HOW CAMPANULA BROUGHT FORTUNE TO THE
HOUSE OF THE TORTOISE—AND OTHER
THINGS
The sun rose up and struck Nikko; struck the sacred red lacquered bridge
that crosses the foaming river, and the common bridge that you and I may
use, the potter’s shop, and the golden shrine of Iyeyasu.
Then temple after temple broke up from shadow as the sun reached for
them and found them, and the hills took on a momentary splendor, an
ethereal loveliness, evanescent as youth and never to be recaptured by
the day.
In the garden of the Tea House of the Tortoise a bomb-shell full of
bickering sparrows seemed suddenly to burst above the pond, the sun
looked over the wall upon the dwarf maples in their blue porcelain
flowerpots, a panel of the white house front slid back and a Mousmé
appeared, her head tied up in a blue cotton duster; appeared another
Mousmé, dragging a futon to air in the morning brightness, and yet
another who came out and yawned at the sun, showing him the full extent
of her pink gullet, and every one of her thirty-two white teeth.
Then Hedgehog San, a cat honored and beloved, came forth with tail
erect, and a grasshopper hanging by the veranda in a tiny cage creaked
forth a thin hymn of praise.
Thus started the day at the Tea House of the Tortoise.
When Leslie and M’Gourley came downstairs—a stair like a ship’s
companion-way but without any balustrade—they found Campanula having
her obi tied by Fir-branch (she who had yawned at the sun), and Leslie
was informed through his partner that the dragon had been found and that
he had grown; this statement, with some confidential information
concerning a thunder-cat of which she had dreamed, Mac translated from
the original with a serious face.
Up to this he had treated the Lost One as an adult, and as a most
undesirable adult, with whom he wished to have nothing to do. But
Campanula, fresh and spruce in the light of morning, chattering over her
shoulder to you about thunder-cats, whilst Fir-branch tied her obi in a
huge bow, was a person whose charm was not to be denied, and Mac began
to thaw.
“What’s a thunder-cat?” asked Leslie.
“Lord only knows! some contraption in the shape of an animal that makes
thunder. The Japs are full of supersteetions about animals. Wull we out
before breakfast?”
Leslie the night before had declared his intention of sending for the
police next morning before the police sent for him, and had given a
message to the landlord accordingly. But he might have saved his breath.
Nikko was agog. Whether the tale had leaked through the chinks of the
Tea House of the Tortoise, whether Wild-cherry-bud had distributed it
during her peregrinations in search of the dragon, no one will ever
know; the fact remains that the story of Campanula had gone abroad with
additions—all sorts of weird and wonderful additions. Half Nikko had
seen her borne aloft on the shoulders of Leslie, the other half had
heard extraordinary statements concerning her origin; the result was
that the whole of Nikko ached inwardly with a great ache of curiosity.
By seven o’clock fifteen Mousmés or maybe twenty, had arrived singly and
in couples, not to ask questions, but to borrow things, or to offer the
loan of things, or to ask after the health of old mother Ranunculus, the
landlady of the “Tortoise.” Incidentally they learned about Campanula.
A juggler had made her on the Nikko road. Out of what, for goodness’
sake? Out of a wild azalea bush!
No!
Yes, assuredly, the Learned One had said so.
And what had become of the juggler? He had vanished in a clap of
thunder—turned into a dragon.
Surprising!
And they went off to spread the news.
At half-past eight, or thereabouts, a little man in white, the chief of
the Nikko police, arrived. He had come officially, but he also was
aching to get to the truth of this marvelous tale.
Now the Japanese police is the most perfect police force in the world in
every respect. They are recruited from the Samurai or fighting-class,
and they are gentlemen to a man.
The chief of the Nikko police made profound apologies for disturbing the
peace of the strangers, then he heard the story told by M’Gourley.
He agreed that it was strange, but opined that the Lost One might simply
be a lost child. Where exactly was she found? In a valley of crimson
azaleas on the road from Kureise. Ah, yes! there was such a valley well
known, for the azaleas were crimson, and differed from the wild scarlet
azaleas so common hereabouts. There were also villages around there, and
tea houses; it might possibly be that she belonged to one of these. As
to the mad man they had seen running away, no one else had seen him.
Then Campanula was brought in and questioned, the whole of the
“Tortoise” people squatting round in a ring, even down to Hedgehog San,
who sat with judicial gravity, and seemed to be taking mental notes.
She told her little tale about the house with the plum tree in front of
it, and the kite, and the sugar-candy dragon which she had lost and
found again. How the said dragon had grown very much, and seemed
different, but tasted all right. Here she hastened to explain that she
had not eaten him, only touched him with her tongue.
She could not possibly say what men called her father. He hammered
things. What sort of things? She did not know, but they went pong, pong,
pong, when he struck them.
“Tinsmith,” murmured M’Gourley.
She was sure of one thing, that her father’s house was quite close to
the wood and the azalea valley.
How old was she?
Seven times had the cherry blossoms blown since her humble self—
“Hauld there,” said M’Gourley. Then in Japanese he explained that
yesterday she had declared that eight times the cherry blossoms had
blown since her humble self, etc.
Ah, yes! but how was she to know? a lump of mud like her!
In conclusion, she took back her statement about the snow. She must have
dreamt that in the wood.
Then the court began to consult, the “lump of mud” sitting in their
midst pensive and rather sad, a scarlet flower in her black hair, and
the bow of her obi looking very stiff and huge.
“Look here,” said Leslie at last. “Tell him I’ll look after her, and pay
all expenses till she’s found. Tell him to have the place searched, all
that wood and country, and I’ll pay for it; and if they can’t find her
people I’ll adopt her. I will, begad!”
Mac translated.
At first the chief of police seemed to think that the “lump of mud”
should be hauled off to the police office—impounded, in short; then
M’Gourley intervened. M’Gourley was a power in Japan just then, for the
astute Scot had made himself very useful to the government in past
years, and the chief of police, when he heard what Mac had to say,
agreed to leave matters where they were whilst the country was being
searched, and the chief of police at Tokyo communicated with.
Then he took his departure, and here began the prosperity of the Tea
House of the Tortoise.
Three elderly gentlemen in kimonos were the first to arrive; after them
a youth in a bowler hat, and with the face of an uninspired idiot. These
sat round and sipped saki and smoked little pipes, and talked to
Wild-cherry-bud and Fir-branch, and listened to the grasshopper singing
in his cage, whilst more guests arrived, and still more. So that
Fir-branch, Wild-cherry-bud, & Co., were full of business, so full
indeed that mother Ranunculus, driven to her wits’ end, sent out for
hired help.
At eleven, when M’Gourley and his companion went out to inspect the
golden Shrines, the Tea House of the Tortoise was humming like a
bee-hive.
“It’s a funny business,” said Leslie, as they turned the corner into the
street.
“I’m thinkin’,” said Mac, “that you’ll no find it so funny a beesiness
in the end.”