Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/286

270 autumn eve, I approached a mat-roofed shed which stood near the beach. There were some women assembled here enjoying themselves over a cup of tea. Usually it would have been a case of commonplace ill-natured daughter-in-law gossip; but judging from their excited manners that something unusual was going on, I inquired what was the subject of their important-seeming conversation. It appeared that a fisherman of this shore, by name Hokugan Kiuroku, was in the habit of hiring himself annually for the sardine fishery off the east coast. He usually went down there in company with many others, but the previous autumn nobody else came forward, and so he wilfully went alone. Time passed and nothing was heard of him. Being an illiterate man, he naturally held little communication with the world, and thus became a cause of anxiety to his relations. That autumn there were many storms, and great numbers of fishing-vessels were lost. All his family, when they listened to the noise of the wind, lamented, 'Ah! Kiuroku is no more of this world.' Others talked as if they had actually witnessed his end. There was a rumour that two hundred and fifty men had perished in a body in the outer sea, and all congratulated themselves that owing to a presentiment of ill-luck they had this year stayed at home. His wife hearing this, even in the depth of her misery and sorrow, felt her condition still more profoundly wretched. Morning and evening she could think of nothing else, to such a degree that she was on the point of throwing away her life. Thus she gave proof of a gentle, womanly heart. Moreover, Kiuroku, in his capacity of iri-muko, had been on excellent terms with his wife, and had done his duty faithfully