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Black Sheep would follow the rays of the sinking sun from the kitchen to the dining-room and thence upward to his own bedroom, until all was grey dark, and he ran down to the kitchen fire and read by its light. He was happy in that he was left alone and could read as much as he pleased. But, later, he grew afraid of the shadows of window curtains and the flapping of doors and the creaking of shutters. He went out into the garden, and the rustling of the laurel-bushes frightened him. |
This is from “Baa Baa Black Sheep”, Kipling’s account of the five unhappy years he spent as a child, with a cruel evangelical foster mother in England, while his parents were in India. He wrote it in rage ten years later, and remained angry about the experience all his life. |
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