"I am weary," said Sorrow, and seated herself in the thyme at the feet of the hermit, who looked at her slowly from top to toe.
"Is that all that you bring?" he asked, grimly. "You had promised you would sometime bring me Rest, but I see no one."
"I think she is coming after me," said Sorrow, dreamily; "the forest is getting so quiet; but I will not let her come if you do not keep your promise to me and tell me your history."
Once again a somber look from out those black eyes was fixed on Sorrow; then they looked nervously, searchingly out into the wood; then the white beard trembled a little, and dull, muffled tones issued from the man's chest.
"The price is heavy, but Rest is sweet. In my youth I was poor and never looked at the girls, for I did not want to create misery about me, and I knew hunger and thirst too well to ask them of my own accord to dwell in my hut. I was strong as a lion, and industrious, so I slowly earned a good piece of bread and a house that I had almost built by myself. Then it occurred to me that, as youth was nearly past, I must make haste if I wanted to marry. I knew a lovely girl, with eyes like a deer, whom a youth in the village had long desired, but she had refused him several times, until at last he saw that she would have nothing to say to him. Then he had a mind to drown, but he thought better of it and went to foreign parts, and nothing more was heard of him. The same day I wooed Marie, and nearly fainted for joy when, in answer to my timid question, 'If I am not too old for you, I should like to have you to wife, will you be mine?' she answered with glad eyes, quite softly, 'Most willingly.' I believe that if one begins to love young, one does not know what such happiness means. But if one has been alone for years, and then comes home and there by the hearth stands a young, beautiful woman who laughs at one roguishly, it makes one hot about the heart and head, and one takes up one's happiness in one's arms and runs about with it like one demented. You even cavil with the wind if it blows on your wife, and you hardly like to suffer the sun to shine on her. Yes, I was quite beside myself with love and happiness; and when next year she presented me with a son, I really had to tear myself away to go to my work. And the child had just such eyes as hers, so beaming and merry. Soon it could stretch out its little hands and pull my beard, and then we laughed. Six years passed thus happily; every day the boy grew more beautiful and clever, and my Marie remained merry and young in our little house by the mountain. True I was passionate sometimes, but then she would always send me our boy and I grew quiet at once, for no one could look into his eyes and be angry, so angelic was that face with its golden curls.
"One day the rejected wooer returned to the village; we saw him as we went to church, and it gave me a pang to see that Marie grew pale and red and could not cease from looking at him. It is true that she laughed at me for this, and said that she was quite proud that I could even be jealous of the past.
"But I could not forget his look, and why had she grown red? All the villagers had noticed it and smiled, and as it was the younger men were jealous of me. Nor was there an end with this first meeting. He insisted on his old acquaintanceship and visited us often, and as he had nothing to do, he sometimes came when my wife was alone at home. I began to be vexed at this, especially since a horrid old woman, with a fair young girl, that was as like you as pea to pea, turned in at our house one day and warmed themselves by our fire. She let all sorts of words fall, about evil tongues, about an old man and a young wife and an ancient lover, and while she jabbered the girl looked at me piteously, like you look now—I can never forget that look. My wife was in the bedroom putting our boy to sleep, and as she was not there to cheer me with her dear presence, the poison sank deep into my heart. From that hour I grew irritable and passionate towards her, which made her lose her cheerful calmness and look nervous whenever the uninvited guest appeared. I wanted to show him the door, but she would not allow it, saying wisely: 'Do you want him to tell the whole village that you are jealous of him, and that you mistrust your wife?'
"How many bitter hours he cost us both! Whenever he had been I scolded Marie till far into the night. It was her fault; if she were not so pleasant to him he would certainly not come again. And I, who formerly would have let her tread on me, if that could spare her aught, could now look on coldly when she wept for hours. Her joyous laughter ceased, and she always looked at me terrified. I wanted that she too should feel some of the misery that gnawed at my heart, for was it not her fault? The bad old woman often came through the forest where I hewed down trees and said—
"'Go home, you will find him there.'
"And I did find him once or twice, and at last I said: 'Marie, if I find him once more, there will happen mischief; I forewarn you.'