And now you would
have thought that all was over. But the Commodore was already in treaty
with the Shogun's Government; it was one of the stipulations that no
Japanese was to be aided in escaping from Japan; and Yoshida and his
followers were handed over as prisoners to the authorities at Simoda. That night he who had been to explore the secrets of the barbarian,
slept, if he might sleep at all, in a cell too short for lying down at
full length, and too low for standing upright. There are some
disappointments too great for commentary. Sákuma, implicated by his handwriting, was sent into his own province in
confinement, from which he was soon released. Yoshida and the soldier
suffered a long and miserable period of captivity, and the latter,
indeed, died, while yet in prison, of a skin disease. But such a spirit
as that of Yoshida-Torajiro is not easily made or kept a captive; and
that which cannot be broken by misfortune you shall seek in vain to
confine in a bastille. He was indefatigably active, writing reports to
Government and treatises for dissemination. These latter were
contraband; and yet he found no difficulty in their distribution, for he
always had the jailer on his side. It was in vain that they kept
changing him from one prison to another; Government by that plan only
hastened the spread of new ideas; for Yoshida had only to arrive to make
a convert. Thus, though he himself was laid by the heels, he confirmed
and extended his party in the State. At last, after many lesser transferences, he was given over from the
prisons of the Shogun to those of his own superior, the Daimio of
Choshu. I conceive it possible that he may then have served out his time
for the attempt to leave Japan, and was now resigned to the provincial
Government on a lesser count, as a Ronyin or feudal rebel. But, however
that may be, the change was of great importance to Yoshida; for by the
influence of his admirers in the Daimio's council, he was allowed the
privilege, underhand, of dwelling in his own house. And there, as well
to keep up communication with his fellow-reformers as to pursue his work
of education, he received boys to teach. It must not be supposed that he
was free; he was too marked a man for that; he was probably assigned to
some small circle, and lived, as we should say, under police
surveillance; but to him, who had done so much from under lock and key,
this would seem a large and profitable liberty. It was at this period that Mr. Masaki was brought into personal contact
with Yoshida; and hence, through the eyes of a boy of thirteen, we get
one good look at the character and habits of the hero. He was ugly and
laughably disfigured with the small-pox; and while nature had been so
niggardly with him from the first, his personal habits were even
sluttish. His clothes were wretched; when he ate or washed he wiped his
hands upon his sleeves; and as his hair was not tied more than once in
the two months it was often disgusting to behold. With such a picture,
it is easy to believe that he never married. A good teacher, gentle in
act, although violent and abusive in speech, his lessons were apt to go
over the heads of his scholars, and to leave them gaping, or more often
laughing. Such was his passion for study that he even grudged himself
natural repose; and when he grew drowsy over his books he would, if it
was summer, put mosquitoes up his sleeve; and, if it was winter, take
off his shoes and run barefoot on the snow. His handwriting was
exceptionally villainous; poet though he was, he had no taste for what
was elegant; and in a country where to write beautifully was not the
mark of a scrivener but an admired accomplishment for gentlemen, he
suffered his letters to be jolted out of him by the press of matter and
the heat of his convictions. He would not tolerate even the appearance
of a bribe; for bribery lay at the root of much that was evil in Japan,
as well as in countries nearer home; and once when a merchant brought
him his son to educate, and added, as was customary[5], a little private
sweetener, Yoshida dashed the money in the giver's face, and launched
into such an outbreak of indignation as made the matter public in the
school. He was still, when Masaki knew him, much weakened by his
hardships in prison; and the presentation-sword, three feet long, was
too heavy for him to wear without distress; yet he would always gird it
on when he went to dig in his garden. That is a touch which qualifies
the man. A weaker nature would have shrunk from the sight of what only
commemorated a failure. But he was of Thoreau's mind, that if you can
"make your failure tragical by courage, it will not differ from
success." He could look back without confusion to his enthusiastic
promise. If events had been contrary, and he found himself unable to
carry out that purpose--well, there was but the more reason to be brave
and constant in another; if he could not carry the sword into barbarian
lands, it should at least be witness to a life spent entirely for Japan. This is the sight we have of him as he appeared to schoolboys, but not
related in the schoolboy spirit. A man so careless of the graces must be
out of court with boys and women. And, indeed, as we have all been more
or less to school, it will astonish no one that Yoshida was regarded by
his scholars as a laughing-stock. The schoolboy has a keen sense of
humour. Heroes he learns to understand and to admire in books; but he is
not forward to recognise the heroic under the traits of any contemporary
man, and least of all in a brawling, dirty, and eccentric teacher. But
as the years went by, and the scholars of Yoshida continued in vain to
look around them for the abstractly perfect, and began more and more to
understand the drift of his instructions, they learned to look back upon
their comic schoolmaster as upon the noblest of mankind. The last act of this brief and full existence was already near at hand. Some of his work was done; for already there had been Dutch teachers
admitted into Nangasaki, and the country at large was keen for the new
learning. But though the renaissance had begun, it was impeded and
dangerously threatened by the power of the Shogun. His minister--the
same who was afterwards assassinated in the snow in the very midst of
his bodyguard--not only held back pupils from going to the Dutchmen, but
by spies and detectives, by imprisonment and death, kept thinning out of
Japan the most intelligent and active spirits. It is the old story of a
power upon its last legs--learning to the bastille, and courage to the
block; when there are none left but sheep and donkeys, the State will
have been saved. But a man must not think to cope with a revolution; nor
a minister, however fortified with guards, to hold in check a country
that had given birth to such men as Yoshida and his soldier-follower.