The Children of the Water come by moonlight, all drenching wet their sleeves, and the bright drops fall from their finger-tips. The Children of the Air rest in the Pine Tree’s branches, and make murmuring music all the live-long night. The Children of the Sea Foam creep up the yellow sands; and from the confines of Yomi come the Mysteries, the Sounds and the Scents of the Dark—with faces veiled and thin grey forms, they come, and they hang upon the air about the place where the Pine Tree is, so that the place is holy and haunted.
Lovers wandering upon the beach at Takasaga hear the great company of Spirits singing together.
“Joy of my heart,” they say to one another, “do you hear the wind in the Pine Tree?”
XIII
FLOWER OF THE PEONY
Aya, sweet maid, was the only child of a daimyo of the Province of Omi. Mother had she none, and her father was a noble lord and a warrior. He was at the Court of the Shogun, or he had weighty affairs at the capital, or he went here and there with armies and overcame his enemies. Aya saw little of him.
Long years she dwelt with her nurse and her maidens within the walls of her father’s castle. High walls were they and well-guarded, and at their foot was a deep moat which was rosy with lotus flowers all the seventh month.
When the Lady Aya was some sixteen years old her father the daimyo came home victorious from a foray, and she went with her maidens to meet him in the gate. She was dressed in her bravest, and as became her rank.
“My lord and father,” she said, “sweet is your honourable return.”
“Child, how you have grown!” her father said, astonished. “How old are you, Aya?”