CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER VIII.

I have in my life attended many religious services, but never one that impressed me of so much good as those to the poor in our compound. This service was not restricted to Sunday, as is too often the case in religious matters, as if God was shut up in the churches and He only did business one day in the week.

Scarcely a day passed but some came to him for assistance of some kind, and very few went away without a token of his kindness. He was cautious in giving, yet he very often gave when he was not quite satisfied, saying: “I would rather take the chance of giving to twenty undeserving, than to fail once in doing right to any one. The deceivers hurt themselves more than any loss to me. I will do the best I can, and the settlement at last will be all right.” Then he added, “Charles, my boy, always remember this, a man who does a mean act always hurts himself more than anybody else. It may not seem so at the time, but sooner or later in this life, or the life to come, every wrong act will rebound upon the doer like a boomerang, and this will make an eternal punishment. This is one of God’s beneficent and inexorable laws, and I do not believe that He will or that He can change it. Whatever a man sows that shall he reap, is true, not because it is in the Bible, but because it is in harmony with the universal law of cause and effect, in nature, and also in morals.”

He often indulged in such reflections. It was his indirect way of appealing to my reason, in giving me suggestions and advice.

I have said that he was kind to the poor. He took a great interest in establishing hospitals and dispensaries in the district, and when the Government allowance for medicines was not sufficient, he supplied this from his own funds. He always kept a stock of medicines on hand and various medical works, which he had well studied, so that he was quite a doctor. For some of the villages remote from the dispensaries, he would send medicines for free distribution to some prominent native, usually a man in Government service, with full directions as to the use of them.

One day a native from one of these villages came to ask for a certain kind of medicine. He was asked how he knew of the medicine, and he answered that he had bought some of the Tahsildar sahib, and that he had gone to him for another bottle, but the Tahsildar sahib had demanded two rupees for it, and he had paid only one before, so he had come to the Barra Sahib. Mr. Percy told him that it was not possible that he was telling the truth in saying thathe had bought the medicine. The man declared that he had told the truth. Mr. Percy, turning to me, said, “Well, Charles, we have some business in hand, and you must help me out. I believe this fellow, but his say so will not be sufficient proof against the Tahsildar. If we cannot get up a scheme to entrap this fraud we had better leave the country at once.” Ram Singh stood waiting very attentively, not understanding anything that we said. For a few minutes Mr. Percy sat with an elbow on each arm of his chair, with his hands in front of him, the tips of the fingers of one hand touching the tips of the other, while he looked away off, as if he could see help coming from a distance. This was often his attitude when engaged in deep thought. “I have it, I have it!” he exclaimed, and going into his library, returned with a ten-rupee note. “Now,” said he, “I will write something in Greek, and sign it with my initials, and you can put on it some writing with your name.” When he had finished, he handed the note to me, and as I turned to go to the other side of the table, there sat “Cockear” before me. This was a terrier always waiting and watching. We called him Cockear because his right ear always stood erect, or rather, leaned forward, while his left ear always hung down at the side of his head, giving him a most comical appearance. I had tried to make sketches of this dog, and on the impulse of the moment, with him before me, watching intently, as if he had some interest in the business in hand, I got a sketch of his head, particularly that ear of his, and wrote Charles in front, and Japhet after it, with “his” above and “mark” under the sketch.

A few days previous a soldier had come to sign some papers before the magistrate and I noticed he signed in this way with his mark. I was greatly surprised that a good looking European was unable to write his name, so I got the hint from the way he signed the paper. As I handed the note to Mr. Percy he exclaimed “Excellent! excellent! just the thing, couldn’t be better.” He sent for the villager and when he appeared he said, “Ram Singh, you know I am your friend, your bhai, brother.” “Certainly Sahib, I know it, for didn’t you come out and help me when I wasin great trouble and came very near losing my fields.” “Now Ram Singh do you think you can do just as I tell you without a mistake?” “Certainly Sahib, if I have to die for it.” Said Mr. Percy, “Here is a ten-rupee note, now listen with both your ears for you must do just as I tell you.” “Without any doubt Sahib.” “You take this note, go back to your village and to-morrow morning, take two men, your friends with you, show them the note and then you go to the Tahsildar and buy a bottle of the medicine, give him the note and get eight rupees from him, do this so that your two friends can see the whole transaction and prove by them that you bought the medicine.”

Ram Singh was asked to repeat the instructions several times to show that he thoroughly understood them. And now said Mr. Percy “Don’t you gossip along the road with any one about this matter and don’t say a word about this to your wife for you know how the women chatter.” “Yes, yes, I know it too well,” he replied with a knowing look, for his wife’s free tongue had caused the trouble about the fields, and the Sahib had made a good point of it. “After you get the medicine, bring the bottle and the eight rupees and your two friends straight to me as quickly as you can, for I will be waiting for you.” Saying “very good, Sahib, it shall be just as your Honor has commanded,” he made his salaam and departed.

I was greatly interested in the affair, because I was admitted as a partner, a junior one to be sure, yet still a partner. I questioned if Ram Singh would do as he was told. “No doubt of it,” said Mr. Percy. “I know Ram Singh well, and he will do his part to the very letter just as I told him. That is the pleasure in dealing with these natives, if they have entire confidence in you, they have no minds of their own when in your service and never stop to reason, but do just as they are told. This is rather inconvenient at times. Once I gave a darzi some cloth and an old pair of trousers for a pattern and told him to make a pair just like the old ones, but to my dismay he put in all the patches and darns.”

I was considerably excited over our plot and showed it by my restlessness. “Charles, Charles,” said Mr. Percy,“You are too agitated. I am afraid you would never do for a judge.”

As that day was some joogly poogly of a holiday, Mr. Percy had more leisure than usual and various were our talks and amusements, as if he was living over one of his boyhood days. Suddenly changing our conversation he said, “Your letters each week were so different from each other, so much so that I could not help noticing it, why was it?” Then I told him, that by a rule we were allowed to write only one letter a week, on Saturday, and these were delivered to the principal who read them before they were sent; that when writing these regulation letters I was not free to write just what I thought but all the time I was writing I could think only of what the principal might say or criticise. “I see, I see,” said he. Then I told him of my little trick about the other letters, of my writing them out by the rock and of my compact with the bearer to post them. With a pleased smile, as if he remembered he had once been a boy himself, he replied: “Charles I am afraid you are somewhat of a rogue after all.” I could not help judging from his manner that if he thought I was a rogue I was a very good kind of one, for he often spoke of his delight in those stolen letters.

The morning came and with it, Ram Singh, his two friends, the bottle of medicine and the eight rupees. So far so good. He was told to keep the empty bottle and the filled bottle he had just bought, by him, and that he should go out and the bearer would give food for himself and his friends, but to say not a word about the business to any one. A sowar or mounted messenger was sent in haste to order the Tahsildar to bring all the money he had collected for some village purposes, all the medicine in hand, as Mr. Percy wished to examine them, and the full list of all those to whom he had given medicine.

A few hours afterward, came dressed for the occasion, the Tahsildar, with the haughty air of one honored by being sent for to meet the Barra Sahib. He was shown into the library. After the usual fulsome greetings, the Tahsildar, radiant with pleasure, the village accounts were examined and the money handed over. I was standing by and atonce saw our old friend the ten-rupee note. To restrain my expression of surprise, I put my hand on my mouth as if I had suddenly bit my tongue and went to another part of the room. I felt certain that I was not fit to be a judge as I could not keep a straight face. I quickly returned, Mr. Percy counting the money took up our note, saying to the Tahsildar “This is a strange looking note, can it be a good one?” “Without doubt,” said the Tahsildar, “it must be a good one.” “We will have to trace it,” replied Mr. Percy, while turning it over and holding it up towards the light. “Where did you get it?” he inquired, and the Tahsildar quickly answered, “I am sure I got it of one Ram Singh of the village of Futtypur.” “How did you come to get it?”

“In this way,” and the Tahsildar hesitated. “The man came to buy some cloth, and got me to change the note for him, which I did.” “Very good,” said Mr. Percy; “we will see about this later.”

The medicines were all examined, and then the list of those to whom donations had been made. Mr. Percy, looking over the list, quietly said, “You gave away all these; that is, I mean, were none sold?” “Allah forbid!” exclaimed the Tahsildar. “How could it be possible when his honor, out of his distinguished generosity, had provided medicine to be given to the poor, that his honor’s slave should be such a dog as to sell any of the medicines?”

I looked over the list, but Ram Singh’s name was not there. Mr. Percy went out of the room for a moment, and soon after he returned, in came Ram Singh with his two friends. As junior partner, I did my part in looking on, especially watching the face of the Tahsildar. At the appearance of Ram Singh he surely felt that there was mischief brewing, for he scowled and fairly looked daggers at the man.

“Now, Ram Singh,” inquired Mr. Percy, “did you ever get any medicine of the Tahsildar sahib?”

“O yes, I got a bottle.”

“When?” quickly asked Mr. Percy.

“It was on the last day of the Ram nila mela, when the people were coming from the pooja.”

“He gave you some?”

“No, no. I paid a rupee for it; and here is the empty bottle.”

“Ram Singh!” said Mr. Percy, very sternly. “Do you expect me to believe that you went and paid the Tahsildar sahib a rupee for a little bottle of medicine, when you are so poor that you cannot get food enough to eat?”

“He is lying,” broke in the Tahsildar, catching at this straw, “they are all liars, these spawn of Shaitan!”

“Ram Singh,” continued Mr. Percy, with a grave voice, “I want to know where you got that rupee.”

“I sold some haldi to the poojawalas; a few pice worth to one, and a few anas worth to another, until I got the rupee.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Percy, “and then you wasted it on a bottle of medicine.”

“Wasted! wasted, sahib! wasted, when my only boy, the light of my eyes, the heart of my heart, was ill, and I was afraid he was dying! Had he died, where would I have been? My honor, my house, my all! How could I think of the loss of a rupee, even if it was the last one I should ever see?”

“It is well,” said Mr. Percy; “but did you ever get any more medicine?”

“Yes,” he replied, “this morning I got another bottle, and here it is,” holding it up.

“And this was given to you?” asked Mr. Percy.

“No, no! I gave two rupees for this one.”

“Ram Singh!” said Mr. Percy, more sternly than before, “I don’t want any falsehoods about this. You said you once paid one rupee when it was all you had, and now you dare to tell me that you have gone and paid two rupees?”

“Your honor!” exclaimed the Tahsildar, “he is lying, and I would not listen to him any more; where could he, a beggar get two rupees?”

“Yes, sahib,” put in Ram Singh, “it is a true thing; for these brothers of mine went with me and saw me get the medicine, and they know I tell the truth.”

“We will hear them,” said Mr. Percy. “What do you know about it?” They were all standing in a row in frontof us, directly facing the Tahsildar, with the palms of their hands together, as is the custom. Said the elder of them, “Ram Singh came to us just as light appeared this morning, and showed us a ten-rupee note, saying that he was going to the Tahsildar sahib, at Sahib Gunge, to buy some medicine, and wanted us to go with him, as he said he was afraid of being robbed, or that the Tahsildar sahib might arrest him for having so much money; so we went with him and saw him give the note, and get the bottle of medicine and eight rupees from the Tahsildar sahib. That is all I know about it.”

“Another lie! they are all of a kind, and have made up this story together, to destroy my honor,” put in the Tahsildar.

“Now, Ram Singh,” said Mr. Percy, “I want to know about this; where did you get that ten-rupee note?” And Ram Singh, greatly surprised, not seeing the line of investigation, exclaimed, “Barra Sahib! Did I not come to you yesterday for some medicine, and from your honor’s kind heart did you not give me a ten-rupee note?”

“Is this it?” inquired Mr. Percy, showing him the note.

“The very one,” he exclaimed, “for there is the dog’s head. This morning when we were on the road, where no one could see us, I took the note out of my kamarbund and showed it to my two brothers, and I told them that I saw the Chota Sahib make that dog’s head while I stood at the Barra Sahib’s table.”

“Charles,” asked Mr. Percy, “Chota Sahib, are you in this conspiracy too? Let us hear from you; the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!” as sternly as if I was a culprit, yet with a twinkle in his eye that I well understood. “Did you ever see this note before?” he asked. “Yes,” I replied, “I saw it in this room yesterday. Ram Singh was here, and Cockear was sitting in front while I made the sketch. I cannot tell a lie, sir. That is my mark. I did it with my little—pen.” I was about to say hatchet, as I had just read the story of George Washington. I also added, “These Greek words are yours, and there are your initials.” “Yes,” said Mr. Percy, “you arecorrect. The only witness yet remaining is the dog, so we will call him,” and at a whistle, there he was before us, all alive, trembling with eagerness, with that ear of his cocked up, as if waiting to hear us say, “Rats!”

In the whole of this investigation Cockear came as the climax, and his action showed that he was conscious of his importance in the affair. The whole scene was so ludicrous that we, Mr. Percy and all, even Cockear in his way, burst out laughing, except the discomfited Tahsildar, who responded with more of a savage grin than anything else.

Assuming his magisterial air again, Mr. Percy said, “Now, Tahsildar sahib, we will hear what you have to say.” This man, so bold when he entered the room, cowered in his chair. He seemed whipped; completely used up. He began, “Your Honor!” and hesitated. “If it had depended on the testimony of these miserable wretches I would never have believed myself guilty of such a mean act, but as the Chota Sahib’s picture of the dog and your signature on the note are against me, I must believe that I did this thing; it must be my kismet, though I cannot understand how I came to be caught in this net of Shaitan.” “You plead guilty, then?” asked Mr. Percy. “Your Honor have mercy upon me, for it was Shaitan that has beguiled me.”

After a pause Mr. Percy began, “Tahsildar!” he dropped the sahib, “I had all confidence in you, and trusted you implicitly. You have robbed the poor; you have deceived me; you came here boldly and lied to me, and have wronged these poor men in trying to make them out as false witnesses. Why, even the dog is more honorable and truthful than you are. An officer of the government, you are no better than a common liar, or a low down bazar sneak thief. I shall never trust or believe you again.”

As he went on Mr. Percy’s wrath increased, and he gave the Tahsildar such a scoring that made him tremble. Mr. Percy had taken a large round black ruler in his hand, and when firing off one of his severest shots at the Tahsildar, he brought the ruler down upon the table with such force that it broke into a number of pieces. This so increased the fright of the Tahsildar that he threw himself upon the floor andgrasped Mr. Percy’s feet. Cockear, taking him for some kind of game, went for the crouching suppliant in dead earnest. This rather spoiled the judicial aspect of the scene. The bearer took away the dog, and the man was ordered to his seat.

“One word more,” said Mr. Percy, “Don’t you ever in any way interfere with these men. They have done just what I told them to do.” Then turning to the men, “Ram Singh, if this Tahsildar ever troubles you in the least, let me know it and I will have him put in jail as a thief. Here are the rupees you paid for the medicine and there is another bottle besides. I am much pleased with what you have done. You can go now,” and out they went, followed by the Tahsildar who made a most obeisant salaam. I doubt if in all his life he was as glad to escape from anything as he was from Mr. Percy’s withering scorn.

This ended, Mr. Percy said, “Now, Charles, I think we have had circus enough for one day, we will take a walk in the garden.” Several times he referred to the scenes in “our court,” as he styled it. The crash of that ruler, the quaking fright, and the crouching of the Tahsildar and Cockear going for him was so ludicrous, that he laughed till the tears came.

I said he was angry. I never again saw him show his indignation as on that day, and had he not cause for it then? Yet he did not use one improper word, nothing but what his mother might have heard, and I think had she been present she would have said “Robert, you are too good, you should not talk to such a man, rather take the ruler to him, or beat him out of the house with your slipper.”

Back to IndexNext