The Collected Novels. Anna Buchan
with, I happened on these lines, which I am going to write down merely for the pleasure of writing them:
"I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire, and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter: some that humble themselves may, but the many will be too chill and tender, and they'll be for the flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire."
A very pleasant thing about our present solitude is that one can read aloud or speak to oneself without risk of being thought demented. The fact is, the inhabitants of the little village on the outskirts of which we are camping regard us as so hopelessly and utterly mad already that no further display of eccentricity on our part could make any difference.
Even in the jungle there are servant troubles. Our cook, finding, I expect, this life too uneventful, intimated that his father was dying, and left last night. We thought we should have to go without dinner, but Autolycus, stepping gallantly into the breach said No, he would cook it; he had often cooked while with Colonel-M'Greegor-Sahib. The next we saw was a hen flying wildly, pursued by Autolycus, and in about half an hour it appeared on the table, its legs—still rather feathery—sticking protestingly from the dish. That was all there was for dinner except two breakfast-cups of muddy coffee.
… The dâk came in a little while ago with the English mail. I have just finished reading your letter. I think I know what you must feel about your book. It is sad to come to the end of a long and pleasant task—something finished you won't do again; a page of life closed. I know. It scares me, too, how quickly things come to an end. We are hurrying on so, the years pass so quickly, that even a long life is a terribly short darg. Life is such a happy thing, one would like it to last. I was twenty-six yesterday, and if my soul were to say to me now, "Finish, good lady, the bright day is over," I would be most dreadfully sorry (and I would expect everyone else to be dreadfully sorry too; I'm afraid I would insist on a great moaning at the bar when I put out to sea); but I would have to admit that I have had a good time—a good, good time.
But I don't agree with you about the darkness of what comes after. How can it be dark when the Sun of Righteousness has arisen? I suppose it must be very difficult for clever people to believe, the wise and prudent who demand a reason for everything; but Christ said that in this the foolish things of the world would confound the wise. I am glad He said that. I am glad that sometimes the battle is to the weak. At the crossing, "I sink," cried Christian, the strong man, "I sink in deep waters," but Much-Afraid went through the river singing, though none could understand what she said. I don't know that I could give you a reason for the hope that is in me (I speak as one of the "foolish things"), but this I know, that if we hold fast to the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, then, when the end comes, we shall be able to lay our heads down like children saying, This night when I lie down to sleep, in the sure and certain hope that when, having done with houses made with hands, we wake up in the House of Many Mansions, it will be what John Bunyan calls a "sunshine morning."
I shall have to stop writing, though lecturing you is a fascinating pastime, for the day is almost done, and Boggley will soon be home.
Autolycus, looking very worried, is busied with the task of preparing the evening meal. One of the chuprassis, his gaudy uniform laid aside, and clad in a fragment of cotton, is sluicing himself with water and praying audibly. The dhobi is beating our clothes white on stones in the tank. In the village the women are grinding corn; the oxen are drawing water from the well. The wood-smoke hangs in wisps on the hot air, and the song of the boys bringing home the cattle comes to me distinctly in the stillness. The sunset colours are fading into the deep blue of the Indian night, and the faithful are being called to prayer.
At home they are burning the whins on the hillsides, and the Loch o' the Lowes lies steel-grey under the March sky.
THE LAND OF REGRETS
Calcutta, April 1 (Monday).
… The flesh-pots of Calcutta are wonderfully pleasant after jungly fare, and there is something rather nice about a big airy bedroom with a bathroom to correspond, hot water at will, and an ayah to look after one's clothes, after the cramped space of a tent, a zinc bath wiggling on an uneven floor, and Autolycus fumbling vaguely among one's belongings. I am staying with G. in her sister's, Mrs. Townley's, very charming house. Boggley had to go off at once on another short tour, and I was only too pleased to come to this most comfortable habitation. It is nice to be with G. again, and she has lots to tell me about her doings—dances, garden-parties, picnics—all of which she has enjoyed thoroughly. All the same, I would rather have had my jungle experiences. She and her sister and brother-in-law laugh greatly at my tales. They regard me as an immense joke, I don't know why. I think myself I am rather a sensible, serious sort of person.
Mrs. Townley is the kindest woman. She has such a delightful way of making you feel that you are doing her the greatest favour by accepting her hospitality. I am not the only guest. A member of a nursing sisterhood—Sister Anna Margaret—is resting here for a few days. She wears clothes quite like a nun, but she is the cheeriest soul, with such contented eyes. She might be a girl, from the interest she takes in our doings and the way she laughs at our well-meant but not very witty fun.
Calcutta is very hot. The punkahs go all day—not the flapping kind of Mofussil punkahs, but things like bits of windmills fastened to poles. I never like to sit or sleep exactly underneath one, they look so insecure; besides, they make one so untidy. At a dinner-party it is really dreadful to have the things flap-flapping above one's carefully done hair. My hair needs no encouragement to get untidy, and I have quite an Ophelia-like air before we get to the fish. It is too hot to go out much except very early in the morning and again after tea. We read and write and work till luncheon, then go to bed and try to sleep till tea-time. We waken hot and very cross, and it is the horridest thing to get up and get into a dress that seems to fasten with millions of hooks and buttons. My old Bella is back with me, but she has found a mistress whose temper has shortened as the temperature has risen. Yesterday she fumbled so fastening my dress that I jumped round on her, stamped my foot, and said, "Bella, I shall slap you in a minute," She replied in such a reproving tone, "Oh! Missee Baba." Tea makes one feel better, and then there is tennis and a drive in the cool of the evening.
Mosquitoes are a great trial. They don't worry so much through the day, but at night—at night, when one with infinite care has examined the inside of the mosquito-curtains to make sure none are lurking, and then, satisfied, has dived into bed and tucked the curtain carefully round, and is just going off to sleep—buzz-z-z sounds the hateful thing, and all hope of a quiet night is gone. The other night I woke and found G. springing all over her bed like a kangaroo. At first I thought she had gone mad, dog-like, with the heat, but it turned out she was only stalking a mosquito.
Yesterday we all went—Mrs. Townley, Sister Anna Margaret, G., and I—to the Calcutta Zoo. We fed the monkeys with buns, watched the loathly little snakes crawl among the grass in their cages, and then G. began gratuitously to insult a large fierce tiger by poking at it with her sunshade.
It wasn't a kind thing to do, for it is surely bad enough to be caged without having a sunshade poked at one, and evidently the tiger thought so, for it lashed its tail and its roars shook the cage. We went home, and retribution followed swift and sure.
The first floor of the house consists of the drawing-room and two enormous bedrooms, one opening into the other, and both opening by several windows on to the verandah. Sister Anna Margaret is in one, G. and I in the other. We have two beds, but they are drawn close together and covered by a mosquito-curtain. Last night we went to bed in our usual gay spirits and fell asleep. It seemed to me that we were in the Zoo again and the tiger was fiercer than ever. It hit the bars with its great paw, and to my horror I saw that the bars were giving. I ran, but it was too late. The beast was out of the cage and coming after me with great bounds. My legs went round in circles and made no progress, as legs do