A Little Princess
furniture was rich and beautiful, and a great deal of it was Oriental.
Wonderful rugs and draperies and ornaments were taken from the vans,
many pictures, and books enough for a library. Among other things there
was a superb god Buddha in a splendid shrine.
"Someone in the family MUST have been in India," Sara thought. "They
have got used to Indian things and like them. I AM glad. I shall feel
as if they were friends, even if a head never looks out of the attic
window."
When she was taking in the evening's milk for the cook (there was
really no odd job she was not called upon to do), she saw something
occur which made the situation more interesting than ever. The
handsome, rosy man who was the father of the Large Family walked across
the square in the most matter-of-fact manner, and ran up the steps of
the next-door house. He ran up them as if he felt quite at home and
expected to run up and down them many a time in the future. He stayed
inside quite a long time, and several times came out and gave
directions to the workmen, as if he had a right to do so. It was quite
certain that he was in some intimate way connected with the newcomers
and was acting for them.
"If the new people have children," Sara speculated, "the Large Family
children will be sure to come and play with them, and they MIGHT come
up into the attic just for fun."
At night, after her work was done, Becky came in to see her fellow
prisoner and bring her news.
"It's a' Nindian gentleman that's comin' to live next door, miss," she
said. "I don't know whether he's a black gentleman or not, but he's a
Nindian one. He's very rich, an' he's ill, an' the gentleman of the
Large Family is his lawyer. He's had a lot of trouble, an' it's made
him ill an' low in his mind. He worships idols, miss. He's an 'eathen
an' bows down to wood an' stone. I seen a' idol bein' carried in for
him to worship. Somebody had oughter send him a trac'. You can get a
trac' for a penny."
Sara laughed a little.
"I don't believe he worships that idol," she said; "some people like to
keep them to look at because they are interesting. My papa had a
beautiful one, and he did not worship it."
But Becky was rather inclined to prefer to believe that the new
neighbor was "an 'eathen." It sounded so much more romantic than that
he should merely be the ordinary kind of gentleman who went to church
with a prayer book. She sat and talked long that night of what he
would be like, of what his wife would be like if he had one, and of
what his children would be like if they had children. Sara saw that
privately she could not help hoping very much that they would all be
black, and would wear turbans, and, above all, that--like their
parent--they would all be "'eathens."
"I never lived next door to no 'eathens, miss," she said; "I should
like to see what sort o' ways they'd have."
It was several weeks before her curiosity was satisfied, and then it
was revealed that the new occupant had neither wife nor children. He
was a solitary man with no family at all, and it was evident that he
was shattered in health and unhappy in mind.
A carriage drove up one day and stopped before the house. When the
footman dismounted from the box and opened the door the gentleman who
was the father of the Large Family got out first. After him there
descended a nurse in uniform, then came down the steps two
men-servants. They came to assist their master, who, when he was helped
out of the carriage, proved to be a man with a haggard, distressed
face, and a skeleton body wrapped in furs. He was carried up the
steps, and the head of the Large Family went with him, looking very
anxious. Shortly afterward a doctor's carriage arrived, and the doctor
went in--plainly to take care of him.
"There is such a yellow gentleman next door, Sara," Lottie whispered at
the French class afterward. "Do you think he is a Chinee? The
geography says the Chinee men are yellow."
"No, he is not Chinese," Sara whispered back; "he is very ill. Go on
with your exercise, Lottie. 'Non, monsieur. Je n'ai pas le canif de
mon oncle.'"
That was the beginning of the story of the Indian gentleman.
11
Ram Dass
There were fine sunsets even in the square, sometimes. One could only
see parts of them, however, between the chimneys and over the roofs.
From the kitchen windows one could not see them at all, and could only
guess that they were going on because the bricks looked warm and the
air rosy or yellow for a while, or perhaps one saw a blazing glow
strike a particular pane of glass somewhere. There was, however, one
place from which one could see all the splendor of them: the piles of
red or gold clouds in the west; or the purple ones edged with dazzling
brightness; or the little fleecy, floating ones, tinged with rose-color
and looking like flights of pink doves scurrying across the blue in a
great hurry if there was a wind. The place where one could see all
this, and seem at the same time to breathe a purer air, was, of course,
the attic window. When the square suddenly seemed to begin to glow in
an enchanted way and look wonderful in spite of its sooty trees and
railings, Sara knew something was going on in the sky; and when it was
at all possible to leave the kitchen without being missed or called
back, she invariably stole away and crept up the flights of stairs,
and, climbing on the old table, got her head and body as far out of the
window as possible. When she had accomplished this, she always drew a
long breath and looked all round her. It used to seem as if she had
all the sky and the world to herself. No one else ever looked out of
the other attics. Generally the skylights were closed; but even if
they were propped open to admit air, no one seemed to come near them.
And there Sara would stand, sometimes turning her face upward to the
blue which seemed so friendly and near--just like a lovely vaulted
ceiling--sometimes watching the west and all the wonderful things that
happened there: the clouds melting or drifting or waiting softly to be
changed pink or crimson or snow-white or purple or pale dove-gray.
Sometimes they made islands or great mountains enclosing lakes of deep
turquoise-blue, or liquid amber, or chrysoprase-green; sometimes dark
headlands jutted into strange, lost seas; sometimes slender strips of
wonderful lands joined other wonderful lands together. There were
places where it seemed that one could run or climb or stand and wait to
see what next was coming--until, perhaps, as it all melted, one could
float away. At least it seemed so to Sara, and nothing had ever been
quite so beautiful to her as the things she saw as she stood on the
table--her body half out of the skylight--the sparrows twittering with
sunset softness on the slates. The sparrows always seemed to her to
twitter with a sort of subdued softness just when these marvels were
going on.
There was such a sunset as this a few days after the Indian gentleman
was brought to his new home; and, as it fortunately happened that the
afternoon's work was done in the kitchen and nobody had ordered her to
go anywhere or perform any task, Sara found it easier than usual to
slip away and go upstairs.
She mounted her table and stood looking out. It was a wonderful
moment. There were floods of molten gold covering the west, as if a
glorious tide was sweeping over the world. A deep, rich yellow light
filled the air; the birds flying across the tops of the houses showed
quite black against it.
"It's a Splendid one," said Sara, softly, to herself. "It makes me
feel almost afraid--as if something strange was just going to happen.
The Splendid ones always make me feel like that."
She suddenly turned her head because she heard a sound a few yards away
from her. It was an odd sound like a queer little squeaky chattering.
It came from the window of the next attic. Someone had come to look at
the sunset as she had. There was a head and a part of a body emerging
from the skylight, but it was not the head or body of a little girl or
a housemaid; it was the picturesque white-swathed form and dark-faced,
gleaming-eyed, white-turbaned head of a native Indian man-servant--"a
Lascar," Sara said to herself quickly--and the sound she had heard came
from a small monkey he held in his arms as if he were fond of it, and
which was snuggling and chattering against his breast.
As Sara looked toward him he looked toward her. The first thing she
thought was that his dark face looked sorrowful and homesick. She felt
absolutely sure he had come up to look at the sun, because he had seen
it so seldom in England that he longed for a sight of it. She looked at
him interestedly for a second, and then smiled across the slates. She
had learned to know how comforting a smile, even from a stranger, may
be.
Hers was evidently a pleasure to him. His whole expression altered,
and he showed such gleaming white teeth as he smiled back that it was
as if a light had been illuminated in his dusky face. The friendly look
in Sara's eyes was always very effective when people felt tired or dull.
It was perhaps in making his salute to her that he loosened his hold on
the monkey. He was an impish monkey and always ready for adventure,
and it is probable that the sight of a little girl excited him. He
suddenly broke loose, jumped on to the slates, ran across them
chattering, and actually leaped on to Sara's shoulder, and from there
down into her attic room. It made her laugh and delighted her; but she
knew he must be restored to his master--if the Lascar was his
master--and she wondered how this was to be done. Would he let her
catch him, or would he be naughty and refuse to be caught, and perhaps
get away and run off over the roofs and be lost? That would not do at
all. Perhaps he belonged to the Indian gentleman, and the poor man was
fond of him.
She turned to the Lascar, feeling glad that she remembered still some
of the Hindustani she had learned when she lived with her father. She
could make the man understand. She spoke to him in the language he
knew.
"Will he let me catch him?" she asked.
She thought she had never seen more surprise and delight than the dark
face expressed when she spoke in the familiar tongue. The truth was
that the poor fellow felt as if his gods had intervened, and the kind
little voice came from heaven itself. At once Sara saw that he had
been accustomed to European children. He poured forth a flood of
respectful thanks. He was the servant of Missee Sahib. The monkey was
a good monkey and would not bite; but, unfortunately, he was difficult
to catch. He would flee from one spot to another, like the lightning.
He was disobedient, though not evil. Ram Dass knew him as if he were
his child, and Ram Dass he would sometimes obey, but not always. If
Missee Sahib would permit Ram Dass, he himself could cross the roof to
her room, enter the windows, and regain the unworthy little animal.
But he was evidently afraid Sara might think he was taking a great
liberty and perhaps would not let him come.
But Sara gave him leave at once.
"Can you get across?" she inquired.
"In a moment," he answered her.
"Then come," she said; "he is flying from side to side of the room as
if he was frightened."
Ram Dass slipped through his attic window and crossed to hers as
steadily and lightly as if he had walked on roofs all his life. He
slipped through the skylight and dropped upon his feet without a sound.
Then he turned to Sara and salaamed again. The monkey saw him and
uttered a little scream. Ram Dass hastily took the precaution of
shutting the skylight, and then went in chase of him. It was not a very
long chase. The monkey prolonged it a few minutes evidently for the