CHAPTER XIX.

I had not forgotten scarcely an incident in my past life. I often went back, in memory, to that little court where I first found myself. Everything appeared before me as if placed upon a canvas by some realistic painter. The old, dilapidated gate-way, with some of its bricks ready to tumble out on some passer’s head, the very color of the bricks, that wall at the back, with its little narrow door, the mud huts at either side, the women sitting in front of their doors preparing their scanty food, then the narrow stair against the back wall, the two little rooms above, and the narrow veranda in front, as clear to my mind as if I were standing there, and seeing it all. And that little mother, with the sad face! O, how sad! Her lustrous eyes looking, staring, until they became like glass. This was more than painted, rather engraved in my memory, on my very soul, every line and point so indelible as never to be erased.

I frequently thought of going to this place, but was repelled from doing so. It gave me a chill, or kind of shock to think of it. I had often read of the anxious desires of people to revisit the lands of their birth, the places of their youth; of the Swiss, when absent, pining for a sight of their mountain homes.

In my maturer years I reasoned about this apparent prejudice of mine against the place of my childhood, and called myself foolish for allowing it to influence me. Such thoughts gradually removed my objections, and I resolved that I would visit the court. The opportunity soon occurred. I had some business in Lucknow, and this being finished, I took a stroll, and soon reached the old place, guided by directions I received on the way. There was the old gate-way, the mud huts, and the two little upper rooms in the back corner, all the same as they were years ago, but in a worse condition, if that were possible. The poor were there, for they are always with us, and will be, until men learn the great lesson of humanity to their fellow-creatures, and while might makes right, and avarice makes men stony-hearted and cruel.

I obtained permission, and went up into the little rooms, and seating myself on a charpoy, gave way to a host of reflections. I went back to my beginning, to the clinking sound of those rupees. I saw again that monster sahib. I heard the cries and laments of the dear mother, and then on—but why tell of it? I thought till I cried, yes cried, I am not ashamed to say it. Tears, blessed tears, they are the shower to cool the burning heat of the heart!

How long I sat I know not. I did not measure the time by tears, as they did in the olden times by drops of water. Recovering myself, I had a desire to learn if any one remembered me, or could tell me anything of that dear mama, but the older people had gone where my questions could not reach them. The others had not known, or had forgotten. They had miseries enough of their own without burdening themselves with those of other people. I went from one to another to get, if possible, one remembrance. Had any one given me the slightest recollection, I could have embraced him with tears of joy. It is so sad to be entirely forgotten, to have passed away into nothing, not to be able to find one who remembered seeing or hearing anything about you. This made me inexpressibly sorrowful. At last one said that there was living near by, a Le Maistre Sahib, an old man who might tell me something. This gave me a gleam of hope, and in gratitude for this hint, apparently of so little value, and out of kindness for these poor, where I had once been so kindly treated by their kindred, I gave the crowd around me some rupees, to their great joy.

I at once made my way to the bungalow of the sahib. He received me with great courtesy. That he was of French descent, on his father’s side, at least, I knew from his name. And more, he had that suavity of manner and genial “bonhomie” that distinguishes French people wherever you may meet them. I told him my name was Japhet, and I could not help adding playfully that I was in search of my father. He replied, “Yes, he is a wise son that knows his own father.” We chatted about various things, and then I said I supposed I was born in the muhalla over there, that I had been taken away when a child, and never again saw the place till that day, when I had come to Lucknow on business. I told him that I was an Eurasian, that I must have had a father.

“Yes,” he interrupted, “The most of us have had fathers.”

I continued, that very likely my father was a European, but I never knew him, and did not even know his name—that as he had resided in Lucknow for a long time, he probably could give me some information.

He replied, “My father was a Frenchman of good family, and was in the service of the old King of Oude. He married a native woman, and we were a happy family, yet I cannot but regret that my father had not married one of his own race, but I was not in a position to give him any advice on the subject. At my father’s death he left considerable property, so I have stuck here ever since.” This and more of his biography he gave me.

As I was more interested in looking up my own pedigree than in listening to an account of his, I suggested a year somewhere about which I wished to inquire and asked if he knew of any incidents to aid me in tracing my mother or my father.

“Yes,” said he, “I remember the time very well, and it is strange how trivial things at times will help to fasten greater things in the memory.”

And the old man chuckled over something as he recalled the time. He continued: “I was then very much annoyed by a number of cattle coming into my compound at night, eating the grass and the vegetables in my garden, and destroying more than they ate. My servants repeatedly tried to catch them, but at the first noise every one bolted out through the hedge as fast as their legs could carry them. It seemed as if the devil was in the cattle, and the cattle were in the plot to worry me and escape. This continued for a number of nights. I went to the cowherds, but they declared and swore that they tied up their cattle every night, and they would not think of such a thing as letting their cattle go loose to be lost or else get into the pound. I returned home determined to have those cattle, outwit the devil and those cowherds or else I was not the son of a Frenchman. I laid my plan. I sent to the bazar for a lot of strong rope, and had my servants make a lot of loops or snares, and I explained to them that after the cattle had entered the compound, we would slip around through the gully and fasten the ends of the ropes to the trees standing in the hedge, and let the snares hang between where the cattle would have to go out. The servants rather enjoyed the prospect of fun as much as I did, and besides they were becoming tired of night watching and being aroused to chase the cattle.”

The old man went on with the garrulous prolixity of old age, entering into all the details, and in fact the story was interesting from the way he told it, with so much earnestness, with his French gestures,—how well they illustrate,—and the twitching and smiles of his face. “Well,” said he, “the night came and the cattle also. I took a number of men with me, they with the rope snares, and we went a long way around, down through the gully and fixed the loops. When all was ready, a man went into the compound, and at once such a scurrying of the cattle, and then what a bellowing, roaring and plunging as each was caught in a noose! It was a good deal more sport than to see a poor devil of a man hung!”

The old man laughed again and again, as he recalled those bellowing, plunging cattle, and I had to laugh too, almost forgetting what I came after, but asked, “And then?”

He replied, “We watched by the cattle till morning, as we were in to the finish, and sent for the owners, as we well knew who they were. They held up their hands in surprise, saying they had been everywhere looking for the cattle as they had broken loose during the night. I made them do something more than hold up their hands, for they paid me well before the cattle were released. It was a trick of theirs to let their cattle out at night to steal a good feed, and the brutes seemed to be trained therein.”

I could not see what all this had to do with me so I asked, “And then?”

“Really!” he replied, “I had almost forgotten what I was going to tell you. It must have been about three or four o’clock in the morning or just before day break, as we were watching the cattle as I went along the gully, I came near running into a man. I saw at a glance that he was a European and recognized him as Mr. Smith the young magistrate.”

“Smith!” I thought, “that name Smith, have I come across it again?”

“And then?” I asked.

He continued. “I said, ‘Good morning Mr. Smith,’ but he made no reply and slipped away as quickly as he could. I was much surprised, as it was very strange for a European to be there in that stinking gully at that time of night. It was bad enough for me, but then I had a little business there. I asked one of the servants close by who that was? ‘That is Smith Sahib,’ said he. ‘Smith Sahib!’ I exclaimed, ‘What can he be doing here at this time of night?’ The servant coolly answered, ‘The sahib has an aurat over in that muhalla there and comes to see her at night.’ You cannot hide anything from these natives.”

As my friend was evidently in a gossiping mood, I checked him by asking: “Do you know anything more?”

“Yes,” said he. “One night, I was aroused by a native saying that some one in the muhalla was taken with the cholera, and they wanted me to come at once. They always come to me when they are in trouble, and I am such an old fool that I always help them, so I quickly dressed and taking some cholera mixture, went to the sick man and he was soon greatly relieved. While standing by him, as he was lying on a charpoy in front of his house, I saw Mr. Smith”—“Smith again!” I groaned inwardly—“come in by the little door in the back wall and go up the narrow stairs to the upper rooms at the corner. I knew him well, yet I asked ‘Who is that Sahib?’ And they replied, ‘Smith Sahib, his woman is up there.’”

My friend halted a little and I started him by asking, “And then? Did you learn nothing more?”

“Yes,” said he. “Some time after, it may have been a couple of years, when the famine came, the muhalla people being in great distress sent for me and I went. A number of the poor wretches had died, really starved to death, and there were others who could barely stand alone, living skeletons, an awful sight! Strange isn’t it that with all our boasted civilization, philanthropy and religion, yet human beings die for want of work and the coarsest food to eat?”

I became fidgety, thinking he was about to give me an address on political economy or religion, which at any other time I would gladly have heard, so I pulled my check rein again, “And then?” He took to the track immediately.

“Well, I sent for some food at once and waited to see it distributed, and while waiting looked about the place. I noticed the upper rooms and thought of the woman, so I inquired about her. They told me that her sahib had left her to go to Wilayat; that she mourned for him day after day and at last died of a broken heart, uska dil tut gaya, her heart broken went. Then the old mamagee who had been the servant of this choti mem sahib took care of the two children, a boy and a girl, as they had nothing to live on. The muhalla people gave them something till the famine came and they had nothing for themselves. One day the mamagee took the children one by each hand and went out of the big gate, and that was the last they ever saw or heard of them.”

How my heart beat, and my whole body, hot then cold, trembled, as he told this.

He remarked, “This is all I know, and I am afraid it will not be of much use to you, and now I want you to stay and take dinner with me.”

So considerate he was, and kindly, just like a Frenchman, as I had read of them. I thanked him, but said that I must take the next train for home. He urged me to come again and see him, just as the French do.

I took my departure. Dine! Take dinner! I felt as if I never wanted to eat again. I had rather gone to death. I wandered towards the railway station. I almost cursed my insatiable curiosity for leading me to that wretched place, of which I always had such a dread of seeing. We can see evil enough, and misery to the full, as we pass along, without rummaging around to find it. I had taken the bit in my teeth in spite of my reason, of my good sense, and I was wilfully making my own evil destiny. We are all mostly fools at times, and most of us all the time. I was bewildered, weary, sick in my very soul. I tried to think of other things, but the black nightmare that had come, would not away. “What next? What next?” some coco demon kept torturing me in asking. I had so much of the past, not of the remote, but of the recent past, to think of, rather to feel, that I could take no thought of the future.

I was in a condition of a traveler, who, after a toilsome journey of months comes to an immense stream, where there is neither bridge, nor boats, nor ferryman. He can neither retrace his steps, or go forward, and sits down in abject despair. I reached home, and hardly knew how I passed the next few days.

I took to my books, but my old friends were either very dull, or sleeping, or dreaming, and failed to take any interest in me. I rode out to my villages, on my fresh horses, and they gave me a good shaking up. The villagers failed to please me, as they formerly did. Evidently the times were out of joint, or I was, or something. We’ll leave it at the latter. Would you believe it, that in a few days, when I was just recovering from that fearful wide awake dream, and had called myself a fool a score of times for ever venturing to that place in Lucknow, that had been the dread of my life; that one morning the question came right to me, “Why not go again, and find out all about that Mr. Smith?”

I was in the garden at the time, and I must have called out something terrible at myself, for all the malies came running to know what I wanted. I concluded I must be going daft, and to save appearances, told them that they must keep the walks cleaner, or I would cut their wages. I saw the nonsense of this, for there was not a weed or a blade of grass to be seen, and the paths were as smooth as a bald man’s head. But I was ready to break or cut something, I could not tell what or where.

The question came again and again, and would not down, and the result was that I was on my way again to Lucknow. I knew what I was going for. I was Japhet in search of his father. But why? Yes, why? I have often wondered why people do certain things, even to their own hurt. I have put the question to them, and the answer was: “They couldn’t help it.” There seems to be a tide in the affairs of men, and often a big flood tide that carries them whether they will or not. Good, old Æneas was impelled by fate, and so it seems are all other men. I was going, I knew that, impelled to go, and all the time calling myself a fool. I might be going to my degradation, my death, my damnation, yet I must go. Men will worry their lives away in trying to invent some powder to blow other men to bits, yet knowing all the time, ten chances to one, they may blow their own heads off first, yet they keep on trying. But what is the use of any further explanation when everybody knows what I mean, that when the devil of curiosity takes possession of us, as it did of our mother Eve, as the story goes, we do not think of consequences.

I went directly to the bungalow of M. Le Maistre, and he received me most cordially. I told him that I came to look up the record of that Mr. Smith, as every one ought to have some interest in his paternal parent. He looked at me with a peculiar expression on his face, showing that he thought me a queer lot, but it was not in his French blood to say anything to hurt my feelings.

He suggested we go to the cutchery, court house, which we did at once. He knew the head clerks, and they would tell us everything. And they