Now he felt his spirit free. The intimacy of Nature again surrounded him; he found sweetness in her breath; in her still, sunny days, despite their cold; in her frosty, starlit nights. He found himself watching the brown buds slowly swelling on the trees, gazing with something akin to reverence at the first pale primrose lifting a shy face among last year’s withered débris, touching the tiny fragile flower of the wood sorrel. The clean healthiness of the forest absorbed him; his spirit was at one with the tender life awaking around him.
A new idea came to him now. Up to a point he acquiesced with Oswald in the thought that the woman would make herself known to them at her own time; yet he saw himself fitting his spirit for the meeting. In this he believed himself in a measure seeking her. You see him humble; no longer hot afoot to the chase in his own way, striving to attain to her by the force of his own will. He never for an instant lost sight on the thought of her. Now and again he fancied her eyes watching him; prayed her then humbly enough to make her presence known at her own time.
Oswald, half laughing, told him he held her so close in thought no sight of her was needed to him now. To which Peregrine replied briefly:
“Belief in her may be good; but sight of her will be better.”
In his belief he now surpassed his one-time mentor. He looked daily,—even momentarily,—to her appearance, where Oswald was content to leave it at months or even years ahead. It was sufficient to him that she existed. The mere knowledge, without perpetual watching, was not enough for Peregrine.
He saw too great passivity of mind in Oswald. Though in a measure he recognized its excellence, his own spirit was a-tingle for greater action. The man’s quiet certainty of the woman’s existence was at once an anodyne and an irritant to him. While Oswald’s belief quickened his own belief, he yet saw something lukewarm in his lack of action. This Oswald guessed at, rather by intuition than by actual spoken word from Peregrine. For his part, he saw a certain weakness in Peregrine’s constant expectancy. He watched him walking alert in the forest, his eyes roving from side to side.
“I have told you,” he said once quietly, “that effort on your part is useless. She will come at her own time.”
“Truly you say so,” returned Peregrine, “and at the first I had confidence in your assurance. Now, I know not fully how to make my meaning clear; but to my thinking she bids me still seek her; awaits a further effort on my part.”
Oswald smiled. “There imagination has you in thrall. On your own showing you have pursued her long without avail. Rest in her spirit which you know around you, and await sight of her quietly as I do. Your constant expectancy of her coming brings disquietude to your mind.”
Reasonable enough argument, and yet one which Peregrine could not bring himself fully to accept.