I
FUKUI was in an unwonted state of excitement. For days the people had
talked of but one event. Even the small boys, perilously astraddle the
bamboo poles, the scullery wenches of the kitchen, the very mendicants
of the street, the highest and lowest of the citizens of Fukui talked of
the coming of the O-Tojin-san (Honorable Mr. Foreigner).
For at last the exalted Daimio of the province had acceded to the
pleadings and eager demands of the students of the university, and, at
great expense and trouble, a foreign professor had been imported.
Signs of preparation were everywhere visible. Vigorous housecleaning was
in evidence. The professional story-tellers, who took the place of
newspapers in these days, reaped small fortunes in their halls. Some of
them opened booths on the streets and regaled their auditors with
strange accounts of America and its people.
Already the Tojin-san’s house and household had been chosen for him,
from the Daimio’s high officer and the four samourai body-guard, who
were to protect him from any possible Jo-i (foreign hater), down to his
body-servant.
An enormous old historical Shiro (mansion), two hundred and seven years
old, was assigned as his residence, and was now undergoing certain
remarkable changes. For heavy woollen carpets, with flowers and figured
designs, were being nailed down over the ancient matting in the chief
rooms. Strange articles of furniture, massive and heavy as iron, were
pushed into the great chambers, under the supervising hand of a dapper,
rosy-cheeked young samourai who was to serve as interpreter to the
Tojin. His name was Genji Negato, and he had already lived among
foreigners in the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama. He spoke the English
language very well indeed, and his knowledge of the white man and his
ways was extraordinary.
Now, as he ordered this or that article set in place, his full red lips
curled smilingly under his little bristly mustache. He called the
servants in one by one, lecturing each in turn in regard to his especial
duties. Incidentally he regaled them with tales of the habits and
desires of the white man.
Food sufficient for six ordinary mortals must be prepared for his
individual consumption. Raw meat and game, slightly scorched before
fire, were essential. A never-failing spring of what the original
American had aptly called “fire-water” must be constantly flowing at and
between meals and day and night. Such was the thirst of the white man.
Brooms must be in readiness to follow the trail of the dust and
mud-laden boots of the professor, since he would not remove them even in
the house. Finally, his supreme favor could be won by having at hand
always the sweetest and prettiest maidens to entertain and caress him.
And so on through a strange list.
If the students of the college where the Tojin-san was to teach were
elated at the prospect of his coming, their joy was hardly shared by his
household. It was in a flutter of excited fear. Even the stolid,
impassive-faced samourai guard discussed in undertones among themselves
the degrading service to which they were reduced in these degenerate
days. To guard the body of a mere Tojin! Well, such was the will of the
Daimio of Echizen, and a samourai is the right hand of his Prince. His
the task to obey even the caprice of his lord, or take his own life in
preference to service too far beneath his honor.
In the humbler regions of the Shiro, however, the servants discussed the
matter less pessimistically. Some rumor of the generosity and wealth of
foreigners had floated across the vague tide of gossip. Anyhow, the
preparations for his coming went blithely on here, and already odors of
vigorous advance cooking were being wafted from the kitchen regions,
warming and savoring the great chambers, and awakening into noisy life
the vast army of rats and bats which had long made their homes in the
eaves and rafters of the old deserted mansion, now for the first time in
years to be occupied by a tenant.
Everything was quite in readiness when the cook’s wife’s baby’s nurse
(for his entire family were, of course, also domiciled in the Shiro)
missed a portion of her rice. She had turned about to give better
attention to master baby-san, when, so she averred, a “white hand”
reached out of nowhere and seized the remnants of her supper. She ran
squealing with her tale to her mistress, who, in turn, rushed with it to
her lord, the cook. He put aside his apron and sought Genji Negato, who
solemnly called a council of war. To the four samourai guard the entire
household looked for a solution and ending of the impending trouble.
Measures should be taken at once, it was unanimously decided. It would
be to their Prince’s everlasting disgrace should the exalted foreign
devil also become a victim of the dreaded Fox-Woman of Atago Yama, for,
undoubtedly, this mischievous and irrepressible sprite of the mountains
was at her tricks again. In the names, therefore, of the august
Tojin-san, nay, in the very name of the Imperial Daimio of Echizen, it
was the duty of the honorable samourai to spare in no wise the witch
should she be caught trespassing upon the estate of the Prince’s guest
and protégé.
They fell to telling weird tales of the latest doings of the fox-woman.
A Tsuruga child had followed the witch-girl into the mountains,
believing her glittering hair to be the rays of the sun, and stretching
out his tiny hands to touch and hold it. To propitiate the dread
creature, the parents had set out daily food at the foot of the
mountains, and thus, for a time at least, the hunger of the fox-woman
had been satisfied, but the child had never been the same again,
fretting and crying constantly for the “Sun Lady.” As its peevishness
continued, the parents revenged themselves upon its abductor, and ceased
to set out the nightly repast, bravely facing down their fear of the
witch’s certain anger and retaliation.
Since then she had been forced to seek her sustenance elsewhere. A
basket of fish disappeared overnight from a vendor’s locked stand. A bag
of rice was found on the mountain-side of the river, as if the thief,
finding it too heavy, had dropped it in her flight.
And now—could it be possible that the most distinguished (though
augustly degraded) guest Fukui had known in years was to suffer by the
depredations of the fox-woman?
Samourai Iroka voted in favor of killing the witch outright. But not by
the means of his own personal sword, for he was unmarried and had no
descendants to pray for his soul should it be forced to pass along on a
journey.
Samourai Asado feared for the safety of his wife and family in the event
of his honorable sword being stained by the blood of the witch-girl.
Once a similar goblin had torn the head and arms from the body of a
sleeping babe, in revenge for the mere pin-prick of a samourai sword.
Samourai Hirata suggested referring the matter to the Daimio himself;
but was urged against this by the others, for was not the fox-woman the
one black blot upon the escutcheon of their exalted Prince, seeing she
was indeed, and alas! of his own blood?
Finally, Samourai Numura, an ancient, grizzled warrior of the most
stolid common sense, gruffly insisted that the matter was the affair of
the Tojin himself, and from him alone should they receive commands upon
the matter. It was agreed, therefore, that they should wait for the
coming of the Tojin-san. Out of his vaunted western wisdom certainly
should he be able to suggest the solution of the problem.
And, in the Season of Greatest Cold, while the snow whirled in feathery
flakes over all the Province of Echizen, and the winds blew in laughing,
whispering murmurs through the glistening camphor and pine trees, across
the sacred bosom of Lake Biwa, and over the snow-crowned mountains
between, the Tojin-san came to Fukui, the “Well of Blessing.”
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