Once I met him laden with all his boots and shoes. “Rajey, where are you going?” I asked. I was told that one of his servants had informed the boy that he was too poor to buy shoes for his children, and the kind little Rajey had straightway started off to remedy the trouble.
Rajey was loyal to a degree. His creed was “once a friend, always a friend.” He never went back after he had extended the hand of friendship to any one. In later years he was often deceived by those he trusted and belittled by those who had received innumerable kindnesses from him, but I never once heard him speak unkindly. His loyalty forbade it, and although he must have been wounded, he suffered in silence.
I remember another incident of those early days; Rajey was hit by his bearer, an act which made every one indignant and was immediately reported to me. My husband, who never permitted any one to touch the children, told one of the officers to question the bearer, and the man flatly denied having laid a finger on Rajey.
“I know the boy never tells a lie,” remarked the Maharajah; “send for Rajey and I will ask him.”
The child came in, and my husband said quietly: “Now were you beaten?” No answer. “Rajey, tell me the truth, there’s a dear boy.” Still no answer. “Rajey … do you hear me speaking?” Again no reply. “Well, then,” said my husband, “go and stand in the corner until you tell me if the bearer hit you.”
Rajey obeyed and occupied the corner, the tears rolling down his cheeks, but he refused to tell about the offender, and I believe my husband loved the boy all the more because of his loyal but misplaced affection for his servant.
On another occasion when our English secretary’s boys were fighting, and the younger was getting the worst of the struggle, Rajey cried: “Stop! it’s not fair; nobody ought to hit a boy smaller than himself.”
He had a strong sense of justice and his father was his ideal. Whatever my husband did was right in the eyes of his first-born. No one was so wonderful nor so good as his father. Our doctor once said: “Rajey, I’m taller than your father.” “You dare say that,” the child answered in furious tones; “nobody in the world can possibly be taller than my father.”
Rajey was, even when a small boy, impressed with a sense of the responsibilities of those whose destiny it is to govern others. He seemed to realise the hollowness of earthly state, and he never tired of listening to one of our stories which, like most Indian legends, has a striking moral. Its simple cynicism may interest my readers.
Once the souls of the poor were standing in front of the closed gates of heaven. Since they parted from their bodies they had patiently spent many weary days hoping for admittance to the lovely country where the ills of life are forgotten. The horrors of their past lives had not yet faded from their minds, although in this place of waiting they were spared the pangs of poverty, hunger, and thirst.