A little later Pierrebon, who was indulging his appetite for a good sleep, awoke from his nap, and discovered it was time to be moving. So, fording the river, we took our way north. Towards sunset we saw the walls of the priory of Ile Bouchard, around which clustered the houses of the village, like barnacles to a galley's side. On arrival here I craved the hospitality of the good monks for the night, and this was readily afforded us. Early the following morning, having bidden farewell to our kind hosts, we looked our last on the grey pile, half monastery and half fortress, and went our way through the stunted forest that straggled downward to the Vienne. Between these narrow strips of woodland, through which the path wound, rose ragged knolls clad in short, dark green juniper, and here and there were bright splashes of colour, where flowering wild weeds clustered at the bases of the brown ribs of rock that stood up starkly over all. We crossed the river by the ferry between Auche and Riviere, where the little Veude falls into the Vienne, and halted for a space on a bluff to survey the landscape. At this hour of the morning, with the air so gay, the sky so blue, and the sun so bright, the lights were still soft enough to allow the whole beauty of the scene to be strongly felt. At our feet the river went dancing along in a sweeping blue curve, its left bank clothed with rich vineland, and on its right a belt of forest--the outskirts of the forest of Chinon--which stretched, a sea of green, grey, and dim, mysterious purples, to the far-distant Loire. There, on its wooded height, the pentice roofs glistening in the sunlight, stood Chinon, with its triple castle, so full of the memories of history; and all around spread the wide Tourangeais. "Tourangeaux, Angevins Bons esprits et bons vins," sang Capus, grizzled old war-dog though he was, and, the spirit of the morning seizing us, we urged our horses down the slope, and scurried through the forest towards Chinon.