Mrs. Samptor divined rightly. The Collector's first impressions of his
new Assistant were deeply favourable, and they arose partly from the
very point which Mrs. Goldring deemed would prove fatal--the disclosure
of his alleged social disabilities. Mark Cheveril had not been in Madras
for more than three days without hearing remarks concerning his future
chief which would have caused some natures to have assumed from the
outset a defensive attitude. But no sooner had he entered the
Collector's bungalow than he felt drawn to the lonely man, careless in
dress and manner, hardly rising to greet his visitor from the long armed
chair where he lounged, smoking a cheroot, surrounded by two faithful
dogs. In a few moments Mark was occupying a similar chair by his side,
being introduced to his dogs and his cheroots, and feeling completely at
home.
Crotchety, querulous, quarrelsome, Felix Worsley might be, as alleged;
but somehow the young man felt instinctively that whatever his faults of
manner and circumstances, "in him there nothing common was or mean." The
man was a noble English gentleman to the core. Mistakes he might have
made in governing his allotted territory, but they would prove mistakes
of head not of heart. Before his Trichy smouldered in ashes, Mark's
heart had already gone out to his chief with the liking of quick
magnetism meeting a response, and it brought a light into Felix
Worsley's eyes seldom visible there in these later days.
How different, for instance, had been Alfred Rayner's reception of his
avowal of mixed blood from that of the man by whose side he sat, telling
him that his link with the country had already fostered sympathy with
the people of his native land!
"Well, it begins to dawn on me now that I'm very near the end," was the
Collector's slowly enunciated reply. "A downright enthusiast like you is
what we need here. No doubt, Cheveril, I'll often be for your holding
the reins tight, but I'll try to give you as much rope as I can, my boy.
I'm weary and baffled--dead tired of the whole game of life long ago.
But it must go on--even Mrs. Samptor's tea-party."
With that he had risen from his chair, and on the way thither had shared
with the new-comer kindly but illuminating comments on the little
circle, so that when Mark stood on Mrs. Samptor's lawn he seemed to know
them all.
The game of croquet, which he had been playing with Mrs. Samptor as
partner, was triumphantly finished, much to the little lady's
satisfaction; and Mark was now eager to avail himself of his freedom to
listen to the Judge's conversation. This was followed by the
Superintendent's annals of the jail, which he undertook to show him over
one day before long.
"We must get you interested in your nearest surroundings before the
Collector carries you off on tour through his territory," he said, with
a good-natured smile.
"Yes, charity begins at home, as I try to remind the Collector sometimes
when he turns a deaf ear to my petitions for the town," rejoined the
doctor, who stood by his side. He was a short man with broad shoulders,
though hollow-chested, and with an eager face, deep set eyes, and high
cheek-bones--a typical Celt, thought Mark, glancing at him, noting the
air of feverish energy with which he spoke, and contrasting it with
Samptor's Saxon calm.
"I tell you what it is--our Collector is too fond of the far-away bits
of his district, and inclined to belittle his nearest plot--our teeming
town down there."
"Is your work in the town, Dr. Campbell?" asked Mark.
"He does plenty there, anyhow. Morning, noon, and night he's at work
among the Puranapore people," interrupted Mr. Samptor, looking down with
a kindly smile upon the eager little man.
"As District Surgeon my work is ostensibly among the English, but you
see, Mr. Cheveril, what a little flock we have here since they've taken
our regiment away. Of course I'd be delighted to have the chance of
attending this big man here, but he never even sneezes; 'so what I do?'
as the servants say. I try my hand at a little work among the Indians,
and have got a dispensary in the heart of the town."
"Ah, thereby hangs a tale, doesn't it, Dr. Campbell?" broke in Mrs.
Samptor, always with ears alert.
"I'll tell you how it is, Mr. Cheveril, this man spends his time, his
money, and himself in fact, over these ungrateful black creatures. Came
here for an easy post because his health wasn't good, and does more work
than any other doctor on the plains of India!"
"All Mrs. Samptor's embroidery, I hope you understand," said Dr.
Campbell, smiling.
"Well, if it were English folk he was helping I shouldn't so much mind,
but these treacherous, seditious natives, I cannot away with! And there
are such swarms of them, I try to suggest to the doctor that his time
would be well occupied in helping to get rid of scores."
"Hardly a doctor's point of view, Mrs. Samptor! Unfortunately there is
too much of that among the people themselves. The mortality is awful,
even when there is no epidemic or plague, not to speak of their own
feuds, which are decimating at times."
"The balance of power seems always wavering between the Hindus and
Mahomedans in the most curious way," remarked Mr. Meakin, the young
engineer. "Which is uppermost just now? Which is your jail full of at
the present moment, Samptor?"
"That's an official question the jailer may not be disposed to answer,"
said the doctor. "However, I happen to know too well who has the upper
hand--and why"; and the doctor began pulling his black moustache
furiously.
"Come now, Campbell, we must not talk shop with the new Assistant on the
very evening of his arrival," returned Samptor.
"If I thought the Collector would dose him well with it in office hours
I would forbear, but----" The doctor shook his head doubtfully.
"All the same," said the big man with an air of decision. "Our Collector
is a great symbol of authority in countless villages through which he
drives or rides leisurely, smoking his eternal cheroot, halting to
dispense justice with unrivalled sagacity and kindliness. I'm often with
him, so I know. The people worship him, and he has a wonderful
bird's-eye view of the whole region, I assure you"; and the jailer
glanced admiringly at the man he was defending as he strolled along the
lawn, his arm linked in the little Judge's.
"'A bird's-eye view'! Yes, I grant you he may possess that, but he has a
terribly cavalier way of dealing with caste prejudices, for instance.
And you know, Samptor, what a standing grievance that omsque is."
"Ay, well, that perhaps was a pity," said the big man, looking down at
his boots. "But everybody makes a mistake at times," he added, glancing
at the doctor's face, on which a cloud rested.
"The Collector should have known that trouble was bound to come when he
granted a site for that mosque so near the Hindu burning ground. And
now, though the Mussulmans are the intruders, they, forsooth, are
petitioning to have the burning ground removed to another spot.
Infamous plotting, I call it!"
"Yes, there seems to be a good deal of bad feeling between the Hindus
and the Mahomedans just now, I notice," said the engineer.
"Fanned by Zynool and his crew," returned the doctor, with an impatient
gesture. "Can't think how the Collector favours that Mussulman so much.
They have his ear somehow, some say through that clever butler of his.
As for the disturbance the Hindus make with their processions during the
hours of prayer in the mosque, anyone who has listened to a Mahomedan
yelling with a cracked voice. 'Allah eh-eh-eh,' must admit that his
outward forms of worship are quite as disturbing as a tom-tom and the
blowing of the conch."
"Well, doctor, if you had stood at the door of the Mosque as I've done
on duty, and heard the Hindu population out with their goddess
Mariyamina and listened to the howling and tom-toming fit to break the
drum of your ear, and that when the place was filled with Mussulmans at
their prayers during the sacred feast of Ramazan, you would have felt
that they had good reason to complain. Why, though their lips were
moving in prayer, they were itching to be at the throats of the Hindus!
If it had not been for the Collector's courage that day in standing at
the Mosque door all the time the procession was passing, there must have
been bloodshed, and he did that in the interest of the Hindus even more
than for the other side. I can tell you, Campbell, there's many a Hindu
in Puranapore remembers that day and knows what the Collector saved them
from. It would have made a picture to see him as he stood there," ended
the jailer, with a look of admiring recollection in his eyes; and Mark
Cheveril felt as if he, too, had seen that picture.
"Well, they're warming up for riots again down there, sure enough," said
the doctor, shaking his head. "No saying what you may come in for, Mr.
Cheveril. See you keep an open mind, anyhow."
"And don't, like the doctor, be wholly given over to a belief in the
mild Hindus _versus_ the Mussulmans," said Samptor with a laugh, as he
laid his big palm on the doctor's shoulder.
Mark had found the foregoing conversation a little enigmatical. His
hero--born of two hours ago--was not evidently quite without flaw, but
as evidently he was able to inspire many of those nearest him with a
liking and a loyalty which is not always the portion of the ruler of an
Indian territory.
As he walked by his side between the cactus hedges on the darkening road
and listened to his talk, Mark felt that whatever his faults might be,
Felix Worsley, Collector of Puranapore, had become to him already a
fascinating personality.