and Pleasure. And Veru had been good to him. He sat on till the dream-compeller made even his hazy thought more hazy, and patience came with sleep. When he awoke the dawn was past, and as he stretched his long length skyward in the first enjoyment of past sleep, the whole circle of earth and heaven round him was ablaze with the sun rising gloriously over the cloudless world. He stood so, for a moment, the centre of his universe, contented, serene, ere memory returned to him. Then he made his way down to the yard with fear at his heart. All was still as the grave, even in the women's court, and it was a relief when he peered past the swinging sickle to see his mother wrapped in her quilt dozing by the open fire-place in one corner. He went over to her and touched her on the arm. "Mother!" he called. She was alert in an instant, and looking in his face answered his mute question fiercely. "It is a girl--a useless girl! What need to wake thee for such bitter news? The woman is accursed." The quick assent rising to his lips was stilled by a little cry from within the quilt. Something--he knew not what it was--thrilled him and kept him silent. "Is--is it pretty, mother?" he asked, sheepishly, after a while. The old lady eyed him with suspicious scorn. "See for thyself, ninny," she replied, shortly. Gunesh Chund felt a distinct disappointment as he looked down at his first-born. He had forgotten what new-born babies were like since the days when, as a boy, he was admitted to such sights. This one struck him as ugly, or at least as less pleasing than a lamb or a calf. "God send it be not ill-looking, mother!" he blurted out in a tone of alarm. She laughed, still in the same short and scornful fashion. "Lo! there never was a plain woman among us. The child is well enough, and favours thee. Is it not enough that it should be a girl?" He did not hear the latter sentence. Accustomed in all things to accept his mother's fiat, he was lost in trying to trace the likeness to himself, and, to aid
Prev.
Back
Top