Wang the Ninth: The Story of a Chinese Boy

by B. L. Putnam Weale

The boy watched them from top, and memorized as well as he could every step, as he studied all the cracks and interstices in the mammoth defence. But when his turn came he found that his stretch was smaller than that of a full-grown man and that the strain was great both on arms and legs. Half-way down he became a little tired and a little afraid. But with iron resolution he conquered the shaking of his knees and the faintness in his heart; and at length won the battle and jumped the last six feet, falling and lying on the ground panting whilst his leather bottles rolled near him.

"It is nothing," he remarked, as his breath returned. "If I were full-grown I could do it with my eyes blindfolded in less than a week. It is nothing and less dangerous than a swaying tree-top."

"This boy has too much courage," said one man morosely. "We have done ill to take him. This courage will lead to rashness. Who knows where it will lead!"

So had spoken the representative of a society so constituted that its safety is held endangered by any one who displays contempt for the all-pervading caution. Wang the Ninth did not know about these things, and certainly would not have cared if he had. He was just a small human animal, amazingly self-reliant and amazingly resourceful. His pride had been deeply hurt by his father's public insult of him. There was consequently a mass of sullen rage deep down in his heart—a mass as solid and as heavy as a cannon-ball. For of all things that you may say, even in the sharpest disputes, there is one which must be sedulously avoided. Between father and son this rule is iron. The father had broken the rule and so it was better for the son to carry leather bottles of wine up the city wall than to remain at his side. Beyond this the boy did not reason much although he medidated endlessly as he worked at his new trade. Sometimes the smugglers were detected by the guards and then there was a confused sauve-qui-peut to the sound of a few shots that made a great deal of noise but were comparatively harmless. Once, however, one of his mates lost courage and fell a considerable distance, breaking some bones and stopping the whole enterprise for days; for the smugglers were at bottom a miserable lot who had lost all real courage through years of stealth.

One day something prompted him to give them the slip, and very calmly he marched down the outer street of the suburb which led to his father's hut watching narrowly to see how his return was taken.

His acquaintances greeted him with cries of astonishment. "Here is Wang the Ninth back again!" they exclaimed, crowding round him. "See, he has a red girdle round his waist and new clothing on his back."

But he shook them off and ran on when they attempted to cross-question him; for he was of a loyal nature and moreover had no intention of allowing the world to know what a nefarious occupation he had been engaged in.

Near his home some of his former play-mates, still secretly admiring his independent attitude and a certain roughness he had sedulously cultivated, said to him in discreet voices:

"You ought to have come sooner. Your father has been sick these many days. Had it not been for the neighbours he would have fared ill indeed. Money and food are lacking."

Now he hastened on. His bravado had vanished and there was gloom in his heart. In some trepidation he opened the door of his father's hut and walked in, watched from the street by all his youthful friends.