“Sit thou still, Thumbling,” I said as it made to get up and run away. “Where is thy slate, and why has the teacher let such an evil character loose on the streets when there are no police to protect us weaklings? In which ward dost thou try to break thy neck with flying kites from the house-tops?” “Nay, Sahib, nay,” said the child, burrowing its face into Gobind’s beard, and twisting uneasily. “There was a holiday to-day among the schools, and I do not always fly kites. I play ker-li-kit like the rest.” Cricket is the national game among the school-boys of the Punjab, from the naked hedge-school children, who use an old kerosene-tin for wicket, to the B. A.’s of the University, who compete for the Championship belt. “Thou play kerlikit! Thou art half the height of the bat!” I said. The child nodded resolutely. “Yea, I _do_ play. _Perlay-ball._ _Ow-at!_ _Ran, ran, ran!_ I know it all.” “But thou must not forget with all this to pray to the Gods according to custom,” said Gobind, who did not altogether approve of cricket and western innovations. “I do not forget,” said the child in a hushed voice. “Also to give reverence to thy teacher, and”—Gobind’s voice softened—“to abstain from pulling holy men by the beard, little badling. Eh, eh, eh?” The child’s face was altogether hidden in the great white beard, and it began to whimper till Gobind soothed it as children are soothed all the world over, with the promise of a story. “I did not think to frighten thee, senseless little one. Look up! Am I angry? Aré, aré, aré! Shall I weep too, and of our tears make a great pond and drown us both, and then thy father will never get well, lacking thee to pull his beard? Peace, peace, and I will tell thee of the Gods. Thou hast heard many tales?” “Very many, father.” “Now, this is a new one which thou hast not heard. Long and long ago when the Gods walked with men as they do to-day, but that we have not faith to see, Shiv, the greatest of Gods, and Parbati, his wife, were walking in the garden of a temple.” “Which temple? That in the Nandgaon ward?” said the child. “Nay, very far away. Maybe at Trimbak or Hurdwar, whither thou must make pilgrimage when thou art a man. Now, there was sitting in the garden under the jujube trees a mendicant that had worshipped Shiv for forty years, and he lived on the offerings of the pious, and meditated holiness night and day.” “Oh, father, was it thou?” said the child, looking up with large eyes. “Nay, I have said it was long ago, and, moreover, this mendicant was married.” “Did they put him on a horse with flowers on his head, and forbid him to go to sleep all night long? Thus they did to me when they made my wedding,” said the child, who had been married a few months before. “And what didst thou do?” said I. “I wept, and they called me evil names, and then I smote _her_, and we wept together.”