Glimpses of Bengal | Page 7

up to the mast and, without a word, deliberately sat on it.
So rare a game to come to so abrupt a stop! Some of the players seemed
to resign themselves to giving it up as a bad job; and retiring a little
way off, they sulkily glared at the girl in her impassive gravity. One
made as if he would push her off, but even this did not disturb the
careless ease of her pose. The eldest lad came up to her and pointed to
other equally suitable places for taking a rest; at which she
energetically shook her head, and putting her hands in her lap, steadied
herself down still more firmly on her seat. Then at last they had
recourse to physical argument and were completely successful.
Once again joyful shouts rent the skies, and the mast rolled along so
gloriously that even the girl had to cast aside her pride and her
dignified exclusiveness and make a pretence of joining in the
unmeaning excitement. But one could see all the time that she was sure
boys never know how to play properly, and are always so childish! If
only she had the regulation yellow earthen doll handy, with its big,
black top-knot, would she ever have deigned to join in this silly game
with these foolish boys?

All of a sudden the idea of another splendid pastime occurred to the
boys. Two of them got hold of a third by the arms and legs and began
to swing him. This must have been great fun, for they all waxed
enthusiastic over it. But it was more than the girl could stand, so she
disdainfully left the playground and marched off home.
Then there was an accident. The boy who was being swung was let fall.
He left his companions in a pet, and went and lay down on the grass
with his arms crossed under his head, desiring to convey thereby that
never again would he have anything to do with this bad, hard world,
but would forever lie, alone by himself, with his arms under his head,
and count the stars and watch the play of the clouds.
The eldest boy, unable to bear the idea of such untimely
world-renunciation, ran up to the disconsolate one and taking his head
on his own knees repentantly coaxed him. "Come, my little brother! Do
get up, little brother! Have we hurt you, little brother?" And before long
I found them playing, like two pups, at catching and snatching away
each other's hands! Two minutes had hardly passed before the little
fellow was swinging again.

SHAZADPUR,
June 1891.
I had a most extraordinary dream last night. The whole of Calcutta
seemed enveloped in some awful mystery, the houses being only dimly
visible through a dense, dark mist, within the veil of which there were
strange doings.
I was going along Park Street in a hackney carriage, and as I passed St.
Xavier's College I found it had started growing rapidly and was fast
getting impossibly high within its enveloping haze. Then it was borne
in on me that a band of magicians had come to Calcutta who, if they
were paid for it, could bring about many such wonders.
When I arrived at our Jorasanko house, I found these magicians had

turned up there too. They were ugly-looking, of a Mongolian type, with
scanty moustaches and a few long hairs sticking out of their chins.
They could make men grow. Some of the girls wanted to be made taller,
and the magician sprinkled some powder over their heads and they
promptly shot up. To every one I met I kept repeating: "This is most
extraordinary,--just like a dream!"
Then some one proposed that our house should be made to grow. The
magicians agreed, and as a preliminary began to take down some
portions. The dismantling over, they demanded money, or else they
would not go on. The cashier strongly objected. How could payment be
made before the work was completed? At this the magicians got wild
and twisted up the building most fearsomely, so that men and
brickwork got mixed together, bodies inside walls and only head and
shoulders showing.
It had altogether the look of a thoroughly devilish business, as I told my
eldest brother. "You see," said I, "the kind of thing it is. We had better
call upon God to help us!" But try as I might to anathematise them in
the name of God, my heart felt like breaking and no words would come.
Then I awoke.
A curious dream, was it not? Calcutta in the hands of Satan and
growing diabolically, within the darkness of an unholy mist!

SHAZADPUR,
June 1891.
The schoolmasters of this place paid me a visit yesterday.
They stayed