With the conclusion of the Peking Congress a new era began in the old capital.  One could scarcely expect the effects of the Siege and its terrible aftermath to wear off at once.  It was long indeed before the city resumed anything like a normal appearance, before people dared to come creeping back to their ruined shops and houses.  Some, alas! found they had nothing to creep back to, not even ruins—­for the Legations, determined never to be caught in the same trap a second time, insisted upon reserving a big area for themselves and fortifying it.  Unfortunately those who had borne least of the heat of the day received the largest rewards in the newly planned Quarter, and grabbed most greedily and with least justice.  Consideration for Chinese sentiments at such a time would have been almost more than human, but revenge carried to the point of making the I.G., because he was an employee of the Chinese Government, suffer for the mistakes of that Government, seems both unnecessary and ungenerous.  This, however, was just what happened.  His fine garden was ruthlessly chopped to pieces in the rearrangement, and though he did not actually lose ground, the long walk around the house was spoiled and he found a frowning wall five feet from his back windows.  Moreover there was nothing he could do to prevent these things—­the opinions of critics who accused him of weakness notwithstanding.  These critics wanted him to shout his grievances aloud, to make them audible above the din of that noisy time.  But what hope had he of being heard?  The Chinese officials could not listen and his own countrymen would not, so where was he to turn?

Nothing remained for it but to build his house on the old foundations—­an economical plan—­and try to forget about the wall near the back windows.  The garden also was set in order.  As the Psalmist says, “The wilderness was made to blossom,” for wilderness it was.  Judging from appearances, Chinese soldiers must have encamped there.  They left their rice-bowls in the path and their fans under the trees.  Probably they stayed some days and looted at leisure, then disappeared as suddenly as they had come, after a sharp struggle with a company of Boxers, for two of these patriots in full regalia—­red sashes and rusty swords—­lay dead in the long grass.  Poor patriots, they owed their quiet graves under a barbarian’s lawn to a barbarian’s kindness.  I wonder if their ghosts have a sense of humour, and if they ever chuckle a little over the trick Fate played on them when they were helpless?

[Illustration]

Once established again in his new-old quarters, the I.G. went back to his former routine of life.  The band-boys, scattered by the Siege, returned, one having become, all of a sudden, a hero.