their house was dear to them, Rutton Singh and Attar Singh
needs must very often ask for leave to go to Patiala and attend to the
lawsuits and cattle-poundings there.

'It was not, look you, as though they went back to their own village and
sat, garlanded with jasmine, in honour, upon chairs before the elders
under the trees. They went back always to perpetual trouble, either of
lawsuits, or theft, or strayed cattle; and they sat on thorns.'

'I knew it,' said the Subadar-Major. 'Life was bitter for them both. But
they were well-conducted men. It was not hard to get them their leave
from the Colonel Sahib.'

'They spoke to me also,' said the Chaplain. '_"Let him who desires the
four great gifts apply himself to the words of holy men."_ That is
written. Often they showed me the papers of the false lawsuits brought
against them. Often they wept on account of the persecution put upon
them by their mother's kin. Men thought it was drugs when their eyes
showed red.'

'They wept in my presence too,' said the Subadar-Major. 'Well-conducted
men of nine years' service apiece. Rutton Singh was drill-Naik, too.'

'They did all things correctly as Sikhs should,' said the Regimental
Chaplain. 'When the persecution had endured seven years, Attar Singh
took leave to Pishapur once again (that was the fourth time in that year
only) and he called his persecutors together before the village elders,
and he cast his turban at their feet and besought them by his mother's
blood to cease from their persecutions. For he told them earnestly that
he had marched to the boundaries of his patience, and that there could
be but one end to the matter.

'They gave him abuse. They mocked him and his tears, which was the same
as though they had mocked the Regiment. Then Attar Singh returned to the
Regiment, and laid this last trouble before Rutton Singh, the eldest
brother. But Rutton Singh could not get leave all at once.'

'Because he was drill-Naik and the recruits were to be drilled. I myself
told him so,' said the Subadar-Major. 'He was a well-conducted man. He
said he could wait.'

'But when permission was granted, those two took four days' leave,' the
Chaplain went on.

'I do not think Attar Singh should have taken Baynes Sahib's revolver.
He was Baynes Sahib's orderly, and all that Sahib's things were open to
him. It was, therefore, as I count it, shame to Attar Singh,' said the
Subadar-Major.

'All the words had been said. There was n