IN a valley, hill-surrounded on all sides, with but a narrow passage between them to the north and to the south, stood on a time a hamlet. It clustered for the most part round the parish church, a small building, with a square low tower at one end. For all I know it stands there to this day, though most assuredly the houses then around it are done away with. This fact, an’ I were so minded, might lead me to inscribe sage reflections on the decay of life, and the passing of time. But I am by no means disposed so to weary you, for which mercy you will doubtless cry Deo gratias, or some such pious thanks. My business is merely to chronicle Peregrine’s wanderings on his quest, and to leave sage reflections to those more apt to deal with them.

Winter lay over the valley at this time. Snow massed upon the roads making them well-nigh impassable. Wise folk ventured not far afield, but, returning from enforced expeditions with speed, made themselves snug between four walls. Round the same walls the wind blew shrilly.

Within one of the cottages an old man sat crouched over a turf fire. A wizened old thing he was, his face crossed and recrossed with wrinkles, till it was like a withered brown apple. He stretched gnarled old hands to the blaze, hands hardened with many years of holding a spade. Folk said his heart was as hard as his hands. It may be they spoke truth. It is certain that if he had a heart, hard or soft, he kept it very well hidden. None speaking a good word of him, he spoke a good word of none. Give and it shall be given you, was his motto; which being interpreted meant, An’ you give to me, I will e’en give to you, an interpretation other than is usual to it. The motto was not likely to bring him any vast satisfaction, though doubtless he cheated himself into imagining that it did. At all events it was the one he had chosen, and that to his mind stood for something. You will perceive, too, that through it he saw himself against mankind, not mankind against him; that also stood for something. In his way he was a bit of a thinker. None knew this for certain, as he kept his thoughts, if he had any, to himself; but he was suspected of them. This was not in his favour. Thinking is for your student, your philosopher, your priest, possibly for your lord of the manor. It comes not into the life of a villain. Work, food, and sleep; sleep, food, and work are in the natural order of things; mayhap a prayer or two to Our Lady and the saints, and at the last, death, which, being more pitiful than life, is not ill welcome.

He had no kith nor kin; no one and nothing for which he cared, save his bees. Of these he had a goodly store, ten hives set in the garden behind his hovel,—it was little else. In the summer they made music around him while he tilled the soil. He found their droning very pleasant to his ears. By virtue of this goodly possession he was called Simon of the Bees. The title was dear to him, though no man dreamed it. Here was the sole thing mankind had ever bestowed on him which afforded him pleasure; yet, since the bestowal was of careless custom rather than of charity aforethought, it was deserving of no reward. Such was his reasoning. It was a matter of occasional speculation in the village as to whom Simon would will his bees on his death, having no kin. It remained, however, speculation; and was like to do so.

On this winter night Simon, warming his hands over the fire, and muttering now and again to himself, was roused from his muttering by a blow on the door. He got slowly to his feet, grumbling the while, and drew back the wooden bolt which made it fast. Without, in the darkness, he saw a cloaked figure standing in the wind-driven snow.

“Shelter, for the love of heaven,” said a man’s voice.

“I am none so sure of the love,” responded Simon, and made to shut the door. In this he was frustrated by the sudden swaying of the figure, which fell very prone across his threshhold, feet and legs without, head and shoulders on the mud floor of the hovel.

“A very unceremonious entry,” grumbled Simon. And he stood for a moment irresolute. The man could not lie where he was, since his bulk upon the step made it impossible to close the door. The wind blew the smoke in eddying waves about the room. In a moment you could scarce see a hand’s breadth before your face. To push him without meant his death on a very certainty. Directly or indirectly Simon had never yet had the murder of a man on his soul, whatever sins else burdened it. Grumbling more heartily he got his hands under the man’s arms, and tugged him forward into the room. Then he made the door fast again.

The smoke now making its way through the hole in the roof, the air cleared somewhat. Simon looked down upon the prostrate figure.

“An’ he dies within ’twere e’en less pleasant than he died without,” he muttered. He got water in a horn cup, and held it to the man’s lips, forcing it between them. In a moment or so the man opened his eyes, lifted himself feebly on his elbow, and looked around.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“No more original than the rest of men,” muttered Simon. “There never yet was swooning man but asked his whereabouts on coming to himself. Doubtless fearing to find himself in a less pleasant place than he is accustomed to. An’ you would know, you are in the shelter you demanded.”

“I thank you.”

Simon shrugged his shoulders. “No thanks are due. You forced an entry.”

“You might have pushed me without.”

“And have had your death on my soul. ’Twould be a heavier burden than I’ve a mind for.” He seated himself again by the fire. The man watched him from the floor.

“Who you are I know not,” said Simon, “where you come from I care less, but that you must bide here the night is obvious.”

“I am rejoiced you see it so,” was the reply. “My name is Peregrine, a Jester, at your service. Since I bide here the night ’twere well we were acquainted, in spite of your little caring.”

Simon grunted. “A Jester! A pretty jest it would have been for me an’ you had died on my threshhold. What caused you swoon?”

“Hunger,” said Peregrine very simply.

Simon looked at him from beneath shaggy eyebrows. Then he got slowly to his feet. From a shelf he fetched a plate of dark bread.

“Eat,” he said briefly, holding it towards him.

Peregrine fell ravenously upon the coarse food. A moment Simon watched him, then turned again to the shelf. From it he took a piece of honeycomb.

“Here,” he said gruffly, “’tis toothsome stuff.”

Peregrine took it from him. “I thank you heartily,” he made reply. Simon grunted, and went back to his seat. From it he watched Peregrine devour the bread and honeycomb, lick his fingers of the sticky sweetness. The simple meal finished, Peregrine looked across at his host.

“Will you give me your name?” asked Peregrine.

“Simon of the Bees, men call me,” was the reply given with a regal carelessness. Neither the regality, nor the would-be carelessness of the answer escaped Peregrine.

“A goodly title,” he responded, “to which I am doubtless indebted for a sweet meal.”

Simon grunted.

“I like bees,” said Peregrine.

Simon grunted again. It was his nearest approach to conversation. Peregrine took it as such.

“Diligent little atoms,” pursued Peregrine, “busy on their own pursuits. Faithful too; each choosing its own kind of flower it sticks to it like a true man to his love. Fearing no one, they dislike those that fear them, and show their dislike accordingly.”

Simon grunted a third time, but approvingly. He found in Peregrine an observer of his favourites. A silence endured a little space; then Simon put a question showing interest in his guest. This was marvel, had Peregrine but known.

“What brought you hither?”

“Humph!” said Peregrine. “That is none too easy a question to answer. Maybe a dream, maybe a reality. At times I have thought that which brought me on my wanderings but the airy nothingness of which dreams are fashioned; at times I have known it for more, seen in my pursuit the one solid and sane action of my life.”

Simon gave vent to his usual grunt. “You tell me little. What is it you pursue?”

“A woman.”

“I might have known it.” Simon laughed mockingly.

“She is not as other women,” said Peregrine musing. “She has quiet eyes.”

“Truly!” said Simon.

“I saw her in a dream,” went on Peregrine. “Now I seek her.”

Again Simon laughed. “On your own showing the quest savours of madness. A woman with quiet eyes, forsooth, once seen in a young man’s dream! An’ that is all you have to go on, how think you to find her?”

“I know not,” said Peregrine very quiet.

“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.”

Peregrine mused, his eyes on the glowing turf. “Methinks I find your simile not over apt. An’ a child of our flesh die, we may see God’s Hand in the death. An’ a hope of our heart die, mayhap we are the murderers.”

Simon turned on him half savagely. “Is a mother a murderer that her babe dies in her arms for lack of the milk in her breasts, an’ she’d give her life’s blood for it would it avail? Methinks you must look somewhat further.”

Peregrine was silent. Here he found no answer to give.

“Sixty year and more I’ve lived here in this hovel,” went on Simon, “and never a kindly word spoken to me. I might be the plague itself for the way men eye me. From boyhood ’twas the same. Mayhap ’tis something bred in me they shun. Yet, for all that, I nurtured hope for twenty year; dreamed, as you dream now. At last I had naught left on which to nourish it. It shrivelled and died. I saw it twist in agony, for ’twas no easy death. When it was dead I laughed that it had ever lived. Hope, I tell you, dying in a man’s soul rots there, turns his soul foul. Better strangle it before it comes to birth. Then you can rid yourself of it. Later you cannot; and dying it lies there to canker and decay.” He stopped, and again Peregrine could find no answer. The wind sighed through the trees without; all else was silence.

“Did you speak?” asked Simon suddenly.

“No,” said Peregrine startled, “yet methought——”

“Fancy,” said Simon shortly.

“Nay,” said Peregrine listening. “It was as a voice from far off places. Ego sum resurrectio et vita, it said.”

“The wind sighing in the trees brings voices to a man’s fancy,” returned Simon crossly.

“And yet—” said Peregrine wondering.

“I too have dreamed,” retorted Simon. “Hope, I tell you, is dead within my soul. Yet—yet one fancy remains. An’ it be not wholly foul, an’ there be one spot of sweetness left within it e’er I die, perchance ’twill be carried hence by my singing bees. A mad fancy, and I am e’en mad to dream it. ’Tis cankered through and through. We have had enough of jargon for the time. An’ you would sleep, there’s your couch.” He pointed to a heap of dried bracken in a corner of the room.

Peregrine rose from the floor, crossed to the bracken, and lay down. Simon sat motionless by the fire. Without, the wind sighed among the trees in the valley.

A sound in the room roused Peregrine the next morning. He looked up to see Simon standing by the open doorway. Without, the dim world was carpetted in snow.

“You made good slumber,” said Simon turning and seeing him awake.

“Exceeding good,” responded Peregrine refreshed and cheerful. “And how fared you?”

“As needful,” grunted Simon.

“I must onward,” said Peregrine.

“Still mad,” grumbled Simon. “You must eat first.”

He produced more bread and honeycomb. They mealed in silence. The meal ended, Peregrine got to his feet.

“An’ gratitude were substantial reward,” he said, “you were very substantially rewarded. ’Tis all I have to offer.”

“’Tis rare enough to be appreciated,” said Simon very grim.

Peregrine laughed. “I bid you adieu,” he said. He had got to the door when Simon came beside him.

“An’ you would find her you seek,” he said, “seek her in death’s chamber. She closes the eyes of the dead.”

“What mean you?” asked Peregrine. “You speak in parable.”

“No parable; in very truth. She has passed through this village more than once.”

“You have seen her, and yet you term me mad,” cried Peregrine.

Simon laughed. “I have spoken,” he said, and turned within the hovel.