Two years passed; and Swan Day was to all appearance no nearer his
return to the land of his birth than when he first trod the deck that
bore him away from it. He was still on the first round of the high
ladder to fortune. Thus far he had wrought diligently and successfully.
He had been sent hither and thither: from Canton to Hong-Kong; from
Macao to Ningpo and Shanghai. He was clerk, supercargo, anything that
the interest of the Company demanded. He worked with a will. His
thoughts were full of tea, silks, and lacquered ware,--of exquisite
carved ivory and wonderful porcelains,--of bamboos, umbrellas, and
garden-chairs,--of Hong-Hi, Ching-Ho, and Fi-Fo-Fum.
There were moments, between the despatch of one vessel and the lading of
another, when his mind would follow the sun, as it blazed along down out
of sight of China, and fast on its way towards the Fox farm,--when an
intense longing seized him to look once again on the shady nest of all
his hopes and labors. He hated the life he led. He hated the noisy
Tartar women that surrounded him,--aquatic and disgusting as
crawfish,--brown, stupid, and leering. He hated the feline yawling of
their music. He hated the yellow water, swarming with boats, and settled
with junks. He hated their pagodas, and their hideous effigies of their
ancestors, looking like dumb idols. Their bejewelled Buddhas, their
incense-lamps, their night and day, were alike odious to him.
Stretched on a bamboo chair, in an interval of labor, and when the
intense heat brought comparative stillness, before his closed eyes came
often up his home among the New-Hampshire hills. He thought of his dead
mother in the burying-ground, and the slate stones standing in the
desolate grass. Then his thoughts ran eagerly back to the Fox farm,
and the sweet, lonely figure that stood watching his return under the
pear-tree,--the warm kiss of happy meeting, life opening fair, and a
long vista through which the sunlight peeped all the more brightly for
the shadowing trees.
Then over the farm, broad and bountiful, scanning every detail of the
large red house, the great barns and sheds, the flocks of turkeys,
and the geese, kept for feathers, and not dreamed of for eating. (Our
Puritan fathers held neither to Christmas nor Christmas goose.) Through
the path up by the well-sweep, where the moss-covered bucket hangs
dripping with the purest of water. Beyond the corn-barn to the
butternut-trees,--by this time, they have dropped their rich, oily
fruit; and the chestnut-burrs, split open, and lying on the sunny
ground. Then round to the house again, where the slant October sun
shines in at the hospitable open door, where the little wheel burrs
contentedly, and the loom goes _flap-flap_, as the strong arm of Cely
Temple presses the cloth together, and throws the shuttle past, like
lightning: stout cloth for choppers and ploughmen comes out of that
loom!
In all his peepings at the interior of the house, one figure has
accompanied him, beautified and glorified the place; so that, whether he
looks into the buttery, where fair, round cheeses fill the shelves, or
wanders up the broad stairs with wide landings to the "peacock chamber,"
he seems to himself always to be going over a temple of sweet and sacred
recollections. Into the peacock chamber, therefore, his soul may wander,
where the walls are sparsely decked with black-and-white sketches, ill
displaying the glorious plumage of the bird, and, like all old pictures,
very brown,--even to the four-posted bed, whitely dressed, and heaped to
a height that would defy "the true princess" to feel a pea through it,
and the white toilet-table, neatly ornamented with a holder and a pair
of scissors, both sacred from common usage. Asparagus in the chimney,
with scarlet berries. General Washington, very dingy and respectable,
over the fireplace; and two small circular frames, inclosing the Colonel
and his wife in profile. The likenesses are nearly exact, and the two
noses face each other as if in an argument. Dutch tiles are set round
the fireplace, of odd Scripture scenes, common in design and coarse in
execution. Into the "square room" below, where the originals of the
black profiles sit and smoke their pipes, Swan does not care to venture.
But some day, he will show the Colonel!
Many days, these thoughts came to Swan. Months, alas, years, they
came,--but few and far between. The five thousand dollars that was to
have been the summit was soon only the footstool of his ambition. He
became partner, and then head of a house having commercial relations
with half the world. His habits assimilated themselves to the country
about him, and the cool, green pictures of his mountain-home ceased to
float before his sleeping eyes or soothe his waking fancies.
His busy life left him little opportunity for reading. But he took in
much knowledge at first-hand by observation, which was perhaps better;
and as he hit against all sorts of minds, he became in time somewhat
reflective and philosophical. Through daily view of the yellow water,
and perhaps the glare of the bright sun on it, or the sight of so much
nankeen cloth, or the yellow faces about him, perhaps,--or whatever the
cause or causes,--Swan certainly altered in his personal appearance, as
the years went by. The handsome, erect youth, lithe and active, with
keen features and brilliant eyes, ruddy lips and clear oval face, was
gradually fading and transforming into something quite different. The
brilliant eyes became sleepy, and, from a habit of narrowing the lids
over them, possibly to shut out the bright sun, receded more and more
beyond the full and flaccid cheeks, and even contracted a Mongolian
curve at the outer corners.
One May morning Swan sat alone in his Chinese-furnished room,
luxuriously appointed, as became him, on his silk, shaded ottoman, and
dreamily fanned himself. His dreams were of nothing more than what
occupied him waking. If he glanced upward, he would see the delicate
silk curtains at the windows, and the mirrors of polished steel between
the carved ivory lattices. Great porcelain vases, such as are never seen
here, were disposed about the room, and jars of flowers of strange
hues stood on mats of yellow wool. Furniture inlaid with ivory,
mother-of-pearl, and coral, decked the apartment, and a small, rich
table held an exquisite tea-set. Swan had just been drinking from it,
and the room was full of the fragrance. He toyed with the tea-cup, and
half dozed. Then, rousing himself, he put fresh tea from the canister
into the cup, and poured boiling water over it from the mouth of the
fantastic dragon. Covering the cup, he dallied languidly with the
delicious beverage, and with the half-thoughts, half-musings, that
came with the dreamy indolence of the weather. Was it, indeed, ten
years,--ten,--nay, fifteen years, that he had lived this China-life?
The door swung softly open, and a servant brought a note, and stood
waiting for him to read it.
Swan glanced disdainfully at the object, which he could never quite
consider human,--at his white and blue petticoats, and his effeminate
face, so sleepy and so mindless, as if he expected him to turn into a
plate or sugar-bowl, or begin flying in the air across some porcelain
river, and alighting on the pinnacle of a pagoda.
"Hong man, he outside," said the servant.
"Show him in, you stupid fool!" said the master, "and get out of the
room with yourself!"