Bakemono Yashiki | Page 5

and which covered the site of the present Sho[u]konsha or shrine to the spirits of the soldiers killed in Nippon's wars. This road ran through the San-Bancho[u], then a lonely quarter in which stood isolated from each other yashiki of the hatamoto. The district was filling up, under press of the needs of the castle service for space immediately round about. But the process was a slow one, and the district one much suspected by the lower classes.
Rokuzo was not fat. He was short, thick necked, sturdy with a barrel-like roundness, and, owing to his drinking propensities, endowed with legs the thinness of which found the conveyance of the upper massiveness no mean task. Hence he stopped at the foot of the hill to wipe the sweat from his face. He eyed with envy a low caste being, a heimin and labourer. Clad in a breech-clout the fellow swung rapidly down the hill with his load of charcoal balanced at each end of the carrying pole. It was etiquette, not modesty, which confined Rokuzo to the livery of his master. He was compelled to a coat which, light and thin as it was, cut off all the breeze from his muscular shoulders. Well! Up the hill he must get. The rolling down was a matter of the past. The yashiki, the house officer (kyu[u]nin) to whom report was to be made, lay beyond. About to make the start a voice spoke in his ear. Though soft and gentle it would have had no particular attraction for the now thirsty Rokuzo. But apart from thirst Rokuzo was of the thoroughly good natured kind. He was surprised at the beauty of the face on which his eyes rested; still more so at the size of the bundle she was trying to carry, and which plainly was far beyond her strength. The rashness of benevolence overcame the not too energetic Rokuzo. Sigh as he did over the conveyance of his carcass up the steep hill, he sighed still more at thought of this fragile creature attempting to carry such a burden.
She followed his eyes to the bundle. "Alas! Honoured Sir, what is to be done? The furoshiki is far beyond one's poor strength. Though the distance is not great--only to Go Bancho[u]--yet it could as well be a pilgrimage to Is��. Surely the hills of Hakon�� and Iga are no steeper than this Kudanzaka." She sighed; and apart from a weariness of voice there was a suspicion of moisture in her eyes. The more Rokuzo looked at her, the greater waxed his pity and benevolence. Barely of eighteen years she was a beautiful girl; not a servant, yet not one of the secluded and guarded daughters of a noble House. Perhaps she was the young wife of some soldier, and he was surprised at her being unattended. She noted this, and readily explained the fact. There were purchases yet to make, close by in Tayasu. Here a servant was to be at hand, but wearied by waiting the woman had made off. "To offer a wage, good sir, seems impolite; yet the way being the same deign to grant the favour of your strength." In the petition her face was wreathed in admiring smiles at Rokuzo's fine figure of a man. A light in the eyes, captious and coquettish, the furtive glances at his broad shoulders and stout neck, betrayed him into the indiscretion of volunteering a service promptly accepted. This done, the lady, without losing sight of display of her charm of manner, was all business.
Rokuzo had much to learn, and he was not one to profit much by his lessons. If he was virtuous, he was by nature a very Simple Simon. A greater liking for women might by contact have sharpened wits rather dulled by drinking. As it was, anyone in the yashiki, who wished to shift some unpleasant obligation, found in Rokuzo the one to be impressed by the most specious excuse, and the one whose kindness of heart undertook and carried out the purpose of avoidance by assumption of the task. Instead of concocting some pretext to carry off Suk��bei, or one, or all, of his apprentices to the neighbouring street and a grog shop, his inexperience and diffidence had carried him away still thirsty. Instead of bumping into some passing fellow chu[u]gen on the street, and wiping out the insult with wine, he had idled along, leaving to every man his share of the roadway, and to the thirsty with burdens more than their share. Hence this uncongenial company of thirst and a woman. She had halted at a grocer's shop, and his eyes were soon agog at sight of her investments--mushrooms, not of much weight, but in bulk forming almost a mound; the dried sliced gourd