Somebody gave Guru Gobind Singh Ji a beautiful silk robe, and he put it on and set off walking towards Keshgarh.
On the way there was a Sikh called Nand Singh Ji, up on a wall, plastering it with wet mud. He was working hard and not looking, and a splash of mud flew off his hand and landed on the new silk.
Guru Ji, walking on, said lightly over his shoulder: give him one slap.
Now, the Sikhs walking behind heard an order from Guru Ji, and they were so pleased to have an order to carry out that they rather ran away with it, and poor Nand Singh Ji got a good deal more than one.
And here is the thing about Nand Singh Ji. He was not upset at all.
He stood there thinking: Guru Ji noticed me. Guru Ji had me in his mind for a moment. Even his telling-off is sweet. If Guru Ji remembers a person like me even once, that person's life is worth something.
So he took it as a gift and went back to his wall, quite happy.
A minute later Guru Ji looked back and saw what had actually happened.
I said one slap, he said. How did he end up with all those?
And the Sikhs said the sort of thing people say when they have overdone it. Beloved Guru Ji, you gave an order. Everybody who heard it obeyed it. Bless us that we always obey you like that, and never disobey.
Guru Ji looked at them for a moment.
Very well, he said. Then here is the order.
Give your daughter to him in marriage.
And the whole place went quiet.
You must understand who they were. They were new. They had come from far away. They had heard all their lives that Guru Ji's word is above everything, and now they were being asked to prove it, on the spot, about a daughter, over a man they had just watched being slapped for splashing mud.
Nobody said anything. Faces went pale and then went down towards the ground.
Then a man came through them. His name was Ajab Singh Ji, and he had come all the way from Kandhar, and he had only just heard the whole story, the mud, the order, everything.
He went straight to Guru Ji and took hold of his feet.
I am yours, he said. Everything I own is a thing you gave me in the first place. If it is any use to you, take it.
And Guru Gobind Singh Ji's eyes filled with tears, which Bhai Sahib says were worth more than diamonds.
You are blessed, he said. Your soul will rest in the Lord's own soul, and you will live in joy.
Your daughter is my daughter.
Marriages, he said, are made in heaven. We will hold this one here.
And he turned round, walked straight back into the hall, and told them to start the arrangements immediately, saying it again in front of everybody: Ajab Singh Ji's daughter is my daughter.
Ajab Singh Ji went and brought her himself, and she came in as somebody who had suddenly become a daughter of the house of Guru Ji, which is a great deal more than she had been that morning.
The wedding was held right there and everybody enjoyed it enormously.
Nand Singh Ji, who had begun the day up a wall with a bucket of mud, was married and thoroughly congratulated by every person present.
And better than the wedding, better than the sweets, everybody in that hall was given the Lord's name that day by the one with the plume in his turban.
Guru Ji blessed Ajab Singh Ji too, who had put his hand up when nobody else would.