Note.—Many people of ability have no chance for promotion. It is difficult to have one’s gifts known in high places; how much more difficult before a king? The good fortune that fell to the first scholar was of God’s appointment. By caring for a vacant house the honour came to him, and he was promoted. The other’s going thus unbidden into the Palace was a great wrong, but by royal favour he was pardoned, received and honoured.
By one line of poetry a man’s ability was made manifest, and by one explanation of the Choo-yuk another’s path was opened to high promotion.
If Se-jong had not been a great and enlightened king, how could it have happened? Very rare are such happenings, indeed! So all men wondered over what had befallen these two. I, however, wondered more over the King’s sagacity in finding them. To my day his virtue and accomplishments are known, so that the world calls him Korea’s King of the Golden Age.
XXVIII
AN ENCOUNTER WITH A HOBGOBLIN
I got myself into trouble in the year Pyong-sin, and was locked up; a military man by the name of Choi Won-so, who was captain of the guard, was involved in it and locked up as well. We often met in prison and whiled away the hours talking together. On a certain day the talk turned on goblins, when Captain Choi said, “When I was young I met with a hobgoblin, which, by the fraction of a hair, almost cost me my life. A strange case indeed!”
I asked him to tell me of it, when he replied, “I had originally no home in Seoul, but hearing of a vacant place in Belt Town, I made application and got it. We went there, my father and the rest of the family occupying the inner quarters, while I lived in the front room.
“One night, late, when I was half asleep, the door suddenly opened, and a woman came in and stood just before the lamp. I saw her clearly, and knew that she was from the home of a scholar friend, for I had seen her before and had been greatly attracted by her beauty, but had never had a chance to meet her. Now, seeing her enter the room thus, I greeted her gladly, but she made no reply. I arose to take her by the hand, when she began walking backwards, so that my hand never reached her. I rushed towards her, but she hastened her backward pace, so that she eluded me. We reached the gate, which she opened with a rear kick, and I followed on after, till she suddenly disappeared. I searched on all sides, but not a trace was there of her. I thought she had merely hidden herself, and never dreamed of anything else.