flagon into a new vessel, refilled the flagon with water, and took it back to the Lady Clarimonde. "My daughter," said Father Eudoxius, "it has been revealed to me that, your father having received extreme unction, and his soul being already well on the way to purgatory, it would be sacrilege to recall him to life. Had he not received the unction, we might have acted differently. You must let us comfort you in your loss. Hum.” The Lady Clarimonde decided that since the Church had prevented her father from benefiting by the holy elixir, nobody else should use it. She therefore caused the flagon to be buried in her father's coffin. Strange to relate, however, that although neither the Lady Clarimonde nor yet the Father Eudoxius spoke one word good or bad concerning the elixir of life, the tomb of the Sieur d'Aussas was barbarously violated two days after the interment. Nor was the miscreant discovered, nor trace of the flagon heard of from that day to this. How the news of what was in the flagon buried in the lord's tomb escaped is not known, and was a mystery both to the Lady Clarimonde and to the Father Eudoxius. But keyholes were large in those days. IV. The vessel containing the real elixir of life reposed for many years at the bottom of a chest in the chamber of Father Eudoxius. He was glad that be had not allowed it to be used on the Sieur d'Aussas. The Lady Clarimonde had proved a beneficent patroness, in spite of the fact that she had, in her forty-eighth year, married a young husband, decorative third son of an impoverished noble family of Bearn, a youth who made excellent lyrics in the langue d'oc, of which he wrote out two fair copies-one to present to his wife, and one to offer to the source of inspiration. The Father Eudoxius let his life dawdle away in a re ligious peace, but as his time drew closer he thought more and more affectionately of the elixir reposing at the bottom of his chest. As death came near, the good Father began to think that he had never lived at all. His seventy odd years of monotonous existence had not disillusioned him about the value of life. He preached the joys of heaven, but was quite willing to put them off for another span. After all, had he not heaven for all eternity? The thought that this elixir might come from the devil troubled him at moments, but he quietened his conscience; he did not know that it came from the devil. The good Father, like so many people, reasoned as though the recording angel were a fool. The good Father's end came quite suddenly, occasioned by an indigestion brought on by over-indulgence in new wine, Najac ham, and green salad. But he had time to realise his condition, and to leave with a favourite acolyte the most explicit and earnest instructions. The acolyte swore to carry out the Father's words. The Father Eudoxius died in the hope of a speedy and material resurrection. Left alone with the body, the acolyte, a lad of sixteen, fumbled in the chest, and discovered the devil's elixir safe in its bottle. The Father had told him that it was water from the Jordan, and that the anointing of his body would ensure an express passage through purgatory. On extracting the cork, the young acolyte was struck by an immediate odour of plum brandy. He twitched his nose, he blew it. The odour persisted, grew more strong, more delicious. He smelt the bottle. odour of plum brandy came clearly from what the Father Eudoxius had said was water of Jordan. The The young acolyte put his lips to the fluid. He had known plum brandy from child hood. When he had drunk half the bottle the acolyte thought that by means of a piece of rag a quarter would be enoughthat is if he dabbed carefully. An hour later two old women coming to lay out the body were scandalised to find the acolyte-who had been left to watch over the Fatherlying intoxicated in a corner. The air was redolent with an odour of plum brandy. A broken flagon lay in the middle of the floor. The old women, by putting their fingers into a few drops which remained at the bottom, were able to bear witness that it was the finest plum brandy that they had ever tasted. TOILERS IN THE VINEYARD. BY ZERES. "Save he serve, no man can rule." SEVEN years ago, when the Montagu - Chelmsford reforms were being planned in Delhi, a paper appeared in 'Maga' called "Top Hat or Turban," by the present writer. In that paper the inevitable failure of the new proposals was foretold, it being further intimated that they would plunge India into chaos. The paper was written when India was on the crest of the wave of war loyalty, with a million men in the field-that is to say, long before the Punjab émeute, the Malabar rebellion, and all the melancholy political débâcle that has followed since. When legislating for Indian needs the British democrat suffers from a chronic delusion that he belongs to a civilisation morally and intellectually superior to that with which he is dealing. He is apparently of opinion that Western civilisation is of so high and ultimate an order that its unique blessings need to be embraced forthwith by a benighted Asia. Strange to relate, Asia shows little intention of accepting mushroom theories of life in place of tried wisdom; no in clination to replace Confucius, Buddha, and Moses by Jack Jones, Bernard Shaw, or Charlie Chaplin; nor for one moment does she identify human progress with the puerile materialism that holds sway among Western democracies. It may here be asked, If serious interference with Eastern values and standards is to be deprecated, be deprecated, what ethical justification remains for an alien Government to remain in India at all? The reply is, that the British have functions in India other than interfering with the vie intime of the people-functions of a sane and useful nature, which are indicated below. Not only is "India" composed of many different races, ranging from the Aryan and Dravidian to the Mongolian and Semitic, but there is also the added complication that sharply antagonistic elements, both in breed and creed, are often geographically and communally intermingled. When these racial and religious antagonisms shall have finally become disentangled, a paramount power that is impartial to all need no longer be sought outside Indian limits; but until that happy day arrives, it seems not unreasonable to suggest that in the alien quality of the British Raj lies its prime and essential virtue.1 The wide geographical limits of modern "India," no less than the equally wide racial range of modern Indian nationhood, are, of course, simply and solely the artificial creation of the British official, whose consolidating influence from Beluchistan to Burma and from Kashmir to Assam has resulted in a comprehensive political union never contemplated by indigenous genius. So long as the British in India have thus confined their activities to a rôle of mundane trusteeship-which suits their character-and avoided interference in native psychologywhere they are out of their depth, their rule has incontrovertibly been more popular than any that preceded it. Conversely, whenever through inadvertence or mistaken zeal their legislation has seemed to threaten the free operation of a theory of life more complex than their own, they have ever encountered the fiercest opposition, of which the Mutiny is the most classic example. As opposed to this tradition, the reforms were essentially educative in quality. The reformers frankly adopted tutorial rôle; they postulated the superiority of Western political vision; nor were they at any pains to consult Indian opinion other than that which, being Anglicised, was denationalised, and therefore entirely unrepresentative of the real country or its needs. The marked characteristics and vigorous prejudices of the masses of India, to whom they conveniently referred as "mute" and "dumb,"s were not only ignored, but the people's angle of vision was actually derided and flouted as childish. Considered as a racial and social cement, or as an efficient administrative and fighting machine, the British Raj in India is and always has been invaluable; but as an intellectual or moral force for the Indian people," oblivious In their own presumptuous language the twin reformers set out "deliberately to disturb the pathetic contentment of 1 As was also true of the Mogul Empire. 2 The White Man's Burden." They are neither. |