In the Permanent Way

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

"Heed not the Bengali," they said at last in sheer despair. "He is a fool. Thou shalt come with us to the big Sahib. He will understand, seeing that he is more our race than the other."

That is how it came to pass that Tulsi Râm sat on the stucco steps of an Englishman's house, pointing with a trembling but truthful finger at a white spot among the green, while a circle of bearded Jâts informed the Presence that Sri Hunumân himself was not wiser nor better than their putwari.

"And how do you account for it? I mean what do you think it is?" asked the foreign voice curiously.

The wrinkles on Tulsi's forehead grew deeper, his bright yet dim eyes looked wistfully at the master of his fate. "'Tis an over-large margin of error, Huzoor, owing to lack of control over the plane-table. That is what the book says; that is what Gurdit will say."

"But what do you say? How do you think that bit of land came into your village?"

Tulsi hesitated, gained confidence somehow from the blue eyes: "Unless Purumeshwar sent a bit of another world?" he suggested meekly.

The Englishman stood for a moment looking down on the wizened monkey-like face, the truthful finger, the accusing white spot. "I think he has," he said at last. "Go home, Tulsi, and colour it blue. I'll pass it as a bit of Paradise."

So that year there was a blue patch, like a tank where no tank should be, upon the village map, and the old putwari's conscience found peace in the correct total of the columns of figures which he added together; while the Three-Legged-One, released from durance vile at his special request, stood in the corner garlanded with the marigolds of thanksgiving. Perhaps that was the reason why, next mapping season, the patch of Paradise had shrunk to half its original size; or perhaps it was that he really had more control over the plane-table. At any rate he treated it more as a friend by spreading its legs very wide apart, covering it with his white cotton shawl, and so using it as a tent, when the sun was over hot.

And yet when, on Gurdit's return from college with a first-class surveyor's certificate, Paradise became absorbed in a legitimate margin of error, there was a certain wistful regret in old Tulsi's pride, and he said that, being an ignorant old man, it was time he returned to find Paradise in another way.

"But thou shalt not leave us for the wilderness as before," swore the Jâts in council. "Lo! Gurdit is young and hasty, and thou wilt be needed to settle the disputes; so we will give thee a saintly sitting of thy very own in our village."