“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.”