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STRONG TOWER

 

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STRONG TOWER

A. J. BROOMHALL

London
CHINA INLAND MISSION

Newington Green, N.16
Agents: Lutterworth Press, London & Redhill

 
First published 1947

Printed in Great Britain by
The Camelot Press Lid., London and Southampton
 

w75
B7%Ist

e OOINTENTS

List of Illustrations

Introduction

Chapter 1. VIGNETTE OF A NOSU
2. EARLY DAYS
3. COUNTRY AND PEOPLE
4. BACKGROUND TO ADVENTURE
5. HAND TO THE PLOUGH
6. NEW HORIZONS
7. PLOTS AND PERPLEXITIES
8. THE HEAT OF DAY
9. THE MANAGER
10. SCATTERED OUTPOSTS: I
II. SCATTERED OUTPOSTS: II
12. BITTERSWEET
13. WEATHERING STORMS
14. BRIEF INTERLUDE
15. TERROR BY NIGHT
16. HORS DE COMBAT
17. BACK TO THE FRAY
18. HARD PRESSED
19. ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS
20. CAST UPON GOD
Epilogue
Historical Note
Glossary

Page
6

13
23
36
46
56
63
i
81
94
108
124
139
153
170
183
196
202
213
222
235
249
250
253
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Dust Cover: The design on this cover shows the geographical location of the
story, together with a typical Nosu strong tower and ancient hieroglyphics as
used by their sorcerer-priests.

THE HEAD OF THE KIEHKOW VALLEY AND CHIOPA’S HOUSE AND TOWER
DIAGRAMMATIC SKETCH OF CHURCH COMPOUND, KIEHKOW. (From
left) MR. PEACE'S COTTAGE AND GARDEN ORCHARD; TWO SCHOOL
BUILDINGS; CHAPEL; EVANGELIST'S QUARTERS WITH STABLES BEHIND;
MUSHIH S HOUSE facing page

LOOKING DOWN THE VALLEY FROM KIEHKOW. THE MANCHU BRIDGE NEAR
ACHICHE AND KIEHKOW

THE RIVER OF GOLDEN SAND. ON THE ROAD TO KOPU, LOOKING SOUTH

“‘ ARISTOCRAT!”’—INDEPENDENT NOSU

AN UNMARRIED MIAO MAIDEN WITH COILED HAIR. A TYPICAL MIAO
TRAVELLER WITH BEDDING, UMBRELLA, HAT AND STAFF. A LISU LAD,
TRIBAL COUSIN OF THE NOSU

A MIAO GRANNY DIGGING. THE CONE-SHAPED HAIR INDICATES A MARRIED
WOMAN

A WHITE NOSU EVANGELIST OF KIEHKOW

A BLACK NOSU PASTOR OF CHAOTUNG

A WHITE NOSU MAN AND WIFE

THE LANDLORD, A BLACK NOSU WOMAN, SOWS THE SEED, PRECEDED AND
FOLLOWED BY HER SERFS, ONE USING A PRIMITIVE OXEN PLOUGH, THE
OTHER THROWING IN FERTILISER

AN TEKUAN’S COURTYARD AT TEMOPIN

PHONETIC SCRIPT: A PAGE. THE LORD’S PRAYER, FROM THE COMPLETED NOSU
HYMN-BOOK, WRITTEN BY MR. PEACE’S OWN HAND

TWO BLACK NOSU LANDOWNERS. WHITE NOSU SERFS

AN OUTDOOR SERVICE OF WHITE NOSU, LED BY A BLACK NOSU PREACHER
GORGE IN NOSULAND

ON THE ROAD FROM KIEHKOW TO KOPU

TWO STURDY BURDEN-BEARERS

GUARDED ENTRANCE TO A NOSU STRONGHOLD

LOOKING DOWN ON KIEHKOW COMPOUND FROM THE EAST
ARMED NOSU RETAINERS

A WELL-DRESSED WHITE NOSU WOMAN

KIEHKOW MARKET WHERE NOSU, MIAO AND CHINESE MINGLE
CHRISTIAN BAPTISM IN NOSULAND

A SCENE IN KWEIYANG, PROVINCIAL CAPITAL OF KWEICHOW

Sketches by Dr. A. J. Broomhall. Photographs by General D’Ollone,
Dr. T. C. Lau, W. G. Windsor, H. L. Taylor, W. T. Simpkin.

6

16

17
32
33

48

49
64
64
65

96
97

97
112
113
128
128
129
144
145
145
160
161
176
177
 

IT HAPPENED IN THIS WAY

HE Japanese were striking at Kweiyang, pivotal city on the

Burma-Chungking road. The order came, *. . . EVACUATE TO
KUNMING . . . INDIA,” and within a few hours we had packed a
suitcase each, stowed away all we could, and started off. Three days
by horse and stretcher-chair over the hills, two by truck, a month
of waiting and an R.A.F. transport plane across The Hump to India;
then months more, hoping for passages by sea to England—and
jumbled notes of happenings at Kiehkow, a few impressions of the
place and people, began to take form and turn into a story.

As exiles, we had no more than a few pages of brief notes with us.
Everything had to be recalled from memory, and not a single word
could be verified. So building on a broad basis of historical fact and
an ersatz corner-stone or two, I have tried to put together a story
strictly true to life, whose bricks may have been shuffled round and
bound together by imaginative mortar, yet which is not fiction.
Every single feature have we seen ourselves or heard in essence from
the lips of the characters concerned, or, in the case of scientific
material, learned from authoritative writings.

It is a composite picture, a kaleidoscope, combining our own
experiences with those of the main character where his were certain
to have been much the same, in order that a realistic impression may
be given of his world. It is not the story of a “potted saint.” It tells
about a Christian man with many limitations who even so may put
the readers of his life to shame. And yet it is with his own permission
to tell the Church at home, for he himself was keen that all who
pray should know the struggling state of his beloved Nosu church
and the dangers that beset his family. “Mr. Peace” is the name by
which his missionary friends referred to him among themselves, and
is a translation of his Chinese surname. As for the characters of others
in the book, they are as I have judged them to be, and those no
longer alive, as various reports have painted them. For wisdom’s
sake, despite all efforts, I have had in some instances to dilute the
truth and to alter a few names.

This book is intended to reveal to interested Christians the true
conditions in another corner of the world, as experienced by the

7
missionary who lives among the people. Its main value, I believe,
lies in the background, to which the narrative itself is supple-
mentary. It shows the hard and pleasant side by side. The informa-
tion that it gives about the Nosu will be enough, I hope, at the risk
of overburdening the story, to indicate the needs of the Nosu people
for missionary aid, and to show the clear distinction that exists
between the “‘Sinicized”” and the “Independent’ sections of the race.

Apologies are due to those who know far more about Kichkow,
and indeed about the story I have told, than I happened to learn in
a mere four months and a half; and tribute is paid to those who
lived and worked for years in this environment. All these are
covered by the use of one term, mushih (pronounced “moo-sssh”),
which, because it carries the atmosphere in which the book is set,
is chosen rather than the cumbersome word “missionary,” which
has its own association of ideas.

In order to limit the hyphens and apostrophes which can be con-
fusing to those unfamiliar with the romanization of Chinese words,
I have eliminated both from proper nouns and terms that recur in
the story, retaining them in speech and wherever else it seems
desirable. An attempt to indicate the pronunciation is made instead
in the glossary, on pages 253 to 255. |

)

 

 
 

FROM A MISSIONARY PERIODICAL

“In one of the tribal centres of Kweichow Province in western
China there is a Christian gentleman named Mr. Peace, who from
the earliest days has been connected with the Nosu Church. His
knowledge of the country and tribes people, not only of his own
race, but the Miao as well, and his high social standing in the district,
made him from the beginning a great asset to the infant church.
Acquaintance with other parts of China widened his vision, which
trials of one kind and another have been unable to destroy. Early
in his experience he proved the power of prayer and mercies of God,
which qualified him for an active part in work among the Christians
scattered through his native mountains. His growing family and the
fruits of his Christian witness encouraged and helped him to weather
the storms of trouble and opposition in the church, and the fellowship
of leading Christians and missionaries elsewhere in the province
did much to carry him through the bitterest blow of all which well
nigh ended his usefulness. But his spiritual resilience brought him
once more into the fray in which he continues to take a lead. His
trials however are as much as he can bear, and special prayer is
asked for this godly man.”

Behind a brief paragraph in a missionary periodical there nearly
always lies a tale. The form of this narrative is an attempt to illustrate
that fact and to bring such a paragraph to life.
 

 

 

 

 
“The Name of the Lord is a Strong Tower:
The righteous runneth into it and is safe.”

The Proverbs of Solomon.

 
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CHAPTER ONE

VIGNETTE OF A NOSU

“In one of the tribal centres of Kweichow Province in western
China there is a Christian gentleman named Mr. Peace. . . .”

I

AS the first stars gleamed in the greying sky and the shouts of
] school play ceased, Mr. Peace the schoolmaster was standing in
his garden-orchard at Kichkow. He was gazing down the valley
when he first caught sight of the solitary figure toiling up towards
him. The steady stride, thythmic, almost mechanical, was that of
any countryman in these mountains with ground to cover before
the darkness fell. Nor did his dark blue turban and coarse felt cloak
help to reveal his identity.

The light was fading steadily, and on the far-off hillsides the
flames of bonfires began to stab the gloom. In his mind’s eye,
Mr. Peace could see the people squatting round with pipe and bowl,
the day’s work over. Across the valley floated distant calls, mothers
calling their children in, friends bidding good night, mingling with
the low of stalled cattle and the cries of belated birds hastening to
their roosts.

The garden where he stood was skirted by a path, a little mud-
walled lane that led up to the school and chapel, and onward to the
pasture-lands above. Up it each day came herds of cattle, ponies,
pigs, sheep, goats, tended by teams of ragged boys and men. Out
across the terrace by the school they clattered, and away, to glean
for grass among the flowering shrubs and dwarf oak of the forest
slopes, while the shepherd boys sat dreaming round their fires,
come sun or rain, watching the smoke rise lazily from the home-
steads down below them.

Mr. Peace was troubled. He felt alone. He had much to think
about, responsibilities he did not wish to bear. High over head the
great sweep of heavens drew the towering mountains up to meet
them, and beneath it all he stood, a little, stooping man.

But now the traveller was approaching, and as he came up
through the buckwheat field into the lane his face was visible. He
was a young man, little more than twenty years of age, whom

13
STRONG TOWER

Mr. Peace had seen about the premises for several weeks. His hands
were bound in ragged bandages, but even so he carried a slender
staff' topped by a small axchead of shining metal, for self-defence
or bivouacing by the road.

“Mr. Peace!” he cried, naming him first before a greeting, as the
custom is.

“Where are you making for?” asked Mr. Peace, coming to the
wall, for the boy’s home was not in this direction.

“Coming to see you,” he said.

He turned down the side path that led to Mr. Peace’s cottage
yard, and Mr. Peace moved over to his gate to meet and welcome
him. They went indoors and drew up benches round the glowing
fire. The young man’s hands were badly mutilated, ugly claw-like
things of little use, and as he spoke he held them on his lap as if
they still caused pain.

“How are they now?” the schoolmaster enquired.

He knew the story well. It was not unusual in a district where
this youth was but one of many like him. Although his family was
high in the social scale, he had belonged to a local rich man’s armed
guard and followed him everywhere to fight at his bidding. They
had been ambushed by another gang, and while he was dragging
a friend to safety behind a rock, a bullet had passed through both
his hands, smashing most of his fingers. For three weeks he had
been untreated, because in the past he had had no dealings with the
church people and kept away; but at last he had listened to advice
and now was almost healed.

“Splinters of bone still working loose,” he answered, “but nearly
finished now”; and then continued: “I went down to the market
this morning, Mr. Peace, and met one of your servants from Hopien.
He said he had a message for you, but could not come to Kichkow,
and asked me to tell you instead. Your house at Hopien was burnt
down last night, and your wife says you are needed there as soon
as possible.”

His house burnt down! That was his real home, the home which
was the background of his life. Burnt down. He did not need to
ask how it had happened; falling sparks from torch or lamp, flaming
straw spreading the fire to matting and farming stock, to rafters
and roof, till all was gone. He had seen it before. It happened all
too easily in these country homes where naked flame was the only
form of light. He groaned, and asked how much was left. And

14

 
 

VIGNETTE OF A NOSU

while the young man ate the bowl of steaming corn meal that
Mr. Peace had ordered to be brought, they talked together, till the
last fragments had been shaken on the floor, and the youth stood up.

“Must go,” he said; “it’s late,” and tucked his axe-head staff under
his arm. Mr. Peace took a handful of dry reed bamboos and thrust
them into the fire. A few strong puffs and they sprang alight. He
led the way across his little yard and up the lane, holding the torch
aloft. Across the gravelled playground, past the chapel, he took the
messenger, and keeping only a stick or two, handed him the rest to
light his way, and watched him go off through the field of tall green
flax behind the preachers’ quarters and the stables, and down across
the gully to his home.

2

It was morning, and he had arranged to leave the school in some-
one else’s care while he went home, twenty-five miles away, to
salvage the remains of what had been his father’s house and to start
rebuilding it. He could not leave his wife to do it all alone, capable
as she was.

Once more he was standing in his garden-orchard where he had
stood last night, looking out over the valley. He was waiting while
his horse was being fed and saddled for the journey. It was early
morning still, and usually at this time he would not be about. Most
people waited till the sun had risen before they stirred outside, but
he had work to do when he arrived at the end of his seven hours’
journey.

The sky above him, so often cloudy, to-day was infinitely distant,
and diminutive flecks of cirrus catching the golden light seemed
miles up in the air. Over his head the sky was blue, but spreading
downward it paled away into a hazy horizon where it met the
serried line of a mountain range twenty miles to the south. From
that distant point the hills cascaded wildly toward him with drop-
ping, intersecting slopes, here in smoothly flowing contours, there
in sudden precipices, extending in light and shadow right to the foot
of the valley of Kiehkow itself. And across the scene two winding
bands of must coiled whitely, rising slowly from the streams they
nightly clothed, into the warming air, dissipating into nothingness.

Behind him a collar of mountain rose with wooded hollows and
deep rain-scars on its face, the roosting place of cloud, and fell

15
STRONG TOWER

irregularly on each flank in sweeping curves. On the east its line was
broken by a pass that Mr. Peace was soon to traversc, and rose
rapidly again to the summit of a twin-peaked mountain slowly being
lit up by the sun, a friendly, immovable old thing, a Mount Ararat
on whose shoulders any ark would choose to rest. And over to the
west the highest ridges, crowning hills much higher, steeper and less
fertile than elsewhere, switchbacked southward to the bottom of the
valley, where a wooded bluff stood out and ended suddenly in
craggy cliffs above a gorge. On every hand glorious forest of tree
and scrub alternated with terraced fields, cultivated by the owners
of the homesteads scattered here and there, and watered by hidden
brooks and springs.

A sound of hammering came from the stable regions.

“Probably Yohan the preacher,” thought Mr. Peace, “mending
his pack-saddle. He said he must do it before next market day.”

He was getting tired of waiting. His own affairs were settled and
his few effects put ready for the journey. He was a methodical man.
He wandered up and down examining his flower beds. It could not
be said that he “paced”; if he ever tried to pace or march or even
to walk briskly, he would have looked ludicrous. He was not built
that way. He was slight in build and gentle in manner. Were it not
for his dark, clean-shaven face, very much a man’s, his appearance
might have held a trace of the feminine in it. But never the effem-
inate. In his large turban, encircling a classic Chinese cap with
crowning button of knotted cord, his ill-fitting gown of coarse blue
native cloth hanging badly because of his slight stoop, and patchy
in colour with many threads devoid of dye from much washing,
he looked as he was, an educated but simple country gentleman.
For Mr. Peace is a gentleman above all things, by birth and nature
and upbringing. Even his cloth shoes, frayed at the toe and heel and
soled with pulpy leather and rusty studs, could not detract from an
appearance more dignified and respectable than most of his
acquaintances.

He looked again at his flowers, turning their heads gently with his
slender hand that the sunlight might pass through them. It was just -
like him to grow his own flowers and to know their names in
Chinese and in English. They interested him. He was the type of
man for whom, if life had been kind, the name of Peace would have
been most appropriate. But times instead were hard, and, though
he was no more than thirty-six years old, the furrowed brow above

16
 

 

THE HEAD OF THE KIEHKOW VALLEY AND CHIOPA’S HOUSE AND TOWER

DIAGRAMMATIC SKETCH OF CHURCH COMPOUND, KIEHKOW.
(From left) MR. PEACE'S COTTAGE AND GARDEN ORCHARD;
TWO SCHOOL BUILDINGS; CHAPEL; EVANGELIST'S QUARTERS

WITH STABLES BEHIND; MUSHIH'S HOUSE

 

 
 

 

 

LOOKING DOWN THE VALLEY FROM KIEHKOW

THE MANCHU BRIDGE NEAR ACHICHE AND KIEHKOW

 
 

VIGNETTE OF A NOSU

his ungainly spectacles and his restless hands betrayed a troubled
mind. .

By race he was a Nosu, but his father had been an official in
Chinese Government employ, and he himself was fully appreciative
of his Chinese citizenship. His deepest affections, all the same, were
toward the Nosu, and few knew more about their ancient history
and extent. This love of his own people made him eager that they
might turn to God, but he was disappointed.

3 :

The voices of his children stirred him from his reverie, and he
sauntered over to the cottage and looked in. Three boys now, and a
girl, he had, but the youngest was at Hopien with their mother.
They were roasting potatoes on the fire as an early morning snack,
for breakfast would not be till ten or eleven o’clock. He took one
for himself and went on up the lane to see what ailed his servant
and the horse.

As he reached the terrace by the school, however, a small proces-
sion clattered through the gateway by the preacher Yohan's house
and crossed toward him. Following Yohan and the horse came his
own son Jenpin, a schoolboy of fourteen, and a White Nosu yokel
who was to travel with him.

“Sorry, Mr. Peace,” called Yohan. “This red mare of yours had
shed another shoe. It’s slow work fitting 2 new one to her some-
times.”

Back at his cottage again, it did not take them long to swing his
wadded quilt, or pukai, across the saddle and rope it down with its
covering oilcloth as a protection against rain, and they were ready.
The yokel started on ahead, carrying on his back a large basket
holding his master’s change of shoes and clothing, and Mr. Peace
turned with a slow smile to Yohan, saying:

“Good-bye, Yohan. Remind Chiopa about the Sunday service,
won't you?”’

“He won’t forget; there’s not much wrong with Chiopa!”
Yohan answered.

Jenpin took the horse’s bridle and led her to the bank beside the
little cowshed for his father to mount.

“Good-bye, Aba,” he said. “Wish I was coming with you!”

M. Peace stepped up on to the bank and swung his leg over the

Bst 17
STRONG TOWER

bulky saddle. Having the pukai on top was not ideal, but it made
the saddle softer for a long day’s ride and relieved the coolie of
some weight so that he could travel faster. He fitted his heels into
the clumsy stirrups which Jenpin and Yohan held ready for him. He
had tried the mushih’s way of putting his toes in, but it felt too
unsafe in the event of a toss. The method of his father’s was good
enough for him.

He looked down at his son to bid him free the horse’s head, and
the animal, glad to be away on the road again, broke straight into
a trot and swung out of the yard in the coolic’s track. Mr. Peace
turned in his saddle at the corner and raised his hand in farewell to
his boy. He was proud of him, strong and sturdy even now, with
big bones and a large and manly head; handsome already with his
deep brown eyes, dark skin and full eyebrows. He had great hopes
for this son of his.

Down the path they went, through a pink sea of buckwheat
bloom, over the lip of the gully, and soon were picking their way
carefully down the slope. Across the brook, half hidden behind a
clump of trees far over to Mr. Peace’s left, a building thickly
thatched lay squatly, fenced about with plaited thorn. And set apart,
but in the same enclosure, was a tower, a tower of refuge, of the
customary shape, as high again as the house, with sloping roof, a
doorway six feet from the ground, firing slits in its stone walls, and
a protecting shield behind which defenders could lean out and attack
any who reached the walls beneath.

“Poor people!” mused Mr. Peace, now settled comfortably in his
saddle. “We Nosu are indeed a benighted race, that to this day
there should be need of these.”

The red mare stumbled as she crossed a ditch, but Mr. Peace’s
thoughts had drifted far away, back to his youth, before he had ever
heard of Christ, and, farther still, back to the tales his father and his
uncles used to tell, of the fighting Nosu of long, long ago.

There were a good many tribal legends which he enjoyed handing
on to his children from time to time, and tales from Chinese history
about the carly tribes of south-west China which were interesting
too, but the true origin of his race seemed to be lost in the mists of
by-gone time. It was enough that they had sprung from warrior
stock, from ancestors who had migrated from afar and dominated
the weaker races amongst whom they moved. This warlike nature
had been in them from the beginning; they had never lost it. Small

18
-

 

VIGNETTE OF A NOSU

wonder then if their descendants were a pugnacious, restless type
who could not settle down, who must have battle: men such as the
messenger of last night, a youth with many good points, but a
shedder of blood until maimed himself for ever.

But there was hope. As Mr. Peace reflected, he himself was the

~ second generation of a peaceful and law-abiding Nosu family. Yet

he was proud of his race as he thought of them. What a fine breed
they were! How lithe and awake beside the stolid if cleverer Chinese.
And how fine their features, with deep-set eyes and characterful
nose, a race of rulers, once they were awakened to the modern
world.

In his thinking, as he jogged along the winding trail, he uncon-
sciously included only a fraction of his tribe, the landowners, the
true blue-blooded Nosu—the “Blacks,” or as the Chinese say, the
“Blackbones.”

Away in antiquity, the aborigines whom the ancestors of the
Blacks had overrun, and the Chinese they took captive, had become
their slaves and servants and tenants. Their conquerors never inter-
married with them, though they lived together and in time came
to share the tribal name. But they acquired the name of “White”
Nosu to distinguish them from their overlords. Their features on
the whole were different, though the colour of their skins was much
the same. The distinction is always clear to the Nosu themselves.

And so a feudal system had developed, with princes, or Nzermos,
few and far between; with very wealthy landowners, or Tumus,
“eyes of the earth” or “head and eyes”; with the remainder of the
Black Nosu, rich and poor, owners of property in their own right;
and with the White Nosu, once all serfs but now many of them
free tenants. Those who were not freemen were the property of
their masters and content to be so, even at the present day. Their
marriages were arranged by their masters, their women-folk would
go with the daughter of the house as part of her marriage dowry,
and they, the Whites, would do all the work and fight the battles of
their lords, when attacked or when it pleased him to take the
offensive. If they ran away or defied their master’s will, no one
would question his right to punish, maim or kill them.

For this reason, it was not strange to Mr. Peace that the man
trudging now behind him, burdened with his baggage, should be

1 Nzemo is a Nosu term; T u-mu is Chinese, but a Nosu rank.

19
STRONG TOWER

dependent entirely upon him and belong to his household; or that
in his house at Hopien and his cottage at Kiehkow there should live
White men and women, boys and girls, doing his bidding and that
of his sons and his daughter Meili. That they should be shivering in
sackcloth in the same house as his family struck neither them nor
him as unjust. They were the Whites of his lands and family, and
he and his children were Blacks.

In the valley from which he had just come, the Blacks and their
White servants occupied the upper village, and the White freemen
and their families the lower, just above the gorge. They were on
completely peaceful terms with each other, but by common belief
were irrevocably separate. It was not that the Whites were despised,
even though inferior. In fact the control of household matters and
of the worship of the Blacks™ ancestors was in the hands of their
White Nosu stewards. These worthies consequently had a consider-
able hold upon their masters and mistresses.

But Jenpin could never marry a daughter of Yohan, if he had one.
Even though Yohan was a freeman he was a White, and Blacks and
Whites never intermarry. Even the Nzemos and Tumus would not
marry into each others’ families or Blacks below their own social
rank. From close inbreeding they were fast-disappearing classes who
in desperation were taking Chinese wives rather than break their
caste. In spite of his hopes for his race, the well-grounded fear
sometimes lurked in Mr. Peace’s heart that they were doomed to
extinction, doomed by their own tragic customs. On this journey he
would soon be passing near the home of a Tumu who had sent eight
days’ off to the wild Independent Nosu regions for a wife of his
own degree.

Yes, the Nosu race was widespread. Throughout the mountains
of south-western China, there were tribes descended from Nosu
stock. And he had heard of their presence in the south-east and even
as far away as northern Burma. Some retained the name, some
claimed to be only Whites and others only Blacks, while yet more
had changed considerably and claimed no relationship though in
language and customs they were closely allied. They must be off-
shoots resulting from divisions of land between sections of a family,
or from quarrels, or the rebellion of subject peoples who had
acquired Nosu ways and speech. Mr. Peace had never been in those
regions, but he harboured a half~wish to have the opportunity one
day. There was a Christian Church flourishing amongst them in one

20
 

VIGNETTE OF A NOSU

part at Salawu, he had heard. As for his own mountains, it was only
a few years since the gospel had come amongst them.

He sighed audibly, and the horse pricked up her ears at the sound
and whipped her long tail at the flies on her quarters. The sky had
filled with fantastic heaps of cloud that cast huge drifting shadows
on the distant hillsides. Why hadn’t someone come earlier with this-
news—before his mother died? It was not surprising, though, with
China so vast and willing Christians so few. Now, however, it was
different; there was a Church here. And, please God, it would grow,
till Black and White, sire and serf, had come to a knowledge of the
Truth. Or would the inherent characteristic of the Nosu prove too
strong, an individualism and insularity that could check expansion?
This was an obstacle that tried his faith.

A labourer tilling a nearby field lifted his primitive wooden
plough such as had been used for centuries, and whistled to his ox.
Guided by the note the beast turned and began another furrow.
There was no rein or whip to use. A woman, the man’s wife pro-
bably, followed behind casting a handful of manure and a few
grains of seed at intervals for the returning plough to cover as it bit
into the soft earth at one side.

The pleasing sight brought Mr. Peace’s mind back to the present,
and he halted his horse by a low bank to dismount. His servant
rested his load on a rock and breathed out forcibly between his
teeth, in a long, airy whistle. They chatted with the ploughman in
Chinese, and with his wife, for there was no objection to their
speaking with a woman. But to do so, they had to use the Nosu
language. While Nosu men were picking up the Chinese tongue
increasingly quickly and often did not know which language they
were using, the women were slow and had not the same need for
it, as they seldom went to market or to town.

And so they travelled on hour by hour, resting from time to time
and eating from the provisions in their packs, for nothing could be
bought along the way. And as the day progressed, the fresh air and
exercise braced Mr. Peace for the sight which awaited him on his
arrival.

It was much as he had expected. The old house, setting of his
most prized memories, was no more; only a black shell of it re-
mained. It was no longer his father’s house, it was one more burnt-
out building not unlike the many he had seen. It could be rebuilt,

but the new structure would compare but poorly with the latticed
21 j
STRONG TOWER

excellence of his boyhood’s home. He blamed no one; only an
emptiness seized him and he sat down. He felt weak and very
forlorn. There was desolation within him as there was before his
eyes.

Then he stood up, not suddenly, for his movements were never
so, and, wiping his spectacles on the corner of his gown, he charac-

teristically applied himself to his sad task.

22
 

 

' CHAPTER TWO

EARLY DAYS

“. .. who from the earliest days has been connected with the
Nosu church. . . .”

I

R. PEACE had always been ambitious, not for himself, but
M for his fellow tribesmen. Handicaps and difficulties had
weighed him down, trying his sensitive spirit to the point of despair,
but he had always risen above them with his purpose unimpaired.
It all began when, as a student, he believed the Christian preachers
and threw in his lot with other Nosu who had done the same.
Then with his leaving school a series of events combined to start
him on a life-work which he would gladly have foregone had he
not felt compelled to persevere.

Tt must have been about sixteen years before the burning of his
home, and Mr. Peace, aged twenty, was starting on another journey.
He was waiting outside the city gates of Chaotung for his com-
panions and the animals to come and join him. Two servants of his
new friend, Chiopa, were to show the way. They had gone off with
his own retainer, after everything was settled at his lodgings, to buy
a few knick-knacks for the road.

This morning he had reached the point of separation between
youth, schooldays, and manhood, and was soon to leave Chaotung
behind, seldom to see it again. The grey rock of the city walls
beside him reached upward to their battlements, visible from the
distant rim of the plain on all sides. And in front, low houses or
shacks of a pitiful suburb lay ranged along each side of the dusty
road leading to the city gates. Others, looking wretched with their
walls of mud or warping lath and plaster beneath badly baked tiles,
cringed beside the cart-track that skirted the city for a hundred yards
or so. The heavy iron-studded gates were open, and laden pack
animals passed in and out of the cool darkness of the gateway -
tunnelling the wall. Other beasts stood tethered to rings and stakes
near at hand, pathetic, half-starved creatures, hairless where packs

and harness had chafed bald, dark grey patches on their hide. Some
23
STRONG TOWER

had open sores, and all were beset by clouds of flies, retreating and
returning as the animals lashed at them fretfully with bedraggled tails.

School friends homeward bound hailed young Peace as they rode
by, and humbler acquaintances bowed respectfully or greeted him
politely—“Mr. Peace going home! School broken up, then!”—
saying the obvious as is the Chinese custom: and received a brisk
recognition. It was right and proper that they should call him
“Mister.” Every educated man and student was entitled to it.
Education and learning were not for nothing the first in the pro-
verbial scale of “scholar, farmer, artisan, merchant, soldier.” And
the term was well applied to the one they were saluting. He was the
eldest son of a well-to-do father, not tall, but a well dressed, slim
and active young man in the full vigour of youth. His spectacles,
thick-rimmed though they were, and his accompanying slight
stoop, increased rather than detracted from the respect in which he
was held. They had tried to keep him in the city lest they lose him
altogether, but his own countryside called; no job, however tempt-
ing, would hold him back, and soon he would be there. A brief trip
into the neighbouring district to fulfil an urgent duty, and then he
would turn for home, another five days’ travel to the east. It was
summer; he must get home before the rains began.

As the small party set out from the city gate and rose to higher
levels among the grave-mounds that surround the city, Peace
scanned the horizon to the north for clouds. Clouds hanging in a
certain gap among the hills would mean rain before long; but
to-day there was only haze. This was good. He particularly wanted
fine weather for this trip. He was hoping for a sight he had always
longed to see.

They made good progress, young Peace in front on a sturdy
little horse harnessed in leather, with its straps wound neatly in
tight coils after passing through their buckles, and his attendants
walking in line behind. (Most people’s harness was of plain knotted
rope.) Up into the hills among the rolling treeless pasture-lands,
with little sign of cultivation, leading westward and bearing to the
north, he rode. Here and there a lone tree broke the monotony, but
there was no life apart from small herds met infrequently in the care
of underclad urchins or a witch-like old hag with matted filthy hair.

Throughout the long day they marched till afternoon drew on,
and growing weary they began to search for the landmarks
that would lead them to the place where Mr. Peace had been

24
 

 

EARLY DAYS

recommended to ask lodging for the night, a group of hovels be-
longing to Christian members of a tribe called the Miao. Among
these simple aborigines, believers had been multiplying rapidly in
recent years, family by family, turning from demon~worship to the
One True God.

%

The next day the country changed. It became more mountainous,
with steeper gradients, rougher roads, and barely enough space to
pass by other travellers they might meet. Once or twice they came
upon streams coursing rapidly in deep-cut beds, beginning unex-
pectedly and lost as soon. It was, in fact, when one of the men who
had been this way before was pointing out a cave into which a
churning little river disappeared completely, and when their atten-
tion was distracted from the road by this interesting sight though
they had all seen other examples of it nearer to their homes, that
they failed to notice the approach of another party until it was
almost on them. They drew to one side to let it pass. In front, a tall
man was striding purposefully. The first thing Peace noticed as he
looked up was the man’s feet. They had a peculiar action in walking.
Although the ground at that particular place was level, his feet at
each step tilted up as if negotiating a steep incline or afraid of stub-
bing his bare toes on sharp stones. Peace had often seen this phen-
omenon on the Chaotung streets, and knew at once, without looking
further, that these were Papus, the barbarian members of his own
race from across the great river toward which he was travelling—
men of Independent Nosuland.

His eyes followed up from the rough, chipped, widespread feet
to blue cloth bindings round taut, muscular calves, to voluminous
blue trousers of cotton cloth swinging loosely as he strode, to a short
jacket fitting closely beneath the cape of thick felt hung over his
back and shoulders, more over the left than the right, and fastened
at the neck by a cord.

But the young man’s gaze was held in the moment of passing by
the traveller’s face. Two things struck him: its waxen pallor that
cried, “Opium!” and its sternly sculptured lines framing eagle eyes
and nose, which proclaimed him “Aristocrat!”” From the lobe of his
left ear dangled a single long earring. Crowning the head carried
with such strong character was a dark turban rising to a peak in
front and to one side, concealing a “horn” of coiled hair.

25
STRONG TOWER

Behind him a shorter and younger man, dressed much alike, but
with long hair cut evenly at the level of his cars, and no “horn,”
was leading a horse. It was smaller than Mr. Peace’s, but radiated
vitality in its gleaming coat and vigorous movements. Its small head
and hind-quarters contrasted markedly with a powerful neck and
shoulders. This was another of the renowned Papu horses, so named
from the Chinese term pa p’o ma—the hill-climbers—a name which
had extended its use to the men, noted for the same agility. Follow-
ing them came others, servants of the leading lord, loaded with
baskets, full, and carrying firearms. And in a trice they had gone.

Peace breathed again. He had seen their like before, but they never
failed to impress him. The personality of these men struck out into
the atmosphere around them, and their speech, different enough in
pronunication from Mr. Peace’s own, added to their aloof mysteri-
ousness. These were the nearest representatives of the stock from
which he was descended.

When the Mongol Genghis Khan subdued some of their ancestors,
and the Manchu emperor Yung Cheng, in 1727, almost completely
quelled the rest with savage ferocity, a valiant remnant that would
not admit defeat took refuge with their kith and kin in the moun-
tains across the treacherous upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
There, in all but impenetrable fastnesses, they have held out through
the centuries, in an enclave guarded by gorge and precipice against
both friendly approach and invasion. More than a million of them,
known in recent years as “Independent Nosu,” have lived within
that area of about ten thousand square miles (considerably larger
than Wales), and have had to slake their thirst for blood and battle
in feuds among themselves and raids in strength upon their enemies.
To this day the name “Lolo,” with which these latter dubbed them
centuries ago, is regarded as a slight and is deeply resented.?

After this encounter Peace rode forward more expectantly. He was
getting near to one of his objectives now. A difficult descent lasting
two or three miles through spruce and silver birch woods brought

1 The position may be summarised as follows: The derogatory Chinese term,
“Lolo,” as now used, is very broad in application and includes Nosu and other
groups of aboriginals. The Nosu are an ethnological entity geographically divided
into (i) Independent Nosu, limited to the enclave within the loop of the Upper
Yangtze, and (i) the “subjugated” or “friendly” or “tame” Nosu, widely dis-
tributed elsewhere. As will be apparent from this story, many of the latter are as

lawless as the former. Both groups are subdivided socially into Black Nosu, the
landowners, and White Nosu, their retainers.

26
 

 

BARINCIDIANS

them out into a hot valley to which the breezes of the cool heights
scarcely penetrated, and where midges hovered round ears and eye-
lashes, and bees hummed drowsily. Flowing quietly over flat rocks,
and tumbling deliciously from ledge to ledge was a clear, blue-
green river.

Presently they found bridging it a primitive structure that no
horse would be willing to cross. Several trestles of tree trunks lashed
together stood in the water on the rock bed of the stream. On them
lay pine trees, straight and strong; and transversely like faggots
loosely strewn with a semblance of orderliness, were split logs about
a yard in length, covering the gaps unstably for the whole distance
across the river.

Peace dismounted agilely, handing his reins to a servant, and,
running up the slope on to the bridge, went over gingerly lest the
logs should slip apart and his foot plunge between, tipping him off
into the water. His servant led the horse to the water’s edge, hitched
the reins lightly over the saddle bow, hissed “Sssst!” between closed
teeth, and slapping him sharply with the flat of his hand, left him to
find his own way to the other side.

On the farther bank they lit a small fire of twigs and dry fir cones,
and, unpacking an old copper vessel, boiled some water to accom-
pany the dry provisions they carried. And thus rested and refreshed,
they began the long climb to the highest part of their journey, a
point at nine thousand feet above sea level.

Peace was leading when they reached the top. Empty-handed,
with only the horse to think of—hurried onward, in fact, by its
urgent energetic climbing behind him—he arrived well ahead of
the burdened others. The track followed the hillside obliquely until
it actually reached the pass, and then, turning abruptly left, past a
rock on which stood pedestalled a gnarled and spiralling pine tree,
it seemed to fade out into space.

The country fell away beneath him, and he stood transfixed.
Away to the north-west in a cloudless sky rose a stupendous moun-
tain mass, a snowy ridge some fifteen miles long, culminating in a
point thousands of feet high, the Snow Mountains of Shama. From
the summit a series of gigantic terraces fell leaping into the depths of
a valley fifteen thousand feet beneath, dropping by precipices
hundreds of feet in height.

It was at times like this that Peace envied men with better eyesight,
for to him the scene was misted. But he could see, and that was half

27
STRONG TOWER

the battle. Now he could understand the name he had often heard,
“The Bridge of the Sun.” When it set, it must do so over that
massive ridge.

He peered into the regions at its foot, trying to distinguish the far
from the near side of the river, but they were too far away. Down
there, he knew, flowed the rocky unnavigable waters of the Yangtze,
known over this two-hundred-mile stretch as the River of Golden
Sand, the River of Gold, as local men would have it. And beyond
lay the land of the Independent Nosu, with the Valley of Meiku,
the Beautiful Maiden, the plateau of Chaochio, and the Dragon’s
Head Mountain further north, a spiritual as well as a geographical
fortress, a stronghold of the Evil One where any setting foot were
in the gravest danger of enslavement or a cruel death, unless invited
in.

3

Down among valleys and lesser heights again, the view was
obscured, though Peace looked often in the hope of seeing some-
thing. As day was drawing in, they were concerned to reach their
destination, particularly as they intended to achieve their business
and return in two days’ time. So when the mountain air grew chill
and faery veils of mist began to lie in hollows ahead of them, they
were glad to see the hoary bifid tree that gave its name to the home
of the young widow they had come to visit.

The daughter of Chiopa, one of the early Christians of Kiehkow,
had married a retired general many years her senior, and he had
died, leaving her and her infant son to inherit most of his wealth in
lands and houses, cattle and money, the accumulation of years. He
was a Nosu, and although he had blossomed into Chinese manners
and mode of living in his professional capacity, at home he had
retained the ways of his forebears. He had been fond of this his only
surviving wife, particularly as she had been the first to bear him a
son. With this he could die in peace, knowing his line would be
carried on.

He was a wealthy old man, and a plum to be plucked when he
died. Scarcely had his coffin been put out on the hillside, walled in
and roofed over to await the auspicious day chosen by necromancers
for his burial, than like the shot from their ancient muzzle-loaders,
robbers fell upon the homestead. Everything that could be taken
was carried off. Strings of men laden with loot filed out into the

28
 

EARLY DAYS

half-light, guarded by mounted outriders. Clothing and bedding,
grain and silver, ponies and cattle they took away, leaving the house
stripped, and its occupants in terror.

Shaken as she was by the horror of these happenings, Chiopa’s
daughter had fought down her urge to pack up what remained and
return home to her father. Instead, she sent him a message pleading
to be allowed to come back without delay, and asking for some of
his Whites to help her. But Chiopa’s answer had been: “Stay on
where you are, and keep a firm hand on your tenants and servants
lest they get out of control and irreparable damage be done while
there is no one in authority.” At the same time he promised her as
an encouragement, a Visit from young Mr. Peace, known to her at
home. He would call and represent the strength of her family behind
her in exerting her authority. That would make people think twice
before moving boundary stones to their own advantage. His servants
would take care to impress upon everyone that Mr. Peace senior was
an official of importance—for their own glorification—so there was
no need to prime them of the need to paint an impressive picture.
As for him himself, the silk gown, made specially for the leaving
ceremony at the close of school, was folded neatly in his bundle.

But perhaps the scholarly spectacles would count as much as
anything.

As they approached the house the servants grasped their staves
more firmly, and their master, leaning from the saddle, broke off a
small branch and trimmed it as he checked the animal, startled by
the sound of breaking.

Into the courtyard they swung, and down leapt Peace as four
ferocious dogs charged, barking hideously, with lips retracted
tensely, baring their sharp fangs. They flew first at him, seeing him
before the others. He stood between their onslaught and his mount,
swinging his stick lustily at their tender muzzles when they came
too near to him or to the horse’s legs, and calling out loudly,
“Anyone at home? Anyone about?”

Catching sight of the carriers, the dogs divided, and, with backs
to the fencing of the yard, the men kept them off patiently, watching
alertly but unafraid. They knew the game; and the price of un-
watchfulness. Not for nothing had they been bitten before and lain
for weeks with swollen, painful limbs resistant to every treatment
they tried. But no one came. Afraid of whom it might be? Or out
in the fields? They could notitell. ;

29
STRONG TOWER

And then one of them spied a little child of five or six, naked,
grimy with filth that quite likely had never known washing. She
stood half hidden, curious but afraid.

Peace called in Nosu, “Come, kiddie. Call the dogs off! Don’t
fear, little sister. We are good friends!”

Not altogether believingly, the child came out, sniffing at the
viscid mess that defiled her upper lip. Her high-pitched little voice
penetrated the din of barking as she ran among the dogs, regardless
in her bare feet of the dung and refuse littering the yard. One by
one she dealt with them, each by name, sending them snarling
dangerously back to their corners.

“Where is the mistress?”’ Peace asked, bending down.

“Over there. . . . Coming!” the little gir] twittered, jerking her
head in the direction of the house.

And in a moment footsteps and voices were heard as the young
widow appeared, calling out instructions to her servants to prepare
refreshments for the travellers.

The house was single storied, but high and capacious. It had a
central room with doors opening out into two smaller ones on each
side. So lofty was it that division of the side rooms into two stories
did not really make them cramped. In an ordinary Nosu dwelling,
the arrangement would have been the same, with a2 movable ladder
in the main room to give access to either attic. The woodwork
would have been rough, and the floors of beaten mud, and over all
a thatched roof would have stood open at each end to serve as
smoke vents in lieu of chimneys. But this, being the home of a
wealthy man, had a tiled roof and varnished wooden panelling
between the rooms. Moreover, the floors of the lofts were of plank-
ing, instead of mere reeds that sagged if they were walked upon, and
each side had a step-ladder in the inner apartment, leaving the
central room free.

Outside were further buildings set at right angles to the house,
enclosing the yard in which Mr. Peace and his companions had
arrived. And at a little distance were smaller outhouses to do with
the farm, yet near enough for the chief living rooms to be never
free from flies, for this was a land where every householder is
farmer even if at the same time he should follow another occupation.

The main room was furnished in semi-Chinese style. By both side
walls were little tables with stiff-backed chairs or stools; and at the
farther end a big square table stood, such as no Nosu home would

30

 
 

EARLY DAYS

normally contain. But in the centre of the room was the hall-mark
of “civilized” Nosu homes, a cylindrical earthen stove set up on
stones and bound with a hoop of iron.

In this stove there glowed a fire of red-hot coals, and cakes of
mixed mud and coal-dust. No chimney led up from it; there was
no need, the coal was smokeless. Round it the travellers sat, at first
all together, roasting corn cobs in the hot ashes and enjoying the
rich, dusty flavour. But soon a middle-aged White beckoned
Peace’s companions away, and in the adjoining kitchen regions they
relaxed, and staved off their hunger more effectively with cold corn
cakes while waiting for the evening meal.

To Mr. Peace respectful servants brought a steaming bowl of five
poached eggs floating in brine. And as he ate, steering the eggs to
the lip of his bowl and sliding them into his mouth, sipping the hot,
reviving fluid, his hostess joined him by the fire. She had no men-
folk, apart from servants, to do the honours, but, moving in and out
on silent bare feet, White women of the household chaperoned her
unostentatiously. They talked about the journey, about the city,
and about home. Peace had seen her family more recently than she,
but not for several months. Her father’s servants would tell her more
of them. She spoke wistfully, wishing she could accompany them
on their return, for she was a stranger here, even in her own house.

He admired the calm courage behind her youthful face. Her
turban, he noticed with interest, was smaller than the women were
accustomed to wear in the country districts, maybe because the city
customs had influenced her. But it was still very large and heavy,
probably no less than ten feet long and more than one broad when
unwound. And she had put on a fresh gown with flowing sleeves
and much embroidery to greet him.

Later, when it was dark, the table was laid thickly with tempting
dishes, illuminated by a guttering lamp of oil in an iron saucer, just
a wick of rolled cotton dangling limply over its rim, sending up a
smoky flame of light. And as they ate, dogs wandered about their
legs seeking discarded tit-bits on the floor, and acquainting them-
selves with the new arrival. Chiopa’s daughter only made a show of
eating while she pressed him continually to help himself, and told
him about the robbery, about her injured retainers, and of the child
wantonly killed because it cried aloud in terror.

Then, their meal finished, they moved back to the fire and went
on talking. No, they were not Papu raiders who had robbed her,

31
STRONG TOWER

but a band who had swept down from the lawless regions a day’s
ride to the north. The Independent Nosu had done less and less
raiding across the river in recent years.

As they talked, two servants of the house brought in a wooden
bed and padded it with straw, which they covered with a large felt
- mat; and Peace’s servant, following them, unlashed his bedding roll
and spread it out. Whereupon his hostess, surreptitiously observing
that these preparations had been made to her satisfaction, stood up
and took her leave. And Peace, enquiring after his servant’s arrange-
ments, prepared for sleep.

Lying in comfort, and watching the faint red glow of the undying
fire, he saw again the mountains of Shama; and fell asleep to dream
of the people over there.

4

It was part of the plan that Peace, looking as impressive as possible,
should be seen in various parts of the late general’s lands. This would
start gossip, to quash any seed impressions of vulnerability of the
widowed woman that might have taken root. Wherever they went
people would stare, and wherever they were seen people would
talk—in a land where everyone does both.

So, starting as soon as the neighbours would be up and about,
they began a tour of the property. Peace was looking his finest in
gown and spectacles, his lusty followers leading his spirited horse,
striking in handsome harness and groomed coat, and they were
accompanied by the old general’s White Nosu steward and other
retainers. There could be no question that inspection by this small
cavalcade would impress where its effect was needed.

Nor was it ill-timed. As they passed round a jutting promontory
at a remote corner of the land rented to a small farmer with no
means of self-defence, they heard the sound of fierce quarrelling,
interrupted by energetic digging. The sight they saw when they
came into view was of the irate tenant trying to stop a determined
neighbour from digging his, the tenant’s, field. But, threatened by
the sharp and shining mattock, the pickaxe-hoe of all China, he
could not prevent the work which had already covered half the
ground.

There had always been quarrels over this piece of land, and now
the neighbour, taking the bull by the horns, was set on planting his
buckwheat seed, the second crop of the year, in this soil, and thereby

32
 

 

 

THE RIVER OF GOLDEN SAND

 

SOUTH

ON THE ROAD TO KOPU, LOOKIN

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

=y

 

 

 

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i

“ARISTOCRAT!”’—INDEPENDENT NOSU

 

.

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Wi

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i

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o w i

’ v ';/r i

“

 
BARLY D AYS

claiming the right to its use. His seed, his crop: and who could deny
it? It would be the thin edge of a wedge that would be hard to
dislodge without an expensive law-suit. But he had failed. The
timely arrival of the widow’s representatives had put an end to the
matter for this season at any rate.

Over breakfast at mid-morning they reviewed the situation,
impressing on the girl and her steward the strength of her position
if they put a bold front on things. Even if her father’s home and
outside help were a week’s journey away, a fortnight to return with
aid, it was also true, after all, that a woman in Nosu regions is as
powerful as a man if she is the acknowledged head of the family.
And then, to encourage her, Peace suggested that she should put
her trust in God, as her father had done already.

“I do,” she replied uncomprehendingly. “I have had one of my
few remaining sheep sacrificed to the gods, and spent much money
placating them, but my heart is fearful.”

“But those are the gods of evil; they are demons.” Peace said:
“I speak of God the Creator, the Father of Good, before whom the
devils fear.”

“Have many people done as my father did and followed this new
idea?” the girl asked unhappily.

“Scores of our own people,” he answered, “and hundreds,
maybe thousands, of the Miao tribe. But it is no new idea, only has
it been hidden from us until now.”

“Does my father go with the Miao then? And is he growing so
feeble in his mind that he forsakes the ways of our ancestors?”

“He is a stronger man than before,” said Peace eagerly, under-
standing -the bitterness of her question, “and both your uncles are
with him. Before God they have become as children and worship
with the childlike Miao; only thus could they enter God’s kingdom;
but before men they are as giants, fearless of the sorcerers and their
threats, and just toward those who were their slaves.”

“I have heard tell of strange happenings in Yenshan, south of
here,” she replied more softly, passing a small hand across her
troubled forehead. “The wealthy Ling’s have reorganized their
whole houschold, and treat their slaves as freemen. It is not good.
The riffraff will not be able to stand such treatment, they will get
out of hand. My Whites know their place and are contented.
What prestige the Lings have lost! They used to step from their

Cst 33
STRONG TOWER

horses’ backs on to the shoulders of a kneeling slave, with the others
kneeling around them, and so to the ground. Now men must laugh
to see them climb off on to a rock.”

“No,” murmured the young man, for he sensed her depth of
feeling. “Their son was at school with me, and says that the servants
love his parents now where they feared before, and are more
respectful than ever.”

“It could not be so with me. If my men laid aside their spears and
sang hymns like the Miao, we would be robbed by the local bad
men as we have been by the armed outlaws from the north.”

“Yet to be out of the Devil’s clutches is far better.”

“You speak like the preacher I heard at Kopu.”

“I speak from my heart, knowing where happiness lies for you.”

“Did you too believe these men because your father told you to?”

“Only I in my family have gone this way as yet. My father is
grieved and calls me unfilial and dishonouring to my mother, who
is dead.” ;

“And are you not?”’ she challenged.

“It will seem so until his eyes are opened too, and then he will
zllnderstand and bless me. Your father longs for you to do as he has

one. .

“It would be weak to become a Christian just now, out of fear.
Besides, I'll tell you a story:

“A good many years ago there was a priest, 2 Roman Catholic,
not far from here, who met a raiding party of Papus, armed with
long spears and cross-bows, part of an army of three thousand who
had come across the river to rob and seize slaves.

“They killed his servant with six thrusts of a spear, and himself
they stripped of all his clothes, lifting him bodily from the ground
in the ferocity of their assault. It was so cold that he asked for some
covering, and they offered a flogging to warm him, enjoying the
joke greatly.

“They took him to a house from which the owners had fled,
made a fire of the furniture, and ‘cooked’ several pigs they had
seized. The meat was still raw which they offered him, and warm
with its natural heat, having been in the water only long enough to
soften the bristles which still covered the skin. It made him sick, but
for fear of his captors he ate three or four mouthfuls.

“The Papus made fun of him, boxing his ears, plucking his beard,
and roasting his chin with a brand taken from the fire, threatening

34
BARIT N D ANS

him with knives and spears. Later they set him to grind at the mill
until too exhausted to continue, and then taunted him, taking him
for a Chinese and claiming that they were within their rights to do
as they liked on what had been their forefathers’ territory, from
which the Chinese had driven them. These raids were only ‘collect-
ing rent,’ they said.

“One of them told him he had better escape or he would be
knifed in the night, but he was too weak to move. He knew that
when they went on it would be ‘March or die!” but all he asked for
was a chance to be warm and to sleep. They let him draw near the
fire, but some wag tipped cold water over him, and the rest roared
and shook their sides with laughter. When he saw it about to happen
again, he summoned all that remained of his strength and fled,
pelted with stones, and fell headlong into the slush of a rice-field for
safety, and stayed there though it was November.

“When the Papus left, he returned to the dying fire, and made a
girdle and cloak of straw. In this less than beggar’s garb, he was
spurned by everyone in a Chinese village to which he found his
way. Only late at night did a man take pity and share his bedding
with him.”

“Did his faith help him?” she concluded.

“What did he say himself?”” Peace asked.

“He wanted to meet them again because one had been kind and
eased his sufferings several times. Thought he would make a good
convert! He called it intervention by his God. It was enough to
affect anyone’s reason.”

There was a long silence. She was not in the frame of mind now
for the conversation they had been having. But presently, conscious
of her duties as hostess, she said,

“Tell me, what have you to do to become a Christian, in case I
think differently one day?”

The young man was glad, and, oblivious of scuttling hens at his
feet, and people coming in and out, he told her about the discoveries
he had made not long ago.

Her servants saw her interest increasing, and did not bring her
little son to her.

35
CHAPTER THREE

COUNTRY AND PEOPLE

“His knowledge of the country and tribes people,, not only of his
own race but the Miao as well. . . .”

I

HERE is something about a return journey that makes
Tremember‘ed impressions of the first trip seem foolish. Land-
marks that became fixed in the memory lose their appeal on second
viewing, and distances shrink or grow interminably long. A steep,
laborious climb becomes a descent which is hard to recognize, and
a grateful, refreshing brook looks turbid and unattractive to a cool
traveller.

So young Mr. Peace’s return to Chaotung lacked the excitement
of his outgoing, and was but the first of several days’ journey before
he reached his home. The morning climb to the high pass was in
wringing mists that obscured all views, and the barren hills seemed
to have no end.

They travelled till late evening on the first day, in order that they
might get further than Chaotung on the next. Chiopa’s daughter
had bidden them a brave farewell, holding her little boy in her arms
that they might tell his grandfather how he looked, and how he
would have come with them. But she could not hide the betraying
lines of strain about her eyes and nose.

By noon the next day they had crossed the Chaotung plain, view-
ing the Gap with misgiving, and reached the last of the Chinese
villages on the far side. They saw the final traces of cart-tracks fade
out on gravel slopes, and pressed on up easy gradients to make the
village of Black Earth River by nightfall. With the sunset throwing
their attenuated shadows yards ahead of them, so that each pace of
horse or men looked like fantastic goose-stepping by freak giants,
they reached the highest point of their climb, and looked down into
the gloomy fissure where they must pass the night. ‘

The name, Black Earth River, was inevitable. The hills, the
houses, the very water flowing deeply, looked unwashen, and out-
crops of coal were visible in the hillside and river bed. Zigzagging
down the steep slope, they passed by a number of disreputable
hovels, and crossed an ageless stone bridge. Here the road forked,

36
COUNTRY AND 'PEOPLE

cast in their direction, south to a cluster of houses leading up to the
doors of a large whitewashed residence, the home of a local Tumu of
evil reputation. His house was so arranged that attacking enemies
must pass the homes of his fighting men before reaching his own;
and it needed to be so, for he was involved in several vitriolic feuds.

Peace knew better than to seek lodging among those men of
blood. He turned left, and soon reached the courtyard of a White
Nosu who allowed his place to serve travellers as an inn. His house
was substantial, built of stone, but inside and out it was filthy. The
yard was a quagmire of farmyard seepage which mine host, instead
of draining, had tried to absorb with cornstalks and straw and
bracken, so that to cross it was like walking on sponge, each foot-
step making a puddle of black ooze. A naked baby squatted at one
side snivelling for attention. A small black pig with a surface aura
of lighter bristles snouted about upturning the superficial muck and
releasing a disgusting stench. Here no angry dogs greeted them.
Only a yellow pup slipped past them into the “road.” There was no
need to fear intrusion in so poor a place, and travellers must not be
discouraged.

Peace entered the open door. The chief room was almost filled
with a stone mill, a plough, a harrow, winnowing trays, flails, and
other paraphernalia. A doorway just inside and on the right was
blocked by a munching cow. That it opened apparently straight into
the stable was confirmed by the rich odour strongest just there. A
ladder with broken rungs led up to a loft covering the front half
only of the room. But to the left within the door was a mud stove
of live coals, and grouped around it on boards and blocks of wood,
a motley crowd of people.

The “landlord” sat coatless, naked to the waist, and busy de-
lousing his garment. He finished his immediate task, involving
close attention, and looked up, nodded, spat into the corner, loudly
cursed a boy of about ten for not making room by the fire for the
gentleman, and was lost again in concentration on his job.

Treading on discarded corn cobs and peach stones that littered the
floor, Peace sat down carefully on the stool offered by the boy. It
was a section of pine tree split axially so that there were two branches
at each end, cut at the required length, forming legs, while the flat
surface formed the seat, standing a few inches from the ground.

He looked about him. Other children sat crouched on their
haunches beyond their father. A grimy woman of forty—or thirty,

37
STRONG TOWER

there was no knowing; she would have passed as fifty were there
not a diminutive infant hanging asleep at her emaciated breast—
stared at the young student, and, becoming conscious of herself,
pulled her tattered gown around her. The other occupants of the
room rose or shuffled along to make room for Peace’s companions,
who, having unsaddled and haltered the horse, had bought fodder
and were now free to rest their tired legs. There were flies every-
where, flies sleeping, flies polishing their legs, flies feeding, flies
fidgeting. With the disturbance, a cloud of them rose frenzied into
the air and buzzed like swarming bees till they settled again as sud-
denly, but for a few who sought the men’s shining skin with
undaunted persistence.

They were an interesting company round that fire. He himself,
a Black Nosu; his companions and the householder, Whites; in the
shadow by the wall, two Miao tribesmen, short, squat, distinctive
in shabby but once gay embroidered capes; and to one side, a
Chinese small trader returning to the city. But after months of city
life Peace was glad to be in the country again, and watched these
rough peasants with interest.

A coarse earthenware rice bowl was dipped into a large black pan
of stewing tea on the fire, and each man drank in turn. As they
reached the dregs, they swilled the bowl with the last drops of tea
and poured them under their seat or on to the floor behind them.
With the red light on their faces flickering as the rising steam cast
its soft shadows here and there, they chatted, and some smoked rank,
acrid tobacco, passing the long, brass-tipped pipe from mouth to
mouth, waiting for the evening meal.

2

Replete with steamed corn and some bitter vegetable supplied by
the landlord, diowsiness came over Mr. Peace, so, taking the oppor-
tunity of a disturbance, when someone got up to put fresh wick in
the lamp, he made a move to retire to bed.

His bedding had been hoisted to the loft, and, climbing the
rickety ladder, he sought it out. Over a few rafters, dwarf bamboo
stems had been laid and battened down. Their lower surfaces were
black with grime and soot from the fire, shining with age, but on
the upper surface straw had been cast. This was the springy floor
and bed on which the better class of travellers spent the night.

38
COUNTRY AND PEOPLE

Peace spread out his felt mat and Chinese quilt, removed his shoes
and gown and belt, placing them beside him, and lay down to sleep.
There was no window or chimney. Up here, directly above the
stove, the fumes were distressing and the tobacco smoke seemed
stronger than ever. He lay listening to the drone of voices, and to
the clatter of hooves as later on his horse was led through the living-
room into the stable. Drowsily, he was conscious of a late-comer
joining the rest below as they settled down on the ground about the
remains of the fire. Probably none of them took much notice of him
at that hour. No one joined Peace above, in respect for his social
position, but the new arrival tried the ladder and looked round.

- And soon after the door had been bolted with its great beam of
wood, deep breathing and muffled snores arose from the sleepers.

Hours passed. The fire went out. There was no light but a single
ray from the moon piercing the roof.

In the stillness a single pellet of corn fell and bounced a few inches.
It must have been well after midnight.

Peace slept lightly. He was awake at once, but did not move or
alter his breathing. Moments went by, and another grain fell,
bounced gently, and lay still. He was alert now and understood. He
grunted and turned over to face the ladder.

There was silence for perhaps a quarter of an hour, except that his
thumping heart must surely be audible to others beside himself.
Another grain fell nearer to him, and, bounding lightly, sank into
the straw by his arm. And the ladder creaked very faintly.

Now he was certain. Raising himself on his elbow, he said softly
in colloquial Chinese:

“La m’ K'uai? What’s up?”’

No other sound broke the quietness but a soft movement first on
the ladder and then beneath. The landlord stirred and said:

“La ko? Who is it?”

A voice answered, “No one. It's me!” And they slept again.

Peace folded up his gown with the belt containing his money
inside it, and placed them under his head. He had been foolish, but
had not thought anyone would attempt it with so many people
present. It was a good thing he had not slept heavily with fatigue, a
full stomach and the fumes dulling his senses. He would not have
heard the testing grains of corn thrown to see if he slept deeply

39
STRONG TOWER

enough or not. That might have led to the loss of his things or to a
struggle. As it was, a noisy scene and perhaps injuries had been
avoided. This was the East, and Eastern ways had proved peaceable.

With early dawn the big door-bolt was taken down, and the late-
comer stepped out with a nonchalant “Ch’ing-o! So long!” to those
who watched him with sleepy eyes.

3

Heavy mist filled the valley out of which the travellers had to toil
that morning, and the ragged, rocky pathway tore their home-made
sandals of plaited straw to shreds. For fifteen hundred feet they.
climbed laboriously into a region of peaks where low cloud swirled
and eddied, threatening to drench them. Peace and one of Chiopa’s
men had outstripped the others, but near the summit they decided
to wait. For the next two miles of mountain-top wilderness there
was real danger of meeting robbers, and the best plan was to hang
together. Voices not far off made them keep silence till certain that
they came from shepherd boys taking out their animals to graze.
But in any case it was an uncomfortable place to dally in. The
mountain sides were steep with numerous screes, down which large
stones and rocks hurtled from time to time. So they were glad when
later they descended to the calm pastures on the far side of the range
and left behind the last chasm, where a threshing river dived into
the mountain face beneath them.

Now the trail swung gaily up and down, winding through the
rolling hills as if glad to be emancipated from those sinister surround-
ings. Smoke rose from cottages wrapped round by inviting woods,
and shepherds called from hill to hill, their voices carrying clearly
across the intervening valleys. On the open forest land mixed flocks
and herds were grazing, hemmed in on every side by shepherds,
men and boys, and up to them led broad, well trodden cattle-tracks
like main roads gashing the tawny turf and crossing the red fields.
But the real long-distance roads were never so well worn, and often
were no plainer than a footpath in a meadow.

Walking and riding alternately, Peace pressed on hour after hour
with his men. They had been invited to spend the night with Miao
Christians at the hamlet of the Great Pine Tree. And not the least
important reason for getting in before dark was the presence in this
area of deep pits in the fields and beside the path, sudden drops of

40
 

 

 

COUNTRY AND PEOPLE

thirty, seventy or more feet into the ground. Because many were
too steep to climb down if an animal fell in, and were excellent places
for the secret disposal of bodies, their popular name meant “pits of
the fallen and withered.” Sometimes a subsidence took place unex-
pectedly, and it was well for users of the road to see the ground they
walked on.

Towards nightfall, as mists were settling and it looked like rain
before the day was done—already their shoulder-wide oiled hats
were dripping moisture at the brim—they came upon a herd, home-
ward bound, disappearing over the last rise of land. The ponies were
out of sight in front, the sheep and goats, cows and calves straggling
after them, limpers at the back, pigs lining the sides or impeding the
others in the centre. Here and there cloaked shepherd boys called
and whistled, touching up the stragglers with long sticks. And dogs
ran ceaselessly up and down trimming the flock.

The country was rough, with rocks and depressions flanking the
cattle-track, and the shepherd bringing up the rear was huddled into
his felt cape and walking as if tired, no doubt looking forward to
his fire and food. In his reverie, unobservant, he had allowed one
or two lame sheep to fall back, abreast of and even behind him. And
not many yards away the sleck form of a wolf was slipping from
cover to cover, waiting to head one off that he might kill her.

Simultaneously Peace and his men raised a shout, and the wolf,
foiled of his purpose, slunk into the thicket and was gone. The herds-
man, turning, realized what they had done for him and hailed them
gratefully. They drew up to him and saw that he was a Miao of
middle age, and, as they expected, of the tribe of Large Flowery
Miao, so named from the design on their embroidered capes,
worked cleverly in red and black on a white ground.

He peered carefully for a moment, asked with brightening eyes,
“Is it Mr. Peace?” and, scarcely waiting for the reply, sent his voice
ringing away ahead of them:

“Mr. Peace has come! Tell them Mr. Peace the Nosu has arrived!”

4

The last hundred yards of the journey became a procession. All
the members of the families with whom he was to stay came out to
welcome him; wrinkled, smiling men; beaming women with squat
cones of hair capping their heads; girls with fringes of dark hair
over their foreheads, and full-pleated skirts swinging about their

41
STRONG TOWER

legs; younger girls and boys happy and excited because their parents
were, running amongst them. They had not been Christians so very
long, and it was a new and wonderful thing that the wealthy (com-
pared with them, so very rich) and haughty Nosu should be so
changed as to come into their mean dwellings and treat them as
friends. That they were Christians was already obvious from the
relative cleanliness of their persons and premises, though even so
flies were legion and some hasty sweeping was necessary before they
asked him in.

Master and men were féted by all who could find an excuse to
attend them. The best baked oatmeal known as ch’ao-mien, was
produced, and precious little cakes of brown sugar, made from
sugar cane by the Papus across the river, were broken up and dis-
solved in boiling water. Then, sitting round a fire of oak and pine
logs in the headman’s hut, the travellers stirred their oatmeal into
the syrup and supped cheerfully, first eating it as a thin porridge and
then working it into dusty dry balls. And, finishing, they scraped
their bowls clean, eating every crumb, and rolled their chopsticks
together till they were as good as washed. Outside, a group of busy
men were killing and cleaning two sucking pigs for supper, and
soon sweet scents were bubbling out of the black pot among the
flames.

The Miao had heard at the great church gatherings of the young
student who had been converted in spite of his father’s opposition,
but they had not mmet him before. Nevertheless, they all talked hard
together of the early days when a few soul-hungry men had walked
far over the mountains to the distant city of Anshun to beseech old
Mr. Adam to come and teach them the Good News of which only
echoes had so far reached them; and of his death by lightning, which
was to them in unbelieving days a sign of the displeasure of the
spirits, and had been a sore trial to the faith of some. Then there was
Sam Pollard of Chaotung and his work at Stone Gateway, to which
he turned because the opportunities were so great, although the
Independent Nosu had invited him to live amongst them; and one
and another friend from across the seas, to whom they could not
but refer.

They discussed the mass movements of whole villages and districts
when hundreds and even thousands turned to God, and the insular
Nosu followed suit and began to worship with the lowly Miao.
And of many carried in by the current whose hearts were evil still.

42

 
 

 

COUNTRY AND PEOPLE

Deep shadows of the squatting men leaped and quivered on the
rough surroundings and blackened roof as the night breezes blew
in between the leafy branches, the logs and the bundles of stripped
flax stalks which formed the only walls of the shack, and played with
the playful flames. The acrid wood smoke curled and eddied, sting-
ing the sore eyes of numbers of them, and light ash, like snow,
floated down on to the outer ring of listeners.

Then when the meal was over, and all but Mr. Peace with shame-
less gusto had made the most of a rare celebration, when the women
and children had followed, sitting to eat only when the men had
risen, and when the dogs had cleared the floor of bones and scraps,
someone in a far corner began to hum. One or two others not
taking part in the conversation joined in, and soon all talk was lost
in singing. The Nosu servants sat amazed. They had followed the
evening’s talk with difficulty, but this was entirely new, for they
had only been to organized meetings in the past. This was a spon-
taneous outburst of sincere feeling.

The headman of the hamlet suggested quietly that they all close
in and find comfortable seats on logs or the ground, and for over an
hour, with prayers and reading of Scripture, they continued, Peace
taking part, till some began to move away to their own huts, and
the travellers, heavy-eyed, begged leave to sleep.

Separated from the rest by a partition of a few planks coming
little more than waist height, and from cattle in the stall beyond by
a similar barrier, Peace slept, as their honoured guest, on three
boards laid across two segments of a tree trunk. The others would
curl up on the ash-strewn earth about the dying fire.

Late into the night, when the young man woke slightly and
changed his position, he heard the Miao still singing—and marvelled
at the beauty of their voices, singing by natural gift in harmony.

3

Leaving his Miao friends next day, young Mr. Peace and his
companions went on to Kopu, fording a wide river where the water
flowed, black and powerful, beneath the horse’s belly.

Then after a short climb they saw beneath them the tall oak tree
and cluster of buildings that marked the Kopu church and schools.
This was the centre of both Miao and Nosu churches, and the home
of missionaries. Here hundreds gathered each Sunday, and thousands
at conference time, decked out in tribal finery.

43
STRONG TOWER

There were greetings and gossip to be exchanged, and much tea
to be drunk in the homes of various friends in the community. But
the following morning saw them on the road again.

From Kopu to Kiehkow was not far, only four or five hours’ ride,
the first half down hill toward Kolo, the chief market in this region,
but after that rising from six thousand to nearly seven thousand
five hundred feet above the sea. Reaching Kolo was almost like
being home again, a place of importance if compared with the wastes
they had traversed. But the hill was a long pull up.

They stopped to rest and eat ch’ao-mien in Miao style when half-
way to the top, letting the horse go loose to wander in search of
what green grass it could find. A little below them and away to one
side were the huts of some pagan Miao. A few decrepit old crones
in ragged garments and untidy coils of hair were busy in the fields
and about their hovels; and somewhere across the side valley sweet
music floated up from Miao reed pipes. The sound was beautiful,
and would have seemed so to Peace’s ear had he not known the
unconverted Miao so well. As it was, he rose to go on. His soul
moved now in clearer air, and his mind was full of fresh thoughts,
new ambitions forming, hopes for the Nosu church. The pipes
brought to mind the ways of the Miao at night, meeting on the
hillsides or in a communal shack, roused by the erotic stimulus of
this seductive music to vile excess. He could not stay; his emotions
were incompatible.

The mountain top was glorious. On all sides the hills rolled away
in waves to the horizon, and Kolo Valley lay spread out beneath him
in the distance. Near at hand the slopes fell abruptly. To start rolling
down would be fatal; nothing but a crash into a tree or rock could
check one’s progress. Yet the path was sometimes only a ledge of
one or two feet in width. At first the mountain was tree~clad, but,
following the tortuous crest gradually to the east, it became bare and
lacerated by almost vertical water courses, the scars left by cloud-
bursts. Even here, though, the penniless Miao had carved precarious
little terraces and found enough stony, reddish earth to make three
or four short furrows at each level in which to plant their grain.

The last small spur was crossed by a shallow defile, and suddenly
the whole valley of Kichkow lay below them. There was the great
horseshoe or collar of hills, on the near summit of which they were
themselves standing; there the wooded bluff ending precipitously at
the foot of Mt. Ararat. And scattered up and down the valley were

44

 
 

 

COUNTRY AND PEOPLE

the copses of sahmu trees with brightly rusted tips, which sheltered
the homes of his Christian friends, Chiopa, the Widow, Old Man
An, and lower down, the village of Whites, many of whom were
believers. On the uncultivated slopes the sun had caught and made
alive the flaming red and golden leaves of bright autumnal trees.
They held him, fascinated. And, quite unsought, a new idea as
suddenly possessed him.

Why could not the Nosu stand on their own feet? Why go miles
and miles to their nursing mother, the Miao church, every Sunday?
What better than that this very valley should be the centre of the
Nosu church of all the districts, north, south, east and west? Without
attachment to the Miao, they would get a better hearing from the
pagan Nosu they were out to influence. He must think this through,
digest it and discuss it with his seniors. It was good. What more
natural centre was there than Kichkow?

Though he was no more than twenty years of age, the vision that
developed from that time became to Mr. Peace the pattern for
succeeding years. Ever afterward he was aware that he was not his
own. God had commissioned him to live and work, as St. Paul laid
down that every single Christian should, not for himself, but for the
One who died for him and came to life again.

He could not linger on the mountain top, much as he might wish
to. Chiopa’s servants were almost at their journey’s end and had
already passed him. The path before him fell away toward the
valley and he had to follow. It brought him down to spend the night
with Chiopa, to tell about his daughter and her affairs. But Peace’s
mind was full of greater things; he found it difficult to concentrate
on those of lesser moment. And, moreover, he was only one day’s
ride away from his father and home.

45
CHAPTER FOUR

BACKGROUND TO ADVENTURE

¢

‘... and his high social standing in the district . . .”
I

THE Nosu do not build cities: they are men of the mountains,
of the open skies. There are many who live in cities now, but
not in those of their own creation. The cities are Chinese. Chaotung
is one of those, and almost wholly owned by Nosu families, but they
are strangers there. Their 100ts are in the uplands among the rocks
and the pines. They are the children of their forebears, and the blood
of marauders flows fast in their veins.

The ancient Liao, who left whole kingdoms in a wake of devasta-
tion and blood before China as a nation had extended her perimeter
to include the wider territory that is hers, have not persisted as a
recognizable race. The Angles and Saxons lost their identity in a
shorter time. But the blood of the Liao who loved battle and never
accepted defeat refuses to lie dormant. It flows on in the modern
Nosu. The faults of their social system may have bred a dying race,
effete in many ways and lacking sons to continue the line, but to
this day the Nosu will not be tamed. This is true in spite of the fact
that all but the Independent Nosu are called “friendly,” “subju-
gated” or “‘tame” Nosu.

Mr. Peace’s countryside was still full of lawless Nosu families.
(And it must be remembered that the Whites scarcely count except
as tools of the others: the real “Nosu” are the Blacks, the true-
bloods.) Securely housed in fortified retreats in the hills, and sur-
rounded by poorer Black tenants, by White freemen and tenant
retainers, they enjoyed, and to this day enjoy, a self-indulgent indol-
ence, leaving the work to others and spicing their useless existence
by feud and counter-feud, by robbery and bloodshed and lust.

But Mr. Peace’s father was another type. He was a fruit of the
fixed policy of the Manchu and Republican governments to subdue
and assimilate all aboriginal tribes. He was law-abiding and co-
operative. Given official rank in which he rose till he occupied an
important position in his county, he was wealthy and respected,
wearing the coveted button of officialdom on his satin cap. It was

46

 

 
 

 

BACKGROUND TO ADVENTURE

in this peaceful and in many ways Chinese home that his son
Wenliang had been born and reared, a Nosu of the Nosu, yet
Chinese by education and, in part, environment.

The father had never heard the Gospel, and only knew about
Christianity by rumour and the reports of ill-disposed acquaint-
ances. His parents before him had been animists, like others of their
race, and he was too, with the addition of Chinese religion, a mix-
ture of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, as a sop to convention.
It was distressing to him, therefore, when his promising young son
came home full of this yang chiao—the foreigners’ religion—and was
not to be weaned from it. But of its effect upon his boy’s conduct
and attitude to himself he wholly approved.

And now he was daily expecting Wenliang’s return. In answer to
a letter, he had sent a servant to escort him home. He knew he had
an errand to discharge before starting back, but he was due to come
riding in on any one of these fine evenings.

The old man had retired and was enjoying his mellow old age
in the warm welcome of his own heatth. The name of his estate was
symbolic, after the manner of the Nosu—“The Lake on the Moun-
tain.” It came from the feature, no longer existing, of a lake set
entrancingly between four peaks on top of the mountain which rose
up behind the ancestral home. There were religious superstitions
associated with the place that forbade women ever to go up there,
but it had always been the favourite haunt of the boys of the family.
Morever, just as in Kichkow “Chiopa” was the name of the man
and of his lands, so old Mr. Peace himself was known by this name,
“The Lake on the Mountain,” and after his death it would pass on
to his son. A broad river flowed by, not far from the house, giving
the name of Hopien to the locality.

The sons and grandsons of his father’s and grandfather’s Whites
were caring for him; the trees that had cast their shadows over his
forebears now shaded him, and like a full orchestra charmed him
with the music of their massed instruments when the high winds
blew. Hundreds of trees, tall and straight and true, a possession of
stable value and an heirloom of generations.

He loved the bubbling and popping of his old brass water pipe,
gift of a Chinese friend, and the heavy staleness of his hams and
bacons hanging from the rafters. The red peppers bunched above
the doorway, and the dry peeling onions to one side hinted at
pleasures in store. And the soft step of Wenling his daughter

47
STRONG TOWER

reminded him of his son home coming. Daily as the sun sank he
listened for Wenliang’s voice and continually, to pass the time,
poured himself another cup of bitter, strong tea from that stewing
by the hour on the fire. He was excited, impatient, but would not
admit it.

2

Thirty or forty miles to the north was a very different type of
family of the lawless kind. Far from any city or market town, and
therefore from the control of law, more wealthy and unscrupulous
than most—the latter the cause of the former—they had always
lived by force of arms and cunning. Their menfolk were educated,
but education failed to alter them, they used it in their evil purposes.

The place was hard to find among a world of peaks all much alike,
yet once found it was not hard to see in it the most that could be
desired: a wide plain or plateau, well watered, with rich soil, good
timber, and shelter from the biting north winds of winter. The
name of the place could be made by a slight turn of speech to mean
Thieves’ Inn Flats, and it was indeed a Rogues’ retreat. No doubt
it had been acquired at first by foul means, and ever since had lived
up to its name. ;

There were certain other families with which the Rogues were
at daggers drawn. They did not know how it had ever started, for
the feuds had gone on for generations, but that was immaterial;
more recently men had been killed, and must be avenged. The
Rogues therefore had a permanent body of armed men on guard
and often out on foray, led by one or two of the young bloods of
the Black family. They travelled many miles, each carrying his
own food for the road, and fell upon the homes or animals or
retainers of their enemies as opportunity presented. Sometimes
soldiers from the city had gone out to catch them red-handed, but
always they were quietly at work in the fields or nowhere to be
found, for news always travelled faster than the troops, possibly by
what is called a “happy arrangement.”

But on the day that the young student was riding homeward, he
narrowly escaped entanglement in their affairs. The Rogues had
nothing against him or his family, but a mistake might easily have
been made.

He was descending a bare hill into a broad hollow when he saw
a party of mounted men and footmen approaching on the same

48

 

 
 

AN UNMARRIED MIAO MAIDEN WITH COILED HAIR
A TYPICAL MIAO TRAVELLER WITH BEDDING, UMBRELLA, HAT AND STAFF
A LISU LAD, TRIBAL COUSIN OF THE NOSU

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

A MIAO GRANNY DIGGING. THE CONE-SHAPED HAIR INDICATES A MARRIED WOMAN

 
g
‘o
i
3
i

fl:‘—;-:i;fru‘.:*‘ e ;: e e

 

BACKGROUND TO ADVENTURE

road. Most were armed, But at ease, laughing and chatting together,
bandying bawdy jokes about the favourite butt of the gang, an ogle-
eyed ruffian who, the worse for native corn whisky, was trying to
embrace another villain, a man on whose face the lines of every
kind of vice were written. There was nothing to be done but to
ride on, hoping they would not molest him, so young Peace ran
the gauntlet of their stares and remarks to each other, caring only
to get past and away from them again. He judged rightly that they
were raiders off on the spree.

He had not left them more than a minute when shots rang out

behind him. He turned in the saddle and was relieved to see that he

was not the target. But tearing down the hill a little to one side of
the path were a score or more men in blue turbans, jackets and
trousers, deployed loosely and firing as they ran, converging on the
party he had just passed. Peace’s servant, plodding ahead of his
master, glanced swiftly once and did not look again. He knew better
than to meddle or to risk being able to identify anyone. But Peace
himself watched all he could, hoping that the scrub oak he had come
amongst would hide them sufficiently from view. Yet he too kept
moving that they might get out of sight and range as soon as
possible.

The two bands had taken cover and were fighting it out at close
range now, their horses held at a distance by one or two of their
number. As soon as one had been killed or too many injured the
action would be broken off until another time. It was a grim game
with rules and procedure understood. Revenge in measured
quantity and kind was the goal.

As the firing grew fainter, Peace and his man discussed the
encounter, talking in general terms about the different families
involved in these feuds. They knew of the Rogues well enough,
though not by sight. What they did not know was that more than
once the tides of life in his family and theirs were to clash in tumul-
tuous waves of grief. But not yet.

3

The ferryman was an old friend and refused payment on this
auspicious day, the return of the eldest son of the big house after
months at school. He was returning for good, a gentleman now, no
longer a schoolboy who could be sent packing. Most passengers on

Dst 49
STRONG TOWER

his stout ferry boat had to coax their own animals on board to cross
the river, but to-day the ferryman’s lordly air was lacking, and,
taking the rein from “Mr. Peace,” he led the horse to the water’s
edge, and, pulling and urging in a loud voice, worked till it gathered
its hooves together and, rearing, leapt with a clatter up into the
boat. A generous attitude was good policy to-day. He would not
lose by being pleased to see the young master, and talked prodigi-
ously all the way across.

But Peace was too near home to be a ready listener once they
grounded at the farther bank, and, mounting, left his servant to
follow at his own pace, and cantered on. His beast smelt the home
air too, and, forgetting almost ten days of hard travelling, braced
itself to the last half~mile. The hedgerows bowed to welcome him
with an array of hips and haws and early autumn flowers, and the
evening sun smiled through the trees beyond the farm.

When he saw the roof tops he yelled. The dogs dozing in the
farmyard raised their heads from their forepaws, listened, and burst
into a chorus of barking. They charged out to challenge him, and
changed to ecstatic gambols when they saw who it was.

His old father was the first to follow them, but soon the others
outpaced him; his sister, the servants, and even his brother on his
crippled foot.

After the first excited greetings and exchange of remarks someone
sniggered and the rest joined in restrained amusement. Young Peace
was mystified and looked to his father for the explanation. So far
they had spoken only in Nosu, whereas Peace had for months spoken
little but Chinese in school.

“It is nothing, Wenliang,” cried the old gentleman. “Your pro-
nunciation is a bit like a Chinese speaking, but we smile easily
because we are glad to see you.”

And with his hand on his son’s shoulder he led the procession back
into the house.

He had reserved a gesture for this moment, often thinking of it,
for this was a great occasion. He forced his protesting son into the
seat of honour beyond the central fireplace, the cylindrical mud
stove on its base of rock. Then, trembling slightly, though this was
so small a thing, he went into his own room and unlocked the heavy
door of the inner grainroom, where all of value was stored. From
it he brought the choicest spices and preserved meats, the dried fungi
from far away north of the Yangtze, and a jar of pungent soya

50
 

 

 

BACKGROUND TO ADVENTURE

sauce. These were things no ordinary Nosu home would have, but
he had not attended countless official functions without acquiring
new tastes and refinements. In his son’s presence, he gave them to
the cooks. They had already sent out to slay the young fatted pig
and a fowl. And he let Wenling go up into the loft for lard for her
brother’s welcome, though only the elder members of the family
were allowed to climb that ladder. The bouquets of peppers and
onions over the door were smaller too.

They would feast together to-night.

4

Round the fire, cracking sunflower seeds and nibbling crystallized
orange peel, brought by Peace from Chaotung as a present to the
family, they talked. And talked. There was so much to say, they
could say almost nothing of importance. The unimportant things
loomed the larger. Peace wanted to tell them about the city, about
the mountains of Shama, about the famous Lings who had been
converted, and his own adventures; but they were more interested
in immediate details touching themselves and this day’s travel, and
the petty things drove out the bigger matters. Had he been older he
would have expected this, but he did not mind, he was home.

Presently, however, the dogs raised an uproar. Hearing the voice
of a friend calling out, “Old Mr. Peace! Old Mr. Peace!” the old
gentleman, hands on thighs, rose to his feet and went out. The
visitor had not heard of the return of the son of the family, and
apologized profusely for arriving at this moment, but he was
dragged in with much polite force by his host. Wenliang had
vacated the seat of honour, and the new arrival was thrust into it
after greeting his old friend’s son. They knew him as the pémo, the
sorcerer-priest, from a nearby valley. He explained apologetically
that he just had a matter of business to discuss and then would go,
but the old man was talking hard at the same time, saying how
appropriate his coming was—in time for the feasting—and that it
was he who should apologize, but that there had been no time to
send out invitations.

Peace had feared meeting this man, for a pémo is the supreme
spiritual authority over a wide area. He has no superiors, with the
exception of his teachers in the school of priestcraft to which he may
have been after learning all he could from his father. But he may

S
STRONG TOWER

have several subordinates called mila to perform minor religious
offices. The visitor, however, had heard that the young man
had embraced Christianity, and plunged straight into conversa-
tion in an affable spirit.

“I hear your new religion has a legend about the Flood,” he said
after a few preliminaries. “Tell me about it; the comparison would
be interesting.”

So Peace told the story of the Flood, taking the opportunity to
include its cause and significance, while the pémo listened intently
with exclamations, slapping his thigh and crying now and then,
“Ah, that’s right!” or, in a rising scale, “Eh! . . . Wrong there!”

Finally, Wenling, who was standing back a little, said: “Tell us
our version, Pémo. It’s a long time since we heard it.”

The pémo was pleased. His voice changed to a professional recital,
and he told how Pu-m’vu-vu, the second of three brothers, for his
kindness to some messengers of God, was told how to save himself
in the coming cataclysm. In his wooden box he rode out the storm,
and gathered into his boat many animals which were floating on the
waters. His kindness to them later on won him one of God’s
daughters for a wife, and of their union three sons were born.

As he chanted, young Peace watched and listened. These sorcerer-
priests were the only ones able to read the racial writings, ancient
manuscripts containing tribal history and incantations for use on all
religious occasions. The knowledge was passed on with the office
from father to son, and the devilry of ancient times was thus per-
petuated. All the benightedness of the race was concentrated in
these men, amiable farmers when not performing their specific
functions. They were wizards, necromancers, exorcists, but above
all priests, representatives of the people in offering sacrifices and
making contact with the spirits. Up to a hundred years ago human
sacrifices had been made in some places, slaves offered up by the
noblest lords, but now on the greatest occasions when each of the
twelve clans met in a forest clearing, perhaps once in nine or ten
years, only sheep and fowls were slain, one for each family.

The pémos were therefore a latent menace to the infant church.
Yet their incantations contained many things that made Peace see
hope of convincing even pémos of the truth. Often he had heard
them say, “Np’i-mo, the Creator God, is very near us,” and exhort
their listeners about heaven and hell in which they firmly believed,
the one a place of joy and the other of torment. If they could be

52
 

BACKGROUND TO ADVENTURE

led to believe in Christ it would be a great thing, for they kept the
register of all males born, and were in intimate touch with all Nosu
homes.

But they were blind; and his own family too. Peace longed to
tell them at once that “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ,” His Son: a positive truth that
could transform them. One day he would. Yet he knew he was not
up against men, but against the very “supernatural power behind
the national gods.”

Coming to the end of his story, the pémo began to discuss further
the' differences between his creed and Christianity, but at that
moment there was a disturbance at the door, and a White servant
reported one of the horses ill. Peace offered to see about it while his
father tackled his business matters, and went out.

It was not his own animal, but a valuable one none the less. It was
lying in its stable and clearly very ill. The onset had been fairly
sudden, and it was showing signs which he recognized as a dan-
gerous malady calling for immediate and drastic measures. He knew
the customary treatment, and set about it without delay. While one
servant went for dry oak leaves and cornstalks to strew the stable
floor for warmth, another was sent off to bring a small stove of
hot coals. Peace himself collected chillies, pepper, old rags and other
oddments, and made them up into pledgets which he soaked with
neat spirit and burnt, sending the irritating fumes into the horse’s
nostrils. Encouraged by some response, he went on till he succeeded
in getting the animal to its feet. Then, heating the handle of some
fire tongs in the stove, he branded it with two searing cruciate
wounds on its flanks. It stood motionless and unprotesting at first,
while the smoke of burning hair and hide rose hotly in the dark
stable, but with the second application it tossed its head, and on
being released turned to its manger and began to eat the corn mush
they had prepared. It would live and recover quickly now. Peace
left it and returned indoors.

5

The pémo had taken his leave and the meal was waiting. The old
father was rubbing his hands and radiating goodwill as he hailed
them to sit down for a family celebration in which all would join.
Relay after relay would sit round the table in the main room of the

53
STRONG TOWER

house, beginning with the family proper, the Blacks, just the old
gentleman and his two sons and daughter, and going down through
the White men, women and children till the humblest menial was
replete and enjoying the memory of it drowsily on his pallet of
straw in an outhouse.

Young Peace was happy. Schooldays were over, and life lay
before him. And he had his ideas on life. When they all retired to
bed, he lay thinking. The excitement of being home at last overcame
the soporific effect of travel in the glorious open air, and of satiation
with good food. Yesterday he had had an inspiration as he crested
the collar of Kiehkow, and it still filled his mind.

He thought of the thriving Miao church at Kopu, still spreading
strongly, and of his own Nosu, in tens where the Miao were in their
hundreds. But there were enough Nosu to stand alone, and they
were increasing; he was convinced they would do better on their
own. An attachment to the Miao was enough to prevent most
heathen Nosu from listening twice to the Christians’ doctrine, but
if they had their own church organization and buildings, with a
school,—and a mushih to themselves: dare he hope for it?>—there
would not be the same objection.

Besides, the nature of the two tribes was wholly different. The
Miao were sociable and easy-going: the Nosu were proud, arrogant
and insular. The former would gather and respond to preaching:
the latter must be won by the tortuous means of personal introduc-
tions and conversations, family influencing family and friend
bringing friend. The dangers of giving offence were real.

His thoughts drifted on to his own family, and he pondered
deeply. His father was ageing rapidly. He had not expected to see
so much change. His mother had died in pagan ignorance of Him
who could save to the uttermost. . . .

He collected up his thoughts again. Wenling, his sister, so fond
of him: she would surely believe if he moved carefully. And his
brother. None of them was bigoted; not even his old father was
made that way. If their eyes were opened, their natures would not
hinder them.

“Everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have
everlasting life.”

Then it lay with him to give them the chance.

“And has He not ‘called me by His grace to reveal His Son in
me’?” he asked himself.

54
 

BACKGROUND TO ADVENTURE

His spirit thrilled within him. He could see further now into the
possibilities of the future. His ambitions were crystallizing on the
thread of faith. . . .

The others were sleeping; his father next door, and his brother
not many feet away. Their deep breathing spread a blanket of con-
tentment over his mind. He heaved a sigh of satisfaction and
determination, and turned over. The motion of his horse was still
perceptible in his pleasantly weary body, and to the sensation of
gentle jogging he fell asleep.

55
CHAPTER FIVE

HAND TO THE PLOUGH
“ . .. made him from the beginning a great asset to the infant
¢ chlreh g &

I

HE Christians in Kiehkow Valley were already well established

believers. It had meant a great deal to them to brave the wrath
of relatives when pride of family was so strong, to break with
customs and tribal beliefs unshaken for centuries, and to mix with
the Miao and Whites on an equal footing. But when Chiopa’s mind
was made up, after he had been taken by a relative to several meet-
ings at Kopu, there was no changing it. Chiopa was a symbol of
stability. Chiopa matched the Mt. Ararat on which he gazed each
morning from his terraces at the top of the valley. He would always
be a good Christian, whatever his failings.

Down near the gorge the Christian Whites were a compact group
who showed promise, and scattered elsewhere were other families
and individuals who attended meetings, even travelling the fifteen
miles to Kopu at times, and could be reckoned as part of the church
community. In the centre, on the wide spur of land that made the
floor of the valley convex at this level, with rocky gullies on each
side, were a farm and buildings belonging to a well-to-do man like
the Peaces, surnamed An, distinguished by being called the Old
Man.

Old Man An was small in stature, but a vivid personality, and,
needless to say, a Black. What the Old Man said went unquestioned
for quietness’ sake, and in more ways than one it wasa good day for
the church when he appeared at one of its meetings, no longer a
curious spectator, but as a well and truly converted soul. Old Man
An was a philosopher and sage. He had definite views on life, and
took zealously to his new-found faith, devoting himself and his
possessions to the Christian cause increasingly as he became the
natural leader of the others. His growing family had to go with
him to “church,” both to local gatherings of the valley Christians

56
 

 

 

HAND TO THE PLOUGH

and when he went off to the great monthly assemblies and the
annual conventions. But they did so gladly, for it was a united home
of intelligent and healthy boys and girls.

Old Mrs. An was a duchess of 2 woman. Her face was of classic
Nosu type, with prominent nose, deep, stern eyes and firm mouth.
She carried herself erectly and controlled her household with quiet
finality. Equal in force of character to her husband, she was a dutiful
wife and was not behind him in embracing the Faith with all
sincerity. Their eldest son was approaching young Mr. Peace in age,
and at school in the city as he had been. Two daughters and three
other boys completed the family.

No setting for their home could have been more ideal than it was.
They had the run of the fields, the woods, the streams, the hills, and
the farm, and expeditions to market at Kolo or Chuwai when they
liked. The house was scarcely large enough for such a family, with
those of its White servants who did not live in huts of their own.
It looked out over mud walls to the south with a display of distance,
ripe with tier upon tier of surprises waiting to be revealed by the
vagaries of the weather. A small coppice of sahmus clothed its
northern side, dwarfed by a huge walnut tree, the boys’ delight,
beneath which ran a cattle track up the hill past the homes of two
widowed relatives, Erh Sao and another. To the right, the west of
the house, flowed the stream that came down from Chiopa’s, cut-
ting so sharply into its further bank that there was a drop of twenty
or thirty feet from the field into its pebbly bed. And up this gully
ran the main path of the valley, criss-crossing the brook by stepping
stones. Nothing fit for wheels existed: in fact, the people scarcely
knew what wheels were. "

Inside the courtyard—for the house and farm were one—old Mr.
An kept the most amazing stock of pigs. Great black and white
things they were, with bellies almost touching the ground, and two
or three hundred pounds in weight, yet strong enough in the leg to
get about; obese, debased brutes ready for the slaughter, digging
about in the deep rubbish with which the yard was littered, or lying
stuporously in the corners. The younger pigs went out with the
herds, lean creatures, speedy on their limbs and adept at ploughing
with their calloused snouts for buried delicacies. But the smallest
piglets, with pink eyes and white eyelashes, had the freedom of the
farm, including some of the rooms, slipping through holes in the
walls and petrifying the servants’ small children with hideous

W
STRONG TOWER

squeals. Everywhere were hens; and a pompous goose, like a self-
important door porter or commissionaire, kept the gate.

It was to this home, so full of life and vitality, that Peace was given
an open invitation to call or stay whenever he liked, and which
began to play so large a part in the events of his life.

2

In the months which passed after his return home, Peace had
taken up regular work in the school for the children of church
people at Kopu. There were Nosu boys attending, and the need of a
Nosu master had been pressing. It had been hard to arrange at first,
because his old father naturally did not want him away from home
if it were possible to have him near at hand, and he had no need to
earn his living. Peace himself, however, was keen to help the church
in any way he could, and gladly undertook to teach. He was
anxious, too, to be near Kichkow, and to help the little group of
Christians there whenever possible. An arrangement was therefore
made by which he was able to return frequently to his home, calling
at Kiechkow en route. In this way he saw a good deal of his family,
and before long Wenling his sister was heart and soul with him in
his allegiance to Jesus Christ. His visits consequently became all the
more imperative, that he might teach and encourage her.

At first he stayed sometimes with Chiopa and sometimes with
Old Man An when passing through, but as Chiopa was less well
able to accommodate him, he tended more and more to go down
the valley to the teeming farmstead under the old walnut tree.
Then, with the progress of spring and the growth of the church,
his trips became more frequent at the week-ends, riding the fifteen
miles to Kiehkow on Saturday night and returning before school on
Monday. It was good to get out on a horse, to feel its muscular body
enjoying the liberty to work, to climb, to leap the small ditches and
canter by the tranquil riverside, where kingfishers skimmed the
water in colourful flashes. Nor did he ever tire of the changing views
and show of colour on the hillsides; the trees and bushes changing
winter’s drabness for a new flimsy dress of tender leaves; banks of
azaleas, pink and mauve and white, with scattered rhododendrons
stabbing the softer colours with crimson and port-wine.

Kopu was beautiful too, though more enclosed, so that there was
not the same outlook with its veils of morning mist, silvery and

58
 

HAND TO THE PLOUGH

ethereal. There was something special about Kiehkow. The mere
difference of altitude was not enough to account for the young
man’s eclation when visiting there, or his faint despondency on
leaving. Nor was it the sight of his hopes being realized, the church
becoming independent of outside help and acquiring property of
its own from the little widow Erh Sao with the bird-like eyes.

3

If the truth be known, Peace enjoyed the Old Man’s household.
He could not have said why he did so particularly, except that
everything there had spice in it. He did not get on very well with
the eldest son, An Toma, although much of an age. There always
seemed some hint of groundless rivalry that made their relationship
uneasy, but there was nothing more to it than that. Some people said
the whole family was difficult to please, but Peace did not agree.

From the moment he arrived he was made welcome. When he
drew in his horse at their narrow entrance and swung down on to
the springy bracken with which it was strewn, as likely as not they
would run out to greet him and escort him in. They still treated
him with the respect afforded to a guest, but in a very free-and-easy
way, not even inviting him indoors to sit down. Yet it always
looked as if a pot of water had been boiling in readiness for his
coming. A bowl of light refreshment was quickly forthcoming
after his journey, some sweetened potato flour made up into a
brown, transparent jelly with the crude sugar from Independent
Nosuland, or sometimes a more substantial snack.

Usually it was brought by some junior member of the family,
with whom he was popular. They enjoyed these visits of his as
much as he did. And sometimes it was even Tingying, not yet
twenty, which was only right, seeing it was she who made it in the
seclusion of the kitchen regions. The proprieties of China were less
binding in this Nosu countryside, and, anyhow, Peace was almost
considered as one of their own number. He would stand supping
the food on the narrow covered verandah outside their father’s room,
where the cross beams were so low that even his head was endan-
gered if he played about; or inside, watching them make corn
cakes, wrapping each one in big green leaves, and laying them in
layers, separated by bamboo slats, in the great kitchen cauldron to
be steamed.

59
STRONG TOWER

Tingying and he seldom spoke to each other except in general
conversation—that would be going beyond the rules as tacitly
understood—but there was an affinity between them which made
him glad when she appeared. He liked her fine carriage and hand-
some face, so like her mother in many ways. And she covertly
enjoyed watching him share in the activities of the house.

If there was a fine pig to be butchered for market, Peace would
be on the scene, lending a hand. They would tie it down on a
ladder and a White with sharpened dagger would slay it and drain
its body dry. Then, lifting it on the ladder as on a stretcher, to trestles
placed each side of a steaming cauldron, so that it lay over the
boiling water, all of them would prepare it together. That was the
part the boys enjoyed, the scalding and scraping. But Peace’s training
as a gentleman student fitted him better for the more sedate part of
holding and reading the long Chinese scale beam while others
chopped and trimmed and weighed. Fifty or sixty pounds of lard
alone was not exceptional from one of these pigs of the Old Man’s.
He took pride in feeding them well, and was renowned for the
hams and bacons in his larder.

If Tingying liked young Mr. Peace from what she saw of him,
on his part, he always relished the moments when her work brought
her out of doors, though, by inbred custom and discipline, he would
not have let it be known, and probably did not realize it in any
concrete way himself.

There was work in the fields for which all hands were wanted,
and open-air tasks which the women alone undertook; stripping the
flax stalks and twisting twine destined eventually to become linen
garments; spinning the heaps of coarse wool into thread ready to be
knitted into warm garments; or simpler ones, such as feeding the
fowls.

But when the flocks and herds came home from pasture it was
best. Several people were needed to help the Whites in separating
the various animals into their respective folds. They knew well
enough where to go, but even the more lordly ponies were inquisi-
tive and liked to peer into the wrong pens en passant. Then Tin gying
would get busy amongst them, regardless of her cumbersome clothes
and heavy turban. Peace enjoyed especially her delight over the
lambs and kids as they knelt to drink and in excited pleasure jerked
their stubby tails, butting with blunt, hornless heads at their mothers’
udders. There was so much to make life pleasant in such company.

60

 

 
 

HAND TO THE PLOUGH

Each evening the Old Man would lead family devotions, Blacks
and Whites all sitting devoutly round while he led them in singing
and read from the Scriptures, ending with prayer. A mushih had
once given him a huge Chinese Bible, inches thick, with large, clear
characters for the sake of his ageing eyes. It lived on the window-
sill, by day dusty and eaten of silver-fish, but each night Tingying
would take it down (she reserved this duty to herself), and, dusting
it, would carry it to her father. She welcomed these family prayers,
and on Sundays too, in best embroidered gown, was among the
first to gather for the combined service. This spirit too was what the
zealous young schoolmaster most liked to see.

Old Mr. An believed in the value of education for his daughters
as much as for his sons, and until there were schools to which they
could go, he undertook to teach them himself, with creditable
success. He was a precise old man and therefore approved heartily
of young Mr. Peace, who struck him as trim and clean, alert and
intelligent, characteristics which fully made up for his physical
slightness and faulty eyes.

It was small wonder, therefore, that Tingying’s father began to
entertain an idea which would necessitate an exchange of views with
the old official at Hopien. They had made one another’s acquaint-
ance already, but when the news came that the old gentleman had
followed his children’s example and been converted, Old Mr. An
had his black mare saddled, and rode off on a visit of congratula-
tion. In conversation he would pave the way for another matter to
be broached, a matter which pleased young Peace immensely when
his father asked him what he would say to the arrangement the
Old Man proposed.

4

Meanwhile, all was not going too well in the church. The boom
period of the mass movement among the Miao had affected the
Nosu in a similar way. The popularity and prestige of missionaries
from abroad had once been high, and association with the church
not without subsidiary advantages. In matters of legal settlements,
it had been good to be connected with the Christians. Therefore the
ranks of the church had been swollen and diluted by a worthless
element. With the passage of time and lessening of secular gains to
be had for the price of apparent piety, however, numbers began to

61
STRONG TOWER

drop off, and it became difficult to discriminate between the wolves
in sheep’s clothing, whose going was good riddance, and the true
Christians, whose lapse would be tragic. Scattered among the moun-
tains so far apart that adequate supervision and encouragement were
impossible, waning enthusiasm among the members was liable to
go unchecked until the very elect were involved.

This symptom was brought to light at about this time in a dis-
tressing way. The mushih had been on a tour of the little centres
where Christians met Sunday by Sunday, teaching them for a few
days at a time and passing on to the next. The custom was for his
bundle of bedding and other belongings to be carried by one or
two of the local Christians to the next place of call. On this occasion
attendance had been poorer than previously, and one village seemed
particularly apathetic. When the time for moving on arrived, no
one was forthcoming to help the mushih with his load. Requests and
even appeals were useless: to stay longer was impossible. The dis-
appointed man had to put what he could on his horse and leave the
rest behind. It was months before he regained them.

But this was not so serious a matter as it appeared superficially.
No sifting or winnowing is comfortable or without its losses, but
the products are the better for it. The chaff is best dispensed with.
Fine characters were revealed, and men and women who faced un-
popularity at a time like this in order to join the standard of the
shouldered Cross were going to stand firmly in days to come. They
were strong men who forsook their raiding bands, and women who
risked persecution in their homes.

The trend of affairs concerned Mr. Peace intimately, for he
watched closely the development of the infant church. Rejoicing
in the turning of his own family to God, he saw events in their true
perspective and was not dismayed. And his personal affairs were
going forward smoothly. In the shed which was doing duty as a
temporary chapel, he was married to Tingying with widespread
rejoicings. And a beginning had been made on a big building in the
centre of the valley, looking out prophetically over the mountains
and valleys of his own Nosu, whom he so longed to bring to the
feet of the Lord Christ. In spite of his youth, he was figuring more
and more in the now autonomous church. He was schoolmaster,
husband so happily married, and a leading member of the church.
This was the dawn of life, and it was good.

62
 

CHAPTER SIX
NEW HORIZONS

“Acquaintance with other parts of China widened his
‘e »
vision . . .

I

MR. PEACE lay prostrate on his bed, brows knit and spirits
drooping. A long term of hard teaching was over, and the
school had dispersed for the winter holidays. In winter it was too
cold for scantily clad children and youths to sit and pay attention.
Hands were too stiff and numb to handle pens, even if two large
fires were stoked hard to make their warmth felt, filling the room
with fumes. But even if they were successful, the expense was pro-
hibitive. So it was holiday until the weather began to warm up again.

Peace was glad his duties were over for a while. His eyes had been
troubling him severely, and his work was made burdensome on
that account. Unlike Tingying’s father, whose eyes were misty
with trachoma, Peace’s were bright enough, but could not stand the
strain of prolonged use. In their temporary home near Kichkow,
he could rest them for longer spells than during term time, and had
hoped for speedy relief. But they were just as bad. His sight was
still blurred and his head ached interminably.

Tingying sat beside him when her household matters set her free.
Only one possibility of real relief seemed open to them, but it was
so big a thing that they set it continually aside. Instead, as they
talked her supple fingers pressed and stroked his painful brow,
alleviating the ache for all too short a time. The skin between his
eyebrows was a purplish-red where her skilled knuckles had plucked
it up, nipping the taut skin again and again with soothing, counter-
irritant effect. But all to no avail. No massage could correct the root
defects. The glasses he possessed had been expensive and therefore
he used them conscientiously, but they seemed to add to his dis-
comfort.

“Why don’t you go to Chengtu?”” Tingying asked again. “Your
eyesight is so precious.”

“It is so far away,” he answered. “I would be two months absent
from you at least.”

63
STRONG TOWER

“But you would not know yourself for joy if this thing were
attended to successfully.” _

“Yes. But what expense!” he groaned.

“We had rather be poor than you go blind,” she said gently.

“How can I leave you, Tingying?” he added after a pause. ‘I
must be near you now of all times.”

“I will go home,” she said, “and all will be well with me.”

And so they talked, for they were good friends.

In the capital of the province north of them, beyond the mighty
Yangtze River, was a seat of learning with universities and hospitals.
In Chengtu therefore there was hope of the problem of his eyes
being fully and finally settled, and correctly dealt with by good
spectacles. The die was cast, and he must go if his eyesight was to
be spared. Moreover, he must go at once, taking the advantage of
the holiday months, and return as soon as possible. He must be back
to welcome his firstborn son.

Men from his father’s home came filing over the hills, bearing on
their backs tall conical baskets of maize and oats and buckwheat.
And from neighbouring farms he bought sheaves of cornstalks
and straw by the hundred. Without a farm of his own, he was
dependent upon others for these things. But this would not always
be so. His little house was soon well stocked with grain and fodder
for his few animals; and his Whites would take care of everything
in his and Tingying’s absence. Tingying must go to her own
people. At Peace’s home there were only his aged father and little
sister Wenling, so she could not go to them, as would have been
customary if his mother were alive.

On a crisp morning soon after Christmas he set out, alone but for
one carrier who would go with him to the Yangtze and wait with
his mount for him there. That would be twelve days’ travel away.
The snow lay in little banks at the foot of the trees. It was some days
since it had fallen, and it had only persisted where shadows fell for
most of the time. From slender twigs hung fragile icicles already
yielding to the morning sun and dripping gently away. As he rode
the tinkle of falling ice accompanied him whenever his legs or the
horse’s sweeping tail snapped them from their weakened stems. As
soon as the afternoon mists descended again and the north wind
blew bitterly, these icy needles would reform, and the windward
side of the branches would be dressed in frosted glass. This was a
big adventure for him, and his heart chilled within him when he

64
 

A WHITE NOSU EVANGELIST OF KIEHKOW A BLACK NOSU PASTOR OF CHAOTUNG

 

 
A WHITE NOSU MAN AND WIFE

 

 
 

 

b J
i i
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NEW HORIZONS

thought of it, as his feet chilled in the stirrups and his fingers on the
reins and his cheeks and ears and nose in the keen air. It was worth

it, though; they had decided that.
2

Passing through Hopien, Mr. Peace spent a night with his own
people. His father looked frail, as if a slight illness would be too
much for him and he would sink and snuff out like the last moments
of a burnt-out candle. It distressed him and made him uneasy, as he
rode on, about leaving him and going off on so long a journey.

But soon the main north road lay before him and days passed in
the monotony of motion over the wild mountain terrain. Only
after a week of continuous travel did;he reach the first church centre
on his route, Pichich. After nights in rough heathen inns shared with
obscene and riotous travellers and coolies, it felt like home to be
among Christian people again. The presence of Christian Nosu there
exhilarated him, though differences of dialect prevented free con-
versation in their own tongue. Still, it widened his conception of the
extent of the Nosu church.

Then on again, still over great mountains and deep valleys. But
the general level of the road was falling, always dropping towards
the low basin of the Yangtze. All this time Peace scarcely noticed the
road he was travelling. For one thing, to spare his eyes he rode part
of the day with them closed, or with his turban pulled down over
them so that he could see only the horse and the track immediately
in front. For another, a good many things were on his mind. Con-
cern over his father, which troubled him for the first day or two
from home, was now shelved anxiously in a corner of his mind.
Instead, to the fore in his ponderings was his Nosu church. His
youthfulness had not debarred him from being an influential mem-
ber already, and now responsibility was fostering his early urge to
see the church thrive.

These hours of patient sitting astride his horse while his carrier
stumped doggedly along in front gave all the time he could want,
even if rather restless, for working out new lines of thought as they
occurred to him. He wanted now to see the church maturing,
becoming strong and disciplined. For example, it was time they
rose above such things as having spears and knives in the corner of
the room where they met for family worship. Maybe it was the
sight of an old fort cleverly ornamented with an arbour and classic

Est 65
STRONG TOWER

curving Chinese roof that reminded him of this subject, and of how
some Christians were relying still upon their turreted blockhouses
for safety against persecution instead of believing that the Name
of the Lord is a surer strong tower in the day of strife.

Similarly, the whitewashed dwellings, as he crossed into the
province of Szechwan, threw into contrast in his mind the rude
mud houses of his own race. Educated church members, he thought,
with school-going children, and a cleaner, more civilized standard
of living, should be the result of the impact of the Gospel every-
where. They could rise to that, even without being rich.

A long, long gorge brought him to another mission centre in a
city straddling a river on two sides, and the road went on past rich
rice-fields and spreading, flatter grainlands. The air was much
warmer down here, and the teeming populace looked better and
more lightly clothed. They rose industriously at sunrise. A new
world was opening before the young man, who, though he knew
about it from his schooling in Chaotung, had never seen or visualized
it lucidly.

Then came the Yangtze, vaster than he had imagined, a sheet of
swirling water so broad that the men on the farther bank moved like
insects, and yet he was over a thousand miles from its mouth. His
ferry, working upstream at first, was caught by the current in cross-
ing and carried far down the stream, so that it had to work up again
on the other side to reach a point opposite that from which they had
started. Here for the first time he saw a river steamer and smaller
chuffing motor launches.

A day’s rest, and the kind church people had seen him on to a
steamer bound for Siichow, like a man waking from a dream,
blinking in the blaze of enlightenment, such was his excitement and
keen interest. Transferring to a little wooden junk, helped once
more by the Stichow Christians, young Mr. Peace experienced the
pleasures and alarms of travel by tracking upstream, of drifting
gently along in smooth water lulled by the mute rhythm of the
trackers’ tugging, or in danger of rapids and snapping cables. More
nights with the water lapping against the boat’s thin planking and
the red glow of fires on the shore, etching dark silhouettes of men
and masts in the blackness, and then Chengtu, the ancient city with
a history of two thousand years.

He saw an electric bulb lit up, one of the first in theicity, and a
motor car, though the City Fathers had decried against cars as lions

66
 

NEW HORIZONS

and tigers in their danger to human life, fit objects for attack with
stones and staves. And a hundred and one other things were new to
him, in spite of his introduction to them by his “Western” educa-
tion. All was so luxurious, by the standards he had known.

Attention to his all important eyes did not take long once he had
reached the right quarters. Nervously, he found his way to the
Mission hospital, a building vaster than any he had ever entered in
his life, and registered his name. Sitting in the ranks of waiting out-
patients, he gazed about the hall. On the walls, he saw approvingly,
were illustrated posters bearing verses from the Bible. Patients were
being called in one by one to see the doctor, but to those whose turn
had not yet come a preacher spoke for several minutes, explaining
the meaning of the pictures, and afterwards walked round making
the acquaintance of his audience. Mr. Peace hailed him when he
came near enough, and made himself known as a fellow Christian,
for no other reason than that of feeling at one with this stranger in
the family of God. When his time to go into the consulting-room
arrived, however, the preacher went in with him and introduced
him to the missionary. The friendly kindness he received at once put
him at ease, so that he actually enjoyed the mysterious processes of
testing to which he was submitted. And felt satisfied at last that he
had not been mistaken, as he had sometimes feared, in seeing the
Pillar of Cloud lead him so far away from home.

But several days of waiting were necessary while spectacles were
made to the prescription he received. In this time he saw all he
could of the historic buildings and culture of Chengtu, but they
tended to depress him. His race was as ancient, but degenerate. Here
they had old libraries, but his people were uneducated and his very
native language was threatened with extinction. One of the first
results of his cogitations on the journey had been that already his
modest luggage was heavier by several new Bibles and other books;
there must be Bibles and Christian reading matter in every home,
and the people must be trained in the use of them. It was a tough
proposition, for it was not many years since they had all been in
the darkness of animism, superstition and complete illiteracy. Some
were slowly learning to read, but the women were far behind the
men. He would take what he ‘could with him as a help toward the
main goal. ;

Then at last the day came when his spectacles were ready, not

beautiful, but what he needed. The joy and relief as it broke through
67
STRONG TOWER

into his consciousness that his dark days of fear had been finally
banished were as Tingying had foreseen. At once he was in a fever
of excitement to get back to her, and, indeed, he had little time to
spare.

3

It was a long trek back again, but joy and the urge to get home
post-haste lent wings to his spirit.

Before he had started out, 2 new suggestion had been made, and
now from what he had seen had sprung a fresh determination. They
would translate some hymns into their own language for the sake
of those who could not learn Chinese, and he himself would put
hard work into it. As the distance faded behind him, his enthusiasm
for this idea increased and led on to another plan: a dictionary of
his mother tongue, in Nosu, Chinese and English. In this way, any-
one—the mushihs too—could learn either language more easily, and
the instruction of beginners would be simplified.

The morning came at last when from a hilltop he saw Hehchang,
the market town just ten miles downstream from Hopien. Thereafter
the road seemed endless and the hours interminable as he slowly
covered the ground that remained. Wenling was the first to see
him, and she cried out in delight, but immediately to his alarm her
pleasure was eclipsed and she called him by the name he had been
known by when they were children, saying:

“It’s Father; he has gone! He went suddenly a month ago. We
are alone.”

Dense darkness closed in around Peace’s soul. He did not know
that his horse’s reins were taken from him, while Wenling led him
indoors. His world was shattered. It lay around him in amorphous
gloom. He sat where he was bidden, with head drooping and hands
limp, staring at nothingness, too numb even to think. He had never
known life without his father, and since the old gentleman’s conver-
sion they had grown closer than ever to each other. Old Mr. Peace
had been the very rock foundation of the countryside, the benevo-
lent old squire on whose wisdom and experience all were wont to
lean. He was the basis of his son’s existence, the massive foreground
of life. Without him the world was empty, and every prospect out
of focus.

He had died. He had been stricken with sharp pain in his chest
and arm, they said, and had retired to bed, refusing food. His

68
 

NEW HORIZONS

crippled son had slept beside him and in the night heard him cry
out feebly as if dreaming. And in the morning they had been unable
to wake him.

Later they took their grieving elder brother to see the grave, some
distance off, at the foot of their ancestral mountain. The mountain.
A new realization descended like a heavy cloak upon Peace’s
shoulders. He himself was now “The Lake on the Mountain,” the
head of the family—at twenty-three.

4

A dream of himself, another being, mounted the faithful horse
and headed once more for Kichkow. Piercing through his grief as
shafts of sunlight strike through rain had come again and again the
memory that he had been on his way back to welcome his firstborn.
He had turned it aside, calling himself unfilial, a hypocrite. What
else was he if gay exhilaration could replace tears even for an instant?
But he knew that for a lie. There was nothing he could do by
staying, and Tingying’s hour was at hand.

The familiar route, the calming contours of old friendly hills
climbing gently to their summits, healed his distraught mind. The
plunging grandeur of their unscalable escarpments braced him once
again, and the light air of early spring lifted him out of his despair.

It was evening when he reached his wife’s familiar home and
stepped into the courtyard. The welcome from the family was
subdued. They directed him to a room at the far corner of the house.
He stood outside the door and said:

“Wenliang has returned.”

There were footsteps and a voice from within:

“What is it?”’

“It is Wenliang, just arrived.”

The door opened and old Mrs. An bade him enter. She returned
to her seat on the far side of the fire. He saw no other seat near him,
so remained standing. It was dark in there, and for a moment he
could see nothing but the glow of the red coals and the moving
form of the “Duchess”’; no sound, only a fevered hum of flies stirred
into commotion by the movement. Then as his eyes grew adapted
he could see Tingying’s pale face. She was seated by her mother, the
two of them side by side on low stools a span’s height from the
ground. In a corner of the room was a heap of potatoes. There was

69
STRONG TOWER

nothing else. Nothing. The stove was like every other stove so
familiar to him, but impressed itself on his mind, the iron hoop, the
air inlets, the cakes of coal-dust and clay.

For a moment he was speechless.

“What?” thought he. “Is the babe to be born in this state of
things? Do they have no bed, no basin, no water, nothing but the
mud floor?”

But hard on the heels of his first inward exclamation came the
answer: “But I know nothing about it. Her mother must know
what she is doing.”

Quietly he greeted his wife and mother-in-law, and answered
their questions about his journey. Tingying smiled when he spoke
of his spectacles, but as she opened her mouth to speak again she
checked herself. Peace, looking more closely, saw a new expression
in her eyes, and, nodding all but imperceptibly, withdrew.

In the household there were several White Nosu mothers, and the
birth of infants was not so unusual as to disturb the equilibrium of the
family. But the one they were now awaiting was the first grand-
child ‘of the Old Man and the “Duchess.” Mr. Peace was restless
and preferred the solitude of the deserted threshing floor outside to
the eager conversation of the family indoors. To them his father’s
death was already a past event, but still to him it was a new occur-
rence and his heart was sore.

Slowly the darkness deepened while he waited there impatiently,
and as slowly it softened again till the moon appeared above Mt.
Ararat. At that moment from the house behind him came the cry
he was expecting. It was the voice of his firstborn son.

With pounding heart and bursting pleasure, he obeyed  the
summons when they brought it, to go to Tingying’s room. The
flame of a small oil lamp sputtered and flickered, casting an uneven
light over a heap of new straw covered by a felt mat on which she
lay. In her arms was her babe, swathed in dark wrappings so that
only its face was visible.

Its father peered down at his son, secing, not the little creature the
others beheld, but the son and grandson of Christian parents. He
had pondered long over hopes and plans for the Nosu church till his
expected son began to feature in them. He had seen him growing
up, another generation of a thriving Christian community, inherit-
ing his father’s zeal and ambitions, and carrying on his work. He

70
 

 

NEW HORIZONS

stood up again, and even his slight stoop was banished by the pride
of fatherhood. And then he laughed. His dreams had taken shape,
and the shape was that grotesque wee thing which Tingying held.
Nothing could ever mask Mr. Peace’s sense of the amusing when a
shaft of humour caught him off his guard. Even in later years, when
he was a sadder man, it was the same.

He found a narrow bench and drew it up beside them. On the
stove a big black pitcher of rich, amber sugar-water began to boil.
He lifted it off and poured out a cupful for Tingying to sip. Once
again he was at peace, at home, and in the sleeping miniature of
himself, ludicrous as it might seem, he saw again his hopes material-

izing, and was glad. ]

71
CHAPTER SEVEN

PLOTS AND: PERPLEXITIES

¢ 2
5

. . which trials of one kind and another. . . .
I

ONTHS went by and Mr. Peace’s dreams were coming

true. From a little group of men and women meeting in one
another’s farmhouses, and later in a shack devoted to the purpose,
they now had a building large enough to seat several hundred, and
smaller ones had been erected for a school and for the permanent
church workers, the mushil’s family, the evangelists, and a little
cottage in the corner of the grounds for Mr. Peace.

Everything had not gone smoothly by any means. For some time
the new chapel had stood unfinished through a falling off of interest,
but eventually it had been roofed and whitewashed, and the great
annual meetings of the whole district were held in it. It stood roughly
in the centre of a wide area through which its Nosu adherents were
scattered, covering a territory of two or three days’ travel in any
direction from Kiehkow. The south-eastern sector contained most
Christians, but few Blacks, and due consideration for them had been
taken in the choice of this central site.

At conference times small parties of men and boys and some
women would set out, carrying their own contributions of food,
such as was within their power, and on the prearranged days would
converge on Kiehkow, where arrangements had been made for their
reception. These were the highlights of Mr. Peace’s experience, the
demonstration of his hopes in the process of fulfilment.

He himself had moved over from Kopu and was now master in
charge of a Kiehkow school for Nosu boys and a few girls. Of all
the leading men in his circle he had perhaps the best education and
the keenest mind. Every day he would walk up the little lane from
his cottage to the school, his Bible and school books, bound in
undyed leather by his own hand, tucked under his arm. Seeing him
come, the boys would line up and stand stiffly till he had passed,
following him into school for morning prayers, which he led
himself.

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PLOTS AND PERPLEXITIES

And then a day of teaching. The loud, monotonous chant of
memorizing in the Chinese way would go on and on, led by Peace’s
clear voice. And when writing lessons were in progress he could be
seen moving amongst them prompting and criticizing as with
slender brushes they penned their characters in black over the model
ones that he had written in an ink made of brick-red mud, excavated
locally.

Lar}éely through his personal efforts another big step had been
taken. A committee was formed of the mushih and several leading
Nosu, to work out a phonetic script and to translate hymns into
their own language. When the work was completed, Mr. Peace sat
down and in his own hand wrote them out in the new symbols so
that they might be photographed and printed in large numbers.
He slaved at it laboriously, many times rejecting what he had
written, until he was satisfied and could commit it to the printers.
Great was the joy therefore when these books in their own language
reached the people. Being phonetic, it was easy for them to learn,
and soon the illiterate had begun to read as they sang. But all this
work had taken a long time, and keen as he was to pursue his
project of a Nosu dictionary, too, it had to be set aside.

With so many activities and accomplishments, it was not sur-
prising that young Mr. Peace rapidly came to be valued by the
~ older men and respected by everyone. His cleanliness and his
appreciation of the ways of the foreign missionary had come to be
known, and, to his embarrassment, when he visited other homes the
floors would be swept and litter cleared away.

He wore a cheap gold ring on the little finger of his left hand,
and, unlike most people, carried a handkerchief. This did not
necessarily mean that he used it for anything more than a final
polishing of his truly Nosu nose, but it showed he was a gentleman.
Yet he was not a prig. He had long ago discarded the rest of the
petty foppery of city life. His clothing was coarser, made of the
material bought in the little country markets and tailored at home,
and his manners he had relaxed to be more in keeping with those
around him. He was becoming a most promising man, and none
could know—Ileast of all himself in his happiness—that the stage was
set for his trials to begin.

73
STRONG TOWER

2

It was a sad thing for Mr. Peace and Tingying that so early in
their married life circumstances should arise to separate them for
long stretches of time. With the claims of school and church holding
him in Kiehkow, it soon became clear that his younger brother and
Wenling needed help at Hopien. Tingying, as she matured from
girlhood to womanhood, began to reveal more and more the
qualities that made her father and mother so strong and successful.
Wenling’s gentler nature was not so well able to cope with the
management of the old official’s home and farm and White servants
and tenants.

So they decided that Tingying and Jenpin the little boy should
live at Hopien to keep the home and lands with Wenling’s help.
Moreover, this would free their brother to get married and to
move to a smaller house elsewhere on their lands. It was the only
possible arrangement, for they were all dependent on their own
farm produce as long as Mr. Peace was working for the church for
love and no money. He meanwhile would stay on at Kiehkow and
visit them as frequently as he could.

Tingying was fully contented and enjoyed her independence. It
was not natural to her to be submissive, to take advice from or to be
directed by any but her seniors. Her self-confidence fitted her per-
fectly for the task they had chosen for her. So she did well, treating
her husband and Wenling with respect and consideration, but going
the way she calculated was best. She was a steady Christian, too,
with a good background of early teaching, and as her children grew
up, taught them faithfully, leading the whole household in their
daily devotions.

Mr. Peace’s cottage at Kichkow was spotlessly clean and tidy.
The little lane branching off from the cattle track that led through
the church premises ended in a cul-de-sac. This was Peace’s court-
yard, a space not more than ten feet across and twenty feet in
length. If its occupant had been anyone else, it would probably have
been a soggy pit of decaying vegetation and refuse, but Mr. Peace
kept it swept, a flat surface of beaten soil.

Inside the house was the same, garnished as if a special visitor
were expected. It was not the home of a wealthy man; the wood-
work was unvarnished and the whitewash peeling from the walls.
But it correctly gave the impression of being the home of someone

74

 

 

 
 

PLOTS AND PERPLEXITIES

who disciplined himself and his servants. There were two Whites
there with him, a man and wife, who did all that was required. The
cleanliness of everything under his control meant that he had been
untiringly insistent until they too had acquired the habit, no small
achievement in a land where the ¢lite will drop orange peel on the
floor around them and spit negligently into a corner.

Here he lived and worked on his new Nosu script, and prepared
his school work. The central room served for his work and for
receiving guests, while he slept and kept his books in one of two
smaller rooms to the right. The corresponding rooms on the left
were used by his Whites. Behind were the kitchen quarters with the
little corn-steamer cooking their ground maize, the staple article of
food, and the paraphernalia that accompanied it—stone crocks for
water and salt and red peppers, a wooden tub and dipper, and a
chopper and block of wood for the vegetables.

Behind the cottage an old walnut tree spread its gnarled, leafy
branches protectingly, and beyond that the ground dropped sud-
denly to a cornfield of the widow Erh Sao’s. In front, across the
yard, was a little gate opening into his garden-orchard, where a few
fruit trees and vegetables and flowers gave him quiet pleasure in his
spare time. From this garden he would look out over the valley and
gaze upon its splendours, and watch the seas of white mist and the
peeping islands that were hilltops, and ponder his plans and

problems.

3

One day, when he was at home at Hopien, a strange visitor was
announced. His name they knew, but they had never met because
his reputation had dictated that the family should always steer clear
of him. He had lands adjoining the Peaces’ property.

Mr. Peace went out and welcomed him into the house, taking
him into the guest-room and providing him with tea of Nosu
potency, as he was in duty bound to do. They had been conversing
generally for a time and Peace was beginning to wonder what
might have brought the old man to see him, when with the sixth
sense which comes of many similar conversations he realized that
he was leading up to it.

“Fine lot of fowls you’ve got, I see,” the visitor remarked. “How
has your farm been going since your father died?”

75
STRONG TOWER

He wants to buy some of our land, thought Peace, and when I
refuse he will start encroaching on it.

“Very well,” he said. ““And yours?”

“Wonderfully!” the old man said. “I've had better crops these
last three or four years than ever before. Couldn’t help it after all
the deep digging and manuring we’ve done.”

I've never seen any signs of that, thought Peace, and I've travelled
by the road that runs through them often enough.

“But I've decided to retire,” his guest continued. “It is too much
to supervise, and my sons are all away from home.”

He is coming to the point, thought Peace, a little puzzled, but
what is he going to say?

“How are they?” he asked, wanting a moment to consider a new
notion.

““Fine boys!” the man replied. “And doing well. They have
nothing to fear, nor I in my old age with them about.”

The last Mr. Peace had heard of them was that one was in the
Army and playing fast and loose, while the other, though rich
enough, was smoking opium heavily.

He said: “Where are they now?”

It was an awkward question, one which he hoped would produce
a long, evasive answer. It did. And while the old ruffian wove his
lies carefully into a presentable story, young Mr. Peace tried hard
to sum him up and decide his line of action. He was pretty sure
now what was coming.

His visitor was huge, a man of massive bones and liberal covering.
He had once been an archer in an imperial guard of the Manchu
dynasty, he was saying, rising to his feet to demonstrate with waving
arms how grandiose he looked in those palmy days. His voice was
powerful and filled the house, his eyes were dark and even in the
room, where the light was poor, his pupils were small, giving him
a menacing expression. His grey moustache and short beard were
fuller than most Mr. Peace had seen, framing a lecherous mouth.
His long, barrel chest sank into a vast paunch, which nevertheless he
carried proudly. He was a Black Nosu, and Nosu men, it seems,
because so active, seldom go to seed and grow stout. The Chinese
settle on their lees and grow obese, but not so much the Nosu. Aged,
shrivelled, toothless, yes, but fat and flabby, fewer by far. With
women this would be less true, there are plenty of portly matrons,
but they are matriarchs, carrying themselves with no less dignity.

76

 

 
 

PLOTS AND PERPLEXITIES

When sitting, Peace’s caller set his knees squarely, with feet
planted firmly on the ground, and standing kept them apart in a
possessive, even arrogant, manner, showing his expensive shoes of
mandarin design. Here was no easy man to deal with, and Peace
decided on a policy of dilatory politeness, whatever he should pro-
pose. Peace was no dashing cavalier. He thrived in an undisturbed
environment and shrank from any kind of clash.

The time had come. He heard the booming voice proceed: “Now
I have decided to sell the larger half of my property. The boys will
never need it now that they are secure in their own rights. And
because your old father was a good friend to me, I shall not try for
profit in the open market. Instead I want you to take it for old times’
sake.” And he named a preposterous sum.

Mr. Peace gasped. I was right, he thought, he has involved him-
self in debts which he cannot meet and is desperate to get hold of
more money than his lands are worth, to keep himself out of the
city courts. What more obvious than to sell at an exorbitant profit
to a young schoolmaster and family who know nothing of land
values, and whom he mistakenly thinks are wealthy?

He made polite remarks and pleaded that he had all the property
he could handle, and no means of buying more.

The old man spat through the doorway, and a hen came scurrying
across the courtyard toward them. He watched it absently, and then
laughed. “Talk it over with your brother,” he said, “and don’t tell
a soul or your chance will be lost.

“Tll come again and we will fix it up properly,” he threatened
jovially, striding out and bidding them farewell.

Thus ended the first of a series of visits which went on for months
and months. Whenever Mr. Peace came home to visit his family,
word somehow reached the old ruffian, and he would come round
and fill the old house with his unwelcome shouts. Finding the young
man immovable, he began to reduce his price, to patronize them
with favours and presents, to coerce them by all the means he could
muster. So continually did he pester them that Mr. Peace reduced the
number of his visits home, for they had become almost disagreeable.

Then the old man transferred his attentions to Tingying, realizing
now that she was really the business head of the family. She made
him admit that where he asked thousands, hundreds would still be

too much, and managed to secure an interval of several weeks of
77
STRONG TOWER

peace. But the calm of their life had been broken, and day by day
the fear of further trouble made them uneasy. Even at Kiehkow,
working on his books, thinking of greater things, of preserving the
hoary hieroglyphics of his race, or wandering on the church terrace
or in his garden, listening to the subdued drone of the old millstone
turning and turning under the labours of two Whites, he was
troubled by this absurd thorn in the flesh and their powerlessness to
stop the persistent old man. Years later it still featured in his memory
as a thing that tended to age him prematurely.

4

Meanwhile, before the old archer’s schemes came to a sudden
inglorious end with the exposure of an intricate system of plots and
corruption in which he was involved, a new problem for Mr. Peace
was precipitated. He had seen it coming and had done his best to
meet it before it materialized, but without success. Wenling must
be betrothed or trouble would arise. The duty which would have
been his father’s had devolved upon him. If he kept his attractive
and clever young sister unengaged any longer, it would be to her
real danger. He had gone through in his mind all the Christian
families of his acquaintance, to find her a husband, but without
result. Of Nosu Blacks, so few families were Christian, and still
fewer had eligible sons, for most were betrothed already. The need
was getting urgent, yet what could he do? To marry her to a
White was unthinkable, and there was no Black to be had, apart
from heathen.

Then as he came out of school one afternoon, a well-dressed man
came up to him and asked the opportunity for a brief conversation.
Seated in Mr. Peace’s central room at Kiehkow, he introduced him-
self as middle-man representing an influential family of Blacks in
the country not far from Hopien. Peace knew of them. The head of
the family had a large band of armed men who roamed the district
maintaining his prestige. But it was a younger son who was due to
be married. The caller took pains to point out the desirability of
both the youth and his family, to whom Peace’s sister had been
strongly recommended. Sensing the acuteness of the situation with
this new development, Peace managed to defer the matter for con-
sideration, and redoubled his efforts to find a way out of the impasse.
But even with the help of friends he could see no solution; he was

helpless.
78

 

 

 
 

PLOTS AND PERPLEXITIES

Now he heard that other enquiries were being made after
Wenling, amongst them some on behalf of a brother of the new
leader of the Rogues at Thieves’ Inn Flats. The danger of entangle-
ment with this infamous family was extreme. He was getting into a
very tight corner, and the burden of responsibility weighed upon
him like a real load upon his shoulders. That family would stop at
nothing, and, if thwarted, would be capable of any malice. If they
made a request for her and were refused, they might storm the
Thouse at Hopien and carry her off to be another of several captives
already there. He saw that he must announce her betrothal with
as little delay as possible. But to whom? That was his grim
quandary.

Amongst the other suitors was one different from the rest, more
enlightened than the ordinary run of Nosu. He had spent some
years in the provincial capital as an official with a minor adminis-
trative post, was wealthy, and typical of men of his walk in life,
smoking opium and drinking heavily. He gambled, moreover, not
by the hour, but all day and all night for days on end, disturbing the
sleep of his neighbours with the rattle and shuffle of his mahjong
pieces through the night watches. He had, however, returned at
least temporarily to his home, and was seeking a wife amongst the
daughters of his own race.

He had known the old Mr. Peace, their father, in the past, and
was attracted by the status of Wenling as a member of such a leading
Black family. So when he came to know of other rivals, he pressed
his claims untiringly. About his excesses he had no words to say, but
his success as a business man and official in the capital were surely
better recommendations than any indolent rogues in the mountains
could produce! And were not his motives demonstrated as good,
that he should want a girl whom he knew to be without a large
dowry? He was not scheming for money, as he might have done
more easily elsewhere. He wanted a good wife to bear him good
sons in the new house he was going to build, and he would be a
good husband to her, he avowed. ,

Tugged this way and that by his despairing moods, Mr. Peace
tussled with this terrible conundrum and saw no light. Which was
worse; the cruel world of violence and sudden death into which she
would be taken if Wenling married into an outlaw family or was
carried off by them? Or the deadly existence as the wife, and perhaps
only the first, of An Tekuan, a reprobate worldling?

79
STRONG TOWER

Mr. Peace ran his school with a distracted mind. Even the birth
of his little girl, whom they named “Meili,” failed to offset the
incessant strain. His worst fears had but narrowly been averted. An
attempt to kidnap Wenling had very nearly been successful, and
only by fleeing swiftly to the safety of the mushih’s house had she
escaped. His eyes searched the Sunday congregations yet again for
the one he knew he would not see. The church contained no husband
for Wenling. In his spare moments he walked with downcast eyes
wherever he could find solitude, and began to fidget with the edges
of his sleeves with restless fingers, a habit which he never overcame.
Alone in his cottage, he would spend hours in troubled prayer, but
without relief.

Then, as he opened his book to start teaching one dreary day,
light, of a grey melancholy shade, but as welcome as the first rays of
morning, came to him. He had an idea to discuss with Wenling.
This needed thought. He set the boys a page to study, and, oblivious
of their loudly chanting voices, intoning their piece, he worked out
the details of his scheme.

With the first opportunity he repaired to Hopien, and, sitting
round the fire with Wenling and Tingying and her babe, they talked
it over. It was a painful ordeal for Wenling, the object of all this
plotting and desire, but she was facing it calmly, and trusting in
God to provide a solution for her. Finally she said:

“I think you are right, Wenliang, this is the better way, and the
rival families will look elsewhere. Tell An Tekuan that I will become
betrothed to him on condition that he promises to forsake his evil
life and return permanently to the country, and that I will marry
him only if he breaks off his opium habit and proves by two years of
straight living and attention to the Gospel that he means what he says.”

This message Mr. Peace conveyed to An Tekuan. He received it
with delight, for he had formidable rivals. At the present moment,
anyway, he was sincere in his intentions, and promised to reform
and take up the supervision of his property and dependents after
the custom of his race.

The obstacle was cleared, the way was bright again. Two years
must pass before any action need be taken, and if An Tekuan proved
worthless, there would be time for help to come from another
direction. The flowers in Mr. Peace’s garden were budding when he
walked there in the evening. And his schoolboys responded briskly
to a new zest they detected in their master.

8o

 
 

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE"HEAT OF IXY

. . . have been unable to destroy.”

cc

X

WITH the flight of years the people in whom Mr. Peace’s
chief interest and affection were centred became dispersed
over a distance of about fifty miles, in three different homes.
Kiehkow was roughly halfway in between the other two. Tingying
was still at Hopien, content to be in charge of their lands and
personnel, with Peace’s brother and his family not far away. Jenpin
the firstborn, was already a schoolboy in the Kiehkow school, a
dark-eyed, serious child, sharing the cottage with his father. And
Meili, now the delighted owner of a little brother, Jenhan, five
years her junior, was with her mother in the old home by the river.

In the other direction, south of Kopu, Wenling was in an old
house soon to be replaced by a magnificent new structure. As
though to shame his prospective in-laws for their doubts about him,
.An Tekuan had been true to his word, had sold up all his commit-
ments in the capital, and at no little expense was broken of his
opium addiction. In due time he had claimed Wenling as his bride
" and taken her to the home that had been his father’s. It began to
look as if he was a good man by nature who had been entangled
in the common vices of the day, and unlike the other suitors, evil
men at heart and by weight of unalterable circumstance. Around his
home he was treated with great respect and known as “The Man~
ager,” in deference to his position in the capital. What began as a
precarious marriage was holding out hopes of resounding success.
With the advent of a son of his own, An Tekuan had settled down
as if life could hold nothing better to be desired, and after the first
months of strangeness and yearning for her Christian home,
Wenling had yielded to her husband’s growing affection.

From the beginning Mr. Peace had made a point, when his affairs
took him to Kopu, to go on, if he could, to visit his sister at
Temopin, her new home. Thereby he hoped in some measure to
ease her lot. But visits could not be often so long as he was tied by
his duties to Kiehkow and Hopien. Tingying and he had a simple
way of sharing their children of which they occasionally made use.

Fst 81
STRONG TOWER

From time to time, when Mr. Peace was returning to Kiehkow, he
would take Meili and later Jenhan with him, each child riding in a
makeshift framework like a small deck-chair on a coolie’s back.
They would enjoy a holiday in the glories of Kiehkow and return to
their mother at the next opportunity. In this way they came to
spend many hours together in Mr. Peace’s leisure at their cottage
home, or accompanying him when he had visits to make up or
down the valley.
2

On one such day Mr. Peace came out of school with a troubled
wrinkling of his brow. Before going in to this last class, he had
been asked by the mushih if he could spare him a few minutes later
on. He had grown used to dropping in at the mushih’s house to talk
about anything and everything, but to-day there had struck him,
in this connection, a realization that worried him. It was this that
kept him closely occupied on his way down the narrow lane until
he almost stumbled over Meili.

Meili was squatting on a plank in the pathway, one of several
planks laid down in places where the ground was apt to be soggy
underfoot, and playing with a puppy. It was early yet, and he had
time to pay a business call before keeping his appointment.

“I'm going to call on Chang the miner,” he told her. “Would
you like to come too?”’

She leapt up, abandoning her playmate, and answering, “Aba, of
course I want to comé!”’, took his hand and danced beside him
till he had deposited his books in the house and they were out
once more and on the path going down the valley.

The cattle track was bereft of soil by the rushing waters that
swept down it after every cloud-burst, so the going was difficult.
They picked their way carefully between jagged stones and puddles
until they had passed the deeply sunken path where the bank was
higher than their heads and the trees met over them in a leafy arch.
Meili loved this bit of their walks. Directly afterwards came a turn-
ing sharply to the right, down a slope to the brook. Here Mr. Peace
went carefully across the stepping stones, trying a little fastidiously
to keep his cloth shoes dry. But not so Meili. Her feet were bare and
the brook was her delight. Above, only a few yards distant, a six-foot
waterfall splashed and shone with every colour of the spectrum,
and the water swirled deliciously at its foot, under the black cave

82

 

 
 

THEHEATIOP I DAY

in the bank. Below, a little rapid caught the dead leaves which she
rested on the water, and swept them away like ships on the great rivers.

Then up the gradual incline on the farther side, and past the old
opium-smoker’s cottage with its crumbling strong tower built of
mud. Meili had never seen him, he seldom came out of doors, but
had heard the schoolboys speak of him. His sons were robbers and
lived in other huts beside his, under the tall pine trees on the wooded
slope. Because of these stories she hurried past, making up for time
lost at the brook.

The coal-mine was very near, only a hundred yards further up
the valley, with a cottage near its mouth. The mine itself was a hole
in the hillside big enough for a man to enter carrying a basket on
his back, and a levelled space of ground outside where carriers or
pack horses could load up with coal. Nearby were a few other
tunnel mouths which had fallen in. From one a stream of water
issued, staining its channel a rusty red.

Meili and her father were approaching the cottage below the
mine when they surprised a buff-brown sow with her blonde piglets
as they fed. Snorting and squealing, the stupid creatures fled in
panic with Meili on their heels, and tumbled breathlessly into their
sty, a scrambling heap of pink flesh and corkscrew tails. Meili’s joy
knew no bounds. It was great fun coming out with her father.
There were always new thrills and pleasures, better, it seemed to
her, than on their own farm at Hopien.

The miner and his mates were squatting round a fire of coals on
the level platform. There was no sign of activity; their hewing of
the day was finished. The miner looked up and greeted Mr. Peace.
He was a tall lean man with bloodshot eyes peering through a mask
of coal dust, and his greeting was civil but unfriendly. Not long ago
his foot had been injured in a fall of coal and cured by the church
folk, who were always glad to help, so he felt in their debt, but he
belonged really to the opposition clique of godless men who shared
the valley.

Mr. Peace did his business.

“Same arrangement for another year?” he said: “T'll have the
bushel of corn at my cottage if you send round for it.” The general
system of purchase was that for a bushel of grain per year, each
household could come and collect as much coal as they needed.

““Coal’s more expensive now,” answered the miner, putting up
the price because he was addressing someone from the church, as

83
STRONG TOWER

was his way. “It must be a bushel and a quarter for the year. But
we've struck a better seam and a big one at that. Look at this!” He
rose and from a stack of coal behind him lifted out a huge slab, as
much as one man could carry. It gleamed with light, a massive
black diamond, and broke cleanly in its natural planes when he
tapped a corner deftly with his hammer.

“Tll give you this as a present. I'll bring it round myself,” he
continued, making it hard for Mr. Peace to question the price he
had stated for the year’s supply.

A pitch-black apparition emerged from the mine, groping his way
with bruised bare feet, for he was blind. Trachoma had covered his
eyes with a screen of flesh. In the darkness of the mine he was as
well off as in the light. Meili was staring silently at the men, a little
fearful of their appearance, but her expression softened as she saw
the blind man’s plight. Involuntarily she cried out and, taking his
grimy hand, guided him past a basket of coals with which he would
have collided. Would her aunt Liya be like that, she wondered?
Tingying's sister was in grave trouble with her eyes, and the anxiety
of the whole family had impressed itself on Meili too.

Mr. Peace called her. His business was settled. He turned to go,
but Meili stood staring at the men about the fire. Seeing her wide-
eyed look of disapproval, he followed her line of vision. There was
a stranger in the party, neither Nosu nor Miao tribesman. In his
hand he held the end of a length of cotton thread. At the far end
of it was a large green beetle flying round and round with a noise
like 2 humming top. The stranger was amused by his plaything and
unconscious of cruelty. He drew it in by the thread. Its leg had been
broken off at the knee, and a fine twig, attached to the cotton, had
been thrust up and impacted in the hollow shell of its “thigh.”
Meili, so recently gay with enjoyment of piglets and tumbling
brook, was blushing with indignation and amazement. But she
caught the meaning in her father’s look and kept silent, and, turning
her back on the smirking men, followed him homeward.

3

The thing that troubled Mr. Peace was the tendency of everyone
to turn to him as if he were the minister or pastor of the church.
There was no minister. No one had yet developed far enough for so
specialized a position.

84
 

THE HEAT OF DAY

Leaving Meili at the top of their lane to run down to the cottage
alone, Mr. Peace went along the terrace toward the mushik’s house.
He was perturbed, as his hands and his worried look revealed. There
were fixed lines on his forehead that had not been there when he
first came to Kiehkow. The last few years had told upon him, work-
ing insidiously a change, a weakening, if barely perceptible. He
quietly opened the gate and entered the garden: but his quietness
was a sign and symptom that he wanted to be inconspicuous.

Mr. Peace’s family affairs gave him little cause for worry now,
but church affairs were none too healthy. Far from forging ahead
as he had hoped it would, the cause in which his greatest hopes were
placed was struggling along, now manfully, but now with dragging
steps, as if losing heart. There had been cases of undisciplined
behaviour by church members and even elder Christians which had
remained unchecked through lack of leadership. A so-called “‘elder”
had taken a second wife, and in other places the church funds of
stored grain were being borrowed, a dangerous beginning, and not
returned, far worse. Added to the luke~-warmness in many localities,
these gave much food for thought. The subject had been raised of
Christians giving their daughters in marriage to unconverted men, but
Mr. Peace had found no solution that satisfied him in his sister’s case,
and withheld judgment on the matter. But it left his mind unsettled.

At the study door he knocked and coughed informatively. A
chair was pushed back, a few footsteps heard on floor boards, and
the door was flung open with a cheery welcome. Mr. Peace took
his usual seat and remarked politely that he would be wasting the
mushil’s time. On these occasions he felt a resurgence of his feelings
as a student in the city and as a young man, the keener air where
learning and intellect are appreciated, the only place where his old
student self felt alive. Elsewhere was very rustic. Here he knew
his company was enjoyed and his conversation could be deeper.

' They took their time. There was no gain in making business
petrify the free spirit of friendship between them. And so they
chatted together, just as the conversation led them, bringing in the
business matters to their mutual satisfaction in passing. Sometimes
another knock would interrupt them, and the mushih would see a
patient and dispense some medicine, taking in exchange some eggs
or pears or oats brought in the folds of the caller’s apron, and
entering their value in the dispensary and household cash books.
But when he or she had gone they would continue with their talk.

85
STRONG TOWER

To-day, however, as Mr. Peace had feared since his special invita-
tion to call, his advice was wanted. In turning to him, the mushih
was treating him, Mr. Peace, as church leader representing the others,
a man of influence. From this position, he had realized, he shrank.
Somehow he had never looked upon himself in that light. Like so
many other churches who have hopes for and interests in the
mission field, but mistakenly fail to see themselves playing a direct
part in it, Mr. Peace would have preferred to help from aside. He
himself had never played a conspicuous part in his dreams for the
Nosu church. His ambitions were excellent and he would work
hard, but his idea was that other people should be the figureheads
and executive. He and his fellow Nosu Christians wanted to be led
and controlled by the missionaries, wanted them to take the initia-
tive and make decisions, and did not see clearly the advantages of
standing firmly on their own feet. Peace’s grasp of this need in
relation to leaning on the Miao church had not carried him far
enough.

But the mushih had his work to do, of a different kind. Not being
a Nosu, he could never truly be a leader or pastor of the Nosu, could
never see right into the complexity of their feelings, their reactions,
their motives that accounted for the choices and behaviour of Nosu
believers. His was to help from alongside, teaching, guiding, warn-
ing, maybe condemning on the authority of Scripture, as much a
member of the church as they, but never by replacing leaders from
among the people.

It was for this reason that Mr. Peace had come so frequently to
call upon his foreign colleague, discussing with him, learning from
him, explaining to him, tactfully enlightening him or drawing
sympathy and assistance in his own problems. But from being
treated as a leader, if not as the chief man in the church while still
in his early thirties, he recoiled involuntarily. Yet he felt no shame
or guilt of laziness. Nor should he. His reasons were too complex
and powerful for him to overcome without strong outside help.
The trouble was that his opinion of himself was too poor. He had
the ability in him but did not believe it to be so. He preferred to be
lieutenant and would never be commander.

In his talk this evening with his friend this subject was thrashed
out. Why was it, the latter wanted to know, that no one would
give a strong lead either in local Christian circles or in the church
as a whole?

86
 

THEVHEATHOP DAY

“It is ngo-men Ih-chia-ti p’i-ch’i,” Mr. Peace replied. “It is our
nature, our make up. We are so proud, so individualistic. We
do not like to be ruled or controlled by others, therefore we know
that others will not want us to be in a position superior to them.
We do not believe we could lead people who do not want to be
governed, and are therefore unable to take the responsibility.”

The conception of a leader in the church being the servant of all
and possessing no power or authority in his own right was clear to
Mr. Peace himself. He stated what was to him the impassable
obstacle of the attitude of the less discerning Christians.

But apart from that he could think of no obvious leader amongst
them. The older Christians were called “‘elders,” and there were
several men who worked for part or the whole of their time as
preachers and instructors, but none was really fit for leadership.
The problem was of deep concern to him, and as he parted from the
mushih at the garden gate and sauntered slowly home, he pondered
it deeply. But his friend, saying good-bye, marked the trace of
indecision in his movements and the hint of wavering in his smile

which betrayed his sense of incapacity to fill the bill himself.

4

In leaving the mushil’s house, Mr. Peace had to pass the evange-
lists’ quarters on his right. The door of the guest-room was open
and he could discern in the semi-darkness the Gospel posters on the
wall. In there lived Yohan, also surnamed An, a gem of simple mind
and tastes. His straggly moustache and goatee beard were at once
mildly impressive and unintentionally comic. He wore a brown
knitted skull cap on his round head, and on top of the cap was a
fluffy ball, a soft woolly thing that wobbled unsteadily as he spoke.
His coarse blue gown and white cotton socks proclaimed him poor
but respectable, and the primitive brass-rimmed spectacles which he
used for reading supported his claim to a little education, a year at
school and much diligent self-effort. No, Yohan was a fine man for
simple trekking round the country districts, fair weather and foul,
robbers or none, and he had a good pastoral spirit which was
* appreciated by those he served, but he was not a leader.

Yohan was a White, and so was Su Mohsi, a lovable man,
vivacious, energetic, humour-loving, with a lean, sinewy body and

87
STRONG TOWER

a bony lined face, with eyes and nose suggestive of a hawk. But he
too was a White and could scarcely read. No White could be a
leader of the Blacks till the spiritual maturity of all was very much
more advanced. Yet there was no Black suitable for the task. Old
Man An was becoming eccentric, and old Chiopa getting beyond
" it. True there was a promising young man named Li in the Bible
School where Mr. Peace had helped with teaching, who might be
suitable one day, but not for ten years at least.

As he wandered back in the gloaming, Peace felt alone. He had
had great hopes that by this time the church would number thous-
ands. But things were not shaping as he had imagined. Instead of
being the thrilled spectator of a great mass movement, by the force
of his own longings and by an intuitive grasp of the principles con-
cerned in church life, he had gravitated unwillingly into the position
of leader, but with no authority and with an aversion to having it.
Besides, he told himself, he had had no training. His one chance of a
course in the Bible School at Changsha had come to nothing.
Despondently, he reached his cottage and, sighing, pushed the door
open. His domestic responsibilities and the running of the school
were enough without the burden of the whole infant church. And
he was stooping more than usual as he entered.

Sitting by the fire awaiting his return was one of Chiopa’s
Whites, a woman who looked elderly, but carried a suckling infant
in her arms. Mr. Peace was surprised: his visitors of this kind were
not many. He drew up a bench and bade her be seated again.

“Can you do anything for this baby?” she asked. “The mushih
says he can’t.”’

She held the baby out, devoid of clothing. It was only skin and
bone, and might have been five months old. The infant opened its
mouth feebly to emit a faint whimper. Mr. Peace started. It had
two full rows of teeth.

“How old is she?” he enquired.

‘‘She was born three winters ago,” the woman replied with an
inane smile. -

“A little more than two years old!” he reckoned up.

When he had persuaded her that he could do nothing that she
could not do, for the child was plainly starved through negligence,
he saw her depart. She grinned weakly at him as she left. She was*
too simple and too stupid either to bring up a child or to feel much
sorrow when it died.

88
 

THE/HEAT OF DAY

But she had come to Mr. Peace because he was so wise, a leader
in the church in which even her master played a less important part.
And he knew it as he shut the door after her.

5

While it did not lessen his interest or activities in any way, the
despondency of that evening coloured Mr. Peace’s thinking during
the succeeding months and years. It lifted his hopes above the
present and made them reach out into the future. If the present
generation is so immature, he reasoned, we must make sure of the
rising one. And therefore as they grew older he took more and more
pains to spend time with his family and to instil his own ambitious
spirit into them. He enjoyed them and was himself getting the most
out of them. His heart was young even if in some ways his mind
was burdened.

By choice, he decided, he would have stayed at home in Hopien,
teaching his children himself, with those of a few neighbouring
families, and living on the proceeds of his father’s land and livestock.
But the church would not spare him. They always had something
important for him to do. Year after year he was kept on at some
work or other, in the school, in translation, in preaching, or teaching
at the Bible School. He was never free to go his own way. Nor did
he truly want to be. His ambitions were as active as ever, even if
sobered by experience. He had the same faith in eventual success.
Looking at the Miao church still expanding, he believed such a time
would come for his own people. And he set his hopes increasingly
on his scholars, some of whom gave him good cause for optimism,
and on his own brood. He looked to them to make a good contribu-
tion to the progress of the church.

After their evening meal, when the pathetic oil lamp threw too
poor a light for homework to be done, Mr. Peace would tell stories
 to his children. The bowls and chopsticks would be put away, and
they would gather round the fire. Jenpin was nearly fourteen, not
a diligent schoolboy, but normal and intelligent, and Meili almost
ten and very lovable. And when Jenhan, about five, was visiting
them from Hopien, he too would join the rest. Mr. Peace would
tell them tales to widen their interest and sow seeds of enthusiasm
for the cause of Christ; tales from Nosu history, or Bible stories in
everyday words with local colour, or stories he had heard in his

89
STRONG TOWER

student days at Chaotung of their distant relatives across the River
of Golden Sand. Often they would break in to ask questions, and
he would interrupt his story to explain.

“Aba, why do the Chinese call us ‘Lolos’?” Jenpin asked one night.

His father’s face clouded slightly and he smiled. He felt no
rancour, but the term jarred inevitably on his hearing. ?

“It is just a nickname because they look down on us,” he said.
“Most people have names like that for other races.”

“But what does it mean?”

“I don’t know. No one does. It has been used for hundreds of
years. We Nosu used to get very angry when we heard it, and some
still do, but not because we understand it.”

“Is it anything to do with the little baskets people think their
ancestors live in?” Jenpin persisted, “because they are called lo-lo,
aren’t they?”

“It might be,” Mr. Peace answered, “but some say it is because
the Chinese could not understand our language and thought we
jabbered ‘lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo’ all the time; and it may be because our
forebears came from the north, and our word ‘No’ for ‘north’ has
been turned into ‘Lo’ in their pronunciation.”

“Go on with the story,” cried Meili. “I can’t understand all this
you're talking about.”

She admired Jenpin’s wisdom, but was keen to hear what Aba
had begun telling them. .

“I was saying,” continued Mr. Peace, returning to his story,
“that thirty years ago there was an English missionary who went
into the Independent country and came out alive. It would be risky
for us to go across the river, but for him to go was much more
dangerous and very brave.

“There was a rich Nosu man called Mr. Ling who was converted,
and wanted to take this Mr. Pollard to see his relatives on the other
side. One day he got his chance and they travelled together to the
marketwhere there was a ferry. In the market were many Inde-
pendent Nosu, tall fine men who, compared with the black-haired
Chinese, struck the mushih as quite fair. They had grey felt cloaks
fastened at the neck and reaching below their knees, and on their
arms some of them wore leather protectors for turning aside the
blow of a sword.

“The men in charge of the ferry did their best by presents and
warnings and threats to prevent them from going across, but nothing

90

 
THEHE AT ORDAY

could persuade Mr. Pollard to alter his purpose. He took his seat in
the boat and was borne across the rushing river. When he arrived
at the other side and stepped out on the pebbly beach he was stirred
by the thought that he was the first preacher of the Gospel ever to
stand in this country. He took off his hat and, bowing his head,
prayed that the independent Nosu might have their part in the
Kingdom of God.

“Telling the party to keep close together, Chief Ling led the way
forward. The path was terrible. They had left their horses behind,
and it was a good thing they had done so. Sometimes the way was
only a few ledges cut in the rock. At other times a log was leant
against a cliff and a few notches cut in it as steps to help them climb.
And when they reached gullies and crevices in the hillside, they
had to crawl on hands and knees over trees that had been felled to
bridge them.

“On the way they heard that an ambush had been laid for them
in a gorge they must pass through, but, having come so far, they
decided to go on, and when they reached the place they managed
to make friends with the chief who had been bribed to kill or
capture them. During the next few days they visited several fortified
villages and were treated as honoured guests with much feasting.
And, finally, they made Mr. Pollard a chief of the tribe and wanted
him to marry one of their princesses, but he managed to put them
off by agreeing to be her brother.

“Coming home again, a large band of men lay in wait for them,
bribed by the Chinese at the ferry to capture them and hold them
for a huge ransom. But the Papus are very superstitious, and when
they saw Mr. Pollard throwing and catching stones very cleverly as
he waited for the ferry, they thought he was able to work magic
and left him alone, so he came home safely.”

“Did he ever go back there?” Jenpin asked.

“No,” answered his father, “nor any other Christian. They are as
blind as we were before old Mr. Adam came and preached to us
when I was a boy.” .

“Then Mr. Pollard’s prayer hasn’t been answered yet?” piped
Meili. -

“Not yet,” said Mr. Peace.

91
STRONG TOWER

6

And thus the years sped slowly by, slowly in that the way was
sometimes rough going with the cares of church and school and
family, in succession or all together, dragging heavily and denying
success, but speeding as only time can do, so that the babe of yester-
day is the schoolboy of to-day and the strong man of to-morrow;
slowly in that the fulfilment of ambition was delayed, speeding in
the flight of faith that saw not failure but success in embryo. They
were years full of event and excitement in which China had been
in turmoil and political armies like pestilent locusts had passed
through the land, dragging two captive missionaries with them,
when the women and gitls of the valley had lived in hiding on the
wooded slopes of the highest hills above Chiopa’s house at the head
of the valley, and only a few defiant ones like the “Duchess,”
Tingying’s mother, had stayed at home.

Full of such thoughts and inclined to melancholy on account of
them, Mr. Peace would often stand and gaze out from his garden-
orchard upon the glorious panorama of Kiehkow. And as he wan-
dered up and down enjoying his flowers, conscious of the wonder
of his surroundings, he would feel puny beneath the magnitude of
life. Physically he was small, and mistakenly he thought his person-
ality the same. Yet in spite of this he was playing the part of a man
of character, with marked effect. To everyone he was Mr. Peace,
gentleman and scholar, leader and adviser, a Nosu of high standing
and a Christian of greater maturity than any in his church. His habit
of frequent prayer and reading of the Bible had given him a breadth
of vision and understanding which marked him out among his
friends. His rounded shoulders and faulty stance were not the man
but a portrait of his humility and the legacy of his imperfect sight.

There was sufficient reason for his mournfulness. He had known
the day when life seemed all dawn and it was good to be alive. That
was when the church was born, when the Light at last revealed had
ushered in a new era for the Nosu race and the old things were
passing away. But now that heyday seemed over. Dark shadows
were clinging to the roots of the trees and hiding at the foot of
walls. It was the heat of the day, if not the beginning of decline. At
times the shadows seemed to be spreading, bulking more darkly,
creeping into lighted places: secret sins tainting the church, envies
and intrigues showing their hand.

92

 
 

TH B HEATO R DAY

That was, however, just the sombre side, and the neat church
compound in which he lived would never have been built if there
were not living evidence of the Body of Christ, His Church, among
these Nosu people. Mr. Peace was proud of the trim buildings which
had grown up in this place, and not least of the mushik’s house, a
simple enough structure by Western standards, but standing two
stories high, and attractive in appearance. He conceded gladly the
necessity of sane balance by his foreign friends between primitive
conditions and the high standard of civilization they were accus-
tomed to. Bare boards and austere furniture were the happy mean.

And the soil itself was a parable to him. The pémos had said it was
unlucky ground, so that it had never been tilled, but now it was so
rich and fruitful that they said a super-pémo must have guided the
Christians to it and broken the spell for them, their gardens had
borne so lavishly. Crops took time to grow, and it might be that
he had still to wait before his spiritual harvest would be ripe. “Except
a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but
if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” The dying was a painful
process, in the spiritual sense, but in due time the crop would be
forthcoming.

93
CHAPTER NINE
THE MANAGER

“Early in his experience he proved the power of prayer and
mercies of God . . .”

¥

A\T TEKUAN and Wenling lived only a day’s journey from
the walled town of Weining, so that it was conveniently near
for him to go in for trading or to the bank, and yet far enough to be
free from trouble by soldiers who made trips into the country to
seize timber, livestock and grain. He did not go often, but every
two to three months a visit became necessary. It was as a result of
these expeditions that he came to know the exact spot on which he
wanted to build his new house and tower.

Whenever he drew near Temopin on his return journey, it
pleased him to drop down into the valley that appeared to have no
outlet, a cul-de-sac walled by steep hills with cliffs at the far end.
Then when the road reached a wood of sahmu trees, it began to
twist and turn, following a narrow defile through the hills, invisible
from further away. Roughly a quarter of a mile on, the defile came
to a sudden end, and there spread out before him were his lands.

A circle of hilltops formed the rim of a perfect ricebowl valley, a
sweeping expanse of green fields dropping all round in gentle
terraces to the bottom where his flax pit lay. Rocks and trees on
the higher slopes broke the regularity of the scene, and the music of
two little springs was borne across to him in the stillness. His
tenants’ cottages lay snugly in their own groves of trees scattered
about the valley, and soft coils of blue smoke rising lazily into the
calm air or seeping at a myriad points through the thatch of roofs,
hung over them and cooling sank slowly to earth again. On the
other side from where he used to gaze, sitting astride his horse while
it plucked the tender leaves from dwarf oak by the road side, steep
cliffs fell from near the summit of the hills till they reached a plat-
form set like a stage high up on the far side of the arena. To its left
a huge split boulder, the size of several houses, had tumbled from
the cliff face and lay blocking the western end of the stage, the gap
between it and the hill filled by contorted pines.

94
THE MANAGER

Many was the time that An Tekuan had visualized his new home
set like a precious stone, spotlessly white amid the greys and greens
of this background. He would stand then outside his entrance gates
and look across at the mountains and the mouth of the unexpected
defile, and see his retainers and the Miao at work in the fields
below. Or at night he would stand and drink it all in in the silence,
beneath him the dark and shadowy bowl of his fat lands, and above
the inverted starry bowl of the night sky. Behind and above, over
the lip of the basin, would be the Miao village from which some of
his labourers were drawn. A matchless site.

So he built, as soon as preparations were complete, not a tradi-
tional Nosu home, but one modelled on fine Chinese mansions he
had seen and stayed in in the capital and elsewhere. He had set aside
a large sum of money for the project and was intent on having a
house as magnificent as any among his Nosu people. He built it in
rectangular style with its courtyard enclosed by the house and
entered by massive double doors approached by a flight of steps.
The entrance he turned toward the east, facing the main path of
access, and overlooking the valley he arranged a blank whitewashed
wall with but one small window, a single eye keeping watch. It
gave a forbidding, fortified appearance which was all to the good.
The front had a larger window and a postern door beside the main
gateway, but otherwise was blankly uninviting, with the same
intention.

Inside, the stone-flagged courtyard was sunken below the level of
verandahs on four sides, and one or two steps led down to it in the
centre of each, but on the right a higher balcony with an ornamental
balustrade was reached by a stone stairway, having sculptured lions
at its foot and head and also above, beside the entrance of the main
guest-room. On all sides tall pillars rose from the verandahs to the
roof, and the rooms were windowed with elaborate lattice work.
When finished, there was no house in the whole countryside as fine
as his. His woodwork was carved and lacquered, the rooms were
panelled, and some had floor-boards instead of the usual beaten mud.

The furniture too was in keeping, in black lacquer picked out with
red, and here again he was far in advance of Nosu practice, for
stylish furniture of any kind was rarely seen. Into this little palace
he moved with Wenling and his children and the Whites who lived
with them. And they sent an invitation to Mr. Peace to call more
often now than he was accustomed to do.

95
STRONG TOWER

One feature of the Nosu homes the Manager retained: outside the
front door he had his farmyard. Far from being ashamed of it, he
was proud. His lands and his livestock were his livelihood, and the
supervision of them was his lifework now that his city days were
over. Therefore his stables and outhouses were grouped around his
entrance, and the pig troughs, hollowed out tree-trunks, and the
reining posts were at the very door where he and his family could
watch the feeding of their pigs with cooked greenstuffs and corn,
and of their horses with oats or buckwheat every morning and
night. And he could see for himself, without going far from his
doorway, how his cattle were, that there were no ticks battening on
them, draining away their vitality. Hens clucked in and out, dogs lay
curled up on the steps, and his Whites and decorative Miao servants
came and went. His home was prosperous, and An Tekuan had kept
another of his promises.

2

Two thousand miles away a nation to all appearances civilized and
enlightened began to reveal their true nature. The rumble of
Japan’s iniquitous war against China and reports of her transparent
pleas of innocence were carried by the winds of market gossip into
the remote corners of these Nosu mountains. But apart from hints
of increasing taxation, the war had no effect upon the mountain
people yet. That was to come in time.

At Temopin An Tekuan had installed a blackboard in one of his
lofty rooms, and was daily teaching his eldest child, already eight
years old. Their move into the new house was well established, and
the tottering old home had been demolished. Out of school hours
this cousin of Meili’s played in the courtyard or out in the open
with the farm hands and animals, but it was not an exciting life for
the child who could never go to market or wander far away. An
Tekuan and Wenling therefore did all they could to encourage
Mr. Peace to visit them, and when possible to bring Meili with him.

They all loved these visits, short though they had to be. An
Tekuan liked company. He found the country quiet after city life.
Wenling was very attached to her brother, and Mr. Peace, of
course, was always keen to keep an eye on her state of health and
happiness. But for Meili it was a treat of the first order. The long
journey of twenty-five miles was not too much for her who had
grown accustomed to travelling between Kiehkow and Hopien.

96

 
 

 

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AN TEKUAN'S COURTYARD
AT TEMOPIN

PHONETIC SCRIPT: A PAGE. THE LORD S
PRAYER, FROM THE COMPLETED NOSU |
HYMN-BOOK, WRITTEN BY MR. PEACES |
OWN HAND
 

THE MANAGER

Mounted on a quiet old mare with her foal at heel, Meili enjoyed the
scenery and hearing the people they passed on the way greeting
Mr. Peace so respectfully. She realized the place he held in the dis-
trict. For a day or two she would run wild with her cousin while
their parents sipped tea and chatted indoors, or would accompany
her uncle and father when they went down to inspect the progress
of maize cobs in the valley.

These visits were a pleasant change for Mr. Peace too, because he
escaped from the multiple calls of work. They could not be frequent,
but he always found a warmth of welcome and genuine friendliness
in his brother-in-law. An Tekuan seemed glad to have his company,
and, to Mr. Peace’s delight, seemed very attached to Wenling.

Whenever Peace came it was understood that family prayers were
to be held and on Sundays a fuller service. At first the Manager had
tried to discourage these, but he had never put much hindrance in
their way. He treated the occasions with tolerant goodwill, and
always came to listen if not always taking part. His wife and her
brother interested him. They were a type he had not met before.
Their love of cleanliness he shared, and his home was kept well
swept and freer from flies than most. But he went further. He
admired his wife’s character and that of Mr. Peace. There was in
them a depth and strength of which they were themselves uncon-
scious. Gradually, as he came to know them better, he attributed it
correctly to their Christian faith. In deference to their opinion, he
had postponed the building of his strong tower, but had the materials
and plans ready to complete his purpose when he had overcome
their objections.

There were Christian Miao living on his lands, who came to the
Sunday worship when Mr. Peace was there, and at other times met
in their own homes. They were quite different from the unconverted
Miao, and An Tekuan often noted this distinction. They were no
richer, but living on the top of life instead of in its gutters, as the
pagan Miao did. Their gaiety and harmonious singing delighted him.
Altogether attractive people, these Christians, he decided.

And so there began a conflict in An Tekuan in which he took up
arms on both sides. When alone he would try to think it out, this
clash of evidence between what he had always known and believed
and what he now heard from and saw in his new relatives. Some-
times in conversation they would explain to him their doctrine and
viewpoint, and exhort him to believe, but his reaction was to treat

GsT ! 97
STRONG TOWER

it all theoretically and dissociate himself from its implications. Often
he would fume with indignation that he had permitted this religious
element to gain so strong a place in his home life, but seldom gave
way to his feelings in anyone else’s presence. A tension was develop-
ing within him that had to give vent completely and perhaps dis-
astrously sooner or later. But Wenling and Mr. Peace knew nothing
of his mental turmoil, only that he was at times downcast and

lacking appetite.
3

The seasons came and went, a summer passed, the rains fell, and
autumn burnt herself out on the hillsides. From Mr. Peace’s cottage
at Kichkow could be seen acres of leafless forest standing drably
beneath the grey-washed skies of early winter. By early afternoon
the sun had gone, hidden by banks of drifting cloud, and a drizzle
began to fall that drove everyone indoors unless compelled by their
duties to endure it. A cold snap came, and biting winds from the
north began to cut their way into the poorly built houses. Riding
relentlessly over the yoke of hills above Kichkow they came,
sweeping with scythes on their chariot wheels, driving any dead
leaves that remained in panic from the trees, caring not for man or
beast, lashing their way through felt cloaks and mud walls to swirl
and mutter among the tubs of stored grain, the farming implements
and the cornstalks in the rafters.

Few if any of the people in the valley had clothing warm enough
for winter use. Men and women, old and young, hurried through
essential jobs as quickly as they could and joined in the only feasible
occupation, k’ao huo, hugging the fire. By day they sat around their
mud stoves, clad in the few thin garments they possessed, and at
night they lay on the ground as close to the fire as they could get,
regardless of ashes and each other. The richer ones, possessed of
warmer bedding, slept beneath it in twos and threes, making the
most of each other’s natural heat. But day and night the fires burned
on, filling the air with noxious sulphur fumes that had to be disre-
garded as the lesser of evils to be borne.

Mr. Peace and his family were no better off than the others. In
fact, his cottage was walled with planking only, in which were
cracks that whistled shrilly in the winds whatever he did to stop
them. The school had closed down perforce, and he did what work
he could at home. But the winter had set in again. Fine, sunny

98

 
 

 

THE MANAGER

days would come, and plenty of them, but for a fortnight drizzle
and drenching sleet had been falling. Many failed to turn up to the
Sunday services, which went on as usual, but they could scarcely be
blamed. It was all the people living near the church could do to
keep dry enough on the way there, and none were warm till the
service was over, despite the big fires that were kept going.

Then one evening as darkness fell there was a stamping on the
doorstep outside and a voice called, “Mr. Peace! Mr. Peace!” He
opened the door and, pulling the caller in, forced it shut again. It
was one of the Whites from Temopin. He stood there dripping
wetness to the mud floor where puddles formed and circled round
seeking a channel to flow in, with a thin film of dust clouding their
dark surface. The man’s teeth were chattering with cold, his face
was sodden, mottled blue and cream, and his hands moved stiffly,
numb and crinkled with prolonged exposure to the rain, so that he
had difficulty in discarding his soaking cape. They made room for
him by the fire and poured out a bowl of scalding tea.

‘‘Hard travelling to-day,” he said. “Wind against me nearly all
the way. This sleety rain gets through everything.”

His sleeves and jacket began steaming as he spoke. Turning them
methodically as close to the coals as he could, he went on:

“Mr. An’s gone mad, raving mad. Mrs. An wants you to come
at once. She can do nothing with him.”

Mr. Peace removed his glasses and passed his hand across his eyes,
peering blindly as if dazed. He replaced his spectacles and only then
broke his silence with an exclamation of distress.

“Ai-ya!” and again, “Ai-ya, na-mo-tsu? What’s to be done?”

He asked for details, which the messenger supplied with morbid
thoroughness, and, listening, Peace realized that he must go to
Temopin, if only to encourage Wenling his sister.

4

The next day dawned sharp, clear and freezing. The frozen mists
flashed brightly a myriad reflections of the sun from eaves, fences
and tree-tops, where they clung in sheets and pendants of frosty
glass. The ground was hard and icy, so that Mr. Peace feared for
his bones, but he could not stay. On a borrowed beast of wilful
temper but good travelling power, he set out on his perilous, if
picturesque, adventure. If he could, he must reach Temopin by
nightfall. The driven mists of the night before had become entangled

99
STRONG TOWER

in the branches of the trees and bushes, and frozen where they met
them. They looked like trees of ice, each twig and stem, cach
branch and trunk coated thickly with it to windward, two, three,
four times the thickness of the stem, so that there was merely a
trimming of wet bark to trees of crystal.

His journey was eventful, and often he clung helplessly to the
saddle with his hands as the horse’s legs shot without rhyme or
reason beneath or away to one side of him, but continually he urged
it forward.

About midday, when he had already crossed the vale of Kolo
and was riding up a ravine on the farther side, the beast shied sud-
denly to the right. The river here was shallow and rocky and
separated from the path by only a stretch of coarse pasturage. Half
in the water and half on the bank lay the corpse of a full-sized sheep
and, slashing at its heart with hungry fangs, a lean yellow wolf.
Mr. Peace raised a yell and continued shouting at it till the beast
snarled angrily and slunk away into the undergrowth on the rocky
riverside. Keeping up his shouts, he succeeded in drawing the atten-
tion of the shepherdess, a woebegone slave girl, who, coming to the
scene, burst into wailing at the prospect of her inevitable beating for
negligence. She tried to blame Mr. Peace, and then to persuade him
to stay by the sheep until she could bring help, but he had to press
on, and left her rounding up her flock with high, echoing calls.

For an hour or two the sky had been overcast, and flakes of snow
had come drifting on a lethargic wind to settle and melt on Mr.
Peace’s cloak. Now he saw clearly in the distance the black snow
clouds shedding their blankets of white. His road wound up and up
another long valley, beginning the undulating climb that in three or
four hours would bring him to Temopin. On his left he passed by
the ruins of a once-pretentious homestead, the remains of a leading
Black Nosu family’s estate. Defeated in feudal battle time and
again, they had finally been driven right out of the district and their
property seized. Only a tower of refuge remained, empty and moss-
grown, on the tip of an isolated peak across the valley.

On top of the pass the snow had fallen thickly, and descending on
the further side became wellnigh impossible, especially if mounted.
Struggling downward, slipping and falling on rough stones hidden
by the snow, and in hollows filled to the common level, Mr. Peace
was despairing of completing his journey as he had hoped when he
saw two Christian Miao tramping along and drawing slowly nearer.

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THE MANAGER

Wild life was scarce at any time of year, and although pheasants
were sometimes seen, hares seldom showed themselves. When snow
fell, however, their tracks became plain and could be followed. The
Miao then went out and set snares on the most-used runs, as Mr.
Peace now saw them doing.

“Where does this road go? I can’t follow it under this snow,” he
cried out to them.

They hurried across, delighted to hear his voice, and enquired his
errand in this bitter weather.

“The Manager is ill,”” he answered, “and my sister has sent for
me. His mind is disturbed and they fear he will harm himself.”

“Come,” said one of the Miao. “T'll lead the horse, and you
follow me.”

He would hear no protests, and, leaving the trapping to his friend,
led off along the trail. Nothing would turn him back. The afternoon
was degenerating into its usual misery of wind and sleet, but to him
this was all the more reason why he should see Mr. Peace safely to
his destination. He could return next day, he argued. Any one of the
Miao at Temopin would share their food and fire with him to-night. -

Mr. Peace was powerless and gave up trying to persuade him.
The screech and whistle of the mountain winds drowned all efforts
at conversation and he was forced to hide his face in his clothing as
much as he could. Where it was possible to ride he left the reins to
the faithful Miao, and himself sat huddled in a ball with his hands
tucked each into the opposite armpit. At one high place known as
the Pass of the Strong Winds he found it hard to keep his seat, and
his guide was leaning against the paralyzing blasts as he trudged
patiently forward. So together they climbed over the high hills,
along unstable shingle slopes, through sunken gullies in the
alluvial mud of secluded wvalleys, and past lonely stone-towered
houses; on across a broad plain where a Tumu lived always within
earshot of a roaring waterfall and rapid, and up through bleak pine
woods sighing with cold, to Temopin.

g

hen Mr. Peace arrived, he found the household in a state of .
great agitation. An Tekuan had just been raving round the house,
and everyone’s nerves were on edge. But his brainstorm had
subsided and he had locked himself in his own room, refusing food.

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STRONG TOWER

Wenling took her brother to the guest-room which he usually
occupied, to thaw out by the fire. Here at Temopin no coal was to
be had, so they used open pans of charcoal known as huo-p’en. Over
one of these he dried his dripping clothes and sat sipping hot water
while food was being prepared. He succeeded in calming Wenling’s
excitement, though she sat with ears alert for the door across the
courtyard to open heralding another tornado from her husband.
And over Peace’s snack they talked and prayed together about this
tragedy, coming so disappointingly on top of all their fears about
the marriage and subsequent hopes of An Tekuan’s conversion. An
was naturally a quiet man, so that mania of such violence was all
the more distressing.

They had been together for less than an hour when loud bangings
and shouts came from the other side.

“Stay here,” said Mr. Peace. “I'll call on him alone.”

He walked across the courtyard and up the stone stairway. Groups
of anxious Whites stood at the entrance of the kitchen regions,
watching curiously. Peace waited foralullin the racket and called out:

“Tekuan! Open the door, I've come to visit you.”

His voice was strong, but his eyelids blinked and his hands moved
nervously. The door sprang open with a clatter and the Manager
stood there wild-eyed and dishevelled, a log of firewood in his
hand.

“So you've come, have you?” he shouted. “What have you come
for? Isn’t Kiehkow cold enough without coming here to freeze?
You can’t do anything for me!”

He stepped back as Mr. Peace made to enter the room. Even now
his respect for Mr. Peace would not allow him to obstruct him. If
he wanted to come in and shut the door he could, but he’d be sorry
for it soon. An Tekuan cast fiery glances about the room as if afraid
of something, but determined to show fight.

“You'd better go home again,” he cried, not looking toward his
brother-in-law. “It’s devils that are after me.”

He kept his eyes searching the dark corners of the room and
continued: “You had better go away before you get hurt.”

Peace took his arm gently and led him to his bedside.

“Sit down,” he said, doing so himself.

An Tekuan sat upright on the raised wooden framework of the
bed, not relaxing his grim watch. Sitting beside him, Mr. Peace
began to talk, scarcely knowing what he said, but feeling he must

102
 

 

THE MANAGER

keep talking gently about things that might interest An, his farm,
- his fields, his tenants and his son. After a time there was some
response, the Manager relaxed and looked about him, but only for
a moment or two. Suddenly, as if caught off his guard, but equal
to the occasion, he sprang up, wielding his firewood cudgel, and
leapt toward the far side of the room, shouting:

“There he is, there’s the old dragon. It is a dragon. I can see him!”
and smashed at the furniture by the wall as if to kill something.

Mr. Peace went out, closing the door behind him, and found
Wenling where he had left her. His first observations had given him
a clue which he wanted to follow up. He had seen men with delirium
tremens before now and knew its way of conjuring up delusions of
moving creatures before the eyes of chronic drunkards. But this was
different. An Tekuan was seeing “dragons” which in another breath
he called “devils.”” Clearly the two were associated in his fevered
mind, and as likely as not it was the Chinese conception of dragon
and devil as one evil being in two forms that obsessed him. His
mania and hallucinations had a religious core.

He put this thought to Wenling, and found that she too had
noticed a bias of this nature in his ravings. But often his shoutings
were quite unintelligible and he seemed completely demented, or
sat on his bed moaning, or marched up and down shouting non-
sense. They discussed the matter back and forth without inspiration
to guide them in handling the situation. Each came, however, to a
conclusion as to how they should act that night. Mr. Peace called
two servants and bade them take another bed into An Tekuan’s
room, while Wenling promised to pray in a neighbouring room as
long as she stayed awake.

In with An Tekuan once more, Mr. Peace began his previous
methods over again, trying to soothe the madman by a flow of
quiet talk as if there were nothing wrong. It appeared to take effect
a few times and the Manager even lay down and closed his eyes, but
never for long. Up he would jump again to resume his brandishings.
This could not go on all night, Mr. Peace foresaw, and abandoned
the attempt. He went across to his own bed, slipped out of his cloth
shoes, leaving them on the floor beside him, and following the
habit acquired from living in houses with mud floors, knelt on the
bed, his head resting in his hands on the straw bolster, and prayed.
He intended only to pray a while and then lie down, hoping An
Tekuan would ultimately do the same.

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STRONG TOWER

After a little time, An became silent, sitting on his bed, and later
lay down muttering to himself. When Mr. Peace had finished and
looked across, he could see by the dim light of the lamp that he was
stretched out at full length, and heavy breathing showed him to be
asleep. Mr. Peace was aching with fatigue from his journey. He slid
down as he was, fully dressed, and in a moment he too slept.

Almost at once, it seemed to him, he was awake again. His
brother-in-law was standing by his bed gesticulating and raving as
before. Feeble as the light was, it managed to throw grotesque
shadows on the high walls, and echoes chased each other from
corner to corner like demon voices mocking the sick man in
answer to his shouts. They drove him frantic, and, seizing his club,
he laid about him, adding the din of blows to the pandemonium of
his own cries. Mr. Peace leapt up and seized the lamp, showing that
by moving it up and down he could alter the size of the ghostly
shapes on the walls. They were under his control: could not be
demons menacing Tekuan. In vain.

The charcoal fire was dying down. He dismantled it, laying the
hot coals at one side and, building up a heap of black fuel in the
centre, replaced the live ones on top. The cold sticks began to glow,
to catch fire. An Tekuan watched him doing it. This quiet little
man, his brother-in-law, puzzled him. Satisfied, Peace heaped ash
over the whole to make it burn slowly. Flecks of white dust caught
in the current of hot air were carried to the ceiling like snow
floating paradoxically upward, and, repenting, drifted slowly
floorwards again to settle widely on the furniture.

Mr. Peace returned to bed and knelt praying. He had no idea of
working a charm or miracle, but as minutes passed An grew quieter,
lay down, and slept. Peace too lay down, thinking. He was de-
pressed. Was this the breakdown of his hopes for Wenling? Yet it
was surely no ordinary madness. Could it be that An had an inclina-
tion to believe the Gospel they had so often expounded to him, and
the Devil was trying to prevent him? He pondered the subject until
sleep began to come over him afresh. But movements on the other
bed disturbed him. An Tekuan was stirring. He lifted his head,
looked toward the door and, jumping up, yelled:

“There he is! There he is! He’s come again.”

Peace saw nothing, and said so.

“There, right in the doorway, large as life!” he shouted, and,
plunging for the firetongs, danced about, brandishing them as if

104
 

 

THE MANAGER

daring his tormentor to come on. Peace walked to the door and
rattled the wooden bolt that kept it closed. The door was still shut;
nothing could have entered. But An’s excited brain was equal to
that. The apparition had moved across the room, and he was busy
defending himself against it. :

Drawing the bolt and swinging the door open, Mr. Peace stepped
over the high door=sill on to the balcony. It was freezing, but the
sky was clear. Stars punctuated the blackness. A dog growled in the
courtyard below, and, sensing that the figure up there was Mr.
Peace, changed to a whimper of protest against the cold. The distant
murmur of a rushing stream was audible, and the far-off howl of a
hungry wolf echoed faintly across the valley bowl. He turned back
with a shiver. The sound of Wenling praying tearfully in the corner
room reached him for a second or two. Everyone in the house must
be awake when Tekuan started up.

But the flood of cold air had drawn An’s attention and brought
him to the door. His eyes were still wild, piercing through Mr.
Peace and beyond, savage yet not antagonistic, as if the man behind
the tempestuous brain knew Peace as a friend, and depended pitiably
upon him. He sat down on the door-sill, his arms resting on his
knees, staring out at the pillared courtyard, built to his own design
and direction.

Behind him Mr. Peace was praying again, back on his bed, a little
moving mountain of bedding with his newly shaven head pro-
truding tortoise-like from one end. Calm crept into An’s mind. A
falling star relinked his thoughts with the earth, with the fact that he
was cold and tired. He got up and closed the door. Glancing at his
brother-in-law, he wondered deeply, and lay down. Somewhere
within him he connected quiet of mind and sleep with Peace’s
prayers, and felt safer.

But not for long. Back came the evil thing once more and he
awoke sweating and in terror. Mr. Peace, however, had learnt his
lesson. He had recalled a likeness between this strange experience
and the battle of Rephidim, when victory against Amalek lasted so
long as Moses’ hands were held aloft. And so whenever An Tekuan
stirred up, Peace prayed, a dozen times that night, resisting the Devil
and his works, and each time with effect.

Daylight relieved the Manager of his terrors, but left him
estranged from his family and Whites. He stayed in his room with
the door shut, spurning food, or sat alone on the rocks beyond his

105
STRONG TOWER

stables, shunning company, even that of Mr. Peace. Already he had
been like this for several days, and was growing exhausted. With
nightfall his torments returned, but less intensely than before. He
was more ready to submit to Peace’s persuasion, and though he
prayed often in the night, Mr. Peace was able to sleep more soundly.

This continued for another night or two, improving steadily. By
day he accepted food and wandered silently in Peace’s company
along the terraced fields, and looked kindly again at Wenling, and
watched his children at play. Meanwhile, Mr. Peace was thinking
anxiously of his work and family at Kichkow, and, seeing the great
improvement, begged his sister’s leave to go back, promising to
return if need be.

6

An Tekuan’s recovery was complete. No sign remained of his
brainstorm unless it be a mellowness that he did not have before.
His gratitude to Wenling and her brother for helping him through
his sufferings was unlimited, for sufferings they had truly been to
him. Thereafter he took a greater interest in his wife’s explanations
of her faith and the Bible she so constantly used. He was more
friendly and attentive than he had ever been, and was keen to
understand and believe. Every day they sat together talking and
studying, and An Tekuan learned rapidly with a mental assent and
grasp of truths far in advance of his spiritual perception and faith.
But he lacked the essential awareness of guilt before God, and as
time went by seemed, to Wenling’s grief, to be incapable of the final
steps which would make him a “new creation’ by spiritual rebirth.

Outwardly, however, his attitude was completely changed. He
did all in his power to help the local Christians and to support the
church, so that some might have called him “converted.” But one
day he came up against Mr. Peace on this point. It was when the
latter was on one of his occasional visits to Temopin. With particular
generosity, for which he was well known, An had put into Peace’s
hand a large sum of money for the Nosu church. There was little,
he knew, that could go to his heart so effectively as something to
help on this cause among their own people, and was highly sur-
prised when his gift was politely refused. Unknown to himself,
Mr. Peace in returning this money was exceeding the depth of
maturity and development of many older and more “enlightened”
Christians in the churches of “‘Christian” lands.

106
 

THE MANAGER

“Thank you, thank you,” he said with a Chinese bow, “but you
see, if I took your gift you could not help feeling that the church
was in your debt, however slightly. But I want you to realize one
day how much you yourself are in need of what she can help you
to receive.”

He was afraid lest a feeling of patronage to the poorer church
should blind him to his own poverty of soul. But An Tekuan was
not offended. He did not fully understand, but then there was so
much he could not fathom in his wife and her family. They seemed to
belong to another world while being such worthwhile members of
this one. He puzzled over this new thought, and was spurred on by
it in his wish to bridge the gap between himself and them.

107
CHAPTER TEN
SCATTERED OUTPOSTS: I

““. . . which qualified him for an active part in work amongst
the Christians . . .”

I

HE old stock of corn was badly weevilled and the proportion
Tof hollow husks to intact grains rapidly increasing. In the
fields the cobs were filling out, but their tufts protruded limply,
still pale pink and moist. It would be a month or more till maize
harvest when the new stock came in.

To amuse himself and do a useful job, for it was not necessary
for Mr. Peace to work on this, he had tipped out a sackful of corn
on the narrow verandah around his cottage at Kichkow, and was
spreading it in the sun with a stick, and watching the little armoured
insects crawl slowly out and up the wall. Why they chose the wall
he could not tell. Perhaps they were making for the shadow of the
roof high above, but certainly it was the sun they disliked. As they
crawled he cracked and killed them with a pebble one by one, and
stirred and spread the corn again.

Mr. Peace looked up, recognizing the footsteps that approached
as those of Yohan the preacher. He gave no greeting, just a grunt
and nod, for they knew each other well after years as colleagues in
the place. To any other caller he would have said courteously,
“Mr. So-and-so come. Good!” and they would have replied in the
customary way, ‘‘Ah, Mr. Peace, sunning your corn, eh!” But
Yohan watched in silence for a moment:

“Hheh!” he grunted. “Lots of ’em!”

“Look there,” said Mr. Peace pointing to a pile of empty husks
representing pounds of food eaten away by the creatures; and
Yohan grunted again. '

“The mushih has been told to go down to the city to take some-
one’s place for a few months,” he said after a few moments’ pause.
Mr. Peace looked up, resting on his stick.

“When is he going?”

“Next week.”

“How about the conference trip in the southern district?”

108
 

SCATTERED OUTPOSTS

“Can’t stay for it. He wants to know if you will go instead. It is
too much for just Su Mohsi and me.”

Mr. Peace wiped his brow, thinking. There were robbers about
the valley. They had been hanging round for days doing nothing,
and might be contemplating mischief. It would not be easy to leave
the family alone.

“Programme’s fixed and everyone will be coming to hear the
mushih. Mustn’t disappoint them with only Mohsi and me as
usual,”’ said Yohan. :

Very true, Peace realized. The life of the country churches was at
a low enough ebb without more to dishearten them. He himself had
not been out on a country trip for a long time, and he knew Yohan
and Su Mohsi would find it hard to cope with the published con-
ference subjects; they would be hard enough for him himself. He
could leave the school to his assistant and an elder scholar to manage
till he returned.

“When do you start?”” he enquired.

“Day after to-morrow,” Yohan said. “Tll lend you my grey
gelding. No time to get your horse up from Hopien.”

“Right!” said Mr. Peace. “T'll come round and see the mushih
about it.”

And he hailed a lanky servant boy to gather up the corn lest his
fowls should get amongst it.

2

The robbers had gone away, and Peace and Yohan were in lighter
mood as they prepared to mount for their long trek. It would be
three weeks before they were back. Mr. Peace was wearing his
usual clothes but for stouter shoes and a voluminous felt cape, but
Yohan presented a striking appearance. He was garbed to the knees
in a felt cloak made in three layers, each overlapping the other. The
upper one was like an ordinary Nosu cape; below it were two side
panels which hung down over his legs as he rode; and another apron-
like layer flowed out behind, over his saddle and the horse’s rump.
His feet were wrapped in sacking and shod with straw sandals.
Fully dressed, with his bearded face crowned by a wide-brimmed
rain hat, and mounted on a spirited black colt, he looked the part of
villain in the piece.

Escorted by Meili and Jenhan to the cattle track, they set off
down the valley followed at a distance by an old White hired for the

109
STRONG TOWER

purpose of carrying their spare clothes and bedding and books. He
rejoiced in the name of “Wuko,” Fifth Big Brother, and maintained
his dignity, if any, by a steady jogtrot at his own pace, always
slower than the others with whom he travelled.

The road took them down past the lower village, where Christian
Whites hailed them and wished them Godspeed. At the bottom it
entered the gorge between large boulders strewing the foot of the
cliffs, and for five miles they had to wind in and out among rocks
and shingle banks, fording frequently, going southward along the
river bed toward its junction with the Kolo stream. Yohan had a
stepson who lived down here, and after two hours’ of continuous
riding they were glad to dismount in the boggy yard before the
door of his hut among fields of high corn, and to sit for a few
minutes in his dark room amongst his ploughs and grindstones and
domestic knick-knackery, to re-fortify themselves with corncakes.
Yohan’s family relationships were too complicated to follow, as
both he and his present wife had been married and widowed more
than once.

Wuko had not caught up when they remounted, and they had
perforce to leave him to come on in his own time. After a mile or
two of mud paths on the sides of steep valleys high above water
level, they came to a stone paved roadway fully four feet wide.
Old Chinese roads like this were occasionally met with up in the
mountains, the remains of early activities by the Chinese con-
querors of two hundred years ago. They usually led to a colony of
Chinese living in a close-built village, with village street and
meagre shops. The women were conspicuous by their feet deformed
by binding, an evil custom still in practice, and wrapped around
with so much bandaging surmounted by red cloth that the result
was elephantine and ugly. Nosu women living near these com-
munities tended to copy the fashion, but had healthy feet protruding
from ankles six inches thick, a peculiar sight.

Riding into a village like this, called by its old Nosu name of
Achiche, Mr. Peace and Yohan found themselves in a throng of
marketers. The whole place was fortified with well-built stone
walls and towers that made Mr. Peace feel ill at ease. Groups of
gamblers were squatting in the open spaces surrounded by mobs of
spectators intent on watching the high stakes change hands, buyers
and sellers were scattered along the road, and here and there were
leather-jerkined men with rifles and well-stocked bandoliers, and

I10
SCATTERED OUTPOSTS

daggers at their waists. They were glad to turn a corner and, by
dropping down a flight of steps in the main road, to put themselves
out of sight of the staring men.

They had made a late start and day was dying before they reached
their destination, the first of a little chain of churches peppered
through the mountains. It had been arranged that they should spend
cach night at a different place, conducting services for the local
Christians, and at each of three larger centres should stay for three
days, holding three meetings daily. Before starting the final climb
of two hundred feet in a mere quarter of a mile, obliquely up the
face of the ravine, to the home of the church elder on top, they
called and halloed for Wuko. He had their kit and should not be
far behind, but they heard no answering sound. He was living up to
his reputation for cheerful laziness. But a crowd of schoolboys
rushed down to meet them and took charge of their horses. Even
for one night’s visit by the preachers, it was thought worth while to
return ten miles from school in order to be present.

3

Their welcome by the old elders and their families was vociferous
and melting, as it might well be. Only once in every three or four
months did they get visits from the preachers, if as often, and the
rest of the time relied upon one of their own number to lead their
worship and expound the Scriptures to them. With a minimum of
knowledge and ability to help them, it was not surprising if their
limited variation of themes tended to pall on their congregations.

Mr. Peace and Yohan were conducted to a short ladder and
scrambled up to a spacious loft. Beneath was a sheep pen from
which an orchestra of bleats and scufflings accompanied everything
they said and did, till the time they left next day. An old, old man
sat mouthing on a wide bed spread with grey and red felting, and
disappeared behind a mesh of smiling wrinkles as he rocked himself
in greeting. This was to be their dining-room, bedroom and
meeting place.

For an hour or two they sat gossiping after the invariable custom
of the country, saying little, thinking less, unconscious of time as a
factor to be considered, till youths appeared bearing trays of steam-
ing food and everyone drew back while a low table was brought
up and the meal laid on it. Around the table some forms were set,

13 8
STRONG TOWER

and with much coaxing and pushing the visitors and older Christians
took their seats, two on each side, and removed their caps and
turbans for a long and all-inclusive “grace.”

It was on these occasions that the difference between Mr. Peace
and Yohan became pronounced. While the former hung back, his
face wreathed in embarrassed smiles, seeking the lowliest seat,
Yohan’s pleasure was undisguised and he was content to sit
wherever he was put.

For the guests of honour rice, mixed with buckwheat to make it
go further, was served. Everyone else had ground maize steamed
till it swelled into a form like very palatable moist sawdust. A noisy
tapping on the table to bring the ends of their chopsticks together—
just twigs of bamboo cut to approximately the same length—
preceded a hearty launching into the meal. It was as if the old adage
held amongst them, “No work between meals, but work hard
then.” With unabashed plunging and tossing and shovelling, they
attacked the dishes. If time was no object before, it was now.
Speed showed appreciation, and incidentally secured the best tit-
bits. Yet they all behaved with careful etiquette, pointing with their
chopsticks at the bowls of meat, provided only on great occasions
like this, and saying, “Ch’ing, ch’ing! Come on!” Two of the party
were women, yet as senior members of the church they sat side by
side with the men, conversing and eating. Nosu views on feminine
modesty were different from Chinese. ‘

A saucer lamp hung from the scrub bamboo ceiling and threw
an inadequate light upon the people as they gathered for the meeting.
One by one they climbed the step ladder and found a seat on the
floor, on blocks of wood or on a corner of the old grandfather’s bed.
The table was cleared and Bibles found for Mr. Peace and Yohan.
Wuko had still not come, though a few young men had gone out
with flares and called through the darkness to guide him. With him
were the preachers’ books and notes. They would not see them now
till to-morrow at the earliest, assuming that he had not absconded
with all he had of their bedding and clothes.

The service began with Yohan leading off. Reciting a hymn line
by line, he repeated it with all the company. A score of faces looked
out of dark shadows, reflecting the reddish-yellow light. At the end
of a verse Yohan began to sing and they all joined in, verse by verse,
hymn after hymn. Now and then for a less familiar hymn, a pile
of resinous pine chips would be drawn upon by a schoolboy of

I12
 

TWO BLACK NOSU LANDOWNERS

WHITE NOSU SERFS

 

 
 
R N S

 

 

R

 

B8 S PR e B e e

 

SCATTERED OUTPOSTS

eighteen or twenty, and, turning them skilfully to keep them burn-
ing, he would hold them flaming above his head. By their bright
romantic glare all with books could see to read. While Chinese
words were being used, the women were slow to sing, for they
understood and spoke them poorly, but at times a Nosu hymn
from Mr. Peace’s book of translations would be used, and a new
zest would sweep through the congregation. These hymns they
loved, and sang with a rhythm and cadence peculiar to their race.

Interspersed with prayer and reading, the meeting had gone on
for the best part of an hour when Mr. Peace stood up to speak. He
had welcomed this tour that he might see again at first hand the
people who were his Nosu church, might assess for himself their
shortcomings and take these first-rate opportunities to encourage
and inspire them. He told the story of Gideon, who dared to act
alone against the devotees of Baal, who sent home more than thirty-
two thousand armed men and routed the hosts of Midian with three
hundred; of how those three hundred, faint yet pursuing, kept up
the chase. His style was never heroic or eloquent. A quiet gentleman
always, he related the story and applied its teaching with simple
conviction, pointing out its likeness to the Nosu church’s state in
numbers and opportunity. Among his listeners were those who
slept, nudged by a neighbour if their breathing became too heavy,
but that was always so, no matter who preached or where. For the
most part, faces were intent and glad to hear him.

Ending, he summoned them all to stand and pray, as freely as
they liked, before separating. Everyone’s eyes were closed and each
began to pray aloud his personal prayers and thanksgivings as if he
were alone, unconscious of others around him unless he were
learning to pray by copying a neighbour. The volume of sound
dwindled as one after another stopped, until the last had finished and
Yohan said a benediction.

Silently they dispersed, filing down the ladder, and the preachers
were left to share the room with just one or two others, and to
make their beds and lie down. A few planks and some straw,
Yohan's felt cloak and the little bedding they had brought on their
saddles, and they slept. They woke from time to time to scratch,
for the fleas in the straw were legion, and to chase away the rats that
climbed by way of their pillows to some grain baskets above. But
mostly their soft snoring mingled with the restless sounds from the
sheep pen below.

Hst ' 113
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4

A long journey lay before them next day, so the morning meeting
was cut short as soon as Wuko arrived. He had slept in a wayside
cottage after being benighted, and, as was expected, refused to
admit that he had been unnecessarily slow. Leading the horses, they
zigzagged down from the house through rocky thickets to the river
bank. A two-hundred-foot cliff covered with an inaccessible forest
of undergrowth and giant trees cast black shadows on the water.
They had to cross over, but it was too deep here, and when they
found a place Wuko was not to be seen and time was wasted in
waiting for him and helping him to ford it with his load.

After that they climbed slowly up and down over succeeding ribs
of hill until midday, and came out on to a swell of upland, largely
barren, but broken by hazel and rhododendron. Beneath a black
rock conspicuous among a jumble of summits they sat to eat and to
rest their horses while the carrier caugiit up. This rock was a meeting
place of the worshippers of the spring of water that flowed from its
foot. No one knew who first began to worship it, for Chinese and
Nosu both joined in the rites with a mixture of animistic and
idolatrous ritual. With the bits removed from their mouths, the
horses foraged for themselves, plucking hither and thither with
strong active lips, choosing the more tender blades from among
the harsh knife-edged grass tufts on the bank. And Yohan and
Mr. Peace lay stretched out on their backs watching the rain clouds
gather.

In several hours of travel they scarcely saw a soul: just a woman
in rags with a baby on her back, strapped in position, gleaning
potatoes from a forsaken field, and a pémo and his mila going to
work charms at a sick man’s house. Then they struck a main road
nearly wide enough for a hand cart to traverse, but broken up by
boulders and pitfalls. A train of a score or more Chinese coolies
carrying slabs of black salt from Szechwan stopped to watch the
two Nosu pass, resting their loads on T-shaped staves and whistling
loudly between their teeth as they relaxed.

“How much are you carrying?” asked Mr. Peace.

“A hundred and fifty pounds each,” they answered in a chorus
quite truthfully, a little puzzled by his pronunciation, and starting off
to travel a few more yards before halting again. Small wonder they

died like flies!
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Not far on two children of Christians waiting by the roadside
waved as the horsemen appeared. Yohan slowed down from a fast
trot and, greeting them cheerily, swung off his rain hat and handed
it to the boy. They broke into a run, keeping up with the horses till
exhausted, and fell back laughing. On the top of a hillock ahead a
group of men stood up and hailed the preachers. They were farmers
dressed in their best blue gowns and leather jerkins, out to give the
mushih a rousing welcome to their hamlet of Machuanai. When they
heard of his summons to the city they quickly hid their disappoint-
ment in welcomes to Mr. Peace, and with unfeigned pleasure
escorted him to the little mud house that was the meeting place of the
church and the home of the children who had met them. The local
elder apologized for the poverty of his place and the meagre hospi-
tality which was all he could provide.

“It’s only a mud house, he said, “but it was well built,” and
pointed to where Mr. Peace’s horse had found a groove in the wall
rich in salt petre, and was licking at it hungrily. “See how deep they
have worn that wall,” said he. “That shows how long this house
has stood already.”

Here again the¥Christians gathered night and morning and
listened to Yohan and Mr. Peace taking it in turns to preach and
teach hymns and Scripture.

With dusk it began to rain, lightly but persistently, and from that
time to the end of their three weeks’ trek it rained not all but every
day on which they took the road. Rain, rain, rain. The roads became
bogs, or so slippery that the animals lost their footing. The streams
became gorged and difficult to ford. The mountains were hidden
and the route became hard to find, with familiar landmarks screened
from view. And Mr. Peace never felt secure on Yohan’s old horse,
which had weak knees and often tripped. A bridge had once
collapsed beneath it, hurling it twenty feet into the gully below.
Their capes were soaked and the clothes beneath them. Often it was
cold, too, and hard to hold the reins, but they grew used to it.
Shepherds and ploughmen were not deterred, simply saying “The
mists are heavy to-day,” so neither could the preachers be. Arriving
at Christian homes each night, they hung their sopping clothes on
the farming gear and left them to drip and dry while they them-
selves hugged theffirefandihungftheir footwear from the beams or
drying racks directly over it.

The next day was the first under these conditions, but fortunately

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they had not far to go. After only three hours’ riding, during which
time it poured in drenching torrents, they came to a range of trecless
mountains, from the crests of which protruded sharp cones of rock,
the fangs of some calcific monster reaching into the clouds, grey
limestone pinnacles thrust up in confusion along the skyline.

“Su Mobhsi’s range,” said Peace reflectively.

“And I believe he’s up there waiting for us,” answered Yohan,
pointing with his switch at a solitary dark figure standing by his
horse far up on the glacis ahead. Drawing closer, they could see him
more distinctly, wearing a long black overcoat in pseudo-Western
style and a great rain hat so broad that the rivulets running from its
brim fell clear of his shoulders. His mouth opened cavernously and a
roar of welcome came down to them.

“Here come the two pang k¢ (guests with clubs). Two highway-
men!” he cried, laughing loudly at his own joke as he gazed at Mr.
Peace perched on the rotund grey, as harmless as they make "em.

But the jibe would have fitted him himself. He was a reincarnated
buccaneer, a pirate of classic description, as if the Western world
had become too tame and he had been lifted up and set in the wild
world of these mountains. He was arrayed beneath the black coat
in 2 mustard yellow jersey and long black knitted trousers of his
own make. His spirit was that of a dashing, reckless adventurer, but
he had the heart of a religious boy. In his own home to which he
led them he was the cock of the roost, but a self—depreciating back
ranker amongst his fellow church leaders.

Riding forward, he led them at breakneck speed along the rain-
soaked slopes, too fast for the terrain, too fast for the good of the
horses, but as carefree as a schoolboy in spite of his more than fifty
years. Ahead of the others, he made them follow in a crazy proces-
sion, sliding his animal on its haunches down muddy banks and
cantering it where the others would only walk. He called his beast
“the purple horse” because of its coat of mixed red and grey hair. It
knew him perfectly and he had trained it to pranks which other
horses would refuse.

In his home a minor feast was being spread to celebrate the
occasion. Although a White Nosu himself, he was a well-off freeman
and had families of servants in his home and around to tend his
fields. All had to join in the feasting, so that it was late before they
finished and the evening meeting could begin. While his guests were
eating, Mohsi stood over the table switching away the flies with a

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horse-tail whisk and keeping up a flow of fun. This was his element,
a grandfather in the home, surrounded by those dependent upon
him, his hens and dogs gleaning the rice grains and bones dropped
under the tables, and his guests complimenting him on the food and
on the cable-stitch jerseys of his making in which his grandchildren
were clad.

“Who taught you to do it?”” asked Mr. Peace.

Mr. Su looked solemn, unbefittingly. “Will you believe it?” he
asked. “The Lord did. I haven’t had a lesson from a soul, just
worked it out with the Lord’s help. Copying someone else’s, of
course.

An interesting cavalcade started out from his group of cottages
next morning. Yohan and Peace and “Old Mr. Su,” as he loved to
be called, with his wife, ten years his senior, and a canary-clad
granddaughter of eight, were mounted on horses. Between and
behind them in single file, which was all that the trail would allow,
came a troop of men and women, boys and girls, all bound for the
first three-day conference at Cheleko, carrying their food and
bedding with them.

5

The hamlet of Cheleko was largely Christian and possessed a
ruined barn that they used exclusively as a chapel. The church
buildings nearly everywhere were no more than rickety sheds, and
lack of understanding about the sanctity of buildings set apart for
worship led to neglect and misuse. Mr. Peace himself would store
and thresh his oats in the chapel at Kichkow when it was not in use,
because he had never learned the value of treating it as a House of
God alone. To them it was a hall for secular purposes as well. At
Cheleko the wooden walls had been taken down, logs had been
laid in rows on the mud floor as seats, and a rickety platform of
planks erected at one side to raise the speakers above the congrega-
tion of nearly a hundred people, men to one side and women the
other. Three times daily the spiral ram’s horn sounded and they fore-
gathered whether it rained or not, singing and praying and following
through the sequence of addresses which Mr. Peace and Yohan gave
with Su Mobhsi’s help.

Old Mobhsi’s handicap was his complete lack of education. To his
credit be it said that he had taught himself to read, though he

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admitted he could only cope with print, and to write a little of the
new Nosu phonetic script. He had served on the committee that had
worked it out originally. But often when reading from the Bible he
would pause and cough and adjust his second-hand spectacles and
make a few guesses, as if his eyesight were to blame for these lapses.
And he had another shield or bad habit, too: the repetition of certain
words brought haphazard into his reading or addresses—k o-i,
néng-kou, and chiu-shih, and sometimes k’ung-p’a, which mean “all
right,” “able to,” “that is,” and “perhaps.” At the opening of the
conference he made the introductory remarks, throwing back his
head and wreathing his villainous face in smiles.

“We have come together this evening, that is, all right, to meet
to worship and all right able to sing, and to listen to teaching from
the Bible that is. Now among you all right there may be some who
have come hoping to hear a gramophone. Well, the all right
perhaps mushih has had to go away unexpectedly, but you all right
must not do the same, will you?”

To those who did not know him this was highly confusing for the
first few minutes, but smiles would begin to spread round the
listeners and little boys would whisper “all right, able to” to each
other, and before he had finished everyone would be so used to it
as to neglect its presence altogether except when it altered the
meaning too absurdly of what he said.

The numbers dropped a little when the curious grew bored and
went home, but for the most part they went solidly through the
programme, one meeting before the morning meal, two meetings
during the day, and a second meal at dusk.

At this place there was a number of men and women who
wanted to be baptized, so a session for the examination of them was
arranged in an elder’s home. The candidates one by one, or, if
bashful 'women, in pairs, sat on a bench before the preachers and
senior elders while questions were asked at random. In the doorways
and dark corners knots of inquisitive spectators gathered to watch
the ordeal, standing like deaf dolts when told to go, till efforts to
move them were abandoned.

“Why do you want to be baptized?”” asked Mr. Peace of one young
farmer.

“My family told me to,” came the answer.

“  hat do you think about it yourself?”

“Fine !”

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This was not very promising, though the examiners knew the
candidate as a steady, sincere Christian of three or four years’ stand-
ing. They helped him along, gradually finding his own reasons and
beliefs to be entirely satisfactory. Another was a woman who sat in
unbroken silence, too embarrassed to emit a sound, though her
mouth opened feebly. She was deputed to wait till she could be
questioned by women, to give her a fair chance. Some youths came
up, but were asked to wait a further year or two to prove their
stability. This was the age of great temptations through persecution,
pressure to join in raiding parties, or wife-snatching. But one was
accepted, a tall young Apollo who had distinguished himself
already.

On the Sunday afternoon the whole conference adjourned to the
fields, where a brook had been dammed to make a large pool. Two
elders stood in the water with a crowd of church folk and spectators
on the banks, and with prayer and singing baptized the five who
had been approved. To Mr. Peace, whose work had always lain
chiefly in Kiehkow itself, these country trips were always a stimulus.
Here he could see the church alive and at work. Here he saw the fine
stuff that some of the Christians were made of, and heard first-hand
the circumstances that brought about the fall of others.

As they rode on day by day from group to group of isolated
Christians, he found their problems becoming far more his own
concern. He grieved over the spiritual catastrophes of old believers
who had taken concubines after the racial custom, and sympathized
with those who had been robbed or falsely accused at law. He talked
and prayed with a father whose seven sons had died in an epidemic,
one by one. Everyone in the village was exhorting the man to take
another wife, for the mother of his sons could bear no more, and
he was torn with fear for their old age if they had no son to care for
them. At another home a wolf had broken into the sheep-fold,
through the rotten bars of a window, and in a night the poor man’s
wealth had been decimated.

But what he noticed more than anything was the pathetic ignor-
ance of fundamental truths. Some of those he spoke to had the idea
that the Virgin Mary was twelve years old when Christ was born,
and held to it doggedly, but could not tell him, for example, the
importance of the Resurrection. He realized how sorely the church
needed building up and teaching, more than one missionary and a

handful of half-trained preachers could accomplish. “Just starting
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them off isn’t enough,” he thought to himself. “They must be taught
and trained and disciplined. And continuity is essential.”

That was the trouble. With the mushihs’ help, the church had been
well organized and shown how to maintain discipline in its ranks,
but they had bowed to expediency without regard to the principles
involved, and insoluble tangles had resulted. Old Ammon was a
case in point. (He had chosen his name from the Bible without con-
sideration of its associations.) Too ignorant to know better, and
influenced by the Old Testament, he had taken a second wife. But
in his little church among the south-eastern mountains he was the
most zealous Christian, arranging and conducting services, catering
for visiting preachers, taking messages to distant groups of believers.
If he had been cut off at once, the whole church in his locality would
have disintegrated. It was a case of jettisoning the daughter-church
or keeping old Ammon. They procrastinated, winked at his bigamy
for the sake of the others, and rebuked him so ineffectively that he
later took yet another wife and was copied by his friends.

Mr. Peace was perplexed at present, but not downcast. It was
good to see so many churches firmly planted in his countryside.

6

Day after day they went on. From Cheleko past the home of a
famous pémo and a whitewashed building that had once been a
chapel but now had no Christians to meet in it, over a pass and into
a volcano-like crater, the Great Flax Pit. Here Miao boys and girls
came out to welcome them in red and yellow embroideries which
had won for them the name of the Small Flowery Miao because of
the delicacy of their designs. The elder, a sharp-featured, sharp-
witted Lilliputian, and his resplendent but conceited daughter did the
honours. Su Mohsi was travelling with them now and received a
special welcome, for he it was who loved to sing, in spite of a tune-
less voice, and kept them going till the early hours of the morning
singing verses of Scripture to new tunes.

At the next place a converted pémo entertained them for a night.
Féng Pémo’s home had been burned down and he was living in a
shack whose walls were made of anything available—boards, mill-
wheels, cornstalks, branches. Big gaps let the wind howl through,
but no one noticed that. And the inner room set apart for the
preachers contained a coffin, but it was probably not an occupied one
as it might well have been in a non-Christian house.

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Out on the road, away from their congregations, they behaved
like schoolboys, even in pouring rain. That was old Mohsi’s influ-
ence. One of the party was temporarily horseless, so the others
schemed to make him ride theirs. Riding ahead, one would tether
his beast to a tree, leaving the horseless one to find it, and walk on,
hiding while the others passed, and following till he found that
someone else had left his ' mount and repeated the performance. Mr.
Peace in this way came to ride Su Mohsi’s “purple” horse, and after
taking a toss over the brute’s head decided that preachers should
behave more sedately.

The people in the next region were in distress. A wave of smallpox
of the most lethal type was sweeping through their villages, and
robbers were harrying them unmercifully. The welcome to the
travellers was cold, and crowds of unsympathetic yokels stood star-
ing at their every movement most suspiciously. They were glad to get
away again and on to the next conference centre, though it would
mean leaving the home of the poor man who had lost all his sons.

The rivers were raging full. Sometimes the horses could barely
keep their feet when fording, but this was what Su Mohsi most
enjoyed. Always it was he who led the way, but not always success-
fully. They came one day to a broken bridge and had to make a
detour. Mohsi led them along a high bank till he found it taking
them into greater difficulties. To him the solution was simple. He
rode his “purple” friend to the edge and jumped to the field below.
To Yohan’s colt it was a new experience and, essaying to do the
same, he fell headlong, throwing his rider in a heap, but Mr. Peace,
forewarned, forced his horse down alone and scrambled after it on
his own legs, gleefully scorning the bellows of mockery from the
old buccaneer.

Yet Mohsi was not all frivolity. He took every chance that came
his way to gossip the Gospel with passers-by or with any who might
share the fire at night. At the end of a long ride through the wildest
country they came one evening to a strong little church led by a
faithful Black Nosu. It had been a hard day’s travel. Clouds enve-
loped them on the mountain tops, hiding their landmarks so that
they lost the way. By labouring across a ploughed field, however,
they managed to find a thatched hovel and called for directions. But
there was only a frightened child cowering in the doorway, and
their echoes answered them emptily from. hill to hill. At last a shep-
herd pointed out a gravel slope down which they slid into the depths

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of a valley. It led them by a great landlord’s castellated home into a
world of cliffs from which they saw no outlet. A waterfall springing
to all appearances out of the very rock face fell a hundred feet,
casting its spray almost to the path they trod. Only when they were
past it could they see the cleft through which the water came, fed
by another fall of the same height. From there they climbed where
it had seemed impossible for a path to lie, clinging to their horses’
tails while the animals tore powerfully with their hooves at the
steep track. On arrival at the chapel high in a valley never free from
the roar of falling water, Mr. Peace found that the day’s travel had
cost his beast three shoes.

Hardly were they seated and drying their clothes over a blazing
log fire than a bugle call was heard and a few minutes later, with
much noise and ostentation, the captain of the local militia came in,
followed by his guard. He had come to favour the visitors with his
company. He had little in common with them, but Su Mohsi had
found it in a moment and was well into a conversation. The captain,
called by the title of pao-chang, was in charge of a limited area of
countryside, and was responsible for keeping the peace. His senior,
the hsiang-chang, a wealthy man set over several pao-changs, had just
been deposed from office by an uprising of the people, so bitterly
had he taxed and oppressed them, and the pao-chang was feeling the
aftermath of lawlessness arising from the upheaval. As smoothly as
could be, Su Mohsi guided the conversation into a discussion with
him of the causes of the trouble, and the fundamental need of
changing men’s hearts if their actions are to be made right.

The pao-chang had scarcely gone when a clash of rifles with fixed
bayonets announced the entry of a local Black and his retinue. This
man was blind to everything in life but revenge. Some relative had
been killed in a feud fight years before, and fresh hate and lust for
blood had been stirred up which would not be appeased until the
enemy family had been wiped out. This was no game. Here it was
not a retainer that had died, but one of his own blood. He sat by the
fire. Hate had completed the work of inbreeding and turned him
half-mad. But with him too, fatigued though they all were by hard
travelling, Mobhsi talked, teaching and exhorting that by any means
possible he might bring him to a sense of guilt and the need of for-
giveness through Christ. They persuaded him to stay for the evening
service, and he sat amongst the Christians surrounded by his armed
villains, with picquets posted outside, the light of flaming pine chips

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glinting and flickering on their weapons, while Yohan preached the
Gospel fearlessly to them. But he went away saying, “When I have
had my revenge I will come and hear you again.”

Thus day in, day out, in place after place, they taught the Chris-
tians, exhorting to life on a higher plane and, meeting those to whom
the Gospel was new and strange, preached its unsearchable truths.

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. CHAPTER ELEVEN
SCATTERED OUTPOSTS: II

. . . scattered through his native mountains.”

cé

I

HE last conference was over, and only one more duty remained

to Mr. Peace before starting on his journey home. After all the
publicity of these three weeks, he was looking forward to the quiet
of his own family and home. At this last place the staring schoolboys
had been more than usually trying. They had found peepholes
through the bamboo ceiling of the preachers’ room, and given them
little opportunity to prepare their addresses in peace. He knew the
country life too well to expect real privacy of any kind, and saun-
tered out when need be into a copse or among the standing maize.
However, in this place even when he withdrew into the fields or
forest he had been followed and watched. Yohan’s preparation was
always sketchy and unlearned, and consequently his discourses lasted
longer than anyone’s. Any thought that struck him as he preached
he pursued to its death, losing his point as completely as his audience
did. But to Mr. Peace’s orderly mind there was a need of quiet in
which to crystallize his thoughts, and the strain of battling against
incessant interruption was exhausting.

And then the flies and filth! Wherever they went the houses were
full of flies, clouds of them buzzing and settling, preening and
scavenging, on the food, in the food, dead and alive. This place too
had been the worst for flies. It was impossible to pick them out of
the food with his chopsticks because the less fastidious would be
finished before he began to eat. Flies lay there as profusely as the
pox and had to be neglected. Anyway, if most were found and
separated out, the rest would be missed in the half-light and eaten,
so'why not all? They were on the people too, scores on'one woman’s
back, more of them ranged along her baby’s eyes like horses at a
trough, and at the infant’s nostrils, so encrusted that it snored
through its open mouth as it slept. So it was good to think of home
and cleanliness again.

This tour, moreover, had been one long round of feasting.
Wherever they went it was to the country Christians one of the
events of the year, worthy of killing a valuable sheep. Once or twice

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it had been pork, and once only chicken, but everywhere else
mutton. Meat every day was a luxury, but the taste and fat clung
to his palate from meal to meal, always strongly flavoured by the
mint with which it had been stewed. And everywhere the intestines
were reserved for the guests of honour, chopped in rings and cooked
till tough and indigestible.

Between meals, here, the raw meat hung at an open window in
the loft above them, and during their conference meetings the atten-
tion of the audience had been regularly distracted to watch the one
appointed as cook climb up to the loft, chop the required amount of
meat from the carcase, and carry it to the back of the room where
the meeting was being held. It was always prepared there, and the
cook’s whisperings and manipulations competed with the preacher
to win the attention of the people, while the smoke of the wood fire
blinded him with tears, so that sometimes he could not see to refer
to his Bible or notes. Yet they could hardly be denied their celebra-
tions. It was only the preachers who met it everywhere, and it was
a sign of respect to them. But soon they would be on the road again,
heading for home.

First, however, Mr. Peace had to ride out into the hills to call on
an old schoolboy of his who was ill and had asked for him. The
man’s younger brother had gone to Kichkow and back during the
conference to fetch some medicine of known value for this disease,
travelling on foot in drenching rain, over eighty miles in two and a
half days. From his home a horse was brought by a servant to fetch
Mr. Peace to see the patient. The schoolboy had changed. As a man,
it was hard to recognize him. He had been emaciated by his illness,
but his eyes had become so hard, so evil, in the intervening years.

The house was of fine woodwork, well-carved and latticed, but
screened all round by a close brushwood fencing to give an appear-
ance of frugality. Inside it gave more evidence of wealth, yet the
patient was lying on no more than a felt mat over straw beside the
mud stove. Around him several evil-looking cronies sat, who bade
Mr. Peace be seated on a bench. Out of deference to his teacher, the
patient tried to raise himself on his elbow, but gladly relaxed again
when he protested. His brother brought a large black earthenware
pot of water and crumbled into it two cakes of brown sugar, setting
it on the fire where it came slowly to the boil, and broke into the
bubbling syrup five eggs. Immediately a copious white froth rose
to the brim and continued to rise as the young man scooped it off

12§
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with a brass ladle and tipped it on the floor. Several hens and an
obese dog left the egg-shells and dived for the sweet fluid, pecking
and lapping until they were kicked away.

Mr. Peace gazed round the room. On the wall an ancient sabre
hung in a wooden scabbard, and beside it two bayonets of the
skewer type. Above them were the dried corpses of two birds and a
toad, no doubt the charms a pémo had provided to cure the man.
He pointed at them and asked why his old pupil had forsaken his
carly ways.

“It was inconvenient,” he answered. “Our environment is not

ood.”
; Peace understood. Here was another young fellow who had found
outlawry and spirit-worship the path of least resistance, and the
Christian way too hard. Near him stood a ruffianly man of about
thirty, his chief friend, wearing a turban, coat and trousers all of
blue, with a white sash round his waist, yellow puttees, and bare
feet. His trousers were of the traditional Nosu pattern, each leg at
least four feet in circumference, reaching below the knees. And
thrust through the left side of his sash he carried an eighteen-inch
dagger;brass-handled, with alarge red tassel dangling from the sheath.
He was a man capable of any wickedness, and Mr. Peace shrank
from him. This was the company his old scholar had been keeping.

Satisfied at last, the young brother served four poached eggs and
syrup in a bowl with chopsticks, and presented them to Mr. Peace.
At this the patient could neglect his old master no longer, and,
rising up, climbed to a bench in defiance of united protests, and ate
a syrupy egg himself. His downfall was as sudden and complete, and
he sank again to his rough bed. There was little Mr. Peace could do
but give him sage advice, so when he had recovered enough to take
it in, he delivered the medicine with instructions and, his purpose
accomplished, rose to go. Nor did they attempt to delay him,
knowing that he had a journey still to make that morning. The
younger brother saw him down the path, and crying in Nosu “Lie
ma hon! Don’t come any further!”, Peace climbed into his saddle
and was away.

2

By now he was tired of travelling. Day after day in drizzling rain
they had ridden, day after day the weary round of arriving wet and
sitting talking and eating snacks or roasting corn-cobs on hot ashes

126

 

 
 

SCATTERED ‘OUTPOSTS

till darkness fell and supper was produced. For Yohan it was different.
He favoured these small, frequent meals with large ones wedged in
between. At last, however, they were homeward bound.

One morning they came upon a big gang of workmen excavating
a hillside. He knew at once what it must be, the new strategic motor
road of which he had heard tell, a road right through their moun-
tains linking Szechwan with the new Burma Road. There were said
to be a few score of Chinese from the coastal provinces supervising
the work, who were unused to the rough life of the country and
insisted on good food—rice, fowls and delicacies. Clashes had
occurred between them and the local people who objected to being
forced to sell at arbitrary prices. Knowing this, Mr. Peace and
Yohan made a detour to avoid the scene. No good could come of
risking a quarrel with these men or their soldier guards, men
capable of “commandeering” their animals and carrier or any-
thing.

Ffrther on the waters of a lake had risen till the path was covered,
and, as they forced their nervous horses to wade out along a path
which might have subsided into bottomless depths, they could see
goldfish floating near the surface. But soon the road fell down to yet
another lakeside, a beautiful lake with an island in the centre and soft
reflections swaying in the water, on whose pine-clothed banks lay
the village where they were to pass the night. As they approached
it, a little old man came out to meet them, riding a pony so sm
that it was called a “sheep horse.” The mushih had been able to
touch the ground with both his feet while sitting astride it.

Old Elder Chang opened his big mouth and called a toothless
welcome—and yet not toothless; he refused to admit that he was
toothless; he was not, for there in proof it lay, a real tooth, if an only
one, his pride and joy. He was a jovial little man, amused at himself
as much as anything, but overjoyed to have someone else to tease,
so that Yohan, with his simple grin and good humour, was always
doubly welcome. The warmth of his greeting was enough
to compensate even for the prospect of stewed mutton and
mint for the twenty-second successive day, and Mr. Peace was soon
glad that they had had to call here. Old Chang was one of the very
first Nosu Christians. He had never developed far, but was like a
model child in the Faith. He ushered them to seats around his fire,
and, bringing a basketful of small potatoes, tipped half on to the red
coals to roast, and idly turned them as his visitors talked.

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STRONG TOWER

For him it was a special occasion, and he had called all his old
friends together to meet the preachers, who found they were the
youngest present. Old Chang was quick to see this and chortled
merrily. “What a collection of old grandfathers! Old age and no
brains to meet youth and wisdom!” And his simple friends went off
in peals of laughter.

“Tell us about the old days,” said Mr. Peace presently, glad of an
opportunity to hear these old-stagers” experiences.

“The old days?” cackled the old man. “Do you mean before the
Manchus defeated us Nosu? I wasn’t here then!” and he dissolved
again in toothless guffaws and a tidal wave of wrinkles that swept up
over his face and submerged his eyes.

“But I can tell you about a foreigner who came here hunting for
the tombs of the Nosu kings,” he continued. (The grave mounds of
the last of the royal line lie not many miles away.) Picking up a
blackened potato, he casually examined it. It was soft, so with a half-
inch of protruding thumb-nail he scraped the skin off and passed the
finished product across to Mr. Peace. Taking the cue, they all fell .
to, scraping and eating while he went on: _

“He was big and fat and covered with black hair. I had never seen
anything like him before; with white skin like the mushih’s. Ha, ha,
ha! I bolted. Didn’t stop running till I got home, though I was more
than forty then!”

“Was he a Roman Catholic priest?”” asked Mr. Peace, knowing
that some had been through at about that time.

“No!” said the old man. “We’ve never had them up this way.
Except a party that travelled through soon afterwards,” he corrected
himself.

“Plenty of them over near the River of Gold,” said an old
fellow in the shadows. “They’ve been there years and years, but
haven’t got on very well.”

“I've always wanted to ask,” chimed in another, addressing
Mr. Peace, “how Roman Catholics and Protestants began, and why
they are different.”

“I always think of it like this,” Peace answered, seizing the
opportunity, so rare, to instruct his friends. “Roman Catholicism is
like a track on the hillside which has veered away from the old position
(the church of the Apostles) into a wrong direction because the
surface was easier going by the new way, and more straightforward
to follow. The Protestant faith is the continuation of the old thin

128
 

  
     

 

GORGE IN NOSULAND

ON THE ROAD FROM
KIEHKOW TO KOPU

 

 
 

 

 

TWO STURDY BURDEN-BEARERS -
 

SCABTERED ! OMTPOSTS

track, stony and rough and hard to see over a long stretch of history,
but becoming clear again when some who had realized that the
Roman road was wrong, broke away across rough country at the
Reformation to rejoin the right track. After that it becomes broader
and well-worn once more. Many people have been led completely
astray by the false path, which is Salvation by Self-effort, but some
do find a little side-track from it which leads them back where the
old path lies, Salvation by Faith in Christ.”

He stopped. The old toothless one was looking as if he would
burst unless he could say something. At last he had his chance.

“Did you hear of that priest who was dragged along the road with
a rope round his neck, not so long ago?”’ he asked the general com-
pany. “By the Papus it was. They said they were leading a fat pig
to market. And when he stumbled and fell they went on pulling
till his neck broke. The mushih told me that not many months
ago.

“Treacherous lot, those Papus,” said someone; “you can’t get
into their country without one of them guaranteeing your safety,
and when you are in the friend who stood security for you is quite
capable of selling you as a slave, or letting people kill you. Fickle as
the wind, they are. They’ll pass you from hand to hand till there’s
no way of finding you. Or hold you for a big ransom.”

“Not so long since we were the same in these very mountains,”
chirped old Chang. “It’s only thirty or forty years since the Gospel
brought light to us Nosu.”

“Yes! When we were forty years old we had no tables or benches
or beds,” chimed in another old dodderer; “just sat on the ground
in a circle and ate from a single big pot in the centre with our
fingers!” he said.

“It’s the Gospel has changed us,” said another. “And we've only
learnt Chinese so as to read the Bible. Would have been content
with Nosu otherwise!”

At the other side of the fire, Yohan sat sleepily, tired by the long
tour and a day in the saddle. He yawned. It infected Mr. Peace.

“Ho! Ho!” sang their host. “You preachers need your opium!”
(yawning is one sign of the onset of craving), and, shaking with
laughter at his own jest, he rose and shouted for his daughters to
hurry with the evening meal.

»

Ist 129
STRONG TOWER

3

The tension between the hill folk and the outsiders concerned with
road-making and its associated developments had been getting
serious. Unable to buy in the markets all they wanted of luxury
foods, the strangers from other provinces had sent parties of soldiers
to forage in the villages and farms for what they could get. Fowls,
eggs, pigs, grain they seized, and an arbitrary and inadequate price
was thrown to the owners.

At last a puff of excessive injustice fanned the smouldering tempers
of the Nosu into flame. Led by a pao-chang who interpreted his
duty to include prevention of this robbery by officials more powerful
than himself, a band of armed men resisted a party of food-seekers,
and a pitched battle ensued. A Nosu youth was killed and several
on both sides injured. The pao-chang was captured and only released
when his father, a white-haired old church elder, guaranteed his
future conduct. He still had his recognized duties to fulfil, but
always with the expectation of reprisals by the soldiers he had dared
to offend, so that day and night he kept his guard beside him.

Soon after Mr. Peace and his hosts had seated themselves for their
meal and were continuing their animated conversation, the pao-chang
and several others carrying arms, silently came in and sat down by
the fire. Outside he left two picquets on guard. No one greeted
him; he was aggrieved, and preferred to be left to come and go
unnoticed. With a whispered explanation, old Mr. Chang went on
with what he had been saying.

“When the mushih was here,” he said, flashing his single tusk, “he
told me all about his country. A queer place it must be. They haven’t
any water-buffaloes, and their cows don’t do any work.”

“How do they plough their rice-fields, then?” asked his neighbour.

“Their big city is a day’s walk across, and yet they haven’t a
single rice-field anywhere near it,”” he answered. “Their rich people
just eat potatoes and wheat like any of us poor folk.”

“Pity those Chinese don’t do the same,” he added in a whisper.

He glanced over toward the fire, and the others followed his gaze.
“Poor fellow,” they thought: “his troubles aren’t over yet.” May-
be the pao-chang was thinking the same; his face was drawn with
anxiety.

The meal over, the old men returned to the fire while the rest of
the household in relays took their turns to eat. They talked with the

130
SCATTERED OUTPOSTS

pao-chang as if there were no dominant subject in his mind and
theirs, but for the most part he remained silent. People from the
surrounding homesteads began coming in for the evening service
and, under cover of the confusion of their arrival, Mr. Peace ob-
served, the pao-chang slipped into a recess and climbed up among
some stacked straw in a small loft in the rafters. There was a rustling
and then silence. He feared for his life.

During the meeting a shot was heard in the valley and the armed
guard became instantly alert, but Mr. Peace went on preaching
without interruption. Some were paying attention to his words, he
noticed, but everyone had fear in his eyes, even if outwardly dis-
regarding what they knew of the drama going on around them. He
found it hard to preach, though he did not expect any alarming
development. The whole of their lives had been lived in a world of
raiding and violence, and he knew that the peace-loving were
usually left untouched unless their turn had come to be the object
of assault. No, an unsettled environment had taught him to expect
no alarms till they came. The pao-chang would live under this fear
and tension for weeks, perhaps, without anything happening to him,
or until it all blew over.

But running parallel to his thoughts on the subject of his address,
for no one’s mind was at rest, were others which he could not shake
off. These old men had no notion of life elsewhere—in the Western
countries, for instance. He himself had spent hours in the mushih’s
company and his eyes had been opened to a gulf of centuries of
development between the East and the West. He knew how hard it
must be for the mushihs to adapt themselves and their thinking to
this world which was all that his people knew, still in an era of
ignorance, dirt, fear, injustice and sudden death. The world that
had already been so bathed in Christian influence for generations
was physically and in many ways morally cleaner. He wished the
whole of China and his Nosu especially could be saved from the
primitive savagery that still persisted. Fear was the background of
life for most people—deep down, perhaps, but including those who
had had no experience of calamity yet. There must be scores or
hundreds sleeping in hiding night by night for fear of possibilities
that threatened vaguely. If only officials and people, top-dog and
under-dog, knew how to be just and law-abiding in this beloved
country of his!

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STRONG TOWER

The pao-chang was still hidden in the straw when the meeting was
disbanded—and when Mr. Peace lay down to sleep on three benches
set side by side. When he awoke in the night, and again at daybreak,
he heard the rustle of straw in the loft. Thank God, he reflected, this
horror, being hunted, had only once come to his family in his
lifetime—to Wenling, and she had escaped.

4

Physical fatigue has an undermining effect on morale, and so-
called “spiritual” problems are often best solved by timely food and
rest, as Mr.: Peace had decided for himself long years ago. Toward
the end of trips like this, tempers were easily frayed, no matter who
it was. Mushihs varied. Some became unpleasant, some simply

silent, controlling their feelings, and he had known one or two who.

made no secret of their impatience, but drowned it in cheerful
humour directed against themselves. Su Mohsi merely became less
full of pranks. Yohan did less for other people; his normal was to
see others comfortably settled at night and then to find what corner
he could for himself. And in the mornings he was up early, first as
a heap of bedding, praying, then a shining brown body putting on
his clothes, and lastly hunting for his shoes and descending to the
floor. When he travelled, he tended to be humourless, almost old-
womanly (though no such derogatory criticism would have occurred
to Mr. Peace). If his sandals or sacking socks were muddied, he
would waste time washing them in the next brook, or would twist
hemp to make string to mend his harness when a quicker makeshift
would have done. When he became fatigued, these fussinesses would
increase. Upon Mr. Peace, however, a mournfulness descended.
Physically and mentally, he would slouch down in his saddle and
ride for hours lost in thought.

So now their journey home became a test of endurance. A herd
of piebald animals would bring forth a comment from one of them:
“Why cows and horses speckled in this particular valley and not
elsewhere?” and they would go on in silence. Or they would help
each other through a slough of mud; or discuss the safety of a
disintegrating bridge of tree-trunks and brushwood. But otherwise
they rode without talking, one behind the other as before.

In any case, it was not easy going. Three weeks of rain had gorged
the rivers and softened the tracks. The roar was audible from far

132

 
SCATTERED OUTPOSTS

off, and their horses feared to cross the boiling fury of enclosed
waters fighting for an outlet. All along the way there was much talk
between travellers passing on the roads as to whether the next river
ahead was fordable or not. Only small brooks had bridges, except
where the Chinese had built them in Imperial days.  hen the water
was not too deep or strong, Yohan would ride straight off the bank
into it, and Mr. Peace would follow, though once they were carried
down several yards before the horses found their feet, and their
own legs were submerged to the knees. It was the only way of
getting from place to place.

But on the last night before Kiehkow, Mr. Peace received a great
cheer which compensated for all his fatigue. Travelling by a shorter
route than usual, they had to spend a night where there were no
Christian homes. As darkness fell they drew in to a little White
Nosu dwelling and asked for lodging. Their welcome was spontan-
eously cerdial. And more. For an hour or two the good man and his
friends listened willingly to the Gospel.

When bedtime arrived, Mr. Peace could see that there was in-
sufficient space in the living-room for all the men to lie down, and
he wondered what solution the householder could have. Eventually
someone yawned loudly, and went to find some straw to sleep on
in a corner. Then to Mr. Peace and Yohan the old man of the
family turned and pointed to a loft, saying, ““You two gentlemen
sleep up there.” They thanked him and climbed the ladder. A pile
of beanstalks lay against the wall. They spread them out, arranged
their bedding, and before long were asleep.

Mr. Peace soon afterwards awoke. An old woman was standing
near him holding a length of burning reed as a torch, and gleaning
beanstalks from around himself and Yohan, wherever they were not
actually lying on them. She took them to the far corner of the loft,
a good armful, but not more. Mr. Peace lay watching surreptitiously.
A younger woman and a girl were over there. The three of them lay
down together—on what remained of their bed.

He was dumbfounded. He realized that, because of the lack of
space below, the pagan householder had allowed them to sleep in
the women’s loft, such was his respect for the reputation of the
- Christians. He lay there rejoicing. The church was telling on the
countryside after all. Its light was penetrating to corners like this
where its message had never before been preached.

He set out again next day with a lighter heart, no longer counting

133
STRONG TOWER

the miles wearily as they rode on. And the evening would see them
home, back with Meili and Jenhan. The road as they approached
Kiechkow grew worse and worse. Instead of being able to travel
along ridges and valleys, they now had to cross up and down from
ridge to valley and up to ridge again, keeping to neither for very far
at a time. Up and down, up and down on atrocious slopes, with
sometimes a hard core and moist surface, so that they slid uncon-
trollably, and sometimes ploughing through loose landslides in
which the horses” legs sank to their knees till Yohan’s colt sat down
helplessly and would have wept if he had been able. At one point
the road had collapsed on to the terrace below, and they had to call
a cottager to bring his mattock and excavate another ledge before
they could proceed.

Eventually, however, they reached the fortified village of Achiche
and its cobbled path, which took them across an ancient bridge in a
picturesque gorge. Once past that point, they were on the home
stretch. Nevertheless, the last five miles took them nearly three
hours, wading up the gorge, but at length it opened out into the
valley of Kichkow and they began the final climb. The lower
village, the waters’ meet, the Old Man’s house, the Widow’s, they
rode past; then the sunken cattle track, the school—and both the
animals broke into a joyful canter across the terrace to their stables.

5

The luxury of getting and remaining dry, in clean clothes, was
one of the most welcome things about reaching home. And to eat
the food they were accustomed to. But best of all the pleasure of
their families on seeing them. Mr. Peace’s cup of joy was full when
with his children again, just Meili and Jenhan now, for Jenpin was
away at school in the city. And great was their relief to have no
meetings to take, apart from simple school prayers, after three weeks
during which in fifteen or more separate localities they had shared
two, and sometimes three or four, daily. In each place the same
questions had been asked about Kiehkow, about the mushilh’s move-
ments, their own children, and so on.

The strain of work and of the problems to be dealt with had been
greater than it had felt at the time. Despite all the feasting, they were
both thinner than when they started out. It had been hard work
and they were tired. Some of the difficulties they met had been too

134
SCATTERED OUTPOSTS

hard to overcome; what to do about bigamous and polygamous
believers in particular, for they had no authority to take disciplinary
steps. The leading members of the church were not co-operating
enough to make that possible, and if they took the initiative they
could not count on support. Peace felt the burden of concern, but
could go no further than wishing something could be done about it.

They had seen plenty of other evidence too, alas, of disintegra-
tion in one way and another, individuals who had drifted off, churches
with weakened convictions, and lack of hope for the future; but
much evidence of stability and permanence too. He could notimagine
anything shaking the faith or Christian observances of the group at
Machuanai, for example. There the old elder was steadily adding to
his church and bringing up his family ideally. There was an atmos-
phere of independence there, independence of help from preachers,
and direct reliance upon teaching by the Holy Spirit of God, yet
with real appreciation and gratitude for any help the preachers could
give them. They were utterly unlike another place that had asked
for a visit. There they had been well entertained, but little interest
in anything of a spiritual nature had been shown. Robbers were rife
in that neighbourhood at the time, and Mr. Peace suspected strongly
that the prestige of the preachers had been wanted for what it was
worth as a safeguard and warning to the outlaws; not for any
spiritual benefit they could be to the church.

He was interested to see how much more extensive than he had
imagined were the signs of Christian influence in the country. Even
hollyhocks and crimson double dahlias growing in cottage precincts
far from any Christian habitation showed that the peasants had had
some contact with the church, for it was the mushihs’ gardens that
first grew these new flowers. Music, cleanliness and health were
other things associated with the coming of the Gospel to any new

lace.
. But oh, how sadly medicines and a doctor’s aid were needed.
Tumours, scarring from old burns (acquired through sleeping round
open fires, especially by the children), rotting bones, tuberculosis,
and epidemics which medical means could check, not to mention the
greatest ill, wounds from human violence. In the old days a doctor
came up from time to time from the city on a visit to the tribal
churches, but had not been for years now, and the nearest hospital
was too far away for any but the wealthy to go to. Still, Yohan had
taken quinine and santonin with him on this trip and sold it all,

135
STRONG TOWER

though it was true the country people believed those two would
cure everything. But even if much was wasted, a great deal of good
was done too. Yes, it had been a good trip, well worth while, and
the change of activity and scene had done them themselves a world
of good.

6

Mr. Peace left the school in the charge of his assistant for another
day or two and took life easily in the company of his little boy and
girl. Lazily he wandered with them the next afternoon to call on
Yohan and see how he was faring. They found him in the stables
treating the mushil’s horse. An ill-fitting saddle had chafed its back
some weeks before and it refused to heal up. Their own saddles were
of carved wood covered with raw goat-skin which had been
shrunk in situ, and were better adapted to the spine.

“These foreign saddles are no good on our horses,” Yohan com-
mented. “Their horses must be a different shape. Come and look at
this.”

Mr. Peace approached. But the sore was tender, and too many
people had examined it already. The animal flattened its ears, and
Peace stood away.

“Have you heard the latest about those Rogues at Thieves’ Inn
Flats?”’ enquired Yohan. He loved a little gossip with a spice of
horror in it. Mr. Peace hunched his shoulders and frowned a little,
as if something distasteful were being offered him, but Yohan took
it as a request for information. He did not consider the presence of
Meili and Jenhan, only thirteen and eight years old respectively, but
then few would in the Far East. He launched out on a long story as
he bathed the wound with some oily preparation.

To increase their power, the Rogues had invited one or two other
families to join them, and had embarked on a new campaign of out-
lawry, to their mutual advantage. It was their form of game-hunting,
indulged in chiefly by the younger men. Their leader was an evil
fellow in his twenties, one An Yunlo, supported by three others no
less bloodthirsty, including his young cousin of nineteen, An
Hungwu. They had just been on an expedition to kidnap a girl on
whom Yunlo had set his eyes. He already had one wife, but wanted
this girl too.

Armed with a plausible tale, one of their retainers had sought
lodging one night in the girl’s home, and after dark a large band of

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SCATTERED OUTPOSTS

Rogues had crept into positions of vantage round the house. At a
secret signal from the leader outside, the lodger had risen and
opened the big doors, and a dozen men rushed in and made for the
women’s rooms, where he directed them. But the dogs had begun
to bark as the lodger moved, and the family was awake. Their men
were brave. Brothers and servants seized whatever weapon lay at
hand; daggers or bayonets some had, and one an old sabre, others
spears, and two kept rifles handy; and, falling upon the intruders,
~ fought desperately, but without hope. They were outnumbered.

At the first alarm the women and girls had fled to dark corners and
clambered to the loft, but the Rogues were at their heels. One by
one they were dragged out and inspected by the light of flaming
firebrands. The Whites and unwanted Blacks were thrust away and
fled screaming to the fields outside. Their men fell one by one or
were overpowered and tied up by Yunlo’s followers. At last the
wretched girl was found, cowering in a big grain tub, grey with fear
and trembling as if freezing cold. They dragged her forth and
heaved her up on a horse, tying her feet together with a rope beneath
its belly, and her hands to the saddle, letting her keep her balance
only with the help of the guard deputed to rush her swiftly away.

The rest of the Rogues collected up their band, helping the
injured to the horses, and followed with no more delay than they
needed to fire the house. These people had resisted. They must pay
for it. That was surely fair! But one of the family had found the
coiled ram’s horn and was sounding the alarm. The hills re-echoed
with its loud, monotonous note. Soon the pao-chang and his men
would be on their trail, and they had had enough fighting for one
night. They scattered and made for home. By daylight they would
be peaceful men going home “from an errand,” and the weeping
oir]l would be unbound, “going home to her dying mother.”

The young cousin was not new to this game. More than once he
had been with his father or an uncle or cousin to get them another
wife. They were not much use as wives at first, but after the first
few weeks of weeping they always settled down in the household.
There was nothing else they could do. Their faces might be ex-
pressionless, wooden, utterly joyless, but then that was to be
expected and mattered little so long as they harboured no intention
to fly. And they knew better than to do that; they had seen the tall
one’s mutilations and heard many tales. And, after all, they gained
the advantages of wealth and prestige.

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So An Hungwu was no stranger to the game. On the contrary, it
was time he chose a wife for himself and set about getting her. It was
not always as hard to achieve as this night’s work had been. This
time it had been more costly than usual. Several of their band were
badly hurt. And of the girl’s household two lay dead, and others by
the convulsive light of the flames were dragging themselves,
groaning, out of danger. Their sister would never come home
again; and it might be years before she heard any news of them.

Yohan told what he had heard with little embellishment, but in
Mr. Peace’s mind the details stood out plainly. He had heard so
many accounts like this. So often the injured came to the mushih or
to Yohan for treatment. By his side, Meili and Jenhan stood with
bursting eyes. How could a child not become older than his or her
true age in such a land! And how could Meili know that within the
next four years stark terror would plummet like a hawk from the
speckless sky and plunge her too into years of gnawing unhappiness?

The horse swung its sleek black head and snapped irritably at a
stabbing fly on its flank. Meili took her father’s hand. “Come away,
Aba,” she said. Yohan had gone on to some other topic already;
they were all much alike to him, and it was not hard for Mr. Peace
to bring the conversation to a close. He felt sickened too. Yohan
was a White. These things happened chiefly to Blacks: were more
personal to him. Wenling had barely escaped the same fate. Taking
his girl and boy homeward, he asked about what they had been
doing in his absence, making them talk freely, ousting from their
minds the story they had heard. But in his own he pondered the
nature of his race, the virility, the power, the ancient strain of
warrior blood in the outlaws of to-day, starved of an outlet, so
inturned to their own destruction. He saw them again as in his youth
he had seen them, waiting to be harnessed, not to bloodshed, but to
fearless soldiery for God.

138
 

CHAPTER TWELVE
BITTERSWEET

“His growing family and the fruits of his Christian witness
encouraged and helped him . . .”

1

MEILI was Mr. Peace’s only daughter; and he had four sons

now. Jenpin was seventeen and doing well at the city school.
When he came home for the holidays twice yearly, he showed by
the little he said that he was going to be well ahead of his father by
the end of his schooldays. Jenhan was the only son in Kiehkow with
Meili and their father, and he was a grown-up eight. The other two
were at Hopien with their mother still: Jenting, aged three; and a
baby under one.

He was proud of his sons with the pride of a Chinese father added
to that of a Nosu, and his eyes glowed when he talked of them. But
he loved Meili as he could not love the boys. As she grew from a
child to maturer girlhood a stronger bond of affection was develop-
ing between the two of them. Jenpin was quiet and difficult to
approach, like the “Duchess,” his grandmother, but Meili was
happiest in her father’s company, a good companion to him. She
was a dear character, alive, friendly, quick, intelligent, enjoying
everything in her limited world, and devoid of self-consciousness.
When Mr. Peace returned to the routine at Kiehkow after his
conference tour and subsequent visit to the home at Hopien, the
presence of Meili gave a warm contentedness that softened the
impact of troubles pressing upon him in connection with his work.

Among other things, he had assumed responsibility for the local
post office, merely a collecting and distributing centre for the
valley, at which the courier called on his way through every three
or four days, and, though it entailed no work outside his own
cottage, it meant the filling up of innumerable forms and reports,
and brought to his door a good many strangers to whom he had
to attend whether in school hours or out. Someone had to do it, and
he was the only one with the ability and willingness. Moreover, the
mushih and the church benefited most from having a post office near
at hand, so it was really a further piece of service in his chosen cause.

Meili and Jenhan were too young to help him with these things,
but work became lighter to the tune of their prattle and homework.

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STRONG TOWER
And Meili had a knack of sensing what he would like and with a

pure naturalness seeing to his personal comfort as if she had heard the
stirring of his thoughts before they took shape in his own conscious-
ness. He was fortunate in his children, he often mused, and had
every reason to hope great things of them. Even Jenhan was showing
up as a decisive character who chose obedience and quiet co-
operation as his share in the family life. Perhaps it was the influence
of Meili to whom he was very attached, but certainly no weakness
or lack of spirit made him like this.

Such now were Mr. Peace’s days: bearing a full burden of
responsibilities, more than he would have chosen, but in an atmos-
phere of home and its delights. Meili knitting, Meili spinning wool,
Jenhan feeding his piglets or puppies, Meili walking home with him
from school, talking with a mature mind even at her tender age,
Jenhan chirruping a Nosu tune in childish treble, Meili going with
him to call on her grandparents and her young aunt Liya. Life was
good, and he was well content.

2

The sound of Meili’s voice rising and falling in gentle rhythm
came to Mr. Peace’s ear as he approached his cottage one afternoon.
She was telling a story to Jenhan. He entered quictly, went past them
into his inner room, and took down some papers to deal with, but
could only finger them idly. She was telling the story of Méng Huo,
the famous chieftain who defied the Emperor Chien Hsin in A.D. 226
and was seven times captured and seven times released. The story
was popular with his family because Méng Huo is claimed as an
ancestor by the Nosu, and there is evidence in Chinese history and
indeed in the story she was telling from the classic, The Three
Kingdoms, to support the claim. If it is true, he was one of the
earliest to be subdued.

Meili had already passed the point where Marquis Chu Koliang,
China’s first Prince of strategy and statesmanship, had taken counsel

with his generals and agreed with the policy that one of them had
formulated:

“Battle with their minds rather than their strongholds;
Govern their hearts, then control of their bodies will be simple;
Intellectual conquest is important;

Loyalty will follow.”
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And she had told how Méng Huo’s three generals, each with fifty
thousand men, had been routed in battle.

“Méng Huo was sitting in his tent when the news of defeat came
in,” she was saying. “He put on his gold helmet and girdle of lion’s
skin from which hung two swords, and mounting his chestnut
horse led out his own soldiers to meet the enemy. He did not
believe in defeat, and fought till the Chinese fled. But their flight
was a trick, and an ambush rose about the pursuing chieftain and
slew his men, taking him and his retinue captive.

“Then Marquis Chu arranged a great display of wealth and
military splendour to impress his prisoners, and received them
kindly, saying:

“ “Noble captives, your parents, wives and children pine for your
return! When you have feasted I will send you home with food for
your journey.” But to Méng Huo he said, “Why have you rebelled
against the Emperor?’

“Méng replied: ‘Bast and West Szechwan belonged to others,
but your master took it and you call him Emperor. My country
belongs to my ancestors and people, and without just cause you
have seized it. I ask you, who are the rebels?’

““You are a captive,’ the Marquis cried. “Will you submit?’

To be captured was my misfortune,” said Méng, ‘but I will
never submit. If you release me I will fight again.’

“Chu Koliang remembered his policy, and after féting him, set
him free.”

¢ ¢

Jenhan changed his position. “Go on!” he said when Meili
paused. And she continued: _

““The enemy want to catch us, not to kill us,’ said Méng’s
friends. ‘Let us barricade ourselves into a fort and leave them to
grow tired of the heat and return to their province.’

“So they retired to the stockade beyond the River Lu, and made
merry.

“But one of Méng Huo’s men who had been beaten with a
hundred strokes for undisciplined behaviour waited till Méng was -
in a drunken stupor, and binding him, delivered him to the
Marquis.

“ ‘Here again!’ said Chu Koliang: ‘Will you now surrender?’

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STRONG TOWER

(134

But not by your might,” replied Méng Huo. ‘My own men
brought me. Yet even if I might be willing, my people would not,’
he added craftily. ‘I will consult them.’

“So Chu Koliang ordered wine, and when they had drunk
together, Méng Huo was sent away.

“Back among his loyal men, he slew the traitors, and, calling his
brother, proposed a new scheme to decoy the Marquis into a trap.
Setting out with a hundred braves, Méng’s brother travelled to Chu
Koliang’s camp bearing presents of gold and pearls, elephants’ tusks
and rhinoceros horn. But Chu Koliang suspected a plot and posted
ambuscades along the road.

“ ‘Méng Huo begs you to receive these gifts in thanks for your
graciousness,” his brother said. ‘In future tribute will be paid to the
Emperor.’

“ “Where is Méng Huo?’ asked the Marquis.

“ ‘In the mountains collecting more precious things,” replied the
brother. Then Chu Koliang gave the warriors a hearty welcome and
a feast. They were tall and strong, their eyes black and deep set,
with brown hair and beards. Their hair was made up in a tuft. And
they wore no shoes.

“Meanwhile, a secret message was taken back to Méng Huo and
with thirty thousand men he came upon the camp, riding at their
head with a hundred chosen fighters. But when he arrived, the
place was deserted. Only the drugged bodies of his brother’s band
remained, illumined by a single dying torch. He turned to flee, but
lights appeared all round and he was cut off. Yet even so he managed
to escape, and reached the river, where a boat lay, manned by men
dressed like his own. However, in midstream they fell upon him
and bound him.

“ “This is your third capture. Will you now submit?’ said the
Marquis when they met.

“Méng was silent.

““VWWell, then,” said the statesman, ‘let us have another contest,” and
set him free.

“But all along Méng’s homeward route were Chu Koliang’s
soldiers jeering and threatening him.”

There was another pause while Meli poked the fire. Jenhan was
absorbed, lying in silence against the wall, waiting patiently. Mr.
Peace knew the story well. It was he who hLad taught it with its

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BITTERSWEET
wealth of detail to Meili. But he was held by the charm of her gentle

voice. She resumed:

“Méng Huo rallied ninety-three clans to stand with him, and
advanced riding a red ox and clad in skins, with a vermilion helmet.
Around him danced ten thousand savage men. The Marquis came
out to view their approach, wearing gorgeous attire and surrounded
by a magnificent bodyguard and clouds of flags and banners. Méng
and his men drew near, cursing and threatening, but to their
amazement Chu Koliang’s army retired to their encampment and
blocked the entrances.

“‘Méng Huo’s men are mad with excitement, said the wise Marquis.
“Wait till their frenzy has passed and we shall scatter them easily.’

“A few days later he saw that they were wearied, and, sending
his own men out secretly, he left the camp fires and lights burning.
Once again the tribesmen were surprised and put to rout, and in
the chaos Méng’s men fell to killing each other. But he and his
bodyguard escaped. North, south and west of them was fighting,
but to the east lay a forest into which they fled. Yet hardly had they
entered than they saw a splendid carriage drawn by men, and in it
Marquis Chu Koliang coolly seated.

“ ‘Aha, aha!” he cried. ‘T have patiently awaited you.’

“Méng Huo was enraged and screamed out to his men:

“ “Three times he has disgraced me, and now again. Who will
come with me and cut him in pieces?” Whereupon several rode
furiously after him to the attack. But before they could reach the
Marquis the ground gave way and they fell into a pit, where all
were overpowered and bound.

“The Marquis went away and left them, but an hour later, when
Méng Huo was brought before him, he fumed with anger, saying:
“What answer have you this time?’

“ ‘Once more it was my misfortune,’ said the incorrigible Méng.
‘If T am to die, it is with my eyes open, but unsubmissive.’

“ ‘Behead him!” shouted Chu Koliang. But on Méng’s face was
no trace of fear. Instead, he said:

““If you will release me I will attack you more fiercely than
before.’

“The Marquis laughed. ‘Untie him! Give him a banquet!’ he
ordered; and to Méng Huo: “Why do you not submit. Do I not
treat you kindly?’

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STRONG TOWER

“A fifth time it happened. Méng retired to a fastness in the moun-~
tains where there was a cave approached by only two paths, easily
defended. In the valley below there were fevers in the air and four
springs which would kill besieging troops.

““At one spring dumbness and death came to the drinker;
Sores eating to the bone killed any who touched the second spring;
The third turned any black who came near it, and they. died;
And those who drank of the fourth became cold in the throat, and died of

spreading weakness.”’

“When Chu Koliang’s patrols returned afflicted with discase, the
Marquis was dismayed, but Méng Huo, rejoicing, complacently
called dancers to amuse him in his cups and was betrayed by them
and brought once more in bonds to his enemy’s camp.

“Chu Koliang released him at once, for this was an unfair test,
and Méng returned to his mountains. He set guards at the rivers
with cross-bows and poisoned arrows, and called in as an ally Prince
Pa, who used tigers and leopards and wolves and naked men to
fight for him. Chu Koliang’s armies had never met such foes, and
in the first encounter were defeated. But the Marquis quietly fanned
himself. He had foreseen this danger, and in his equipment had
imitation beasts of silk with clanging brass scales, and chemicals to
make fire and smoke issue from their mouths. Ten soldiers manned
each beast; a thousand waited for Méng’s host to charge. The living
animals fled in terror and a slaughter followed.

“There was no need to arrest Méng Huo and his court this time.
They came humbly to the Marquis feigning submission, but the
old man was too wise; he had them bound and searched. On every
one were sharp knives to kill their arch-enemy. Méng Huo’s
heart was not yet won.

“For the sixth time he was released. Yet even when his wounded
followers encouraged him he was at his wits’ end, until a new ally
was discovered. The soldiers of this prince had buoyant armour and
shields of rushes coated with varnish in which they could cross
rivers, and which no weapon could pierce. They advanced to battle,
but the Marquis saw them crossing the river and at once his plan
was made. He instructed his troops to retire up a certain valley till
they saw a white flag, and then to disperse.

“Méng Huo’s allies pursued them up the ravine, for there was
nowhere that the enemy could hide on its bare sides. But they were

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mistaken. Suddenly flames leapt up all round them; torches were
being thrown from the heights above and setting their armour
alight. The whole ravine was filled with dancing fleeing flames till
all had been consumed. Méng Huo, coming to his ally’s rescue, was
surrounded. He hacked his way out, but was caught again with all
his family and friends.

“Marquis Chu, when he heard the news of victory, wept that
success should have cost so much; and as before spread sumptuous
feasts before his prisoners to allay their fears. Later an officer came to
Méng and said:

“‘T am sent to release you. Here is a horse. You have another
opportunity to do battle.’

“At this Méng Huo wept and led his family with half-clothed
bodies to the Marquis’s tent.

“ ‘“Does your Excellency submit?’ asked Marquis Chu. i
i “ ‘I and my sons and my sons’ sons will never forget your graci-
ousness,’ said Méng Huo with tears. ‘Henceforth we will always be

loyal.” ”

Meili got up laughing.

“That’s the end,” she said.

“Some clans regard Chu Koliang and Méng Huo as gods,” called
Mr. Peace from the other room, and added: “Have you seen the
story like that in the Bible? Look in Second Chronicles, chapter
twenty-eight.”

g

3

It must have been about this time that a sudden squall blew up,
as if to show him that he must not expect life to be all plain sailing.
He was teaching in school one afternoon, General Knowledge on
historical subjects, and was asking, “Is the rank of T°u Szu a Nosu or
a Chinese rank?” when he saw the courier coming across the
terrace.

“Nosu!” said one of the class hopefully.

“No!” said Mr. Peace. “It was made by the Han Chia (the
Chinese) as a reward. For what services?”’ he enquired, pointing to
a boy with eyelids scarred by burns received in babyhood.

There were a few guesses wide of the mark, and then Mr. Peace
said: “There are three kinds of hereditary T°u Szu. First, those who

Kst 145

 
STRONG TOWER

submitted and joined the Han Chia against their own people.
Second, those who helped one dynasty of Chinese to overthrow
another dynasty. And, thirdly, those who helped the Manchus to
suppress the Mohammedan rebellion. Write those down. I'll be
back in a moment: the postman has come.”

There was no artificial stringency in Mr. Peace’s school. In his
absence the boys and girls could talk and help each other without
fear of displeasing him, but when he returned silence would fall
at once.

He took the letters from the courier and sealed his bag again,
signing his book. One letter, from Temopin and in his sister’s hand,
was unexpected. He held the long envelope up to the light, and,
seeing the contents well down in it, tore off its end and extracted
the flimsy note.

“My elder Brother,—Greetings,” he read, scanning the vertical
rows of characters.

“It is not long since you visited our poor house, but I must
needs ask you to come again. I am anxious about Tekuan. His
behaviour is strange; not as it was two years ago, but still it makes
me fear. He spends long hours writing secretly, and seems uncon-
scious of the company of others about him when he is among
L
“That you may be able to come and help me is my hope,

“Wishing you peace,
“Your little sister,
“WENLING.”

Like the beasts he had so often seen being loaded in the market,
so Mr. Peace now sagged and stood wearily with the letter in his
hand, till a dove beat swiftly by on whistling wings and recalled his
wandering thoughts. His face looked careworn when he re-entered
the class-room and continued the lesson. Were not the troubles in
the church enough without others in his own family circle again?
At forty he was being turned to for help by half his little world, and
blamed unreasonably by the other half. The Manager had been
giving Wenling and himself such grounds for hope recently, had
become avid to learn all he could of their faith, seemed eager to
believe and to “‘be saved.” Yet he could not let go of his reverence
for the spirits, a fear amounting practically to worship. What was

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happening to him now? Was he tired of his wife and her Christian
circle? Was he writing and planning to leave them and return to his
old ways?

Mr. Peace pressed his forehead with an unsteady hand. It was a
habit by now. And the class waited, knowing only that the coming
of the courier had distracted him—with postal business, they
surmised.

4

Twenty-five miles along familiar roads again, thoughts buzzing
in his mind like the cicadas “grinding their scissors” in the trees
beside his trail, but no more effectively. The hours and miles slipped
by without impressing themselves upon him, except for one thing
which gripped and absorbed his attention, usurping the place of his
predominating thoughts.

Not far from Kolo he was overtaken by a train of men and women
and youths, some on foot, some mounted, carrying red pennants
on staves and leading a gaily-bedecked horse. They were on their
way to fetch a bride, and, to his delight, reached her home before
he parted from them. Outside the house a crowd of men and girls
was waiting armed with sticks and crocks of water, who ranged
themselves in two loose lines as the procession approached, leaving
an avenue down the centre. Then from the cavalcade two chosen
representatives came out and ran the gauntlet of a shower of blows
and dowsings till they reached the threshold of the bride’s cottoge.
Whereupon followed a scene of loud rejoicings, and wine was
brought out to welcome the bridegroom and his friends.

To Mr. Peace, the enlightened and educated Nosu, this was full
of interest, though not by any means the first time he had observed
it. Here was a vestige of the ancient racial custom of taking a wife
by force. While the Rogues of Thieves’ Inn were perpetuating the
primitive practice, these law-abiding people were keeping the
modified custom that several generations of usage had already
popularised. In other branches of the Nosu race, he had heard some
say, the bride’s friends returned with her to the bridegroom’s house,
and on reaching it a fierce tussle would ensue. Her friends would
take her headcloth and try to fling it on to the roof of her new
home, while the bridegroom’s party tried to seize it and trample it
in the dust. If they succeeded, it would mean that she would be
subservient in the home, but if it reached the roof she would rule

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STRONG TOWER

her husband and his family! But in Mr. Peace’s district he had not
heard of any custom such as this in vogue.

Arrived at Temopin, Mr. Peace lost no time in learning about
Wenling’s fears. An Tekuan was secluded in an attic room, where
he had lately been in the habit of retiring for hours together.

“He has been studying the Bible for most of every day and
writing notes about what he reads,” said Wenling, holding the
horse’s head as her brother removed his bedding from the saddle.
“But his notes began to get so many that I asked him what he was
writing,” she added, “and he refused to tell me at first.”

A servant took the reins and, making them fast to the reining
post by the front door, stooped to loosen the girth. Wenling
followed Peace into the courtyard.

“After I had asked him several times,” she continued, ‘“he said
an angel was telling him what to write. They were confidential
truths which he could not show me.”

She led the way into her room well removed from the Manager’s
retreat, and found her brother a seat. And while she cooked him a
bowl of savoury mient over the charcoal fire, she went on with her
account.

“When he saw that I was curious, he began to go upstairs to
write, refusing food, and forbade any of us to go up there. But I
could not help climbing up when he was out of the house for a
short while one day. I was anxious, and had to see what was engross-
ing him so deeply.”

She stopped her stirring and looked across at Wenliang:

“Ko-ko, Big Brother,” she said, her eyes big and troubled,
“everything he had written was disconnected nonsense, meaningless,
or else passages of Scripture copied out at random.”

Mr. Peace grunted sympathetically.

“So you asked me to come,” he murmured, completing her story.

“I couldn’t face it alone,” she answered. “Last time you managed
it so quickly.”

“No, don’t. Not I said Mr. Peace. The thought of personal
credit was painful to him; it jarred on his nature. “It was only the
Lord who did it,” he protested. “Nothing I did was any good.”

And so they talked until he had decided that to make Tekuan
suspicious of his motives would be to risk failure of his mission in
coming. Therefore he must put him off his guard by appearing to

1 Dough strings; spaghetti.
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BITTERSWEET

seek advice in personal affairs, for often in the past An Tekuan as
business man had been a useful friend in matters of a practical
nature. ,

'The Manager was surprised to see him when darkness approached
and he came downstairs, though an unannounced visit was not so
very unusual. But under the circumstances he did his best to be
sociable, and spent the evening with them, enquiring after Meili and
her brothers. However, it was obvious that his mind was distracted
by something alien to the conversation.

It was the same next morning, soon after they had risen and met
in the courtyard to wash their faces and close-cropped heads with
steaming cloths, and to rinse their mouths and clear their throats
with noisy thoroughness. An Tekuan was perfectly friendly, but
after the minimum required of a host in entertaining a relative,
begged Mr. Peace to excuse him as he had “important matters need-
ing attention,” and repaired up the step ladder to his sanctuary. On
the rare occasions when he reappeared, Mr. Peace tried to get him
into conversation, enquiring about the legal conditions governing
the right-of-way across private property, or one and another of the
problems with which he was confronted at Kichkow, and trying to
turn the conversation on to his brother-in-law’s affairs. But he could
get no change from him. Time, meanwhile, was pressing, and he
could not afford to be away for many days, so, driven to a more
direct approach, the next morning he mounted the steps to Tekuan’s
sanctum and, coughing gently, entered.

“How is your Bible study getting on, Tekuan?” he asked point-
blank, and immediately rebuked himself for the two days he had
wasted. A smile spread over the Manager’s face: “Getting on won-
derfully,” he replied, and launched into a series of confidences about
his experiences with the angel, and the guidance and instructions he
received. There was nothing fearful about his visitor this time, An
said; he was clothed in white and spoke agreeably. No, quite the
opposite of the trouble with the demons. That was all over. The
Manager was patently pleased with his progress in the Christian
faith, and discoursed to his brother-in-law most affably, almost with
condescension. Treating with angels was apparently a spiritual
height the latter had not attained to.

Encouraged to boldness, Mr. Peace went further.

“May I see what you have been learning?” he enquired, and,
without giving him an opportunity to refuse, stretched out his hand

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STRONG TOWER

and picked up one of Tekuan’s notebooks of thin Chinese paper. He
opened it at one of the most recently filled pages. It was a jumble of
meaningless phrases and extracts from the Bible, lists of names,
fragments of narratives, nothing of consequence or mutual relevance.
An was disturbed, but restrained his impatience.

“What does this mean?”’ asked Mr. Peace, but received evasive
answers with a subtle cleverness he did not expect.

Then, afraid lest he should be given no further chance of talking
with him, Mr. Peace began to point out the impossibility of such
disconnected nonsense originating from God. He taught his non-
plussed listener that this angel of light must be an emissary of Satan
who, having failed in a terrifying guise, was trying a subtler one to
turn him from serious seeking after God. Meanwhile, he was glanc-
ing steadily through the pile of notes. All were alike. But An was
growing restless, and at last, without discussion of Mr. Peace’s words,
suggested that they return to the others in the house below.

Wenling and her brother were downcast. Rather than help
matters, Mr. Peace’s line of action had alienated Tekuan from them
both. The Manager suspected the purpose of this visit and a plot
between them. Now Peace too was debarred from the upstairs room,
and An spent all the day writing alone in silence. When he came
down he was as silent on the subject as the tomb, and soon convinced
Mr. Peace that his presence was superfluous and he might as well
return to his work.

That night as he knelt on his bed praying as he had done each day
about this fresh crumbling of their hopes, he remembered belatedly
the turning-point in the last crisis of this nature. It was God who had
achieved it without a doubt—but He had waited till Wenling and
he had prayed with practical faith, believing in success. That was the
difference this time. He had prayed and then depended on his own
tact and diplomacy. So when An Tekuan excused himself and went
upstairs, shutting the trap-door behind him, Peace drew his sister
aside and expounded his new outlook. With penitence, they prayed
together, ashamed that so many days had passed before bringing the
matter so definitely to God by prayer. All day they prayed. As long
as An was upstairs, they prayed, claiming God’s promises to hear
and answer. And the next day the same.

By now a week had passed, and Mr. Peace could stay no longer
away from his school and children. An had withdrawn soon after
rising that morning, and Peace and Wenling were together as

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before. A mere fraction of his usual time in seclusion had gone by
when the door of the guest-room where they were praying opened,
and the Manager stood gazing in at them. When they stood up he
looked sheepishly at Wenling and said, “Are you praying for me?”
and, without waiting for an answer, turned and went slowly down
the steps and out to his farmyard.

But after breakfast at mid-morning he was back at his work
upstairs. Again he came upon them praying, and with embarrass-
ment went away. And once more in the afternoon. This time he did
not go away, but stood waiting.

“What is troubling you?” asked Mr. Peace.

“I can’t write,” he said. “Thoughts won’t come. I pick up my
brush, wet it in the ink, lift it to write, and my mind is blank; only
senseless rubbish occurs to me. This is the third day like this.”

5

Then it was that Mr. Peace’s inspiration came drifting from the
blue, out of the spaces of uncertainty, taking clear-cut shape, con-
vincing him of its rightness.

“Come for a walk!” he suggested.

To walk to a destination in order to do something definite, a job
of work, or to visit someone was a commonplace. To stroll gently
and aimlessly together, or, better still, in a party of several friends,
with silk gowns open, sleeves folded neatly back, expensive shoes
showing beneath flowered silk trousers, and with a cigarette in a
long holder, this too was known to the Manager from his life in a
Chinese city. But in Mr. Peace’s mind was the kind of walk he had
seen the mushihs take, energetic, for exercise, and to cover ground
and come back tired and a new man. He did not indulge in the habit
himself. He had found it hard to enjoy when he had been coerced
into accompanying the mushih. But now he was intent on tiring
An Tekuan, if anything the stronger of the two. The pure mountain
winds would blow all nonsense from his mind, and before they
returned he must renounce the Devil and all his works.

Down through the bowl of the ancestral lands he took him, out
through the defile into the valley enclosed, and up to the wind-
swept ridges of the hills beyond. The sun declining over the western
peaks served but to quicken his pace. Rain clouds banking and
breaking off to race toward them with black and white outriders

IS1
STRONG TOWER

failed to discourage him. Thunder~claps and cloudbursts, drenching
the mountains that stood in their way, left him unmoved and passed
him by. The sight was stupendous. Shafts of light pierced through
the storm-racked sky turning the rain to silver and bringing the
forests to life.

He led the Manager to a rock and they sat down to watch and to
rest their feet.

“I feel as if I were waking up,” said Tekuan after a time.

“Thank the Lord!” said Mr. Peace soliloquizing, and to An
Tekuan, “But waking up isn’t enough, you’ve got to be born again.”

They talked, and the sun sank toward the Snow Mountains of
Shama, too far away to see, but still they talked.

Wenling was anxious and sent men with torches to help them
home; and she busied herself with preparing a meal. Wenliang had
to return to Kiechkow. She would make some special dishes with her
own hands for him to-night, mushrooms and erh-tzut from the
special store, and fish from the river near Great Pine Tree.

A banging on the great doors—they were shut at fall of darkness
—and a clatter of drawn bolts, and the men were home. She came
out to meet them. Tekuan was in front.

“Wenling,” he said, “T'm saved!”

She did not understand him at once.

“The Devil has left me,” he said, “and the Lord Jesus has come
instead. I'm born again.”

They went up to their rooms, laughing at their weariness and
sopping clothes, and Tekuan told her all that had come about.

The meal was ready to be served, a feast of rejoicing.

“Not yet!” cried the master of the house. “Thave some good work
to do.”

He climbed up to his attic, and, fingering his notebooks with
disgust and yet with glee, gathered them up, books, pen, and all.
Downstairs again, he solemnly set fire to paper after paper till all
was gone, and smashed the ink slab on the stone-flagged yard. But
the light that sparkled in their eyes was not from that.

“If joy on earth can be so painful, so intense,” thought Mr. Peace,
“what must the joy in Heaven be like just now?”

1 An edible fungus, considered a great delicacy.

152

 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WEATHERING STORMS

c¢

. . . to weather the storms of trouble and opposition in the
chtiveh .14

I

HE storm had passed and life returned to normal at Temopin
Tand Kiechkow, a normal on a higher plane, as if they had
climbed to a higher ridge and could see over more ranges to a
wider horizon. Back at Kiehkow Mr. Peace took up his work with
new enthusiasm. The school was doing well. Distant families were
sending their children, and there were both boys and girls now
living on the church premises throughout term time. And, with
two young men helping him, he was freer for his duties connected
with the church and post office.

For the next three years no major event occurred to disturb the
peace of his life, but at the same time it was far from easy. More
than ever he was being looked to as the main personality in the
church. The older men were getting too old to be of much use, and,
worse still, a vein of envy and intrigue had appeared amongst them
like a canker at work, eating into the foundations of their society, a
contagion affecting one after another of the believers. The first love
of the church had cooled, and a staler devotion through duty and
custom of many who were Christians in all sincerity was an ideal
nidus for disaffection to thrive in.

Old Mr. An the father-in-law was made of good stuff. But for
all his virtues he was a crusty customer. He had always been agree-
ably disposed towards Mr. Peace since the earliest days when he
chose him to be his daughter’s husband, and Tingying had always
spoken well of her man. That they had seen sadly little of each other
and their early affection had resolved itself over the years into a
matter-of-fact friendly companionship was the unhappy result of
their unavoidable separation. But Tingying was contented, and that
spoke well for the Old Man’s matchmaking.

On Mr. Peace’s part, since the death of his own father he had
treated Old Mr. An with greater respect and feeling, but this the old
man began to interpret as a tribute to his personality and power. His

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STRONG TOWER

megalomania, though mild, was none the less unreasonable, and
becoming troublesome. It was as if his Christian progress was
becalmed—had been for some time, in fact. Having developed to a
certain point he had drifted into complacency, and, finding himself
passed over for this reason by the church in their need of spiritual
leadership and advisers, he was forced to draw attention to himself
by a play of interest and ability in church affairs. Thereby he won
a following and was consoled.

It is unlikely that he had any subversive motives in the eatly days
when Peace became his son-in-law, but, anyhow, the young man
was not the kind to follow passively the lead of anyone without
gifts or inspiration. Instead, it was he who led, unconsciously, by
the possession of a personal impetus, Divinely energized, which was
just what the church was needing. The Old Man’s attitude therefore
suffered an insidious change as the years went by, adapting itself to
practical conditions. As his motives deteriorated, he remained on
excellent terms with his son-in-law, in the hope of influencing if he
could not lead him, until that too proved futile, and then a quiet
hostility began.

The eldest son of the family, Toma, was at home during most of
this time, and, sad to say, for in many ways he was a valuable man,
absorbed his father’s spirit. The other two made no pretence of being
Christian. One left home and joined the Army. The other became a
schoolmaster in the country.

As for Liya, the younger daughter, she too was at home. She
should have been married by now, but, in spite of a fine physique
and attractive appearance and character, no one wanted her. The
scourge of the family, as of many throughout China, had hit her
more severely than the others, and no one wanted to marry a girl
with trachoma, which might leave her blind before she had finished
bearing her children. She had “tender” eyes, like her Biblical
counterpart, not red and repulsive, but misted, with drooping lids
that gave her a languid appearance, and a liability to frequent attacks
of inflammation. Even prolonged treatment in hospital had failed to
cure her. It was her sorrow, against which she fought in secret day
and night. Meili, her niece, was drawn in sympathy toward her,
but as the feeling in her home increased, of alienation from Meili’s
father and the opinions he represented in the church, it extended to
his family and quenched any warmth of friendship that Meili might

have aroused.
154
 

WEATHERING STORMS

The rift in his family weighed on Mr. Peace’s spirit and coloured
his outlook on most things in life. But like a ship buffeted by rough
weather, he kept on his course undeterred. His problems, though
shared with faithful Yohan and with Su Mohsi and young Li in the
case of church affairs, were not easy to solve. His passage through
them was uncomfortable, he suffered at the lash of every wave that
struck him, but could not be intimidated.

It was easier when the mushih was present to help, but he had gone
away and for four or five years the nearest missionary help was at
Kopu. With no mushih there was no court of appeal. This left
Mr. Peace more alone than ever. He was the thinker of the few
church workers, the evangelists or preachers, and the sharp point of
their united opinion—the opinion that met with the opposition of
others. Never having been elected as leader of the church, he was
vulnerable to the challenge of anyone choosing to question his
authority. But someone must lead, and there were no others.

Their difficulties were many. The arrangement of conferences fell
to these men. Every year at Christmas time young people from all
the churches came over mountain trails to Kiehkow, and for two,
three or four weeks met for teaching several times a day, learning to
read Chinese and Nosu, learning hymns to carry back and teach to
their scattered home churches, and memorizing Scripture till they
could recite it in their sleep. This was one of the most vital of their
activities, comparable in importance with the church schools and
Bible schools in rearing a new generation capable of carrying on the
church in days to come. Immediately afterwards came a conference
of “elders,” a term loosely applied to the senior men who led the
Christians in their respective villages. For a week they learned to
read their Chinese Bibles, were given some teaching on doctrine,
and had discussions on questions of church order and management.

The gathering of these people in Kiehkow meant no little organi-
zation and preparation. For this reason, the leading Christian house-
holders would meet to arrange suitable dates and details of catering,
heating, water-carrying and numberless minor matters. It was
usually agreed for each family to provide one basketful of coal, and
one of those present would undertake to see to its collection, while
others provided servants, water butts or straw. The mushil’s contri-
bution was by custom to supply salt and red peppers in large
quantities.

In this connection the ways of Old Man An and his family

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STRONG TOWER

became inscrutable. If they did not make discussion and organization
so difficult that the rest despaired, they would be all smiles and
agreement and fail to carry out their undertakings. Compromise and
eleventh-hour makeshifts were forced upon Mr. Peace and his busy
friends. But year by year the conferences were held. Yet that was
not the end. When the elders were in council, uninvited people
would press in and express their opinions, holding the floor even
when told to leave because they were not full church members.

And then there was another open sore, the use of church property.
For centuries the racial sacrificing and worship had been done on
the mountains and in clearings in the forest, so that the idea of treat-
ing a House of God with reverence was alien to them, and to
implant these new and strange notions was difficult. The mushih had
often spoken about this, but his guidance was not always followed,
and it was not for him to lay down the law. The chapel was there-
fore used by all and sundry when they needed floorspace to make
felt mats or winnow grain.

Springing from this cause, a subtle misunderstanding took root
which involved not only the occasional use of the buildings, but also
the grounds outside. Previously it had been conceded that the open
plots of land might be cultivated by the preachers to supplement
their paltry stipends or because they gave their services without
other remuneration. Now, however, a new argument arose. ‘“The
ground is church property,” cried its protagonists, “and we are
church members; therefore we have a right to share the soil and
plant our own seed in it.”

To cope with these and similar recurring disputes had become a
large and unavoidable part of Mr. Peace’s work. And the strain of
compromising between good judgment and expediency told more
and more upon him. His nervous mannerisms increased—his sighing,
his fingerings, his self-effacement. It seemed to him that the spiritual
life of the church was dissipating, leaving only dregs. The Gospel
posters in tatters on the evangelists’ guest-room walls were symbols
of the same to him, though in reality the shortage due to war
conditions could be blamed.

2

Not far down the valley below Mr. Peace’s cottage was another
homestead, the house and outbuildings of the old widow called
Erh Sao. She was a vivacious, wizened little old lady, with eyelids

156
 

WEATHERING STORMS

so shrunken by trachoma as to make her eyes look minute and
wrinkled; and encircling the dark iris was a ring of white which
gave them an extraordinary resemblance to a bird’s eyes closely set
each side of a powerful beak. And this impression was accentuated
by a habit of constantly screwing them up with an owl-like blink.
Her family was small: a daughter-in-law, tall and angular with a
long bony face like a horse, and a grandson of eighteen with his wife
and baby. Normally, she was a cheerful little neighbour, kind to the
children, friendly to the preachers, and competent in managing her
farm and dependent Whites. But Erh Sao had one failing which was
a grievous thorn in the flesh to Mr. Peace and Yohan.

In the early days it had been a large portion of her land, always
called barren, which had been bought for church purposes. She had
sold it outright, and had no more claim upon it, but was loth to
recognize the fact. It still lay beside what she had retained, the soil
was the same, the trees the same, the banks and ditches as she had
known them in her youth. Now, Erh Sao was a Christian, but all
her Whites were not, and to them there was a strong incentive to
undermine the terraces belonging to the church, and to edge the
path slowly off hers and on to church land. Encroachment on a
neighbour’s land is practised as a matter of course not only in Nosu
country. It is every man’s job to keep a check on his own boundaries,
and if they shrink, that is his affair. The law courts are kept busy
with contentions over this matter.

Erh Sao was a simple but sincere old soul. She probably would
not have indulged in these devices herself, but she was a Black,
which means that she could not readily tolerate correction and
discipline, especially from those without strong authority. When
Yohan or Mr. Peace came down to her house or drew her aside
after church to make a generous hint or to refer more directly to
her retainers’ encroachments, she would toss her fine head and flash
the little eyes with stubborn petulance, refusing to recognize her
underlings’ misdeeds. If she knew them for a fact, she winked at
them and took no steps to stop it.

Then in the mushih’s absence her men became more brazen. The
boy who cut the grass for Yohan’s animals every day came home
one evening with the news of a new fall of earth where a bank had
been undercut severely. Yohan sent across to Mr. Peace. Would he
please come and call for him in the morning if he could spare an
hour or so? A message like that meant business, probably unpleasant.

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STRONG TOWER

Peace wandered over first thing next day, and hunted for his
friend. He was in the stable regions, making rope with his stepson, a
loosely jointed, unkempt youth with a thick, drooping, moist lower
lip, and flabby, hanging hands, whose usual occupation was sitting
indolently by the fire.

Yohan greeted Mr. Peace with toothless amiability and led him
away, telling him about the reports of fresh encroachments.

“How about having a look round the boundaries and then going
and seeing Hsimi Kuchia about it again?” he said, using the Nosu
name of the old lady’s lands, by which she was known.

Mr. Peace looked pained, and automatically put up a slender hand
to press his furrowed brow anxiously.

“Ai-ya!l” he groaned. “I suppose we must.”

“She’ll have to stop those workmen of hers before they get quite
out of hand, so we might as well see her about it now as later on,”
he continued, after a long pause for consideration.

And, suiting the action to the word, they went up through
Yohan’s flaxfield above his house and dropped down to the
terraced fields on the eastern side. There was no wall or fence
separating Erh Sao’s land from the church’s, but a vertical drop of
two to ten feet as her field fell away from the upper one. The upper
field and the bank belonged to the church, but a little surreptitious
excavation and a fall of rain could bring it down inch by inch and
foot by foot and add it to the lower field. They climbed down on to
Erh Sao’s land and toured the perimeter of the church property.
The stable boy’s report was true: fresh falls had taken place, and
elsewhere they could see mattock marks, sometimes high in the
bank, streaked gashes made with a chipped cutting edge. Along the
southern boundary stood a mud wall on the terrace brink, yet even
here, with shameless pertinacity, more undercutting had been
carried out, endangering the wall.

As they walked and inspected, going south and turning to the
west, they discussed the best means of dealing with this thorny
situation. To insert a footwork of stone to all the banks would be
the best device, but too expensive to be undertaken. Thorn bushes
planted all along would be quick-growing, but would have to wait
till the spring before it could be done. And heaping small stones and
broken tiles at the foot of every bank to thwart the diggers would
mean depositing them on Erh Sao’s soil. Yet if she would but rate
her Whites sternly and sincerely there would be no need for any of

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WEATHERING STORMS

these measures, which only rich landowners could afford. But, alas!
she had no sense of the meaning and value of the church, the body
of believers as the Body of Christ on earth, and therefore of the
premises as His property and not that of other people to be deprived
of it if they gave her a chance.

This was the kind of duty Mr. Peace detested, but once he had
decided to tackle it, his determination to do so resolutely increased.
As they inspected, he noted mentally the different things to bring
before the old lady: saplings eaten bare by her goats, who had no
right to forage on church land; a path trodden hard by her servants
taking a short cut, with the intention, he strongly suspected, of
eventually claiming right-of-way; a pit dug under a bank to get
clay for making coal-cakes and thereby threatening the stability of a
big tree high above; as well as methodical encroachments every-
where.

They turned a corner, pointing out fresh marks of mischief to
each other, and nearly ran into the “Duchess,” paddling down the
muddy cattle track, carrying her cloth shoes in one hand and hold-
ing up her voluminous skirts with the other. She was trying to
disguise her immediate surprise and embarrassment by a friendly if
dignified greeting of her son-in-law and Yohan when she realized
what they were doing and her expression changed. She looked away
and proceeded sternly down the path.

3

The reception Mr. Peace and Yohan met with when they reached
Erh Sao’s house was warmer than they expected. A ferocious dog
appeared from nowhere, charged down on them without warning
barks, and would have ripped up Yohan’s leg if he had not lashed
out with his stick. As it was, his linen sock was laid open in a right-
angled tear. Erh Sao kept only this one dog, a grey, wolfish brute
with one wall eye and half its face grossly disfigured by an old
wound running obliquely downward from its ear. It needed no
companions to help it keep guard. The shouts of Peace and Yohan
brought a rush of servants, who called it off and held its head till
they were safely past.

The little old lady’s lands were not extensive, but as her own
family was small she had a preponderance of Whites in her house
and clustered farm buildings to do her work. At the moment only

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STRONG TOWER

the women were at home, greeting the visitors or peering from dark
doorways. And one other, a wasted cripple woman with greying
hair who had been a beggar, befriended by Erh Sao when no others
would any longer tolerate her in their homes because of her inveter-
ate stealing. In her girlhood she had been ill for many months and
lay curled up in pain, unable to move. Then gradually the pain had
vanished and her condition improved, but too late for her to
straighten out her legs or back, and now she was only able to squat
with hips and knees acutely bent. But she had learnt to get about in
this position, using a wooden block in each hand as extra aids to
propulsion, and every Sunday she was at church, the last to enter
when the bell was rung, no longer a curiosity to those who had
known her for so many years. Her tinny voice called greetings to
Mr. Peace as he went past and smiled in her direction, bowing
fussily as he was lately apt to do.

Erh Sao herself came out with her daughter-in-law and beamed a
welcome, jabbering in high-pitched tones a mixture of Nosu and
Chinese words which even Mr. Peace could only understand with
difficulty. The Nosu was all right, it was her natural tongue, but
she had learnt to speak some Chinese too, with an accent so appalling
and a construction so original that even her close friends were
amused by it. She hustled them indoors and stood blinking and
smiling while benches and refreshments were being brought.
Chaffingly she pointed to Mr. Peace’s cap and asked if he had
made it. He had given up the turban and taken to a little knitted
cap with a fluffy ball on top, like the ones that Yohan and so many
others chose to wear nowadays. He grinned, broadly displaying his
brown mottled teeth, irregularly placed, and shuffled with appre-
ciative embarrassment. Both Mr. Peace and Erh Sao enjoyed with
subtle understanding a joke at each other’s expense. Yohan laughed
too, gap-toothed and waggling his little beard, but Yohan might
not have seen the joke.

In the lack of eggs and fruit, oatmeal and sugar-water were pro-
duced, and as they sat and ate they talked cheerfully together, beat-
ing away the flies between each mouthful. Erh Sao had insisted that
Mr. Peace sit in her chair, a real bamboo chair, weak and rickety,
but the only chair in the valley. He was honoured and grateful, and
loathed the words he must bring himself to say. He felt so small and
unimportant in his fading blue gown of homespun, and would have
greatly preferred to be just the humble friend of the old lady

160
 

A WELL-DRESSED WHITE NOSU WOMAN

 

 

 

 
 

 
 

WEATHERING STORMS

instead of her reprover. But with Erh Sao so friendly it looked as if
their difficult interview would go smoothly.

On the other side of the fireplace Erh Sao sat down on the bench
beside Yohan. Probably she did not know that Chinese women
would not sit so close to a man, but it was no loss to Nosu society
that such prudery had not penetrated to them here. She kicked at the
dog which had entered growling and leering at them, and told the
daughter-in-law to “‘shoo” it from the room, but was unconscious
of the scavenging hens pecking about the floor.

Mr. Peace’s hand stole up to his forehead. He coughed hesita-
tingly, and an awkward grin spread over his face. Anybody not
knowing him might have expected him to begin his little speech,
but that was not his way; he preferred to work up to it gently and
circuitously. He talked awhile and presently began to probe for an
opening.

“Who were those well-fed Whites who held the dog when we
came in?”’ he asked. “I didn’t recognize them.”

Erh Sao mentioned their names with a laugh.

“They are very different now,” she said, “since having the
mushil’s medicine.”

“What?” said Yohan. “Are those the two women who had that
fearful disease eating away their noses and throats? They were just
skin and bone a few months back.”

“Yes, they’re the ones, all right,” said Erh Sao. “They are good
for some work now for the first time in a year or more. Wonderful
medicine that was.”

“Are they working in the fields again?” asked Mr. Peace, seizing
his chance to lead the conversation in the right direction.

“Their men can’t manage alone,” said the old lady, “so I've made
them go out and help again the last week or so.”

“Ground’s soft now,” mused Mr. Peace aloud.

“Been some landslides lower down the valley, I hear,” Yohan
added, taking his cue.

“I think we shall have to strengthen the banks on the east side of
the church grounds,” continued Mr. Peace. “Did you see there
has been a fall of ground there?” he asked Erh Sao.

Her little eyes narrowed and her look hardened.

“It’s the rain!” she protested, understanding.

“But there are mattock cuts in several places,” replied Mr. Peace,
coming out into the open and continuing with a quick effort to

Lst 161
STRONG TOWER

disarm her. “It can’t be those two women, though; they must be
very grateful for their cure!”

No good. Erh Sao’s quick temper rose. Jumping up excitedly, she
unbalanced the bench, and Yohan on the other end clutched wildly
about to save himself from falling.

“Are you still nagging about this?”’ she shricked, disregarding
Yohan. “Haven’t I told you you’re imagining it?” and began to
rave against them both illogically, hopping about in her agitation,
scattering the hens in a flurry of squawks and feathers. Neither Peace
nor Yohan spoke. They knew their old friend, and Mr. Peace at
least was known for his tact and diplomacy. He preferred a policy
of silence and well-chosen words in any discussion or clash of views.
Presently, as she grew breathless, Peace said:

“The mattock that did it had a chip out of its edge about an inch
from one side,” and let his eyes stray to a corner of the room. He
had seen the very implement a moment before. His remark banished
from her mind the fresh chain of objections she had marshalled
while she ranted. There was no answer to this observation, and she
hesitated, with the others waiting silently. The rhythmic hum of a
hornet moulding a nest of mud was the only sound until she spoke
again.

g“Anyvvay, what are you getting at?”’ she demanded.

“What shall we do?” Mr. Peace asked quietly. “Shall we plant
hedges or heap stones along the boundaries, or will you stop your
men from doing it?”

He rose to his feet. He was a peaceable man. He hated these
interviews and felt more ill at ease sitting, with her standing over
him. Yet while she drew her scraggy body up more erectly, he
drooped, seeking a way out of the quarrel, and moved over to
where the light fell on her face rather than on his. And listening to
her reply, his two hands stole up and his fingers interlocked over the
vault of his stubbly head, his elbows dangling dejectedly. This
mannerism, too, was growing on him as if to ease the tension in his
brain and at present to absorb some of the blows of Erh Sao’s
two-edged verbosity.

Yohan was making conciliatory remarks and almost endangering
the success of their mission. He was becoming more yielding as the
years passed, and assuming more and more a defeatist spirit, just as
now he was thinking: “She’s hopeless. She won’t give in.”

But Mr. Peace was not weak. He would finish his task, whatever

162
 

WEATHERING STORMS

it cost him, and his courage was soon rewarded; she began to climb
down. Peace continued doggedly. ;

“Hedges and stones are not enough, though, if your men do not
want to respect the boundaries,” he said. “Couldn’t you show them
that you are as much a member of the church as we are?”

Erh Sao sat down again. “It would be easier if I had some men
left in my family,” she said a little wistfully. “These servants don’t
treat me as they would a man. But don’t think they do as they like!”
she added unnecessarily, for they knew her reputation. “And she,”
the old lady said with emphasis, indicating her daughter-in-law,
“puts them up to it.”

“When is your grandson coming home?” asked Mr. Peace,
judging the time ripe to lead the conversation back into smoother
waters. They had done all they could this time. Erh Sao was a good
soul at heart, and a real Christian, if undeveloped. They must be
content to influence her by gentle degrees. To-day it looked a little
more hopeful.

Yohan rose to go, and this time it was Erh Sao who tipped up at
the other end of the bench. The repetition of the mishap broke
through her ruffled mood and reduced her to a cackle of laughter
as she led them out through the yard. Her house faced down the
valley with no wall to block the view. The lower reaches were dark
with jumbled shadows of cliffs and crevices, breathing trouble, but
high up on the left Mt. Ararat in sunshine watched calmly as the two
men bid farewell, calling “Lieh ma hon! Don’t come further!” to
their hostess as she made to come a little way along the path with
them. But the daughter-in-law hung back, offended, her horse-
like face looking longer than ever.

4

After passing the preachers, the “Duchess” had stumped on down
the hill indignantly.

“Those busybodies are up to something again,” she cried as soon
as out of earshot, flinging her words over her shoulder to her
daughters-in-law behind. “Why can’t they mind their own business!
It’s not their land; it’s the church’s,” she added unreasonably.

Poor Peace and Yohan. It was this lack of understanding of their
intentions and integrity that they had to struggle against all the time.
As teacher and preachers, they were recognized but not appointed

163
STRONG TOWER

by the church members, and their duties were not clearly defined.
In a task like this there was no one else to take the initiative or
decisive steps. Therefore to them it was their plain duty, but to the
unthinking “Duchess” they were taking too much upon themselves.
She ranted to her companions all the way down to their home,
unaffected by their tactful efforts to change the subject, and turned
into the courtyard still with an indignant voice.

Old Mrs. An was not always so outspoken. She usually left dis-
sention to her menfolk, The Old Man and An Toma their son. But
this morning she had gone to call on Chiopa’s widow daughter who
was paying a visit home from beyond Chaotung, and had found her
rather too sophisticated and superior toward her remoter country
relatives and old friends. The “Duchess” was disgruntled. The
impertinence, treating her so casually! So Mr. Peace and Yohan
were coming in for more than their share of invective. The
“Duchess” was a member of the family by marriage, of course, and
not of the same nature as her husband and his children. She was more
stable, more tolerant, a large and queenly woman, usually silent,
but not unfriendly by temperament. By choice and expediency,
though, she was loyal to her husband’s family, so that while coun-
selling moderation, she was no friend of the opposite camp.

Old Man An and his son emerged from within.

“Sa-tzu?” he asked harshly. “What’s up?”’

The “Duchess” called out in Nosu toward the kitchen regions:
“Water to wash our feet. Quickly!” and, turning, began to relate
her meeting with Mr. Peace and Yohan, how they had the appear-
ance of prying about as if they owned the church. As she spoke she
began to wonder why she was making so much of so little, and,
forgetting about Chiopa’s daughter, was feeling uncertain of herself.
But the spark she had struck was enough to start her family on
another tirade against the present leaders of the church, their
characters, their methods, their viewpoints. She sat down, washed
her feet, and, without drying them, slipped on her shoes. A servant
girl took the muddy water and, swilling it through the doorway
into the farmyard, poured out more for the daughters-in-law on the
verandah outside.

The men had nothing new to say, no particular reason why they
should flare up now except that it was becoming a habit with them
to think of Peace and Yohan as fools to be denounced. The Old
Man had drifted a long way in the time that Mr. Peace had known

164
 

WEATHERING STORMS

him, and was followed by men without convictions or understand-
ing, and by others wanting the backing and protection of his
powerful influence. But he was growing old and infirm. His eldest
son, Toma, managed the lands and their Whites, while he himself
sat at home enjoying the attention of everyone, and watched his
prize sows wallowing in the yard, growing from day to day more
valuable.

An Toma was tall and strong, but getting stout. He wore a broad,
close-clipped moustache that drew attention to the dissatisfied line
of his mouth. His smile and his eyes were unsteady, giving an
impression of shiftiness of character and an uneasy conscience, and he
had a frequent and unaccountable embarrassment of manner which
might be taken as anger, shyness, or a sense of guilt. Compared with
the Old Man he was weak, and in a disagreement with his rivals
would insist on enough of his own clique being present to sway any
discussion, priming them beforehand with his views. Yet it seemed
that he was at the same time a true Christian, and could not be
wholly blamed. It was not his fault that he had inherited this cross-
grained nature any more than to Mr. Peace’s credit that he had his
parents’ virtues of contentment and peaceableness.

But a far greater ill had developed in the Old Man’s family circle.
Owing to the scarcity of eligible daughters among the Christians,
he had looked elsewhere for wives for his sons. His second son had
married a fine girl named Sala, from a pagan home. She was slighter
in build than her husband’s family, with sharper features, a still
keener intelligence, and clear, straight eyes, as unlike Toma’s as
could be, and was more balanced and friendly than they. But she was
fond of her new relatives, especially Liya, and careful not to antag-
onize them in their controversial moods.

Liya and she were drawn to each other by mutual sympathy, for,
like the former’s sorrow over her eyes and unwanted state, Sala was
childless and expecting to be forsaken by her absent soldier husband.
Thus it was not long before she came to believe in Christ with her
new friend. But her coming was far from an unmixed blessing. She
had a half-brother, Shenteh, who joined the Rogues at Thieves’ Inn
Flats and thereby involved the family in a complicated confusion of
Christian and godless connections. Whenever the Rogues came near
Kiehkow in search of prey, Shenteh now came to see his sister and
brought his friends with him, An Yunlo, An Hungwu, and Lin
Woanli, another notorious outlaw and murderer.

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A difficult decision was forced upon Old Mr. An. He could refuse
to have dealings with them and thereby cause unpardonable offence,
bringing the full fury of the Rogues upon his home, or he could
choose compromise with all its unpredictable implications. He
hesitated and was lost. Now when they chose to visit him he was
bound to feast them and give them lodging, even when knowing
that they were contemplating assault on some victim unknown.
And sometimes after the deed they would call in on their way home,
for a rest. They never made any mention of their purposes, they
were always “visiting relatives,” but they and their retainers would
hang about the valley and go up to the school to stare at the school-
girls, and the Old Man’s family did not stop them.

Soon afterwards a teacher was wanted at the Thieves’ Inn, and
Old Mr. An was persuaded to allow his third son to go there as
tutor to the Rogues’ children. He was inextricably entangled now,
and adequate reasons had emerged for Toma’s guilty look and sense
of isolation from the uncompromising church.

To Mr. Peace these degradations came as shocks to the essential
fabric of his hopes. How could young Christians stand if the oldest
members of the church could fail so utterly? Even Chiopa his
faithful old friend was affected by this downward trend. From early
days he had been related to lawless men, but since his conversion
had stood firmly apart from them. Now threats of personal violence
reached him, and he put his trust in a new strong tower which he
built of quarried stone. And armed men were allowed to find
lodging in his house. Who hurt Chiopa now hurt his fighting friends
and must answer for it. Had God forsaken His Nosu church? In
Mr. Peace’s soul the disappointment gnawed incessantly.

5

Even so, life was not all trials. Along with them came many
redeeming features, and not least encouragements from more than
one of the country churches, and in Kichkow itself.

Mr. Peace dismissed the postal courier one day, and turned to find
one of the oldest believers, a tall man known as Piteh who had been
blind for years and was desperately poor, standing nearby with the
boy who led him.

“Mr. Peace,” he said, “can I have a word with you?”

Peace patted his arm in lieu of the smile he could not see. “What
is it?”” he asked.

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WEATHERING STORMS

“I want to know if you would mind if I started preaching the
Gospel,” he said to Mr. Peace’s surprise.

“Why, no!” he answered. “That’s just what every Christian
should do as he gets the chance. But why do you ask?”

“It’s like this,” old Piteh explained, his sightless eyes turning here
and there inconsequently. “My little grandson was ill and like to
die. Everything I tried was no good. And then I cried to God, ‘If
You heal him I will go from house to house telling people about
You.” So I brought him to the mushih and bought some of his
medicine and the boy recovered. And now I've remembered my
promise.”

Mr. Peace’s heart rose joyfully as he listened. Here was life in the
church, the real thing. He questioned Piteh, what he would say
when he visited the cottages near his own, suggesting improvements
on the old man’s ideas, and sending him off cheerfully to carry out
his promise.

News from Chaotung was good too. Jenpin was doing well at
school and would soon be finished and able to come and teach at
Kiehkow. This that he had dreamt of at Jenpin’s birth twenty years
ago was beginning to be fulfilled. And Meili and her three younger
brothers would follow, each giving their contribution in Christ’s
service. From Chaotung, too, had come word of requests for
missionaries to go to the Independent Nosu, so there were stirrings
in that direction also.

At Temopin An Tekuan was going on well. His admiration of his
brother-in-law was unbounded and his affection for his wife had
increased immeasurably since his conversion. One of his first
requests had been to be allowed now to contribute to the funds of
the Nosu church, and he offered larger sums than any in the records.
But Mr. Peace had foreseen danger there. If his generosity came to
be known, he would be in danger of assault by those whose outlook
was: ‘“Why give his surplus money to the church? We can make
livelier use of it!”” So he recommended moderate gifts through the
ordinary channels and as much as he liked in secret. With them
church buildings were repaired that would have been left crumbling.
And as for his strong tower, never yet erected, he had used the
materials so carefully prepared to build a chapel, not even for the
Nosu, but for the Miao, the pauper tribe, saying that in time of
danger he and his family would trust in the Lord. These things
brought buoyancy into the life that might otherwise have pressed

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STRONG TOWER

upon Mr. Peace too sorely. They revived his self-confidence,
reminded him of past days and achievements, and when he thought
of them he was a different man.

And how he loved to see Meili with her school friends sitting in
the sunshine knitting their own clothes from home-spun and home-
dyed wool, coarse but very durable. They used walnut stain for
brown and the bark of a forest tree for mustard yellow, and needles
shaped from bamboo by their brothers. She was developing so well.
He loved her company in anything that came their way; inspecting
his fruit and flowers, watching the building of 2 mud wall, thumping
the clay between broad planks held together by stout bars of ash
wood, discussing the holes left behind when the bars were with-
drawn, or just sitting at home on the doorsill of their cottage, he
idly tracing in the dust outside while she patched clothes for the
boys or worked at an embroidery. She was just sixteen.

But there were others who enjoyed her too. They talked about
her at the Thieves’ Inn when they returned from visits to Kiehkow:
Sala’s half-brother and his friends. They were all married, but that
made no difference. An Hungwu was tired of his wife after only a
few months. Meili was better than most girls he had seen, brighter,
more alive, and educated. And she had a gracefulness of figure that
coarse hanging gowns of local cloth could not disguise. She pleased
him. He wanted her for himself. The power of the church and the
missionaries was an uncertain factor to be reckoned with, however.
Maybe it would be best to follow the approved customs at first, and
ask for her formally. He found a friend to serve as middleman and
write to her father.

Mr. Peace could not believe it as he read. He removed his heavy
spectacles and rubbed his eyes. And read again. His Meili, his pure
Meili, wanted by those men. The thought, like an evil odour rising
from the page, smote him with physical revulsion. He gripped his
head and pressed with quivering hands. His anguished eyes stared
blankly at the offensive words. This deadly thing, this unclean,
filthy thing, must never reach Meili’s ears. He must prevaricate,
must put them off, bid them wait till she was older and ask again.

They could not take her by force. They would not dare. They
knew the power of the foreign missionaries in days gone by.
Perhaps they would think it still held, though foreigners were not
now all powerful as they had been. Meili was too good for such a

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WEATHERING STORMS

life, too pure to go into that family of fiends. She was exceptional.
Helping in the mushil’s home with his children had given her refine-
ments that others did not have. She would never be able to endure
it. It would be sacrilege.

“O God, I gave her to Thee!” he cried. “Thou couldst not share
her with them!”

Slowly he folded the letter up and hid it away. He must recover.
Only then could he find words for a reply.

169
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BRIEF INTERLUDE

“. .. and the fellowship of leading Christians and missionaries
elsewhere in the province did much to carry him through . . .”

I

IT was the summer again. Japan had pressed the ill-equipped armies

of China back to the western mountains, and for reasons best
known to herself came no further. They were at the Yangtze gorges
below Chungking, and the strategic motor road linking Yunnan
and Szechwan provinces had been pushed through in haste by the
Chinese to bring in supplies. It passed through Hehchang, only ten
miles from Hopien, where Mrs. Peace still lived.

In Europe a war of unheard-of intensity was being waged. The
news of Nazi barbarism reached to the Nosu Mountains and
amazed all who heard. They gaped incredulously, but did not com-
prehend. Tanks, mechanized warfare, they could not visualize. Most
of them had never seen a car or anything with wheels. Poland,
Holland, Belgium, France. Mr. Peace studied a map. Could not the
Woestern nations, crowned with such prestige, stand up before it?
England alone. He thought of the English friends he had had. They
were in it. The Battle of Britain. London being demolished. They
had shown him pictures of London, the bridge that opened up for
ships to pass through, the trains that run underground. He had never
even seen a surface train.

In China, too, bombs were still falling on defenceless towns.
Kweiyang had had her share, the capital of his province. A large
area in the centre was wiped out, he had heard, but was being
rebuilt. He had only once been to Kweiyang, but that was in the
early days. Since then he had not travelled far at all. But now an
invitation had arrived, asking him to represent the Kiehkow district
church at a conference of leaders in that city. The expenses would
not fall entirely on him; the larger part would be met by wealthier
churches’ contributions.

Apart from the importance of his district being represented,
Mr. Peace leapt at the opportunity to meet with others in a similar
position in relation to their churches, and to seek advice. Under
conditions of war, few missionaries were coming out to China to

170

 
BRIEF INTERLUDE

replace those returning home, and, in consequence, many churches
were deprived of missionary help, and carrying on alone. What
might have been expected to harm them was having a salutary
effect upon many of the senior Christians, on whose shoulders fell
new responsibilities. But there were other churches like this at
Kiehkow, scarcely ready to be left without skilled help. To their
leaders, consultation, comparison of problems, pooling of experi-
ence, and spiritual fellowship would be invaluable. The fact of
co-operation with other churches would give a sense of stability and
counteract any tendency to feel cut off, forsaken.

In the old days it would have meant weeks of travel by horseback
for Mr. Peace, but now with motor trucks running near his home it
should take him only a few days. So he made preparations. Lately
he had been doing less teaching in the school, as his two young
assistants could be left in charge. Jenpin was not yet back from
Chaotung, but Yohan would be able to keep an eye on Meili and
Jenhan. The Rogues had been put off successfully on pleas of youth
and schooling not yet finished, so Meili should be quite safe. Her
father felt no qualms about leaving her, and Jenhan was all right, a
home-loving, hard-working boy, showing signs of being really
clever. Church services would be carried on by Yohan with Chiopa’s
help, and perhaps Chengming, Yohan’s son, would get over from
the Bible school at Kopu to lend a hand one Sunday.

So Mr. Peace was free to go, glad of the chance to see the world,
though timorous of embarking on so long a journey by an un-
familiar mode of transport. And he had the highest hopes of finding
light on his perplexities and the support of the provincial church in
realizing his ambitions for the Nosu Christians. The first stage of his
journey was to Hopien, where he unearthed his better clothes, an
old silk gown or two, and respectable shoes, and a rice-bowl hat
of classic Chinese type with knotted cord button on its crown.
Tingying was pleased for him to have the distinction of going up to
the capital, and saw to it that he was well provided with good
bedding and provisions for the road.

Considering the peculiar conditions of his life, Mr. Peace realized
anew, he could not have had a stronger person to leave in charge
of his property during all the time, year in, year out, that he was
away from home. The war was affecting everyone more and more
even in the remotest country districts, and the mountain tribes were
not immune. Taxation was increasing and every hamlet had to

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provide its quota of young men to serve in the Army, by force if
not by free-will. And conditions were such that unscrupulous men
were thriving on money illicitly gained. It was here that Mrs.
Peace’s sharp and skilful tongue did good work, keeping the
troublesome at a distance.

All things considered, he had much to be thankful for. The sight
of his own green fields and the murmur of the river in the distance
soaked into him with a warmth of satisfaction. A holiday mood
was upon him. He was going to travel by motor truck, a hair-
raising experience, but exhilarating to look forward to. Already he
could almost feel the miles melting away beneath him, see the houses,
the hills and valleys flashing past.

2

Two of his Whites saw him to the market town, a faithful old
man who had served his father, and his son. They left him at an inn
on the main street of Hehchang, and returned home with his horse.
Mr. Peace had often passed through, but had never stayed here. The
noise and commotion beat painfully on his ears. It was a thoroughly
Chinese town.

He found a seat at a little table in the tea-shop at the front of his
inn, and watched the crowds on the narrow street, and the passing
traffic. Mountainous motor vehicles rolled by, grossly overladen,
bearing huge bales of cotton southward to Yunnan. Fast military
trucks, weighed low on their springs by crates of ammunition, and
guarded by grim soldiers, tore past with strident horns clearing the
way before them. Commercial trucks piled high with all manner of
goods and festooned with more, with wicker chairs or baskets of
fowls and what not dangling from them; scores of them coming
and going, cutting incredibly through narrow spaces between other
waiting vehicles drawn up on each side of the road. But, most
amazing and dismaying, the passengers travelling on them, high up
in the baggage, swinging to and fro, perched on the tail boards or
clinging to the roof of the driver’s cab.

“T'll never get there,” he wailed to himself, “I shall be thrown
off. I shall never get home again. No one will know what has
happened to me.” »

There was no ticket office, for there were no public buses on this
route as yet. Every man for himself, they said. Get a place and make
your own arrangements with the driver. That prospect alone was

172

 

 
 

BRIEF INTERLUDE

terrifying. These drivers filled the streets, the eating-houses, the tea-
shops. Money was nothing to them. It flowed out of their pockets
on the slightest whim. And whenever their trucks were going to
move it flowed in again. It was not a question of bargaining; the
truck men could get any figure they asked. There was nothing for
it but to pay a huge sum in advance. Their dialects Mr. Peace could
not understand, nor they his when he made to enquire about going
in the morning. They laughed and made ribald comments on his
appearance, going off with arms around each others’ leather-
jerkined shoulders. Or else they stared through him stonily and spat
on the floor without answering, and lit a cigarette from the stub of
the last one between their stained lips.

The crowds thronging the streets, dodging the traffic or lounging
on the narrow pavements where such existed were a motley museum

-of types. Nosu he saw in abundance, country ones such as himself,
in for the day and going home again as he wished now that he could
too. But mostly Chinese in any kind of clothing they chose to
wear; uniforms, jerseys, shirts dangling out of their trousers, blue
gowns, yellow cotton breeches of cavalry cut flapping open at the
ankles instead of gripping below the knee; trilbys, turbans, skull
caps, tout caps and bare heads. Every shade of rich and poor men,
of beggars and thieves, was there. This was China of the Chinese, a
nation in a state of metamorphosis, old conventions thrown to the
winds, new ones unformed. Here was personified the spirit of
makeshift, of ingenuity, of will to conquer, a carelessness of
hardship and an ability to live in the present.

A procession of young men went by, roped together wrist to wrist
and some leg to leg, under an armed guard of soldiers. No, not
convicts, the boy who poured out his tea informed him, but con-
scripts, liable to desert. For a moment Mr. Peace feared for his own
safety, and then laughed at the fatuity: his eyes, his age, his stoop; no
soldier would look twice at him.

Night found him in a cubicle above the tea-shop, breathless from
fumes of tobacco and wine and engine exhausts, tormented by bed
bugs from the bed curtains and boards. (Lice and fleas are found in
Nosu homes, but bugs are seldom met with.) Beneath him gambling
drivers stirred their mahjong pieces noisily at frequent intervals
throughout the night, and others shouted in unison with a crescendo
of excitement as they flung out their hands in a “stone, paper,
scissors” game of chance. He slept fitfully, waking often. Not far

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STRONG TOWER

up the street an uproar broke out, thrashings and yells in which the
voice of some termagant woman was most loudly raised. How un-
like his mountain homes! There cold anger gave expression to ruthless
brutality, but here sucha babel of voices was heard. Heremembered the
sound of a squalling child being thrashed earlier in the evening with
an unending swish, swish, swish. This too was China, not Nosuland.

With earliest light he rose, roped up his belongings in two tight
bundles, and carried them downstairs, bent on being ready in good
time. The tea-shop was strewn with sleeping forms, exhausted
gamblers lying on benches and table tops, and he hunted for water
to wash his face and rinse out his mouth, but without success. He
called out, ““Yao-shih!”’ the term used for inn attendants, but dared
not repeat it when growls of protest came from the men around
him. Grudgingly, the inn-keeper opened the door to let him out,
and promised to keep an eye on his bundles for him while he located
the truck on which he had been promised a place.

Few signs of life were evident in the street, but when he reached
the vehicle he found that the driver for no ascertainable reason was
ready and threatening to start without him. On any other day the
same man would have been as likely to linger for several hours
before making a move, but possibly on this occasion he wanted to
get away before his debts could be collected.

Rushing back to his inn, Mr. Peace seized his bundles and stag-
gered out on to the road. By then a few tousle-headed early risers
were appearing. Three rushed at him and seized his baggage.
“Carry your goods, mister,” they cried, tearing them from his grasp.
Protests were no good. One man could have carried everything.
He would have to pay three or miss his bus.

Already the truck was loaded high and every safe place stuffed
with luggage and its owners, but up went Mr. Peace, clutching and
clambering, a foot on the rear wheel, chest and then knee on the
wooden side, a heave from a friendly man aloft, and a scramble
over other people’s things to a chorus of “Careful there!” and “No
room here!” Panting he sat on the sharp edge of a crate to get his
breath, expecting the truck to move at once. The driver and his
mate were pumping and working at a tall cylinder with rusty
piping issuing from it, a charcoal burner. If he had known it, Mr.
Peace might have avoided this kind of machine and found a speedier
vehicle burning alcohol or fifth-grade oil, but he yet had many
things to learn.

174

 
BRIEF INTERLU'_DE

The grinding and cranking went on interminably, and Mr. Peace,
hot from his chase to the inn for his possessions and back to the truck
again, was now feeling chilled in the crisp morning air, and bought
a steaming paotzu, a meat dumpling, from a coaxing vendor.

Presently, “No good!” shouted the driver. “All get down, get
down all of you, and push!”

“When the engine gets started you can climb up again,” chimed
in the mechanic.

Afraid of being left behind, Mr. Peace kept near the wheel while
the stronger men went behind to heave. But as the truck gathered
speed and with a splutter and belch of black exhaust fumes started
up, it was all he could do to keep near it. Without waiting for the
word to remount, the passengers began swarming up again, and
Mr. Peace, struggling in the mob, found himself pushed up by
others wanting the stepping places he had used. This time he was
some distance from his previous perch, and separated from his
bundles. He sat down on a bedding roll in a safe central place and
watched his own things being tossed and turned mercilessly as
someone arranged them for himself.

And then they were away. The speed seemed terrible. The cold
air flew by them, tearing at their clothes and headgear, the houses
and trees streaked past with dizzying confusion. Not for some time
did he get used to the motion, and learn to look farther off, at the
scenery ahead of them. Alas, the season was over or he would have
had as glorious a display of azaleas, rhododendrons and wild fruit
blossom as he could have imagined. But much remained for him to
see, from miracles of engineering that took him through a hundred
miles of peaks, to pastoral scenes along the roadside, and the sordid
poverty of hamlets they passed through.

For a truck in good condition, it was a short day’s journey to
Pichich the next town, and there he could expect a welcome and
accommodation from friendly Christians. But there was a war on,
and everything that would move on wheels was still in use, so not
until the third day did Mr. Peace’s charcoal truck arrive. Punctures,
engine trouble, oversleeping held them up. By the first night they
had only reached Pachaiping, the Plain of the Eight Forts, and had
to shake down in a wayside hut. The drivers were angtry, tired after
the previous night and a day of wrestling with tyre levers. They
cursed loudly and swore to make an early start next morning, so
that the passengers were astir by cock’s crow and ready to go without

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having had anything to eat. The drivers, however, went off
casually for breakfast, but as they had said they would be back in a
moment, no one dared to go down the hill to buy food at the
nearest stall. '

It had rained the previous evening, and Mr. Peace’s things were
soaked; they had been turned upside down in the truck so that
water drained in by the flaps, and it was cold comfort to be told by
a sophisticated business man: “Don’t you know that if you want a
thing looked after properly, see to it yourself?”” But he found some
corncakes intact enough to stave off the pangs of hunger. Somehow,
travelling alone, jogging slowly along on his own horse was prefer-
able to this. The closeness of other people’s bodies was so alien to
him, of strangers smelling of perfumes from cheap hair-grease or
soap, and talking on topics repugnant to him.

On the third day they came to a hold-up in the traffic. Normally,
few trucks were seen together on the road except in towns and at
night stopping-places, but here there must have been six or eight,
including a military vehicle with two Americans armed with short
carbines, and at the front a group of excited people talking loudly
together. One of Mr. Peace’s fellow travellers called out to the
passengers on top of the truck ahead to enquire the cause of delay.

“CWe-tzu ch’iang-la!l” one called back. “A truck has been attacked
by robbers!” | 4

“Ai-yal Ai-ya!” the newcomers cried in a chorus of dismay.
“What happened?” i
. “A gang of those dirty Lolos have ambushed a truck just down
at the foot of the hill. They shot the driver, and the truck over-
turned, and now they have carried off everything that was on it. No
one dare go down there.”

A wave of indignation and expletives swept through the listeners.
On Mr. Peace’s right an Army officer in close-fitting peaked cap
and open tunic grabbed at his buttons and did them up frantically,
a futile act of exasperation, as if to shout, “What’s being done about
it?” But from his lips came a torrent of seething venom and un-
printable obscenity. “These dogs of barbarians!” he shricked.
“These vile Ih-jen, despicable Lolos! Tu kai mich, kai mieh!” he
went on, “They ought all to be annihilated, exterminated,” and, not
realizing that he was addressing one of the same race, he turned for
approval upon Mr. Peace, shrinking at his side. To Mr. Peace it
was bad enough to hear people speak of his tribe as “Ih-jen”’ instead

176
 

 

CHRISTIAN BAPTISM IN NOSULAND

 
v
i

 

A SCENE IN KWEIYANG, PROVINCIAL CAPITAL OF KWEICHOW
 

 

BRIEF INTERLUDE

of “Ih-chia,” for the former carries a stigma of contempt or at any
rate of ignorant condescension, like “Chinaman” instead of “a
Chinese.” But “Lolo” is like “nigger” or “dago” or “Chink,” a
scathing term.

Up at the front of the column there was a movement. The
military car was pulling out and starting down the road. They
watched it till it reached the scene of the tragedy. Apparently the
Americans were alone down there, but they carried their carbines
at the ready. They looked at the truck lying empty and appeared to
be searching round it. Then one of them climbed up on the wreckage
and waved, “Come on!”

Slowly the line of waiting vehicles started up and proceeded on
their way. But they did not stop at the bottom. One by one they
scraped past the obstruction and sped as quickly as they could from
the scene of violence. Lying scattered round were the bodies of
passengers who had resisted or been killed in the crash, and emerging
from hiding were one or two who had chosen the wiser course.

The city of Pichich was still two hours’ journey away.

3

Could anything in Scripture be truer than the statement that those
who leave family and lands for Christ’s sake find everything repaid
a hundredfold? Mr. Peace knew it in a limited way by travelling in
his own countryside. The homes and children of the Christians.were
his, their old fathers and mothers treated him as a son, complete
strangers were like old friends when the closest of bonds was dis-
covered between them, their belongings were for him to use. So now
at Pichieh. The church folk welcomed him with open arms. The Ger-
man Sisters of Friedenshort always made everyone feel their coming
was a special kindness, and with Mr. Peace they made no exception.

And now he met others, including a young missionary, who were
going to Kweiyang for the conference, and would be company for
him on the road. And, better still, the onerous task of finding trans-
port to take him there was being attended to by them; he had but
to put himself confidently in their hands.

Again the journey took longer than it need. Breakdowns seemed
as inevitable as the road they travelled by, and hours were spent in
baking sunshine and depressing drizzle while “repairs” were carried
* out with myopic ingenuity by the mechanics, shift-work with bits
of wire and wood and cigarette tin that carried them on till it went

Mst 177
STRONG TOWER

wrong again and meant another stop. But it was all they could do
while spare parts were unprocurable.

The slowness of their progress was often painfully apparent. With
a blare of horns, they would overtake a convoy of carts drawn by
dishevelled ponies but flying a Government pennant, and leave it
miles behind. And later they would sit stolidly on the bank and
watch the same animals dragging slowly past them while their
machine was being tinkered into action. Or a regiment of soldiers
on trek, stripped to the waist and resting by the roadside, would
look up at the passing truck and go on hunting for vermin in their
clothes. And later the same men would go by again, bronzed and
sweating, some strong and cheerful, some bleak and expressionless,
herded along by armed N.C.Os. Few of the common soldiers they
saw had weapons—they were issued at the front—but seasoned
troops carried them and made life precarious in the villages where
they were billeted.

“It’s not only in my mountains that life can be crude and raw,”
thought Mr. Peace. Those lines of sickly “soldiers” who had never
held a rifle, dragging themselves over the mountains when they
should have been in bed, with swollen feet, swollen legs, swollen
bellies, and others so emaciated that the skin hung loosely on their
staring bones, brought him to the verge of nausea. Only the dying
were carried on rude stretchers, swinging cruelly up and down as
the bearers marched. What lengths a war would drive men to!

To Mr. Peace the timelessness of the driver and his mate were not
so great a trial as to the young mushih travelling with him. The
minutes lost in smoking while the drivers thought out what to do,
annoyed him intensely. On one occasion they sat down to a meal
and waited for each other to finish before starting a job on which
only one could work while the other lazed around. When it had
delayed them till too late to go on with the journey, and the thirty
passengers had to share accommodation for perhaps twenty in the
village where they had broken down, the mushik’s patience came to
an end and he told the driver what was in his mind. Mr. Peace
understood. He had known foreigners for many years, admired
their alertness and ability to get things done, and had a shrewd idea
of what it must feel like for them to be the victims of such casualness.
But he agreed wholeheartedly with the aged Chinese pastor in their
company when he quietly said, trusting to his close friendship with
the young man:

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BRIEF INTERLUDE

“We Chinese do not get as much done as you Western friends.
We say to-morrow is as good as to-day; what we don’t do now we
can leave till later. And after all, why get agitated? If we don’t get
there to-day, we will to-morrow or the next day. That is why we
start in good time. Is there any real advantage in waiting till the
last minute and then rushing anxiously?”

With the lid of his cup, he brushed the floating leaves from his
piping tea and sipped noisily.

“Life moves here at a slower pace than in the West,” he con-
tinued when they waited in silence. “The difference is perhaps one
between sloth and restlessness. Isn’t that right? You friends from
abroad must be reading or writing or doing something. Yet the way
you will be able to help us best is by getting to know us, and that
is by sitting with us by the hour, and not only the hour but half the
day or even all day. Isn’t that so, Mr. Peace? Talking sometimes,
probably about nothing that matters, sometimes stretching your
legs, but mostly sitting, sipping tea, cracking nuts or seeds, watching
us prod the fire, puff at a pipe, or stir the dust with a leathery toe,
according to our walk in life.”

He laughed softly at his eloquence and audacity. Though, why not
treat the missionaries as equals? They said they wanted to be now.

“That’s how you’ll get to know us,” he concluded; “and after a
long time you’ll hear us say things you've always wanted to know.
And you'll find travelling under these conditions easier.”

It was second nature to Mr. Peace himself; the Nosu share this
Oriental composure, and the man who is serene is most admired.
But less work gets done. Yet that is possibly even better than impa-
tient restlessness under a guise of achieving things. The young
mushih took it well: he was glad of such open speaking. In a way it
was a compliment, for usually the Chinese would keep these things
to themselves for fear of giving offence, and not even help with a
simple error of pronunciation such as might easily be corrected.
Yet they did not seem to mind the frank foreign way of helping
them with English, prompting them till they got it right.

A young student on their truck was like that, overjoyed to find
an Englishman chained to him for hours on end, and made the most
of it, talking and asking questions in his most flowery textbook
English, based on essays of the last century. Mr. Peace himself was
seldom slow to seize an opportunity to brush up the little English
that he knew.

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STRONG TOWER

“The trials of the mission field!” thought the object of attention,
and smiled inwardly.
But at least it passed the time till they reached their destination.

4

The city, electric lights, saloon cars, radio; chimes from London,
voices from the States, music and propaganda from Tokio. Mr.
Peace arrived in the whirl of it and was glad of a day or two to take
it all in before the conference began. The balance of life was different
here. The standard of living of servants was almost that of well-to-
do tenants in his home county. He dreamt it all; yet his silk gown
was real. It had a greenish tinge unnoticed before he set out, but
was of exquisite figured silk that still compared well with the new
clothing of the other delegates. It brought his dream true.

And then the conference itself, better than he had dared to hope
for, so that by the end he felt ready to face anything that Kichkow
could offer him in its most trying moments. So many people seemed
pleased to see him there, to his surprise. ,

“Of Kiehkow!” they would say, gripping him by the hand in
Western style. “How are you, Mr. Peace? I've always wanted to
know more about your church there. Come and sit down. How are
things going?”’

It showed that people were interested. He found a few who
actually prayed regularly, some daily, for the Nosu and for him
personally, though they had never met. So Kiehkow was not as
isolated as he had imagined. And when he saw someone using a
telephone, talking to another person miles away, he felt that Meili
and Jenhan were only just round the corner.

It was invigorating, too, to talk with men from other far-off
places, to pray with those at grips with problems as grim as his own,
and to hear addresses by some whose books and magazine articles
he had read, and who had made it their life work to study and ex-
pound the teaching of Scripture on just such practical problems of
personal and church life. After their conference sessions, at meal-
times or in the garden, these well-known figures would chat with
him on equal terms, as friendly as could be, and gave him every
opportunity to air the matters that had been weighing on his mind.
And with the missionary superintendent of the province he discussed
all his questions, and was contented that the best possible would
be done to help him. Of course a missionary would be sent to

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Kiehkow when there was one to send, but at present there was not.
It opened his eyes to the part Kiehkow and his Nosu church was
playing in the wider economy of the church of Christ in the whole
of China and the world. ““We being many are one body in Christ,”
he treasured in his thoughts, turning it like a jewel in his palm to
catch the glint of colour from every facet. Nor was the appreciation
one-sided. To his alarm, they asked him to conduct a Sunday service
for the conference. The suggestion paralysed him for a moment,
and then with a wrinkling smile he slowly removed his old satin
Chinese cap and scratched his stubbly head. The request could not be
more than a courtesy which he must answer suitably, by declining.

But they meant it!

“No, no, really, truly, I couldn’t do it in such a company,” he
pleaded, alarmed again. He was tending more and more of recent
years to shroud his ability in that feeling of inferiority, and unless
he rallied soon would grow too old to break out again.

But he revelled for a week, for ten days, in “the fellowship of the
saints.” And in leisure periods laid up a store of delights to carry
back to Kiehkow with him, gown lengths for his family, token gifts
for close friends, a fountain-pen and ink for Jenpin when he left
school and came home, pamphlets and posters, Bibles and hymn-
books, pencils and simple medicines for the church. And at last, all
too soon, the end and good-bye to them all.

It was no good hoping for a simpler journey home; there were
only the same open trucks to ride in, so when the day came, up he
climbed. Shaken and hungry, cramped by overcrowding, cold in
the morning and scorched at noon, trundling and stopping, dashing
downhill with engine cut out and brake drums smoking, they went
on, and in three days reached Pichieh again.

He hated this kind of travel. Rather the sure-footed horse at home
on its stony trail, travelling steadily, than this tempting of the jaws
of death. The tales he had heard tell of accidents, and the wrecked
vehicles he had seen made this second journey worse than the first.

At Pichich there was excitement. A squat little Army car had
arrived and been driven by its occupants up the steps leading to the
church and mission premises; up the steps and right to the com-
pound door! Two foreign officers were lodging with the sisters and
going on to Weining next day. They would be passing through
Hehchang. Would they be so kind as to take a “dear Christian
tribesman’ with them? “Why, shure! As many as you like of ’em,

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STRONG TOWER

so long as they won'’t eat us. Same tribe as staged that big hold-up,
huh? Sounds as if they need a bit Christianizing. Not the same
district? That’s better. Quite a big race, hundreds of thousands round
here alone? You don’t say!”

So early next morning Mr. Peace was wedged into the back seat
of the jeep with his bundles each side, and the miles sped away
behind him, casting up the dust of their feet on his back and neck
and head as they flew by. The speed amazed him, yet he felt securer
than on the groaning truck. And he was back among his mountains,
feeling the lightness of the air with marked relief, and marvelling
again that a road could be taken through such a turmoil of crests
and peaks and valleys. At noon they fed him on Army rations,
tinned foods made hot by being stood a while on the engine casing
when they stopped to rest, and dropped him at Hehchang soon
afterwards; a journey of hours instead of days. He would be able to
get home by nightfall.

He hunted in the market-place and found a countryman about to
return to his home near Hopien, and hired him to carry his belong-
ings. No one would believe it, Pichich to Hopien in one day. But
it would be a fact even if he arrived in the dark. Thirty /i, ten miles,
and he would be there. Just three hours’ walk.

Along the drab lanes of the market town, recently promoted to
the status of a county borough with a magistrate of its own, they
went, and out on to the district road. Recent decrees had enforced
the cutting of roads about six feet wide linking all hsiang-chang’s
residences, the headquarters of each district official. They had been
made with economy as the local, unofficial watchword, and were
already crumbling away, washed out by rains and swollen streams.
But otherwise they made travelling easier, and a well-trod path
followed the weedy roadway along the river valley.

Mr. Peace empty-handed could just keep pace with the burdened
farmer and plodded mechanically behind him. The silence of the
country struck him. Just as in the inn at Hehchang that night the
onslaught of noise had oppressed him so forcibly, now it seemed that
a door had closed behind him, shutting out the sounds of the civilized
world. The silence of the mountains was better. And noticeable too
was the scarcity of living things: nothing to be seen but a solitary
kite wheeling indulgently far above his head. He was still ruminating
happily on his lot when the tall pines of his own lands came into
view, and he was home again.

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TERROR BY NIGHT

“ . .. the bitterest blow of all . ..”
I

THE green fields and forests faded and turned brown beneath
the high summer sun and fierce washing of the autumn rains.
Their duller tints formed a soft background to the scattered and
banked bushes of St. John’s wort bursting into bloom. Everywhere
its flat cups of broad-petalled gold held the most exquisite bouquets
of frail filaments, a natural filigree, and shone in the gentler light.
In the buckwheat fields a drabness was replacing pink and red as the
blossom turned to seed. Natural beauty still stirred a sympathetic
chord in Mr. Peace’s soul. Back at Kiehkow, as the weeks went by,
he nursed his French marigolds and chrysanthemums and cosmos
with quiet enjoyment as if they had been plants of special value.
They were the best he could have. They fitted in with the calm out-
look which the conference in Kweiyang had given him. Since his
return he had looked more upon his part in the problems of the
church as that of a servant of God, and less as a harassed individual.
As troubles arose he referred them to his Higher Authority and
acted on the instructions he received, committing the outcome to
Him instead of struggling alone. There was a new composure in his
whole attitude to life.

But it was not that things had become any easier. He was involved
less in the running of the school, but at Hopien he was needed in-
creasingly. His brother’s son was having frequent epileptic attacks
that made it hard for the father to leave him and get on with his
work. Tingying too was not well and gave cause for anxiety. She
was less able to look after the lands, and Mr. Peace’s presence was
now more necessary there than in Kiehkow. Consequently, he left
his family in school and went home again. But Yohan also needed
his help in the management of church affairs, and every few weeks
Mr. Peace rode over to consult with him and spend a Sunday with
his children.

On one of these visits Yohan looked troubled. When Yohan was
troubled he showed it less by a furrowed brow than by humourless

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STRONG TOWER

solemnity. Instead of grinning frequently and frecly like a schoolboy,
as was his nature, Yohan kept a straight face like ordinary people.
This meant that something was the matter. He led Mr. Peace into
an open field where there were no walls with ears to overhear them,
and told him of strange happenings during the last week or two.

Down near the foot of the valley on the farther side, the home of
a farmer named Chao had been raided at night and robbed of every-
thing of value. The farmer himself was wounded by a blow from
a cutlass, but before being struck had recognized his assailant as one
of the bad men from the upper village. He had gone as soon as he
was able to the hsiang-chang and accused the man, a courageous (or
foolhardy) act which might well bring retaliation on his head, and
the accused, under stress of “‘questioning,” had confessed and named
each of his associates in the crime. But when they were taken to
Hehchang before the county magistrate, all had flatly denied the
charges and alleged that their confession had been merely to get out
of the clutches of men who were applying third degree methods of
interrogation, and with surprisingly little delay they had all returned
home, fully exonerated.

Here was the rub. An Toma and a nephew of his had gone to the
feast celebrating their release. Moreover, ominous reports were
circulating that it was largely the assistance of these two men which
had secured the freedom of the robbers. If so, it was insurance against
their own homes ever being molested; that was plain. But the
church could do nothing. To bring the matter out into the open
for the sake of honour did not enter the preachers’ heads, they had
no experience of such a foreign notion which would have been too
radical and provocative a suggestion to be accepted, anyway. Yet
how terrible a state for church members to be in; for it looked as
if it were true. And some time afterwards, when An’s nephew was
asked in all innocence if he had ever been robbed, he coloured (taken
by surprise), the muscles of his face grew taut, and his eyes looked
uneasy and apprehensive as he thought for a moment and replied,
jerking his head toward the four fierce dogs in his yard:

“They know a good watchdog when they see one!”

But robbers of that sort have their ways with dogs; he was not
being straight. Here were relatively rich men and poor wvillains
living within a few hundred yards of each others’ homes. It was not
unnatural for the latter to covet the possessions of the rest or
surprising, for that matter, if immature Christians adopted the

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customary way of securing peace and immunity instead of choosing
godliness and a risk of assault.

Be that as it may, this incident had an unsettling effect upon
Mr. Peace. His wife’s family was going from bad to worse, and the
shame upon the church he felt as a personal disgrace. He grieved as
Paul did over the Corinthian Christians. And began to wonder
what the Ans’ attitude would be if fresh requests were made for
Meili to go to the Thieves’ Inn. They were deep in compromises
with the Rogues, but must surely stand by their kith and kin. He
had not to wait long before knowing.

2

Winter was coming on, grey skies and biting winds breaking
into the autumn peace. The bare hillsides felt closer, occluding the
skyline, and sometimes gave Mr. Peace a feeling of constriction, of
being trapped. It was a strange sensation of insecurity, of threat, of
danger pressing in upon him. As the vague shadows of the heights
fell across his path, so shadows of oppression stole across his mind
unless he guarded himself purposely against them with contempla-
tion of the lessons he had learned at the conference.

He was living at Hopien, but torn between there and Kiehkow.
Because of Tingying’s ill health, he did not care to worry her with
his restlessness of spirit till one night she herself said to him uneasily,
not knowing what his attitude would be:

“Wenliang, I am anxious about Meili to-night. You haven’t been
up to Kiehkow for some time. Would it be good to go and see how
the children are?”’

Tingying anxious too! But she had named the object of her
anxiety; that was more than he had managed to do. It made him
realize that his own unrest was also on Meili’s account. He tried to
sleep that night, but could not, nor could Tingying. They tossed
and turned, and rose more often than usual to poke the fire and
cover it again with coal mush, and decided that in the morning he
would go to Kiehkow to set their minds at rest. A servant would
bring back a message to reassure Tingying, and Mr. Peace would go
on if all was well to pay a brief call at Temopin.

At Kiehkow Yohan had just returned from a trip to a country
church. Because he was the only responsible senior at the Kiehkow
church and school, now that there was no mushih living there, it

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STRONG TOWER

could not be allowed to mean neglect of smaller dependent groups
of Christians. The two young schoolmasters, unsatisfactory as they
had lately been, kept an eye on things, and Chiopa was just a little
way up the valley. But when he reached home this time he found
more than forty armed men in possession of his house. They were
in the church guest-room, in his own bedroom, cooking on his
stove and using his kitchen-ware. For all his simplicity, Yohan was
certainly not a timid man. The fact that his road would lead him
through or into robber-infested country never deterred him from
his duty of visiting the churches, and now he was fearless in challeng-
ing these men. Though robbers and murderers by reputation,
paradoxically in this countryside they could be known by name and
sight and live openly without fear of interruption by law or the
populace. When he entered his house, Yohan at once recognized
these intruders as the Rogues of Thieves’ Inn Flats with their leaders.

“So you've come, An Hungwu, An Shenteh, Lin Wanli!” he
said, naming each of them in grim parody of the Chinese custom of
welcome. “This isn’t an inn, you know,” he added with brave
bluntness of speech, and looked round the gang of men crowded
into his close quarters.

Their expressions were not natural; they were hard, graven in
moral-less flesh and bone. Their clothing was bizarre, based on the
conventional jacket and trousers of blue cotton, but supplemented
by jerseys, coats, felt capes, waistcoats, puttees, stockings, tout caps,
turbans, anything. And in their belts or sashes they carried bayonets
or daggers or Army service revolvers. Their rifles were stacked in
the loft overhead under guard by one of their number.

“Never mind,” said An Shenteh, looking for a moment very
like his half-sister Sala, the “Duchess’s” daughter-in-law; “we are
only here for one night; you have nothing to fear.”

Powerless to move them, Yohan coldly declined their invitation
to share the fire and went out to stable his horse and make himself a
bed in the back regions. If they came and settled like this on the
church premises they could mean no harm in this neighbourhood;
probably they had a raid planned on some homestead in a neigh-
bouring valley. But when darkness fell he did not ring the bell for
evening prayers which was customary for all on the premises, the
school and the church workers’ families. Better that the schoolgirls
should keep indoors and that he himself should be free to watch

the movements of the Rogues. However An Hungwu came to him
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before long and asked: “Why no evening prayers to-day?”’ and over
his shoulder the other two leaders urged, “K’uai i-tien tsu li-pai!
Get 2 move on and have prayers!”’

“We want to listen,” one of them added disingenuously.

Yohan was not to be moved. But at that moment one of the gang
came out with the bell which he had found, and handed it to Lin
Wanli with a laugh in which they all joined.

“Li-pai! Li-pai!” cried Lin, ringing the bell with vigour, “Even-
ing prayers!” and led the way across the terrace to the schoolroom,
followed by his band.

On each side of the playground doors opened, shafts of yellow
light fell across the gravel, and unsuspecting schoolgirls and boys
filed out, wondering that prayers should be so late. Yohan found
his books, his Bible and hymn-book, and went with them. There
was nothing for it but to go through with prayers, cutting them
short, and leaving the Rogues to have their stare at the older girls if
they must. How horrible, this helplessness in the hands of such
villains when they chose to be unpleasant! If only something could
be done; but there was nothing. Even a mushil’s presence with his
prestige was not enough to deter them altogether.

It must have been at this moment that Tingying spoke to Mr.
Peace in Hopien, and the tension of their anxiety increased. But it
was late, after nine o’clock already, and Meili did not like to leave
the cottage and find her way up the dark lane, though every step
was in the church grounds, so she and Jenhan stayed in. They had
no notion of danger.

After prayers one of the Rogues said to Yohan:

“Why didn’t everyone come to prayers to-night?”

It should have been enough to warn him that they were looking
for someone in particular, and he knew of their interest in Meili,
but he was a countryman and understood only what he heard
without seeing deeper meanings. Or if the thought of Meili entered
his mind he dismissed it. She was in no danger; they were negotia-
ting through middlemen for her. He gave the obvious answer, “It
was too late, of course; they had probably gone to bed.”

The next morning An Shenteh and An Hungwu sauntered out of
Yohan’s house saying they had a letter to post, and made for the
Peaces’ cottage. In Mr. Peace’s absence, the simple duties of the
little Post Office were managed by Meili and Jenhan though he was
only twelve. At the door the two men called out,

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STRONG TOWER

“Letters for the post! Anyone at home?”

There was a letter-box, but it was never used; letters were too
few. They were received and dealt with at once by hand.

Hearing men’s voices and suspecting them of belonging to the
Rogues who, as friends of her uncle and aunt, should be entertained,
Meili called softly to Jenhan and sent him out with instructions to
take the letter and put them off. It was not that she had any idea
that they might want to see her, to make sure that she was there;
she acted as she did because it was unsuitable for a girl of seventeen
to go out alone and talk with strange men.

Jenhan went to the door and took the letter from them.

“Sorry,” he said, as she had primed him, “my father is not at
home, so the house is unswept and not fit for receiving guests.”” (A
figure of speech only.) “And we have nothing with which to
entertain you.”

They could not reveal the purpose of their call, so the two men
left. It did not matter much, they were pretty certain, and could
find out from An Toma, who had invited them to the morning
meal. They turned down the lane toward the Old Man’s house.

The whole troop of Rogues was ready for the road when they
returned, a motley crowd, undrilled and undisciplined, but held
together by the fact that they served the hereditary masters who led
them. With Lin Wanli and An Hungwu riding ahead, they took the
route to Kolo. Only An Shenteh stayed behind. He had a quarrel
to settle, and had arranged to sleep in Kichkow that night. Yohan’s
house was left vacant.

3

In the evening Mr. Peace arrived, cold and tired from his long
journey. As he sat over the fire in his centre room, thawing out and
restoring himself with hot tea and oatmeal porridge, Yohan looked
in and found a seat beside him.

“Good thing you've come,” he said without preliminaries, “but
what has brought you? I thought you said you weren’t coming for
another fortnight?”

“I had to come,” answered Meili’s father. “Both my wife and I
felt so anxious about our girl here. Last night we couldn’t sleep.
Has anything happened?”

Yohan told him about the visit of the Rogues and their departure.
Mr. Peace listened anxiously.

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TERROR BY NIGHT

“Thank God I've come,” he murmured. “This is surely the Lord’s
leading.”

They discussed the situation together, and as they talked it became
clear to them that An Hungwu had wanted to see Meili. Perhaps she
was in danger, though that was hard to believe. Besides, the Rogues
had gone off on some other business. But without a doubt the time
had come to tell Meili of her part in the incident, and to hide her at
night lest they come to take her without waiting for formal consent.

Poor Meili. She listened solemnly and without fear. Vaguely,
impersonally, she had heard and thought over stories of this sort of
thing coming to other girls, but she had always known herself too
young to be in danger. Was she a woman now, that grown men
should want to take her? It sank in slowly, numbly, and her face
grew pale. Inside her long loose sleeves her hands tightened and felt
moist.

“What shall we do, Father?”” she asked.

She was out of her depth, getting frightened. There was a moment
when no one spoke, wondering what to say. A rifle shot cracked the
silence. Somewhere across the valley it must have been. They
jumped. “What’s that?” cried one of them involuntarily. Their
conversation had made them unready for the sound. But as they
looked at one another and no further firing was heard, they remem-
bered that this was their normal environment. Shots in the night
must mean nothing to them unless directed at them. In the morning
they would hear an explanation. This was the world they always
lived in. As likely as not it was unconnected with the Rogues’
interest in Meili. »

They were not wrong. In the morning a man was carried up to
the compound by his relatives for treatment, but he was mortally
wounded. Yohan could only send him away with aspirin to relieve
his pain. An Shenteh had come to settle his quarrel, and lost his
temper. The matter was ended. No one would dare to report it to
the officials. It would be impossible to get a conviction against one
of the Rogues. Acquittal might be costly, but they would get it and
come back to settle accounts.

“Don’t be frightened,” said Mr. Peace at last to Meili; “there is
probably nothing in it, but we had better be careful. To-morrow I
will arrange with your Aunt Liya to let you sleep down in their
home. No one would touch you there. And we will not agree to
your being married yet.”

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STRONG TOWER

This solution set his mind at rest. After all, they had nothing
definite by which to suspect that this visit of the gang was concerned
with Meili. That they should plan to kidnap the granddaughter of
the family with whom they were on such good terms was almost
unthinkable. And if that had been their intention, even the Rogues
would respect the Old Man’s house. Meili would be safe there. The
scare seemed to melt away, and he fell asleep that night planning
to go on to Temopin as soon as he had completed this arrangement
for her. Yohan’s son, Chengming, and a schoolboy were going via
Temopin to get money from the bank at Weining. He would have
companions all the way.

4

A message brought Liya up to the cottage first thing in the
morning, while Mr. Peace was preparing to start.

“Yes, certainly. I don’t see the need, but if you like, all right!”’

So that was fixed. At dusk each night Meili would go down there.
Meanwhile, there was no danger in her staying at home in the day
time. It was December the fourth and bitterly cold. The school had
broken up until the warmer weather came. But Mr. Peace’s visit to
Temopin must be fitted in somehow, so, muffled up well, he
mounted his horse and set out.

For Meili the day passed uneventfully, till the sun sank into grey
cloud over the western hills, warming it to a deep maroon with at
best a reddish tinge, and was prematurely quenched in its sombre
bulk. Now some of her fear of the previous night returned. She was
hunted and must hide. The darkness held danger for her even in
Kiehkow which she had known since she was a toddler, even in the
little cottage which was more home than the home at Hopien. She
gathered up a few small things to take with her, and set off down
the cattle track toward the great walnut tree she could see a quarter
of a mile below.

It was meagre comfort to flee from those men by going to the
home where they had been feasted as friends, and where Sala, sister
of yesterday’s murderer, would be present to entertain her. Yet it
was her mother’s home, and there was nowhere more secure. She
entered the courtyard and made her way to the women’s rooms.

“T've come,” she said to her aunt, looking for a welcome, for
encouragement in her plight. But her reception was formal, if not

frigid. Sala was kinder, but her presence was unsettling, and perhaps
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it was Meili’s response that was at fault in Sala’s case. In the circum-
stances it could be pardoned, and Sala did not mind, but Meili felt
ill at ease. She answered their questions and talked as if this were just
another of her not infrequent calls, hoping that one of them would
admit that she was expected and could share their sleeping quarters.
She was disappointed. Could it be that they did not want her?
Were afraid of offending the men? Would prefer her to go back,
alone with Jenhan and their two little brothers? She rose.

“It is getting late,” she said. “It is dark already. I'd better hurry.”

“Are you going?” asked Liya, but she made no effort to detain
her, even rose to go with her to the door. Nor did they offer to see
her home.

Meili felt panic strike at her heart. Almost she burst into tears and
implored them to keep her, but she was Nosu, a Black, she was
proud, and brave. They could say now that she took herself away
and she could not deny it. She turned her back on the cruel house,
on her old friend the walnut tree, and the hard-hearted people who
were her own flesh and blood. Running and walking, she hurried
up the long unfriendly path, feeling that hands were groping for her
in the darkness, fearing that she might be pounced on at any moment.

Panting, she reached home and shut the door behind her, bolting
it firmly to give her courage. A lesser matter might have dissolved
her in a storm of tears and shaking sobs, but not this, it was too
frightful. Her eyes were dry and her mind clear. As soon as she had
regained her breath she called the servant girl, a White Nosu,
younger than herself.

“Bring cornstalks,” she said, “as many as you can carry, and
come with me.”

She waited for the girl to return from the back of the house laden
with stalks. The maize crop had been good, and they were long
strong ones, five or six feet high, and over an inch thick at the root.
Then, gathering up the felt mat and pukai, a Chinese quilt, from her
bed, she led the way out into the darkness.

A winter wind was whistling. She had been hot, but was shivering.
The orchard was the place she had chosen without debating alterna-
tives. There was a wall separating it from the yard outside the
cottage. It was near enough to the boys, but gave her freedom to
move if her fears came true. With the servant’s help, she stacked the
cornstalks against the wall, leaving a space at the foot. This makeshift
shelter would protect them from frost and snow, and hide them

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STRONG TOWER

from any who looked into the garden. Inside she spread the felt as
a mattress, and crawled in with her young companion.

It was all she could do. Now that she was there she felt ashamed.
It was not as if the Rogues were coming after her; in fact, they had
gone right away. There was only the possibility of their trying to
kidnap her. But the attitude of Liya had been disturbing. She must
have thought the risks were real or she would not have minded her
young niece sleeping there. She preferred to keep on the good side
of those evil men and let the girl find some other place of refuge.

“Oh, for a tower!” thought Meili: “Somewhere where I could
get inside and stay secure for ever.”

“The Name of the Lord is a Strong Tower; the righteous runneth
into it and is safe,” came an answering memory from Scripture.

Meili wept. She had forgotten to pray. Getting carefully up lest
she dislodge the cornstalks, she knelt in a huddle under her pukai
and cried. Beside her the servant girl lay mystified, wondering.

“Chu-o! Lord Jesus!” cried Meili in her heart, “Be kind to me,
take care of me.”

She prayed till she felt calm again, and lay down. Maybe there
was no need for this fear and these precautions, but she had better
be careful till her father came home. Across the wall she heard
Jenhan bolt the door as she had bidden him, with the big bar of
wood that stretched from post to post. Now she was alone outside,
could not get in if she wanted to. And with her was this girl who
could take orders, but had little sense of initiative, who might in
her simpleness give her away by letting out a sound.

The moon, crimson and magnified, heaved herself slowly above
the horizon and fading shrank into the cloud-mottled sky. It was
the sixteenth of the lunar month. Shadows of the orchard boughs
fell in broken patterns on the wall and little lean-to, like Peking
ironwork, beautifully wrought.

5

Meili slept, but her sleep was light. Always her ears were open
for sounds in the night. A branch scraping on the tiled roof, a pig
grunting and changing its position in the shack beyond, roused her
to full wakefulness, but she slept again.

And then, O God, footsteps! Without a doubt, footsteps, not
singly, but from many pairs of feet, stealthily, cautiously, from all
sides, coming down the lane, crossing the field below her, turning

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into the open courtyard. Cold terror seized her and froze her to the
ground. The servant girl was asleep. Better leave her lest she make
a sound. Would they suspect this harmless pile of cornstalks?

The Rogues plan was simple; they had only a young girl and
some children to deal with. It was: silence till they were in position
surrounding the house, with outposts at a distance to give alarm or
to intercept Meili if she should try to escape. Then quick action and
away over the hills to Thieves’ Inn Flats. Once there, nothing could
get her back. It was well after midnight, so they had moonlight for
the deed, moonlight for retreat with their prize, but darkness for
pursuers if any tried later to follow.

Suddenly the stillness was broken by the din of crashing wood-
work. Rifle butts, shoulders and feet pounded at the door and in a
trice the bar was broken and the door fell battered off its hinges.
The men surged in, separating to every corner of the cottage. Above
the racket Jenhan’s clear treble challenged them. He was the man of
the house; his little brothers were wailing with fear. They had been
sleeping round the red coal fire and were still only half awake,
terrified by these armed men knocking them aside to search the
room behind. Jenhan was seized and held with his arms behind his
back while someone lit a torch from the glowing coals. The bright
light fell across a tall man’s face and Jenhan called out in surprise.

“An Shenteh! What are you doing here at midnight? Would you
rob us? And Lin Wanli, you too?”

He saw the outlaws searching high and low, turning up the bed-
ding and looking under the bed. Then he knew. If they had come
to rob they would be bundling up the pukais to take with them.
No, it was Meili they wanted. He struggled to get free. Like a snake
in the grass, he writhed and slithered about their legs and feet, but
his arms were gripped by a savage giant. If only he could warn
Meili! What if she were still asleep? When they had searched the
house, they would search the garden. But outside there were men
too, the cottage was surrounded. A dozen inside and thirty more on
guard. What hope had anyone to get away?

Now they were up in the attic ransacking the stores. A villain
came down laughing and showing a bag-full of silver he had found.
That was all that they stole. Meili was not there. Thwarted, they
decided to give up. There was no news from the watchers outside.
Their quarry must have gone elsewhere to sleep. So they let Jenhan
go; and free, in his excitement he had only the one thought. He was

INST. . 193
STRONG TOWER

only twelve. Out of the door he dashed, straight for the garden
orchard. And seeing his set, purposeful face, they knew he was not
just escaping, and followed. But the orchard was empty.

6

Meili raised herself upon an elbow. In this way she could hear
better. Beside her the blackness of the mud wall was broken by a
small disc of light. It was a hole left by a connecting rod used in the
building of the wall. Through it she peered, holding her breath lest
she be heard by the men just the other side. She could see them
gathering before the doorway, ten, twenty of them, filling the little
court, could hear their whispers and the soft jingle and clash of their
weapons being turned in readiness for use. Then pandemonium and
the wreckage of her cottage door. Her thoughts moved fast. In such
moonlight how could she run? Yet to stay here was like lying in a
trap. Now was the time if any to make a dash, while most of the
men were employed, and before the others expected an escape. Oh,
for help! Now, if there was anyone thinking of God’s children in
China, now was the time their prayers were needed. Now would
one sentence for the Nosu find a use, even if unknown to the
pray-er. She took hold of her companion, who was starting up in
alarm, and whispered loudly under cover of the noise, “Quiet!
We've got to run.”

She peeped out. There was no one in the garden itself. North and
cast were the little lanes guarded by ruffians, to the west was the
cottage. On the southern side was a wall standing on the edge of a
high steep bank, a drop of ten feet to the ploughed field below.
Most of the assault party had entered the house.

“Come!” she said, taking the servant girl’s hand, and raced for the
wall. The crisp air stung her to action. She was too flushed with
excitement to feel cold. Between a pear and a walnut tree the
prickly sahmu leaf thatching of the wall had crumbled away, reduc-
ing its height by a foot. With an agility that surprised her at the
time and amazed those who examined her line of flight, she scaled
the wall, and, without looking down, jumped into space. The
ground was hard and rough, her foot twisted over and buckled
beneath her, and she fell heavily. The servant following fell on
her in a heap. But in 2 moment they were up again and running for
dear life across the field.

No picquet had been set just here; it was an impossible place for a
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TERROR BY NIGHT

young girl to escape. But up thefielda man turned at the sound of their
fall and saw nothing in the shadow of the wall and trees. They were
halfway across the field when he caught sight of them and raised a cry.

Now nothing could save them but speed on their unshod feet.
At the time Meili felt nothing in her injured ankle, but for two
months afterwards had persistent pain. They fled without turning
to look,down to the cattle track by Erh Sao’s house and on, round to
the back of her grandfather’s house. At the window of Liya’s room
Meili called out frantically,

“K’ai men-o! K’ai men-o! Open the door! Quickly, open the door!”

Voices were raised inside and a light appeared.

“What is it? Who's there?” they asked through the wooden bars.

“It’s I. It's Meili. They’ve come. They’re after me. Oh, quick,
quick, open the doors!”

Round the corner there was a clatter of door bolts being drawn,
and Meili tore to it. Her uncle, An Toma, filled the doorway, hold-
ing a flaring torch of dry bamboo. It dazzled him, he blocked her
way. He moved aside, and she was in.

Behind them the picquet had given chase. The sound of his feet
padding after them at first grew louder, but their own rushing
filled their ears. As for him, he was in a quandary. He had been set
to guard the bottom of a lane, and it was too soon for these two
figures to have escaped from the house. They must be frightened
servants of no consequence. Yes, one was a White, clad in undyed
cloth. He halted and hurried back to his post, cursing his dilemma.

In the Old Man’s courtyard, family and servants, men and women,
gathered shivering round Meili as she gasped her story.

“The horn!” someone prompted. “Blow the horn. Call the
pao-chang’s guard!”

They ran for the horn, but it was not in its usual place. High and
low they hunted, but it could not be found. A White was despatched
to borrow one and to blow it. But there was a long delay. At last
its deep mellow sound boomed out over the valley, up to Chiopa’s,
across the eastern gully to the farms over there, echoing down to
the lower village near the gorge. And slowly the militia, the “keepers
of the peace,” crawled out of bed, picked up their rifles and made
for the source of the summons. In an hour they had gathered on the
high field across the brook that cut its way past Old Mr. An’s farm
—and the Rogues were miles off over the collar of the Kiehkow
hills, knocking up a friend and asking lodging till daylight.

195
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

" HORS DE COMBAT
“ ... which wellnigh ended his usefulness.”

I

R.: PEACE’S journey had been much like any other. As he
M reached the crest of the mountain above Kiehkow, he reined
in his horse and looked back over the valley. A brief wave of inde-
cision came over him, tempting him to return, but Chengming
had plodded on ahead and he could not leave him without an
explanation. The move to catch up again decided his further course,
and he settled down to his day-long travel. ~

His road was the Kolo road as far as the Kolo Valley, but cut
across its foot instead of going up to the market, and entered the
long Kopu ravine. Some distance up this section of the way they
caught up with a solitary man going in the same direction. Mr. Peace
was leading now, and as the path was narrow and he could not pass
without forcing the traveller up the bank, he slowed down behind
and entered into conversation.

Going through Kopu. Oh, yes. Carrying a big cask. Oil. Oh, yes.
Who could be wanting so much? The district office. Of course.

So they talked, one behind the other.

Anything happening at the market today? Not much doing. Any
robbers there? A gang from the Thieves’ Inn making their presence
felt, but they were just preparing to go.

Mr. Peace was all ears. “Where were they going to?”” he asked.

“They hadn’t finished their meal yet, but I heard them talk as if
they would go up to Kichkow,”” he answered.

Mr. Peace fell silent, lost in resurgent fears. What did this mean?
Ai-ya! If only there were peace and quiet. It never lasted many
months at a time before disintegrating once more in trouble and
anxiety. Meili should be all right with her relatives, but his efforts
to find her a husband must be redoubled. Perhaps she could go away
tfi school, but where could he find the money? And where could
she go?

This tangle of friendship between the Ans and the bad men of the
district was distressing. He believed that each of them was a good

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HORS DE COMBAT

Christian at heart: the Old Man, too old now to count for much;
the “Duchess,” so reserved as to be an enigma; Toma and Liya,
both of them often as keen as anyone else in the church. They had
become involved and were getting more tightly enmeshed as they
went along. He hoped that was the worst that could be said. The
rest of the church was comparatively healthy, steady in attendance
at Sunday services and in maintaining good Christian conduct, even
if signs of more vigorous life were few. And what worlds of differ-
ence between them and the pagans around.

He rode on in this mood of dull despondency till with the gather-
ing dusk they came to the gates of his sister’s home. There was some-
thing unique about this place. The building was better than most in
the countryside, but that was not the secret. A tranquillity rested
upon it. The servants were unlike ordinary rustics; they were unob-
trusive, moving about silently, with a purpose, and respectful, clean.
The guest-room furniture was expansive and there were no insects
in it. But it was An Tekuan himself that made the atmosphere.
Quiet and shy, he preferred to take a minor share in entertaining,
but the warmth of his welcome and the openness of his expression
made up for his few words and put his friends at ease.

It was good to share his troubles with this man and Wenling, and
Mr. Peace was laughing with them before he had been long beside
their cosy fire.

2

The messenger whom Meili sent off first thing next morning
reached Temopin when they were at their evening meal. He stood
beside the fire with face blue and hands outstretched to seek the
warmth. His grey cloak was heavy with frozen mists that thawed
and clung like crystal beads to the hairy felt. In Mr. Peace’s hands the
chopsticks were motionless as he waited for the man to speak, and
the sweat stood out on his forehead as he heard the tale.

“They came back after midnight last night,” the man was saying,
“and broke into your house. Meili got away, but only just.”

“What! What did you say?”’ His voice rose almost to a scream
as he leapt to his feet. “But why was she at home? Why wasn’t she
with her aunt? I left her safe, and you say they nearly caught her!”

He sank down again and covered his head with his hands and
rocked in agonizing torment of soul. The others too were stunned
and speechless, watching him with aching eyes. For minutes no one

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spoke. They could not while in there with him. But An Tekuan at
length withdrew, taking the messenger with him, and let him give
a full account of all that had taken place, before dismissing him to
find food and rest from his journey.

The meal lay steaming before them, but Mr. Peace, giddy and
nauseated, pushed it from him. His skin was ashen and clammy. He
let the Manager assist him to his bed, but could not sleep. His
throbbing head lay hard on the straw-stuffed bolster, and twice he
got up and was violently sick. Medicine had no effect. He could
not pray, though often he knelt, in obedience to Wenling and her
husband, who tried to comfort him and came in ten times through
the night to see what they could do. God was so far away; he was
forsaken. Mountainous waves and billows were rolling over him
and he could not be saved, could not be comforted. This was the
end, here was the climax to his tribulations, he could not bear it
any longer. Let him die. Let him shrink away for ever, into a coffin
in the hillside, far from the storms of life.

His Meili. He saw the scene so clearly, the look in the outlaw’s
eye, and his sensual, lustful lips. He saw his Meili, the hunted, the
captive lashed to a horse’s back, the unwilling concubine of a
demon clothed in flesh and blood. It was too much. That she had
escaped, was safe and well, was like a lie told to deceive him. The
stars had fallen and all was dark.

Years ago these three had been brought together in circumstances
akin to this. Wenling and Wenliang and An Tekuan. But now the
opium addict, the drunkard and gambler had become a saint. He
was more than a brother to the stricken man. Seeing that Mr. Peace
was too distressed to take their comfort and advice, exhorting him
to trust the Lord and cast it all on Him, Tekuan led his wife away
and together in their room they prayed as he himself had been
prayed for in days gone by. j

Returning after a while, he sat on the bed and talked gently,
leading the poor man’s thoughts on to other things, and going
again. Three times he did this, praying with Wenling in the intervals,
noting a calmness growing in Wenliang’s mind. The fourth time
he went in Mr. Peace was fast asleep.

3

The return to Kiehkow took all too long, but there is a limit to
the speed at which a horse can go twenty-five or thirty miles in a

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day. A steady walk increased to a trot at times was all that the
mountain tracks would allow. With cries of good cheer from his
sister and friend, Mr. Peace set off from Temopin, over the shoulder
of hill, past the stone chapel and Miao huts, and down through the
woods and fields. One by one the well-known landmarks were
reached and left behind; the valley of roaring waters, the gullies
sunk in alluvial soil, the Pass of the Strong Winds, the precarious
shingle slopes, the ruins of the vanquished Nosu’s home, the waters’
meet below Kolo, and the old stone shrine. A climb of a thousand
two hundred feet, and Kiehkow lay spread out once more in wintry
setting beneath him. Most beautiful Kichkow, where “every
prospect pleases, and only man is vile.”

When telling the story to the mushih who came to live in Kiehkow
three years later, Mr. Peace gave no details of his reunion with
Meili. He was a little embarrassed after telling minutely the effect
upon himself of the unexpected news. He had been carried away by
the memory of those harrowing hours and his gratitude to An
Tekuan. It was as much to show how triumphant was the sequel to
An Tekuan’s story as to be included in Meili’s adventure. He was
sitting in the mushil’s study telling it sentence by sentence while the
mushih took it down. And at the end his eyes shone as he answered
a request.

“Tell your Christian friends at home? If that would make them
pray for Meili, mushih, do whatever you like.”

For Meili has been in hiding ever since, and is in danger still.

Back in his cottage home he heard it all over again from Meili
herself, how his plans for her safety had miscarried, and her prayers
for protection had been answered. And then his relatives had come
up to see him. Everything possible had been done, of course, they
told him. The “Duchess” and Liya had gone up with Meili and the
pao-chang’s guard to inspect the damage and decide a course of
action; but too late. The moment of danger was already over and
the Rogues had flown.

Not far over the hills behind, they had been taken in by a relative
of An Shenteh, and a sheep had been killed to féte them for a day,
such was their scorn of the arm of law. While they were there a
representative came from the pao-chang to enquire what they meant
by their behaviour and to demand the return of stolen property.

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STRONG TOWER

Their attitude was casual, even to feigning ignorance of the affair at
first, but later they admitted to paying a visit, but not to taking
anything.

Legally the case was clear. Nothing could be brought against the
gang unless Mr. Peace accused them personally before the county
court, and to do so was pointless unless he were richer than they. It
would merely bring bitter animosity and vengeance in return.

Only one course lay open, to hide Meili away until such a time
as she could be married to a Christian man. Mr. Peace sent for his
wife and discussed with her this painful theme. Hopien was no
further from the Thieves’ Inn and no more secure. She must go
further away and yet be with friends who could be trusted to pro-
tect her. Sadly they sat down and wrote to An Tekuan. It was a big
thing to ask, that she might stay indefinitely with them, and might
mean danger coming to their home. But the answer came at once.
Not the request, but their reluctance and apologies might give
offence. Bring her without delay. And remember, if this meant
more frequent visits from Mr. Peace himself, the greater would be
their joy.

4

That was the end. There was nothing more to do. Meili had gone
and the cottage was drab and empty. Even the three boys were
not enough to fill the place that Meili had occupied in his life there.
Since the days when she first came up from Hopien riding on a
coolie’s back she had been a symbol of contentment, the converse of
the trials and disappointments in his work. And she had gone, brave
but weeping, into exile.

In the depth of winter, Mr. Peace had known of cases of frost-
bite. He had seen the dead white senseless areas of flesh on men who
had been injured when alone and unable to get from the mountains
into shelter. It was like that within him now. There was a numbness,
a death of some part of himself, unseen but unmistakable. When
his mother died he had been dazed; life with no mother was un-
thinkable after all she had meant to him. And when his father
followed, the very foundations of life were shaken, its stability
seemed threatened. But these were natural and vaguely anticipated,
young as he was. When the impetus of expansion in his church was
lost on the reefs of Nosu insularity and individualism, and the

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HORS DE COMBAT

backwash of reaction sucked true believers under with the rest,
then he had known grief, the aching of a noble heart longing
for the highest.

“The church of the ages knows that costing love more often
than physical martyrdom, is the price of ‘blood and tears’ that she
must pay for the world. It is no new story; in every age her
tenderest hearts must be put to her hardest work.”

But the beastliness of this new blow made it unbearable, and
Mr. Peace, the finely moulded bell, muffled before, battered before,
was cracked now. The retiring humble man was broken and timid.
His habits of self-effacement were accentuated, his mannerisms
became more marked—the hand across his forehead, both hands
gripping his close-clipped pate as if in self-protection, and his
nervous cough and restless fingers, were unrestrained. Noises at
night demanded investigation; his sensitiveness to sounds became
abnormal, and once or twice when louder ones were heard he fled
in agitation from the house. The oversight of church and school
was more than he could face. Defeated, he gave in.

Jenpin, his eldest son, was just back from school, home from the
city as Mr. Peace himself had come years ago, full of vigour and
ambition, on the threshold of life. Jenpin was now a man, not tall
but strongly built, with big bones and a large head and face. His
skin was dark, his eyes and eyebrows black, with raven hair sweep-
ing up from a tall brow. His words were few, but when he spoke a
flow of polished Chinese came forth between flashing white teeth.:
Jenpin was intelligent, and better educated than his father.  hat
better than that he should share his yoke? Mr. Peace put him in
charge of the school, with Chengming to assist, and went to Hopien
in search of quiet.

But it did not occur to him that if Jenpin was content to settle in
this backward place and to lead a rustic life, it would be more than
he should expect, and a great tribute to his son. In Jenpin he could
see one of his earliest dreams fulfilled, and thought of little else.

1 Some of the streams in these Nosu mountains contain an excess of fluorine,
and the teeth of people who consistently drink their water show early signs of
poisoning. Opaque whiteness gives place to mottled brown. Yohan’s son

Chengming’s were like that already. In later life the bones of the most hapless
victims fuse together.

201
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BACK TO THE FRAY

“But his spiritual resilience brought him once more into the

fiay ! 2
i

IME is a healer, and although a scar and deep-seated ache may
Tremain to remind of former injuries, the healthy individual
can learn to disregard them so that life may proceed unhampered.
In Mr. Peace a resilience was revealed that demonstrated his spiritual
health and maturity. Before very long he was wishing he still had
a hand in the affairs of the church and school, and returned to
Kiehkow to see how things were shaping. He was hailed on all
sides and left no option as to whether he would take up work again
or not, so he plunged at once into his full share, glad enough to do it.

During his absence Yohan had carried on largely alone, hard hit
without a companion, but faithfully continuing his pastoral duties.
Jenhan too had shouldered much of the postal work, sharing the
burden with Jenpin in spite of his school work, and deserved to be
relieved.

But the chief thing that compelled Mr. Peace to stay was that he
saw he must be near Jenpin. After years in the city the young man
was finding it hard to settle in this country place. Already he had
found excuses more than once to go away, leaving the school to
Chengming, and the allegedly necessary matters of business had
delayed him unduly. He was liable to be detained by unforeseen
events and stay on a few more days. It was gaining for him a
reputation for fickleness, and his father was keen to exert a stablizing
influence if he could, by being in Kichkow with him.

As Mr. Peace saw it, Jenpin should be content, whereas he was
bored. His interests were anywhere but at hand. He wore the cloth-
ing of a scholar or minor official, a jacket with breast pockets and
conspicuous buttons, and cheap leather shoes (lacking polish), a
sign of the town goer and young modern, scorning the plain dress
of a country-man. And on his face was a perpetual look of discon-
tent. To his father a good education, a good position helping the
church, and a wife and cottage, seemed all he ought to seek, though

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it was true that he had no salary or remuneration beyond what
came in small fees from his schoolboys and girls.

Nor was he happy with his wife, though Mr. Peace could not see
why. She was a buxom girl from a good family of Blacks. But she
was dull; large, doughy, and spotted, with the remains of a smirk
always fading stalely from her face. She seemed to have a sulky air
of consciousness about her that she was inferior to her relatives-in-
law.

After his absence it was invigorating to Mr. Peace to get back to
the old round of teaching, preaching and advising, to take up his
garden again, and to gossip with Yohan in their spare hours as they
used to do. And the affection of some of his old friends was quite
moving, of wizened little Erh Sao and serious old Chiopa, not to
speak of the poor Christians of humbler status who many of them
owed so much to him and were genuinely delighted to see him
back. All things considered, apart from the tragic trouble over poor
Meili, life was not too bad. It jogged on pleasantly from day to day,
and if there had been a mushih to work with, would have left little
to desire. But there was no prospect of missionary help apart from
those at Kopu. There were still not enough to go round.

And then one day the postal courier came in, a towering, lanky
individual with piercing eyes and tufted beard and clothes in ragged
ruins from travelling all and every day of his existence, in all
weathers. He held a slender staff in his right hand, and on his back
he carried the green mail bag of the Chinese Post Office. Day after
day he covered the same road. Hehchang to Kichkow through
Chuwai market, Kiehkow to Kopu through Kolo market, and
thence to Weining by Temopin, and back, taking a week for each
round.

To-day he brought two letters for Mr. Peace, one in an official-
looking envelope with an imposing seal down its left side, and one
from Hopien, from Tingying. Mr. Peace looked at Tingying’s first.
Apart from personal tit-bits, it dealt with a serious matter to which
the more impressive letter would probably also refer. A posse of
soldiers had come with a gang of workmen, and without so much
as “‘by your leave” had felled and carried off two hundred of the finest
trees on the Peaces’ lands. x

The news was incredible, exasperating, a fait accompli which he
could not have prevented. He quickly tore open the other letter and
scanned its contents. It was formally and politely worded, asking

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for his timber for the use of the country in time of war, and stating
the sum of money that would be paid him for it.

So his return to duty had been the signal for the fight to begin
again. Mr. Peace mopped his brow. This was iniquitous. The sum
they offered was not half of the true value of his trees. He knew the
system:

To their higher authorities:

“To grant by such and such depart-

ment . . $ so much
By purchase of t1mber for spec1fied buildings. $ half as much
By wages of coolies, etc. . . . § the rest”

But in reality it would be thus:

Al L) Erant . $ so much
By purchase of t1mber and other expenses . $ some of it
By gold linings to private pockets. R L ERe pest

The Chinese proverb that extortioners are worse than tigers passed
through his mind. How true it was. This was blatant robbery.

2

After the first burst of indignation, Mr. Peace calmed down. It
was an insult, another drop in the bucket of oppression and robbery
by the men with the whip hand, but there was nothing he could do.
It would have to be borne like every other injustice.

In fact, on further consideration it looked as if Tingying’s letter
might contain the more important news. The last sentence or two
perplexed him. Briefly she mentioned some disquieting symptoms
which had confined her to the house and showed no sign of clearing
up. Only she and her Whites were at Hopien. His brother lived
nearby, but he had lost his wife, and crippled as he was, had his
hands full with his ailing son and his farm. He could not give her
much help. So Mr. Peace decided to go down, taking medicines, to
do what he could for her.

But first he must sit down and answer the infamous letter. He
could not start for Hopien till the morning. His line of action was
decided, but to put it into writing was less easy. He found his ink
slab and brush, and chose a sheet of paper headed with the church’s

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name. Seated on a narrow bench beside a low table, he adjusted his
glasses carefully several times, as if that would help, and prepared
to write, first a rough copy and then the real thing.

Slowly and laboriously he began his letter, nibbling uncertainly
with full dark lips at the bamboo shaft of his pen, hesitating over
the choice of words, trying to recall the style that he should use in
letters to superiors. At school he had known exactly, but he had
been so long in the country with no reason for keeping it up that
it came back to him unreadily, and then had to be adapted to
modern forms. Again and again he crossed out what he had written,
obscuring each character with circular strokes of the brush; the
opening phrases, stereotyped by custom and etiquette, a line or two
more, and then, almost with a chuckle, his piéce de résistance:

“. .. and of course I could not presume to accept payment for
this timber intended for the benefit of the nation. Please enter it
asigipte. T |

The deed was done. This felt better than being swindled or
defeated at court if he should have challenged the issue. It fitted his
mood of quiet and contentment. And it was typical of him to take
this line; he was incapable of being anything but a gentleman. He
copied it out with painful care and sealed it in red with his name,
sticking down the envelope with flour paste, and registering the
letter, though there was no need—it made it look more important—
deposited it in the mail bag for the courier to collect on his return.

And now to find a horse for to-morrow’s journey. His own he
had returned to Hopien, as he had no stable in Kichkow and did not
like always to be using Yohan’s. Chengming had two animals just
now; it would have to be one of those, seeing Yohan was out on
his. He turned towards the stables, passing the school where groups
of boys and girls sitting in the sunshine rose to their feet as he
went by and murmured his name respectfully.

Chengming was a pleasant young man, humble, with a vocation,
and a practical turn of mind. He was tall and well proportioned, but
not strong, dressed in semi-Western style with long trousers and
coat or jersey. He had been through the Bible school at Kopu and
was now a recognized worker in the church, though at present in
full-time employ with the school. He had found out that he was
capable of most that he put his hand to, and was always keen to

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STRONG TOWER

learn something new, be it saddle-making, sewing, building,
doctoring, knitting, preaching, cobbling, farming, archery, any-
thing. His cross-bow and arrows hung by his cottage door, used
~ chiefly to drive hawks from his brood of chicks.

But his wife was a very different type. She was sitting on
their doorstep feeding her infant as Mr. Peace approached. Seeing
him she turned modestly and pulled at her gown, not because she
was modest, her grin betrayed that, but because it was the right
thing to do, for the Nosu are unlike the Chinese, who think nothing
of feeding their babies in public. But this young over-nourished
woman was unusual. She was the large, heavy-cruiser kind, and
liked to wear jerseys made by herself with broad circles in bright
colours limited in width and arrangement only by the amount of
wool available, emphasizing her aggressive rotundity. She was not
often heard making her presence felt, but behind a thin camouflage
of smiles she managed her way through life with subtle obstinacy.
She was always too busy to do the things asked of her, always just
going to roast the oats, to boil the pig food or to feed the baby.

Mr. Peace stepped shyly past her and found Chengming shoeing
his latest acquisition in the stable yard.

“Borrow a horse? Why, yes, if you don’t mind the little one.
But what’s the matter? Hopien? Then we'll ride as far as Chuwai
market together.”

Mr. Peace hitched up his roomy sleeves and lent a hand with the
shoeing. He was gentler and more timid than he used to be, and this
sort of thing was not his forte, but he was still game to tackle almost
anything if need be.

3

One look at Tingying and he knew the worst. She had grown
rapidly worse since writing to him and now was very ill. Her
laboured breathing and leaden blue lips and fingers, her troublesome
cough without strength to make it effective, and the audible rattle
in her heaving chest, left him in no doubt of the issue. A tightness
gripped him deep within, but sorrow could not help. He must let
the family in Kiehkow know, and prepare Meili for the news.

Normally, he would leave letters with the ferryman, who would
keep them till the courier passed by, and hand them over as he
punted his boat slowly across the sluggish stream. But that would

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take too long; a servant must be sent. He did what he could to ease
Tingying’s distress, and sat beside her, writing.

Then for the next two days, while his letters were on their way,
he was busy caring for her, making palatable snacks to tempt her,
knowing it was too late to restore her, and trying to learn all he
could about her affairs. But she was too breathless to say much. For
years she had managed the farm alone, silent on business schemes
which he knew of roughly, but left to her. All he could gather was
that there were certain debts to be settled; she could give no details,
the effort was too great.

Hour after hour he sat waiting by her, keeping the flies away
from her closed eyes, gazing round the room at odds and ends that
he would always connect with her, watching a line of ants that
bustled interminably up and down the wall, butting nose-on into
each other as they clung to a well-tried path through the mud-wash,
and going on purposefully, oblivious of all else. He watched
drowsily, hoping for her brother to come, with Liya and the
“Duchess” perhaps, and for Jenpin, to say good-bye to his mother.
But before the first arrived he saw the end was near. Hot-eyed, he
comforted her, reading from her Bible and praying with her, a
lonely watch but for the faithful White women hovering in the
background to help.

He was tired out, living in a dream, his heart and eyes too heavy
to weep, too numb to share the others’ mourning. He even took
part in the burial service, speaking mechanically. Tingying and he
had lived a strange life, separated so much, unavoidably, yet fond
of each other still. And she was no more.

Then he became conscious that Meili was there, brought by
Wenling, but was untroubled by the risk she took. Meili’s presence
was an anodyne, a balm with no equal at this moment. She sensed it
and kept near him, speaking few words, but feeling the strong ties
o}f comradeship and affection like lines of magnetic force between
them.

It was soon over. Life became no easier asit wentalong. Thein-laws
had departed already, and he wanted to go too. He had said good-
bye to Meili and to Wenling, who had gone another way for safety’s
sake, and himself went back to Kiehkow with his sons. His lands
could be left for a time, though not for long, in the care of his
Whites and his brother. He could not bear to stay in Hopien.

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4

It might have been expected that their mutual grief would bring
the Old Man’s family closer to Mr. Peace to make up for his loss,
but it was not so. The fault could not be laid at any door, but
somehow with the snapping of the link that joined them their
relations became more distant, hard as it would have been for any
others to detect.

In his sorrow, Jenpin too became strangely sullen and morose. His
character his father found hard to understand. Jenhan was different,
solemnized by grief but full of understanding and consideration.
Apart from this bereavement, Jenhan was natural, enjoying life. Yet
in his school work Jenpin was at ease. Whether it was revolt against
Mr. Peace’s ambitions for him that disturbed him, he could probably
not have said. The part of schoolmaster he played with solemn
formality in school hours, and excelled in the kind of speeches and
exhortations to patriotism and virtue encouraged by the Govern-
ment. Only when he took prayers did he find it hard to speak as he
knew he should. Something was lacking in him, something all the
obvious Christians possessed.

Out of school, at basket-ball, that mask fell off. Automatically he
ceased to play a part and lapsed into youthfulness, enjoying every
moment as he played or refereed, his deep bass voice mingling with
the high-pitched shouts of the boys and the resonant tenor of
Chengming. But he was not really satisfied. |

The school was well attended, by children from heathen homes as
well as Christian, and some were from two and three days’ journey
off. It was a necessary part of the church’s work, and in Mr. Peace’s
time had sent out many educated youths and girls. Perhaps for this
very reason it was the object of rivalry and criticism in which Old
Mr. An’s family featured conspicuously.

Behind it all may have been resentment that Toma’s eldest son,
as well qualified as Jenpin, had not been employed en the staff, but,
as he made no claim to being a Christian, it was not surprising if the
church leaders objected. On the surface, however, it was the run-
ning of the school that was called in question, in particular the
inclusion of industrial subjects in the syllabus instead of pure scholar-
ship. It became the cause of friction and division which were to test
this indigenous church, starved of full missionary help, to its very
core.

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The trouble came to a head suddenly one Sunday. The church
service was held always at the nominal time of “after the morning
meal,” as most families had only two meals a day, and no one
owned a clock. In practice, it meant about one o’clock, when the
meal was over and the day’s routine finished, the pig weed and
horse fodder cut and ready. As one and another thought of it, they
would wander up the valley from the lower village and outlying
farms, to gather in the grounds outside the school and chapel.

There they would sit, some for an hour or two, others not so long,
chatting and dozing, squatting on the doorsteps in the sun, watching
a passing plane, or grouped round the fire in Yohan’s room or the
school till enough had come to justify the ringing of the bell, the
little hand-bell with a makeshift tongue. The men and boys would
enter first and take their seats on the left half of the schoolroom—
the chapel was too big, and kept for conferences—and the women
and girls would follow, sitting on the right.

They were a motley congregation, chiefly Whites, with a few
Miao, perhaps a Chinese or two, and the outstanding Black Nosu,
Chiopa, An Toma, Erh Sao, the Widow, and their families and
others. The Whites were chiefly freemen with their wives and
children. White servants seldom came; their masters kept them at
work, and only after dark were they free to do as they pleased. But
the Old Man’s Whites were different. His family was more enlight-
ened, it would seem, for his servants had some education and were
free to come to church if they wanted to. Erh Sao’s never came, but
clattering up at the tail of the women’s crowd would always be the
beggar woman she had befriended, moving with her hands on
wooden blocks, squatting on her heels as she shuffled along. And
blind Peter would come in led by a boy or tapping his way slowly
with a stick, when someone would jump up and take him by the
hand.

The service was over on this particular Sunday and the people
had come out, women first and then the men. As usual, they stood
in groups gossiping with those they had not seen before the meeting,
the girls admiring the embroidery on some baby’s new cloak, or a
patient or two hoping to catch Chengming’s eye and buy some
medicine.

In the middle of this concourse, still subdued after the service of
worship, voices were raised, and loudest of all An Toma’s, as if to
~draw the attention of everyone to the rightness of his argument.

Isr o 209
STRONG TOWER

Before church they had been discussing some point about the school,
and now they had returned to it again. Answering him back angrily
with face flushed and control almost lost was Jenpin, while Cheng-
ming stood by pallid with emotion, but keeping a check on his
tongue. Helpless to intervene, yet agitated in his concern to stop the
fracas, stood Mr. Peace, unable to make his pacifying remarks
penetrate the uproar, so that he fell silent. At times like this he never
feared to speak, but often he believed his contribution to be useless
and so was dumb.

It looked as if at any moment they would come to blows, and the
menfolk of An Toma’s family, his servants and supporters, were
grouping themselves near him when in a paroxysm of rage he
turned and ordered them all home, to return with spears and knives
to teach these young rats a lesson. Here was a crisis such as the
Kiehkow church had never known, and who could tell how it
would end? The blood of the Nosu was up and might stop at
nothing. They were Christians and Christianized in manner of life
and thinking, but around them the primitive world was as close as
ever, and this was surely no worse than plain loss of temper in a
“Christian” land. It was a shameful lapse. But, even more, it was a
dark contrasting shadow which shows up in relief the amazing
advance that has already become the normal.

5

It was not far down to their homes, and the men were soon back,
a swashbuckling crowd prepared to go a long way to show that the
Old Man’s family and its opinions were something to be reckoned
with. All consideration of Christian principles seemed to have been
thrown to the winds. But the birds had flown. Jenpin and Cheng-
ming, seeing that things had already gone too far, considered
wisdom the better part of valour and went post-haste to seek pro-
tection with the pao-chang, the representative of law such as it was.
And everyone else, except for some curious schoolboys who could
come to no harm, had made themselves scarce, filing off in little
lines of threes and fours over the fields and down the cattle tracks,
wondering what the upshot would be.

With no enemy to assault, the rabble had to be content with their
sabre-rattling, and soon disbanded. As each young schoolmaster
lived in his father’s home, with Mr. Peace and Yohan with whom

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BACRKY!TO 'THRE /FRAY

there was no quarrel at the moment, their property was also safe
and could not be ransacked.

It was already late when they had gone and Mr. Peace was left
alone. He was distressed—nay, more, he was ashamed. The church
was humbled to the depths, and the shame he felt to fall on him. All
his world would know. The unconverted pao-chang had had to give
asylum to save Christian from the sin of Christian.

He could not go home, could not face anyone and hear light
gossip on the subject. He went up through the copse behind the
chapel, under the great oak trees to Chiopa’s field. The rotting trunk
of 2 massive tree lay where it had fallen years before. It was a spirit
tree, feared and worshipped, that had been felled when the news of
God’s love in Christ had come and cast out fear. How long ago!
Yet how little advance in the realm of spiritual things. The tree was
a link with the past before the Gospel came, and this incident of the
spears was evidence of the old nature not extinct. But the tree was
nearly finished; a flick of a finger and the wood crumbled in dust.
Please God this disgrace was the last convulsive fling by the Devil
in this place.

He parted some thin undergrowth and stepped out on to the
field. Three scraggy black pigs were ploughing erratically with their
horny snouts for potatoes missed at harvesting. They raised their
heads and panicked foolishly away with shrill squeals. Somebody’s
servant was jogging down the sunken path with a huge load of dry
bracken on his back. And beyond, the hedge-lined track went up
the hill, leading his gaze past the sahmu copse where the line of trees
spread over to the left to Chiopa’s house. He saw with discomfort
the strong towers of Chiopa’s and two other homes higher up the
hill. Poor Chiopa, why not trust the Lord now as you used to do?
And higher still the skyline rose past the woods where the women
and girls lay in hiding from the Reds, right to the summits above.
And there his gaze was held.

A loose white cap of cloud clung to the cone-shaped peak, behind
and around it. But it was alive, tossing and struggling like a wild
beast caught in a voluminous white net. And as he watched, it broke.
Over the ridge it streamed, at first like a huge fluffed collar, then
out of hand, like a gigantic waterfall let loose, growing as it fell,
pouring down the hillside, filling the clefts, dividing at the ridges,
streaming away in all directions, rolling and rolling, a flood with
no end to it, surging, lifting, disintegrating and falling, billows and

211
STRONG TOWER

banks of it, maddened and raging, here in flight, there in pursuit,
broken on the tree clumps, charging down the gullies, sweeping
down upon him in ever denser clammy gusts.

The declining sun was hidden and the valley full of cloud, and
Mr. Peace was standing enthralled by the sight though he had seen
it many times before. How like his life this was; sunshine and a blue
sky, an untroubled landscape and quiet domestic scene—and then a
holocaust of trouble smothering him in clinging damp depression,
plunging him into tumultuous, fog-bound thoughts, blotting out
all clarity and reason.

He drooped in misery, a man weighed down physically by an
insupportable burden of mind. He grasped his head with both his
hands, and, desperate, seeing no light or hope for his people, his
fingers crooked and clawed at his stubbly greying head, passing
back and forth irrationally.

Crossing the line of vision of his downcast eyes, a beetle rolled its
ball of dung painstakingly past his feet and into the long grass. It
broke the spell of his dejection and made him turn, back through
the wood to his cottage. And coming past the school he saw the
massive bulk of Mt. Ararat looming through the mists. However
disturbed or shaken he might feel, the twin-peaked mountain never
changed, it always stood unmoved, calm and comforting, watching
benignly the vicissitudes of human life below it in the valley, and
breathing reassurance.

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HARD PRESSED

66

. . . in which he continues to take a lead.”’
I

N the market town Mr. Peace was in favour. He had been an
easy bird to pluck, had even co-operated in lining people’s
pockets at his own expense. The underlings who profited from his
reaction to their scheme may have had something to do with the
next development, but apart from that, his letter had brought him
into the limelight of officialdom as a lover of peace willing to work
in with the Government.

The county government needed help. It was not easy for a Chinese
from a distant province, a magistrate accustomed to “civilized”
people, an Army officer more at home in a military college, to
understand or cope with these “wild men” of the hills. He needed
advisers and sought them, especially Nosu. Enquiries were made
about Mr. Peace, and in course of time a deputation waited on him
bearing a lacquered tablet measuring four feet by three, on which
lay deeply engraved and picked out in gold leaf, four Chinese
characters extolling his patriotic spirit and generosity. And with it
an invitation to the town to meet the magistrate and join the
advisory council.

Mr. Peace was astonished. When the tablet was hanging above his
door to be seen and admired by all who came to call (but scorned
by him himself for its fiction), and the deputation had gone, he
thought the matter over, flattered and made fearful together by the
invitation. There was much to be said for accepting and having a
hand in the governing of the county, but in what unforeseen com-
plications might it not involve him? Here surely was a chance of
controlling the outlaws that abounded in the mountains, of bringing
law and order. It was worth a trial. Robbery had been increasing
lately in all parts of the district, and something must be done. He
would represent the church, the element that looked most for peace
and quietness, and make it clear to the comfortable town-dwellers
that no one in the country was safe.

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STRONG TOWER :

He thought of the sheep in that flock up the valley. They had
been the Widow’s, but had been stolen and now grazed with a bad
man’s cattle. Everyone knew it and pointed them out to each other,
but she had no redress. The law was too expensive, to steal them
back too risky, and to fight she could not, so there they stayed.
Within limits, anyone could do as he liked if he could stand up for
himself. Many an early morning Mr. Peace had seen cattle being led
down the track that ran obliquely from the crest of hills between
Kolo and Kiehkow, the haul of a night’s raid. No law-abiding and
convention-loving person would be out with them at that time on
the highway.

And from further afield came other tales. Yohan used to bring
them in when he came home from a pastoral visit to outlying
churches. The northern area was the worst. It was farthest from the
motor road and law. Yohan came back from one of these trips
before Mr. Peace had written his letter of acceptance, and his
stories clinched the matter.

2

Yohan could smell tea a mile off. He came down the path to the
cottage beaming already with pleasure, and at the corner called
Mr. Peace’s name. Peace was up and at the door in a trice. He had
been hoping Yohan would be back, wanted to ask his opinion.
Sometimes his slow gliding walk with down-turned face and
rounded shoulders gave the false impression that he could not move
briskly, but on occasion Mr. Peace could display a surprising
nimbleness. He stood in the doorway with folded hands and smile-
wreathed face, welcoming his friends. There was something about
his appearance nowadays that was peculiar to him. When he smiled,
the new emotion failed to obliterate the faintly pathetic and wistful
lines that seamed the skin about his eyes and mouth. It was as if the
two expressions were superimposed, the one seen through the other.

The tea was stewing on the fire. It had been there since the
morning. That was how they liked it. But to celebrate Yohan’s
return Mr. Peace unearthed from a little box in his room a cake of
Féng Pémo’s tea. The converted sorcerer-priest had a method of his
own for making the common tea, which grew not far from his
home, acquire a smoothness and flavour that market tea lacked.
Mr. Peace crumbled it into the steaming pot and let it stew a while,

214

 
HARD PRESSED

then, tipping a little into a cup, swilled it round and threw it out
on the mud floor in a corner. He filled the cup and passed it casually
but with both hands to Yohan. They were old friends, not formal
but polite. His own cup next, and the two of them sipped noisily,
drawing a draught of air over the surface to mix with and cool the
tea that entered their mouths. Stray leaves and sticks they spat out
dryly from the tips of their tongues, and splashed the dregs out of
their cups on to the floor behind their benches. This was content-
ment. ,

“Did you find any tiles?” asked Mr. Peace presently.

Yohan had been deputed to order a batch of tiles for the church
buildings if he could find someone baking them. The kilns were not
always working, and were few and far between.

“No good!”heanswered.“Old Chaonear Chuwai wants the money
in advance, and I know he has orders for tens of thousands that he
hasn’t started on yet. He’s squandered their money already.” And
Yohan raised his right hand and elbow expressively.

“How about the man near your place?”

Yohan’s old home was twenty miles due north of Kiehkow:.

“High price and fissured tiles. I didn’t stay to bargain. They’d all
leak. But the tui-changt at Kantien promised to write as soon as he
had seen his foreman. I took some apples as a ‘mouth-opener’ to
make sure he’d let me in. The mushil’s trees bore well this year.”

“Nearly got robbed below Kanhokou,” he went on, grinning,
so that his tongue looked strangely red and moist through the gaps
between his teeth. “Came round a corner and found a man sitting
on the grass. They had only just left him and gone off with all he
was carrying, and the coat off his back. A moment earlier and I
would have bumped into them—and lost my old horse!”” he added
chuckling.

It had not happened, so could be treated as a joke. But then he
grew serious.

“You know old Mr. Lo?” he asked rhetorically. “His nephew was
kidnapped while I was in their village, and held to ransom.”

Mr. Peace said nothing, simply stared. This was a painful topic
for him and roused low fires of feeling that glowed hotly in his
heart. He would do anything to stop this scourge. Yohan took a sip.

“He was sitting by the fire with some friends in the next house
but one from where I was,” he said, drying his moustache with his

1 Leader of an armed band.

21§
STRONG TOWER

hand, “and a stranger came in and squatted opposite him. The
stranger talked a lot about himself—all lies, it turned out—and
asked them who they were.”

It was not unusual for a passer-by to drop in to get warm, or for
a general introduction to take place.

“He got up for a moment and went to the door, but came back.
A minute later a dozen armed men sprang in, the stranger pointed
with his pipe, Lo’s nephew was roped up, and before his friends
could move they were off on horses down the hill.” |

“What are they asking?” enquired Mr. Peace.

“Ten thousand dollars, three horses, worth nearly as much each,
and a good many other things.” |

Young Lo was an only son, and Black Nosu sons are very precious
because so scarce. Moreover, he was well educated, the promise of
his family. The sum was found, and ten days later he was home
again. Better than having him killed, which was what would have
happened.

What doubt there had been had now vanished. Mr. Peace wrote
in reply agreeing to serve on the council. Something must be done.
And possibly it would secure for himself and his friends the blessings
of justice, fair taxes and assessments.

3

So Mr. Peace was an adviser on the county council and almost at
once regretted it. His opinion was asked from time to time, but he
sat for hours listening to others and being exhorted as if it were he
and his fellow-councillors who could control the outlaws if they
wanted to. But worse still, his visits to the town to attend business
meetings were taken up largely in feasting and gossip. The feasts he
loathed. The food was good, better than he had tasted since his
youth; but the wine!—it flowed, disgustingly. Locally made, from
maize and sorghum, it was easy to get and drunk immoderately. He
shrank from the sight of the toastmaster standing before them urging
them to drink, and drinking himself from the little shallow cups,
with the wine pouring down at each side of his mouth, streaming
down his chin to the table and the floor. He gave the impression of
drinking a lot while little stayed in his mouth, filling and refilling
as he coaxed and cajoled.

Mr. Peace was conspicuous, the last man to wish it, the only
abstainer, embarrassed and silent. He saw the money flowing away

216

.

 
 

HARD PRESSED

while so much could have been done with it. Yet was he to flee it
because the job he had embarked on was distasteful? Was he to keep
out of their company altogether and deprive the local council of
all Christian influence? He could not decide.

Then the outlaws went too far. They raided the town itself, killing
and looting on the main street, so that something had to be done to
restore prestige. “Let the Lolos oppress each other, but when they
attack us . . . steps must be taken.” Troops were sent out. Action at
last. They went to the bandits’ lairs, but their own whereabouts were
always known. When the marching troops approached men and
weapons and valuables were nowhere to be found. And when they
had gone life returned to normal. An occasional pitched battle with
losses on both sides, and severe reprisals with some gruesome heads
set up on poles at market sites to warn the rest, and the troops
withdrew. But while the local representatives of law were relatives
of the guilty, nothing effective would be done; and extensive
intermarriage would make that nearly always so.

It appeared to him that every hope that came into Mr. Peace’s
credulous, ambitious heart was doomed to disappointment. Yet he
kept going on. His faith in God seemed unshakable, and the small
encouragements that came his way he grasped and clung to, making
the most of them. Jenhan was one of these. And at this time the
thorniest church members showed up so well in preparing and
supporting a conference that, despite all, his hopes rose. The briar
wood was good if its thorns were not. And then he himself tripped
and fell.

Without a wife, his home affairs were impossible to manage
unless he forsook Kiehkow. But Jenpin and the church could not be
left. He sought a wife, and finding no one in the church to marry
a middle-aged widower with grown children, looked outside, and
married one who turned out to be reverent and attentive to all
teaching and admonishments, but “incapable” of believing. His
experience with Wenling and Tekuan had proved a snare.

But no one blamed him, least of all the “Duchess’ and her family.
They saw no slight on Tingying’s memory. A man must have his
wife, if only as a shield against slander. This was the customary
thing to do and just what they expected. And as for marrying out-
side the church, what hope was there of finding anyone among four
hundred baptized Christians, men and women, of whom a mere
fifty were Black Nosu, if as many? He could no more be married to

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STRONG TOWER

a White than a king could to a commoner. His race would not
allow it. But his conscience was uneasy and damped what joy might
come his way. .

Then one evening his prevailing dejection was broken into as a
dreary stretch of desert would be by a poppy opening up, a splash
of colour in the colourless. He was alone with Jenhan, now fourteen,
and without premeditation asked:

“Jenhan, what do you want to do when your schooling is
finished?”

And without a pause Jenhan had answered, looking up, “To be a
preacher,” and added thoughtfully, “but not on money from out-
side, because that would make me lazy; or paid by the church,
because that is too uncertain and it makes people so patronizing, as
if they owned you or did it for ‘charity.’ I want to earn my own
living and teach and preach in the country.”

He could not know how wisely he had spoken, or how his
guileless words went to the depths of his father’s being and in a flash
rekindled the fires that had burned and smouldered and all but gone

out over nearly thirty years.

4

Following the incident of the spears, no general rift between the
two families resulted. Toward Mr. Peace, the “Duchess” and her
son and daughter were amicably inclined, for they had suffered
another bitter grief in the death of Old Mr. An, and Mr. Peace had
risen to the occasion with disarming sympathy and help. And
Toma’s nephew, who shared his views, had asked for Mr. Peace
to come and see his wife since she had fallen ill of a painful disease.
There was little he could do because of the taboos which prevented
him from knowing much about the nature of the illness. But his
sage advice had made the young man grateful.

With Jenpin and Chengming it was another matter; the quarrel
lived on. The two young men felt hostility directed toward them
and noticed that people of opposition views looked through them
rather than recognize and greet them as they used to do. It troubled
them and handicapped their work. They saw in small delinquencies
among the boys an organized attempt to disrupt the school by sub-
versive means. There may have been something in it, for one small
boy no longer in the school revealed that he had been told to hang

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about the windows and distract those inside, and stole the wooden
handle from the bell to annoy the masters.

But the repercussions of this feeling were yet to be more serious.
And upon Mr. Peace blows were to go on falling thick and fast at
closer intervals. The bad men of the valley assumed from what they
saw that liberties could be taken and some folk would approve,
while the chances of trouble were small.

At dead of night a smashing of woodwork woke Mr. Peace and
Jenpin and the boys in panic from their sleep. They fled out through
the back way as the front door fell in, and hid while all their bed-
ding, clothes and money were removed, the only things of value
they had. Jenpin had a thousand silver dollars laid by for some
special purpose, and lost it all. They knew too much to tackle the
invaders, had seen too many patients who had stayed or had
obstructed them. And the only comfort in this new distress was that
Meili, knowing how it felt, came over secretly to cheer them up,
and stayed a night. The pao-chang was no more helpful than after
Meili’s scare.

Only a few weeks had passed and Yohan was away, leaving
Chengming and his wife and babe alone in their house, when
suddenly the silence of the night was broken by the rending of the
building’s flimsy walls, by the crash of blow upon blow of a heavy
axe. There were two doors that would have barred their way, so
the robbers chose to go straight through the wall of timber panelling.
In terror made worse by the suddenness of their awakening and
uncertainty of their surroundings, the victims fled into the stable
yard and hid as Mr. Peace’s family had done, waiting while all their
possessions were plundered.

There was nothing they could do. A search would almost certainly
have shown their goods stowed in the robbers” homes a few hundred
yards away, but who would undertake it? And now the unwashen
men of the lawless clique passed them by with a fixed stare at the
road ahead, showing not even the furtive glance and half-nod they
had always given. ;

5

This insecurity was unsettling. Mr. Peace and Yohan had a feeling
that these robberies were largely due to the public cattle road
passing through the grounds. Anyone could wander where they

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STRONG TOWER

liked and see into their homes. It had been a nuisance from the
earliest days, with scores of head of cattle of all kinds passing night
and morning across the school playground, defiling the path, eating
the hedges, and running into the school rooms, the goats and pigs
breaking through fences into the gardens and playing havoc with
the vegetables. They liked the green clover. When the grass all
round. was dry, the clover, brought by the mushihs to the valley,
was always fresh.

Another track ran past the premises and could be used without
inconvenience if the church path were closed, so Mr. Peace and
Yohan talked it over together. There were no rights-of-way; the
path belonged to the church, the church of the whole district (not
only of Kiehkow), to whom the two leaders were responsible. To
close the path would inevitably lead to local opposition, and until
this time no one had dared to face it. But now the last straw had been
added to their load of troubles in serving the Christian community.
They hired a man to build a wall closing the little lane.

Workmen were hard to get in Kiehkow. The social system of
each man having his own Whites who did all his work left few
independent labourers to be hired, and most of them were ruffians.
One was a Chinese. By choice, he made his living by robbing other
people rather than work. He was a member of the same local gang,
but pleasanter than the rest. A simple, burly fellow, known to the
missionaries by the nickname “Mincer Joe.” Just now he was un-
popular throughout the countryside because of his recent activities,
including at least one murder. Yohan had been treating a bullet
wound through his arm, and found him willing to help with a day
or two’s labour in lieu of payment. He had to lie low in any case,
for if he ventured out of his home valley he might be caught.

So Mincer Joe began. A few big stones at the base and a pounding
of clay on top. The framework of planks between which he beat the
earth was roughly two feet high. The cattle had gone by before he
started, and no one of consequence appeared till he was on his
second tier.

Mr. Peace was in his cottage, with the orchard intervening. He
listened to the thud, thud of the pounding as he sat. And then an
angry woman’s voice and a battering at the planks. He went out to
see what it was. Liya, his sister-in-law, was there, livid with rage,
tearing at the wall. He showed himself and asked her to stop. She
shouted at him with a fluency of fury such as he had not known her

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HARD: PRESSED

to possess, and went on at the wall. An hour of the man’s work was
undone, and still she kicked and tore.

“Why should the wall be built? Why shouldn’t they come that
way? No further round outside? Maybe, but not the same. Her
brother had not been consulted. No, nothing would ever get done
if he had to agree first. Was that what was meant?”’ She turned and
strode down the hill.

“Quick, mend it up,” said Mr. Peace, “‘and keep on at it whatever
they may do.”

He knew she would be back before long with reinforcements,
and was not wrong. The struggle began again. It hurt him as the
quarrel after church had hurt, but he believed it right to hold out.
Time and again the wall fell down, and each time when his relatives
had gone he made Mincer Joe start again until at last he won.

It should have been done years ago, before it came to this. If only
there were more structure to the church, men to whom he could
have appealed instead of taking these painful things upon himself.
But still they drifted on, unwilling to lead or be led. Poor Nosu.
Or was it just these few clans in his own countryside? He wished
he could retire again, go back to Hopien and leave it all. How else
could he keep going? But that was what so many voluntary workers
had done, the reason why the church of his ambitions was already
so bloodless and weak.

221
CHAPTER NINETEEN

ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS

bR

“His trials, however, are as much as he can bear . . .
I

R. PEACE was not always gloomy. Far from it. He was a

cheery man who found enjoyment in many simple things

that others missed. If he had gone the easy way he would have lived

at home, a perfect landlord with benign and generous interest in his

neighbours. In his home he would have found all the happiness he

could want. But as it was he chose the harder path and felt its
bitterness more keenly than other men.

His moods of melancholy were like some slimy blue-green
monster that rose from sombre depths and threatened now and then
to engulf him. Sometimes he would feel despondent for days on end,
but normally he smiled his way agreeably through life, bound up
in home and family and work, and kept the disappointment of his
hopes to himself. Only to the mushih, when there was one, and to
Yohan and old Mobhsi did he speak, with eagerness and disappoint-
ment mixed, about the wider vision of the church that he had had.

About this time he heard some cheering news. A mushih and his
family were coming to Kiehkow, and with them the first single
lady missionary that the church had ever had to work amongst
them. They were coming for a year, too short by far, but better
than not at all.

If he counted his blessings, they were many. He was living with
his sons, four sons, when so many had but one or none at all.
Jenpin was a worry, fearful all the time that his enemies would
resort again to physical violence, but Jenhan, cheerful and un-
troubled, made his life a joy since that evening when he opened up
his heart. He watched them grow, Jenhan and the younger ones at
school. And in his leisure nursed his garden, seeing his fruit trees
blossom and hang heavily with fruit, gossiping with Yohan in the
sun. Overhead the drone of passing planes, more frequent as the
Allied effort against Japan increased, reminded him of all he had
been spared of war and desolation. His lot had been much lighter
than that borne by thousands.

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ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS

Yet all the time a cloud hung over him which he struggled to
dispel with scant success. Tingying’s debts. She had been ambitious
in her business schemes, planning to improve the farm, and by the
profits to repay her loans, but had died too soon to see the matter
through. And, hunt as he might, Mr. Peace could find no records of
her deals. He had to keep it quiet, lest people learn that he was in
this plight and have him at their mercy, and, apeing his true credi-
tors, pester him until he became their prey.

He pinched and scraped and sold and mortgaged to raise funds,
travelling here, there and everywhere to interview buyers and
creditors and friends who were helping him out. It was a millstone
round his neck and he would not rest till it was removed. His wife’s
plans might yet repay the outlay she had made, but he was not
waiting till that day. No debts for him.

Since his old home was burnt down, he had not built again in
lavish style. Mud walls to above his head were continued up with
rough woodwork from his own lands, loosely put together to
await a better time, postponed indefinitely while his money had to
go to pay off debts. So even when the missionaries arrived he was
away more than he would have been, helping his second wife, and
improving the house for her by gradual stages.

2

And then one day when he was there at Hopien the heavens
opened, bringing a surprise and joy he had not dared to wish for.
He had written to Meili, as he often did, telling her his movements
and his plans, had told her he would be at home in Hopien for
several days, and thought no more about it.

Now Meili had turned up. Her cousin, Wenling’s son, was going
back to school at Pichieh, and had to come that way. When Meiliheard
the news, she pleaded to be taken as far as her old home. Her exile had
begun to pall. It was nearly three years now since she had fled that
awful night from unknown horrors,and shehad only been home twice.

They could not dissuade her. It was worth the risk, she said; she
would go mad if she could never move outside their house or see
her home when all the time it was so near. So she had come. It was
not safe for them to travel by the ordinary road, and they had
followed little paths across the hills where she would not be known.

Meili. He felt so rich. He had, of course, been often to Temopin
to see her, but that was so palpably a visit to the maiden in exile.

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STRONG TOWER

Here she was, home, and no one knew. She would be safe for three
or four days if she stayed indoors. After that the risk would be too
great. It was long enough for word to reach the Thieves’ Inn and a
band of Rogues to come, if anyone should betray her.

Meili was a girl of twenty now, quiet and dignified, and, like her
father, slight of build with gentle movements, inconspicuous. A
big black turban crowned her head. Beneath it her dark eyes were
framed by aristocratic nose and high cheek bones. Her mouth was
sad, but full of character. And the loose garments of heavy cotton,
cut in pre-Revolution style of Chinese dress according to local
custom, clothed a lithe body and could not hide the graceful freedom
of her walk on tiny cloth-shod feet.

The world was bright with colour and the hedgerows stocked
with flowers, orchids and square-tipped daisies and deep azure bugloss
running wild. Beyond the farmyard stood a tree with reddening
leaves, lit up by the sun’s rays piercing through and through them
till they shone like a myriad rubies. And over all, blue skies, and
snow white clouds propped up in space by the distant hills.

But it was soon over, and their horses stood pawing the cobbles,
impatient to start. They could not go the way that she had come, in
case she had been seen, but the only other way was through Kieh-
kow. That she was not expected made it fairly safe, so they took
the Kiehkow road, praying for protection on the way.

The maize and millet crops were ripening in the fields, long millet
tails in lurid reds and purples splashed among the green. And in the
shady banks where the ground was moist, dainty bells of deep
amethyst hung delicately from wiry stems. Wild plum was yellow-
ing, and in the woods bursting red berries hung across the path, the
ripe ones juicy and translucent, begging to be picked. Friendly
children gathered them to offer to travellers to quench their thirst.

Over the hills they rode, through shaggy woods and down in
sunken gullies where the banks were lined with moss, and spindle-
berry drooped its pink and orange points above their heads. Then
out into a wild deserted place above the river where robberies were
common. Nature was all so friendly. It made vile men the more
hideous and terrifying. They laughed about the bushes draped with
spiders” webs so thickly as to look as if white cloths had been hung
out to dry, and breathed more freely when they left the place behind.

Not half a mile beyond, they met and passed a2 man whom
Mr. Peace knew by sight, a very rich young man, with several

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ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS

servants bearing baskets on their backs. Later on they heard that at
the spot they had just passed this man was ambushed by five robbers
who had lain in wait, and was stripped of all he had. They must
have been in hiding behind the rocks and bushes as Meili passed,
but knew of bigger game and could not change their plans.

Another dangerous place still lay ahead, a danger not of robbery,
but worse. They had to pass through the market of Chuwai, where
men from further north might well be met, men who might spread
the news, or even the Rogues themselves. They rode on, and as they
rode they prayed, not knowing how they could escape detection if
the men were there, except that often the best way to hide is by
putting on a brazen front that deceives by its unexpectedness. But
that was not God’s way.

Over in the west the sky grew dark, dense clouds swept up
toward them, and thunder rolled. And then the rain came down,
big drops at first that fell in ones and twos, and as they neared
Chuwai the sluice gates opened and it poured, sheets of rain that
drove the villagers to cover, that drenched their old thatched roofs
and leaked through on to them. They huddled round their fires and
called to others to come in from where they crouched outside,
while Meili and her father ducked their heads and pulled their
broad-brimmed rain hats forward to protect them.

Rainstorms in these mountains are fantastic, washing away the
roads and bridges, filling the rivers till they overflow, and at night
the dull rumble of landslides can be heard, and stately pine trees are
laid low among the shrubs. The coal-mine at Kichkow fell in on
this occasion, and had to be retunnelled. And they themselves were
soaked. Rivulets of water ran down between their clothing and
their skin. But they were safe. The roads were empty and the
market was behind them. »

In two or three more hours they reached Kiehkow and in the
twilight crept into the cottage. They made the boys keep quiet. No
one must know till they were on their way to Temopin next morn-
ing. It took them all the night to dry their clothes over the fire,
taking it in turns to sleep, but they enjoyed it. Meili had been to
both her homes.

3

Word may have reached the Rogues at Thieves’ Inn Flats that
Meili had been seen. If so it probably fitted in with similar reports
Pst 225
STRONG TOWER

that had reached them of her previous visits. Their attentions at
Kiehkow became more frequent. They began to come in parties of
ten, twenty, thirty or more, led by An Shenteh and An Yunlo. They
said it was to call on relatives, and it was with Toma that they some-
times stayed. But it was more than that. They wandered in the fields
below the chapel. They came to buy medicines from the mushih,
and hung around the school staring at the girls, sizing them up, and
standing in their way as they crossed from classes to their rooms.

Yohan showed up well. He stopped them and reproved them
fearlessly, being careful not to rouse them. Simple as he was, he had
a calm and philosophical attitude to danger, no more than “duty
first.” But the situation was tense. A spark, and ugly things might
happen. The elder girls on whom the villains might have designs
went home. A brother would come in with a led horse and servants
fully armed, with double bandoliers, and after they had bidden
good-bye to Kichkow friends they would be escorted home to wait
for peaceful days. The other girls, mostly too young to be kid-
napped, lived in fear all the same, and every night slept in a different
place, in hiding near the school. By day the school went on.

On one of these visitations when fear and indignation rivalled one
another in everybody’s minds, asking, “Why should these things
have to be endured? Where is the authority that should control
them?”” Chengming saw two Rogues coming toward the school-
room while he was teaching the senior boys and girls.

His spirit rose. He knew what the men would do—just stand in
the doorway and stare, passing comments on the appearance of the
bigger girls within a few yards of them. He could not stand it that
these pure Christian friends of his should be insulted in this way. He
shut the door and put his foot against it, and when they pushed, he
held it closed.

The Rogues were furious, one more so than the other. He fumed
and cursed and vowed to show him that the Rogues could not be
trifled with, but the other restrained him. ‘“Not now,” he said, and
led him away.

And so it went on day by day, no one knowing what was in the
air. Whenever Rogues appeared Yohan’s loose-lipped stepson, now
a servant to the mushih, gibbered inarticulately with fright. But
Yohan and the mushih had to go away for three weeks in the
country holding conferences. Work could not be held up by what
was almost a normal state of affairs. Their families and the school

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ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS

must be entrusted to God or nothing would get done outside

Kiehkow itself.
~ Chengming went about his work pale and apprehensive but
defiant, but Jenpin was frankly afraid. It would not have been sur-
prising if Jenpin had packed up and fled. Far from being any longer
his father’s hope for the Nosu church, he was a broken reed, and
would not be content until he was once again in the comforts of a
city. It hurt Mr. Peace and filled him with shame. He believed that
sons should still do as their fathers wish when they are grown, and
that his of all men should be stalwart supporters of the church and
its institutions. So did Yohan, expecting Chengming to obey him
in every little thing, and shrugging his shoulders helplessly when
his son went his own way.

But Mr. Peace shared Jenpin’s nervous apprehension now. A
sound at night, snapping twigs or rustling leaves, whispering wind
or call of night bird, rattle of tiles by roaming cat or stamping of
impatient animals in the shed, and they were up on their
elbows listening. But they never went to investigate. Within the
last few weeks a woman had been deeply gashed in several places,
and her husband was dying with his brain laid bare because they had
done that.

Always it was nothing worthy of alarm. But it was exhausting.
Faces at the window made them start, but usually it was honest
cottagers whose approach on bare feet to post a letter had been
silent. Yet once or twice it was the Rogues, to do the same.

Jenpin’s moroseness was intensified. Like a scowling animal, he
went about darkly, in a long brown coat knitted in cable stitch by
himself, with a close-fitting skull cap of the same coarse wool,
avoiding everyone’s company. Rather than mix with others, he
would wander alone to deserted spots overlooking the valley and
stand gazing out, lost in thoughts of freedom from this place of
fear. Filial piety would not hold him to a life from which his heart
was far removed.

His mood was infectious. Mr. Peace was anxious, imagining
things that might happen; that Jenhan would be kidnapped as a
hostage till Meili was handed over, that he himself or Jenpin or
Chengming might be injured. When the Rogues were around his
agitation was intense, and when they went away for an uncertain
length of time his exhaustion was pathetic. He wrung his hands,
he nursed his head with them, his fingers eloquent of the perplexity

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STRONG TOWER

and distress that showed in his lined forehead and shining eyes. He
was feeling his age and began to talk of retiring, at forty-six. It
seemed cruel to remind him that probably for twenty or thirty more
years he would be there to work for God, to see his dreams come
true and his son’s sons following in his footsteps.

Yohan’s attitude, alas! was in keeping with Mr. Peace’s—defeatist
—so that he was no encouragement, saying more and more of every-
thing, “Mo fa! It can’t be done,” until the mushih chaffed him,
threatening to use his protest as a name and call him openly, “An
Mofa.” But without question life was hard.

Those were the days when Mr. Peace went often to the mushih’s
study and sat talking of old times, turning to see that doors and
windows were closed before he leant forward and in a hoarse
whisper told about his and Meili’s adventures, and the oppressions
of the present time. And there the news of fresh openings for the
Gospel across the river in Independent Nosuland stirred his soul,
and he talked and talked about his people, their customs, their writ-
ings and their faults. And plans were made to start work on his
dictionary. He came to realize how he and all his friends were
absorbed with “the church” rather than her Head, and spoke of
“entering the church” instead of using the better, more accurate
terms from the Bible, of “being saved” or “born again.” Insidiously,
it had helped them to acquire a secular outlook on these things in
place of a spiritual, and in consequence the burden of their trials
weighed heavily on themselves instead of being referred to Him.

4

In the midst of all this trouble at Kiehkow, another cause of
anxiety, short-lived, flared up at Hopien. One day an urgent
message came calling for Mr. Peace’s help, and off he rode, as he had
done so often down that road. It was another sign of the times that
he kept his own horse at Kiehkow whenever he was there.

Led to his brother’s home by agitated Whites, he listened to a
story he could not but believe. This was the sort of thing that was
happening so much. His brother, as he knew, had been having
difficulties with the owner of the land adjoining his farm, over a
matter of boundaries, the usual bone of contention. They had
failed to come to any agreement by peaceful means, so the neighbour
had resorted to the old device of false accusations to have his
opponent removed while he did as he pleased.

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Some soldiers came one morning with papers setting out a tax,
of which Mr. Peace’s brother had never heard, and demanded
payment forthwith. He had refused to pay unless the forms were
stamped with the recognized seal in the proper way, and a receipt
given. They had gone away, but returned the next day.

Standing on a hillock among some trees beyond the Peaces’ land,
they had announced their arrival by firing two rounds from their
rifles, the bullets passing through the door of the brother’s house and
embedding themselves in the farther wall. Thereupon the soldiers
rushed down upon the home and seized the crippled man, shouting
accusations of evading taxes and, to his surprise and alarm, of
harbouring robbers in a cave behind his dwelling. His protests were
of no use, they trussed him up and dragged him limping to the
town ten miles away and committed him to the common gaol,
saying that his papers of indictment would follow.

This method of false accusation was not new to Mr. Peace. But
if he was aware of the true state of affairs, he also knew how difficult
it was to straighten out again. He hurried on to town and went
directly to the prison. It was a little building set inside the walls of
the magisterial grounds. Mr. Peace was known to the guards at the
gate from having been to council meetings in the past. They let
him by.

The prison building stood alone, facing a blank wall, with no
windows or other ventilation than a door which was a grill of
wooden bars studded with iron. Inside, 2 mob of men sat closely
packed on what there was of furniture, about five men to each of the
four rough beds, the rest squatting where they could. The floor was
filthy, a wooden bucket in the corner their only sanitation.

Near the door, as Mr. Peace peered in, wondering whether it was
safe to get so near these men, most of whom were brigands or spy
suspects, he saw a gang of six or seven gambling with dice on a
board laid across their knees. He could not see his brother; it was too
dark in the further corners of the cell. He called out nervously, and
heard him answer. To get him near the door was not so easy. Old
residents reserved to themselves the right to air and light. But at
last they had a chance to talk together.

From there he went on to the magistrate and begged an interview.
He waited on and on, stifling his desire to cough and fidget nerv-
ously, until he began to fear that he was going to fail. As he gave
up hope an underling came out and beckoned him. The magistrate

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was out, had not returned. Would he please come in the morning?
There was nothing for it but to leave his brother for another night
amid the vermin and vice of the lock-up.

But next day the magistrate sent for him and in his presence called
for the accusation papers to be produced. There was nothing to be
found. The soldiers had gone away, and no one knew why Mr.
Peace’s brother was in gaol. The gaoler with the key only knew
that they had said he had been hiding robbers in a cave. There was
no real cave, Mr. Peace proclaimed with some relief, only a pig-
sty burrowed in the hill. It must have been the pigs that the soldiers
had seen and heard, and hit on as an idea for carrying out their plot.
The magistrate was glad. The whole thing was a hoax. The tribes-
men worried him, he did not understand them, and welcomed every
chance to show benevolence to balance the severity of his usual
actions. He ordered his release.

A woeful pair of brothers rode out of the town, one still nursing
his arms and ankles, abraded by the soldiers’ thongs, telling how all
the way to prison they had offered to release him if he would make
it worth their while, thereby hoping to make money from both
parties to the quarrel. But deeper than the incident itself, to the
elder one it was the insecurity of peaceful people that mattered.
That both outlawry and “law” in the hands of evil men should be a
menace to his peace! In his heart he cried, “How long, O Lord,
how long?”

5

Two months had passed since Meili’s visit home, and it was
Sunday at Kiehkow. The postal courier had come in from Temopin
while Mr. Peace was listening for the bell to ring for church. The
waiting knots of worshippers up by the school were hard at work
discussing two exciting topics. Amongst them stood a silver-haired
and bearded gentleman who was the first, and overhead the sky was
seldom free from the throb of aeroplanes, the second.

For two weeks now planes had been going over, some near,
directly overhead where at ten thousand feet they were but two
thousand feet above the land, some creeping past the tips of distant
mountains with only a faint vibration betraying their presence.
The last time so many of them had gone by, the news had followed
of Superfortress raids on Tokio and Manchuria. These must be
transports carrying fuel and explosives to the great new airport

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ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS

where, so said the travellers from the north as they sat at tea tables
in the town, tens of thousands of men had worked like ants to build
a runway three miles long and six feet deep with stone and concrete.

Planes were a common sight, and when alone few people turned
to see them now, but met together with the time to pass they talked
about these weird inventions. Only one or two had seen one on the
ground. Mostly they thought of them as dazzling silver specks
swaying precariously in the rough winds away up in the sky, or as
the purposeful grey shapes which they had seen pressing powerfully
through dark cloud banks on an undeviating course. But once or
twice a low-flying machine had come searching this way and that,
following the valleys, and later on excited market talk had brought
the news of a forced landing or a tragic crash.

But touching their own lives more closely was the story old
Mr. Lo was telling to the men and boys grouped round him. He
had just arrived the night before from his home a little way to the
north. It was his nephew who had been held to ransom recently.

Yesterday, he was saying, a neighbour had come in to call on him,
a man who seldom called, but had always been friendly. He had
talked loudly about something of mutual interest for a while and
then in rapid whispers urged the old man to escape before nightfall.
He went away, and two others came at different times with the
same advice. They had heard by round-about means, they said, that
he was going to be kidnapped, but would not say how they had
come by the news. He acted promptly, saddling his horse and riding
off as he was. Soon after dark he was with friends down in the lower
valley of Kichkow.

This morning a runner from his home had come to report that
thirty or forty armed men had surrounded his house and closed in,

‘ransacking it from top to bottom to find him, but had stolen
nothing, and had left this morning, thwarted. It was a narrow
shave, and good for the old man that he had been warned, for the
paying of his nephew’s ransom had drained the family exchequer
dry, and he did not deceive himself that the villains would not stop
at murder if his own ransom were not forthcoming in the stated
time. But as he had escaped, he need not be dismayed. In fact, he
stood among the churchgoers wreathed in patriarchal smiles, as if
nothing had occurred to cause alarm.

Mr. Peace had seen him earlier on and heard the story already,
so he was still down at the cottage when the vagabond courier

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STRONG TOWER

arrived and handed him the mail bag. Letters and typed news-sheets
for the mushih, the only trustworthy news that came, and a letter
for himself. There was nothing startling in it, but it stirred him to
the depths. Rather it was its simplicity that added to its pathos. He
slowly read the columns of artistic characters.

“My Fataer,—Respectful greetings [Meili had written]. Every
day I wish I could see and talk with you. Letters are so lifeless;
and the postman only comes from you once in six days. Also I
have much to discuss with you. My aunt and uncle are so kind
to me, they could not do more, yet I am not able to talk with
them about everything, and I have no mother. What canIdo?...

“Father, when can I come home to you? When will this life
end? Could I not live with the missionaries? Surely that would be
safe. I want to work for God, not to be idle all my youth. . . .

“How are your headaches now? I pray every day for you and
sorrow over your trials.

“Please send the medicines when the courier returns. Greet
Jenhan with my love.

“Your little daughter,
“MEmL”

He ached and yearned for Meili as he folded up the sheet of tissue
paper and replaced it in its long envelope. The hand-bell rang out
on the school playground, and its clang and tinkle reached him as
he stood moist-eyed, thinking of her unhappiness. He picked up his
Bible and hymn-book, their leather covers, put on by himself years
ago, now brown and cracking, and went up to church. The men
were already trooping in so he followed, through the door beside
the platform, to his usual seat up at the front, in full view of the rest.

Chiopa was to preach, and started off with hymns, three in
succession, the last one in both Chinese and Nosu for those who
wanted to sing in their own language. Prayers, notices and more
hymns, and then he started on his sermon. He read a story from the
Bible, forty verses without comment, followed by the whole again
in his own words with remarks thrown in. It had no depth, but was
probably suited to the humbler listeners in the congregation.

Mr. Peace’s thoughts strayed off on other paths. Old Mr. Lo had
led in prayer, cheerfully, with scarcely a reference to his danger so
narrowly averted. A good old man. He secemed to be on top of life.

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ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS

St. Paul was on top of life, amazingly, and his distresses were far
worse than Mr. Peace’s. He had been reading lately about Paul’s
bodily weaknesses, his eyes, his unattractiveness, and all his persecu-
tion. What a warrior that he could say, “I take pleasure in reproaches
. . . in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak then am I
strong!” What strength he had that even when near to dying he
still said, “Behold we live!” David was more like himself. He had
confessed “My heart is overwhelmed,” but he was strong in faith
and could go on: “Thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong
tower from the enemy.”

The two, three and four year olds were trotting in and out
between their mothers and the terrace where they played, but
Mr. Peace did not see them. The late-comers, depositing their
staves and baskets at the door, straggled in past the preacher, but
these he barely noticed either. He was far away. He wished he was
like Paul. But perhaps if Paul had had a daughter in such danger
year by year and eating out her heart away from home, it might
have hit him harder than the blows at him himself.

Mr. Peace’s eyes fell on the letter tucked between the pages of his
Bible. Of a sudden he saw Meili, the caged bird with clipped wings.
Tears started to his eyes, but were hidden by his glasses. He rose and
quickly went to the door, passing between the preacher and con-
gregation. Noisily he coughed and cleared his throat, stepping
further out, right out of sight.

He tried to get a grip upon himself, and cleaned his spectacles.
The sahmu trees, their highest shoots formed like a cross, were
waving in the wind, and dry leaves leap-frogged on the gravelled
ground. Two wood pigeons beat busily away across the gardens as
he turned and made his way inside. No one suspected what had
happened. It was in no way an unusual interruption for someone to
go out and spit. No one stared more than they would have any way.
Babies still fidgeted and mothers did their best to keep them quiet,
little boys made figures on the backs of those in front with grass
burrs as before, men lolled expressionlessly or even slept, and others,
interested, were listening to Chiopa.

The service over, Mr. Peace withdrew. Paul’s courage and endur-
ance were more than he could muster for himself. If ever he felt
aged and forlorn he did so now. He told himself he might have been
a grandfather if Jenpin’s wife had borne a child. He felt exhausted
by the struggle against odds, no life or power to grapple any longer.

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STRONG TOWER

He would go and see the mushihs and enquire: perhaps they would
take Meili in their house, though they had once before said, No, the
risk to her was far too great. And he would say that he was going
down to Hopien to get away, to give himself a chance to think it
over. Better than mere sighs and passive waiting would be active
prayer and hunting for a solution.

234

 
 

CHAPTER TWENTY

CAST UPON GOD

¢

. and special prayer is asked for this godly man.”
I

AI‘ home in Hopien and in Kiehkow were equally important
claims tearing him in opposite directions. He could not leave
them as he had done in the past to sort themselves out or to be
managed by the people on the scene.

At Hopien his presence was imperative to preserve the peace over
his brother’s boundaries, and, to him more vital still, the little service
that they held each Sunday in his home had lately attracted several
families of neighbours, including a pémo, who were attending
regularly and gave hope of real conversion. If he was not there as
often as he could be, their interest might lag, for only he of the
Christians in the place was capable of teaching them in a way they
thought worth hearing.

But at Kichkow too his presence was indispensable, not only
because of the Rogues. Jenpin had announced his intention to resign
from the school at the end of the current term. This meant that he
would probably leave the district altogether, virtually forsaking his
childless wife. Worse still, his departure would mean the closure of
the school, and this, as one of the church’s more important activities,
would be nothing less than another big step in her disintegration,
comparable to the shrinking numbers of voluntary workers, and the
polygamy of some believers.

He could not accept a situation like that. Something must be done,
for there was still life in the church. Were not eighteen baptisms this
autumn sufficient proof that the Spirit of God was still at work
amongst them? And in Kiehkow itself the keenest members of the
newly started women’s class for study of the Bible were the women
of An Toma’s household, his sister Liya, and Sala his sister-in-law,
with the eighteen-year-old girl betrothed to his fourteen-year-old
son. Moreover, An Toma and Chiopa had turned up trumps over a
ticklish matter connected with the church premises. They had agreed
to erect a wall to complete the enclosure of the grounds, and it was

being built on Chiopa’s land and with labour supplied by each
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STRONG TOWER

Christian household sending men to represent them on the job. If
the Christians could pull together once again, if only they could
find leaders and be willing to be led, it still was not too late to start
advancing as before.

One of the youngest preachers, named Li, was feeling stirred
about this. He had been thrashing out in his own mind the problems
of church organization and order. The structure and the system were
all there. The mushihs had shown them years ago how it worked,
and had helped them all along, but continually they let it lapse. He
would welcome a chance to talk it over with the rest, the other
preachers. They must arrange to meet. He would invite them to his
cottage, Mr. Peace decided. A rehearsal of the possibilities in view
would do a lot, for one thing, to dispel the weak defeatist attitude
that they were growing into more and more. And old Su Mohsi
would be glad to come over from his district in the south to meet
them all again.

Then there was Jenhan’s future. At the end of the year his
Kiehkow schooling would be finished. He would be due to go away
for higher education somewhere else. But where to send him, that
was the question. There were three cities with good schools to
which he might go, but the choice must be made carefully. It
seemed to Mr. Peace that in most walks of life “‘you grow like the
people you live with.” He believed in the importance of environ-
ment, and, whatever the reputation of the school, it was the indi-
vidual people, the masters and boys, who exerted the influence.
Jenhan’s sacred sense of calling to God’s service was too precious to
be sent out thoughtlessly into the shoaly waters of the world.

When Jenhan went, the post office would be another problem. As
it was, there were always stacks of forms and statements which only
Mr. Peace himself could make out and sign, so that he could never
be away from Kiehkow for long at a time. If only there were some-
one else with the education and reputation acceptable to the city
office to whom he could commit the whole affair!

The thought of Jenhan cheered him. He always gave himself
away with a sparkle of happiness when he spoke of Jenhan’s develop-
ment. But happiness did not play a big part in his life these
days. He was a lonely man, isolated by superior intelligence and
enlightenment from most of those around him. It was a tragedy
that Jenpin, who could have been the very friend his father needed,
lacked his father’s motives and found the mountain life intolerable.

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CAST UPON GOD

Meili too, who could have given him the peace and contentment he
needed, was away, and always in his heart he nursed a silent sorrow
and fear for her. He had a tendency to look back to the palmy days
and to live in them, talking of what might have been, letting his
thoughts drift back to his youth and ambitions.

And there he struck a cheering thought: the dictionary. At last
after twenty years it was going to be tackled. His native tongue was
rapidly fading out, for his people spoke in Chinese almost as readily
nowadays, except the women, of course. And he himself found it
hard to remember the Nosu rendering of many terms that he had
used without thinking in his youth. Only the oldest people whose
Chinese was poor could remember them now, and their memories
were failing. But the Independent Nosu knew no Chinese, and here
was a chance to help in bringing the Gospel to them.

However, there were grounds enough for Peace’s gloomy mood,
as on the day that found him in the study fingering in his hands a
flimsy document.

He laid it on the desk. “Look, mushih,” he said, “another assess-
ment form has come. Another tax to pay, to feed soldiers billeted
in the county.” And his dark eyes shone.

The war in China had taken a dramatic turn. With their garrisons
in Burma and Malay and the East Indies threatened with isolation
because of Allied sea power, the Japanese in China had attacked and
captured all the railway from Hankow to Canton, and on to Indo-
China. And not content with that, they had turned their faces west-
ward and were pushing toward Kweichow, Mr. Peace’s province.

Every market day the rumours grew. City after city falling in the
westward drive. Kweiyang getting restless. Evacuation beginning.
What was to be believed? The only reliable news was two weeks
old before it reached Kiehkow.

Plans had been made for troops to fall back on the western hills,
along the motor road from Szechwan to Yunnan, that passed through
Hehchang. And the soldiers must be fed. Another tax. The form
was made out in a series of columns stating the extent of Mr. Peace’s
land and property, and from them calculating how much grain or
its equivalent in money he should pay. Fair enough.

But, reading between the lines and knowing much already of the
lives these people lived, the mushih understood what lay behind the
agitation in his good friend’s face, and in his words, “I dare not
speak to them.” He kept silence, and Mr. Peace went on:

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STRONG TOWER

“You know what happened a week or two ago?”’ and looked
enquiringly, eager for the relief of telling his experience.

When he had finished he was sweating with excitement, indigna-
tion and distress, but concluded by remarking that though his blood
boiled nothing could be done or worse calamities would fall upon
his head.

The mushih sympathized, but could not help. To intetfere in
matters such as that, or even in the control of wrongs like robbery
and Meili’s case would be to run the risk of setting “officialdom”
and outlaws openly against the church. But Mr. Peace was a nobler
man than he would have admitted, and took heart from what
encouragement he received.

“Blow may follow blow on the anvil of life; wave may chase
wave upon its shores; Ichabod may be written or appear to be
written across every hope, every purpose of the heart. But there
is no waste in God’s economy. God never wastes His children’s

. 259
pain.

He smiled his characteristic smile, a weak pathetic thing as if he
were amused at his own predicament and knew there was no escape.
“All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me,” was the
burden of his thoughts these days. “Gone over . . .” that would yet
be true, God’s billows never stay over, they may come, but then
are gone again. He of all men must not weaken.

2

Before the invitation had reached Su Mobhsi, passing from hand
to hand when Christians met at market, the man himself turned up
in search of Mr. Peace. He had thought Mr. Peace was in Kichkow,
but found that he was on a visit to his home. A message brought
him back while Mr. Su went out into the country a few miles to
see about a share of grain to which he was entitled annually from a
plot of land belonging to a cousin. The only one to summon was
young Li. He came at once, released to do so by the Bible School at
Kopu where he had joined the staff.

Mohsi had come about a problem of his own. He had a farm by
which he managed to support his family of relatives and servants
while he himself devoted all his time to visiting and preaching in

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CAST UPON GOD

the churches in his area. But he could only manage to keep up this
arrangement if the church contributed to his support enough to
justify his leaving his affairs in the hands of less experienced people.
Until the present time it had worked well, but latterly the gifts had
fallen off and left him with this problem: if he stayed at home to
supervise his farming, to make it pay better dividends, his pastoral
duties as the district preacher would be left undone. But if he went
on with his work his capital would dwindle till he was forced to the
same position. Should he break off now and hope to take it up
again? Or were there other funds by which he could be helped? The
missionaries, he knew, would not finance him, because that would
encourage the Christians not to give.

At present no solution could be found but to exhort him to a
compromise, to go on with his work as fully as he could while
giving to his farm what guidance he believed to be essential. But
the only true solution was that the church should get new life and
love for God, which would inevitably lead to gifts enough to
support other teachers too.

Mobhsi was not worried, though a vein of disappointment showed
itself through his irrepressible good humour, and his influence
upon Mr. Peace was wholly good. Peace’s sense of the ridiculous
was always tickled by Su Mohsi’s simple hilarity.

They met in Mr. Peace’s bare but speckless central room and
chatted round the stove while a servant girl laid bowls and chop-
sticks on the table at one side. The coal that had just been added to
the fire was from a poor seam and gave off noxious fumes. They
made Mohsi sneeze and complain of a tightness in his chest. In his
part of the mountains the coal was soft and smoky, bubbling as it
burned and spitting out long jets of lurid flame, but it did not
smell like this.

His epithets grew more than impolite, for he knew he was on
safe ground, it would be most unlike Mr. Peace to fail to see the
joke or to take offence. They were old friends, and this was Su
Mohsi all over, to say just what he liked. It put them all in merry
mood as they sat down to eat, waited on by Jenhan in respectful
silence, trying not to smile when his elders laughed.

Mr. Peace was roused out of the shrinking state in which he lived
most of the time these days, and the sight of one of the dishes on the
table started him on an anecdote. His shoulders heaved and shook
and his face was bathed in deep, smiling lines as he told the story.

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STRONG TOWER

A certain mushih and two friends had come to a meal with him.
Because they were special guests who had not been there before,
he made a dish of his best preserved pork like the one they were
eating now. He watched them as they ate, and saw the mushil’s
face register surprise. Then, thinking Mr. Peace a simple country
man, the mushih made as if to take some more, but moved his
chopsticks on to another dish. The action was enough to show his
friends what he meant as he said in English to them, “Beware, this
meat is bad!” But Mr. Peace knew enough English to understand.

They roared with laughter and plunged in, helping themselves to
more slices of the fragrant half-cured pork, and to the inevitable
dishes of intestine, chopped in rings and slivers, as tough as string.
That started Mobhsi off on other tales of mushihs and their ways. The
dishes they were eating were afire with red cayenne. Here again
they had some tales to tell, for very few of the mushihs they had
known could eat such food without streaming from noses and eyes
too, and one at least would lose his voice by spasm of his throat. But
it was good. Just as they would choose. They moved their benches
back around the fire and poured out tea, sucking at their teeth, and
turned their thoughts to business. |

3

Two problems were before them: the need of authoritative
leadership, and the need to make the organization of the church
work out in practice. Each of them was aware of what was needed,
but none could see the light of a solution to either poser. They had
thrashed it out before and saw no hope of finding among themselves
a leader whom the church would rally round. No older man was
strong enough or sufficiently developed to give the right spiritual
lead. Old Chiopa, for example, was a faithful Christian, but lacking
the conviction to “touch not the unclean thing.” And they them-
selves were handicapped, Yohan by his yielding nature and the fact
that he was a White, Mohsi by his meagre education and being a
a White too. As for Li Chaoyang, in him was hope, but he was still
young, and his standing among the elders of the church inadequate
as yet. Old Mr. An in his younger days would have been just the
one, if only he had allowed himself to be entirely at God’s disposal.
If he had, the story, of the Kichkow church might have been utterly
different. But his was the spiritual tragedy of a wasted life. Lost

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CAST UPON GOD

opportunities, Mr. Peace reflected, and Christians who rebel against
God’s leading, do handicap His work. If only Mr. Peace were a
bigger man. If only he were not apparently insurmountably obsessed
with his sense of inferiority, he would be the man; in spiritual
maturity ahead of all the rest, in education amply equipped. But
there it was, they all knew he would never take it on. Or if he were
persuaded to, his lack of confidence in himself would hinder him
from acting as decisively as he should.

They were all afraid of Nosu unwillingness to be ruled, and
fought shy of having to lead and discipline a wayward people. And
yet they looked as they so often did at the Miao church centred
round Kopu, and wished that they could be like them. But there too
was the lingering basic fault of the Nosu race, haughtiness and pride.
So many of them looked down on the Miao, and inwardly delighted
to be different while envious of their success.

As they sat on, discussing every angle of the subject, one thing
emerged on which they were agreed. They needed outside help. A
mushih was essential, and what they would have welcomed more
than anything was a mushih who would take control and be their
leader. Were they not like children who needed and craved control,
who would mature in time but at present were not ready for respon-
sibility? Yet they understood the stand their mushihs took, insisting
on remaining as advisers and making them themselves run the
church and discipline its members. If this had not been so they would
have been in a still more helpless state; for the last five years they
had been left largely on their own.

So if a mushih could not meet this particular need, where else
could they look for leadership? A Chinese pastor, someone had sug-
gested, but in their experience very few could stand the life. They
were less adaptable than missionaries from abroad, and by upbring-
ing could not but look down on them as aborigines. It was not worth
the risk.

Above all, what they needed was continuity, the same man with
them till he knew them inside out. This applied to mushihs too. An
Toma had said it openly to the mushih who was with them row.

“We don’t want you for only a year, or only five years. W e want
someone who will stay for years and years, like Wén Mushih.”

They had been shocked, ashamed of his brusque outspokenness,
gut it was their own opinion. And the mushih had been glad to

ear it.

QsT 241
STRONG TOWER

“How about a Nosu from another district?”” Li asked; and this
kept them talking for a while. Perhaps it held a hope. Was there a
man of the right mettle who could come?

And then there was the vexed question of church discipline,
dealing with those who take two wives or compromise with robbers.
What could they do? In Kiehkow itself, for instance? Sometimes
they were tempted to bemoan, “Alas that the church was centred in
the upper valley among the Blacks!” If it were down among the
Whites no arrogant, unspiritual men could have dominated it. But
who could have foreseen that, thirty years ago, when the Blacks
were the moving spirits and the natural leaders?

The hour grew late and the fuel burned low, but yet they talked
until their thoughts were clear and they had decided to bring it all
before the elders’ conference at the New Year. They would appeal
that something should be done to pull the church together. But it
was not all planning and ineffective talk that occupied them. They
were convinced that only life from God, abounding life, eternal life,
springing up within them, every Nosu Christian, could make their
church revive. It stirred them so that as they talked they became
different men, more sanguine, more alert.

Mr. Peace, whose habit was to hold back on such occasions,
opening his mouth as if to speak, and even framing the first word
with lips and tongue and then stopping as if he thought better of
what he had to say, was different now. The fellowship of saints had
given him a new accession of strength. It had restored him to his real
self, with strong, unblinking gaze, deep, quiet wit, ambition, faith
and courage. Would that this could remain when life was up against
him; he would be an apostle to his people.

They had to stop. They turned their benches and knelt down to
pray together. And when he prayed Mr. Peace unconsciously opened
another peephole into his character and private life, revealing where
the roots of his fortitude struck water, and betraying how much he
discussed his troubles with the only One really able to help. He lost
himself in plaintive conversation with the Lord.

Could the sincerity and prayers of these earnest struggling men be
disregarded? Then why was their church wilting before their eyes?
~ Why should one church thrive and another faint? Surely it was not
just a matter of the nature of individual Christians and of organiza-
tion. Was it that they were forgotten, that Christians far away
prayed for others, but not for them? The whole body would suffer

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CAST UPON GOD

if one member withered and died. When would their prayers be
answered and people realize that the church is one and indivisible,
and while it dreams complacently in Christian lands it suffers in
Kiehkow? When would their teachers be enough to give them all a
chance to know their Bible, to save them from the ignorance that
leads them into wrong? Was Mary twelve years old when she gave
birth to Christ? And the Nosu Ammon, why was he at fault in
taking concubines if the Old Testament patriarchs were not?

In Independent Nosuland they have a dodge for crossing streams
in flood. If one man cannot keep his feet, they fell a sapling, and,
holding it before them, he and his friends proceed abreast supporting
one another. That was it. The river was in flood; misfortunes on the
run threatening to overwhelm them. “Now therefore, O Lord,
behold their threatenings and grant unto Thy servants that with all
boldness they may preach Thy word.” Would that the Christians
who can stand would fell their sapling and support us!

Their praying over they stood up and moved toward the door.
Li was staying in the school, Mohsi in Yohan’s house. The eyes of
night outside were misted, watching them take leave of Mr. Peace,
and following them up the lane. And the moon threw soft shadows
that danced fantastically and played tricks with Su’s pirate profile
and Yohan’s goatee beard as the two men walked.

4

The hope of better things was not long-lived. Hope and dismay
for ever played at leapfrog in Kiehkow. The brighter sky that they
had seen appeared now to be sunset with lurid colours lighting
everything, and deep long shadows leaping forth were distorted by
his surroundings to curve like talons into Mr. Peace’s soul. News of
the war was bad. While in Europe the power of Allied arms en-
circled, crushed and broke the armies of the enemy, deep in China
the Japanese were sweeping toward the west. They were reported
getting near Kweiyang, capital of the province.

Rumours were rife. No one knew the truth. If Kweiyang fell
Chungking and Kunming would be threatened and the last link
with the outside world, by air, would be severed. The strategic road
through Hehchang and the Nosu mountains would be taken, and
the horrors of war that they had heard so much about would be
repeated in their own countryside. Or if the need to economize in

243
STRONG TOWER

men prevented the enemy from spreading far on each side of the
road, then Chinese soldiers like locusts would be billeted upon them
to carry on the guerrilla war of attrition. But no immediate danger
was assumed. The mushih would have heard if there were any need
to be specially prepared.

But postal services were often poor. Mr. Peace had gone to
Hopien and Yohan was away conducting a funeral in the northern
hills when serious news arrived. A servant went from Hopien to
market and when he returned Mr. Peace could tell from his drawn
face that something was amiss.

“What is it?”’ he enquired.

“The Japanese are coming,” the man replied. “The missionaries
have gone, ordered to escape at once. I met a Kichkow man at
Chuwai, and he said that when he left they were packing hard and
would be gone by noon. The news came after dark last night. Chiopa
was at the mushil’s house this morning making a stretcher-chair for
one of them, and the others were to go by horseback.”

Mr. Peace sat down and pressed his brow. A thousand wonderings
struggled in his mind. The mushihs gone. From Kopu too. So
suddenly. The Japs must be very near. They would come to Heh-
chang. Hopien would be unsafe. What should he do? Something
might have happened to delay the mushih; it was worth going to
Kiehkow in the hope of catching him.

So he thought on. Once more for him the storm clouds mounted
in his sky and thunder rolled. With morning light he rode off,
hastening to Kiechkow. Once more the same old track that he had
traversed a thousand times since as a schoolboy he had ridden to
Chaotung. Twenty-five miles of rugged mountain road, as familiar
as his stable yard at home. The tree before the ferry had been slender,
swaying in the breeze, when he returned a man, with schooldays
over. Now it stood immovable high above him as he rode by.

What memories! What whirling thoughts jostled each other in
his mind as he went on! Thinking consecutively is hard enough at
any time on horseback, but to-day impossible. There on his left was
the fallen boulder that he found that crisp spring morning as, father-
less and bearer now of the title ““The Lake on the Mountain,” he
had hurried to welcome his firstborn son. Poor Jenpin . . . ! The
boulder had fallen in the night, and there it had lain half blocking
the way so that for a quarter of a century already the path had had
to skirt around it. The rock like this on the Kopu road was really

244
 

CAST UPON GOD

dangerous; it overhung the track and horses tended to forget that
riders on their backs would strike their heads if they went too close.
The mushih always liked to canter along that stretch. . . .

Girth strap loose. Came a cropper two years ago just about here
when the girth snapped. Coming home, to find Tingying so very
ill, it was. Holly with berries. The mushihs always liked the look of
that; reminded them of home. Mushihs gone; that means no
dictionary after all. Ai-ya! Well, the Lord knows best. It’s cold
to-day. “Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter”; yes, indeed!

What a journey that was with Meili three months or so ago, when
the ambush lay behind these rocks and let them pass. Any there
to-day? Wait and see, as usual. It would be sad if they took the
horse, a good steady old friend. Never had been robbed on this
road, though, so it couldn’t be too bad. Perhaps he wasn’t grateful
enough; ought to be more content. Across the River of Golden
Sand there wasno law at all; still savagely primitive among the Papus.

Better stop and rest the horse again, and see if the girth buckle’s
holding. Wonder how the mushil’s party will get on? It looked as
if Pollard’s prayer was going to be answered at last. And on again.
Jog, jog, hour by hour, through Chuwai and on, the last ten miles.

The winter’s day closed in softer light with hoar mists hanging in
the air. Bare trees tufted with parasitic clumps of green and red, a
kind of mistletoe, edged the path. Close up the rocks were beautiful.
Their colourful grey tones offset the unpretentious loveliness of
sprawling creepers on their face, flat, spreading plants with petite
leaves and dull red berries all along the stem.

And there, a white splash on the hillside, was the grave of Old
Mr. An, backed by a grove of pines. It would be there for genera-
tions to come, when Mr. Peace had gone, when Jenhan’s grand-
children would lead the church.

And then, Kiehkow.

3

Too late: his friends had gone. What a pity they could not have
waited a day or two, just to see him and say good-bye. What horrors
lay before the Kiehkow church that must be faced alone? No
mushihs even at Kopu to give advice and help. Cast upon God this
time without a doubt.

Yohan was back, had just arrived himself. As soon as Chengming
knew the tidings he had sent to fetch him from the funeral.

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STRONG TOWER

Chengming had gone to represent the church and see the mushihs
off, and even helped to carry the shihmu’st chair when the inexperi-
enced bearers tired, a returning coolie had said.

They could not have waited. The telegram had come slowly and
took three more days to be brought by runner from the city over
the hills. With it was a letter urging speed. The last reliable convoy
of motor trucks would be going through in just a few days’ time,
and they must hurry if it was to be caught. To dally might have
been to risk getting trapped by the Japanese. The people of the
mountains were comparatively safe by being inconspicuous, but
foreigners might be marked and hunted down, or at least cut off
without communications with the outside world.

The horse he handed over to be stalled and fed, and went into his
cottage for a bowl of something hot. But wayworn as he was he
could not sit, though Jenhan brought him more gruel. He rose and
wandered out. There was about the place a deserted air. The school
was closed, no children hung around, no music from the mushih’s
house such as he might hear at this time in the evening, not even
bleating sheep out on the pasture slopes. No sign of Jenpin either;
he did not seek his father’s company these days.

The sun was setting as he wandered up past the empty chapel.
The gardens on his right were looking bare, nothing much was
growing, the weather was too cold, the coldest yet. Must they
really travel now, in this? He went down through the gate, along
the grey brick path and past the mushih’s house. Ah, real haste: the
curtains hanging still, a pair of child’s red socks left dangling on the
line, a window open.

But what of those they left behind? Was this the final dissolution
of his hopes? It was only thirty years or so since the Gospel first
came near them; and now this. Would the church survive if the
Japs came? Of course it would. Their bodies they could kill, but not
their souls; and it would be unlikely to come to that. They could
hide. If the enemy came out as far as Chuwai they could flee. The
girls and women could go up into the woods again.

He pulled his cold, trembling hands up into his long sleeves. The
prospect now before the church was doubly grim. What of the
little groups of Christians near the motor road? The best of all
seemed in the most dangerous places. Yes, there was such good stuff
among those men that nothing would defeat them.

1 Wife of the mushih.

246
CAST UPON GOD

Mr. Peace’s steps had led him down the vegetable garden towards
his own cottage again. Something touched against his gown, and
turning he saw Nelson, the mushil’s one-eyed dog. It was a foreign
dog that had been brought by Chinese soldiers to the district and
abandoned. For wecks it had mouched around, starved, cringing,
scavenging like any local cur, until the missionaries had come, and
then at once they and she had taken to each other. Now she
walked along with Mr. Peace, nuzzling his hand to their mutual
consolation.

He reached the garden wall, and, parting a few branches in a gap
that had been lightly blocked, he stepped across the disused lane
into his own orchard again. This was where he had stood that even-
ing when the messenger came toiling up the hill, the boy with
mangled hands it was, to tell him that his home had been burned
down. He looked again across the misty valley. Rooks cawed their
way to shelter for the night, and lights began to shine.

Weary in body and downcast in soul, Mr. Peace drooped as he
stood. Dying nature and the waning light were symbols of his
world. What pleasant pictures he had painted in his youth and clung
to through so many years of disappointment. They had come to
this. All his castles in the air were crumbling away.

“How long, O God,” his spirit inarticulately prayed, “until the
Sunrise, till His first rays pick up the morning mists and fill them
with His glory? How long till the ripe corn once more stands golden
in the fields, and these dark shadows flee away?”

“The spiritual trial to be expected most, I think, is that arising
from disappointed hopes of our ministry,” Ragland wrote long
years ago.

Far down in the valley rose the note of a ram’s horn, the horn
that in some places is a call to worship, across the river is a call to
arms, and here in Kiehkow called for help. A single rifle shot, and
once more silence. More robbery! Then like a dagger—what of
Meili? Did this Japanese advance mean new terrors for her? He saw
her in his mind’s eye as she heard the news; saw her as the refugee
party saw her, staying near them as if she wanted to talk, yet with
not much to say; standing little and forlorn on the terrace outside
the Manager’s fine house, watching the trail of horses, carriers and
friends shrinking in size as they increased their distance from her
and disappeared into the narrow defile at the far side of the rice-
bowl valley. He saw her waving till the last moment came, and turn,

247
STRONG TOWER

outwardly controlled but as he knew full well aching in her heart
more fearfully than ever.

A wave of weakness and temptation swept upon him. Retire!
Withdraw! Find Meili the best unconverted husband that you can!
Look: seec how well your sister’s marriage has turned out; and your
own is going well! Let the others travail over the church; you have
had your share! Go home!

But then he thought: the mushihs always say, “God demands
faithfulness, not success.” And “Be thou faithful, unto death, and I
shall give thee a crown of life.” :

A shaft of lamplight from the cottage fell upon him where he was,
as Jenhan came to the door. It flickered on his ring, recalled to him
the words, “When He hath tried me I shall come forth as gold.”
And with the thought the Enemy’s attack once more was foiled.
The lesson Mr. Peace had learned from many a bitter struggle had
not been learned in vain. By faith he cast himself into his Strong
Tower and rested there, secure.

“Aba, aren’t you cold?” asked Jenhan’s voice in Nosu.

Mr. Peace shivered, braced himself, and went in.

“From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee,
When my heart is overwhelmed:
“Thou hast been a shelter for me and a Strong Tower from the
Enemy.
I will abide in Thy tabernacle for ever:
I will trust in the covert of Thy wings.”

THE END

248
 

SINCE THEN

HE Japanese turned back before they reached Kweiyang, and
Tthe fears of many failed to materialize. The Kichkow Chris-
tians have been forced to continue with no more than sporadic help
by visitors.

Mr. Peace has written several times. Meili is still at Temopin with
her aunt and An Tekuan. Attempts to find employment for her in
a safe place have so far proved fruitless. Jenhan has gone to school
in Pichieh and will soon be ready to start his life-work. But of
himself their father has said little. Whether he is still at Kiehkow
bearing the brunt of responsibility in the church, or whether he has
retired to Hopien and left old Yohan to struggle on alone, he does
not say.

Kiehkow, however, is but one small corner of the vast mission
field. Its needs are immeasurable, but the strong church of the
“home countries” could make the burden on faithful leaders lighter
if the readers of this story were to pray for these living men and
women and others like them; and if some were to give themselves
to God for work in such deserving spheres.

November, 1946.

249
HISTORICAL NOTE

HE origin of the Nosu is obscure. Theories linking them with
Tmany different races have been put forward, but in every case
dependent on the flimsiest of evidence. Terra-cotta figures found in
“Lolo” caves resemble closely those discovered in Japan. Nosu
hieroglyphics are akin to those found near Ava and Pegu in Burma,
and the Nosu language is Tibeto-Burman in construction.

Such are some of the facts, but yet another is more tempting to
some scientists. Nosu features have some Aryan characteristics, and
occasionally a Nosu has been seen with light-coloured hair and even
with blue eyes. Anthropologists have therefore suspected Gothic
ancestry in them, suggesting that their earliest forebears came from
the Trans-Caucasian regions via Kokonor. And in this connection
there is information, culled from ancient Chinese archives, that
agrees with Nosu folk-lore. It describes a tribe of savages called the
Liao who broke loose from their mountains away up on the
Szechwan-Kansu border at about the time of Christ, and ravaged
and pillaged as they migrated slowly southward during the next
century or two, right through the then kingdoms of Pa and Shu
until they finally dominated the mountains of the far south-west.
There they spread widely, expelling the abject Yao tribe, and
mingled with the other mountain races from whom they took the
best lands.

The story of “The Three Kingdoms™ records the defeat of the
great leader Méng Huo whom the Nosu recognize as one of their
ancestors, but for centuries everyone feared them, and it was they
who formed one of the main elements of the Nan Chao, the “King-
dom of Southern Princes,” independent for four hundred years at
the time when the great T’ang Dynasty spread its conquests even as
far as Europe. The Mongols, however, overcame the Nan Chao,
and some interesting data has been handed down by their famous
protégé who travelled in those regions not many years later.

In the annals of Marco Polo, dictated in prison after his return to
Europe, there is a long account of a journey he made to south-west
China and Burma between A.D. 1272 and 1280. Certain features of
his route are still obscure and unproved, in spite of the meticulous

250

 
 

STRONG TOWER

research of such scholars as Colonel Yule,* but other points are clear
beyond shadow of doubt. For example, a description of the city of
“Sindafu . . . on the confines of Manzi (the Barbarians) . . .” and
its waterways leaves no question that he referred to Chengtu, in the
province of Szechwan.

Leaving Sindafu, he journeyed south-west over high mountains
into a valley with lakes called “Caindu,” he narrates.

“But let me tell you of this same country of Caindu, that you
ride through it ten days . . . and come to a river called Brius. . . .
In this river is found much gold-dust. It flows to the Ocean Sea.”

There are few places this could refer to, but being on the route to
Yunnan, Marco’s “Carajan,” and ending at the River of Golden
Sand to the south, it becomes unquestionably the valley of the
Chien-ch’ang, just west of Independent Nosuland, which the
Chinese also called Chan-tu, according to Colborne Baber. More-
over it is the route taken by Kublai Khan, Marco Polo’s master, in
1253, during the reign of his brother Mangku, and leads to the city
of Tali where a son of the Khan was ruler.

From there Marco went on into Burma, and returned by a more
easterly route into Yunnan, via Anin, which may have been the
Annam of to-day. But now his descriptions are not plain until he
reaches a district of “Cuiju” with a city of uncertain spelling, which
is twelve days by river from a region he calls “Koloman,” and
twelve days further by river back to “Sindafu.”

If Cuiju be taken as Stichow, which it almost certainly is, Koloman
must have been somewhere near Mr. Peace’s native mountains from
which the river of Lao Wa T’an, the Raven Rapids, flows direct to
Stichow itself.

“Koloman is a province towards the east,” reported the great
traveller, “the people of which . . . are a tall and very handsome
people, though in complexion brown rather than white, and are
good soldiers.”

Now, the Chinese word “man’ means “barbarian”; hence this
name is “The Barbarians of Kolo.” Thus an ancient Chinese essay
on the aborigines says that “Kolo and Kihlau tribes of barbarians”

1 See Travels of Marco Polo, Vol. II, Colonel H. Yule, 1875; pp. 20-114.
251
STRONG TOWER

are numerous on the frontiers of Kweichow province, and speaks of
“the Kolo, originally called ‘Luluh.’ ”” (Is there some link here with.
the term “Lolo’’?)

“They are tall, of a dark complexion,” it goes on, “with sunken
eyes, aquiline nose, and wear long whiskers. . . . They pay great
deference to demons, and on that account are sometimes called
“The Dragons of Lo’ (‘Lo-ling’: here again, is there a possible
origin of the term ‘Lolo’?) . . . These Kolo are divided into forty-
eight clans, the elders of which are called chieftains, literally
‘Head and Eyes,” and are of nine grades. . . . The men bind their
hair into a tuft with blue cloth and make it fast on the forehead
like a horn. Their upper dresses are short, with large sleeves, and
their lower garments are fine blue. . . . Their large bows, long
spears and sharp swords are strong and well wrought. They train
excellent horses, love archery and hunting, and so expert are they
in tactics that their soldiers rank as the best among all the un-

civilized tribes.”
It seems quite likely, then, that the district of Kolo round which

the events of Mr. Peace’s life were cast, was the historic home of the
“Koloman” of long ago, of whom Marco Polo wrote.

252

 
 

GLOSSARY

Aba—Nosu word for “Father.”
Ai-ya—Chinese for “Oh dear!”
An—a common surname.

Blacks—the upper caste or true Nosu.

Chao-chio—(Dzowjaw)—A small walled town in Independent Nosuland.
Ch ao-mien—roasted oatmeal.

Chaotung (Dzow-tung)—a city of North Yunnan Province.
Chengming—Yohan’s son.

Chengtu—capital of Szechwan Province.

Chiopa (Jaw-pah)—a Christian of Kiehkow.

Chu Koliang (Joo Gawliang)—historial Chinese statesman.
Chungking—wartime capital of China.

Chuwai (Joo-wai)—a market near Kiehkow.

Duchess—Old Mrs. An, Mr. Peace’s mother-in-law.
Erh Sao—a Christian lady of Kiehkow.
Féng Pémo—a converted sorcerer-priest.

Genghis Khan—founder of the Mongol Dynasty.
Golden Sand—a name of the Upper Yangtze River.

Han Chia—the Chinese.

Hehchang—a county town near Kiehkow.
Hopien—Mr. Peace’s home district.
Hsiang-chang—a district official.

Hump, the—air route from West China to India.
Hungwu—one of the Rogues.

Huo-p’en—a charcoal stove.

Ih-chia—aboriginals; the Nosu.

Ih-jen—Ditto: a less respectful term.

Independent Nosu—Nosu living in the Taliangshan, sometimes called Luloland,
west of the Upper Yangtze.

Jenhan—Mr. Peace’s second son.
Jenpin—Mr. Peace’s eldest son.
Jenting—Mr. Peace’s third son.

K’ ao-huo—to sit round the fire.
Kichkow (Jeer-go)—name of a valley and church centre.

253
STRONG TOWER

Kolo—a market village between Kiehkow and Kopu.
Kopu—a church centre for the Miao people.

Kublai Khan—grandson of Genghis Khan.
Kunming—Capital of Yunnan Province.
Kweiyang—Capital of Kweichow Province.

Li—a third of an English mile.

Li Chaoyang—a young Nosu Christian leader.

Lin Wanli—one of the Rogues.

Liya—Mr. Peace’s sister-in-law.

Lolo (Law-law)—derogatory term for Nosu and other tribes.

Mahjong—Chinese game played for high stakes.
Meili (May-lee)—Mr. Peace’s daughter.

Méng Huo—historical aboriginal chieftain.
Miao—an aboriginal race (tribe).

Mien—dough strings.

Mila—a pémo’s assistant.

Mohsi—Christian name of the preacher Su.
Mushih (Moo-sssh)—used here for a missionary.

Nosu—a race of aboriginals in South-West China.
Nzemo—a hereditary Nosu prince.

Old Man An—Mr. Peace’s father-in-law.

Pao-chang—a minor local official.

Papu—Ilocal name for the Independent Nosu.

Peace—translation of surname An, used for the leading member of the Kichkow
church.

Pémo—a Nosu sorcerer-priest.

Pichich—a county town north of Kiehkow.

Pollard, Rev. Sam—an early Methodist missionary.

Pukai—Chinese wadded quilt.

Rogues—a band of unscrupulous outlaws.

Sahmu—a prickly pine tree.

Sala—sister of Shenteh, sister-in-law of Mr. Peace.
Salawu—a Nosu church centre north of Kunming.
Shama—Snow Mountains in Independent Nosuland.
Shenteh—one of the Rogues.

Siichow—also called Suifu, a city on the Yangtze River.
Su Mohsi—a White Nosu preacher.

Tekuan—husband of Mr. Peace’s sister.
Temopin—An Tekuan’s home.
Tingying—Mr. Peace’s wife.

254

 
 

STRONG TOWER

Toma—Tingying’s brother.
Tui-chang—Chief of an armed band.
T’u-mu—a hereditary Nosu noble.

T’ u-szu—a Nosu holding high Chinese rank.

Weevil—a stored-grain pest.

Weining—ancient walled city near Kiehkow.
Wenliang—Mr. Peace’s name.

Wenling—Mr. Peace’s sister.

Weén Mushih—the late Mr. W. Windsor.
Whites—the lower caste, servants of the Black Nosu.

Yao—a debased aboriginal tribe.
Yohan—a White Nosu preacher.
Yunlo—one of the Rogues.

255
CHINA INLAND MISSION
HOME CENTRES

EUROPE

ENGLAND—

London, N.16, Newington Green.
SCOTLAND—

Glasgow, W.2, 16 Belmont Street.
IRELAND—

Belfast, 23 Rugby Road.

NORTH AMERICA
UNITED STATES—
Philadelphia, 44 Pa., 235-237 W. School
Lane.
Los Angeles, Calif., 238 South Avenue, $1.
CANADA—
Toronto, § Ont., 150 St. George Street.
Vancouver, B.C., 1646 Eleventh
Avenue W.

AUSTRALASIA
AUSTRALIA—
Melbourne, 64 Elizabeth Street.
Sydney, 68 Cambridge Street, Stanmore.
NEW ZEALAND—
Auckland, 101 Dingwall Building,
Queen St. C. 1.

AFRICA
SOUTH AFRICA—
Cape Town, 3 Progress Lane.

 
 

 

 

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