So the Brownes departed gaily, and an hour and three-quarters later the ekka tottered forth also, with Kasi and the ekka-wallah walking lamentably alongside exchanging compliments upon the subject of the wheel. They travelled three miles and an hour thus, and then the wheel had a sudden relapse, with signs of dissolution; while young Browne’s dressing-case, which happened to be on top, shot precipitately first into space and then into the topmost branches of a wild cherry-tree growing three thousand feet down the khud. The ekka pony planted his feet in the road-bed and looked round for directions; the ekka-wallah groaned and sat down. “And the sahib, O, my brother-in-law!” exclaimed Kasi, dancing round the ekka.
“The sahib is in the hand of God!” returned the ekka-wallah piously. “To-day I have been much troubled. I will smoke.” And while the Brownes, at Saia, remotely lower down, grew chilly with vain watching in the shadows that lengthened through the khuds, the weary ekka leaned peacefully against the mountain wall, the ekka-wallah drew long comfort from his hubble-bubble, and Kasi reposed also by the wayside, chewing the pungent betel, and thinking, with a meditative eye on the wild cherry-tree below, hard things of fate.
Nevertheless, without the direct interposition of Providence, the ekka eventually arrived, and there was peace in one end of the dâk-bungalow, and the crackling of sarl branches, and the simmering of tinned hotch-potch. In the other end was wrath, and a pair of Royal Engineers—a big Royal Engineer and a little Royal Engineer. To understand why wrath should abide with these two Royal Engineers in their end of the bungalow, it is necessary to understand that it was not an ordinary travellers’ bungalow, but a “Military Works’” bungalow, their very own bungalow, for “Military Works” and “Royal Engineers” mean the same thing; and that ordinary travellers were only allowed to take shelter there by special permission or under stress of weather. By their proper rights, therefore, these Royal Engineers should have had both ends of the bungalow, and the middle, and the compound, and the village, and a few miles of the road north and south—and a little privacy. If these ideas seem a trifle large, it becomes necessary to try to understand, at least approximately, what a Royal Engineer is, where he comes from, to what dignities and emoluments he may aspire. And then, when we have looked upon the buttons which reflect his shining past, and considered the breadth of his shoulders and the straightness of his legs, and the probable expense he has been as a whole to his parents and his country, we will easily bring ourselves to admit that he is entirely right in considering himself quite the most swagger article in ordinary Government service in India. We may even share his pardonable incredulity as to whether before his advent India was at all. And certainly we will sympathise with the haughtily impatient expletives with which he would naturally greet pretensions to circumscribe his vested rights in the Himalayan mountains on the part of two absurdly unimportant and superfluous Brownes.
The Brownes in their end heard the two Royal Engineers kicking the fire logs in theirs, and conversing with that brevity and suppression which always marks a Royal Engineer under circumstances where ordinary people would be abusively fluent. Apparently they had command of themselves, they were Royal Engineers, they weren’t saying much, but it was vigorous the way they kicked the fire. The Brownes were still as mice, and absorbed their soup with hearts that grew ever heavier with a grievous sense of wrong inflicted not only upon their neighbour but upon a Royal Engineer!
“As a matter of fact, you know,” said young Browne, “we’ve no business here. I think I ought to go and speak to them.”
“We’ve got permission,” remarked Mrs. Browne feebly, “and we were here first.”
“I’m afraid,” said young Browne, “that we have the best end, and we’ve certainly got the lamp. Maybe they would like the lamp. I think I ought first to go and see them. After all, it’s their bungalow.”
Young Browne came back presently twisting the end of his moustache. It was an unconscious imitation of the Royal Engineers acquired during their short and embarrassed interview.
“Well?” said Helen.
“Oh, it’s all right. They don’t particularly mind. They accepted my apology—confound them! And they would like the lamp—their’s smokes. They’re marching, like us, down to Saharanpore, inspecting the road or something, and fishing. No end of a good time those chaps have.”