Rudyard Kipling

The Light That Failed Rudyard Kipling

"What do you think she'd do if she caught us? We oughtn't to have it, you know," saidMaisie."Beat me, and lock you up in your bedroom," Dick answered, without hesitation. "Haveyou got the cartridges?""Yes; they're in my pocket, but they are joggling horribly. Do pin-fire cartridges go off oftheir own accord?""Don't know. Take the revolver, if you are afraid, and let me carry them.""I'm not afraid." Maisie strode forward swiftly, a hand in her pocket and her chin in theair. Dick followed with a small pin-fire revolver. The children had discovered that their lives would be unendurable without pistolpractice. After much forethought and self-denial, Dick had saved seven shillings andsixpence, the price of a badly constructed Belgian revolver. Maisie could only contributehalf a crown to the syndicate for the purchase of a hundred cartridges. "You can save betterthan I can, Dick," she explained; "I like nice things to eat, and it doesn't matter to you. Besides, boys ought to do these things."Dick grumbled a little at the arrangement, but went out and made the purchase, whichthe children were then on their way to test. Revolvers did not lie in the scheme of theirdaily life as decreed for them by the guardian who was incorrectly supposed to stand in theplace of a mother to these two orphans. Dick had been under her care for six years, duringwhich time she had made her profit of the allowances supposed to be expended on hisclothes, and, partly through thoughtlessness, partly through a natural desire to pain, -shewas a widow of some years anxious to marry again, -had made his days burdensome onhis young shoulders. Where he had looked for love, she gave him first aversion and then hate. Where he growing older had sought a little sympathy, she gave him ridicule. The manyhours that she could spare from the ordering of her small house she devoted to what she 4called the home-training of Dick Heldar. Her religion, manufactured in the main by her ownintelligence and a keen study of the Scriptures, was an aid to her in this matter. At suchtimes as she herself was not personally displeased with Dick, she left him to understandthat he had a heavy account to settle with his Creator; wherefore Dick learned to loathe hisGod as intensely as he loathed Mrs. Jennett; and this is not a wholesome frame of mind forthe young. Since she chose to regard him as a hopeless liar, when dread of pain drove himto his first untruth, he naturally developed into a liar, but an economical and self-containedone, never throwing away the least unnecessary fib, and never hesitating at the blackest, were it only plausible, that might make his life a little easier. The treatment taught him atleast the power of living alone, -a power that was of service to him when he went to apublic school and the boys laughed at his clothes, which were poor in quality and muchmended. In the holidays he returned to the teachings of Mrs. Jennett, and, that the chain ofdiscipline might not be weakened by association with the world, was generally beaten, onone account or another, before he had been twelve hours under her r