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Page 65
While he thus mused, footsteps came up the mountainside, a lusty voice
was raised in song, and before he could draw back into cover, a head in
a fantastic cap appeared above the bushes. It was the village Jester
capering along the path as if the world were thistledown and every day a
holiday. But when he saw Aldebaran he stopped agape and crossed himself.
Then he pushed nearer.
Now those who saw the Jester only on a market day or at the country fair
plying his trade of merriment for all 'twas worth knew not a sage was
hid behind that motley or that his sympathies were tender as a saint's.
Yet so it was. The motto written deep across his heart was this: _"To
ease the burden of the world!"_ It was beyond belief how wise he'd grown
in wheedling men to think no load lay on their shoulders. Now he stood
and gazed upon the prostrate man who turned away his face and would not
answer his low-spoken words: "What ails thee, brother?"
It boots not in this tale what wiles he used to gain Aldebaran's ear and
tongue. Another man most surely must have failed, because he shrank from
pity as from salt rubbed in a wound, and felt that none could hear his
woeful history and not bestow that pity. But if the Jester felt its
throbs he gave no sign. Seated beside him on the grass he talked in the
light tone that served his trade, as if Aldebaran's woes were but a
flight of swallows 'cross a summer sky, and would as soon be gone. And
when between his quirks he'd drawn the piteous tale entirely from him,
he doubled up with laughter and smote his sides.
"And I'm the fool and thou'rt the sage!" he gasped between his peals of
mirth. "Gadzooks! Methinks it is the other way around. Why, look ye,
man! Here thou dost go a-junketing through all the earth to find a
chance to show unequalled courage, and when kind Fate doth shove it
underneath thy very nose, thou turn'st away, lamenting. I've heard of
those who know not beans although the bag be opened, and now I laugh to
see one of that very kind before me."
Then dropping his unseemly mirth and all his wanton raillery, he stood
up with his face a-shine, and spake as if he were the heaven-sent
messenger of hope.
"Rise up!" he cried. "_Knowest thou not it takes a thousandfold more
courage to sheathe the sword when one is all on fire for action than to
go forth against the greatest foe?_ Here is thy chance to show the
world the kingliest spirit it has ever known! Here is a phalanx thou
mayst meet all single-handed--a daily struggle with a host of hurts that
cut thee to the quick. This sheathed sword upon thy side will stab thee
hourly with deeper thrusts than any adversary can give. 'Twill be a
daily 'minder of thy thwarted hopes. For foiled ambition is the
hydra-headed monster of the Lerna marsh. Two heads will rise for every
one thou severest. 'Twill be a fight till death. Art brave enough to
lift the gauntlet that Despair flings down and wage this warfare to thy
very grave?"
Such call to arms seemed mockery as Aldebaran looked down upon his
twisted limbs, but as the bloodstone on his finger met his sight his
kingly soul leapt up. "I'll keep the oath!" he cried, and struggling to
his feet laid hand upon the jewelled hilt that decked his side.
"By sheath�d sword, since blade is now denied me," he swore. "I'll win
the future that my stars foretold!"
In that exalted moment all things seemed possible, and though his body
limped as haltingly he followed on behind his new-found friend, his
spirit walked erect, and faced his future for the time, undaunted.
His merry-Andrew of a host made festival when they at last came to his
dwelling; lit a great fire upon the hearth, brewed him a drink that
warmed him to the core, brought wheaten loaves and set a bit of savoury
meat to turning on the spit.
"Ho, ho!" he laughed. "They say it is an ill wind that blows good to
none. Now thou dost prove the proverb. The tempest that didst blow thee
from thy course mayhap may send me on my way rejoicing. I long have
wished to leave this land and seek the distant province where my kindred
dwell, but there was never one to take my place. And when I spake of
going, my townsmen said me nay. 'Twas quite as bad, they vowed, as if
the priest should suddenly desert his parish, with none to shepherd his
abandoned flock. 'Who'll cheer us in our doldrums?' they demanded.
'Who'll help us bear our troubles by making us forget them? Thou canst
not leave us, Piper, until some other merry soul comes by to set our
feet a-dancing.' Now thou art come."
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