“Give an account of yourself,” said the head of the Grooms to Little Tobrah after the meal had been eaten and the servants lay at ease in their quarters behind the house. “You are not of the groom caste, unless it be for the stomach’s sake. How came you into the court, and why? Answer, little devil’s spawn!”
“There was not enough to eat,” said Little Tobrah calmly. “This is a good place.”
“Talk straight talk,” said the Head Groom, “or I will make you clean out the stable of that large red stallion who bites like a camel.”
“We be Telis, oil-pressers,” said Little Tobrah, scratching his toes in the dust. “We were Telis—my father, my mother, my brother, the elder by four years, myself, and the sister.”
“She who was found dead in the well?” said one who had heard something of the trial.
“Even so,” said Little Tobrah gravely. “She who was found dead in the well. It befell upon a time, which is not in my memory, that the sickness came to the village where our oil-press stood, and first my sister was smitten as to her eyes, and went without sight, for it was mata—the small-pox. Thereafter, my father and my mother died of that same sickness, so we were alone—my brother who had twelve years, I who had eight, and the sister who could not see. Yet were there the bullock and the oil-press remaining, and we made shift to press the oil as before. But Surjun Dass, the grain-seller, cheated us in his dealings; and it was always a stubborn bullock to drive. We put marigold flowers for the Gods upon the neck of the bullock, and upon the great grinding-beam that rose through the roof; but we gained nothing thereby, and Surjun Dass was a hard man.”
“Bapri-bap,” muttered the grooms’ wives, “to cheat a child so! But we know what the bunnia-folk are, sisters.”
“The press was an old press, and we were not strong men—my brother and I; nor could we fix the neck of the beam firmly in the shackle.”
“Nay, indeed,” said the gorgeously-clad wife of the Head Groom, joining the circle. “That is a strong man’s work. When I was a maid in my father’s house——”
“Peace, woman,” said the Head Groom. “Go on, boy.”