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Mackay endured this treatment patiently, but he set himself to study their books, for he felt sure that the day was not far distant when he must meet these conceited literati in argument. He went about a good deal now. The Tamsui people became accustomed to him, and he was not troubled much. His bright eyes were always wide open and he learned much of the lives of the people he had come to teach.
Mackay had always done a little medical work, and the foreign doctor of Tamsui had been most kind in giving his aid, but a doctor of his own, a missionary doctor, was exactly what Kai Bok-su wanted. Soon the sick began to hear of the wonders the missionary doctor could perform, and they flocked to him to be cured. It must not be supposed that there were not already doctors in north Formosa.
The grounds about the college and hospital were very beautiful. Nature had given one of the finest situations to be found about Tamsui, and Kai Bok-su did the rest. The climate helped him, for it was no great task to have a luxurious garden in north Formosa.
To the two from south Formosa, Tamsui was like every other small Chinese town, but Mackay had not yet become accustomed to the strange sights and sounds and stranger smells, and his bright eyes were keen with interest. The main thoroughfare wound this way and that, only seven or eight feet wide at its best.
They were two days making the voyage, and a tropical storm pitched the small vessel hither and thither, so that they were very much relieved when they sailed up to the mouth of the Tamsui river. It was low tide and a bare sand-bar stretched across the mouth of the harbor, so the anchor was dropped, and they waited until the tide should cover the bar, and allow them to sail in.
Was he no better? he asked with quivering lips. It was the question poor A Hoa asked many, many times a day, for he never left the house when not away on duty. The doctor's face was full of sympathy and his own heart weighed down as he sadly answered, "No." "If I only had some ice," he muttered, knowing well he had none. "If there was only one bit of ice in Tamsui, I'd save him yet."
There was a little gleam of joy when the doctor in Tamsui advised him finally to go to Hongkong and see a specialist He went, leaving many loving hearts waiting anxiously between hope and fear to hear what the doctors would say. And prayers went up night and day from those who loved him.
The Chinese displayed great energy and resource in forming defenses against any advance inland from Kelung or Tamsui, and the French government was brought to face the fact that there was nothing to be gained by carrying on these desultory operations, and that unless they were prepared to send a large expedition, it was computed of not less than 50,000 men, to attack Pekin, there was no alternative to coming to terms with China.
Like the hepaticas that used to peep forth in the missionary's home woods, telling that spring had arrived, here and there they came up, showing that the long cruel winter of heathenism in north Formosa was drawing to an end. Away up the Tamsui river, nestled at the foot of the mountains, stood a busy town called Sin-tiam.
The missionary was now becoming a familiar figure both in Tamsui and in the surrounding country. By many he was loved, by all he was respected, but by a large number he was bitterly hated. The scholars continued his worst enemies.
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