VII

Between Si-chow and the village of Ki, in a house completely hidden
from travellers by the tall and black trees which surrounded it, lived
an aged and very wise person whose ways and manner of living had
become so distasteful to his neighbours that they at length agreed to
regard him as a powerful and ill-disposed magician. In this way it
became a custom that all very unseemly deeds committed by those who,
in the ordinary course, would not be guilty of such behaviour, should
be attributed to his influence, so that justice might be effected
without persons of assured respectability being put to any
inconvenience. Apart from the feeling which resulted from this just
decision, the uncongenial person in question had become exceedingly
unpopular on account of certain definite actions of his own, as that
of causing the greater part of Si-chow to be burned down by secretly
breathing upon the seven sacred water-jugs to which the town owed its
prosperity and freedom from fire. Furthermore, although possessed of
many taels, and able to afford such food as is to be found upon the
tables of Mandarins, he selected from choice dishes of an
objectionable nature; he had been observed to eat eggs of unbecoming
freshness, and the Si-chow Official Printed Leaf made it public that
he had, on an excessively hot occasion, openly partaken of cow's milk.
It is not a matter for wonder, therefore, that when unnaturally loud
thunder was heard in the neighbourhood of Si-chow the more ignorant
and credulous persons refused to continue in any description of work
until certain ceremonies connected with rice spirit, and the adherence
to a reclining position for some hours, had been conscientiously
observed as a protection against evil.