Читать книгу From the Five Rivers - Flora Annie Webster Steel - Страница 4

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Outside the village a man stood alone in the moonless night. Yet it was not dark; for in the unending depths of violet blue the stars hung many-hued and many-sized--each in their order, so clear, so bright, that the simile "as one star differeth from another in glory" stood out in all its vivid truth, undimmed by the mists of a Western atmosphere.

The man, however, neither looked nor thought of the stars. He had seen them shine thus after the winter rains ever since he had been able to see, and his eyes were full of the shadowy stretch of level fields which seemed to rise towards the pale horizon. There was a fresh, damp smell in the air, and close to his feet some lighter shadows surrounded by darker ones showed that the recent rains had been heavy enough to leave fresh pools of water in the hollows whence the village had been dug--hollows like the skeleton at the feast, serving to remind the inhabitants that their origin was dust, their end the grave.

Toil and moil flung their refuse into these as if in derision; the pitiless eastern rain washed the mud from wall and roof back to its birthplace; but year after year the antlike builders piled more mud over the ruins of the old, until the village, girt by its grave, grew dignified by age, and, gaining renewal from its own mortality, rose higher and higher above the surrounding plain.

Such a treeless, formless plain, circled round by that fillet of paler sky where the stars shone dimly, like distant fire-flies. Not a landmark anywhere, save, behind the man, his own village. By day an ant-hill of low huts; in the soft darkness piled like a fort, lightless, soundless. He turned towards it, his eyes seeking a central block standing higher than the rest. It was his house; the house where he and his forebears for many a generation had been born; where he had stood by his father's death-bed and taken the reins of office from the dying hands; where he, too, hoped to die and pass the headship of the village to some stalwart son. And it was childless as yet. A curious thrill seemed to join heart and hand and brain in a trinity of skill and strength and love, for yonder in that dim house a woman was bringing a child into the world with pains beyond the primal curse; and he, the father, driven by a restlessness new to him, had wandered out into the night to seek patience in action. It could not be over yet; his mother had said it would be long, and the jackals had not yet given their second cry. He turned again to the fields.

"The land is good," he murmured to himself, "the crop is good, and the rain is good. If only this be a son--"

He drew a long breath that was half a sigh. A stir in the thorn enclosures where the cattle were folded for the night caught his practised ear, and he walked towards them, listening. A feeble bleat followed by a patter of feet made him push aside the rude hurdle barring the entrance. Among the crowding sheep and goats the first lamb of the season lay beside its mother, and his eyes lit up as he forced his way through the circle of uncertain elders to reach it. He was in luck to be there, else the first-fruits would have been dead by morning. He lifted the lamb gently, thinking the while that he must divide the flock ere another night, and so run no more risks. As he made his way back to the village with swinging strides the mother trotted after him, bleating, and the village dogs snuffed at his heels silently; they knew better than to bark at Gunesh Chund the head-man, tall and strong; looking all the taller by reason of his white turban and the lank folds of white drapery falling from his high shoulders--so tall, that he had to stoop in order to enter the door leading to the outer court of his house. Within were lights and a cackle of women's voices; but here, in the wide expanse of beaten mud floor, darkness and silence, save for the cud-chewing of the milch kine ranged in one corner, and the rasping rub of a weighted halter through its ring, as the head-man's pony turned at its master's entrance.

Gunesh stood still and called, "Mother! mother!"

An old woman with an oil cresset held above her head came to the inner doorway and peered into the darkness through the flowers and branches garlanding the entrance. Then she set aside the swinging sickle hung to bar all passage to evil spirits, and, stepping out, shook her head at the mute inquiry in her son's eyes.

"Not yet, O Gunesh. But all goes well. 'Twill come with the dawn, like many another. And fear not, O my child. 'Tis a son. The stars and the omens are agreed."

A faint bleat made her set the cresset nearer. "What hast thou there, O Gunesh?"

"The firstling, mother. 'Twas in the fold. I have brought it hither for safety."

The old woman's face shone with delight.

"A ewe lamb! 'Tis another omen; and there is luck in the house to-night; for as the ewe lamb to the fold so is the male child to the hearth. Have no fear, O Gunesh! Have no fear!"

She laid one wrinkled hand on her son's arm, and, with the lamp held high in the other, gazed fondly on his face, curiously like her own--the same refined, aquiline features and narrow forehead; but the man's was less alert than the woman's, and softer, especially now as he stood hesitating.

"And--and--Veru?" he asked, somewhat sheepishly.

His mother shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, Veru! She is well enough. She suffers, but that is the woman's part. 'Twould have been better for her years ago. But she will forget. All women do, and the omens are good--"

A querulous complaint from within, followed by women's voices, made her pause.

"I must return. Folk are so ignorant nowadays, I wonder aught comes right. But thou needst not fear, my son; the old mother knows it all. So! the lamps are lit, the flowers strewn, the spices burned, the chants raised duly. The Great Ones must needs be pleased; and look you, Guneshwa! the sun comes back with the dawn."

"Yea, mother," he answered, meekly, "and sure the firstling shows luck."

When she left him he threw some straw in one corner for the ewe, and guided the tottering lamb towards it, smiling to himself over the frail, ridiculous attempts at escape made by the little creature. The bleats subsided into contented silence, and he groped a stumbling way up the narrow steps leading to the flat, square roof of his house. There he sat down, his back against the parapet wall which gave seclusion to the women's court below, whence a glimmer of light and a murmur of voices reached eyes and ears. The rest was darkness and silence.

"With the dawn," he muttered--"it will come with the dawn."

He took a nugget of opium from an inner pocket, broke off a bit, and having swallowed it set himself deliberately towards patience. Most men of his race would have found the situation simple, and their minds, if on the rack of expectation, would have been free from doubt. Gunesh Chund's heart, however, was softer than most men's--softer than his mother, for instance, deemed a true man's should be. It was occupied with one thought. Supposing it was a girl, after all? What should he do? He could not feel orthodox disgust or anger at the idea. Yet he longed for a son, if only because it would settle so many vexed questions and make life so much easier. Even now with his mother and Veru peace was not always to be had; but how would it be if the second wife with whom the former threatened him came to make a third in the quarrel? Sooner or later he would have to make a fourth, of course; that was always the end, and he had all a kindly man's hatred of tears and fuss.

Yet a son he must have, and that quickly, for, as his mother said, truly the cousin's young wife was becoming unbearably pretentious over those big boys of hers. What wonder? Were they not what all boys should be? Gunesh Chund felt himself mean and spiritless as he recognized his own admiration for those whom his mother regarded as mere pretenders to the hereditary office of head-man. Did not Kishnu, their black-browed, sonsy mother, openly declare that, even if Gunesh had a son, hers might yet be preferred as being older, should autumn chills and summer pestilence carry the present incumbent off before his time? At least so the old mother said. And one thing was certain: Devi Ditta and Pooram Lal, the village elders, were no friends of his since that dispute about the common lands. They might side with the other branch. Without doubt a son must be had to carry on work in this world and give life to the next.

And if this was a girl? A bleat from the lamb below made him suddenly smile at the very idea of baby fingers playing with his beard and baby kisses on his face. Were girls' kisses less sweet, girls' fingers less soft?

He shifted uneasily, conscious that his thoughts were heresy in his mother's eyes. Doubtless she was right. He would have to marry again, since Veru would plainly be accursed, unable, even after all the pilgrimages and vows, to perform her first duty. As he sat trying to harden his heart, wild, skirling chants rose every now and again from the women's court, and at each outburst he shifted again uneasily; for through the noise he seemed to hear the cry it was meant to deaden, lest a complaint might anger the Dread Givers of Pain and Pleasure. And Veru had been good to him. He sat on till the dream-compeller made even his hazy thought more hazy, and patience came with sleep.

When he awoke the dawn was past, and as he stretched his long length skyward in the first enjoyment of past sleep, the whole circle of earth and heaven round him was ablaze with the sun rising gloriously over the cloudless world. He stood so, for a moment, the centre of his universe, contented, serene, ere memory returned to him. Then he made his way down to the yard with fear at his heart. All was still as the grave, even in the women's court, and it was a relief when he peered past the swinging sickle to see his mother wrapped in her quilt dozing by the open fire-place in one corner.

He went over to her and touched her on the arm.

"Mother!" he called.

She was alert in an instant, and looking in his face answered his mute question fiercely.

"It is a girl--a useless girl! What need to wake thee for such bitter news? The woman is accursed."

The quick assent rising to his lips was stilled by a little cry from within the quilt. Something--he knew not what it was--thrilled him and kept him silent.

"Is--is it pretty, mother?" he asked, sheepishly, after a while.

The old lady eyed him with suspicious scorn.

"See for thyself, ninny," she replied, shortly.

Gunesh Chund felt a distinct disappointment as he looked down at his first-born. He had forgotten what new-born babies were like since the days when, as a boy, he was admitted to such sights. This one struck him as ugly, or at least as less pleasing than a lamb or a calf.

"God send it be not ill-looking, mother!" he blurted out in a tone of alarm.

She laughed, still in the same short and scornful fashion.

"Lo! there never was a plain woman among us. The child is well enough, and favours thee. Is it not enough that it should be a girl?"

He did not hear the latter sentence. Accustomed in all things to accept his mother's fiat, he was lost in trying to trace the likeness to himself, and, to aid his efforts, drew a reflective forefinger over the featureless face, feeling, as he did so, that strange thrill at his heart again. Suddenly, as he neared the mouth, the lips trembled and a little red tongue shot swiftly on his finger-tip. He burst into a great roar of delighted laughter.

"Ho! ho! Look, mother, look!"

"Didst never see a child suck before, O Gunesh Chund, lumberdar?"^[1] retorted the old woman, crossly, as she tucked the baby away again. He felt abashed, but the laughter had left him at peace with all mankind.

"And Veru? How is she?"

This was too much. The stern old lady rose to her full height and faced him. Her grey hair, disordered by the night's watching, escaped from the close folds of her veil, and the quilt slipping from her showed her tall, erect as a girl. She threw out her right hand in declamation:

"Thou art no better than a woman thyself, O Gunesh! To ask after Veru, the wife of disgrace! Thou shouldst not have thought of her. Were it not better she were dead? Ungrateful! wicked! For she must be wicked to frustrate my prayers and alms. Lo, have I not fulfilled her every wish these nine months past? And now 'tis 'How is Veru?' forsooth, and no thought of the mother who has slaved in vain. But this is an end. She is accursed, and thou must bring a new wife to the hearth if thou wouldst not lose thine own soul, and the soul of those who begat thee. Leave Veru her girl, and be kind to her, if thou art a ninny. There are other women in the world who can bear sons."

As Gunesh crept out of the house feeling small, despite his great height, he told himself it was only what he had expected. For all that, his mother might have waited a day or two ere speaking of the new wife, within Veru's hearing also. God send she had been asleep after her long suffering!

He was so dispirited that he did not care to face the dharmsala with its congregation of elders ready to condole, and its younger men inclined to sneer. So he gave up his morning pipe, and carried the firstling to take possession of the lambing fold. As he walked along in the sunshine, as he had walked in the shadow, with it in his arms, he felt its little tongue sucking at his hand, and it seemed to hurt him, body and soul.