THE days stole by with light tread. Without the Shiro Matsuhaira events
of great national import were taking place. Fukui was disrupted, torn by
the new tide of events that was to alter its destiny, for the Yaku doshi
(evil years) were again upon them.
No longer were the provinces to be ruled by individual princes, for one
and all had come under the dominion of the Emperor.
People were packing their household goods in haste and wending their
ambitious ways toward the greater cities. In a single month Fukui lost
half its population, and those left behind seemed to move about the
affairs of life as if in a dream, from which presently they would awake.
Thus the political upheaval served for a time, at least, to distract the
people’s mind from the Tojin and the fox-woman. It was but a temporary
distraction. A whispering, sinister voice was at work. It ran in and out
the houses of Fukui, and breathed its suggestive message to the
disaffected, impoverished ones, and pointed out the cause of the
calamity that had befallen them; for so sudden and drastic a change of
government was bound to react disastrously upon the people at first, no
matter how fortunate its ultimate end. The people of Fukui, like those
of other feudal strongholds, were at present feeling only the first
blighting, threatening touch of coming poverty.
For hundreds of years the samourai and their families had been dependent
aristocrats, who shared the rich fortunes of their lords. Now they found
themselves suddenly thrust out of service; in the same position as the
despised merchant or farmer, forced to seek employment no matter how
repugnant or menial. Many of them chose what they considered the noblest
and most heroic solution of the problem—suppuku! The entire destruction
of themselves and families. Many sought the larger cities intent on
obtaining lucrative positions under the new government; many families
were reduced to the direst poverty, and became dependents upon their own
servants and tradespeople.
Fukui had known the noblest of princes, and it was with a feeling of
despairing confidence that the people awaited his return from Tokio. He
was high in the councils of the Imperial Government. He could and
would—he must do much to save his beloved province from disaster. So
they waited patiently, helplessly. Hope is at best but the comforter of
despair, and as the days passed drearily by a new feeling took its
place.
A sullen, rebellious hatred for the white nations who had brought this
new state of affairs about—a murderous, resentful impulse of revenge. It
was the same feeling that had animated the misguided patriots of
Satsuma, when they fought the allied fleet at Kagoshima, but it was
uglier, meaner, for its force was directed upon two individuals, who, to
the Fukui mind, represented the detested nations of the West. One of
these, so Fukui firmly believed, was directly responsible for the
disaster. She, the accursed outcast, who had descended from the
mountains and taken up her abode in their very midst; who had laid her
spell upon the great Tojin-san, who had been their friend!
Many a samourai’s itching hand crept stealthily to the forbidden sword,
for, by the new law, they were not permitted to wear the sword, as he
measured his misfortunes through the blighting nearness of the
fox-woman. Many a distracted mother crooned a promise to her sleeping
babe that the dread gagama (goblin) of Atago Yama that had menaced them
for so long was at last to be extinguished.
And meanwhile, in the Shiro Matsuhaira, another kind of dream was
unfolding its rose-lined wings.
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