"Have you a case in my Court?"
He shook his head with a certain pride. "Oh no! it is in the big Court, or with the Financial, or a Sikattar just now; but it will come to the Presence sooner or later. That is why I journey with the Protector of the Poor. When that day comes the Presence will remember how Dewa Râm the Jât went to 'Ide Park."
As I strolled back to the tent he followed at a discreet distance. Afterwards, as I sat smoking outside, I saw him wandering in the fields listlessly, his tall figure standing out against the sky as he paused to look at the sprouting wheat. When I questioned my underlings as to his story, they smiled obsequiously, as the native will smile before the master's face. The case, it appeared, had grown to be quite a standing joke in the office, nor was this the first cold weather that Dewa Râm had haunted the camp of the Deputy Commissioner and waited for news of his land. They hemmed and hawed, however, over the rights and wrongs of his claim, until I asked them point blank what their own impressions were; then habit gave way to truth, and they frankly declared their belief in some miscarriage of justice. A man, they said, would not go all the way to London for nothing. As I inclined to the same view, I took the trouble to try working the oracle by the back stairs--a method no less successful in India than elsewhere. Replies, more or less hopeful as to some ultimate settlement of the question, came from various friends in high places. Some of these I communicated, in a guarded way, to "London," who as the sowing time passed fell a victim to fever and deferred hope. It was impossible for mortal man to see those dreamy eyes of his watching the crops of other men without feeling an insane desire to bring the promised land within his reach. He was very grateful. So condescending a Presence, he said, had never before dwelt in the tents of the great Sirkâr; and often on Sunday afternoons, when the camp was at rest, he would steal ostentatiously to a spot about thirty yards from where I was sitting, and if opportunity offered, enter into conversation--generally beginning by some apologetic allusion to 'Ide Park, but ending with a vast amount of information. He was a perfect mine of folk-lore, and many a half hour did he beguile by old-world stories and traditions. One, in particular, I will retail in his own words, because it seems to me to give insight into the nature of the man and of his race.
I had been having my Sunday cup of afternoon tea in the shade of a huge banian tree, and was idly amusing myself by throwing crumbs to a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed palm squirrel, that had crept down the trunk not two yards from me. Attracted, partly by hunger, but more by the sheer light-hearted cussedness which makes the Indian squirrel so charming a companion, the little creature came nearer and nearer, its tail in an aggressive pluff, its large eyes scanning my face knowingly. A pause, a dart, and it was chirruping on the branch above my head with the crumb in its deft fingers.
"The Presence is a friend of Râm's," said "London" deferentially, "that is why the heart of the Presence is so soft."
"And why do you say I am a friend of Râm's?" I asked.
"Because the Presence is a friend to Râm's friend. Has the Huzoor never heard how the squirrel people come to have four black marks on their golden backs? Then I will tell. It was in the old days when Râm's parents fastened the silken bracelet on his wrist, and sent him out to find Seeta his wife. The Presence will have heard of that, and how each year our women folk tie the râm rukkhi to our wrists for luck. Well, when Râm, the King of all men, came to Sanderip, he found the great Monkey had carried off Seeta the Queen of women. Then, being in distress, he bid all the birds and beasts and fishes come to help him, for great Râm was the Lord of the whole earth. Now the first to answer his call was the squirrel. In those days it was all golden, like corn in the sunlight, and light-hearted beyond all mortal things, as it is now. It leapt on to Râm's sword and cried, 'Master! I am ready.' But the great god's eyes grew soft as he saw the little thing's slender beauty, and perceived that it had the bravest heart of all his creatures. So he laid his hand on it in blessing, saying softly--
"'Nay! tender little warrior! thou art too pretty for strife and death. Live on, brave and careless for ever, so that weary men may see the beauty of the life great Râm has given.'
"But, lo! when he raised his hand the squirrel's shining coat bore the shadow of Râm's tired fingers, for even golden life is dimmed by the touch of care."
This and many another tale he told to me, while the green pigeons bustled about in the branches, and the squirrels lay yawning amongst the mango flowers. For the winter had flown, the camping season was at an end, and still "London" was waiting. He never complained; only when rain fell, or when there was a heavy dew, or a good winnowing wind,--anything, in short, calculated to gladden the heart of a farmer,--he used to talk of 'Ide Park, and bewail the fact that Sikattar sahibs had penetrated even there. The hot weather passed, as usual, in a stagnation of mind and body more or less modified by individual energy, and during it "London" paid me but occasional visits, and was fairly cheerful. No sooner, however, did the stir of coming cultivation begin again in the high, unirrigated soils, than he followed suit with a growing restlessness. And still no answer came. Just then a small piece of Government land,--that is to say, land in which no cultivator had a vested interest,--fell vacant in a village not far from "London's" ancestral home, and I bethought me of putting him in as tenant if I could. But it is no easy task to find soil to cultivate in India, since farms are not "to be let" as they are in England, and the State, though in reality owner, has no power to turn out one man or his heirs in favour of another, or in any way to manipulate the holdings of hereditary cultivators. Why, knowing this, it could have delegated the power to the money lender, in giving the right of alienation by sale or mortgage to the cultivator, is one of those abstruse mysteries over the elucidation of which volumes have been and are still to be written. A mystery, moreover, which is responsible for half the growing poverty of those whose patient labour is the bulwark of the State.