of his father being out to open the bowl. Instantaneously the cricket
made a spring forward and was gone; and all efforts to catch it again
were unavailing. At length the boy made a grab at it with his hand,
but only succeeded in seizing one of its legs, which thereupon broke,
and the little creature soon afterwards died. Ch‘êng’s wife turned
deadly pale when her son, with tears in his eyes, told her what had
happened. “Oh! won’t you catch it when your father comes home,” said
she; at which the boy ran away, crying bitterly. Soon after Ch‘êng
arrived, and when he heard his wife’s story he felt as if he had been
turned to ice, and went in search of his son, who, however, was
nowhere to be found, until at length they discovered his body lying at
the bottom of a well. Their anger was thus turned to grief, and death
seemed as though it would be a pleasant relief to them as they sat
facing each other in silence in their thatched and smokeless[374] hut.
At evening they prepared to bury the boy; but, on touching the body,
lo! he was still breathing. Overjoyed, they placed him upon the bed,
and towards the middle of the night he came round; but a drop of
bitterness was mingled in his parents’ cup when they found that his
reason had fled. His father, however, caught sight of the empty bowl
in which he had kept the cricket, and ceased to think any more about
his son, never once closing his eyes all night; and as day gradually
broke, there he lay stiff and stark, until suddenly he heard the
chirping of a cricket outside the house door. Jumping up in a great
hurry to see, there was his lost insect; but, on trying to catch it,
away it hopped directly. At last he got it under his hand, though,
when he came to close his fingers on it, there was nothing in them. So
he went on, chasing it up and down, until finally it hopped into a
corner of the wall; and then, looking carefully about, he espied it
once more, no longer the same in appearance, but small, and of a dark
red colour. Ch‘êng stood looking at it, without trying to catch such a
worthless specimen, when all of a sudden the little creature hopped
into his sleeve; and, on examining it more nearly, he saw that it
really was a handsome insect, with well-formed head and neck, and
forthwith took it indoors. He was now anxious to try its prowess; and
it so happened that a young fellow of the village, who had a fine
cricket which used to win every bout it fought, and was so valuable to
him that he wanted a high price for it, called on Ch‘êng that very
day. He laughed heartily at Ch‘êng’s champion, and, producing his own,
placed it side by side, to the great disadvantage of the former.
Ch‘êng’s countenance fell, and he no longer wished to back his
cricket; however, the young fellow urged him, and he thought that
there was no use in rearing a feeble insect, and that he had better
sacrifice it for a laugh; so they put them together in a bowl. The
little cricket lay quite still like a piece of wood, at which the
young fellow roared again, and louder than ever when it did not move
even though tickled with a pig’s bristle. By dint of tickling it was
roused at last, and then it fell upon its adversary with such fury,
that in a moment the young fellow’s cricket would have been killed
outright had not its master interfered and stopped the fight. The
little cricket then stood up and chirped to Ch‘êng as a sign of
victory; and Ch‘êng, overjoyed, was just talking over the battle with
the young fellow, when a cock caught sight of the insect, and ran up
to eat it. Ch‘êng was in a great state of alarm; but the cock luckily
missed its aim, and the cricket hopped away, its enemy pursuing at
full speed. In another moment it would have been snapped up, when, lo!
to his great astonishment, Ch‘êng saw his cricket seated on the cock’s
head, holding firmly on to its comb. He then put it into a cage, and
by-and-by sent it to the magistrate, who, seeing what a small one he
had provided, was very angry indeed. Ch‘êng told the story of the
cock, which the magistrate refused to believe, and set it to fight
with other crickets, all of which it vanquished without exception. He
then tried it with a cock, and as all turned out as Ch‘êng had said,
he gave him a present, and sent the cricket in to the Governor. The
Governor put it into a golden cage, and forwarded it to the palace,
accompanied by some remarks on its performances; and when there, it
was found that of all the splendid collection of His Imperial Majesty,
not one was worthy to be placed alongside of this one. It would dance
in time to music, and thus became a great favourite, the Emperor in
return bestowing magnificent gifts of horses and silks upon the
Governor. The Governor did not forget whence he had obtained the
cricket, and the magistrate also well rewarded Ch‘êng by excusing him
from the duties of beadle, and by instructing the Literary Chancellor
to pass him for the first degree. A few months afterwards Ch‘êng’s son
recovered his intellect, and said that he had been a cricket, and had
proved himself a very skilful fighter.[375] The Governor, too, rewarded
Ch‘êng handsomely, and in a few years he was a rich man, with flocks,
and herds, and houses, and acres, quite one of the wealthiest of
mankind.
FOOTNOTES:
[372] Of the Ming dynasty; reigned A.D. 1426-1436.
[373] These beadles are chosen by the officials from among the
respectable and substantial of the people to preside over a small area
and be responsible for the general good behaviour of its inhabitants.
The post is one of honour and occasional emolument, since all
petitions presented to the authorities, all mortgages, transfers of
land, &c., should bear the beadle’s seal or signature in evidence of
their _bonâ fide_ character. On the other hand, the beadle is punished
by fine, and sometimes bambooed, if robberies are too frequent within
his jurisdiction, or if he fails to secure the person of any
malefactor particularly wanted by his superior officers. And other
causes may combine to make the post a dangerous one; but no one is
allowed to refuse acceptance of it point-blank.
[374] A favourite Chinese expression, signifying the absence of food.
[375] That is to say, his spirit had entered, during his period of
temporary insanity, into the cricket which had allowed itself to be
caught by his father, and had animated it to fight with such
extraordinary vigour in order to make good the loss occasioned by his
carelessness in letting the other escape.
LXV.
TAKING REVENGE.
Hsiang Kao, otherwise called Ch‘u-tan, was a T‘ai-yüan man, and deeply
attached to his half-brother Shêng. Shêng himself was desperately
enamoured of a young lady named Po-ssŭ,[376] who was also very fond of
him: but the mother wanted too much money for her daughter. Now a rich
young fellow named Chuang thought he should like to get Po-ssŭ for
himself, and proposed to buy her as a concubine. “No, no,” said Po-ssŭ
to her mother, “I prefer being Shêng’s wife to becoming Chuang’s
concubine.” So her mother consented, and informed Shêng, who had only
recently buried his first wife; at which he was delighted and made
preparations to take her over to his own house. When Chuang heard this
he was infuriated against Shêng for thus depriving him of Po-ssŭ; and
chancing to meet him out one day, set to and abused him roundly.
Shêng answered him back, and then Chuang ordered his attendants to
fall upon Shêng and beat him well, which they did, leaving him
lifeless on the ground. When Hsiang heard what had taken place he ran
out and found his brother lying dead upon the ground. Overcome with
grief, he proceeded to the magistrate’s, and accused Chuang of murder;
but the latter bribed so heavily that nothing came of the accusation.
This worked Hsiang to frenzy, and he determined to assassinate Chuang
on the high road; with which intent he daily concealed himself, with a
sharp knife about him, among the bushes on the hill-side, waiting for
Chuang to pass. By degrees, this plan of his became known far and
wide, and accordingly Chuang never went out except with a strong
body-guard, besides which he engaged at a high price the services of a
very skilful archer, named Chiao T‘ung, so that Hsiang had no means of
carrying out his intention. However, he continued to lie in wait day
after day, and on one occasion it began to rain heavily, and in a
short time Hsiang was wet through to the skin. Then the wind got up,
and a hailstorm followed, and by-and-by Hsiang was quite numbed with
the cold. On the top of the hill there was a small temple wherein
lived a Taoist priest, whom Hsiang knew from the latter having
occasionally begged alms in the village, and to whom he had often
given a meal. This priest, seeing how wet he was, gave him some other
clothes, and told him to put them on; but no sooner had he done so
than he crouched down like a dog, and found that he had been changed
into a tiger, and that the priest had vanished. It now occurred to him
to seize this opportunity of revenging himself upon his enemy; and
away he went to his old ambush, where lo and behold! he found his own
body lying stiff and stark. Fearing lest it should become food for
birds of prey, he guarded it carefully, until at length one day Chuang
passed by. Out rushed the tiger and sprung upon Chuang, biting his
head off, and swallowing it upon the spot; at which Chiao T‘ung, the
archer, turned round and shot the animal through the heart. Just at
that moment Hsiang awaked as though from a dream, but it was some time
before he could crawl home, where he arrived to the great delight of
his family, who didn’t know what had become of him. Hsiang said not a
word, lying quietly on the bed until some of his people came in to
congratulate him on the death of his great enemy Chuang. Hsiang then
cried out, “I was that tiger,” and proceeded to relate the whole
story, which thus got about until it reached the ears of Chuang’s son,
who immediately set to work to bring his father’s murderer to justice.
The magistrate, however, did not consider this wild story as
sufficient evidence against him, and thereupon dismissed the case.
FOOTNOTE:
[376] This is the term used by the Chinese for “Persia,” often put by
metonymy for things which come from that country, _sc._ “valuables.”
Thus, “to be poor in Persia” is to have but few jewels, gold and
silver ornaments, and even clothes.
LXVI.
THE TIPSY TURTLE.
At Lin-t‘iao there lived a Mr. Fêng, whose other name the person who
told me this story could not remember; he belonged to a good family,
though now somewhat falling into decay. Now a certain man, who caught
turtles, owed him some money which he could not pay, but whenever he
captured any turtles he used to send one to Mr. Fêng. One day he took
him an enormous creature, with a white spot on its forehead; but Fêng
was so struck with something in its appearance, that he let it go
again. A little while afterwards he was returning home from his
son-in-law’s, and had reached the banks of the river,[377] when in the
dusk of the evening he saw a drunken man come rolling along, attended
by two or three servants. No sooner did he perceive Fêng than he
called out, “Who are you?” to which Fêng replied that he was a
traveller. “And haven’t you got a name?” shouted out the drunken man
in a rage, “that you must call yourself a traveller?” To this Fêng
made no reply, but tried to pass by; whereupon he found himself seized
by the sleeve and unable to move. His adversary smelt horribly of
wine, and at length Fêng asked him, saying, “And pray who are you?”
“Oh, I am the late magistrate at Nan-tu,” answered he; “what do you
want to know for?” “A nice disgrace to society you are, too,” cried
Fêng; “however, I am glad to hear you are only _late_ magistrate, for
if you had been present magistrate there would be bad times in store
for travellers.” This made the drunken man furious, and he was
proceeding to use violence, when Fêng cried out, “My name is
So-and-so, and I’m not the man to stand this sort of thing from
anybody.” No sooner had he uttered these words than the drunken man’s
rage was turned into joy, and, falling on his knees before Fêng, he
said, “My benefactor! pray excuse my rudeness.” Then getting up, he
told his servants to go on ahead and get something ready; Fêng at
first declining to go with him, but yielding on being pressed. Taking
his hand, the drunken man led him along a short distance until they
reached a village, where there was a very nice house and grounds,
quite like the establishment of a person of position. As his friend
was now getting sober, Fêng inquired what might be his name. “Don’t be
frightened when I tell you,” said the other; “I am the Eighth Prince
of the T‘iao river. I have just been out to take wine with a friend,
and somehow I got tipsy; hence my bad behaviour to you, which please
forgive.” Fêng now knew that he was not of mortal flesh and blood;
but, seeing how kindly he himself was treated, he was not a bit
afraid. A banquet followed, with plenty of wine, of which the Eighth
Prince drank so freely that Fêng thought he would soon be worse than
ever, and accordingly said he felt tipsy himself, and asked to be
allowed to go to bed. “Never fear,” answered the Prince, who perceived
Fêng’s thoughts; “many drunkards will tell you that they cannot
remember in the morning the extravagances of the previous night, but I
tell you this is all nonsense, and that in nine cases out of ten those
extravagances are committed wittingly and with malice prepense.[378]
Now, though I am not the same order of being as yourself, I should
never venture to behave badly in your good presence; so pray do not
leave me thus.” Fêng then sat down again and said to the Prince,
“Since you are aware of this, why not change your ways?” “Ah,” replied
the Prince, “when I was a magistrate I drank much more than I do now;
but I got into disgrace with the Emperor and was banished here, since
which time, ten years and more, I have tried to reform. Now, however,
I am drawing near the wood,[379] and being unable to move about much,
the old vice has come upon me again; I have found it impossible to
stop myself, but perhaps what you say may do me some good.” While they
were thus talking, the sound of a distant bell broke upon their ears;
and the Prince, getting up and seizing Fêng’s hand, said, “We cannot
remain together any longer; but I will give you something by which I
may in part requite your kindness to me. It must not be kept for any
great length of time; when you have attained your wishes, then I will
receive it back again.” Thereupon he spit out of his mouth a tiny man,
no more than an inch high, and scratching Fêng’s arm with his nails
until Fêng felt as if the skin was gone, he quickly laid the little
man upon the spot. When he let go, the latter had already sunk into
the skin, and nothing was to be seen but a cicatrix well healed over.
Fêng now asked what it all meant, but the Prince only laughed, and
said, “It’s time for you to go,” and forthwith escorted him to the
door. The prince here bade him adieu, and when he looked round,
Prince, village, and house had all disappeared together, leaving
behind a great turtle which waddled down into the water, and
disappeared likewise. He could now easily account for the Prince’s
present to him; and from this moment his sight became intensely keen.
He could see precious stones lying in the bowels of the earth, and was
able to look down as far as Hell itself; besides which he suddenly
found that he knew the names of many things of which he had never
heard before. From below his own bedroom he dug up many hundred ounces
of pure silver, upon which he lived very comfortably; and once when a
house was for sale, he perceived that in it lay concealed a vast
quantity of gold, so he immediately bought it, and so became immensely
rich in all kinds of valuables. He secured a mirror, on the back of
which was a phœnix, surrounded by water and clouds, and portraits of
the celebrated wives of the Emperor Shun,[380] so beautifully executed
that each hair of the head and eyebrows could easily be counted. If
any woman’s face came upon the mirror, there it remained indelibly
fixed and not to be rubbed out; but if the same woman looked into the
mirror again, dressed in a different dress, or if some other woman
chanced to look in, then the former face would gradually fade away.
Now the third princess in Prince Su’s family was very beautiful; and
Fêng, who had long heard of her fame, concealed himself on the
K‘ung-tung hill, when he knew the Princess was going there. He waited
until she alighted from her chair, and then getting the mirror full
upon her, he walked off home. Laying it on the table, he saw therein a
lovely girl in the act of raising her handkerchief, and with a sweet
smile playing over her face; her lips seemed about to move, and a
twinkle was discernible in her eyes.[381] Delighted with this picture,
he put the mirror very carefully away; but in about a year his wife
had let the story leak out, and the Prince, hearing of it, threw Fêng
into prison, and took possession of the mirror. Fêng was to be
beheaded; however, he bribed one of the Prince’s ladies to tell His
Highness that if he would pardon him all the treasures of the earth
might easily become his; whereas, on the other hand, his death could
not possibly be of any advantage to the Prince. The Prince now thought
of confiscating all his goods and banishing him; but the third
princess observed, that as he had already seen her, were he to die ten
times over it would not give her back her lost face, and that she had
much better marry him. The Prince would not hear of this, whereupon
his daughter shut herself up and refused all nourishment, at which the
ladies of the palace were dreadfully alarmed, and reported it at once
to the Prince. Fêng was accordingly liberated, and was informed of the
determination of the Princess, which, however, he declined to fall in
with, saying that he was not going thus to sacrifice the wife of his
days of poverty,[382] and would rather die than carry out such an
order. He added that if His Highness would consent, he would purchase
his liberty at the price of everything he had. The Prince was
exceedingly angry at this, and seized Fêng again; and meanwhile one of
the concubines got Fêng’s wife into the palace, intending to poison
her. Fêng’s wife, however, brought her a beautiful present of a coral
stand for a looking-glass, and was so agreeable in her conversation,
that the concubine took a great fancy to her, and presented her to the
Princess, who was equally pleased, and forthwith determined that they
would both be Fêng’s wives.[383] When Fêng heard of this plan, he said
to his wife, “With a Prince’s daughter there can be no distinctions of
first and second wife;” but Mrs. Fêng paid no heed to him, and
immediately sent off to the Prince such an enormous quantity of
valuables that it took a thousand men to carry them, and the Prince
himself had never before heard of such treasures in his life. Fêng was
now liberated once more, and solemnized his marriage with the
Princess.
One night after this he dreamt that the Eighth Prince came to him and
asked him to return his former present, saying that to keep it too
long would be injurious to his chances of life. Fêng asked him to
take a drink, but the Eighth Prince said that he had forsworn wine,
acting under Fêng’s advice, for three years. He then bit Fêng’s arm,
and the latter waked up with the pain to find that the cicatrix on his
arm was no longer there.
FOOTNOTES:
[377] The name here used is the _Hêng_ or “ceaseless” river, which is
applied by the Chinese to the Ganges. A certain number, extending to
fifty-three places of figures, is called “Ganges sand,” in allusion to
a famous remark that “Buddha and the Bôdhisatvas knew of the creation
and destruction of every grain of dust in Jambudwipa (the universe);
how much more the number of the sand-particles in the river Ganges?”
[378] Drunkenness is not recognised in China as an extenuating
circumstance; neither, indeed, is insanity,--a lunatic who takes
another man’s life being equally liable with ordinary persons to the
forfeiture of his own.
[379] A favourite Chinese figure expressive of old age. It dates back
to the celebrated commentary by Tso Ch‘iu Ming on Confucius’ _Spring
and Autumn_ (See No. XLI., note 237):--“Hsi is twenty-three and I am
twenty-five; and marrying thus we shall approach the wood together;”
the “wood” being, of course, that of the coffin.
[380] See No. VIII., note 63.
[381]
“... Move these eyes?
... Here are severed lips.”
--_Merchant of Venice_, Act iii., sc. 2.
[382] See No. LIII., note 288.
[383] This method of arranging a matrimonial difficulty is a common one
in Chinese fiction, but I should say quite unknown in real life.
LXVII.
THE MAGIC PATH.
In the province of Kuangtung there lived a scholar named Kuo, who was
one evening on his way home from a friend’s, when he lost his way
among the hills. He got into a thick jungle, where, after about an
hour’s wandering, he suddenly heard the sound of laughing and talking
on the top of the hill. Hurrying up in the direction of the sound, he
beheld some ten or a dozen persons sitting on the ground engaged in
drinking. No sooner had they caught sight of Kuo than they all cried
out, “Come along! just room for one more; you’re in the nick of time.”
So Kuo sat down with the company, most of whom, he noticed, belonged
to the literati,[384] and began by asking them to direct him on his way
home; but one of them cried out, “A nice sort of fellow you are, to
be bothering about your way home, and paying no attention to the fine
moon we have got to-night.” The speaker then presented him with a
goblet of wine of exquisite bouquet, which Kuo drank off at a draught,
and another gentleman filled up again for him at once. Now, Kuo was
pretty good in that line, and being very thirsty withal from his long
walk, tossed off bumper after bumper, to the great delight of his
hosts, who were unanimous in voting him a jolly good fellow. He was,
moreover, full of fun, and could imitate exactly the note of any kind
of bird; so all of a sudden he began on the sly to twitter like a
swallow, to the great astonishment of the others, who wondered how it
was a swallow could be out so late. He then changed his note to that
of a cuckoo, sitting there laughing and saying nothing, while his
hosts were discussing the extraordinary sounds they had just heard.
After a while he imitated a parrot, and cried, “Mr. Kuo is very drunk:
you’d better see him home;” and then the sounds ceased, beginning
again by-and-by, when at last the others found out who it was, and all
burst out laughing. They screwed up their mouths and tried to whistle
like Kuo, but none of them could do so; and soon one of them observed,
“What a pity Madam Ch‘ing isn’t with us: we must rendezvous here again
at mid-autumn, and you, Mr. Kuo, must be sure and come.” Kuo said he
would, whereupon another of his hosts got up and remarked that, as he
had given them such an amusing entertainment, they would try to shew
him a few acrobatic feats. They all arose, and one of them planting
his feet firmly, a second jumped up on to his shoulders, a third on to
the second’s shoulders, and a fourth on to his, until it was too high
for the rest to jump up, and accordingly they began to climb as though
it had been a ladder. When they were all up, and the topmost head
seemed to touch the clouds, the whole column bent gradually down until
it lay along the ground transformed into a path. Kuo remained for some
time in a state of considerable alarm, and then, setting out along
this path, ultimately reached his own home. Some days afterwards he
revisited the spot, and saw the remains of a feast lying about on the
ground, with dense bushes on all sides, but no sign of a path. At
mid-autumn he thought of keeping his engagement; however, his friends
persuaded him not to go.
FOOTNOTE: