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Page 24
"Who are these people," I said, "whom one sometimes meets, who are so
far removed from all of us? What are they doing here?"
Amroth smiled. "So you have detected them!" he said. "You are quite
right, and it does your observation credit. But you must find it out for
yourself. I cannot explain, and if I could, you would not understand me
yet."
"Then I am not mistaken," I said, "but I wish you would give me a
hint--they seem to know something more worth knowing than all beside."
"Exactly," said Amroth. "You are very near the truth; it is staring you
in the face; but it would spoil all if I told you. There is plenty about
them in the old books you used to read--they have the secret of joy."
And that is all that he would say.
It was on a solitary ramble one day, outside of the place of delight,
that I came nearer to one of these people than I ever did at any other
time. I had wandered off into a pleasant place of grassy glades with
little thorn-thickets everywhere. I went up a small eminence, which
commanded a view of the beautiful plain with its blue distance and the
enamelled green foreground of close-grown coverts. There I sat for a
long time lost in pleasant thought and wonder, when I saw a man drawing
near, walking slowly and looking about him with a serene and delighted
air. He passed not far from me, and observing me, waved a hand of
welcome, came up the slope, and greeting me in a friendly and open
manner, asked if he might sit with me for a little.
"This is a pleasant place," he said, "and you seem very agreeably
occupied."
"Yes," I said, looking into his smiling face, "one has no engagements
here, and no need of business to fill the time--but indeed I am not sure
that I am busy enough." As I spoke I was regarding him with some
curiosity. He was a man of mature age, with a strong, firm-featured
face, healthy and sunburnt of aspect, and he was dressed, not as I was
for ease and repose, but with the garments of a traveller. His hat,
which was large and of some soft grey cloth, was pushed to his back, and
hung there by a cord round his neck. His hair was a little grizzled, and
lay close-curled to his head; in his strong and muscular hand he carried
a stick. He smiled again at my words, and said:
"Oh, one need not trouble about being busy until the time comes; that
is a feeling one inherits from the life of earth, and I am sure you have
not left it long. You have a very fresh air about you, as if you had
rested, and rested well."
"Yes, I have rested," I said; "but though I am content enough, there is
something unquiet in me, I am afraid!"
"Ah!" he said, "there is that in all of us, and it would not be well
with us if there were not. Will you tell me a little about yourself?
That is one of the pleasures of this life here, that we have no need to
be cautious, or to fear that we shall give ourselves away."
I told him my adventures, and he listened with serious attention.
"Ah, that is all very good," he said at last, "but you must not be in
any hurry; it is a great thing that ideas should dawn upon us
gradually--one gets the full truth of them so. It was the hurry of life
which was so bewildering--the shocks, the surprises, the ugly
reflections of one's conduct that one saw in other lives--the corners
one had to turn. Things, indeed, come suddenly even here, but one is led
up to them gently enough; allowed to enter the sea for oneself, not
soused and ducked in it. You will need all the strength you can store up
for what is before you, and I can see in your face that you are storing
up strength--but the weariness is not quite gone out of your mind."
He was silent for a little, musing, till I said, "Will you not tell me
some of your own adventures? I am sure from your look that you have
them; and you are a pilgrim, it seems. Where are you bound?"
"Oh," he said lightly, "I am not one of the people who have
adventures--just the journey and the talk beside the way."
"But," I said, "I have seen some others like you, and I am puzzled about
it. You seem, if I may say so--I do not mean anything disrespectful or
impertinent--to be like the gipsies whom one meets in quiet country
places, with a secret knowledge of their own, a pride too great to be
worth expressing, not anxious about life, not weary or dissatisfied,
caring not for localities or possessions, but with a sort of eager
pleasure in freedom and movement."
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