` She died , they tell me , when I was young . ' ` Hai mai ! Then none can say I have robbed her of any right if -- when thou takest the road again and this house is but one of a thousand used for shelter and forgotten , after an easy-flung blessing . No matter . I need no blessings , but -- but -- ' She stamped her foot at the poor relation . ` Take up the trays to the house . What is the good of stale food in the room , O woman of ill-omen ? ' ' I ha -- have borne a son in my time too , but he died , ' whimpered the bowed sister-figure behind the chudder . ` Thou knowest he died ! I only waited for the order to take away the tray . ' ` It is I that am the woman of ill-omen , ' cried the old lady penitently . ` We that go down to the chattris -LSB- the big umbrellas above the burning-ghats where the priests take their last dues -RSB- clutch hard at the bearers of the chattis -LSB- water-jars -- young folk full of the pride of life , she meant ; but the pun is clumsy -RSB- . When one can not dance in the festival one must e ` en look out of the window , and grandmothering takes all a woman 's time . Thy master gives me all the charms I now desire for my daughter 's eldest , by reason -- is it ? -- that he is wholly free from sin . The hakim is brought very low these days . He goes about poisoning my servants for lack of their betters . ' ` What hakim , mother ? ' ` That very Dacca man who gave me the pill which rent me in three pieces . He cast up like a strayed camel a week ago , vowing that he and thou had been blood-brothers together up Kulu-way , and feigning great anxiety for thy health .
He was very thin and hungry , so I XXXXX orders to have him stuffed too -- him and his anxiety ! ' '
am brought clutch feigning forgotten gave go hakim meant say