KARUPEN: DRIVER OF BULLS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1832, 17 April 1907, Page 4

KARUPEN: DRIVER OF BULLS

(By Marmaduke Athorpe.)

“M’k—m’k —pi-taah!” Thus shrieked Karupen, the bullockdriver, to the two big white bulls, the while he twisted the tail of one and prodded the other with his stick, urging them up the steep and winding road to Thannegalla Estate. This was my second visit to Thannegalla. My host, Norman Maxwell, is known in th© Island for his breed of white trotting, bulls, and as a planter who has a knack of enforcing his opinion at meetings of the Thirty Com-

mittee, and elsewhere; as one also who has views on the subject of green teas. Maxwell is a good fellow, and I like him, his comfortable- bungalow, and his hospital wife. But a wise man will not deny the obvious; and a faet of the most obvious kind it was that the dark blue eyes and the bright brown hair of Mass Dorothy Maxwell were of a sort to justify any man in paying a second visit to Thannegalla. She was sitting now by my side in the roomy hackery. A hackery (I am not sure of the spelling) is a two-wheeled passenger-vehicle intended for bullock traction. Ics use is, for the most part, confined to natives; but Maxwell is proud of his bulls,* and prefers using them to killing horses on the cruel hills of his district. He keeps a couple of horses, too; he is a fearless horseman with a rudimentary seat. “M’k —m’k-—pi-taah!” said Karupen to the straining bulls in a tone of savage encouragement. “Listen !” said Dorothy to me. I listened. From round a spur of the"tearclad hill which rose steeply on our left came the rumble and the creaking of many wheels... and a multitudinous echo of Karupen’s cry. “Those are the Multwelle carts coming down,” remarked Miss Dorothy. “We shall meet them on the narrowest and steepest part of the road, as usual. I am glad we have Karupen.” So was I, two minutes later! His energy in diving the bulls up and along the sun-soorched road had already stirred in me a languid sense of admirations Now he achieved the impossible, and forced them into a trot, So we got round bond before the approaching carts and took the inside. The Carts were, to all intents and innumerable; and each one was a separate danger, to us and to road here was so narrow that, even on the fiat, the passing of

two vehicles had been a matter of delicate adjustment; and on the off-side the hill was a precipice. It dropped sheer —'nearly sheer —to a reeky ravine where brown water tumbled among the stones. And all the carts were piled high with square whit© chests of tea. The man in charge of the leading cart had something to say. He was a Sinhalese, as I could tell by bis chocolatecoloured skin and the red and white petticoat he wore. He also made an attempt to edge his bulls between us and the hillside. But Karupen had a great deal more to say. In a level voice, pitched somewhere about the level of a high C, he poured out a stream, a resistless torrent, of invective. The other was suddenly withered up; he wilted like a plant under a furnace blast. He pulled his cattle aside and we crept past. To mo, a mere “passenger”—a globetrotter —“pekin” would surely be the Ceylon man’s word, if the Ceylon man were in the habit of using French, to designate such as have the misfortune merely to visit his beautiful island; to me, I say, it was not given to understand the remarks of Karupen. But a glance at the flushed and averted face of my companion led me to the belief that Miss Dorothy was not quite so ignorant of the picturesque Tamil language as her worthy father supposed. ■We crept past five—six —seven of the heavily-ladea carts, which moved sulkily out of our path and balanced themselves on the edge of the precipice under the resistless influence of Karupen s scorching tongue. He, walking by the hackery pole at the heels of his own white bulls, had a varied supply of scorn and contumely for the drivers as he passed them; I judged that the quality was nicely assorted to suit the particular needs of each. That he recounted lurid fairy-tales about their ancestors, I feel certain ; the very bulls

seemed to shrink modestly from him as he went. I did not dare to look again at Miss Dorothy. I hoped that her father was correct in his estimation of her knowledge. Driver of No. 8 cart was a truculent fellow. He stopped Lis cattle fairly in the middle of the road and hurled sn insult at Karupen. He pointed at the precipice and at us, and waved his arms. His bulls leaned against each other sadly. Karupen seemed to gather his legs under him for a spring. He was silent for a moment while he unwound the dirty white cloth from his head, letting a mess of oily black hair fall on his shoulders. 'This, I found afterwards, was his habit at the approach of a crisis. . His reply to his opponent went m a whistle and a hiss. I have never regretted so much that I do not know Tamil. The other man turned his head and spat. He, too, seemed to shrink into a smaller man, and involuntarily he pulled the cord he held. His hulls moved aside. “Pi-taah!” said Karupen; and we passed on, grazing the axle of the cart cn one side and a mighty rock on the other. Ono of ouc wheels was in the drain’, so that Miss Dorothy slid down the tilted seat, and, perforce, her pink blouse came exhilaratingly into confiding contact with my coat. I considered that the situation was sufficiently alarming to justify a protecting arm round the pink silk blouse. So w© progressed; as to Karupen, with increasing blasphemy, which, sown broadcast, seemed to bring forth an over-generous crop among the sweating teamsters on the road behind. But it was not untal we came tothe last —the twenty-seventh— cart that Kampen really showed us what maimer of man h© It© driver waa & brainy, bearded fellow with hair ©3a

his chest and an ugly eye. He deliberately steered his cattle towards the inside of the road. Our little Tamil seemed to recognis* that this was no case for words alone. He said something, confidentially, to the white bulls, who stood at the word and muched placidly. He darted from behind them, under the pole, and said something else, forcibly, to the other bulls. He also smote the nearer ono with his open hand, and prodded him in the ribs with his stick. Those wise animals understood that here was their master. Forgotten was their legitimate lord, he of the hairy chest who was wont to twist their tails. They moved, and -the cart moved—towards the precipice. What followed was very rapid in its happening. Simultaneously with the rending crash of a cart-wheel as it broke, I saw the frantic leap aside of the hairy Sinhalese. His bulls, falling and struggling madly, saved themselves only because the ropes bound over the tea-chests snapped, and the whole cargo went by the board. Most of the boxes crashed gaily down into the ravine; one fell cracking by our wheel. “Broken Orange Pekoe,” Miss Dorothy read from the splintered side of this box. “There "will be trouble over this —for somebody.” •Her voice was quite calm. My eyes never shifted from the Sinhalese, who suddenly swung round, with a savage oath, from the saddening spectacle of 'his fallen bulls and the scattered tea-chests. lie leaped a couple of yards towards us, his hand on a knife, half-draw’n from the sheath at his side. Then he stopped. I glanced at Karupen. That gentleman was wearing a smile of quiet amusement. He made some genial remark, unintelligible to me, and popped into his mouth a little pellet—betel, I suppose. The** he turned and twisted a white tail. “M’k—m’k —pi-taah,” he said; and we went on. I drew breath, and looked at Miss Dorothy. She also seemed' quietly amused. _ “Your—or —coachman,” I remarked, “seems to be a masterful man—to put it mildly.” “Well, of course we had the right bo the inside of the road.” “No doubt,” I replied. “But ” My admiration grew. “Why!” I cried, “the mail' ought to be a field-marshal, -or a company-promoter. And here ho is diving hulls. ’ - “He’s the best bull-driver in Ceylon,” said Miss Dorothy. 11. It was on an evening a couple of days later that I next saw the masterful Karupen. THe window of my room looked out upon the compound where Maxwell was wont to give audience to such of his coolies as had complaints or petitions to bring before him. His office was, in fact, next to my bedroom, and, like it, looked upon the compound. I was shaving before dinner, when sounds of woe approaching fell upon my ear. The voice was the cracked voice of a half-growm boy; it expressed unutterable grief and terror. “Ayoh, Dorai!” it said. “Ayoh!— Ayoh !•—DoraiP I looked out. The compound was, of course, in darkness; but the light from the next window 7 fell upon a crouching figure. The figure’s head was on the ground—black oily hair, unbound, like Cassandra’s, coiled in the dust. This miserable object ceased not to wail for his Dorai (nis master), who was also, as he did not fail to remark (I understood this much),., his father and his mother and his only protector. maxwell’s voice came sharply from the next room. The figure stood up slowly and salaamed humbly. I looked; it was Karupen. None other than Karupen, the redoubtable. The masterful Karupen, who only two days before had, by sheer oourage and force of will, compelled twenty-seven quarrelsome carters to make way for him, and had practically thrown a cart over the precipice because one of them had dared to oppose him seriously; and EaS smiled thereafter. What dreadful happening had , broken his proud spirit and brought him to this pass? I looked and listened. Maxwell appeared to question the mam shortly; and Karupen answered volubly and miserably, glancing over his shoulder the while, as though in terror of something or somebody behind him. He }

gesticulated; he tore off his coat aud turned his shoulder to the light, pointing. I heard Maxwell laugh. Then he called out, “Ramaie, inge va!” A woman, a tiny woman, and not uncomely, appeared out of the shadows - -Karupen shrank at her ai>proaeh—nay, . he scorned to shiver. Maxwell questioned r or. She answered with _a shrill and rapid and seemingly endless story, which was interrupted at intervals by grunts from Maxwell and whining protestations from Karupen. I finished dressing and went into the drawing-room. ' f l have had,” I remarked to Miss Dorothy, “a painful shock.” She was sitting in the rose-shaded light of a big lamp, sewing, and sire looked so remarkably pretty that, admiring her, I fell silent and forgot what I was goi lg to say. Two dark blue eyes turned on me with disconcerting suddenness. “Yes? I’m sorry; what was it, and ' did it hurt ? ” 1 moved into .a chair nearer the lamp, so that I could get a better view of the embroidery she was working at. “No,” I answered, “it doesn't really hurt —much. But, perhaps, you don’t realise how dangerous it is ?” She looked at me again—over a white shoulder this time, and that, I ■ maintain, was downright wicked. “You didn’t go out this afternoon without a sun-hat, did you ?” she asked, anxiously. “No.” I’m afraid that an enemy might have called my tone sulky. “And fifty sun-hats wouldn’t make any difference ” “Oh, they would—they would,” she answered, with much feeling. “You can’t be too careful in this climate. You could have seven, one for each day in the week, and one over for Sundays. You could wear them all over you nearly, and- ” “I know the climate is dangerous,” I interrupted, moodily. “You told me just now, when I came in, that ” “Oh, when you came in I didn’t say anything. I just looked uo, and * '. you“Exactly. You told me that I am the sort of fellow you might get rather fond of if I were to behave prettily, and “Mr Carson!” The rose colour on her cheeks was not all borrowed from the shade over the big lamp. She dropped the embroidery. I picked it up, and her hand with’ it. “There’s father coming in!” she said; but I had time to kiss a little goldbrown' curl on her neck. We went in to dinner. Simon, the head boy, handed round soup, and we chatted airily about green teas, or some other similar subject. Then Dorothy remarked, demurely: “Mother, when you and. father came into the drawing-room just now, Mr Carson was telling me that he had redelved a painful shock. Don’t you think he might give us details?” All eyes, including Dorothy’s wicked blue ones, turned on me. “Ha ! Yes, Maxwell,” I said —and I believe I glared at the kindly gentleman as though he had been a hostile witness' -under cross-examination—“l heard, and saw, a distressing scene under your office window this evening. ’Karupen—the great Karupen- ” “The great Karupen?” My genial host looked puzzled. “Oh you heard the row- between that scoundrel and his wife.-” He chuckled. “His wife?” said I. “Yes; he’s more trouble than all the coolies in that set of lines. If he weren’t such a good man with the bulls I’d have given -him his tundu—-the sack, y’know—-long ago. Came whimpering to me that his wife had beaten him with a paddy-pounder—driven him out of his . hut ; wouldn’t let him eat * his rice, and so forth. She . said he’d been carrying on with eome girl—happens onoe a week—he goes in terror of. his life—“Well,’’.. I said. It was all . that I found to<?say. That man : whose, courage und.: foo-ee of character : had gone fax towards raising in my estimation the whole raoe of Tamils,

hitherto comfortably despised; who had smiled derisively in the teeth of a murderous and hairy Sinhalese —should be beaten out of his house with a —a what was it?—a paddy-pounder! Oh, the indignity of it! And that he should go in terror of a little bit of a woman no bigger than a child, and come cringing to his Dorai for protection—his head in the dust! What a fearful institution was this matrimony, that could bring a man so low! I looked at Miss Dorothy. I wondered whether a kiss on a goldenbrown curl could be fairly interpreted into a proposal of marriage. I reflected, however, that whatever might be the verdict on that point, Miss Dorothy had certainly net accepted a.ny proposal, either expmssed or implied. 1 had no further opportunity of private speech with her that evening, and went to bed in a meditative mood. The nortli-east monsoon had been “hanging about” for days; tribes of three or four inches of rain had been recoided. It swooped down that night with decisive vigour; all through the dark hours the rush of waters and the roar of wind was in my ears. “Seven poi.it thirty-seven,” was Maxwell’s report at early tea. Part of one of the coo-ie lines had been washed down during the night; considerable damage had, doubtless, been done to roads arid paths in various parts of the estate. The morning, however, was bright and sunny, though there was a bonding gale. Miss Dorothy had arranged to ride over to a friend’s estate some ten miles distant, and would not be dissuaded. “You’ll get wot,” said her father. “'Shan’t melt,” she replied. “Take the hackery," was his next suggestion, “ Yanity’ wants exercise,” said she; “and so do I.” “You’ll be blown off,” said her father, kindly. “I can stick on a horse,” she answered, with a good deal of emphasis. Maxwell, rather red about the gills, subsided. Here, it seemed to me, was further food for reflection. An interesting subject, if trite and a thought painful ■ —-the pitiful inadequacy of a strongwilled, self-reliant man to cope with that dainty fraud, a female girl. Truth and innocence are in her eyes, unselfishness and grace are in every line of her delicate features, and she gets her own way all the time. She will wheedle where she cannot bully, she will dissimulate and ..outflank you when a frontal attack has failed.; this way or that—she gets there. And the fool, man, loves her for it—sometimes. So we watched Miss Dorothy ride away, the horsekeeper, smart in his livery of white cotton, red sash, and red and white turban, running by her side. I caught the expression on Maxwell’s face. How proud the man was of his daughter! Dispassionately I had to admit that there was some justification for his pride; more, perhaps, than is usual in similar cases. She was an attractive figure; sitting squarely in the saddle, her supple body swaying lightly to the playful curveting of her pretty chestnut mare. She turned her bright face and waved us good-bye at the corner of the road. I was conscious of a momentary feeling of regret that she had omitted to ask me to accompany her. But the morning was to be devoted to a tour with Maxwell of a part of the estate which I had not yet seen. There was evidence in plenty of the fury of the storm. More than one big tree along the boundary of jungle had paid the penalty of greatness; here and there we came upon “wash-aways” more or less serious. We met one of the S.D.’s—assistants. He had a tale of woe. “That big culvert,” he said, “in the fifty-acre field, has fallen in. I’ve been afraid of it for some time ■” “Then why in thunder didn’t you have it looked to?” Maxwell inquired, amiably. “Wasn’t allowed the coolies,” replied the young fellow, and I fancied the suggestion of a grin on'his face —a sign of some secret satisfaction. “W© shan’t,” he went on, “be able to get the leaf-carts to Division 2 until it’s repaired, co I’m putting on Rengan Kangany and a dozen good men ” “All right.” Maxwell was plainly annojed. “Those drains can’t have been kept properly clean.” All planters, without exception, sooner or later develop a hobby in connection with their work. Some develop several. I learnt afterwards from this S.D., in confidence, that Maxwell’s hobby was consistently to disallow the employment of labour on roads and drains; and I gathered that this peculiarity made the S.D.’s young life a sad one. “Believe he thinks,” he said, with some feeling, “that I ought to go .round after tea and dean out the blessed drains with a toothpick.” The monsoon had not done with us yet, by any means, even for this day. Black clouds rushed up. and, by halfpast nine, we were trudging through a rain-storm that was nothing less than a. riotous collection of baby waterspouts. Outdoor work was impossible. After iterating hot haths we got Into dry

clothes and split a whisky and soda while waiting for the eleven o’clock breakfast. Breakfast over, Maxwell read the paper on the verandah, according to custom. He read it with his eyes shut for the space of five-and-thirty minutes. He then put on a ram-coat and an umbrella and waded forth to the factory. I remained on the verandah watching the sloping rods of rain as they struck without ceasing the half-drowned earth, and the curving spouts of water from the gutter on the roof. The rain fascinated me; it was so intensely thorough. From the big ravine below the bungalow came the roar of an hourly swelling torrent; and like an accompaniment to the ear-filling harmony of rushing waters was the croaking of a million delirious frogs. At half-past four tea came, and Mrs Maxwell. She professed herself a little anxious about Dorothy. “I only hope,” she said, “that they have kept' her at Rosewall. But if they had, they would surely have semt a coolie with a chit. The road is very steep, and with this rain it -was washed away for about thirty yards last nortlieast monsoon. The Garveys’ pony-trap rolled down into the ravine. Yes, fortunately only the horsekeeper was in it. He had a leg broken, though the pony was hardly scratched. He was found the next morning eating the thatch off a villager’s hut. No, the pony, not the horsekeeper. One lump of sugar, isn’t it? The horsekeeper? Oh, they had to cut his leg off. He was delighted. Mr Garvey gave him twenty rupees, and they say he’s getting quite rich as a beggar outside the Queen’s Hotel at Kandy. Yes, nearly eight inches of rain since six o’clock this morning, so Appu told me just now. One almost feels afriad that the bungalow is going to be washed away. But I really am a little anxious about Dorothy. If Norman would come in I think I should ask him to send a ooolie over to Rosewell —and I really don’t know why he doesn’t come in. It is past his usual time.” It was at this juncture that Simon

appeared, shuffling rather on his feet. “Please lady ” ho began. Mrs Maxwell looked up. ‘What is it, Simon,” she asked. “Please lady,” he said, “Sadayan come from Estore, and master ” He stopped again. “Well?” Vve were both standing now, the lady’s face full of alarm. “Master slip on steps,” Simon went on, his eyes rolling, “and fall. Sadayan say bone of master’s leg broken here”; he placed his hand on his brown ankle. He looked at me. “Master say will master come to the Estore and bring some weesky.” I raced up to the store through the streaming rain, carrying a whisky bottle, half full, and found that Maxwell’s hurt was no worse than a badlysprained ankle. His comments on the mishap were sufficiently profane to reassure me as to the state of his health otherwise. We rigged up a sort of litter out of a length of jutehessian and a couple of poles, and conveyed him to the bun£al° w ' . ... - We had just got him comfortably settled on a long chair, with a vinegar

compress round the injured joint, when a curious sound on the verandah attracted my attention. It was neither a cough, nor a whine, nor a spit, hut some miserable compound of all three. I went out. The deplorable object which shivered and mowed before me like a terrified ape was none other that Miss Dorothy’s horsekeeper. What a change was here from the spruce-liveried groom who had trotted gaily out through the stable gate that morning! He was soaked to the skin, of course, and plastered with mud all down one side of him. Hlq black hair hung down, the battered remains of a no-coloured turban stuck rakishly over one ear. “Ayoh, Dorai!” He shivered and whined, his hands before his face. I turned into the room again. My heart was very small and cold within me. “Here is Miss Dorothy’s horsekeeper,” I said. ' “What!” Maxwell tried to rise, and rapped out an oath as the twinge in his ankle caught him. in. The wretched horsekeeper, standing in the doorway and dripping streams of muddy water on to the mat, was persuaded by the lash of Maxwell’s tongue to tell bis story with such a brevity and clearness as is possible to a Tamil. It appeared that Miss Dorothy had set out upon her homeward ride at about half-past four. All had gone well until they reached a spot about five miles from Rosewall, and therefore about midway on their journey. Here they had to cross a culvert, one of many, and even as they stepped upon it—so said the horsekeeper—th& great trunk of an uprooted tree swung down on the torrent, and the stones of the culvert crumbled beneath them. All - three of them—Miss Dorothy, the mare and he—fell into the ravine together, and himself—so he said, and we found afterwards that it was true—• had pulled his young lady out of the swirling water on to the bank. The mare had departed vaguely into the vasty void. And alas, Miss Dorothy had discovered that she oould not put her foot to the ground—oould not walk —no, not a step. And so—and so he had left her there*, and come running —ah, how ho had run—and—“Ayoh, Dorai!” “Was ever such cursed luck Carson?” cried Maxwell. “Looks as though she’d sprained her ankle too. God send it’s no worse! Poor little girl, out there all alone in the rain—damme if I don’t go, ankle or no ankle. Boy!” “Rot,” said I, rudely, “what am I for? You can’t stand.” He tried and found that he couldn’t. “Hew shall I go?” I asked. We shall want some conveyance for Miss Dorothy ” Simon was at the door. “Tell ’em to put the bulls to the iia#ker*y, boy, sharp!” said Maxwell. I rJ.n for my rain-coat, overtaking the hurrying Simon. A thought struck me. “Simon,” I said, “see that it’s Karupen that drives those bulls—understand ?” ...

If Yes, master/’ said Simon, witih a grin. * It was nearly six o’clock, and falling dusk. Karupen turned to me and showed his teeth in a friendly smile as we started. Two coolies with lanterns ran on ahead, and the shivering horsekeeper sat on the back seat of the hackery. Wo took brandy and bandages and vinegar for the sprained ankle. Mrs Maxwell had been with much difficulty persuaded no t to come herself. The rain poured mercilessly, the water roared in the valleys. Karupen drove those bulls down the hill at a racing pace, so that the lan-tern-bearing coolies had much ado to keep ahead. One suddenly dropped - over the side of the road —down a short cut, as I could see from the twinkling light as we passed. Darkness' fell rapidly. We swung on, and round a sharp corner. “Pifcaah!” said Karupen to the protesting bulls. ' Then came a warning- shout and the flash of a lantetrn from just in front. With difficulty Karupen stopped the bulls. He shrieked an angry question. The answer came urgently through tKe streaming night. Karupen, as usual, took command. The two coolies, evidently acting under his orders/stationed themselves at the outside edge of the road, some five yards apart. We crawled forward cautiously for a few paces; then Karupen told his bulls to wait for him, and went ahead by himself to scan the road; I stood lip and looked. By the dim light of the lanterns I could not see much,' but I could see a great deal more than enough. A great curved piece had broken away out of the solid road—it looked as if it had been bitten out —and had fallen into what might have been, and for all practical purposes probably was, a bottomless .pit,, l could swear that there were not six feet'of road left between the bank and the edge of this yawning gap. As I looked there was an ominous rattle of falling stones. The horsekeeper dropped off the back of the hackery. I believe—l am not /sure —that I had it in my mind to follow his example; but Karupen, darting back to his place at the heels of his cattle, flashed at me a smile'and a word. I thought, incongruously, of a little Brown woman with a paddyipounder, and stayed where 1 was. Jt haveV heard of a hbrseman : ‘‘lifting” his horse over a bigfence, and I believe I know ;dimly v wliat the' expression means. If any human being ever lifted any animal over anything, Kara-

pen lifted those bulls, and the hackery behind them, and me, across and along that crumbling ledge of road between the bank and the dark brown slope of mud that fell into the darkness. He gave one piercing yell, threw his weight against the pole and—seemingly by main force—pushed th cattle, ,before him. There was a sickening lurch; the nearside wheel spun—l am sure of it—for a second in vacancy, and bit again on solid earth. Another lurch, and we were across. JXarupen turned to me, grinning, and tied his apology for a turban round his black head. Then we went on. Five minutes more brought us to the broken culvert, and the horsekeeper, seizing one of the lanterns, led me down a bank of slippery stones and still more slippery mud. A few yards from the road, under the inadequate shelter of an overhanging rock, her head resting against a big stone, we found Miss Dorothy, a 'very small, much bedraggled, and altogether pitiful figure. She was very pale,, and she was sound asleep. The fliash of the lantern awoke her, and I administered brandy, neat. She gasped, and then sat up. I didn’t seem to find anything to say, or for some reason didn’t feel able to say it. She looked at me. “Have they found the mare?” she asked. ‘‘-Not yet, I think,” I answered. ‘‘But,” I went on lamely, “I’ve no doubt that ” ' “Oh, 1 hope she’s not hurt. Where’s father ?" “He’s sprained his ankle -” Miss Dorothy fell into uncontrollable laughter. “Ob, poor old father!” she murmured; “what did he say? But perhaps you’d better not tell me,” she went on, hastily. “What are we going to do now? I’ve a sort of notion that my ankle is sprained too —we shall have to nurse each other, father and J. It’s too funny.” •She broke again into misplaced merriment. What we are going to do now presented itself to me as a problem of some difficulty. To take the hackery up the hill again was an obvious impossibility, even for Karupen. Climbing to the road, I discovered that our invaluable driver of bulls had found a way. He had decided that, by placing a few of the big stones of the broken culvert in certain positions, and by making use of the tree-trunk which, having caused the damage, now lay conveniently across the watercourse, it would be possible to get the empty hackery to the other side. It was desperately risky, and was only rendered possible by the fact that the outside arch of the culvert remaim ed intact, the water having, instead of completing its work of destruction, burrowed a way for itself below. And at last it was done; the bulls, with blind —and, it must be said, justified—• faith in their driver, balanced themselves, apparently on nothing, above the raging torrent; the wheels rocked from stone to stone or skidded along the tree-trunk, and the hackery was on firm ground again. We were free to take Miss Dorothy back to Rosewall. There was room for a man to walk along the unbroken edge of the culvert, and by this way I carried her across, thanks to Providence and my good parents, who had endowed me with a strong hack and a fairly steady head. Her face was very close to mine as I lifted her into the hackery. I bent and kissed her rain-wet cheek. She said nothing at all. “Does you foot hurt you very much, Dolly?” I whispered. “No, thank you, Mr Carson,” sho answered, very demurely; “it—it is not very bad.” I wrapped her in rugs and settled her as comfortably as possible on the seat, placing myself so that I could nurse the injured foot. Fortunately, she was not wearing-hoots, and I was able, by undoing a few buttons as gently as my clumsy fingers would allow me, to free the poor swollen ankle from the leather which held it so cruelly tight. -■ I held the little stockinged foot in my hand. We were going very slowly to avoid jolts. “If,” I suggested, “this stocking could he removed ■” For a second she did not speak. Then she bent forward a little from her corner. “Please -” she said. I turned my head and stared over my shoulder into the 'slow-moving darkness of the jungle, holding the

little foot the while, until her fingers touched mine, and I felt, the loose folds of the silk stocking. I drew that off and put it in my pocket. The poor little bare foot was burning hot as to the ankle, and frozen cold as to the toes. I rather think I kissed it. I had my vinegar-soaked bandage ready, and bound it up as gently, I’ll swear, and as snugly, as any surgeon oould have done. Then I wrapped it in the folds of the rug. “That more comfy?” I asked. “Yes, thank you; much.” We fell silent for a while. The rainsoaked shadows of the jungle joggled past. I -was thinking, and looking at the back of Karupen’s head. “Dolly,” I said, and then checked myself. “No—l think I like ‘Dorothy’ better. Dorothy, dear, when I get married ” “Oh!” Her voioe, a little weak, but quite clear, interrupted me out of the darkness. “Are you thinking of getting married, Mr Carson?” “Yes, of course,” I answered. “I’m going to marry you. Didn’t you know?” “Oh! You—never said anything about it.” I fancied a little choky sound at the end of the sentence. Was it possible that she was laughing? or crying? I had to find out, of course. This time it was an entirely satisfactory kiss. I became aware of her lips curving into an irresistible smile, which, on the instant, broke into a rippling peal of laughter. Even Karupen turned his head. “When I—when we are married,” I went on, with a touch of very proper severity, “I shall crimp this Karupen from your father.” “Oil! Why?” She was holding my hands in hers. “I think he would be a good man to have about the place. He would bo a perpetual reminder to me of the depths to which a truly great 'man may fall if he lets bis wife beat him with a paddy “M’k—m’k—pi—taah!” said Karupen, as we drew up to Rose wall bungalow. —“Grand Magazine.”