Bengal Fairy Tales/The Wily Brahmin
VIII
THE WILY BRAHMIN
THERE was once a certain Brahmin and his wife who although they were in quite good circumstances were very miserly. It was rumoured that they had amassed a considerable sum of money in cash, and that the gold mohurs and rupees in their chest were covered with rust. Some thieves, hearing of this, one night approached their house, and from behind the sleeping-room began consulting as to the best means by which they could get inside. They supposed the Brahmin and his better half to be asleep, and so were not too careful to talk only in whispers. But their intended victims were awake, and the Brahmin determined not only to thwart them, but to utilize their labours for his own benefit. So in an audible and distinct voice, he said to his wife, "O Brahmini, I fear thieves will to-night break into our house. But what can they find? All our wealth is safely buried in the field just behind the house."
The thieves on hearing this, naturally gave up the idea of housebreaking, and all in a body, their number being about a score, left the place and, having secured hoes and spades, returned to the field, and dug it from one end to the other. But to their surprise they found nothing worth having. The Brahmin, however, reaped great benefit from their labour. It was the proper season of the year to have the field dug and prepared for the cultivation of rice, and he thus got the digging done by the thieves without spending a single cowrie for the purpose.
Disappointed, though not dispirited, the thieves made their appearance the next night behind the Brahmin's window, intending to break through it. He was expecting them, however, and hearing the sounds of their footsteps when they came to the spot, he addressed his wife, saying, "You see how I have baulked the thieves. I suspected their approach, and therefore to hoax them I spoke of having buried my treasures in the field, while in reality I have kept them at the bottom of the tank beside it."
The thieves, hearing the words, at once went off and secured very capacious vessels to empty the tank, and set to the work in right earnest. The tank soon looked liked a dry pit, while all its water had run over the field, fertilizing the soil for the purpose of agriculture and thus saving the Brahmin considerable expense.
The Brahmin, fearing that the thieves having been baulked twice, would muster in greater force than before and make a more determined and desperate effort, left home the next evening to secure the services of some hirelings to make a strong resistance against attack. A thick darkness covered the fields as he anxiously sped on his errand. In the middle of one of the fields he saw six stalwart men seated in a circle round a fire at which they were warming themselves. He drew towards them, for he too was feeling cold, and to make room for himself said to one of them, "Saratobhái tápái."[1] Now the beings he saw were not men but ghosts, but they also, being of flesh and blood, feel cold as well as men, and require to warm their limbs, and the one addressed, whose name was Tapai, was startled to hear, as he imagined, a human being calling him by name. In a nasal tone, peculiar to ghosts alone, he exclaimed " Brahmin I how did you know my name, and come to address me so familiarly?" The Brahmin was petrified with awe at hearing the voice, for it took him no time to realize that he was in the midst of a company of ghosts. But he summoned up his courage and said, "Friend, though you seem not to know me, I know you well." At this another ghost, to try him, asked him if he knew his name, and the Brahmin replied, "Hilláh re bhái Hilláh,[2] don't I know your name?" This too hit the mark, for the ghost's name was Hillah, and the word the Brahmin had uttered as an interjection, sufficed to save him from much trouble and perhaps even from death. The ghosts at once took him as their friend, and asked him the motive that brought him to them. He told them how a band of ruffians was in league against him, and how great was his need of helpers, and they in a body accompained him to his house for the purpose of assisting him.
It was near upon midnight when they reached the house, and the Brahmin, giving his friends some supper, asked them to wait unseen for the thieves. Taking unsubstantial forms, they remained hid in the hollow of a Cháltá tree in the yard. They had not long to wait, for those whom they expected soon made their appearance. This night their plan of attack was different. Having given up the idea of house-breaking, they determined to make an open attack, and scaling the walls and jumping down into the yard, they intended bursting open the main door of the building. But again they heard the Brahmin and his wife talking, and apprehensive that when still awake they might give the alarm to their neighbours, they resolved to tarry for a while. There was in the yard a taktaposh, [3] and they sat down on it for a little rest, intending to make their attack when the immates of the house should fall asleep. But while they were thus awaiting the proper moment, tired Nature pressed her claims upon them, and the hard labour that they had undergone during the past two nights, which had allowed them not a wink of sleep, caused them to feel very drowsy, and at length they fell soundly asleep on the bed.
The Brahmin opened the door of his room as silently as possible, approached on tiptoe the Cháltá tree, and asked his ghostly friends to break off a number of the fruit, tie half a dozen of them to the long hair of each thief, and then give chase to them. His friends did as directed, and the thieves on being awakened ran out of the house as fast as they could, hearing shouts of "mar-salader"[4] uttered by the ghosts, and receiving blows from the Cháltá fruit that kept hitting them on their backs as they ran. These they took to be stones and brick-bats thrown at them and they made good their escape half dead with fright.
Never again did they think of molesting the Brahmin, whom they now knew to be too full of resource for them to get him into their power. They disappeared from the quarter in which he lived, and the resourceful Brahmin's very name became a terror to evil-doers.