“We have a guest to share our breakfast to-day, Alicia,” he said; “so prepare for him a place and a welcome.—Robin2, I am sure that you will make room for our new brother, both at the board and in your heart. Kripá Dé has asked to be baptized, and comes to-day to take the preliminary step of breaking his caste by eating for the first time with Christians3.”
Mr. Hartley, who had long watched the gradual growth of conviction in the mind of the young Brahmin, held out his hand to the convert. “God bless you, my son,” he said; “the day will never come in which you will repent5 having cast in your lot with the followers6 of Christ.”
Robin heartily7 embraced the Kashmiri; and Alicia, obeying a glance from Harold, held out to Kripá Dé her small fair hand. The youth kissed it with timid reverence8, and then shyly took his place at the table beside Robin Hartley.
The English reader can hardly estimate the significance of so simple an act. The first spoonful of suji which the convert ate at a Christian4’s table was to him a passing of the Rubicon, a renunciation of all that he had looked upon as the high privileges of his birth; it was a cutting himself off from home and family, a taking up of the cross, the sign of suffering and shame.
“Kripá Dé will remain here to-day,” observed Harold, “and at night will sleep on the roof, for we must keep him concealed9. After his baptism, which will take place early to-morrow, he must depart at once for Lahore till the first burst of the storm is over. When once it is known in the fort that Kripá Dé has taken the decisive step of baptism, it will be hardly safe for him to remain at Talwandi.”
“But Kripá Dé is of an age at which the law lets him choose his own religion,” said Robin.
“True, he would not be given up in a court of law, but his age would not protect him from the violence of a mob in a remote corner of a district. Kripá Dé’s baptism is sure to cause great excitement amongst the Hindus.—Until that excitement subside,” continued Harold, addressing himself to his wife, “you will have, I fear, to suspend your visits to the fort.”
“Give up my only zenana!” exclaimed Alicia, “and just when I have become so much interested in one of its inmates10, and have learned ‘Joyful11, joyful!’ in Urdu, on purpose to give her comfort!”
“The poor little widow could hardly receive comfort from that Christian hymn,” observed Harold. “If her present existence be like one in a prison, over the future to her hangs a heavy curtain of darkness.”
“I might lift it, just a little,” said Alicia, “to let one little ray come in.”
“To-morrow the news of a baptism will probably cause the door to be closed against you.”
“Then let me go to-day,” cried Alicia with animation12, rising from her seat as she spoke13. “I must, I really must, see that sweet fair young Kashmiri again.”
“Let her go, Harold, let my brave little sister go!” exclaimed Robin.
Kripá Dé had been watching the discussion with eager eyes, as if he could drink in its import through them. Harold briefly14 explained to him the lady’s wishes, and asked him whether she could safely visit the zenana.
“To-day, not to-morrow,” was the reply; “no one in the fort knows that I am here.”
“But if the women should question you?” said Harold in English, addressing himself to his wife.
“I am not a bit bound to answer them, even if I could do so,” said Alicia playfully; “for my conversational15 powers in Urdu will not carry me far into any dangerous subject. I do not know the words for conversion16, baptism, or breaking caste. If the women ask me a thousand questions, talking together after their fashion, I shall merely look puzzled after my fashion, and get out of any difficulty by beginning to sing.”
“Let her go!” repeated Robin, laughing. “I only wish that I were small enough to be packed into her bag, that I might see the fun.”
Harold, after consulting his father, gave a rather reluctant consent. Utterly17 fearless regarding himself, he was anxious regarding his wife.
Alicia again, armed with her bag of books, her fan, and her white-covered umbrella, took her seat in her doli, and started for the fort. She really ran but little risk of annoyance18, for, as Kripá Dé had said, his relatives did not know whither he had gone. The Kashmiri’s determination to declare himself openly a Christian was as yet a secret known but to himself and the Hartleys. It would not be at once noised abroad in Talwandi that he had broken his caste; for Mangal, a Mohammedan, and faithful to his salt, was the only native aware of the fact.
Alicia proceeded towards the fort without anything occurring to cause her the slightest alarm. She saw in the narrow streets the people engaged in their usual occupations. The mochi glanced up for a moment as the doli was carried along, then went on with his delicate work of making slippers19 adorned20 with thread of gold. The clang of the blacksmith’s hammer was not interrupted, and the sweetmeat-seller, behind his little pile of metai, looked as unconcerned as if the passing of a doli were a thing too ordinary to be noticed. Alicia, to her comfort, saw no sign of any approaching tempest; nor did the lady meet with any inconvenience save from the troops of thin, overladen donkeys which sometimes obstructed21 the way, notwithstanding the loud warning “Bach!” (Save thyself!) with which the kahars tried to clear a passage for the doli.
The fort was soon reached. There, also, the first feeling of curiosity had passed away. A smaller crowd of dirty, bare-footed children greeted Alicia with loud, shrill23 cries of “Mem! Mem!” and when the upper terrace was reached, only two or three bibis made their appearance. To Alicia’s disappointment Premi was not amongst them. So little interest was shown in the lady, that Alicia resolved not to visit a zenana again on consecutive24 days. The bibis’ stock of questions had been exhausted25, half of them had been misunderstood or unanswered; the white lady’s dress was the same which she had worn on preceding days, and she was not likely to have anything to communicate but what the Hindus did not care to hear. Sometimes disappointment is experienced by workers when the hearers who crowded round them on their first appearance dwindle26 away as visits are repeated.
“How different is zenana-visiting from what I had pictured it to be!” thought Alicia, as she saw the women eagerly examining some new purchase which had cost a few coppers27, as if it were an object of interest too absorbing to leave any room for care about the soul. “I feel as if I were trying with a small penknife to carve a statue out of granite28. It seems hopeless to try to make an impression. Is it possible to make these poor heathen think of anything beyond the trifles of the day?” Alicia showed a few pictures to the children, who were somewhat more attentive29 than their elders, and she tried to betray no impatience30 when little brown fingers, just taken from a mouth half-stuffed with metai (sweets), scrabbled dirty marks on her book.
Then Alicia bethought herself of her new song—that might help her to gain some attention. Clear rose her voice in the translation of “Here we suffer grief and pain,” in which the cheerful tone of the melody belies31 the sadness of the first line. But when Alicia had begun the well-known refrain, which was, of course, in Urdu, to her astonishment32 a clear “Joyful, joyful, joyful!” in unmistakable English, rang from the upper roof. Alicia, startled, raised her eyes, and saw for a moment, clear against the blue sky, the unveiled head of Premi in the act of eager listening. A most un-Oriental flush was on her cheeks, a bright but bewildered expression in her eyes, as if she listened to some song from dreamland and joined in it by some irresistible33 impulse. In a moment the voice was silent, the head withdrawn34, and Alicia remained gazing upwards35, listening and wondering, asking herself whether both her senses could have at once deceived her. Then she turned to the nearest Hindu, who chanced to be Darobti, standing22 with her fat little boy on her hip36.
“Does Premi know English?” asked Alicia eagerly.
Darobti at first did not appear to hear the question, nor to understand it when she did hear. When Alicia had repeated her inquiry37 five or six times, it only elicited38 the reply, “Premi knows nothing; Premi grinds corn.” Saying this, Darobti turned away, and sauntered off to another part of the building.
Was it to teach that song to the children that Alicia sang it again and again, until little lips began to catch the refrain? If such were her only object, why were the Englishwoman’s eyes so constantly wandering from her auditors39 in the direction of that lofty terraced roof? Alicia sang in English as well as Urdu. She lingered in the fort longer than she would otherwise have done, in hopes of catching40 a sight of Premi’s face, with the rosy41 blush upon it. Alicia was disappointed in her hope, and at last quitted the gallery over the court, where she had now no auditors but the children. As she descended42 the dark staircase, Alicia almost expected to hear Premi’s step behind her. As Harold’s wife was crossing the inner court-yard she again paused to look up and listen for that “Joyful, joyful!” from above. She heard only the laugh of the children and the snort of a buffalo43 in the outer yard.
All the way back to the bungalow44 Alicia could think of nothing but the incident which had occurred. She was so eager to tell of it that it was a real disappointment to her to find nobody in the veranda45, and the bungalow empty. It is one of the trials of the first year of mission life to feel idle when others are busy, lonely because companions are out at work. There is the uncomfortable sensation of being like a drone in the hive. The remedy is study of the language; but Alicia felt too unsettled and impatient to sit down to grammar, and struggle with strange idioms and incomprehensible combinations of verbs. She sat fanning herself, glancing up at the clock every two minutes, and wishing for Harold’s return. The striking of that clock—for Robin had succeeded in setting it going—was the first thing to rouse Alicia from her dreamy, indolent mood.
“It would be far better if, instead of wasting my time thus, I spent more of it on my knees,” thought Alicia. “A baptism is to take place to-morrow, the first baptism in Talwandi, and I have never yet in my private prayers remembered the youth over whom my Harold is rejoicing with trembling. I have not prayed earnestly, and as one who believes in the power of prayer, for poor Premi. I am neglecting one of the best means of helping46 those who toil47 in the mission field, whilst grieving that I can do in it next to nothing. I am thinking what I may accomplish when I can speak to natives in their Urdu tongue, and care too little to pour out to God my hearts desires in my own. Lord, forgive my selfish neglect, and shed on Thy feeble child more of the spirit of prayer, specially48 of intercessory prayer!”
The tediousness of Alicia’s waiting-time was over; one by one there rose before her mind the names of those for whom she ought to plead. Not only did she pray for her nearest and dearest—they had not been forgotten in her early prayer—but for servants, kahars, all who came within reach of her own or her husband’s influence. With Kripá Dé’s name came that of his youthful widowed sister; then Alicia pleaded for the poor ignorant bibis of Talwandi, and the little ignorant children. Harold’s young wife was surprised to find how large a circle might be enclosed by the prayer of one who was but standing, as it were, at the open gate of the harvest-field which she as yet felt herself scarcely worthy49 to enter.
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1
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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3
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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conversational
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| adj.对话的，会话的 | |
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conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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obstructed
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| 阻塞( obstruct的过去式和过去分词 )； 堵塞； 阻碍； 阻止 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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dwindle
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| v.逐渐变小（或减少） | |
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coppers
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| 铜( copper的名词复数 )； 铜币 | |
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granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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31
belies
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| v.掩饰( belie的第三人称单数 )；证明（或显示）…为虚假；辜负；就…扯谎 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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elicited
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| 引出，探出( elicit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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auditors
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| n.审计员，稽核员( auditor的名词复数 )；（大学课程的）旁听生 | |
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40
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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41
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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42
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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43
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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44
bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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45
veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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46
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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47
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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48
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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49
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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