Knowing that the Pepper Month was coming faster than he realized among
the queen-time of the roses, Sên Ruben went to the witch woman a day
or two before the fish-fight. He would not turn toward England without
seeing her again.
Alone Kow Lôk was spraying her peach trees when he came upon her. And
it was daylight. There was no sightlessness in the eyes the woman
turned to him, and they looked at him kindlier. She let him walk beside
her, let him chat to her, as she sprayed the peach trees. There seemed
little pretense, nothing witch-like about her to-day; just a sturdy old
peasant woman working in her orchard.
Sên Ruben spoke to her of China, and she answered not unpleasantly. He
spoke to her of England. She made no answer.
“You have a little vase with a flower-bunch and a wild-gander quill in
it in yonder room, old-one,” Sên said towards their parting.
“This woman-person saw you eye it the day your fool-one kinsman brought
you to spy upon her,” Kow Lôk answered pleasantly.
“I would buy it, old-one.”
“I will not sell it, White Sên.”
“I will pay you big price for it.”
“It has no price.” But she added, “Why do you covet it?”
“To take it across the ocean, old-one. I have seen its match there,
with selfsame flower-bunch in it, and selfsame feather, but of wild
goose--in a house of treasures, greatliest treasured.”
“Why should not Kow Lôk have her treasure, too? She has no other?”
Sên Ruben had no answer. Kow Lôk went on spraying, moving slowly from
tree to tree, Ruben moving with her. A long time they went in silence.
Then, “May I take a message?” Ruben asked her.
“No message.” The woman spoke firmly, but Ruben thought that her hand
on the spray-brush had trembled. “I have no message to send. But go in
peace, Sên Ruben. You have come to do me a kindness. I understand what
was in your heart. I will not be ungrateful. Kow Lôk the witch is not a
‘dwarf’ but a woman of the sons of Han. I shall not be here when next
you come to Ho-nan. Many years must pass ere you come. Leave me now,
and go in peace between us. I wish you no ill and shall not. I bear you
not hate for the hate I bear your Great One.”
Because he saw she wished it, Sên Ruben turned and left her; but first,
because she was old, and for the little vase she treasured, Lord
Sên Ruben bent low before the peasant woman whom Kow Li had loved in
their youth and deserted. And Sên Ruben went in peace, because he knew
that she had caught his message and knew that across the world Kow Li
cherished a valueless old love token that for no gold would Kow Li sell.
It was to tell the old peasant woman this that he had come again to her
peach-girdled nourish-old-age.
She called after him, “Had my peaches ripened you should eat your belly
full, Lord Sên Ruben, and take with you all that you could carry.
_Yie! Yie!_ that you never will taste them: the only peaches in Ho-nan
that are not tasteless! There will be no peaches here in this person’s
orchard when you come again; for when I go to my grave-place, they will
rot at their roots, and nothing shall save the peach trees that I saw
planted--stones that grew not till I watered them with my sorrow.”
Once more she called to him, over her shoulder when he had gone farther
from her, “No message, lord-one!”
Ruben answered her, “No message, mother!”
At the gate he turned for the last time and looked at Kow Lôk. She was
spraying her peach-trees steadily. She did not turn to look at him.