"I wish I could describe to you our life in that strange inland Chinese city. We were hundreds of miles from Hong-Kong, which was the nearest British settlement, and travelling was so difficult and so slow that it took many weeks to reach the coast, and was both fatiguing and dangerous. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could in the house, half-Chinese, half-European, which had been built under my directions, and we tried to grow English seeds in our garden to remind us of the home we had left.
"Three children were born to us, a boy named Edmund, and twin girls whom we christened Mary and Una, and, though we were so far away from our own native land, we managed to be a very happy little household. The woman Lao-ya was our nurse, and as devoted to the babies as if they had been her own. She would never leave them for an instant, and no trouble seemed too great for her to take on their behalf.
"Among the more earnest members of our church was a man called Kan-Sou, who was a very clever carver of ivories, an art in which the Chinese excel. I had been able to cure his wife of a painful disease, and he was anxious to give me a present of some of his own work. One day, therefore, he brought me two small lockets which he had made specially for my two little girls. The exquisite threefold tracery of the border was intended, so he said, as a symbol of the doctrine of the Trinity; on one side was the Chinese equivalent for 'Good Luck', and on the other, also in Chinese characters, the names Mary and Una. He had contrived a secret spring by which the lockets would open, and had carved inside the date of the children's baptism, the entire Western part of the idea being copied from a trinket we possessed in the house, which Lao-ya had once shown him, though his rendering of it was wholly Eastern. As I found there was sufficient space in each to contain a portrait, I inserted two small photographs of my wife which I had taken myself, and coloured, and, to show our appreciation of his kindness, we tied his gifts round the babies' necks with pieces of ribbon. I believe poor Lao-ya must have considered them to be some kind of Christian charm, for she would never allow them to be taken off, and always treated them as if they were objects of veneration.
"All this time the people of Tsi-chin, though regarding us with extreme suspicion, had never yet proved themselves to be absolutely hostile. When the twins were nearly a year old, however, we began to notice a marked change in the demeanour of the townsfolk, both towards us and the Mission. Ugly rumours reached us of riots in other cities, and cruelties the very mention of which was enough to fill one with horror. There was an epidemic of disease among the natives, caused by their own dirt and ignorance of the common laws of health, and many of their priests had spread the report that it had been introduced by the foreigners for the purpose of reducing their numbers, and thus enabling the British to conquer their country, and that all true patriots must rise and destroy the source of the evil. This dangerous doctrine spread rapidly, and the news filled me with the greatest uneasiness. I hesitated long whether I ought to take my wife and children to the coast, but I decided that the danger among the strangers whom we should be forced to encounter on our long journey was even greater than that of remaining in the place where we had cured many sick people and could certainly count upon obtaining help from at least a few of them.
"I shall never forget one spring morning, now sixteen years ago. The town seemed quiet, and our fears had been somewhat lulled to rest. I had finished my work in the hospital, and went into our garden, where my wife was sitting sewing beside our three little ones as they played with their nurse under a blossoming tree. I stood for a moment watching the pretty picture they made, the three little rosy English faces in contrast to Lao-ya's almond eyes and smooth black tresses, the gay background of flowers, the pagodas of the temple in the city beyond standing out against the brilliant blue sky, and the bright sunshine which shone on my wife's fair hair and the children's flaxen heads and turned them all to gold. Well might the scene live in my memory; it was the last time I was ever to see them thus!
"I had just received an urgent message to attend a mandarin who lived many miles up in the hills, and who now lay seriously ill and had expressed a wish to see me. Everything appeared so tranquil that I thought I might safely leave the Mission for a short period, and I made preparations to set off at once, taking a few necessary instruments and drugs with me.
"I was able to relieve my patient, and was about to start for home when to my anger and surprise I found that I was practically a prisoner. No violence was offered me, but for several days I was confined in a room from which there was no possibility of escape, and in spite of my earnest entreaties my jailer would give me no reason for this seemingly poor return for my services. At the end of the fifth day, however, the mandarin sent for me, and, after professing himself on the road to recovery, informed me that a terrible massacre of Christians had been taking place, and if he had not afforded me the safe shelter of his house I must certainly have perished among the rest. As a mark of his gratitude for my skilled attendance he was now sending me to the coast with a strong escort which had his orders to convey me as speedily as they could to Hong-Kong.
"You can imagine my wild alarm at this terrible news, and my anxiety to reach Tsi-chin to ascertain the fate of the mission and of my family. The soldiers on the whole were sympathetic fellows, and they consented to march by the hospital, though they assured me it would be better for me if I could refrain from doing so.
"I will not attempt to describe to you the scene of desolation which greeted me. My house was looted and wrecked, both church and schools were a pile of charred ashes, and all my workers were dead. Not one seemed to have escaped the general catastrophe. In the ruins of what had once been my beautiful garden I found my wife lying with our little Una in her arms and our boy close to her side; they had evidently been trying to make their escape when they were followed and murdered by the furious mob. Mary, I had no doubt, had also perished, together with poor faithful Lao-ya and our other servant, but I could not search further, as the soldiers, obedient to their master's orders, tore me away from the terrible scene, and carried me, more dead than alive, to the coast. There for many months I lay stricken down with brain fever, and it was not until after more than a year's rest, spent mostly in Japan, that I was able to take up my work again in China.
"One of the soldiers, with kindly thoughtfulness, had cut the locket from little Una's neck and placed it amongst my possessions. Perhaps he was a father himself, and I think that my grief had touched him. It contained the only portrait which I now possessed of my wife, and for this reason I have worn it always upon my watch chain.