Page:Modern Japanese Stories.pdf/105

lords who had assisted in the final assault were reassembled at Nijō castle in Kyoto, Ieyasu took Lord Tadanao by the hand and addressed him as follows:

“When your father Hideyasu was still alive you always behaved towards me with the utmost respect, as became a filial grandson. Now you have shown your loyalty on the field of battle, excelling all others, and my satisfaction is complete. I had considered offering you a written address of thanks, but this is a family matter and such ceremony might not be fitting. Rest assured, then, that as long as my own family line continues the household of Echizen shall remain in undisturbed peace, as firm as the ageless rocks.”

With these words he presented to Lord Tadanao a flower-patterned tea canister from his private collection. Over­ whelmed by the honour. Lord Tadanao fancied for a moment that there radiated from his person—from his person alone in this vast assemblage of his peers—shafts of dazzling light. Inside him there was a throbbing, flooding warmth of limitless satisfaction, as if there were nothing more he could ever wish for in this world.

Satisfaction, of course, was by no means an entirely novel sensation for one whose will had not normally encountered obstacles, and who was able, more often than not, to gratify his emotional impulses to the full. Since early childhood his will and his emotions, being subject to no form of discipline from without, had developed at their own pace and run riot as they pleased. Lord Tadanao carried no memories of inferiority or defeat in anything he had ever undertaken. In his childhood, shooting toy arrows at toy targets in competition with his playmates, he had always been the winner. Whenever a tournament of court football was held within the castle—for courtiers from Kyoto had introduced the art even to the garrison of Fukui—the player who kicked with the greatest skill had invariably been Lord Tadanao. Even in trifling board-games like Gobang, Chinese Chess, and Double-Six, he was victorious in nine cases out of ten. He had naturally, too, shown pre-