Hills of Han 1

Hills of Han 1

Hills of Han

A Romantic Incident

 

Author: Samuel Merwin

Hills of Han,

 

Slumber on! The sunlight, dying,

 

Lingers on your terraced tops;

 

Yellow stream and willow sighing,

 

Field of twice ten thousand crops

 

Breathe their misty lullabying,

 

Breathe a life that nei’er stops.

 

 

Spin your chart of ancient wonder,

 

Fold your hands within your sleeve,

 

Live and let live, work and ponder,

 

Be tradition, dream, believe...

 

So abides your ancient plan,

 

Hills of Han!

 

Hills of Han,

 

What’s this filament goes leaping

 

Pole to pole and hill to hill?

 

What these strips of metal creeping

 

Where the dead have lain so still.

 

What this wilder thought that’s seeping

 

Where was peace and gentle will?

 

 

Smoke of mill on road and river,

 

Roar of steam by temple wall...

 

Drop the arrow in the quiver...

 

Bow to Buddha.... All is all!

 

Slumber they who slumber can,

 

Hills of Han!

 

 

 

 

NOTE

 

The slight geographical confusion which will be found by the observant

reader in _Hills of Han_ is employed as a reminder that the story,

despite considerable elements of fact in the background, is a work of

the imagination, and deals with no actual individuals of the time and

place. S. M.

 

 

 

 

 

HILLS OF HAN

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I--THE SOLITARY

 

 

I

 

ON a day in late March, 1007, Miss Betty Doane sat in the quaintly airy

dining-room of the Hotel Miyaka, at Kioto, demurely sketching a man’s

profile on the back of a menu card.

 

The man, her unconscious model, lounged comfortably alone by one of the

swinging windows. He had finished his luncheon, pushed away his coffee

cup, lighted a cigarette, and settled back to gaze out at the hillside

where young green grasses and gay shrubs and diminutive trees bore

pleasant evidence that the early Japanese springtime was at hand.

 

Betty could even see, looking out past the man, a row of cherry trees,

all afoam with blossoms. They brought a thrill that was almost poignant.

It was curious, at home--or, rather, back in the States--there was no

particular thrill in cherry blossoms. They were merely pleasing. But so

much more was said about them here in Japan.

 

The man’s head was long and well modeled, with a rugged long face,

reflective eyes, somewhat bony nose, and a wide mouth that was, on

the whole, attractive. Both upper lip and chin were dean shaven. The

eyebrows were rather heavy; the hair was thick and straight, slanting

down across a broad forehead. She decided, as she sketched it in with

easy sure strokes of a stubby pencil, that he must have quite a time

every morning brushing that hair down into place.

 

He had appeared, a few days back, at the Grand Hotel, Yokohama, coming

in from somewhere north of Tokio. At the hotel he had walked and eaten

alone, austerely. And, not unnaturally, had been whispered about. He

was, Betty knew, a journalist of some reputation. The name was Jonathan

Brachey. He wore an outing suit, with knickerbockers; he was, in

bearing, as in costume, severely conspicuous. You thought of him as a

man of odd attainment. He had been in many interesting corners of the

world; had known danger and privation. Two of his books were in the

ship’s library. One of these she had already taken out and secreted in

her cabin. It was called _To-morrow in India_, and proved rather hard to

read, with charts, diagrams and pages of figures.

 

The sketch was about done; all but the nose. When you studied that nose

in detail it seemed a little too long and strong, and--well, knobby--to

be as attractive as it actually was. There would be a trick in drawing

it; a shadow or two, a suggestive touch of the pencil; not so many real

knobs. In the ship’s diningroom she had his profile across an aisle.

There would be chances to study it.

 

Behind her, in the wide doorway, appeared a stout, short woman of fifty

or more, in an ample and wrinkled traveling suit of black and a black

straw hat ornamented only with a bow of ribbon. Her face wore an anxious

__EXPRESSION__ that had settled, years back, into permanency. The mouth

drooped a little. And the brows were lifted and the forehead grooved

with wrinkles suggesting some long habitual straining of the eyes that

recent bifocal spectacles were powerless to correct.

 

“Betty!” called the older woman guardedly. “Would you mind, dear... one

moment...?”

 

Her quick, nervous eyes had caught something of the situation. There

was Betty and--within easy earshot--a man. The child was unquestionably

sketching him.

 

Betty’s eagerly alert young face fell at the sound. She stopped drawing;

for a brief instant chewed the stubby pencil; then, quite meekly, rose

and walked toward the door.

 

“Mr. Hasmer is outside. I thought you were with him. Betty.”

 

“No... I didn’t know your plans... I was waiting here.”

 

“Well, my dear... it’s all right, of course! But I think we’ll go now.

Mr. Hasmer thinks you ought to see at least one of the temples.

Something typical. And of course you will want to visit the cloisonné

and _satsuma_ shops, and see the Damascene work. The train leaves for

Kobe at four-fifteen. The ships sails at about eight, I believe. We

haven’t much time, you see.”

 

A chair scraped. Jonathan Brachey had picked up his hat, his pocket

camera and his unread copy of the Japan _Times_, and was striding toward

her, or toward the door. He would pass directly by, of course, without

so much as a mental recognition of her existence. For so he had done

at Yokohama; so he had done last evening and again this morning on the

ship.

 

But on this occasion, as he bore down on her, the eyes of the

distinguished young man rested for an instant on the table, and for a

brief moment he wavered in his stride. He certainly saw the sketch. It

lay where she had carelessly tossed it, face up, near the edge of the

table. And he certainly recognized it for himself; for his strong facial

muscles moved a very little. It couldn’t have been called a smile; but

those muscles distinctly moved. Then, as coolly as before, he strode on

out of the room.

 

Betty’s cheeks turned crimson. A further fact doubtless noted by this

irritatingly, even arrogantly composed man.

 

Betty, with desperate dignity, put the sketch in her wrist bag, followed

Mrs. Hasmer out of the building, and stepped into the rickshaw that

awaited her.