Each long, perfect day rose behind Kim for a barrier to cut him off from his race and his mother-tongue.  He slipped back to thinking and dreaming in the vernacular, and mechanically followed the lama’s ceremonial observances at eating, drinking, and the like.  The old man’s mind turned more and more to his monastery as his eyes turned to the steadfast snows.  His River troubled him nothing.  Now and again, indeed, he would gaze long and long at a tuft or a twig, expecting, he said, the earth to cleave and deliver its blessing; but he was content to be with his disciple, at ease in the temperate wind that comes down from the Doon.  This was not Ceylon, nor Buddh Gaya, nor Bombay, nor some grass-tangled ruins that he seemed to have stumbled upon two years ago.  He spoke of those places as a scholar removed from vanity, as a Seeker walking in humility, as an old man, wise and temperate, illumining knowledge with brilliant insight.  Bit by bit, disconnectedly, each tale called up by some wayside thing, he spoke of all his wanderings up and down Hind; till Kim, who had loved him without reason, now loved him for fifty good reasons.  So they enjoyed themselves in high felicity, abstaining, as the Rule demands, from evil words, covetous desires; not over-eating, not lying on high beds, nor wearing rich clothes.  Their stomachs told them the time, and the people brought them their food, as the saying is.  They were lords of the villages of Aminabad, Sahaigunge, Akrola of the Ford, and little Phulesa, where Kim gave the soulless woman a blessing.

But news travels fast in India, and too soon shuffled across the crop-land, bearing a basket of fruits with a box of Kabul grapes and gilt oranges, a white-whiskered servitor — a lean, dry Oorya — begging them to bring the honour of their presence to his mistress, distressed in her mind that the lama had neglected her so long.

‘Now do I remember’ — the lama spoke as though it were a wholly new proposition.  ‘She is virtuous, but an inordinate talker.’

Kim was sitting on the edge of a cow’s manger, telling stories to a village smith’s children.

’She will only ask for another son for her daughter.  I have not forgotten her,’ he said.  ’Let her acquire merit.  Send word that we will come.’

They covered eleven miles through the fields in two days, and were overwhelmed with attentions at the end; for the old lady held a fine tradition of hospitality, to which she forced her son-in-law, who was under the thumb of his women-folk and bought peace by borrowing of the money-lender.  Age had not weakened her tongue or her memory, and from a discreetly barred upper window, in the hearing of not less than a dozen servants, she paid Kim compliments that would have flung European audiences into unclean dismay.

‘But thou art still the shameless beggar-brat of the parao,’ she shrilled.  ’I have not forgotten thee.  Wash ye and eat.  The father of my daughter’s son is gone away awhile.  So we poor women are dumb and useless.’