Page:The Chinese Repository - Volume 01.djvu/508

494 Making this lamentation, she approached the well to draw water: when unexpectedly a young officer and his attendants passed by the lonely village, on a shooting excursion, urging their ways through the hills and woods in pursuit of a white too. This trifling circumstance was so ordained by imperial heaven. The officer urged on his horse to pick up an arrow which he had just shot, and which fell near the railing around the well. On seeing there a female, with big pearly tears falling down her cheeks, with dishevelled hair and naked feet, drawing water from the crystal fountain, he approached and addressed her.—"May I ask why you, good woman, are weeping so profusely; and why amidst the snow-storm, you are here drawing water? I suppose you are some slave, or one betrothed to be a concubine. Has the marriage yet taken place? Tell me the truth."

On hearing this she desisted from her tears and said;—"The name of your slave (meaning herself) is Le. I am suffering the bitterest ill-usage. My father’s native place was Sha-taou. During the life time of my parents they formed for me a happy connection. I was married to an excellent man Lew-che-yuen. Our home however, at the melon-gardens, was broken up. He grasped his sword, joined the army, and devoted himself to war. I know not if the valiant hero has yet obtained a dukedom. Here I am wearied with waiting, and my eldest brother's wife ill-uses me, with a design of forcing me to marry again. She bids me put off the shoes from my little feet, clothe myself in coarse garments, and come hither to draw water from morning till night. And when night comes, I am required, sleepless, to grind corn with the hand-mill. Thrice every day I get a scolding and a beating. It seems to be thought that my heart is as hard as iron or stone. I was compelled to trust my infant son,—but three days from his birth,—to Tow-yuen, who took him to Funchow, in search of his father; hoping he would soon provide a whip to drive home his horse; but sixteen years have elapsed, and I have not heard the least report of either husband or son. Mother and son were separated never more to see each other! Alas! hundreds of hills, and wilds, and clouds and fogs lie between us; and in my distress, although I should write a letter I have none to carry it."

The young officer having heard this recital, seemed stupified with astonishment, and said:—"Your brother's wife is an unfeeling person. Her behavior is excessively wrong. But since