1.02.02. Book 2: Ch 2. The Brownie

CHAPTER II

I SAW her first in a palm wood in the evening, and so I always associate her with the rustle of the evening wind in the big fan leaves of the palmyra palm.

We had been visiting in a village near our bunga­low, a stuffy unwelcoming village, and were on our way home. She had followed us with some other children, and we stopped, sat down on the red sand floor, and talked with the group of children.

I noticed her at once. She was a downy, brownie, dear little thing, with soft brown eyes that looked up in wonder, and the roundest, dearest, little fat person covered with skin as smooth as satin. Some­how I called her the Brownie in my mind, and for years that was my name for her; though a friend who saw her soon after she came to us thought her more like a wren than anything else, and always called her Little Bird. The children listened as we told them a story of the Sufferer of sufferers, Lover of lovers, their Saviour. They listened as intelligent children listen to a story of power heard for the first time and then with a brief "Amma, Salaam" they left us. Not long afterwards two little girls appeared at the bungalow. One of the two was a beautiful child, I can see her now. She was a sort of fawn colour and her eyes were like two jewels. The other was the Brownie.

"We have come to be joined," they remarked, glancing round the room as if taking stock of their future home.

"Joined to what, you dear morsels?"

"To the Way." (She meant to our Religion.) The fawn-coloured child then explained that they were children of the Goldsmith caste and, having heard us "preach" in the palm wood one evening they had made up their minds our religion was good and they wished to be "joined."

"Yes," said the Brownie, lifting her trustful eyes to ours, "we come for that. Join us, please." When Christiana told Mercy about the Wicket Gate, and Mercy believed her, Christiana then was glad at her heart for that she had prevailed with this poor maid to fall in love with her own salvation. I felt like Christiana then, but had not her further joy of a going on together, in the flesh at any rate; for the village at our gates was as Hindu in spirit as it could possibly be. With all its strength it hated the thought of any single one of its inhabit­ants becoming a Christian, and twice quite lately (for the first time in its history) this disgrace had befallen it. Nothing we could say or do had appeased it. We knew there was not much chance of our being allowed even to teach the little girls in their own homes, once it was known they wanted to be Christians. As for keeping them, they were, of course, too young to choose for themselves, and it is a criminal offence to keep a child under sixteen (they looked about twelve). Even if they had been sixteen, it would have been very difficult to prove it. For horoscopes (those birth-documents which in rural India are the only birth register known) can easily be faked to make the age what­ever the relatives desire. The age in the civil court, to which appeal can always be made, is eighteen, and here again the treacherous horoscope is open to manipulation. So to "join" these two dear small people was manifestly out of the question.

It was very hard to make them understand. With their reproachful eyes turned sorrowfully on me I remember trying to explain to them that they could be "joined" to the Lord Jesus, even though we could not possibly keep them. I told them as much as I could of His love for them, and promised in His Name that He would take care of them and strengthen them to suffer for Him; for the stern law of suffering would, I knew, touch their lives at once, and I dared not hide it from them. To prepare them to face it, to put them on the track of winning through, that was my one business; and often I wonder, when about such work, where in the history of our religion we first dropped the painful Cross, and forgot to go back for it. But they were desperately disappointed, poor children, and I feared did not absorb very much of all this. When it broke on them that they must immediately go back, the Brownie cried.

Some weeks passed. It seemed as though the village had swallowed them up. Not a word could we hear about them. At last I could stand it no longer, and taking a courageous Indian woman with me, I went to the Brownie’s home intending to see the head of the house and ask to be allowed to teach her. But on the way I saw her. She was in an open back yard, busy about some house­work.

Now we had done nothing wrong, we had not kept the children more than a few minutes that day when they came to be "joined," but had sent them straight back, so I did not expect anything very dreadful to happen, and joyfully went towards the Brownie who as joyfully ran to me.

Instantly the place was ablaze-shouts, howls, yells, imprecations and denunciations. Men and women and, of course, the inevitable children, one on top of the other, clamouring at us and snatching at the Brownie. Can you see it? I can, and hear it too, though it happened many years ago. I can feel too the blazing sun pouring down on us all, and smell the dust kicked up in clouds all round us. But the thing that is most vivid is the memory of the sight of the Brownie in the grip of a huge man who was twisting her wrists, to punish her for wanting to speak to me.

Forsaken My spirit was greatly set on fire, and my soul was in distress.- 2Es 6:37.