Page:Between the twilights being studies of Indian women by one of themselves (IA betweentwilights00soraiala).pdf/187

Rh being in the secret of the world-things. Once or twice in our pathless journey we passed through a village, so close that I could reach a hand and scratch a soft pink nose of cow or buffalo at its tethering. The peasant house-holder lay stretched in his winding-sheet asleep on the unguarded threshold. No reason for worry or watch-dog when all your wealth is in dear Mother-Earth, guarded by the floating fluid come down from Heaven for that same purpose. How good will be the rice crop after this soaking he knows full well, that slow-minded one who sleeps so blissfully.

But it is after midnight, and we have arrived. And next morning there are secrets again, but of a different kind, in the air, and my work is cut out for me.

It was the little daughter who was most difficult to manage. “How could she visit her Mother?” she would be bewitched. Had they not on such-and-such a day—it was the fifth day of the dark fortnight in the month of the Spring games—had they not, her Mother’s minions, thrown mustard in her path as she walked? Did the Miss Sahib not know that that was a powerful breeder of demons?