Under such surroundings grew up the fairest maiden to be found in the
province of Kuwana. All who had seen her were unanimous in according
this tribute to O Tetsu. The people often wondered how such a beautiful,
lovely being could spring from such a coarse, knotted stock, even when
her mother’s fair, delicate nature was grafted upon it. There are many
points of beauty for which the daughters of Japan have always been
favored beyond those of most other nations. In no country probably
will there be found so many possessing those delicate hands and feet,
that gloriously beautiful neck, and those bright, shining eyes which
seem to be the birth-right of the maidens of the Land of the Rising
Sun. All these advantages and many others were found to perfection in
O Tetsu; and she added to them a grace of movement and a witchery of
manner which caused the poets of the court to lament the poverty of
their language, because it failed to supply them with adequate terms to
describe all these endearing qualities to their satisfaction. Fair and
fresh and beautiful as a summer morn, graceful as a Japanese lily, with
wonderful eyes, lustrous and brilliant, and shining with a peculiar humid
brightness which suffused or rather covered them as if with a refulgent
and yet a transparent veil, and with a voice whose sweet melody, if
you were young and impressionable, lingered in your ears for days and
weeks after you heard it, O Tetsu might well lay claim to be considered
peerless throughout the land. Her hands and feet might have belonged to a
child half her age, and her form was slight and delicate; yet she was no
tender, hothouse plant, but in reality strong and robust. When on cold,
frosty winter mornings, the ground being covered with snow, she walked
out with her bare feet thrust into high-heeled _getas_, her rich, warm
blood mantling neck and face, she looked a picture of physical health,
and formed a striking contrast to many damsels whose coarser build did
not prevent them from shivering, and showing hands and feet and noses
that were blue and ugly with the cold. In spite of her generally mild
and demure looks, there was something of her father’s nature in her
after all,—a certain imperious way, which, rarely displayed, might have
been taken for a faint, a very faint, counterpart of the old smith’s
headstrong obstinacy. There was some slight resemblance between them also
in outward looks,—a resemblance in general hardly conceivable, but which
became apparent in O Tetsu when her eyes were momentarily closed. Then
her small mouth and chin showed its resolute cast, and the whole outline
of the face was not lacking in a certain determined look, which, as
shrewd observers said, would have developed into something of a temper if
circumstances had favored it. All these latent traits, however, were not
visible, or failed to be noticed, when you saw her eyes—those beautiful
eyes, with their unfathomable depth of bright, roguish tenderness.
Although her father doted on her, yet the stern, fierce nature of his
strong and powerful individuality rendered disobedience or self-willed
pertinacity an impossibility, and the girl’s feminine graces were thus
saved from being marred by tendencies which a different education might
have aggravated into faults.
[Illustration: LANDING-PLACE AT KUWANA.]
Young as O Tetsu was, offers of marriage,—some of them of a kind to
satisfy very exacting demands on the score of birth, family, position,
and personal accomplishments,—had not been wanting. There were those who
would have wooed her for her father’s reputed wealth; there were others,
and probably the greater number, who were attracted mostly by the charms
of her person and manners; while not a few of high position and noble
birth would have been content to give her their name if she had possessed
neither beauty nor wealth, being actuated by the sole hope of getting
one of her father’s swords as a dowry. The social taint attaching to
her escutcheon on account of her reputed Eta mother, the mere suspicion
of which in the case of most others would have been an all-powerful
objection, not to be outweighed by the possession of wealth, was
disregarded in the daughter of this clever artisan. In her it would have
been condoned, even if it had stood out as a well-known and established
fact. This, however, was not the case, as it was after all but a vague
report, which anybody who chose might disbelieve. The lovers of O Tetsu
looked for no other reason to ignore its existence but their own desire
and inclination; while the smith’s fame, his reputed influence, which it
was known would carry great weight if he chose to exert it, and above all
the secret superstitious awe which he inspired, were so many deterrent
influences to prevent people from talking above their breath of what
might be distasteful to him if it should reach his ears.
[Illustration: A RONIN.]
This fear and awe had its origin in another of those rumors which arise
no one knows how or when, and which sometimes, having a substratum of
truth, or assuming its semblance from accidental circumstances, come
to be accepted as undoubted facts. In this instance it had long since
been so accepted. It was said that in the manufacture of his swords
the smith needed newly-shed human blood. The age was superstitious
enough to believe that such a procedure correctly carried out would
entail marvellous results; and the wonderful excellence of Muramasa’s
productions favored this reasoning. There were sufficient grounds beside
to make such a belief plausible. The smith’s weird appearance and manner,
and the dreary, lonely character of the neighborhood wherein he lived,
had undoubtedly contributed to this end. Moreover, the dead bodies which
were found so often near his house,—much more frequently, it was said,
than ever before,—whether they had belonged to _samurai_ slain in brawl
or duel, merchants robbed and killed for their money or beggars probably
cut down from mere wanton lust, were always cut and slashed in a terrible
manner, leaving hardly any blood in the body, while traces of it were
often found suspiciously near the smith’s dwelling. Nobody thought of
accusing the latter of sordid motives, and his solitary life prevented
him from having many enemies. It was only the blood he wanted to temper
his steel; and when the time came that he needed it, and no accident
supplied him, then, as people said, he took care to furnish an accident
himself. If such had been the case, known and proven, it would probably
have entailed no unpleasant consequences upon the smith, unless some one,
specially interested and high in authority, had chosen to take the matter
in hand. Human life was held cheap enough, while good swords were rare;
and if it required human blood to make one, a few merchants and vagrants
could well be spared. Muramasa himself was doubtless aware of this
report, and was even believed by some to encourage it. At least, whether
true in any degree or altogether a fabrication, he never by word or sign
contradicted it; he probably had enough worldly wisdom to know that the
atmosphere of dread mystery in which, by common report, he thus lived,
created a spell which could not but enhance the value of the products of
his marvellous handicraft.
As far as O Tetsu was concerned, none of these rumors had ever reached
her. It was known that in her case the smith objected to and would
resent such a piece of tale-bearing; and the mysterious fear of him was
sufficient to prevent anything of the kind. Once only had such an attempt
been made.
As the girl one forenoon passed out of the house on her way to the town
to make a few purchases, accompanied, as she always was, by her old
servant, she was stopped not far from her door by two old beldames with
whom she had a slight acquaintance. The latter had been loitering under
pretence of looking at some tumble-down buildings on the other side of
the street, to which both of them pointed now and then in apparently a
deeply interested way; in reality, however, they were waiting, hoping
perhaps to meet the smith’s daughter, who went out only two or three
times a month, but generally at this hour. It was not the first time
that these women, who were known as confirmed gossips, had been seen in
the neighborhood; but they had never before met the young girl, whom,
when they saw her now, they accosted with such a show of affection and
caressing words that she could not but stop and make some sort of reply.
As the conversation continued, however, she, knowing that her father
objected strongly to anything like street gossip, became uneasy and bent
a significant look on her servant. The latter, who in general was quick
enough in her perceptions, and of her own accord had often stopped such
_rencontres_, sometimes in a very abrupt and unceremonious manner, seemed
in this instance unable to understand the meaning of her young mistress’s
uneasiness, and, contrary to all her habits, even took a lively interest
in the conversation.
[Illustration: DESERTED BUILDINGS.]
“Miss O Tetsu is getting to be very proud now,” said one of the women,
the wife of a small sugar-baker, in the course of the conversation which
followed numerous minute inquiries after the other’s health. “Yet when
you were a child you never passed our poor, humble place without calling
for your candy, which I took so much pleasure in giving to the dear,
pretty little thing.”
“Oh, yes!” her companion, the shrewish spouse of an _omochaya_ (dealer in
toys), chimed in, “and at that time she rarely passed our place without
accepting some little toy or plaything; and bless her little heart, how
she did enjoy the sight of the picture-books, and the tops which she
began to spin as soon as she passed out into the street! But Miss O Tetsu
has become a great lady now, with more beauty and wealth than any other
girl in the province, and poor people like us can hardly expect to be
noticed by her.”
“You are both certainly mistaken,” replied O Tetsu, vexed with the others
as well as herself. She could not understand the meaning of all this
talk; she only remembered going to these women’s shops, as she went to
others, to make occasional purchases, and she was at a loss to account
for this fervor and extreme show of friendly sympathy. Still, above
everything she would not be thought proud or unkind to inferiors, and
so she continued: “I am not a child any more, and do not now care for
sweetmeats or toys; but I do not mean to forget any kindness done to me,
and if you care for my company, I will call upon you the next time I go
out.”
“I knew it; I knew what a kind-hearted and good-natured little fairy you
are,” the former speaker quickly and rather illogically rejoined. “And
how is your dear father?” she continued abruptly, noticing the other’s
impatience to get away.
“I have not seen my father for some days; he is finishing a sword now,
and at such times he always shuts himself up with my brother in the
smithy, allowing not even me to disturb him.”
“So now is the time when your father is finishing one of his wonderful
swords? I ought to have known it. They found two corpses fearfully hacked
to pieces on the lot opposite to you. Strange,—is it not?—but at such
times corpses are always found over there. Strange, is it not, Miss O
Tetsu?”
“There is nothing strange about it,” the old servant here quickly spoke
up. “When Muramasa is engaged on one of his swords, he is utterly
absorbed in his work, and robbers and thieves know they need not fear
his interference; so they pursue their evil ways without danger of being
disturbed by one who would be a match for a dozen of them.”
“I suppose that may be it,” was the response, slowly given. “We think,
however, at such a time the smithy could show many strange and queer,
perhaps some fearful, scenes, and I would give anything to be able to get
a glance at it to-day.”
“I will afford you that pleasure,” said a deep, harsh voice; and turning
round, the woman who had spoken saw the smith himself at her elbow.
The sight of him at that moment would have appalled even a strong,
stout-hearted man, much more the shrinking creature whom he had just
addressed. His mouth was firmly compressed, his face looked unnaturally
broad, and its repulsive features new seemed perfectly hideous, with the
coal-dust and soot which covered them as well as his whole body. The
furrow on his forehead was filled with this floating dust, and glistening
with the great drops of sweat that had gathered there, had become a
shining jet black. But the worst feature of all were those large,
restless, glaring eyes, surrounded as they now were with red, inflamed
brows, which spoke of long nights of watching and labor.
“You can go on now, O Tetsu,” he said, addressing his daughter, “while I
take charge of these ladies. Go on,” he continued in a more peremptory
way, as the other loitered; “I must fulfil the wish of these ladies who
have such very kind feelings for you and me;” and taking hold of each by
an arm, he led them along, while the girl, unaccustomed to hear severe
tones from him, hurried away with her servant.
What the two gossips who were now led away into the smithy heard or saw
there, they could or would never give a rational account of. They were
both in such a state of abject fear and terror that the smith had to
change his hold from their arms to their waists to bring them to his
place, which was only a few feet away. They remembered the smithy,—large,
dark, and gloomy, all the darker and gloomier for the contrast with the
bright air and light outside. They remembered seeing a hot, lurid fire
at one end, before which the smith’s son was working half naked with an
immense hammer on a white-hot bar of iron. All around him were numberless
tools and instruments with sharp edges and bright surfaces glistening in
the glare of the flame, which came out with a hissing noise. The place
also contained a quantity of large and small tubs, some apparently
empty, and some containing liquid which looked black as tar, but which,
when the firelight fell upon it, shone red as blood. Queer and fantastic
shadows, which elongated or contracted as the flame on the hearth shot
out or subsided, filled the place. Half-dead with terror, they remembered
being led, or rather carried, by the smith close to the fiery heat, and
they had a dim recollection of being told by him how a human being could
be burned to cinders here in a few moments, and how those cinders could
be put to use again in forging a sword. An idle vagrant unwilling to
work, or a good-for-nothing, peeping, spying chatterbox, who neglected
her home but minded everybody’s business, could hardly be put to any
better use than this.
[Illustration: O TETSU AND THE TWO BELDAMES.]
The terrible heat, and partly their own feelings, must have overpowered
these two beldames, for they remembered nothing further until they found
themselves out in the yard by the well, drenched from head to foot with
several buckets of water which the smith had thrown over them. With a
grim smile he said he thought they were satisfied with their visit;
and while he gave it as his opinion that the air of the smithy hardly
agreed with them, he added that if he ever heard of their expressing
any further curiosity, he would certainly be ready to contrive means
of giving them another glimpse of his workshop. Then, without further
ceremony, he conducted them to the gate, which he closed in their faces,
leaving the poor drenched women, chattering with cold and still shaking
and quaking with fright, to find their way home as best they could. It
was said that from this day the henpecked _omochaya_ found his wife
marvellously changed for the better. Queerly enough, although neither of
them spoke of their adventure, the affair gradually came to be known and
talked about; and the guarded, evasive answers which, although otherwise
voluble enough, they gave when interrogated by their acquaintances, only
heightened the interest without satisfying it, thereby giving new food
for mysterious tales about the smith.
[Illustration: SWORD-GUARD.]