Page:Modern Japanese Stories.pdf/126

Lord Tadanao, until now, had always listened attentively to the advice of his senior councillors. At the age of thirteen, when he was still known only by his boyhood name of Nagayoshimaru, he had been called to the bedside of his dying father, and his father had said: “When I am gone listen carefully to whatever the councillors say. Think of their words as if they were your father’s.” He had always respected this last injunction.

But lately he had begun to place a perverse interpretation upon every word they uttered, even if it concerned matters of the fief’s administration. If his councillors recommended a person for a certain post and lauded his abilities, Lord Tadanao felt convinced the man must be an impostor, and he would stubbornly refuse to make use of his services. If his councillors complained of a person’s conduct and strongly urged punishment by house-arrest, Lord Tadanao felt convinced of the man’s honesty and usefulness, and he would forbid them to issue, at any time, an order for his detention.

The harvest throughout the Echizen fief was leaner this year than it had ever been in recent memory, and this imposed severe hardships upon the peasantry. The councillors appeared before Lord Tadanao in strength and pleaded for some alleviation of the burden of rice-taxation. But the more eloquently they expounded their case the more distasteful to Lord Tadanao grew the idea of acting upon it. In his heart he sympathized with the peasants. It was simply the thought of doing what his councillors wished him to do which troubled him. They droned on with their lengthy explanations until Lord Tadanao could bear it no more.

“No!” he thundered. “I say it cannot be done, and you will do as I say!”

Why he refused was something he did not clearly understand himself.

The emotional impasse between master and retainers continued unresolved, and meanwhile rumours of the Lord of