They had gathered all the schools into the Mission House compound, and
set them out in companies on the bare ground like seedlings in a
bed,--a perfect garden of girls, from five to fifteen, arrayed in
rainbow hues; some of them in their wedding dresses of scarlet, most of
them bedecked with the family jewelry, and even the shabbiest boasting
a row or two of tinsel on bodice or veil.
And down the walks, drawn with mathematical accuracy between these
hotbeds of learning, a few English ladies with eager, kindly faces,
trotting up and down, conferring excitedly with portly native Christian
Bible-women, and pausing occasionally to encourage some young offshoot
of the Tree of Knowledge--uncertain either of its own roots or of the
soil it grew in--by directing its attention to the tables set out with
toys which stood under a group of date-palms and oranges. Behind these
tables sat in a semicircle more of those eager, kindly foreign faces,
not confined here to one sex, but in fair proportion male and female;
yet, bearded like the pard or feminine to a fault, all with the same
expression, the same universal kindly benevolence towards the
horticultural exhibition spread out before their eyes.
At the table, pale or flushed with sheer good feeling, two or three of
the chief Mission ladies, and between them, with a mundane, married
look about her, contrasting strongly with her surroundings, the
Commissioner's wife, about to give away the prizes. A kindly face also,
despite its half-bewildered look, as one after another of the seedlings
comes up to receive the reward of merit. One after another solemnly,
for dotted here and there behind the screen of walls and bushes squats
many a critical mother, determined that her particular plant shall
receive its fair share of watering, or cease to be part of the harvest
necessary for a good report. The Commissioner's wife has half-a-dozen
children of her own, and prides herself on understanding them; but
these bairns are a race apart. She neither comprehends them, nor the
fluent, scholastic Hindustani with which her flushed, excited
countrywomen introduce each claimant to her notice. Still she smiles,
and says, "_Bohut uchcha_" (very good), and nods as if she did. In a
vague way she is relieved when the books are finished and she begins
upon the dolls. There is something familiar and cosmopolitan in the
gloating desire of the large dark eyes, and the possessive clutch of
the small hands over the treasure.
"Standard I. Mussumat[27] Kirpo," reads out the secretary, and a tall
girl of about fifteen comes forward. A sort of annoyed surprise passes
among the ladies in quick whispers. Clearly, a Japanese baby-doll with
a large bald head is not the correct thing here; but it is so
difficult, so almost impossible with hundreds of girls who attend
school so irregularly, and really Julia Smith might have explained!
This the lady in question proceeds to do almost tearfully, until she is
cut short by superior decision.
"Well, we must give it her now as there isn't anything else for her.
So, dear Mrs. Gordon, if you please! Of course, as a rule, we always
draw the line about dolls when a girl is married. Sometimes it seems a
little hard, for they are so small, you know; still it is best to have
a rule; all these tiny trifles help to emphasise our views on the
child-marriage question. But if you will be kind enough in this
case--just to avoid confusion--we will rectify the mistake to-morrow."
Mussumat Kirpo took her doll stolidly;--a sickly, stupid-looking girl,
limping as she walked dully, stolidly back to her place.
"_Ari!_" giggled the women behind the bushes. "That's all she is likely
to get in that way. Lo! they made a bad bargain in brides in Gungo's
house, and no mistake. But 'twas ill luck, not ill management; for they
tell me Kirpo was straight and sound when she was betrothed. May the
gods keep my daughters-in-law healthy and handsome."
Then they forgot the joke in tender delight over more suitable gifts to
the others; and so the great day passed to its ending.
"I do believe poor Kirpo's getting that doll was the only
_contretemps_," said the superintendent triumphantly, "and that, dear
Julia, you can easily remedy to-morrow, so don't fret about it."
With this intention Julia Smith went down at the first opportunity to
her school in the slums of the city. A general air of slackness
pervaded the upstairs room, where only a row of little mites sat
whispering to each other, while their mistress, full of yawns and
stretchings, talked over the events of yesterday with her monitor.
Briefly, if the Miss-_sahib_ thought she was going to slave as she had
done for the past year for a paltry eight yards of _sussi_-trousering,
which would not be enough to cut into the "fassen "--why, the
Miss-_sahib_ was mistaken. And then with the well-known footfall on the
stairs came smiles and flattery. But Kirpo was not at school. Why
should she be, seeing that she was a paper-pupil and the prize giving
was over? If the Miss-_sahib_ wanted to see her, she had better go
round to Gungo's house in the heart of the Hindu quarter. So Julia
Smith set off again to thread her way through the byeways, till she
reached the mud steps and closed door which belonged to Kuniya, the
head-man of the comb-makers. This ownership had much to do with the
English lady's patience in regard to Kirpo who, to tell truth, had been
learning the alphabet for five years. But the girl's father-in-law was
a man of influence, and Julia's gentle, proselytising eyes cast glances
of longing on every house where she had not as yet found entrance.
Hence her reluctance to quarrel definitely with her pupil, or rather
her pupil's belongings, since poor Kirpo did not count for much in that
bustling Hindu household. But for the fact that she was useful at the
trade and as a general drudge, _Mai_ Gungo would long ago have found
some excuse for sending the girl, who had so wofully disappointed all
expectations, back to her people,--those people who had taken the
wedding gifts and given a half-crippled, half-silly bride in exchange.
Unparalleled effrontery and wickedness, to be avenged on the only head
within reach.
"She wants none of your dolls or your books," shrilled _Mai_ Gungo, who
was in a bad temper; "they aren't worth anything, and I expected
nothing less than a suit of clothes, or a new veil at least, else would
I never have sent her from the comb-making to waste her time. Lo!
Miss-_sahib_," here the voice changed to a whine, "we are poor folk,
and she costs to feed--she who will never do her duty as a wife. Yet
must not Kuniya's son remain sonless; thus is there the expense of
another wife in the future."
So the complaints went on, while Kirpo, in full hearing, sat filing
away at the combs without a flicker of expression on her face.
But when Julia had settled the business with eight annas from her
private pocket, and was once more picking her way through the
drain-like alley, she heard limping steps behind her. It was Kirpo and
the Japanese doll.
"The Miss-_sahib_ has forgotten it," she said stolidly. Julia Smith
stood in the sunlight, utterly unmindful of a turgid stream of
concentrated filth which at that moment came sweeping along the
gutter. Her gentle, womanly eyes saw something she recognised in the
child-like, yet unchild-like face looking into hers.
"Would you like to keep it, dear?" she asked gently. Kirpo nodded her
head.
"She needn't know," she explained. "I could keep it in the cow-shed,
and they will sell the book you left for me. They would sell this too.
That is why I brought it back."
This admixture of cunning rather dashed poor Julia's pity; but in the
end Kirpo went back to her work with the Japanese doll carefully
concealed in her veil, and for the next year Julia Smith never caught
sight of it again. Things went on as if it had not been in that
straggling Hindu house, with its big courtyard and dark slips of rooms.
Perhaps Kirpo got up at night to play with it; perhaps she never played
with it at all, but, having wrapped it in a napkin and buried it away
somewhere, was content in its possession like the man with his one
talent; for this miserliness belongs, as a rule, to those who have few
things, not many. Once or twice, when Julia Smith found the
opportunity, she would ask after the doll's welfare. Then Kirpo would
nod her head mysteriously; but this was not often, for, by degrees,
Julia's visits to the house and Kirpo's to the schools became less
frequent. The former, because _Mai_ Gungo's claims grew intolerable,
and the Mission lady had found firm footing in less rapacious houses.
The latter, because to _Mai_ Gungo's somewhat grudging relief her
daughter-in-law, after nearly four years of married life, seemed
disposed to save the family from the expense of another bride by
presenting it with a child. Nothing, of course, could alter the fact of
the girl's ugliness and stupidity and lameness; still, if she did her
duty in this one point _Mai_ Gungo could put up with her, especially as
she really did very well at the combs. She was not worked quite so hard
now, since that might affect the future promise. Perhaps this gave
Kirpo more time to play with the Japanese doll, perhaps it did not.
Outwardly, at any rate, life went on in the courtyard as though no such
thing existed.
"She may die, the crippled ones often do," said the gossips, scarcely
lowering their voices; "but it will be a great saving, _Mai_ Gungo, if
the grandson comes without another daughter-in-law; they quarrel so.
Besides, it is in God's hands. May He preserve both to you." _Mai_
Gungo echoed the wish, with the reservation that if the whole wish was
impossible, the child at least might not suffer. Kirpo herself
understood the position perfectly, and felt dimly that if she could do
her duty she would be quite content to give up the comb-making once and
for all. It was niggly, cramping work to sit with your crippled legs
tucked under you, filing away at the hard wood all day long, while
mother-in-law bustled about, scolding away in her shrill voice. It had
been much greater fun at the school; and as for the prize-giving days!
Kirpo had four of those red-letter glimpses of the world to recollect,
but she always gave the palm of pleasure to the last, when they had
laughed at her and the Japanese doll. Perhaps because she remembered it
best; for, as has been said, poor Kirpo's was not a brilliant
intellect.
So just about the time when the Mission House was once more buying
large consignments of dolls and books, and laying in yards on yards of
_sussi_-trousering and Manchester veiling against another prize-giving,
the mistress of the little school-room up two pair of stairs said to
Julia Smith,
"Kirpo had a son last week. _Mai_ Gungo hath given offerings galore."
"And Kirpo herself?"
"She ails, they say; but that is likely. The hour of danger is over."
That same afternoon Julia Smith once more picked her way along the
gutters to the mud steps and closed door of Kuniya's house. Kirpo was
lying alone on a bed in the shadow of a grass thatch.
"And where is the baby?" asked Julia, cheerfully.
"Mother-in-law hath it. 'Tis a son--doubtless the Miss hath heard so."
There was the oddest mixture of pride and regret in the girl's dull
face.
"She will let thee have it when thou art stronger," said her visitor
quickly. "Thou must give me back the dolly, Kirpo, now thou hast a live
one of thine own."
The girl's head shifted uneasily on the hard pillow.
"Ay! and the prize-giving day must be close, I have been thinking. If
the Miss-_sahib_ will look behind the straw yonder she will find the
doll. It is not hurt. And the Miss can give it to some one else. I
don't want it any more. She might give it to a little girl this time.
She could play with it."
"_Mai_ Gungo!" said Julia severely, as, on her way out, she found the
mother-in-law surrounded by her gossips, exhibiting the baby to them
with great pride, "you must look to Kirpo; she thrives not. And give
her the baby--she pines after it."
"The Miss doth not understand," flounced Gungo. "What can Kirpo do with
a baby? She is a fool; besides, a mother like that hath evil influences
till the time of purification hath passed."
Ten days afterwards the mistress of the school told Julia that Kirpo
had the fever, and they did not think she would recover. It was never
safe for such as she to have sons, and nothing else was to be expected.
Perhaps it was not; for Julia found her on the bare ground of the
courtyard where she had been set to die. The oil lamps flared smokily
at her head and her feet, and _Mai_ Gungo, with the fortnight-old baby
in her arms, cried "_Ram! Ram!_" lustily. But the girl lingered in
life, turning her head restlessly from side to side on Mother Earth's
bosom.
"Give her the baby--only for a minute," pleaded Julia with tears in her
eyes. _Mai_ Gungo frowned; but a neighbour broke in hastily--
"Ay! give it to her, gossip, lest in her evil ways she returns for it
when she is dead."
So they laid the baby beside her; but the restless head went on turning
restlessly from side to side.
"My doll! my doll! I like my doll best."
Before they could fetch it from the Mission compound Kirpo was dead.
"LONDON."
The rains had fallen late, bringing unusual greenness to the stretches
of waste-land, and unusual promise of harvest to the bare, brown fields
where man and beast were hard at work, day and night, ploughing,
harrowing, sowing, watering. Waiting--that integral part of Indian
husbandry--had yet to come, but the memory, almost the dread of it,
lurked ever in the slow brains of the labourers. In mine also, alien
and uninterested though it was; for surely no one who has seen a Jat
cultivator, tall, meagre, soft eyed, wandering amongst his green wheat,
waiting for Ram to send rain, can ever forget the incarnate tragedy of
the sight.
The sun was setting cloudless in a sea of light, that still flooded the
scene with the brightness of noon, though the shadows lengthened in
swift strides. I was sitting on a wide flight of steps leading down
into a small tank closed in on all sides by masonry. Viewed thus, with
the mass of brick work surrounding it, this square of placid water
reflecting back the lemon-coloured sky, the fringe of dull _farash_
trees, and the gilded spires of the temple rising above them, showed
like a small Dutch picture set in a heavy, deep-recessed frame. On the
opposite side a woman in a saffron veil was filling her brass pot, and
on the trumpery stucco arcades of the temple-plinth were painted blue
elephants, gingerbread tigers, and spidery monkeys. Round and round the
central spire the iridescent breasts of the whirling pigeons glinted in
the level rays.
It was peaceful, colourful, almost in its way beautiful, especially
after a long day's work in the office tent which rose a few hundred
yards away. Suddenly the clear-cut silence of the scene was marred by a
deprecatory voice behind me.
"The Presence will not think it so fine as '_Ide Park_, doubtless?"
"So fine as what?" I echoed carelessly, being accustomed to the
thousand and one interruptions of a district officer's life.
"So fine as your '_Ide Par-k_ in the town of London."
"Hyde Park!--why! what the deuce do you know of Hyde Park?"
Intense surprise had replaced my indifference, for there was nothing to
account for the strangeness of his words either in the face or figure
of the man who stood behind me leaning on a long staff over which
his hands were crossed. It was just such a face and figure as I saw
every day. A typical Jat--in other words, a farmer by race and
heritage--tall, high-shouldered, lank, with a bushy-shaped turban
adding to his height, and straight folds of heavy, unbleached cotton
cloth suggesting the lean, bony frame beneath. A face well cut, but not
refined, marked, but not strong, in which the most noticeable features
were the large dreamy eyes like those of Botticelli's Moses in the
Sistine Chapel.
Immovable from the knee downwards he squatted, as the Americans say,
"in his tracks," keeping his submissive face towards mine like a dog
awaiting his master's pleasure.
"By the mercy of the Presence I have seen 'Ide Park. Yes, I have been
there--in the city of London--where the _sahibs_ and the _mem-sahibs_
sit and walk."
A vision of the figure before me planted out amongst flower-decked
mashers and powdery belles aroused such a sense of incongruity in my
mind that I could only echo feebly--
"So you have been to London!"
"Yes!" he replied cheerfully, "I've been to London to see the great
Queen."
For the life of me I could not help reverting to the sequence of
childish days: "_Pussy cat, pussy cat, what saw you there?_" and his
reply fitted in so neatly that my query lost its lightness and became
serious.
"I saw the _Sikattar_ (secretary) who sits in her chair."
I laughed then; I could not help it, for I felt convinced that no other
words could have expressed the whole incident more truthfully.
"I went to London, O Protector of the Poor!" continued the stranger
softly, "because I wanted, to get back the land. The Presence knows we
Jats cannot live without our land."
Involuntarily his eyes turned to a neighbouring field, where a couple
of plough bullocks were slowly scoring the levels into feeble furrows,
whilst the ploughman--just such a man as the one before me--held his
hookah in one hand, his goad in the other.
"So you did not get the land after all? How was that?" God knows I was
not always so ready of access to the native (as the departmental
pastorals put it), but then one does not meet a Jat who has been to
Hyde Park every day.
"Perhaps if it had not been a _Sikattar_," replied the low soft
voice--"perhaps if it had been the great Queen herself--" Here the
plough bullocks he was watching turned too sharply, and his hand closed
mechanically on the stick he held between his knees, as if he were
responsible for the mistake. "If the Presence has not heard it all
before, I will tell it why Dewa Ram the Jat went to London."
I give the story in his own words, for mine might fail to transmit the
perfection of his patience.
"The land was my father's, and my father's father from Mahratta times.
In those days no one could sell the land or prevent the sons from
following the father's plough. To begin with, no one wanted to sell
good land, and then they could not if they would. That was before the
great Sirkar--life and prosperity be with it always--came to lift the
hearts of the poor and set their heads high. There was much land, and
on some of it in olden days a mortgage had been put. The Presence will
know the kind of mortgage, where for a hundred rupees or so of loan
another man is allowed to till the soil worth thousands. Only if it is
wanted back, then the owner returns the hundred rupees. That is all. It
is done when a family is small and has too much land to till properly.
So the village accountant's people held the land because they were
relations by marriage. It was in my father's time that the great Sirkar
came, and we began paying the dues to it instead of to the Maharajah.
Then, when my father fell into evil ways because of drugs, my mother
took her sons--we were twins, Sewa Ram and I--if the Presence pleases,
back to her people far away beyond Amritsar. For she was of a high,
proud family, and when the hemp gets into a man's head he does unclean
things. So my father was alone, and the accountant made him do as he
liked, bribing him with drugs. That was how it happened, as the
Presence will doubtless perceive. So when my father neglected his own
land, the accountant's people cultivated it for him and gave him what
was due. My mother heard of this, but she said nothing, because we were
but little lads, and the land could not run away--it was better that it
should be tilled than left to rack and ruin. At last my father died,
but they sent no word to Amritsar, because the great Sirkar was coming
to count the village, and make a map of it with all the holdings of the
proper shape, and all the fields coloured green. If the Protector of
the Poor will forgive his dust-like slave, he will remember that fields
are not green always, and so likewise the holdings are not always
right, no matter how carefully they are put on the map. There was the
old mortgage, a man who lied tilling the soil, and no one to come to
the Sirkar and say, 'Here is the hundred rupees, give us back the land
and write it in our names,' because, as I have said, Sewa Ram and I
were away beyond Amritsar, and our mother thought the land could not
run away. It was no wonder the Sirkar was deceived, no wonder at all,
but when we came to claim the land even our names were not on the list.
They had written the wrong thing because the mortgage had been
foreclosed, and there were no heirs. After this one judge--may he
become the _Lat Sahib_--said he would put it right, but the accountant
was rich and made it into an appeal. The Presence knows what an appeal
is, doubtless, and how, when a little thing like this--just a mistake
in a map--gets up amongst the pleaders and the _Sikattars_, it is
sometimes too small for them to see. It would have been different if
the Sirkar had seen two big noisy boys when it counted the village.
Then Sewa Ram was set free from the prison of life, and I was alone;
for the Presence knows a Jat cannot marry without land, or have sons
when there is no plough to keep the furrow of existence straight. So I
sold my mother's jewels and went to show the great Queen herself that
my father really had a son. Thus I came to 'Ide Park in London city,
and saw the _Sikattar_."
"Then you did not succeed?"
"The Presence knows that the _vizier_ is not as the _badshah_. He was
very kind, sending me back by ship P. and O. And writing! God knows how
many letters he wrote, and he bade me wait. That is two years gone, so
I am waiting still."
"Have you a case in my Court?"
He shook his head with a certain pride. "Oh no! it is in the big Court,
or with the Financial, or a _Sikattar_ just now; but it will come to
the Presence sooner or later. That is why I journey with the Protector
of the Poor. When that day comes the Presence will remember how Dewa
Ram the Jat went to 'Ide Park."
As I strolled back to the tent he followed at a discreet distance.
Afterwards, as I sat smoking outside, I saw him wandering in the fields
listlessly, his tall figure standing out against the sky as he paused
to look at the sprouting wheat. When I questioned my underlings as to
his story, they smiled obsequiously, as the native will smile before
the master's face. The case, it appeared, had grown to be quite a
standing joke in the office, nor was this the first cold weather that
Dewa Ram had haunted the camp of the Deputy Commissioner and waited for
news of his land. They hemmed and hawed, however, over the rights and
wrongs of his claim, until I asked them point blank what their own
impressions were; then habit gave way to truth, and they frankly
declared their belief in some miscarriage of justice. A man, they said,
would not go all the way to London for nothing. As I inclined to the
same view, I took the trouble to try working the oracle by the back
stairs--a method no less successful in India than elsewhere. Replies,
more or less hopeful as to some ultimate settlement of the question,
came from various friends in high places. Some of these I communicated,
in a guarded way, to "London," who as the sowing time passed fell a
victim to fever and deferred hope. It was impossible for mortal man to
see those dreamy eyes of his watching the crops of other men without
feeling an insane desire to bring the promised land within his reach.
He was very grateful. So condescending a Presence, he said, had never
before dwelt in the tents of the great Sirkar; and often on Sunday
afternoons, when the camp was at rest, he would steal ostentatiously to
a spot about thirty yards from where I was sitting, and if opportunity
offered, enter into conversation--generally beginning by some
apologetic allusion to 'Ide Park, but ending with a vast amount of
information. He was a perfect mine of folk-lore, and many a half hour
did he beguile by old-world stories and traditions. One, in particular,
I will retail in his own words, because it seems to me to give insight
into the nature of the man and of his race.
I had been having my Sunday cup of afternoon tea in the shade of a huge
banian tree, and was idly amusing myself by throwing crumbs to a
bright-eyed, bushy-tailed palm squirrel, that had crept down the trunk
not two yards from me. Attracted, partly by hunger, but more by the
sheer light-hearted cussedness which makes the Indian squirrel so
charming a companion, the little creature came nearer and nearer, its
tail in an aggressive pluff, its large eyes scanning my face knowingly.
A pause, a dart, and it was chirruping on the branch above my head with
the crumb in its deft fingers.
"The Presence is a friend of Ram's," said "London" deferentially, "that
is why the heart of the Presence is so soft."
"And why do you say I am a friend of Ram's?" I asked.
"Because the Presence is a friend to Ram's friend. Has the _Huzoor_
never heard how the squirrel people come to have four black marks on
their golden backs? Then I will tell. It was in the old days when Ram's
parents fastened the silken bracelet on his wrist, and sent him out to
find Seeta his wife. The Presence will have heard of that, and how each
year our women folk tie the _ram rukkhi_ to our wrists for luck. Well,
when Ram, the King of all men, came to Sanderip, he found the great
Monkey had carried off Seeta the Queen of women. Then, being in
distress, he bid all the birds and beasts and fishes come to help him,
for great Ram was the Lord of the whole earth. Now the first to answer
his call was the squirrel. In those days it was all golden, like corn
in the sunlight, and light-hearted beyond all mortal things, as it is
now. It leapt on to Ram's sword and cried, 'Master! I am ready.' But
the great god's eyes grew soft as he saw the little thing's slender
beauty, and perceived that it had the bravest heart of all his
creatures. So he laid his hand on it in blessing, saying softly--
"'Nay! tender little warrior! thou art too pretty for strife and death.
Live on, brave and careless for ever, so that weary men may see the
beauty of the life great Ram has given.'
"But, lo! when he raised his hand the squirrel's shining coat bore the
shadow of Ram's tired fingers, for even golden life is dimmed by the
touch of care."
This and many another tale he told to me, while the green pigeons
bustled about in the branches, and the squirrels lay yawning amongst
the mango flowers. For the winter had flown, the camping season was
at an end, and still "London" was waiting. He never complained; only
when rain fell, or when there was a heavy dew, or a good winnowing
wind,--anything, in short, calculated to gladden the heart of a
farmer,--he used to talk of 'Ide Park, and bewail the fact that
_Sikattar sahibs_ had penetrated even there. The hot weather passed, as
usual, in a stagnation of mind and body more or less modified by
individual energy, and during it "London" paid me but occasional
visits, and was fairly cheerful. No sooner, however, did the stir of
coming cultivation begin again in the high, unirrigated soils, than he
followed suit with a growing restlessness. And still no answer came.
Just then a small piece of Government land,--that is to say, land in
which no cultivator had a vested interest,--fell vacant in a village
not far from "London's" ancestral home, and I bethought me of putting
him in as tenant if I could. But it is no easy task to find soil to
cultivate in India, since farms are not "to be let" as they are in
England, and the State, though in reality owner, has no power to turn
out one man or his heirs in favour of another, or in any way to
manipulate the holdings of hereditary cultivators. Why, knowing this,
it could have delegated the power to the money lender, in giving the
right of alienation by sale or mortgage to the cultivator, is one of
those abstruse mysteries over the elucidation of which volumes have
been and are still to be written. A mystery, moreover, which is
responsible for half the growing poverty of those whose patient labour
is the bulwark of the State.
The particular village in which I hoped to find a more or less
temporary outlet for poor "London's" hereditary instinct--which made
the sight of a plough have much the same effect on him as a clutch of
eggs has on a broody hen--had earned an unenviable notoriety from the
number of mutineers it produced in the '57. Nearly one-half of the land
had come under direct Government control by confiscation, and as the
country settled down, had been leased, at fixed rentals, to the loyal
families, or in many cases to the heirs of the dead offenders.
One of these, the son of a notorious mutineer, had just died childless,
and it was into his place that I determined, if possible, to put
"London." The case "Dewa Ram _versus_ the Empress and others" had come
back to me for the third time, with a request for further inquiry and
evidence. There was none to give, for in a country where birth and
marriage certificates are unknown quantities, and registers of all
kinds are inaccurate, legal proof of a case like "London's" is almost
impossible. As he himself invariably said, it was no wonder the Sirkar
had been deceived by the foreclosed mortgage, and the lying man who
tilled the soil, joined to the newly-invented theory that the peasant
proprietor had a right to alienate the ancestral property of his
descendants. So, with the prospect of another cold weather camp before
me, I felt an almost morbid desire to get rid of "London," and those
patient eyes that seemed to me as if they were ever on the look-out for
the promised land.
I was told afterwards by my superiors, in set terms, that my behaviour
was illegal and indiscreet, and that I should have gone round the
mutinous crew one by one, giving them the option of leasing the land,
before offering it to any one else, above all, before putting in a man
whose claim to other ground was "in course of settlement." I believe my
superiors to have been quite right theoretically, and I know that,
practically, my philanthropic experiment proved a disastrous failure.
Not a week after "London," glowing with gratitude, set out for the
village in which his new holding was situated, he was brought back to
the hospital on a stretcher with a broken arm and several clouts on the
head. Indeed, I have always felt it to be the crowning mercy of my
career, that no one was actually killed in the free fight which ensued
on my protege's arrival in the mutineers' village; for he had some
friends, stalwart as himself, and the Jats, once aroused from their
usual calm placidity, fight like devils with their long quarterstaves.
On this occasion they gave the truculent crew as good as they got,
until overpowered by numbers. When the incident occurred I was in a
very out of the way part of the district, and I well remember having to
send a special messenger thirty miles with an urgent telegram in order
to allay still more urgent inquiries as to the "serious agrarian riot
in B----."
When I returned to head-quarters I found "London" convalescent and
distinctly cheerful. He was sitting on the hospital steps whittling a
new staff, and expressed his determination of going back to the village
as soon as possible with a larger supply of friends. I felt
constrained, however, to deny him his revenge. To begin with, my
official reputation could not have stood another agrarian riot; in
addition, the mutineering village had appealed against my action "_en
masse_," so the matter had passed beyond my control. "London" was
sorrowful, but sympathetic, seeming to enjoy the idea that I too might
become a prey to _Sikattars_ ere long. He took great pride in his
broken arm and new stick, and more than once suggested that if the
great Queen only knew how he had clouted the heads of the misbegotten,
unfaithful devils, she might believe that his father had indeed left a
son.
After this I made several attempts to bring a plough handle within
"London's" reach, but my philanthropy was guarded, and my efforts
uniformly unsuccessful. Once, a small atom of land on which I had my
eye was taken up by a newly-made Municipal Committee as a public
institute. It was Jubilee year, and various things of the kind were
being started. When I saw this particular one last, a stuffed
crocodile, two spinning wheels, some tussar silk cocoons, and a
specimen card of aniline dyes, occupied what they were pleased to call
the Industrial Department. In the reading room opposite an interesting
collection of seditious journalism lay on the table, and a chromo of
the "Kaiser-i-Hind" hung over the fireplace.
Then once again, when I thought I had found a resting-place for those
dreamy eyes, the Military Department stepped between hope and fruition
with a stout Subadar-major who had done the State good service.
Finally, sick leave--the end of so many kindly plans and hopes for
those who, living amongst the peasantry learn to admire them as they
deserve to be admired--came to put an end to all my plans for "London."
He bore the tidings with gentle regret. The Presence, he said, had not
been well for some time; It would be the better of seeing 'Ide Park
again, and perhaps as It was to be away so long--a whole year he was
told--there would be a chance of seeing not only the _Sikattar_, but
the great Queen herself.
"And if," he continued, standing up and leaning on his staff as I had
first seen him, whilst his eyes followed the ploughing for yet another
harvest,--"and if the Presence is so fortunate, perhaps It might find
time to remember that Dewa Ram the Jat is waiting for his land."
The reason for my writing this absolutely true experience is one of
those distressing inconsistencies which are part and parcel of poor
humanity. One might have thought the facts sufficient to excuse a
resort to pen, ink, and paper on the part of one really interested in
that peasant life of which the rulers and governors know so little. But
it needed an unreality, a mere feverish fancy to supply the motive
power.
I was in Hyde Park yesterday at the close of a bright afternoon. No
need to describe what I saw. To those who live in London the scene is
as familiar as their own faces, while those who do not, have at their
disposal a thousand descriptions far better than any I could give. An
unusually thick sprinkling of clerical attire among the crowd testified
to the attraction of missionary meetings when combined with London at
its best. Indeed, as I had come down Piccadilly the vast number of
sandwich men advertising lectures, meetings, and addresses on every
conceivable subject, struck me as favourable evidence of the growing
intelligence and sympathy of the many for things beyond the daily round
of English life.
I sat down, and being a comparative stranger, amused myself, as many
have done before me, in listening to the scraps of conversation which
fell from the lips of the passers by--the flotsam-jetsam left by the
stream of humanity; and as usual my initial curiosity and interest died
down before the growing perception of some strange likeness underlying
all the atoms of thought and speech.
Slowly, uncertainly, as the confused tints of a child's magic lantern
focus into some horrid monster, or as the ebbing tide discloses the
drowned face of a victim, the half-heard assertions, denials,
protestations of the pleasure-seeking crowd, gave up their individual
form and colour, and were lost in the one unchangeable, indestructible
characteristic of humanity--its selfishness. On every face an interest,
a smile, a frown, a thought; below these, the one source of all.
Inevitable, no doubt, but depressing in the masks are men and women
claiming to be the cream of culture and civilisation. I wondered if,
when the best was said and done, the art of widening our vitality by
our sympathies had made much progress.
A stir in the crowd, a murmur, a look of expectation roused me from
idle moralisings. A couple of outriders in red came down the drive, and
people paused to look.
"By Jove! it's the Queen herself," said some one hurriedly, as a
brougham drove past giving a glimpse from behind closed windows of grey
hair and a widow's cap. The murmur swelled to a roar, almost a cheer.
Every hat was off, and some country cousins stood up in their chairs in
order to see better.
Now, what followed will, I know, be set down to the attack of Indian
fever which some ten minutes afterwards sent me home to shiver in bed.
Nevertheless, I am prepared to swear that there, amongst the
flower-decked mashers and the powdery belles, I saw the tall, gaunt
form of "London" leaning on his quarterstaff. The gentle, deprecatory
smile I had so often seen when he spoke of 'Ide Park was on his face,
as if he knew the incongruity of his own appearance in such a scene.
His eyes were not on the modest carriage in which the _Kaiser-i-Hind_
was being partially displayed to her faithful subjects. They were fixed
on me! On me, the tape-tied, sealing-waxed representative of a paternal
despotism in India. The myriad tongues resumed their civilised
shibboliths, but above them came a well-known cadence, "And if the
Presence is so fortunate, perhaps it might find time to remember that
Dewa Ram the Jat is waiting for his land."
As I said before, I went home to bed. What else could I do? Perhaps if
other people could have seen what I saw, Dewa Ram and his kind would
not be so often in difficulties about their land.