In the Permanent Way

urface of her husband's threshing-floor. She was a tall woman, of about five and twenty,

clings oddly to older faiths, older ways, and older gods. So Uma-devi, who was on the rack of that jealousy which comes to most women, whether they be ignorant or cultured, had the advantage over most of the latter: she could look back through the ages to a more inspiring and stimulating progenitrix than Mother Eve. For, despite the pharisaical little hymn of Western infancy bidding

e--Uma her namesake--Uma of the Himalayas, birthplace of all sacred things--Uma of the sunny yet snowy peaks, emblem at onc

et ascetic teachings of her race; partly because there are some natures, East and West, which t

hen sanctified by the bonds of matrimony--seemed to tear her heart as her hands paused in her patient darning of gold

usband, returning from

aintly illustrative of her life, being done from the back of the stuff and going on laboriously, conscientiously, trustfully, without reference to the unseen golden diaper slowly growing to beauty on the other side of the

dless face as he came up to her; for he happened--despite the barba

, that limitless plain which once seen holds the imagination captive for ever whether the recollection be of a sea of corn, or, as now, of stretches of brown earth bare of all sav

st it between finger and thumb. "Gossip Radha by her bulk--and by thy face, wife. What new crime hath the village

thou hast come to watch, I will go bring the water and see Baba-

nly as if the fact struck him newly. "

ddenly to look out to the ho

he echoed with an effort, "but I

ould it be in the old age which must come upon them as it had upon the Baba-jee, who, as she passed in to the

ll I return. It must be so, s

nd the cheerful old voice tre

re are f

village women passing to and fro with their water-pots. They knew it also; they said it to themselves, though as yet none had dared--save Mai Radha, with her cowardly hints--to say to her that the time had come when the

ddy water on to the strainer. But the thought was passionate, insistent. Ought! What was the use of prating about ought? She could not, she would not let Shivo take another woman by the hand. How could t

he pious young folk pretended. She poised the brazen vessel on her head, telling herself passionately it was impossible. Yet the sight of the wide courtyard, empty save for Baba-jee creeping about to feed the milch kine and do what he could of woman's work, revived that refrain of self-reproach, "There are too few o

bread between her palms with the hot haste of one hard pressed for time. "Thou hast no rest; but one woman is lost in these

she retorted passionately. "Give me but a year's grace, gossip, and I, Uma-devi, w

ome and crow over the childless hearth. Yet she was right; and again the ol

d his after the day's toil. If thou take it to him at the threshing-floor 'twill save time; when hands are f

duty and bringing sons to the hearth it would not have been so, for the g

as it seemly work for the most learned man in the village who had taught his son to be so good, so kind? Yet Shivo of himself would ne

eries swaying as she walked. It was not yet quite dark. A streak of red light lingered in the horizon, though overhead the stars began to twinkle, matched in the dim stretch of shadowy plain by the twinkling lights showing one by one from the threshing-floors. But Shiv-deo's was still dark, b

f those dawns, maybe, when, like a pearl-edged cloud, the far distant Himalayas would hang on the northern horiz

; watching, perhaps, the twinkling li

Shivo, indissolubly joined together for this world and the next? Was not a good woman redemption's source to her husband? Baba-jee had read that many times from his old books. So she felt no degradation as she set the water silently

ing stars shining in heaven and matched on earth. Far and near familiar peace, familiar certainty. Even that pain at her heart? Had not others felt it and set it asid

der in his tone, when, the need for silenc

Silent! yea! si

ll and straight in the circle of light. Th

, husband. We must have more. We must

turn stretching his

," he faltered,

ook he

dissolved, disappeared, like a child's sand barrier before the

annot. And she--she must come from afar, Shiv

rself face down in the corn silent

oking out over th

said softly after a time, "a

d laid a timid touch o

come from far,

as silence;