In the following spring Mr. Underwood was asked to go to Japan, with instructions to assist his highness, the second prince, to leave for America.
It was thought best that he should there, under Christian tutors, prepare for college, or a military training, and my husband, realizing of what immense importance this plan well carried out might be to Korea in the future, gladly consented to accept the mission. All arrangements were made by the government in Seoul, and Mr. Underwood was instructed exactly as to the wishes of his majesty. To our combined amusement and indignation, we soon discovered we were followed everywhere by spies from the day we left home. Mr. Underwood’s letters to gentlemen in Tokyo, although mailed with care and secrecy, were read by others before they reached the hands of those to whom they were addressed. We were shadowed everywhere, and even had the creepy pleasure of knowing that a detective slept on the landing just below our room.
Thus for the second time in our lives were we honored by being made the special objects of espial, connected in the respectable mind with criminal courts, jails and all sorts of ill odors and combinations of the unutterable. However, as we had nothing on our consciences, I believe we rather enjoyed our detectives, aside from a slight indignant sense of insult. We certainly took a mischievous pleasure in the hunt. There were undoubtedly those who considered it to their interest to keep the prince in Japan, but when the king’s commands were fully understood, no further difficulty was made, and the long-desired end was gained, as far as a departure for America was concerned, but as through influence beyond our control, and without our knowledge till later, a Romanist interpreter was sent with him, the plans and hopes for his royal highness in America were destined to disappointment.
In the following summer sickness entered our home, a debilitating fever which would not yield to treatment kept my husband week after week confined to his bed. His strength of course steadily failed, he became extremely emaciated and unable to retain nourishment in any form. We were at the river Han, in a house on a bluff, where we usually spend the hot and rainy season; but it was several miles distant from the city, advisers and remedies. It was lonely work, not knowing what turn the disease might take, with friends and helpers so far away.
At length, one night my trials seemed to reach a climax. The rain poured down, more like a foe with iron blows besieging a fort than water from the clouds. The wind blew with almost hurricane fury and the lightning was constantly accompanied by terrific claps of thunder. My husband was too ill to notice and in a heavy stupor. Soon, however, the poor thatched roof began leaking like a sieve, while water flowed in around the window and door casements.
The invalid lay in a heavy bed, extremely difficult at any time to move, still more so with his weight and the necessity of moving it as gently as possible. Our cousin, a lady of no great size or strength, and I managed by exerting all our combined force to shove the lumbering piece of furniture to a place where water did not drip on it and the invalid; and then ran to find pieces of sacking, bath towels, sheets, waterproofs, etc., to soak up the flood that was constantly pouring in everywhere and dripping through from the second floor to the first.
The kitchen was almost emptied of utensils, which were placed under the waterfalls all over the house. While every now and then my husband’s bed must be pushed or dragged to a new place. The frail house rocked as if it must surely fall before the fury of the storm. It was one of those occasions which probably every one experiences, once or twice in a lifetime, when inanimate nature seems to join with untoward circumstance, and even God himself seems to have hidden his face, and all the seen and unseen powers of the universe to have combined against body and soul. But he who has drunk the very dregs of every bitterness we ever taste never forsakes us no matter how dark things look, and I knew on that awful night we were not as desolate as we seemed.
In the morning Dr. Avison came out from the city and kindly invited me to have Mr. Underwood taken there to his home, which was on a hill with plenty of breeze, and where I should have advice and medicines close at hand. So our sick man, placed on a long cane chair with poles attached to each side, covered with waterproofs, blankets and umbrellas, and carried by eight coolies, was taken back to Seoul.
Not more than a week later our little one was stricken with the same fever. Both father and child were desperately sick for another fortnight, but both were spared, and after weeks of prostration moved about like pale skeletons, whom nobody found it easy to recognize.
About this time a great deal of uneasiness was beginning to be felt among certain classes over the king’s long stay in a foreign legation, especially by all pro-Japanese, and in October, 1896, the king was formally requested by a Council of State to change his residence. In the following February, at about the time when Mr. Waeber was leaving the country and another Russian representative coming to take his place, the royal household was removed to the Chong Dong palace, near the English consulate and American legation. Russian officers were in charge of all Korean troops, and Russian influence predominant.