Stan Lynn: A Boy's Adventures in China

“You are busy, father. Shall I go?” said Stan, who noticed the movement.

“No,” cried Uncle Jeff sharply, answering for his brother. “Sit down a bit. Perhaps we shall want you. – Here, Oliver,” he whispered; “why not send Stan?”

“What! Oh, he’s too young and inexperienced.”

“Not a bit too young, and the experience will come.”

“But it’s so far away, and there may be risks.”

“Risks? Do you think it’s going to be half so risky as staying here? Because if you do, I don’t.”

“There is something in that,” said his brother.

“Of course there is; and we can’t slave Blunt to death. I meant to have stayed with him a couple of months to lighten his work; but, as we have said, it is quite impossible. Stan would be the very fellow.”

The lad’s father tapped the table with the tips of his fingers and frowned.

“Very well,” he said suddenly. “He proved that he could play the man last night. – Here, Stan.”

“Yes, father.”

“Your uncle and I want you to go south to the Mour River – to our branch collecting-house there, under the charge of our Mr Blunt.”

“Very well, father,” said the lad, the news coming like a shock after the events of the past night.

“You’ll find Blunt rather rough – such a man as ought to be named Blunt – but a good fellow at bottom,” said Uncle Jeff.

“I’m afraid you’ll find it rather solitary, my boy,” said Stan’s father; “but it will be a fine lesson in business, and you’ll learn a great deal.”

“Very well, father,” said the lad again coldly.

“Hullo, young man!” cried his uncle. “What’s the meaning of this? You ought to be jumping for joy at the thought of going to a new place, and you look as if you don’t want to go,” said Uncle Jeff.

“I don’t, uncle,” said the lad.

“And pray why?” said his father.

“Because you are going to send me away, father, as you don’t think it is safe for me here; and I don’t want to leave you both in trouble.”

There was a dead silence, and the brothers exchanged glances, the eyes of both looking dark, before the senior spoke, holding out his hand to grasp that of his son.

“On my word of honour, no, Stan,” he said in a voice slightly affected by the emotion he felt. “Indeed, it is because we are – your uncle and I – in a difficulty about responding to our Mour manager’s demand. Your uncle was to go, but after last night’s attack it would be impossible for him to leave me here alone.”

Stan gazed sharply from his father to his uncle and back again, with doubt shining out of his eyes; then he said in an eager, excited way:

“Then it isn’t because I seemed cowardly last night, father?”

“Cowardly!” cried the brothers in a breath.

“And because you want to send me where I shall be safe?”

“No, my dear boy – no,” cried his father warmly.

“Not a bit of it, Stan, old chap,” cried Uncle Jeff. “Why, we’d give anything to keep such a proved soldier with us. It’s because we can’t help ourselves that we want to send you.”

“Yes, Stan; your uncle is speaking the simple truth. But we will not press you if you feel that you would rather stay here with us.”

“Yes, father,” said the boy. “I know it is dangerous, but I would rather stay here with you.”

“Hark at the bloodthirsty young ruffian!” cried Uncle Jeff, with something like a tremble in his voice. “He wants to stop here and shoot down pirates by the score.”

“I don’t, uncle!” cried the boy angrily. – “I want to be of use to you now, father, and not to think only of myself. I’m going to this place on that river, wherever it is, but I’m afraid I shan’t be of so much use as you expect. I haven’t learnt to be business-like at school, and I don’t think classics and mathematics will do much good where you want me to go.”

“Don’t you be too sure of that, my lad,” said Uncle Jeff. “Your school studies have made you more business-like than you think, boy, and a chap who is good at mathematics can’t help being good and exact over a merchant’s books. Then you mean to go for us, sir?”

“Of course, uncle. When does the boat start?”

“Just hark at him!” cried Uncle Jeff. “He’s ready to be off at once.”

“But he isn’t going so soon as that,” said Stan’s father, wringing the boy’s hand warmly, and seeming loath to let it go. – “I dare say you’ll not start for three or four days. There are plenty of vessels sailing, but it isn’t every one that touches at the port from which you must go up the river in a trading-junk. But Wing will see to all that, and get you both passages in the first steamer that suits. Wing is a very good man for arrangements of that kind. In the meantime you must pack a portmanteau with just the necessaries you require – the simpler the better.”

“And before you go, my young pepper-pod, we’ll try if we can arrange for another piratical display with fireworks on the same scale as last night’s. Will that do you?”

“Now you’re beginning to laugh at me again, uncle,” said Stan in a reproachful tone.

“No, no, no, my dear boy,” cried Uncle Jeff warmly; “if I talk lightly it is only to hide what I feel. I’d been looking forward to all kinds of expeditions up-country with you, whenever your father would let two such idlers go out for a run; but now we must wait till you come back with one of our boatloads of silk and tea and dyewoods. – Here, Oliver, we’re in luck to have such a representative. – But I say, Stan, don’t take any notice of my face being so bare, but set to work and grow a respectable beard of your own.”

“I shan’t do that for years yet, uncle,” replied Stan, laughing.

“What! You don’t know, boy. It’s a wonderful climate out here for making your hair grow. Look at the Chinamen’s tails!”

“Oh, but a lot of that’s false, isn’t it?”

“In some cases, my boy, but generally it is all real; and if it were unplaited it would be longer. But don’t you imitate John Chinaman. You don’t want a long tail. You turn the hair-current from the back of your head on to your chin and let it grow there, so as to make you look big and fierce, ready for dealing with the Chinese merchants.”

“But I shall seem boyish for years to come, I’m afraid,” said Stan sadly. “I look very young.”

“And a splendid thing, too,” said Uncle Jeff. “Who wouldn’t be you, to look young and feel young? – Eh, Oliver? – Oh, you young masculine geese who are always wishing that you were men, if you only knew what you are treating with contempt, how much better it would be for you! Why, I’d give – That’ll do; I’ve done. Here, I’m coming with you to your room to go over your togs and odds and ends with you. I think I can give you a bit of advice as to what to take and what to leave behind. Perhaps, too, I can give you two or three useful things. Haven’t got a revolver of your own, I suppose?”

“No, uncle.”

“Then I’ll give you that one – mine. It hits anything, to a dead certainty, if you hold it straight. Got any fishing-tackle?”

“Yes, uncle; hooks and lines with leads.”

“That’s right. You may like to catch a few fish to make a change in your diet when it grows too regular. Wing cooks a little, but nothing like so well as Sin. – I suppose we can’t spare him to go with Stan here, can we, Oliver?”

“No; it would not be possible,” said the latter, smiling; but his voice had a suggestion of sternness in its tones as he added, “And I’m sure that Stan will be quite content to rough it for a while with Mr Blunt, and as long as he gets plain, wholesome food, will not worry himself about the cook.”