"I can hardly say" replied the boatman after a short indecision.
The interrogator took offence and began railing at the boatman. "What is in the hands of Providence, Sir" chipped in the youth, "can't be foretold by the wise, far less by a simpleton. You must not bother over that."
"Not bother!" echoed back the other furiously. "What do you mean? The fellows forcibly cut away paddy from some twenty odd bighas of my land and what my children would live upon the whole year?"
This news he received from the fresh arrivals not before he had come out to the Saugor Islands. "So I observed already" rejoined the youngman, "when you have none other guardian left home, it was wrong of you to venture out."
"Not venture!" snapped the old man as sharply as before. "Three quarters of my life have been spent and only the fourth is left. Now or never to work for one's next life."
"If I have read the scriptures aright," added the youth, "the merits of pilgrimages accruing to after-life are equally within the reach of those who stay at home."
"Why did you stir out then?" returned the old man. "So I told you at the very outset", replied the other, "I had a great mind to have a look at the sea. So I came". Then he exulted half to himself "Ah! what a sight! This is never to be forgotten in ages of the soul's migrations".
