“Madness,” said Simon crossly.
“Mayhap,” smiled Peregrine.
“Sheer madness,” said Simon.
“Quite possible.”
“Huh!” grunted Simon, and relapsed into silence. Now and again he looked at Peregrine sitting on the mud floor in the dim firelight, his hands clasped round his knees. From him he looked at the fire, then back again at the man. Memory, long sleeping, was struggling to birth in his soul. The lines on his face quivered now and again in its travail. On a sudden he spoke.
“I was once young.”
“So are all men once,” said Peregrine very softly.
“I too had my dreams,” said Simon gruffly.
“They aid a man,” said Peregrine.
“Maybe, and maybe not. ’Twill aid a man, mayhap, to have a son and see him grow to manhood. Of what aid is his birth an’ he wither of some hidden disease in childhood, suffer and die with none but you to sorrow? To my thinking no hope at all were better than hope unfulfilled.”