Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat Read Online

Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat

KAI LUNG UNROLLS HIS MAT

Ernest Bramah

CONTENTS

PART I: THE PROTECTING ANCESTORS

I THE MALIGNITY OF THE DEPRAVED MING-SHU REARS ITS OF

The Story of Wong Tsoi and the Merchant Teen King's Thumb

IV    AT THE EXTREMITY OF HIS RESOURCE, THE CONTINENT KAI

LUNG ENCOUNTERS ONE WHO LEADS THE UNAFFECTED

IX    WHEREIN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE TWO WHO HAVE INDUCED

THESE PRINTED LEAVES ASSUME A HOMEWARD BEND .    105

The Story of Kin Weng and the Miraculous Tusk Part II: THE GREAT SKY LANTERN

X    HOW KAI LUNG SOUGHT TO DISCOURAGE ONE WHO DID NOT

GAIN HIS APPROBATION..........................123

The Stor of the Philosopher Kuo Tsun and of his Daughter, Peerless Chou

PART III: THE BRINGER OF GOOD NEWS

XI    WHEREBY THE ANGLE AT WHICH EVENTS PRESENT THEM

SELVES MAY BE VARIED ..........................139

The Story of Ching-kwei and the Destinies

PART ONE

The Protecting Ancestors

Chapter One

THE MALIGNITY OF THE DEPRAVED MING-SHU REARS ITS OFFENSIVE HEAD

As Kai Lung turned off the dusty earth road and took the woodland path that led to his small but seemly cottage on the higher slope, his exultant heart rose up in song. His quest, indeed, had not been prolific of success, and he was returning with a sleeve as destitute of silver taels as when he had first set out, but the peach tree about his gate would greet him with a thousand perfumed messages of welcome, and standing expectant at the door he would perchance presently espy the gracefully outlined form of Hwa-mei, once called the Golden Mouse.

"As I climb the precipitous hill-side," [he chanted],

"My thoughts persistently dwell on the one who awaits my coming;

Though her image has never been wholly absent from my mind,

For our affections are as the two ends of a stretching cable— united by what divides them;

And harmony prevails.

Each sunrise renews the pearly splendour of her delicate being;

And floating weed recalls her abundant hair.

In the slender willows of the Yeng-tse valley I see her silken eyelashes,

And the faint tint of the waving moon-flower tells of her jade-rivalled cheek.

Where is the exactitude of her matchless perfection—"

"There is a time to speak in hyperbole and a time to frame words to the limit of a narrow edge," interposed a contentious voice and Shen Hing, an elderly neighbour, appeared in the way. "What manner of man are you, Kai Lung, or does some alien Force possess you that you should reveal this instability of mind on the very threshold of misfortune?"

"Greetings, estimable woodcutter," replied Kai Lung, who knew the other's morose habit; "yet wherefore should despondency arise? It is true that the outcome of my venture has been concave in the extreme, but, whatever befall, the produce of a single field will serve our winter need; while now the air is filled with gladness and the song of insects, and, shortly, Hwa-mei will discern me on the homeward track and come hurriedly to meet me with a cup of water in her hand. How, then, can heaviness prevail?"

At this, Shen Hing turned half aside, under the pretext that he required to spit, but he coughed twice before he could recompose his voice.

"Whence are you, amiable Kai Lung?" he asked with unaccustomed mildness; "and have you of late had speech with none?"

"I am, last of all, from Shun, which lies among the Seven Water-heads," was the reply. "Thinking to shorten the path of my return, I chose the pass known as the Locust's Leap, and from this cause I have encountered few. Haply you have some gratifying tidings that you would impart—yet should not these await another's telling, when seated around our own domestic hearth?"

"Haply," replied Shen Hing, with the same evasive bearing, "but there is a fall no less than a rise to every tide, and is it not further said that of three words that reach our ears two will be evil?"

"Does famine then menace the province?" demanded Kai Lung uneasily.

"There is every assurance of an abundant harvest, and already the sound of many blades being whetted is not unknown to us."

"It can scarcely be that the wells are failing our community again? Fill in the essential detail of your shadowy warning, O dubious Shen Hing, for I am eager to resume my homeward way, whatever privation threatens."

"It is better to come empty-handed than to be the bearer of ill news," answered the sombre woodman, "but since you lay the burden on my head, it is necessary that you should turn your impatient feet aside to ascend yonder slight incline," and he pointed to a rocky crag that rose above the trees. "From this height, minstrel, now bend your discriminating gaze a few li to the west and then declare what there attracts your notice."

"That is the direction in which my meagre hut is placed," admitted Kai Lung, after he had searched the distance long and anxiously, "but, although the landmarks are familiar, that which I most look for eludes my mediocre eyes. It must be that the setting sun—"

"Even a magician cannot see the thing that is not there," replied Shen Hing meaningly. "Doubtless your nimble-witted mind will now be suitably arranged for what is to follow."

"Say on," adjured Kai Lung, taking a firmer hold upon the inner fibre of his self-control. "If it should be more than an ordinary person can reasonably bear, I call upon the shades of all my virtuous ancestors to rally to my aid."

"Had but one of them put in a appearance a week ago, it might have served you better, for, as it is truly written, 'A single humble friend with rice when you are hungry is better than fifteen influential kinsmen coming to a feast,' " retorted Shen Hing. "Hear my lamentable word, however. It has for some time been rumoured that the banners of insurrection were being trimmed and the spears of revolt made ready."

"There was a whisper trickling through the land when I set forth," murmured Kai Lung. "But in this sequestered region, surely—"

"The trickle meanwhile grew into a swiftly moving stream, although the torrent seemed as though it would spare our peaceful valley. Like a faint echo from some far-off contest we heard that the standard of the Avenging Knife had been definitely raised and all men were being pressed into this scale or that of the contending causes. . . . High among the rebel council stood one who had, it is said, suffered an indignity at your requiting hand in the days gone by—Ming-shu his forbidding name."

"Ming-shu!" exclaimed Kai Lung, falling back a step before the ill-omened menace of that malignant shadow. "Can it be that the enmity of the inscriber of the Mandarin's spoken word has pursued me to this retreat?"

"It is, then, even as men told," declared Shen Hing, with no attempt to forego an overhanging bitterness, "and you, Kai Lung, whom we received in friendship, have brought this disaster to our doors. Could demons have done more?"

"Speak freely," invoked Kai Lung, averting his face, "and do not seek to spare this one's excessive self-reproach. What next occurred?"

"We of our settlement are a peaceful race, neither vainglorious nor trained to the use of arms, and the opposing camps of warriors had so far passed us by, going either on the Eastern or the Western Route and none turning aside. But in a misbegotten moment Ming-shu fell under a deep depression while in his tent at no great space away, and one newly of his band, thinking to disclose a fount of gladness, spoke of your admitted capacity as a narrator of imagined tales, with a special reference to the serviceable way in which the aptitude had extricated you from a variety of unpleasant transactions in the past."

"That would undoubtedly refresh the wells of Ming-shu's memory," remarked Kai Lung. "How did he testify the fullness of his joy?"

"It is related that, when those who stood outside heard the grinding of his ill-assorted teeth, the rumour spread that the river banks were giving way. At a later period the clay-souled outlaw was seen to rub his offensive hands pleasurably together and heard to remark that there is undoubtedly a celestial influence that moulds our ultimate destinies even though we ourselves may appear to trim the edges somewhat. He then directed a chosen company of his repulsive guard to surprise and surround our dwellings and to bring you a bound captive to his feet."

"Alas!" exclaimed Kai Lung. "It would have been more in keeping with the classical tradition that they should have taken me, rather than that others must suffer in my stead."

"There can be no two opinions on that score," replied the scrupulous Shen Hing, "but a literary aphorism makes a poor defense against a suddenly propelled battle-axe, and before mutual politeness was restored a score of our tribe had succumbed to the force of the opposing argument. Then, on the plea that a sincere reconciliation demanded the interchange of gifts, they took whatever we possessed, beat us heavily about the head and body with clubs in return, and departed, after cutting down your orchard and setting fire to your very inflammably constructed hut, in order, as their leader courteously expressed it, 'to lighten the path of your return.' "

"But she—Hwa-mei," urged Kai Lung thickly. "Speak to a point now that the moment must be faced—the cord is at my heart."

"In that you are well matched, for another was about her neck when she went forth," replied Shen Hing concisely. "Thus, Ming-shu may be said to possess a double hold upon your destiny."

"And thereafter? She—?"

"Why, as to that, the outlook is obscure.