AN’ you knew Greatoak Forest,—a vast place and well named by reason of its trees,—you might perchance have heard rumour of its recluse. Men spoke of him as a tall man, clad in a white woollen garment, feeding on roots and berries, and in league with mysterious powers.

This was but half truth, as such rumours are like to be. That he was a tall man may be safely accorded; that he wore a white woollen garment fashioned after the manner of a sleeved cloak, and girt about the waist with a leathern belt, may be also accorded. Given these two matters, further rumour was not over accurate. Forest roots and berries he would have found poor sustenance for his muscular body. He gained better nourishment from the wheat and vegetables he grew in the ground around his cabin; from snared rabbits, dressed and seasoned with herbs and onions. At leaguing with mysterious powers he would have laughed frankly and very truly. Nature was the goddess he worshipped, and he saw in her an all-sufficient mistress.

In body he was tall and muscular, as you have seen. In face he was dark and sunburned, having something of a foreign mien. Black hair covered his head; his eyes, grey and far-seeing, looked straight upon the world unflinching. Clear eyes they were, having the look of seeing more than was physically apparent. They would gaze at you very frankly after the manner of a man who has nothing to hide, and yet you found yourself no nearer knowledge of the mind of the gazer in meeting them. No doubt this last lent a hand in giving colour to the rumour of mystery, though truly that he was seldom seen beyond the forest was mystery enough for peasant folk. Your coarser man dwells willingly in herds, save when he is injured. Then it is his instinct to creep away from sight after the manner of some wounded beast.

Oswald was his name: and Oswald the Recluse men called him. He was seldom seen, as I have told you. Now and again men had glimpses of him, this at dawn or sunset, walking some distant hillside. Boys penetrating the depths of the forest in search of birds’ nests brought back word of him sitting by his cabin door, very still and silent. Yet none ventured within distance of discovery by him; or fancied they did not. Had they guessed at the alert mind within the still body, they had known their presence less hidden than they fondly imagined.

It disturbed him no more than the scampering of a squirrel up a tree, or the rustle of a dormouse among dried leaves. These brown-faced youngsters, peering shyly curious from among bush and bracken, were to him but part and parcel of the great stream of Nature’s life around him. They were young enough to have no conscious separation from it. They took hunger and sleepiness in the natural course of things, neither denying the one nor combating the other. He saw in them merely young animals, unselfconscious though shy of the unknown: in this case of himself. It was with your grown man that, for the most part, he knew himself in lack of sympathy; those who neither consciously nor unconsciously accept Nature as their mistress, nor see their own lordship of her: those who grumble and carp at her decrees, master neither of her nor of themselves.

In this mastery alone he saw full freedom of spirit. I have told you that he worshipped Nature; that she was his mistress. This is true. But it was the worship a man gives to the woman who is his mate as well as his goddess; who knows himself her lord even while he does her willing homage.

One night, standing before his cabin door, he surveyed the stars. The air was still and frosty: the quiet of the sleeping forest lay around him. This was the hour he felt his own most fully; himself awake, alive, while Nature slept. Even the trees were wrapt to slumber, very motionless, their bare branches darkly outlined against the luminous sky. There was no moon: among the brighter stars the Milky Way flung her whitely powdered track, a far-off illimitable path. Immensity around him, his soul winged dauntless out to it.

Suddenly he came back to earth, very alert, on the scent of an intruder. You would have declared all around to be silent, still as the grave: Oswald stood with head bent, listening intently. The minutes passed: from far off came the lightest stirring of the undergrowth, a mere rustle as of the faintest breath of wind. Muscles tensioned, Oswald raised his head, looked towards the place whence the sound had come. Now it grew more distinct; there was the snapping of a twig. Suddenly from among the trees stepped a tall man, dark-cloaked. The two confronted each other, hostile for the moment.

Oswald broke the silence, since truly it behooved one of them to break it.

“Who are you?” he asked, putting the most natural question, and the one that came readiest to his tongue.

“One, Peregrine,” replied the intruder. “Truly an’ you are surprised to see me, which I take it you be, I am none less surprised to see you. Are you spirit or mortal?”

“Very much mortal,” returned Oswald laughing. “And mortal enough to be frankly startled by your appearance. I look not for wayfarers so far afield, and at this hour.”

Peregrine gazed around him. In the moonlight he saw the cabin; a rough place enough, built of logs and wattles.

“You live here?” he asked wondering.

“I do. An’ you would have rest and shelter you are welcome to what I can offer you.”

“I accept your offer gladly,” said Peregrine. “I have walked far enough for the nonce,—over far for that matter.”

“Then the sooner you come to a halt the better,” returned Oswald. And he led the way within the cabin.

For all its roughness it was clean and freshsmelling, holding a scent of peat, bracken, and dried herbs, which latter dangled in bunches from a string across one corner. A peat fire lighted the place dimly, flinging great shadows on the log walls.

“Sit you there,” said Oswald, pointing to a heap of bracken; and forthwith busied himself with the preparation of food.

Ere long he had it ready,—crushed corn mixed with goat’s milk and boiled to a smooth paste, sweetened with honey. He ladled it steaming from an iron pot into two bowls fashioned from the dried and seasoned rind of a pumpkin. Peregrine wolfed it down; you could see he brought hunger to it as a very excellent sauce. For drink, Oswald made a beverage from herbs of his own gathering, a dark brew but not unpalatable. Anon, filled and rested, Peregrine gave vent to a great sigh.

“That,” he said, “was exceeding welcome. You saw me pretty near the end of my tether.”

Oswald nodded. “So I fancied. You had been journeying long?”

“It’s five months or thereabouts since I found myself beneath a roof. You lose track of time with naught but the look of the fields to guide you.”

“An’ you trust to so scant guidance you may find yourself sadly astray,” returned Oswald. “I keep count with these tallies.” He lifted a bundle of twelve hazel rods from a corner. One was notched the whole length, another but half way.

“From your marking I judge us to be now near the middle of February,” said Peregrine eyeing the bundle.

“You judge correctly; the sixteenth day to be accurate.”

“I had thought it earlier.”

“That is where your mere observation of the fields makes bad guess-work, since the weather has a hand in the reckoning,” quoth Oswald calmly. “Take to my method. A tally a month will suffice you to carry around, and a notch in the outer side of the next one to mark the casting away of the last.”

“No bad idea,” returned Peregrine. And a silence fell.

Oswald watched him. He was quick to read slight tokens anywhere, whether of character in a man’s face, or the hint of weather’s change in sky, wind, or flower. He saw him a man not wholly content with life, yet not fully aware of the fact himself. He saw in him something of an anomaly,—a dreamer without a dream, a traveller without a goal. This is unsatisfactory an’ Nature has made of you a dreamer; Fate, or yourself, thrust you forth to travel.

“Whither were you faring when you chanced on this place?” he asked presently.

“Nowhere,” returned Peregrine. “Once having a goal in view, which I found on nearer approach to be pure moonshine, I sought no other. I wander now where fancy leads me.”

Oswald shook his head. “Fancy is too moody a jade for my guide. At times she leads in hot haste with no consideration for him who follows. At times she stays moping, forcing a man to idle in one spot at her will.”

At this Peregrine demurred. “I see her will and mine in accord,” quoth he.

Oswald laughed, denying the argument firmly. “You may think so, but ’tis not the case. An’ you take her for guide, you have no will in the matter, or rather, make it subservient to hers. An’ a man use his own will, he makes a slave of fancy.” He paused a moment, then continued. “How know you your goal mere moonshine? Did you gain it?”

“Near enough to know it non-existent, naught but a fancy of the brain.”

Oswald moved impatiently. “There you are back at your fancy. I told you she was no good guide.”

“In this case she was not of my own seeking.”

“You speak in riddles,” said Oswald. “You may think me over-blunt, but, if a man speak in riddles, methinks he has little to tell. Fact will bear plain words and close handling.”

Peregrine looked at him. He was not displeased with his bluntness. He saw in him one who came to a grip with matters. Mayhap, he lost hold on a part of what he gripped at, since a man’s grasp is not over-large; nevertheless he saw him making sure of what he grasped.

“You shall have the story plainly,” said Peregrine. And forthwith gave it to him.

On the conclusion Oswald made no answer, but remained half-musing. When at last he spoke it was as though he conferred with himself.

“I too have had glimpse of the woman you seek. I, too, sought her, moved Heaven and Earth and Hell to that end, and came no nearer finding her. Now frankly, I know not whether she is mortal or spirit. This much I know truly: she is no fancy as you have said. Spirit she may be, and probably is, though I still give the benefit of the doubt to her mortal nature,—if the doubt be benefit. Of that I am none too sure. This further conclusion I have come to also; she is not to be found for all our seeking. An’ she come again willingly,—mortal or spirit,—as she came once in glimpse, ’twill be her affair, not ours. For my part, I dwell in my memory of her. That she is existent suffices me. I seek no further knowledge of her save at her own will.” He stopped. Then a moment later he continued. “I see her eyes in the moonlit pools of the forest; her purple veil in the spreading of the twilight; her presence in the quiet of the night. This much my momentary sight of her has given me, and for the gift I am thankful.”

“Then you hold the sight no illusion?” asked Peregrine.

“None,” said Oswald calmly. “I will put the matter plainly. An’ a blind man be restored to sight at sundown, he may get a glimpse of the sun as it sinks behind the hills. The morning may dawn cloudy; and throughout the day, and even succeeding days, he may get no sight of its further glory. But it was no illusion that he had seen it, and will see it again when the clouds disperse. But he can have no more hand in dispersing the clouds, than he can have in changing the course of the sun behind them. There’s the matter as I take it. You may journey the length and breadth of the world, and come no nearer her. You must wait her own coming again.”

Peregrine thought awhile; found a certain solace in Oswald’s words. At length he spoke.

“Yet the boy saw her. And I, though present, saw her not.”

“That bears out my thought that she is spirit,” said Oswald, “but does not prove her fancy. Though doubtless you rubbed illusion well into the child’s mind.”

Peregrine was silent. Shame struck on him.

“Having ever held her purely material you were like to do so,” said Oswald calmly. “You were less actually blameworthy than over precipitate. Since I hold her to be spirit you were probably beyond the range of sight of her. I do not say this of a surety since I hold that sight of her comes at her will rather than ours; but I do say, that had man or child given me as great proof of knowledge of her as yon child gave you, I had followed most closely in his steps, seen eye to eye with him as near as might be. On your own showing you stood far from him.”

Peregrine was still silent. He felt himself more than fool.

Oswald eyed him kindly. “Do not be downcast, man. There’s no mother’s son of us but blunders once—aye, often more than once, and that, perchance, within a foot of our goal. Recognizing that, there’s humiliation to add to the wounds and fatigue of the journey. This, bringing discouragement, makes acquiescence in failure the easier course. ’Tis the coward’s outlook. Face the matter again. In this case I say, take courage; believe in her, and await her coming.”

The words brought comfort to Peregrine. He looked gratefully at his mentor. You might have seen trust in his eyes. The personality and confidence of the man gave him strength.

“An’ you take my advice,” said Oswald, “you will sleep now. New hope comes with the morning.”

He showed him a bed of bracken, made him lie down. Then himself laid down at the other side of the cabin.

It was long before Peregrine slept. Thoughts pursued each other pell-mell through his brain, one alone predominant and lasting enough to grasp, namely, that in his host he had found comprehension of the matter that absorbed him, and sanity combined. This thought at length brought him rest. An hour or so before daybreak he slept.