This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com.
PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS
by Rudyard Kipling
CONTENTS
LESPETH
THREE AND AN EXTRA
THROWN AWAY
MISS YOUGHAL'S SAIS
YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER
FALSE DAWN
THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES
CUPID'S ARROWS
HIS CHANCE IN LIFE
WATCHES OF THE NIGHT
THE OTHER MAN
CONSEQUENCES
THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN MCGOGGIN
A GERM DESTROYER
KIDNAPPED
THE ARREST OF LIEUTENANT GOLIGHTLY
THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO
HIS WEDDED WIFE
THE BROKEN LINK HANDICAPPED.
BEYOND THE PALE
IN ERROR
A BANK FRAUD
TOD'S AMENDMENT
IN THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH
PIG
THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS
THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE-CASE
VENUS ANNODOMINI
THE BISARA OF POORER
THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS
THE STORY OF MUHAMMID DIN
ON THE STRENGTH OF A LIKENESS
WRESSLEY OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE
BY WORD OF MOUTH
TO BE HELD FOR REFERENCE
PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS
LISPETH.
Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these You bid me please? The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so! To my own Gods I go. It may be they shall give me greater ease Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities.
The Convert.
She was the daughter of Sonoo, a Hill-man, and Jadeh his wife. One year their maize failed, and two bears spent the night in their only poppy-field just above the Sutlej Valley on the Kotgarth side; so, next season, they turned Christian, and brought their baby to the Mission to be baptized. The Kotgarth Chaplain christened her Elizabeth, and "Lispeth" is the Hill or pahari pronunciation.
Later, cholera came into the Kotgarth Valley and carried off Sonoo and Jadeh, and Lispeth became half-servant, half-companion to the wife of the then Chaplain of Kotgarth. This was after the reign of the Moravian missionaries, but before Kotgarth had quite forgotten her title of "Mistress of the Northern Hills."
Whether Christianity improved Lispeth, or whether the gods of her own people would have done as much for her under any circumstances, I do not know; but she grew very lovely. When a Hill girl grows lovely, she is worth traveling fifty miles over bad ground to look upon. Lispeth had a Greek face--one of those faces people paint so often, and see so seldom. She was of a pale, ivory color and, for her race, extremely tall. Also, she possessed eyes that were wonderful; and, had she not been dressed in the abominable print- cloths affected by Missions, you would, meeting her on the hill- side unexpectedly, have thought her the original Diana of the Romans going out to slay.
