V.—THE BLIND MOTHER.
Nand Kishore was driven from his home because he had become a Christian. His dearest friends would not eat with him, or suffer him to cross their thresholds; his younger brother seized on his small property; and, worst of all, his widowed mother, Harmuzi, beating her breast, cursed her first-born, who had been to her as the apple of her eye. Then the soul of Nand Kishore was sorely smitten; in great grief he turned from the door of what had been his home from his childhood. But he remembered the words of the Saviour for whose sake he had given up all: If any man love father or mother more than Me, he is not worthy of Me. Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Harmuzi had in her anger cursed her first-born, but her heart clung to him still. Great was her grief when, a year afterwards, she heard a report of the death of Nand Kishore. And Harmuzi had other sore trials: blindness gradually came upon her, till at last all the light of heaven to her was darkened. And her son Mohendro showed her no love or respect. He had married a proud woman, who despised her poor blind mother-in-law, and made her life bitter with cruel words. Mohendro more than once even struck[52] his afflicted mother; and Harmuzi was treated as a slave in the house which had once been her own.
“Ah! my poor Nand Kishore would not have behaved to me thus!” sighed the unhappy mother, when she remembered him whom she had cursed, only because he had done what he felt to be right.
Harmuzi’s cruel daughter-in-law grudged her even the food which she ate. “Thou canst not grind the corn, or bring water from the well,” she said; “and yet thou dost devour our substance. Go out into the street and beg! When passers-by look on your blind eyes, they may at least put a handful of grain into your vessel.”
Hungry and sad, and bowed down by sorrow, poor Harmuzi, wrapped in her chaddar, sat at the corner of a street, with a brass vessel, called a bartan, beside her, and held out her thin hand for alms. She had sat there for hours, whilst many passed by her, but as yet she had received nothing from any one,—not so much as a word of pity. At last Harmuzi heard a slight sound, as if something were being poured into her bartan; and when she put forth her hand to feel, lo! the vessel was full of rice. Then some one gently took the blind woman by the hand, and raised her, and led her back towards the house of the undutiful son. Harmuzi blessed the kind stranger again and again, and asked Vishnu to load him with blessings. He who led her spake not a word in reply, but left her at the corner of a street that was nigh to the house of her undutiful son.
The next day Harmuzi was again driven forth by her daughter-in-law to beg, and felt her way slowly to the same spot where the merciful stranger had found her. This time she had not to wait so long. Again was her bartan filled with rice, again the same gentle hand led the blind woman back; and she blessed him who had showed her mercy. But the stranger spake no word in reply.
And this went on for many days. The supply of rice never failed, and Harmuzi knew not that he who filled her bartan often himself hungered that she might be fed. Harmuzi marvelled that she never heard the sound of the stranger’s voice. “He hath been smitten with dumbness,” she said to herself.
One day poor Harmuzi, with bruise marks on her face, sat in her usual place; she was bitterly weeping, for the hand of her wicked younger son had been lifted up against his blind and helpless mother. At the sight of Harmuzi’s bruises and tears, he who had so long restrained himself[53] could keep silence no longer.
“O mother—mother!” he cried. Harmuzi knew the voice of her lost Nand Kishore, and suddenly rising and stretching out her arms, she fell on his neck weeping.