No More Learning

Again and again they sung, as if their hearts
would break, their version of the chorus of "The Wearing of the Green":

"They're hanging men and women, too,
For the wearing of the green,"

A diabolical inspiration came to me. One of the brats, a boy about eight
years old--could he have been in the fields last night? --was watching
me as he sung. I pulled out a rupee, held the coin between finger and
thumb, and looked--only looked--at the gun leaning against the wall.
A grin of brilliant and perfect comprehension overspread his
porringer-like face. Never for an instant stopping the song, he held out
his hand for the money, and then slid the gun to my hand. I might
have shot Namgay Doola dead as he chanted, but I was satisfied. The
inevitable blood-instinct held true. Namgay Doola drew the curtain
across the recess. Angelus was over.

"Thus my father sung. There was much more, but I have forgotten, and I
do not know the purport of even these words, but it may be that the god
will understand. I am not of this people, and I will not pay revenue. "

"And why? "

Again that soul-compelling grin.
"What occupation would be to me between
crop and crop? It is better than scaring bears. But these people do not
understand. "

He picked the masks off the floor and looked in my face as simply as a
child.

"By what road didst thou attain knowledge to make those deviltries? " I
said, pointing.

"I cannot tell. I am but a Lepcha of Darjiling, and yet the stuff"--

"Which thou hast stolen," said I.

"Nay, surely. Did I steal? I desired it so. The stuff--the stuff. What
else should I have done with the stuff? " He twisted the velvet between
his fingers.

"But the sin of maiming the cow--consider that. "

"Oh, sahib, the man betrayed me; the heifer's tail waved in the
moonlight, and I had my knife.