walking when he met a young lady carrying a bundle and hurrying along
by herself. As she moved along with some difficulty,[86] Wang
quickened his pace and caught her up, and found she was a pretty girl
of about sixteen. Much smitten he inquired whither she was going so
early, and no one with her. “A traveller like you,” replied the girl,
“cannot alleviate my distress; why trouble yourself to ask?” “What
distress is it?” said Wang; “I’m sure I’ll do anything I can for you.”
“My parents,” answered she, “loved money, and they sold me as
concubine into a rich family, where the wife was very jealous, and
beat and abused me morning and night. It was more than I could stand,
so I have run away.” Wang asked her where she was going; to which she
replied that a runaway had no fixed place of abode. “My house,” said
Wang, “is at no great distance; what do you say to coming there?” She
joyfully acquiesced; and Wang, taking up her bundle, led the way to
his house. Finding no one there, she asked Wang where his family were;
to which he replied that that was only the library. “And a very nice
place, too,” said she; “but if you are kind enough to wish to save my
life, you mustn’t let it be known that I am here.” Wang promised he
would not divulge her secret, and so she remained there for some days
without anyone knowing anything about it. He then told his wife, and
she, fearing the girl might belong to some influential family, advised
him to send her away. This, however, he would not consent to do; when
one day, going into the town, he met a Taoist priest, who looked at
him in astonishment, and asked him what he had met. “I have met
nothing,” replied Wang. “Why,” said the priest, “you are bewitched;
what do you mean by not having met anything?” But Wang insisted that
it was so, and the priest walked away, saying, “The fool! Some people
don’t seem to know when death is at hand.” This startled Wang, who at
first thought of the girl; but then he reflected that a pretty young
thing as she was couldn’t well be a witch, and began to suspect that
the priest merely wanted to do a stroke of business. When he returned,
the library door was shut, and he couldn’t get in, which made him
suspect that something was wrong; and so he climbed over the wall,
where he found the door of the inner room shut too. Softly creeping
up, he looked through the window and saw a hideous devil, with a green
face and jagged teeth like a saw, spreading a human skin upon the bed
and painting it with a paint-brush. The devil then threw aside the
brush, and giving the skin a shake out, just as you would a coat,
threw it over its shoulders, when, lo! it was the girl. Terrified at
this, Wang hurried away with his head down in search of the priest who
had gone he knew not whither; subsequently finding him in the fields,
where he threw himself on his knees and begged the priest to save him.
“As to driving her away,” said the priest, “the creature must be in
great distress to be seeking a substitute for herself;[87] besides, I
could hardly endure to injure a living thing.”[88] However, he gave
Wang a fly-brush, and bade him hang it at the door of the bedroom,
agreeing to meet again at the Ch‘ing-ti temple. Wang went home, but
did not dare enter the library; so he hung up the brush at the bedroom
door, and before long heard a sound of footsteps outside. Not daring
to move, he made his wife peep out; and she saw the girl standing
looking at the brush, afraid to pass it. She then ground her teeth and
went away; but in a little while came back, and began cursing, saying,
“You priest, you won’t frighten me. Do you think I am going to give up
what is already in my grasp?” Thereupon, she tore the brush to pieces,
and bursting open the door, walked straight up to the bed, where she
ripped open Wang and tore out his heart, with which she went away.
Wang’s wife screamed out, and the servant came in with a light; but
Wang was already dead and presented a most miserable spectacle. His
wife, who was in an agony of fright, hardly dared cry for fear of
making a noise; and next day she sent Wang’s brother to see the
priest. The latter got into a great rage, and cried out, “Was it for
this that I had compassion on you, devil that you are?” proceeding at
once with Wang’s brother to the house, from which the girl had
disappeared without anyone knowing whither she had gone. But the
priest, raising his head, looked all round, and said, “Luckily she’s
not far off.” He then asked who lived in the apartments on the south
side, to which Wang’s brother replied that he did; whereupon the
priest declared that there she would be found. Wang’s brother was
horribly frightened and said he did not think so; and then the priest
asked him if any stranger had been to the house. To this he answered
that he had been out to the Ch‘ing-ti temple and couldn’t possibly
say; but he went off to inquire, and in a little while came back and
reported that an old woman had sought service with them as a
maid-of-all-work, and had been engaged by his wife. “That is she,”
said the priest, as Wang’s brother added she was still there; and they
all set out to go to the house together. Then the priest took his
wooden sword, and standing in the middle of the court-yard, shouted
out, “Base-born fiend, give me back my fly-brush!” Meanwhile the new
maid-of-all-work was in a great state of alarm, and tried to get away
by the door; but the priest struck her and down she fell flat, the
human skin dropped off, and she became a hideous devil. There she lay
grunting like a pig, until the priest grasped his wooden sword and
struck off her head. She then became a dense column of smoke curling
up from the ground, when the priest took an uncorked gourd and threw
it right into the midst of the smoke. A sucking noise was heard, and
the whole column was drawn into the gourd; after which the priest
corked it up closely and put it in his pouch.[89] The skin, too, which
was complete even to the eyebrows, eyes, hands, and feet, he also
rolled up as if it had been a scroll, and was on the point of leaving
with it, when Wang’s wife stopped him, and with tears entreated him to
bring her husband to life. The priest said he was unable to do that;
but Wang’s wife flung herself at his feet, and with loud lamentations
implored his assistance. For some time he remained immersed in
thought, and then replied, “My power is not equal to what you ask. I
myself cannot raise the dead; but I will direct you to some one who
can, and if you apply to him properly you will succeed.” Wang’s wife
asked the priest who it was; to which he replied, “There is a maniac
in the town who passes his time grovelling in the dirt. Go, prostrate
yourself before him, and beg him to help you. If he insults you, shew
no sign of anger.” Wang’s brother knew the man to whom he alluded, and
accordingly bade the priest adieu, and proceeded thither with his
sister-in-law.
They found the destitute creature raving away by the road side, so
filthy that it was all they could do to go near him. Wang’s wife
approached him on her knees; at which the maniac leered at her, and
cried out, “Do you love me, my beauty?” Wang’s wife told him what she
had come for, but he only laughed and said, “You can get plenty of
other husbands. Why raise the dead one to life?” But Wang’s wife
entreated him to help her; whereupon he observed, “It’s very strange:
people apply to me to raise their dead as if I was king of the
infernal regions.” He then gave Wang’s wife a thrashing with his
staff, which she bore without a murmur, and before a gradually
increasing crowd of spectators. After this he produced a loathsome
pill which he told her she must swallow, but here she broke down and
was quite unable to do so. However, she did manage it at last, and
then the maniac crying out, “How you do love me!” got up and went away
without taking any more notice of her. They followed him into a temple
with loud supplications, but he had disappeared, and every effort to
find him was unsuccessful. Overcome with rage and shame, Wang’s wife
went home, where she mourned bitterly over her dead husband,
grievously repenting the steps she had taken, and wishing only to die.
She then bethought herself of preparing the corpse, near which none of
the servants would venture; and set to work to close up the frightful
wound of which he died.
While thus employed, interrupted from time to time by her sobs, she
felt a rising lump in her throat, which by-and-by came out with a pop
and fell straight into the dead man’s wound. Looking closely at it,
she saw it was a human heart; and then it began as it were to throb,
emitting a warm vapour like smoke. Much excited, she at once closed
the flesh over it, and held the sides of the wound together with all
her might. Very soon, however, she got tired, and finding the vapour
escaping from the crevices, she tore up a piece of silk and bound it
round, at the same time bringing back circulation by rubbing the body
and covering it up with clothes. In the night, she removed the
coverings, and found that breath was coming from the nose; and by
next morning her husband was alive again, though disturbed in mind as
if awaking from a dream and feeling a pain in his heart. Where he had
been wounded, there was a cicatrix about as big as a cash, which soon
after disappeared.
FOOTNOTES:
[86] Impeded, of course, by her small feet. This practice is said to
have originated about A.D. 970, with Yao Niang, the concubine of the
pretender Li Yü, who wished to make her feet like the “new moon.” The
Manchu or Tartar ladies have not adopted this custom, and therefore
the empresses of modern times have feet of the natural size; neither
is it in force among the Hakkas or hill-tribes of China and Formosa.
The practice was forbidden in 1664 by the Manchu Emperor, K‘ang Hsi;
but popular feeling was so strong on the subject that four years
afterwards the prohibition was withdrawn. Protestant missionaries are
now making a dead set at this shameful custom, but so far with very
indifferent success; as parents who do not cramp the feet of their
daughters would experience no small difficulty in finding husbands for
them when they grow up. Besides, the gait of a young lady hobbling
along, as we should say, seems to be much admired by the other sex.
The following seven reasons why this custom still keeps its hold upon
the Chinese mind emanate from a native convert:--
“1st.--If a girl’s feet are not bound, people say she is not like a
woman but like a man; they laugh at her, calling her names, and her
parents are ashamed of her.
“2nd.--Girls are like flowers, like the willow. It is very important
that their feet should be bound short so that they can walk
beautifully, with mincing steps, swaying gracefully, thus showing they
are persons of respectability. People praise them. If not bound short,
they say the mother has not trained her daughter carefully. She goes
from house to house with noisy steps, and is called names. Therefore
careful persons bind short.
“3rd.--One of a good family does not wish to marry a woman with long
feet. She is commiserated because her feet are not perfect. If
betrothed, and the size of her feet is not discovered till after
marriage, her husband and mother-in-law are displeased, her
sisters-in-law laugh at her, and she herself is sad.
“4th.--The large footed has to do rough work, does not sit in a sedan
when she goes out, walks in the streets barefooted, has no red
clothes, does not eat the best food. She is wetted by the rain, tanned
by the sun, blown upon by the wind. If unwilling to do all the rough
work of the house she is called ‘gormandizing and lazy.’ Perhaps she
decides to go out as a servant. She has no fame and honour. To escape
all this her parents bind her feet.
“5th.--There _are_ those with unbound feet who do no heavy work, wear
gay clothing, ride in a sedan, call others to wait upon them. Although
so fine they are low and mean. If a girl’s feet are unbound, she
cannot be distinguished from one of these.
“6th.--Girls are like gold, like gems. They ought to stay in their own
house. If their feet are not bound they go here and go there with
unfitting associates; they have no good name. They are like defective
gems that are rejected.
“7th.--Parents are covetous. They think small feet are pleasing and
will command a high price for a bride.”--_On Foot-Binding_, by Miss S.
Woolston.
[87] The disembodied spirits of the Chinese _Inferno_ are permitted,
under certain conditions of time and good conduct, to appropriate to
themselves the vitality of some human being, who, as it were,
exchanges places with the so-called “devil.” The devil does not,
however, reappear as the mortal whose life it has become possessed of,
but is merely born again into the world; the idea being that the
amount of life on earth is a constant quantity, and cannot be
increased or diminished, reminding one in a way of the great modern
doctrine of the conservation of energy. This curious belief has an
important bearing that will be brought out in a subsequent story.
[88] Here again is a Taoist priest quoting the Buddhist commandment,
“Thou shalt not take life.” The Buddhist laity in China, who do not
hesitate to take life for the purposes of food, salve their
consciences from time to time by buying birds, fishes, &c., and
letting them go, in the hope that such acts will be set down on the
credit side of their record of good and evil.
[89] This recalls the celebrated story of the fisherman in the
_Arabian Nights_.
XIII.
THE TRADER’S SON.
In the province of Hunan there dwelt a man who was engaged in trading
abroad; and his wife, who lived alone, dreamt one night that some one
was in her room. Waking up, she looked about, and discovered a small
creature which on examination she knew to be a fox; but in a moment
the thing had disappeared, although the door had not been opened. The
next evening she asked the cook-maid to come and keep her company; as
also her own son, a boy of ten, who was accustomed to sleep elsewhere.
Towards the middle of the night, when the cook and the boy were fast
asleep, back came the fox; and the cook was waked up by hearing her
mistress muttering something as if she had nightmare. The former then
called out, and the fox ran away; but from that moment the trader’s
wife was not quite herself. When night came she dared not blow out the
candle, and bade her son be sure and not sleep too soundly. Later on,
her son and the old woman having taken a nap as they leant against the
wall, suddenly waked up and found her gone. They waited some time, but
she did not return, and the cook was too frightened to go and look
after her; so her son took a light, and at length found her fast
asleep in another room. She didn’t seem aware that anything particular
had happened, but she became queerer and queerer every day, and
wouldn’t have either her son or the cook to keep her company any more.
Her son, however, made a point of running at once into his mother’s
room if he heard any unusual sounds; and though his mother always
abused him for his pains, he paid no attention to what she said. At
the same time, the more people urged him on to keep a sharp look-out,
the more eccentric were his mother’s ways. One day she played at being
a mason, and piled up stones upon the window-sill, in spite of all
that was said to her; and if anyone took away a stone, she threw
herself on the ground, and cried like a child, so that nobody dared go
near her. In a few days she had got both windows blocked up and the
light excluded; and then she set to filling up the chinks with mud.
She worked hard all day without minding the trouble, and when it was
finished she smoothed it off with the kitchen chopper. Everyone who
saw her was disgusted with such antics, and would take no notice of
her. At night her son darkened his lamp, and, with a knife concealed
on his person, sat waiting for his mother to mutter. As soon as she
began he uncovered his light, and, blocking up the doorway, shouted
out at the top of his voice. Nothing, however, happened, and he moved
from the door a little way, when suddenly out rushed something like a
fox, which was disappearing through the door, when he made a quick
movement and cut off about two inches of its tail, from which the warm
blood was still dripping as he brought the light to bear upon it. His
mother hereupon cursed and reviled him, but he pretended not to hear
her, regretting only as he went to bed that he hadn’t hit the brute
fair. But he consoled himself by thinking that although he hadn’t
killed it outright, he had done enough to prevent it coming again. On
the morrow he followed the tracks of blood over the wall and into the
garden of a family named Ho; and that night, to his great joy, the fox
did not reappear. His mother was meanwhile prostrate, with hardly any
life in her, and in the midst of it all his father came home. The boy
told him what had happened, at which he was much alarmed, and sent for
a doctor to attend his wife; but she only threw the medicine away, and
cursed and swore horribly. So they secretly mixed the medicine with
her tea and soup, and in a few days she began to get better, to the
inexpressible delight of both her husband and son. One night, however,
her husband woke up and found her gone; and after searching for her
with the aid of his son, they discovered her sleeping in another room.
From that time she became more eccentric than ever, and was always
being found in strange places, cursing those who tried to remove her.
Her husband was at his wits’ end. It was no use keeping the door
locked, for it opened of itself at her approach; and he had called in
any number of magicians to exorcise the fox, but without obtaining the
slightest result. One evening her son concealed himself in the Ho
family garden, and lay down in the long grass with a view to detecting
the fox’s retreat. As the moon rose he heard the sound of voices, and,
pushing aside the grass, saw two people drinking, with a long-bearded
servant pouring out their wine, dressed in an old dark-brown coat.
They were whispering together, and he could not make out what they
said; but by-and-by he heard one of them remark, “Get some white wine
for to-morrow,” and then they went away, leaving the long-bearded
servant alone. The latter then threw off his coat, and lay down to
sleep on the stones; whereupon the trader’s son eyed him carefully,
and saw that he was like a man in every respect except that he had a
tail. The boy would then have gone home; but he was afraid the fox
might hear him, and accordingly remained where he was till near dawn,
when he saw the other two come back, one at a time, and then they all
disappeared among the bushes. On reaching home his father asked him
where he had been, and he replied that he had stopped the night with
the Ho family. He then accompanied his father to the town, where he
saw hanging up at a hat-shop a fox’s tail, and finally, after much
coaxing, succeeded in making his father buy it for him. While the
latter was engaged in a shop, his son, who was playing about beside
him, availed himself of a moment when his father was not looking and
stole some money from him, and went off and bought a quantity of white
wine, which he left in charge of the wine-merchant. Now an uncle of
his, who was a sportsman by trade, lived in the city, and thither he
next betook himself. His uncle was out, but his aunt was there, and
inquired after the health of his mother. “She has been better the last
few days,” replied he; “but she is now very much upset by a rat having
gnawed a dress of hers, and has sent me to ask for some poison.” His
aunt opened the cupboard and gave him about the tenth of an ounce in a
piece of paper, which he thought was very little; so, when his aunt
had gone to get him something to eat, he took the opportunity of being
alone, opened the packet, and abstracted a large handful. Hiding this
in his coat, he ran to tell his aunt that she needn’t prepare anything
for him, as his father was waiting in the market, and he couldn’t stop
to eat it. He then went off; and having quietly dropped the poison
into the wine he had bought, went sauntering about the town. At
nightfall he returned home, and told his father that he had been at
his uncle’s. This he continued to do for some time, until one day he
saw amongst the crowd his long-bearded friend. Marking him closely, he
followed him, and at length entered into conversation, asking him
where he lived. “I live at Pei-ts‘un,” said he; “where do you live?”
“I,” replied the trader’s son, falsely, “live in a hole on the
hill-side.” The long-bearded man was considerably startled at his
answer, but much more so when he added, “We’ve lived there for
generations: haven’t _you_?” The other then asked his name, to which
the boy replied, “My name is Hu.[90] I saw you with two gentlemen in
the Ho family garden, and haven’t forgotten you.” Questioning him more
fully, the long-bearded man was still in a half-and-half state of
belief and doubt, when the trader’s son opened his coat a little bit,
and showed him the end of the tail he had bought, saying, “The like
of us can mix with ordinary people, but unfortunately we can never get
rid of this.” The long-bearded man then asked him what he was doing
there, to which he answered that his father had sent him to buy wine;
whereupon the former remarked that that was exactly what he had come
for, and the boy then inquired if he had bought it yet or not. “We are
poor,” replied the stranger, “and as a rule I prefer to steal it.” “A
difficult and dangerous job,” observed the boy. “I have my master’s
instructions to get some,” said the other, “and what am I to do?” The
boy then asked him who his masters were, to which he replied that they
were the two brothers the boy had seen that night. “One of them has
bewitched a lady named Wang; and the other, the wife of a trader who
lives near. The son of the last-mentioned lady is a violent fellow,
and cut off my master’s tail, so that he was laid up for ten days. But
he is putting her under spells again now.” He was then going away,
saying he should never get his wine; but the boy said to him, “It’s
much easier to buy than steal. I have some at the wine-shop there
which I will give to you. My purse isn’t empty, and I can buy some
more.” The long-bearded man hardly knew how to thank him; but the boy
said, “We’re all one family. Don’t mention such a trifle. When I have
time I’ll come and take a drink with you.” So they went off together
to the wine-shop, where the boy gave him the wine and they then
separated. That night his mother slept quietly and had no fits, and
the boy knew that something must have happened. He then told his
father, and they went to see if there were any results; when lo! they
found both foxes stretched out dead in the arbour. One of the foxes
was lying on the grass, and out of its mouth blood was still
trickling. The wine-bottle was there; and on shaking it they heard
that some was left. Then his father asked him why he had kept it all
so secret; to which the boy replied that foxes were very sagacious,
and would have been sure to scent the plot. Thereupon his father was
mightily pleased, and said he was a perfect Ulysses[91] for cunning.
They then carried the foxes home, and saw on the tail of one of them
the scar of a knife-wound. From that time they were left in peace; but
the trader’s wife became very thin, and though her reason returned,
she shortly afterwards died of consumption. The other lady, Mrs. Wang,
began to get better as soon as the foxes had been killed; and as to
the boy, he was taught riding and archery[92] by his proud parent, and
subsequently rose to high rank in the army.
FOOTNOTES:
[90] _Hu_ is the sound of the character for “fox;” it is also the
sound of quite a different character, which is used as a surname.
[91] The name of the Chinese type was Ch‘ên P‘ing. See Mayer’s
_Reader’s Manual_, No. 102.
[92] At the date at which we are writing skill in archery is still _de
rigueur_ for all Manchus, and for those who would rise in the Chinese
army. Only the other day the progressive Governor-General of the Two
Kiang, Shên Pao-chên, memorialised the Throne with a view to the
abandonment of this effete and useless form of military drill, and
received a direct snub for his pains. Two hundred odd years ago, when
the Manchus were establishing their power, the dexterity of their
bowmen doubtless stood them in good stead; though if we are to judge
of their skill then by the ordinary practice of to-day, as seen on any
Chinese parade-ground, they could never have been more than very
third-rate archers after all.
XIV.
JUDGE LU.