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Page 66
"Since then this very ill-clad and really necessitous person has
devoted himself to the honourable but exceedingly arduous and in
general unremunerative occupation of story-telling. To this he would
add nothing save that not infrequently a nobly-born and
highly-cultured audience is so entranced with his commonplace efforts
to hold the attention, especially when a story not hitherto known has
been related, that in order to afford it an opportunity of expressing
its gratification, he has been requested to allow another offering to
be made by all persons present at the conclusion of the
entertainment."
CHAPTER VI
THE VENGEANCE OF TUNG FEL
For a period not to be measured by days or weeks the air of Ching-fow
had been as unrestful as that of the locust plains beyond the Great
Wall, for every speech which passed bore two faces, one fair to hear,
as a greeting, but the other insidiously speaking behind a screen, of
rebellion, violence, and the hope of overturning the fixed order of
events. With those whom they did not mistrust of treachery persons
spoke in low voices of definite plans, while at all times there might
appear in prominent places of the city skilfully composed notices
setting forth great wrongs and injustices towards which resignation
and a lowly bearing were outwardly counselled, yet with the same words
cunningly inflaming the minds, even of the patient, as no pouring out
of passionate thoughts and undignified threatenings could have done.
Among the people, unknown, unseen, and unsuspected, except to the
proved ones to whom they desired to reveal themselves, moved the
agents of the Three Societies. While to the many of Ching-fow nothing
was desired or even thought of behind the downfall of their own
officials, and, chief of all, the execution of the evil-minded and
depraved Mandarin Ping Siang, whose cruelties and extortions had made
his name an object of wide and deserved loathing, the agents only
regarded the city as a bright spot in the line of blood and fire which
they were fanning into life from Peking to Canton, and which would
presumably burst forth and involve the entire Empire.
Although it had of late become a plain fact, by reason of the manner
of behaving of the people, that events of a sudden and turbulent
nature could not long be restrained, yet outwardly there was no
exhibition of violence, not even to the length of resisting those whom
Ping Siang sent to enforce his unjust demands, chiefly because a
well-founded whisper had been sent round that nothing was to be done
until Tung Fel should arrive, which would not be until the seventh day
in the month of Winged Dragons. To this all persons agreed, for the
more aged among them, who, by virtue of their years, were also the
formers of opinion in all matters, called up within their memories
certain events connected with the two persons in question which
appeared to give to Tung Fel the privilege of expressing himself
clearly when the matter of finally dealing with the malicious and
self-willed Mandarin should be engaged upon.
Among the mountains which enclose Ching-fow on the southern side dwelt
a jade-seeker, who also kept goats. Although a young man and entirely
without relations, he had, by patient industry, contrived to collect
together a large flock of the best-formed and most prolific goats to
be found in the neighbourhood, all the money which he received in
exchange for jade being quickly bartered again for the finest animals
which he could obtain. He was dauntless in penetrating to the most
inaccessible parts of the mountains in search of the stone, unfailing
in his skilful care of the flock, in which he took much honourable
pride, and on all occasions discreet and unassumingly restrained in
his discourse and manner of life. Knowing this to be his invariable
practice, it was with emotions of an agreeable curiosity that on the
seventh day of the month of Winged Dragons those persons who were
passing from place to place in the city beheld this young man, Yang
Hu, descending the mountain path with unmistakable signs of profound
agitation, and an entire absence of prudent care. Following him
closely to the inner square of the city, on the continually expressed
plea that they themselves had business in that quarter, these persons
observed Yang Hu take up a position of unendurable dejection as he
gazed reproachfully at the figure of the all-knowing Buddha which
surmounted the Temple where it was his custom to sacrifice.
"Alas!" he exclaimed, lifting up his voice, when it became plain that
a large number of people was assembled awaiting his words, "to what
end does a person strive in this excessively evilly-regulated
district? Or is it that this obscure and ill-destined one alone is
marked out as with a deep white cross for humiliation and ruin?
Father, and Sacred Temple of Ancestral Virtues, wherein the meanest
can repose their trust, he has none; while now, being more destitute
than the beggar at the gate, the hope of honourable marriage and a
robust family of sons is more remote than the chance of finding the
miracle-working Crystal Image which marks the last footstep of the
Pure One. Yesterday this person possessed no secret store of silver or
gold, nor had he knowledge of any special amount of jade hidden among
the mountains, but to his call there responded four score goats, the
most select and majestic to be found in all the Province, of which,
nevertheless, it was his yearly custom to sacrifice one, as those here
can testify, and to offer another as a duty to the Yamen of Ping
Siang, in neither case opening his eyes widely when the hour for
selecting arrived. Yet in what an unseemly manner is his respectful
piety and courteous loyalty rewarded! To-day, before this person went
forth on his usual quest, there came those bearing written papers by
which they claimed, on the authority of Ping Siang, the whole of this
person's flock, as a punishment and fine for his not contributing
without warning to the Celebration of Kissing the Emperor's Face--the
very obligation of such a matter being entirely unknown to him.
Nevertheless, those who came drove off this person's entire wealth,
the desperately won increase of a life full of great toil and
uncomplainingly endured hardship, leaving him only his cave in the
rocks, which even the most grasping of many-handed Mandarins cannot
remove, his cloak of skins, which no beggar would gratefully receive,
and a bright and increasing light of deep hate scorching within his
mind which nothing but the blood of the obdurate extortioner can
efficiently quench. No protection of charms or heavily-mailed bowmen
shall avail him, for in his craving for just revenge this person will
meet witchcraft with a Heaven-sent cause and oppose an unsleeping
subtlety against strength. Therefore let not the innocent suffer
through an insufficient understanding, O Divine One, but direct the
hand of your faithful worshipper towards the heart that is proud in
tyranny, and holds as empty words the clearly defined promise of an
all-seeing justice."
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