LITMIR.BIZ

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died some years after we had all settled in Scotland. My parents left her, with a small pension for life, in charge of the missionaries at Lucknow. When she died, they wrote to us saying that old Sona had been one of the pillars of the Indian Christian Church in Lucknow.

      ‘We look forward with a sure and certain hope to our reunion in the home of many mansions, with her, around whom our hearts still cling with love and affection.’

      In 1856 Mr. Inglis resolved to come home on furlough, accompanied by Mrs. Inglis, and what was called ‘the first family,’ namely, the six boys and one girl born to them in India. It was a formidable journey to accomplish even without children, and one writes, ‘How mother stood it all I cannot imagine.’ They came down from the Punjab to Calcutta trekking in dâk garris. It took four months to reach Calcutta by this means of progression, and another four months to come home by the Cape. The wonderful ayah, Sona, was a great help in the toilsome journey when they brought the children back to England. Mrs. Inglis was soon to have her first parting with her husband. When they landed in England, news of the outbreak of the Mutiny met them, and Mr. Inglis returned almost at once to take his place beside John Lawrence. Together they fought through the Mutiny, and then he worked under him. Inglis was one of John Lawrence’s men in the great settling of the Punjab which followed on that period of stress and strain in the Empire of India. His own district was Bareilly, and the house where he lived in Sealkote is still known as Inglis Sahib ke koti (Inglis Sahib’s house). His children remember the thrilling stories he used to tell them of these great days, and of the great men who made their history.

      His admiration was unbounded for those northern races of India. He loved and respected them, and they, in their turn, gave him unbounded confidence and affection. ‘Every bit as good as an Englishman,’ was a phrase often on his lips when speaking of the fine Sikhs and Punjabis and Rajpoots.

      Englishwomen were not allowed in India during this period, and Mrs. Inglis had to remain in Southampton with her six children and their ayah. It was then that she found work in her leisure time for the work she did in the Men’s Club.

      In 1863, when life in India had resumed its normal course, Mrs. Inglis rejoined her husband, leaving the children she had brought back at home.

      It must have taken all the ‘fortitude’ that Mary Deas had shown long before in Carolina to face this separation. There was no prospect of the running backwards and forwards, which steam was so soon to develop, and to draw the dominions into closer bonds. Letters took months to pass, and no cable carried the messages of life and death across ‘the white-lipped seas.’ Again, one of the survivors says: ‘I always felt even as a child, and am sure of it now, she left her heart behind with the six elder children. What it must have meant to a woman of her deep nature, I cannot imagine.’ The decision was made, and Mr. Inglis was to have the great reward of her return to him, after his seven years of strenuous and anxious loneliness. The boys were sent, three of them to Eton, and two more to Uppingham and to Rugby. Amy Inglis the daughter was left with friends. Relatives were not lacking in this large clan and its branches, and the children were ‘looked after’ by them. We owe much of our knowledge of ‘the second little family,’ which were to comfort the parents in India, by the correspondence concerning them with the dearly-loved children left in the homelands.

      CHAPTER II

      ELSIE MAUD INGLIS1864–1917

      ‘Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is His reward. As arrows are in the hand of the mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.’

Naini Tal, Aug. 16, 1864.

      ‘My darling Amy, – Thank God, I am able to tell you that your dearest mother, and your little sister who was born this morning are well. Aunt Ellen thinks that baby is very like your dearest mother, but I do not see the resemblance at present. I hope I may by and by. We could not form a better wish for her, than that she may grow up like her dear mother in every respect. Old Sona is quite delighted to have another baby to look after again. She took possession of her the moment she was born, as she has done with all of you. The nurse says she is a very strong and healthy baby. I wish to tell you as early as possible the good news of God’s great mercy and goodness towards us in having brought your dearest mother safely through this trial.’

      Mrs. Inglis writes a long account of Elsie at a month old, and says she is supposed to have a temper, as she makes herself heard all over the house, and strongly objects to being brought indoors and put into her cradle.

      In October she writes how the two babies, her own and Aunt Ellen’s little boy, had been taken to church to be baptized, the one by the name of Elsie Maude, the other Cyril Powney. Both children were thriving, and no one would know that there were two babies in the house. ‘Elsie always stares very hard at papa when he comes to speak to her, as if she did not quite know what to make of his black beard, something different to what she is accustomed to see, but she generally ends by laughing at him’ – the first notice of that radiant friendship in which father and daughter were to journey together in a happy pilgrimage through life.

      Elsie had early to make long driving expeditions with her parents, and her mother reports her as ‘accommodating herself to circumstances, watching the trees, sleeping under them, and the jolliest little traveller I ever saw.’

      In December 1864 Mrs. Inglis reports their return from camp: —

      ‘It has been most extraordinarily warm for the time of year, and there has been very little rain during the whole twelvemonth. People attribute it to the wonderful comet which has been visible in the southern hemisphere. Elsie is very well, but she is a very little thing with a very wee face. She has a famous pair of large blue eyes, and it is quite remarkable how she looks about her and seems to observe everything. She lies in her bed at night in the dark and talks away out loud in her own little language, and little voice, and she is always ready for a laugh.’

      Later on Mrs. Inglis writes: ‘I think she is one of the most intelligent babies I ever met with.’

      Every letter descriptive of the dark, blue-eyed baby with the fast growing light hair, speaks of the smile ready for every one who speaks to her, and the hearty laughs which seem to have been one of her earliest characteristics.

      One journey tried Elsie’s philosophy of taking life as she found it. Mrs. Inglis writes to her daughter: —

Naini Tal, 1865.

      ‘We came in palkies from Beharin to a place called Jeslie, half way up the hill to Naini Tal, and were about ten hours in the palkies. I had arranged to have Elsie with me in my palkie, but the little monkey did not like being away from Sona, and then the strangeness of the whole proceedings bewildered her, and the noise of the bearers seemed to frighten her, so I was obliged to make her over to Sona. She went to sleep after a little while. As we came near the hills it became cold and a wind got up, and then Papa brought her back to me, for we did not quite like her being in Sona’s doolie, which was not so well protected as mine. She had become more reconciled to the disagreeables of dâk travelling by that time. We reached our house about nine o’clock yesterday morning. The change from the dried-up hot plains is very pleasant. You may imagine how often I longed for the railroad and our civilised English way of travelling.’

      Mrs. Shaw M‘Laren, the companion sister of Elsie, and to whom her correspondence always refers, has written down some memories of the happy childhood days in India. The year was divided between the plains and the hills of India. Elsie was born in August 1864, at Naini Tal, one of the most beautiful hill stations in the Himalayas. From the verandah, where much of the day was spent, the view was across the masses of ‘huddled hills’ to the ranges crowned by the everlasting snows. An outlook of silent and majestic stillness, and one which could not fail to influence such a spirit as shone out in the always wonderful eyes of Elsie. She grew up with the vision of the glory of the earthly dominion, and it gave a new meaning to the kingdom of the things of the spirit.

      ‘All our childhood is full of remembrances of “Father.” He never forgot our birthdays; however hot it was down in the scorched plains, when the day came round, if we were up in the hills,

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