Atmâ | Page 4

man of a totally
different cast of mind, he had early adopted a commercial life, and now,
in the enjoyment of a vast fortune, yet undiminished by the
contingencies of war, lived in luxury and opulence, his dwelling
thronged by Sikhs whose possessions, unlike his own, had melted away
in the national catastrophe. The fact of his house being the rendezvous
of a discontented faction did not escape British vigilance, the more so
as Lehna Singh was one of the eight sirdars appointed to sit in council
with the British Resident. But the confidence of his countrymen in him
remained unshaken by the appearance among them of British envoys in
military state, bearing despatches to the friend of the national foe, and
the questionable attitude of Lehna became to the Resident daily more
and more the subject of suspicious surmisings.
Indeed, a whisper was afloat of secret messages from Feragpore,
whither, before the war, had been removed the Ranee Junda Kovr,
deposed Queen of the Punjaub, as a consequence of a detected plot
against the life of the Resident, which, together with her sullied
reputation,--for she had many lovers,--had induced the council to
pronounce her an unfit guardian for the little Maharajah, her son. This
clever woman, a constant source of vexation to the Resident, had long
forfeited the respect of friend and foe; but her intrepidity, cunning, and
unscrupulous thirst for power conspired to render her formidable to the

one, and to the other a partisan to be courted and retained. Her
messages of insolent defiance to the Durbar are historic, but of the
countless schemes and intrigues in which she continued to play the part
of chief conspirator we have only heard a portion. Suffice it to say that
the faithlessness of her policy alike towards adversary, or ally, and the
scandal of her retinue of lovers, had gained for her an ill-repute, that
combined with the watch set upon her movements by the British to
render men chary of dealings with the little court at Feragpore, where
she held mimic state.
But of all these tales of craft and crime Atmâ knew nothing. To him all
men were valiant and all women fair and good, and the wife and child
of Runjeet Singh, the Lion of the Punjaub, were invested in his fond
imaginings with ideal excellence. "To the pure all things are pure," or,
as a later genius has voiced it, "He who has been once good is forever
great," and Atmâ lived in the corrupt atmosphere of his uncle's house,
and took no hurt; nay, his spiritual life by its own dynamic force grew
and thrived, for, governed by other laws than those that control our
physical natures, the food of the soul is what it desires it to be, and
moral poison has often served for nutriment. It is death to souls that
desire death. In another sense than Bonaparte's, every man born unto
the world may say, "I make circumstances."
And the spacious abode of Lehna Singh had loveliness enough to veil
the sordid character of the life that was lived within its walls. Atmâ had
not been ignorant of his kinsman's wealth and importance; but it is one
thing to hear of wealth and to ponder in critical mood the fleeting
nature of this world's weal, and quite another to gaze with the eye on
the marvellous results of human thrift. He wandered through lofty and
spacious apartments, whose marble arches seemed ever to reveal a
fairer scene than had yet met his view. A mimic rivulet ran from room
to room in an alabaster channel, and the spray of perfumed fountains
cooled the air. Flowers bloomed, leafy vines trailed over priceless
screens, and countless mirrors repeated the joyous beauty of the place.
He beheld with admiration the gilded and fretted walls and stately
domes, the new delights of a palace charmed every sense, and,
appealing to poetic fancy, awoke a rapture whose fervency was due less

to the entrancement of his present life than to the contemplative habit
of one who had first known harmony whilst gazing on the stars, and
awaked to the consciousness of beauty among the eternal hills. The
ripple of the streamlet in these palace halls revived a half-forgotten
music of the heart that had once responded to the gurgle of a brook.
"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter."
The sympathies that had once been in unison with the rustling thicket
stirred into more definite life when an artificial breeze swept by and
stirred the heavy foliage of rare plants. He had caught in other days
notes of Nature's vast melody. Stray notes were here made to beat to a
smaller measure. Thus Art interprets Nature. It was not The Song, but a
light and pleasant