“YOU have stated, honored sir, that the Fox-Woman of Atago Yama is but a
superstition worthy of a child, and you have laughed, Mr. sir, at the
possibility of danger from proximity with the forsaken creature. Thus
spoke and laughed another before your time in Fukui. We of Echizen do
not forget the very recent fate of Gihei Matsuyama.”
“And pray who was Gihei Matsuyama, and what was his fate?” asked the
Tojin-san, good-humoredly.
The fanatical fire was back in the eyes of the officer. He had thrust
forward his thin, yellow face and was regarding the Tojin-san with an
almost venomous glance. His words, however, were pacific, and, as he
talked, the American showed a greater interest with every moment.
“We sent seven of our youths to the universities of the West. They were
chosen from the most intelligent and noblest of our families. Gihei
Matsuyama was one of these, and in him we had particular interest, for
he was of Fukui. After two years’ sojourn in Europe he returned for
service in Dai Nippon, and we gave him a position of honor and housed
him in an honorable yashiki hard by Atago Yama.
“As a youth—as a child, he had known the story of the fox-woman. His
honorable sire and other male kin had participated in the slaughter of
the parents of the creature. Now with this new wisdom he had acquired in
the West, as fresh as new-spread varnish upon him, Gihei laughed to
scorn the stories of her fiendish origin, and boasted he would dissipate
them as the air does the steam. Making a bold and ingenuous wager that
he would enslave the sprite, he set himself the task of tracking her.
Unaided by even the counsel of the priests of neighboring temples, he
blithely followed the trail of the witch over the river, through the
woods and mountains and in and out of the cemeteries, until he had
driven her to her final refuge—the Temple of Tokiwa, wherein no man had
stepped since the accursed blood spilt before the eye of the eternal
Lord.”
Here the Daimio’s high officer reverently bowed to the floor, ere he
continued his narrative, his eyes gleaming more fiercely as he
proceeded.
“As he hesitated upon the threshold, divided between a desire to
penetrate its mysteries, and an instinct which peremptorily bade him
depart, she came forth from the temple doors dancing, as the nuns of old
danced for the gods, with her wild, unbound hair outmatching the sun,
and her hungry, vivid, smiling lips scarlet as the deadly poppy. He,
having looked upon her face, became blinded to all else on earth.
Infatuated and maddened, he sought to touch, to seize the creature, when
she fled suddenly before him, mocking him with the silver laughter of
the sea-siren and hiding her face in the glimmering veil of her hair.
“Thus they sped on, she ever before him, with her luring hair streaming
like a gilded cloud in the wind, springing as lightly as a breeze from
rock to rock, over brooks and slender streams that melted in between, up
this cliff and down that dell and through this valley, on and on she led
the infatuated seeker.
“Suddenly, while his dazzled eyes were fastened solely upon her, and he
reached forth a hand to seize her, she darted like a nymph over some
unseen chasm of the mountains. He stumbled in her tracks, reached out
vainly to seize her, saw not the gulf at his feet, and plunged headlong
down into the abyss.”
The mask-like face of the Daimio’s officer quivered. He wiped his face
with a hand that shook visibly. Then, rejecting his breath in that
hissing fashion so peculiar to the Japanese, he added fiercely:
“This, honorable sir, is the story of Gihei Matsuyama and the Fox-Woman
of Atago Yama. It belongs not to the lips only of the children, as you
name them, but is true, well-authenticated history, which any one in
Fukui can prove to you.”
The Tojin-san was silenced. He had followed the officer’s story with
unabated interest. He had no word now in defense of this Japanese
Lorelei. His voice was grave, stern:
“What did she do—when the boy disappeared?”
“There are different stories, honored sir. Some say she not even stopped
in her flight. Others that she came of nights and hung over the edges of
the chasm, shrouding her mouth in her hands and calling to her victim
beneath as if she had the power to lure him back. But we have no certain
version of this part of the tragedy. For the first part, we have the
tale, four times repeated, from the body-servants of Gihei Matsuyama,
who dutifully had followed their master upon his wild quest.”
The Daimio’s high officer arose and made several profound obeisances to
the Tojin-san. His face had resumed its immobile melancholy. As he was
backing formally toward the exit, bowing at every step, the American
suddenly remembered his name. He took a step toward him, his hand
impetuously outstretched:
“Pardon me, the boy you speak of was—near and dear to you, was he not?”
Slowly the officer raised his head. Not a quiver broke the stony
impassivity of his face. His eyes met the Tojin’s blankly:
“He was—my son!” he said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
V
THE sense of discouragement and gloom which had seemed to take full hold
upon the Tojin-san on his first night in Fukui was, after all, but
temporary. He awoke the following morning, feeling refreshed and
invigorated. The sun was pouring into his room, gilding even the
farthest corner with a friendly touch. He jumped out of bed, donned a
warm bath-robe and shoved his feet into fur slippers. Crossing the room
in a few quick strides, he threw open one of the latticed sliding doors.
It was a clear, cold day, but the snow, enshrouding trees and ground,
glistened with the warm sun upon it. The army of crows on the roof of
the go-down were chattering and fighting among themselves like magpies,
and a monkey, swinging by one foot from a camphor bough, shook its fist
playfully in his direction, screwing up its face in apparent derision.
From the direction of the narrow river, which threaded its ribbon-like
way in the valley below, a rollicking voice was heard in song, and,
presently, the owner of the voice climbed up the crest of the slope,
skirted the sunken garden hard by the Tojin-san’s windows and moved
across the lawns toward the kitchen regions in the rear. She was a
great, fat girl, whose enormous, muscular arms were balancing on either
side huge pails of water. As she waddled along, wheezing and singing,
she resembled, to the Tojin-san’s humorous sense, a bag of jelly, her
bosoms and thighs shaking at every step, her fat soft cheeks keeping
time in unison. Close upon her heels, and, himself carrying two smaller
pails of water, the cook’s diminutive heir toddled solemnly after her.
It was he who first perceived the Tojin-san at the opened door, and he
promptly dropped his pails upon the serving-maid’s heels, causing her to
kick backward in squalling alarm as the cold water splashed about her
bare legs and drenched her scanty skirts. Doubtless she would have
punished her small charge, had she not at this juncture also perceived
the Tojin. Her thick red lips fell instantly agape. She stared at him in
a stunned wonder. Then her knees began to wabble, and she attempted to
make an obeisance. With every kowtow she essayed, the waters from her
pails bounced up and merrily splashed her. The Tojin-san burst into
hearty laughter, and after a moment maid and youngster joined in his
mirth. They then scuttled off like a pair of panic-stricken rats, their
shining, wet heels flashing like snowballs in the sun behind them.
This simple domestic incident put the Tojin-san into an excellent humor
at once. As he looked after the comical pair, and then turned back to
gaze, entranced, at the magnificent view on all sides of him, his garden
exquisite even in its winter dress, he marvelled at his gloom of the
previous night. Then his glance went upward, travelled across the pure
blue sky, and rested upon the snowy bosoms of Atago Yama and Hakusan.
Suddenly he thought of the fox-woman. There was something chill,
forbidding, sinister in those great, beautiful mountains of snow,
looming out there in the sunny sky. He pictured this forsaken creature
threading her bleak way under the towering frost-incrusted pines. The
gloom of the previous night fell upon him again like a shadow.
Shivering, he went indoors, snapping the closed latticed doors behind
him.
A fine horse had been provided for the American teacher, and he rode
abroad through the streets of Fukui, under an escort sent by the Prince
of Echizen himself. Everywhere the friendly and curious citizens ran out
to see the white-faced teacher, and bows and smiles were the general
rule on all sides.
Occasionally, however, he met the scowling, threatening glance of some
roving samourai, who, the interpreter explained, under the new order of
things, was out of office and consequently a ronin. It was one of the
unfortunate effects of the Restoration that so many men of the sword,
who had previously been supported by the people as retainers in the
service of princely houses, now found themselves without aristocratic
employment, and, too proud to turn to trade, or other equally debasing
labor, they wandered about the provinces, voicing their discontent of
the order of things, picking quarrels on the slightest provocation, and
prophesying dread things for the empire when it should fall under the
dominion and patronage of the nations of the West. The ronins were all
Jo-i (foreign haters), and they alone the Tojin-san need fear. Happily,
the Prince of Echizen had furnished an adequate guard for his
protection, and the students of the college, themselves samourai, or
sons of samourai, were all pledged to protect the Tojin-san from harm.
Presently they arrived at the school, an enormous building, once the
citadel of the Castle, and here nine hundred students received the
Tojin-san with a veritable ovation.
As he stood straightly before them, looking across at that sea of bright
friendly faces, is it any wonder he recalled another scene in America,
so similar, yet dissimilar, and that his heart went out yearningly to
the youths facing him?
These intelligent, eager-faced boys were looking to him to guide and
lead them. And, in turn, already they had pledged themselves to be his
vital friends and allies. He felt emboldened, courageous, proud, elated.
Not for a moment would he have retraced his steps to that other land he
had regretted.
------------------------------------------------------------------------