er. Filial duty bids
this Ichi to obey, and yield her person at command." The mother was more
than gratified at the assent and modesty--"Dutiful you have always been.
We parents have no eyes. The whole matter is left to you. If Jinnosuke
can be taken by your person, perchance he will devote his time to home
and the farm work, now so irksome to his father. Where he goes in these
long absences is not known; they can be for no good purpose." Thus the
arrangement was made. The girl now busied herself about and with
Jinnosuke. She was the one to attend to all his comforts, to await his
often late return. Thus used to her he soon began to look on her with
anything but brotherly eyes. Was she not the daughter of old
Taro[u]bei, the water drinker? He knew the story well. Thus one night he
took O'Ichi to himself. She pleased him--as with the parents. No
objection was anywhere raised to the connection; a village of Nippon has
cognizance of such matters; and in short order public notice was given
of the marriage.

The influence was not of long duration. With his wife's pregnancy
Jinnosuke disappeared. From the age of thirteen years he had been hand
in glove with all the rough fellows of the district. These were stirring
times in the south. There was something to pick up. After all was not he
a _samurai's_ son. Jinnosuke was too late for action. Although but
seventeen years old his short sturdy and astonishingly active frame and
skill with weapons was a welcome addition to the band that Ogita
Kuro[u]ji had gathered after the fall of O[u]saka-jo[u]. Now Jinnosuke
figured as Kosaka Jinnai. Here first he came in contact with the law and
Aoyama Shu[u]zen. On this failure he betook himself at once to the
disguise of his native village; to enter it as quietly as if he never
had left it, to find himself the father of a baby girl, Kikujo[u], and
to procreate another on his patient wife. But before this second girl,
O'Yui, was born Jinnosuke, as the village still knew him, had again
disappeared. This was in strict accordance with his principle, of which
something is to be said.

Of these O[u]saka _ro[u]nin_, determined not to take another master,
there were three Jinnai. In council over past failure, said Tomizawa
Jinnai.[21] "The ambition of this Tomizawa?" He laughed. Jinnai was no
distinctive term in this gathering. "It is to collect all the beautiful
costumes of Nippon."--"Admirable indeed!" chimed in Sho[u]ji Jinnai (or
Jinemon, as h