It happens that just here in the story a great gap occurs. At such a pause the Korean story-teller, who sits in his booth in one of the back streets of Seoul, would stop and send his boy to take up a collection from the crowd. Nor would he go on, until all had been invited to give and the coins rattled in the gourd shell.
When he began again some said it was the same story continued. Others were sure it was a new story, but that the palace maid and the prince were the same who had been in the banquet hall of the Western Queen Mother, in the Island of Gems and that the peach had never lost, since it never could lose its virtues, because given by the Queen. But such as it was, this is the way the story ran on:
More than a thousand years afterwards it was known that in the high mountains of the Ever White range lived a holy man, a hermit, who was honored, almost worshiped by the people in that region. In the summer time hundreds of pilgrims [[98]]visited his hut to hear wise words about how to live and do good, and then to receive the hermit’s blessing. Even the wild beasts appeared to be tame in his presence. At any rate, they never tried to bite or devour one another, or hurt the old man or to destroy his humble shelter. The tigers, the leopards and the bears seemed to forget they had claws, or teeth; while their little cubs played peacefully with each other.
The dress of this hermit was of the ancient style of a thousand years before, of the time of the ancient dynasty of Ko.
One day while out on one of his walks this old, white-bearded hermit met a woman of fair countenance, who seemed to be quite young, for her face was unwrinkled and rosy. It appeared that she had travelled far, yet she walked with the springing step of a maiden who was still in her teens. Her dress betokened that of ages gone, for it was of the sort and fashion which are revealed in the cave pictures painted on the walls of the dolmens, or the colossal stone chambers, in which kings and mighty men were buried, ten or fifteen centuries ago, which are very many in Korea.
The hermit and maid met in the path under the tall pine tree and exchanged greetings, the lady bowing very low. Then, as she looked up in his eyes, her face became radiant with joy as if she recognized a dear friend. [[99]]
The sage inquired who she was, and whether she were the wandering lady, of whom rumor spoke of having been seen during centuries, over all the nine provinces of Korea, by people who were great grandfathers, as well as by the children of that day.
Then she told her story.
She was the same palace maid, who, in the Western Queen Mother’s palace on the Island of Gems had waited upon him, once a gay prince and now the holy hermit. Then again she bowed low.