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Book 1 Chapter 1 – In the Valley of the Fountain

Never was an auditorium more suitable to song than this amphitheatre of flower-packed hills that surrounded the Valley of the Fountain. The sun’s rays were just stealing through a purple haze and turning the dew, which lay heavy upon the flowers into myriads of opals; the murmur of ravine-hidden cascades, the chorus of bird-song in the still-aired morning, all seemed but part of the song that rose from the tea thicket. This tempestuous outburst made the hills ring with its echoes, calling, scorning, pleading, threatening; now bubbling like the wood-warbler with cadences of silvery notes; now rising, exultant as the nightlark, to the ear of heaven; triumphant, declamatory, beseeching, full of defiance, of mockery and laughter until at last it ceased, dying away among the neighbouring gorges, as soft as a kiss.

‘What was that?’ demanded the mandarin excitedly, putting his head out of the sedan.

‘That is Ma Shue’s daughter,’ said several voices at once, ‘the girl with a tongue of a hundred spirits.’

‘On with you and stop your chattering,’ cried the mandarin.

Ma Shue, the old farmer of the Valley, stood watching from the door of his rice-thatched cottage the procession winding down the mountain path.

‘Where is she?’ demanded the mandarin, stepping hastily from his chair.

‘How greatly honoured is my poor and miserable abode,’ murmured the old farmer, bowing repeatedly.

‘Where is she?’ demanded the mandarin again, as he peeped about the corners of the cottage and through the open door.

‘I am ashamed to set before your honourable self the wretched food we live upon,’ apologised the old man as he followed at the heels of the mandarin.

‘Go get her,’ commanded the mandarin impatiently as he peered into the cottage.

‘Yes, yes,’ murmured the farmer hastily, ‘but for the poor our food is not sufficient; how can it be tasted by— ’

‘What are you talking about, old coxcomb? Have you not a daughter?’

‘Alas, Great Sir, it is true, I have been unfortunate—’

‘Go get her at once, at once,’ interrupted the mandarin excitedly.

‘How can I, how can I?’ asked the old man, bowing with trepidation.

‘How can you?’ mocked the mandarin scornfully. ‘How can you? Because I ordered it. I, Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank.’ And Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank, scowling with dignity, stepped back and folded his hands majestically on his stomach.

When the farmer returned he bowed mutely before the mandarin.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

‘I told her; yes, yes,’ cried Ma Shue, ‘she is coming.’

‘When?’

‘She said,’ and the old farmer looked uneasily at the feet of the mandarin, ‘she said—’

‘Well?’

‘When she got ready—’

It was a long time before a soft patter was heard in an adjoining room whence came low, amused laughter; then a light flutter of garments, and the tea-farmer’s daughter entered. Casting a hasty glance at the mandarin she turned her back on him with a haughty but almost imperceptible toss of her head.

For some moments the mandarin looked at her in astonishment, yet with intense satisfaction.

‘Maid.’

‘Man.’

The mandarin started, his eyes opened to the utmost of their narrow width and he glared at the old man shivering in his chair.

‘Did I not hear you singing this morning?’ he demanded severely.

‘Your knowledge should be greater than mine,’ she replied coldly.

‘Were you singing?’

‘I am always singing.’

‘Were you not in a tea-thicket?’

‘I should be at my work now.’

‘Then it is settled. I heard you singing. You see I am quick in my judgment as well as sagacious. Will you sing for me?’

‘Sing for you?’ she repeated in soft, amazed tones. ‘Sing for you? Why?’

‘I am Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank—’

‘I never sing for mandarins,’ she interrupted decisively.

‘What?’

‘My song,’ she replied in cold, careless tones, ‘is for the birds and tea-pickers of the Valley, but not for wolves or tigers of the Yamen.’

The mandarin became rigid; the old father’s pipe fell from his hand and the daughter, casting a fleeting glance at him continued, her voice becoming suddenly gentle and humble:

‘But your coming down into our valley is as the turning of raindrops into pearls.’

The mandarin’s countenance beamed with pleasure.

‘By my Fifth Button,’ he exclaimed, ‘I believe you could be taught something.’

‘I am afraid it is impossible,’ she murmured contritely.

‘Never! You allow these rustics—’ and Ho Ling glared his challenge around the room.

‘Yes,’ she continued meditatively as she turned her head slightly toward him, ‘a shrub may appear lofty in the desert and a tea-plant among the tea-plants is not small but,’ she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, ‘I am only a fragile weed in the shadow of the luxuriant pine.’

‘Yes, it is true,’ he replied, settling back in his chair with supreme satisfaction. ‘It is true. I am Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank.’

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Read about the Historical Background to The Vermilion Pencil.