Nearly every other country seems flung together by nature, but Japan seems to have been imagined by some great artist of the ancient days—imagined and constructed.
“Look there,” said Leslie, “saw you ever anything better than that in Clackmannan?”
“Ay, have I,” replied M’Gourley, contemplating the view before him, “many’s the time. What sort of country do you call that? Man! I’d as soon live on a tea-tray if I had ma choice.”
“Well, you’ve lived in Japan long enough to be used to it. It’s always the way; put a man in a paradise like this where there are all sorts of flowers and jolly things around him, and he starts grumbling and growling and pining after rain, and misery, and cold, and sleet, and peat smoke—if he’s a Scotchman. How long have you been in Japan, Mac, did you say?”
“Near ever since the Samurai took off their swords and turned policemen.”
“What kept you in the East so long if you don’t like it?”
“Trade, like the wind, blaweth where it listeth, and a man must e’en follow his trade,” said M’Gourley; and they resumed their road.
They were walking to Nikko together, this strangely assorted pair, strangely assorted though they were both Scotchmen. They were approaching the place, not by that splendid avenue of cryptomeria trees that leads from Utso-no-Miya, but by the wild hill road, which runs from Kureise, or rather by the higher hill road, for there are two, and they had taken the loneliest and the longest by mistake (M’Gourley’s fault, though he swore that he knew the country like the palm of his hand).
They had come twenty or twenty-five miles of the way by riksha, and were now hoofing the remainder, their luggage having been sent on to Nikko by train.
“And talking of trade,” said M’Gourley, “let’s go back to the matter we were on a moment ago; there’s money in it, and I know the beesiness. I ken it fine; never a man knows better the Jap Rubbish trade.”