The beggar struck the ground with his staff.
“I’m hungry,” he said like a bark. “I want some supper and some dinner and all the way back to breakfast before I help the king, world or no world!”
And suddenly little Peter understood what it is to be hungry, and that, if folk were hungry, they must first find means of feeding themselves before they could listen. So he gave the beggar all that he had of food in his packet, which was the least that he could do, and sent him on his way, charging him with the message.
At the top of the hill, Peter came on another man, sitting under a sycamore tree. The man was a youth, and very beautiful, and he was making a little song, which went like this:—
“Open, world, your trembling petals slowly,
Here one, there one, natal to its hour,
Toward the time when, holden in a vessel holy,
You shall be a flower.”
Though Peter did not know what the song might mean, yet it fell sweetly upon the night, and he liked to listen. And when it was done, he went and stood before the youth.
“Sir,” he said, “the world is beginning. You must go and help the king.”