A hundred and more people were coming toward the lime tree, the calvary beyond it, the church and monastery beyond the calvary. Dust rose from the road and that and the distance obscured detail. There seemed to be horsemen, but many on foot. All the people strung along the road now turned their heads that way. There ran a murmur of voices. But Garin stood in silence beneath the lime tree, from which were falling pale yellow leaves. He stood in a waking dream. Instead of Languedoc he saw Palestine—a Palestine of the imagination. He had listened to palmers’ tales, to descriptions given by preaching monks. Once a knight-templar had stayed two days with Raimbaut the Six-fingered, and the castle had hearkened, open-mouthed. So Garin had material. He saw a strange, fair land, and the Christian kingdoms and counties planted there; saw them as they were not or rarely were, or only might be; saw them dipped in glamour, saw them as a poet would, as that Prince Rudel did who took ship and went to find the Lady of Tripoli—and went to find the Lady of Tripoli.... The procession from the castle and the village beyond coming nearer, its component parts might clearly be discerned. In front walked two figures, and now it could be seen that they were both in white. “Ah, ah!” cried the girl beside the old man; and there were tears in her voice. “Sir Aimar that did not do the sin, goes like Sir Eudes—” The cripple would be lifted to his feet and held so. Grandson and daughter put hands beneath his arms and raised him. “So—so!” he said querulously. “And why shouldn’t the son go like a penitent if the father does? That’s only respect! But the young don’t respect us any longer—” The procession came close. There rode twenty horsemen, of whom three or four wore knights’ spurs, and the others were mounted men-at-arms and esquires. All wore, stitched upon the mantle, or the sleeve, or the breast of the tunic, crosses of white cloth. Behind these men came others, mounted, but without crosses or the appearance of travellers. They seemed neighbours to the lord of Panemonde, men of feudal rank, kinsmen and allies. Several might hold their land from him. There might be present his bailiff and also the knight or baron who had promised to care for Panemonde as though it were his own fief. In the rear of the train came the foot-people, castle retainers and servants, villagers, peasants, men, women and children, following their lord from Panemonde through the first stage of his travel over sea. Throughout the moving assemblage now there was solemn silence and now bursts of pious ejaculation, utterances of enthusiasm, adjurations to God, the Virgin and the Saints. Or, more poignant yet, there were raised chants of pilgrimage. When this was done the people along the roadside joined their voices. Moreover there were men and women who wept, and there were those who fell into ecstasy. Of all things in the world, in this age, emotion was the nearest at hand.