The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1896-09-04
BEYOND THE PALE.

| stepped beyond the safe limits of decent
everyday society and paid for It heavily.
He knew too much In the first instance
and he saw too much In the second. He took
too deep an interest In native life, but he
will never do so again.
Deep away In the heart Of the CITY, be-
hind Jitha Megji's bustee lies Amir Mathis
| gully, which ends in dead wall pierced
| by one grated window. At the head of the
| gully is a big COW byre, and the walls on
either side Of the gully are without win
dows. Neither Suchet Singh nor Gaur
Chand approves of their women folk look
| ing into the world. If Durga Charan had
been of their opinion, he would have been
happier man today, and little Besesa
would have been able to knead her own
bread. Her room looked out through the
| grated window into the narrow dark gully
where the sun never came and where the
buffaloes wallowed in the blue slime She
was widow about 10 years old, and she
| prayed the gods day and night to send her
| a lover, for she did not approve of living
| Alone
One day the man-Trejago his name
was-camc into Amir Maths gully on an
aimless wandering, and, after he had passed
the buffaloes, stumbled over big heap of
| cattle food
Then he saw that the gully ended in a
| trap and heard little laugh from behind
| the grated window. 1t was "a pretty little
laugh, and Trejado, knowing that for all
practical purposes the old ARABIAN
| Nights" are good guides, went forward to
| the window and whispered that verse of
1.-The Love Song of Har Dyal," which be-
| gins:
"Can man stand upright in the face of
| the naked sun, or IA lover in the presence
| of his beloved9
| "If my feet fail me, oh, heart of my
heart, am to blame, being blinded by the
| glimpse Of your beauty"
There came the faint chinks of wo-
mans bracelet from behind the grating,
| and n little voice went on with the song at
the fifth verse:
"Alas, alasl Can the moon tell the
Lotus of her love when the gate of heaven
| is shut and the clouds gather for the rainsY
"They have taken my beloved and driven
her with the pack horses to the north.
| "There are iron chains on the feet that
were set on my heart.
| "Call to the bowmen to make ready
| The voice stopped suddenly, and Trejago
walked out of Amir Maths gully, wonder
| ing who in the world could have capped
L
| Next morning as he was driving to
office, an old woman threw a packet into
his dog cart. In the packet was the half
| of q broken glass bangle one flower of the
blood red dhak, a pinch of bhusa, or cattle
food, and Il cardamons. That packet was
| letter-not Il clumsy, compromising let
| ter, but an innocent, unintelligiblc lover $
epistle.
Trejago knew far too much about these
| things, as / have said. No Englishman
should be able to translate object letters
But Trejago spread all the trifles on the
| lid of his office box and began To puzzle
them out.
| A broken glass bangle stands for Hin
| doc widow all India over because, when
her husband dies, woman's bracelets are
broken on her wrists. Trejago saw the
meaning of the little bit of the glass. The
flower of the dhak means diversely "de-
sire, " "come, 'xSwrite" or danger" ac-
cording to theIsad things with it, One
cardamon maane Jealousy" but when
any article is ia, cated in an object letter
it loses its syn',oNc meaning and stands
merely for oneS1 number indicating
time, or, If inceh~e, curds or saffron be
sent also, place
The message rar then, "a widow-dhak
|
pinch of bhusa enlightened Trejago He
saw-this kind of letter leaves much to
instructive knowlalge-thatt the bhusa re-
ferred to the big heap of cattle food over
which he had fallen in Amir Maths gully,
and that the message must come from the
person behind the grating, she being u
widow. So the message ran then, "A
widow in the gully in which is the heap of
bhusa desires you to come at l 1 o'clock. "
Treiago threw all the rubbish into the
fireplace and laughed. He knew that men
in the east do not make love under win
dows at IL in the forenoon nor do women
fix appointments week in advance. So
he went, that very night at IL, into Amir
Maths gully, clad i'm a boorka, which
cloaks a man as well as woman. Di-
rectly the gongs in the city made the hour,
the little voice behind the grating took up
1.-THE Love Song of HarDyal" at'the verse
where the Panthan girl calls upon her Har
Dyal to return. AS the song stopped Ire
jaeo stepped up under the grating and
whispered, ~ am here.
Bisesa was good to look upon.
That night was the beginning of many
strange things, and Of double life so wild
that Trejago today sometimes wonders IL
1t were not all dream. Bisesa or her old
handmaiden who had thrown the object
letter had detached the heavy grating from
the brickwork of the wall, so that the win
dow slid inside, leaving only n square of
raw masonry intoswhich an active man
might climb.
In the daytime Trejago drove through
his routine of Office work or put on his
calling clothes and called ON the ladies of
the station, wondering how long they
would know him II they knew Of poor lit
tie Bisesa. At night, when all the city
was still, came the walk under the evil
smelling boorka, the patrol through Jitha
Megji's bustee, the quick turn into Amir
Mathis gully between the sleepi cattle
and the dead walls, and then, las Of all,
Bisesa and the deep even brca' of the
old woman who slept outsd door OF
the bare little room that Durga Cnaran al
lotted to his sisters daughter. Who or
what Durga Charan was Trejago never in
auired and why in the world he was not
discovered and knitted never occurred to
him till his madness was over, and BIZ
scsa- But this comes later.
Bisesa was an endless delight to Trcja-
20. She was as ignorant as a bird, and
her distorted versions of the rumors from
the outside world that had reached her in
her room amused Trcjaso almost as much
as her lisping attempts TO pronounce his
name, christopher. The first syllable
was always more than she could manage,
and she made funny little gestures with
her roseleaf hands, as orc throwing the
name away, and then, knceling before Ire
jago, asked him, exactly ns an Enrlish
woman wcull do. " he werv SUR lac loNc.l
her. Trsiago s,srrv that he loved he'
\ tn no. "A