Page:The leather-workers of Daryaganj.djvu/19

15 however much it might seem at the moment to cost. It was in this conviction that we determined to go through with the proposed meeting. And certainly it was one, the memory of which will stay by many of us, I think, for long. We got down to the spot (I forget whether I have said that the Daryaganj Christian Basti was the chosen place of convocation) just before midnight, the Mission clergy being present in force, with the exception of Haig and Wright who had but recently reached the country, and who, their acquaintance with the language being at the time confined to some valuable rudiments, which did not include the more delicate idioms of the common tongue, felt strongly the rival and surely, I may say, at such ah hour, legitimate claims of the couch. There was no moon and the little court-yard was lighted only by 'glims' of the very feeblest nature, so it took us some time to ascertain the exact position of affairs. We then found that some 200 of the Chamárs had already arrived and were sitting together, while the Christians—these consisting chiefly of the families of the Basti, the Catechists, Readers, etc., of the mission and a few other of the more earnestly disposed Christians from other districts—were massed together a little apart. We found of course, and as all previous experience might have told us would be the case, that we were much too early, and that there were still various preliminaries to be got through before the business could begin in earnest. The first thing was to send and insist on the attendance of some few men, living chiefly we were thankful to find in the immediate neighbourhood, who had failed to present themselves, and we were amused and somewhat maliciously pleased to hear that these were, for the most part, those very Christians who had tried to frustrate the meeting altogether, but having failed in this had determined at any rate to keep clear of it themselves. Not a bit of it. Two or three brothers were despatched to the abode of each, and insisted, doubtless by most fraternal, but evidently by sufficiently cogent arguments, on the necessity of their attendance. They came in one by one sheepishly enough. Meantime we were getting the Christians better arranged together and trying to induce some of those who had taken their place among the Chamárs to come out from among them and range themselves with those to whom by name they belonged. In some cases we were successful, in others not, and as might have been expected, the later conduct of each man was plainly foreshadowed in the response which they made to this preliminary invitation. At last all were assembled and we were hoping that