They moved along the bank of the stream. “We go north,” said Garin’s mind. “Will she go to the King at Paris?” But he waited without question until she was ready to say. Jongleur and herd-girl, they walked through the grey and dewy world. The trees now stood further apart, they were coming to open ground. To their right the east showed stripes of carnation. The cocks crew again; the mutter and murmur of the night suddenly took height and depth, became inarticulate clamour of the day and an encamped, huge host. The light strengthened. Between the stems of trees they saw, at no great distance, huts and booths of autumn branches. They stood still for a little in the flush of the brightening dawn—divers regarding the sea into which they were to plunge, the sea whose every wave was inimical. They looked, then, each turning a little, their eyes met. It was but for a moment; immediately they went forward. Elias of Montaudon was all dusk and green of garb, and dusk of brow and cheek. But his dagger hung in a gilt sheath and his lute by a red ribbon, and his eyes were grey with glints of blue. Jael the herd, too, was hued like a Martinmas leaf, and her hair hung over her bosom and to her knee, in long, dusk braids. The jongleur had a vision of dark hair loosened and spread in elf-lock and wave, half hiding a face more girlish than this face, but as this face might have been, eight years agone. Impossibilities—dreams, phantasies, magic somewhere, impossibilities! They were now almost clear of the broken ground and the remnant of wood. They looked back and saw Roche-de-Frêne lifted against the solemn sky; stood still and for a minute or more gazed, and as though the walls were glass, viewed the tense life within. “Did you ever see Richard of Aquitaine?” asked the herd-girl. “No,” answered the jongleur, and felt a momentary wonder, then the dawn of a conjecture. The herd-girl turned again to their wandering and he followed her, then walked beside her.... Leaving the last group of trees, they came with suddenness upon a little pebbly shore of the stream and upon half a dozen women, kneeling and beginning the washing of clothes. Several ragged children sat by a fire of sticks and made an outcry when the two came from the wood. The women looked up. “Hè! a jongleur!” cried one. “Come trill me a love-lay while I wash my sergeant’s one shirt!” Elias and Jael came near, sat by the fire of sticks, and felt the warmth pleasant. The first drew his hand across the strings of his lute and sang:— “Sweet May, come! the lovers’ sweet season. In May Love seems the height of reason! Try your love when the year grows older, The birds depart and the earth is colder.—” He stopped. “Saint Michael! the mist is yet in my throat. Your fire, gossips, is the sweet, crackling singer—” One of the women sat back upon her heels, and, hands on hips, regarded the two. “From what camp are you? You are not of our camp?”