The colonel took to me, and we were the best of friends. He told me why.
“Because of your seat in the saddle, boy. I used to be passionately fond of hunting at home, and my heart warmed to you the first day I watched you in a gallop. However did you learn to ride like that?”
“I suppose it came almost naturally to me,” I said, laughing. “My father always insisted upon my having a pony, and spending several hours a day in the saddle.”
“Your father was a wise man, sir; and you ride capitally.”
“Our riding-master said my seat was everything that was bad.”
“Bah! He is a mechanic, and wants every man to ride like a pair of compasses slung across a rail. Don’t you spoil your seat to please any of them. I like to see a man sit a horse as if he belonged to it. Then he can use his sword.”
How proud he was of his regiment. “Look at them,” he would say; “only that they are a little curved in the upper leg, they are as fine a set of men as you will find in any English regiment; and if it was not for their black faces, they would pass for Guards.”
He was very kind to them, and set a splendid example to his officers, but, unfortunately, they did not follow his example. In fact, the whole of the English people at the station treated the black race as if they were inferior beings; and though every one in Rajgunge was humble and servile to the whites, it always seemed to me as if they were civil only because they were obliged.
I used to talk to Brace about it sometimes, and he would agree.
“But what can you expect?” he said. “They are a conquered race, and of a different religion. I question whether, with the kindest treatment, we should ever make them like us; but we never try.”