Sir Robert Hart Part 10

"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 honour--the Presidency of a Board--and has had the sanction of society in China since the Flood. What if it is a little embarra.s.sing! 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 grat.i.tude 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 household--modesty 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 they--which 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 died--and in China each man has an army of them, including duplicate mothers and grandmothers--boys, 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 rest--and 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 1863--just such a bitter night as this, with just such a howling wind--when together they had gone to meet Gordon, and the sampan taking them ash.o.r.e 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 1878--how 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRONT DOOR OF SIR ROBERT HART'S HOUSE, PEKING]

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 a.s.sociations 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, and--before we know it--we feel a wrench if we are obliged to move away.

Nevertheless we must all move some time or another. Everybody does--even 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 nationality--all 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 position--a company of splendid Highlanders with pipers, and stretching away down the platform there were American marines, Italian sailors, Dutch marines and j.a.panese 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRONT VIEW OF SIR ROBERT HART'S HOUSE.

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 a.s.sociated 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 t.i.tle 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 conditions--silent when depressed, silent too when cheerful; he may smile, but he will never laugh outright--unless 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 prodigiously--how 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's--of 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 secret--or 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 "1854--1908,"

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."

THE END