princess of love. But the outlaws led the despot to the place, and
there was a battle; the princess was slain, and the minstrel escaped
in the darkness. All night he roamed the forest, and in the morning
he lay by the roadside with a bow in his hand, and when the despot
rode by he rose and drove the shaft through his heart. Then they
captured him, and tortured him, and he died with a song of mockery
and defiance upon his lips.

Section 16. Now, when these things first came to Thyrsis, he
whispered in awe that it would be a life-time before he could write
them. And a year passed thus, while every emotion of his life poured
itself into some part of that story, and every note of music that he
heard came out of the minstrel's heart. At last the time came when
he was so full of it that he could no longer find peace; when the
wonder of it was such that he walked along the street laughing, and
with tears in his eyes. Then he said to himself, "It must be done!
Now! Now!" And he looked about him as a woman might, seeking some
place for her labor.

That was in the late winter, when the professors at the university,
and all his relatives and acquaintances, had given him up as a
hopeless case. He had stopped all his writing for money--he had a
hundred dollars laid by, and that would suffice him; and he was
wandering about whispering to himself: "The spring-time! The
spring-time! For it must be in the country!" When April had come he
could stand it no longer--he must go! So he left all behind him, and
set out for a place in the wilderness.

When he reached it, he found a lake that was all ice, and mountains
that were all snow; the country people, who had never seen a poet,