To a man accustomed during a long life to habits regulated by clockwork, the jar must have been especially sharp; yet before his neighbours had fairly begun to wonder how he would take it, he had made for himself a new routine of living, and he might have been observed each day doing the same things at the same hours—smoking his afternoon cigarette as he leaned against a favourite pillar, or walking to and fro along a particular path—thus setting an example of regularity in an irregular and stormy existence.

As every one expected, the Yamen soon attempted to communicate with him. This they did several times, throwing letters over the wall during the night. One enquired quite tenderly after the besieged; another asked him to send a message to London saying all was well with the Legations; a third calmly requested his advice about a ticklish matter of Customs business. This latter he answered in detail—just as if he had been in his own office—and then threw the reply over the wall again. It is interesting to know, by the way, that the "writer" who assisted him with these letters received L20 for his pains—the highest pay ever earned by a literary man in China at one sitting.

But the message which the I.G. afterwards laughingly said was the most important—as far as he personally was concerned—went out of the Legation instead of coming into it. Addressed to no Foreign Office and to no Commander-in-Chief, it contained neither diplomatic nor military secrets. It was a domestic message pure and simple—yet sent neither to relative nor intimate friend. His tailor was, in fact, the man who received it. "Send quickly," the wire read, "two autumn office suits and later two winter ditto with morning and evening dress, warm cape and four pairs of boots and slippers. I have lost everything but am well. We have still an anxious fortnight to weather.—HART, Peking, 5 August 1900."

What a startling effect this message from the grave must have had upon people in England, who, having pictured the I.G. boiled in oil, found him quietly ordering clothes for a future which was still uncertain! As it happened his forethought was providential, for the parcel of warm clothing arrived in Peking on the morning of October 26th, when the I.G. waked to find autumn changed to winter in a night, and the ground thickly powdered with snow.

The "anxious fortnight," he spoke of was, after all, safely weathered. On the night of August 13th, which happened to be fine and clear, the far-away guns of the relief force outside the city sounded so distinctly that all those in the Legation were aroused in a moment. The sleepers sprang to their feet; and the sentries answered the welcome voices of the pom-poms, careless of their own long-saved ammunition. Next day the relieving troops were in the city, and the besieged, in defiance of orders (the Chinese were still firing heavily), were out to meet them beyond the last barricade, and close by the historic water gate. No words could adequately picture the intense excitement of that meeting; emotion touched for a moment the most unemotional, and I may say, without exaggeration, that there was not a dry eye, blue or black, nor a voice which could give a cheer without a break in it.

Soon after the I.G. had the dangerous pleasure of reading his own obituary notices, and then, very much alive again, he set to work once more. Not for him was a change of air and scene possible. As he whimsically remarked to some one who urged him to take a rest after the discomforts and trials of the Siege, "I have had my holiday already. Eight weeks of doing nothing,—what more could a man expect?"

The Yamen Secretaries were seeking him out three days after the last shot was fired—while he still remained in the Legation—eagerly enquiring what he thought of the possibility of beginning negotiations with the Powers. How could order be brought out of chaos?



As a famous Chinese, Ku Hung Ming, author of the "Papers from a Viceroy's Yamen," afterwards said, "All great men are optimists, and Sir Robert Hart was the greatest optimist we had in 1900." His hopefulness encouraged the officials so much that the heads of the Yamen soon sent word they also wished to consult him: this business, if there was any hope of its success, was too big to be entrusted to deputies. Accordingly he began a search for new offices, since the Legation was no place to receive such men and his own house had been burned down.

Alas for the mournful desolation that met his eyes when he made a melancholy pilgrimage, as it were, to his old quarters! Nothing was left of the house but a few charred walls. Broken tiles lay scattered here and there, and he picked up the head of a pretty little Saxe shepherdess, of all things the most fragile and improbable to survive such a storm. The rest of his belongings had disappeared utterly—all the treasures of a lifetime had been burned or looted—priceless letters from Chinese Gordon and from Gladstone, the wonderful rainbow-silk scrolls for his Chinese patent of nobility, the photographs of all the famous men with whom he had been associated in the past—everything.

He was glad enough to get two rooms behind Kierulff's shop for temporary living quarters. What matter if his hall door was littered with packing-cases, or if his sitting-room windows fronted upon waste ground where a herd of mules scampered? He soon learned to pick his way among the former; the latter, with characteristic caution, always respected his panes, and anyway it was not the time for finicking over trifles.

For an office he hired a tiny little temple nestling under the walls of the Tartar City. It was but a small pied-a-terre, yet all he required, for the Customs Archives had been burnt, and the Deputy Inspector General, Sir Robert Bredon, with the Inspectorate Staff, left immediately for Shanghai to begin the difficult task of picking up the threads of Customs work there.

Meanwhile the Tajens (heads of boards) wrote to the I.G. asking for a safe convoy through the foreign lines, and he sent one of his own men to bring them down, since, though poor enough in other things, they were so rich in fears. Five came this first time, but one acted as spokesman to voice the grief of all over what had occurred, and to exonerate the Emperor and the Empress-Dowager of blame. No doubt the two sovereigns were innocent of responsibility for what had happened—no one would believe it at the time, however—and were captured, as these ministers said, by "officials of another way of thinking, and made to appear as if approving what they disapproved and ordering what they really forbade."

Their position is not too difficult to understand when one remembers that, Oriental fashion, they were shut up in their palaces, where no breath of impartial advice could possibly reach them, and that they heard only what courtiers with their own fish to fry permitted them to hear.

The real culprits then, according to all accounts, were the officials who deliberately misled the Court. It was characteristic of the I.G., always too big for resentment, that he could find some excuse for them and, though the length of his service entitled him to more consideration than most of those who cried out bitterly for "vengeance," could write in his book ("These From the Land of Sinim"), "In the heat of the conflict, and under the agonizing strain of anxiety for imperilled loved ones, many hard things have been said and written about the officials who allied themselves with the Boxers. But these men were eminent in their own country for their learning and services, were animated by patriotism, were enraged by foreign dictation, and had the courage of their convictions. We must do them the justice of allowing that they were actuated by high motives and love of country—not that these necessarily mean political ability or highest wisdom," The truth is—and he realized it thoroughly—that the real deep feeling of the Chinese people has always been to be left alone in peace to pursue the even tenor of their way.

So enlightened a man as the great Minister Wen Hsiang—"one of the most intelligent and broad-minded Chinese I ever knew," as Sir Robert Hart sometimes said—frankly confessed this when speaking to the I.G. a few years after the inauguration of the Customs. "We would gladly pay you all the increased revenue you have brought us," were his exact words, "if you foreigners would go back to your own country and leave us in peace as we were before you came."

Of course neither the wishes of the Chinese nor the question of Imperial responsibility or non-responsibility mattered greatly in 1900. The nations of the world were not in a tolerant mood; they would, as he pointed out, care little for excuses and less for the Chinese anxiety about the Palace, "with its ancestral contents," or the Imperial Tombs. The only thing which might influence them was the consideration of the welfare of the Chinese people.

Plans for the future must turn upon this as upon an axle. Moreover, to effect anything some distinguished person of high position and importance must come forward, and the man whom the I.G. named when he was asked for his advice was Prince Ching. He was the one person with whom the Foreign Powers would be most likely to treat, as it was to his influence, rumour said, that the Legations owed the merciful truce during the Siege. Li Hung Chang, it is true, had also been given full powers to negotiate with the Nations, but they looked rather askance at him because of two telegrams he had sent. One stating that the Legations had reached Tientsin in safety was a most unfortunate falsehood and prejudiced the world against him, more's the pity, as he had hitherto been considered able and powerful abroad. The other was a foolish request that no foreign troops should pass Tungchow—a town on the Grand Canal about fifteen miles from the capital. It was quite right and proper that, being appointed, Li should share Prince Ching's labours and not allow everything, criticism included, to be thrown on the latter alone; but the more he was discredited, the more need for Prince Ching to return to Peking—and quickly.



At last the officials discovered where he was—he had fled with the Court but stopped en route—urged him to come back, and he came. I believe one of the first things he did was to send for the I.G., whom he greeted with great cordiality. "This is China's oldest friend," he said to the officials standing by, "and I rely on him to help us. Indeed I can remember, as if it was yesterday, when we worked together before on the Franco-Chinese negotiations in 1885."

The meeting was a memorable and decisive one. As the Chinese themselves knew, and as the I.G. agreed, there were but two ways of solving the difficulty before them. Either it must be fought out—and the fact that China's military strength could not arrest the steps of the foreign troops, and that a fort-night sufficed for them to march victoriously from the sea to Peking, was in itself sufficient to show that nothing could be hoped from the noble idea of "no surrender"—or at all costs some peaceful arrangement must be made.

A note was accordingly drawn up requesting the doyen of the Diplomatic Corps to fix a day to receive the Chinese Plenipotentiaries, who "were ready to begin negotiations and had prepared a proposal for discussion," which they enclosed. A bold stroke this, and rather a surprise to the diplomats, who marvelled that the Chinese—injuring parties as they were—should have the courage—let us call it so, for there was truly much admirable bravery in it—to take the first step.

The details of the subsequent negotiations would fill pages. How anxiously Li Hung Chang was waited for; how memorandum after memorandum was drawn up, altered, amended, discarded altogether; how the stricken city was gradually calmed, and traders induced to bring in supplies again; how the poor ladies, wives of four Emperors, who had been left behind in the palace almost starved to death when the international troops guarding the Forbidden City forbade all ingress and egress through the pink gates, until the I.G. saved them, in the nick of time, by applying to the Allied Generals, might be told at length.

But a busy age has little patience with details, however romantic—suffice it to say that negotiations continued by fits and starts. What really complicated them was the absence of the Court! The I.G. frankly wrote as much to the Grand Secretary, Wang Wen Shao, and in so doing he only voiced the general feeling that "at such a time of suffering it would be well for the Emperor to be with his people." Prince Ching willingly testified that. Though he had been back ten days he had not suffered any personal indignity, and hinted that, were the Emperor to return, he would, of course, meet with even greater consideration. But the Court was obstinate. While the Palace was in the hands of foreign troops they would not come—and so, for the time, the negotiators had to get on as best they could without their Imperial masters.

Only for a time, however. Then what persuasion had been unable to accomplish was brought about by a natural calamity. Famine broke out in the province of Shensi, and the Court suffered greatly in the devastated state of the country and the cramped and uncomfortable quarters of a Governor's yamen. Soon they were as desirous of returning to their capital as they had formerly been reluctant to do so. "Hurry up the negotiations at all costs" were the orders sent to the Plenipotentiaries, and hurry they did, so that by December a settlement was within sight, the two most difficult questions—those dealing with penalties and indemnities—being the last arranged.

The first named long caused embarrassment to the Chinese side and greatly worried everybody, for there seemed no possible way to compromise about it. The last ultimately resolved itself into the simple problem not whether China would or would not pay, but what she would pay with. Tariff Revision was suggested as one method, the taxation of native opium as another. Speaking of the latter, the I.G. one day remarked to Prince Ching, "I lost all my memoranda about it when the Inspectorate was burned down." "But you have your wonderful memory," the Prince replied, "and you must carry it through. I count upon you, remember."

On Christmas Eve (1900) a great meeting was held at the Spanish Legation—the Spanish Minister was doyen of the Diplomatic Corps at the time. All the Ministers then assembled to meet Prince Ching and Li and to hand over the final demands they had formulated. They were signed in French that same day, and the next telegraphed in Chinese word for word to the Court at Si-an.

Strange to say the I.G. was not present at the meeting, and therefore reaped none of the kudos for his hard work. It was not for lack of invitation, however. The Chinese certainly urged him to come. Li Hung Chang, for instance, spoke continually of what he had done, and not an official but was sincerely grateful and would gladly have pushed him forward. A vainer man, a lighter character, must have yielded to the temptation to satisfy his vanity, but he had the strength to refuse, saying, "Being a foreigner, my presence would only complicate matters."

The Court, however, did not allow his efforts to go unrewarded. They telegraphed another high if queer-sounding honour from Si-an. Thenceforth he was to be addressed as Kung-pao, or Guardian of the Heir-Apparent,—who, by the way, does not exist; not that in China this trifling fact makes his guardians any less important or honourable. The Empress-Dowager herself was well aware that the importance of these Peace Negotiations could not be overestimated. She knew that his promptness in urging the return of Prince Ching probably saved the dynasty—that had Count Waldersee arrived before any Chinese officials had taken action, it is impossible to say what might not have happened; and to further show her Imperial approbation she summoned him to a private audience on her return to Peking and said so.



To him she showed her softest side, melted into kindness and consideration, complimented him in her velvet voice, and went so far as to say, when some question of the future came up, "We owe the possibility of a new beginning to the help you have given our faithful Ministers." Last of all she paid him a greater tribute still. When on enquiring where he lived, and being told by Prince Kung on his knees and in deeply apologetic tones, "Since the little accident in 1900, when Sir Robert's house was burned, he has been living behind Kierulff's shop," her eyes filled with tears, and with real regret in her voice she said, "How can we look you in the face?"



CHAPTER X

SOME QUIET YEARS—A CHANGE OF MASTERS—INSOMNIA—A FAREWELL AUDIENCE—AN HONOUR AND ITS ADVERTISEMENT—AH FONG AND OTHERS—DEPARTURE FROM PEKING—"A SMALL, INSIGNIFICANT IRISHMAN"

With the conclusion of the Peking Congress a new era began in the old capital. One could scarcely expect the effects of the Siege and its terrible aftermath to wear off at once. It was long indeed before the city resumed anything like a normal appearance, before people dared to come creeping back to their ruined shops and houses. Some, alas! found they had nothing to creep back to, not even ruins—for the Legations, determined never to be caught in the same trap a second time, insisted upon reserving a big area for themselves and fortifying it. Unfortunately those who had borne least of the heat of the day received the largest rewards in the newly planned Quarter, and grabbed most greedily and with least justice. Consideration for Chinese sentiments at such a time would have been almost more than human, but revenge carried to the point of making the I.G., because he was an employee of the Chinese Government, suffer for the mistakes of that Government, seems both unnecessary and ungenerous. This, however, was just what happened. His fine garden was ruthlessly chopped to pieces in the rearrangement, and though he did not actually lose ground, the long walk around the house was spoiled and he found a frowning wall five feet from his back windows. Moreover there was nothing he could do to prevent these things—the opinions of critics who accused him of weakness notwithstanding. These critics wanted him to shout his grievances aloud, to make them audible above the din of that noisy time. But what hope had he of being heard? The Chinese officials could not listen and his own countrymen would not, so where was he to turn?

Nothing remained for it but to build his house on the old foundations—an economical plan—and try to forget about the wall near the back windows. The garden also was set in order. As the Psalmist says, "The wilderness was made to blossom," for wilderness it was. Judging from appearances, Chinese soldiers must have encamped there. They left their rice-bowls in the path and their fans under the trees. Probably they stayed some days and looted at leisure, then disappeared as suddenly as they had come, after a sharp struggle with a company of Boxers, for two of these patriots in full regalia—red sashes and rusty swords—lay dead in the long grass. Poor patriots, they owed their quiet graves under a barbarian's lawn to a barbarian's kindness. I wonder if their ghosts have a sense of humour, and if they ever chuckle a little over the trick Fate played on them when they were helpless?



Once established again in his new-old quarters, the I.G. went back to his former routine of life. The band-boys, scattered by the Siege, returned, one having become, all of a sudden, a hero.

It happened during the days immediately following the Relief, when the prostrate city was given up to plunderers. A company of soldiers chose to break into a big dwelling-house, and the Chinese inhabitants scampered—men and women—in wild terror. Then suddenly, in the midst of the confusion, a bugle call rang loud and clear on the air. The European soldiers, recognizing the "Retreat" and fearing a superior force was about to descend on them, stood not on the order of their going, but left at once. Yet it was no superior force after all. A single man by his presence of mind saved the situation—and that man was the I.G.'s best cornet player. Afterwards, I remember, he used to be pointed out to strangers at garden parties, and he had quite a deal of notoriety before he and his gallantry were forgotten in the daily round of commonplace happenings.

Taking into consideration the great shock of 1900, it is wonderful how the I.G. could remain unaltered in all his habits, could be so unmoved by the changes taking place around him. The Chinese officials, for instance—who suddenly became as anxious for Western comforts as they had hitherto detested them—drove over modernized roads in carriages; he clung to his old-fashioned sedan chair. The majority of the besieged bought—or otherwise acquired loot; he never spent a penny on it, and never entered what the looters euphemistically liked to call "deserted houses."



The whole community took advantage of the opening of the Temple of Heaven and the Temple of Agriculture, fine parks free from dust and the noise of the city; he never entered either. Nor at a time when the whole world was discussing the Winter Palace and the Forbidden City, did he consider that the dictates of good breeding permitted him to go where the rightful owners would have refused him entrance. He took his outings as usual either in his own garden or on the city wall, from which he could watch the slow rebuilding of the Legation Quarter, a perfect salade Russe of architecture, with German gables, classic Venetian gateways and Flemish turrets jostling one another.

This calm life continued for four peaceful years. Then he was startled again by a bolt from the blue. The Inspectorate of Customs was transferred by Imperial Edict from the Wai-Wu-Pu to the Shui-Wu-Ch'u, a Board specially created to control it.

The real meaning of the change was not easy to fathom, but everybody seized the opportunity to talk at once—all the newspapers and the correspondents and the political experts; to criticize, to prophesy, to predict, to shake their heads—all but one man, the man most concerned. And he said nothing; he listened while the others authoritatively stated what he must think, what he did think, and what he would think later. To tell the truth he thought less of his own position, the prestige of which was undoubtedly affected by a move that turned him from a semi-political agent into a simple departmental head, than he did of the future of his service. Consequently, at a juncture when he had the best excuse for deserting a post which had partially deserted him, he remained to reassure outsiders as well as employees and to prove that radical as the Edict seemed, its real meaning was not half so disturbing as it appeared.



Anxiety could never have driven him away; it took insomnia to make him apply for the leave he so greatly needed. His brain, like Gladstone's, was overtaxed; the problems which he had so long considered gave him no rest, and by night as well as by day his too active mind thought and planned and considered. Rest was therefore imperative, and fortunately his leave was granted. At the same time the Empress-Dowager commanded him to an Audience. It was not the first by any means, as he had for the last few years always gone to the Palace at the Chinese New Year. But as it was typical of the others, a few words of description may not come amiss. He was off early in the morning as usual, surrounded by Palace officials mounted on shaggy ponies who trotted beside his sedan chair while their riders with shrieks and yells cleared a way for the cavalcade. The police guards popped out of their stations to salute him—I can tell you that hour's journey across the city was something in the nature of a triumphal progress, what with traffic airily waved aside and sentries and soldier-police presenting arms! At the Palace gates he alighted, and was met by other officials, bigger and grander, and conducted to the Hall of Audience. A considerable distance still remained to be covered; courtyard after courtyard had to be traversed and an artificial lake crossed in a barge before the Hall itself was reached and—an official having gone ahead and peeped in and announced his presence informally—he was shown into the presence of Their Majesties. Side by side on a little raised platform sat the Emperor and the Empress-Dowager, each with a table before them. He might have noticed that there were flowers on the Empress's table and none on the Emperor's, but that otherwise the room was not particularly large or imposing and very bare—without chairs, without cupboards, without ornamentation of any kind except the beautiful painting on the ceiling and the fine woodcarving on the long doors. But he had a speech to make—absorbing occupation—and as soon as it was over the Empress-Dowager was talking to him quite simply about his travels and asking questions about London. She shyly confessed that since her one and only train journey—from Si-an in 1900—she had conceived a great liking for travel and enjoyed seeing strange sights. Then she wished him a happy voyage and concluded by remarking: "We have chosen to give you some little keepsakes," using the word meaning a "personal souvenir" rather than a formal and perfunctory "present." It was a moment of natural excitement, and the I.G., dumb with emotion, received the intimation in unflattering silence. "Thank," said the Minister who presented him, in agonized tones; and while he stammered out a simple "Thank you," devoid of any conventional flourishes, the Minister went down on his knees and put his gratitude prettily. The interview was then closed; Emperor and Empress both assumed a Buddha-like impassivity of expression and allowed the I.G. to back just as if they were entirely oblivious of his presence. Such is the Chinese method of differentiating between the friend and the sovereign.



In the waiting-room he told his faux pas to the Ministers, either coming from or going into the Audience Hall, and expressed his annoyance that the proper formula for returning thanks had slipped his mind when it did. They laughed heartily over the incident, and for his comfort told him the story of a certain man called Kwei Hsin, who had an even worse experience. Some time in the late 'seventies he returned from an audience pulling his beard, which was long and thin. He seemed visibly annoyed about something.

"What has happened?" enquired his colleagues anxiously.



"Well," said he, "the Emperor (then little more than a child) asked me a question to-day which I could not answer."

"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 embarrassing! 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 gratitude 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 ashore 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."



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 associations 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 Japanese 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."



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 associated 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 title 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