The words brought comfort to Peregrine. He looked gratefully at his mentor. You might have seen trust in his eyes. The personality and confidence of the man gave him strength.
“An’ you take my advice,” said Oswald, “you will sleep now. New hope comes with the morning.”
He showed him a bed of bracken, made him lie down. Then himself laid down at the other side of the cabin.
It was long before Peregrine slept. Thoughts pursued each other pell-mell through his brain, one alone predominant and lasting enough to grasp, namely, that in his host he had found comprehension of the matter that absorbed him, and sanity combined. This thought at length brought him rest. An hour or so before daybreak he slept.
CHAPTER XXVIII
IN THE FOREST
MORNING brought refreshment, and with it new hope and courage as Oswald had foretold. At breakfast he put a proposal to Peregrine frankly enough.
“An’ you are so minded, why not bide with me a time. Men term me a recluse, and so in a measure I am, finding little congenial in the majority of mankind. I should find no constraint in your presence. We could talk when the mood was on us, and—better test of congeniality—keep silence when we willed. Have you mind to try the partnership for a while?”
Peregrine gave willing assent. Already, as seen, he had found rest in the man’s confidence, a healthfulness in his quiet sanity. He saw a haven in the forest cabin, one where he would abide most gladly. To have no fear of going a day, or even more, hungry was something of a novelty to him. The search for food sharpens a man’s wits with regard to attaining the necessities of life, but leaves less room for the development of other faculties. Here was sufficient for the needs of the body. His mind at rest on this score, it began to expand in other directions. His love of Nature returned to him, as it had returned for a brief space on his leaving Dieuporte. In this renewal of his love he realized how long it had been absent.
Tracing his way slowly backwards, he came to the point where the love had first waned; saw it in his absorption in the human, namely Isabel. Up to this point there had been freedom of spirit; here he first saw his bondage, realized himself enslaved; slave of the woman at Belisle; slave of luxury at Castle Syrtes; slave of Menippus; and, lastly, slave of an idea. In this last he was, however, none so certain of the bondage; of the former slavery he was very sure.