[CI.
CARRYING A CORPSE.]
A woodsman who had been to market was returning home with his pole across his shoulder,[164] when suddenly he felt it become very heavy at the end behind him, and looking round he saw attached to it the headless trunk of a man. In great alarm, he got his pole quit of the burden and struck about him right and left, whereupon the body disappeared. He then hurried on to the next village, and when he arrived there in the dusk of the evening, he found several men holding lights to the ground as if looking for something. On asking what was the matter, they told him that while sitting together a man’s head had fallen from the sky into their midst; that they had noticed the hair and beard were all draggled, but in a moment the head had vanished. The woodsman then related what had happened to himself; and thus one whole man was accounted for, though no one could tell whence he came. Subsequently, another man was carrying a basket when some one saw a man’s head in it, and called out to him; whereupon he dropped the basket in a fright, and the head rolled away and disappeared.
[CII.
A TAOIST DEVOTEE.]
Chü Yao-ju was a Ch‘ing-chou man, who, when his wife died, left his home and became a priest.[165] Some years afterwards he returned, dressed in the Taoist garb, and carrying his praying-mat[166] over his shoulder; and after staying one night he wanted to go away again. His friends, however, would not give him back his cassock and staff; so at length he pretended to take a stroll outside the village, and when there, his clothes and other belongings came flying out of the house after him, and he got safely away.
[CIII.
JUSTICE FOR REBELS.]
During the reign of Shun Chih,[167] of the people of T‘êng-i, seven in ten were opposed to the Manchu dynasty. The officials dared not touch them; and subsequently, when the country became more settled, the magistrates used to distinguish them from the others by always deciding any cases in their favour: for they feared lest these men should revert to their old opposition. And thus it came about that one litigant would begin by declaring himself to have been a “rebel,” while his adversary would follow up by shewing such statement to be false; so that before any case could be heard on its actual merits, it was necessary to determine the status both of plaintiff and defendant, whereby infinite labour was entailed upon the Registrars.
Now it chanced that the yamên of one of the officials was haunted by a fox, and the official’s daughter was bewitched by it. Her father, therefore, engaged the services of a magician, who succeeded in capturing the animal and putting it into a bottle; but just as he was going to commit it to the flames, the fox cried out from inside the bottle, “I’m a rebel!” at which the bystanders were unable to suppress their laughter.