well-educated natives are of opinion that when their womenfolk travel – and they visit a good deal – it is better to take them quickly by rail in a properly screened compartment; and that custom is spreading. But there are always those of the old rock who hold by the use of their forefathers; and, above all, there are always the old women, – more conservative than the men, – who toward the end of their days go a pilgrimage. They, being withered and undesirable, do not, under certain circumstances, object to unveiling. After their long seclusion, during which they have always been in business touch with a thousand outside interests, they love the bustle and stir of the open road, the gatherings at the shrines, and the infinite possibilities of gossip with like-minded dowagers. Very often it suits a long-suffering family that a strong-tongued, iron-willed old lady should disport herself about India in this fashion; for certainly pilgrimage is grateful to the Gods. So all about India, in the most remote places, as in the most public, you find some knot of grizzled servitors in nominal charge of an old lady who is more or less curtained and hid away in a bullock-cart. Such men are staid and discreet, and when a European or a high-caste native is near will net their charge with most elaborate precautions; but in the ordinary haphazard chances of pilgrimage the precautions are not taken. The old lady is, after all, intensely human, and lives to look upon life.
Kim marked down a gaily ornamented ruth or family bullock-cart, with a broidered canopy of two domes, like a double-humped camel, which had just been drawn into the parao. Eight men made its retinue, and two of the eight were armed with rusty sabres – sure signs that they followed a person of distinction, for the common folk do not bear arms. An increasing cackle of complaints, orders, and jests, and what to a European would have been bad language, came from behind the curtains. Here was evidently a woman used to command.
Kim looked over the retinue critically. Half of them were thin-legged, gray-bearded Ooryas from down country. The other half were duffle-clad, felt-hatted hillmen of the North: and that mixture told its own tale, even if he had not overheard the incessant sparring between the two divisions. The old lady was going south on a visit – probably to a rich relative, most probably to a son-in-law, who had sent up an escort as a mark of respect. The hillmen would be of her own people – Kulu or Kangra folk. It was quite clear that she was not taking her daughter down to be wedded, or the curtains would have been laced home and the guard would have allowed no one near the car. A merry and a high-spirited dame, thought Kim, balancing the dung-cake in one hand, the cooked food in the other, and piloting the lama with a nudging shoulder. Something might be made out of the meeting. The lama would give him no help, but, as a conscientious chela, Kim was delighted to beg for two.
He built his fire as close to the cart as he dared, waiting for one of the escort to order him away. The lama dropped wearily to the ground, much as a heavy fruit-eating bat cowers, and returned to his rosary.
'Stand farther off, beggar!' The order was shouted in broken Hindustanee by one of the hillmen.
'Huh! It is only a pahari' (a hillman), said Kim over his shoulder. 'Since when have the hill-asses owned all Hindustan?'
The retort was a swift and brilliant sketch of Kim's pedigree for three generations.
'Ah!' Kim's voice was sweeter than ever, as he broke the dung-cake into fit pieces. 'In my country we call that the beginning of love-talk.'
A harsh, thin cackle behind the curtains put the hillman on his mettle for a second shot.
'Not so bad – not so bad,' said Kim with calm. 'But have a care, my brother, lest we – we, I say – be minded to give a curse or so in return. And our curses have the knack of biting home.'
The Ooryas laughed; the hillman sprang forward threateningly; the lama suddenly raised his head, bringing his huge tam-o'-shanter cap into the full light of Kim's new-started fire.
'What is it?' said he.
The man halted as though struck to stone. 'I – I – am saved from a great sin,' he stammered.
'The foreigner has found him a priest at last,' whispered one of the Ooryas.
'Hai! Why is that beggar-brat not well beaten?' the old woman cried.
The hillman drew back to the cart and whispered something to the curtain. There was dead silence, then a muttering.
'This goes well,' thought Kim, pretending neither to see nor hear.
'When – when – he has eaten,' – the hillman fawned on Kim – 'it – it is requested that the Holy One will do the honour to talk to one who would speak to him.'
'After he has eaten he will sleep,' Kim returned loftily. He could not quite see what new turn the game had taken, but stood resolute to profit by it. 'Now, I will get him his food.' The last sentence, spoken loudly, ended with a sigh as of faintness.
'I – I myself and the others of my people will look to that – if it is permitted.'
'It is permitted,' said Kim, more loftily than ever. 'Holy One, these people will bring us food.'
'The land is good. All the country of the South is good – a great and a terrible world,', mumbled the lama drowsily.
'Let him sleep,' said Kim, 'but look to it that we are well fed when he wakes. He is a very holy man.'
Again one of the Ooryas said something contemptuously.
'He is not a faquir. He is not a down-country beggar,' Kim went on severely, addressing the stars. 'He is the most holy of holy men. He is above all castes. I am his chela.'
'Come here!' said the flat thin voice behind the curtain; and Kim came, conscious that eyes he could not see were staring at him. One skinny brown finger heavy with rings lay on the edge of the cart, and the talk went this way:
'Who is that one?'
'An exceedingly holy one. He comes from far off. He comes from Tibet.'
'Where in Tibet?'
'From behind the snows – from a very far place. He knows the stars; he makes horoscopes; he reads nativities. But he does not do this for money. He does it for kindness and great charity. I am his disciple. I am called also the Friend of the Stars.'
'Thou art no hillman.'
'Ask him. He will tell thee I was sent to him from the stars to show him an end to his pilgrimage.'
'Humph! Consider, brat, that I am an old woman and not altogether a fool. Lamas I know, and to these I give reverence, but thou art no more a lawful chela than this my finger is the pole of this waggon. Thou art a casteless Hindu – a bold and unblushing beggar, attached, belike, to the Holy One for the sake of gain.'
'Do we not all work for gain?' Kim changed his tone promptly to match that altered voice. 'I have heard' – this was a bow drawn at a venture – 'I have heard – '
'What hast thou heard?' she snapped, rapping with the finger.
'Nothing that I well remember, but some talk in the bazars, which is doubtless a lie, that even Rajahs – small hill Rajahs – '
'But none the less of good Rajput blood.'
'Assuredly of good blood. That these even sell the more comely of their womenfolk for gain. Down south they sell them – to zemindars and such-all of Oudh.'
If there be one thing in the world that the small hill Rajahs deny it is just this charge; but it happens to
