Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/219

Rh almost as bad as the terrible second couplet in the fifth stanza of the 'Galley Slave.'

So much, then, for the outer shape taken by his limitations. The shape they take in the essential qualities of his spirit and intellect is far more disconcerting, because in his happier moments, with thought and emotion at the white-heat, he again and again transcends his tricks of inferior workmanship; but it is, indeed, rarely that he ever quite transcends his tricks of clap-trap sentiment. 'Gunga Din' is one of the very finest of the Ballads; it is not too much to say of it that it comes very near being a little masterpiece of its kind. He gives the picture of the 'regimental bhisti,' the devoted 'limpin' lump of brick-dust,' who 'didn't seem to know the use of fear' in his thankless duty of water-carrier to the men, fighting or wounded, on the march, or in camp, or under fire. The particular Tommy who tells the story relates how, when he dropped behind the fight, 'with a bullet where his belt-plate should 'a' been,' it was the inevitable Gunga Din who spied him first, lifted up his head, plugged his wound, gave him a drink, and finally carried him away to a dooli. At this point a bullet comes and drills Gunga Din clean; but, none the less, he puts Tommy safe inside, and, just before rendering up the ghost,