And now Aldebaran was but the crippled makeshift of a man, who could not even draw that Sword from out its scabbard; at whose wry features all must turn away in loathing, and some perchance might even set the dogs to snarling at his heels, in haste to have him gone.
"In all the world," he cried in bitterness, "there breathes no other man whom Fate hath used so cruelly! Emptied of hope, robbed of my all, life doth become a prison-house that dooms me to its lowest dungeon! Why struggle any longer 'gainst my lot?
Why not lie here and starve, and thus force Death to turn the key, and break the manacles which bind me to my misery ?" While he thus mused, footsteps came up the mountainside, a lusty voice was raised in song, and before he could draw back into cover, a head in a fantastic cap appeared above the bushes.

It was the village Jester capering along the path as if the world were thistledown and every day a holiday.

But when he saw Aldebaran he stopped agape and crossed himself.
Then he pushed nearer.
Now those who saw the Jester only on a market day or at the country fair plying his trade of merriment for all 'twas worth knew not a sage was hid behind that motley or that his sympathies were tender as a saint's.
Yet so it was.

The motto written deep across his heart was this: _"To ease the burden of the world!"_ It was beyond belief how wise he'd grown in wheedling men to think no load lay on their shoulders.

Now he stood and gazed upon the prostrate man who turned away his face and would not answer his low-spoken words: "What ails thee, brother ?" It boots not in this tale what wiles he used to gain Aldebaran's ear and tongue.