Page:Plain Tales from the Hills - Kipling (1889).djvu/76



Pit where the buffalo cooled his hide, By the hot sun emptied, and blistered and dried; Log in the reh-grass, hidden and lone; Bund where the earth-rat's mounds are strown; Cave in the bank where the sly stream steals; Aloe that stabs at the belly and heels, Jump if you dare on a steed untried— Safer it is to go wide—go wide! Hark, from in front where the best men ride:— "Pull to the off, boys! Wide! Go wide!" The Peora Hunt.

NCE upon a time, there lived at Simla a very pretty girl, the daughter of a poor but honest District and Sessions Judge. She was a good girl but could not help knowing her power and using it. Her Mamma was very anxious about her daughter's future, as all good Mammas should be.

When a man is a Commissioner and a bachelor and has the right of wearing open-work jam-tart jewels in gold and enamel on his clothes, and of going through a door before every one except a Member of Council, a Lieutenant-Governor, or a Viceroy, he is worth marrying. At least, that is what ladies say. There was a Commissioner in Simla, in those days, who was, and wore, and did all I have said. He was a plain man—an ugly man—the ugliest man in Asia, with two exceptions. His was a face to dream about and try to carve on a pipe-head afterwards. His name was Saggott—