The temple bells were striking the sixth hour. The sound was a strange one. The strokes of the hour ran into one continued roar. Jan-jan-jan—pon-pon—gon-gon—cries of men, the racket of wooden clappers and of drums, were now added to the uproar. For a few moments Dentatsu stood the increasing excitement. Through the cracks of the closed amado he could see a reddish glare, becoming brighter and brighter. He sat up and roughly shook Jimbei by the shoulder. "Oh! This rascally cleric. Nothing will satisfy his stupidity, but to carry it to extremes. Honoured Shukké Sama, wait the urgency of others; don't supply it. We at least lack not preparation.... Ah!" The shōji were thrown hastily back. The host of the inn appeared, his face pale and lips trembling. "Honoured guests! Still in bed? Deign at once to flee. The town is in a blaze. Every quarter has its conflagration which walks apace; and in this gale hopeless to overcome...."—"Don't talk folly," sleepily answered Jimbei. "Is not the town in ward for these six days. Why disturb oneself? Let all burn together?" The host wrung his hands—"Honoured sirs, the blame and punishment falls on this Masuya if injury befall its guests. All lies wide open. Deign at once to leave.... Naruhodo!" His mouth was wide open. Jimbei and Dentatsu rose as on springs, full clad, waraji on their feet. The way "lies wide open." This was the watchword to Jimbei. "Edokko (sons of Edo) always are ready, and need no urging." With this genial explanation he and Dentatsu shouldered past the astonished landlord. If the latter would have had suspicions they were thwarted or postponed by the cries which rose below. His own main house was now in flames. Hands to head in this confusion of ideas he abandoned all thought of his guests and rushed down below. As if in his own home, with no guide but the outer glare Jimbei passed to the inn rear. In the darkness of the passage he had stopped, leaned down and struck a light. The precious ryōgaké on his shoulders, with the priest he took to the fieldpaths in the rear of the town. The ground was level; the land rich rice field with its interspersed and picturesque clumps of trees and bamboo, its verdure bowered villages. From time to time they looked back at the sky, flaming red, and in its darker outer parts a mass of glittering flying sparks "like the gold dashes on aventurine lacquer ware."
For two days they had lain at Okazaki town, Dentatsu incapable of movement after the mad run along the classic highway in the darkness of that fearful night. As refugees from the stricken town they met with kind reception. The greater part of Yoshida town lay in ashes; and so great the disaster, so unsuspected the cause, that men looked rather to the hand of Heaven than of human kind for the source of such punishment. Jimbei spoke gravely as the two stood on the long bridge leading to Yahagi across the river. "The luck of one, the misfortune of another—'twas the life of the Go Shukké Sama and of this Jimbei against the lives and fortunes of those wretched people. And is there aught to outweigh life?" The priest nodded a lugubrious and pleased assent to this plain doctrine. "It is just as well the host of Masuya lost life as well as goods. He might have made plaint, and had too long a tongue.... Jimbei could not foresee such weakness in so huge a body." He looked Dentatsu over with a little kindly contempt. "And so the honoured Shukké Sama would ask the name of this Jimbei? Honoured sir, the favour of your ears—for Kosaka Jinnai, son of Heima of that name, descendant of the Kosaka known to fame in service with Shingen Kō of Kai. Times have changed, and misfortune driven Jinnai to seek revenge for his lord's undoing." He mocked a little; the tone was too unctuously hypocritical. Then abruptly—"Sir priest, here we part. Your way lies ahead to Gifu town. Delay not too much, until the lake (Biwa-ko) is reached. Travel in company, for Jinnai, though his men are numbered by the thousand, controls not all the craft. A priest can scent a true priest. Seek out your kind.... Ha! You make a face.... Here: two hundred ryō. The monastery is none too generous, and would have you live—abroad. Sutra and prayers are not amusing. By face and years the honoured Shukké Sama loves the sex as well as the best of his kind. The very shadow of a monastery is prolific. More merriment is to be found with the girls of Gion than with those who dance the kagura (sacred dances) at Higashiyama. Besides, these are for your betters. If further off—seek Shimabara (the noted pleasure quarter). Go buy a Tayu; the funds are ample and not to be hoarded.... There need be no hesitation. 'Tis money of no thief. The prince robs the public; and Jinnai robs the princely thief. No trader ever has hung himself from the house beam for act of Jinnai; and more than one owes credit and freedom from a debtor's slavery to his aid."
It was with thanks, the parting with a man famed by deed before one's eyes, that Dentatsu slowly passed on to the bridge. From its further end he could see the road leading into the Nakasendō hills. Long he waited until a diminutive figure, hastening along it, appeared from time to time between scattered houses on the outskirts of Okazaki town. Then in earnest he took his own way, partly impelled by fright and anxiety at loss of his companion and being thrown on the resources of his own wits. He felt for a time as a blind man deprived of his staff. It was years after that Yoshida Hatsuémon, he who died so bravely at Ōsaka, accompanied Marubashi Chūya to the new fencing room opened at Aoyama Edo by the teacher of the yawatori—a new style of wrestling introduced from Morokoshi (China)—of spear exercise (sōjutsu), of jūjutsu. Marubashi Chūya had tried the new exponent of these arts, and found him master in all but that of the spear, in which himself he was famed as teacher. At this time (Shōhō 3rd year—1646) the crisis of Jinnai's fate and the conspiracy of the famous Yui Shōsetsu were both approaching issue. To his amazement Hatsuémon recognized in Osada Jinnai the one time Jimbei of the days when he had journeyed the Tōkaidō in priestly robe and under the name of Dentatsu. The recognition was mutual, its concealment courteously discreet on the part of both men. Shōsetsu appreciated the merits, the audacity, and the certain failure ahead of Jinnai's scheme. The better remnants he would gather to himself. Yui Shōsetsu Sensei aimed to pose as a new Kusunoki Masashigé, whose picture was the daily object of his prayers and worship. All was grist to the mill of his designs; but not association with such a chief—or lieutenant—as Kosaka Jinnai. Forewarned Marubashi and Yoshida (Dentatsu) held coldly off and sought no intimacy. Thus watched by keen wits of greater comprehension Jinnai rushed on his course into the claws of Aoyama Shūzen and the meshes of the Tokugawa code for criminals of his class.
CHAPTER XXI
If old Acquaintance be forgot
Thus Kosaka Jinnai, under the name of Osada, at the beginning of Shōhō 2nd year (1645) was established at Aoyama Harajuku-mura. For a gentleman of such abilities his pretensions were modest. It is true that he hung out a gilt sign before his fencing hall, with no boasting advertisement of his qualities as teacher. Yet his fame quickly became such that students flocked to him by the score. In a few months, on plea of being over-stocked, he was turning away all who would seek his instruction. Some he could not refuse—retainers of yashiki in his vicinity. But the generality of his disciples were a very rough lot; and this finer quality of his flock were carefully segregated, came and went at their appointed time apart from the common herd; and as matter of fact profited much from their teacher, and knew very little about him. Which was exactly the aim of Jinnai. This was remembered of him later.
There is but one domestic episode connected with this period, so short and purposely obscure in its duration. About the time of his first establishment a villager, on visit to Edo town, chanced upon the practice hour of Jinnai. The years had passed, yet the rustic had no difficulty in recognizing in the Sensei the one time Jinnosuké. When later he sought a more personal interview the great man was found courteous but freezing cold in the reception. The news from Tsukuba district was of that mixed character not to afford any exuberant pleasure. His reputation for bad company had gone abroad, though no great deeds of wickedness had been attributed to him. With the devotion of a daughter his wife had nourished the old folk, brought up her two daughters. On her shoulders during all these years had rested the management of these small affairs. The girls grew toward womanhood. When O'Kiku was in her seventeenth year Jisuké had died—unconsoled at the ill turn fortune had played him in this unfilial son. These grandparents had lingered out the years, crippled and helpless, urging a re-marriage on O'Ichi—always refused on the plea that such relation was for two lives. Jisuké Dono had united them, and he alone could separate her from Jinnai. She sought no second relation herself and plead against it; and Jisuké would not force it on this filial daughter, who thus would block the disinheritance of the son. Thus the farm stood, ready for the master on his return. Truly the whole village wondered, and admired her filial conduct.
To most of this Jinnai listened with indifference. "These girls—their looks and age?" Replied the man—"O'Kiku now is seventeen years; O'Yui Dono has fifteen years. Truly they are the village beauties, and rarely found in such life, for they would spare the mother all labour." He spoke with enthusiasm. "Then the mother lives?" The man shook his head—"The grave mound yet is very fresh. When she died she spoke no word of Jinnosuké Dono." Boldly he looked in rebuke at the unfilial man. Jinnai, if anything, showed annoyance. The old woman alive would have kept the inconvenient wife—the three women—at the distance of Tsukuba's slopes. His plans admitted of no possible descent on him at Aoyama Harajuku. Briefly he made request for the favour of bearing a message. Gladly the mission was accepted. With a discouraging cordiality in the leave taking the old acquaintance took his way back to the village. With something of a flutter O'Ichi opened and ran out the scroll he brought—"Unexpected and gratifying the meeting with Tarōbei San. The news of the village, not pleasing, is subject of condolence. Deign to observe well the instructions here given. The time will come when a summons to Edo town will be in order. At present the establishment is new and tender, and stands not the presence of strangers to the town. Condescend to show the same care in the present as in the past. The farm and its tenure is left to the hands of Ichi. As for these girls, look well to their care. They are said to be handsome and reputed the daughters of this Jinnai. Obey then his command. These are no mares for the public service, or for the private delectation of some rich plebeian. Service in a yashiki need not be refused, and jumps more with the plans and purposes of Jinnai. Keep this well in mind, and await the ripeness of time. With salutation...." Such the cold greeting through the years. "Reputed the daughters of this Jinnai." Ah! He thought and knew the years turned the beauty Ichi into the worn and wrinkled country hag of nearly forty years, only too ready to market her girls for her own necessities. She was ill and worn in her service. Here Jinnai was to be recognized. He was the man of his caste, with contempt for the plebeian he turned to his uses, but who must have no intimate contact with him or his.
Edo town was in a turmoil. North, East, South of the town the lives and purses of men who walked were at hazard. Plainly some band was operating in these quarters of the town. Aoyama Shūzen was hard put to it. His arrests, outrageous and barbarous, increased with his difficulties. Some specimens have been instanced. His bands of yakunin lay out in a wide net around the threatened quarters of the city. On the outskirts of Honjō a country mansion would be fired and plundered. In Ōkubo a temple (the Jishō-in) was clean gutted of its treasury—without notice to its neighbours. Not a sign of the spoil could be traced until the Shōshidai of Kyōto sent as present to the suzerain a most valued hanging picture (kakémono) of Shūbun, picked up for him in Ōsaka town, and worthy of being seen by the eyes of Edo's ruler. Murder and rape were the common accompaniments of these crimes, the doers of which left no witness, if resisted. Tsujikiri, cutting down wayfarers merely to test the value of a sword blade, found revival. Such murders in the outward wards of the city were of nightly occurrence. Yet they all centred in Aoyama's own precinct; starting forth from the fencing hall of Osada Jinnai. What a band they were! At this long distant date the names read with that tinge of the descriptive which such nomenclature gives—Yamaguchi Chiyari, Kanagawa Koni, Sendai no Ōkami, Okayama Koshin, Kumamoto Kondō, Tsukuba Endé;[26] their great chief being Kosaka Jinnai.