For a moment or so he stood looking down upon the recumbent figure. He took in every detail, from the frayed trousers and the spotless shirt to the fantastic feather in the hat. He saw that the sleeper’s face was clean-shaven, bronzed, and with rather high cheek-bones. The hair was dark. There was in the sleeping face a look of quiet weariness. To the man watching him it was the face of one who was lonely.
Then his eye fell upon the book. He stooped down and gently picked it up. The book was open at the following lines:
“Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat,
I never thenk to ben in his prison lene;
Sin I am free, I counte him not a bene.
He may answere, and say this or that;
I do no fors, I speke right as I mene.
Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat,
I never thenk to ben in his prison lene.
“Love hath my name y-strike out of his sclat,
And he is strike out of my bokes clene
For ever-mo; ther is non other mene.
Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat,
I never thenk to ben in his prison lene;
Sin I am free, I counte him not a bene.”
Ten minutes later Peter stirred and yawned. He sat up and began to stretch himself. But in the very act thereof he stopped, and a gleam of humorous amazement shot into his blue eyes, for on the grass beside him a man was sitting, calmly reading from his own rather shabby book.
The man looked up.
“Don’t let me interrupt you,” said Peter, with a brilliant smile.
The man laughed. “I ought to apologize,” he said. “The fact is, when I first saw you lying there asleep I took you for a tramp. Then I [Pg 12]came nearer and saw my mistake. I also saw the book. The temptation to talk to a man who obviously loved the open air and read Chaucer was too much for me. I sat down to wait till you should awake.”
“Very good of you,” replied Peter. “But you didn’t make a mistake, I am a tramp.”
“So am I,” responded the other, “on a walking tour.”