In fear and trembling lest they should guess the thoughts that o’erwhelm her.”[95]

Ch‘ên repeated this over several times, until at length the skiff stopped, and they passed through a long verandah, where a great many verses had been inscribed on the walls,[96] to which Ch‘ên at once proceeded to add a stanza of his own. Evening was now coming on, and Liu remarked that the candidates would be just about leaving the examination-hall;[97] so he escorted him back to his own home, and there left him. The room was dark, and there was no one with him; but by-and-by the servants ushered in some one whom at first he took to be Ch‘u. However, he soon saw that it was not Ch‘u, and in another moment the stranger had fallen against him and knocked him down. “Master’s fainted!” cried the servants, as they ran to pick him up; and then Ch‘ên discovered that the one who had fallen down was really no other than himself.[98] On getting up, he saw Ch‘u standing by his side; and when they had sent away the servants the latter said, “Don’t be alarmed: I am nothing more than a disembodied spirit. My time for re-appearing on earth[99] is long overdue, but I could not forget your great kindness to me, and accordingly I have remained under this form in order to assist in the accomplishment of your wishes. The three bouts[100] are over, and your ambition will be gratified.” Ch‘ên then inquired if Ch‘u could assist him in like manner for his doctor’s degree; to which the latter replied, “Alas! the luck descending to you from your ancestors is not equal to that.[101] They were a niggardly lot, and unfit for the posthumous honours you would thus confer on them.” Ch‘ên next asked him whither he was going; and Ch‘u replied that he hoped, through the agency of his cousin, who was a clerk in Purgatory, to be born again in old Mr. Lü’s family. They then bade each other adieu; and, when morning came, Ch‘ên set off to call on Miss Li, the singing-girl; but on reaching her house he found that she had been dead some days.[102] He walked on to the gardens, and there he saw traces of verses that had been written on the walls, and evidently rubbed out, so as to be hardly decipherable. In a moment it flashed across him that the verses and their composers belonged to the other world. Towards evening Ch‘u re-appeared in high spirits, saying that he had succeeded in his design, and had come to wish Ch‘ên a long farewell. Holding out his open palms, he requested Ch‘ên to write the word Ch‘u on each; and then, after refusing to take a parting cup, he went away, telling Ch‘ên that the examination-list would soon be out, and that they would meet again before long. Ch‘ên brushed away his tears and escorted him to the door, where a man, who had been waiting for him, laid his hand on Ch‘u’s head and pressed it downwards until Ch‘u was perfectly flat. The man then put him in a sack and carried him off on his back. A few days afterwards the list came out, and, to his great joy, Ch‘ên found his name among the successful candidates; whereupon he immediately started off to visit his old tutor, Mr. Lü.[103] Now Mr. Lü’s wife had had no children for ten years, being about fifty years of age, when suddenly she gave birth to a son, who was born with both fists doubled up so that no one could open them. On his arrival Ch‘ên begged to see the child, and declared that inside its hands would be found written the word Ch‘u. Old Mr. Lü laughed at this; but no sooner had the child set eyes on Ch‘ên than both its fists opened spontaneously, and there was the word as Ch‘ên had said. The story was soon told, and Ch‘ên went home, after making a handsome present to the family; and later on, when Mr. Lü went up for his doctor’s degree[104] and stayed at Ch‘ên’s house, his son was thirteen years old, and had already matriculated as a candidate for literary honours.

[LXXXVI.
THE CLOTH MERCHANT.]

A certain cloth merchant went to Ch‘ing-chou, where he happened to stroll into an old temple, all tumble-down and in ruins. He was lamenting over this sad state of things, when a priest who stood by observed that a devout believer like himself could hardly do better than put the place into repair, and thus obtain favour in the eyes of Buddha. This the merchant consented to do; whereupon the priest invited him to walk into the private quarters of the temple, and treated him with much courtesy; but he went on to propose that our friend the merchant should also undertake the general ornamentation of the place both inside and out.[105] The latter declared he could not afford the expense, and the priest began to get very angry, and urged him so strongly that at last the merchant, in terror, promised to give all the money he had. After this he was preparing to go away, but the priest detained him, saying, “You haven’t given the money of your own free will, and consequently you’ll be owing me a grudge: I can’t do better than make an end of you at once.” Thereupon he seized a knife, and refused to listen to all the cloth merchant’s entreaties, until at length the latter asked to be allowed to hang himself, to which the priest consented; and, showing him into a dark room, told him to make haste about it.

At this juncture, a Tartar-General[106] happened to pass by the temple; and from a distance, through a breach in the old wall, he saw a damsel in a red dress pass into the priest’s quarters. This roused his suspicions,[107] and dismounting from his horse, he entered the temple and searched high and low, but without discovering anything. The dark room above-mentioned was locked and double-barred, and the priest refused to open it, saying the place was haunted. The General in a rage burst open the door, and there beheld the cloth merchant hanging from a beam. He cut him down at once, and in a short time he was brought round and told the General the whole story. They then searched for the damsel, but she was nowhere to be found, having been nothing more than a divine manifestation. The General cut off the priest’s head and restored the cloth merchant’s property to him, after which the latter put the temple in thorough repair and kept it well supplied with lights and incense ever afterwards.

Mr. Chao, M.A., told me this story with all its details.[108]

[LXXXVII.
A STRANGE COMPANION.]

Han Kung-fu, of Yü-ch‘êng, told me that he was one day travelling along a road with a man of his village, named P‘êng, when all of a sudden the latter disappeared, leaving his mule to jog along with an empty saddle. At the same moment, Mr. Han heard his voice calling for assistance, and apparently proceeding from inside one of the panniers strapped across the mule’s back; and on looking closely, there indeed he was in one of the panniers, which, however, did not seem to be at all displaced by his weight. On trying to get him out the mouth of the pannier closed itself tightly; and it was only when he cut it open with a knife that he saw P‘êng curled up in it like a dog. He then helped him out, and asked him how he managed to get in; but this he was unable to say. It further appeared that his family was under fox influence, many strange things of this kind having happened before.