WHEN Typhon told Ægle of his thoughts, she answered that they failed to please her, explaining that, since the death of Tydeus and Canace, all her interest was transferred to him.
“Whether I shall like you, I know not yet,” she said, “but have no fear that I fail in my duty. It is idle to frown. As well might you frown at a little bird if it willed to share your goings and ever bide near you. I shall not leave you and you cannot drive me away, because that would be contrary to your eyes, though you may draw your brows down upon them as much as you will.”
Indeed, Typhon did frown somewhat at this saying.
“You are confusing the right of things,” said he. “I did not bring you into the world, Ægle, and I have no responsibility after leading you to safety and finding friends for you.”
“You did not bring me into the world,” admitted the girl, “but those who did are now gone out of it; and at least remember that you kept me in the world. Therefore my service and devotion are to you and none other. You cannot play with life and death, as though you were a god. Do not, therefore, look sulkily upon me. If I, who have lost all, am patient with a stranger, how much more should you be. Winter lies before us, and if you so desire, I can lead you to a hamlet, where you will be able to work for our living through the cold months. Meantime I shall work for you. Then, when spring returns, we will seek your Soter and rest not until we have found it.”
“But, my child — ” began Typhon.
“Do not talk like that,” answered Ægle. “Age has nothing to do with it. I am not a child. I have lived all alone and never shared the company of little people. Why do you fret yourself? You must not make an elephant of a fly. If, when you have found Soter and go home again, you want me no more, then I will leave you; but not sooner.”
“I have always heard that it is difficult to argue with a woman,” replied Typhon gently. “And there is evidently truth in that saying. We will seek the hamlet of which you tell me, and there, no doubt, wiser words than mine will convince you that you ask a vain thing.”
“Have you a sister?” asked she.
“No. I am an only child,” replied Typhon.
“Then I will be your sister, and you shall be my brother, and we are both the gainers,” asserted Ægle. “I am not beautiful enough to be your sister; but I am brave enough, as you shall find.”
And so it was that, despite remonstrance and protest, Typhon found a sister in Ægle; and they fell in with kindly folk and lived under one roof until the spring. Typhon worked for a tanner of hides; Ægle ministered to the woman with whom they dwelt; and they learned many true things from each other and from the humble people of that hamlet. Ægle spun wool and wove it and made new garments for Typhon; and he was well pleased with her and perceived her loveliness to be greater far than that of other maidens; while, for her, he became the most serious business of her young life.
Typhon killed a bear and was respected for this brave deed, and Ægle made a warm coat for herself out of the skin. As yet no cloud had arisen between them; but when Typhon saw the larch buds swelling, he felt the call of Soter and knew that he must now climb to the mountain snows. Then he told Ægle of his purpose and expressed a wish that she would remain at the hamlet until his return; whereon she most stoutly refused to do so; but made ready to set forth beside him. Wise women told her that she did ill to hinder his footsteps, and he promised her faithfully to come back when success had crowned his search; but their voices were wind in the trees to Ægle.
“I go with Typhon,” she would answer them all. And go she did.
What, therefore, could the young man do? Had she given him a word or look on which to make quarrel, he would have made it; but how might he fall out with one so gracious, so strong and so determined? Moreover her voice was sweeter than honey of wild bees; it turned all other voices of the hamlet harsh, and the music of it was ever set to comely words.
“You cannot be angry with a flower,” thought Typhon. “She is growing fast and becoming lovelier every minute. Presently she will listen to reason. Meantime, it is apparently the will of the gods that I suffer her a little longer.”
He found that, save in the one particular of going where he went and abiding beside him, wherein Ægle was adamant, the girl never raised any question of his judgment, or crossed his will. It seemed that she felt entirely sure that Typhon was right in all things save his suggestion to be rid of her. She was ever hopeful and happy and quick-eyed. No manner of nonsense appeared about Ægle. He marvelled that she never tired, never complained of the way, never grumbled at the weather, never quarrelled with anybody they might meet. Indeed, he found her of a mind very tender to her neighbours. The ills of her fellow-creatures were Ægle’s ills: she had a soul of ruth, and Typhon, in whom a kindred spirit was dawning, valued this about her and perceived new and unfamiliar ways opening into life, by which a man might serve his neighbour and bring happiness to those who had never known it.
They came to a village and found a widow woman with a sick child. They lodged with her and learned that only a mountain herb could cure her little one; but the folk were too busy to gather it for her. Not one among such poor people could spare the long journey of three days and three nights to gather the healing plant, and the sad mother beheld her little one withering away.
Then Ægle spoke and bade Typhon fill his wallet, set off for the mountain to gather Gentiana pneumonanthe — the gentian of the winds.
“I know it,” she said. “It dwells upon the earth, opening many cups as blue as the deep sea when a cloud shadow stains it. The root thereof shall you bring and save this baby for her mother.”
“I may also find what I seek,” said Typhon, full of delight at the quest before him.
“You may do so,” replied she; “but do not trouble about Soter. It is the gentian that you need for the moment; and when you have found twenty plants, return hither, and look not to the right nor left, but speed to the uttermost.”
So Typhon set forth and his feet were very light and his going swift. There was none to challenge his attention to fine things by the way, none to rest beside him when he rested, none to guard and protect save himself. He enjoyed such freedom greatly for a season and then he began to miss some quality of his existence and loitered awhile, that he might converse with the trees and lesser shrubs. And he heard wise things and wilful things — words to remember and words to forget; and yet he still missed something that could also be both wise and wilful, happy and subdued. And he puzzled to know what it might be that had gone, until he suddenly discovered. At which he laughed and banished so fanciful a notion, until in the night watches it returned to him.
He made a swift journey and presently found himself ascending into the steep and lonely places, with strange life about him, fierce sunshine by day and tonic cold by night. But none of the new flowers and little trees of the mountains knew Soter, though gentiana of the winds they did know and bade him climb yet higher.
But then he came to a wondrous land, where green sward flowed out amid the marble ribs and ridges of the mountains and every thicket and dene sparkled with flowers. The purple trumpets of great gentians lolled upon the grass waiting for fairy people to blow them; arnica lifted her orange stars; the narcissus of poets nodded her snowy petals; great pink peonies, full of the rosy, silvery dawnlight, flushed every hill-side; and lesser flowers unfolded their tiny, twinkling beauty beside Typhon’s sandals. Upon great rocks, where still a fret of snow lay over the northward-facing ledges and brought down the blue of the sky into their sparkling purity, shone primroses, pale gold and wine-coloured; and overhead the clouds sailed and from each little thicket of pine and larch the cuckoo called. At dusk the nightingale lifted her voice; while Typhon found a new breath in his lungs and cried: “The mountains are life!” But still he lacked some desirable thing; and when a red-brown fox uncurled from his sleeping place in the sun and slipped away among the silver crooks of the young fern, there was no eye but his own to note that cheerful sight.
Though the folk were few they befriended him and led him where flourished the healing plant he sought; so he plucked good store of roots and, setting about to return, made a mid-day meal at the foot of a solitary cypress. She was sheltered by white cliffs to north and east, and had towered into a noble tree for such a lofty home; but she stood solitary since none of her kind had ever climbed so high. Sturdy she was and prosperous and comely. Her silver stem arose for eight cubits, then melted into her tapering and luxuriant cone of darkness.
“You are a brave cypress to face the winter in these high places,” said Typhon, and the tree, well content to be addressed, declared that she was happy and suffered only from winter cold.
“As for the snow, I fear it not,” said she, “for my figure offers it no dangerous resting-place.”
“Who are your friends?” inquired Typhon, and the cypress answered that the scented cyclamen and little alpine columbines clustering beneath were favourably known to her.
“But my first and greatest friend,” said she, “is a man, even as you are. You will be greatly surprised to learn that I have for a neighbour a human being endowed with the same gift as yourself. In yonder modest hovel against the southern-facing precipice there dwells the aged Zethis, who has separated himself from his kind and lives out the short balance of his days in isolation.”
“And he can talk to you?” asked Typhon.
“He can and does. We enjoy many subjects of common interest; but he is far wiser than I, though in this matter of the solitary life we see alike. He argues that only under certain conditions, and given special endowments, may man, or tree, be said to owe a duty to his fellows. Some trees, even as some men, love to herd; while others, on the pattern of myself and Zethis, prefer loneliness and elbow-room round about us unimpeded by our kind.”
“A solitary life is a cowardly one,” said Typhon. “Of late I have come to believe that there is much even the least of men may do to help the world.”
“True,” replied the cypress, “and we trees may also stand shoulder to shoulder and break the blast for each other, or hold back the snow and frost from a weaker brother; but Zethis will tell you that it is all a matter of endowment. The artist needs his fellows, just as his fellows need him, if he is great enough to give them good gifts. The man with a message cannot escape his kind if he would, since it is his part and lot to deliver that message. But such value as the old hermit yonder possesses is not for humanity. He recognises no demand upon him, and consequently has felt justified in living the life of a recluse. He lifts a barrier between himself and an age from which he can take and to which he can bring no joy. He is not a misanthrope, and might even have been happy with other men under different conditions. But not as man is to-day. No. He would never vilify his race, and lives in charity with every created thing. But he has the instinct to withdraw and dwell all alone in communion with such gods as make their appeal to him and such thoughts as they are pleased to send. A most tolerant person is Zethis. I have not heard him hardly judge the greatest fool among us.”
As the tree spoke and Typhon wondered that a man could make the sombre cypress his first friend, Zethis himself appeared. He had little more than a rag to cover his nakedness; but a white beard descended over his bosom and long white hair fell thinly upon his shoulders from a head drawn back to earth by pull of time. He appeared to be infinitely old, and his eyes were dim, his hand trembled. He supported himself upon a stick and went slowly, carrying a little frail in which Typhon observed the leaves of dandelions and a chestnut or two gleaned from amid the fallen foliage of the past autumn.
Typhon saluted him and the old man reclined upon a stone and listened.
“The cypress has told me that you are a good and kindly man, who — ” began Typhon; whereupon the ancient cut him short.
“If, indeed, you can speak with the cypress, you received your power to do so from one alone — even the revered being whose wisdom I was wont to follow. You are a disciple of Epicurus.”
“I am,” answered Typhon.
“Then I cannot deny you my hospitality,” replied Zethis. “I was already an old man before the wisdom of the Master fell on my ears. I followed him into exile, served him in such small ways as the least may serve the greatest, and when he repaired to Athens, turned my back upon civilisation for ever. We debated the wisdom of such a step and he determined that, having regard for my particular nature, the solitary life might be permitted to me. With some compunction he allowed it, but hoped that I should win a spark of knowledge worth recording from such an existence. He was right, as he ever is; and now, believing that I have reached certain valuable thoughts — reflections which must have perished when I do, but for the advent of a fellow-creature to hear them — it is evident that you were sent by some watchful god, that my little message may return into the world of men and reach the Master’s ear.”
Zethis shook with excitement and his words came not very fluently. Indeed, had he not used to address the cypress sometimes, the faculty of speech by now had almost failed him.
“We will eat together and discourse,” said the aged man; then he led the way to his dwelling and presently placed before Typhon a few leaves of sorrel and a dozen chestnuts mouldy with long keeping. He made no apology for such melancholy fare and seemed to think food a matter without any significance whatever. But Typhon could not now delay to listen, as Zethis desired.
“I shall return to you,” he said, “and commit to memory all that you would have me tell Epicurus. But first I must make a journey to my friends three days’ distant. I hasten with herbs to save the life of a little child, who will perish if I am not swift of foot.”
Zethis raised no objection to this plan.
“You are, I see, one who enters into human life and would do your share of the world’s work,” said he. “Doubtless Epicurus so directed you, fathoming your nature with his unerring knowledge of the heart. For myself, finding that my duties to the State fought with the demands of my own conscience, and faced with the dilemma that I could not at once be a good citizen and a good man, there was nothing for it but to renounce citizenship and seek in the comity of wild nature for my soul’s salvation. Now I am on the threshold of death and my years are one hundred and two. Therefore delay not long; but save the little child and return to me, that I may speak. That done, my spirit will pass from my body on light wings.”
“I, too, have reflected about solitude of late,” said Typhon. “For a long time I rejoiced in it, as I wandered hill and vale at the bidding of Epicurus; but of late I am none so certain that to be all alone is best.”
“We will consider your case when you return,” replied Zethis. “Depart in peace and take good note of the way, that you may not fail to come back as soon as your affairs permit it.”
“Shall I try to bring you something more interesting to eat?” inquired the young man; but Zethis only showed surprise.
“Can you find anything more interesting than dandelion and chestnut?” he asked. “But in truth does this much matter? If you concentrate upon the soul, Typhon, the body soon comes to heel and is satisfied with necessities, desiring and expecting no more. The result justifies the discipline, for given a body, such as mine for example, it performs its functions without one disagreeable reminder of its existence, and is, in fact, what it should be — a clean and wholesome vessel for the mind, a lamp of sound earth in which the oil is pure and the wick well snuffed. Thus the light it bears shall burn as steadily and clearly as may be until the oil is gone. You will come to this in due time, but cannot begin to control your powerful and handsome body too soon.”
Then Typhon departed from him, and hastened and returned to Ægle and the widow woman and her babe. Two days only he took and made marches that would have wearied many four-footed creatures. But he was not too late, for when the bitterness of his gentians entered the infant, their spirit ran through her tiny veins and saved her. Thus the roots of the precious herb comforted the little one and its flowers gladdened Ægle, for Typhon made a wreath of them and brought the red golden arnica and narcissus also; and she put his garland on her head and her eyes shone as blue as the gentian trumpets, because never had he given her a gift until now.
“You brought these wonders only for me?” she asked.
“For whom should I bring them, if not you?” he replied. “And other fair things dwell upon the mountains, where they climb into the sky and spread between the forests and the snows. Life is strange and wonderful there; yet, as I went, all the while I missed some trifle left behind me.”
“The wisdom and nonsense of the trees?” said Ægle.
“No; for there are little trees that grow upon the heights, and they are just as wise, or foolish, as the great trees.”
“The scent of the wild wood and the sweet flowers?”
“No; for lavender and mastic, rosemary and rue are all full of rare fragrance.”
“The birds and beasts?”
“They are not absent, either. I saw a brown fox — ”
“Then I cannot tell what you missed,” she said.
“Nor could I for a long time,” he answered. “But presently, to my wonder, I discovered that it was only you! At first I exulted in my restored loneliness and missed you not; yet soon, when I saw a new blossom, heard a strange bird sing, marked a rainbow in a cloud, or an eagle perched like a bronze image upon some mountain scarp, I felt the fine sight was not complete for me. Something still lacked to make it perfect. And then — oh, then, Ægle, I knew that I could never more be all in all to Typhon! I was no longer finished in myself — complete — a kingdom ribbed by its own strong boundaries. Now this has ceased to be the case, for I wanted to show you the flower, bid you listen to the bird, hear you praise the rainbow on the rain, or smile at the great eagle burning under the sun’s light.”
And when she heard these things the blue-bell eyes of Ægle grew round and her wonderful lips parted a little.
“This is a strange tale that you tell, and it frightens me,” she answered. “Who am I to enter your kingdom? Yet the gods know that you have entered mine. But in truth I am no kingdom, only a little garden lost in yours; and while you were away from me, indeed I missed your footstep, your speech, your laugh, the daily sight of you!”
“A very curious and absurd confusion,” declared Typhon. “We are growing weak-minded in this stuffy vil; and now that the child has been assured of life, we will depart and return to Zethis and the mountain. This I promised, for he was once a disciple of Epicurus, and would charge me with messages for the Master. We must not delay; the man is more than a hundred years old and cannot live much longer. He eats weeds and cares nothing for his carcass, which is, indeed, only a tottering shadow of skin and bone.”
But Ægle did not hear, for she was pressing her cheek to the gentians, and her heart wondered what Typhon had thought when he found that he missed her.