +he gaol, his full stomach and shiny skin proving' that the Government ft-d its prisoners better than most honest men could feed themselves. - Kim knew that walk well, and made broad jests of it as they passed. Then an Akali, a wildeyed, wild-haired Sikh devotee inutile blue checked clothes of his faith, with ‘ polished- steel quoits glistening on the cone of his tall blue turban, stalked past, returning from a visit to one of the independent Sikh States, where he had been singing the ancient glories of the Khalsa to College-trained princelings in top t boots ana * white-cord breeches. Bam was careful not to irritate that man ; for the Akali’s temper is short and his arm quick. Here and there they met or were overtaken by the gaily dressed crowds of whole villages turning out to some local fair ; the women, with their babes on their hips, walking behind tile men, the older bovs prancing on sticks of sugar cane, dragging rude brass models of locomotives such as they sell for a ' halfpenny, or flashing the • sun into the eves of‘ their betters from cheap toy mirrors. One could sec at a glance what each had bought; and if - there were any doubt it neeaed Only to watch the wives comps 'ng, brown arm against brown arm, tbe newly purchased dull glass bracelets that came from the North-West*- These merry-makers stepped slowly calling one to the other/ and stopping to haggle witli sweetmeat sellers, or To make a prayer before one .of the wayside shrines—sometimes Hinau, sometimes mussulman —which the low caste of both creeds share with - beautiful impartiality. A solid line of blue, rising-and falling like. the back of a caterpillar .in haste, would swing up through the quivering dust and trot mist to a chorus / of quick cackling. That was a gang of changars—the women who iiave taken all the embankments of all tne Northern railways under their charge—a bigbosomed, strong-limbed, blue petticoah J crowd of- earth-carriers, liurryii g north on news of a job, and wastin g no time by the road. Tiiey belong to the caste whose men do not count, and they walked with squared elbows, swinging hips, and heads on high, as suits women who carry heavy weights. A little later a marriage mrocessien would strike into the Grand ’Trunji with music and shoutings, and a smell of marigold and jasmine stronger even than the reek of the dust. One could see the bride’s litter, a blur of red and tinsel, staggering through the haze, while the bridegroom’s bewreathed pony turned aside to snatch a mouthful from a passing fodder cart. Then Kim would join the Kentish-fire of good wishes and bad jokes, wishing th e couple a hundred sons and no daughters, as the Baying isr Still more interesting and more to be shouted over it was when a strolling juggler with some halftrained monkeys, or a panting, feeble bear, or a woman who tied goats’ horns to her feet, and with these danced on & slack rope, set the horses to shying - and the women to shrill, long-drawn quavers of amazement. ' The lama never raised his eyes. He did not note the money-lender on his goose-humped pony hastening along to collect the cruel interest; or the longshouting, deep-voiced little mob still in military formation —of native soldiers on leave, rejoicin" to be rid of their breeches and puttees,and saying the most outrageous things to the most respectable women in sisrht. Even tbe seller of Ganges water He did not see. and Kim expected that he would at least buy a bottle of that precious stuff. He looked steadily at the ground, and Strode on steadily hour after hour, seeing and hearng nothing. But Kim was in the seventh heaven of joy. The / Grand Trunk at this point was built ©n an embankment, to guard against winter floods from the • foothills, so that one walked, as it were, a little above the country, along a stately corridor seeing all yEndia spread out to - left and right. It was beautiful to heboid the many-yoked grain and cotton waggons crawling over the country roads* one could hear their, axles complaimng a mile away, coming nearer, till with shouts and yells and bad words they climbed up the steep incline, and plunged on to the hard main road, carter .reviling carter. It was beautiful to watch the people,; little clumps of red and . blue and-pink and White and saffron, turning aside to go tor their' own villages, dispersing and (sowing small by twos, and threes across

with buying peeled sugar cane and .spitting the pick generously about the path. From time to time the lama took snuff, and at last Kim could endure the silence no longer. “This is a good land—th e land of the South !” said he. “The air is good; the water is good. Eh r” /‘And they are all bound upon the Wheel,” said, the lama. ‘‘Bound from . life after life. To none of these has the way been shown.” He shook himself back to this world. ’ “And now we have walked a weary way, • said Kim. “Surely we shall soon come to a parao (a resting place). Shall we stay there? Look, the sun is sloping.” . ' vVho will receive us this evening?” “mat is all one. The country is fud of good folk. Besides”—he sunk his voice beneath a have money.” The crowd thickened as they neared the resting p.ace which marked" the end of their day’s journey. A line of stalls selling simple food and tobacco, a stack of firewood, a police station, a well, a horse trough, a few trees, and, under them, some trampled ground ; dotted with the black ashes of old fires, ar e all that mark a parao on the Grand Trunk if you except the beggars and tne crows, both hungry. By this time the sun w r as drivinobroad golden spokes through the lower branches of the mango trees; the paroquets and doves were comino- home in their hundreds - the chattering, greybacked Seven Sisters, talking over the day’s adventures, walked back and forth in twos and threes almost under the feet of the travellers; and shufflings and scufflings in the branches snowed that the bats were ready to go out on the night picket. Swiftly the light gathered itself together, paint ed for an instant th© faces and the cart-wheels and the bullocks’ horns as red as blood. Then the night fell, changing the touch of the air, drawing a low, even haze, like a gossamer veil of biue, across the face of the country, and bringing out, keen and distinct, the smell of wood smoke and cattle, and th© good scent of wheaten cakes cooked on ashes. The evening patrol hurried out of the police station with important coughings and reiterated orders, and a liv© charcoal ball in the cup of a wayside carter’s hookah glowed red while Kina’s eye mechanically watched th© last flicker of the sun on the brass tweezers. The life of the parao was very like that of the Kashmir Serai on a small scale. Kim dived into the happy Asiatic disorder which, if you only allow time, will bring you everything that a simple man needs. v His wants were few, because since th© lama had no caste scruples, cooked food from th e nearest stall would serve ; but, for luxury’s sake, Kim bought a handful of dung cakes to build a fire. All about, coming and going round the little flames, men cried for oil, or grain, or sweetmeats, or jostling one another while they waited their turn at the well; and under the men’s voices you heard from halted, shattered carts the high squeals and giggles of women whose faces could not be seen in public. Nowadays, well-educated natives are of opinion that when their womenfolk travel-—and they visit a good' deal—it is better to take them quickly by rail in a properly screened compartment; and that custom is spreading. But there are always those of the old rock who hold by the use of their forefathers; and, above all, there are always th© old women—more conservative than the men—who towards the end of their days go a pilgrimage. They, being withered and undesirable, do not, under certain circumstances, object to unveiling. After their long seclusion, during which they.have always been in business touch with a thousand outside interests, they love the b us tle and stir of the open road, the gatherings at the shrines, and the infinite possibilities of gossip with like-minded dowagers. Very often it suits a long-suffering family that a strongtongued, iron-willed old lady should disport herself about India in this fashion; for certainly pilgrimage is grateful to the Gods. So all about India, in the most remote places, as in th© most public, you find some knot of grizzled servitors in nominal charge of an old lady who is more or less curtained and hid aWay in a bullock cartThese men are staid and discreet, and when a European or a high-caste nativ e is near will net their charge with most elaborate precautions; but in the ordinary haphazard chances of pilgrimage tjhe precautions are not taken. The old lady is, after all, intensely human, and likes to look upon life. Kim .marked down a gaily ornamented ruth or family bullock cart, with a broidered canopy of two domes, like a double-humped camel, which had just been drawn into the parao. Eight men made its retinue, and two of the eight were armed with rusty sabres—rsure signs that they followed a person of distinction, for the common folk do not bear arms. An increasing cackle of complaints, orders, and jests, and what to a European would have been bad language, came from behind the curtains. Here was evidently a woman used

grey-bearded Ooryas from down country. The other half were duffle clad, felt hatted hillmen of the North, and that mixture told its own tale, even if he had not overheard the incessant sparring between the two divisions. The old lady was going south on a visit —■" probably to a rich relative —most prob_ ably to a son-in-law, who had sent up an escort as a mark of respect. Tbe liillmen would be of her own people — Kulu or Kangra bred. It was quite clear that she was not taking her daughter down to be wedded, or the curtains would. have been laced home, and the guard would have allowed no one near the car. A merry and a high spirited dame, thought Kim, balancing the dung cake in one hand and cooked . food in the other, and piloting the lama with a nudging shoulder. Something might be made out of the meeting. The lama would give him no help, and as a conscientious chela Kim was delighted to beg for two. He built his fire as close ro the ca/t as he dared, - waiting for some one of the escort to order him away. The lama dropped wearily on to the ground, much as a heavy fruit eating bat cowers, and returned to his rosary. “Stand further off, beggar” The erder was shouted in broken Hindustanee by one of the hillmen. “Huh! It is only a pahari” (a hillman), said Kim, over liis shoulder. “Sine© when have the hill asses onned all Hindustan ?” The retort was a swift and brilliant sketcli of Kim’s pedigree for three generations* “Ah!’’ Kim’s voice was sweeter than ever, as he broke the dung-cake into fit pieces. “In my. country we call that the beginning of love talk.” A harsh, thin cackle behind the curtains put the hillman on his metal for a second shot. “Not go bad—not so bad,” said Kim, critically. “But have a care, my brother, lest we—we, I say- be minded to give a curs© or so in return. And our curses hav© the knack of biting home.”

huge Tam-o’-Shanter cap into the full light of Kim’s new-started fire. “What is it?” said he. The man halted as though turned to stone. “I—l am saved from a great sin,” he stammered. “The foreigner has found him aAjuiesb at last,” said one of the an undertone. “Hai! Why is that beggar brat not well beaten ?” the old woman cried. The hillman drew back to the cart, and whispered something to the curtain. There was dead silence, then a mutter^ig. “This goes well,” thought Kim'? pretending neither to see nor hear. “When —when—he eaten,” —the hillman fawned on Kim—“it—it is re* quested that th© Holy One will do th© honour to talk to one who would speak to him.” “After he has eaten he will sleep,” Bam returned loftily. He could not quite see what new turn the game had taken, but stood resolute to profit by it. “Now, I will get him his food.” ; The last sentence, spoken loudly, ended with a sigh as of faintness. “I—l myself and the others of my peopl© will look to that—if it is permitted-” “It is permitted/’ said Kim, more loftily than ever. Holy One, these people will bring us food.” “The land is good. All the country of the South is good—a great and if terrible world,” mumbled the lam& drowsily. “Let him sleep,” said Kim, “but look to it that we are well fed when h® wakes. H© is a very holy man.” Again one of the Ooryas said somet thing contemptuously.' “He is not a faquir. H© is not ,% down-qbuiitry beggar,” Kim went on severely, addressing the stars. “H® is the most holy of holy men. He i® above all castes. lam his chela.” “Com© here!” said the old thin voic® behind the curtain; and Kim came, conn scions That eyes he could not see wer® staring at him. One skinny brow® fin*

“An exceedingly holy one. He comes fram far off. He comes from Thibet.’* t“Wher# in Thibet ?”. ‘‘From behind the snows—from a very far place. He knows the stars; he makes horoscopes; he reads nativities. But he does not do this for money. H e does it for kindness and great charity. I, am his - disciple. I am called also the Friend of the Stars.” “Thou art no hillman.” “Ask him. He will tell thO I was sent to him from the stars to show him an end to his pilgrimage.” “Humph! Consider, brat, that lam an old woman, and not altogether a fool. Lamas 1 know, and to these I give reverence, but thou art no more a lawful chela than this my linger is the pole of this waggon- Thou art a casteless Hindus—a bold and unblushing beggar, attached, belike, to the Holy One for the sake of gain.” “Do we N not all work for gain ?” Kim changed his tone promptly to match that altered voice. “I have heard”—this was a bow drawn at a venture —“I have heard —’* **. ; “What thou heard?” she snapned, rapping with the linger. “Nothing that I well remember, but some talk in the bazaars, which is doubtless a lie, that even Rajahs—small hill Rajahs “But none the less of good Rajput blood.” u “Assuredly of good blood- That these even sell the more comely of their womenfolk for gain. Down south they sell them —to zemindars and such-all of Oudh ” (To e continued.) ' . vgi ,