The Blue Dragon: A Tale of Recent Adventure in China

The thing they teased him most about was his wife, for the fact of his being married had seemed too good a joke for Rob to keep to himself. Even this, however, did not appear to annoy the young husband, for a Chinese marriage is so entirely different from one in America that there is no trace of sentiment connected with it. The most important feature of Chinese life is the worship of one's ancestors, and this worship may only properly be performed by the head of a family. Thus, to provide for the suitable worship of their own spirits, in case of untimely death, parents are anxious to have their sons married as early in life as is possible. Such marriages are purely business transactions, arranged by the elders, and with which the young people have nothing to do except to be on hand at the appointed time. Even this is not essential in the case of the bridegroom, so long as the bride is delivered, as per agreement, at his father's house. He may be on a journey, or undergoing a scholar's examination, or engaged in some other important business that may not be interrupted for so trifling an incident as his wedding, which, therefore, is allowed to proceed without him. As he never is permitted to see his future wife or to learn anything concerning her during their betrothal, he cannot be expected to take a great personal interest in her, or she in him. Thus it happened that Jo was quite as willing to accept, good-naturedly, teasing remarks concerning his marriage as he was those called forth by any other customs of his people that struck his new companions as ridiculous.

He had one possession that excited their sincere admiration, not to say their envy, and this was a wonderful memory. Having been trained from earliest childhood to commit to memory columns and pages of Chinese characters, and not only pages but entire volumes of the Chinese classics, our young scholar now took up the acquisition of English as a mere pastime. The alphabet was conquered in a single day; several pages of short words, together with their meanings, in another; and by the end of a week he was reading easy sentences. Rob was his first teacher, and, of course, his knowledge of Chinese was of the greatest assistance to Jo in gaining the meanings of the English words that he so readily learned to recognize by sight and sound.

Thus it happened that when the time arrived for his trial in the county court he was able to give his own version of the fracas on Hatton common in intelligible English without the aid of an interpreter.

In spite of the fact that Mr. Hinckley had employed able counsel to defend the boys, the case was decided against them, and they were sentenced to pay heavy fines in addition to the costs of the trial.

"It is an outrageous and unjust decision," said Mr. Hinckley to his lawyer, "and I will never submit to it so long as there is a higher court to which the case may be taken. I desire, therefore, that you move for an appeal, and continue to give it your most earnest attention."

"Very well, sir," was the reply; "of course, I will do so; but I must warn you that there is little hope of such a suit as yours being won in any American court. It is prejudiced from the outset by the existing strong feeling against the Chinese. For them it is almost impossible to obtain justice, even with the bulk of evidence in their favor, which, in the present instance, even you must admit is not the case."

In spite of what the lawyer said, Mr. Hinckley was determined to carry the contest to a higher court, and, the motion for an appeal being granted, the case of State vs. Joseph Lee et al. was carried to a superior court, in which the earliest date set for a hearing was four months from that time.

In the mean time the muckers of Hatton and their friends were wildly jubilant over the victory already gained. During the evening of the day on which the decision of the county court had been rendered, they gathered about a great bonfire at the lower end of the village, where they listened to incendiary speeches against the Chinese and all who befriended them. These were received with yells of applause and ominous threats of violence.

While this was going on at one end of the village, a number of Mr. Hinckley's friends were discussing the situation in the parsonage at the other. All at once Rob, who had been doing some scouting on his own responsibility, broke into the room where these gentlemen were sitting.

"They're coming, Uncle Will!" he cried, breathlessly, "and they swear they'll run Jo out of the village. They are talking about tar and feathers, too."

Mr. Hinckley sprang to his feet. "My friends," he said, "if you will stand by me in this emergency I think the evil may be averted; but if you cannot see your way to so doing, I must hasten to remove the innocent lad committed to my charge beyond the reach of danger. What do you say? Speak quick, for there is not a moment to lose."

"We will stand by you," replied one and another, "and there are plenty more who will do so, too. Our village must not be disgraced by scenes of lawless violence."

"Then," said Mr. Hinckley, "hasten and gather the neighbors. Let each man be back here within five minutes, bringing another with him. I will try to find Constable Jones, and urge him – "

"Here I be, parson," interrupted a voice from the doorway, "and I've telegraphed the sheriff that there's a show for trouble. He's answered that he'll be here inside of an hour, and for us to try and keep 'em entertained till he comes."

"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Hinckley. "I rather think we can."

Five minutes later, when a noisy throng of men and boys came surging up the street, the lower part of the parsonage, opposite which they halted, was so brilliantly lighted that they could see a numerous company of gentlemen assembled inside. They barely had time to realize that the house thus was occupied, when, suddenly, every light was extinguished and it stood in silent darkness. For a moment the new-comers, just now so valiantly loud-mouthed, waited in silence to see what would happen next. Then they began to murmur, and the murmurs grew into shouts of:

"Fetch out your Chinee!"

"We'll teach him English!"

"Down with the rat-eaters!" and a confusion of other cries, at once derisive and threatening.

As the mob, inflamed by these utterances, and urged on by its self-constituted leaders, crowded about the entrance to the front yard, it was met by Constable Jones, who leaned negligently against one of the gate-posts.

"Hello!" he exclaimed. "What do you fellows want here?"

"We want to see Parson Hinckley," answered a spokesman.

"Well, you'll have to call again to-morrow, or some other day, for he's busy just now and can't see you."

"Oh, he carn't, carn't he? I rather guess he'll see us before we git ready to leave. Come on, fellers!"

"Stand back!" shouted the constable as the crowd surged towards the gate. "I have instructions from the owner of these premises not to admit any one to them this night. As this is private property, and I'm bound to protect the owner in his rights, the first man attempting to enter will be arrested for trespass."

This announcement was greeted with howls of derision, and it seemed as though Constable Jones was about to have on his hands the job of arresting the entire mob, when another halt was called by the voice of Mr. Hinckley, who came from the house to the front gate as though to investigate the trouble.

"What is going on here, Constable Jones? Who are these people, and what do they want?" he asked, loud enough for all to hear.

"Want to see you, parson; so they say."

"Well, my friends, what is it? I am too busy for an extended conversation; but if you can tell me in a few words what you desire, I am ready to listen."

"Yes, we can," answered one of the leaders, gruffly. "We want the murdering, heathen Chinee that you're a-keeping in your house agin the law. We're agoin' to have him, too, an' run him out er town."

"Against the law!" repeated Mr. Hinckley. "What do you mean? I am not harboring any person against the law, that I know of."

"Yes, you be, fer the law says all Chinesesers must be excluded, and we're going to enforce it, by excluding the one you've brought to Hatton in spite of the law."

For ten minutes Mr. Hinckley held the crowd at bay by his arguments, and his exhortations not to disgrace themselves, their State, and their country, by committing an act of lawless violence; but finally they would listen to him no longer, and again a rush was made for the gate.

This time it was checked by a new voice, the stern tones of which were well known to all of them, for it belonged to the owner of the great shops in which so many of them earned their daily bread. "Hold on, men!" he cried, "and listen to me. I don't think I need tell you who I am, or that I will do as I say, for you all know me, and you know that I never yet broke a promise. For many years you and I have lived in this village of Hatton. In all that time we have carried on business together in orderly fashion, to my satisfaction, and, I hope, to yours. We have had differences, but always have managed to settle them without calling in outside aid. Now, however, you are threatening me, as well as this entire community, with something to which I cannot and will not submit. You are threatening this village with mob rule, a condition under which no community can exist and no business can be conducted. Therefore I give you my solemn word that if a single act of lawless violence against life or property is committed this night by a man or woman, boy or girl employed in the Hatton shops, those same shops shall be closed to-morrow, never to be reopened."

"That's all bluff!" cried a voice from the crowd, as the speaker uttered this threat.

"What do we care fer him or fer his talk?" demanded one who had constituted himself a leader. "There's a-plenty of us here as don't work in his shops to see this business through; so come on, lads, and don't fool away any more time talking. Hurray for American rights, and down with all Chinese scabs!"

At this the mob uttered a howl and leaped forward, not only putting to flight the little group holding the parsonage gate, but tearing down the fence and swarming up to the very door of the house.

CHAPTER VI

THE SHERIFF TAKES PROMPT MEASURES

Sheriff Hardy, of Hat County, was a fearlessly resolute man, possessed of great bodily strength and of a coolness in times of excitement that admirably fitted him for his difficult position, and he had constant need to exercise all these qualities, for his was a manufacturing county, having a large population of recently Americanized foreigners, who held in scant respect laws not enforced by a military power always in evidence.

On the evening of the trouble in Hatton, Constable Jones's message found the sheriff quietly smoking a cigar on the porch of his house at the county seat, some miles from the place where his presence was so urgently required. Two minutes later he was on horseback and galloping towards the scene of disturbance. Reaching the Hatton parsonage within half an hour, he entered it by a back door, and at once swore in as special deputies the gentlemen whom he found there assembled, and undecided, not having authority, as to how they should act in the present emergency. Then Sheriff Hardy stepped to the front porch, took a survey of the situation, and for a minute listened to the significant interchange of remarks between the owner of the shops and the leaders of the mob.

He was there when the crowd tore down the fence and made their rush towards the house. Until this moment they had not suspected his presence, but now, at the sound of his sharp "Halt!" their advance was checked as effectually as though it had encountered a twenty-foot stone wall.

"Stand where you are!" he commanded. "Any man who advances so much as a single step farther will be arrested. I am not going to ask what you are doing here, nor the meaning of this cowardly demonstration against the peace. I already have heard enough to fully understand the situation. You are proposing to injure and otherwise abuse a person who is legally an inmate of this house."

"He's a heathen Chinee," muttered some one in the crowd.

"I don't care if he's a blue monkey," replied the sheriff, sharply, "so long as he is here with the sanction of the law, he is entitled to legal protection, and he is going to have it, too, just so long as I am sheriff of Hat County. Some of you Dagoes seem to think there isn't any law in this country, but I'll teach you that there is plenty of law, with ample provision for enforcing it. Now I've wasted all the time I mean to on you, and school is dismissed; so, 'bout face, and clear out of here. You want to be spry, too, for in just one minute I am going to march down that street with a posse of armed deputies, sworn to obey orders, and ordered to arrest any anarchist who attempts to obstruct their passage. I may add that they can shoot, too; and, if necessary, will shoot. That's all."

As the mob, breaking into angry murmurs, still hesitated to move, Sheriff Hardy called out, so that all might hear:

"Posse, attention! Fall in! Come on!"

Then, as the tramp of many feet sounded on the porch, he leaped from it, and his impatient followers sprang after him. The next minute they were charging down the main street behind a panic-stricken mob in full flight, and Hatton's short-lived reign of terror was ended.

After this, Mr. Hinckley, acting upon the sheriff's advice, which coincided with his own inclination, did not seek to secure Jo's safety by sending him away from Hatton, but kept him there in attendance at the academy, where the other fellows, under Rob's leadership, acted as a body-guard for his protection.

"It is too bad that I make so much bobble," said the Chinese lad to his friend one day. "Mebbe better if I go my own country."

"Oh, rot!" replied Rob, who at times found difficulty in expressing his feelings other than by the use of slang. "It would just be pie for the muckers to have you cut away, and they would claim game on the strength of it. As for you making trouble, I call it fun, and so do the other fellows. Why, I've never known so much life in the academy as has been put into it by your coming. Same time, you can't say you aren't getting good by being here, for I never heard of anybody learning as fast as you do. I'm not the only one that's on to it, either; for I heard old Puff – excuse me, I mean Professor Puffer – say the same thing only yesterday. Besides, you couldn't go away till after our trial, anyhow, for we are under bonds to appear, and it would simply mean ruin to Uncle Will if you didn't show up."

"That tlial," answered Jo, who had not yet fully conquered the difficulty encountered by all Chinese who come into contact with the letter r, "makes for me much bitterness and plenty 'fraid. In my country we say, 'Better it is to die than go in law-suit.'"

"Oh, pshaw!" answered Rob. "It isn't that way in America. Everybody here seems to get mixed up in some sort of a law-suit sooner or later, and not worry much about it, either. As for ours, it'll come out all right; you see if it don't. I'm not fretting."

When, in the early winter, the eventful day set for the trial of the now famous case of State vs. Joseph Lee et al. arrived, it seemed as though half Hatton was determined to be on hand. Court was held in the city of S – , distant only an hour's ride by train, so that the Hatton spectators were able to go and return the same day.

Owing to the dragging length of the preceding case on the calendar, that of our lads was not called on the first day of their appearance, and they were forced to spend the night in a hotel, guarded by a deputy. In this same hotel stayed the father of the young tough who had incidentally been thrown to the ground with Jo during the long-ago fracas that began all this trouble. When our lads, accompanied by their guard, went down to supper, this man, together with another, sat where he could see them, and, pointing to Jo, he said, viciously, but in a low tone:

"That's him, and we'll make it worth your while to fix him."

"That well-dressed young fellow?" questioned the other, in a tone of surprise. "He don't look any more like a Chinee than he does like a Dago, and if you hadn't told me, I wouldn't have suspected it."

"No, they've trimmed him up to look almost civilized; but I wisht you'd seen him when the fuss took place. He sure was a savage-appearing heathen then."

"Um," said the other, meditatively; "changed his description, have they? Well, if you can make it worth while, I'll see what can be done."

To the dismay of our lads and their friends, the trial, which occupied the whole of the following day, was, in spite of the efforts of their lawyer, but a repetition of the first one. Much additional testimony was presented by the State, but nothing new had been forth-coming in their behalf. So late in the day was the case closed that the judge withheld his decision until the next morning; but no one had a doubt as to its nature, and the muckers of Hatton held another jubilation that night with bonfires and much noise.

Full accounts of the trial appeared in the morning papers, and our friends read these with heavy hearts.

"Looks as though we stood a good chance of going to prison," remarked Rob, gloomily. "It'll either be that or a whopping big fine that, I'm afraid, Uncle Will can't raise. Maybe it'll be both."

"If my father were only here," said Jo, "he would make things all right quick enough, by giving that mandarin judge much money."

"Oh, would he?" replied Rob. "That's all you know about American judges. Such a scheme might work in China, but if your father should try it on here he would be pretty apt to land himself in prison, alongside of his son, and that son's 'accomplice,' as the papers now call me. We Americans are a pretty tough lot, I'll admit, and our laws don't seem to have much to do with justice, but I don't believe we've yet come to the point of bribing our judges – that is, not to any great extent."

"But, Rob, my friend, it is for you that my heart is aching. For me it makes no difference. When I am again free I will go back to my own country as a hero, whose bad treatment here will only make my people hate foreigners more than ever. But for you it will mean shame and much sorrow, all caused by me."

"Now, don't you fret a little bit about that, old man," replied Rob, stoutly. "There is no danger of me being disgraced by going to prison in a good cause, in the eyes of any one whose opinion is worth anything. I tell you, honestly, that, so long as you are in this scrape, I'm glad to be in it with you; for it will show that if Americans are sometimes unjust, it is not only to foreigners, but to their own people as well."

So greatly was interest in the case stimulated by the published reports that, on the second day of the trial, the court-room was crowded with spectators. Most of these were hostile in sentiment to our lads and were anxious to hear sentence pronounced, not only upon the Chinese, who had dared assault an American, but upon the white lad who had proved a traitor to his own people by assisting in the outrage. Another attraction in the court-room that morning was a Chinese gentleman, richly clad in his national costume, who entered with the judge, and was accorded the honor of a seat on the bench. He was secretary to the Chinese legation at Washington, hurriedly sent on by his chief to inquire into this case and do everything possible for the relief of his young countryman. Even after entering the court-room he continued to speak to the judge; but the face of the latter remained sternly impassive, as though, having made up his mind, nothing could change it.

When our lads were led to their seats they could nowhere see the lawyer who was defending them, and they wondered at his absence; but he appeared and took his place with other members of the bar just as court was opening. He had no opportunity for communicating with them at that moment, but he beamed upon them with a smiling countenance, for which they could not account.

"Looks like a man grinning at his own funeral," whispered Rob to his friend, who wondered how such a thing might be possible.

In another moment, however, his attention was drawn from this puzzle by the opening of court, and by seeing their counsel rise to his feet.

"Your honor," said this gentleman, addressing the judge, "I beg leave to petition that the case of State vs. Joseph Lee et al., concluded in this court yesterday, be reopened for the admission of new and important testimony in behalf of the defence. Only this morning has a witness been discovered whose story will, I believe, completely reverse all previous impressions gained during this momentous trial. In view of that fact we earnestly pray that you will permit us to place this person on the stand."

After listening to a demur from the district attorney, the court granted this petition and reopened the case, whereupon the counsel for the defence summoned to the witness-stand Miss Annabel Lorimer.

CHAPTER VII

THE SENTENCE OF THE COURT

As the court-crier, amid a breathless hush of expectation, loudly called the name "Annabel Lorimer," a young girl, flushed with embarrassment, but with brave, gray eyes, rose from a seat in the front row of spectators and was escorted to the witness-stand by a gentleman, who evidently was her father, and who remained near her during the examination that followed. After she had sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, had given her name, her place of residence as that very city, and had blushingly admitted that, although fifteen years of age, she was unmarried, she was asked to tell what she knew of the case now on trial.

"We were going to Canada for the summer," she began, "so as to learn how to travel and get ready for the great journey around the world that papa and I are going to take this winter. So I went to Hatton to say good-bye to my aunt Marjorie, who lives in a big, white house, just across from the common. I could only stay one night, and had to leave on the very earliest morning train. So I was up pretty early, and was dressing to go down-stairs, when such shouting and laughing came from the street that I looked out of the window. There were a lot of boys, all running, and one of them was a Chinese. I never saw one before, but I knew he was Chinese by his pig-tail and by his funny shoes, that were just like the pictures."

"Can you tell how he was dressed?" asked Jo's lawyer.

"Yes, he had on a long, blue frock, without any waist-band."

"Like this?" suggested the lawyer, at the same time holding up the very gown Jo had worn on that eventful morning.

"Yes, just the same; only at first it wasn't torn."

"Thank you. Now you may proceed with your story."

"Well, while I was looking I saw that the other boys were teasing the Chinese boy, which seemed to me dreadfully mean, when he was all alone in a strange place, especially when he stood still and began to look frightened. Then some more big boys, who had been playing on the common, came running over, and they all crowded around the Chinese boy and began to abuse him."

"What do you mean by abusing him? What did they do?"

"Why, they hit him, and pushed him from one side to the other, and pulled at his pig-tail, and ran round and round with it so as to make him turn and get dizzy, and knocked off his cap, and did everything horrid they could think of."

"What kind of boys were they?"

"Just the very kind that tie fire-crackers to poor dogs' tails, and kill pussy-cats with stones, and – swear."

This last word the witness uttered with some hesitation and in a low tone.

"Would you know any of those boys again if you should see them?"

"Yes, I'd know the two I see sitting over there," replied Annabel, at the same time pointing to a group of the Hatton muckers who had been retained in court as witnesses.

"How can you identify them?"

"Because the little one has such very red hair, and so many freckles, and the other is so big and ugly looking; besides, he is the one who knocked the Chinese boy down."

"How did he do that?"

"He butted him in the back with his head, while the little, speckled one was pulling at his pig-tail in front, and they all went down together."