When he reached it, he fourid a lake that was all ice, and mountains that were all snow; the country people, who had never seen a poet, and knew not the subtle difference between inspiration and insanity, heard with wonder that he was going out into the woods. But he set out alone, through the snowy forest and along the lake-shore, to find some place far away, where he could build a hut, or even put up a tent; and when
he was miles from the village, he came suddenly on a little wonderland that made his heart leap like the wild deer in the brake. Here was a dreamland palace, a vision beyond all thinking—a little shanty built of logs! It stood in a pretty dell, with a mountain streamlet dashing through it, and the mighty forest hiding it, and the lake spread out in front of it. It was all wet snow, and freezing rain, and mud and desolation; but Thyrsis saw the summer that was to be, and he sat down upon a stone and gazed at it, and laughed and sang for wonder and joy.
Then he fled back to the village, and found the owner of the earthly rights to this paradise, and hired it for a little gold; and then he moved out, in spite of the snow. At last his soul was free!
Twice a week they brought him provisions, and there he stayed. At first he nearly froze at night, and he had to write with his gloves on; but he did not feel the cold, because of the fire within. He climbed the mountains and yelled with the mad wind, and tramped through the bare, rocking forest, singing his minstrel songs. And all these days he walked with God, and there was no world at all save the world of nature. Millions of young-hearted things sprang up out of the ground to welcome him; the forests shook out their dazzling sheen, and the wild birds went mad in the mornings. All the time Thyrsis was writing, writing— thrilling with his ecstasy, and pouring out all his soul. He kept a little diary these days, and for weeks there was but one entry—"The book! The book!"
And then one day came a letter from his mother, saying that she was coming to the village nearby to spend the summer; also that Corydon's mother was coming, and that Corydon would be with her!
BOOK II THE SNARE
The streamlet tinkled on. She sat, gazing about her at each familiar tree and rock. And meanwhile he was reading again from the book
"Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assayed!"
"Is that from 'Thyrsis'?" she asked. "Read me those lines that we used to love so much."
And so he turned the page, and read again
"A fugitive and gracious light he seeks, Shy to illumine; and I seek it, too.
This does not come with houses or with gold, With place, with honor, and a flattering crew: 'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold —
But the smooth-slip ping weeks Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired; Out of the heed of mortals he is gone, He wends unfollow'd, he must house alone; Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired."
§ 1. ON the train Cory don was writing a letter to a friend, to say where she was going, and that Thyrsis was there. "I don't expect to see anything of him," she wrote. "He grows more egotistical and more contemptuous ever}- day, and I cordially dislike him."
But when a man has spent three or four weeks with no company save the squirrels and the owls, there comes over him a mood of sociability, when the sight of a friendly face is an event. Thyrsis had now written several chapters of his book, and the first fury of his creative impulse had spent itself. So when Corydon stepped from the train, she found him waiting there to greet her; and he told her that he was laying in supplies for a feast, and that on the morrow she and her mother were to come out and see his fairy-palace and have a picnic dinner.
They came; and the May put on her finest raiment for their greeting. The sun shone warm and bright, and there was a humming and stirring in grass and thicket; one could feel the surge of the spring-time growth as a living flood. There was a glory of young green over the hill-sides, and a quivering sheen of white in the aspens and birches. Corydon clasped her hands and cried out in rapture when she saw it.
And Thyrsis, picturesque in his old corduroy trousers and his grey flannel shirt, played the host. He showed them his domestic establishment—wherein things were set in order for the first time since he had come. He told all his adventures: how the cold had crept in at night, and he had to fiddle to keep his courage up;
how he had slept in a canvas-cot for the first time, and piled all the bedding on top, and wondered that he was cold; how he had left the pail with the freshly-roasted beef on the piazza, and a wild cat had carried off pail and all. He made fun of his amateur house-keeping— he would forget things and let them burn, or let the fire go out; and he had tried living altogether on cold food, to the great perplexity of his stomach.
Then he gave a demonstration of his hard-won culinary skill. He boiled rice and raisins, and fried bacon and eggs; and they had fresh bread and butter, and jam and pickles, and a festive cake. And after they had feasted, Thyrsis stretched himself and leaned back against the trunk of a tree, and gazed up at the sky, quoting the words of a certain one-eyed Kalandar, son of a king, "Verily, this indeed is life! 'Tis pity 'tis fleeting!"
Afterwards he took Corydon for a walk. They climbed the hill where he came to battle with the storm-winds, and to watch the sunsets and the moon rising over the lake. And then they went down into the glen, where the mountain streamlet tumbled. Here had been wood-sorrel, and a carpet of the white trillium; and now there was adder's tongue, quaint and saucy, and columbine, and the pale dusty corydalis. There was soft new moss underfoot, and one walked as if in a temple.
Thyrsis pointed out a seat beside a deep bubbling pool. "Here's where I sit and write," he said.
"And how comes the book?" asked Corydon.
"Oh, I'm hammering at it—that's the best I can say."
"What is it?"
"Why—it's a story. I suppose it'll be called a romance, though I don't like the word."
Corydon pondered for a moment. "I wouldn't expect you to be writing anything romantic," she said.
Thyrsis, occupied with his own thoughts, observed, "I might call it a revolutionary romance."
"What is it about?"
He hesitated. "It happens in the middle ages," he said. "There's a minstrel and a princess."
"That sounds interesting," said Corydon.
Now in the period of pregnancy the artist's mood is one of secretiveness. But afterwards there comes a time for promulgation and rejoicing; and already there had been hints of this in the mind of Thyrsis. The great secret that he was cherishing—what would be the world's reception of it? And now suddenly a wild idea came to him. He had heard somewhere that it is the women who read fiction. And was not Corydon a perfect specimen of the average middle-class young lady, and therefore of that mysterious potentiality, "the public", to which he must appeal? Why not see what she would think of it?
He took the plunge. "Would you like me to read it to you?" he asked.
m*
"Why, certainly," she replied, and then added, gently, "If it wouldn't be a desecration."
"Oh, no," said Thyrsis. "You see, when it's been printed, all sorts of people will read it."
So he went back to the house and brought the precious manuscript; and he placed Corydon in the seat of inspiration, and sat beside her and read.
In many ways this was a revolutionary romance. Thyrsis had not spent any of his time delving into other people's books for "local color"; he was not relying for his effects upon gabardines and hauberks, and a sprinkling of "Yea, sires," and "prithees." His
castle was but the vaguely outlined background of a stage upon which living hearts wrought out their passions. One saw the banquet-hall, with its tapestries and splendor, and the master of it, the man of force; there were swift scenes that gave one a glimpse of the agelong state of things