No More Learning

The World hath set its heavy yoke
Upon the old white-bearded folk
Who strive to please the King.

God's mercy is upon the young,
God's wisdom in the baby tongue
That fears not anything.
--The Parable of Chajju Bhagat.

Now Tods' Mamma was a singularly charming woman, and every one in Simla
knew Tods. Most men had saved him from death on occasions.

He was beyond his ayah's control altogether, and perilled his life daily
to find out what would happen if you pulled a Mountain Battery mule's
tail. He was an utterly fearless young Pagan, about six years old, and
the only baby who ever broke the holy calm of the supreme Legislative
Council.

It happened this way: Tods' pet kid got loose, and fled up the hill, off
the Boileaugunge Road, Tods after it, until it burst into the Viceregal
Lodge lawn, then attached to "Peterhoff. " The Council were sitting at
the time, and the windows were open because it was warm. The Red Lancer
in the porch told Tods to go away; but Tods knew the Red Lancer and most
of the Members of Council personally.

Moreover, he had firm hold of the kid's collar, and was being dragged
all across the flower-beds. "Give my salaam to the long Councillor
Sahib, and ask him to help me take Moti back! " gasped Tods. The Council
heard the noise through the open windows; and, after an interval, was
seen the shocking spectacle of a Legal Member and a Lieutenant-Governor
helping, under the direct patronage of a Commander-in-Chief and a
Viceroy, one small and very dirty boy in a sailor's suit and a tangle
of brown hair, to coerce a lively and rebellious kid. They headed it off
down the path to the Mall, and Tods went home in triumph and told his
Mamma that ALL the Councillor Sahibs had been helping him to catch Moti.
Whereat his Mamma smacked Tods for interfering with the administration
of the Empire; but Tods met the Legal Member the next day, and told him
in confidence that if the Legal Member ever wanted to catch a goat, he,
Tods, would give him all the help in his power. "Thank you, Tods," said
the Legal Member.

Tods was the idol of some eighty jhampanis, and half as many saises.

He saluted them all as "O Brother. " It never entered his head that
any living human being could disobey his orders; and he was the
buffer between the servants and his Mamma's wrath. The working of that
household turned on Tods, who was adored by every one from the dhoby
to the dog-boy. Even Futteh Khan, the villainous loafer khit from
Mussoorie, shirked risking Tods' displeasure for fear his co-mates
should look down on him.

So Tods had honor in the land from Boileaugunge to Chota Simla, and
ruled justly according to his lights. Of course, he spoke Urdu, but he
had also mastered many queer side-speeches like the chotee bolee of the
women, and held grave converse with shopkeepers and Hill-coolies alike.
He was precocious for his age, and his mixing with natives had taught
him some of the more bitter truths of life; the meanness and the
sordidness of it. He used, over his bread and milk, to deliver solemn
and serious aphorisms, translated from the vernacular into the English,
that made his Mamma jump and vow that Tods MUST go home next hot
weather.

Just when Tods was in the bloom of his power, the Supreme Legislature
were hacking out a Bill, for the Sub-Montane Tracts, a revision of the
then Act, smaller than the Punjab Land Bill, but affecting a few
hundred thousand people none the less. The Legal Member had built,
and bolstered, and embroidered, and amended that Bill, till it looked
beautiful on paper. Then the Council began to settle what they called
the "minor details. " As if any Englishman legislating for natives knows
enough to know which are the minor and which are the major points, from
the native point of view, of any measure! That Bill was a triumph of
"safe-guarding the interests of the tenant.