Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/481

 the Western Border of India. 445

Border, — one Gamu cast eyes at the wife of Mitha Khan ("the Sweet Lord"), and deflected her from the path of strict virtue. This was a matter which caused Mitha to cry out for justice, and the sense of the tribe decided that Gamu should give Mitha Khan his sister and pay a fine of £1^ 6s. 8d. in compensation for his victim's wounded feelings. When the award was duly complied with, his love was to be his for ever, but meanwhile, pending adjust- ment, she was sent back to the house of her husband, who no longer wished to dye his hands in her blood. The marriage of the sister presented no difficulties, but the raising of the fine did, and Gamu was sore troubled. After some time he collected £\o 13s. 4d., and handed this sum over to Mitha Khan. He then suggested that the lady might be made over to him, and the trifling balance adjusted later. But Mitha was perfectly happy with his two wives, and in no hurry to part with one. He merely smiled, and professed his willingness to do the right thing the very moment his full tale of cash was received. It was the turn then of poor Gamu to search for justice. But the chiefs and the elders would not help him. Alas ! wherever he went he was told that a bargain was a bargain, and that he must find the extra £2 13s. 4d. before the transaction could be considered a complete one. The £2 13s. 4d., small as it seems to us, was a large sum to Gamu ; and for some time longer he had the mortification of seeing Mitha Khan flush of cash and in control of his dual household. Verily, the way of transgressors is hard !

As I have suggested, the simple fact of a parent not letting his daughter leave the ancestral home except for a solatium to the old man's grief at parting with her, leads on to all sorts of other claims, some admitted and some refused. It led in one case to a stepson claiming disposal of his half-sister in preference to the mother who bore her. The mother would have admitted the preferential right of her own son, but objected to the claim of her stepson. He