Sons (28 page)

He did his poor best, too, for he was a good and kind man at heart, and he supposed he meted out justice to such as came before him there. But he did not know that every suppliant who came before him had paid his way through from the very gateman at the gates, so that any man who had not silver enough for high and low could not hope even to reach that audience hall, and the very councillors who stood in the presence of the magistrate had each received his share. Nor did the old magistrate know he leaned so heavily on these councillors of his. No, for he was old and easily confused and often he did not catch the point of a case and he was ashamed to say he did not, or he dozed somewhat toward the end of the hour, and did not hear what was said, and he was afraid to ask again, lest men think him not able. So he turned naturally to his councillors who never failed to flatter him and when they said, “Ah, this man is evil and that man has the right of it,” the old magistrate would agree hastily and say—“It is what I thought—it is what I thought,” and when they cried out, “Such an one ought to be well beaten because he is so lawless,” the old magistrate would quaver forth, “Yes—yes, let him be beaten!”

Now in these idle days Wang the Tiger often went to the audience hall to see and to hear and to pass the time away, and when he went he sat to one side and his trusty men and his pocked nephew stood about him as a guard. Thus he heard and saw all this injustice. At first he said to himself that he would pay no heed to any of these things, for he was a lord of war and these civil affairs were no business of his, and he would spend his care on his soldiers, seeing that they did not share in the loose, idle life of the courts, and many a time when he saw that which made him angry in the audience hall he went out and was furious with his soldiers and forced them to marches and to practices of war, whatever the winds were that day, and so he relieved his heart of the pressure of its anger.

But he was a man just at heart and when he saw the injustice go on time after time he could not bear it at last, and he grew surcharged with anger against some of the councillors who had the ear of the magistrate, and especially against the chief councillor. Yet he knew it was no use to say anything to the weak old man. But still, when he had sat sometimes and listened to cases and when he had seen injustice done a hundred times, he grew so pent in himself that he would rise and stride away and he muttered to himself many times,

“If spring does not come quickly I shall kill someone against my will!”

As for the councillors, they did not love him, either, because he secured so much revenue and they mocked him for a coarsely bred fellow and one beneath them in polish and learning.

Now Wang the Tiger’s anger burst forth one day in a sudden way that he himself had not expected, and it began with a small matter enough, even as a mighty storm will begin sometimes with only a little wind and a handful of ragged cloud.

It happened on a certain day before the new year, when men are out everywhere to collect debts and those who owe hide as best they may so that they cannot be found until the first day of the new year when debts cannot be collected from anyone, that the old magistrate had his last audience day of the old year and he sat upon his dais. On that day Wang the Tiger had been very restless because he was so idle. He would not game because he did not want his soldiers to see him at it and feel the more free themselves to do it, and he could not read overmuch because novels and tales weaken a man, they are so full of dreams and the stuffs of love, and he was not scholar enough for the old philosophies. Therefore being sleepless also, he rose and went with his guard and sat awhile in the audience room to see who would come that day. But in his heart he was pent and impatient for the spring, and especially because the last ten days had been so cold and so filled with a downpour of constant rain that his men cried out against being taken out of their quarters.

There he sat, and it seemed to him that his was the dreariest life, and there was not one soul to care if he lived or died, and so he sat, listless and glowering in his usual place. Presently he saw a certain rich man come in whom he knew, having seen him here before. This man was a usurer of the town, a smooth-faced, fat man, with very small, smooth, yellow hands that he flourished with a sort of evil grace as he spoke, and he continually pushed back his long silken sleeves from his hands before he waved them. Many times Wang the Tiger had watched his hands and seen how small they were and how soft and full and how pointed the finger tips were with their long nails, and he had watched the man’s hands when he did not hear what he said, even.

But today the usurer came in with a poor farmer and the farmer was very frightened and ill at ease, and he threw himself before the magistrate with his face to the ground, and remained there speechless, begging for mercy. Then the usurer told his case and it was that he had loaned a sum of money to this farmer, and had accepted his land as security. This was two years ago, and now the money with its interest had mounted above the worth of the land.

“Yet in spite of this,” the usurer cried, and he pushed back his silken sleeves and moved his smooth hands and made his voice rich and reproachful, and he was very unctuous, “in spite of this, O honored magistrate, he will not move from his land!” And the man rolled his little eyes around in indignation at this wicked farmer.

But the farmer said nothing at all. He continued to kneel there with his face bent and leaning upon his two hands forked together. At last the old magistrate asked him,

“Why did you borrow and why do you not pay?”

Then the farmer looked up a little and he fixed his eyes on the magistrate’s footstool, and he continued to kneel, and he said anxiously,

“Sir, I am a very common man and poor, and I do not know how to speak to such as you, honored Sir. I am very common and I have never spoken to one higher than the head in our village, and I do not know how to speak here, and yet I have no one to speak for me, seeing that I am so poor.”

Then the old magistrate said kindly enough,

“You need not fear—only speak on.”

Then the farmer after opening his lips a time or two soundlessly began to speak, but still he did not lift his eyes at all, and it could be seen that his spare body was shivering in his patched and ragged clothes from which the old wadding stuck forth out of the holes like old sheep’s wool. His feet were bare and thrust only into shoes woven out of reeds and these had now fallen from his feet, so that his hard and horny toes rested stiffly upon the damp stone floor. But he did not seem to feel this, and he began in a weak voice and he said,

“Sir, I had a little land from my fathers. It is very poor land and it has never fed us full. But my parents died early and there were only I and my wife, and if we starved we did it and that was all. But she bore a child, a son, and then after years another, a girl. When they were little it was still not so hard. But they grew and we had to wed the son and his wife had a child. Sir, think of it, the land was not enough for my wife and me and now we have these. The girl was long too young to be wed and I had her to feed somehow. Two years ago I had a chance to betroth her to an old man in a village near us, for his wife was dead and he needed one to mend his household. But I had to give her a wedding garment. Sir, I had nothing so I borrowed a little money— only ten pieces of silver, to most men nothing, but to me very much and more than I had. I borrowed it from this usurer. In less than a year the ten pieces had grown into twenty of its own accord, for I had no more than the ten to spend. Now in two years it is forty. Sir, how can dead silver grow like that? There is only my land. He says go, but where shall I go? Let him come and drive me off, I say. There is nothing else than this.”

When the man had finished saying this he remained perfectly silent. Wang the Tiger stared at him and it was the strangest thing that he could not keep his eyes from the man’s feet. The farmer’s face was drawn and sallow and told of his life and of his never being full fed since he was born. But his feet told the whole tale. There was something eloquent in this man’s two bare feet, knotted and gnarled in the toes, and the soles like the dried hide of a water buffalo. Yes, looking at the man’s feet Wang the Tiger felt something welling up in him. Nevertheless, he waited to see what the old magistrate would say.

Now this usurer was a man of the town and well known and he had feasted with the magistrate many times and he kept the good will of the court with him because he paid silver to high and low in every case he had and he had many. The magistrate hesitated, therefore, although it could be seen he was somewhat moved, too. At last he turned to his chief councillor, a man near his own age but strong and straight for his years, and his face was smooth and handsome still, although his scanty whiskers that grew in three parts from his cheeks and chin were white. The magistrate asked this man,

“What do you say, my brother?”

This man smoothed his few white whiskers then and he said slowly as though he pondered justice, but the memory of silver was warm on his palm,

“It cannot be gainsaid that this farmer did borrow money and he has not returned it, and money borrowed must run into interest and this is according to the law. The usurer lives by his loaned moneys as a farmer does by his land. If the farmer rented his land out and received no rent he would complain and his complaint would be just. Yet this is only what the usurer has done. It is just, therefore, that he be paid his due.”

The old magistrate listened to this carefully, nodding his head from time to time, and it could be seen he was moved by it, too. But now suddenly the farmer lifted his eyes and for the first time he looked in a kind of daze from one face to the other. Yet Wang the Tiger did not see his face or how his eyes looked. He only saw the man’s two old bare feet curl upon each other in an agony, and suddenly he could not bear it. His immense anger rushed forth and he stood up. He clapped his hands together hard and he roared in a great voice,

“I say the poor man shall have his land!”

When all the people gathered in the court heard this roar come out of Wang the Tiger every head turned toward him, and the trusty men Wang the Tiger had, leaped to him and stood with their guns pointed fiercely and seeing them everyone shrank back and kept silent. But Wang the Tiger felt his anger released now and he could not stay it if he would and he pointed his finger at the usurer and stabbed it through the air again and again as he spoke and he shouted in a great voice, his black brows darting now up, now down above his eyes.

“Again and again have I seen this fat, biting insect here with some tale like this and he has greased his way in with silver to high and low! I am weary of him! Away with him!” And he turned to his guard and shouted, “After him with your guns!”

Now when the people heard this they thought Wang the Tiger had gone suddenly mad and everyone turned and ran for his life. Yes, and swiftest of all to run was the fat usurer and he reached the gate ahead of them all and he went through it with a squeak like a rat that barely escapes. He was so swift and he knew so well the winding alleys that although the trusty men pursued him he was gone and they could not find him, and when they had run so far they could only draw themselves up and look at each other with blank faces and pant awhile. And after they had looked a little more they went back through the hubbub that had risen now in the streets.

When they reached the court again there was an uproar indeed, for Wang the Tiger seeing what he had begun, grew reckless and he called his soldiers and cried out,

“Clear me these courts of everyone—all these cursed sucking worms and all their dirty women and children!”

And his soldiers fell with zest to doing what he said and the people ran out of the courts like rats from a burning house. Yes, in less than an hour there was not a soul there except Wang the Tiger and his own men, and in the magistrate’s own courts the old magistrate and his lady and their few personal servants. These Wang the Tiger had commanded were not to be touched.

When Wang the Tiger had done all this, and it had been done in such a burst of rage as he had seldom had in his life before, although he was given to such angers, too, he went into his own room and he sat down by the table and leaned on it and breathed heavily for a while. And he poured himself out some tea and drank it slowly. After a time he saw that he had set a pattern for himself this day that he must follow out somehow. But the more he thought the more he did not regret it, for now he felt free in his heart of all his despondency and gloom, and he felt light and brave and free and when his harelipped man stole in to see what he needed and his pocked lad brought in a jug of wine for him, he cried out to them, laughing his silent laugh as he did,

“Well, at least I have cleared out a serpent’s nest this day!”

When the people of that town heard of the rebellion in the court there were many who were pleased for they had known what corruption was there, and while some were afraid and waited to see what Wang the Tiger would do next, there were many who came clamoring about the court gates and they cried out that there should be a time of feasting set and that the prisoners ought to be freed out of the gaol so that everyone could rejoice together.

But the one who had benefited most by the uproar, and it was the poor farmer, was not among that crowd. No, although he had been delivered this once he could not believe that any good fortune could be in store for him, and when he heard the usurer had escaped, he groaned and fled back to his land, and he went to his house and crept into his bed and if anyone came to ask his wife or children where he was they said he had gone away somewhere and they did not know where he was.

When Wang the Tiger heard what the people demanded he remembered that there were in the gaol some dozen or so of men whom he had seen thrown in for one unjust cause or another and they were hopeless of coming out, for most of them were poor and had not money enough to secure their freedom. And so he was willing and he told his trusty men to free the people in the gaol, and he called out to his men that they were to have three days of feasting, and he sent for the cooks of the magistrate’s court and he had them come into his presence and he said to them loudly,