This is a remedial age, an age of keys for all manner of locks; so he
cannot be said to ask too much who seeks for exact information as to
how a young man ought, in justice to himself and to society, to deal
with his relations. During his minority he has lain entirely at their
mercy: has been their butt, their martyr, their drudge, their _corpus
vile._ Possessing all the sinews of war, this stiff-necked tribe has
consistently refused to “part”: even for the provision of those
luxuries so much more necessary than necessities. Its members have
crammed their victim full of precepts, rules of conduct, moral maxims,
and most miscellaneous counsel: all which he intuitively suspected at
the time, and has ascertained by subsequent experience, to be utterly
worthless. Now, when their hour has come, when the tocsin has sounded
at last, and the Gaul is at the gate, they still appear to think that
the old condition of things is to go on; unconscious, apparently, of
atonement due, of retribution to be exacted, of wrongs to be avenged
and of insults to be wiped away!
Over the north-west frontier, where the writ of the English Raj runs
not, the artless Afghan is happy in a code that fully provides for
relatives who neglect or misunderstand their obligations. An Afghan it
was who found himself compelled to reprove an uncle with an unfortunate
habit of squandering the family estate. An excellent relative, this
uncle, in all other respects. As a liar, he had few equals; he robbed
with taste and discretion; and his murders were all imbued with true
artistic feeling. He might have lived to a green old age of spotless
respectability but for his one little failing. As it was, justice had
to be done, _ruat cælum:_ and so it came about that one day the nephew
issued forth to correct him with a matchlock. The innocent old man was
cultivating his paternal acres; so the nephew was able, unperceived, to
get a steady sight on him. His finger was on the trigger, when suddenly
there slipped into his mind the divine precept: “Allah is merciful!” He
lowered his piece, and remained for a little plunged in thought;
meanwhile the unconscious uncle hoed his paddy. Then with a happy smile
he took aim once more, for there also occurred to him the precept
equally divine: “But Allah is also just.” With an easy conscience he
let fly, and behold! there was an uncle the more in Paradise.
It was probably some little affair of a similar quality that
constrained a recruit in a regiment stationed at Peshawur to apply for
leave of absence: in order to attend to family matters of importance.
The Colonel knew it was small use refusing the leave, as in that case
his recruit would promptly desert; so he could only ask, how long was
the transaction like to take? It was told him, after consideration,
that, allowing for all possible difficulties and delays, a month would
meet the necessities of the case; and on that understanding he allowed
his man to depart. At the end of the month he reappeared on duty, a
subdued but mellow cheer shining through his wonted impassiveness. His
Colonel ventured to inquire of him, in a general way, if the business
in question were satisfactorily concluded. And he replied: “I got him
from behind a rock.”
There are practical difficulties in the way of the adoption of such
methods at home. We must be content to envy, without imitating, these
free and happy sons of the hills. And yet a few of the old school are
left us still: averse from change, mistrustful of progress, sticking
steadily to the good old-fashioned dagger and bowl. I had a friend who
disposed of a relative every spring. Uncles were his special line—(he
had suffered much from their tribe, having been early left an
orphan)—though he had dabbled in aunts, and in his hot youth, when he
was getting his hand in, he had even dallied with a grand-parent or
two. But it was in uncles he excelled. He possessed (at the beginning
of his career) a large number of these connections, and pursuit of
them, from the mere sordid point of view of _£ s. d.,_ proved
lucrative. But he always protested (and I believed him) that gain with
him was a secondary consideration. It would hardly be in the public
interest to disclose his _modus operandi._ I shall only remark that he
was one of the first to realise the security and immunity afforded the
artist by the conditions of modern London. Hence it happened that he
usually practised in town, but spent his vacations at the country
houses of such relations as were still spared him, where he was always
the life and soul of the place. Unfortunately he is no longer with us,
to assist in the revision of this article: nor was it permitted me to
soothe his last moments. The presiding Sheriff was one of those
new-fangled officials who insist on the exclusion of the public, and he
declined to admit me either in the capacity of a personal connection
or, though I tried my hardest, as the representative of “The National
Observer.” It only remains to be said of my much-tried and still
lamented friend, that he left few relatives to mourn his untimely end.
But our reluctant feet must needs keep step with the imperious march of
Time, and my poor friend’s Art (as himself in later years would
sorrowfully admit) is now almost as extinct as the glass-staining of
old, or “Robbia’s craft so apt and strange”; while our thin-blooded
youth, too nice for the joyous old methods, are content to find
sweetest revenge in severely dropping their relations. This is indeed a
most effective position: it exasperates, while it is unassailable. And
yet there remains a higher course, a nobler task. Not mere forgiveness:
it is simple duty to forgive—even one’s guardians. No young man of
earnest aspirations will be content to stop there. Nay: lead them on,
these lost ones, by the hand; conduct them “generously and gently, and
with linking of the arm”; educate them, eradicate their false ideals,
dispel their foolish prejudices; be to their faults a little blind and
to their virtues very kind: in fine, realise that you have a
mission—that these wretches are not here for nothing. The task will
seem hard at first; but only those who have tried can know how much may
be done by assiduous and kindly effort towards the chastening—ay! the
final redemption even!—of the most hopeless and pig-headed of uncles.