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
accredited _nakōdō_. 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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 the smith, 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 prejudices which
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 younger _samurai_,
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 the _samurai’s_
love 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 by the 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.
[Illustration: SENNOSKE AND HIS FATHER.]
When not directly engaged in instructing his son, Mutto’s only discourse
had been on the obligations of a true _samurai_; and even here he
confined himself almost exclusively to what his listener well knew was a
_samurai’s_ first and chief duty,—the _kataki-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.
[Illustration: 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 his _samurai_
honor 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 young
_samurai_,—to see himself grasping his blood-stained sword and covered
with mortal wounds, his foot upon the body of his prostrate and dying
foe. No _samurai_ worthy of the name had a higher ambition than 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.
[Illustration]