Arrived at his ancestral village he found that his family had given up
the spacious mansion he had formerly owned and were living, or rather
dying, in a wretched straw-thatched hovel. It was necessary to raise some
money, and so he started out for a distant town where his fourth cousin
lived, in order to negotiate a small loan.
As he was on his way he was overtaken by a severe storm. He looked all
about but could see no shelter anywhere. He struggled on, looking to
right and left through the pouring rain, and at last sighted a little
cottage among the trees. At the door he called out to the good-man of
the house but there was no reply. The house was not deserted, for he saw
a thin line of smoke issuing from the chimney. He shouted aloud and at
last an old woman appeared at the door and questioned who it was that
thus rudely demanded entrance, though uninvited. When the bedraggled Cho
explained the situation the woman relented and let him in. There was but
one stone-floored room but this she gave up to him with good grace and
went about preparing him a nice supper, after which he lay down and fell
asleep.
How long he had slept he could not tell, when he awoke with a start to
the sound of a man’s voice who was asking of the woman gruffly:
“What time is it, anyway? I must get off to market early with that ox”;
whereupon the couple entered Cho’s room, the man carrying four sticks
and the wife a halter. The farmer dragged the bedclothes off the guest,
bestrode his chest and began to belabor him with the sticks, while the
woman fastened the halter around his neck. He was then dragged out of the
room, but to his horror he found himself going on four legs and when he
tried to speak he could only low like an ox. When one of his horns caught
against the door-post he learned that he had indeed been transformed into
a four-footed beast and was being taken to market. To say that he was
experiencing a new sensation would be to put it very mildly indeed.
At the market town he was herded with a drove of cattle, among which
he was the largest and fattest, and consequently there were many eager
buyers; but the farmer asked such a high price that none of them could
buy. At last a burly butcher came to terms with the farmer and poor Mr.
Cho found that he was being led away to slaughter.
But as fate would have it, the butcher was of a bibulous temperament
and when they came to a wine shop the ox was tied to a stake while the
butcher indulged in the flowing bowl. And so copiously did the latter
drink that he forgot all about the animal. Mr. Cho stood waiting for
hours but his master did not appear. Just over the hedge to the right
was a field of succulent turnips. To the bovine nostrils of Mr. Cho this
proved as tempting as the wine had proved to the butcher.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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