Young Lochinvar, in the original story, came out of the West. In this tale he came out of the East, and the most match-making mamma might be disposed to forgive him; partly on account of his youth, partly because he really was not a free agent.

They were cousins of course. In the finest race of the Panjab--possibly of the world--cousins have a right to cousins provided the relationship lie through the mother's brother, or the father's sister; the converse, for some mysterious reason, being anathema maranatha.

But NÂnuk's mother, wife of big SuchÊt Singh, head man of Aluwallah village, was sister to DhyÂn Singh, the armourer, who plied his trade in the little courtyard hidden right in the heart of the big city. A big man too, high-featured and handsome; high-tempered also as the steel which he inlaid so craftily with gold. For all that, round, podgy Mai Gunga, his wife, ruled him by virtue of a smartness unknown to his slower, gentler nature. Not so gentle, however, but that he mourned the degeneracy of these latter piping days of peace. They and the Arms Act had driven him from the manufacture of sword hilts and helmets, shields and corselets, to that of plaques and inkstands, candlesticks and ashtrays. From the means of resistance to the decoration of victorious drawing-rooms. Not that he nourished ill-feeling against those victors. They were a brave lot, and since then his people had helped them bravely to keep their winnings. Only it was dull work; so every now and again Dhyan Singh revenged himself by making a paper knife in the form of some bloodthirsty lethal weapon, and put his best work on it, just to keep his hand in.

Little PertÂbi, his daughter, used to sit and watch her father at the tiny forge set in the central sunshine of the yard. It was funny to see the shaving of sheer steel curl up from the graver guided in its flowing curves by nothing but that skilled eye and hand; funnier still to watch the gold wire nestle down so obediently into the groove; funniest of all to blow the bellows when the time came to put that iridescent blue temper to the finished work.

Then, naked to the waist, the soft brown hair on her forehead plaited in tiniest plaits into a looped fringe, a little gold filigree cup poised on the top of her head, a long betasselled pigtail hanging down behind, PertÂbi would set her short red-trousered legs very far apart, and puff and blow, and laugh, and then blow again to her own and her father's intense delight; for DhyÂn having a couple of strapping sons to satisfy Mai Gunga's heart felt himself free to adore this child of his later years.

But even when there was blowing to be done, PertÂbi did not find life in the city half as amusing as life out in the village at her aunt's with cousin NÂnuk as a playfellow. NÂnuk to whom she was to be married by and by. That had been settled when she was a baby in arms, for in those, and for many years after, SuchÊt Singh's wife and Mai Gunga had been as friendly as sisters-in-law can well be. That is to say there were visits to the village for change of air, especially at sugar-baking time, while those who wished for shopping or society came as a matter of course to the armourer's house. The world wags in the same fashion East and West; especially among the women folk.

"They will make a fine pair! God keep them to the auspicious day," the deep-chested countrywomen would say piously; then Mai Gunga would giggle a bit, and remark that if NÂnuk grew so fast she would have to leave PertÂbi at home next time. Whereupon the boy's mother would flare up, and sniff, as country folk do, at town ideas. In her family such talk had never been necessary; the lads and lasses grew up together, and mothers were in no hurry to bring age and thought upon them. Perhaps that was the reason why men and women alike were of goodly stature and strength; for even Mai Gunga must admit that DhyÂn was at least a fine figure of a man. So there would be words to while away the hours before the men returned from the fields. And outside, under the bushy mulberry trees, PertÂbi and NÂnuk would be fighting and making it up again in the cosmopolitan fashion of healthy children. Of the two PertÂbi, perhaps, hit the hardest; she certainly howled the loudest, being a wilful young person. NÂnuk used to implore her not to tease the sacred peacocks, when they came sedately by companies to drink at the village tank, as the sun set red over the limitless plane of young green corn, and she would squat down suddenly on her red-trousered heels with her hands tight clasped behind her back, and promise to be as still as a grey crane if she might only look. Then some vainglorious cock was sure to show off his tail; every tail was to PertÂbi's eager eyes the most beautiful one in the world, and she must needs have a feather--just one little feather-- from it as a keepsake--just a little keepsake. Now, what PertÂbi desired she got, at any rate if NÂnuk had aught to say towards the possibility. So the little tyrant would play with the feather for five minutes; then fling it away. But NÂnuk, serious, conscientious NÂnuk, would set aside half his supper of curds on the sly and sneak out with it after sundown as an oblation to the mysterious village god, who lived in a red splashed stone under the peepul tree. Else the peacocks being angry might not cry for rain, and then what would become of the green corn? NÂnuk was a born cultivator, true in most things, above all to Mother Earth. Despite the peacocks' feathers, however, not without a will of his own; for when, on one of his visits to the city, PertÂbi insisted on handling the little squirrel he brought with him housed in his high turban, and it bit her, he laughed, saying he had told her so; nay, more, when she chased the frightened little creature savagely, howling for vengeance, he fell upon her and boxed her ears soundly, much to Mai Gunga's displeasure. A rough village lout, and her darling the daintiest little morsel of flesh!

"I don't care," sobbed PertÂbi; "I'll bite him hard next time--yes! I will, NÂno; you'll see if I don't."

Mai Gunga, however, was right in one thing. PertÂbi was an extremely pretty child. The gossips coming in of an afternoon to discuss births, marriages, and deaths took to shaking their heads and saying that she might have made a better match than NÂnuk, who, every one thought, would limp for life in consequence of that fall from the topmost branch of the shisham tree where the squirrels built their nests. Not much of a limp, perhaps, but who did not know that under the bone-setter's care a broken leg often came out a bit shorter than the other, even if it was as strong as ever? Mai Gunga's plump, pert face hardened, but she said nothing; not even when a new acquaintance, the wife of a rich contractor on the lookout for a bride of good family, openly bewailed the prior claim on PertÂbi.

Nevertheless the next time that the sister-in-law came to town, and on leaving it laden with endless bundles wrapped in Manchester handkerchiefs spoke confidently of the meeting at sugar-time, Mai Gunga threw difficulties in the way. She was too busy to come herself; NÂnuk, still a semi-invalid, must be quite sufficient charge for her sister-in-law. Besides seeing that PertÂbi touched the eights, she thought it time for village customs to give way to greater decorum. Briefly, despite the peculiar virtue of some people's families, she did not choose that her daughter should be out of her sight. The two women, as might be supposed, parted with ceremony and effusion; but SuchÊt Singh's wife had barely arrived in the wide village courtyards ere she burst forth:

"Mark my words!" she said, even as she disposed her bundles about her. "That town-bred woman means mischief. I was a fool to give in to you and DhyÂn, instead of having the barber, as to a stranger. Not that I want the little hussy above other brides, but I would not have NÂnuk slighted."

SuchÊt Singh laughed.

"Twenty mile of an ekka hath shook thy brains out, wife. What talk is this? They are two halves of one pea. As friend Elahi Buksh saith, 'do dil razi to kia kare kazi?' (when two are heart to heart, where's the parson's part?)"

"Tra! That's neither in three nor thirteen," retorted his wife. "Give me the barber^[37] for certainty."

Meanwhile PertÂbi was howling in the little courtyard, much to big, soft-hearted DhyÂn's distress.

"Let her go, but this once," he pleaded aside; "truly thou art over anxious, and she but seven for all her spirit."

"Seventy or seven, God knows thee for a baby," snapped Mai Gunga. "Would I had never listened to thee and thy sister, though, for sure, the children were pretty as marionettes. It was a play to think of it. But a mother knows her daughter better than the father, though it seems thou wilt be ordering the wedding-garments next. So be it, but till then PertÂb goes not to NÂnuk; 'tis not seemly."

"I--I don't want NÂnuk," howled PertÂbi. "I--I want the fresh molasses--I do--I do."

Want, however, was her master, since her own obstinacy was but inherited from her mother. So she sat sulkily in the sunshine, refusing the armourer's big caresses or the charms of bellows-blowing, while she pictured to herself, with all the vividness of rage, NÂnuk going down--going down alone--to watch the great shallow pans of foamy, frothy, fragrant juice shrink and shrink in the dark, low hut where one could scarcely see save for the flame of the furnaces. What joy to feed those flames with the dry, crushed refuse of the cane and leaves! What bliss to thrust a tentative twig, on the sly, into the seething, darkening molasses, and then escape deftly to that shadowy hiding-place by the well, and gravely consider the question as to whether it was nearly boiled enough. Toffee-making all over the world has a mysterious fascination for children, and this was toffee-making on a gigantic scale. The legitimate bairn's part of scraping from each brew never tasted half so sweet as those stolen morsels; if only because, when you threw away the sucked twigs, the squirrels would come shyly from the peepul tree where the green pigeons cooed all day long, and fight for your leavings. PertÂbi could see the whole scene when she closed her eyes. The level plain, the shadow of the trees blotting out the sunshine, the trickle of running water from the well, the creaking of the presses, the babel of busy voices, and over all, through all, that lovely, lovely smell of toffee! Yes! sugar-baking time in the village was heavenly, and NÂnuk was greedy--greedy as a grey crow to keep it all to himself!

When Spring brought big SuchÊt to pay the village revenue into the office, he and the armourer met, as ever, on the best of terms; nevertheless their subsequent interviews with their woman-kind were less satisfactory.

"Thou art worse than a peacock which cries even after rain has fallen," finished the big villager testily. "What is it to me if women come or go? DhyÂn is a man of mettle and word."

Yet in his heart he knew well that the armourer had no more to say to such matters in the narrow city court, than he had in the wide village yard, where the kine stood in rows, and NÂnuk's tumbler pigeons never lacked a grain of corn at which to peck.

As for Mai Gunga, her wrath became finally voluble at the hint thrown out by big DhyÂn, that if she went no more to the village, folk might talk of PertÂb being slighted. Slighted, indeed, with half the eligible mothers agog with envy! Slighted, when but for this cripple--yea! DhyÂn need not make four eyes at her--she said cripple, and meant it. He had a broken leg, and that to a man of sense was sufficient excuse for breach of betrothals. If, indeed, there ever had been such a thing as a betrothal; which for her part she denied.

DhyÂn Singh swore many big oaths, vowed many mighty vows that he would have naught to do with such woman's work. Not even if it became clear that, as his wife hinted, his little PertÂb would not be welcome in his sister's house. Yet he scowled over the idea, twisted his beard tighter over his ears, as became a man, and looked very fierce. And when a month or two later SuchÊt Singh's wife met his halting apology for Mai Gunga's absence with a distinct sniff and a cool remark that she really did not care,--NÂnuk could no doubt do better in brides,--he came home in a towering passion to his anvil and made a paper knife fit for a brigand. To have such a thing said to him, even in jest, when he, for his sister's sake, had been willing to waive the fact of NÂnuk being a cripple!

"Cripple indeed!" shrieked the boy's mother, when SuchÊt came back from the city one day with DhyÂn's remark enlarged and illustrated by friendly gossip. "Lo, husband! That is an end. Whose fault if he limps?--only in running, mind, not in walking. Whose indeed! Whose but that immodest, wicked, ill-brought-up hussy's! Was it not to get her another squirrel, because she cried so for his, that he climbed? Let her have her girl; we will have damages."

So when sugar-baking time came round again, SuchÊt and DhyÂn, rather to their own surprise, found themselves claimant and defendant in a breach of betrothal case for the recovery of fifteen hundred rupees spent in preliminary expenses. Yet, despite their surprise, they were both beside themselves with rage. DhyÂn because of the unscrupulous claim when not one penny had been spent, SuchÊt because of the slur cast on his boy's straight limbs by the secondary plea in defence; that even if there had been a betrothal and not a family understanding, the crippled condition of the bridegroom was sufficient excuse for the breach of contract. The actual point of the betrothal being so effectually overlaid by these lies as to be obscured even from the litigant's own eyes.

It was one gorgeous blue day in December that SuchÊt rode in to the city on his pink-nosed mare, with NÂnuk on the crupper to bear witness in Court to his own perfections. A handsome, soft-eyed lad of ten, glad enough of the ride, sorry for the separation, even for one day, from the village toffee-making; but with a great lump of raw sugar stowed away in his turban as partial consolation. For the rest, he had a childish and yet grave acquiescence. PertÂbi apparently had been a naughty girl, and Mammi Gunga had never been nice. Yet the "jej-sahib"^[38] might say they were married; since, after all, he, NÂnuk, could run as fast as ever. Tchu! he would like to show PertÂbi that it was so.

The court-house compound was full of suitors and flies, the case of SuchÊt versus DhyÂn Singh late in the list, so the former bade his son tie the mare in the furthest corner behind the wall, in the shade of a spreading tree, and keep watch, while he went about from group to group in order to discuss his wrongs with various old friends--that being half the joy of going to law; grave groups of reverend bearded faces round a central pipe, grave, slow voices rising in wise saws from the close-set circles of huge turbans and massive blue and white draperies.

Meanwhile NÂnuk ate sugar till it began to taste sickly, and then he sat looking at the remaining lump and thinking, not without a certain malice, how PertÂbi would have enjoyed it. Then suddenly, from behind, a small brown hand reached out and snatched it. "One two, that's for you; two three, that's for me; three four, sugar galore; the Rajah begs, with a broken leg----" The singing voice paused, the little figure munching, as it sang, with vindictive eyes upon the boy, paused too in its tantalising dance.

"Did it hurt much, NÂno? I'm so sorry. And mother wouldn't let me keep the squirrel, NÂno; but I howled, I howled like--like a bhut (devil)."

The abstract truth of the description seemed to bring back the past, and NÂnuk's face relaxed.

"Father's at Court, and mother's gone to see the woman who wants me to marry her son," explained PertÂbi between the munchings, "but I won't. I won't marry anybody but you, NÂno. I like you, NÂno."

NÂno's face relaxed still more.

"You have got sugar-presses, NÂno, and the other boy has none. He lives in the city, and I hate the city. Is there much sugar this year, NÂno?"

"More than last," replied the boy proudly. "We have the best fields in----"

"Then give me another bit," interrupted PertÂbi.

"That is all I brought." There was a trace of anxiety in NÂnuk's voice, and he looked deprecatingly at the little figure now cuddled up beside him.

"Oh, you silly! but it doesn't matter. We can go and fetch some more. That's why I ran away. I knew uncle would bring you, so we can go to the village early. Come, NÂno."

"Go to the village, PertÂb! Oh, what a tale!" It is easy to be virtuously indignant at the first proposition of evil, but what is to be done when you are at the mercy of a small person who hesitates at nothing? Wheedlings, pinchings, kissings, tears, and promises were all one to PertÂbi. At least a ride on the pink-nosed mare for the sake of old times! They could slip away easily without being seen; yonder lay the road villagewards--there would be plenty of time to go a mile, perhaps twain, and get back before Chachcha-ji could possibly finish with his friends. She could get off at the corner, and then even if Chachcha-ji had discovered their absence NÂno could say he had taken the mare for water, or that the flies were troublesome. Excuses were so easy.

Ten minutes after, his feet barely reaching the big shovel stirrups, young Lochinvar ambled out of the court-house compound with his bride behind him.

"We must come back at the turn, PertÂb," he said, to bolster up his own resolution.

"Of course we must come back," replied PertÂbi, digging her small heels into the old grey mare. "Can't you make the stupid go faster, NÂno? We may as well have all the fun we can."

So the old mare went faster down the high-arched avenue of flickering light and shade, and PertÂbi's little red legs flounced about in a way suggestive of falling off. But she shrieked with laughter and held tight to her cavalier.

"Don't let us go back yet, NÂno!" she pleaded; "the old thing is all out of breath, and Chachcha-ji will find out you've been galloping her, and beat you. I shouldn't like you to be beaten, NÂno dear, and it is so lovely."

It was lovely. They were in the open now among the level stretches of young green corn, and there were the fallen battalions of red and gold canes, and from that clump of trees came the familiar creak of the press. Nay, more! wafted on the soft breeze the delicious, the irresistible smell of sugar-boiling. Other people's sugar-boiling.

"It's time we were going back," remarked NÂnuk boldly.

"Tchu!" cried PertÂbi from behind, "we are not going back any more. See! I've tied your shawl to my veil. When I do that to my dolls, then they are married; so that settles it. Go on, NÂno! it's all right. Besides it is no use going back now, they would only beat us for getting married. Go on, NÂno--or I'll pinch."

Perhaps it really was fear of the pinching, perhaps it was the conviction that they had gone too far to recede, which finally induced young Lochinvar to give the old mare her head towards home. But even then he showed none of the alacrity displayed beneath him and behind him by the female aiders and abettors. His face grew graver and graver, longer and longer.

"We can't be married until we've taken the seven steps," he said at length. "Look! they have been burning weeds in the field. Let's get down and do it, or the gods will be angry."

PertÂbi clapped her hands. "It will be fun, anyhow, so come along, NÂno."

They tied the old mare to a tree, while, hand tight clasped in hand, just as they had seen it done a hundred times, they circumambulated the sacred fire.

"That's better," sighed NÂno. "Now, I believe, we really are married."

"Tchu!" cried PertÂbi in superior wisdom, "I can tell you heaps and heaps of things. Our dolls do them when we've time; we are always marrying our dolls in the city. But we can ride a bit further first, and when we get tired of Pinky-nose we can just get down and be married another way. That'll rest us."

So through the lengthening shadows, they rode on and got married, rode on, and got married, until PertÂbi's braided head began to nod against NÂnuk's back, and she said sleepily:

"We'll keep the gur-ror (sugar-throwing) till tomorrow, NÂno; that'll be fun."

But when, in the deep dusk, the pink-nosed mare drew up of her own accord at the gate of the wide village yard, and drowsy NÂnuk just remembered enough of past events to lift his bride across the threshold, and murmur with an awful qualm, "This is my wife," PertÂbi woke up suddenly to plant her little red-trousered legs firmly on the ground, and say, with a nod:

"Yes! and we've been married every way we could think of, haven't we, NÂno? except the sugar-throwing, because we hadn't any; but--we'll--have--plenty--now; won't we, NÂno?" The pauses being filled up by yawns.

It was midnight before SuchÊt Singh and DhyÂn, forgetful of their enmity in over-mastering anxiety, arrived on the scene. The culprits were then fast asleep, and the deep-chested country-woman, having recovered the shock, was beginning to find a difficulty in telling the tale without smiles. A difficulty which, by degrees, extended itself to her hearers.

"Ho! ho! ho!" exploded SuchÊt suddenly; "and so they didn't even forget the forehead mark. I'll be bound that was NÂnuk--the rogue."

"Ho! ho! ho!" echoed the armourer; "as like as not it was PertÂb. The sharpest little marionette."

"Well, 'tis done, anyhow," said the woman decisively. "We can't have it said in our family, DhyÂn, that the vermilion on a girl's head came save from her husband's fingers. He! he! he! Couldst but have seen them. 'This is my wife,' quoth he. 'And we've been married every way we could think of,' pipes she. 'Haven't we, NÂno?' The prettiest pair--Lord! I shall laugh for ever."

"And--and Gunga?" faltered the armourer.

"Gunga's brain is not addled," retorted her sister-in-law sharply. "Who bruises a plum before taking it to market? What's done is done. We must cook the wedding feast without delay, have in the barber, and keep a still tongue."

So, ere many days were over, PertÂbi and NÂnuk, as bride and bridegroom, watched the fire-balloons go up into the cloudless depths of purple sky. The boy watching them shyly, yet with absorbing interest; for did not their course denote the favour or disfavour of the gods?

"The omens are auspicious," he said contentedly; but PertÂbi was in a hurry for the sugar-throwing, in which she aided her bridesmaids with such vigour that NÂnuk had a black eye for several days.

"If you were to ask me, and ask me, and ask me to lift you on old Pinky-nose again, I'd never do it--never!" he declared vindictively.

"Oh, yes! you would, NÂno," replied his wife with the utmost confidence, "you would if I asked you; besides you really wanted to be married, you know you did. And then there was the fresh molasses."