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Once upon a time, a certain Rônin, Tajima Shumé by name, an able and
well-read man, being on his travels to see the world, went up to
Kiyôto by the Tôkaidô.[72] One day, in the neighbourhood of Nagoya, in
the province of Owari, he fell in with a wandering priest, with whom
he entered into conversation. Finding that they were bound for the
same place, they agreed to travel together, beguiling their weary way
by pleasant talk on divers matters; and so by degrees, as they became
more intimate, they began to speak without restraint about their
private affairs; and the priest, trusting thoroughly in the honour of
his companion, told him the object of his journey.

[Footnote 72: The road of the Eastern Sea, the famous high-road
leading from Kiyôto to Yedo. The name is also used to indicate the
provinces through which it runs.]

"For some time past," said he, "I have nourished a wish that has
engrossed all my thoughts; for I am bent on setting up a molten image
in honour of Buddha; with this object I have wandered through various
provinces collecting alms and (who knows by what weary toil?) we have
succeeded in amassing two hundred ounces of silver--enough, I trust,
to erect a handsome bronze figure."

What says the proverb? "He who bears a jewel in his bosom bears
poison." Hardly had the Rônin heard these words of the priest than an
evil heart arose within him, and he thought to himself, "Man's life,
from the womb to the grave, is made up of good and of ill luck. Here
am I, nearly forty years old, a wanderer, without a calling, or even a
hope of advancement in the world. To be sure, it seems a shame; yet if
I could steal the money this priest is boasting about, I could live at
ease for the rest of my days;" and so he began casting about how best
he might compass his purpose. But the priest, far from guessing the
drift of his comrade's thoughts, journeyed cheerfully on, till they
reached the town of Kuana. Here there is an arm of the sea, which is
crossed in ferry-boats, that start as soon as some twenty or thirty
passengers are gathered together; and in one of these boats the two
travellers embarked. About half-way across, the priest was taken with
a sudden necessity to go to the side of the boat; and the Rônin,
following him, tripped him up whilst no one was looking, and flung him
into the sea. When the boatmen and passengers heard the splash, and
saw the priest struggling in the water, they were afraid, and made
every effort to save him; but the wind was fair, and the boat running
swiftly under the bellying sails, so they were soon a few hundred
yards off from the drowning man, who sank before the boat could be
turned to rescue him.

When he saw this, the Rônin feigned the utmost grief and dismay, and
said to his fellow-passengers, "This priest, whom we have just lost,
was my cousin: he was going to Kiyôto, to visit the shrine of his
patron; and as I happened to have business there as well, we settled
to travel together. Now, alas! by this misfortune, my cousin is dead,
and I am left alone."

He spoke so feelingly, and wept so freely, that the passengers
believed his story, and pitied and tried to comfort him. Then the
Rônin said to the boatmen--

"We ought, by rights, to report this matter to the authorities; but as
I am pressed for time, and the business might bring trouble on
yourselves as well, perhaps we had better hush it up for the present;
and I will at once go on to Kiyôto and tell my cousin's patron,
besides writing home about it. What think you, gentlemen?" added he,
turning to the other travellers.

They, of course, were only too glad to avoid any hindrance to their
onward journey, and all with one voice agreed to what the Rônin had
proposed; and so the matter was settled. When, at length, they reached
the shore, they left the boat, and every man went his way; but the
Rônin, overjoyed in his heart, took the wandering priest's luggage,
and, putting it with his own, pursued his journey to Kiyôto.

On reaching the capital, the Rônin changed his name from Shumé to
Tokubei, and, giving up his position as a Samurai, turned merchant,
and traded with the dead man's money. Fortune favouring his
speculations, he began to amass great wealth, and lived at his ease,
denying himself nothing; and in course of time he married a wife, who
bore him a child.

Thus the days and months wore on, till one fine summer's night, some
three years after the priest's death, Tokubei stepped out on to the
verandah of his house to enjoy the cool air and the beauty of the
moonlight. Feeling dull and lonely, he began musing over all kinds of
things, when on a sudden the deed of murder and theft, done so long
ago, vividly recurred to his memory, and he thought to himself, "Here
am I, grown rich and fat on the money I wantonly stole. Since then,
all has gone well with me; yet, had I not been poor, I had never
turned assassin nor thief. Woe betide me! what a pity it was!" and as
he was revolving the matter in his mind, a feeling of remorse came
over him, in spite of all he could do. While his conscience thus smote
him, he suddenly, to his utter amazement, beheld the faint outline of
a man standing near a fir-tree in the garden: on looking more
attentively, he perceived that the man's whole body was thin and worn
and the eyes sunken and dim; and in the poor ghost that was before him
he recognized the very priest whom he had thrown into the sea at
Kuana. Chilled with horror, he looked again, and saw that the priest
was smiling in scorn. He would have fled into the house, but the ghost
stretched forth its withered arm, and, clutching the back of his neck,
scowled at him with a vindictive glare, and a hideous ghastliness of
mien, so unspeakably awful that any ordinary man would have swooned
with fear. But Tokubei, tradesman though he was, had once been a
soldier, and was not easily matched for daring; so he shook off the
ghost, and, leaping into the room for his dirk, laid about him boldly
enough; but, strike as he would, the spirit, fading into the air,
eluded his blows, and suddenly reappeared only to vanish again: and
from that time forth Tokubei knew no rest, and was haunted night and
day.

At length, undone by such ceaseless vexation, Tokubei fell ill, and
kept muttering, "Oh, misery! misery!--the wandering priest is coming
to torture me!" Hearing his moans and the disturbance he made, the
people in the house fancied he was mad, and called in a physician, who
prescribed for him. But neither pill nor potion could cure Tokubei,
whose strange frenzy soon became the talk of the whole neighbourhood.

Now it chanced that the story reached the ears of a certain wandering
priest who lodged in the next street. When he heard the particulars,
this priest gravely shook his head, as though he knew all about it,
and sent a friend to Tokubei's house to say that a wandering priest,
dwelling hard by, had heard of his illness, and, were it never so
grievous, would undertake to heal it by means of his prayers; and
Tokubei's wife, driven half wild by her husband's sickness, lost not a
moment in sending for the priest, and taking him into the sick man's
room.

But no sooner did Tokubei see the priest than he yelled out, "Help!
help! Here is the wandering priest come to torment me again. Forgive!
forgive!" and hiding his head under the coverlet, he lay quivering all
over. Then the priest turned all present out of the room, put his
mouth to the affrighted man's ear, and whispered--

"Three years ago, at the Kuana ferry, you flung me into the water; and
well you remember it."

But Tokubei was speechless, and could only quake with fear.

"Happily," continued the priest, "I had learned to swim and to dive as
a boy; so I reached the shore, and, after wandering through many
provinces, succeeded in setting up a bronze figure to Buddha, thus
fulfilling the wish of my heart. On my journey homewards, I took a
lodging in the next street, and there heard of your marvellous
ailment. Thinking I could divine its cause, I came to see you, and am
glad to find I was not mistaken. You have done a hateful deed; but am
I not a priest, and have I not forsaken the things of this world? and
would it not ill become me to bear malice? Repent, therefore, and
abandon your evil ways. To see you do so I should esteem the height of
happiness. Be of good cheer, now, and look me in the face, and you
will see that I am really a living man, and no vengeful goblin come
to torment you."

Seeing he had no ghost to deal with, and overwhelmed by the priest's
kindness, Tokubei burst into tears, and answered, "Indeed, indeed, I
don't know what to say. In a fit of madness I was tempted to kill and
rob you. Fortune befriended me ever after; but the richer I grew, the
more keenly I felt how wicked I had been, and the more I foresaw that
my victim's vengeance would some day overtake me. Haunted by this
thought, I lost my nerve, till one night I beheld your spirit, and
from that time forth fell ill. But how you managed to escape, and are
still alive, is more than I can understand."

"A guilty man," said the priest, with a smile, "shudders at the
rustling of the wind or the chattering of a stork's beak: a murderer's
conscience preys upon his mind till he sees what is not. Poverty
drives a man to crimes which he repents of in his wealth. How true is
the doctrine of Môshi,[73] that the heart of man, pure by nature, is
corrupted by circumstances."

[Footnote 73: Mencius.]

Thus he held forth; and Tokubei, who had long since repented of his
crime, implored forgiveness, and gave him a large sum of money,
saying, "Half of this is the amount I stole from you three years
since; the other half I entreat you to accept as interest, or as a
gift."

The priest at first refused the money; but Tokubei insisted on his
accepting it, and did all he could to detain him, but in vain; for the
priest went his way, and bestowed the money on the poor and needy. As
for Tokubei himself, he soon shook off his disorder, and thenceforward
lived at peace with all men, revered both at home and abroad, and ever
intent on good and charitable deeds.