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Kinjuro, the ancient gardener, whose head shines like an ivory ball, sat him down a moment on the edge of the ita-no-ma outside my study to smoke his pipe at the hibachi always left there for him. And as he smoked he found occasion to reprove the boy who assists him.
The Mitsu-me-Nyudo made a grab at Kinjuro, and startled him almost as much as the Tanuki-Bozu had startled me. Then we looked at the Yama-Uba the 'Mountain Nurse. She catches little children and nurses them for a while, and then devours them. In her face she has no mouth; but she has a mouth in the top of her head, under her hair.
'And in these days, Kinjuro, do people ever see her? 'Yes. Those who make the pilgrimage to Yabumura, in the period called Dai-Kan, which is the Time of the Greatest Cold, they sometimes see her. 'What is there at Yabumura, Kinjuro? 'There is the Yabu-jinja, which is an ancient and famous temple of Yabu- no-Tenno-San the God of Colds, Kaze-no-Kami.
What the boy had been doing I did not exactly know; but I heard Kinjuro bid him try to comport himself like a creature having more than one Soul. And because those words interested me I went out and sat down by Kinjuro. 'O Kinjuro, I said, 'whether I myself have one or more Souls I am not sure. But it would much please me to learn how many Souls have you.
But if ever I become a holy man, I shall take heed not to dwell in the wilderness, because I have seen Japanese goblins, and I do not like them. Kinjuro showed them to me last night.
I will marry you; I can love you: you are a man!" 'O Kinjuro, I said, as we took our way home, 'I have heard and I have read many Japanese stories of the returning of the dead. Likewise you yourself have told me it is still believed the dead return, and why. But according both to that which I have read and that which you have told me, the coming back of the dead is never a thing to be desired.
'Not any more, answered Kinjuro 'not at least among the people of the city. Perhaps in the country it may not be so. We believe in the Lord Buddha; we believe in the ancient gods; and there be many who believe the dead sometimes return to avenge a cruelty or to compel an act of justice.
And here and there we could discern sinister shapes, mostly of superhuman stature, some seeming to wait in dim places, others floating above the graves. Quite near us, towering above the hedge on our right, was a Buddhist priest, with his back turned to us. 'A yamabushi, an exorciser? I queried of Kinjuro. 'No, said Kinjuro; 'see how tall he is. I think that must be a Tanuki- Bozu.
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