Part 68 (1/2)

”I don't know so much about that. There are four of us English foremen, and between seven and eight hundred native fitters, smiths, carpenters, painters, and such like.”

”And they are full of the Congress, of course?”

”Never hear a word of it from year's end to year's end, and I speak the talk too. But I wanted to ask how things are going on at home--old Tyler and Brown and the rest?”

”We will speak of them presently, but your account of the indifference of your men surprises me almost as much as your own. I fear you are a backslider from the good old doctrine, Edwards.” Pagett spoke as one who mourned the death of a near relative.

”Not a bit, Sir, but I should be if I took up with a parcel of baboos, pleaders, and schoolboys, as never did a day's work in their lives, and couldn't if they tried. And if you was to poll us English railway men, mechanics, tradespeople, and the like of that all up and down the country from Peshawur to Calcutta, you would find us mostly in a tale together. And yet you'd know we're the same English you pay some respect to at home at 'lection time, and we have the pull o' knowing something about it.”

”This is very curious, but you will let me come and see you, and perhaps you will kindly show me the railway works, and we will talk things over at leisure. And about all old friends and old times,” added Pagett, detecting with quick insight a look of disappointment in the mechanic's face.

Nodding briefly to Orde, Edwards mounted his dog-cart and drove off.

”It's very disappointing,” said the Member to Orde, who, while his friend discoursed with Edwards, had been looking over a bundle of sketches drawn on grey paper in purple ink, brought to him by a Chupra.s.see.

”Don't let it trouble you, old chap,” 'said Orde, sympathetically. ”Look here a moment, here are some sketches by the man who made the carved wood screen you admired so much in the dining-room, and wanted a copy of, and the artist himself is here too.”

”A native?” said Pagett.

”Of course,” was the reply, ”Bishen Singh is his name, and he has two brothers to help him. When there is an important job to do, the three go into partners.h.i.+p, but they spend most of their time and all their money in litigation over an inheritance, and I'm afraid they are getting involved, Thoroughbred Sikhs of the old rock, obstinate, touchy, bigoted, and cunning, but good men for all that. Here is Bishen Singh--shall we ask him about the Congress?”

But Bishen Singh, who approached with a respectful salaam, had never heard of it, and he listened with a puzzled face and obviously feigned interest to Orde's account of its aims and objects, finally shaking his vast white turban with great significance when he learned that it was promoted by certain pleaders named by Orde, and by educated natives.

He began with labored respect to explain how he was a poor man with no concern in such matters, which were all under the control of G.o.d, but presently broke out of Urdu into familiar Punjabi, the mere sound of which had a rustic smack of village smoke-reek and plough-tail, as he denounced the wearers of white coats, the jugglers with words who filched his field from him, the men whose backs were never bowed in honest work; and poured ironical scorn on the Bengali. He and one of his brothers had seen Calcutta, and being at work there had Bengali carpenters given to them as a.s.sistants.

”Those carpenters!” said Bishen Singh. ”Black apes were more efficient workmates, and as for the Bengali babu--tchick!” The guttural click needed no interpretation, but Orde translated the rest, while Pagett gazed with interest at the wood-carver.

”He seems to have a most illiberal prejudice against the Bengali,” said the M.P.

”Yes, it's very sad that for ages outside Bengal there should be so bitter a prejudice. Pride of race, which also means race-hatred, is the plague and curse of India and it spreads far,” Orde pointed with his riding-whip to the large map of India on the veranda wall.

”See! I begin with the North,” said he. ”There's the Afghan, and, as a highlander, he despises all the dwellers in Hindoostan--with the exception of the Sikh, whom he hates as cordially as the Sikh hates him.

The Hindu loathes Sikh and Afghan, and the Rajput--that's a little lower down across this yellow blot of desert--has a strong objection, to put it mildly, to the Maratha who, by the way, poisonously hates the Afghan.

Let's go North a minute. The Sindhi hates everybody I've mentioned. Very good, we'll take less warlike races. The cultivator of Northern India domineers over the man in the next province, and the Behari of the Northwest ridicules the Bengali. They are all at one on that point.

I'm giving you merely the roughest possible outlines of the facts, of course.”

Bishen Singh, his clean cut nostrils still quivering, watched the large sweep of the whip as it traveled from the frontier, through Sindh, the Punjab and Rajputana, till it rested by the valley of the Jumna.

”Hate--eternal and inextinguishable hate,” concluded Orde, flicking the lash of the whip across the large map from East to West as he sat down.

”Remember Canning's advice to Lord Granville, 'Never write or speak of Indian things without looking at a map.'”

Pagett opened his eyes, Orde resumed. ”And the race-hatred is only a part of it. What's really the matter with Bishen Singh is cla.s.s-hatred, which, unfortunately, is even more intense and more widely spread.

That's one of the little drawbacks of caste, which some of your recent English writers find an impeccable system.”

The wood-carver was glad to be recalled to the business of his craft, and his eyes shone as he received instructions for a carved wooden doorway for Pagett, which he promised should be splendidly executed and despatched to England in six months. It is an irrelevant detail, but in spite of Orde's reminders, fourteen months elapsed before the work was finished. Business over, Bishen Singh hung about, reluctant to take his leave, and at last joining his hands and approaching Orde with bated breath and whispering humbleness, said he had a pet.i.tion to make. Orde's face suddenly lost all trace of expression. ”Speak on, Bishen Singh,”

said he, and the carver in a whining tone explained that his case against his brothers was fixed for hearing before a native judge and--here he dropped his voice still lower till he was summarily stopped by Orde, who sternly pointed to the gate with an emphatic Begone!

Bishen Singh, showing but little sign of discomposure, salaamed respectfully to the friends and departed.