The faintest grey light fell through the square opening which served as window. He sank back prepared for further sleep, when on a sudden he found himself more fully awake. He sat up, and again looked round the hut. The bunches of herbs dangling from their string looked ghostly in the grey light. Oswald, lying on a bed of bracken, slept soundly. Peregrine got up from his couch, donned his clothes, barely conscious that he did so. His mind was busily astir; though as yet his thoughts had found no conscious articulation. Being clad, he took a chunk of bread from a shelf. This much he knew his host would have freely given him. Then he moved softly to the door, opened it. The forest lay in the quiet which reigns most supremely betwixt night and dawn. For some moments he stood looking towards the great trees, then stepped without, closed the door softly behind him. * * * * * Now, an’ you were to ask me for reasons as to why Peregrine left the hut at this very moment, I must e’en tell you frankly that where fifty instincts urged him to the move there was no one definite reason. This may seem folly; but verily, to my thinking, there are moments in a man’s life when he does better to obey the lightest instinct than the closest reasoning. We are come now to a time in our Jester’s wanderings when I see myself penning that which actually befell him, rather than the thoughts which led him to action. It may be that you will guess at those thoughts, having had some such of your own. An’ you cannot trace them in his actions, I see not any words of mine setting them clearly before you. Having put some half-dozen miles or so between himself and the hut, he began to feel sleepy. Coming to a mossy stretch beneath a great oak, he lay down. Three minutes saw him wrapped in slumber, and he slept soundly. When he awakened it was high noon. The sun fell through the oak branches, clear upon the place where he lay. For a time longer he rested, revelling in the warmth of its beams. Anon he sat up; ate a portion of the bread he had brought with him. All around him was intensely still. Before him were massed bluebells, a soft luminous carpet. Brilliant nearer him, they lost themselves anon in the hazy distances among the trees. He sat a while gazing at them. He wandered through the forest that day; at night made it his resting-place. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXIX EASTER EVE AND EASTER MORNING EARLY the next morning Peregrine was again afoot. Coming at length from among the trees, he found himself on a hillside. Below him was a hamlet, a small cluster of some dozen or so cottages nestling at the foot of the hill. Later, an’ he would, he might seek food at one of them; at the moment he had bread sufficient to stay hunger, and had little mind to find himself again in the company of men.