It was dead of night and midwinter. A frightful wind was bringing
sleet from the East. The long sere grasses were wailing. Two specks
of light appeared on the desolate plain; a man in a hansom cab was
driving alone in North China.
Alone with the driver and the dejected horse. The driver wore a good
waterproof cape, and of course an oiled silk hat, but the man in the
cab wore nothing but evening dress. He did not have the glass door
down because the horse fell so frequently, the sleet had put his cigar
out and it was too cold to sleep; the two lamps flared in the wind.
By the uncertain light of a candle lamp that flickered inside the cab,
a Manchu shepherd that saw the vehicle pass, where he watched his
sheep on the plain in fear of the wolves, for the first time saw
evening dress. And though he saw if dimly, and what he saw was wet,
it was like a backward glance of a thousand years, for as his
civilization is so much older than ours they have presumably passed
through all that kind of thing.
He watched it stoically, not wondering at a new thing, if indeed it be
new to China, meditated on it awhile in a manner strange to us, and
when he had added to his philosophy what little could be derived from
the sight of this hansom cab, returned to his contemplation of that
night's chances of wolves and to such occasional thoughts as he drew
at times for his comfort out of the legends of China, that have been
preserved for such uses. And on such a night their comfort was
greatly needed. He thought of the legend of a dragon-lady, more fair
than the flowers are, without an equal amongst daughters of men,
humanly lovely to look on although her sire was a dragon, yet one who
traced his descent from gods of the elder days, and so it was that she
went in all her ways divine, like the earliest ones of her race, who
were holier than the emperor.
She had come down one day out of her little land, a grassy valley
hidden amongst the mountains; by the way of the mountain passes she
came down, and the rocks of the rugged pass rang like little bells
about her, as her bare feet went by, like silver bells to please her;
and the sound was like the sound of the dromedaries of a prince when
they come home at evening--their silver bells are ringing and the
village-folk are glad. She had come down to pick the enchanted poppy
that grew, and grows to this day--if only men might find it--in a
field at the feet of the mountains; if one should pick it happiness
would come to all yellow men, victory without fighting, good wages,
and ceaseless ease. She came down all fair from the mountains; and as
the legend pleasantly passed through his mind in the bitterest hour of
the night, which comes before dawn, two lights appeared and another
hansom went by.
The man in the second cab was dressed the same as the first, he was
wetter than the first, for the sleet had fallen all night, but evening
dress is evening dress all the world over. The driver wore the same
oiled hat, the same waterproof cape as the other. And when the cab
had passed the darkness swirled back where the two small lamps had
been, and the slush poured into the wheel-tracks and nothing remained
but the speculations of the shepherd to tell that a hansom cab had
been in that part of China; presently even these ceased, and he was
back with the early legends again in contemplation of serener things.
And the storm and the cold and the darkness made one last effort, and
shook the bones of that shepherd, and rattled the teeth in the head
that mused on the flowery fables, and suddenly it was morning. You
saw the outlines of the sheep all of a sudden, the shepherd counted
them, no wolf had come, you could see them all quite clearly. And in
the pale light of the earliest morning the third hansom appeared, with
its lamps still burning, looking ridiculous in the daylight. They came
out of the East with the sleet and were all going due westwards, and
the occupant of the third cab also wore evening dress.
Calmly that Manchu shepherd, without curiosity, still less with
wonder, but as one who would see whatever life has to show him, stood
for four hours to see if another would come. The sleet and the East
wind continued. And at the end of four hours another came. The
driver was urging it on as fast as he could, as though he were making
the most of the daylight, his cabby's cape was flapping wildly about
him; inside the cab a man in evening dress was being jolted up and
down by the unevenness of the plain.
This was of course that famous race from Pittsburg to Piccadilly,
going round by the long way, that started one night after dinner from
Mr. Flagdrop's house, and was won by Mr. Kagg, driving the Honourable
Alfred Fortescue, whose father it will be remembered was Hagar
Dermstein, and became (by Letters Patent) Sir Edgar Fortescue, and
finally Lord St. George.
The Manchu shepherd stood there till evening, and when he saw that no
more cabs would come, turned homeward in search of food.
And the rice prepared for him was hot and good, all the more after the
bitter coldness of that sleet. And when he had consumed it her
perused his experience, turning over again in his mind each detail of
the cabs he had seen; and from that his thoughts slipped calmly to the
glorious history of China, going back to the indecorous times before
calmness came, and beyond those times to the happy days of the earth
when the gods and dragons were here and China was young; and lighting
his opium pipe and casting his thoughts easily forward he looked to
the time when the dragons shall come again.
And for a long while then his mind reposed itself in such a dignified
calm that no thought stirred there at all, from which when he was
aroused he cast off his lethargy as a man emerges from the baths,
refreshed, cleansed and contented, and put away from his musings the
things he had seen on the plain as being evil and of the nature of
dreams, or futile illusion, the results of activity which troubleth
calm. And then he turned his mind toward the shape of God, the One,
the Ineffable, who sits by the lotus lily, whose shape is the shape of
peace, and denieth activity, and went out his thanks to him that he
had cast all bad customs westward out of China as a woman throws
household dirt out of her basket far out into neighbouring gardens.
From thankfulness he turned to calm again, and out of calm to sleep.