So ended a trial that lasted many days, that was more discussed and fought over than any law-suit of the period; a case which is fiercely argued and hotly debated even to the present hour; a cause which has divided scores of households and separated chief friends. For there are some who declare that the real Naim Sing expired in Moulmein jail khana nineteen years previously, and that the vengeance of Rateeban demanded two lives for one; also that the heavily bribed son of Gunesheb had borne black false witness, his father having died in his own house; and that, of a truth, an innocent man was condemned to transportation and death: but there be some who think otherwise.
AN OUTCAST OF THE PEOPLE.
“Pushed by a power we see not, and struck by a hand unknown,
We pray to the trees for shelter, and press our lips to a stone.”
Sir A. Lyall.
Jasoda was seventeen years of age, and fair as a sunrise on the snows. She dwelt in a district not far from the Goomptee river, among the wheat and poppy fields that are scattered over Rohilcund.
As a little girl, all had gone well with her; she was petted and caressed; she played daily in the sun with other village children, erecting palaces and temples with dust and blossoms; her hair was carefully plaited and plastered with cocoanut oil; she wore a big nose-ring, anklets, and bangles—not brass or pewter, but real silver ones, for she was married to the heir of a rich thakur, a delicate, puny boy of her own age. But one rains he died, and there was sore, sore lamentation. Had Jasoda realized what his death signified to her, she would have wailed ten times louder than any paid mourner; but ignorance was surely bliss, and she was not very sorry, for Sapona had been greedy, fretful, and tyrannical. He had often struck her, pinched her, and pulled her long plaits, or run screaming with tales to his mother—a fat woman with a shrill tongue and a heavy arm—whom Jasoda feared.
But after Sapona had been carried away to the burning ghâut, all seemed changed; every one appeared to hate Jasoda, yea, even her own grandmother. Her ornaments were taken off, her head was shorn, her cloth, though white, was coarse and old; there were no more games under the tamarind trees, and no more sweets. Jasoda’s life was blighted in the bud, for, at the tender age of six, she was that miserable outcast, a Braminee widow. Poor pariah! she would stand aloof, with wide-open wistful eyes (ostentatiously shunned by the other children in the courtyard), and wonder what it all meant. She would piteously inquire of her grandmother, as the crone sat spinning cotton, “What she had done. Wherefore might she not eat with her, and why did Jooplee push her, and strike her, if she approached her? and wherefore did her mother-in-law, and other women, hold aside their clothes lest she should touch them as she passed?”
“The shadow of a widow is to be dreaded, and—it is the custom, it is our religion,” muttered the old woman, as if speaking to herself. No doubt the days of suttee were better; then the girl had one grand hour, applauded by the world; she was holy and sanctified, and hers was a glorious triumph as she walked in procession behind the tom-toms, whilst thousands looked on with awe, and the devout pressed forward to touch her garments. Was not a moment like that worth years of drudgery and misery, blows and scorn? True, at the end of the march, there was the funeral pyre under the peepul tree; but if there was oil among the faggots, and the wood was not too green, and the priests plied the suttee with sufficient bhang, it was nought! And her screams were always drowned in the shouting and the tom-toms. She herself had seen a suttee; yes, and the girl was forced into it. She had no spirit; she wept, and shrieked, and struggled,—so people had whispered,—but her relations drove her to the faggots, for the family of a suttee are held in much esteem! Truly it were better for Jasoda, this child with the beautiful face, to have died for the honour of her people than to live to be their scapegoat and their slave!
As years went on, and hot weather, monsoon, and cold season passed, and crops were sown and cut, and there were births and marriages and deaths, Jasoda grew up. She was now seventeen, and very fair to see. Her mother-in-law hated her, as did also her brother; and, more than all, her brother’s wife, and her sisters-in-law. In spite of their fine silk sarees and gold ornaments, they were but little stars, whilst this accursed girl was as the sun at noonday!