Page:Essays in miniature.djvu/151

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CHILDREN IN FICTION
147

only when we have forgotten what an earthly little animal a real boy is. Willie Winkie rides into a forbidden and dangerous country to protect and rescue a woman nearly old enough to be his mother. He is keenly and conscientiously distressed because, having been told to keep within doors, he has thus "bwoken" his "awwest;" but he feels it his paramount duty to pursue and guard from evil the able-bodied betrothed of his father's friend. When Miss Allardyce accommodates herself to circumstances by promptly wrenching her ankle, and the pair are surrounded by ruffians of the skulking, cowardly Indian type whom Mr. Kipling paints with such generous scorn, we are gravely told: "Then rose from the rock Wee Willie Winkie, child of the Dominant Race, aged six and three-quarters, and said briefly and emphatically, 'Jao!'" What "Jao" means is lost to our occidental ignorance, but the effect is magical. The twenty armed men thus confronted and defied are awed into milder measures, and finally routed with shame, while the hero of the hour restores the prostrate heroine