The Flower of Forgiveness Part 24

"Because the Presence is a friend to Ram's friend. Has the _Huzoor_ never heard how the squirrel people come to have four black marks on their golden backs? Then I will tell. It was in the old days when Ram's parents fastened the silken bracelet on his wrist, and sent him out to find Seeta his wife. The Presence will have heard of that, and how each year our women folk tie the _ram rukkhi_ to our wrists for luck. Well, when Ram, the King of all men, came to Sanderip, he found the great Monkey had carried off Seeta the Queen of women. Then, being in distress, he bid all the birds and beasts and fishes come to help him, for great Ram was the Lord of the whole earth. Now the first to answer his call was the squirrel. In those days it was all golden, like corn in the sunlight, and light-hearted beyond all mortal things, as it is now. It leapt on to Ram's sword and cried, 'Master! I am ready.' But the great G.o.d's eyes grew soft as he saw the little thing's slender beauty, and perceived that it had the bravest heart of all his creatures. So he laid his hand on it in blessing, saying softly--

"'Nay! tender little warrior! thou art too pretty for strife and death.

Live on, brave and careless for ever, so that weary men may see the beauty of the life great Ram has given.'

"But, lo! when he raised his hand the squirrel's shining coat bore the shadow of Ram's tired fingers, for even golden life is dimmed by the touch of care."

This and many another tale he told to me, while the green pigeons bustled about in the branches, and the squirrels lay yawning amongst the mango flowers. For the winter had flown, the camping season was at an end, and still "London" was waiting. He never complained; only when rain fell, or when there was a heavy dew, or a good winnowing wind,--anything, in short, calculated to gladden the heart of a farmer,--he used to talk of 'Ide Park, and bewail the fact that _Sikattar sahibs_ had penetrated even there. The hot weather pa.s.sed, as usual, in a stagnation of mind and body more or less modified by individual energy, and during it "London" paid me but occasional visits, and was fairly cheerful. No sooner, however, did the stir of coming cultivation begin again in the high, unirrigated soils, than he followed suit with a growing restlessness. And still no answer came.

Just then a small piece of Government land,--that is to say, land in which no cultivator had a vested interest,--fell vacant in a village not far from "London's" ancestral home, and I bethought me of putting him in as tenant if I could. But it is no easy task to find soil to cultivate in India, since farms are not "to be let" as they are in England, and the State, though in reality owner, has no power to turn out one man or his heirs in favour of another, or in any way to manipulate the holdings of hereditary cultivators. Why, knowing this, it could have delegated the power to the money lender, in giving the right of alienation by sale or mortgage to the cultivator, is one of those abstruse mysteries over the elucidation of which volumes have been and are still to be written. A mystery, moreover, which is responsible for half the growing poverty of those whose patient labour is the bulwark of the State.

The particular village in which I hoped to find a more or less temporary outlet for poor "London's" hereditary instinct--which made the sight of a plough have much the same effect on him as a clutch of eggs has on a broody hen--had earned an unenviable notoriety from the number of mutineers it produced in the '57. Nearly one-half of the land had come under direct Government control by confiscation, and as the country settled down, had been leased, at fixed rentals, to the loyal families, or in many cases to the heirs of the dead offenders.

One of these, the son of a notorious mutineer, had just died childless, and it was into his place that I determined, if possible, to put "London." The case "Dewa Ram _versus_ the Empress and others" had come back to me for the third time, with a request for further inquiry and evidence. There was none to give, for in a country where birth and marriage certificates are unknown quant.i.ties, and registers of all kinds are inaccurate, legal proof of a case like "London's" is almost impossible. As he himself invariably said, it was no wonder the Sirkar had been deceived by the foreclosed mortgage, and the lying man who tilled the soil, joined to the newly-invented theory that the peasant proprietor had a right to alienate the ancestral property of his descendants. So, with the prospect of another cold weather camp before me, I felt an almost morbid desire to get rid of "London," and those patient eyes that seemed to me as if they were ever on the look-out for the promised land.

I was told afterwards by my superiors, in set terms, that my behaviour was illegal and indiscreet, and that I should have gone round the mutinous crew one by one, giving them the option of leasing the land, before offering it to any one else, above all, before putting in a man whose claim to other ground was "in course of settlement." I believe my superiors to have been quite right theoretically, and I know that, practically, my philanthropic experiment proved a disastrous failure.

Not a week after "London," glowing with grat.i.tude, set out for the village in which his new holding was situated, he was brought back to the hospital on a stretcher with a broken arm and several clouts on the head. Indeed, I have always felt it to be the crowning mercy of my career, that no one was actually killed in the free fight which ensued on my protege's arrival in the mutineers' village; for he had some friends, stalwart as himself, and the Jats, once aroused from their usual calm placidity, fight like devils with their long quarterstaves.

On this occasion they gave the truculent crew as good as they got, until overpowered by numbers. When the incident occurred I was in a very out of the way part of the district, and I well remember having to send a special messenger thirty miles with an urgent telegram in order to allay still more urgent inquiries as to the "serious agrarian riot in B----."

When I returned to head-quarters I found "London" convalescent and distinctly cheerful. He was sitting on the hospital steps whittling a new staff, and expressed his determination of going back to the village as soon as possible with a larger supply of friends. I felt constrained, however, to deny him his revenge. To begin with, my official reputation could not have stood another agrarian riot; in addition, the mutineering village had appealed against my action "_en ma.s.se_," so the matter had pa.s.sed beyond my control. "London" was sorrowful, but sympathetic, seeming to enjoy the idea that I too might become a prey to _Sikattars_ ere long. He took great pride in his broken arm and new stick, and more than once suggested that if the great Queen only knew how he had clouted the heads of the misbegotten, unfaithful devils, she might believe that his father had indeed left a son.

After this I made several attempts to bring a plough handle within "London's" reach, but my philanthropy was guarded, and my efforts uniformly unsuccessful. Once, a small atom of land on which I had my eye was taken up by a newly-made Munic.i.p.al Committee as a public inst.i.tute. It was Jubilee year, and various things of the kind were being started. When I saw this particular one last, a stuffed crocodile, two spinning wheels, some tussar silk coc.o.o.ns, and a specimen card of aniline dyes, occupied what they were pleased to call the Industrial Department. In the reading room opposite an interesting collection of seditious journalism lay on the table, and a chromo of the "Kaiser-i-Hind" hung over the fireplace.

Then once again, when I thought I had found a resting-place for those dreamy eyes, the Military Department stepped between hope and fruition with a stout Subadar-major who had done the State good service.

Finally, sick leave--the end of so many kindly plans and hopes for those who, living amongst the peasantry learn to admire them as they deserve to be admired--came to put an end to all my plans for "London."

He bore the tidings with gentle regret. The Presence, he said, had not been well for some time; It would be the better of seeing 'Ide Park again, and perhaps as It was to be away so long--a whole year he was told--there would be a chance of seeing not only the _Sikattar_, but the great Queen herself.

"And if," he continued, standing up and leaning on his staff as I had first seen him, whilst his eyes followed the ploughing for yet another harvest,--"and if the Presence is so fortunate, perhaps It might find time to remember that Dewa Ram the Jat is waiting for his land."

The reason for my writing this absolutely true experience is one of those distressing inconsistencies which are part and parcel of poor humanity. One might have thought the facts sufficient to excuse a resort to pen, ink, and paper on the part of one really interested in that peasant life of which the rulers and governors know so little. But it needed an unreality, a mere feverish fancy to supply the motive power.

I was in Hyde Park yesterday at the close of a bright afternoon. No need to describe what I saw. To those who live in London the scene is as familiar as their own faces, while those who do not, have at their disposal a thousand descriptions far better than any I could give. An unusually thick sprinkling of clerical attire among the crowd testified to the attraction of missionary meetings when combined with London at its best. Indeed, as I had come down Piccadilly the vast number of sandwich men advertising lectures, meetings, and addresses on every conceivable subject, struck me as favourable evidence of the growing intelligence and sympathy of the many for things beyond the daily round of English life.

I sat down, and being a comparative stranger, amused myself, as many have done before me, in listening to the sc.r.a.ps of conversation which fell from the lips of the pa.s.sers by--the flotsam-jetsam left by the stream of humanity; and as usual my initial curiosity and interest died down before the growing perception of some strange likeness underlying all the atoms of thought and speech.

Slowly, uncertainly, as the confused tints of a child's magic lantern focus into some horrid monster, or as the ebbing tide discloses the drowned face of a victim, the half-heard a.s.sertions, denials, protestations of the pleasure-seeking crowd, gave up their individual form and colour, and were lost in the one unchangeable, indestructible characteristic of humanity--its selfishness. On every face an interest, a smile, a frown, a thought; below these, the one source of all.

Inevitable, no doubt, but depressing in the masks are men and women claiming to be the cream of culture and civilisation. I wondered if, when the best was said and done, the art of widening our vitality by our sympathies had made much progress.

A stir in the crowd, a murmur, a look of expectation roused me from idle moralisings. A couple of outriders in red came down the drive, and people paused to look.

"By Jove! it's the Queen herself," said some one hurriedly, as a brougham drove past giving a glimpse from behind closed windows of grey hair and a widow's cap. The murmur swelled to a roar, almost a cheer.

Every hat was off, and some country cousins stood up in their chairs in order to see better.

Now, what followed will, I know, be set down to the attack of Indian fever which some ten minutes afterwards sent me home to shiver in bed.

Nevertheless, I am prepared to swear that there, amongst the flower-decked mashers and the powdery belles, I saw the tall, gaunt form of "London" leaning on his quarterstaff. The gentle, deprecatory smile I had so often seen when he spoke of 'Ide Park was on his face, as if he knew the incongruity of his own appearance in such a scene.

His eyes were not on the modest carriage in which the _Kaiser-i-Hind_ was being partially displayed to her faithful subjects. They were fixed on me! On me, the tape-tied, sealing-waxed representative of a paternal despotism in India. The myriad tongues resumed their civilised shibboliths, but above them came a well-known cadence, "And if the Presence is so fortunate, perhaps it might find time to remember that Dewa Ram the Jat is waiting for his land."

As I said before, I went home to bed. What else could I do? Perhaps if other people could have seen what I saw, Dewa Ram and his kind would not be so often in difficulties about their land.

LaL.

Who was Lal? What was he? This was a question I asked many times; and though it was duly answered, Lal remained, and remains still, an unknown quant.i.ty--an abstraction, a name, and nothing more. L A L. The same backwards and forwards, self-contained, self-sufficing.

The first time I heard of Lal was on a bright spring morning, one of those mornings when the plains of Northern India glitter with dew-drops; when a purple haze of cloud-mountain bounds the pale wheat-fields to the north, and a golden glow strikes skywards from the sand-hills in the south. I was in a tamarisk jungle on the banks of the Indus, engaged in the decorous record of all the thefts and rest.i.tutions made during the year by that most grasping and generous of rivers. For year after year, armed by the majesty of law and bucklered by foot-rules and maps, the Government of India, in the person of one of its officers, came gravely and altered the proportion of land and water on the surface of the globe, while the river gurgled and dimpled as if it were laughing in its sleeve.

Strange work, but pleasant too, with a charm of its own wrought by infinite variety and sudden surprise. Sometimes watching the stream sapping at a wheat-field, where the tender green spikes fringed the edges of each crack and fissure in the fast-drying soil. A promise of harvest,--and then, sheer down, the turbid water gnawing hungrily.

Every now and again a splash, telling that another inch or two of solid earth had yielded. Sometimes standing on a mud bank where the ever watchful villagers had sown a trial crop of coa.r.s.e vetch; thus, as it were, casting their bread on the water in hopes of finding it again some day. But when? Would it be there at harvest-time? Grey-bearded patriarchs from the village would wag their heads sagely over the problem, and younger voices protest that it was not worth while to enter such a flotsam-jetsam as a field. But the ruthless iron chain would come into requisition, and another green spot be daubed on the revenue map, for Governments ignore chance. And still the river dimpled and gurgled with inward mirth; for if it gave the vetch, had it not taken the wheat?

So from one scene of loss or gain to another, while the sun shone in the cloudless sky overhead. Past pools of shining water where red-billed cranes stood huddled up on one leg, as if they felt cold in the crisp morning air. Out on the bare stretches of sand where glittering streams and flocks of white egrets combined to form a silver embroidery on the brown expanse. Over the shallow ford where the bottle-nosed alligators slipped silently into the stream, or lay still as shadows on the sun-baked sand. Down by the big river, where the swirling water parted right and left, and where the greybeards set their earthen pots a-swimming to decide which of the two streams would prove its strength by bearing away the greater number,--a weighty question, not lightly to be decided, since the land to the west of the big stream belonged to one village, and the land eastward to another.

Back again to higher ground through thickets of tamarisk dripping with dew. The bushes spa.r.s.e below with their thin brown stems, so thick above where the feathery pink-spiked branches interlaced. Riding through it, the hands had to defend the face from the sharp switch of the rosy flowers as they swung back disentangled; such tiny flowers, too, no bigger than a mustard seed, and leaving a pink powder of pollen behind them.

It was after forcing my way through one of these tamarisk jungles that I came out on an open patch of rudely ploughed land, where a mixed crop of pulse and barley grew st.u.r.dily, outlining an irregular oval with a pale green carpet glistening with dew. In the centre a shallow pool of water still testified to past floods, and from it a purple heron winged its flight, lazily craning its painted neck against the sky.

The whole _posse comitatus_ of the village following me broke by twos and threes through the jungle, and gathered round me as I paused watching the bird's flight.

"Take the bridle from his honour's pony," cried a venerable pantaloon breathlessly. "Let the steed of the Lord of the Universe eat his fill.

Is not this the field of Lal?"

Twenty hands stretched out to do the old headman's bidding; twenty voices re-echoed the sentiment in varying words. A minute more, and my pony's nose was well down on the wet, sweet tufts of vetch, and I was asking for the first time, "Who is Lal?"

Lal, came the answer, why, Lal was--Lal. This was his field. Why should not the pony of the Protector of the Poor have a bellyful? Was it not more honourable than the parrot people and the squirrel people, and the pig people who battened on the field of Lal?

It was early days yet for the flocks of green parrots to frequent the crops, and the dainty squirrels were, I knew, still snugly a-bed waiting for the sun to dry the dew; but at my feet sundry furrows and scratches told that the pig had already been at work.

"Is Lal here?" I asked.

A smile, such as greets a child's innocent ignorance, came to the good-humoured faces around me.

Lal, they explained, came when the crop was ripe, when the parrot, the squirrel, and the pig people--and his honour's pony too--had had their fill. Lal was a good man, one who walked straight, and laboured truly.

"But where is he?" I insisted.

Face looked at face half puzzled, half amused. Who could tell where Lal was? He might be miles away, or in the next jungle. Some one had seen him at Sukkhur a week agone, but that was no reason why he should not be at Bhukkur now, for Lal followed the river, and like it was here to-day, gone to-morrow.

Baulked in my curiosity, I took refuge in business by inquiring what revenue Lal paid on his field. This was too much for the polite gravity of my hearers. The idea of Lal's paying revenue was evidently irresistibly comic, and the venerable pantaloon actually choked himself between a cough and a laugh, requiring to be held up and patted on the back.

"But some one must pay the revenue," I remarked a little testily.

Certainly! the Lord of the Universe was right. The village community paid it. It was the village which lent Lal the field, and the bullocks, and the plough. It was the village which gave him the few handfuls of seed-grain to scatter broadcast over the roughly-tilled soil. So much they lent to Lal. The sun and the good G.o.d gave him the rest. All, that is to say, that was not wanted for the parrot, the pig, and the squirrel people, and, of course, for the pony of the Lord of the Universe.

There are so many mysteries in Indian peasant life, safe hidden from alien eyes, that I was lazily content to let Lal and his field slip into the limbo of things not thoroughly understood, and so, ere long, I forgot all about him. Spring pa.s.sed ripening the crops; summer came bringing fresh floods to the river; and autumn watched the earth once more make way against the water; but Lal was to me as though he had not been.

It was only when another year found me once more in the strange land which lies, as the natives say, "in the stomach of the river," that memory awoke with the words, "This is the field of Lal." There was, however, no suggestion made about loosening my pony's bridle as on the former occasion, the reason for such reticence being palpable. Lal had either been less fortunate in his original choice of a field this year, or else the sun and the good G.o.d had been less diligent care-takers. A large portion of the land, too, bore marks of an over-recent flood in a thick deposit of fine glistening white sand. A favourite trick of the mischievous Indus, by which she disappoints hope raised by previous gifts of rich alluvial soil--a trick which has given her a bad name, the worst a woman can bear, because she gives and destroys with one hand. Here and there, in patches, the spa.r.s.e crop showed green; but for the most part the ground lay bare, cracking into large fissures under the noonday sun, and peeling at the top into shiny brown scales.

"A bad lookout for Lal," I remarked.