CHAPTER V.

Among those who were smitten by O Tetsu’s charms was no less a person than the old Duke Ono ga Sawa himself. Being already married, he could only offer her the position of first concubine,—which, however, in Japan implies nothing of dishonor and very little even of inferiority. The position of a first concubine, or second wife, as she is sometimes called (and even that of those who follow her), is a legitimate one, recognized by law and custom. She ranks next to the first wife; and if the latter fail to bear male children, the concubine’s son succeeds to his father’s titles and honors. With the exception, perhaps, of two or three of the very highest families, there were none in the province but would have been greatly pleased and gratified at such an offer for their daughter. Still, the Duke was hardly sanguine, for a few hints to this effect conveyed to Muramasa had fallen upon what appeared to be very unresponsive soil. Forced to act more directly, he appointed a duly accreditednakōdō. For this office he selected—doubtless purposely—a superannuated court noble living in retirement upon a small pension, and who, although aware of the smith’s merit, was yet only partially acquainted with his position and pretensions. This, as well as the ill success which had attended all others who had preceded him on similar errands, he only learned when, flushed with pride,he informed—in strict privacy, of course—some of his younger court friends of his appointment. Their responses, unanimous as they all were, sadly dampened his expectation of a quiet and successful issue to his mission, and clouded his hopes of the benefits and advantages which would result therefrom, not to speak of the Muramasa sword, which in the first flush of sanguine excitement the envoy felt certain of receiving from the man to whom he offered such an eligible position for his daughter. He almost began to regret that he had been chosen by the Duke. Still, having once accepted the duty, he had no choice; and trusting not a little to his own power of persuasion, he started on his errand.

INKIO. (RETIREMENT FROM WORLDLY AFFAIRS.)

Contrary to precedent, and far in excess of anything he anticipated, he was extremely well received. His host, who could not but be aware of his errand, at once invited him into the best room. Tea and wine were brought in; and as in Eastern countries the matter in hand is never immediately introduced, but only approached gradually, other subjects, and naturally swords, were discussed first—and last. The host, usually so sparing of his words, seemed this day to put no restraint on his tongue. Every attempt on the part of his visitor to approach the matter that had brought him to Senjuin was the signal for Muramasa to recount the story of some glowing feat of arms, of some wonderful exploit of Japan’s great heroes, or of some marvellous piece of fencing or swordsmanship. The enthusiasm naturally engendered by such subjects, not unmixed with anxiety and a lingering fear that his object was in no way furthered by what he could not help listening to with pleasure and even with rapture, caused the envoy to resort to the wine-cup more frequently than agreed with the sober habits which a small income necessarily imposed. He did this with such effect that in the course of a few hours he had completely forgotten the object of his mission. He began to entertain the smith with an heroic recital of the exploits of his own youth, which with every succeeding cup trenched more and more on the marvellous; and when at last he took his leave, being escorted to the door by his host, he was still talking and gesticulating, although in a confused way, and the servant who had accompanied him found it difficult to induce him to enter his chair.

MALE AND FEMALE NAKŌDŌ. (MARRIAGE NEGOTIATORS.)

When soberness and consciousness returned, his mortification was so great that he could not bring himself again to face thesmith, and he informed the Duke of what had occurred. The latter’s passion was not so strong as to make him unable to subordinate it to his policy of retaining Muramasa at the court. He judiciously refrained from taking any further steps to carry out his design, and he was too kind-hearted to show any displeasure towards the sorely distressed old servitor, whom, on the contrary, he dismissed with gentle words and presents. Muramasa’s action in this affair was based upon opinions and convictions which with him were the result of individual thought, uninfluenced by surroundings and customs. His love for his daughter, like his love for his art, was a deep, holy feeling, emanating from the man’s inner nature. He felt that a life amid the rivalries and petty jealousies of the court could not afford her any real happiness or content; and the sturdy independence of his character prevented him from becoming imbued with those social prejudiceswhich look to outside glitter, and to which weak natures readily succumb.

That Sennoske should have succeeded in ingratiating himself into the favor of such a man, who until now had kept everybody, high and low, at a distance, was something at which the good people of Kuwana marvelled not a little. It could only be ascribed to the boy’s frank and winsome face, to his manliness and skill of arms far in advance of his age, added to great reserve and modesty of demeanor. The court, taking its cue from the character of the Duke, had assumed a tone of levity and of boisterousness which was especially affected by the youngersamurai, and to which Sennoske, with his modest and retiring ways, was almost the only exception. It was probably more especially this latter quality which had gained him the regard of the grim old smith, who taught him many new points in regard to the use of the sword, and even a few general rules as to the making of one.

Two or three days seldom passed without seeing the lad at the forge, where he was always well received. Was it altogether thesamurai’slove for the sword which caused these frequent visits; and were not O Tetsu’s bright eyes even a stronger attraction? It was merely a repetition of the old, old story. When he had first come, she was only a child; and as she gradually budded into womanhood before his eyes, the young man, whose way heretofore, confined to hard work and study, had been serious and monotonous, did not himself know what it was that all at once made him look upon life and its surroundings with such bright, joyful, enthusiastic feelings. The intimacy growing up between the two young people must have been observed bythe smith; and if, even by his silence, he encouraged it, the reason was simply that the boy’s character impressed him with a sense of his worth, and he felt that, joined to Sennoske, his daughter’s future would be in safe hands. Gradually his favoritism grew beyond the limits of mere passive indulgence; and Sennoske, becoming almost like a member of the family, passed in the company of O Tetsu many hours of supreme happiness such as it is only given to true, open, and honest natures like his to enjoy. Sennoske’s father knew nothing of this, and believed that his son frequented the smith’s forge merely for the sake of the lessons he received in swordsmanship and forging, or at most to listen to the smith’s weird tales of chivalrous daring, which, on returning home, he sometimes repeated. Before the young man was even himself aware of it, his passion for the girl was so great that he felt he could not live without her; and although heretofore he had had no secrets from his father, he experienced in this instance a nameless, undefined dread of disclosing his attachment. He loved, he fairly worshipped, his father; but the love was mixed with a great deal of reverential awe and deep pity, often amounting to anguish, at the sight of that frozen look of sorrow and gloom which never left Mutto’s face.

SENNOSKE AND HIS FATHER.

When not directly engaged in instructing his son, Mutto’s only discourse had been on the obligations of a truesamurai; and even here he confined himself almost exclusively to what his listener well knew was asamurai’sfirst and chief duty,—thekataki-uchi(vendetta). Instance after instance did the youth hear of men who had sacrificed brother and sister, wife and concubine,—nay, sometimes even father and mother,—to carry out some just vengeance, and who had died happy because they survived the satisfactory end of their vendetta long enough to cast one glance of exulting victory upon the dead or dying body of their victim.

SOSANOÔ MIKOTO, THE PATRON GOD OF SWORDS AND INVENTOR OF POETRY.

Gradually it dawned upon Sennoske that his father, from some inexplicable cause, must have been unable to fulfil such a duty which hissamuraihonor had imposed upon him, and that he was educating his son to act in his stead. The thought, as soon as it struck the lad, brought a thrill of wild and fierce delight. With conscious pride he felt that his body, trained to every athletic exercise, his sinews of steel and muscles of iron, his quick eye and swift foot, gave him a better right than any other youth of his age to hope to carry out the dream of every youngsamurai,—to see himself grasping his blood-stained sword and covered with mortal wounds, his foot upon the body of his prostrate and dying foe. Nosamuraiworthy of the name had a higher ambitionthan to die such a death; and when Sennoske lived, the spirit that ruled men of his class was not different from what it had been for centuries before, or from what it continued to be up to within the last few decades.

The thoughts, hopes, and expectations thus engendered in the mind of Sennoske had completely occupied it until he met O Tetsu. Not that this event wrought anything like a complete revulsion of feeling. No new-born passion could wholly supersede the result of traditional and inherited tendencies, and of an education which had caused the tenets of a soldier’s creed to be instilled with the first glimmer of consciousness. Sennoske was still as ready as ever to dare anything and sacrifice everything in the cause of his father’s vendetta. With that object in view he would not have hesitated a moment to lay down his life if necessary. But this “if necessary” had now intruded itself where before no thought had been given to it. He sometimes feared that he was even lacking in loyalty and good faith to the principle in which he had been brought up, because he permitted himself to look forward to any end but one; and this was doubtless the reason why he refrained from speaking to his father of his passion for O Tetsu. Day by day, however, that passion grew; until he felt that it was impossible to cease hoping that he might yet call the girl his own, and that the fulfilment of his mission, whatever duties it entailed, might not be irreconcilable with the consummation of his desires.

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