Father Felix surveyed him with kindly blue eyes; Peregrine returned the glance with eyes no less blue.
“Have you come from far?” asked Father Felix, blinking towards the sunset reflection in the eastern sky. Yet, for all his blinking, methinks he saw a good deal.
“Recently from the forest,” said Peregrine. “I have been dwelling there some weeks past.”
The old man smiled. “Then you are a bit of a hermit like myself. Will you not be seated?” He moved slightly on the bench; at the same time indicated a tree stump near him, thereby giving a choice of seats. Peregrine chose the tree stump.
“And before the forest?” asked Father Felix. “That is if you will see interest rather than curiosity in my queries?”
“Before the forest I was a wanderer,” returned Peregrine. Then he pushed back the hood of his cloak, threw it somewhat from his shoulders. “You see in me an outcaste fool.” There was a faint ring of challenge in the words.
“Hmm,” mused Father Felix gently, his eyes twinkling. “A fool by whose standard? An outcaste from what company? Methinks there lies the test as to whether the title with which you have branded yourself may not be a badge of glory rather than of shame.”
Peregrine looked straight before him. “A fool by the standard of men, and by mine own. An outcaste from the Court where I played the fool.”
“Since you judge yourself a fool by your own standard, you are assuredly in the way of becoming something greater,” said Father Felix quietly. “For the standard of men, I pay not over much heed to that measure when applied to their fellow-mortals. As to the matter of outcaste,” he looked at him very straightly, “an’ you be not outcaste from God, I see in the business less of a boggle than you perchance see.”
“An’ I were an outcaste from Him?” queried Peregrine very low.
“Then, my son, the quicker you set about returning to Him the better,” quoth Father Felix briskly.
A silence fell on these words. If Peregrine had answer to make it was at the moment no verbal one. The old man having said his say let the matter bide. The light in the sky faded, cooled to a pale blue-grey very restful to contemplate. A star came out over the forest. Big and luminous it hung in the clear space.