No one quite knew who or what the Gullals were till The
Mussuck, who had been calling on Mrs. Hauksbee, and prided
himself upon picking people's brains, explained they were a tribe
of ferocious hillmen, somewhere near Sikkim, whose friendship
even the Great Indian Empire would find it worth her while to
secure. Now we know that Otis Yeere had showed Mrs. Hauksbee
his MS. notes of six years' standing on these same Gullals. He had
told her, too, how, sick and shaken with the fever their negligence
had bred, crippled by the loss of his pet clerk, and savagely angry
at the desolation in his charge, he had once damned the collective
eyes of his 'intelligent local board' for a set of haramzadas. Which
act of 'brutal and tyrannous oppression' won him a Reprimand
Royal from the Bengal Government; but in the anecdote as
amended for Northern consumption we find no record of this.
Hence we are forced to conclude that Mrs. Hauksbee edited his
reminiscences before sowing them in idle ears, ready, as she well
knew, to exaggerate good or evil. And Otis Yeere bore himself as
befitted the hero of many tales.
'You can talk to me when you don't fall into a brown study. Talk
now, and talk your brightest and best,' said Mrs. Hauksbee.
Otis needed no spur. Look to a man who has the counsel of a
woman of or above the world to back him.
Pages:
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45