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"So you've been dancin' with little Jhansi McKenna, sorr she that's goin' to marry Corp'ril Slane? Whin you next conversh wid your lorruds an' your ladies, tell thim you've danced wid little Jhansi. 'Tis a thing to be proud av." But I wasn't proud. I was humble. I saw a story in Private Mulvaney's eye; and besides, if he stayed too long at the bar, he would, I knew, qualify for more pack-drill.
Their loyalty has never wavered except during the Mutiny, and modern Indian writers of the Nationalist school are themselves at pains to show that, though the mutineers rallied round the feeble descendant of the Moghul Emperors as the only available figurehead, and many Mahomedans proved themselves good "patriots," it was Hindus like Nana Sahib and Tantia Tope and the Ranee of Jhansi who were the real heroes and moving spirits of that "War of Indian Independence."
Maybe they wanted to know how the new rail carried throops. They knew! On me sowl, they knew before they was done! Old Pummeloe had just buried Muttra McKenna; an', the season bein' onwholesim, only little Jhansi McKenna, who was four year ould thin, was left on hand. "Five children gone in fourteen months. 'Twas harrd, wasn't ut?
It is time one were off for Jhansi. At Bioura we encountered modern civilization again in the shape of the south-west branch of the Grand Trunk road, which leads off from the main stem at Agra. The Grand Trunk is not a railroad, but a firm and smooth highway, with which the English have united Calcutta to the North-west Provinces and to the west of India.
"Now an' thin Ould Pummeloe, the tears runnin' down her fat, red face, sez, 'Me bhoys, me poor, dead, darlin' bhoys! But, for the most, she was thryin' to put heart into the men an' kape thim stiddy; and little Jhansi was tellin' thim all they wud be 'betther in the mornin'. 'Twas a thrick she'd picked up from hearin' Ould Pummeloe whin Muttra was burnin' out wid fever.
"Ould Pummeloe was sittin' on her beddin'-rowl, thryin' to kape little Jhansi quiet. 'Go off to that tope! sez the Orficer. 'Go out av the men's way! "'Be damned av I do! sez Ould Pummeloe, an' little Jhansi, squattin' by her mother's side, squeaks out, 'Be damned av I do, tu.
One does not wonder that the hills and forests of such a land became the hiding-places of the strangling Thugs, the home of the poisoning Dacoits, the refuge of conspirators and insurgents and the terror of Central India. As for Jhansi, the district in whose capital we were now sojourning, its people must have tasted many of the sorrows of anarchy and of despotism even in recent times.
No! Slane wint an' asked her. He's a good bhoy is Slane. Wan av these days he'll get into the Com'ssariat an' dhrive a buggy wid his savin's. So I provided for Ould Pummeloe's daughter; an' now you go along an' dance agin wid her." And I did. I felt a respect for Miss Jhansi McKenna; and I went to her wedding later on. Perhaps I will tell you about that one of these days. Oh!
In addition to the existing work at Bangalore, Maymyo, and Poona, Association privileges have been provided for soldiers in Lahore, Delhi, Multan, Forozepore, Jhansi, Lucknow, Mhow, Trimulgherry, Jubbulpore, Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Ahmednagar, Rangoon, Dalhousie, Naini Tal, Karachi, Allahabad, and Jutogh. The man who inaugurated Y M C A army work in France was Joseph Callan.
Now to meet an esteemed friend doing pack-drill outside the guardroom is embarrassing, especially if you happen to be walking with his Commanding Officer. "Come on to the parade-ground, Mulvaney, it's cooler there, and tell me about Miss McKenna. What is she, and who is she, and why is she called 'Jhansi'?" "D'ye mane to say you've niver heard av Ould Pummeloe's daughter?
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