“Very many, father.”
“Now, this is a new one which thou hast not heard. Long and long ago when the Gods walked with men as they do to-day, but that we have not faith to see, Shiv, the greatest of Gods, and Parbati, his wife, were walking in the garden of a temple.”
“Which temple? That in the Nandgaon ward?” said the child.
“Nay, very far away. Maybe at Trimbak or Hurdwar, whither thou must make pilgrimage when thou art a man. Now, there was sitting in the garden under the jujube trees a mendicant that had worshipped Shiv for forty years, and he lived on the offerings of the pious, and meditated holiness night and day.”
“Oh, father, was it thou?” said the child, looking up with large eyes.
“Nay, I have said it was long ago, and, moreover, this mendicant was married.”
“Did they put him on a horse with flowers on his head, and forbid him to go to sleep all night long? Thus they did to me when they made my wedding,” said the child, who had been married a few months before.
“And what didst thou do?” said I.
“I wept, and they called me evil names, and then I smote her, and we wept together.”
“Thus did not the mendicant,” said Gobind; “for he was a holy man, and very poor. Parbati perceived him sitting naked by the temple steps where all went up and down, and she said to Shiv, ‘What shall men think of the Gods when the Gods thus scorn their worshippers? For forty years yonder man has prayed to us, and yet there be only a few grains of rice and some broken cowries before him, after all. Men’s hearts will be hardened by this thing.’ And Shiv said, ‘It shall be looked to,’ and so he called to the temple which was the temple of his son, Ganesh of the elephant head, saying, ‘Son, there is a mendicant without who is very poor. What wilt thou do for him?’ Then that great elephant-headed One awoke in the dark and answered, ‘In three days, if it be thy will, he shall have one lakh of rupees.’ Then Shiv and Parbati went away.