The cock had already crowed before Shibusawa reached his chamber and lay down to rest. He could not sleep, but arose and went for a walk in the woodland bordering the castle grounds. Here he searched out a secluded spot, where he sat down in the light of early morning to think and plan. The air was still and the sun just beginning to pierce the cool shade of the forest, with here and there a ray of warmth. Presently the quiet was broken by the sound of footsteps approaching through the garden, and looking up he saw Maido coming toward him.

“Are you here, too, and so early?” said the daimyo, with a ring of gladness that came from his heart. “I thought only the elders, like me, enjoyed a sunrise jaunt among the stately sentinels of time. Come, my lordship, join me and I’ll show you how a son’s return affects a father’s legs. It’s many a day since these old stokies of mind served me as they have this morning. It reminds me of the time when a mother brought you to my side. A happy day it was, and she lies up yonder, my boy, in the tomb, behind the temple. You may not dislike going there with your father—will you, this morning?”

Shibusawa may have anticipated the idea, for they set off together toward the family shrine. The distance was not great nor the hill steep; just enough to quicken old age and banter youth.

They did not tarry long at the tomb,—only long enough to revere the dead and inspire the living,—but soon arose and retraced their steps a short distance to where they seated themselves in the shade of the temple. As they sat they could see afar over the samurai dwellings and the noised-up city to the glassy bay in front, or over the castle grounds to the left, or to the timbered hills on the right. There they sat and talked at will. Now and then the conversation drifted back to Shibusawa’s absence, and each experience related touched more deeply the father’s slow but certain apprehension.

“I dare say there are no temples in that far-away land,” said the lord daimyo, more inquisitive than positive.

“Oh, yes, there are,” was the young prince’s quick rejoinder, “only they are much larger and less beautiful. They worship in herds in that country; and they have a paid supplicant to do the honours, while the multitude sit and gape and snore. It’s a great saving of time and trouble, this European method of salvation.”

“And have they gods?”

“Oh, yes; they have a God. The principle is just the same. It’s only the form that makes it different from ours.”

“Ah, the practice! And after all, that is man’s only reality: the ideal is the grander existence. And do these strange worshippers have habitations, and go about clad as we do?”

“They have houses—ours are not like theirs, thanks to good fortune—in which the idea, as in their churches, is to get as many under one roof as possible. They build floor over floor, and then wear their lives out climbing from one to the other. They are not only herders but climbers as well. Then the craze to encroach one upon another is so great that all try to live at a few isolated spots. There are millions of broad acres—the area is so great that for want of a comparison I cannot convey to you anything but a hazed idea—upon which the sun shines and over which the fresh air circulates, yet these people hang out of ten-story windows and pant for breath or hide away in some dark, damp rooms and stare their eyes out under the glare of firelight.”