For some days after returning home, I could not get rid of the horrid
gloom that brooded over me like a cloud of sulphurous vapor. During the
day I kept myself very busy, looking after various things, making calls
on those who needed a little assistance, looking after my garden and
property, visiting Mr. Jasper, so my mind was diverted. But at night! I
had to read the driest metaphysical books I possessed, not for pleasure
or profit, but to fatigue my mind, so that it could get any rest at all.
Woe to me, if it caught even the slightest thread of the black story of
my life, for then away it would run like a fast flying reel, until all
from the beginning was unwound. How I tossed and turned, trying to
sleep! I repeated poem after poem, put wet cold towels around my head,
arose and ran as fast as I could through the garden, and to concentrate
my thoughts, repeated poems and paragraphs backward word by word.
I thought of the fate of the damned, who through the long eternal night
are trying to forget the foul offenses and crimes of their lives on
earth! No, no hell to be compared to such a torment! To be their own
accusers, to be their own judge, to keep forever their own infamous
record! To be haunted by a ghost that will never be laid. Utter
annihilation would be a paradise of bliss compared to such an eternal
state of misery.
I still had a duty to perform before I could drop the subject so far as
it was possible to do so. M. Le Maistre had made me promise to let him
know the result of my investigation, and of my visit to the
Commissioner. It was no use to delay, as sooner or later I would have to
tell him, and the black wounds would have to be re-opened again. I could
not write to him, for I have made it a habit of my life never to write
anything that I was not willing the whole world should know. I have gone
a hundred miles to tell what I might have written in a few lines. There
are so many chances for a paper to be lost and be found by the wrong
person, to be mislaid or kept for years, to be read and gossiped about
by the world after the writer is dead. These letters and writing of the
Commissioner, some of them unsigned, had been his death warrant.
So I had to go again to Lucknow. My old friend received me kindly, as
usual. I went over the whole affair again, except that about my sister.
That I never told except to the one himself most concerned. He heard it,
and will remember it. My sister never even suspected what that man was
to her. She had enough sorrow and shame as it was, without knowing of
that black, foul crime. It was too much for me to know, and what would I
have given to have erased the hideous remembrance of it from my memory?
I was rather ashamed to tell of my ruse, the white lie (though I never
knew how any lie could be white), I told in order to gain admittance,
but my old friend said that in catching rascals, as in trapping rats,
one has to use a little chaff and deception, so I concluded that he did
not think any the worse of me for my little trick.
Yet I have always hated to lie, it strains me so, and after it I feel a
weakness, as if my moral system had been wrenched, so I refrain, that
is, as much as possible.
M. Le Maistre was as good a listener as I knew him to be a good talker,
though these two traits seldom go together. After I had finished by
telling him of the apparent remorse of the man—I do not like to write
man, as applied to him, as it seems a degradation of that word, neither
do I like to use epithets all the time, so will have to let it go—he
exclaimed, “Served him right; served him right. Such a scoundrel as that
should be put into the public stocks to be jeered at by every beggar who
passes, as long as he lives, and after death, we need not say anything
of that, for he will have all he deserves. God is not just if he will
abate one particle of punishment due to such sinners. I know that some,
the church people would censure me for such an expression.
“There is a lot of nonsense talked about eternal salvation. Why, they
would people heaven with scoundrels, reprobates of earth, suddenly made
into saints. There cannot be two laws of God to directly contradict each
other. This is what I mean. There is a man of fair education, exemplary
in every way, an excellent Christian. I am not making a case, for I knew
just such a man. He is seated one evening with his wife and children on
a veranda in front of his house. A man for some slight grudge comes, and
without a word, shoots, and the father and husband falls dead in the
arms of his wife. The criminal is tried, found guilty, and sentenced to
be hung. The priest has been with him. On the scaffold he tells the
crowd that he has repented, believes in Jesus, and is going to be happy
among the redeemed.
“The church affects to believe him, that all his past has been forgiven,
that the blood of Jesus has washed him white as snow, and that he is
going straight to become a saint in heaven.
“But what about the family? Deprived of their support, guide and best of
earthly friends, they are reduced to want and beggary. The mother is
crushed to death by her hard toil and care. The boys without education
and the training of a father, fall into vice and sin. Their children
inherit their defects and so on for generations; aye to the very end.
With the family the evil consequences of that man’s crime are eternal.
How can we by any torture of justice suppose him to be saved from all
the consequences of his sin and to be happy in heaven, while they suffer
all the miseries inflicted by his crime while they are upon earth, and
an eternal loss and degradation?”
I think I said that my friend, when he got started was like the rushing
waters in a mill-race when the gates were open. As I enjoyed his talk, I
had no inclination to shut down the gates. Of his own accord he made a
halt. I took occasion to refer to my story and said that the only thing
I questioned, was that perhaps I had been a little severe on my unworthy
parent. He quickly said, “Not a bit of it, not a bit of it. With such a
man, hardened, encased in sin, you have got to be severe in order to
touch him at all. Had you gone to him otherwise than you did, he would
have smiled in your face, rubbed his hands with glee over the tricks of
his youth, and the follies of his old age. Had my father served me as
yours did you, killed my mother, and made his children outcasts, I would
by the God who made me, I would have done more than you did, very much
more.”
He used some other very forcible expressions that I forbear to give. I
saw the old man’s blood was up, so waited without a word. He began
again. “I am a father, I have daughters, but all happily married, thank
God, but for years it was the torture of my life as to what might happen
to them. They went into “society,” as it is called, and what these upper
class men, as they are styled, polished and skilled in all the sly arts
of flattery and seduction, might do, I did not know. They are educated,
trained in vice as they are in grammar and mathematics. I was just
reading an account of a candidate for Parliament, being accused by his
opponents of impudicity when he was at the Charterhouse school. There
was issued a writ for slander and when the case came on, a paper states,
“there was a shocking light on the morals of the great public schools,
at any rate twenty-eight years ago.” I was astonished not long ago when
an Englishman, lately from home, said that he did not believe there was
a boy in England over fourteen years of age, but was guilty of
immorality. One prominent school was called ‘Sodom on the Hill,’ because
of its wicked practices. A gentleman told me that when he was in the
university, one of the greatest in England, there was no set that could
keep up with the divinity students in immorality and flagrant
blackguardism. Great God! what a condition of society! Where are the
fathers and mothers and sisters of these boys? What can be the condition
of the homes of England? What can we expect of men who were such boys?
“I know this is not a pleasant or agreeable subject for conversation,
but like some other things in life it ought not to be avoided on that
account. If I were to write about this, not a paper would publish my
article. They are too much absorbed with politics, in detailing the
dresses worn at some party or ball, with wars, intrigues, or the events
in society, to give any attention to a subject on which the very
preservation of society depends, and not only that, but the destiny of
souls. Some say we ought never to refer to such things to corrupt the
minds of the young. Such people are so simple-minded, as to have
forgotten all about the inquisitiveness or the passions of their own
youth. The young! They know too much, taught by the example of their
elders and the vicious stories in novels, of the intrigues and
seductions in society life. They are attracted, allured, rather than
repulsed and warned of danger. Another class, and a numerous one, the
guilty, the culprits themselves, would frown and declare it was too
nasty for anything. They certainly would not like anything that would
reflect on their own wicked conduct, or show up their own impurities.
“Impurity is the greatest evil of this age. It is worse than cholera, or
any pestilence, for these only destroy the bodies, but this undermines
the moral nature, and destroys the souls of mankind. We give little
attention to this sin of all sins. Fathers and mothers let their
children grow up without a word of advice or warning. ‘It is such a
delicate subject, you know,’ is the excuse. The clergy discourse on
everything, but are as dumb as mummies about this devil of lust. Only a
few days ago the chaplain was over here, and I asked his advice and made
some statements about some young men, whom I wished to save from ruin,
when he interrupted me by saying, ‘M. Le Maistre, these things are too
horrible, I wish you had not told me a word about them,’ and away he
went, this man who ought to be a sin doctor, a soul curer and saver of
souls, went away to gossip with a lot of women at a croquet party.
“I am inclined to think that we ought to go back to the Christ that was,
begin a new church with a new set of preachers, who would talk less
about rites and ceremonies, less about the souls of men, and care
something about their bodies, and dare to denounce the sins and lusts of
the flesh, and have manhood and courage enough to take for a text,
‘Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her!’ Wouldn’t there be a
squirming among the sinners such as your distinguished father, if they
dared to preach as Jesus would? Let us have some dinner.”
We had a good dinner, and a very pleasant chat among the family present,
until the time for my train. On bidding good-bye, I said, “I can trust
you.” He answered, “You need have no fear of me.” And I never had.
I wanted a change, to go into a retreat after all the excitement and
anxiety of the past few months, to get rid of the ennui and disgust of
life that was unsettling me, and the best remedy I have found in such
cases, is to go and benefit somebody, and give real enjoyment to others.
I at once thought of my villagers. Have not great men sought rest by
retiring to their country homes, why not I? For several years I had only
ridden out a day at a time to attend some school festival or fair, but
now I concluded to make a real visit. I had my tent, servants, bag and
baggage sent out to make a real stay in my Reviera or Tusculum. I sought
the shade of a big peepul, a ficus and a religiosa to me, and I was soon
pleasantly situated. The condition of the villages was excellent. The
drains I had formerly made carried away all the refuse to the opposite
side of the village from the tank. The people were extremely healthy.
Few deaths had occurred, and these were from natural causes. I had given
them a number of talks about the value of manure and refuse, that this
was food for the soil, that the land was hungry, starving, and needed to
be fed. This they could understand, for they had been hungry themselves.
I said nothing about nitrates or phosphates, or the chemical ingredients
of different kinds of soil, or that the ash of wheat contains
phosphates, potashes and magnesia. Too much learning hath turned many a
wise man’s brain, and I wanted no insanity or confusion among my people.
I told them that every seer of refuse was land food, and every seer
would bring in a number of extra grains of seed, larger and better
vegetables, a larger rate of interest than they had paid to the bunyas.
I had frequently pointed out the stuff lying about and making the
villages untidy and going to waste, while the soil was begging for it. I
found that they had acted on my suggestion, and swept the streets and
yards, and every straw and leaf were stored in the pits. The result was
a clean village, healthy people, and thriving fields. In planting the
trees years ago, I was careful to have them of good timber, or of
excellent fruit. They beautified the villages, gave plenty of shade,
while the lopped branches supplied fuel, the fruit was a harvest in
itself of food, and gave the people a pleasure in life all conducing to
health and happiness. I am a utilitarian, but include that which gives
beauty and pleasure with the useful.
Some years previous I had supplied a few imported cattle. These now
formed quite a stock, of which the people were very proud and I rejoiced
in their pride. I had given some talks on cattle and their treatment;
that they could not expect a poor starved bullock to do good work, any
more than a weak starved man. I drew a picture on the school blackboard
of a fat-bellied man, thrashing and punching a pair of skeleton cattle,
and gave my opinion of such a man, fattening himself while starving the
poor brutes depending on him.
I had offered prizes to be distributed by a committee at our semi-annual
fairs to those having the best cattle, and also a big leather medal to
be given to the one having the poorest cattle, this to be nailed to the
door of his house until the next fair. I wanted a little fun, and they
all appreciated this leathery idea. I hardly need say that after a few
years the committee decided that there were not any cattle in the
villages to entitle the owner to the leather medal. It was a standing
remark for them to make when any one’s cattle were becoming a little
lean, “O he is going in for the leather medal.” I am egotist enough to
believe that my talks about cattle were far superior to any given by the
wordy lecturers of the anti-cow-killing society. It is the grimmest kind
of a farce for the Hindus to talk of the sacredness of cattle and then
to cruelly starve and treat the poor brutes as they do.
I had stocked the tank with the fry of the best fish and some had grown
to a large size, and plenty of them. There had been a fish committee
appointed and a law passed, that no one should fish except with a hook
and line, and that no fish under six inches in length should be kept
out, but be thrown back into the water. I had plenty of sport, if it can
be called sport to take life of any kind, and a fish for my breakfasts,
giving the rest to the widows. I always showed great respect to the
women, putting them ever first.
One morning I received the finest compliment of my life. I was coming
from the tank and my boy,—I never was in want of boys when fishing, who
is?—had a fine string of large fish, when the widows approached to get
their share. As the fish were distributed, one old wrinkled body getting
her share exclaimed: “The Sahib is a friend to the poor widows.” I trust
the recording angel made a note of that, for I like to get all the good
marks I deserve, as I am afraid I shall have so many bad ones to be
erased, for I have read somewhere, that every time the scribe above puts
down a good mark for any one he rubs out a bad one. The fish committee
made their report that there had been no violation of the law except
once, when a man was caught going away from the tank with a number of
small fish. The committee at once surrounded him, and decided that he
must eat the fish raw, then and there, and they waited until he had
devoured heads, tails, bones and all. I doubt if the justices of any
high or low court ever gave a decision with more justice, or
administered a punishment with more alacrity than did my fish committee.
Once going to the tank with my rod, I met this man and said, probably
with a slight hint in my voice that I had heard from the committee:
“Well Gulab, are you fond of fish?” He hesitated, with a slight grin on
his face, for he was somewhat of a wag, “Yes, Sahib, when they are
cooked.” I replied, “That is the way I like mine, not raw, but well
cooked,” and we parted, each with a meaning smile.
I was so well pleased with my fish investment, bringing in a constant
crop of food without labor, worth the product of a number of acres, that
I sent for some fishermen with nets to go to the river to bring me a lot
of small fish at so much a seer, and they brought me not seers, but
maunds, and I waited to see what a harvest my planting would produce, as
I told the villagers that the tank was my field. Some of them, I
afterwards learned, called the tank, “The Sahib’s Khet.”
I found that it was the custom of the people after their evening meal to
assemble in front of the school-house at the chibutra, the areopagus of
India villages, when the teacher and older scholars would read aloud the
papers and books that I had sent them. Questions were put, and various
were the discussions, with more courtesy and order than in the British
Parliament, when the Irish bill is to the front. These assemblies became
so popular that every man, woman and child in the village would be
present, not one left to guard a house, for why should there be a guard,
when all were at the chibutra?
The women had their right to half the space, and well they claimed and
kept it. Woe to the wight who dared intrude upon their side. I greatly
enjoyed this assertion of rights by the women. I have always been
foolish enough to believe that a woman is as good as a man, everywhere
and at any time, and most of the time a great deal better. She has her
rights and should demand them, even if she has not as much coarse brute
muscle as the self styled lords of creation. From my little reading and
observation I have come to the conclusion that the moral and social
status of a nation, a tribe or individual, is seen by the way they treat
their women. If a man, or rather a male of the human species, acts like
a hog towards a woman, he is a hog in other respects. I mistrust that
this word is not a polite one to use, and that it would be as bad to say
hog before some fastidious people, as it would be to say hell in church.
But when I mean hog why not say it, and surely I have seen hog bipeds,
as well as hog quadrupeds.
I cannot help throwing in a suggestion. If I, now an old man, should
give any advice to a young woman, about to accept a man for a husband,
it would be to see him often with his mother and his sisters, and
observe his treatment of them. His murder will out to them, when he
would be all smiles and graciousness to women outside his home. In his
home he is off his guard, and there is the place to judge these slippery
men.
As long as the people of India keep their women in ignorance and
seclusion, England need have no fear of holding the country in
subjection. Liberty, patriotism and the higher moral traits of the human
race were never born of men, but of women. Was it not the mother of the
Gracchi who bade her sons go forth and conquer in battle or be brought
home dead on their spears? That was also the spirit and patriotism of
the Spartan mothers that made a place in history for their nation. Was
there ever a great people, but had its grand women, its noble wives and
mothers? The people of India think they know a great deal, but they are
far from having learned this first great principle, the great secret of
a nation’s freedom and civilization, the education and elevation of
women. I may be mistaken in this as I am in so many things, yet I see no
reason why I should not say the best I think on the subject.
I do not know when I acquired this regard and reverence for women. I
think they must have been implanted by Mr. Percy to grow with my years.
I know of so many traits in my thoughts and life, that in after years I
saw I got from him unconsciously, not that he taught me directly, but
rather that he impressed upon me by his conversation and example. It was
an education to walk and move beside or in the company of such a man, to
absorb something of his character and goodness. Ah! that grand man, so
pure and good! What would he have been without that noble mother of his!
He fairly worshiped women as God’s best gift to men, and he could no
more have harmed a woman than he could have blasphemed his Maker. I have
often thought that a man who respects and reverences women can scarcely
go wrong in a moral sense.
I was greatly pleased with the position the village women had taken, and
with their spirit of inquiry. They were my best hope in the permanent
prosperity of these people.
I was allotted the place of honor at the chibutra. There was no one to
move that I take the chair, or to ask for a vote of thanks at the close
of the meetings. They had not come to imitate the babus in aping the
customs of the English. There were more questions put than ever dreamed
of in Parliament, but with this difference, none were asked to gain
time, or to waste time, or to perplex the Ministry or the chair. They
applied their inquisitive pumps to me, as if I was a never-failing well
of knowledge. The women, too, had their questions, mostly about the
women in Wilayat, how they lived and did, a very good sign. During all
these evenings I gave talks on all sorts of subjects, making them
practical, as well as interesting. Once I talked on gossip and slander.
I suspected that there were several women whose tongues hung as loosely
as a clapper in a bell.
The next day several matronly women met me, and said they were very glad
I had talked about women quarreling, as there were some guilty of it.
All this may be called trifling matter, not worth mentioning. Yet, what
to great people would seem trifles, were to these simple people great
affairs. They were not in society, could attend no operas, clubs, or
fashionable parties, had few books, knew nothing of the great life of
the world, and were better for it, so the little things would make their
lives happier, and would lift them up from the earth, above the brutes,
and raise them toward God, and fit them for a better eternal life.
I am convinced that if the simple, ignorant people of India were shown
how to better their condition, no people on earth would be so ready to
act. Theories will not reach them. They, like all people in their grade
of life, are materialists; they want to see with their own eyes—results.
They can reason upon what they see and feel, or better, upon what they
eat. I have been told by an educated, English gentleman, that most of
the common people or voters in England, were guided more by their stupid
bellies than by their brains, how much more so these people? I might
have talked and persuaded all my life, and they would have remained just
what they were, and would have continued doing as their forefathers did
centuries ago, but when they saw me spending money in support of my
theories, they became interested, and when they saw results, they were
convinced. All the people in India are the slowest in the world to make
experiments or engage in anything that they do not comprehend or see a
profitable solution.
It appears that when the tram-car was first proposed for Bombay, not a
native would invest in it, though begged and urged to do so. As soon as
they saw it was a paying concern they clamored for shares, and felt
wronged that none were sold to them. A Parsee complained to me that he
had been hurt by the refusal.
There is a great drawback. The people are desperately poor. There is not
a people the sun shines on, who are so sunken in the degradation of
poverty as those of India. Ninety per cent. of them are connected with
agriculture, and it is stated on good authority, that sixty per cent. of
them do not get enough to eat, even of the coarsest food.
What can a people do for themselves when the average wage is not more
than three rupees or three shillings a month? What can all the learned
investigations and scientific reports of Government do for a people in
such an utterly helpless condition? I am not speaking at random. I have
seen and heard for myself, and know what I am talking about. To
illustrate: Passing through a field where a man—almost naked—was rooting
up the earth with a pair of small skeleton cattle, I had a chat with him
about his life and crops. I asked him how much he got a year from all
his labor. He replied, that if by working every day he could get a
little food for himself and family, and at the close of the year could
have enough to buy a cloth for himself, he would be happy. A whole
year’s work for a little food, a little rice with weeds and stuff from
his fields, not wheat or grain, as all the latter would have to be sold
to pay the rent, and at the end have enough left to buy a cloth, worth
less than a shilling!
The great curse of Indian agriculture, is the middlemen, the
“zemindars,” or village owners. They do nothing except to pass their
time in idleness and dissipation, spending more in one night on a nautch
dance of prostitutes, than would dig a dozen wells, or build a good
tank, while they live on the sweat and blood of their ryots. It is to
the infamy of Government that it tolerates such a system of tyranny,
injustice and robbery. Not one in ten thousand of these zemindars does
anything for the benefit of his villagers.
I once talked with a great Maharajah with a long string of titles, who
was ever head first when his name could be mentioned in public, and who
privately was known as a screw, the owner of hundreds of villages, and I
suggested some improvements for his people. “No,” he replied, “I have
nothing to do with them, except to get my rents, all I want is my
rupees,” and he was getting them by lacs a year. They are worse than
vultures, for these are scavengers, destroyers of carrion, good birds,
and never take life, but such men as this Maharajah, live and grow fat
on the lives of their serfs. It is evident that I grow warm, yes hot, on
this subject, and why not?
Another thing I cannot abide, and that is the learned nonsense about
improving the condition of the agricultural population by some high
flown scientific processes. You might as well form a society to
cultivate the valleys of the moon, or “go about to turn the sun to ice
by fanning in his face with a peacock’s feather.”
Lighten the burdens of poverty, and the crushing of the ryots, by less
taxation, by the destruction of the leeches, the zemindars, and then the
people would have something on which to live and help themselves. The
permanent prosperity of a country depends on agriculture, and India will
never come up, it is now at its lowest depth, until the condition of the
ryots is radically changed.
The editor of a prominent India paper says: “The direct effect of unduly
low rents is careless husbandry. Instead of benefiting the cultivator,
such rents are a mere incentive to idleness.” What a sapient conclusion!
His publishers should have immediately cut down his wages so that they
might not be an incentive to his idleness.
This reminds me of a bunya who sold cloth, traveling from one bazar to
another. He purchased a fine, stout pony to carry his goods. The beast
was so fat that he diminished its food, and as it traveled so well, he
increased its load. He continued to do both, until the poor brute, of
its own accord, discontinued eating and going, and the man wondered what
gave it such an incentive to idleness. But he had not the wisdom of the
editor.
An expert sent out by Government says in his report, “Until a more
adequate collection of statistics is made nothing can be done for
agriculture!” I might use some very harsh words, if I should relieve my
mind by using epithets regarding such twaddle, so I refrain. Yet I
cannot forbear saying that one of the things for which I have an
unsurmountable contempt is an educated fool.
Referring to these Government learned scientific investigators recalls
to me an incident. One of my neighbors went on furlough. He had several
valuable horses, which he left in the care of his sais. They were large,
strong-limbed, well-proportioned animals. But something seemed to be the
matter with them. They became thinner and thinner and drooped, standing
for hours with their heads down and their legs scarcely supporting their
bodies. Some of the neighbors happened around in the mornings and formed
a kind of committee of investigation, as they did not like to see such
fine animals go to the dogs and vultures, and beside, they had some
regard for the interests of their friend. At length they decided to send
for a distinguished veterinary surgeon, several hundred miles away. One
suggested that this would be expensive. Others blanked the expense; they
couldn’t let the horses die. The vet came, took a general look at the
beasts and stood silently as if meditating where to begin. At last he
spoke, “Gentlemen, this is a very serious matter, very strange; never
saw anything like it in an experience of forty years. Yes, gentlemen, in
forty years. Here are young, fine, well built animals slowly dying by
inches, and yet apparently without disease. I will have to investigate,
and it will be some days before I can make a report.” The days went on,
and the vet stayed on, at a salary of fifty rupees a day to somebody.
The weeks passed, and notwithstanding the vet’s investigation and long
report, the horses grew thinner, and then the poor brutes went to death
for want of breath, or, to be explicit, they died because they hadn’t
strength enough to breathe, and not because they were sick or diseased.
The vultures sang requiems over their bones, and said, “It was a strange
case, very strange, the like they had never seen in all their experience
of years, all skin and bones, not a particle of meat; very strange.” So
said we all of us, “a very strange case.”
After his weeks of diagnosing and cognising the vet departed with his
pockets full of rupees. Besides, he made quite a reputation, for he sent
a long account of this very strange case to a horsey journal. A deluge
of letters came, everybody had his theory or opinion, until the editor,
buried under the accumulation of papers, said that the discussion must
stop. At last the Government got to hear of it. Why is it that
Government takes such a long time to hear? Is it on account of the
length of its ears, the distance anything has to travel to get into its
head? It had a long investigation by a committee of fifteen, all titled,
distinguished—nobody knows anything but this class—and as each had to
have his talk printed, the result was a voluminous book, of which a
thousand copies were published, costing many times more than the horses
were worth, not to mention the expense of the committee, for such men
are always good livers. Of these thousand copies only twenty-five were
used. Each member of the committee took a copy to show his wife and
friends, and ten were sent to editors. A Government subsidized paper
declared that the book reflected great credit on the distinguished
committee, that it was just what the public might have expected from the
well known reputation of the members selected with such great care and
excellent judgment by His Excellency, the Viceroy.
An opposition paper, reviewing the book, said that the committee was a
ponderous one, in number, in titles, in its expenses; the report was
ponderous in its size and weight, in the number of its pages and
sections, and in its cost. The subject of the investigation, to begin
with, was of no consequence, the quiet death of three probably worn-out
old hacks in a little up-country, out of the way station. There was not
a thought in the book worth preserving, the style was verbose, flatulent
to a degree, as if the committee had been appointed wholly and solely to
make a book. “Without wasting any more of our valuable space on nothing,
we give it as from our profound conviction that a mosquito might take in
every idea in the whole book and then not be conscious of any
enlargement of its brain.” A babu tried his copy, but declared it was
too much for him, as “it made him sick in his mind to read it.” The only
real benefit from the book was what the paper-maker, the printer and the
waste paper dealer received. The whole committee decided unanimously
that the horses had died, and as everybody agreed with them, the subject
was dropped and forgotten by the public.
One day, not long after the mysterious affair, I met the sais who had
charge of the horses. He knew me very well. I questioned him. I told him
he knew what ailed the horses, and wished him to tell me. He hesitated.
I urged. At length he said, “Sahib, if you will promise me upon your
honor never to report me I will tell you.” I promised. He replied, “When
my sahib was taking leave he told me it would cost him a great deal to
go to Wilayat and back, that there was now a very big income tax, and
that the rupee was very bimar, that there were taxes on everything, and
more to follow, he didn’t know on what next; it might be on his wife and
children, so that he couldn’t afford to allow more than one seer of
grain a day for each horse, and that he would give me so many rupees,
and that would be so many anas a day, while he was away, and that I must
not spend more than that, or he would cut it from my talab, and I knew
he would do just what he said. When he is here he strikes me with his
whip, when I am within reach, or, if not, he hurls a brick, or anything
he can get, at my head.” “But about the horses?” I asked. He replied,
“The grass, as you know, all dried up, the price of grain doubled in the
bazar, and as I had only so many anas a day for each horse until the
sahib returned, I had to cut down the feed until it was scarcely more
than a child could eat, and that is what was the matter, the horses died
for want of feed.”
“But why didn’t you tell me, and I would have given the feed?” I asked,
quite indignant. “Yes,” he continued, “and when my sahib returned he
would get to know of it, and I would be thrashed, my pay cut or be
dismissed. I know my sahib too well to think that he would be willing to
have any one know that he had left his horses to starve. I was sorry for
them, and often cried, but what could I do? It was either I or the
horses, and I preferred to save myself, for he is brother to a donkey
who will not try to keep his own skin on his back.”
As the sais has gone to a place from which he will never be dismissed,
and though he may not be flogged by a sahib, he will have to meet the
ghosts of those starved horses, so let him be happy if he can. As I had
promised on my honor, though an Eurasian is not credited with much of
that, I never told the story until now, and the learned vet, and the
distinguished Government committee, can have the free and full benefit
of my information. It was a strange case, very.
I will not point a moral to this incident, for if any one has been so
slighted by nature as not to have the ability to see it, all pointing
would be superfluous. It would be like having to explain one of my own
jokes, and that always gives me a mental twist. This reminds me of the
reply of a Scotchman, when asked to explain, “A body canna be expectit
baith to mak the joke an’ to see’t; na, that would be doin’ twa fowk’s
wark.”