He knew this, but he knew also that he himself had reached a clearness of vision of which nothing could deprive him. He had seen the land very far off, and henceforth his eyes could see no other. He was vowed to the highest, as men had been in days of knighthood, and he must follow the gleam wheresoever it led. To his father it would all seem the wildest folly; no doubt in that forgotten dream-time of the world, to men bartering in the market-place or reaping in the fields, young Sir Galahad must have seemed mad as he rode past singing, into the haunted forest. It would be no better now; nay, it would be far worse, for was not the world one vast clamorous marketplace, no longer merely disdainful but actively antagonistic to the dreamer? Not that he was worthy to rank himself with the Sir Galahads; he was merely a boy, intoxicated with the new wine of love and life; but nevertheless he had his ideal of what life should be, and he meant to pursue it. To one thing at least he had attained--he was not afraid of poverty. Hilary Vickars had taught him that, by showing him how little outward circumstance can affect the inner peace of the soul. And when all things are said and done, perhaps that is the greatest truth that a youth can learn, for if it does not necessarily produce heroism, it at least makes it possible. For it is through fear of poverty that men sell their souls; and not until that ignoble fear is gone does the soul have a chance to live. But he did not wish to challenge his father to the conflict till the proper hour came. The clash must come, but he would leave the foreseen moment in the hands of time. It could not be long delayed, but he would not anticipate it. And in so determining he was thinking of his father rather than himself. His father might be wholly wrong in his method of life, but that old sense of his father's bigness still dominated him. Primeval, proud, scarred with savage conflict, he saw his father rise before him; he could not but admire even while he censured; and simply because he knew that it was in his power to wound the giant in a vital part, he was afraid to strike.