Miss Youghal's Sais

"Miss Youghal's Sais" is a short story in Rudyard Kipling's collection Plain Tales from the Hills (1888). It is the first appearance in book form of the fictional character Strickland. (It was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on April 25th 1887.)

Strickland, a policeman who is regarded as disreputable for his habits in going undercover disguised as a native, falls in love with Miss Youghal. Her parents do not approve, not only are "ways and works" untrustworthy, but he works in "the worst paid Department in the Empire." Her parents forbid him from speaking with or writing to their daughter. "'Very well,' said Strickland, for he did not wish to make his lady-love's life a burden." Then he takes three months leave, disappears, and is employed as her Sais, or native groom, called Dulloo. One day, towards the end of the three months, "an old and very distinguished General" takes Miss Youghal riding, and flirts with her. Strickland "stood it as long as he could. Then he caught hold of the General's bridle, and, in most fluent English, invited him to step off and be flung over the cliff." Miss Youghal explains, and the General begins to laugh. He intercedes on the behalf of the young pair to her parents, and they are married.

All quotations in this article have been taken from the Uniform Edition of Plain Tales from the Hills published by Macmillan & Co., Limited in London in 1899. The text is that of the third edition (1890), and the author of the article has used his own copy of the 1923 reprint. Further comment, including page-by-page notes, can be found on the Kipling Society's website, at .
Rudyard Kipling
Novels
  • The Light that Failed (1891)
  • Captains Courageous (1896)
  • Kim (1901)
Collections
  • Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
  • Soldiers Three (1888)
  • The Story of the Gadsbys (1888)
  • In Black and White (1888)
  • Under the Deodars (1888)
  • The Phantom 'Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales (1888)
  • Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1888)
  • Under the Deodars (1888)
  • From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel (1889)
  • Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, poetry)
  • The Jungle Book (1894)
    • "Mowgli's Brothers"
    • "Kaa's Hunting"
    • "Tiger! Tiger!"
    • "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"
  • The Second Jungle Book (1895)
    • "Letting in the Jungle"
    • "Red Dog"
  • All the Mowgli Stories (c. 1895)
  • The Day's Work (1898)
  • Stalky & Co. (1899)
  • Just So Stories for Little Children (1902)
  • Puck of Pook's Hill (1906)
  • Rewards and Fairies (1910)
  • The Fringes of the Fleet (1915, non-fiction)
  • Debits and Credits (1926)
  • Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition (1940)
Poems
  • "The Absent-Minded Beggar"
  • "The Ballad of the "Clampherdown""
  • "The Ballad of East and West"
  • "The Bell Buoy"
  • "The Betrothed"
  • "Big Steamers"
  • "Cold Iron"
  • "Danny Deever"
  • "The Female of the Species"
  • "Fuzzy-Wuzzy"
  • "Gentleman ranker"
  • "The Gods of the Copybook Headings"
  • "Gunga Din"
  • "Hymn Before Action"
  • "If—"
  • "The King's Pilgrimage"
  • "The Last of the Light Brigade"
  • "The Lowestoft Boat"
  • "Mandalay"
  • "My Boy Jack"
  • "Recessional"
  • "A Song in Storm"
  • "Sons of Martha"
  • "Submarines"
  • "The Sweepers"
  • "Ubique"
  • "The White Man's Burden"
  • "The Widow at Windsor"
Short Stories
  • .007
  • The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly
  • Baa Baa, Black Sheep
  • The Butterfly that Stamped
  • Consequences
  • The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin
  • Cupid's Arrows
  • Drums of the Fore and Aft
  • False Dawn
  • A Germ-Destroyer
  • His Chance in Life
  • His Wedded Wife
  • In the House of Suddhoo
  • Kidnapped
  • Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris
  • Lispeth
  • The Man Who Would Be King
  • Miss Youghal's Sais
  • The Mother Hive
  • Ortheris
  • The Other Man
  • The Rescue of Pluffles
  • The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo
  • The Taking of Lungtungpen
  • Three and – an Extra
  • The Three Musketeers
  • Thrown Away
  • Toomai of the Elephants
  • Watches of the Night
  • Yoked with an Unbeliever
People
  • John Lockwood Kipling (father)
  • MacDonald sisters (mother's family)
  • Stanley Baldwin (cousin)
  • Edward Burne-Jones (uncle)
  • Edward Poynter (uncle)
  • Alfred Baldwin (uncle)
Related
  • Indian Railway Library
  • The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer
  • The Law of the Jungle
  • Rudyard Kipling bibliography
  • Aerial Board of Control

Famous quotes containing the word sais:

    It takes that je ne sais quoi which we call sophistication for a woman to be magnificent in a drawing-room when her faculties have departed but she herself has not yet gone home.
    James Thurber (1894–1961)