Garin moved down the stream seeking for a place that should seize his fancy. The eagerness with which he had risen and sallied forth disappeared. They would have enough for the Abbot and his train—more than enough. At times he cared for fishing, but not, he found, to-day. Why then fish, if there was no need? He still carried the rod, but he continued to walk, making no motion to stop and put it into use. There was a foot-path by the stream, and it and the gliding water led him on. He wanted to think, or, more truly, to dream. Back in the black castle all was topsy-turvy, and Foulque concerned only with family fortunes. Now Garin walked, and now he leaned against some tree and gazed at the flowing water; but on the whole he moved forward with such steadiness that before the sun was much above the tree-tops the foot-path ceased, having brought him to a great round stone and an overhanging pine, and the end, on this side, of the fief of Castel-Noir. Beyond came a strip of stony and unprofitable land, a debated possession, claimed by two barons and of no especial use to any man. Garin threw himself down upon the boundary stone and, chin in hand, regarded the sliding stream. It was this stone, perhaps, that brought into mind Tuesday’s boulder and the jongleur. Rather than the jongleur came the figure of the jongleur’s lute. Garin’s fingers moved as though they felt beneath them the strings. A verse was running, running through his head. Only after a slow, lilting, inward saying of it over twice or thrice did it come to him, like the opening of a flower, that it was his own, not another’s. He had made it, lying there. He rose from the stone and walked forward, still going with the gliding stream. As he walked, the second verse came to him. He said over the two, said over his first poem and said it over again, tasting it, savouring it, hearing it now with music. He was in a dream of dawn.... There was no longer a path, but he went on over the stony soil, beneath old gnarled and stunted trees. The sun rode high and made the water a flood of diamonds. Garin walked with a light and rapid step. When a tree came in his way he swerved and rounded it and went on, but he was hardly conscious that it had been there. The fishing-rod was yet in his hand, but he did not think of the rod, nor of fishing, nor of Castel-Noir, nor Foulque, nor the abbot, nor of the decision which the abbot’s visit would force. He hardly knew of what he was thinking. It was diffused,—the world was diffused,—drifting and swinging, and in the mist he touched a new power. A hawk shot downwards, plunged beak in water, rose with the taken fish and soared into the eye of day. Garin started, shook himself, and looked about him. He had come farther than he meant. He half-turned, then stood irresolute, then again faced downstream. The day was not old, and a distaste seized him for going back and listening to Foulque on what the abbot might or might not do. He wandered on.