From the Five Rivers

Flora Annie Steel

• Publisher: Read & Co. Classics
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781528714426
• eBook ISBN: 9781528788748
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History

"From the Five Rivers" is a 1901 collection of short stories by Flora Annie Steel. Flora Annie Steel (1847 – 1929) was an English writer who notably lived in British India for 22 years and is best remembered for her books set or related to the sub-continent. Like most of her work, these tales are set in colonial India and offer a unique insight into what life was like at that time. The stories include: "Gunesh Chund", "The Blue Monkey", "Shah Sujah's Mouse", "Suttu", "At a Girls' School", "In a Citron Garden", "Nur Jehan", "Shurfu the Zaildar", "Songs of the People", "Plough Song", etc. Other notable works by this author include: "Tales of the Punjab" (1894), "The Flower of Forgiveness" (1894), and "The Potter's Thumb" (1894). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork.

FROM THE FIVE RIVERS.

GUNESH CHUND.

I.

Outside the village a man stood alone in the moonless night. Yet it was not dark; for in the unending depths of violet blue the stars hung many-hued and many-sized—each in their order, so clear, so bright, that the simile "as one star differeth from another in glory" stood out in all its vivid truth, undimmed by the mists of a Western atmosphere.

The man, however, neither looked nor thought of the stars. He had seen them shine thus after the winter rains ever since he had been able to see, and his eyes were full of the shadowy stretch of level fields which seemed to rise towards the pale horizon. There was a fresh, damp smell in the air, and close to his feet some lighter shadows surrounded by darker ones showed that the recent rains had been heavy enough to leave fresh pools of water in the hollows whence the village had been dug—hollows like the skeleton at the feast, serving to remind the inhabitants that their origin was dust, their end the grave.

Toil and moil flung their refuse into these as if in derision; the pitiless eastern rain washed the mud from wall and roof back to its birthplace; but year after year the antlike builders piled more mud over the ruins of the old, until the village, girt by its grave, grew dignified by age, and, gaining renewal from its own mortality, rose higher and higher above the surrounding plain.

Such a treeless, formless plain, circled round by that fillet of paler sky where the stars shone dimly, like distant fire-flies. Not a landmark anywhere, save, behind the man, his own village. By day an ant-hill of low huts; in the soft darkness piled like a fort, lightless, soundless. He turned towards it, his eyes seeking a central block standing higher than the rest. It was his house; the house where he and his forebears for many a generation had been born; where he had stood by his father's death-bed and taken the reins of office from the dying hands; where he, too, hoped to die and pass the headship of the village to some stalwart son. And it was childless as yet. A curious thrill seemed to join heart and hand and brain in a trinity of skill and strength and love, for yonder in that dim house a woman was bringing a child into the world with pains beyond the primal curse; and he, the father, driven by a restlessness new to him, had wandered out into the night to seek patience in action. It could not be over yet; his mother had said it would be long, and the jackals had not yet given their second cry. He turned again to the fields.

"The land is good," he murmured to himself, "the crop is good, and the rain is good. If only this be a son—"

He drew a long breath that was half a sigh. A stir in the thorn enclosures where the cattle were folded for the night caught his practised ear, and he walked towards them, listening. A feeble bleat followed by a patter of feet made him push aside the rude hurdle barring the entrance. Among the crowding sheep and goats the first lamb of the season lay beside its mother, and his eyes lit up as he forced his way through the circle of uncertain elders to reach it. He was in luck to be there, else the first-fruits would have been dead by morning. He lifted the lamb gently, thinking the while that he must divide the flock ere another night, and so run no more risks. As he made his way back to the village with swinging strides the mother trotted after him, bleating, and the village dogs snuffed at his heels silently; they knew better than to bark at Gunesh Chund the head-man, tall and strong; looking all the taller by reason of his white turban and the lank folds of white drapery falling from his high shoulders—so tall, that he had to stoop in order to enter the door leading to the outer court of his house. Within were lights and a cackle of women's voices; but here, in the wide expanse of beaten mud floor, darkness and silence, save for the cud-chewing of the milch kine ranged in one corner, and the rasping rub of a weighted halter through its ring, as the head-man's pony turned at its master's entrance.

Gunesh stood still and called, "Mother! mother!"

An old woman with an oil cresset held above her head came to the inner doorway and peered into the darkness through the flowers and branches garlanding the entrance. Then she set aside the swinging sickle hung to bar all passage to evil spirits, and, stepping out, shook her head at the mute inquiry in her son's eyes.

"Not yet, O Gunesh. But all goes well. 'Twill come with the dawn, like many another. And fear not, O my child. 'Tis a son. The stars and the omens are agreed."

A faint bleat made her set the cresset nearer. "What hast thou there, O Gunesh?"

"The firstling, mother. 'Twas in the fold. I have brought it hither for safety."

The old woman's face shone with delight.

"A ewe lamb! 'Tis another omen; and there is luck in the house to-night; for as the ewe lamb to the fold so is the male child to the hearth. Have no fear, O Gunesh! Have no fear!"

She laid one wrinkled hand on her son's arm, and, with the lamp held high in the other, gazed fondly on his face, curiously like her own—the same refined, aquiline features and narrow forehead; but the man's was less alert than the woman's, and softer, especially now as he stood hesitating.

"And—and—Veru?" he asked, somewhat sheepishly.

His mother shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, Veru! She is well enough. She suffers, but that is the woman's part. 'Twould have been better for her years ago. But she will forget. All women do, and the omens are good—"

A querulous complaint from within, followed by women's voices, made her pause.

"I must return. Folk are so ignorant nowadays, I wonder aught comes right. But thou needst not fear, my son; the old mother knows it all. So! the lamps are lit, the flowers strewn, the spices burned, the chants raised duly. The Great Ones must needs be pleased; and look you, Guneshwa! the sun comes back with the dawn."

"Yea, mother," he answered, meekly, "and sure the firstling shows luck."

When she left him he threw some straw in one corner for the ewe, and guided the tottering lamb towards it, smiling to himself over the frail, ridiculous attempts at escape made by the little creature. The bleats subsided into contented silence, and he groped a stumbling way up the narrow steps leading to the flat, square roof of his house. There he sat down, his back against the parapet wall which gave seclusion to the women's court below, whence a glimmer of light and a murmur of voices reached eyes and ears. The rest was darkness and silence.

"With the dawn," he muttered—"it will come with the dawn."

He took a nugget of opium from an inner pocket, broke off a bit, and having swallowed it set himself deliberately towards patience. Most men of his race would have found the situation simple, and their minds, if on the rack of expectation, would have been free from doubt. Gunesh Chund's heart, however, was softer than most men's—softer than his mother, for instance, deemed a true man's should be. It was occupied with one thought. Supposing it was a girl, after all? What should he do? He could not feel orthodox disgust or anger at the idea. Yet he longed for a son, if only because it would settle so many vexed questions and make...

Table of contents

• GUNESH CHUND.
• THE BLUE MONKEY.
• SHAH SUJAH'S MOUSE.
• SUTTU.
• AT A GIRLS' SCHOOL.
• IN A CITRON GARDEN.
• NUR JEHAN.
• SHURFU THE ZAILDAR[13]
• SONGS OF THE PEOPLE.