![]() 'Panchu,' said I, turning to him, 'you must lodge a complaint.' Smear yourselves with them in token of your Swadeshi vow.' He took up some of the ashes, crying: "Brothers! This is the first funeral pyre lighted by your village in celebration of the last rites of foreign commerce. 'Any number of people, who all kept shouting Bande Mataram. Panchu in his desperation blurted out defiantly: "I can't afford it! You are rich why not buy it up and burn it?" This only made Harish Kundu red in the face as he shouted: "The scoundrel must be taught manners, give him a shoe-beating!" So poor Panchu got insulted as well as fined.' ![]() He begged and prayed Harish Kundu, his zamindar, to let him sell off his stock, bought with borrowed money, promising faithfully never to do it again but the zamindar would not hear of it, and insisted on his burning the foreign stuff there and then, if he wanted to be let off. 'Because,' I was told, 'he has been found selling foreign cloths. His zamindar, it appeared, had fined him a hundred rupees, and was threatening him with ejectment. A few days later, my master brought Panchu round to me.
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