It was on the road to Londinium that he overtook one journeying in the same direction, who kept pace with him persistently, let him go fast or slow. This was a venerable man, with a long beard of white, and wise, all-seeing eyes that smiled and smiled beneath the penthouse of his brows. Nicanor came to hate him vindictively, with no reason at all, as he hated all the world just then.
Nicanor stopped at evening by the roadside, and sat down to eat the food he had brought with him. And this ancient man stopped also, and sat upon a stone near by, and watched him. Nicanor, with meat and black bread in his hands, glanced up, ready to scowl, and met the old man's eyes, smiling at him. It was so long since any man had done other than revile him—since one's own mood will reflect itself like an image in clear water upon the minds of those around one—that Nicanor was surprised into smiling back, uncertainly, it is true, but still smiling. Then it was as though a bit of that outer crust of moroseness melted, and left something of his old boyish shyness in its place. Without stopping in the least to think why he did it, he broke the bread and meat into two portions, and held out one, in silence, awkwardly, as a child who does not know whether his gift will be accepted or cast upon the ground.
Now if that old man, perhaps not understanding, had not taken what he offered, turning from him then, it must surely have been that Nicanor would have shrugged his shoulders, and flung the food upon the road, and shut up once more within his shell of surliness, with his opinion of mankind fully justified in his own mind. But whether he wanted it or not, the old man took his gift, with eyes grave yet always smiling upon his lowering, half-shamed face, and said in a voice like a deep-toned bell, so clear was it and vibrant:
"I thank thee, my son."
He ate the food, slowly; and Nicanor watched him slyly, as he ate his own supper, fancying himself vastly indifferent to all ancient smiling strangers. But deep down in his rough shy heart he was pleased for that he had succeeded in not turning another soul away from him—so small a thing has power to change the balance sometimes; and when the old man spoke he did not wish to repulse him, as often. The stranger said, quite as though he had a right to know:
"Son, art sure that it will be well for thee to go to Londinium? Is what thou seekest there?"
Nicanor answered with immense surprise:
"I seek nothing."
"So?" the old man said, and smiled. "Now I thought that surely thou wert seeking something, and very near to black despair because thou hadst not found it."
And at once, like an echo from another world, there came to Nicanor the memory of a time when he had wandered seeking for something which he could not name, upon the downs, under gray skies and desolation. And he did not know if this had really happened or had been but a dream. But he began to think the old man very strange and rather to be feared. He said: