Yet, in spite of seeing Madam Hare as escaped from their clutches, a victim of a slow death by starvation, they still lingered, muttering, jabbering, swearing; the dogs still making loud din, causing Peregrine’s heart to beat with fear, knowing not of the hole in the tree which had doubtless saved his skin, and the life of the trembling creature in his arm. The weight of the animal was no light one, and his muscles began to suffer cramp. Feeling extremity at hand he put up a small prayer, which possibly was heard by Saint Francis, seeing he had once rescued a like creature from the hounds. Whether it was the advocacy of the prayer, or whether the huntsmen were weary of their sojourn beneath the tree, you may settle as it best pleases you; for my part I will maintain that the Saint himself drew them away, caused them to call off the dogs, and ride baulked of their prey away from wood and moor.
Silence had fallen for the space of some ten or fifteen minutes before Peregrine thought safe to descend; and in that the hare had lain quiet so long we may likewise see the hand of the gentle Saint. Twenty yards or so away from the tree, clear from the scent of the dogs, Peregrine deposited his burden upon the ground. A moment she crouched while his hand caressed her soft fur, then leaping, vanished down the glade.
Yet this freedom of wood and moorland, this sojourning with wild creatures, that I have shown you, belonged in main to Peregrine’s boyhood. As he grew older it was not thought well, by those who had a say in the matter, that he should roam in idleness. Those who eat bread must needs earn it after some fashion, save those who are born, as the saying is, with a silver spoon in the mouth. Peregrine after a while found his hours of roaming curtailed. Armourer, falconer, grooms, alike pressed him into service. No special calling allotted him in view of the one rôle he should later play—though if the truth be known he looked to it with but little favour—he became the server of many. This, as may be imagined, irked him somewhat. He had no mind to await any man’s behest, yet mind or not he found it must needs be done. Being no fool he brought, then, to his tasks what good grace he might. Besides his work with armourer, falconer, and grooms, he learned to play the tabor, and had a very pretty skill thereon.
Of these years I have little to record. They were in the main uneventful. Their chief incident as far as Peregrine was concerned, and one of deep sorrow to him, was his mother’s death. That was a sorrow which lay heavy for many a long month, till time at length began imperceptibly to ease the burden of his grief.
Peregrine had come to man’s estate, had seen, I take it, four and twenty summers or thereabouts, when Nichol was stricken of the ague which was to end for him this mortal life. Lying gaunt and hollow-eyed on his bed, the cap and bells on an oak chest near, he called his son to him, pointed with one wasted hand towards the motley dress.
“To-morrow, or the next day, you will be wearing it,” he said.
Peregrine bowed his head. Finding it ill to lie, even for comfort’s sake, in the face of Death, he was silent.
“A jest more often than not holds truth,” said Nichol, “yet now, between you and me, the truth may be spoken without need of jest.” His eyes, blue like Peregrine’s, sought his son’s eyes, but Peregrine’s were lowered.
“Look at me,” said his father.
Peregrine raised his eyes.