Chapter V: Part 5

Both he and his wife are very fond of books. Mrs. Royle reads everything she can lay her hands on, but her husband's special subject is philosophy, and last night he lent me a volume of Nietzsche. I don't think I understood a single word, but between it and the _moorghy-khana_ I had a bad night. I thought I had to make in five minutes a new scheme of the Universe. All the odd-shaped pieces were lying about like a picture-puzzle, and I feverishly tried to make them fit, in the clumsy ineffective way one does things in dreams. Just as I had it almost finished, Mrs. Royle came with a fowl in each hand and said sternly, "These must come into your scheme." I took the two great clucking things and vainly tried to thrust their feet--or is it claws hens have?--into a tiny corner, and they had just wrecked all my efforts when I woke!

I have taken some photographs which I shall send you. The delightful babu buttoned tightly into the frock-coat is a clerk of Mr. Royle's, called a "Sita-Ram--two-o'clock." The frock-coat was a legacy from a departing Collector, and he is immensely proud of it. He is a great delight to me, and says he will never cease to pray for my _internal_ welfare! Talking of babus, one wrote to Mr. Royle the other day about a pair of riding-breeches, and said, "I have your Honour's measurements, but will be glad to know if there is any improvement in the girth." Don't you think that was a very pretty way of asking if he had put on weight?

When I showed Autolycus and the _chuprassis_ the photographs I had taken of them, the _chuprassis_ said, "_Atcha_" (very good), but Autolycus shook his head violently, and when Boggley asked him what was wrong, he replied in an injured tone that it made him look quite black!

_Feb. 12_.

... Deep snow, hard frost, bright sun--how gloriously sparkling it must be! It dazzles my eyes to think of it. I don't wonder you revel in the skating and the long sleigh rides through the silent forest. Talk about the magic of the East--it could never appeal to me like the magic of the North.

Storks, snow-queens, moor-wives, ell-women--how the names thrill one! What was your Hans Andersen like? Mine was light blue and gold with wonderful coloured pictures, but it was the frontispiece I studied, and which held me frightened yet fascinated. It was a picture of a pine-wood, with a small girl in a blue frock and white pinafore and red stockings, crying bitterly under a tree, in the branch of which a doll hung limply, thrown there by cruel brothers. Through the trees the sunset sky was pale green melting into rose-colour, and the wicked little gnomes that twilight brings were tweaking the child's hair and jeering at her misfortunes. One felt how cold it was, and how badly the little girl wanted her hood and cloak. The darkness was very near, and worse things than little gnomes would slip from behind the tree-trunk trunks. It never occurred to me that the little girl might have run home to warmth and light and safety. That was no solution--the doll would still have been there. Your letter, with its tale of snow and great quiet forests, and the picture you drew me of the funny little girl with the flaxen plaits and the red stockings, made me remember it. I don't know where my old book is--gone long since from the nursery bookshelf to the dustbin, I expect, for it was much-used and frail when I knew and loved it--but your word-picture gave me the passport and enabled me to creep once again inside its cover, so brave in blue and gold, and to greet my friend in the red stockings, and find her as highly coloured as ever, and not a day older. It is nice of you to say I have a courageous outlook on life, but I wish I hadn't told you the story of the mongoose that was an otter. Now you will say, like Boggley, _Funk-stick!_ If I stay much longer in this frightsome land my hair will be white and my nervous system a mere wreck.

Yesterday we left the solitude of Rika and went to polo at a place about seventeen miles away. It was very interesting to meet all the neighbouring Europeans--mostly planters and their wives. There were about twenty people, and everyone very nice. I wish I had time to tell you about them, but I haven't. After polo, which I enjoyed watching, we all had tea together and talked very affably. Then Mr. Royle drove me home while Boggley went with Mrs. Royle. I heard, as we were leaving, Mr. Royle say something to Boggley about the horse being young and skittish, and a faint misgiving passed through me, but I forgot it talking to Mr. Royle, and when we reached Rika I went off to dress for dinner, taking it for granted that the others were just behind. Letters were waiting me, and I lingered so long over them I had to dress in a hurry, and ran to the drawing-room expecting to find everyone waiting. But the room was empty. Hungry and puzzled, I waited for another ten minutes, and then went along to Boggley's bedroom, to see what _he_ meant anyway; but there was no one there. More and more puzzled, but distinctly less hungry, I went back to the drawing-room, looked into the dining-room, finally wandered out into the verandah, where I found the children's old nurse Anne tidying away the children's toys.

I said: "Nurse, where's everybody?"

Anne left the toys and lifted both hands to high heaven.

"Och! Miss Douglas dear, it wasn't for nothing I dreamt last night of water-horses. The night before ma sister Maggie's man was killed by a kick from a wicked grey horse (Angus M'Veecar was his name, and a fine young lad he was) I dreamt I saw one. As big as three hills it was, with an awful starin' white face, and a tail on it near as long as from Portree to Sligachen. It give a great screech, and a wallop in the face of me, and jumped into the loch, and by milkin'-time next morning--a Thursday it was--ma sister Maggie came into the door cryin', 'Och and och, ma poor man, and him so kind and so young,' and fell on the floor as stiff as a board."

Anne comes from Skye, and often tells me about water-horses and such-like odd denizens of that far island; and I find her soft Highland speech, with its "ass" for "as" and "ch" for "j," very diverting; but this time I wasn't amused.

"But nothing _has_ happened, Anne. What are you talking about? Where is my brother?"

"Mercy on us all, how can I tell? The mistress and the young gentleman has never come in, and the master says to me, 'Fetch me my flask, Anne,' says he; and fetch it I did, and he drove away, an' I'm sure as I'm sittin' here I didn't see the water-horse for nothing. What does a flask mean but an accident? Och--och, and a nice laughin'-faced young gentleman he was, too."

If life is going to contain many such half-hours I don't see how I am to get through it with any credit. I left Anne--whom at that moment I hated--to seek information from the servants, which she did with a valiant disregard of her entire lack of knowledge of Hindustani, a language she stubbornly refused to learn a word of. The last I saw of her she had seized the _khansamah's_ young assistant and was shouting at him, "Chokra--ye impident little black deevil, will you tell this moment, has there been an accident?" Backwards and forwards I went in the verandah, then down the steps to the road, straining my eyes to see and my ears to hear something--what I did not know. From the garden the scent of the roses and mignonette came to me in the soft Indian darkness. I ventured a little bit along the road, too anxious to remember, or, remembering, to care, that I had no lantern, and that at any moment I might tread on a snake. I could only think of one thing, and how often I pictured it! Mr. Royle coming back, and the natives carrying someone--someone who didn't laugh any more. The odd thing was I didn't seem to mind at all what happened to kind Mrs. Royle. It was Boggley, and only Boggley, that mattered to me. Of course nothing did happen to anyone. It isn't when one expects and dreads it that tragedy comes. Tragedy comes quietly, swiftly. I remember going to see a fisherman's widow in a little village on the stormy east coast. She told me of her husband's death. "I had his tea a' ready an' a bit buttered toast an' a kipper, but he never cam' in." That was all--"He never cam' in."

When our wanderers returned they were rather amused than otherwise. The horse had given trouble and ended by kicking the trap to pieces, and they had to walk part of the way home. Quite simple, you see; but the first opportunity I looked in a mirror to see if my hair had not turned white in a single night, as men's have done through sudden fear. It hadn't; but I did dream of a water-horse with "an awful starin' white face."

This morning Mrs. Royle took me to the village to get some brass to take home. The shop was a little hut with an earthen floor, a pair of scales, and one shelf crowded with brass things, made, not for the European market, but for the daily use of the people, such as drinking-vessels--_lota_ is the pretty name--and big brass plates out of which they eat their rice and _dhalbat_. They keep them beautifully polished with sand, and I think they ought to be rather decorative; much more attractive certainly than the candlesticks and pots and cheap rough silver-work which is the usual loot carried away by the cold-weather visitor.

_16th_.

Another mail-day will soon be upon us; they simply pounce on one. We have to get letters away by Tuesday from the Mofussil instead of Thursday as in Calcutta. I look forward with great distaste to leaving this place next week. When with the Royles one can't imagine oneself happy anywhere else. The days pass so quickly; breakfast seems hardly over when it is time for luncheon, and before one has really settled down to read or write it is four o'clock, and time to go to tea, which is spread down by the lake among the roses, the sun having lost its fierceness and begun to think of going to bed. We all sit at a round table and eat brown bread and butter and jam, all home-made. The china we use is very pretty and came from Ireland, but Mrs. Royle has been greatly troubled by its discoloured appearance, which the servants assured her there was no cure for. I suggested rough salt and lemon-juice, and after tea yesterday afternoon they brought it, and we each set to work on our own cup and saucer, and behold! in a very short time they were like new. Boggley made his particularly beautiful, but unfortunately broke it immediately afterwards, at which Kittiwake laughed so immoderately she fell on her saucer and sent it to its long home.

I have learned to take a most intelligent interest in fowls and Nietzsche; and more and more as the days pass do I like and admire our host and hostess. I never met people I felt so _affectionately_ towards.

Here come the children flying, followed patiently by the old _khansamah_ with a spoon in one hand and a bottle of cod-liver-oil emulsion in the other. I had better finish this letter and get the ink out of their reach.

_Baratah, Thursday, Feb. 21_.

... Now we are really camping out, and I sit outside my tent even as Abraham did of old. I have a whole long day before me to write. Boggley was up and away long before I was awake, and won't be back till evening.

We left Rika on Monday afternoon, very sad indeed. Mrs. Royle, as is her way, heaped us with benefits, and, mindful of our starvation on the way to Rika, had a luncheon-basket packed with cold fowl, home-made bread, tomatoes, and a big cake. As we drove off the children pursued us down the drive crying, "Don't go away. Stay with us always."

At the station we were told that the train was two hours late, and Boggley thought it would be an excellent plan to spend the time calling on the Blackies, who live near; so, leaving Autolycus and the _chuprassis_ with the luggage, we set out. We had been shown the flower-garden and a crocodile that Mr. Blackie had shot, and were about to drink a dish of tea in the drawing-room, when we heard the whistle of an engine. "The train!" cried Boggley, bounding to his feet, and spurning the cup of tea Mrs. Blackie was offering to him. It was no moment for ceremony. With a shrieked good-bye we leapt out of the window and across the compound, and set off on our half-mile run to the station. There is something peculiarly nasty about the nature of Indian trains. Simply because we left the station it chose to be up to time. It must have been an amusing incident to the people in the station, but I would have enjoyed it more had I been one of the natives watching from a third-class carriage instead of, so to speak, one of the principal actors. There was the engine shrieking in its anxiety to start; there was our luggage neatly spread all over an empty compartment; there was Autolycus protesting shrilly that the train could not leave without his sahib, who was a very _burra_ sahib; and finally there _we_ were with scarlet faces, topis on the backs of our heads, surrounded by a thick cloud of dust, careering wildly into the station.

After all the fuss, we had only about thirty miles to travel, when we got out and drove three miles in a kind of native cart to a dâk-bungalow, a very poor and uncomfortable specimen of its kind. It didn't uplift us to hear that plague was very bad all round, and after a somewhat jungly dinner during which we were very thoughtful and disinclined for conversation, we sought our mildewed couches, to rise again at skreich of day and continue our journey, till late on Tuesday night we got out finally at Baratah station and drove out to our present camping-ground. The people knew we were coming, and the tents were up; but they hadn't expected us till the next day, so nothing was ready, not even a lamp. It was the oddest experience to stumble about in black darkness in entirely unknown surroundings. You know how Boggley tumbles over things in the broad light of day, so you can imagine what tosses he took over dressing-tables and chairs in the darkness. It didn't last long, however, for an important fat _khansamah_ hurried in, shocked at our plight, and, explaining that his sahib, Mr. Lister, was away for a few days, brought us a lamp and other necessaries. Dinner was not possible under the circumstances--the box with our forks and knives had not arrived--so the remains of Mrs. Royle's luncheon-basket coldly furnished forth our evening meal While we sat there, uncomfortably poised on dressing-bags, gnawing legs of fowl and hunches of bread, I thought of you probably dining at the Ritz or the Savoy, with soft lights and music, and lovely food, and probably not half as merry as Boggley and I.

I don't know if I really like a tent to live in. The floor is covered with straw, and then a carpet is stretched over it, which makes a particularly bulgy, uneven surface to stand dressing-tables and things on. The straw, too, is apt to stick out where it is least expected, and gives one rather the feeling of being a tinker sleeping in a barn. At night a tent is an awesome place. It is terrible to have no door to lock, and to be entirely at the mercy of anything that creeps and crawls; to have only a mosquito-net between you and an awful end. I woke last night to hear something sniffing outside the tent. It scraped and scraped, and I was sure that it was digging a hole and creeping underneath the canvas. I sat up in bed and in a quavering voice said "Go away," and the noise stopped, but only to begin again--scrape, scrape, snuffle, snuffle, in the most eerie way. Then something worse happened. At my very ear, as it seemed, the most blood-curdling yell rent the astonished air. It was only a jackal, Boggley says, but it sounded as if all the forces of evil had been let loose at once. You can laugh if you like, but I think it was enough to frighten a very Daniel. As for me, in one moment I was well under the blankets, with fingers in both ears, and I suppose even in the midst of my terror I must have fallen asleep, for the next thing I knew was daylight and the cheerful sound of voices. To-night I shall have a lamp burning and a _chokidar_ (watchman) to sleep outside my tent.

Baratah is quite a large town, and has a Roman Catholic Mission and two lady doctors. We are camping about a mile from the town in a corner of Mr. Lister's compound. It is pretty, with well-kept grass and flower-beds, and opposite is the Guest House of the Raj, where we would be staying now were it not that its roof is not quite safe, and it cannot be used. I went through it, and a great neglected place it is, with tawdry Early Victorian furniture and awful oleographs.

When the sun had gone down yesterday, we went for a walk to explore, along an avenue of peepul trees, across a fine polo-ground, and then we lighted on a big tank. A tiny native boy was perched on the bank watching something in the water, so we sat down beside him and watched too. The something was very large and black, and we were puzzled to know what it was, till, at a word from the child, it heaved itself out of the water and revealed itself an elephant. Up it came to where we were, laid its trunk down so that the small boy could walk up, and off he went proudly riding on its head. It was the nicest thing to watch I ever saw.

We got the home mail the night we arrived here, but couldn't see to read it till the next morning. So you are back in London--sloppy, muggy, February London! How you will miss the cold clear North and all the ice-fun; but you will be so busy finishing the book that surroundings won't matter much. It seemed quite home-like to see the familiar address on the note-paper.

To-day I am going to devote entirely to writing. Surely my book will make some progress now. How many words should there be in a book? I've got 18,000 now; "ragged incompetent words" they are, too. I wonder what makes a writer of books! Would knowing all the words in the dictionary help me? My statements are so bald, somehow. It doesn't seem an interesting tale to me, so I'm afraid I can't expect an unprejudiced reader to find it thrilling. The Mutiny is perhaps too large a subject for me--though, mind you, there is one bit that sounds rather well. I have taken great pains with it, and, as Viola said of her declaration, "'tis poetical!" The worst of it is, when I write poetically I am never quite sure that I am writing sense. I dare say I would be wise to take the Moorwife's advice. You remember in _The Will-o'-the Wisps are in Town_, when the man had listened to the Moorwife's tale he said, "I might write a book about that, a novel in twelve volumes, or better, a popular play."

"Or better still," said the Moorwife, "you might let it alone,"

"Ah," said the man, "that would be pleasanter and easier."

How true!

_Baratah, Thursday, Feb. 28_.

We are still in Baratah, as you see, and shall be till Tuesday. It is a very nice life this nomadic existence, and one gets nearer the people. They come in little groups and talk to Boggley outside his tent, and I must say he is most patient with them and tries to do his very best for each one of them. They make my heart ache, these natives, they are so gentle and so desperately poor. Isn't it Steevens who says the Indian ryot has been starving for thirty centuries and sees no reason why he should be filled?

The Listers are home now and we have been seeing a lot of them. They are delightful people. Mrs. Lister is quite a girl, and so good-looking and cheery. She has the prettiest house I think I ever saw. When we went to call the first time and were shown into the white-panelled drawing-room with its great open blue-tiled fireplace and cupboards of blue china, I suppose it was the contrast with our own rather sordid surroundings, but it seemed to me like fairyland. The hall is lovely, with a gallery all round and most exquisite carving; rose-red velvet curtains, Persian rugs glowing with rich, soft colours, and everywhere great silver bowls of flowers. They are the most hospitable people, and ask us to dinner every night, and to every other meal as well. Mr. Lister told me babu stories last night. Here is one. The Government sent round making inquiries about some Scandinavians. (Please don't ask why Scandinavians, because I can't answer.) The Sub-Divisional Officer forwarded the reference to the different police-stations for report. The babus in charge of these stations hadn't an idea what Scandinavians were, but would have scorned to ask. Three of the reports ran thus:

1. "Honoured Sir, I have the honour to report that the Scandinavian has been concluded in this district and has been removed to Lahserai." (Survey and Settlement operations.)

2. "Sir, I have the honour to report that there has been no Scandinavians in the district this year, but it is raging furiously at Rika." (Plague.)

3. "Sir, I have the honour to report two Scandinavians were seen at Gopalbung. One was shot by Billie Burke Sahib, the other has not since returned." (Tigers.)

That is a good, but somewhat involved, story. Another was about a missionary who had been eaten by a tiger. The police wired, "A tiger has man-eaten the Pope of Ramnugger."

Yesterday the Listers had a duck-shoot. About twenty men came from all round, and Mrs. Lister and I went with them. We drove two and two to a very large lake and then set sail in queer native boats punted by natives. Of course I wanted to go with Boggley, but was sent off with a strange man, one Major Griffiths, who eyed me with great dislike because he said my light dress would frighten the birds. It got frightfully hot with the sun beating on the water, and I simply dared not put up a sunshade in case of scaring the birds more than I was already doing, and thereby increasing the wrath of my companion. He shot a lot of ducks, but evidently not so many as he thought he ought to shoot, and when he saw the birds all congregated at one corner of the lake a thought struck him, and he told the natives to take us to shore. He got out and beckoned me to follow, which I obediently did, and together we crawled through the jungle, with the _bandar-log_ chattering above us and--for all I know to the contrary--snakes hissing beneath our feet. If I stepped, which I could hardly avoid doing sometimes, on a fallen branch, making it crackle, the man turned on me a glance so malignant I positively quailed. Breathlessly we crept to the water-side and the unsuspecting ducks, and then Major Griffiths fired into the brown,--is that the proper expression?--killing I don't know how many. I don't think it was at all a nice thing to do, but my opinion was neither asked nor desired. Even then my friend was not satisfied, and he voyaged about until I knew luncheon was long since a thing of the past, and I hated so the shape of his face I could have screamed. When at last we did return, I found my surmise as to luncheon had been only too correct, and we had to content ourselves with scraps. The next duck-shoot I attend I shall choose as companion a less earnest sportsman.

The weather is beginning to stoke-up, as Boggley calls it, and during the day the tent is insufferable. I can sit outside it in the early morning, but as the sun gets up Autolycus summons the _chuprassis_, and they carry my table and writing-materials to the verandah of the Guest House, which has a cool, not to say clammy and tomb-like, atmosphere. My chief trials are the insects. There is a land of large black beetle with wings that has a strange habit of poising itself just above my head and remaining there. Someone told me--who I forget; anyway, Boggley says it isn't true, but it seems quite likely--that if these beetles drop on you they _explode_. Did you ever hear of anything quite so horrible? I keep a wary eye on them and shift my seat at their approach.

Not a hundred yards away a heathen temple stands, with its gilded roof shining in the sun. We tried to go inside it the other day, but an angel with a flaming sword, in the shape of a _fakir_, kept us out. It didn't look very attractive. We saw enough when we beheld the post the poor kids and goats are tied to, all messy and horrid from the last sacrifice. The priest who forbade us to enter, just to show there was no ill-feeling, hung wreaths of marigolds round our necks. Boggley, once we were out of sight, hid his in the ditch, but I, afraid they might find out and be offended, went about for the rest of the day decked like any sacrificial goat.

That we are leading the Simple Life I think you would admit if you saw us at our meals. I find that food really matters very little. Our cook is of the jungle jungly. Autolycus is disgusted with him, and does his best to reform him. _Chota-hazri_ I have alone, as Boggley is away inspecting before seven o'clock. I emerge from my tent and find a table before Boggley's tent with a cloth on it,--not particularly clean,--a loaf of bread (our bread is made in jail: a _chuprassi_ goes to fetch it every second day), a tin of butter, and a tin of jam. Autolycus appears accompanied by the jungly cook, bearing a plate of what under happier circumstances might have been porridge. A spoonful or two is more than enough. "No good?" demands Autolycus. "No," and disdainfully handing the plate back to the entirely indifferent cook, he proceeds to produce from somewhere about his person a teapot and two tiny eggs. Luncheon is much worse, for the food that appears is so incalculably greasy that it argues a more than bowing acquaintance with native _ghee_. Dinner is luncheon intensified, so tea is really the only thing we can enjoy. The fact is, if we thought about it we would never eat at all. I happened to walk round the tent to-day, and found the dish-washer washing our dishes in water that was positively thick, and drying them with a cloth that had begun life polishing our brown boots. I stormed at him in English, and later Boggley stormed at him in Hindustani, and he vowed it would never happen again; but I dare say if I were to look round at this minute, I should find him doing exactly the same thing; and I don't really care so long as neither of us perishes with cholera as a result.

Such funny things live behind my tent! What should I find the other day but a little native baby--about two or three years old. It seems his mother is dead, and his father, who is our _chokidar_, has to take him with him wherever he goes. He is the oddest little figure, clothed in a most inadequate shirt, and a string round his neck with a shell attached to keep away evil spirits. His hair is closely shaved except for one upstanding tuft which is left to pull him up to heaven with; and his face looks nothing but two great twinkling eyes. He squats beside me nearly all day, and eagerly eats anything I give him, like a little puppy dog. Toffee and fancy biscuits, both of which I possess in abundance, are his favourites. An old servant of Boggley's is with a sahib near here, and he arrived dressed in spotless white from head to foot, bearing in one hand a large seed cake wreathed with marigolds, and in the other a plate of toffee coloured pink, green, and yellow, an offering to the Miss Sahib which he presented with many salaams, and of which my little Hindoo gets the benefit. Autolycus and the _chuprassis_ take a great interest in teaching him manners. When I hold out a biscuit Autolycus says sternly, "Say salaam to the Miss Sahib," and the baby puts his small hand gravely to his forehead, bowing low with a "Talaam, Mees Tahib," then snaps up the prize. I shall miss my little companion. I wonder what will become of him--little brown heir of the ages. Already he can lisp to idols, but he has never even heard of the Christ who said, "Suffer the children."

_March 3_.

I shall finish this and post it to-morrow before we leave. We have been to church to-night, the most unusual occurrence with us nowadays. Of course it was only an English church (I remember the time when I thought it very exciting and more than a little wicked to be present at a Church of England service) and the padre was a very little young padre, and rather depressing. He insisted so that we were but a passing vapour that I began to feel it was only too horribly true, and Boggley, who had partaken largely of tinned cheese at luncheon and was feeling far from well, grew every moment more yellow and green.

The Listers asked us to go back with them to dinner, but we thought it better (Boggley especially) to seek the seclusion of our tents.

_Manpur, March 9_.

Now we are in a different place. At least it has a different name and is a day's journey from Bantale, but it looks exactly the same. We left Baratah yesterday morning and got in and out of trains all day until about seven in the evening we got out finally at Manpur. I had a dreadful cold, and was sniffy and inclined to be cross; so when Boggley suggested we should dine in the waiting-room while Autolycus and the _chuprassis_ went on with the luggage to acquaint the dâk-bungalow people of our arrival, I upbraided him for not making proper arrangements, and reviled the meagre repast, and was altogether very unpleasant. When we reached our destination we found Autolycus prancing distractedly. "This," he said to Boggley, "is what comes of making no bundabust." Some other people were already occupying the bungalow, and we could only get the back rooms, small, mouldy, and inconvenient. Poor Boggley looked so crushed I had to laugh, and we calmed the worried Autolycus, who hates to see his Sahib shoved into corners, and, there being no inducement to remain up--went to bed.

Manpur is a fairly big station--the sort of place you read about in Anglo-Indian novels. There are six households and a club. Boggley and I called on all the six this evening, and then went to the club. Everyone meets there in the evening to see the picture-papers and to play tennis and bridge.

It is rather a bored little community, Manpur. I think they are all pretty sick of each other, and one can't wonder. Even an Archangel would pall if one met him at tea, played tennis with him, and sat next him at dinner almost every day of the year; how much more poor human beings--and Anglo-Indian human beings at that. Taken separately they are delightful, but each assures us that the others are quite impossible. They unite in being shocked at our living in such discomfort, and have all invited us to stay; but it isn't worth while to change our quarters. Besides, we are going away for the week-end to some friend of Boggley's who lives about thirty miles from here.

A nice little young civilian is at present calling on us. He came to pay his duty call, and he and Boggley became so deep in Oxford talk, and found so many mutual friends, that we asked him to stay to dinner. Autolycus told me in a stage whisper that the Sahib could easily stay as the dâk-bungalow cook was very good, and that we would get quite a Calcutta dinner. His pride, as he bore in the dishes, was beautiful to see; and it was a good dinner, though rather tinny.

_Manpur, Thursday 12th_.

This delayed letter must be posted before we leave by the night train for our next trek. We came back late last night from Misanpore after a nice but very queer time. On Saturday, when, after a long dusty drive of eight miles from the station, we arrived at the bungalow of Boggley's friend, there was every evidence that no visitors were expected. Just think! Boggley had never let him know we were coming; the poor man was ignorant of the fearful joy in store for him.

I gripped Boggley by the arm. "Wretch," I hissed in his ear. "Why didn't you write? What sort of man is he? Will he hate having me?"

"_Qui hai_?" bellowed Boggley to the deserted-looking bungalow. Then, turning to me, "Oh yes, he'll hate it," he said calmly; "but he'll be pleased afterwards." I could have shaken him. Making me play the part of a visit to the dentist!

When our host appeared, very dishevelled (it turned out that he was feeling far from well and had been lying down), and beheld me, dismay was written large on his countenance. He glared round in a hunted way, and it looked as if he were going to make a bolt for it; but he remembered in time his manhood, and faced me. (His name is Ferris, and he is tall and bald, and about forty, and so shy that when he blushes his eyes water.) Somehow, we all got inside the house, and Boggley and I sat in the drawing-room while Mr. Ferris rushed out to summon his minions and make arrangements. We heard a whispered discussion going on about sheets, and I longed to tell my distracted host that I had all my bedding with me in a strap; but the thought that he might consider me "ondelicate," like Mr. Glegg, deterred me. Presently I was shown into what, only too evidently, was our host's own room, for a servant snatched away some last remaining effects of his master--a spatter-brush and a slipper--as I entered. I sat down on the bed and pondered over what I would have felt had I been a man, and shy, and seedy, and a strange female had been suddenly shot into my peaceful home.

It was rather a difficult week-end. I have met men who were difficult to talk to, but never one like Mr. Ferris, who, while willing, indeed anxious, to be agreeable, so absolutely annihilated conversation. It wasn't till dinner on Sunday night that I discovered a subject that really interested him--London restaurants. He grew quite animated as we discussed the relative merits of the Ritz, the Carlton, the Savoy, the Dieudonné. I think that long, thin, bald, gentle bachelor spends all his spare moments--and he must have many in lonely Misanpore--thinking about his next leave and the feasts he will then enjoy. Yet the odd thing is he isn't greedy about food. I think it must be more the lights and music and people that attract him.

Mr. Ferris and Boggley were away all Sunday, and I spent the whole day with a volume of Dana Gibson's drawings, the only book I could find. I did go for a short walk, but the dust was nearly knee-deep, and, except the little bungalow and outhouses, there was absolutely nothing to see.

Yesterday again Boggley had to go and inspect some place, so it was decided he would bicycle there, and then pick me up at some station we had to change at on our way to Manpur. I drove to the station in Mr. Ferris's little dogcart--alone. Mr. Ferris said he was so sorry he had an engagement, but I think myself it was simply that he couldn't face the eight miles alone with me.

The groom, instead of sitting behind, ran behind; and as the pony was fresh he had to run pretty fast. There were two roads--a _pukka_ or made road, and a _cutcha_ road, on which the natives walked and drove their _ekkas_.

Autolycus and the _chuprassis_ were waiting at the station, and put me into a carriage. They went straight on to Manpur with the luggage instead of waiting at the station where we changed trains. It was ten o'clock when I got out of the train, and Boggley had said he would be no later than half-past eleven; then we would have luncheon, and get the one o'clock train to Manpur. I went into the refreshment-room to ask what we could have for luncheon,

"Ham and eggs," said the fat babu promptly.

"Nothing else?" I asked.

"Yes," said the babu; "mixed biscuits."

"Oh," I said, surprised.

"Certainlee," said the babu.

Then I went outside to read a book and watch for Boggley. My book was one of those American novels where every woman is--to judge from the illustrations--of more than earthly beauty. I got so disheartened after a little when everyone I met had a complexion of rose and snow (besides, I didn't believe it) that I shut it up. I found it was nearly twelve o'clock, and Boggley hadn't arrived. I waited another quarter of an hour, and then went in and ate some ham and eggs. One o'clock, and the train came and went, but still no trace of the laggard. Outside the station the blinding white road lay empty. Nothing stirred, not even a native was visible; the whole world seemed asleep in the heat. A pile of trunks lay on the platform addressed to somewhere in Devonshire and labelled _Not wanted on the Voyage_. Some happy people were going home. A far cry it seemed from this dusty land to green Devonshire. I sat on the largest trunk and thought about it. Two o'clock, three, four--the hours went past. I felt myself becoming exactly like a native, sitting with my hands folded, looking straight before me. If I hadn't been so anxious I shouldn't have minded the waiting at all. Now and again I refreshed myself with a peep at the babu, just to assure myself that I wasn't the only person left alive in the world.

About five o'clock Boggley and his bicycle strolled into the station. I had meant to be frightfully cross with him when he appeared--that is to say, if he weren't wounded or disabled in any way--but somehow I never can be very cross when I see him, the way he wrinkles up his short-sighted eyes is so disarming.

He had absolutely no excuse except that he had run across old friends, and they had persuaded him to stay to lunch, and then they had got talking, and so on and so on. He was very repentant, but inclined to laugh. I expect really he had forgotten for the time he had a sister. He confessed he hadn't mentioned my existence till he was leaving, and then, he said, "They did seem rather surprised." I should think so indeed!

Our home mail was waiting us at Manpur and another "Calcutta" dinner. Your letter, my faithful friend, was more than usually charming and kind--a balm to my lacerated feelings! If you don't get a letter next mail after this it will mean either that we are entirely out of the reach of post offices, or that a tiger has eaten the dâk-runner.

_Chota Haganpore, March 25_.

... a whole fortnight since I wrote last, and our tour is almost over. On Wednesday we go back to Calcutta, and in April I sail for home. The time has simply rushed past. This last fortnight has been a time of pure delight; I have been too absorbed in enjoying myself to write.

First, we stayed two days in a town where Boggley had to open some sort of building. The natives met us with a band, and there were decorations and mottoes and crowds. In the evening a dramatic entertainment took place for our amusement--_Julius Caesar_ acted by schoolboys. Mark Anthony wore a _dhoti_, a Norfolk jacket, and a bowler hat. In the middle of "Friends, Romans, Countrymen," the bowler fell off. Still declaiming, he picked it up with his toes, caught it with his hand, and gravely put it on again--very much on one side. I envied the "mob" their serene calm of countenance. Boggley and I made horrible faces in our efforts to preserve our gravity.

The next day Boggley played in a football match with these same boys. One got a kick on the shin, and limping up to Boggley said, "Sir, I am wounded; I cannot play," whereupon another ran up to the wounded one, crying, "Courage, brother. Tis a Nelson's death." Great dears I thought they were.

Since then we have been through dry places, and camped in desolate places, hardly ever seeing a European, and enjoying ourselves extremely. One day, a red-letter day, Boggley shot two crocodiles. One was a fish-eater, but the other was a great old _mugger_, most loathsome to look at. Autolycus hoped for _human limbs_ inside it, and I believe they did actually find relics of his gruesome meals in the shape of anklets and rings and bangles. Boggley is going to have the skins made up into things for me, but it will take about six months to cure them. It is good to think there is one _mugger_ the less. I hate the nasty treacherous beasts. Pretending they are logs, and then eating the poor natives!

One night we had a delightful camping-ground on the edge of a lochan well stocked with duck, which Boggley set out to shoot and ended by missing gloriously. We were much embarrassed by a fat old landowner heaping presents on us. He nearly wept when we refused to accept a goat!

All the fortnight we have only met two Europeans--a couple called Martin. I don't know quite what they were, or why they were holding up the flag of empire in this lonely outpost, but they were the greyest people I ever saw.

Finding ourselves in the neighbourhood of Europeans, we called, as in duty bound. The compound round the bungalow had a dreary look, and when we were shown into the drawing-room I could see at a glance it was a room that no one took any interest in. The rugs on the floor were rumpled, the cushions soiled; photographs stood about in broken frames, and the flowers were dying in their glasses. When Mrs. Martin came in, I wasn't surprised at her room. A long grey face, lack-lustre eyes, greyish hair rolled up anyhow, and greyish clothes with a hiatus between the bodice and skirt. "This," said I to myself, "is a woman who has lost interest in herself and her surroundings," Her husband was small and bleached-looking and, given encouragement, inclined to be jokesome; sometimes (by accident) he was funny. Mrs. Martin paid very little attention to us, and none whatever to her husband's jokes. I laughed loudly. I thought it was so persevering of him to go on trying to be funny when he was married to such a depressing woman. As we got up to go I noticed in a corner a child's chair with a little chintz cover, and seated in it a smiling china doll lacking one arm and a leg.

I could hardly wait till I was outside to tell Boggley what I thought of Mrs. Martin and her house. "The hopeless, untidy creature!" I raved. "She doesn't deserve to have such a little cheery husband or children."

The only thing I don't like about Boggley is that he never will help me to abuse people.

"Poor woman," he said; "she's pretty bad." Then he told me her story as he had heard it.

Ten years ago, it seems, she was quite a cheery managing woman, with two little girls whom she worshipped; she and her husband lived for the children. They were just going to take them home when they sickened with some ailment. Mr. Martin at the time was prostrate after a bad attack of fever. There was no doctor within thirty miles. One child died, and the mother started with the other on the long drive to the nearest doctor. The last ten miles it was a dead child she held in her arms.

When Boggley finished I was silent, remembering the little chintz-covered chair--empty but for a broken doll.

Now that I have tasted the joys of solitude I don't see how I am to enjoy living in a crowd again. I am practically alone all day, for Boggley has long distances to ride and bicycle--and I never was so happy in my life, I write, and I read, and I fold my hands in newly acquired Oriental calm (which my bustling, busy little mother most certainly won't admire), and sit looking before me for hours.

The books lent me by various people are all read long ago, and I have gone back to those that are always with me.

They are all before me as I write. The little fat green one at the end of the row is Lamb's _Essays of Elia_: he so well fits some moods, and certain minutes of the day, that gentle writer. Next is my _Pilgrim's Progress_, the one I have had since my tenth birthday. Father gave each of us a copy when we reached the mature age of ten. It was only on high days and holy-days that we were allowed to look at his own treasured copy, which stayed behind glass doors in the corner book-case. The illustrations, I know now, were very fine, and even then we found them wonderful. Then comes my little old Bible. I coveted it for years before I got it because it had pages like five-pound notes; I value it now for other reasons. Next the Bible is Q's _Anthology of English Verse_, its brave leather cover rather impaired by the fact that for two mornings Boggley, having mislaid his strop, has stropped his razor on it. Lastly comes my Shakespeare.

Sometimes in a night-marish moment I wonder what the world would have been like had there been no Shakespeare. Suppose we had never known Falstaff, never heard the Clown sing "O Mistress Mine," never laughed with Beatrice nor masqueraded with Rosalind, never thrilled when Cleopatra "again for Cydnos to meet Mark Antony" cries "Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me."

What would we do when surfeited with the company of those around us if we couldn't creep away and pass for a little while into the company of those immortals? What does it matter how tiresome and complacent people are when I am Orsino inviting the Clown to sing words the utter beauty of which bring the tears to my eyes:

"O fellow, come, the song we had last night:
Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain:
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,
And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age."

One never comes to the end of the beauty. Only to-day, while I was browsing for a few minutes in a comedy I have not much acquaintance with, I happened on these lines, which I am going to write down merely for the pleasure of writing them:

"I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire, and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter: some that humble themselves may, but the many will be too chill and tender, and they'll be for the flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire."

A very pleasant thing about our present solitude is that one can read aloud or speak to oneself without risk of being thought demented. The fact is, the inhabitants of the little village on the outskirts of which we are camping regard us as so hopelessly and utterly mad already that no further display of eccentricity on our part could make any difference.

Even in the jungle there are servant troubles. Our cook, finding, I expect, this life too uneventful, intimated that his father was dying, and left last night. We thought we should have to go without dinner, but Autolycus, stepping gallantly into the breach said No, he would cook it; he had often cooked while with Colonel-M'Greegor-Sahib. The next we saw was a hen flying wildly, pursued by Autolycus, and in about half an hour it appeared on the table, its legs--still rather feathery--sticking protestingly from the dish. That was all there was for dinner except two breakfast-cups of muddy coffee.

... The dâk came in a little while ago with the. English mail. I have just finished reading your letter. I think I know what you must feel about your book. It is sad to come to the end of a long and pleasant task--something finished you won't do again; a page of life closed. I know. It scares me, too, how quickly things come to an end. We are hurrying on so, the years pass so quickly, that even a long life is a terribly short darg. Life is such a happy thing, one would like it to last. I was twenty-six yesterday, and if my soul were to say to me now, "_Finish, good lady, the bright day is over_," I would be most dreadfully sorry (and I would expect everyone else to be dreadfully sorry too; I'm afraid I would insist on a great moaning at the bar when I put out to sea); but I would have to admit that I have had a good time--a good, good time.

But I don't agree with you about the darkness of what comes after. How can it be dark when the Sun of Righteousness has arisen? I suppose it must be very difficult for clever people to believe, the wise and prudent who demand a reason for everything; but Christ said that in this the foolish things of the world would confound the wise. I am glad He said that. I am glad that sometimes the battle is to the weak. At the crossing, "I sink," cried Christian, the strong man, "I sink in deep waters," but Much-Afraid went through the river singing, though none could understand what she said. I don't know that I could give you a reason for the hope that is in me (I speak as one of the "foolish things"), but this I know, that if we hold fast to the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, then, when the end comes, we shall be able to lay our heads down like children saying, _This night when I lie down to sleep_, in the sure and certain hope that when, having done with houses made with hands, we wake up in the House of Many Mansions, it will be what John Bunyan calls a "sunshine morning."

I shall have to stop writing, though lecturing you is a fascinating pastime, for the day is almost done, and Boggley will soon be home.