LOST
One Monday, when Nelly had had her tea, she went out of doors to watch
for her father coming home. He had been out on his pony, and Nelly
wanted him to take her up and give her a ride round the compound. The
large gates were open, because the gatekeeper had just been out and seen
Mr. Grey coming, so Nelly ran out into the road without thinking what
she was doing. If she had stopped to think, most likely she would not
have passed the gate, as she knew that she never went outside the
Legation compound alone. However, she soon saw her father, who was very
much surprised and rather alarmed to see his little girl there. But Mr.
Grey, who spoilt Nelly, did not scold her, but stopped, took her up, and
gave her the ride she wanted. He meant to reprove Chu Ma for not looking
better after her charge, but he did not see her again that evening, and
in the morning he forgot it.
The next evening, after tea, when Chu Ma was chattering to Mrs. Buckle's
amah, Nelly thought it would be nice to have another ride with her
father. The gate was again open, and Little Yi was standing near it.
When Nelly said that she was going to meet her father, Little Yi offered
to go with her. The two children went out, but saw nothing of Mr. Grey.
'We'll walk to the end of the road and look up Legation Street,' said
Nelly.
Little Yi was quite willing, and they trotted along, all the Chinese
staring very hard to see a little foreign girl in the streets without
even an amah to look after her. They had not far to go before they came
to the corner, but when they looked up the street they could see no one
but Chinese.
'We might walk on a little,' Nelly said. 'He is sure to come this way,
and it will be such a nice long ride back. You, Little Yi, can ride with
the ma-fu (groom). It will be fun.'
But Mr. Grey had not gone in that direction at all, and the little girls
were not likely to see him.
Of course the Chinese went on staring at the children, and a crowd soon
gathered round them. Presently some rude boys began to ask them all
sorts of questions and to laugh at them. Nelly did not like it at all.
She thought she would not wait for her father any longer, but go home.
They tried to turn back, but found Chinese all round them, and felt
quite frightened. Then a nice, clean-looking woman came up to them and
said:
'Don't mind all those people. Come through my house and return home
round the other way; I'll show you.'
Nelly and Little Yi thought the woman very kind. They went with her
through a door into her compound, and, after crossing two or three
court-yards, they came to a small set of rooms which the woman said were
hers. She asked the children to sit down, gave them some sugared
walnuts, and said she would go and ask her son to take them home.
Chinese sugared walnuts are very good, although they don't look
tempting, being of a purplish whity-brown colour. Nelly liked them
better than the chocolate creams which auntie always sent for her in the
big box of groceries Mrs. Grey had from England twice a year. When all
the walnuts were eaten, the children amused themselves by wandering
round the room and examining everything in it. It was not at all like
any room in an English house. The floor was stone, and part of it,
called a kang, was raised like a platform. Every house in North China
has one of these kangs, with a little fireplace underneath. In winter
the Chinese burn charcoal in this fireplace, and at night they spread
wadded quilts on the warm brick platform and sleep there. In the daytime
the quilts are rolled up and the kang is used as a seat. The windows
were small, with tiny-squares filled in with paper instead of panes of
glass. There were two large square arm-chairs and a square table with a
tray and some tea-cups upon it. On the walls were scrolls with funny
pictures of men running all over each other, like flies on a cake, Nelly
thought.
When they had waited a very long time and it was getting dark, the
children began to be afraid. The door was locked and they could not get
out. Nelly was a brave little girl, but she could not help crying when
she thought of the anxiety her parents would be in about her.
'Oh dear,' she sobbed, 'why don't they let us out? Let us scream,
Little Yi.'
And both the children shrieked their hardest, until they heard footsteps
hurrying across the court.
The door was unlocked, and the woman who had brought the children there
came in with a very old woman, a girl of sixteen, and a boy of ten.
'What is the matter?' they asked.
'Oh, take us home,' cried Nelly. 'It is quite dark.'
The boy having brought a lamp, the room was no longer in darkness, but
Nelly meant that as it was dark it must be late.
'We can't take you home,' said the woman. 'None of us know the way to
the British Legation except my son, who is not here. He will not be home
now until to-morrow. He went outside the city into the country, and
must have arrived at the gate after it was closed.'
'Then please take us to the door you brought us through and lend us a
lantern, and we can find our way quite well,' said Nelly.
'No, no, you can't. You would get lost,' replied the woman. 'You must
wait here until my son comes home.'
'We won't,' said Little Yi, and made a rush for the door. But the boy
caught her and forced her back on the kang.
'Why do you want to keep us?' asked Nelly.
'It is our custom in China, when we find children, to keep them until we
can hand them over to their parents,' said the woman whom they had
thought so nice, but whom they now considered very cruel.
She was a tidy-looking woman, wearing black trousers bound tight round
the ankles, and the usual blue cotton smock. Her feet were not very
small, and she could walk about fairly quickly. The old woman was very
ugly and untidy, but the girl evidently gave a good deal of attention to
her toilet. She had silk trousers and a handsomely embroidered smock
over them. Her feet were very small, and just like a claw. Her hair,
which was a beautiful jet black, was dressed most elaborately with a
sort of comb behind, and flowers stuck in. Her lips were stained red and
her face was powdered. She wore long silver nail-protectors on the third
and fourth fingers of each hand, and had very large round jewelled
earrings. The boy had a greasy black cotton coat and a thick long tail
of hair.
Nelly tried her best to persuade the family to allow Little Yi and her
to go, but they would not listen to her. Then Little Yi began.
'You don't know what bad luck you will have if you keep a foreign child
all night,' she said. 'The foreigners are wonderful people. They can do
all sorts of things--take out their teeth and put them back again, their
eyes too, some of them.'
There was once at Peking a gentleman with a glass eye, and Little Yi had
heard that he was able to remove it. As for teeth, she knew quite well
that the British Minister slept with his on his wash-stand every night.
When Little Yi found that the women were not at all afraid, she said:
'If you keep us here, she (pointing to Nelly) will die, and then she
will always haunt you. Everything you eat will taste bitter and make you
ill.'
But Nelly never would allow Little Yi to romance and tell untruths. She
was crying bitterly now, but she stopped and told the woman that she was
a Christian, and that Christians do not die on purpose to haunt people
out of spite, as heathen do.
But the children found that it was useless to try to persuade or
frighten the Chinese. Nelly gave it up and asked for something to eat.
'To be sure,' said their first acquaintance; 'I have told the coolie (a
Chinese servant who does only the rough work) to bring you something.'
She had hardly finished speaking when the man arrived with two bowls,
in which was a sort of soup containing little pieces of meat and
vegetables. The children were given chopsticks with which to fish out
the meat, and were expected to take the soup from the bowl. Then they
had a piece of Chinese bread, which is like steamed dumpling, and half
an apple each. Nelly might have enjoyed the meal if there had not been
eight eyes watching her all the time, and the old woman constantly
peering at her clothes and feeling them.
When all was eaten they were told that they were to sleep on the kang
with the girl, who would look after them until morning. The other three
then left them, shutting and locking the door.
As soon as they were gone, the girl began to talk freely. She said her
name was An Ching, and that she was the daughter-in-law of the woman Ku
Nai-nai who had brought them there. Her husband was the son who, Ku
Nai-nai said, was to take them home. The boy was his brother and the old
woman their grandmother. Lowering her voice, she told them that her
husband was not away from home at all, and that he intended to keep
Nelly and Little Yi until he heard that a reward had been offered for
finding them, and for her part she was very glad that they were there.
It was very dull for An Ching. Her mother-in-law would not let her stand
at the door and look up and down the street as some young wives were
allowed to do. She also told them that Hung Li, her husband, lived at a
city called Yung Ching, and he, she, and Ku Nai-nai were to go back
there next day.
An Ching was very anxious to see Nelly undress, and got quite excited
over her clothes. She had never seen foreign clothes before. Little Yi
became quite lively in showing off Nelly and talking about all the
wonderful things foreigners had, but Nelly felt very unhappy. She longed
for her dear father and mother and her own little bed, and she wanted to
kneel down and say her prayers, but felt afraid to do it before An
Ching. At last she found courage to say that she was going to pray, and
Little Yi at once began to explain the whole of the Christian religion
to An Ching. Meanwhile Nelly quietly knelt down upon the kang and said
her prayers, taking care to ask God to comfort her parents and send her
back to them soon. The poor child felt much happier when she had done
this. She crept into her quilt, and was soon asleep. Little Yi and An
Ching presently came and curled themselves up on the kang, and all was
silence until next morning.