Page:Tales from old Japanese dramas (1915).djvu/287

 II

father, as we have mentioned before, had been Chief-Councillor of the Kishido Clan in the province of Aki. The lord of this clan had become infatuated with a beautiful concubine, O-Ran ("Orchid") by name, and had given himself up to all manner of sensual pleasures to the utter neglect of government. Yuminosuké had time and again remonstrated with him but his pleadings fell upon deaf ears; and finally the old councillor had resigned his post, and was now leading a life of comfort and ease at Kyōto.

One evening a man spent with running presented himself at the door of Yuminosuké's house. This was one of his old friends, a samurai of the same clan, and he had brought a weighty message from Yuminosuké's former lord. The latter in fact had been going on in his evil courses from bad to worse. At the instigation of the scoundrelly Ashigara Denzō, a younger brother of his concubine O-Ran, he had laid heavy burdens of taxation upon the people and had exacted contributions 217