A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating? Fairy ships rocking with pink sails and white Smoothly as swans on a river of light Saw I a-floating? No, it was apple-bloom, rosy and fair, Softly obeying the nod of the air I saw a-floating. A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating? White clouds at eventide blown to and fro Lightly as bubbles the cherubim blow, Saw I a-floating? No, it was pretty girls gowned like a flower Blown in a ring round their own apple-bower I saw a-floating. Or was it my dream, my dream only--who knows?-- As frail as a snowflake, as flushed as a rose, I saw a-floating? A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating? Martin sang, and the milkmaids danced, and Gillian in her prison only heard the dropping of her tears, and only saw the rainbow prisms on her lashes. But presently she laid her cheek against her hand, and missed a touch she knew; and on that revealed her lovely face so full of woe, that Martin needs must comfort her or weep himself. And the dancers took no heed when he made one step across the gate and went under the trees to the Well-House. "Oh, Mother, Mother!" sighed Gillian, "if you had only lived they would never have stolen the ring from my finger while I sat heartsick." Above her head a whispering voice replied, "Oh, Daughter, Daughter, mend your dear heart! You shall wear this other ring when yours is gone over the duckpond to Adversane." Oh wonder! Out of the very heavens fell a silver ring into her bosom. And if that night Gillian slept not, neither wept she. PART III In the beginning of the first week in September Martin Pippin came once more to Adversane, and he said to himself when he saw it: "Now this is the prettiest hamlet I ever had the luck to light on in my wanderings. And if chance or fortune will, I shall some day come this way again." While he was thinking these thoughts, his ears were assailed by groans and sighs, so that he wet his finger and held it up to find which way the wind blew on this burning day of blue and gold. But no wind coming, he sought some other agency for these gusts, and discovered it in a wheat-field where was a young fellow stooking sheaves. A very young fellow he was, turned copper by the sun; and as he stooked he heaved such sighs that for every shock he stooked two tumbled at his feet. When Martin had seen this happen more than once he called aloud to the harvester. "Young master!" said Martin, "the mill that grinds your grain will need no wind to its sails, and that's flat." The young man looked up from his labors to reply. "There are no mill-stones in all the world," said he, "strong enough to grind the grain of my grief." "Then I would save these gales till they may be put to more use," remarked Martin, "and if I remember rightly you wear a lady's ring on your little finger, though I cannot remember her name or yours." "Her heavenly name is Gillian," said the youth, "and mine is Robin Rue."