flagon into a new vessel, re- therefore caused the flagon to filled the flagon with water, be buried in her father's coffin. and took it back to the Lady Strange to relate, however, that Clarimonde.

although neither the Lady Clari“My daughter," said Father monde por yet the Father Eudoxius, "it has been re“

Eudoxius spoke one word good vealed to me that, your father or bad concerning the elixir of having received extreme unc- life, the tomb of the Sieur tion, and his soul being already d'Ausgas was barbarously viowell on the way to purgatory, lated two days after the interit would be sacrilege to recall ment. Nor was the miscreant him to life. Had he not re- discovered, nor trace of the ceived the unction, we might flagon heard of from that day have acted differently. You to this. How the news of what must let us comfort you in was in the flagon buried in the your loss. Hum."

lord's tomb escaped is not The Lady Clarimonde de known, and was a mystery cided that since the Church both to the Lady Clarimonde had prevented her father from and to the Father Eudoxius. benefiting by the holy elixir, But keyholes were large in nobody else should use it. She those days.

IV.

The vessel containing the real ligious peace, but as his time elixir of life reposed for many drew closer he thought more years at the bottom of a chest and more affectionately of the in the chamber of Father Eu- elixir reposing at the bottom doxius. He was glad that be of his chest. As death came had not allowed it to be used pear, the good Father began on the Sieur d’Aussas. The to think that he had never Lady Clarimonde had proved lived at all. His seventy odd a beneficent patroness, in spite years of monotonous existence of the fact that sbe bad, in had not disillusioned him about her forty-eighth year, married the value of life. He preached a young husband, decorative the joys of heaven, but was third son of an impoverished quite willing to put them noble family of Bearn, a youth off for another span. After who made excellent lyrics in all, had he not heaven for the langue d'oc, of which he all eternity ? The thought wrote out two fair copies-one that this elixir might come to present to his wife, and one from the devil troubled him to offer to the source of in- at moments, but he quietened spiration.

his conscience; he did not The Father Eudoxius let his know that it came from the life dawdle away in a re

a re- devil. The good Father, like so many people, reasoned as hood. Every peasant in Lanthough the recording angel were guedoc made plum spirit. In a fool.

the autumn the bouillers de cru The good Father's end came was the occasion for a feast, quite suddenly, occasioned by an orgy during which the whole an indigestion brought on by countryside got drunk. But over-indulgence in new wine, never in his life had the acolyte Najac ham, and green salad. tasted plum brandy such as But he had time to realise his this. It must be a century condition, and to leave with old. He took another sip. a favourite acolyte the most He looked at the bottle. Surely explicit and earnest instruc- there was much more than was tions, The acolyte swore to necessary to anoint the Father carry out the Father's words. Eudoxius. Used sparingly, half The Father Eudoxius died in the bottle would suffice. The the hope of a speedy and plum brandy was too excelmaterial resurrection.

lent to waste, even on getting Left alone with the body, the Father Eudoxius rapidly the acolyte, a lad of sixteen, through purgatory. fumbled in the chest, and dis- When he had drunk balf covered the devil's elixir safe the bottle the acolyte thought in its bottle. The Father had that by means of a piece of rag told him that it was water a quarter would be enoughfrom the Jordan, and that the that is if he dabbed carefully. anointing of his body would ensure express passage

An hour later two old women through purgatory. On ex- coming to lay out the body tracting the cork, the young were scandalised to find the acolyte was struck by an im- acolyte—who had been

been left mediate odour of plum brandy. to watch over the FatherHe twitched his nose, he blew lying intoxicated in a corner. it. The odour persisted, grew The air was redolent with an more strong, more delicious. odour of plum brandy. A He smelt the bottle. The broken flagon lay in the middle odour of plum brandy came of the floor.

The old women, clearly from what the Father by putting their fingers into Eudoxius had said was water a few drops which remained at of Jordan.

the bottom, were able to bear The young acolyte put his witness that it was the finest lips to the fluid. He had plum brandy that they had known plum brandy from child- ever tasted.

an

TOILERS IN THE VINEYARD.

BY ZERES,

“Save he serve, no man can rule.”

a

SEVEN years ago, when the clination to replace Confucius, Montagu - Chelmsford reforms Buddha, and Moses by Jack were being planned in Delhi, Jones, Bernard Shaw, or Charlie a paper appeared in ‘Maga' Chaplin ; nor for one moment called “Top Hat or Turban," does she identify human proby the present writer.

gress with the puerile materialIn that paper the inevitable ism that holds sway among failure of the new proposals Western democracies. was foretold, it being further It may here be asked, If intimated that they would serious interference with Eastplunge India into chaos.

ern values and standards is to The paper was written when be deprecated, what ethical India was on the crest of the justification remains for an alien wave of war loyalty, with a Government to remain in India million men in the field—that at all? The reply is, that the is to say, long before the Pun- British have functions in India jab émeute, the Malabar rebel- other than interfering with the lion, and all the melancholy vie intime of the people—funcpolitical débâcle that has fol- tions of sane and useful lowed since.

nature, which are indicated

below. When legislating for Indian Not only is "India'

comneeds the British democrat posed of many different races, suffers from a chronic delusion ranging from the Aryan and that he belongs to a civilisa- Dravidian to the Mongolian tion morally and intellectually and Semitic, but there is also superior to that with which he the added complication that is dealing.

sharply antagonistic elements, He is apparently of opinion both in breed and creed, are that Western civilisation is of often geographically and comso high and ultimate an order munally intermingled. When that its unique blessings need these racial and religious anto be embraced forthwith by tagonisms shall have finally a benighted Asia.

become disentangled, a paraStrange to relate, Asia shows mount power that is impartial little intention of accepting to all need no longer be sought mushroom theories of life in outside Indian limits ; but until place of tried wisdom; no in- that happy day arrives, it

60

one

seems not unreasonable to sug- directly modifying Asiatic gest that in the alien quality thought to any vital degree, of the British Raj lies its prime it has been, and remains, inand essential virtue.1

significant. All this the sahibThe wide geographical limits log learned many years ago. of modern "India," no less The essential weakness of the than the equally wide racial Montagu - Chelmsford reforms range of modern Indian lay in their entire misconcepnationhood, are, of course, tion of the nature of England's simply and solely the artificial historic connection with India, creation of the British official, which, paradoxically enough for whose consolidating influence a paramount power, bas prifrom Beluchistan to Burma marily been of service and from Kashmir to Assam rather than tuitionhas resulted in a comprehen

"The tas

of serf and sweeper, sive political union never con- The tale of common things.' templated by indigenous genius.

So long as the British in As opposed to this tradition, India have thus confined their the reforms were essentially activities to a rôle of mundane educative in quality. The retrusteeship—which suits their formers frankly adopted a

— character—and avoided inter- tutorial rôle; they postulated ference in native psychology, the superiority of Western politwhere they are out of their ical vision ; nor were they at depth,—their rule has incon- any pains to consult Indian trovertibly been more popular opinion other than that which, than any that preceded it. being Anglicised, was denation

Conversely,whenever through alised, and therefore entirely inadvertence or mistaken zeal unrepresentative of the real their legislation has seemed to country or its needs. The threaten the free operation of marked characteristics and a theory of life more complex vigorous prejudices of the than their own, they have ever masses of India, to whom they encountered the fiercest oppo- conveniently referred as “mute' sition, of which the Mutiny is and “dumb,” were not only

, the most classic example. ignored, but the people's angle

Considered as a racial and of vision was actually derided social cement, or as an effi- and flouted as childish. cient administrative and fight- In their own presumptuous ing machine, the British Raj language the twin reformers in India is and always has set out “deliberately to disturb been invaluable ; but as an the pathetic contentment of intellectual or moral force for the Indian people,” oblivious