THE COMMISSIONER.
THE bara Sahib had proposed to move on his camp to a distant part of the
district. Mr. Thole’s plans were laid, and he was not a man lightly to
change them. The commissioner’s tents were struck, and put on the backs
of camels; his servants had gone forward in advance with the cooking
utensils—for the great man must have his dinner ready for him on his
arrival at Dhaul. In order to have it ready, chickens would have to be
captured, killed, and cooked, mutton procured, vegetables boiled, curry
prepared, and of course tents pitched for the Sahib’s accommodation.
But plans, however well laid, cannot always be carried out, and troubles
and inconveniences come sometimes even to Commissioner Sahibs.
First appears the dark sais to inform his master that his riding horse
has cast a shoe, and that no one can quickly be found to replace it. The
blacksmith has gone to a wedding.
“If I can’t ride, I can drive,” said the Sahib with a frown. “Order the
buggy [gig] to be got ready at once.”
Accordingly, the buggy-horse is put into harness; but even as John
Gilpin, when on the point of starting, saw “three customers come in” to
detain him, so is the not very patient commissioner detained by three
headmen from three villages, each with a separate petition to make. The
commissioner mutters something not very complimentary to his visitors,
but stands resolutely to listen with as good a grace as he can to
fulsome compliments on his wisdom, justice, and generosity, and then to
expressions of that kind of gratitude which has been well defined as
“expectation of favours to come.” The commissioner is an able man, but
there are two things which he has never quite succeeded in
performing,—to make tedious petitioners study conciseness, and to keep
his own temper under the infliction of their harangues.
At length the three lambardars are dismissed. Mr. Thole gets into his
buggy, and takes the rein into his hand. The pawing horse is on the
point of starting on his journey, when another unforeseen annoyance
occurs. A brown urchin has been pelting with bits of hard mud a large
tree near, to bring down the sour fruit which he sees on its branches.
On that same tree wild bees have been making a kind of nest, larger than
the head of a man. One of the pellets hits the nest, and brings down the
vengeance of its warlike inmates, not on the boy who has disturbed them,
but on the unoffending sais and horse. The air is full of buzzing, and
half-a-dozen bees presume to attack the Commissioner Sahib himself.
Maddened by the pain caused by a hundred stings, the poor horse, with
bees clustering over his nostrils and eyes, rushes forward at speed,
dashes the buggy against the stump of a tree, breaks the harness, and
smashes the wheel.
Such an incident as this may scarcely merit the name of an adventure,
but is fraught, as the writer has seen, with consequences very
unpleasant. The sais, rolling on the ground and yelling, with a black
cap of bees on his head, the horse frantically struggling, the great man
only able to rid himself of his despicable foes by rushing to a small
tank or pond happily at hand, form together a scene of discomfiture and
disaster. At the close of an hour, behold the horse, freed indeed from
his tormentors, but trembling as if with ague; the sais, groaning aloud
in his pain; and the commissioner, with both cheeks swollen to an
unnatural size, and one eye partially closed.
Here comes another man with a paper; making a salám, he presents it to
Mr. Thole.
“Where does this come from?” asks the commissioner with a frown.
“From the Padre Sahib,” is the messenger’s reply.
“Oh! I had enough of these missionaries last evening,” mutters Mr.
Thole; and he is inclined to fling the despatch aside, when the word
“Urgent” on the envelope catches his eye. In no mild mood he tears it
open to glance at the contents, which are written in a clear, even
handwriting, as if to invite perusal. Mr. Thole glances at the signature
at the end, “Robert Hartley,” and sits down on the stump against which
the wheel of his buggy was smashed, to read whilst awaiting the coming
of his riding-horse, for which a smith has at last been found.
Mr. Thole begins to read with that sour expression on his damaged face
which denotes an inclination to dispute or deny whatever may be written
in the paper before him. But, not gradually but almost suddenly, that
expression changes to one of interest, mingled with surprise.
“This _is_ a strange case, a very extraordinary case,” he mutters. “A
locket found in a zenana—a locket the very counterpart of a family
memorial possessed by young Mrs. Hartley, with a legible inscription
too. And part of a child’s sock, marked with initials. This is strong,
decidedly strong corroboration that these rascally natives have really
abducted an English child, Miranda Macfinnis, cousin by the maternal
side of a lady now in Talwandi!” The commissioner rose from his seat;
his national pride was roused. “If this crime can be proved—this offence
against the ruling power—these villanous Hindus shall rue it. The case
must be investigated without delay. Ho! Mir Sahib!” (a servant answers
the call), “send off at once after my servants and tents; call them
back. I must be to-morrow at Talwandi.”
“Talwandi!” exclaims the astonished man.
“I am not accustomed to repeat my orders twice,” is the irritable reply.
It had shown knowledge of the character of the man with whom he had to
deal when Mr. Hartley in his letter had put the case of Premi first; had
he begun with a complaint regarding the violent carrying off of the
Brahmin convert, Mr. Thole would have felt no sympathy, and have put the
case aside for a while, muttering some abuse of missionaries as weak,
meddling, mischievous men. But “What will they say in England?” rose to
Mr. Thole’s mind, to quicken his interest in the romantic story of the
long-lost Miranda. The commissioners indignation was also roused by the
personal attack made on an English youth by the Hindus; he admired the
young man’s courage, while undervaluing the missionary’s zeal.
Talwandi was in a state of great excitement on the following morning
when the news that the Commissioner Sahib had arrived spread like
wild-fire through the town. Thákar Dás naturally connected the great
man’s coming with the attack on the mission bungalow, and the blow
received by Robin Hartley from the hand of one of the chief’s
attendants. Thákar Dás determined utterly to disclaim having had
anything to do with such a breach of the law; he would declare that he
had never approved of violence, that the attack had been made without
his sanction, and even without his knowledge. The Hindu was wily as a
fox; but whilst avoiding the trap, he found himself in an unsuspected
pit.
Numbers of the inhabitants of Talwandi crowded the court, which was held
in a tent. Mr. Hartley and his sons were present, and Kripá Dé in their
midst, the object of fierce, angry invectives from the people, who were
restrained from more violent persecution only by the august presence of
Mr. Thole.
The commissioner opened the sitting in a way utterly unexpected by the
Hindus. It was as if a bomb-shell had fallen amongst them when Mr.
Hartley, coming forward, in a clear voice requested the production in
court of a widow, known by the name of Premi, whom he could prove to be
an Englishwoman, Miranda Macfinnis, detained unlawfully in the fort.
Mr. Thole sternly demanded of the chief, Thákar Dás, whether he knew
anything of such a person.
Thákar Dás was utterly taken aback. At first he stammered forth a flat
denial that such an individual had ever been seen at Talwandi.
“Can any witnesses be produced?” asked the commissioner.
“There are two present,” was Mr. Hartley’s reply: “one, this young
Brahmin, who saw the English child when she was first brought into the
fort, and has had frequent opportunities of conversing with her since;
the other, this lady.” He turned towards Alicia, who with a thick veil
down was standing beside her husband. “Mrs. Hartley has not only seen
the widow more than once, but has heard from her lips a fragment of an
English hymn which could not have been learned from her Hindu
companions.”
“Let this Premi be produced at once,” the commissioner said in a tone of
command.
Then the wily Hindu changed his tactics, showing as little regard for
consistency as he had done for truth. He declared—shedding tears to
confirm his words—that the widow was to him as a daughter; she had been
brought up in purdah; she would die of shame, she would kill herself, if
forced to leave her seclusion.
The commissioner’s only reply to this pathetic appeal was a reiterated
command to produce her. If she were not brought into court, an order to
search the fort would be given.
There were murmurs of anger and looks of indignation amongst the
bystanders, even low threats might be heard; but Mr. Thole was
determined to carry his point, and he did so.
After tedious delay, a form, supported between two old women—for it
seemed almost ready to fall—appeared in the court. The form was so
entirely muffled from head to foot in a large white sheet that its shape
could scarcely be defined. A silence prevailed which was broken by the
commissioner’s voice: “Remove the sheet; the woman must be identified,
or the case cannot proceed.”
Thákar Dás fell on his knees, and flung his turban on the ground in a
passion of distress. Shedding plenteous tears, he exclaimed, “My
daughter! my daughter! she will never survive the shame of being
uncovered before the eyes of strangers. O your highness! O dispenser of
justice! spare me and my house this terrible disgrace.”
The Hartleys felt pity for the humbled chief. Harold stepped forward,
and addressing the commissioner said: “Might it not be sufficient, sir,
for my wife to see and identify this lady?”
“Let Mrs. Hartley ascertain that the person in court, who from her
feebleness appears to be of great age, is really identical with the
young widow in question,” said Mr. Thole.
Alicia approached the drooping figure before her, encountering as she
did so a look of mingled anger and terror from Jai Dé, who was one of
the women acting the part of supporter. Gently the lady drew back a part
of the shrouding sheet, and then started back with an exclamation of
horror. “They have been murdering her!” cried Alicia. The old women,
relaxing their hold, retreated backwards, and the veiled form sank on
the ground.
“Water! bring water!” cried Robin, and he rushed out to procure some.
The sheet was at once and entirely removed from the slight form of the
senseless sufferer. With unutterable indignation the Europeans beheld
the young girl’s bleeding and bruised face, still bearing tokens of
delicate beauty, and the white arms on which the marks of violence
showed how cruelly the fair creature had been treated. Harold, kneeling,
supported poor Premi in his arms, whilst his wife bent over her with all
the tenderness of a sister.
“A European, without the shadow of a doubt!” muttered Mr. Thole with
indignation. “If my poor young countrywoman die, there is some one here
who shall swing for it.”
Perhaps the keenest feeling was shown by Kripá Dé as he gazed on the
ghastly features of the playmate of his childhood and exclaimed, “They
have punished her for saving my life; she is dying for me.”
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