And so Love ran about the camp unrebuked in broad daylight, while men
picked up the pieces and put them neatly away of the Famine in the
Eight Districts.
* * * * *
Morning brought the penetrating chill of the Northern December, the
layers of wood-smoke, the dusty gray blue of the tamarisks, the domes
of ruined tombs, and all the smell of the white Northern plains, as
the mail-train ran on to the mile-long Sutlej Bridge. William,
wrapped in a _poshteen_--silk-embroidered sheepskin jacket trimmed
with rough astrakhan--looked out with moist eyes and nostrils that
dilated joyously. The South of pagodas and palm-trees, the
over-populated Hindu South, was done with. Here was the land she knew
and loved, and before her lay the good life she understood, among
folk of her own caste and mind.
They were picking them up at almost every station now--men and women
coming in for the Christmas Week, with racquets, with bundles of
polo-sticks, with dear and bruised cricket-bats, with fox-terriers
and saddles. The greater part of them wore jackets like William's,
for the Northern cold is as little to be trifled with as the
Northern heat. And William was among them and of them, her hands
deep in her pockets, her collar turned up over her ears, stamping her
feet on the platforms as she walked up and down to get warm, visiting
from carriage to carriage, and everywhere being congratulated. Scott
was with the bachelors at the far end of the train, where they
chaffed him mercilessly about feeding babies and milking goats; but
from time to time he would stroll up to William's window, and murmur:
'Good enough, isn't it?' and William would answer, with sighs of pure
delight: 'Good enough, indeed.' The large open names of the home
towns were good to listen to. Umballa, Ludianah, Phillour, Jullundur,
they rang like the coming marriage-bells in her ears, and William
felt deeply and truly sorry for all strangers and
outsiders--visitors, tourists, and those fresh-caught for the service
of the country.
It was a glorious return, and when the bachelors gave the Christmas
ball, William was, unofficially, you might say, the chief and
honoured guest among the stewards, who could make things very
pleasant for their friends. She and Scott danced nearly all the
dances together, and sat out the rest in the big dark gallery
overlooking the superb teak floor, where the uniforms blazed, and the
spurs clinked, and the new frocks and four hundred dancers went round
and round till the draped flags on the pillars flapped and bellied to
the whirl of it.
About midnight half a dozen men who did not care for dancing came
over from the Club to play 'Waits,' and--that was a surprise the
stewards had arranged--before any one knew what had happened, the
band stopped, and hidden voices broke into 'Good King Wenceslaus,'
and William in the gallery hummed and beat time with her foot:
Mark my footsteps well, my page,
Tread thou in them boldly,
Thou shalt feel the winter's rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly!
'Oh, I hope they are going to give us another! Isn't it pretty,
coming out of the dark in that way? Look--look down. There's Mrs.
Gregory wiping her eyes!'
'It's like home, rather,' said Scott. 'I remember--
'H'sh! Listen!--dear.'And it began again: