s of her children,
but banished them from the capital.

So Yoritomo was sent to Hirugakojima, in the province of Idzu; and
when he grew up and became a man, he married the daughter of a
peasant. After a while Yoritomo left the province, and went to the
wars, leaving his wife pregnant; and in due time she was delivered of
a male child, to the delight of her parents, who rejoiced that their
daughter should bear seed to a nobleman; but she soon fell sick and
died, and the old people took charge of the babe. And when they also
died, the care of the child fell to his mother's kinsmen, and he grew
up to be a peasant.

Now Kiyomori, the enemy of Yoritomo, had been gathered to his fathers;
and Yoritomo had avenged the death of his father by slaying Munemori,
the son of Kiyomori; and there was peace throughout the land. And
Yoritomo became the chief of all the noble houses in Japan, and first
established the government of the country. When Yoritomo had thus
raised himself to power, if the son that his peasant wife had born to
him had proclaimed himself the son of the mighty prince, he would have
been made lord over a province; but he took no thought of this, and
remained a tiller of the earth, forfeiting a glorious inheritance; and
his descendants after him lived as peasants in the same village,
increasing in prosperity and in good repute among their neighbours.

But the princely line of Yoritomo came to an end in three generations,
and the house of Hojo was all-powerful in the land.

Now it happened that the head of the house of Hojo heard that a
descendant of Yoritomo was living as a peasant in the land, so he
summoned him and said:--

"It is a hard thing to see the son of an illustrious house live and
die a peasant. I will promote you to the rank of Samurai."

Then the peasant answered, "My lord, if I become a Samurai, and the
retainer of some noble, I shall not be so happy as when I was my own
master. If I may not remain a husbandman, let me be a chief over men,
however humble they may be."

But my lord Hojo was angry at this, and, thinking to punish the
peasant for his insolence, said:--

"Since you wish to become a chief over men, no matter how humble,
there is no means of gratifying your strange wish but by making you
chief over the Etas of the whole country. So now see that you rule
them well."

When he heard this, the peasant was afraid; but because he had said
that he wished to become a chief over men, howe