y were with. These inscrutable
people puzzled me very much. I asked Amroth about them once.

"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