* * * * *
He sat silent, looking out to the now darkening sky where the light had faded save in the widening rays spreading out from the grave of the sun. And down one of them, as down a golden staircase, I seemed to see a flying figure with outstretched arms pass to Jerusalem the Golden with the cry "Mâhârâj! Mâhârâj!"
But Craddock was already clearing his throat suggestively for the usual glass of whisky and water; yet ere he drank it his eyes wandered absently, helplessly, to the horizon, and I heard him mutter to himself:
"An' so 'twas white, not black, as did for Nathaniel James Craddock at the bottom o' the King's Well."
And as I looked at him drink-sodden and reckless, I understood that when the time came he too would have the right to pass down the King's stair seeking justice--and finding it.
UMA HIMAVUTEE
I
Uma-devi was sitting on a heap of yellow wheat, which showed golden against the silvery surface of her husband's threshing-floor. She was a tall woman, of about five and twenty, with a fair, fine-cut face, set in a perfect oval above the massive column of her throat. She was a Brâhmani of the Suruswutee tribe--in other words, a member of perhaps the most ancient Aryan colony in India, which long ages back settled down to cultivate the Hurreana, or "green country"; so called, no doubt, before its sacred river, the Suruswutee, lost itself in the dry deserts west of Delhi; a member, therefore, of a community older than Brâhmanism itself, and which clings oddly to older faiths, older ways, and older gods. So Uma-devi, who was on the rack of that jealousy which comes to most women, whether they be ignorant or cultured, had the advantage over most of the latter: she could look back through the ages to a more inspiring and stimulating progenitrix than Mother Eve. For, despite the pharisaical little hymn of Western infancy bidding us thank goodness for our birth and inheritance of knowledge, one can scarcely be grateful for a typical woman simpering over an apple, or subsequently sighing over the difficulties of dress. The fact being that our story of Creation only begins when humanity, fairly started on the Rake's Progress, felt the necessity for bolstering up its self-respect by the theory of original sin.
But this woman could dimly, through the numb pain of her heart, feel the influence of a nobler Earth-mother in Uma Himāvutee--Uma her namesake--Uma of the Himalayas, birthplace of all sacred things--Uma of the sunny yet snowy peaks, emblem at once of perfect wifehood, motherhood, and that mystical virginity which, in Eve-ridden faiths, finds its worship in Mariolatry.
That she could even dimly recognise the beauty of this conception came partly from the simple yet ascetic teachings of her race; partly because there are some natures, East and West, which turn instinctively to Uma Himāvutee, and this woman among yellow corn was of that goodly company.
Yet a sharp throb of sheer animal jealousy--the jealousy which in most civilised communities is considered a virtue when sanctified by the bonds of matrimony--seemed to tear her heart as her hands paused in her patient darning of gold-coloured silk on dull madder-red stuff, and her eyes sought the figure of a man outlined against the dull red horizon.
It was Shiv-deo, her husband, returning from his work in the fields.
She folded up her work methodically, leaving the needle with its pennant of floss still twined deftly in and out of the threads as a mark to show where to take up the appointed pattern once more. For Uma-devi's work was quaintly illustrative of her life, being done from the back of the stuff and going on laboriously, conscientiously, trustfully, without reference to the unseen golden diaper slowly growing to beauty on the other side of the cloth. That remained as a reward to tired eyes and fingers when the toil was over, and the time came to piece the whole web into a garment--a wedding veil, perchance, for her daughter, had she had one. But Uma was childless.
Yet there was no reproach, no discontent in her husband's fine beardless face as he came up to her; for he happened--despite the barbarous marriage customs of his race--to love his wife as she loved him.
They were a handsome pair truly, much of an age, tall, strong, yet of a type as refined-looking as any in the world. At their feet lay the heaps of wheat; beyond them, around them, that limitless plain which once seen holds the imagination captive for ever whether the recollection be of a sea of corn, or, as now, of stretches of brown earth bare of all save the dead sources of a gathered harvest. To one side, a mile or so away, the piled mud village was girdled by a golden haze of dust which sprang from the feet of the homing cattle.
"I saw one with thee but now," he said, as half-mechanically he stooped to gather up a handful of the wheat and test it between finger and thumb. "Gossip Râdha by her bulk--and by thy face, wife. What new crime hath the village committed? What new calamity befallen the part-owners? Sure, even her tongue could say naught against the harvest!"
"Naught! thanks be to the Lord!" replied Uma briefly. "Now, since thou hast come to watch, I will go bring the water and see Baba-jee[34] hath his dinner. I will return ere long and set thee free."
"Thou hast a busy life," he said suddenly as if the fact struck him newly. "There are too few of us for the work."
The woman turned from him suddenly to look out to the horizon beyond the level fields.
"Ay! there are too few of us," she echoed with an effort, "but I will be back ere the light goes."
Too few! Yes, too few. She had known that for some time; and if it were so in their youth and strength, what would it be in the old age which must come upon them as it had upon the Baba-jee, who, as she passed in to the wide courtyard in order to fetch the big brazen water vessel, nodded kindly, asking where his son had lingered.
"He watchas the corn heaps till I return. It must be so, since there are so few of us."
The nod changed to a shake, and the cheerful old voice trembled a little over the echo.
"Ay! there are few of us."
All the way down to the shallow tank, set, as it were, in a crackle-edge of a sun-baked mud, the phrase re-echoed again and again in Uma-devi's brain till it seemed written large through her own eyes in the faces of the village women passing to and fro with their water-pots. They knew it also; they said it to themselves, though as yet none had dared--save Mai Râdha, with her cowardly hints--to say to her that the time had come when the few ought to be made more. Ah! if Shiv-deo's younger brother had not died before his child-wife was of age to be brought home, this need not have been. Though, even then, a virtuous woman for her husband's sake ought----
Uma-devi, down by the water-edge, as if to escape from her own thoughts, turned hastily to spread the corner of her veil over the wide mouth of the brazen pot and with a smaller cup began to ladle the muddy water on to the strainer. But the thought was passionate, insistent. Ought! What was the use of prating about ought? She could not, she would not let Shivo take another woman by the hand. How could they ask her, still young, still beautiful, still beloved, to give him another bride? Why, it would be her part to lift the veil from the new beauty, as she lifted it from the now brimming water-pot--so----
Uma Himāvutee! what did she see? Her own face reflected in the brass-ringed water, as in a mirror set in a golden frame! Clear as in any mirror her own beauty--the lips Shivo had kissed--the eyes which held him so dear; all, all, unchanged. Ah! but it was impossible! That was what the pious old folk preached--what the pious young folk pretended. She poised the brazen vessel on her head, telling herself passionately it was impossible. Yet the sight of the wide courtyard, empty save for Baba-jee creeping about to feed the milch kine and do what he could of woman's work, revived that refrain of self-reproach, "There are too few of us." Shivo himself had said it--for the first time it is true, but would it be the last? Wherefore? since it was true. She set down the water-pot and began to rekindle the ashes on the hearth, thinking stupidly of that reflection of her own face. But water was like a man's heart; it could hold more faces than one.
"Ari, hai! sister," called Mai Râdha, pausing at the open doorway to look in and see the house-mistress clapping unleavened bread between her palms with the hot haste of one hard pressed for time. "Thou hast no rest; but one woman is lost in these courts. I mind when thy mother-in-law lived and there were young things growing up in each corner. That is as it should be."
A slow flush darkened Uma's face. "Young things come quick enough when folks will," she retorted passionately. "Give me but a year's grace, gossip, and I, Uma-devi, will fill the yard too--if I wish it filled. Ay! and without asking thy help either."
It was intolerable that this woman with her yearly, endless babies should come and crow over the childless hearth. Yet she was right; and again the old sickening sense of failure replaced the flash of indignant forgetfulness.
"Heed not my food, daughter," came the cheerful contented old voice. "I can cook mine own and Shivo must need his after the day's toil. If thou take it to him at the threshing-floor 'twill save time; when hands are few the minutes are as jewels and it grows dark already. Thou wilt need a cresset for safety from the snakes."
Once more the woman winced. That was true also; yet had she been doing her duty and bringing sons to the hearth it would not have been so, for the glory of coming motherhood would have driven the serpents from her path.[35]
She paused at the doorstep to give a backward glance, to see the old man already at his woman's work, and her heart smote her again. Was it seemly work for the most learned man in the village who had taught his son to be so good, so kind? Yet Shivo of himself would never say the word, neither would the old man. That was the worst of it; for it would have been easier to have kicked against the pricks.
She passed swiftly to the fields, the brass platter--glittering under the flicker of the cresset and piled with dough cakes and a green leaf of curds--poised gracefully on her right palm, the brass lotah of drinking water hanging from her left hand, the heavy folds of her gold and madder draperies swaying as she walked. It was not yet quite dark. A streak of red light lingered in the horizon, though overhead the stars began to twinkle, matched in the dim stretch of shadowy plain by the twinkling lights showing one by one from the threshing-floors. But Shiv-deo's was still dark, because there had been no one to bring him a lamp. She gave an angry laugh, set her teeth and stepped quicker. If it came to that, she had better speak at once; speak now--to-night--before Mai Râdha or some one else had a chance--speak out in the open where there were no spies to see--to hear.
It was a clear night, she thought, for sure; and, despite the red warning, giving promise of a clear dawn. One of those dawns, maybe, when, like a pearl-edged cloud, the far distant Himalayas would hang on the northern horizon during the brief twilight and vanish before the glare of day. Ai! Mai Uma must be cold up there in the snows!
And Shivo must be hungry by this time; watching, perhaps, the twinkling light she carried come nearer and nearer.
The thought pleased her, soothing her simple heart, and the placid routine of her life came to aid her as she set the platter before her husband reverently with the signs of worship she would have yielded a god. Were they not, she and Shivo, indissolubly joined together for this world and the next? Was not a good woman redemption's source to her husband? Baba-jee had read that many times from his old books. So she felt no degradation as she set the water silently by Shivo's right hand, scooped a hollow in the yellow wheat for the flickering cresset and then drew apart into the shadows leaving the man alone to perform the ritual in that little circle of light. He was her husband; that was enough.
With her chin upon both her hands she crouched on another pile of corn and watched him with sad eyes. Far and near all was soft, silent darkness save for those twinkling stars shining in heaven and matched on earth. Far and near familiar peace, familiar certainty. Even that pain at her heart? Had not others felt it and set it aside? The calm endurance of her world, its disregard of pain, seemed to change her own smart to a dull ache, as her eyes followed every movement of the man who loved her.
"Thou art silent, wife," he said, kind wonder in his tone, when, the need for silence being over, she still sat without a word.
That roused her. Silent! yea! silent for too long.
She rose suddenly and stood before him, tall and straight in the circle of light. Then her voice came clear without a tremble.
"There are too few of us in the house, husband. We must have more. We must have young hands when ours are old."
He stood up in his turn stretching his hands towards her.
"Uma! say not so," he faltered, "I want no more."
She shook her head.
"The fields want them; and even thou----" Then her calm broke, dissolved, disappeared, like a child's sand barrier before the tide. She flung her arms skyward and her voice came like a cry.
"Ask her--ask thy sister--let her do all. I cannot. And she--she must come from afar, Shivo, from far! Not from here--lest Mai Râdha----"
She broke off, turned and flung herself face down in the corn silently, clutching at it with her hand.
Shiv-deo stood looking out over the shadowy fields.
"They need them surely," he said softly after a time, "and my father has a right----"
He paused, stooped, and laid a timid touch on the woman's shoulder.
"Yea! she shall come from far, wife, from far."
Then there was silence; far and near.
II
There was no lack of life now in the wide courtyards, though the year claimed by Uma's pride had scarcely gone by. And there was more to come ere the sunset, if the gossips said sooth as they passed in and out, setting the iron knife (suspended on a string above the inner door) a-swinging as they elbowed it aside. From within came a babel of voices, striving to speak softly and so sinking into a sort of sibilant hiss, broken by one querulous cry of intermittent complaint. Without, in the bigger courtyard was a cackle and clamour, joyfully excited, round a platter of sugar-drops set for due refreshment of the neighbours. It would be a boy, for sure, they said, the omens being all propitious and Purm-eshwar[36] well aware of the worthiness of the household. But, good lack! what ways foreign women had! There was the girl's mother, disregarding this old custom, performing that new mummery as if there were no canon of right and wrong; yet they were--those town women--of the race, doubtless of the same race! It was passing strange; nevertheless Uma herself did bravely, having always been of the wise sort. She had given the word back keenly but now to Mai Râdha who, as usual, had her pestle in the mortar, and must needs join in the strange woman's hints that the first wife was better away from the sufferer's sight. Puramesh! What an idea! She had spoken sharp and fair, as was right, seeing that it was hard above the common on Uma--so young, so handsome, so well-beloved! Many a pious one in her place, with no mother-in-law to deal with--only two soft-hearted, soft-tongued men--would have closed the door on another wedding yet awhile, and bided on Providence longer. Small blame either. It was not ten years since those two had come together; while as for affection----
The rush of words slackened as the object of it set the swinging knife aside, and came forward to see that naught was lacking to the hospitality of the house. With those strange women within, lording it over all by virtue of their relationship to the expectant mother, it behoved her honour to see that there was no possible ground for complaint. It was a year since Uma had flung herself face down upon the wheat, and now the yellow corn once more lay in heaps upon the white threshing-floor. Another harvest had been sown and watered and reaped; but Uma was waiting for hers. And her mind was in a tumult of jealous fear. Shivo with all his goodness, his kindness to her, could scarcely help loving the mother of his child better than the woman who had failed to bring him one. How could she take that other woman's son in her arms and hold it up for the father's first look? Yet that would be her part.
The strain of the thought showed in her face as she moved about seeing to this and that, speaking to those other women serenely, cheerfully. Her pride ensured so much.
Within, the coming grandmother heaved a very purposeful sigh of relief at her absence. The patient would be better now that those glowering eyes were away. Whereat Mai Râdha, the time-server, nodded her head sagely; but the girlish voice from the bed, set round with lamps and flowers, rose in fretful denial.
"Hold thy peace, mother. Thou canst not understand, being of the town. It is different here in the village."
The mother giggled, nudging her neighbour. "Nine to credit, ten to debit! That's true of a first wife, town and country. But think as thou wilt, honey! Trust me to see she throws no evil eye on thee or the child. She shall not even see it till the fateful days be over."
The village midwife, an old crone sitting smoking a pipe at the foot of the bed, laughed.
"Thou art out there, mother! 'Tis her part, her right, to show the babe to its father. That is old fashion and we hold to it."
"Show it to its father! Good lack! Heard one ever the like!" shrilled the indignant grandmother to be. "Why, with us he must not see it for days. Is it not so, friends?"
The town-bred contingent clamoured shocked assent; the midwife and her cronies stood firm. Uma, appealed to by a deputation, met the quarrel coldly.
"I care not," she said; "settle it as you please. I am ready to hold the child or not."
So a compromise was effected between the disputants within, before the beating of brass trays announced the happy birth of a son, and they came trooping into the outer court full of words and explanations. But Uma heard nothing and saw nothing except the crying, frog-like morsel of humanity they thrust into her unwilling arms. So that was Shivo's child! How ugly, and what an ill-tempered little thing. Suddenly the gurgling cry ceased, as instinctively she folded her veil about the struggling, naked limbs.
"So! So!" cried the gossips, pushing and pulling joyfully, excitedly. "Yonder is the master! All is ready."
She set her teeth for the ordeal and let herself be thrust towards Shivo, who was seated by the door, his back towards her. She had not seen him since the advent of the gossips at dawn had driven the men-kind from the homestead. And now the sun was setting redly, as on that evening a year ago when she had told him they were too few for the house. Well, there were more now. And this was the worst. Now she was to see love grow to his face for the child which was not hers, knowing that love for its mother must grow also unseen in his heart.
"So! So!" cried the busy, unsympathetic voices intent on their own plans. "Hold the child so, sister, above his shoulders, and bid him take his first look at a son."
The old dogged determination to leave nothing undone which should be done, strengthened her to raise the baby as she was bid, stoop with it over Shivo's shoulder and say, almost coldly:
"I bring thee thy son, husband. Look on it and take its image to thine heart."
Then she gave a quick, incredulous cry; for, as she stooped, she saw her own face reflected in the brass-ringed mirror formed by the wide mouth of the brimming water-pot, which was set on the floor before Shiv-deo!
"Higher! sister! higher," cried the groups. "Let him see the babe in the water for luck's sake. So! Ari! father, is not that a son indeed! Wah! the sweetest doll."
Sweet enough, in truth, looked the reflection of that tiny face where her own had been. She let it stay there for a second or two; then a sudden curiosity came to her and she drew aside almost roughly, still keeping her eyes on the water-mirror. Ah! there was her husband's face now, with a look in it that she had never seen before--the look of fatherhood.
Without a word she thrust her burden back into other arms, asking impatiently if that were all, or if they needed more of her services.
"More indeed," muttered the grandmother tartly as she disappeared again, intent on sugar and spices, behind the swinging knife. "Sure some folk had small labour or pains over this day's good work. Lucky for the master that there be other women in the world."
Uma looked after her silently, beset by a great impatience of the noise and the congratulations. She wanted to get away from it all, from those whispers and giggles heard from within, and interrupted every now and then by that new gurgling cry. The excitement was over, the gossips were departing one by one, Shivo and his father were being dragged off to the village square for a pipe of peace and thanksgiving. No one wanted her now; her part in the house was done, and out yonder in the gathering twilight the heaps of corn were alone; as she was. She could at least see to their safety for a while and have time to remember those faces; hers, and the child's, and Shivo's.
Well! it was all over now. No wonder they did not need her any more since she had done all--yea! she had done her duty to the uttermost!
A sort of passionate resentment at her own virtue filled her mind as, wearied out with the physical strain, she lay down to rest upon the yielding yellow wheat. How soft it was, how cool. She nestled into it, head, hands, feet, gaining a certain consolation from the mere comfort to her tired body. And as she looked out over her husband's fields, the very knowledge that the harvest had been reaped and gathered soothed her; besides, in the years to come there would be other hands for other harvests. That was also as it should be. And yet? She turned her face down into the wheat.
"Shivo! Shivo!" she sobbed into the fruits of the harvest which she had helped to sow and gather. "Shivo! Shivo!"
But to her creed marriage had for its object the preservation of the hearth fire, not the fire of passion, and the jealousy which is a virtue to the civilised was a crime to this barbarian.
So, as she lay half-hidden in the harvested corn, the thought of the baby's face, and hers, and Shivo's--all, all in the water-mirror, brought her in a confused half-comprehending way a certain comfort from their very companionship. So, by degrees, the strain passed from mind and body, leaving her asleep, with slackened curves, upon the heap of corn. Asleep peacefully until a hand touched her shoulder gently, and in the soft grey dawn she saw her husband standing beside her.
She rose slowly, drawing her veil closer with a shiver, for the air was chill.
"I have been seeking thee since nightfall, wife," he said in gentle reproach, with a ring of relief in his voice, "I feared--I know not what--that thou hadst thought me churlish, perhaps, because I did not thank thee for--for thy son."
His hand sought hers and found it, as they stood side by side looking out over the fields with the eyes of those whose lives are spent in sowing and reaping, looking out over the wide sweep of bare earth and beyond it, on the northern horizon, the dim, dawn-lit peaks of the Himalayas.
"He favours her in the face, husband," she said quietly, "but he hath thy form. That is as it should be, for thou art strong and she is fair."
So, as they went homeward through the lightening fields,--she a dutiful step behind the man,--the printing presses over at the other side of the world were busy, amid flaring gas-jets and the clamour of marvellous machinery, in discussing in a thousand ways the dreary old problems of whether marriage is a failure or not.
It was not so to Uma-devi.
YOUNG LOCHINVAR
Young Lochinvar, in the original story, came out of the West. In this tale he came out of the East, and the most match-making mamma might be disposed to forgive him; partly on account of his youth, partly because he really was not a free agent.
They were cousins of course. In the finest race of the Panjab--possibly of the world--cousins have a right to cousins provided the relationship lie through the mother's brother, or the father's sister; the converse, for some mysterious reason, being anathema maranatha.
But Nânuk's mother, wife of big Suchêt Singh, head man of Aluwallah village, was sister to Dhyân Singh, the armourer, who plied his trade in the little courtyard hidden right in the heart of the big city. A big man too, high-featured and handsome; high-tempered also as the steel which he inlaid so craftily with gold. For all that, round, podgy Mai Gunga, his wife, ruled him by virtue of a smartness unknown to his slower, gentler nature. Not so gentle, however, but that he mourned the degeneracy of these latter piping days of peace. They and the Arms Act had driven him from the manufacture of sword hilts and helmets, shields and corselets, to that of plaques and inkstands, candlesticks and ashtrays. From the means of resistance to the decoration of victorious drawing-rooms. Not that he nourished ill-feeling against those victors. They were a brave lot, and since then his people had helped them bravely to keep their winnings. Only it was dull work; so every now and again Dhyan Singh revenged himself by making a paper knife in the form of some bloodthirsty lethal weapon, and put his best work on it, just to keep his hand in.
Little Pertâbi, his daughter, used to sit and watch her father at the tiny forge set in the central sunshine of the yard. It was funny to see the shaving of sheer steel curl up from the graver guided in its flowing curves by nothing but that skilled eye and hand; funnier still to watch the gold wire nestle down so obediently into the groove; funniest of all to blow the bellows when the time came to put that iridescent blue temper to the finished work.
Then, naked to the waist, the soft brown hair on her forehead plaited in tiniest plaits into a looped fringe, a little gold filigree cup poised on the top of her head, a long betasselled pigtail hanging down behind, Pertâbi would set her short red-trousered legs very far apart, and puff and blow, and laugh, and then blow again to her own and her father's intense delight; for Dhyân having a couple of strapping sons to satisfy Mai Gunga's heart felt himself free to adore this child of his later years.
But even when there was blowing to be done, Pertâbi did not find life in the city half as amusing as life out in the village at her aunt's with cousin Nânuk as a playfellow. Nânuk to whom she was to be married by and by. That had been settled when she was a baby in arms, for in those, and for many years after, Suchêt Singh's wife and Mai Gunga had been as friendly as sisters-in-law can well be. That is to say there were visits to the village for change of air, especially at sugar-baking time, while those who wished for shopping or society came as a matter of course to the armourer's house. The world wags in the same fashion East and West; especially among the women folk.
"They will make a fine pair! God keep them to the auspicious day," the deep-chested countrywomen would say piously; then Mai Gunga would giggle a bit, and remark that if Nânuk grew so fast she would have to leave Pertâbi at home next time. Whereupon the boy's mother would flare up, and sniff, as country folk do, at town ideas. In her family such talk had never been necessary; the lads and lasses grew up together, and mothers were in no hurry to bring age and thought upon them. Perhaps that was the reason why men and women alike were of goodly stature and strength; for even Mai Gunga must admit that Dhyân was at least a fine figure of a man. So there would be words to while away the hours before the men returned from the fields. And outside, under the bushy mulberry trees, Pertâbi and Nânuk would be fighting and making it up again in the cosmopolitan fashion of healthy children. Of the two Pertâbi, perhaps, hit the hardest; she certainly howled the loudest, being a wilful young person. Nânuk used to implore her not to tease the sacred peacocks, when they came sedately by companies to drink at the village tank, as the sun set red over the limitless plane of young green corn, and she would squat down suddenly on her red-trousered heels with her hands tight clasped behind her back, and promise to be as still as a grey crane if she might only look. Then some vainglorious cock was sure to show off his tail; every tail was to Pertâbi's eager eyes the most beautiful one in the world, and she must needs have a feather--just one little feather-- from it as a keepsake--just a little keepsake. Now, what Pertâbi desired she got, at any rate if Nânuk had aught to say towards the possibility. So the little tyrant would play with the feather for five minutes; then fling it away. But Nânuk, serious, conscientious Nânuk, would set aside half his supper of curds on the sly and sneak out with it after sundown as an oblation to the mysterious village god, who lived in a red splashed stone under the peepul tree. Else the peacocks being angry might not cry for rain, and then what would become of the green corn? Nânuk was a born cultivator, true in most things, above all to Mother Earth. Despite the peacocks' feathers, however, not without a will of his own; for when, on one of his visits to the city, Pertâbi insisted on handling the little squirrel he brought with him housed in his high turban, and it bit her, he laughed, saying he had told her so; nay, more, when she chased the frightened little creature savagely, howling for vengeance, he fell upon her and boxed her ears soundly, much to Mai Gunga's displeasure. A rough village lout, and her darling the daintiest little morsel of flesh!
"I don't care," sobbed Pertâbi; "I'll bite him hard next time--yes! I will, Nâno; you'll see if I don't."
Mai Gunga, however, was right in one thing. Pertâbi was an extremely pretty child. The gossips coming in of an afternoon to discuss births, marriages, and deaths took to shaking their heads and saying that she might have made a better match than Nânuk, who, every one thought, would limp for life in consequence of that fall from the topmost branch of the shisham tree where the squirrels built their nests. Not much of a limp, perhaps, but who did not know that under the bone-setter's care a broken leg often came out a bit shorter than the other, even if it was as strong as ever? Mai Gunga's plump, pert face hardened, but she said nothing; not even when a new acquaintance, the wife of a rich contractor on the lookout for a bride of good family, openly bewailed the prior claim on Pertâbi.
Nevertheless the next time that the sister-in-law came to town, and on leaving it laden with endless bundles wrapped in Manchester handkerchiefs spoke confidently of the meeting at sugar-time, Mai Gunga threw difficulties in the way. She was too busy to come herself; Nânuk, still a semi-invalid, must be quite sufficient charge for her sister-in-law. Besides seeing that Pertâbi touched the eights, she thought it time for village customs to give way to greater decorum. Briefly, despite the peculiar virtue of some people's families, she did not choose that her daughter should be out of her sight. The two women, as might be supposed, parted with ceremony and effusion; but Suchêt Singh's wife had barely arrived in the wide village courtyards ere she burst forth:
"Mark my words!" she said, even as she disposed her bundles about her. "That town-bred woman means mischief. I was a fool to give in to you and Dhyân, instead of having the barber, as to a stranger. Not that I want the little hussy above other brides, but I would not have Nânuk slighted."
Suchêt Singh laughed.
"Twenty mile of an ekka hath shook thy brains out, wife. What talk is this? They are two halves of one pea. As friend Elahi Buksh saith, 'do dil razi to kia kare kazi?' (when two are heart to heart, where's the parson's part?)"
"Tra! That's neither in three nor thirteen," retorted his wife. "Give me the barber[37] for certainty."
Meanwhile Pertâbi was howling in the little courtyard, much to big, soft-hearted Dhyân's distress.
"Let her go, but this once," he pleaded aside; "truly thou art over anxious, and she but seven for all her spirit."
"Seventy or seven, God knows thee for a baby," snapped Mai Gunga. "Would I had never listened to thee and thy sister, though, for sure, the children were pretty as marionettes. It was a play to think of it. But a mother knows her daughter better than the father, though it seems thou wilt be ordering the wedding-garments next. So be it, but till then Pertâb goes not to Nânuk; 'tis not seemly."
"I--I don't want Nânuk," howled Pertâbi. "I--I want the fresh molasses--I do--I do."
Want, however, was her master, since her own obstinacy was but inherited from her mother. So she sat sulkily in the sunshine, refusing the armourer's big caresses or the charms of bellows-blowing, while she pictured to herself, with all the vividness of rage, Nânuk going down--going down alone--to watch the great shallow pans of foamy, frothy, fragrant juice shrink and shrink in the dark, low hut where one could scarcely see save for the flame of the furnaces. What joy to feed those flames with the dry, crushed refuse of the cane and leaves! What bliss to thrust a tentative twig, on the sly, into the seething, darkening molasses, and then escape deftly to that shadowy hiding-place by the well, and gravely consider the question as to whether it was nearly boiled enough. Toffee-making all over the world has a mysterious fascination for children, and this was toffee-making on a gigantic scale. The legitimate bairn's part of scraping from each brew never tasted half so sweet as those stolen morsels; if only because, when you threw away the sucked twigs, the squirrels would come shyly from the peepul tree where the green pigeons cooed all day long, and fight for your leavings. Pertâbi could see the whole scene when she closed her eyes. The level plain, the shadow of the trees blotting out the sunshine, the trickle of running water from the well, the creaking of the presses, the babel of busy voices, and over all, through all, that lovely, lovely smell of toffee! Yes! sugar-baking time in the village was heavenly, and Nânuk was greedy--greedy as a grey crow to keep it all to himself!
When Spring brought big Suchêt to pay the village revenue into the office, he and the armourer met, as ever, on the best of terms; nevertheless their subsequent interviews with their woman-kind were less satisfactory.
"Thou art worse than a peacock which cries even after rain has fallen," finished the big villager testily. "What is it to me if women come or go? Dhyân is a man of mettle and word."
Yet in his heart he knew well that the armourer had no more to say to such matters in the narrow city court, than he had in the wide village yard, where the kine stood in rows, and Nânuk's tumbler pigeons never lacked a grain of corn at which to peck.
As for Mai Gunga, her wrath became finally voluble at the hint thrown out by big Dhyân, that if she went no more to the village, folk might talk of Pertâb being slighted. Slighted, indeed, with half the eligible mothers agog with envy! Slighted, when but for this cripple--yea! Dhyân need not make four eyes at her--she said cripple, and meant it. He had a broken leg, and that to a man of sense was sufficient excuse for breach of betrothals. If, indeed, there ever had been such a thing as a betrothal; which for her part she denied.
Dhyân Singh swore many big oaths, vowed many mighty vows that he would have naught to do with such woman's work. Not even if it became clear that, as his wife hinted, his little Pertâb would not be welcome in his sister's house. Yet he scowled over the idea, twisted his beard tighter over his ears, as became a man, and looked very fierce. And when a month or two later Suchêt Singh's wife met his halting apology for Mai Gunga's absence with a distinct sniff and a cool remark that she really did not care,--Nânuk could no doubt do better in brides,--he came home in a towering passion to his anvil and made a paper knife fit for a brigand. To have such a thing said to him, even in jest, when he, for his sister's sake, had been willing to waive the fact of Nânuk being a cripple!
"Cripple indeed!" shrieked the boy's mother, when Suchêt came back from the city one day with Dhyân's remark enlarged and illustrated by friendly gossip. "Lo, husband! That is an end. Whose fault if he limps?--only in running, mind, not in walking. Whose indeed! Whose but that immodest, wicked, ill-brought-up hussy's! Was it not to get her another squirrel, because she cried so for his, that he climbed? Let her have her girl; we will have damages."
So when sugar-baking time came round again, Suchêt and Dhyân, rather to their own surprise, found themselves claimant and defendant in a breach of betrothal case for the recovery of fifteen hundred rupees spent in preliminary expenses. Yet, despite their surprise, they were both beside themselves with rage. Dhyân because of the unscrupulous claim when not one penny had been spent, Suchêt because of the slur cast on his boy's straight limbs by the secondary plea in defence; that even if there had been a betrothal and not a family understanding, the crippled condition of the bridegroom was sufficient excuse for the breach of contract. The actual point of the betrothal being so effectually overlaid by these lies as to be obscured even from the litigant's own eyes.
It was one gorgeous blue day in December that Suchêt rode in to the city on his pink-nosed mare, with Nânuk on the crupper to bear witness in Court to his own perfections. A handsome, soft-eyed lad of ten, glad enough of the ride, sorry for the separation, even for one day, from the village toffee-making; but with a great lump of raw sugar stowed away in his turban as partial consolation. For the rest, he had a childish and yet grave acquiescence. Pertâbi apparently had been a naughty girl, and Mammi Gunga had never been nice. Yet the "jej-sahib"[38] might say they were married; since, after all, he, Nânuk, could run as fast as ever. Tchu! he would like to show Pertâbi that it was so.
The court-house compound was full of suitors and flies, the case of Suchêt versus Dhyân Singh late in the list, so the former bade his son tie the mare in the furthest corner behind the wall, in the shade of a spreading tree, and keep watch, while he went about from group to group in order to discuss his wrongs with various old friends--that being half the joy of going to law; grave groups of reverend bearded faces round a central pipe, grave, slow voices rising in wise saws from the close-set circles of huge turbans and massive blue and white draperies.
Meanwhile Nânuk ate sugar till it began to taste sickly, and then he sat looking at the remaining lump and thinking, not without a certain malice, how Pertâbi would have enjoyed it. Then suddenly, from behind, a small brown hand reached out and snatched it. "One two, that's for you; two three, that's for me; three four, sugar galore; the Rajah begs, with a broken leg----" The singing voice paused, the little figure munching, as it sang, with vindictive eyes upon the boy, paused too in its tantalising dance.
"Did it hurt much, Nâno? I'm so sorry. And mother wouldn't let me keep the squirrel, Nâno; but I howled, I howled like--like a bhut (devil)."
The abstract truth of the description seemed to bring back the past, and Nânuk's face relaxed.
"Father's at Court, and mother's gone to see the woman who wants me to marry her son," explained Pertâbi between the munchings, "but I won't. I won't marry anybody but you, Nâno. I like you, Nâno."
Nâno's face relaxed still more.
"You have got sugar-presses, Nâno, and the other boy has none. He lives in the city, and I hate the city. Is there much sugar this year, Nâno?"
"More than last," replied the boy proudly. "We have the best fields in----"
"Then give me another bit," interrupted Pertâbi.
"That is all I brought." There was a trace of anxiety in Nânuk's voice, and he looked deprecatingly at the little figure now cuddled up beside him.
"Oh, you silly! but it doesn't matter. We can go and fetch some more. That's why I ran away. I knew uncle would bring you, so we can go to the village early. Come, Nâno."
"Go to the village, Pertâb! Oh, what a tale!" It is easy to be virtuously indignant at the first proposition of evil, but what is to be done when you are at the mercy of a small person who hesitates at nothing? Wheedlings, pinchings, kissings, tears, and promises were all one to Pertâbi. At least a ride on the pink-nosed mare for the sake of old times! They could slip away easily without being seen; yonder lay the road villagewards--there would be plenty of time to go a mile, perhaps twain, and get back before Chachcha-ji could possibly finish with his friends. She could get off at the corner, and then even if Chachcha-ji had discovered their absence Nâno could say he had taken the mare for water, or that the flies were troublesome. Excuses were so easy.
Ten minutes after, his feet barely reaching the big shovel stirrups, young Lochinvar ambled out of the court-house compound with his bride behind him.
"We must come back at the turn, Pertâb," he said, to bolster up his own resolution.
"Of course we must come back," replied Pertâbi, digging her small heels into the old grey mare. "Can't you make the stupid go faster, Nâno? We may as well have all the fun we can."
So the old mare went faster down the high-arched avenue of flickering light and shade, and Pertâbi's little red legs flounced about in a way suggestive of falling off. But she shrieked with laughter and held tight to her cavalier.
"Don't let us go back yet, Nâno!" she pleaded; "the old thing is all out of breath, and Chachcha-ji will find out you've been galloping her, and beat you. I shouldn't like you to be beaten, Nâno dear, and it is so lovely."
It was lovely. They were in the open now among the level stretches of young green corn, and there were the fallen battalions of red and gold canes, and from that clump of trees came the familiar creak of the press. Nay, more! wafted on the soft breeze the delicious, the irresistible smell of sugar-boiling. Other people's sugar-boiling.
"It's time we were going back," remarked Nânuk boldly.
"Tchu!" cried Pertâbi from behind, "we are not going back any more. See! I've tied your shawl to my veil. When I do that to my dolls, then they are married; so that settles it. Go on, Nâno! it's all right. Besides it is no use going back now, they would only beat us for getting married. Go on, Nâno--or I'll pinch."
Perhaps it really was fear of the pinching, perhaps it was the conviction that they had gone too far to recede, which finally induced young Lochinvar to give the old mare her head towards home. But even then he showed none of the alacrity displayed beneath him and behind him by the female aiders and abettors. His face grew graver and graver, longer and longer.
"We can't be married until we've taken the seven steps," he said at length. "Look! they have been burning weeds in the field. Let's get down and do it, or the gods will be angry."
Pertâbi clapped her hands. "It will be fun, anyhow, so come along, Nâno."
They tied the old mare to a tree, while, hand tight clasped in hand, just as they had seen it done a hundred times, they circumambulated the sacred fire.
"That's better," sighed Nâno. "Now, I believe, we really are married."
"Tchu!" cried Pertâbi in superior wisdom, "I can tell you heaps and heaps of things. Our dolls do them when we've time; we are always marrying our dolls in the city. But we can ride a bit further first, and when we get tired of Pinky-nose we can just get down and be married another way. That'll rest us."
So through the lengthening shadows, they rode on and got married, rode on, and got married, until Pertâbi's braided head began to nod against Nânuk's back, and she said sleepily:
"We'll keep the gur-ror (sugar-throwing) till tomorrow, Nâno; that'll be fun."
But when, in the deep dusk, the pink-nosed mare drew up of her own accord at the gate of the wide village yard, and drowsy Nânuk just remembered enough of past events to lift his bride across the threshold, and murmur with an awful qualm, "This is my wife," Pertâbi woke up suddenly to plant her little red-trousered legs firmly on the ground, and say, with a nod:
"Yes! and we've been married every way we could think of, haven't we, Nâno? except the sugar-throwing, because we hadn't any; but--we'll--have--plenty--now; won't we, Nâno?" The pauses being filled up by yawns.
It was midnight before Suchêt Singh and Dhyân, forgetful of their enmity in over-mastering anxiety, arrived on the scene. The culprits were then fast asleep, and the deep-chested country-woman, having recovered the shock, was beginning to find a difficulty in telling the tale without smiles. A difficulty which, by degrees, extended itself to her hearers.
"Ho! ho! ho!" exploded Suchêt suddenly; "and so they didn't even forget the forehead mark. I'll be bound that was Nânuk--the rogue."
"Ho! ho! ho!" echoed the armourer; "as like as not it was Pertâb. The sharpest little marionette."
"Well, 'tis done, anyhow," said the woman decisively. "We can't have it said in our family, Dhyân, that the vermilion on a girl's head came save from her husband's fingers. He! he! he! Couldst but have seen them. 'This is my wife,' quoth he. 'And we've been married every way we could think of,' pipes she. 'Haven't we, Nâno?' The prettiest pair--Lord! I shall laugh for ever."
"And--and Gunga?" faltered the armourer.
"Gunga's brain is not addled," retorted her sister-in-law sharply. "Who bruises a plum before taking it to market? What's done is done. We must cook the wedding feast without delay, have in the barber, and keep a still tongue."
So, ere many days were over, Pertâbi and Nânuk, as bride and bridegroom, watched the fire-balloons go up into the cloudless depths of purple sky. The boy watching them shyly, yet with absorbing interest; for did not their course denote the favour or disfavour of the gods?
"The omens are auspicious," he said contentedly; but Pertâbi was in a hurry for the sugar-throwing, in which she aided her bridesmaids with such vigour that Nânuk had a black eye for several days.
"If you were to ask me, and ask me, and ask me to lift you on old Pinky-nose again, I'd never do it--never!" he declared vindictively.
"Oh, yes! you would, Nâno," replied his wife with the utmost confidence, "you would if I asked you; besides you really wanted to be married, you know you did. And then there was the fresh molasses."