The next morning I was greeted by the aged father and mother of our host. The household was an interesting one, for the landlord and his brother were married to two sisters. Before taking our departure we knelt with our landlord and his father before the Buddhist shrine on which rested the memorial tablets of former heads of the house. I expressed my sense of the privilege extended to strangers. The reply was, "Our ancestors will feel pleasure in your being among us." FOOTNOTES: [25] Samurai or _shizoku_ comprise about a twentieth of the population. [26] Every Japanese signs by means of a stone or hard-wood seal which he keeps in a case and ordinarily carries with him. [27] A _shō_ is about a quart and a half. [28] The raised recess in which is usually displayed the flower arrangement, a piece of pottery and a _kakemono_. (See Note, page 35.) [29] Farcical interludes of the _Nō_ stage. CHAPTER V COUNTRY-HOUSE LIFE The sense of a common humanity is a real political force.--J.R. GREEN The stranger in Japan sees so little of the intimacies of country life that I shall say something of further visits to what we should call county families. My hosts, who seemed to be active to a greater or less degree in promoting the welfare of their tenants, lived in purely Japanese style. Yet now and then in a beautiful house there was a showy gilt timepiece or some other thing of a deplorable Western fashion. At all the houses without exception we were waited upon by the host and his son, son-in-law or brother, and for some time after our arrival our host and the members of his family would kneel, not in the apartment in which our _zabuton_ (kneeling cushions) were arranged, but in the adjoining apartment with its screens pushed back. Even when the time of sweets and tea had passed and a regular meal was served, all the little tables of food were brought in not by servants but by the master of the house and such male relatives as were at home. When the duration of a Japanese meal is borne in mind, some idea may be gained of the fatigue endured by the head of a house in serving many guests. The host sometimes honours his guests still further by eating apart from them or by partaking of a portion only of the meal. The name of a feast in Japanese is significant, "a running about." The ladies of the house are usually seen for only a few minutes, when they come with the children to welcome the guests on their arrival; but on the second day of the visit the ladies may bring in food or tea or play the _koto_.