Part 69 (1/2)
”Here are the twelve Apostles, by Jove--come straight out of Raffaele's cartoons,” said the M.P., with the fresh appreciation of a newcomer.
Orde, loth to be interrupted, turned impatiently toward the villagers, and their leader, handing his long staff to one of his companions, advanced to the house.
”It is old Jelbo, the Lumherdar, or head-man of Pind Sharkot, and a very intelligent man for a villager.”
The Jat farmer had removed his shoes and stood smiling on the edge of the veranda. His strongly marked features glowed with russet bronze, and his bright eyes gleamed under deeply set brows, contracted by lifelong exposure to suns.h.i.+ne. His beard and moustache streaked with grey swept from bold cliffs of brow and cheek in the large sweeps one sees drawn by Michael Angelo, and strands of long black hair mingled with the irregularly piled wreaths and folds of his turban. The drapery of stout blue cotton cloth thrown over his broad shoulders and girt round his narrow loins, hung from his tall form in broadly sculptured folds, and he would have made a superb model for an artist in search of a patriarch.
Orde greeted him cordially, and after a polite pause the countryman started off with a long story told with impressive earnestness. Orde listened and smiled, interrupting the speaker at times to argue and reason with him in a tone which Pagett could hear was kindly, and finally checking the flux of words was about to dismiss him, when Pagett suggested that he should be asked about the National Congress.
But Jelbo had never heard of it. He was a poor man and such things, by the favor of his Honor, did not concern him.
”What's the matter with your big friend that he was so terribly in earnest?” asked Pagett, when he had left.
”Nothing much. He wants the blood of the people in the next village, who have had smallpox and cattle plague pretty badly, and by the help of a wizard, a currier, and several pigs have pa.s.sed it on to his own village. 'Wants to know if they can't be run in for this awful crime.
It seems they made a dreadful charivari at the village boundary, threw a quant.i.ty of spell-bearing objects over the border, a buffalo's skull and other things; then branded a chamur--what you would call a currier--on his hinder parts and drove him and a number of pigs over into Jelbo's village. Jelbo says he can bring evidence to prove that the wizard directing these proceedings, who is a Sansi, has been guilty of theft, arson, cattle-killing, perjury and murder, but would prefer to have him punished for bewitching them and inflicting smallpox.”
”And how on earth did you answer such a lunatic?”
”Lunatic!--the old fellow is as sane as you or I; and he has some ground of complaint against those Sansis. I asked if he would like a native superintendent of police with some men to make inquiries, but he objected on the grounds the police were rather worse than smallpox and criminal tribes put together.”
”Criminal tribes--er--I don't quite understand,” said Pagett.
”We have in India many tribes of people who in the slack anti-British days became robbers, in various kind, and preyed on the people. They are being restrained and reclaimed little by little, and in time will become useful citizens, but they still cherish hereditary traditions of crime, and are a difficult lot to deal with. By the way what about the political rights of these folk under your schemes? The country people call them vermin, but I suppose they would be electors with the rest.”
”Nonsense--special provision would be made for them in a well-considered electoral scheme, and they would doubtless be treated with fitting severity,” said Pagett, with a magisterial air.
”Severity, yes--but whether it would be fitting is doubtful. Even those poor devils have rights, and, after all, they only practice what they have been taught.”
”But criminals, Orde!”
”Yes, criminals with codes and rituals of crime, G.o.ds and G.o.dlings of crime, and a hundred songs and sayings in praise of it. Puzzling, isn't it?”
”It's simply dreadful. They ought to be put down at once. Are there many of them?”
”Not more than about sixty thousand in this province, for many of the tribes broadly described as criminal are really vagabond and criminal only on occasion, while others are being settled and reclaimed. They are of great antiquity, a legacy from the past, the golden, glorious Aryan past of Max Muller, Birdwood and the rest of your spindrift philosophers.”
An orderly brought a card to Orde, who took it with a movement of irritation at the interruption, and banded it to Pagett; a large card with a ruled border in red ink, and in the centre in schoolboy copper plate, Mr. Dma Nath. ”Give salaam,” said the civilian, and there entered in haste a slender youth, clad in a closely fitting coat of grey homespun, tight trousers, patent-leather shoes, and a small black velvet cap. His thin cheek twitched, and his eyes wandered restlessly, for the young man was evidently nervous and uncomfortable, though striving to a.s.sume a free and easy air.
”Your honor may perhaps remember me,” he said in English, and Orde scanned him keenly.
”I know your face somehow. You belonged to the Shershah district I think, when I was in charge there?”
”Yes, Sir, my father is writer at Shershah, and your honor gave me a prize when I was first in the Middle School examination five years ago.
Since then I have prosecuted my studies, and I am now second year's student in the Mission College--”
”Of course: you are Kedar Nath's son--the boy who said he liked geography better than play or sugar cakes, and I didn't believe you. How is your father getting on?”
”He is well, and he sends his salaam, but his circ.u.mstances are depressed, and he also is down on his luck.”
”You learn English idioms at the Mission College, it seems.”
”Yes, sir, they are the best idioms, and my father ordered me to ask your honor to say a word for him to the present inc.u.mbent of your honor's shoes, the latchet of which he is not worthy to open, and who knows not Joseph; for things are different at Shershah now, and my father wants promotion.”