The good-natured coolies stopped to gather them by handfuls, to Racy's infinite delight. The pleasure of pulling them to pieces and pelting the black shoulders of their bearers with them, found vent in little squeals of merriment that brought the first faint ghost of a smile to his mother's lips.
With the daybreak came many changes. Flocks of sheep and goats met them in the narrow path, making the crossing doubly dangerous. Some asses laden with grain were on their way to the Rana's castle, and their drivers drew aside to make their salaam to the English travellers, and exchange greetings with the coolie wallahs, and carry the news to the Rana's castle.
A most obstreperous cawing from hundreds of cunning-looking crows arose from the forest, whilst a regular chorus of wild laughter echoed through the darkest ravines. It was the morning song of the black-faced thrushes that congregate in unimaginable multitudes in these hidden solitudes. But sweeter than all was the lengthened flute-like note of the black-headed oriole.
Suddenly the path changed. They were going downhill beneath magnificent trees, yews and oaks rising from an undergrowth of creepers and roses, checkered with multitudinous flowers that were unknown to Kathleen and her mother. On they went, swinging to the bottom of the valley, through whole fields covered with pale-blue foxglove, over which myriads of bees were flitting.
Horace began to mimic the cry of the black partridges which abounded. "Tie-tara! tie-tara!" rang on every side, as the footsteps of the coolies disturbed them in their lowly nests. One more toilsome hill, and then the coolies paused on a small plateau on the verge of the dark pine wood. Before them stood the pleasant bungalow, with its hospitable doors wide open to receive the travellers. Its white-washed rooms looked airy and clean. A few native servants who belonged to the place hurried out to welcome them; and Kathleen, who was leaning eagerly forward, could see the graceful figure of a Hindu woman making cakes, which she flattened between her hands with astonishing celerity, and flung into a brass pan which stood near her over a quaint-looking brazier. The dandies were set down, and Mr. Desborough came to lift his wife out.
"Too much cover for snakes," he said, as he cast a sharp eye at the thick, tall grass spreading from the steps of the veranda to the very edge of the precipice. The half-made garden was more indebted to nature than art; but that only heightened the peculiar charm that overspread the place. Here and there the great bauhinia creeper wreathed itself into delightful bowers above the moss-covered stem of a fallen pine. Its strong tendrils, like furzy brown horns, caught the overarching boughs of the tallest trees and bound them in leafy fetters. Proud peacocks strutted about at will. A stately old stork seemed untiring in its endeavours to find the snake Mr. Desborough dreaded to discover. But, above all, the fragrant breezes from the vast pine forest seemed an earnest of returning health.
CHAPTER VII.
THE RANA'S SONS.
The first thing which attracted Kathleen's attention, when her father lifted her out of her swinging carriage, was the sight of a Thibetan woman milking the cows. She was dressed in dirty rags, with a torn blanket thrown over her head. But round her neck she wore three strings of beads, so quaint and curious Kathleen could do nothing but look at them. The beads were as big as hazel-nuts. One row was of coral and turkois; in another the beads were of a greenish hue, spotted all over like thrushes' eggs; the third was coral, with silver tags between. So the ayah took her to beg a cup of milk, whilst the breakfast was preparing. They made her a cup with a leaf and a thorn; and as the queer-looking milkmaid twisted it into proper shape round her slender fingers, she noticed the child's red eyes and colourless cheeks and heard the story of the lost brother. "O children of pigs!" she exclaimed. "To think a wolf in May would eat him up! No, no. There has been many a child brought up by the wolves, as I've heard tell. Perhaps it was its grandfather; who knows? It would not hurt it if it were."
She caught up Kathleen in her arms, and carried her to the edge of the cliff, pointing downwards to the tops of the mighty trees growing in the dark ravines between the hills they had been crossing—hills below hills, stretching away beneath their feet, so grand and vast and wild. The gray mud walls of the little Hindu village looked like an ant-hill in their midst. Kathleen felt dimly how the timid, gentle, imaginative Hindu men and women, who have lived all their lives within reach of the formidable beasts that range at will through those forest-glades, grow so afraid that their fear almost changes to reverence. They say they are all God's creatures, mightier and stronger than themselves. They dare not hurt them for the world; and they think when they die they shall be changed into them. They mix their fancies with all they see and hear, as her father had told her; but yet she could not help listening when the weird-looking milkmaid entreated her not to cry any more, but to see the glorious places where the wild wolves slept in the sunlight, and to think her little brother was there among them. Oh no; she did not believe he would want to come back. He would grow into a wolf, and be happy.