Robbie Taggart by Michael Phillips

Author:Michael Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC042030;FIC042000;FIC026000
ISBN: 9781441229823
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2016-04-25T04:00:00+00:00

36

The Vicar’s Fall

Robbie accepted Hsi-chen’s explanation that the excitement and tensions of the day had simply taxed her strength. He had no reason to believe otherwise.

And in a strict manner of speaking, the exertion of the day had in all probability brought on this renewed manifestation of her trouble. After a day’s rest indoors, she said, she would be fine. Perhaps that was stretching the truth about to its limit, but she could not be entirely certain such would not be the case. Even her father had said little was known of the thing.

The next two days were fine ones for Robbie. Hsi-chen’s time was spent entirely in the compound, and on several occasions she walked out to visit Robbie and Elliot as they continued their work on the buildings. Though Drew settled more and more silently into himself in the midst of the stressful and awkward circumstances, Robbie found his budding friendship with the missionary’s adopted daughter to be a pleasant experience indeed. With light conversation, interspersed with a good deal of laughter, she acquainted him with the culture of her homeland, salting her words with a regular but subtle sharing of her Christian faith.

One afternoon they fell to discussing the complex Chinese tongue. “It is a tonal language,” she said. “One word can take on many different meanings, depending on the intonation of voice that is used.”

“Could one like me learn it?” asked Robbie, more hypothetically than with any intention of seriously taking up the subject.

“Of course. But my father says it is a hard language to learn. I cannot say, because I grew up knowing it. Learning English was difficult enough. But there are so many different dialects here that even the Chinese become confused sometimes. Yet the written language has remained uniform for thousands of years. Chinese from different regions may not be able to understand a single verbal word spoken by one another, but they are able to communicate quite well in writing.”

“It’s not so different from Britain,” offered Robbie. “Why, if you heard a Scots’ burr and a Cockney twang, you’d probably understand neither one. And you’d have no doubt they were speaking different languages. But your written characters seem as confusing as the spoken tongue.”

“The writing of Chinese is both an art and a skill,” said Hsi-chen, “not easily mastered. There are many thousands of characters, as opposed to your simple twenty-six. Each possesses a beauty both in appearance and in content.”

She paused a moment, stooped to the ground and picked up a twig that had fallen from the camphor tree, and made a sketch in the dry earth. “This,” she continued as Robbie watched and listened, fascinated, “is the character for righteous. That word is often used here at the mission. Yet I still remember my father’s reaction when he realized what an understanding the Chinese had of the concept long before any Westerner stepped on our soil. See,” she traced the twig around one part of the character, then another, “this

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.