Kim was sitting on the edge of a cow’s manger, telling stories to a village smith’s children.
“She will only ask for another son for her daughter. I have not forgotten her,” he said. “Let her acquire merit. Send word that we will come.”
They covered eleven miles through the fields in two days, and were overwhelmed with attentions at the end; for the old lady held a fine tradition of hospitality, to which she forced her son-in-law, who was under the thumb of his womenfolk and bought peace by borrowing of the moneylender. Age had not weakened her tongue or her memory, and from a discreetly barred upper window, in the hearing of not less than a dozen servants, she paid Kim compliments that would have flung European audiences into unclean dismay.
“But thou art still the shameless beggar-brat of the parao ,” she shrilled. “I have not forgotten thee. Wash ye and eat. The father of my daughter’s son is gone away awhile. So we poor women are dumb and useless.”
For proof, she harangued the entire household unsparingly till food and drink were brought; and in the evening—the smoke-scented evening, copper-dun and turquoise across the fields—it pleased her to order her palanquin to be set down in the untidy forecourt by smoky torchlight; and there, behind not too closely drawn curtains, she gossiped.
“Had the Holy One come alone, I should have received him otherwise; but with this rogue, who can be too careful?”
“Maharanee,” said Kim, choosing as always the amplest title, “is it my fault that none other than a Sahib—a polis -Sahib—called the Maharanee whose face he—”
“Chitt! That was on the pilgrimage. When we travel—thou knowest the proverb.”