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Chapter eleven. The Affair of Degalang |
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love affair; Laisong youths resent intrusion of strange boy; elopement to Impoi |
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He was right, as it happened; it was to a large extent Rangalang's own fault. |
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The young couple had been in love for some time - almost since we first came. But, though Zemi tradition favoured lovers, holding that they should have their way and that interference was wrong, both parents and village had put as many obstacles as possible in Degalang's way. The Laisong bucks resented his intrusion, and even more than that, probably, his success. One night when he was known to be with her in the girl's dormitory, a band of youths raided it. They pulled him down from the bench and her arms, dragged him to the door, and pitched him out into a rainy night and a cold, wet street with the intimation that he need not come back. There was so much feeling about this in Impoi that, for a time, Laisong bucks were there in danger of assault. From Rangalang and the family he had even less encouragement. Degalang was poor and so undesirable. She had other, more eligible admirers in Laisong itself. As soon as it was clear his intentions were serious, she was forbidden to see him. They were young, they were very much in love; Rangalang (89) might have foreseen the result. That morning, she had told her aunt she was going to fetch firewood. She had taken her axe and basket, which concealed her trousseau, and she had slipped out and off to the woods, the picture of maidenly virtue. Degalang had left his baggage in camp, and carelessly, casually, wandered off and away. Where they met we never discovered; nor does it matter. But at noon they were seen, travelling together, on the road to Impoi; and that night they settled as man and wife in the back room in the house of Degalang's elder brother. |
