SOME QUIET YEARSA CHANGE OF MASTERSINSOMNIAA FAREWELL AUDIENCEAN HONOUR AND ITS ADVERTISEMENTAH FONG AND OTHERSDEPARTURE FROM PEKING“A SMALL, INSIGNIFICANT IRISHMAN”

With the conclusion of the Peking Congress a new era began in the old capital. One could scarcely expect the effects of the Siege and its terrible aftermath to wear off at once. It was long indeed before the city resumed anything like a normal appearance, before people dared to come creeping back to their ruined shops and houses. Some, alas! found they had nothing to creep back to, not even ruinsfor the Legations, determined never to be caught in the same trap a second time, insisted upon reserving a big area for themselves and fortifying it. Unfortunately those who had borne least of the heat of the day received the largest rewards in the newly planned Quarter, and grabbed most greedily and with least justice. Consideration for Chinese sentiments at such a time would have been almost more than human, but revenge carried to the point of making the I.G., because he was an employee of the Chinese Government, suffer for the mistakes of that Government, seems both unnecessary and ungenerous. This, however, was just what happened. His fine garden was ruthlessly chopped to pieces in the rearrangement, and though he did not actually lose ground, the long walk around the house was spoiled and he found a frowning wall five feet from his back windows. Moreover there was nothing he could do to prevent these thingsthe opinions of critics who accused him of weakness notwithstanding. These critics wanted him to shout his grievances aloud, to make them audible above the din of that noisy time. But what hope had he of being heard? The Chinese officials could not listen and his own countrymen would not, so where was he to turn?

Nothing remained for it but to build his house on the old foundationsan economical planand try to forget about the wall near the back windows. The garden also was set in order. As the Psalmist says, “The wilderness was made to blossom,” for wilderness it was. Judging from appearances, Chinese soldiers must have encamped there. They left their rice-bowls in the path and their fans under the trees. Probably they stayed some days and looted at leisure, then disappeared as suddenly as they had come, after a sharp struggle with a company of Boxers, for two of these patriots in full regaliared sashes and rusty swordslay dead in the long grass. Poor patriots, they owed their quiet graves under a barbarian’s lawn to a barbarian’s kindness. I wonder if their ghosts have a sense of humour, and if they ever chuckle a little over the trick Fate played on them when they were helpless?

Once established again in his new-old quarters, the I.G. went back to his former routine of life. The band-boys, scattered by the Siege, returned, one having become, all of a sudden, a hero.

It happened during the days immediately following the Relief, when the prostrate city was given up to plunderers. A company of soldiers chose to break into a big dwelling-house, and the Chinese inhabitants scamperedmen and womenin wild terror. Then suddenly, in the midst of the confusion, a bugle call rang loud and clear on the air. The European soldiers, recognizing the “Retreat” and fearing a superior force was about to descend on them, stood not on the order of their going, but left at once. Yet it was no superior force after all. A single man by his presence of mind saved the situationand that man was the I.G.’s best cornet player. Afterwards, I remember, he used to be pointed out to strangers at garden parties, and he had quite a deal of notoriety before he and his gallantry were forgotten in the daily round of commonplace happenings.

Taking into consideration the great shock of 1900, it is wonderful how the I.G. could remain unaltered in all his habits, could be so unmoved by the changes taking place around him. The Chinese officials, for instancewho suddenly became as anxious for Western comforts as they had hitherto detested themdrove over modernized roads in carriages; he clung to his old-fashioned sedan chair. The majority of the besieged boughtor otherwise acquired loot; he never spent a penny on it, and never entered what the looters euphemistically liked to call “deserted houses.”

The whole community took advantage of the opening of the Temple of Heaven and the Temple of Agriculture, fine parks free from dust and the noise of the city; he never entered either. Nor at a time when the whole world was discussing the Winter Palace and the Forbidden City, did he consider that the dictates of good breeding permitted him to go where the rightful owners would have refused him entrance. He took his outings as usual either in his own garden or on the city wall, from which he could watch the slow rebuilding of the Legation Quarter, a perfect salade Russe of architecture, with German gables, classic Venetian gateways and Flemish turrets jostling one another.

This calm life continued for four peaceful years. Then he was startled again by a bolt from the blue. The Inspectorate of Customs was transferred by Imperial Edict from the Wai-Wu-Pu to the Shui-Wu-Ch’u, a Board specially created to control it.

The real meaning of the change was not easy to fathom, but everybody seized the opportunity to talk at onceall the newspapers and the correspondents and the political experts; to criticize, to prophesy, to predict, to shake their headsall but one man, the man most concerned. And he said nothing; he listened while the others authoritatively stated what he must think, what he did think, and what he would think later. To tell the truth he thought less of his own position, the prestige of which was undoubtedly affected by a move that turned him from a semi-political agent into a simple departmental head, than he did of the future of his service. Consequently, at a juncture when he had the best excuse for deserting a post which had partially deserted him, he remained to reassure outsiders as well as employees and to prove that radical as the Edict seemed, its real meaning was not half so disturbing as it appeared.

Anxiety could never have driven him away; it took insomnia to make him apply for the leave he so greatly needed. His brain, like Gladstone’s, was overtaxed; the problems which he had so long considered gave him no rest, and by night as well as by day his too active mind thought and planned and considered. Rest was therefore imperative, and fortunately his leave was granted. At the same time the Empress-Dowager commanded him to an Audience. It was not the first by any means, as he had for the last few years always gone to the Palace at the Chinese New Year. But as it was typical of the others, a few words of description may not come amiss. He was off early in the morning as usual, surrounded by Palace officials mounted on shaggy ponies who trotted beside his sedan chair while their riders with shrieks and yells cleared a way for the cavalcade. The police guards popped out of their stations to salute himI can tell you that hour’s journey across the city was something in the nature of a triumphal progress, what with traffic airily waved aside and sentries and soldier-police presenting arms! At the Palace gates he alighted, and was met by other officials, bigger and grander, and conducted to the Hall of Audience. A considerable distance still remained to be covered; courtyard after courtyard had to be traversed and an artificial lake crossed in a barge before the Hall itself was reached andan official having gone ahead and peeped in and announced his presence informallyhe was shown into the presence of Their Majesties. Side by side on a little raised platform sat the Emperor and the Empress-Dowager, each with a table before them. He might have noticed that there were flowers on the Empress’s table and none on the Emperor’s, but that otherwise the room was not particularly large or imposing and very barewithout chairs, without cupboards, without ornamentation of any kind except the beautiful painting on the ceiling and the fine woodcarving on the long doors. But he had a speech to makeabsorbing occupationand as soon as it was over the Empress-Dowager was talking to him quite simply about his travels and asking questions about London. She shyly confessed that since her one and only train journeyfrom Si-an in 1900she had conceived a great liking for travel and enjoyed seeing strange sights. Then she wished him a happy voyage and concluded by remarking: “We have chosen to give you some little keepsakes,” using the word meaning a “personal souvenir” rather than a formal and perfunctory “present.” It was a moment of natural excitement, and the I.G., dumb with emotion, received the intimation in unflattering silence. “Thank,” said the Minister who presented him, in agonized tones; and while he stammered out a simple “Thank you,” devoid of any conventional flourishes, the Minister went down on his knees and put his gratitude prettily. The interview was then closed; Emperor and Empress both assumed a Buddha-like impassivity of expression and allowed the I.G. to back just as if they were entirely oblivious of his presence. Such is the Chinese method of differentiating between the friend and the sovereign.

In the waiting-room he told his faux pas to the Ministers, either coming from or going into the Audience Hall, and expressed his annoyance that the proper formula for returning thanks had slipped his mind when it did. They laughed heartily over the incident, and for his comfort told him the story of a certain man called Kwei Hsin, who had an even worse experience. Some time in the late ’seventies he returned from an audience pulling his beard, which was long and thin. He seemed visibly annoyed about something.

“What has happened?” enquired his colleagues anxiously.

“Well,” said he, “the Emperor (then little more than a child) asked me a question to-day which I could not answer.”

“And what was it?” Their minds immediately flew to knotty points at issue. Was it about the finances of the provinces? Could it be a Censor had denounced some one and enquiries were to be made?

“He asked me,” said Kwei Hsin slowly, “if I slept with my beard under the quilt or outside it, and for the life of me I could not remember, so I stood there dumb as a fish.”

Two or three days after the audience the “souvenirs” were brought to the I.G. by the Palace servants. In addition, they gave him a little surprise of their own. He found them pasting a big red placard on his front gate. It was their way of advertising his newest honourthe Presidency of a Boardand has had the sanction of society in China since the Flood. What if it is a little embarrassing! It would be worse for the newly promoted to tell his friends about his step up in the world himself. By this method he is spared the trouble, and while he theoretically knows nothing about it, the Imperial servants take this delicate means of making the honour known, receiving a substantial tip for their thoughtfulness.

But the I.G., whose modesty was entirely genuine instead of counterfeit, was shocked at seeing himself lauded in three-inch black characters on a flaring red ground, and driven in desperation to explain that while his gratitude was unbounded, he did not want an admiring crowd collected on his threshold. So, much to the disappointment of his servants, who in China feel that their master’s glory reflects upon themselves, the announcement was taken down.

Whoever says “No man can be a hero to his own valet” is wrong, for the I.G. was undoubtedly a hero to his whole householdmodesty notwithstanding. Most of his servants remained with him for thirty years, and at the end one and all gave him an excellent “character.” “We have found you a very satisfactory master,” said theywhich sounds strange to us, but is the Chinese way of doing things. No wonder they said so. He had such a horror of asking too much from those he employed that he was far too lenient with them. His ear was too attentive to their stories, his purse too open to their borrowings. When their relatives diedand in China each man has an army of them, including duplicate mothers and grandmothersboys, cooks, coolies and bandsmen rushed to “borrow” from him. I cannot remember hearing that one ever came to repay.

At last this fact struck even the I.G., long-suffering though he was. “Why do you not ask me to give you this amount?” he mildly expostulated to the next man who came pleading for the funeral expenses of his brother’s son’s wife.

“Oh,” replied the fellow, pained and grieved at his master’s want of understanding, “I couldn’t do that. If I did I should lose ‘face’”that is, prestige and standing in the community. On such a slender thread hangs self-respect in the Far East.

The old butler, a Cantonese with the manner of a courtier, was even more privileged than the restand for the best of reasons. He had been with his master for almost half a century. His memory was wonderful, and sometimes on winter nights when he had helped to serve the I.G.’s solitary and frugal dinner, he would presume on his position, linger behind the other servants, and call up again to the I.G.’s mind the night in 1863just such a bitter night as this, with just such a howling windwhen together they had gone to meet Gordon, and the sampan taking them ashore had capsized, throwing them both into the icy water.

Occasionally then the I.G. would retaliate with reminiscences of Ah Fong making the Grand Tour of Europe with him in 1878how he kissed his hands to the winning French chambermaids, and called out “Allewalla, Allewalla!” ("Au revoir, au revoir!"), or how he had answered the horrified ladies of Ireland who inquired about his duties,“Morning time my brush master’s clothes, night time my bring he brandy and water.”

In this age of uninterested or inanimate “helps,” a servitor like Ah Fong is about as rare as an archaeopteryx. Devotion and loyalty such as his are fast dying out of the world, but they make a pretty picture when one does find them, and I like to tell how the old servant grieved at the thought of separation from one who represented his whole horizon.

The I.G., too, must have felt some sentiment at leaving the faces to which he was accustomed, the house which had grown dear in almost thirty years of uninterrupted solitude. It is just these associations which are most intangible, which sound most trivial set down in black and white, that often take the strongest hold upon us. Habit, the little old dame, creeps in one day, sits by our fire, amuses us, comforts us, occupies us, andbefore we know itwe feel a wrench if we are obliged to move away.

Nevertheless we must all move some time or another. Everybody doeseven the I.G., whose going had been so often prophesied and again so often contradicted that he had come to be regarded as the one fixed star twinkling unselfishly in the heaven of duty.

The morning of his going, I remember, broke fine and clear. The sky was beautifully blue, like an inverted turquoise bowl. The little railway station must have been startled half out of its wits by all the people flocking in. Such a thing in all its history had never happened before. Under the low grey roof trooped guards of honour sent by every nationalityall for the sake of one man who was only a civilian, and nothing but a private individual. There were this man’s own nationals in the central positiona company of splendid Highlanders with pipers, and stretching away down the platform there were American marines, Italian sailors, Dutch marines and Japanese soldiers. And, of course, there were Chinese, no less than three detachments of them, looking very well in their new khaki uniforms. Two of the detachments had brought their bands, and the I.G.’s own band had come of its own accord to play “Auld Lang Syne.”

With his butler, Ah Fong, who served him for almost half a century.]

As the I.G. stepped from his sedan chair at the end of the platform his face wore an expression of bewilderment, but only for a moment. Then he turned to the commanding officer, and saying “I am ready,” walked steadily down the lines of saluting troops while the bands all played “Home, Sweet Home.” Just as quietly he said good-bye to the host of Chinese officials with whom he had been associated so long; then turned to the Europeans whom he had known so well, to all of whom he had done so many kindnesses, and none of whom could say “bon voyage” dry-eyed, while camera fiends “snapped” him as he shook hands and said last good-byes. At last he stepped on board the train and slowly drew away from the crowd, bowing again and again in his modest way.

So far as his work was concerned he could go without regrets. He left his career behind him with no frayed edges that could tangle. He had fulfilled all his ambitions. He had “bought back Kilmoriarty and got a title too,” as he promised his aunt he would while still a boy in his teens. He had collected an almost unprecedented number of honours, been decorated no less than twenty-four times, eight, however, being promotions in the Orders. But still that left him sixteen to wear, and of those sixteen, thirteen were Grand Crosses. As a matter of fact he never wore any of them when he could help it, and never more than one at a time. “I do not want to look like a Christmas tree,” he would say in joke. This was his humility again.

He certainly was humble, and he looked so. There was never the slightest pomp or pride about him. “A small, insignificant Irishman,” so some one has described him. Is he small? I dare say he is, but one never notices it. One notices only the long face still further lengthened by a beard, the domed forehead, the bright eyes, very inscrutable usually, very sympathetic when he chooses to make them so; and when he speaks, a soft voice, quiet and even-toned but often indistinct. Not given to demonstrativeness, he appears the same under all conditionssilent when depressed, silent too when cheerful; he may smile, but he will never laugh outrightunless called upon in society to make a special effort to amuse somebody. Then he does it, as he does all he sets out to do, well.

But usually he allows other people to instruct him, listening patiently and giving so little hint of what he himself thinks that few people know him intimately and the general public stands a little in awe of him. What more natural? His work has been a hard disciplinarian, a relentless grudger of little joys; and, as is well known, those who make history have little time to make friends.

Yet on the whole his success has been cheap as successes go. True he worked prodigiouslyhow he did work, straight on from his University days!but none of his labours have been hopelessly dull, while some have been exceptionally interesting, and all have been flavoured with a pinch of romance. Further, he has had the satisfaction of filling his years about twice as full as other people’sof helping more men than most of his neighbours, and of gaining the world’s respect and admiration.

How has he done it? Shall I tell you the secretor what he often laughingly said was the secret? It lies hidden in a verse which he wrote in his fantastic hand on the desk at which he stood for so many years with unremitting industry. First came two dates “18541908,” and then these lines:

“If thou hast yesterday thy duty done,
And thereby cleared firm footing for to-day,
Whatever clouds may dark to-morrow’s sun,
Thou shalt not miss thy solitary way.”