Hills of Han 29

Hills of Han 29

“Dad--wait!” She stood erect, her head drawn back, looking directly at

him out of curiously bright eyes. Her abundant hair flowed down about

her shoulders... But he thought of her eyes. They were frank, brave, and

very young and eager and bright. Somewhere within her slim little frame

she had a store of fine young courage; he knew it now, and felt a thrill

that was at once hope and pain. He had to fight back tears.... She was

going to tell him. Yes, she was plunging wonderfully into it:

 

“There’s one thing, Dad! I’m sorry--I oughtn’t to make you think of

other things now. But if we could only have a little talk....”

 

He managed to say:

 

“Only a day more, dear.”

 

“Yes. I suppose we should wait... though...” He stepped forward,

drew her to him, and in an uprush of exquisite tenderness kissed her

forehead; then, with an odd little sound that might almost have been a

sob, he rushed off, descended the stairs, and went out the front door.

 

From the window she saw his dim figure crossing the court. At the gate

house he paused and called aloud.

 

Two of the servants came; she could see their quaintly colored paper

lanterns bobbing about. One of them went into the gate house and came

out again. He was struggling with something. She strained her eyes

against the glass. Oh. yes--he was getting into his long coat; that was

all. Apparently he went out, this man, with her father.... The other

colored lantern bobbed back into the gate house, and the compound

settled again into calm.

 

Doane, though he could not talk with his daughter, could talk

directly and bluntly to the man named Brachey, who had rushed out here

incontinent after her He knew this; was alive with a slow swelling anger

that came to him as a perverse sort of blessing after the cumulative

emotional torment of the past three days.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XIII--THE PLEDGE

 

 

1

 

ON the morning of that same day--while Griggsby Doane was striding down

the mountain road from So T’ung to T’ainan-fu--Jonathan Brachey sat

in his room at the inn trying to read, trying to write, counting the

minutes until two o’clock at which hour Betty would be waiting in the

tennis court, when John slipped in with a small white card bearing the

printed legend, in English:

 

_MR. PO_

 

_Interpreter and Secretary_

 

_Yamen of His Excellency the Provincial Judge T’ainan-fu_

 

Mr. Po proved to be a tall, slim, rather elegant young man in

conventional plain robe, black skull-cap and large spectacles, who met

Brachey’s stiff greeting with a broad smile and a wholly Western grip of

the hand.

 

“How d’ do!” he said eagerly: “How d’ do!” Then he glanced about at the

two worn old chairs, the crumbling walls of the sun-dried brick with

their soiled, ragged motto scrolls, the dirty matting on the _kang_, and

slowly shook his head. “You’re not comfortable as all get-out.”

 

If there was in Mr. Po’s speech a softness of intonation and a faint

difficulty with the _r’s_ and _l’s_, the faults were not so marked as to

demand changes of spelling in setting it down. He accepted a cigarette.

Brachey lighted his pipe.

 

“You are quite at home in English,” remarked Brachey.

 

“Oh, yes! English is my professional matter in hand.”

 

“You have lived abroad?”

 

“Oh, no! But at Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College, I made consumption

largely of midnight oil. And among English people society I have broken

the ice.”

 

Brachey settled back in the angular chair; pulled at his pipe; thought.

The man was here for a purpose, of course. But from that slightly eager

manner, it seemed reasonable to infer that among his motives was a

desire to practise and exhibit his English, a curious mixture of

book phrases and coast slang, with here and there the Chinese

sentence-structure showing through. And he offered an opportunity to

study the local problem that Brachey mentally leaped at.

 

So these two fell into chat, the smiling young Chinese gentleman and the

austere Westerner. Mr. Po, speaking easily, without emphasis, his casual

manner suggesting that nothing mattered much--not old or new, life

or death--revealed, through the words he so lightly used, stirring

enthusiasms. And Brachey observed him through narrowed eyes.

 

Here, thought the journalist, before him, smoking a cigarette, sat

modern China; in robe and queue, speaking of the future but ridden by

the past; using strong words but with no fire, no urge or glow in the

voice; as if eager to hope without the substance of hope; at once age

and youth, smiling down the weary centuries at himself.

 

“It has been expressed to me that you are literature man.” Thus Mr. Po.

 

Brachey’s head moved downward.

 

“That is quite wonderful. If you will tell me the names of certain of

your books I will give myself great delight in reading them. I read

English like the devil--all the time. I’m crazy about Emerson.”

 

Brachey led him on. They talked of Russia and England, of the new

railways in China, of truculent Japan, of Edison, much of Roosevelt. Mr.

Po suggested a walk; and they mounted the city wall, sat on the parapet

and talked on; the Chinaman always smiling, nerveless, his calm, easily

flowing voice without body or emphasis. Brachey finally succeeded in

guiding the man to his own topic, China.

 

“It puzzles and bewilders,” said Mr. Po. “China must leap like

grasshopper over the many centuries. To railways one may turn for

beneficent assistance. And also to missionaries.”

 

“I’m surprised to hear you say that. I supposed all China was opposed to

the missionaries.”

 

“I do not dwell at present time upon their religion practises. That may

be all to the good--I can not say. But the domicle of each and every

missionary may be termed civilization propaganda center. Here are found

books, medicines, lamps. Your eyes have discerned enveloping gloom of

Chinese cities by night. Think, I beg of you, what difference it will be

when illumination brightens all. Our people do not like these things, it

is true. They descend avidly into superstitions. They make a hell of a

fuss. But that fuss is growing pain. China must grow, though suffering

accumulate and dismay.”

 

“Come to think of it,” mused Brachey aloud, “superstition isn’t stopping

the railroads.”

 

Mr. Po snapped his fingers, smilingly. “A fig and thistle for

superstition!” he remarked. “Take good look at the railways! What

happened? In every field of China, as you know, stand grave mounds

of honorable ancestral worshiping. It will break heart of China to

desecrate those grave mounds. It will bring down untold misery upon

ancestors. But when they build Hankow-Peking Rahway, very slick

speculator employed observation upon surveyors and purchased up claims

against railway for bringing misery upon ancestors and sold them to

railway company at handsome profit to himself. And, sir, do you know

what it set back company to desecrate ancestors of China? It set back

twelve dollars per ancestor. And that slick speculator he is now

millionaire. He erects imposing house at Shanghai and elaborates dinners

to white merchants. It is said that he will soon be compradore and

partner in most pretentious English Hong.... No, the superstition will

have to go. It will go like the chaff.”

 

“But this big change will take a little time.”

 

“Time? Oh, yes, of course! But what is time to China! A few centuries!

They are nothing!”

 

“A few centuries are something to me,” observed Brachey dryly.

 

“Oh, yes! And to me. That is different. There are times to come of

running to and fro and hubbub. It is not easy to adjust.”

 

“It is not,” said Brachey.

 

“For myself, I would like to get away. I have observed with too great

width customs of white peoples, I have perused with too diligent

attention many English books as well as those of French and German

authorship, to find contentment in Chinese habit ways. I would

appreciate to voyage freely to America. If I might ask, is not there

an exception made under so-called Chinese Exclusion Act in instance of

attentive student and gentleman who finds himself by no means dependent

upon finance arrangements of certain others?”

 

“I really don’t know,” said Brachey. “You’d have to talk with somebody

up at the legation about that.”

 

“But up at legation somebodies make always assumption never to know a

darn thing about anything.” Mr Po laughed easily.

 

“I have employed great thought concerning this topic,” he went on,

with mounting assurance. “It is here and now time of beginning upset in

Hansi, as perhaps as well in all China. At topmost pinnacle of Old Order

here stands Kang, the treasurer. It can not, indeed, be said that

for ennobling ideas of New Order he cares much of a damn. And he is

miserably jealous of His Excellency, Pao Ting Chuan. But Pao is very

strong. Sooner or later he will pin upon Kang defeat humiliation.”

 

“You feel sure Pao will be able to do that?”

 

“Oh, yes! Pao is cat, Kang is mouse.”

 

“Hmm!”

 

“Yes indeed! But it is nothing to me. Nothing in world! I have laid

before His Excellency desires of my heart. He expresses willing

courtesy. If I may make voyage freely he will make best of it. And not

unlike myself he has perceived half-notion that if I turn to you for

wisdom advice you will not turn cold shoulder and throw me down.”