He must keep the girls away from his heart, heart, heart.»
And Dicky, who fancied he had been through every trouble that a man is permitted to know, had to laugh and agree; with the last line of his balanced Bank-book jingling in his head day and night.
But he had one more sorrow to digest before the end. There arrived a letter from the little wife — the natural sequence of the others if Dicky had only known it — and the burden of that letter was «gone with a handsomer man than you.» It was a rather curious production, without stops, something like this — «She was not going to wait forever and the baby was dead and Dicky was only a boy and he would never set eyes on her again and why hadn’t he waved his handkerchief to her when he left Gravesend and God was her judge she was a wicked woman but Dicky was worse enjoying himself in India and this other man loved the ground she trod on and would Dicky ever forgive her for she would never forgive Dicky; and there was no address to write to.»
Instead of thanking his lucky stars that he was free, Dicky discovered exactly how an injured husband feels — again, not at all the knowledge to which a boy is entitled — for his mind went back to his wife as he remembered her in the thirty-shilling «suite» in Montpelier Square, when the dawn of his last morning in England was breaking, and she was crying in the bed. Whereat he rolled about on his bed and bit his fingers. He never stopped to think whether, if he had met Mrs. Hatt after those two years, he would have discovered that he and she had grown quite different and new persons. This, theoretically, he ought to have done. He spent the night after the English Mail came in rather severe pain.
Next morning, Dicky Hatt felt disinclined to work. He argued that he had missed the pleasure of youth. He was tired, and he had tasted all the sorrow in life before three-and-twenty. His Honor was gone — that was the man; and now he, too, would go to the Devil — that was the boy in him. So he put his head down on the green oil- cloth table-cover, and wept before resigning his post, and all it offered.
But the reward of his services came. He was given three days to reconsider himself, and the Head of the establishment, after some telegraphings, said that it was a most unusual step, but, in view of the ability that Mr. Hatt had displayed at such and such a time, at such and such junctures, he was in a position to offer him an infinitely superior post — first on probation, and later, in the natural course of things, on confirmation. «And how much does the post carry?» said Dicky. «Six hundred and fifty rupees,» said the Head slowly, expecting to see the young man sink with gratitude and joy.
And it came then! The seven hundred rupee passage, and enough to have saved the wife, and the little son, and to have allowed of assured and open marriage, came then. Dicky burst into a roar of laughter — laughter he could not check — nasty, jangling merriment that seemed as if it would go on forever. When he had recovered himself he said, quite seriously — «I’m tired of work. I’m an old man now. It’s about time I retired. And I will.»
«The boy’s mad!» said the Head.
I think he was right; but Dicky Hatt never reappeared to settle the question.
PIG
Go, stalk the red deer o’er the heather
Ride, follow the fox if you can!
But, for pleasure and profit together,
Allow me the hunting of Man,—
The chase of the Human, the search for the Soul
To its ruin, — the hunting of Man.
I believe the difference began in the matter of a horse, with a twist in his temper, whom Pinecoffin sold to Nafferton and by whom Nafferton was nearly slain. There may have been other causes of offence; the horse was the official stalking-horse. Nafferton was very angry; but Pinecoffin laughed and said that he had never guaranteed the beast’s manners. Nafferton laughed, too, though he vowed that he would write off his fall against Pinecoffin if he waited five years. Now, a Dalesman from beyond Skipton will forgive an injury when the Strid lets a man live; but a South Devon man is as soft as a Dartmoor bog. You can see from their names that Nafferton had the race- advantage of Pinecoffin. He was a peculiar man, and his notions of humor were cruel. He taught me a new and fascinating form of shikar. He hounded Pinecoffin from Mithankot to Jagadri, and from Gurgaon to Abbottabad up and across the Punjab, a large province and in places remarkably dry. He said that he had no intention of allowing Assistant Commissioners to «sell him pups,» in the shape of ramping, screaming countrybreds, without making their lives a burden to them.
Most Assistant Commissioners develop a bent for some special work after their first hot weather in the country. The boys with digestions hope to write their names large on the Frontier and struggle for dreary places like Bannu and Kohat. The bilious ones climb into the Secretariat. Which is very bad for the liver. Others are bitten with a mania for District work, Ghuznivide coins or Persian poetry; while some, who come of farmers’ stock, find that the smell of the Earth after the Rains gets into their blood, and calls them to «develop the resources of the Province.» These men are enthusiasts. Pinecoffin belonged to their class. He knew a great many facts bearing on the cost of bullocks and temporary wells, and opium-scrapers, and what happens if you burn too much rubbish on a field, in the hope of enriching used-up soil. All the Pinecoffins come of a landholding breed, and so the land only took back her own again. Unfortunately — most unfortunately for Pinecoffin — he was a Civilian, as well as a farmer. Nafferton watched him, and thought about the horse. Nafferton said — «See me chase that boy till he drops!» I said — «You can’t get your knife into an Assistant Commissioner.» Nafferton told me that I did not understand the administration of the Province.
Our Government is rather peculiar. It gushes on the agricultural and general information side, and will supply a moderately respectable man with all sorts of «economic statistics,» if he speaks to it prettily. For instance, you are interested in gold-washing in the sands of the Sutlej. You pull the string, and find that it wakes up half a dozen Departments, and finally communicates, say, with a friend of yours in the Telegraph, who once wrote some notes on the customs of the gold-washers when he was on construction-work in their part of the Empire. He may or may not be pleased at being ordered to write out everything he knows for your benefit. This depends on his temperament. The bigger man you are, the more information and the greater trouble can you raise.
Nafferton was not a big man; but he had the reputation of being very earnest. An «earnest» man can do much with a Government. There was an earnest man who once nearly wrecked … but all India knows
Nafferton cast about for a peg whereon to hang his earnestness, and for a string that would communicate with Pinecoffin. He found both. They were Pig. Nafferton became an earnest inquirer after Pig. He informed the Government that he had a scheme whereby a very large percentage of the British Army in India could be fed, at a very large saving, on Pig. Then he hinted that Pinecoffin might supply him with the «varied information necessary to the proper inception of the scheme.» So the Government wrote on the back of the letter — «Instruct Mr. Pinecoffin to furnish Mr. Nafferton with any information in his power.» Government is very prone to writing things on the backs of letters which, later, lead to trouble and confusion.
Nafferton had not the faintest interest in Pig, but he knew that Pinecoffin would flounce into the trap. Pinecoffin was delighted at being consulted about Pig. The Indian Pig is not exactly an important factor in agricultural life; but Nafferton explained to Pinecoffin that there was room for improvement, and corresponded direct with that young man.
You may think that there is not much to be evolved from Pig. It all depends how you set to work. Pinecoffin being a Civilian and wishing to do things thoroughly, began with an essay on the Primitive Pig, the Mythology of the Pig, and the Dravidian Pig. Nafferton filed that information — twenty-seven foolscap sheets — and wanted to know about the distribution of the Pig in the Punjab, and how it stood the Plains in the hot weather. From this point onwards, remember that I am giving you only the barest outlines of the affair — the guy-ropes, as it were, of the
