Author: “Wrong!” (in a triumphant voice).
Lord William: “No, no, I am right, by my vig and viskers I’m right!”
We both talked at once while laughing, gesticulating and explaining, he enquired where I considered he had gone wrong. I explained the U-mark with a dot in the middle was part of the Vishnu caste mark, and what he had forgotten of the Shiva was in reality three horizontal curved lines.
The argument became so fierce the rest of the caste marks remained unrelated, but on the following Saturday I received my five shillings, he having found out his mistake meanwhile, and to my horror, having no pocket in my best bib and tucker of any useful proportions, I was presented with five shillings in threepenny pieces out of pure mischief, but he did not score much, as I insisted on his carrying them for me all the afternoon.
It will be rather sad in many ways when the much-boasted civilisation of the West has robbed India of the value and dignity of her traditions and heritages.
The Indians are really descendants I believe of the great Aryan race, whose language our Lord spoke in. There is so much of interest attached to the lives, faiths, and rituals of the people of the East, but this is not the place to write it, and we must go back to Simla, where we left Lord Ripon, the new Viceroy. He was a Roman Catholic, the first of that faith to be a ruler of India; also the first who had been Secretary of State for India, not that either fact troubled the natives much.
One of the features of the Simla season, is the social gathering on Saturdays to witness sports and gymkhanas held on the course or ground I have already described in a previous chapter.
Lord William was the moving spirit; he got up the races, competed in them, and was always ready with a fresh programme every week. He won so many races himself that it became monotonous, so he invented all sorts of weird and sporting combinations.
The racecourse, if so we may name it, was rather dangerous, as at one time there was only an apology of a stone wall consisting of loosely piled-up stones to prevent an impetuous pony from falling down the side of the hill, or what in India we call the khud, in English a dangerous mountain-side.
I remember seeing Lord William get some shocking falls, and once when he was driving nine ponies and riding one over the jumps, when it came to turning the awkward corner already mentioned, one of the leaders, he drove three abreast, took it into its head the stone wall was there to be jumped, and while it was hanging suspended over the awful drop at the other side of the wall, which would probably have meant a broken back, Lord William and the rest of what he called his “10 to 1” were hopelessly mixed up on the safer side, looking as if they had all jumped on each other. His lordship was extricated with nothing worse than a dislocated shoulder and thumb. He laughed immoderately, though he was ashy white. He insisted on having his shoulder put right at once. A chair was brought and placed on the course upon which he sat while his shoulder was jumped and bumped into its place again, also his thumb attended to and tied up. It was with some difficulty he was prevented from trying again, only being stopped by a brother A.D.C. swearing he had sent some of the ponies home, as they had apparently had enough even if Lord William had not.