No More Learning

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.

Pagett looked inquiry; Orde, with complete recovery of his usual
urbanity, replied: "It's nothing, only the old story, he wants his case
to be tried by an English judge--they all do that--but when he began
to hint that the other side were in improper relations with the native
judge I had to shut him up. Gunga Ram, the man he wanted to make
insinuations about, may not be very bright; but he's as honest as
daylight on the bench. But that's just what one can't get a native to
believe. "

"Do you really mean to say these people prefer to have their cases tried
by English judges? "

"Why, certainly. "

Pagett drew a long breath. "I didn't know that before. " At this point a
phaeton entered the compound, and Orde rose with "Confound it, there's
old Rasul Ali Khan come to pay one of his tiresome duty calls. I'm
afraid we shall never get through our little Congress discussion. "

Pagett was an almost silent spectator of the grave formalities of
a visit paid by a punctilious old Mahommedan gentleman to an Indian
official; and was much impressed by the distinction of manner and fine
appearance of the Mohammedan landholder. When the exchange of polite
banalities came to a pause, he expressed a wish to learn the courtly
visitor's opinion of the National Congress.

Orde reluctantly interpreted, and with a smile which even Mohammedan
politeness could not save from bitter scorn, Rasul Ali Khan intimated
that he knew nothing about it and cared still less. It was a kind of
talk encouraged by the Government for some mysterious purpose of its
own, and for his own part he wondered and held his peace.

Pagett was far from satisfied with this, and wished to have the old
gentleman's opinion on the propriety of managing all Indian affairs on
the basis of an elective system.

Orde did his best to explain, but it was plain the visitor was bored
and bewildered. Frankly, he didn't think much of committees; they had
a Municipal Committee at Lahore and had elected a menial servant, an
orderly, as a member. He had been informed of this on good authority,
and after that, committees had ceased to interest him. But all was
according to the rule of Government, and, please God, it was all for the
best.

"What an old fossil it is! " cried Pagett, as Orde returned from seeing
his guest to the door; "just like some old blue-blooded hidalgo of
Spain. What does he really think of the Congress after all, and of the
elective system? "

"Hates it all like poison. When you are sure of a majority, election
is a fine system; but you can scarcely expect the Mahommedans, the most
masterful and powerful minority in the country, to contemplate their own
extinction with joy. The worst of it is that he and his co-religionists,
who are many, and the landed proprietors, also, of Hindu race, are
frightened and put out by this election business and by the importance
we have bestowed on lawyers, pleaders, writers, and the like, who have,
up to now, been in abject submission to them. They say little, but
after all they are the most important fagots in the great bundle of
communities, and all the glib bunkum in the world would not pay for
their estrangement. They have controlled the land. "

"But I am assured that experience of local self-government in your
municipalities has been most satisfactory, and when once the principle
is accepted in your centres, don't you know, it is bound to spread, and
these important--ah--people of yours would learn it like the rest. I see
no difficulty at all," and the smooth lips closed with the complacent
snap habitual to Pagett, M. P. , the "man of cheerful yesterdays and
confident tomorrows. "

Orde looked at him with a dreary smile.

"The privilege of election has been most reluctantly withdrawn from
scores of municipalities, others have had to be summarily suppressed,
and, outside the Presidency towns, the actual work done has been badly
performed. This is of less moment, perhaps--it only sends up the
local death-rates--than the fact that the public interest in municipal
elections, never very strong, has waned, and is waning, in spite of
careful nursing on the part of Government servants. "

"Can you explain this lack of interest? " said Pagett, putting aside the
rest of Orde's remarks.

"You may find a ward of the key in the fact that only one in every
thousand of our population can spell. Then they are infinitely more
interested in religion and caste questions than in any sort of politics.
When the business of mere existence is over, their minds are occupied by
a series of interests, pleasures, rituals, superstitions, and the like,
based on centuries of tradition and usage. You, perhaps, find it hard to
conceive of people absolutely devoid of curiosity, to whom the book, the
daily paper, and the printed speech are unknown, and you would describe
their life as blank. That's a profound mistake. You are in another
land, another century, down on the bed-rock of society, where the family
merely, and not the community, is all-important. The average Oriental
cannot be brought to look beyond his clan. His life, too, is more
complete and self-sufficing, and less sordid and low-thoughted than you
might imagine. It is bovine and slow in some respects, but it is never
empty. You and I are inclined to put the cart before the horse, and to
forget that it is the man that is elemental, not the book. 'The corn and
the cattle are all my care, And the rest is the will of God. ' Why should
such folk look up from their immemorially appointed round of duty and
interests to meddle with the unknown and fuss with voting-papers. How
would you, atop of all your interests care to conduct even one-tenth
of your life according to the manners and customs of the Papuans, let's
say? That's what it comes to. "

"But if they won't take the trouble to vote, why do you anticipate that
Mohammedans, proprietors, and the rest would be crushed by majorities of
them? "

Again Pagett disregarded the closing sentence.

"Because, though the landholders would not move a finger on any purely
political question, they could be raised in dangerous excitement by
religious hatreds. Already the first note of this has been sounded by
the people who are trying to get up an agitation on the cow-killing
question, and every year there is trouble over the Mohammedan Muharrum
processions.

"But who looks after the popular rights, being thus unrepresented? "

"The Government of Her Majesty the Queen, Empress of India, in which, if
the Congress promoters are to be believed, the people have an implicit
trust; for the Congress circular, specially prepared for rustic
comprehension, says the movement is 'for the remission of tax,
the advancement of Hindustan, and the strengthening of the British
Government. ' This paper is headed in large letters-'MAY THE PROSPERITY
OF THE EMPIRE OF INDIA ENDURE. '"

"Really! " said Pagett, "that shows some cleverness. But there are
things better worth imitation in our English methods of--er--political
statement than this sort of amiable fraud. "

"Anyhow," resumed Orde, "you perceive that not a word is said about
elections and the elective principle, and the reticence of the Congress
promoters here shows they are wise in their generation. "

"But the elective principle must triumph in the end, and the little
difficulties you seem to anticipate would give way on the introduction
of a well-balanced scheme, capable of indefinite extension. "

"But is it possible to devise a scheme which, always assuming that
the people took any interest in it, without enormous expense, ruinous
dislocation of the administration and danger to the public peace, can
satisfy the aspirations of Mr. Hume and his following, and yet safeguard
the interests of the Mahommedans, the landed and wealthy classes, the
Conservative Hindus, the Eurasians, Parsees, Sikhs, Rajputs, native
Christians, domiciled Europeans and others, who are each important and
powerful in their way? "

Pagett's attention, however, was diverted to the gate, where a group of
cultivators stood in apparent hesitation.

"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 sunshine. 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 passed 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
quantity 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, gods and godlings 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
assume 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 circumstances 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 incumbent 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. "

"Your father is a good man, and I will do what I can for him. "

At this point a telegram was handed to Orde, who, after glancing at it,
said he must leave his young friend whom he introduced to Pagett, "a
member of the English House of Commons who wishes to learn about India. "

Orde had scarcely retired with his telegram when Pagett began:

"Perhaps you can tell me something of the National Congress movement? "

"Sir, it is the greatest movement of modern times, and one in which all
educated men like us must join. All our students are for the Congress. "

"Excepting, I suppose, Mahommedans, and the Christians? " said Pagett,
quick to use his recent instruction.

"These are some mere exceptions to the universal rule. "

"But the people outside the College, the working classes, the
agriculturists; your father and mother, for instance. "

"My mother," said the young man, with a visible effort to bring
himself to pronounce the word, "has no ideas, and my father is not
agriculturist, nor working class; he is of the Kayeth caste; but he had
not the advantage of a collegiate education, and he does not know
much of the Congress. It is a movement for the educated
young-man"--connecting adjective and noun in a sort of vocal hyphen.

"Ah, yes," said Pagett, feeling he was a little off the rails, "and what
are the benefits you expect to gain by it? "

"Oh, sir, everything. England owes its greatness to Parliamentary
institutions, and we should at once gain the same high position in
scale of nations. Sir, we wish to have the sciences, the arts, the
manufactures, the industrial factories, with steam engines, and other
motive powers and public meetings, and debates. Already we have a
debating club in connection with the college, and elect a Mr. Speaker.
Sir, the progress must come. You also are a Member of Parliament and
worship the great Lord Ripon," said the youth, breathlessly, and his
black eyes flashed as he finished his commaless sentences.

"Well," said Pagett, drily, "it has not yet occurred to me to worship
his Lordship, although I believe he is a very worthy man, and I am not
sure that England owes quite all the things you name to the House of
Commons. You see, my young friend, the growth of a nation like ours
is slow, subject to many influences, and if you have read your history
aright"--

"Sir. I know it all--all! Norman Conquest, Magna Charta, Runnymede,
Reformation, Tudors, Stuarts, Mr. Milton and Mr. Burke, and I have
read something of Mr. Herbert Spencer and Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall,'
Reynolds' 'Mysteries of the Court,' and"--

Pagett felt like one who had pulled the string of a shower-bath
unawares, and hastened to stop the torrent with a question as to what
particular grievances of the people of India the attention of an elected
assembly should be first directed. But young Mr. Dma Nath was slow to
particularize. There were many, very many demanding consideration. Mr.
Pagett would like to hear of one or two typical examples. The Repeal of
the Arms Act was at last named, and the student learned for the first
time that a license was necessary before an Englishman could carry a
gun in England. Then natives of India ought to be allowed to become
Volunteer Riflemen if they chose, and the absolute equality of the
Oriental with his European fellow-subject in civil status should be
proclaimed on principle, and the Indian Army should be considerably
reduced. The student was not, however, prepared with answers to Mr.
Pagett's mildest questions on these points, and he returned to vague
generalities, leaving the M. P. so much impressed with the crudity of
his views that he was glad on Orde's return to say goodbye to his "very
interesting" young friend.

"What do you think of young India? " asked Orde.

"Curious, very curious--and callow. "

"And yet," the civilian replied, "one can scarcely help sympathizing
with him for his mere youth's sake. The young orators of the Oxford
Union arrived at the same conclusions and showed doubtless just the
same enthusiasm. If there were any political analogy between India and
England, if the thousand races of this Empire were one, if there were
any chance even of their learning to speak one language, if, in short,
India were a Utopia of the debating-room, and not a real land, this
kind of talk might be worth listening to, but it is all based on false
analogy and ignorance of the facts. "

"But he is a native and knows the facts. "

"He is a sort of English schoolboy, but married three years, and the
father of two weaklings, and knows less than most English schoolboys.
You saw all he is and knows, and such ideas as he has acquired are
directly hostile to the most cherished convictions of the vast majority
of the people. "

"But what does he mean by saying he is a student of a mission college?
Is he a Christian? "

"He meant just what he said, and he is not a Christian, nor ever will
he be. Good people in America, Scotland and England, most of whom would
never dream of collegiate education for their own sons, are pinching
themselves to bestow it in pure waste on Indian youths. Their scheme
is an oblique, subterranean attack on heathenism; the theory being that
with the jam of secular education, leading to a University degree, the
pill of moral or religious instruction may he coaxed down the heathen
gullet. "

"But does it succeed; do they make converts? "

"They make no converts, for the subtle Oriental swallows the jam and
rejects the pill; but the mere example of the sober, righteous, and
godly lives of the principals and professors who are most excellent and
devoted men, must have a certain moral value. Yet, as Lord Lansdowne
pointed out the other day, the market is dangerously overstocked
with graduates of our Universities who look for employment in the
administration. An immense number are employed, but year by year the
college mills grind out increasing lists of youths foredoomed to
failure and disappointment, and meanwhile, trades, manufactures, and the
industrial arts are neglected, and in fact regarded with contempt by our
new literary mandarins in posse. "

"But our young friend said he wanted steam-engines and factories," said
Pagett.

"Yes, he would like to direct such concerns. He wants to begin at the
top, for manual labor is held to be discreditable, and he would never
defile his hands by the apprenticeship which the architects, engineers,
and manufacturers of England cheerfully undergo; and he would be aghast
to learn that the leading names of industrial enterprise in England
belonged a generation or two since, or now belong, to men who wrought
with their own hands. And, though he talks glibly of manufacturers, he
refuses to see that the Indian manufacturer of the future will be the
despised workman of the present. It was proposed, for example, a few
weeks ago, that a certain municipality in this province should establish
an elementary technical school for the sons of workmen. The stress of
the opposition to the plan came from a pleader who owed all he had to a
college education bestowed on him gratis by Government and missions.
You would have fancied some fine old crusted Tory squire of the last
generation was speaking. 'These people,' he said, 'want no education,
for they learn their trades from their fathers, and to teach a workman's
son the elements of mathematics and physical science would give him
ideas above his business. They must be kept in their place, and it was
idle to imagine that there was any science in wood or iron work. ' And he
carried his point. But the Indian workman will rise in the social scale
in spite of the new literary caste. "

"In England we have scarcely begun to realize that there is an
industrial class in this country, yet, I suppose, the example of men,
like Edwards for instance, must tell," said Pagett, thoughtfully.

"That you shouldn't know much about it is natural enough, for there are
but few sources of information. India in this, as in other respects, is
like a badly kept ledger--not written up to date. And men like Edwards
are, in reality, missionaries, who by precept and example are teaching
more lessons than they know. Only a few, however, of their crowds of
subordinates seem to care to try to emulate them, and aim at individual
advancement; the rest drop into the ancient Indian caste groove. "

"How do you mean? " asked Pagett.

"Well, it is found that the new railway and factory workmen, the fitter,
the smith, the engine-driver, and the rest are already forming separate
hereditary castes. You may notice this down at Jamalpur in Bengal,
one of the oldest railway centres; and at other places, and in other
industries, they are following the same inexorable Indian law. "

"Which means? " queried Pagett.

"It means that the rooted habit of the people is to gather in small
self-contained, self-sufficing family groups with no thought or care for
any interests but their own--a habit which is scarcely compatible with
the right acceptation of the elective principle. "

"Yet you must admit, Orde, that though our young friend was not able to
expound the faith that is in him, your Indian army is too big. "

"Not nearly big enough for its main purpose.
And, as a side issue, there
are certain powerful minorities of fighting folk whose interests an
Asiatic Government is bound to consider. Arms is as much a means of
livelihood as civil employ under Government and law. And it would be
a heavy strain on British bayonets to hold down Sikhs, Jats, Bilochis,
Rohillas, Rajputs, Bhils, Dogras, Pathans, and Gurkhas to abide by the
decisions of a numerical majority opposed to their interests. Leave the
'numerical majority' to itself without the British bayonets--a flock of
sheep might as reasonably hope to manage a troop of collies. "

"This complaint about excessive growth of the army is akin to another
contention of the Congress party. They protest against the malversation
of the whole of the moneys raised by additional taxes as a Famine
Insurance Fund to other purposes. You must be aware that this special
Famine Fund has all been spent on frontier roads and defences and
strategic railway schemes as a protection against Russia. "

"But there was never a special famine fund raised by special taxation
and put by as in a box. No sane administrator would dream of such
a thing. In a time of prosperity a finance minister, rejoicing in
a margin, proposed to annually apply a million and a half to the
construction of railways and canals for the protection of districts
liable to scarcity, and to the reduction of the annual loans for public
works. But times were not always prosperous, and the finance minister
had to choose whether he would bang up the insurance scheme for a year
or impose fresh taxation. When a farmer hasn't got the little surplus
he hoped to have for buying a new wagon and draining a low-lying field
corner, you don't accuse him of malversation, if he spends what he has
on the necessary work of the rest of his farm. "

A clatter of hoofs was heard, and Orde looked up with vexation, but his
brow cleared as a horseman halted under the porch.

"Hello, Orde! just looked in to ask if you are coming to polo on
Tuesday: we want you badly to help to crumple up the Krab Bokhar team. "

Orde explained that he had to go out into the District, and while the
visitor complained that though good men wouldn't play, duffers were
always keen, and that his side would probably be beaten, Pagett rose to
look at his mount, a red, lathered Biloch mare, with a curious lyrelike
incurving of the ears. "Quite a little thoroughbred in all other
respects," said the M. P. , and Orde presented Mr. Reginald Burke, Manager
of the Siad and Sialkote Bank to his friend.

"Yes, she's as good as they make 'em, and she's all the female I possess
and spoiled in consequence, aren't you, old girl? " said Burke, patting
the mare's glossy neck as she backed and plunged.

"Mr. Pagett," said Orde, "has been asking me about the Congress. What is
your opinion? " Burke turned to the M. P. with a frank smile.

"Well, if it's all the same to you, sir, I should say, Damn the
Congress, but then I'm no politician, but only a business man. "

"You find it a tiresome subject? "

"Yes, it's all that, and worse than that, for this kind of agitation is
anything but wholesome for the country. "

"How do you mean? "

"It would be a long job to explain, and Sara here won't stand, but you
know how sensitive capital is, and how timid investors are. All this
sort of rot is likely to frighten them, and we can't afford to frighten
them. The passengers aboard an Ocean steamer don't feel reassured when
the ship's way is stopped, and they hear the workmen's hammers tinkering
at the engines down below. The old Ark's going on all right as she is,
and only wants quiet and room to move. Them's my sentiments, and those
of some other people who have to do with money and business. "

"Then you are a thick-and-thin supporter of the Government as it is. "

"Why, no! The Indian Government is much too timid with its money--like
an old maiden aunt of mine--always in a funk about her investments. They
don't spend half enough on railways for instance, and they are slow in
a general way, and ought to be made to sit up in all that concerns
the encouragement of private enterprise, and coaxing out into use the
millions of capital that lie dormant in the country. "

The mare was dancing with impatience, and Burke was evidently anxious to
be off, so the men wished him goodbye.

"Who is your genial friend who condemns both Congress and Government in
a breath? " asked Pagett, with an amused smile.

"Just now he is Reggie Burke, keener on polo than on anything else,
but if you go to the Sind and Sialkote Bank tomorrow you would find Mr.
Reginald Burke a very capable man of business, known and liked by an
immense constituency North and South of this. "

"Do you think he is right about the Government's want of enterprise? "

"I should hesitate to say. Better consult the merchants and chambers
of commerce in Cawnpore, Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. But though these
bodies would like, as Reggie puts it, to make Government sit up, it is
an elementary consideration in governing a country like India, which
must be administered for the benefit of the people at large, that the
counsels of those who resort to it for the sake of making money should
be judiciously weighed and not allowed to overpower the rest. They are
welcome guests here, as a matter of course, but it has been found best
to restrain their influence. Thus the rights of plantation laborers,
factory operatives, and the like, have been protected, and the
capitalist, eager to get on, has not always regarded Government action
with favor. It is quite conceivable that under an elective system the
commercial communities of the great towns might find means to secure
majorities on labor questions and on financial matters. "

"They would act at least with intelligence and consideration. "

"Intelligence, yes; but as to consideration, who at the present moment
most bitterly resents the tender solicitude of Lancashire for the
welfare and protection of the Indian factory operative? English and
native capitalists running cotton mills and factories. "

"But is the solicitude of Lancashire in this matter entirely
disinterested? "

"It is no business of mine to say. I merely indicate an example of how
a powerful commercial interest might hamper a Government intent in the
first place on the larger interests of humanity. "

Orde broke off to listen a moment. "There's Dr. Lathrop talking to my
wife in the drawing-room," said he.

"Surely not; that's a lady's voice, and if my ears don't deceive me, an
American. "

"Exactly, Dr. Eva McCreery Lathrop, chief of the new Women's Hospital
here, and a very good fellow forbye. Good morning, Doctor," he said, as
a graceful figure came out on the veranda, "you seem to be in trouble. I
hope Mrs. Orde was able to help you. "

"Your wife is real kind and good, I always come to her when I'm in a fix
but I fear it's more than comforting I want. "

"You work too hard and wear yourself out," said Orde, kindly. "Let me
introduce my friend, Mr. Pagett, just fresh from home, and anxious to
learn his India. You could tell him something of that more important
half of which a mere man knows so little. "

"Perhaps I could if I'd any heart to do it, but I'm in trouble, I've
lost a case, a case that was doing well, through nothing in the world
but inattention on the part of a nurse I had begun to trust. And when I
spoke only a small piece of my mind she collapsed in a whining heap on
the floor. It is hopeless. "

The men were silent, for the blue eyes of the lady doctor were dim.
Recovering herself she looked up with a smile, half sad, half humorous,
"And I am in a whining heap, too; but what phase of Indian life are you
particularly interested in, sir? "

"Mr. Pagett intends to study the political aspect of things and the
possibility of bestowing electoral institutions on the people. "

"Wouldn't it be as much to the purpose to bestow point-lace collars
on them? They need many things more urgently than votes. Why it's like
giving a bread-pill for a broken leg. "

"Er--I don't quite follow," said Pagett, uneasily.

"Well, what's the matter with this country is not in the least
political, but an all round entanglement of physical, social, and moral
evils and corruptions, all more or less due to the unnatural treatment
of women. You can't gather figs from thistles, and so long as the system
of infant marriage, the prohibition of the remarriage of widows,
the lifelong imprisonment of wives and mothers in a worse than penal
confinement, and the withholding from them of any kind of education
or treatment as rational beings continues, the country can't advance a
step. Half of it is morally dead, and worse than dead, and that's just
the half from which we have a right to look for the best impulses. It's
right here where the trouble is, and not in any political considerations
whatsoever. "

"But do they marry so early? " said Pagett, vaguely.

"The average age is seven, but thousands are married still earlier. One
result is that girls of twelve and thirteen have to bear the burden
of wifehood and motherhood, and, as might be expected, the rate of
mortality both for mothers and children is terrible. Pauperism,
domestic unhappiness, and a low state of health are only a few of the
consequences of this. Then, when, as frequently happens, the boy-husband
dies prematurely, his widow is condemned to worse than death. She may
not remarry, must live a secluded and despised life, a life so unnatural
that she sometimes prefers suicide; more often she goes astray. You
don't know in England what such words as 'infant-marriage,' 'baby-wife,'
'girl-mother,' and 'virgin-widow' mean; but they mean unspeakable
horrors here. "

"Well, but the advanced political party here will surely make it their
business to advocate social reforms as well as political ones," said
Pagett.

"Very surely they will do no such thing," said the lady doctor,
emphatically. "I wish I could make you understand. Why, even of the
funds devoted to the Marchioness of Dufferin's organization for medical
aid to the women of India, it was said in print and in speech, that they
would be better spent on more college scholarships for men. And in
all the advanced parties' talk--God forgive them--and in all their
programmes, they carefully avoid all such subjects. They will talk about
the protection of the cow, for that's an ancient superstition--they
can all understand that; but the protection of the women is a new and
dangerous idea. " She turned to Pagett impulsively:

"You are a member of the English Parliament. Can you do nothing? The
foundations of their life are rotten--utterly and bestially rotten. I
could tell your wife things that I couldn't tell you. I know the inner
life that belongs to the native, and I know nothing else; and believe
me you might as well try to grow golden-rod in a mushroom-pit as to make
anything of a people that are born and reared as these--these things
're. The men talk of their rights and privileges. I have seen the women
that bear these very men, and again--may God forgive the men! "

Pagett's eyes opened with a large wonder. Dr. Lathrop rose
tempestuously.

"I must be off to lecture," said she, "and I'm sorry that I can't
show you my hospitals; but you had better believe, sir, that it's more
necessary for India than all the elections in creation. "

"That's a woman with a mission, and no mistake," said Pagett, after a
pause.

"Yes; she believes in her work, and so do I," said Orde. "I've a notion
that in the end it will be found that the most helpful work done
for India in this generation was wrought by Lady Dufferin in drawing
attention--what work that was, by the way, even with her husband's great
name to back it to the needs of women here. In effect, native habits and
beliefs are an organized conspiracy against the laws of health and happy
life--but there is some dawning of hope now. "

"How d'you account for the general indifference, then? "

"I suppose it's due in part to their fatalism and their utter
indifference to all human suffering. How much do you imagine the great
province of the Punjab with over twenty million people and half a score
rich towns has contributed to the maintenance of civil dispensaries last
year? About seven thousand rupees. "

"That's seven hundred pounds," said Pagett, quickly.

"I wish it was," replied Orde; "but anyway, it's an absurdly inadequate
sum, and shows one of the blank sides of Oriental character. "

Pagett was silent for a long time. The question of direct and personal
pain did not lie within his researches. He preferred to discuss the
weightier matters of the law, and contented himself with murmuring:
"They'll do better later on. " Then, with a rush, returning to his first
thought:

"But, my dear Orde, if it's merely a class movement of a local and
temporary character, how d' you account for Bradlaugh, who is at least a
man of sense, taking it up? "

"I know nothing of the champion of the New Brahmins but what I see in
the papers. I suppose there is something tempting in being hailed by a
large assemblage as the representative of the aspirations of two hundred
and fifty millions of people. Such a man looks 'through all the roaring
and the wreaths,' and does not reflect that it is a false perspective,
which, as a matter of fact, hides the real complex and manifold India
from his gaze. He can scarcely be expected to distinguish between the
ambitions of a new oligarchy and the real wants of the people of whom he
knows nothing. But it's strange that a professed Radical should come to
be the chosen advocate of a movement which has for its aim the revival
of an ancient tyranny. Shows how even Radicalism can fall into academic
grooves and miss the essential truths of its own creed. Believe me,
Pagett, to deal with India you want first-hand knowledge and experience.
I wish he would come and live here for a couple of years or so. "

"Is not this rather an ad hominem style of argument? "

"Can't help it in a case like this. Indeed, I am not sure you ought not
to go further and weigh the whole character and quality and upbringing
of the man. You must admit that the monumental complacency with which he
trotted out his ingenious little Constitution for India showed a strange
want of imagination and the sense of humor. "

"No, I don't quite admit it," said Pagett.

"Well, you know him and I don't, but that's how it strikes a stranger. "
He turned on his heel and paced the veranda thoughtfully. "And, after
all, the burden of the actual, daily unromantic toil falls on the
shoulders of the men out here, and not on his own. He enjoys all the
privileges of recommendation without responsibility, and we--well,
perhaps, when you've seen a little more of India you'll understand. To
begin with, our death rate's five times higher than yours--I speak
now for the brutal bureaucrat--and we work on the refuse of worked-out
cities and exhausted civilizations, among the bones of the dead. In the
case of the Congress meetings, the only notable fact is that the priests
of the altar are British, not Buddhist, Jain or Brahminical, and that
the whole thing is a British contrivance kept alive by the efforts of
Messrs. Hume, Eardley, Norton, and Digby. "

"You mean to say, then, it's not a spontaneous movement? "

"What movement was ever spontaneous in any true sense of the word? This
seems to be more factitious than usual. You seem to know a great deal
about it; try it by the touchstone of subscriptions, a coarse but fairly
trustworthy criterion, and there is scarcely the color of money in it.
The delegates write from England that they are out of pocket for
working expenses, railway fares, and stationery--the mere pasteboard
and scaffolding of their show. It is, in fact, collapsing from mere
financial inanition. "

"But you cannot deny that the people of India, who are, perhaps, too
poor to subscribe, are mentally and morally moved by the agitation,"
Pagett insisted.

"That is precisely what I do deny. The native side of the movement is
the work of a limited class, a microscopic minority, as Lord Dufferin
described it, when compared with the people proper, but still a very
interesting class, seeing that it is of our own creation. It is composed
almost entirely of those of the literary or clerkly castes who have
received an English education. "

"Surely that's a very important class. Its members must be the ordained
leaders of popular thought. "

"Anywhere else they might be leaders, but they have no social weight
here. "

Pagett laughed. "That's an epigrammatic way of putting it, Orde. "

"Is it? Let's see," said the Deputy Commissioner of Amara, striding into
the sunshine toward a half-naked gardener potting roses. He took the
man's hoe, and went to a rain-scarped bank at the bottom of the garden.

"Come here, Pagett," he said, and cut at the sun-baked soil. After
three strokes there rolled from under the blade of the hoe the half of a
clanking skeleton that settled at Pagett's feet in an unseemly jumble of
bones. The M. P. drew back.

"Our houses are built on cemeteries," said Orde. "There are scores of
thousands of graves within ten miles. "

Pagett was contemplating the skull with the awed fascination of a man
who has but little to do with the dead. "India's a very curious place,"
said he, after a pause.

"Ah? You'll know all about it in three months. Come in to lunch," said
Orde.





VOLUME V PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS




LISPETH

Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these
You bid me please?
The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so!
To my own Gods I go.
It may be they shall give me greater ease
Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities.
--The Convert.

She was the daughter of Sonoo, a Hill-man, and Jadeh his wife. One
year their maize failed, and two bears spent the night in their only
poppy-field just above the Sutlej Valley on the Kotgarh side; so, next
season, they turned Christian, and brought their baby to the Mission
to be baptized. The Kotgarh Chaplain christened her Elizabeth, and
"Lispeth" is the Hill or pahari pronunciation.

Later, cholera came into the Kotgarh Valley and carried off Sonoo and
Jadeh, and Lispeth became half-servant, half-companion to the wife of
the then Chaplain of Kotgarh. This was after the reign of the Moravian
missionaries, but before Kotgarh had quite forgotten her title of
"Mistress of the Northern Hills. "

Whether Christianity improved Lispeth, or whether the gods of her own
people would have done as much for her under any circumstances, I do not
know; but she grew very lovely. When a Hill girl grows lovely, she is
worth traveling fifty miles over bad ground to look upon. Lispeth had a
Greek face--one of those faces people paint so often, and see so seldom.
She was of a pale, ivory color and, for her race, extremely tall. Also,
she possessed eyes that were wonderful; and, had she not been dressed in
the abominable print-cloths affected by Missions, you would, meeting her
on the hill-side unexpectedly, have thought her the original Diana of
the Romans going out to slay.

Lispeth took to Christianity readily, and did not abandon it when she
reached womanhood, as do some Hill girls. Her own people hated her
because she had, they said, become a memsahib and washed herself daily;
and the Chaplain's wife did not know what to do with her. Somehow,
one cannot ask a stately goddess, five foot ten in her shoes, to clean
plates and dishes. So she played with the Chaplain's children and took
classes in the Sunday School, and read all the books in the house, and
grew more and more beautiful, like the Princesses in fairy tales. The
Chaplain's wife said that the girl ought to take service in Simla as a
nurse or something "genteel. " But Lispeth did not want to take service.
She was very happy where she was.