lives. The others were all
left senseless on the ground: but the sipahis did not dare to lay
hands on the paramanik's herd boy, he drove the cattle back into the
village, and told the villagers what had been done to their sons. So
the villagers went out with beds and carried the wounded boys home;
then they assembled and resolved to go and punish the Raja, so they
went to him and asked what he meant by killing their children. "Dear
me," said the Raja, "are they really dead?" "Well, if not not quite
dead, they are very ill," was the answer. "I am sorry," said the Raja:
"I admit that I have done wrong, but if you will forgive me this time,
I will undertake to cure them in a minute and make them as well as
ever; go and fetch them here."

So the Santals went off to fetch the wounded cowherds and carried
them to the Raja, all lying senseless on beds and put them down before
him. While they were away the Raja had told his sipahis to grind some
good hot _chilis_; and when the cowherds were brought to him he told
the sipahis to thrust the chili paste up their noses; this was done
and the smarting soon made the cowherds jump up and run away in a
very lively fashion, and that was the way the Raja kept his word and
cured them.

XLIX. The Foolish Sons.

There was once a man of the blacksmith caste who had six sons; the
sons were all married and the whole family lived together. But the
sons' wives took to quarrelling and at last the sons went to their
parents and proposed that they should set up separate households,
as the women folk could not live in peace.

The blacksmith and his wife did not like the idea at all and pointed
out that it would be most inadvisable; while, so far, there was plenty
of food and clothing for all, they would find it much more expensive
to have seven separate households and split up what was quite enough
so long as they lived together, and what was to become of their old
parents who were now too old to work? The sons protested that they
would support their father and mother as long as they lived, even
though the family separated.

At last the old man said that he would put them to the test and see
whether they were clever enough to manage their own affairs and smart
enough to cheat people into giving them what they wanted. "I will
see," said he, "how you would manage to support the family in time
of famine or if we fell into poverty. I and your mother have managed
to bring up a large family,