CHAPTER VI
A.D. 1877-1878
A BROWN AND WHITE ‘HAPPY FAMILY’

Though Miss Tucker had by no means fallen in love with Dalhousie during her former visit to the Hills, she was again this August to be, as she said, ‘almost trapped’ into going there. Mrs. Elmslie, albeit in need of rest, could not leave a child in the Orphanage who was dangerously ill, perhaps dying; and Miss Wauton, worn out with heavy toil through the very hot weather, imperatively needed change, yet was in no condition to manage the long distance alone. Miss Tucker therefore resolved to go with her; and the two started off in company, Miss Tucker in her duli, Miss Wauton on a pony. They travelled slowly, with frequent rests by the way, so as to extend the usual two days’ hard journeying into six days of easy advance. On August 22, before leaving Amritsar, Miss Tucker wrote:—

‘Man has been described as a “laughing animal,” “a cooking animal,” to distinguish him from the lower creation. I would suggest “a packing animal,” for neither birds nor beasts—except the elephant—have anything to do with filling trunks! What an amount of packing I have had in the last two and a half years! Of course, these thoughts are suggested by my present business of packing for the Hills.

‘One must be prepared for all sorts of weather, for burning heat, bitter cold, or furious rain. One may have all three in the course of a week. Then one must prepare—as for an attack of cavalry—for a dinner-invitation from the Commissioner’s wife. One is pretty certain that one will meet some worldly folk, who are inclined to think Natives “niggers,” Converts hypocrites, and Missionaries half-rogues and half-fools; so that one must not “appear as a scrub.” I do not wonder that the weary Emily wants to keep in the jungle as long as she can. Ah! if we could but keep in the jungle all the time, I need not pack up my “Conference Cream,”[69] nor my faithful moire antique. There would be some fun in meeting with a cheetah or a hyena,—I should not like a bear unless there were a kud[70] between us,—but I shrink from the world and his wife. However, Missionaries, like sailors, are bound for all weathers....

‘If it won’t shock dear ——, I think that I must give you a laugh over a funny little story, which was told me the other day as a true one. A very attractive Scotch clergyman was teased in the same way that the Energetic used to be. At last a—one can’t call her lady, actually wrote to offer him “her purse, her hand, and her heart.” The cream of the story is the clergyman’s reply. He wrote to his silly sheep: “I advise you to give your heart to God, your purse to the poor, and your hand to him who asks for it.” Was it not clever? I hope that the lady profited by the pastoral rebuke, though she can hardly have enjoyed it....

‘Thanks for the paper about the Telephone. But I hope that we may not hear our Queen’s voice by it, if it is to sound like a trombone.’

From Dinaira, a place some twenty-two miles short of Dalhousie, she wrote:—

‘There is something more soothing to the eye in the softly wooded mountains in which we are now cradled, than in the cold, stern white peaks, seen higher up. The great want is water. One sees the rough, almost precipitous, channels of mountain torrents, but there is not a drop trickling in them. The land suffers sorely from drought. The early crops were partly spoilt by furious storms, the second crops are threatened with destruction by the failure of the rains. A peasant saw me yesterday very slowly getting down rather a rough bit, and with kindly courtesy came and offered me the help of his brown hand. He almost immediately afterwards began to speak of the want of rain; it is the uppermost thought amongst the poor, dear people....

‘I feel that I was rather ungrateful last year about Dalhousie. Though I do not like the place much, it is a very great blessing to have it.’

‘Dalhousie, Sept. 3, 1877.—This ought to be a good day for letter-writing; for it is like an exaggerated November day in England: rain more violent; wind more furious.... I amuse our ladies by my indignation at one of our best hands, Miss H. of J——, deserting us for matrimony. Merrily laughed the bonny blue-bell at my proposition that, in addition to the fine of £100 imposed on Mission Miss Sahibas who marry within three years of coming out, it should be part of the contract that they should have all their hair shaved off on the day before the wedding. Don’t you approve, dear? In the Strathclyde, beside Miss F. and myself, there were four Mission Miss Sahibas going out for the first time. One of the four has gone home, invalided; two have married; only my noble Miss G. remains in the field! It is a great deal worse when experienced Missionaries marry; we do not know how to supply their places....