Hoel mused, and mused again, while his eyes wandered from the speaker to the rest, in whose looks he read confirmation of the words. Then he turned to take a sweep over the wintry scene that lay beneath and around. Woods and thickets skirting the slopes of Sedgemoor, the osiers lining the banks of the Brue, the few apple-trees that were even then on Iniswytryn—all without sign of a leaf.
He bent his eyes to the ground, knit his brows, seemed determined to hear no more, and to believe nothing of what he had heard.
Still the gentle, persuasive voice of the saint sounded in his ears:
"What is that, friend, you have in your hand?"
"My shepherd's crook," was the brief and surly answer.
"And see, my pilgrim-staff, that has aided my steps so far. Yours was cut from a British sapling, out of your moist soil, I dare say, no longer ago than last autumn. Mine, under a burning sky, long years since, in Judea, a land you never heard of. It came from a thorn-brake that had furnished thorns for a crown of which you know nothing. Which of these two staves would bud the quickest, if they were planted side by side?"
Hoel looked up, pleased to find something he understood. "Mine would, of course," he grinned out. "'Tis a right slip of mountain-ash, and would have leaves next spring, if I struck it into the ground."
"And what if mine now budded before you could count ten?"
"You jest with me where I see no jest," exclaimed the countryman, disposed now to be angry, "or you speak as one of the unwise."