because of the blessed mother of them both, he must make shift to give
Kanè the silk-worms' eggs and the rice. So he gets a handful of dead
eggs and a handful of musty and mouldy rice. "These are no good to man
or beast," says the old fox to himself, and he laughs. But to his own
blood-brother he says, "Here, Kanè. It's the best silk-worms' eggs I am
giving you, and the best rice of all my poor store, and I cannot afford
it at all; and may the gods forgive me for robbing my poor wife and my
children."
Kanè thanks his brother with all his heart for his great generosity, and
bows his head to the mats three times. Then off he goes, with the
silk-worms' eggs and the rice in his sleeve, skipping and jumping with
joy, for he thought that his luck had turned at last. But in the muddy
parts of the road he was careful to hold up his _hakama_, for they were
borrowed.
When he reached home he gathered great store of green mulberry leaves.
This was for the silk-worms that were going to be hatched out of the
dead eggs. And he sat down and waited for the silk-worms to come. And
come they did, too, and that was very strange, because the eggs were
dead eggs for sure. The silk-worms were a lively lot; they ate the
mulberry leaves in a twinkling, and lost no time at all, but began to
wind themselves into cocoons that minute. Then Kanè was the happy man.
He went out and told his good fortune to all the neighbours. This was
where he made his mistake. And he found a peddlar man who did his rounds
in those parts, and gave him a message to take to his brother Cho, with
his compliments and respectful thanks, that the silk-worms were doing
uncommonly well. This was where he made a bigger mistake. It was a pity
he could not let well alone.
When Cho heard of his brother's luck he was not pleased. Pretty soon he
tied on his straw sandals and was off to Kanè's farm. Kanè was out when
he got there, but Cho did not care for that. He went to have a look at
the silk-worms. And when he saw how they were beginning to spin
themselves into cocoons, as neat as you please, he took a sharp knife
and cut every one of them in two. Then he went away home, the bad man!
When Kanè came to look after his silk-worms he could not help thinking
they looked a bit queer. He scratches his head and he says, "It almost
appears as though each of them has been cut in half. They seem dead," he
says. Then out he goes and gathers a great lot of mulberry leaves. And
all those half silk-worms set to and ate up the mulberry leaves, and
after that there were just twice as many silk-worms spinning away as
there were before. And that was very strange, because the silk-worms
were dead for sure.
When Cho heard of this he goes and chops his own silk-worms in two with
a sharp knife; but he gained nothing by that, for the silk-worms never
moved again, but stayed as dead as dead, and his wife had to throw them
away next morning.
After this Kanè sowed the rice seed that he had from his brother, and
when the young rice came up as green as you please he planted it out
with care, and it flourished wonderfully, and soon the rice was formed
in the ear.
One day an immense flight of swallows came and settled on Kanè's
rice-field.
"Arah! Arah!" Kanè shouted. He clapped his hands and beat about with a
bamboo stick. So the swallows flew away. In two minutes back they came.
"Arah! Arah!" Kanè shouted, and he clapped his hands and beat about with
his bamboo stick. So the swallows flew away. In two minutes back they
came.
"Arah! Arah!" Kanè shouted. He clapped his hands and beat about with his
bamboo stick. So the swallows flew away. In two minutes back they came.
When he had scared them away for the ninth time, Kanè takes his
_tenegui_ and wipes his face. "This grows into a habit," he says. But in
two minutes back came the swallows for the tenth time. "Arah! Arah!"
Kanè shouted, and he chased them over hill and dale, hedge and ditch,
rice-field and mulberry-field, till at last they flew away from his
sight, and he found himself in a mossy dell shaded by spreading pine
trees. Being very tired with running he lies down his full length upon
the moss, and presently falls fast asleep and snoring.
The next thing was that he dreamed. He thought he saw a troop of
children come to the mossy glade, for in his dream he remembered very
well where he was. The children fluttered here and there among the
pine-trees' trunks. They were as pretty as flowers or butterflies. One
and all of them had dancing bare feet; their hair hung down, long, loose
and black; their skins were white like the plum blossom.
"For good or for evil," says Kanè to himself, "I have seen the fairies'
children."
The children made an end of their dancing, and sat them upon the ground
in a ring. "Leader! Leader!" they cried. "Fetch us the mallet." Then
there rose up a beautiful boy, about fourteen or fifteen years old, the
eldest and the tallest there. He lifted a mossy stone quite close to
Kanè's head. Underneath was a plain little mallet of white wood. The boy
took it up and went and stood within the circle of children. He laughed
and cried, "Now what will you have?"
"A kite, a kite," calls out one of the children.
The boy shakes the mallet, and lo and behold he shakes a kite out of
it!--a great kite with a tail to it, and a good ball of twine as well.
"Now what else?" asks the boy.
"Battledore and shuttlecock for me," says a little girl.
And sure enough there they are, a battledore of the best, and twenty
shuttlecocks, meetly feathered and gilded.
"Now what else?" says the boy.
"A lot of sweets."
"Greedy!" says the boy, but he shakes the mallet, and there are the
sweets.
"A red crêpe frock and a brocade _obi_."
"Miss Vanity!" says the boy, but he shakes all this gravely out of the
mallet.
"Books, story books."
"That's better," says the boy, and out come the books by the dozen and
score, all open to show the lovely pictures.
Now, when the children had their hearts' desires, the leader put away
the mallet beneath its mossy stone, and after they had played for some
time they became tired; their bright attires melted away into the gloom
of the wood, and their pretty voices grew distant and then were heard no
more. It was very still.
Kanè awoke, good man, and found the sun set and darkness beginning to
fall. There was the mossy stone right under his hand. He lifted it, and
there was the mallet.
"Now," said Kanè, taking it up, "begging the pardon of the fairies'
children, I'll make bold to borrow that mallet." So he took it home in
his sleeve and spent a pleasant evening shaking gold pieces out of it,
and _saké_, and new clothes, and farmers' tools, and musical
instruments, and who knows what all!
It is not hard to believe that pretty soon he became the richest and
jolliest farmer in all that country-side. Sleek and fat he grew, and his
heart was bigger and kinder than ever.
But what like was Cho's heart when he got wind of all this? Ay, there's
the question. Cho turned green with envy, as green as grass. "I'll have
a fairy mallet, too," he says, "and be rich for nothing. Why should that
idiot spendthrift Kanè have all the good fortune?" So he goes and begs
rice from his brother, which his brother gives him very willingly, a
good sackful. And he waits for it to ripen, quite wild with impatience.
It ripens sure enough, and sure enough a flight of swallows comes and
settles upon the good grain in the ear.
"Arah! Arah!" shouted Cho, clapping his hands and laughing aloud for
joy. The swallows flew away, and Cho was after them. He chased them over
hill and dale, hedge and ditch, rice-field and mulberry-field, till at
last they flew away from his sight, and he found himself in a mossy dell
shaded by spreading pine-trees. Cho looks about him.
"This should be the place," says he. So he lies down and waits with one
wily eye shut and one wily eye open.
Presently who should trip into the dell but the fairies' children! Very
fresh they were as they moved among the pine-tree trunks.
"Leader! Leader! Fetch us the mallet," they cried. Up stepped the leader
and lifted away the mossy stone. And behold there was no mallet there!
Now the fairies' children became very angry. They stamped their little
feet, and cried and rushed wildly to and fro, and were beside themselves
altogether because the mallet was gone.
"See," cried the leader at last, "see this ugly old farmer man; he must
have taken our mallet. Let us pull his nose for him."
With a shrill scream the fairies' children set upon Cho. They pinched
him, and pulled him, and buffeted him, and set their sharp teeth in his
flesh till he yelled in agony. Worst of all, they laid hold of his nose
and pulled it. Long it grew, and longer. It reached his waist. It
reached his feet.
Lord, how they laughed, the fairies' children! Then they scampered away
like fallen leaves before the wind.
Cho sighed, and he groaned, and he cursed, and he swore, but for all
that his nose was not an inch shorter. So, sad and sorry, he gathered it
up in his two hands and went to Kanè's house.
"Kanè, I am very sick," says he.
"Indeed, so I see," says Kanè, "a terrible sickness; and how did you
catch it?" he says. And so kind he was that he never laughed at Cho's
nose, nor yet he never smiled, but there were tears in his eyes at his
brother's misfortunes. Then Cho's heart melted and he told his brother
all the tale, and he never kept back how mean he had been about the dead
silk-worms' eggs, and about the other things that have been told of. And
he asked Kanè to forgive him and to help him.
"Wait you still a minute," says Kanè.
He goes to his chest, and he brings out the mallet. And he rubs it very
gently up and down Cho's long nose, and sure enough it shortened up very
quickly. In two minutes it was a natural size. Cho danced for joy.
Kanè looks at him and says, "If I were you, I'd just go home and try to
be different."
When Cho had gone, Kanè sat still and thought for a long time. When the
moon rose that night he went out and took the mallet with him. He came
to the mossy dell that was shaded with spreading pine trees, and he laid
the mallet in its old place under the stone.
"I'm the last man in the world," he said, "to be unfriendly to the
fairies' children."
XV
THE BELL OF DOJOJI
[Illustration: The Bell of Dojoji.--_P. 127._]
The monk Anchin was young in years but old in scholarship. Every day for
many hours he read the Great Books of the Good Law and never wearied,
and hard characters were not hard to him.
The monk Anchin was young in years but old in holiness; he kept his body
under by fastings and watchings and long prayers. He was acquainted with
the blessedness of sublime meditations. His countenance was white as
ivory and as smooth; his eyes were deep as a brown pool in autumn; his
smile was that of a Buddha; his voice was like an angel's. He dwelt with
a score of holy men in a monastery of the mountains, where he learned
the mystic "Way of the Gods." He was bound to his order by the strictest
vows, but was content, rejoicing in the shade of the great pine trees
and the sound of the running water of the streams.
Now it happened that on a day in spring-time, the old man, his Abbot,
sent the young monk Anchin upon an errand of mercy. And he said, "My
son, bind your sandals fast and tie spare sandals to your girdle, take
your hat and your staff and your rosary and begging bowl, for you have
far to go, over mountain and stream, and across the great plain."
So the monk Anchin made him ready.
"My son," the Abbot said, "if any wayfarer do you a kindness, forget not
to commend him to the gods for the space of nine existences."
"I will remember," said the monk, and so he set forth upon his way.
Over mountain and stream he passed, and as he went his spirit was
wrapped in contemplation, and he recited the Holy Sutras aloud in a
singing voice. And the Wise Birds called and twittered from branch to
branch of the tall trees, the birds that are beloved of Buddha. One bird
chanted the grand Scripture of the Nicheten, the Praise of the Sutra of
the Lotus, of the Good Law, and the other bird called upon his Master's
name, for he cried:
"O thou Compassionate Mind! O thou Compassionate Mind!"
The monk smiled. "Sweet and happy bird," he said.
And the bird answered, "O thou Compassionate Mind!... O thou
Compassionate Mind!"
When the monk Anchin came to the great plain, the sun was high in the
heavens, and all the blue and golden flowers of the plain languished in
the noon-tide heat. The monk likewise became very weary, and when he
beheld the Marshy Mere, where were bulrush and sedge that cooled their
feet in the water, he laid him down to rest under a sycamore tree that
grew by the Marshy Mere.
Over the mere and upon the farther side of it there hung a glittering
haze.
Long did the monk Anchin lie; and as he lay he looked through the
glittering haze, and as he looked the haze quivered and moved and grew
and gathered upon the farther side of the mere. At the last it drew into
a slender column of vapour, and out of the vapour there came forth a
very dazzling lady. She wore a robe of green and gold, interwoven, and
golden sandals on her slender feet. In her hands were jewels--in each
hand one bright jewel like a star. Her hair was tied with a braid of
scarlet, and she had a crown of scarlet flowers. She came, skirting the
Marshy Mere. She came, gliding in and out of the bulrush and the sedge.
In the silence there could be heard the rustle of her green skirt upon
the green grass.
The monk Anchin stumbled to his feet and, trembling, he leaned against
the sycamore tree.
Nearer and nearer came the lady, till she stood before Anchin and looked
into his eyes. With the jewel that was in her right hand she touched his
forehead and his lips. With the jewel that was in her left hand she
touched his rice-straw hat and his staff and his rosary and his begging
bowl. After this she had him safe in thrall. Then the wind blew a tress
of her hair across his face, and when he felt it he gave one sob.
For the rest of his journey the monk went as a man in a dream. Once a
rich traveller riding on horseback threw a silver coin into Anchin's
begging bowl; once a woman gave him a piece of cake made of millet; and
once a little boy knelt down and tied the fastening of his sandal that
had become loose. But each time the monk passed on without a word, for
he forgot to commend the souls of these compassionate ones for the space
of nine existences. In the tree-tops the Wise Birds of Buddha sang for
him no more, only from the thicket was heard the cry of the
_Hototogisu_, the bird lovelorn and forsaken.
Nevertheless, well or ill, he performed his errand of mercy and returned
to the monastery by another way.
Howbeit, sweet peace left him from the hour in which he had seen the
lady of the Marshy Mere. The Great Books of the Good Law sufficed him no
longer; no more was he acquainted with the blessedness of divine
meditations. His heart was hot within him; his eyes burned and his soul
longed after the lady of the green and golden robe.
She had told him her name, and he murmured it in his sleep.
"Kiohimé--Kiohimé!" Waking, he repeated it instead of his prayers--to
the great scandal of the brethren, who whispered together and said, "Is
our brother mad?"
At length Anchin went to the good Abbot, and in his ear poured forth all
his tale in a passion of mingled love and grief, humbly asking what he
must do.
The Abbot said, "Alack, my son, now you suffer for sin committed in a
former life, for Karma must needs be worked out."
Anchin asked him, "Then is it past help?"
"Not that," said the Abbot, "but you are in a very great strait."
"Are you angry with me?" said Anchin.
"Nay, Heaven forbid, my poor son."
"Then what must I do?"
"Fast and pray, and for a penance stand in the ice-cold water of our
mountain torrent an hour at sunrise and an hour at sunset. Thus shall
you be purged from carnal affection and escape the perils of illusion."
So Anchin fasted and prayed, he scourged his body, and hour after hour
he did penance in the ice-cold water of the torrent. Wan as a ghost he
grew, and his eyes were like flames. His trouble would not leave him. A
battle raged in his breast. He could not be faithful to his vows and
faithful to his love.
The brethren wondered, "What can ail the monk Anchin, who was so learned
and so holy--is he bewitched by a fox or a badger, or can he have a
devil?"
But the Abbot said, "Let be."
Now on a hot night of summer, the monk being sleepless in his cell, he
was visited by Kiohimé, the magic lady of the mere. The moonlight was on
her hands and her long sleeves. Her robe was green and gold, interwoven;
golden were her sandals. Her hair was braided with scarlet and adorned
with scarlet flowers.
"Long, long have I waited for thee on the plains," she said. "The night
wind sighs in the sedge--the frogs sing by the Marshy Mere. Come,
lord...."
But he cried, "My vows that I have vowed--alas! the love that I love. I
keep faith and loyalty, the bird in my bosom ... I may not come."
She smiled, "_May_ not?" she said, and with that she lifted the monk
Anchin in her arms.
But he, gathering all his strength together, tore himself from her and
fled from the place. Barefooted and bareheaded he went, his white robe
flying, through the dark halls of the monastery, where the air was heavy
with incense and sweet with prayers, where the golden Amida rested upon
her lotus, ineffably smiling. He leaped the grey stone steps that led
down from her shrine and gained the pine trees and the mountain path.
Down, down he fled on the rough way, the nymph Kiohimé pursuing. As for
her, her feet never touched the ground, and she spread her green sleeves
like wings. Down, down they fled together, and so close was she behind
him that the monk felt her breath upon his neck.
"As a young goddess, she is fleet of foot ..." he moaned.
At last they came to the famed temple of Dojoji, which was upon the
plains. By this Anchin sobbed and staggered as he ran; his knees failed
him and his head swam.
"I am lost," he cried, "for a hundred existences." But with that he saw
the great temple bell of Dojoji that hung but a little way from the
ground. He cast himself down and crept beneath it, and so deemed himself
sheltered and secure.
Then came Kiohimé, the Merciless Lady, and the moonlight shone upon her
long sleeves. She did not sigh, nor cry, nor call upon her love. She
stood still for a little space and smiled. Then lightly she sprang to
the top of the great bronze bell of Dojoji, and with her sharp teeth she
bit through the ropes that held it, so that the bell came to the ground
and the monk was a prisoner. And Kiohimé embraced the bell with her
arms. She crept about it, she crawled about it and her green robe flowed
over it. Her green robe glittered with a thousand golden scales; long
flames burst from her lips and from her eyes; a huge and fearsome
Dragon, she wound and coiled herself about the bell of Dojoji. With her
Dragon's tail she lashed the bell, and lashed it till its bronze was red
hot.
Still she lashed the bell, while the monk called piteously for mercy.
And when he was very quiet she did not stop. All the night long the
frogs sang by the Marshy Mere and the wind sighed in the sedges. But the
Dragon Lady was upon the bell of Dojoji, and she lashed it furiously
with her tail till dawn.
XVI
THE MAIDEN OF UNAI
The Maiden of Unai was fair as an earthly deity, but the eyes of man
might not behold her. She dwelt in a hidden place in her father's house,
and of what cheer she made the live-long day not a soul could tell, but
her father who kept watch, and her mother who kept ward, and her ancient
nurse who tended her. The cause was this.
When the maid was about seven years old, with her black hair loose and
hanging to her shoulder, an ancient man, a traveller, came, footsore and
weary, to her father's house. He was made welcome, served with rice and
with tea, whilst the master of the house sat by, and the mistress, to do
him honour. Meanwhile the little maid was here and there, catching at
her mother's sleeve, pattering with bare feet over the mats, or bouncing
a great green and scarlet ball in a corner. And the stranger lifted his
eyes and marked the child.
After he had eaten, he called for a bowl of clear water, and taking from
his wallet a handful of fine silver sand he let it slip through his
fingers and it sank to the bottom of the bowl. In a little he spoke.
"My lord," he said to the master of the house, "I was hungry and weary,
and you have fed me and refreshed me. I am a poor man and it is hard for
me to show my gratitude. Now I am a soothsayer by profession, very
far-famed for the skill of my divination. Therefore, in return for your
kindness I have looked into the future of your child. Will you hear her
destiny?"
The child knelt in a corner of the room bouncing her green and scarlet
ball.
The master of the house bade the soothsayer speak on.
This one looked down into the bowl of water where the sand was, and
said: "The Maiden of Unai shall grow up fairer than the children of men.
Her beauty shall shine as the beauty of an earthly deity. Every man who
looks upon her shall pine with love and longing, and when she is fifteen
years old there shall die for her sake a mighty hero from near, and a
valiant hero from afar. And there shall be sorrow and mourning because
of her, loud and grievous, so that the sound of it shall reach High
Heaven and offend the peace of the gods."
The master of the house said, "Is this a true divination?"
"Indeed, my lord," said the soothsayer, "it is too true." And with that
he bound on his sandals, and taking his staff and his great hat of
rice-straw, he spoke no other word, but went his ways; neither was he
any more seen nor heard tell of upon that country-side.
And the child knelt in a corner of the room, bouncing her green and
scarlet ball.
The father and mother took counsel.
The mother wept, but she said, "Let be, for who can alter the pattern
set up upon the looms of the weaving women of Heaven?" But the father
cried, "I will fight. I will avert the portent; the thing shall not come
to pass. Who am I that I should give credence to a dog of a soothsayer
who lies in his teeth?" And though his wife shook her head and moaned,
he gave her counsel no heed, for he was a man.
So they hid the child in a secret chamber, where an old wise woman
tended her, fed her, bathed her, combed her hair, taught her to make
songs and to sing, to dance so that her feet moved like rosy butterflies
over the white mats, or to sit at a frame with a wonder of needlework
stretched upon it, drawing the needle and the silken thread hour after
hour.
For eight years the maid set eyes upon no human being save her father,
her mother, and her nurse, these three only. All the day she spent in
her distant chamber, far removed from the sights and the sounds of the
world. Only in the night she came forth into her father's garden, when
the moon shone and the birds slept and the flowers had no colour. And
with every season that passed the maid grew more beautiful. Her hair
hung down to her knees and was black as a thundercloud. Her forehead
was the plum blossom, her cheek the wild cherry, and her mouth the
flower of the pomegranate. At fifteen years old she was the loveliest
thing that ever saw the light, and the sun was sick with jealousy
because only the moon might shine upon her.
In spite of all, the fame of her beauty became known, and because she
was kept so guarded men thought of her the more, and because she might
not be seen men longed to behold her. And because of the mystery and the
maiden, gallants and warriors and men of note came from far and near and
flocked to the house of Unai; and they made a hedge about it with
themselves and their bright swords; and they swore that they would not
leave the place till they had sight of the maid, and this they would
have either by favour or by force.
Then the master of the house did even as he must, and he sent her mother
to bring the maid down. So the mother went, taking with her a robe of
grey silk and a great girdle of brocade, green and gold; and she found
the maid, her daughter, sitting in her secret chamber singing.
The maid sang thus:
"Nothing has changed since the time of the gods,
Neither the running of water nor the way of love."
And the mother was astonished and said, "What manner of song is this,
and where heard you of such a thing as love?"
And she answered, "I have read of it in a book."
Then they took her, her mother and the wise woman, and they tied her
hair and pinned it high upon her head with gold and coral pins, and held
it with a great lacquer comb. She said, "How heavy it is!"