The engineer at Loodianah was written to by the secretary of the Military Board, and asked why he had not made a report of the state of the barracks which had fallen in? He replied that he had written three letters on the subject, and that his predecessor in office had written seven; and the foolish man was stupid enough to ransack the records of his office, and "had the honour to transmit for information of the Board copies of these documents." For this absurd effort of memory, and ridiculous attempt to clear himself of blame, he was removed from his appointment, and sent to do duty with the Sappers and Miners—a sort of very severe punishment in the East for any engineer officer guilty of an indiscretion.
CHURCHYARDS, ETC.
I cannot leave Meerut without taking the reader to the churchyard of that station.
An Indian churchyard presents a very different aspect to a churchyard in England or elsewhere. The tombs for the most part are very much larger. When first erected or newly done up they are as white as snow, formed, as they are generally, of chunam (plaster), which somewhat resembles Roman cement; but after exposure to only one rainy season and one hot weather, they become begrimed and almost black. The birds flying from structure to structure carry with them the seeds of various plants and herbs, and these if not speedily removed take root and grow apace. A stranger wandering in the churchyard of Meerut might fancy that he is amidst ruins of stupendous antiquity, if he were not aware of the fact that fifty years have scarcely elapsed since the first Christian corpse was deposited within those walls which now encircle some five acres of ground, literally covered with tombs, in every stage of preservation and decay. I was conducted in my ramble through the Meerut churchyard by an old and very intelligent pensioner, who had originally been a private in a regiment of Light Dragoons. This old man lived by the churchyard, that is to say, he derived a very comfortable income from looking after and keeping in repair the tombs of those whose friends are now far away; but whose thoughts nevertheless still turn occasionally to that Christian enclosure in the land of heathens and idolaters.
"I get, sir, for this business," said the old man, pointing with his stick to a very magnificent edifice, "two pounds a year. It is not much, but it is what I asked, and it pays me very well, sir. And if you should go back to England, and ever come across any of her family, I hope, sir, you will tell them that I do my duty by the grave; not that I think they have any doubt of it, for they must know—or, leastways, they have been told by them they can believe—that if I never received a farthing from them I would always keep it in repair, as it is now. God bless her, and rest her soul! She was as good and as beautiful a woman as ever trod this earth."
"Who was she?"
"The wife of an officer in my old regiment, sir. I was in her husband's troop. He's been out twice since the regiment went home, only to visit this grave; for he has long since sold out of the service, and is a rich gentleman. The last time he came was about five years ago. He comes what you call incog.; nobody knows who he is, and he never calls on anybody. All that he now does in this country is to come here, stop for three days and nights, putting up at the dâk bungalow, and spending his time here, crying. It is there that he stands, where you stand now, fixing his eyes on the tablet, and sometimes laying his head down on the stone, and calling out her name: 'Ellen! Ellen! My own dear Ellen!' He did love her, surely, sir."
"Judging from the age of the lady, twenty-three, and the date of her death, he must be rather an old man now."