THE HOUSE OF HEALING. THE House of Healing stands upon a hill flecked by the sun, shaded by the pines, and surrounded by an odour of disinfectant. To the eye there is nothing to distinguish it from other houses; the same flowers deck its gardens, the same tennis-court stands before it, the same breezes whisper in the trees around it, but always there is that clean smell of disinfectant which assails the nose of the wayfarer while yet the House itself is out of sight. This holds good for the afternoon, but come in the morning and a different sight greets the eye, although the same aroma meets the nose. Upon the broad verandah of the House, and overflowing into the sun-swept tennis-court, is the crowd of those who come for healing,-a motley crowd, the members of which differ from each other in all things save one, and the single point that they have in common is the one that differentiates the House of Healing from all other institutions where the art of healing is practised. It is this, that its patients come to it to be cured of an illness that has never seized them. Once the disease with which the House of Healing deals has secured its grip upon its victim, the House is helpless, and it but remains for the patient to die as quickly as heaven will let him, fortified by the rites of such Church as may be his by choice or by birth-Christian, Buddhist, Mussulman, or Hindu. It only remains to bow the head to God or Prophet or Idol, and to pray that death may be sent with such merciful speed as may be deemed fitting. But the House has a weapon with which it fights the disease before the latter has declared itself. The House is, as it were, a St George, whose task it is to orush an everlasting dragon; and if the dragon cannot be eternally crushed, St George has nevertheless the power and the means to rescue from it those of its victims who appeal to him in time. The dragon is a deliberate dragon, and he always sends a warning to those whom he has chosen as his victims, and therein lies his own undoing. For if his selected victims make their appeal at once to St George, if they invoke his protection within three weeks of receiving the dragon's summons, the puissant saint will save them, and the dragon must go hungry. But if they delay in their appeal St George has to fight with one hand tied behind his back, and though he puts up a mighty fight on behalf of the oppressed, none can foretell the outcome of the battle; and while he is generally viotorious, there have been occasions when the saint has bitten the dust. The purlieus of the House a dozen may leave to-day, and of Healing are a curious sight to-morrow as many more will in the morning. The dragon come, or perhaps twice as is no respecter of persons, many, for the House sets no and his taste is cosmopolitan. limits. Nothing differs exThere are men clad in all cept the individuals; there is kinds of raiment, from a always the same stream of "built' Norfolk jacket in people of every sort and kind Savile Row to a loin-cloth and colour and religion, who, fashioned by the wearer's impelled by fear of the disease wife; there are women in which they have not got, but corsets and women with nose- of the possibility or probability rings, children in sailor suits of which warning has reached and children in no suits at them, come to invoke the help all. There is the British that is never refused. officer and the babu from Bengal, the British soldier and the bunnia, the planter and the policeman; the Sikh farmer and the Frenchman from a commercial house in Calcutta, the shaven-headed man from Bombay, and the Punjaubi with the oiled curls that oling around his neck; the twice-born Brahmin and the filthy Sadhu with ashsmeared face and yellow garment which leaves him nearly nude. Truly it is a wonderful collection of beings-high-born and low-born, from far and from near, Asian, Eurasian, and European, believers in God, believers in The Gods, and all believing in the power of the House of Healing. This last article of faith is the sole bond that is common to all the sixty or seventy persons who await, day after day, the summons to enter the House. But the crowd that is here to-day is not the crowd that will be here next month, or next week, or even to-morrow; daily others arrive to claim the help of the House. Half VOL. CLXXXIX.—NO. MCXLIII. The laws of precedence do Punctually at the appointed G a gigantic rupture of his ordinary daily routine. that works the miracle & stitutes Take, for instance, the case of little Basant Kor, who all her life had dwelt in a mudbuilt village. Once or twice she had been taken to a big mela or festival, but except for memories of those delightful excursions the world for her had consisted of the limitThere is certainly nothing less plain dotted with villages impressive about it, yet those and out into little unhedged who wash in the waters of fields. She had never seen a Abana and Pharpar suffer all hill, much less a railway, she the pains of hell before they could not read or write, and die; while they who use this had never seen a Sahib (not tawny Jordan eat their daily that she wanted to set eyes chupatties or their seven- on this last work of God); course dinner with unim- life for her, at the age of ten paired appetite, until some other disease claims them. That is the difference,-Abana and Pharpar are just rivers, but the tawny fluid is itself a miracle, with almost boundless powers to work other miracles. A table-spoonful of this particular Jordan has more power, as regards the needs of those who come to the House of Healing, than all the other rivers of the universe. The wondrous properties of the tawny fluid are in all probability realised more fully and marvelled at more keenly by the educated European than by the half-tamed man of the jungles, to both of whom alike it brings its benefits. The one knows more or less exactly what it is, what it does, and how it does it; to the other it is but "the medicine," and it forms probably one of the smallest items in what con years, already meant work and little else, and though she did not realise it, it was work set within the narrowest and most circumscribed compass. And then the dragon sent his message that he would shortly require her. Fortunately for Basant Kor, her father, although but an unlettered yeoman farmer, was a man of some enlightenment; he hied himself to those in power, and forthwith his daughter found herself in a world she had never dreamed of. She was taken many miles to the railway, the silver bangles on her ankles rattling as her tired feet made their way over the rough, hot country roads; she passed through the bazaar of a great town, dragging on her father's hand as her eager eyes tried to take in all that she saw around her of crowded streets, hurrying foot-passengers, uni formed soldiers, gay shops where were sold things to eat and things to wear. And then they they arrived at the station, where her father, reckless man, did not even try to bargain with the man who sold him what was called a "tickut," and where they waited in a noisy crowd till the train should arrive. It came with a roar that made Basant Kor shrink back in fear; ensued a rush for seats, and the bumping and the jostling so took away her breath that Basant Kor realised nothing more till she found herself, clinging as ever tight to her father's handl, in a crowded third-class compartment. It was all wonderful, but it grew to be miraculous when the train started and they rushed through the countryside. It went just as fast by night as by day, till at length it got to a place where it could run no more, and Basant Kor alighted with her father. At the entrance to the station her father was bold enough to ask questions of one magnificent in belted livery; he was as kind as he was great, and he actually belonged to the place where they were going. "That's the road," said he, "and there is the place." He pointed skywards, as it seemed to Basant Kor, and her eyes following his finger saw & sprinkling of white houses aloft upon what appeared to her to be a stupendous mountain. She wondered how they managed to build houses away up on a place as high as that. So Basant Kor and her father set forth, and ever they climbed up and up and up; before and on each side were more enormous hills stretching away as far as the eye could see, and cooked up against the most distant sky were more hills, still higher than the others, and quite white. But behind them lay the plains spreading away and away till they were lost in nothingness, and Basant Kor liked best to look backwards over her shoulder at their friendly and familiar flatness. At last they reached the House of Healing, and Basant Kor was now so full of astonishment that her faculties of surprise were for the time benumbed. She had never before seen a Sahib's bungalow, and as she sat on the tennis-court she admired very greatly the house that stood before her; it was snow-white and very high, and it looked as though it would neither collapse nor leak however heavy the rain that fell upon it. She was so busy examining the house that first day that she took no notice of the people who stood about its precincts, and she was quite sorry when a man called loudly upon her own name, and her father seizing her by the hand led her inside the wonderful structure. Basant Kor cast her eyes in wonder round the room while her father spoke to a big man in a long white coat; besides him there was another Sahib who watched a little glass bowl of fluid, rather like ghee. not understand what she said, When the big man and her so she smiled and ran back to father had made an end of her father in great embarrasstalking, the other Sahib handed ment, while the Memsahib the former something, she laughed after her. was told to lift up her garment, the big man gave her a little prick in the stomach with the thing the other Sahib had given to him, and her father led her out again. That was all. And her father said it would have to be done every day for twenty days. So every day Basant Kor went with her father into the big man's room, and before he pricked her he always asked after her health and sometimes he made a joke to her. She rather liked the big man, although her father told her that he was very great and held in his hands the power of life and death. And it was very interesting and amusing sitting out in the sun with all the people who were awaiting their turn to go into the pricking-room; they used to tell each other of how the summons of the dragon had reached them, of how much money they earned every month, of the prices of things in their respective neighbourhoods. Some of them talked strange languages, too, of which Basant Kor could not understand a word, and she liked to listen to the funny way in which these talked. The Memsahibs perhaps caused her the most astonishment, for they wore strange and wonderful garments and went in at the waist in the most curious way; once one spoke to her, but she could But all good things come to an end, and the day came when Basant Kor was pricked for the last time, and her father and she, leaving the quarters provided for them near the House of Healing, made their way down the hill, took again the wonderful train, and so went home. Her father was glad, for it was near the time of harvest, and necessary for him to go home, but Basant Kor was sorry. Being a true woman, she loved the world. And she really thought nothing about the daily prick and the little glass bowl of yellow fluid; they were not connected in her mind with all the wonderful things she had seen. But it is not every one who regards the yellow fluid with the same detachment as did Basant Kor; for instance, Kalan looked upon it with the eye of fear. When Kalan received the dragon's warning he would have preferred to disregard it and to take his chance of evil consequences, and it was only the positive commands of his employer which made him come to the House of Healing. Kalan is a sweeper, and he fears pain only more than he fears work or trouble of any kind; Kalan is base-born, wherein he differs from Basant Kor, who comes of good stock; his face is very black and his liver is very white, and what is but a prick |