Their owner at first looked askance and with a somewhat peevish pride at the peasant keeping beside him. Garin had forgotten his garb and the station it assigned him. But the feeling, such as it was, seemed to drift out of the black-clad’s mind. “I grow weary,” he said, “and shall be glad to beg a night’s shelter.” “Have you travelled far?” “From Bologna.” “Bologna! That is in Italy.” “Yes. The University there. I am going to Paris. It may be that I shall go to Oxford.” “Ah,” said Garin, with respect. “I understand now why you were talking to yourself. You are a student.” “That am I. One day I may be Magister or Doctor.” He walked with a lifted gaze. “I serve toward that—and toward the gaining of Knowledge.” Garin was silent; then he said with some wistfulness, “I, too, would have learning and knowledge.” The other walked with a rapt gaze. “It is the true goddess,” he said, “it is the Great Love.” But Garin dissented from that with a shake of the head and a short laugh of rapture. The student turned his large eyes upon him. “You love a woman.—What is her name?” “I do not know,” said Garin. “Nor the features of her face, nor where she lives.” Suddenly as he moved, he made a name. “The Fair Goal,” he said, “I have named her now.” The interest of the man in black had been but momentary. “Study is a harsh mistress,” he said; “fair, but terrible! It would irk any pitying saint to see how we students fare! Hunger and cold and nakedness. Books, without warmth or cheer or light where we can con them. And we often want books and nowhere can procure them. We live in booths or in corners of other men’s dwellings, and none care to give us livelihood while we master knowledge. There were several thousand of us in Bologna, and in Paris there are more, and at Oxford they say there are many thousands. I have seen us go blind, and I have seen us die of hunger, and I have seen us unwitted—” “But you go on,” said Garin. “It is the only life,” answered the black mantle. They walked in silence. After a few moments a thought seemed to occur to the journeyer from Bologna. He looked more closely at his companion. “By your dress you are out of the fields. But your tongue speaks castle-wise.” Garin had his vanity of revealment. “My tongue is my own, but this dress is not,” he said; then, repenting his rashness, “Do not betray me! I am fleeing from trouble.” “No, I will not,” answered the student with simplicity. “I know trouble, and he is hard to escape. You are, perchance, a young knight?” “I was my lord’s esquire. But it is my meaning to become a knight.—I would make poems, too.” “Ah!” said the student, “a troubadour.” Garin made no answer, but the word sank in. He had a singing heart to-day. You could be knight and troubadour both. He wished now to write a beautiful song for the Fair Goal.