WHAT A SONG DID.
HAROLD came in late to breakfast on the following morning. He was not
unaccompanied, for his hand was resting on the shoulder of Kripá Dé.
Whilst the young Kashmiri looked pale and excited, his missionary
friend’s face wore an expression of thoughtful satisfaction which told
of prayers granted and efforts crowned with success.
“We have a guest to share our breakfast to-day, Alicia,” he said; “so
prepare for him a place and a welcome.—Robin, I am sure that you will
make room for our new brother, both at the board and in your heart.
Kripá Dé has asked to be baptized, and comes to-day to take the
preliminary step of breaking his caste by eating for the first time with
Christians.”
Mr. Hartley, who had long watched the gradual growth of conviction in
the mind of the young Brahmin, held out his hand to the convert. “God
bless you, my son,” he said; “the day will never come in which you will
repent having cast in your lot with the followers of Christ.”
Robin heartily embraced the Kashmiri; and Alicia, obeying a glance from
Harold, held out to Kripá Dé her small fair hand. The youth kissed it
with timid reverence, and then shyly took his place at the table beside
Robin Hartley.
The English reader can hardly estimate the significance of so simple an
act. The first spoonful of suji which the convert ate at a Christian’s
table was to him a passing of the Rubicon, a renunciation of all that he
had looked upon as the high privileges of his birth; it was a cutting
himself off from home and family, a taking up of the cross, the sign of
suffering and shame.
“Kripá Dé will remain here to-day,” observed Harold, “and at night will
sleep on the roof, for we must keep him concealed. After his baptism,
which will take place early to-morrow, he must depart at once for Lahore
till the first burst of the storm is over. When once it is known in the
fort that Kripá Dé has taken the decisive step of baptism, it will be
hardly safe for him to remain at Talwandi.”
“But Kripá Dé is of an age at which the law lets him choose his own
religion,” said Robin.
“True, he would not be given up in a court of law, but his age would not
protect him from the violence of a mob in a remote corner of a district.
Kripá Dé’s baptism is sure to cause great excitement amongst the
Hindus.—Until that excitement subside,” continued Harold, addressing
himself to his wife, “you will have, I fear, to suspend your visits to
the fort.”
“Give up my only zenana!” exclaimed Alicia, “and just when I have become
so much interested in one of its inmates, and have learned ‘Joyful,
joyful!’ in Urdu, on purpose to give her comfort!”
“The poor little widow could hardly receive comfort from that Christian
hymn,” observed Harold. “If her present existence be like one in a
prison, over the future to her hangs a heavy curtain of darkness.”
“I might lift it, just a little,” said Alicia, “to let one little ray
come in.”
“To-morrow the news of a baptism will probably cause the door to be
closed against you.”
“Then let me go to-day,” cried Alicia with animation, rising from her
seat as she spoke. “I must, I really must, see that sweet fair young
Kashmiri again.”
“Let her go, Harold, let my brave little sister go!” exclaimed Robin.
Kripá Dé had been watching the discussion with eager eyes, as if he
could drink in its import through them. Harold briefly explained to him
the lady’s wishes, and asked him whether she could safely visit the
zenana.
“To-day, not to-morrow,” was the reply; “no one in the fort knows that I
am here.”
“But if the women should question you?” said Harold in English,
addressing himself to his wife.
“I am not a bit bound to answer them, even if I could do so,” said
Alicia playfully; “for my conversational powers in Urdu will not carry
me far into any dangerous subject. I do not know the words for
_conversion, baptism_, or _breaking caste_. If the women ask me a
thousand questions, talking together after _their_ fashion, I shall
merely look puzzled after _my_ fashion, and get out of any difficulty by
beginning to sing.”
“Let her go!” repeated Robin, laughing. “I only wish that I were small
enough to be packed into her bag, that I might see the fun.”
Harold, after consulting his father, gave a rather reluctant consent.
Utterly fearless regarding himself, he was anxious regarding his wife.
Alicia again, armed with her bag of books, her fan, and her
white-covered umbrella, took her seat in her doli, and started for the
fort. She really ran but little risk of annoyance, for, as Kripá Dé had
said, his relatives did not know whither he had gone. The Kashmiri’s
determination to declare himself openly a Christian was as yet a secret
known but to himself and the Hartleys. It would not be at once noised
abroad in Talwandi that he had broken his caste; for Mangal, a
Mohammedan, and faithful to his salt, was the only native aware of the
fact.
Alicia proceeded towards the fort without anything occurring to cause
her the slightest alarm. She saw in the narrow streets the people
engaged in their usual occupations. The mochi glanced up for a moment as
the doli was carried along, then went on with his delicate work of
making slippers adorned with thread of gold. The clang of the
blacksmith’s hammer was not interrupted, and the sweetmeat-seller,
behind his little pile of metai, looked as unconcerned as if the passing
of a doli were a thing too ordinary to be noticed. Alicia, to her
comfort, saw no sign of any approaching tempest; nor did the lady meet
with any inconvenience save from the troops of thin, overladen donkeys
which sometimes obstructed the way, notwithstanding the loud warning
“Bach!” (Save thyself!) with which the kahars tried to clear a passage
for the doli.
The fort was soon reached. There, also, the first feeling of curiosity
had passed away. A smaller crowd of dirty, bare-footed children greeted
Alicia with loud, shrill cries of “Mem! Mem!” and when the upper terrace
was reached, only two or three bibis made their appearance. To Alicia’s
disappointment Premi was not amongst them. So little interest was shown
in the lady, that Alicia resolved not to visit a zenana again on
consecutive days. The bibis’ stock of questions had been exhausted, half
of them had been misunderstood or unanswered; the white lady’s dress was
the same which she had worn on preceding days, and she was not likely to
have anything to communicate but what the Hindus did not care to hear.
Sometimes disappointment is experienced by workers when the hearers who
crowded round them on their first appearance dwindle away as visits are
repeated.
“How different is zenana-visiting from what I had pictured it to be!”
thought Alicia, as she saw the women eagerly examining some new purchase
which had cost a few coppers, as if it were an object of interest too
absorbing to leave any room for care about the soul. “I feel as if I
were trying with a small penknife to carve a statue out of granite. It
seems hopeless to try to make an impression. Is it possible to make
these poor heathen think of anything beyond the trifles of the day?”
Alicia showed a few pictures to the children, who were somewhat more
attentive than their elders, and she tried to betray no impatience when
little brown fingers, just taken from a mouth half-stuffed with metai
(sweets), scrabbled dirty marks on her book.
Then Alicia bethought herself of her new song—_that_ might help her to
gain some attention. Clear rose her voice in the translation of “Here we
suffer grief and pain,” in which the cheerful tone of the melody belies
the sadness of the first line. But when Alicia had begun the well-known
refrain, which was, of course, in Urdu, to her astonishment a clear
“Joyful, joyful, joyful!” in unmistakable English, rang from the upper
roof. Alicia, startled, raised her eyes, and saw for a moment, clear
against the blue sky, the unveiled head of Premi in the act of eager
listening. A most un-Oriental flush was on her cheeks, a bright but
bewildered expression in her eyes, as if she listened to some song from
dreamland and joined in it by some irresistible impulse. In a moment the
voice was silent, the head withdrawn, and Alicia remained gazing
upwards, listening and wondering, asking herself whether both her senses
could have at once deceived her. Then she turned to the nearest Hindu,
who chanced to be Darobti, standing with her fat little boy on her hip.
“Does Premi know English?” asked Alicia eagerly.
Darobti at first did not appear to hear the question, nor to understand
it when she did hear. When Alicia had repeated her inquiry five or six
times, it only elicited the reply, “Premi knows nothing; Premi grinds
corn.” Saying this, Darobti turned away, and sauntered off to another
part of the building.
Was it to teach that song to the children that Alicia sang it again and
again, until little lips began to catch the refrain? If such were her
only object, why were the Englishwoman’s eyes so constantly wandering
from her auditors in the direction of that lofty terraced roof? Alicia
sang in English as well as Urdu. She lingered in the fort longer than
she would otherwise have done, in hopes of catching a sight of Premi’s
face, with the rosy blush upon it. Alicia was disappointed in her hope,
and at last quitted the gallery over the court, where she had now no
auditors but the children. As she descended the dark staircase, Alicia
almost expected to hear Premi’s step behind her. As Harold’s wife was
crossing the inner court-yard she again paused to look up and listen for
that “Joyful, joyful!” from above. She heard only the laugh of the
children and the snort of a buffalo in the outer yard.
All the way back to the bungalow Alicia could think of nothing but the
incident which had occurred. She was so eager to tell of it that it was
a real disappointment to her to find nobody in the veranda, and the
bungalow empty. It is one of the trials of the first year of mission
life to feel idle when others are busy, lonely because companions are
out at work. There is the uncomfortable sensation of being like a drone
in the hive. The remedy is study of the language; but Alicia felt too
unsettled and impatient to sit down to grammar, and struggle with
strange idioms and incomprehensible combinations of verbs. She sat
fanning herself, glancing up at the clock every two minutes, and wishing
for Harold’s return. The striking of that clock—for Robin had succeeded
in setting it going—was the first thing to rouse Alicia from her dreamy,
indolent mood.
“It would be far better if, instead of wasting my time thus, I spent
more of it on my knees,” thought Alicia. “A baptism is to take place
to-morrow, the first baptism in Talwandi, and I have never yet in my
private prayers remembered the youth over whom my Harold is rejoicing
with trembling. I have not prayed earnestly, and as one who believes in
the power of prayer, for poor Premi. I am neglecting one of the best
means of helping those who toil in the mission field, whilst grieving
that I can do in it next to nothing. I am thinking what I may accomplish
when I can speak to natives in their Urdu tongue, and care too little to
pour out to God my hearts desires in my own. Lord, forgive my selfish
neglect, and shed on Thy feeble child more of the spirit of prayer,
specially of intercessory prayer!”
The tediousness of Alicia’s waiting-time was over; one by one there rose
before her mind the names of those for whom she ought to plead. Not only
did she pray for her nearest and dearest—they had not been forgotten in
her early prayer—but for servants, kahars, all who came within reach of
her own or her husband’s influence. With Kripá Dé’s name came that of
his youthful widowed sister; then Alicia pleaded for the poor ignorant
bibis of Talwandi, and the little ignorant children. Harold’s young wife
was surprised to find how large a circle might be enclosed by the prayer
of one who was but standing, as it were, at the open gate of the
harvest-field which she as yet felt herself scarcely worthy to enter.
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