Having put some half-dozen miles or so between himself and the hut, he began to feel sleepy. Coming to a mossy stretch beneath a great oak, he lay down. Three minutes saw him wrapped in slumber, and he slept soundly.
When he awakened it was high noon. The sun fell through the oak branches, clear upon the place where he lay. For a time longer he rested, revelling in the warmth of its beams. Anon he sat up; ate a portion of the bread he had brought with him. All around him was intensely still. Before him were massed bluebells, a soft luminous carpet. Brilliant nearer him, they lost themselves anon in the hazy distances among the trees. He sat a while gazing at them.
He wandered through the forest that day; at night made it his resting-place.
CHAPTER XXIX
EASTER EVE AND EASTER MORNING
EARLY the next morning Peregrine was again afoot. Coming at length from among the trees, he found himself on a hillside. Below him was a hamlet, a small cluster of some dozen or so cottages nestling at the foot of the hill. Later, an’ he would, he might seek food at one of them; at the moment he had bread sufficient to stay hunger, and had little mind to find himself again in the company of men.
Partly descending the hill, he sat down beneath a thorn-bush, looking on the landscape spread below him. Sounds of life came to him on the quiet air; here was the clarion note of a cock, the bark of a dog, the lowing of cows, and the tinkle of a bell at the neck of some goat.
The time passed pleasantly enough beneath the thorn-bush. He found himself in no mood to desert his post. Dreamily he watched the shifting lights and shadows in the valley, and on the hills beyond.
The sound of footsteps brought him again to the present. He looked up. Almost opposite to him were a boy and girl, the boy ten years old or thereabouts, the girl some three years younger. Her brown hair was covered with a purple hood; a dress of the same colour fell to her ankles; a white kerchief was folded about her neck; her arms were full of bluebells. The boy, a sturdy fellow, clad in green tunic and hose, and having a brown cap on his head, held a great sheaf of cherry blossom. Peregrine straightway thought of Pippo.
Coming to a halt they gazed at him, round-eyed, astonished at the sight of a stranger.