In the Permanent Way

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

Young Lochinvar, in the original story, came out of the West. In this tale he came out of the East, and the most match-making mamma might be disposed to forgive him; partly on account of his youth, partly because he really was not a free agent.

They were cousins of course. In the finest race of the Panjab--possibly of the world--cousins have a right to cousins provided the relationship lie through the mother's brother, or the father's sister; the converse, for some mysterious reason, being anathema maranatha.

But Nânuk's mother, wife of big Suchêt Singh, head man of Aluwallah village, was sister to Dhyân Singh, the armourer, who plied his trade in the little courtyard hidden right in the heart of the big city. A big man too, high-featured and handsome; high-tempered also as the steel which he inlaid so craftily with gold. For all that, round, podgy Mai Gunga, his wife, ruled him by virtue of a smartness unknown to his slower, gentler nature. Not so gentle, however, but that he mourned the degeneracy of these latter piping days of peace. They and the Arms Act had driven him from the manufacture of sword hilts and helmets, shields and corselets, to that of plaques and inkstands, candlesticks and ashtrays. From the means of resistance to the decoration of victorious drawing-rooms. Not that he nourished ill-feeling against those victors. They were a brave lot, and since then his people had helped them bravely to keep their winnings. Only it was dull work; so every now and again Dhyan Singh revenged himself by making a paper knife in the form of some bloodthirsty lethal weapon, and put his best work on it, just to keep his hand in.

Little Pertâbi, his daughter, used to sit and watch her father at the tiny forge set in the central sunshine of the yard. It was funny to see the shaving of sheer steel curl up from the graver guided in its flowing curves by nothing but that skilled eye and hand; funnier still to watch the gold wire nestle down so obediently into the groove; funniest of all to blow the bellows when the time came to put that iridescent blue temper to the finished work.

Then, naked to the waist, the soft brown hair on her forehead plaited in tiniest plaits into a looped fringe, a little gold filigree cup poised on the top of her head, a long betasselled pigtail hanging down behind, Pertâbi would set her short red-trousered legs very far apart, and puff and blow, and laugh, and then blow again to her own and her father's intense delight; for Dhyân having a couple of strapping sons to satisfy Mai Gunga's heart felt himself free to adore this child of his later years.

But even when there was blowing to be done, Pertâbi did not find life in the city half as amusing as life out in the village at her aunt's with cousin Nânuk as a playfellow. Nânuk to whom she was to be married by and by. That had been settled when she was a baby in arms, for in those, and for many years after, Suchêt Singh's wife and Mai Gunga had been as friendly as sisters-in-law can well be. That is to say there were visits to the village for change of air, especially at sugar-baking time, while those who wished for shopping or society came as a matter of course to the armourer's house. The world wags in the same fashion East and West; especially among the women folk.

"They will make a fine pair! God keep them to the auspicious day," the deep-chested countrywomen would say piously; then Mai Gunga would giggle a bit, and remark that if Nânuk grew so fast she would have to leave Pertâbi at home next time. Whereupon the boy's mother would flare up, and sniff, as country folk do, at town ideas. In her family such talk had never been necessary; the lads and lasses grew up together, and mothers were in no hurry to bring age and thought upon them. Perhaps that was the reason why men and women alike were of goodly stature and strength; for even Mai Gunga must admit that Dhyân was at least a fine figure of a man. So there would be words to while away the hours before the men returned from the fields. And outside, under the bushy mulberry trees, Pertâbi and Nânuk would be fighting and making it up again in the cosmopolitan fashion of healthy children. Of the two Pertâbi, perhaps, hit the hardest; she certainly howled the loudest, being a wilful young person. Nânuk used to implore her not to tease the sacred peacocks, when they came sedately by companies to drink at the village tank, as the sun set red over the limitless plane of young green corn, and she would squat down suddenly on her red-trousered heels with her hands tight clasped behind her back, and promise to be as still as a grey crane if she might only look. Then some vainglorious cock was sure to show off his tail; every tail was to Pertâbi's eager eyes the most beautiful one in the world, and she must needs have a feather--just one little feather-- from it as a keepsake--just a little keepsake. Now, what Pertâbi desired she got, at any rate if Nânuk had aught to say towards the possibility. So the little tyrant would play with the feather for five minutes; then fling it away. But Nânuk, serious, conscientious Nânuk, would set aside half his supper of curds on the sly and sneak out with it after sundown as an oblation to the mysterious village god, who lived in a red splashed stone under the peepul tree. Else the peacocks being angry might not cry for rain, and then what would become of the green corn? Nânuk was a born cultivator, true in most things, above all to Mother Earth. Despite the peacocks' feathers, however, not without a will of his own; for when, on one of his visits to the city, Pertâbi insisted on handling the little squirrel he brought with him housed in his high turban, and it bit her, he laughed, saying he had told her so; nay, more, when she chased the frightened little creature savagely, howling for vengeance, he fell upon her and boxed her ears soundly, much to Mai Gunga's displeasure. A rough village lout, and her darling the daintiest little morsel of flesh!

"I don't care," sobbed Pertâbi; "I'll bite him hard next time--yes! I will, Nâno; you'll see if I don't."

Mai Gunga, however, was right in one thing. Pertâbi was an extremely pretty child. The gossips coming in of an afternoon to discuss births, marriages, and deaths took to shaking their heads and saying that she might have made a better match than Nânuk, who, every one thought, would limp for life in consequence of that fall from the topmost branch of the shisham tree where the squirrels built their nests. Not much of a limp, perhaps, but who did not know that under the bone-setter's care a broken leg often came out a bit shorter than the other, even if it was as strong as ever? Mai Gunga's plump, pert face hardened, but she said nothing; not even when a new acquaintance, the wife of a rich contractor on the lookout for a bride of good family, openly bewailed the prior claim on Pertâbi.

Nevertheless the next time that the sister-in-law came to town, and on leaving it laden with endless bundles wrapped in Manchester handkerchiefs spoke confidently of the meeting at sugar-time, Mai Gunga threw difficulties in the way. She was too busy to come herself; Nânuk, still a semi-invalid, must be quite sufficient charge for her sister-in-law. Besides seeing that Pertâbi touched the eights, she thought it time for village customs to give way to greater decorum. Briefly, despite the peculiar virtue of some people's families, she did not choose that her daughter should be out of her sight. The two women, as might be supposed, parted with ceremony and effusion; but Suchêt Singh's wife had barely arrived in the wide village courtyards ere she burst forth: