Seeing the desperate look in his eyes, she said, as she took him in her arms, “Little son, you were nearly the death of your mother, but never mind, you shall know all. I see, indeed, you are not a child,” and leading him into the house, she told him the sad, sad story from first to last, showed him the priceless keepsakes. As he looked at them and at the dear, patient, disfigured face, he said:
“Mother, I am going now to seek my father. You must not prevent me.”
Could she let him go, out into the great unknown world, her little boy, her baby; how could she? And yet her promise to his father; her vow that she had lived over every day of his precious little life. “Yes, the boy should go.” What mattered her sorrow at the parting? With breaking heart and bitter, sad tears she gave her consent, and pawned almost everything she had to give him money to use on the journey.
When the morning came for him to leave her, she got his breakfast, feeling as though the life was going out of her, and yet, with words of wisdom and many instructions, she clasped him [[139]]to her, then allowed him to make his prostration, and the door closed.
As Ting Lang went down the steps he heard a fall and, going back, found the dear mother like unto one dead. He called to her and wept and plead, and at last the dear eye once more looked into his, and he said:
“You must not grieve thus. I must fulfil your promise to my father. I will tell you a plan; you buy a coffin and put it under your window. Put all my old clothes and shoes into it, and when you are lonely and miss me and must weep, you go to the coffin and say, ‘My son is dead. Here will I weep for him.’ Consider me as dead and here, and you will be comforted.”
The mother replied, “You are wise, my dear, beyond your years; I will do as you say, and weep for you there.”
“If I live, my mother, I will come back for you if I can find my father.”
The boy went by boat down the Grand Canal for Tientsin. On the boat were some wicked men who took his money and clothing, and when they reached Lui Ching, sold him to a theatre man.
This man was very unkind to him, and he was determined to make his escape; one day he was less carefully watched, and taking the open moment, [[140]]he ran to the river bank just as some men were landing from a boat. The boy sought their protection, told his story, and before he was through, he was in the arms of one of the men, who proved to be the friend, Mr. Wang, who had taken his father to the place of banishment.