CHAPTER III.

HAD Matrá indeed had his walk for nothing? Any one who could have read his heart as he went on his homeward way would hardly have said so. A seed of truth, a living seed had been dropped there, and had found good soil to grow in. As Matrá walked on, with the soft pure moonlight around him, he almost forgot his weariness, he almost forgot his burden of debt, so constantly were Karim's words coming back to his mind—"There is but one God, and that God is Love."

"The one God of the English seems to do more for them than our millions of gods do for us," thought Matrá. "The English press onward like that engine which I saw rushing into the station, with a long line of carriages behind it. What speed, what straight course, what power! We go on like one of our country waggons, creaking along in the old ruts, and sometimes a wheel comes off or an ox drops down, and there we are left on the road. What makes the difference between us? The engine goes faster and better, pushed on by something which we cannot see, than does the cart with the oxen which we always are goading. The God of the Christians must be a very strong God, and the man at the station says that He is a very kind one; but it's likely enough that He would have nothing to do with poor Hindu zamindars such as we."

Matrá found his old grandmother Sibbi still awake, and preparing for him some chapatties. The poor old woman, with her shrunken fleshless limbs, looked almost like a living skeleton as she crouched by her little oven. There was not much appearance of life about her except in the wistful black eyes deep sunken under the brows whitened by age.

Sibbi was a strange old woman, not like the others in the village, and no great favourite with them. She could actually think of something besides marriage and funeral ceremonies, pilgrimages and pujás. Even before she became a widow, Sibbi's whole heart had not been set on her ornaments, and she had sold all of any value to help to pay her husband's debts, taking even the ring out of her nose. Sibbi had drawn upon herself the anger of the Máhá-Brahmin, by suggesting to her grandson that on account of their exceeding poverty, the gift to him of a very old and almost useless cow might be sufficient. It was indeed the only one which the family possessed, but another was procured to satisfy the covetousness of the Brahmin.

It was supposed, and probably with reason, that the difference which existed between old Sibbi and her neighbours was caused by her having, when eleven years old, passed six weeks in the house of an English lady. The parents of Sibbi had lost her at one of the great melás at which tens of thousands of Hindus assemble, melás which occasion a fearful amount of confusion, disease, and misery. An English magistrate found the poor girl, frightened and almost famished, crying by the side of the road. In compassion, he took her home to his wife. Sibbi received in that English home kindness which she never forgot. She was clothed, fed, and allowed to attend on the Mem Sahiba's sweet little girl.

In that house Sibbi had, as it were, a glimpse of paradise; and though a loving daughter, she was hardly glad when her parents found her at last. The parents took her away back to their village, though the lady offered to keep her. From that day, the usual occupations of zamindars' girls were those of Sibbi. She cooked, she carded cotton and spun it, she worked in the fields; married early, was a servant to her husband, and a slave to her husband's mother; but she often recalled the past, and asked herself if the six weeks, so unlike all that preceded or followed them, had not been a beautiful dream! One persuasion remained on her mind, that there were other places in the world besides her mud-built village, and that people existed more clever, and at least as holy as Brahmins.

Matrá sat down hungry to his insufficient meal, having first washed his hands, feet, and face. He could have eaten twice as much as was prepared, but took care to leave something for his poor old grandmother. Matrá took his meal in silence, but then told Sibbi all that had passed between himself and the man at the station.

"One God,—and that God is Love!" repeated Sibbi to herself, looking like one trying to recall something that has almost escaped memory, as she put her wasted hand to her wrinkled forehead. "Missy Baba learned to say that, little Missy Baba—the pretty one—who died. I almost cried my eyes out when they took her away to bury her!"

Tears came into the old woman's eyes as she remembered the sorrow which nearly fifty years had not effaced from her loving heart. "Missy Baba could not speak many words even in her own language, but the Mem taught her to say, 'Our Father' and 'God is Love,' that she might repeat them to me. She said them both the very day that she died. And when I was crying and moaning over the little form that looked so peaceful where it lay still and cold on the bed with a rose on its breast, the Mem said to me, quite quiet and calm-like, 'She has gone to the God who is Love.' I never shall forget that night! I wondered why the Mem did not moan and beat her breast as we do, she loved the little darling so dearly."

"Perhaps," thought Matrá, "the same great Father who helps that Christian in all his troubles was comforting the poor mother too." Then Matrá observed aloud, "How could the Mem Sahib be sure that her child had been taken to her God—how could she know that her soul had not passed, by a new birth, into some unclean dog or ass?"

"I am sure that it never did!" said Sibbi quickly. "Missy Baba's soul could never have gone into anything unclean. I often think that she's somewhere up above, like one of those; stars, safe with the Heavenly Father!" And as she spoke, the old Hindu pointed with her trembling fingers to a brilliant star in the east.

Another seed of truth had been dropped into the mind of Matrá, a thought of One who could not only support in life, but receive after death. But it was as yet as a seed wrapt up in its husk, that needs warmth and moisture to make it rise up to life, and burst forth to beauty.