"Yes, Ma."
"Can you tell the tribe that has been in the habit of sacrificing to this bit of land?"
"Yes, Ma. Our tribe," said one of the big men.
"Then it belongs to you."
"Quite right, Ma," cried every one, and they went away laughing.
The people who came to Court were so ignorant and foolish that Ma sometimes did what no other judge would do; she treated them like naughty children, and gave them a slap or a rap over the knuckles, and lectured them and sent them away. After sullen, fierce-looking men had been fined for some offence, she would take them to the Mission House and feed them and give them work. Then, in the evening, she would gather them together and talk to them about Jesus.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MBIAM POT.]
The oath given to the witnesses was not the British one, but the native one or _mbiam_. A pot or bottle was brought in filled with a secret liquid which had a horrible smell. One of the chiefs dipped a stick into it and put some of the stuff on the tongue, head, arm, and foot of the witnesses, who believed that if they told a lie it would kill them.
They often trembled with fear when taking it. Once one died suddenly after giving false evidence, and the people thought it was a judgment upon him.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GIVING THE OATH.]
Judge Slessor had to look sharply after the native policemen, for they were important men in their own eyes, and often did things they ought not to have done. One went to summon villagers to clean the roads. The children in the Mission school were singing their morning hymn, and he rushed in among them lashing with his whip and shouting, "Come out and clean the roads." The teachers complained, and the policeman was tried before Ma.
"You need to be punished," she said, "for you have grown so big that you will soon be knocking your head against the roof." This pleased the people even more than the punishment he got from the jury.
The Court became famous in the land, for the people knew that Ma understood them and gave them justice. So much, indeed, did they trust her that they got into the habit of taking their quarrels and troubles first to the Mission House, and there Ma made peace and saved them going to law. Even when she was ill they came and squatted down outside her bedroom window, and the girls took in their stories to her, and she called out to the people and told them what to do.
A young man, a slave, wanted to be free, and came to Ma. "I am sorry,"
she said, "the Court cannot do anything, but--the country lies before you."
He took the hint, and bolted out of the district.
A huntsman, in search of game, saw a movement amongst the bushes, and cried out, "Any one there?" There was no answer, and he fired. A scream made him rush to the spot, and to his horror he found that he had shot a girl. He carried her to the nearest house, where she died. He was brought up and tried, and acquitted, as he had not meant to harm her.
But native law is "life for life," and the people demanded a life for the life that had been taken. The man, in his despair, ran to Ma.
Cutting off a lock of his hair, he gave it to her. This meant that all he had was hers, and that the tribe would have to deal with her too. But she knew that if he stayed he would be killed, and told him to fly, which he did.
Ma was also going on with her real work, preaching and teaching, training boys and girls to become little missionaries, and carrying the light of the Gospel further and further into the heathen forest. And, as usual, she was dreaming dreams. She now remembered the dream of Mr.
Thomson to build a holiday home for the missionaries. She said to herself, "Can I not build a little one for the ladies in Calabar?" Some money came to her, and she sought out a spot on the wooded hills nearer the Creek called Use, and began to put up several mud cottages that might be used for rest-homes. She did most of the work herself, with the aid of Janie and the other girls, sleeping the while on the floor in a hut.
One night a lady missionary stayed with her who was anxious to get away early next morning.
"All right," said Ma, "I"ll set the alarum clock."
The visitor looked puzzled, for there were no watches or clocks to be seen. Ma went out to the yard where the fowls were kept and brought in a rooster and tied it near the foot of her bed. At dawn the "alarum" went off; the c.o.c.k crew, and the sleepers were roused.
"Ma," said a Government doctor at last, "you will die if you do not take a rest." And very sorrowfully she replied that it was likely, and so she went home to Scotland, taking Dan and leaving Janie to take care of the other children.
Dan, who was only six years old, proved a very handy little man-of-all-work. He soon learned to speak English, and ran her messages, carried her parcels, and even cooked her t.i.t-bits of food. He had a royal time, being loaded with toys and books and sweets, and Ma was anxious that he should not be spoiled. She would often ask those with whom she stayed to allow him to sit on the floor, that he might not forget who he was.
He had quick eyes, and saw everything. When he went out in a town with Ma he begged to have the money for the street cars, for, he said, "Gentlemen always pay for the ladies!" But he did not always understand what he saw. At table he thought the sharpening of the carving-knife on the steel was part of the grace before meals!
Her friends found Ma much changed. "Oh, Mary," said one, "I didn"t know you."
"Nae wonder," she said, laughing, "look at my face!" It was dark and withered and wrinkled, though her eyes were as bright and merry as ever and full of changing lights.
One day she went to pay a visit to Mrs. Scott, the lady of the manse at Bonkle, in Lanarkshire. They had written to one another for years, but had never met. There were young people there, and all were greatly excited, for the black boy was also expected. Everything that love could think of was done for the comfort of the guest. At last the cab appeared at the bend of the road, and all hurried to the gate. Down jumped Dan smiling, sure of his welcome. Then was helped out a frail and delicate lady, who looked round shyly and brightly answered all the greetings. She walked slowly up the garden path, gazing at the green lawns and the flower-beds and the borders of shady trees, and drinking in the goodness of it all.
"All this," she said, "and for me!"
She was so weak and ill that she was glad to sink into a cushiony chair placed for her in the sunniest corner of the sunny room. The young girls followed her in. Stretching out her hands towards them, she cried:
"Oh! how many of you la.s.sies am I to get?"
And, glad to tell, she did get one, Miss Young, who went out to Calabar and became to her like a daughter, and was afterwards picked out by the Church as the one best fitted to carry on the work that lay closest to her heart after she herself was done with it all.
It was times like these that made Ma young again. She just wandered quietly about in the woods and meadows, or went and listened to the music practices in the church. She was delighted with the singing, and before leaving thanked the precentor for the pleasure she had got, and he gave her his tuning-fork, which he valued, and she kept it as one of her treasures to the end.
Coming out one night after the service, she looked up to the starry sky, and said, "These stars are shining upon my bairns--I wonder how they are"; and once, when "_Peace, perfect peace? with loved ones far away!_"
was sung, she said: "I was thinking all the time of my children out there."
She missed them more and more as the months went on. One afternoon, when she was sitting down to tea in a house in Perthshire, she begged to be allowed to hold a red-cheeked baby-boy on her knee. "It is more homely,"
she said, "and I have been so used to them all these years."
Then she made up her mind. "I cannot stay longer, I am growing anxious about my children. I am sure they need me." Her friends tried to keep her, but no, she must go. They bade her farewell at one or two large meetings, where her figure, little and fragile, and worn by long toil in the African sun, brought tears to many eyes. The meetings were very solemn ones. As she spoke of the needs of Africa, one who listened said: "It is not Mary Slessor who is speaking, but G.o.d."
One night before she sailed she was found crying quietly in bed, not because she had no friends, for she had many, but because all her own loved ones were dead, and she was homeless and lonesome. She just wanted her mother to take her into her arms, pat her cheek, and murmur, as she had done long ago, "Good-bye, la.s.sie, and G.o.d be with you."
Dan did not wish to leave all the delights of his life in Scotland, and although he had mechanical toys and books and sweets to cheer him, he sobbed himself to sleep in the train.
So Ma looked her last upon the dear red and grey roofs and green hills of Scotland, for she never saw them again.
She went to Use, which now became her home. It was a lonely place amongst trees, near the great new highway. A wonderful road that was.
Bordered by giant cotton trees and palms, it ran up and down, over the hills, without touching a village or town. These were all cleverly hidden away in the forest, for the people had not got over their terror of the slave-hunters. Except on market-days the road was very silent, and you met no children on it, for they were afraid of being seized and made slaves. Leopards and wild cats roamed over it at night.
At one part a number of rough concrete steps led to the top of the steep bank, from which a narrow path wound up the hillside and ended in a clearing in the bush. Here stood Ma"s queer patchwork mud-house, just a shapeless huddle of odd rooms, with a closed-in verandah, the whole covered with sheets of trade-iron, tin from mission-boxes, and lead from tea-chests. It was hard to find the door, the steps of which were of unhewn stones.
She began to work harder than ever. What a wonder she was! She did all the tiresome Court business, sometimes sitting eight hours patiently listening to the evidence; she held palavers with chiefs; she went long journeys on foot into the wilderness, going where no white man went. On Sundays she visited and preached at ten or twelve villages, and between times she was toiling about the house, making and mending, nailing up roofs, sawing boards, cutting bush, mudding walls, laying cement. Was it surprising that her hands were rough and hard, and often sore and bleeding?
She was seldom well, and always tired, so tired that at night she was not able to take off her clothes, and lay down with them on until she slept a little and was rested, and then she rose and undressed. At times she was on the point of fainting from pain, and only got relief from sleeping-draughts. It was true of her what one of the missionaries said: "G.o.d does most of His work here by bodies half-dead, but alive in Christ."
She had now, however, hosts of friends, all willing to look after her.
Nearly every one, officials, missionaries, traders, and natives, were kind to her. Sir Walter Egerton, the British Governor, and Lady Egerton would send her cases of milk for the children, and the officials pressed upon her the use of their steamers and motor-cars and messengers and workmen. At Ikotobong was Miss Peac.o.c.k, that girl with the great thoughtful eyes who had listened so eagerly to Ma when she had addressed the cla.s.s in Falkirk years before. She became one of the many white daughters who hovered about her in the last years and ministered to her.
Two missionary homes were open to her in Calabar, those of Mr. and Mrs.
Wilkie and Mr. and Mrs. Macgregor, and there she was always made comfortable and happy.
Once Government officials found her so ill that they lifted her into the motor-car and took her down to the Mission House at Itu. Something rare and precious was there, a bonnie white child, the daughter of the doctor missionary. During the first few days when Ma was fighting for her life, little Mamie often went to her side and just stood and stroked her hand for a while, and then stole quietly away.
When the turn for the better came, she charmed Ma back to health by her winning ways. For hours they swung together in the hammock on the verandah, and laughed and talked and read, their two heads bent over the pages of _Chatterbox_ and _The Adviser_, and over the _Hippopotamus Book_ and _Puddleduck_, and other entrancing stories. Some times they got so absorbed in these that time was forgotten, and "Oh, bother!" they said when the sound of the gong called them to meals. Ma was still a little child at heart.
After she returned to Use a new church was opened at Itu, and as she was not able to go down she wrote this letter to Mamie: