Page:Nil Durpan.djvu/99

 Pundit.  It is not proper for Bindu to leave the College.

Bindu.  As to our estates and possessions, we have lost every thing; at last, our father has left us beggars (weeps), how can studying be any more carried on?

Pundit.  The Indigo Planters have taken away the all of Bindu Madhab and his family.

Doctor.  I have heard of these Planters from the Missionaries and also I have seen them myself. Once as I was coming from a certain Planter's Factory at Matanganagar, while I was sitting in a village, two ryots of the place were passing by the side of my palanquin; one of them had some milk with him, which I wanted to buy. Immediately, one whispered to the other, "The Indigo giant, The Indigo giant." Then having left the milk, they ran off. I asked another ryot, and he said, that these persons ran off for fear of being compelled to take advances for Indigo; and as they had taken the advance for Indigo, so why should they have to go to the go-down again? I understood, they took me for a planter; I gave the milk into that ryot's hand, and went away from that place.

''Dy. Inspector.''  A certain Missionary was passing through a village within the concern of Mr. Vally. As soon as the ryots saw him they began to cry aloud, "The Indigo ghost is come out, the Indigo ghost is come out," and having left that path, flew into their own houses. But as the ryots found, by and by, the bounty, mildness, and forgiving temper of these gentlemen, they began to wonder; and as much as the Missionaries showed heartfelt sorrow for the tortures which the poor people suffered from the Indigo Planters, so much the more they began to love them, and to have faith in them. Now the ryots say to each other, "All bamboos are of one tuft; but of one is made the frame of the Goddess Durga, and of another the sweeper's basket."

''Pundit. ''  Let us take away the dead body.