And he says: 'At the end of five years, by this new
bundobust, I must go. If I do not go, I must get fresh seals and takkus-stamps
on the papers, perhaps in the middle of the harvest, and to go to the law-
courts once is wisdom, but to go twice is Jehannum.' That is QUITE true,"
explained Tods, gravely. "All my friends say so. And Ditta Mull says:--'Always
fresh takkus and paying money to vakils and chaprassis and law-courts every
five years or else the landlord makes me go. Why do I want to go? Am I fool? If
I am a fool and do not know, after forty years, good land when I see it, let me
die! But if the new bundobust says for FIFTEEN years, then it is good and wise.
My little son is a man, and I am burnt, and he takes the ground or another
ground, paying only once for the takkus-stamps on the papers, and his little
son is born, and at the end of fifteen years is a man too. But what profit is
there in five years and fresh papers? Nothing but dikh, trouble, dikh. We are
not young men who take these lands, but old ones--not jais, but tradesmen with
a little money--and for fifteen years we shall have peace. Nor are we children
that the Sirkar should treat us so."
Here Tods stopped short, for the whole table were listening.
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