"Thus we drive you forth, O daughter!Come not back, but send a brother."
"Thus we drive you forth, O daughter!Come not back, but send a brother."
Swift and silent as they had come, they made their way back to the village, leaving the dead baby alone, unwatched. For a while the night was still; then soft pattering feet crept round Nihâli, and fierce eyes glared on her from the bushes; but Death held her in his arms secure, and fear was over forever.
"Hist!" cried the retreating women, as the sobbing wail of the jackal, beginning with a faint whine, rose louder and louder, till each bush and brake seemed to give a voice to swell the horrid chorus.
They waited listening.
"Now may the omen be good!" said one.
"The dawn will show," replied the grandmother, calmly. "I will wait here; go you home to bed."
But when the rising sun brought sufficient light to see withal, her eager eyes could find no certain indication on which to build either hope or fear. Marks there were, and plenty, showing where the beasts had fought, but no broad track of dragging, either away from or towards the village, conveying Nihâli's last message to her friends.
Had she gone over the edge of the world seeking for the long-sought son? Or had she come back to haunt the hearth with her unwelcome presence? Who could tell?
"Everything goes wrong nowadays," muttered the discontented old woman. "Even the omens fail! 'Tis all the fault of the great Queen and her new-fangled notions."
The next three months brought Gunesh Chund many an uneasy hour. Even when, driven to bay by his mother's entreaties to allow her to look for a new wife, he confessed his promise to wait a year, he gained no respite from her reproaches, but rather enhanced their venom by her contempt for his weakness. What was he, to set himself above the wisdom of his fathers? What was the reading-writing woman, that she should run counter to the traditions which held the first duty of a Hindu wife was to be that of bringing a son to the hearth? He had no answer save a dull consciousness that somehow he was not quite as his fathers. They, for instance, had calmly acquiesced in such customs as the exposure of the dead child to the jackals; while, despite his familiarity with the idea, its practice had filled him with aversion. Honest as he was by nature, he never regretted the deceit which sent Veru, after she recovered from the illness following on the shock of Nihâli's death, to cool a little grave[3]by the burning-ground with her tears and offerings.
"'Twill only make her ill again to know what thou hast done," he had said to his mother, with a decision new to him. "Silence will be the wisest for thee also, since in this I am on her side."
As for the casting out of the demon which had hurried on the inevitable end, Veru always maintained to her mother-in-law that it partook of the nature of murder; but with her usual shrewdness she exonerated Gunesh Chund from blame. For this he was grateful, though his mind was by no means made up as to the rights and wrongs of the question.
From this and many another problem he took refuge in the fields. The fierce dry winds of summer blew with scorching heat, bringing with them the necessity for a ceaseless watering of the crops. Many and many a silent, peaceful hour he spent in the forked seat behind the oxen, half asleep, half awake; while the well-wheel circled round he circled round the wheel, and the great world circled round beyond him. Whether it span swift or slow he knew not and he cared not.
Many an hour, too, he spent resting, smoking and talking, under the shade of the one big mulberry-tree, while the greybeards wheezed out their mouldy proverbs, and the lads listened with their mouths full of the overripe dead-sweet fruit. A kindly, honest crew; mayhap not far above the circling bullocks in mind or ambitions, but for the most part without an ungenerous thought or unfriendly wish.
Or he would take his pipe down to the villagedharmsala, where strangers found a lodging and the inhabitants a debating club; but here the goad of Fate hit keenly at times when the talk fell on the coming settlement, and Kishnu's people would condole with him in covert sneers. For Gunesh Chund had been accustomed, ever since his father died, to have the first and last word in that assembly of elders, and even his gentle self-depreciation could not fail to feel a certain loss of authority. One night, after Kishnu's husband, his own cousin, backed by some friends, had openly derided his opinion, and talked big about changes in the future, Gunesh sat on longer than was his wont among the elder men. They had been his father's friends, and he turned to them instinctively for support. Yet as they sat, solemnly crouched up on the high wooden bench which filled the rudely carved veranda from end to end, no voice came from the darkness where they showed grey and shadowy in their white drapery; almost formless, save when every now and again a more vigorous pull at a pipe fanned the embers in it to a glow, which lit up the lean, high-featured faces and wrinkled hands.
And Gunesh, too, remained silent and perturbed, knowing well what was in their thoughts. It was a relief when the hubble-bubble of the pipes dropped into insignificance before a speech summoned up by neighbourly nods and nudges. It came from the patriarch, whose palsied hand shook as he stretched it forward.
"Listen, O Guneshwa, thelumberdar. Thy grandfather and I played together as boys in the house of my father and his. But his father was thelumberdar, and mine but an elder. If the seed of strife springs in the village, whose task is it to root it out? Answer me, ye who hear me!"
A murmur of approbation ran round the assembly, whereat the patriarch went on in a louder key.
"If there be young, untutored cattle in the herd, whose duty is it to see they do not gore the old? Answer ye who hear me!"
But Gunesh Chund, knowing of old the length to which this system of exhortation could be extended, broke in quickly:
"Granted that 'tis my task, wouldst thou have me root out mine own family?"
"Nay!" retorted the elder, laughing in proud anticipation of his own joke, "I would have thee plant some more of the same stock.--Is it not so, my brothers?"
This time a wheezy chuckle of assent came from the darkness, followed by a fresh voice:
"A man without a son hath one life; a man rejoicing in a son hath two."
Then another took up the parable.
"Aye! and four hands to boot, wherewith to root out weeds."
"The hundredfold wheat hath more stems than one," quoth a third.
"And a toddling child can drive bullocks," put in a fourth.
So in solemn adage ran the talk, with many a weighty pause, and many a self-complacent wag of the head when the ball of ancient wit had been successfully passed to the next neighbour.
Accustomed as he was to this style of reasoning, each remark was a fresh tap driving the nail of conviction into Gunesh Chund's slow brain. As he stood on the roof that night, whence he could see the horizon strike the sky in one unbroken circle, a keen desire to live as his fathers had lived excluded all other thoughts. Here was his world; here lay his duty.
"Thou canst choose a wife for me if thou wiliest," he said sheepishly to his mother, when, in the early dawn, he found her already at work, while Veru lay abed with some ache or pain.
"O my son! O Guneshwa!" cried the old woman, flinging her arms around his neck with unwonted tenderness, and with tears of joy in her bright old eyes. "I will find thee a pearl and paragon. With a skin wheat-coloured, and--"
"Nay, mother," interrupted the big man, still more sheepishly, "an' she please thee, and have a soft tongue, that is all I care for. And, mother, say no word to Veru yet. There is time; and mayhap thou wilt not find a wife soon."
His mother laughed scornfully.
"Not find one to marry thelumberdar!such a fine, straight man as thou art, Guneshwa. Why, they will come in crowds! Nay, be not so modest; that is the girl's part, not the man's. Nevertheless, as thou sayst, 'tis time enough to tell Veru when all things are settled. There is but one woman needed in a marriage."
If some rankling doubt as to the honesty of his silence lingered in Gunesh Chund's mind, it vanished quickly before the personal peace which his decision brought to the household.
Perhaps Veru might have wondered at the lull which thereinafter fell over the combat, but that she herself was absorbed in a new hope of victory, and thought it possible that her keen-eyed mother-in-law might, in like manner, be preparing for defeat.
So the time of truce passed on; until one day, almost before Gunesh had realized his own capitulation, his mother informed him that a bride had been found.
"So soon!" he exclaimed, dismally. "O mother, take care! Sure the choice of a plough-bullock would take me longer."
"Then 'tis time to tell Veru," was his only remark, when the beauties, virtues, and charms of the young lady were dinned into his ears. Whereupon his mother, with much inward contempt at his scruples, told him curtly that she had purposely chosen a bride from a far country, so that he need say nothing, since nothing would be known by others, until the festivities began.
"I will tell her before then," he said, relieved; but somehow the days passed by, leaving behind them the silence that they found.
Meanwhile Veru wearied Heaven with prayers and penances till she grew thin and pale--given to fits of hysteria and tears, yet with a triumphant look in her eyes as she listened to her mother-in-law's constant allusions to her ill-health, with which the old lady bolstered up Gunesh Chund's failing resolution. All three were too much occupied with their own thoughts and secrets to notice anything unusual in the bearing of the others; or if they did notice it, naturally put the change down to vague suspicions, and so held their own counsel more firmly.
The crops were fast turning russet and gold under the glare of sunlight succeeding to the monsoon rains, when Gunesh Chund said good-bye to his household for ten days, and rode by winding village ways to the broad white road that carried Western civilization, in the shape of a post-bag, through the district. Veru, clothed in madder and indigo, stood on the roof to watch him out of sight; loath to lose him, and regretting that she had not risked her secret ere he left. How much more would she have regretted it had she known that her husband's destination lay far beyond his usual bourne, the Central Revenue Office, and that his bundle contained all things necessary for the interchange of presents with a new bride! Meanwhile her mother-in-law, stolidly at work below, wondered how any woman could be so immodest as to show grief at a husband's departure. And Gunesh Chund, riding between serried ranks of feather-topped maize and swelling bosses of millet, thought of the coming harvest. In a way, each and all were looking forward with eager desire to reaping what they had sown; as if life held any other fate for humanity!
That same afternoon, Veru, unwilling to relax any of her efforts because of her hopes, set off to worship a snake which frequented an old ant-hill at the farther end of the village common. The day had been one of extreme heat, and a yellow dust-haze hung over everything. Dust above, below, around her; only the ant-hill, furrowed by long-past rains into rugged pinnacles, rising clear and distinct. She was a timid woman, unused to roaming so far, and she looked fearfully around, dreading lest from one of the dark holes piercing the mound a hooded head might rear itself and speak to her. Such things had been, she knew; for beneath the veneer of unbelief the old superstitions held her in thrall.
Hastily, yet carefully, lest evil should befall from any lack of ceremony, she ranged her sugar-cakes, hung up her chaplet of flowers, and sprinkled the milk she had brought in a little brass pot with a lavish hand; it left dark, ominous-looking stains on the white dust.
Glad to escape from such weird surroundings, yet feeling the need of rest, she drew aside among the wild caper-bushes, and sat down, wiping the beads of perspiration from her forehead with the corner of her veil. It felt quite hot against the damp skin, cooled by the fierce, dry wind that even in this sheltered spot drove the dust along in swirls. She drew her veil over her head and sat still as a statue, in the curiously drooping attitude which to Western eyes suggests absorbing grief; but Veru's mind was full of a great joy, which gained no little sweetness from the thought of revenge. Yet as she dreamed far away into the years, a spreading fold of her veil, caught in a caper-thorn, seemed pointing to something that glistened among the roots behind her. Veru, rising to go, stooped to disengage herself, and saw--a baby's bracelet! The next instant, with a shrill, high-pitched shriek of rage, she set off running towards the village. Her mind, slow enough to take in novel ideas, needed no prompting here. It was little Nihâli's bracelet, and the explanation of this fact followed as a matter of course. The dead child had been exposed as an augury;but what had the verdict been?Strange as it may seem, that thought came uppermost. Doubtless, had the truth been told her in the first freshness of bereavement, when the soft touch of the little hands and the clinging of the lips were more than a memory, indignation and horror at the outrage on her child might have overcome her curiosity. At any rate, the desire to pose as an advanced woman would have induced her to conceal it. But months had passed, bringing a new hope, to ensure which her inherited instincts would gladly have sacrificed more than adeadgirl. Indeed, the wish for some such augury had more than once invaded her, and lo! the sign had been given, and she knew nothing of it. That it had been favourable she assumed, believing that otherwise her mother-in-law would have hastened to make it known. Unheard-of spite and cruelty!--but if it were the climax, it should also be an end to tyranny. Trembling with excitement and the uneducated woman's desire for words, she ran forward panting and breathless, with little cries of anger and grief, until she sank down exhausted with the unwonted exertion and her own emotions. When she arose again, it was with greater calmness but more resentment.
Her mother-in-law was toasting the new-made dough-cakes by the fire, when, after many pauses, Veru reached home. Wearied out, she leaned against the door-jamb for support ere commencing the fray, and looked at the elder woman with sombre, menacing eyes. The latter paid no attention, but went on tossing aside the heat-blistered cakes, and placing others upright in the embers till they blew out like bladders.
Suddenly Veru raised her hand; something gleaming flew through the air, and the dead baby's bracelet fell at her enemy's feet and rolled among the ashes.
"The jackals have sent thee a present, grandmother."
The old woman looked at it, startled; then sprang up and faced her adversary in fiercest indignation.
"What hast thou done, fool? Bringing the curse of girls back to the earth! The wild beasts were more merciful than thou art, for they gave no sign; and see, where the bread is baking thou hast thrown the augury. O Guneshwa! O my son! would that thou wert here to see this witch casting her spells to bring barrenness to the bride thou art wooing! But no matter; the old mother will avert them; so bring home thy bride, Guneshwa! bring home the virtuous Kirpa Devi, daughter of Kirpo Ram of Badrewallah!"
Veru, struck dumb by the possible consequences of her own act, as revealed to her in her mother-in-law's unforeseen reproach, felt the whole world turn round as the old woman, roused out of caution, let loose her secret and her tongue without reserve.
"It is not true! it is not true! Guneshwa would never deceive me so!" was all the poor creature found to say against the torrent of words and facts.
"Not true!" echoed the other, remorselessly. "Come hither, and see if it be not true that a wedding is nigh."
Seizing Veru by the wrist, she dragged her across the court-yard, flung open the store-room door, which was kept jealously locked against all intrusion, and pointed to a row of handkerchief-covered basket-trays, ranged in order on the ground.
"Behold!" she cried, jeeringly, as she lifted the covering from one, displaying a pile of cheap tinsel-decked garments, such as are made to fill up the measure of more solid wedding presents. "Guneshwa's mother is not so careless as his wife. Here is everything needful, and yonder is the pile of dates whence he took the offering that went with him to-day. Stay--thou canst read! Put thy scholarship to some use for once, and see if it be not true."
But Veru did not take the letters thrust at her; the shock was too great, following on her excitement and utter weariness. She swayed as she stood, and with a cry of "O Guneshwa, bring the dates back! bring them back!" she fell in a heap among the baskets.
In the dawn of the next day, her mother-in-law, as she lay down to snatch a little sleep while one of her cronies watched by Veru's bed, told herself that the house was cursed indeed! Who would have dreamed of the gods bringing such hopes to Veru? Who would have thought of her concealing them even for a day? And what a heritage of evil she would leave behind her if she died now! Nihâli's augury was bad enough, but what chance would there be for the new wife if the ghost of an expectant mother haunted the house?
Veru must not die--should not die; so the old woman nursed her tenderly, and strove in her rough way to bring comfort to the mind stricken by mad jealousy and resentment.
"Iwilldie," was the only response; "I will die and become a ghost![4]I will! I will!"
"Hearken, O Veru," replied her mother-in-law at last, "thy dying will not harm any one, for if thou diest ere Guneshwa returns, I swear he shall never know a word, neither of thy hopes nor of thy fears! It shall be silence, silence forever, and who fears a ghost he knows not of? Answer me that!"
And Veru, gripped in the stern old woman's greater strength, could only turn her face to the wall sullenly.
"Hast thou no message for Guneshwa?" asked the watcher at the last, as Veru lay sinking.
"None--that--thou--wouldst--give," came the reply, with a strange smile that remained on the lips even after death.
"Now, thank God, neither Guneshwa nor his bride need know aught of this!" thought the old lady, as they streaked the corpse with many a weird ceremony and precaution.
The moon shone brightly as Gunesh Chund rode through the village common on his homeward way. There was scarcely a track to be seen on the hard, white ground, where the sparse bushes close at hand lay like shadows here and there, but in the distance blended themselves into a grey line against the lighter sky. No visible track, yet thelumberdar'spony picked its way unerringly, true as the needle, towards the manger awaiting it; instinct or habit supplying the place of reason. Its rider could boast of no such contented certainty. Something--what, he would have been puzzled to say--had made the path of custom seem doubtful, without supplying him with a new or clearer road. And, overlying the dull sense of discomfort, was a distinct remorse for the deceit to which his honest if sluggish soul was quite a stranger. The memory of his promise troubled him, although he quite acknowledged that apudmuni, or ideal Hindu wife, would never have claimed its fulfilment.
Suddenly his pony started and swerved, throwing him forward in his shovel stirrups.
In his efforts to keep in his seat the cause seemed to be the sudden appearance of a veiled woman, beckoning with outstretched hands; but when he could give a calmer look, the difference in position caused by his pony's advance showed him that it was but the dead trunk of a tree. With a sign of relief he gave the animal a dig in the sides.
"'Tis thinking so much of women-folk does it," he said to himself. "I weary for the ploughing and peace."
A sense of well-being came over him at the familiar sights and sounds, as he neared the village. Even the dogs barking in chorus at the pony's echoing steps seemed to him a welcome, and the house, quiet and dark though it was, a haven of rest after the hustle and bustle of his rapid excursion into an unknown world. The door of the inner court was closed, for he was not expected till dawn, and he stood for an instant beside it, listening. All was still as death, and with another sigh of relief he stumbled up the steep stairs to his favourite sleeping-place.
How calm it was there under the stars; how clear the path, now that he was at home once more among familiar landmarks! Why, if difficulties arose, had they not arisen over and over again in the lives of those who had gone before him? What more easy than to adopt the ancient remedy, and, by building a new court for the new wife, separate the jealous women! His mother would, of course, side with her own choice; so Veru, far from having any ground of complaint, would find greater peace than heretofore. In his quiet, limited way, he loved her more than he would have cared to avow, and so, thinking of her ease, he fell asleep full of content.
The night passed, the dawn lightened into sunshine; yet still he slept, wearied out by his ten days' exile from the village. And so it came to pass that his mother, apprised of his return by finding the pony in its accustomed place, had to rouse him by sad words.
"Awake, O Gunesh Chund, son of Anant Ram, and make thy heart strong, for Veru thy wife is dead."
A sad amaze, an almost pitiful resignation, followed the first incredulity; and then, as he sat below, patiently waiting for many a rite and conventional lamentation, the memory of his last waking thought returned to him.
"I thought of building her a new house for peace' sake," he said, wistfully, to his mother; "and lo! the Great Ones have given her a grave and peace forever."
"Perhaps 'tis as well, Guneshwa!" replied the old woman, softened by his gentle grief. "Her health was poor, and if Death drew nigh, it was better he should come before the bride."
Perhaps 'twas as well! That was all her tongue found to say, but her heart rejoiced exceedingly that eternal silence had fallen over the dead wife's reproaches. If Premi and Chuni only held their tongues, as they always did if it was made worth their while, neither Gunesh Chund nor his bride need know the curse that had come upon them. Above all, the soft-hearted bridegroom would be saved the daily terror of seeing the fatal ghost.
Even as it were, the autumn chills were upon him, making him shiver and shake, and bringing the haggard, ague-stricken look so common at that time of year to his sad face. He took little interest in the preparations which his mother pressed on with feverish haste, but passed days and nights out of doors among his fields, going the round of the crops with the village accountant, and seeing to the payment of revenue dues.
"Thou takest no rest, Gunesh Chund," exclaimed his mother, indignantly, when he pleaded business as an excuse for not going to the silversmith's to hurry him up with the remodelling of poor Veru's ornaments. "Alumberdarwas alumberdarlong before thesahibscame to the land. What is it to thee if they want this written one way, and that another? There were no such piles of papers in thy father's day, and he was a betterlumberdarthan thou wilt ever be."
"Mayhap, mother; but somehow 'tis ill work nowadays doing things as they used to be done. It suits no one, not even thee."
"Not suit me--I'd like to know--"
"Nay! are not the old trinkets being altered even now. For my part, I liked them best as they were."
"Guneshwa thou art a ninny! But thou wilt sing another song when the bride comes to thee adorned. That new silversmith hath done well. There is a fashion of necklet--French pattern he called it--like needlework for fineness. And I have not forgotten the old ways, for the talisman Veru wore is made into asaukinmhora, to keep her ghost away."
Thelumberdar'sface assumed a startled, alarmed look.
"The ghost, mother! Wherefore the ghost? Veru was a good wife, loving me, and I was a good husband to her. There was no ill-will betwixt us, surely."
His mother could have bitten her tongue out for her inadvertence.
"'Twas but a thoughtless word, O my son, and I am over-anxious. Surely the woman took too many blessings from thee in life to give thee curses in death. And see," she added, hastily, in the hope of diverting his eager anxiety, "I have found what thou wert asking for--the certificates of thy fathers to many and many a generation. Thou hadst given them into Veru's keeping, but they are too precious for a woman's holding. Who knows but she has lost some? Squandering thy son's heritage out of spite! Who canst give back the praises of the dead?"
So she went on in purposeful grumbling, while Gunesha, opening the handkerchief in which the precious documents were folded, counted the frayed papers laboriously.
"Nay! they are here, and more; let me count again. Surely, there are thirty-and-two, and when the canalsahibgave me his last year there were but thirty-and-one. Thirty-and-one, no more."
He sat down on the door-step, shifting the papers through his awkward hands, with the uncertain eyes of one who, being unable to read, has to seek recognition through more devious ways. His mother, meanwhile, utterly indifferent, had turned to some household occupation.
"See, there is a new one; that one, may be; 'tis cleaner than the rest," he muttered to himself, opening up the folded sheet conspicuous by its whiteness.
It was written in the Nagari character, and his puzzled face cleared at the sight.
"'Tis all right, mother!" he exclaimed; "there are but thirty one. The other is a letter."
He was about to add a suggestion that Veru might have written it, but checked himself, from fear of starting another tirade against the dead woman.
"A letter!" echoed his mother, contemptuously. "Throw it in the fire! I have no patience with folk who find their tongues too short to touch friend or foe."
"But, mother," returned Gunesh, with a smile, "even thy tongue is not long enough to reach over the world."
"And wherefore should I try? I tell thee, Guneshwa, that we peasant-folk have naught to do with the world. What he can touch with his hands is a man's portion till he dies, and 'tis theft to go beyond. Writing is no good except for certificates. There is Devi Ditta's house thrown into grief, just as the boy's betrothal began, by the news of his father being killed in Burma. God knows where Burma is. Far enough, may be, to keep the news back till a more convenient time, if it came as God meant it to come. And the man is dead, anyhow."
But Gunesh Chund refolded the paper and placed it in his waistband. His friend the accountant could tell him its purport.
"The chills again?" asked his mother, with no anxiety in her voice, when, coming back from Devi Ditta's house with a throat rendered hoarse by neighbourly lamentations, she found her son huddled up under his quilt. "You must get the sahib's white powder. For a wonder, it does good."
"Quinine will not cure me, mother," he replied in a curiously muffled voice that startled the hearer by its dull despair.
"What ails thee, then, Guneshwa?"
The man sat up amid his heavy wrappings and looked at her without resentment. The ague cramped his blue fingers, and made him draw shuddering breaths through widely distended nostrils, as he sat gazing at her with wild eyes full of a mute appeal and reproach. Then, with a little, almost childish cry, he fell back among the quilts once more.
"Thou knowest, mother; thou knowest it well."
Her heart throbbed, but her voice was steady as she replied:
"What do I know, O Gunesh Chund?"
"That Veru kept her promise and I broke mine! She knew you would not tell me, so she wrote. That was the letter."
The old woman stood for an instant bewildered. Then, as she realized that all her wisdom had not availed against the dead wife's knowledge, she threw her lean arms up over her head and beat her hands together wildly, while the court re-echoed with her high, resonant voice.
"She wrote it? Now may God curse her utterly! My curse upon her and every woman who learns--"
A shivering hand reached out towards her.
"Hush, mother! I have had enough of curses to-day."
The mild reproof made her forget her anger in thoughts for him.
"Light of mine eyes! heart of my heart!" she cried, flinging herself on her knees by the bed and stretching the arms, but now raised in cursing, around him in fierce protecting. "She cannot hurt thee--she dare not, if charms avail. The iron rings are about her hands and feet, the nails are through her cursed, writing fingers--would God they had been there ere she wrote that letter!--and the mustard-seed lies thick between her grave and the hearth. I have sown it, and will sow it with each new moon. Look up, Guneshwa! She cannot, she dare not return."
"She hath returned already."
The old woman rose with a gesture of despair.
"Say not so! Break not thy mother's heart with idle words. 'Tis but the chills, and thou hast them often. The powder will cure them."
"Perhaps 'tis so," he replied, listlessly. "But I have seen her. Ere ever I knew of her death she met me on the common as I rode home. Nay, weep not so soon; the truth will be told ere long, and there will be time enough for tears then."
"There will be no need to weep at all, my son," she said, crushing down her own dread in order to lessen his, and fiercely determining to shed no more tears till life held nothing else.
She kept her word; though, as the days passed on, even her wilful blindness could not fail to see how the strong man grew weaker and weaker. Her heart stood still with fear, as she watched for the sleep of exhaustion which followed each successive attack of fever and ague, before stealing away to seize the opportunity for the charms she dared not work save in secrecy.
Indeed, the subject was barred between them; and even when the fever fiend held him in its grip, Gunesh Chund never alluded again to the fatal ghost.
He put aside thesaukin-mhorawhich, in her clutching at straws, she would have had him wear as a talisman, with quite a broad laugh.
"Wouldst have me altogether a woman, mother?" he asked, cheerfully. "I deemed instead I was too soft for thee. But see! whether it be the chills or the other thing, Death will come if he is on the road."
For all the courage of his words, a conviction that he was doomed dulled his interest in all things save his fields, and when he grew too weak to find his way there and back his patience broke into restlessness.
"I will go and stop at the well, mother," he said at last; "the air is freer out there, and I weary to death looking at these dull mud walls."
So, leaning on his mother's arm, Gunesh Chund, thelumberdar, made his way for the last time down the village street, to meet Death in the open.
"It is good to be here," he said, with peace in his face and heart, as he lay day after day, gazing with dull, contented eyes at the broad expanse of newly-tilled soil, where the sun gleamed on the furrows. The birds chattering in the mulberry-tree overhead, and the ceaseless babble of the life-giving water flowing past him, filled his ears with familiar comfort. There was nothing here to puzzle his slow brain; nothing to disturb a nature welded, by long centuries of toil under the sunny skies, into perfect accord with its environment.
So his mother, coming back from her unavailing spells, found him one day looking out over the springing crops with sightless eyes and placid face.
"I might have saved him," she said to herself with infinite bitterness, as from the sleeping-place on the roof she watched the smoke of his funeral pyre drift away into the cloudless blue--"I might have saved him but for the letter. Oh, curses, curses, ten thousand curses on those who taught her to write! Curses to all eternity on all new-fangled ways!"
Once more her lean brown arms flung themselves in wild appeal towards heaven, as she stood out against the sky facing the future--old, sonless, hopeless.
"Willie," Mark Twain tells us, "had a purple monkey climbing up a yellow stick"; he further informs us that this quadruman made its owner "deathly sick."
The following story shows the effect that a blue monkey on a gilt spike had in a remote Indian village called Jehâdpore--a very ordinary village set out on high, unirrigated soil, beside a large irregular tank, whence the bricks of many generations of houses had been dug; the only peculiarity about it being a glaringly whitewashed mosque façade, rising above the whole and flanked by a palm-tree. Merely a façade: viewed frontwise, distinctly imposing, with minarets and domes in orthodox numbers and positions; viewed sidewise, as distinctly disappointing. The jerriest of London jerry builders could have done nothing better than this one brick front elevation, of which even the domes were butbasso-relievos.
Still it dominated the village in every way; for it was built in the court-yard of ex-Rissaldar-Major Azmutoollah Khan Sahib Bahadur's house, and he with his hangers-on represented Jehâdpore. It was a Rângur village--that is to say, a village of Mohammedan Rajputs, a race which supplies half the native cavalry of upper India with recruits. That was the case at Jehâdpore. When the district officer came round every year to attest and write up the big village note-book there was always something to add on this score. Either the number of those away a-soldiering had to be increased, or an entry made that So-and-so had returned with a "pinson"[5]to his wife and family. On these occasions the district officer invariably found an escort awaiting him at the boundary, consisting ofsowarson leave from various regiments (with their horses), a contingent of "pinson-wallahs" in nondescript uniform on broodmares, and Khan Azmutoollah Khan Bahadur, C.I.E., ex-rissaldar, at their head. He was a very old man, as deeply wrinkled as a young actor doing the part of an ancient retainer. In the privacy of that court-yard, garnished by the jerry mosque, he clothed himself scantily in limp white muslin, and his beard was tricoloured--white at the roots, red in the middle, purple at the ends. But on his screaming stallion, sword in hand, a goodly row of medals on his worn tunic, Azmutoollah's beard was of the fiercest black, and the line of moustache shaved from the hard mouth into an arched curve under his aquiline nose, curled right up to his eyes. His voice, too, lost its quaver of age, and before he had safely inducted theHuzoorinto his tents down by the tank that irregular troop of cavalry had been put through enough manœuvres to last out three ordinary field days. It was the old soldier'sKriegspiel.
When it was over, and he dozed, wearied out by the unaccustomed effort, on the wooden bed under thenim-tree, the hard roly-poly bolster tucked in to the hollow of his neck--or something else--made his sleeping-place a Bethel, and he dreamed dreams.
Then he had to resume the old uniform once more and go over to the tents again with a petition. Rângurs always have petitions about wells, or water, or brood mares; for, if they make excellent troopers, they are intolerably bad ploughmen. That was why Mool Raj, the hereditary money-lender of Jehâdpore, was able to send his son, Hunumân Sing, to college and make a pleader of him.
The ex-rissaldar, with two sons and three grandsons in the old regiment, waxed contemptuous over the "pleadery" career. But that was his attitude in all things towards Mool Raj and the small Hindu element the latter represented in Jehâdpore. The fact that the Mohammedan population to a man was in the usurer's debt did not affect the position of affairs at all, or detract from the feeling of virtuous tolerance which allowed a most modest and retiring Hindu temple to conceal itself behind the back wall of the mosque façade. It was a great concession, for Azmutoollah was not the onlyHâdji[6]in Jehâdpore. The place was a perfect hot-bed of fighting Mohammedanism, which only needed opposition to grow into fanaticism.
Yet, when Mool Raj added a new story to the Hindu temple, nobody said him nay. They were good friends with the wizened, monkey-like usurer.
"Bismillah!Khan Sahib," laughed one of the group ofsowarsround Azmutoollah's wooden bed. "He saith it is to save his soul from sin. God knows he needs it, for he hath charged me rascally interest on my last debt. If we must needs have a Hindu in the place, seeing God and his Prophet forbid the true believer to soil his hands with usury, then, by theImâms, let us have a pious one!"
Even when he put a gilt spike on the top they spoke of it in contemptuous kindness. "Whether he buries our gold or sets it on high is all one, so long as he hath enough to lend us when we seek it. And 'tis thank-offering, he says, for his son Hunumân passing as B.A. God knows what that may be, but the boy hath thin legs and a narrow chest."
Azmutoollah Khan, C.I.E., looked distastefully at the extreme tip of a gilt spike which from the farthermost corner of the court-yard showed just over the façade.
"So far well," said the old martinet. "A Hindu may have repentance, and he is like to ourselves in affection for his family--though, Allah be praised, none of mine carry themselves like a 'lumpa ta heen.'[7]But that is an end of repentance and affection. I will have no idolatrous spike under my eyes, and so I will tell Mool Raj. Let Hunumân build himself a temple in Lahore out of his scholarships and pleader's fees. We want none of his kind in Jehâdpore."
The usurer came back from his interview with his patron quite resigned. To tell the truth, he himself was not much set on these pious additions which cost a heap of hard-won money. Their initiator was Hunumân's mother, who, ever since her pilgrimage to Shah Sultan had been rewarded by the long-prayed-for son, had looked on him as doubly dependent on the favour of the gods--his very name, Hunumân, having been bestowed on him because she had seen a monkey when she first regained consciousness after the curious hysterical crisis which seizes on most women at that most famous shrine. The inference being, of course, that the monkey god was responsible for the baby--a presumption not in the least weakened by the fact that Shah Sultan was a Mohammedan saint to whom monkeys and gods were an abomination.
Chand Kor, therefore, gave shrill disapproval to Azmutoollah's fiat. In her heart of hearts she nourished the ideal of a blue monkey god perched on the top of that golden spike; and when, two days afterwards, Hunumân Sing, B.A., came down for his vacation, she poured the tale of intolerance into his ear.
Now, Hunumân Sing, after the manner of his kind, did not care--well, what the Iron Duke said cost him twopence--for his godfather, nor, indeed, for most of the beliefs of his mother. How could he? Who could expect it of him? The cry which goes up now and again in India when some clever lad, educated at a mission-school, openly forsakes his religion, is beneath contempt. There is not one orthodox Hindu father, north or south, who, pushing his lad on for the sake of worldly success, does not do it with his eyes open to the inevitable gulf which must separate them in the future. This particular son was like many another son of the sort; a good lad, on the whole, if more interested in his own development than anything else in the world. This, again, was inevitable. When you have to cram the evolution of ages into two-and-twenty years, and grow from a baby named after the monkey god into a B.A., a strict attention to business is necessary. If he was pushing, was not that also inevitable? Jonah's gourd had to push "some," as the Americans say. For the rest, he was like hundreds of the amiable, clever young graduates whom one longs to have in the desert for forty days and nights opposite the Sphinx. One by one, of course; for if there were two of them they would form a sub-committee and vote the Sphinx to the chair. Then the millennium would come, of course, and that would be inconvenient fornous autres.
But, though Hunumân cared not at all for the blue monkey god, he worshipped liberty--especially his own; and he preferred it, if possible, with a flavour of law about it. What! deprive a citizen, a subject of the Queen Empress, from due exercise of religious right? Who was Azmutoollah Khan, to promulgate such a pernicious attempt at intimidation?--videsection so-and-so.
Little Mool Raj, who seemed to shrivel smaller as he grew older, listened to all this with great pride but steadfast inaction. He knew who Azmutoollah Khan was well enough. He knew the temper of the people who had enriched him all too well. Liberty was a fine thing, but money was better--peace and comfort best of all. This latter conviction, however, made him give way slightly before Chand Kor's tears; and the next evening, when therissaldar--major was interviewing two new arrivals on leave, and bringing the wisdom of a lifetime to bear on their horses, an odd noise floated over the sham domes of the mosque.
"Tis a donkey with the strangles, Khan Sahib," remarked Rahmat Ali. "Yea, mine is a lucky one--five curls and--" He paused.
No, it was not a donkey. What was it? A camel snoring? A cow dying? The women servants baking bread in the corner stood up to listen. The two boys, heads down, arms interlaced, wrestling stark naked in the sun, paused also. Then, suddenly, as if by mistake, an inconceivable gamut, beginning with an earthquake, passing on to a foghorn, and ending with a pennywhistle, let itself loose.
"God and his Prophet," yelled Azmutoollah, "it is a conch!"
As they stood petrified by the audacity, the low grunting recommenced, and then once more something let go, lost control over itself, and went skirling up like a burst bagpipe.
"My sword!" gasped the ex-rissaldar. "The idolatrous defiler of the faith--the desecrator of my fathers' graves! A conch in Jehâdpore! By the Lord who made me, 'tis the last!"
If the opponents had been better matched, there would have been bloodshedding in the village on that calm evening; but what could a dozensowarswith drawn swords, headed by Azmutoollah, joined by half the populace of the village, do against Hunumân Sing, who, with a trembling in his knees but the courage of martyrs in his mind, stood on the steps of the temple, nearly bursting himself in his efforts to play the unwonted instrument?
A roar of laughter went up from the crowd, as, alarmed but determined, he backed from the onslaught to the temple door, stumbled on the step, sat down violently, and the concussion sent a perfectly supernatural "Ker--whoo--oo--oo--oo--ph!" through the conch.
Even Azmutoollah's indignation could not withstand it.
"Go, Rahmat Ali, and take it from him ere he do himself an injury, and seek Mool Raj, Kutb-u-din. 'Tis his blame, not the boy's."
But Hunumân was on his feet again, full of outraged importance. The affair to him was deadly earnest.
"I am no boy, Khan Azmutoollah, but of legal age, with B.A. pass. I am a loyal citizen of Victoria Kaiser-i-hind. Religious liberty enjoins me to play conch if I choose, and I do choose."
The spirit was willing, but the flesh, in the hustling hands of half a dozen troopers, was perforce weak. The Hindu is not naturally resistant, and the fighting men around him were not slow to recognize Hunumân's unusual show of determination.
"It is assault! it is battery! I am coerced. I claim my rights. The law is on my side!" he gasped, between his struggles.
"Smash the blasphemous thing, and let the boy go," called Azmutoollah. "Enough, Hunumân-ji. Seek thy law elsewhere--not here, in the house of my fathers."
The conch lay shivered to atoms, but the young man felt himself master of the situation. Just as the concussion of his fall had forced his breath into the conch, so the pressure of illegal coercion made his newly acquired love of freedom overflow into eloquence. Heart and head were both full to inflation with the finest sentiments. As he stood on the steps, haranguing the people, he would have done credit to the House of Commons in a party discussion.
"By the faith, he speaks well! 'Tis a pity his shoulders are so narrow," remarked a trooper, carelessly, as he strolled away to a bare, beaten patch by the tank, where a number of naked boys were standing in pairs, heads down, hands on knees, smacking their thighs, and crying "Hull-la-la!" to give themselves courage ere closing for the grip. Beneath the skeleton of a peepul-tree hard by, whence the branches had been stripped for fodder, some elders were at work over gymnastic exercises, swinging clubs, or--supported on palms and feet--touching the dust with their foreheads, and then rising again like a strung bow. The sunlight shone on their bronze sinews.
"Didst kill him?" asked one, breathlessly keeping the count of his own performance.
"Kill him? Look you, Allah Baksh--there was not enough of him to kill!"
And a chuckle ran round the assembly.
A fortnight after, when the district officer was playing whist with the policeman, the doctor, and the young assistant, who was gradually being taught that rules are occasionally more honoured in the breach than the observance, Dhunput Rai, judicial assistant, sent in to ask five minutes' leisure of theHuzoor. Every one laid down his cards at once, and the doctor lit a fresh cigar, for Dhunput Rai was one of those natives of the old school who many a time and oft have steered the British bark safely through troubled waters, as their fathers steered the alien armadas of the Mogul. He was a Brahman of the highest caste, keen-witted, clear-sighted; privately a bigot, publicly a statesman.
"Huzoor," he said, briefly, "young Lala Amr Nath the Extra hath this day in a case given leave for a conch to be blown in Jehâdpore. There will be trouble. In my opinion, it is a fitting occasion for theHuzoorto act under section 518, which gives absolute power to the district officer in emergency."
Five minutes afterwards, Dhunput Rai took his leave with an interdict in his pocket, and a deputy inspector of police and four mounted constables rode out with it post haste, so as to arrive before the earliest blink of dawn made conch-blowing compatible with anything save sheer malice aforethought. It was a great blow to Hunumân and a small circle of select college friends who had assembled to witness the triumph of religious freedom. They consoled themselves during the interval of appeal by writing an article to the 'Sun of Asia,' in the course of which they promulgated several valuable new discoveries, such as that there was one law for the rich and another for the poor. Azmutoollah, meanwhile, admitted grudgingly that there was some sense left in thesahibsstill, in spite of their setting goldsmiths' sons, like Amr Nath, to rule over honest folk.
"I'm dashed if I can find a precedent," remarked the district officer, disconsolately talking over the matter with the policeman, the doctor, and the assistant. "And in a case like this, where every thing depends on the environment, and it's sure to be appealed again, there is no mortal good in anything but a precedent. If I say there will be a row, I shall only be told with great dignity that Mr. Smith is expected to keep his district in order."
There was a pause. Finally, the doctor spoke. He hailed from Aberdeen.
"It's an ill burd that files his ain nest, but for religious into-lerance give me Scotland. Aw'm no saying ut'll hold as a preeceedent amongst the heathen, but it's a preeceedent in the Court o' Session. It wasaprepawof a bell."
"A bell! Heaven be praised! the very thing."
"A bell is not a conch," remarked the assistant.
"Alias, I should say," murmured the policeman. "Bell, conch, call to prayer: that's the spirit. Fire away, old chap!--Bearer, bring the doctor-sahibanother peg."
So the precedent of a far-away cathedral, whose schismatic chime annoyed good Calvinists, was brought to bear on Hunumân and the conch, and the latter, not being an integral part of public worship, was proclaimed a nuisance.
The deputy commissioner himself had no doubt about its being one, as he wiped the perspiration from his brow, and remarked to Dhunput Rai that that ought to finish the business.
The courteous old gentleman smiled.
"Huzoor," he said, "I have heard my father say that Akbar's order to his judges was, 'Write ever with the pen which has been cut by the sword; then there is peace in the land.' The case will be appealed, and the pen of theHuzoorsis cut by machine."
He was a true prophet. Hunumân, backed by the 'Sun of Asia,' not only appealed the conch question, but raised another in the interim by putting a small blue plaster monkey on the top of the gold spike, in fulfilment, it was urged, of the pre-natal vow made for him by his mother, a pious Hindu lady, whose virtuous life was crowned with honour.
The monkey remained there exactly five-and-twenty minutes after the first beams of the rising sun disclosed the fact that it had been put there during the night. That it remained so long was due to three reasons: First, that the Jehâdpore troopers, if good swordsmen, were uncommonly bad shots; second, that Azmutoollah's blunderbuss was a flint-lock; third, that he insisted on letting it off himself until it knocked him down.
This time the case was taken direct to the deputy commissioner, who, urged on the one side by a remembrance of Dhunput Rai's remark, and on the other by a sneaking fear of revision, decided that the blue monkey, as an idolatrous image, was a distinct nuisance when displayed unnecessarily over the top of a Mohammedan gentleman's private mosque. On the other hand, viewed from the Hindu standpoint, the image of a blue monkey might be an integral part of public worship. Azmutoollah Khan Bahadur, C.I.E., ex-rissaldar, must therefore pay over to Mool Raj and to Hunumân Sing the price of the destroyed blue monkey, as they might wish to erect a similar one in a less conspicuous place.
Now, though Mool Raj's name was duly entered in the file as complainant, the affair had long ago passed out of his hands and become a real, solid, Heaven-sent grievance to a small knot of advanced young pleaders. Indeed, the old man was so distinctly unsatisfactory as chief victim, that they had more than once taken the opportunity of his absence to advance matters a step. Azmutoollah Khan, as shrewd an old soldier as could be found on either side of the Indus, was not slow to notice this, and his blind opposition covered a great longing to have these youngsters on the hip. After all, he and Mool Raj had pulled along well enough for years before this B.A. was thought of--ay, and their fathers before them. If the usurer had been alone, the money screw could have been put on him somehow; since he would not risk a pice for all the blue monkeys in heaven or on earth.
Azmutoollah Khan was cogitating these matters one afternoon on the wooden bed, with his turban as usual standing like a helmet beside him, when a party of boys rushed into the court-yard full of news and excitement. Hunumân Sing, who, as every one knew, had come with some friends in a bullock cart that morning, must have brought the thing with him; but as sure as fate there was a blue monkey sitting on the square pedestal in front of the temple which Alla Ditta, the mason, had built in all innocence of heart last week--a blue monkey, not a miniature marionette at the top of a gilt spike like the last, but a life-sized affair, and, what is more, all the Hindus in the place and many more from neighbouring villages were doingpoojahto it.
The fierce old Mohammedan's very lips turned pale. He never even thought of his turban, but, bald-headed as he was, and stumbling in his haste, was out of the court-yard into the narrow street. The next minute a cry, that was not pleasant to hear, cut the calm sunshine like a sword.
"Jehâd! Jehâd! Futt-eh Mohammed! Jehâd! Jehâd! Futt-eh Mohammed!" shrilled the boys in refrain.
A knot of young men in patent-leather shoes, standing by the blue monkey, heard the cry with a glow of triumph.
"Brothers and sisters," called one, in the polished, curiously artificial tones of one accustomed to public speaking, "remember we are peaceable citizens. There is to be no opposition. Our trust is in truth and justice, not in violence. Our weapon is right, not might. Stand aside and let them do their worst. 'I will repay,' saith the law."
It was a bold paraphrase lost on all save that little knot of culture which said, "Hear, hear!" as if to the manner born. The speech, however, though admirable, proved somewhat superfluous. The first sight of that mad assault coming round the corner sent the crowd, composed for the most part of women and children, scattering hither and thither like frightened sheep. Culture stood firm, unwisely firm, for a minute. Then a voice rose in English:
"Gentlemen, discretion is better part of valour--nor is it permissible to foster or excite breach of peace. We can speak with equal fluence and freedom from roof of house." And they did.
The scene thus described sounds farcical. There was not even a grain of comedy in it to the actors; least of all to the plaster monkey on whose blue hide the sabres hacked fast. Above, on the roof, as on a hustings, the new culture wielded the sword of the Spirit; below, the older cult clinched argument by the sword of the flesh.
That night peace reigned in Jehâdpore. Young India, in a body, had gone to report wilful destruction of private property accompanied by violence, to the deputy commissioner. Old India sat triumphant but thoughtful on the wooden bed, while the troopers laughed and drank and made merry over the discomfiture of the blue monkey.
"By the Prophet," cried Rahmat Ali, "I swear it had a look of old money-bags! And why not, seeing 'tis the father of Sri Hunumân? Ha-ha! But thou shouldst have seen the old man's face,rissaldar-sahib, when he returned but half an hour gone, and I told him we were but waiting leisure to burn his books and clear off old scores in the old way. He wept, and said 'twas none of his doing; that he asked but peace, as in the old days. Yea, as he sat a-begging on his haunches, praying forgiveness, he looked more like the blue monkey than ever."
Khan Azmutoollah Khan let off a detonatingrouladeof Arabic anathema as aTe Deum.
"Fetch him here, Rahmat! I have a plan. We old folk will settle it old ways."
The next morning the deputy commissioner, the police officer, and the doctor rode out in hot haste to the scene of what they were told had been a bloodthirsty riot. At the village boundary they were met, rather to their surprise, by the usual escort. The leader of the little band was more military than ever, but there was an odd twinkle in his eye as he obeyed the curt order to fall behind, and the hint--which British majesty gave in the interests of law and order--that his presence even there was undesirable. Hunumân Sing, and a friend who had remained to see fair play, certainly seemed to think the troopers jingling and clashing along in close order very much in their way. They edged their ponies here and there, only to find themselves perpetually ridden over; especially when, at the head of the lane leading to the temple, British majesty reined up short, the troop behind turned to stone, the horses on their haunches steady as rocks. Then there was a wild hustle; the two ponies shot out in front, where their owners managed to pull up flabbergasted at the sight which met their eyes.
"How is this?" asked the deputy commissioner, sternly. "I thought you said the blue monkey was destroyed; and there it is, in perfect condition!"
There it was, indubitably--bright blue, with a long tail curving over its legs.
From behind among the troopers came gentle grunts of disapproval, that the ears of theHuzoorshould be assailed with such wanton lies. Blue monkeys indeed! What quarrel had the faithful with blue monkeys?
"Khan Azmutoollah Khan sahib," called British majesty, "what does this mean? I was told you and your fellows had wantonly destroyed Mool Raj's monkey. Is this true?"
The old man rode up from behind, his martial dignity undimmed by the discipline he respected and understood.
"I am no scholar myself,Huzoor," he said, saluting, "but I am a just man for all that. I injure neither man nor beast wantonly. Let theHuzoorask the blue monkey if it or its master hath aught against me. Of these"--here he gave a contemptuous wave of his hand to the pleaders on their ponies--"I know naught, nor did my fathers."
Then he rode forward. "Oh,bunder-jee!speak for thyself and for thy master."
"By the Lord Harry," shrieked the policeman, as the figure on the pedestal rose slowly and salaamed, "it's old Mool Raj himself!"
"My lord!" faltered Hunumân, "this is irrelevant--this is contempt of court."
"Peace! oh Hunumân! and respect the voice of thy parent," began the blue monkey.
Then a roar of inextinguishable laughter played the mischief with majesty.
Half an hour afterwards, when Chand Kor in tears was washing the blue distemper off her lord and master's shrivelled limbs, he repeated his injunction regarding the fifth commandment to his son, who sat haranguing on liberty, freedom, public spirit, equality, fraternity, and a host of other duties and privileges.
"They are good, my son," he said, "but money is good also, and peace best of all. Ask no more. I am content, and thou hast naught to do with it. The temple is, and the blue monkey was mine--at least I was the blue monkey."
Then Hunumân Sing swore.
That evening the deputy commissioner held a friendly inquiry, and everybody shook hands all round, excepting Hunumân Sing and his friend, who left byekkabefore the proceedings commenced, vowing vengeance on all summary justice. He was a full-blown pleader before the famous case of "Mool Raj and a ConchversusAzmutoollah Khan and Others" came up before the chief court of appeal. On that occasion he argued most eloquently on various subjects for half an hour, and was about to resume his seat, covered with perspiration and honour, when a voice from the body of the court cried:
"Respect thy parent, O Hunumân! Remember the things that are behind."
Coiled up neatly on his chair was a blue tail, and once more laughter played the mischief with majesty.
Some people say that was why the appeal was dismissed. Anyhow, it is certain that shortly afterwards Hunumân set up as a pleader in another province.
So Jehâdpore brought up its troopers, and paid or did not pay its debts in peace. And when Mool Raj died, the folk wagged their heads, saying, "Well, he was not much to speak of as a man, but he was a first-rate monkey."