Her mother had taught her that the life of a Buddhist nun must be one long act of expiation for sins and faults committed in some former state. She tried dazedly to conceive of the terrible crimes of which she must have once been guilty that now she was to be punished so dreadfully; and she reached out blindly for the only comfort possible for her in the world now—the voice, the touch of the Tojin-san, who had held her in his arms!
They travelled by the public roads of the mountain that she had so carefully avoided. They passed the nights as guests of the priests of the mountain temples, who read the letters of the Prince of Echizen, which the students proudly exhibited, and with courteous and profound obeisances welcomed the travellers, even regarding the fox-woman with eyes that were more speculative than resentful. Perhaps they alone of Echizen had best understood this little creature who had lived among them, yet beyond their pale, for so long; for though they had not sought her, neither had they persecuted her, as they could readily have done. Indeed for years she had practically subsisted upon the food she surreptitiously obtained from the temples—some of which was unostentatiously placed as if prepared for her.
The journey back to Fukui was long and tortuous. Summer was gone completely. The days were cold; wind and rain came about them and drove them constantly into refuges of one sort and another; but after many days they came at last to the foot-hills of the mountains, passed through these into the pine woods, through bamboo groves and camphor groves, till they came to the Winged Foot River, which brought them to their destination.
XXVI
The last courteous and obsequious emissary of the Prince of Echizen had bowed himself out of the apartment of the Tojin-san, having sonorously delivered the speeches of regret of their master.
The room was piled with the rich gifts sent by the now soon departing Prince, who was to take office directly under his imperial master. Now he was sojourning in Echizen merely for the purpose of setting his affairs in order, and to do what lay in his power to set his former vassals in the new path they were to follow. Because he was the soul of chivalry and of justice, he was righting the wrong and slight paid to the foreigner he had himself invited to his province.
The Tojin was inexpressibly weary. One deputation after another of the citizens of Fukui had been arriving all day. They had commenced coming before daybreak, for the earlier a Japanese makes a call the greater he expresses his respect.
Delegations from the college presented petitions asking him to continue in Fukui, despite the change of government, and promising to make his stay there as happy and prosperous as lay within their power. He listened to them all a bit grimly, making no effort to emulate their politeness. Through the new interpreter who had entered his service, he merely signified that he would take the matter under consideration. It could not be decided at once.
At last he found himself alone with the Be-koku-jin, as they called his American friend, who was in fact what the Japanese youth had said, an eminent surgeon, with whom the Tojin had once been associated.