Show THE LBGS OF SISTER URSULA BY EUDYAED KIPLING Author of Plain Tales From the Hills Soldiers ThreeteJ Copyright 1893 by Rudyard KipliDg The one man of all men who could have told this tale and lived has long since gone to hl place and there is no apology for those that would follow in the footsteps foot-steps of Lawrence Sterre Lr In a nameless city of a land that shall J bs nameless a rich man lived alone His wealth had bought him a luxurious fiat en the fifth floor of a red brick mansion whose grilles were of hammered iron and whose halls were of inlaid marble When he needed attendance coals his letters a meal a messenger or a carriage he pressed an electric button and his wants were satisfied almost as swiftly as even petulant wealth could expect An exceedingly ex-ceedingly swif lift bore him to and from his rooms and in his rooms he had gathered gath-ered about him all that his eye desired de-sired books in rich cases ivith felted hinges ivories from all the world rugs lamps cushions couches engravings and rings with engravings upon them miniatures of pretty women scientific toys and china from Persia lie had 411 friends and acquaintances as many as he could befriend or know and some said that more than one woman bad given him her whole love Therefore he could have lacked nothing whatever One day a hot sickness touched him with its finger and he became Jio more than a sick man alone among his pos Lesions the sport of dreams and devils and shadows sometimes a log and sometimes rf some-times a lunatic crying in delerium Before Be-fore his fnenus forsook him altogether as healthy brutes will forsake the wounded they SAW that he was eminently doctored and the expensive physician who called upon him at first three times a day and later only once caused him to be nursed Dy a hun Science is good said the physician but for steady continuous con-tinuous nursing with no science in it religion is better and I know Sister Ursula So this sick manwas nursed by a nun young and fairly pretty but above all 1 bkililul When he got better he would give the convent and not Sister Ursula a thankonering which would be spent among the poor whom Sister Ursula chiefly attended At first the man knew nothing of the nuns existence he was in the country beyond all cree sbut later a white coifed face came and went across his visions and at last spent and broken be woke to see a very quiet young woman in black moving about his room He was too weak to speak too weak almost al-most to cJ ug to life any more In his despair be thought that it was not worth clinging to but the woman was at least a woman and alive The touch of her fingers in hIS as she gave him the medicine medi-cine was warm She testified to the existence of a world full of women also alive the world he was beginning begin-ning to disbelieve in He watched her sitting in the sunshine by the window win-dow and counted the light creeping down from bead to Dead of the rosary at her waist They then moved his bed to the window that be might look down upon the stately avenue that ran by the fiat I house and watch the people going to and fro about their business But the change instead of cheering cast him into a deeper melancholy It was nearly 100 feet sheer drop to those healthy people walking so fast and the mere distance depressed him unutterably He played with the scores of visiting cards that his friends had left for him and he tried to play with the knobs of the desk close to the head of his bed and he was very very wretched One morning he turned his face away from the sunlight and took no interest in anything while the hand turned back upon up-on the dial so swiftly that it almost alarmed the doctor He said to himself Bored eh Yes Youre just the kind of overeducated overrefined man that would drop his hold on life through sheer boredom Youve been a most interesting interest-ing case so far and I wont lose you He said to Sister Ursula that he would send an entirely fresh prescription by his boy and that Sister Ursula must give it to the invalid every 20 minutes without I fail Also if the man responded it I might be well to talk to him a little He I needs cheering up There is nothing the I matter with him now but he wont pickup I pick-up I There can be few points of sympathy I between a man born bred trained and suld for and to the world and a good nun made for the service of other things Sister Ursulas voice was very sweet but the matter of her speech did not interest V The invalid lay still looking out of the window upon the street all dressed in its Sunday afternoon emptiness Then he shut his eyes The doctors boy rang at the door Sister Ursula stepped out into the haJJ not to disturb the sleeper and took the medicine from the boys hand Then the lift shot down again and even as she turned the wind of its descent puffed up and blew shut the springlock door of the rooms with a click only a little more loud than the leap of her terr fied heart Sister Ursula tried the door softly but rich men with many hundred pounds A worth of bricabrac buy themselves very well made doors that fasten with singularly singu-larly cunning locks Then tbe lift returned re-turned with the boy in charge and so soon as his Sunday and rather distracted 1 attention was drawn thestate of affairs r he suggested that Sister Ursula should go down to the basement and speak to the caretaker who doubtless had a duplicate dupli-cate key To the basement therefore Sister Ursula vent with the medicine bottle clasped to her breast and there among mops and brooms and sinks and heating pipes and the termini of all the electrical communications of that many storied warren she found not the caretaker care-taker but his wife readme a paper with her feat on a box of soap The caretakers wife was Irish and Catholic reverencing the church in all its manifestations She was not only sympathetic but polite Her husband had gone out and being a prudent guardian of interests confided to him had locked up all the duplicate keysAn3 i An tho saints only know whinMikell J be back av a Sunday she concluded l cheerf ullyaf ter a history of Mikes peculiarities pecul-iarities une be afther havin5 supper wid friends r The medicine said Sister Ursula < looking at the inscription on the bottle It must begin at twenty minutes past f five There are only ten minutes now J There mustoh there must be way I Give him a double dose next time i The docthor wont know the differ The j r convent of Sister Ursula is not modelled i after Irish ideals and the present duty r before its nun was to return to the locked room with the medicine Meantime the t minutes flew bridleless and Sister Ursu las eyes were full of tears 1 I must get to the room H she insisted l0h surely there is a way any way I t Theres wn way said the caretakers care-takers wife stung to profitable thought r by the others distress And thats the way the tenants would go in case av flre l To be sure now I might send the lift it boy ZA It would frighten him to death He r1 must not see strangers What is the watYH If we win into the cellar an out into the area well find the ground ends av the iireeshcapes that take to all the rooms Go aisy dear j Sister Ursula had gone down the basement base-ment steps through the cellar into the area and with clenched teeth was looking look-ing up the monstrous sheer of red brick wall cut into long strips by the lessening lessen-ing perspective of perpendicular iron ladders Under each window each ladder lad-der opened out Into a little a very little balcony The rest was straighter than a t Ellins most The caretakers wife followed panting came out into the sunshine and shading 1 her eyes took stock of the ground Hell be No 42 on the fifth Thin this ladder goes up to it Bad luck to thim theyve the eschapes front and Il tviSt spoilin the look av a fine house j i1 G but its all paid for in the rint Glory to God the avenues empty all but But it should ha been the back it should ha been the back Two children were playing in the gutter gut-ter But for these the avenue was deserted de-serted and the hush of a Sabbath afternoon after-noon hung over it all Sister Ursula put the medicine bottle carefully into the pocket of her gown Her facewas as white as her coif C Tis not forme said the caretakers wife shaking her head sadly Im sos to be round or Id go wid ye Those ladders do be runnin powerful straight J up an down Tis scandalous to think 1 but in a fire an runnin wid their nightclothes i night-clothes theyd not stop to think Go away ye two little imps there The bottles in your pocket Youll not lose good hold of the irons What is utohl Sister Ursula retreated into the cellar droppedon her knees and was praying praying as Lady Godiva prayed before she mounted her palfrey The caretakers wife had barely time to cross herself and follow her example when she was on her feet again and her feet were on the lowest low-est runes of the ladder Hold tight said the caretakers wife Oh darlint wait till Mike comes Come down now The good angels be wid you There should have been a way at the back Walk tinderly an hould r I tight Heaven above sind therell be no wind Oh why wasnt his ugly rooms at the back where tis only yards an bedroom windows The voice grew fainter and stopped Sister Ursula was at the level of the first floor windows when the two children caught sight of her raising together a shrill shout The devil that delights in torturing good nuns inspired them next to separate and run the one up and the other down the avenue yelling Oohl Theres a nun up the fire escape A nun on the fire escape And since one word at least was familiar a score of heads came to windows in the avenue and were much interested In spite of her prayers Sister Ursula was not happy The medioine bottle banged and bumped in her pocket as she gripped the iron bars hand over hand and toiled aloft uIt is for the sake of a life she panted to herself It is a good work He might die if I did not come I Ah it is terrible A flake of rust from the long disused irons had fallen on her nose The rungs were chafing her hands and the minutes were flying The round i i red face of the caretakers wife grew smaller below her and there was a rumbling j I rum-bling of wheels in the avenue An idle coachman drawn by the shouts of the I children had turned the corner to see what was to be seen And Sister Ursula climbed in agony of spirit the heelless black cloth shoes that nuns wear slipping on the rungs of the ladder and all earth reeling a hundred thousand feet below She passed one set of apartments and they were empty of people but the fire the books on the table and the childs toy cast on the hearthrug showed it was deserted only for a minute Sister Ursula drew breath on the balcony and then hurried upward There was iron rusted red on both her hands the front of her gown was speckled with it and a reflection re-flection in the stately double window showed a stainless stiff fold of her headgear head-gear battered down over her eye Her shoe yes the mended one had burst at the side near the toe in a generous bulge of white stocking She climbed on wearily for the bottle was swinging again and in her ears there came unbidden unbid-den the nursery refrain that she used to sing to the little sick children in the hospital at Quebec This Is the cow with the crumpled horn Between earth and heaven it is said the soul on its upward journey must pass the buffeting of many evil spirits There flashed into Sister Ursulas mind the remembrance of a picture of a man gazing from the leads down the side of a housea wonderful piece of foreshortening foreshort-ening that made one dizzy to see Where had she seen that picture Memory that works indifferently on earth or in vacuo told her of a book read by stealth in her novitiate such a book as perils body and soul and Sister Ursula blushed redder than the brickwork a foot before her nose Everything that she had read in or thought about that book raced through her mind as all his past lifo does not race through the soul of a drowning man It was horrible most horrible Then rose a fierce wave of rage and indignation that she a sister of irreproachable life and demeanor the book had been an indiscretion long since bitterly repented of should be singled out for these humiliating exercises There were other nuns of her acquaintance proud haughty and overbearing her foot slipped here as a reminder against sin and hasty judgments and she felt that it was a small and niggling justice that counted offences at such a crisis andand thinking too much of their holiness holi-ness to whom this mortification with all the rest flakes in bosom and kerchief would have ceen salutary and wholesome But that she Sister Ursula who only desired de-sired a quiet life should climb fire escapes in the face of the shameless sun and a watching population it was too terrible terri-ble None the less she did not comedown come-down Praying to be delivered from evil thoughts praying that the swinging bottle would not smash itself against the iron ladders she toiled on The second and third flats were empty and she heard a murmur in the street a hum of encouraging en-couraging tumult cheerful outcries bidding her go up hicher and crisp enquiries en-quiries as to whether this were the end of the performance Her saintshe that had not prevailed against the nuns would not help Sister Ursula and it came over her as cold water slides down the spine that at her journeys end she would have togothrough the window There is no vestibule portico por-tico or robingroom at the upper end of fireescape It is designed for such as move in a hurry unstudious of the graces being for the most part not overdressed over-dressed and yet seeking publicity that publicity which came to Sister Ursula unsought She must go through that window in order to give her invalid his medicine Her fiend must go first and her feet and the burst shoe must go last It was the very Tweaking oint in the strain and hereher saint mistaking f r i t f c > < 1 < I the needs of the case sent her a companion compan-ion Her head was level with the window of the fourth story and she was rejoicing I to find that that also was empty when the door opened and there entered a man something elderly of prominent figure and dressed according to the most rigid canons laid down for afternoon visits He was millions of leagues removed from Sister Ursulas worldthis person with the tall silk hat the long frockcoat tho light grey trousers the tiny yellow buttonhole rose and the marvellous puffed cravat anchored about with black pearlheaded pins but an Imperative need for justification was upon her Her own mission the absolute Tightness of her own mission were so clear to herself that she never doubted anyone might understand when she pointed upwards to the skies and the fiat above The man who was in the act of laying his tall hat absently upon the table looked up as the shadow took the light saw the gesture and stared Then his jaw dropped and his face became ashy gray Sister Ursula had never seen Terror Ter-ror in the flesh welldressed fresh from a round of calls She gathered herself her-self up to climb on but the man within uttered a cry that even the double windows win-dows could not altogether stifle and ran round the room in circles as a dog runs seeking a lost glove He is mad thought Sister Ursula Oh heavens and that is what has driven him mae He was stooging fondly over something that seemed like the coffin of a little child Then he rushed directly at the window openmouthed Sister Ursula went upwards and onwards none the less swiftly because she heard a muffled oath the crash of broken glass and the tinkling tink-ling of the broken splinters on the pave stones below For the second time only in her career she looked downdown between be-tween the ladder and the wall A silk hat was bobbing wildly as a fishingfloat d L I SISTER UBSULA HELD UP ONE HAND HAR3IINGLY on a troubled stream not a dozen rungs beneath and a voicethe voice of fear cried hoarsely Where is it Where is it I Then Went up to the roofs the roaring roar-ing and the laughter of a great crowd yells catcalls kiyis and hootings many times multiplied Her saint had heard her at last and caused Sister Ursula to disregard the pains of going through the window Her one desire now was to reach that haven to jump dive leapfrog through it if necessary and shut out the unfortunate maniac It was a short race but swift and Saint Ursula took care of the bottle A long course of afternoon calls with refreshments atc at-c ubs in the intervals is not such good training as the care of the sick in all weathers for sprinting over a course laid at 90 degrees Nor again can the best of athletes go swiftly up a ladder if he carries car-ries a priceless violin in one hand and its equally priceless bow in his teeth and handicaps himself with varnished leather buttoned boots They climoed one below be-low the other The window the foot of the invalids bed was open At the next window was the white face of the invalid Sister Ursula Ur-sula reached the sash threw it open went throughlet no man ask howshut it gently but with amazing quickness and sank panting at the foot of the bed one hand on the bottle There was no other way she panted The door was locked I could not help Oh Heisherel The face of Terror in the top hat rose to the windowlevel inch by inch The vio lin bow was between his teeth and his hat hung over one eye in the fashion of early dawn Its Cott van Cott said the invalid slowly and critically He looks quite au old man Cott and his Strad How very bad for the Strad I Open the window Where is it Is there a way Open the window I roared Cott without removing his yiolin bow Sister Ursula held up one hand warningly warn-ingly as she stooped over the invalid For the second time did Cott van Cott misinterpret the gesture and heaved himself him-self upward the violin and the bow clicking and rattling at every stride He was fleeing to the leads to save his life and his violin from death by fire flre in the basement and the crowd in the street roared below him with the roar ol a full fed conflagration The invalid fell back on the pillows and wiped his eyes The hands 01 the clock were on the hour appointed for the medicine medi-cine lacking only the thirty seconds necessary nec-essary for pouring it into a wineglass He took it from Sister Ursulas hand still shaking with helpless laughter God bless you Sister Ursula he said Youve saved my life The medicine was to be given she answered simply 11 could not help coming that way If you only knew said the invalid if you only knew I saw it from out of the windows Good heavens the dear old world is just the same as ever I must get back to it I must positively get well and get back And Sister Ursula do you mind telling me when youre quite composed everything that happened between the time the door shut andand you came in that way After a little Sister Ursula told and the invalidlaughed himself faint once more When Sister Ursula resettled tho pillows her hand fell on the butt of a revolver that had come from the desk by the head of the bed She did not understand what it was but tho sight pained her Wait a minute said theinvalid and he took one little brass thimblelike thing from its inside 11 wanted to use it for something before you went out but I saw you come up and I dont want it any more I must certainly get back to the wordagain Dear old world Nice old world And Mrs Cassidy prayed with you in the cellar did she And Van Cott thought it was a fire Do you know Sister Ursula that all those things would have been impossible on any other planet Im going to get well Sister Ursula I In the long night Sister Ursula blushing blush-ing all over under the eyes of the nightlight night-light heard him laughing softly in his sleep |