In The Presence - Page 2

They did not
spare even the cotton-seed, as the saying is.

'Their mother's kin trusted that the young men would thus be forced by
weight of trouble, and further trouble and perpetual trouble, to quit
their lands in Pishapur village in Banalu Tehsil in Patiala State. If
the young men ran away, the land would come whole to their mother's kin.
I am not a regimental school-master, but is it understood, child?'

'Understood,' said the Havildar-Major grimly. 'Pishapur is not the only
place where the fence eats the field instead of protecting it. But
perhaps there was a woman among their mother's kin?'

'God knows!' said the Regimental Chaplain. 'Woman, or man, or
law-courts, the young men would _not_ be driven off the land which was
their own by inheritance. They made appeal to Rutton Singh and Attar
Singh, their brethren who had taken service with _us_ in the Regiment,
and so knew the world, to help them in their long war against their
mother's kin in Pishapur. For that reason, because their own land and
the honour of their house was dear to them, Rutton Singh and Attar Singh
needs must very often ask for leave to go to Patiala and attend to the
lawsuits and cattle-poundings there.

'It was not, look you, as though they went back to their own village and
sat, garlanded with jasmine, in honour, upon chairs before the elders
under the trees. They went back always to perpetual trouble, either of
lawsuits, or theft, or strayed cattle; and they sat on thorns.'

'I knew it,' said the Subadar-Major. 'Life was bitter for them both. But
they were well-conducted men. It was not hard to get them their leave
from the Colonel Sahib.'

'They spoke to me also,' said the Chaplain. '_"Let him who desires the
four great gifts apply himself to the words of holy men."_ That is
written. Often they showed me the papers of the false lawsuits brought
against them. Often they wept on account of the persecution put upon
them by their mother's kin. Men thought it was drugs when their eyes
showed red.'

'They wept in my presence too,' said the Subadar-Major. 'Well-conducted
men of nine years' service apiece. Rutton Singh was drill-Naik, too.'

'They did all things correctly as Sikhs should,' said the Regimental
Chaplain. 'When the persecution had endured seven years, Attar Singh
took leave to Pishapur once again (that was the fourth time in that year
only) and he called his persecutors together before the village elders,
and he cast his turban at their feet and besought them by his mother's
blood to cease from their persecutions. For he told them earnestly that
he had marched to the boundaries of his patience, and that there could
be but one end to the matter.

'They gave him abuse.