The Crimson Azaleas
"Damn boots! I'll be lame in another mile. Why can't we be content withsandals like our 'brithers' the Japs!""Dinna damn boots, but their makers," replied his companion, a sandyScot of fifty or more, dressed in broadcloth and a bowler, a figure atonce a blot upon the lonely road and a blasphemy against Japan--a blotwhose name was M'Gourley. "I vara well remember when I was in Gleska--""Oh, don't!" said the poet of the Nikko road, Dick Leslie by name, ayoung man, or rather a man still young, very tall, straight, dark, andgood-looking, and a gentleman from the crown of his close-clipped, curlyblack head to the soles of the boots that were torturing him. "Don'thaul up your factory chimneys, your smoke and whisky bottles in thisplace of places. I believe if a Scot ever gets into heaven he'll starthis first conversation with his first angel by making some reference toGleska: Look there!""Whaur?""There!" cried Leslie, turning from the direction of Fubasami and thebeginning of the great Nikko valley before them, and pointing backwardsaway towards Kureise over an expanse of distant country where the cloudswere drawing soft shadows across the rice fields and the sinuous hills;over little woods of fir and cryptomeria trees, lakes where the lotusflowers spread in summer, and the king-fisher flashed like a jewel; overoccasional fields of flowers, flowers that grew by the million and themillion.Many of these details were absorbed and dulled by distance, yet stilllent their spirit to the scene, producing a landscape most strange andquaint.Nearly every other country seems flung together by nature, but Japanseems to have been imagined by some great artist of the ancientdays--imagined and constructed."Look there," said Leslie, "saw you ever anything better than that inClackmannan?""Ay, have I," replied M'Gourley, contemplating the view before him,"many's the time. What sort of country do you call that? Man! I'd assoon live on a tea-tray if I had ma choice.""Well, you've lived in Japan long enough to be used to it. It's alwaysthe way; put a man in a paradise like this where there are all sorts offlowers and jolly things around him, and he starts grumbling andgrowling and pining after rain, and misery, and cold, and sleet, andpeat smoke--if he's a Scotchman. How long have you been in Japan, Mac,did you say?""Near ever since the Samurai took off their swords and turnedpolicemen.""What kept you in the East so long if you don't like it?""Trade, like the wind, blaweth where it listeth, and a man must e'enfollow his trade," said M'Gourley; and they resumed their road.They were walking to Nikko together, this strangely assorted pair,strangely assorted though they were both Scotchmen. They wereapproaching the place, not by that splendid avenue of cryptomeria treesthat leads from Utso-no-Miya, but by the wild hill road, which runs fromKureise, or rather by the higher hill road, for there are two, and theyhad taken the loneliest and the longest by mistake (M'Gourley's fault,though he swore that he knew the country like the palm of his hand).They had come twenty or twenty-five miles of the way by riksha, and werenow hoofing the remainder, their luggage having been sent on to Nikko bytrain.