292 REMINISCENCES OF SONEPORE. 



An eccentric but lovable person a castaway as Cowper 

 was who had retired to the Isle of Skye from a grass coun- 

 try, used to say of the Macleods : " I like them all ; but 

 Jimmy is a fine creature ; and he knows a good horse." These 

 are his characteristics to this day. Good and true are hackney- 

 ed terms and have been applied with little discrimination 

 to frequenters of the turf and to busybodies at meets ; but to 

 the furthest stretch of their meaning they describe the career 

 of Jimmy Macleod. " Pass him by, he is down ; regard him 

 not, he is ill-favoured " have never been suggestions to his 

 generous mind. Reproof and railing sometimes in speech, 

 kindness and helpfulness always in action, sum up his con- 

 duct. To Lall Serryah on the Lake the men and women of 

 Chumparun and Tirhoot have gathered as one large family. 

 Oh the merry days ! The merry days when we were young ! 

 Laughter holding both his sides was the presiding genius 

 then. A native banker remarked " The Sahib log, when they 

 meet, are continually laughing." No doubt he was of opinion 

 they should have been pondering with grave visage on the 

 rupaiyapaisa. And peradventure the purses of some plan- 

 ters would have been heavier if they had counted more and 

 laughed less. But the best years of their life had to be 

 spent in India perforce. Was the great central period of 

 their existence, when such faculties as they possessed were 

 at their highest capacity, to be passed only in a sluggish em- 

 ployment of the powers of the body without the incentive 

 to exertion of the sympathy of dear friends, the humanising 

 influence of the charms of music, the cheering and comfort- 

 ing effect of social intercourse, the invigorating and inspirit- 

 ing rivalry of legitimate sport? Were planters to prepare 

 for a miserable retirement at home by a debasing and brutish 

 seclusion out here ? Were they to assimilate themselves to 

 that thing which neither reads, nor rides, nor plays polo, nor 

 is seen in the ranks, or by the jungle cover, or on the banks 



