CHAPTER IX.
In the evening I was amused at a little incident. We were taking our coffee after dinner in front of the fire in the drawing room. Cockear was crouched on the rug before us watching every motion and with that ear of his erect as usual. Said Mr. Percy, “Cockear! you honest fellow, come to me,” and with a spring the dog was on Mr. Percy’s lap.Mr. Percy looking into his bright beautiful eyes said, “Cockear, I believe you have a soul and are immortal. I know you would talk to me if only that mouth of yours was of a different shape, but I will say in that upright ear of yours that you are one of the best witnesses I ever had. I wish the witnesses in my court were only half, or even one-quarter as truthful as you are.”
Then we had another talk and laugh over the outcome of our scheme and the ludicrous incidents in it. Then he fell to talking over the deliberate falsehoods of the natives.
“I often wonder that there is any justice to any one, for who can decide, even with the utmost care what is truth when there is so much falsehood and perjury on both sides? I often think of Pilate and can sympathize with him when he asked “What is truth?” I have a case of murder in court. A score or more of Muhamedans swear on the Koran that the man is guilty, and as many Hindus swear by the water of the Ganges that the man is innocent. What am I to do? I have sometimes thought in such a case I might as well count the flies on the punkah over my head, and if the number be even, let the accused go free, if odd, sentence him to be hung. And I think the decision by the flies would be as just as by the evidence of the witnesses.
“The natives all acknowledge this habit of lying and perjury and seem to think nothing of it, take it as a matter of course. Why, I am told that the groups of trees in my cutchery compound are called two ana trees, four ana trees and so on up to two rupees, according to the size of the bribes the witnesses are willing to take; so when the parties in court want witnesses, they go to the different trees in proportion to their ability to pay and get what they desire.
“Some of these natives talk of representative government. Who would be the representatives? What would they represent? As a whole people they have no country. I never yet saw a patriot among all I have met. They have not the remotest idea of what that word means, what the love of country is. If they fight, it is because they are hired to do so for the sake of plunder, or to kill those who oppose their wishes, but they would never fight and die aspatriots for the love of their country; and those who talk the most, would be the last to take up arms. If we were to leave the country, within a month all would be confusion. They would be robbing each other and cutting one another’s throats worse than pirates. The more educated know this, and while they want to become the rulers, they would like us to remain and be their protectors. It is the jealousy of the different tribes that is the greatest strength of the English in India. They cannot trust each other for they know too well what would happen if left to themselves. Just think of it. Here is this Tahsildar, from one of their old best families, as they would say, a devout Muhamedan, a man honored by Government with a good position, receiving a large salary, and yet for a paltry rupee or two he stole my medicine, robbed the poor of what I had given them, and then deliberately lied about it. Why, I would sooner trust you, Cockear, with my dinner than such a man, wouldn’t I?” and Cockear put up his paw and nodded his head as if to say: “You are right again, my master.”
Mr. Percy continued, “I was once in a district where there was a famine; thousands of people were starving. At the best, we had not funds sufficient to give them half enough to eat of the coarsest food. There was nothing for them to gather, not even grass, for the earth was as hard and dry as a brick. The people died in the villages, on the roads, under the trees, not from any disease but from starvation. Every day we sent out men to bury the dead—skeletons—on which there was nothing for even the jackals to eat. It was a horrid time. I could scarcely eat my own food for thinking of the poor wretches dying in want of such food as was given to my dogs and horses. The few Europeans could not be everywhere in the district and watch everything, so we had to use our subordinates. In a very large village we put the Tahsildar in charge. He reported to us the number to be fed, and we supplied him with funds and gave him orders to purchase and distribute so much food each day. He reported every day that he had done so. I rode out one morning very early and found some food cooked, the fires all out, and the distribution ready to begin. I had the food weighed and found it wasonly half the allowance ordered, and that he had daily reported. I ordered the fires to be relighted and the proper amount of food to be cooked, and saw to the feeding of the people myself, twenty-two hundred of them, and then what they did get was only half of what they needed, a couple of chupatties and a little dhal, to last them for twenty-four hours; but it was all we could give them. This was for that day; but what if I had not been there, or what of the days when no European was present? We were as positive as we could be that this Tahsildar was making money out of the famine fund; but what could we do? He received the money, he bought the food, saw to the distribution and made out his own reports. He could have bought up any number of lying witnesses to prove that he was honest, and we had none to prove him otherwise. Shortly after the famine he made a grand wedding for one of his children that cost him over ten thousand rupees, and it was the common talk among the natives that he got this money from the famine relief fund.
“Such a man, to rob the food from the mouths of starving children! He would be mean enough to take the winding-sheet from the corpse of his grandmother if he could sell it for a few anas! He was probably the best native in the district. What then were the rest? And they talk of giving such men power to make laws and govern India! If a man like him, in such a position, would be guilty of such contemptibly mean crimes, what might be expected of men receiving only a few rupees a month? Give me an honest dog every time, rather than such a man,” and Cockear nodded again very emphatically, as if saying, “There is no mistake in that.” Thus Mr. Percy talked, for this was one of his moods. He seemed to be thinking aloud. He was so just and kind himself toward the natives, though they often abused his confidence, that when he talked of their dishonesty and meanness to each other he always grew warm. Why shouldn’t he?
He had great sympathy for the poorer natives, since he knew so much of the extortions and tyranny of the richer classes.
To have some little part in the conversation I told thestory of that frightful zemindar who seized the very rags of the poor people in that never to be forgotten court from which I had escaped; and of the cruel robbery of the man of his handful of fish that he had caught for his starving old mother. How vividly that scene came up before me.
“Yes,” said Mr. Percy, “and very likely that same zemindar would be called before some wandering parliamentary committee to give his advice about relieving the poverty of the people of India. He could tell them more of how to relieve them of their property.”
As I had no experience and little knowledge of these subjects I could not say much; so both Cockear and I were good listeners, as we frequently had such conversations, that is, Mr. Percy talked while we listened. Some Frenchman has said that there is a large class of people, including nearly everybody, who have not sense enough to talk, nor sense enough to keep still. Had he seen the dog and me, I am sure he would have made a special class for us.
I need not say that the days passed quickly, and the time was coming for me to return to school. I scarcely allowed myself to think of leaving Mr. Percy and his pleasant home. When I did so, a choking lump would come into my throat and a pain into my heart that brought tears to my eyes. What boy has not felt this? I hardly dared hint at my feeling, but one day when Mr. Percy suggested some preparation for going, I said I was sorry to leave. “Yes, Charles, so am I sorry to have you go. But I wish you to make a man of yourself, and this can be done only by discipline of the mind and the acquisition of knowledge, and the best place for this is in school. Manly strength comes from exercise of the body, mental strength from using the mind, and both should go together. If you neglect the culture of both, except to ornament the body with clothes, you become a fop or swell. If you improve the body only, you are simply a muscular animal or strong brute. Neglect the body and only cultivate the mind, and you may become a mental phenomenon, a dyspeptic growler. A trained mind in a trained body, is the way to put it; otherwise there is incongruity, as much as to speak of cleanly people living in a filthy house or filthy people living in aclean house. I said discipline of mind. This comes by thinking for yourself, reasoning with intense thought, and retaining what you learn. A man mentally strong is not the one who simply knows the most, but the one who has power to think, to reason, grasp facts, compare them and make conclusions. The most of the educated natives have acquired knowledge by memory, to the neglect of their reasoning faculties, and are like trained parrots. One with disciplined reasoning faculties has always the advantage over the one who is only a memorizer. The former is able to use the material he may find in his way, while the other has the materials but is unable to use them. Therefore get discipline, reasoning power first of all, and the other will naturally follow. You must labor with your mind as with the body. You may come across the story of the man who began by lifting the calf, and continued it daily, so that when the calf became an ox he could lift it as well. Strength of mind is acquired by constant study, mental lifting. The boy who at first lifts the light weight of the multiplication table and goes on lifting something heavier each day, will find at length no difficulty in grappling with Newton’s Principia. The training of either mind or body should not be by spurts or sudden starts. You cannot violate the laws of growth, either mental or physical, and be a really well developed man, any more than you can violate God’s natural or moral laws six days of the week and expect to make up for it on the seventh day. I do not want you to be a seventh-day sort of a man, but to be real and true every day and every hour you live.”
With such remarks as these he grew more and more in earnest. “And now,” said he, “I wish to talk to you from my inner soul, and I want to make an impression that may never leave you as long as you live.”
I will not try to give his words. I thought so much of what he meant that I did not remember the phrases he used. He talked to me of uncleanness of thought in which is the root of all evil, of uncleanliness of speech, of uncleanliness in deed. He told me of things that made cold chills rush through me and gave me such a fright of impurity that I think this talk was the greatest blessing of my life.He warned me against improper associates. “If you cannot get good company, it were better to be alone. If a boy makes any improper suggestion or indulges in improper talk, check him at once, show him the evil of it, persuade him, do him good in every way, but if he will not desist, run from him as if from a leper or from fire, and keep away from him as you would from a foul or poisonous thing. Better to throw yourself into the filth of the gutter than to allow yourself or any one to throw filth on your mind. You can wash your body or your clothes, but never wash your mind. The stains that are made upon it can never be erased. They are more indelibly engraved on the memory than any engraving on the hardest substance known. Memory is God’s judgment-day book, or rather men’s, for each one keeps his own daily and eternal record, and this he will take with him when he departs this life, and he will possess it, for it is a part of his soul, and carry it with him for ever; and this record will be a constant and perpetual witness for or against himself and make his heaven or his hell. This record is as indestructible as the soul itself; nothing of it can be lost, for nothing in the memory can ever be forgotten. Man is the architect of his own fortune, not only in this life, but for the life to come. Now Charles, I have told you all this as a sacred duty, and I beg of you in the fear of God, and for the love and regard you have for me, remember and obey these things.”
How well do I remember this. We had come into the garden and taken our seats on one of the benches. He took one of my hands in each of his and looking me in the eyes he talked with such warmth and tenderness as if his soul was in every word. And I am sure it was. Had I been his own son, and he upon his death-bed looking into eternity and giving me his last parting words, he could not have expressed himself with more solicitude and loving tenderness. How often in my life have I thanked God for such a wise friend and those words that have kept me from falling into many a snare and from getting many a stain and wound.
There are many thousands—bishops, priests, parsonset id omne genus, who are wasting their lives in trying to reconstruct the old hardened sinners. If they were to spend four-fifths of their time in warning the children and youth against vices and in showing them the horrid nature of the pitfalls of sin, in a few generations there would be no old sinners to worry about. They leave the young trees to grow all gnarled and twisted and then sputter about trying to convert them into straight trees. I have heard many a sermon, but all of them put together never had such a good effect upon my life as that half-hour’s earnest talk in the garden.
But as I am not well up in church therapeutics, my suggestions may be scorned by the last downy-cheeked fledgling of a priest who has just donned his church coat. Yet I cannot help thinking my own honest thoughts.
Did we have any such instructions in school? None whatever. The course of study was prepared by Government. It was so full and rigid that very few of the boys could spare time to read a book or paper. We were much like the poor geese of Strasburg. Each goose is nailed up in a box so that it cannot stand up or move, with its head and neck out at one end of the box. A number of times during the day and night, men go through the lines each with a syringe filled with chopped feed which is injected down the throats of the geese, willy nilly, and thus, enlarged livers are produced for the celebrated pâté de foie gras.
We human geese were stuffed and crammed by our teachers. It was “one demnition grind,” quoting Mr. Mantalini. There was no physiology or hygienic morals in the course and no time to give attention to such subjects.
It is true, we had our religious exercises. We memorized the creeds and catechism; but as they were compulsory and often given us to learn or repeat as a punishment, we got to rattling them off as we did the multiplication table or rules of grammar. We certainly neither understood them or fell in love with them. We had our daily religious service, as a matter of course, just as we had our morning wash, by rule and order, and as the waterwas often icy cold, so was the other. In fact all the religious ceremonies were as formal, exact and regular as if the motive power was a steam engine.
After the plain talk given me by Mr. Percy, I thought what a blessing it would be if all the boys could have heard him, or if our burly principal or some of the teachers could have given us some instruction about keeping our minds and bodies morally pure and clean, rather than cram us continually with mathematics, grammar, creeds and psalms. As for the good these latter did us, they might as well have been written on a roll of paper and placed in a Tibetan prayer-wheel, and each boy to give it a turn as he passed. However, I may be an old fool, as these are the thoughts of my later years.