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HAROLD’S BRIDE
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[Illustration: ALICIA’S ESCAPE.]
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Harold’s Bride
A TALE
BY
A. L. O. E.,
Author of “Driven into Exile,” “Pictures of St. Peter,”
“The Shepherd of Bethlehem,”
“Exiles in Babylon,”
&c. &c.
[Illustration: Decoration]
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
_London, Edinburgh, and New York_
——
1902
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HAROLD’S BRIDE
[Illustration: “Then He _did_ hear me!”]
T. NELSON AND SONS
London, Edinburgh, and New York
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Preface.
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MANY years ago a huge panorama of a vast extent of country was exhibited
in London. Of what country it was memory retains no clear impression;
but I recollect a remark made by the exhibiting artist. Referring to the
tints of some hills pictured in the panorama, he observed, “They ought
to be natural, for I took my materials from the hills themselves.”
The artist’s remark had slight weight, for the fact that he had used
pigments taken from the actual soil was no warrant for the accuracy of
his delineation; but I am reminded of that remark by the circumstances
under which the following tale has been written. It was not penned in
some study in London, nor in some rural home in an English county; the
authoress was living, as it were, surrounded by the materials needed for
her picture. The old missionary came in heated and tired from the daily
round in zenanas to dip her pen and write of a zenana. The materials for
her touches of natural history lay, as it were, at her elbow. She might
feelingly picture little inconveniences which she herself had
experienced.
Such of A. L. O. E.’s readers as are already, from former volumes,
acquainted with the Hartley brothers, may perhaps like to hear how they
fared when they had crossed the ocean, and had entered on the mission
life which they had contemplated from boyhood. It may be that the tale
will be thought suitable for reading aloud at working parties in aid of
missions, and that it may help to give a more vivid idea of life in some
of the more isolated stations in India. But not mere amusement is in
view. A. L. O. E. would fain hope that some enthusiasts, who would
undertake the work of carrying the gospel to the heathen more in a
spirit of romance than that of earnest self-consecration, may be led by
her book to reflect on what a solemn thing it is to be “allowed of God
to be put in trust with the gospel” (1 Thess. ii. 4). Some maiden, ere
linking her lot to that of a missionary, may be induced to consider the
responsibility attending the position of an evangelist’s wife. Something
far more onerous is before her than the pleasant duty of making a
cheerful home for a good man; she must share the burden, she must aid in
the labour, or she is likely to prove a hindrance instead of a helpmeet.
By some women, even amiable ones, this responsibility is almost ignored;
but by being ignored it is not avoided. May some lesson be learned from
the little weaknesses and mistakes of
HAROLD’S BRIDE.
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Contents.
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I. HOUSE-BUILDING, 11
II. AN EXOTIC, 21
III. HAPPY DAYS, 26
IV. INDIAN TRAVELLING, 33
V. FIRST IMPRESSIONS, 42
VI. LITTLE FOES, 52
VII. DIGGING DEEP, 62
VIII. FIRST VISIT TO A ZENANA, 71
IX. TRY AGAIN, 81
X. MARRIAGE AND WIDOWHOOD, 95
XI. WHAT A SONG DID, 107
XII. A STARTLING SUSPICION, 116
XIII. OUT IN CAMP, 132
XIV. THE BLACK CHARM, 143
XV. A STRUGGLE, 161
XVI. WATER! WATER! 170
XVII. THE COMMISSIONER, 182
XVIII. WAITING TIME, 191
XIX. THE WHITE BROTHER, 206
XX. THE WELCOME RAIN 212
XXI. A LETTER FOR HOME, 219
XXII. YOKED TWAIN AND TWAIN, 223
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HAROLD’S BRIDE.
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CHAPTER I
HOUSE-BUILDING.
“WHAT’S this?—not a coolie at work; the place a litter of bricks and
dust; the pillars of the veranda not a foot high! Instead of growing
upwards, they seem to grow downwards, like lighted candles. The bricks
also are good for nothing—chipped, broken, katcha [only sun-dried], when
I gave strict orders for pakka [baked]. Cannot a fellow be absent for a
week without finding everything neglected, everything at a
standstill?—Nabi Bakhsh! Nabi Bakhsh!”
The call was rather angrily given, and was obeyed by a dusky, bearded
man in a large dirty turban, who made an obsequious salám to Robin
Hartley, after emerging from some corner where this overseer of the
building works had been placidly smoking his hookah.
“What has become of the coolies? have they all gone to sleep?” cried
young Hartley, in Urdu more fluent than correct. “The work seems at a
deadlock, and you promised that I should find the veranda finished by my
return. Do you think that we are to pay you for merely looking at
rubbish like this?” Robin struck one of the bricks with his heel, and
broke it to pieces.
The excuses of Nabi Bakhsh need not be detailed,—how there had been a
religious feast, and of course the men could not work; then the
grandmother of Karim had died, and of course every one had gone to the
funeral.
“I believe that she was the fourth grandmother that has died!” exclaimed
Robin, half angrily, yet half playfully, for his wrath seldom lasted for
more than a minute. “Feasts, fasts, and funerals, delays and excuses,
one coolie doing nothing and another helping him to do it,—it’s hard to
get work finished in India. But call the men now, and let them make up
for lost time. My brother and the Mem [lady] will be here in a few days,
and what will they say to a mass of confusion like this?”
Nabi Bakhsh went off to call the workmen. Robin, though just off a
twenty-miles walk, pulled off his jacket, and set to work himself with
all the vigour which youth, health, and light spirits can give. The
youth talked to himself as he laboured, being fond of soliloquizing when
no one was near with whom to converse.
“Only a month to build a house in, and only one thousand rupees [less
than a hundred pounds] with which to pay for bricks, mortar, and work!
It’s well that the place is a small one; but big or small it won’t be
ready for Harold’s bride. It’s hard on a delicately-nurtured young lady
to be brought to such a bungalow as ours—two bed-rooms, one
sitting-room, and a place for lumber, with three missionaries to share
with her the limited accommodation. Besides, Alicia has no end of
luggage. I cannot imagine where we shall stow it away. I suppose that
Harold was right in marrying so soon—dear old fellow, he’s always
right—but I cannot help wishing that Colonel Graham had not been
starting for England till April, so that his daughter’s wedding could
have been delayed till we had some corner to put her up in.”
Robin paused, wiped his heated brow, and looked up at the tiny house on
which he had expended a great deal of personal labour, as well as that
of urging on the coolies and bricklayers, who, whenever his back was
turned, would sit down for a smoke. Robin had with his own hands made
all the doors, inserting in each the four panes of glass which made it
serve as a window. Robin had constructed the wooden eye-lids, as he
called them, to keep off the sun from the roshandáns (upper windows),
which to a novice standing outside might give the false impression that
the bungalow had an upper story. Robin had trampled down into something
like solidity the layer of mud on the roof, which was intended to
moderate heat and keep out rain. Tiles and slates were things unknown at
Talwandi. The youth was a little proud of his work, yet, as he looked up
at the uncompleted dwelling, an expression of doubt, almost of
dissatisfaction, came over Robin’s bright young face.
“Bricks and mud have no natural affinity to beauty,” he said, “not even
to picturesqueness. As for comfort, even if we could get the veranda up
and the mats down, the place would be too damp to be lived in. Poor
Alicia must be content to squeeze herself into our nutshell—father and I
in one room, she in the other, whilst the one sitting-room, backed, or
rather fronted, by the veranda, must serve as drawing-room, dining-room,
study, reception and school room, and whatever else be required. Well,
happily we are not likely to quarrel any more than do double kernels in
one nut.”
Robin glanced down the dusty road, bordered with ragged cactus, which
led to the small native town of Talwandi, which was the head-quarters of
this branch of the mission. A town it was with some dignity of its own,
as it boasted not only two little mosques with domes, and a big Hindu
temple with stumpy spire, but one house of some height and pretensions,
domineering over some hundreds of low houses built of mud.
“I wish that father would come home,” said Robin to himself. “But he did
not expect to have me back so soon, with the appetite of half-a-dozen
jackals. Father had ordered nothing for himself but dál [a kind of dried
pease] and chapatties [flat baked cakes of flour]; but I wanted better
fare. As soon as I arrived I pronounced the death-warrant on the fattest
hen in the compound, so there will be something fit for dinner.” Robin
resumed his work, still soliloquizing. “Dear father is not fit to have
charge of his own comfort; he is always thinking about people’s souls,
and has little regard for bodies. Harold and I had agreed together never
to leave him without a son beside him, for thirty years of hard work are
telling upon him; but how could we help being absent on such an occasion
as this? Father himself would not hear of my not attending Harold’s
wedding, and Harold—” Robin interrupted himself in the midst of his
sentence with the exclamation, “Here’s father at last!”
Mr. Hartley was coming along the cactus-bordered way, a heavy bag in one
hand, an open umbrella held up by the other, and a thick hat made of
pith on his head. The missionary was pale, thin, and somewhat bent, with
many a line on his face; but his mild countenance lighted up with
pleasure as he caught sight of his son. Robin flung down his mattock,
and bounding forward the youth greeted his parent with a most
unconventional hug, which was as warmly though more quietly returned.
Robin’s impetuous affection was more that of the child than that of a
youth with down on his lip. It had often been said that Robin, with his
rough curly head, his joyous spirit, and his absolute freedom from
guile, would never, should he live to a patriarch’s age, be anything
more than a boy.
Whilst, laughing and chatting, Robin is accompanying his father into the
little house, the position of the Hartley family at the time when my
story begins may be briefly described. The circle consisted of the
veteran missionary and his two sons. Harold, the elder, on receiving
deacons’ orders, had started to join his father on the mission-field in
the Panjab. Robin, who was several years younger than his brother, had
accompanied Harold, as the youth himself said, “as a kind of general
helper, a Jack-of-all-trades—carpenter, blacksmith, builder, tailor,
cobbler, and what not besides;” an unpaid but valuable servant to the
mission. In vain the lad had been urged to complete his education in
college. Robin perhaps under-estimated his own powers as a student. He
compared himself to a rough knotted branch that might do well enough for
a bludgeon, but could by no skill be shaped and planed into a library
table. He would be a stick in Harold’s hand, and perhaps help him over
rough bits of the road, or assist him to knock down some difficulty in
his way. Mr. Hartley made no objection to Robin’s plans, for he yearned
to have both his sons under his roof; and Harold secretly rejoiced that
his own advice had not been taken, and that he should not be obliged to
leave behind him a brother whom he would so greatly have missed.
After about a year of earnest preparatory work at Talwandi, Harold had
gone to the city of Lahore to pass a double examination—that which
mission-agents must undergo, and that which precedes admission into
priests’ orders. Both examinations had been passed by the young
clergyman with the highest credit. The effect of Harold’s success was
immediately seen in his being urgently pressed to act as temporary
chaplain to a large English congregation during the very severe illness
of him to whom the office belonged. Harold had hesitated about accepting
the post, being unwilling, even for a few weeks, to give up his own
missionary work; but he knew that for those few weeks’ service he would
be handsomely paid by Government, and money was urgently needed to start
a school at Talwandi. “Not one piece shall be appropriated to my own
use,” Harold had reflected. “My time belongs to the mission; but in
procuring help for the school I may be serving my society even more
effectually than by my personal efforts.” So Harold consented to act as
chaplain.
The Rev. Mr. Cunningham’s illness lasted longer than had been expected;
the weeks were prolonged into months. During this period Harold’s
clerical duties brought him into close and friendly intercourse with
those over whose spiritual interests he had temporary charge. The young
missionary was welcomed almost everywhere, but specially in the house of
Colonel Graham, an officer on the point of retiring from the Indian
service. The colonel had a fair daughter, and Harold, at first almost
unconsciously, found that his visits to Graham Lodge were rendering his
residence in the city to him very delightful. There is no need to
describe how these visits became more frequent, and how Harold
increasingly felt that life would be a blank without Alicia. The young
maiden, on her part, thought that she saw in Harold Hartley everything
required to make her future life perfectly happy. Alicia, under a
playful manner, had deep religious convictions. She loved Harold chiefly
because she thought him the highest type of a Christian whom she ever
had met with. His sermons refreshed her soul, and seemed to lift her
into a higher, purer atmosphere than that which she had hitherto
breathed. Alicia was not a worldly girl. She felt that she would rather
share the humblest lot with Harold than rank and wealth with any one
else.
Mr. Hartley and Robin were not a little startled one day by a letter
from Harold asking his fathers consent to his suing for the hand of
Alicia Graham. He had, as he wrote, already made the lady fully aware
that his means were slender. Her father knew his position; there had
been no concealment of his circumstances, no attempt to hide the fact
that not only toil but something of hardship might be a part of
missionary life. Miss Graham had said that she feared neither toil nor
hardship.
“I think that Harold must have done the wooing already,” observed Robin,
“before asking your consent to the suing.”
There was something like a smile on the lad’s lips as he spoke, but
nothing of the usual mirth in his eyes. Robin was taken by surprise. He
had never contemplated Harold’s seeking a wife. Perhaps there was a
touch of pain in the idea of any one standing in a closer, dearer
relationship to his almost worshipped brother than he did himself. But
Robin’s frank, generous nature was not one to harbour mean jealousy.
“Because I was satisfied with his companionship, there was no reason to
suppose that Harold would be satisfied with mine,” thought Robin. “I
ought to rejoice that a true-hearted girl values my brother as he ought
to be valued.”
Mr. Hartley did not speak for several minutes. As was usual with him,
any emotion that stirred him deeply took the form of silent prayer. He
then slowly reread Harold’s letter, pausing at every sentence as if to
weigh its meaning. The old missionary then folded his thin hands, and
said, rather as if speaking to himself than addressing Robin,—
“If He who chose Rebekah for His servant Isaac, and made her willing to
share his tent, have chosen this maiden for my son, the union must and
will be blessed.”
So the suing followed the wooing, and both being successful, the
engagement was duly announced to the world. An early day was fixed for
the wedding, on account of Colonel Graham’s approaching departure. Mr.
Hartley and Robin were, of course, requested to be present at the
marriage. The elder missionary not only was unwilling to leave his
station without a worker, but he felt his own strength and spirits
unequal to such a sudden plunge into society after years of seclusion.
Robin, he said, should be his representative upon the joyful occasion.
The weeks that passed before Robin went to Lahore were very busy ones
indeed to the youth. It was evident that a separate residence would be
absolutely needful for Harold and his bride. Colonel Graham had given a
cheque of £100 as a small contribution to the building fund, little
thinking how far the trifling sum would be made to go. Mr. Hartley was
generous almost to a fault, and at this time had left himself with
scarcely a rupee in hand. The first weight of the pecuniary difficulty
fell upon Robin, who worked early and late, but who could not, with all
his energy, make one rupee do the work of five. Robin, however, worked
cheerily, and marvels were performed as long as he remained on the spot;
but his absence, as we have seen, caused a sudden suspension of labour.
The young amateur architect returned to find that nothing whatever had
been accomplished while he had been away, except in the way of a blunder
or two, the effects of which he would have to repair.
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