Chapter VI.
YET MORE OF THE HERMIT, AND OF A WORD THAT WAS IN YWAIN'S EARS.

IN the morning when they had arisen they went out of the house and came to the stream, for the hermit said that they should bathe in it, and he showed Ywain a pool that was deep enough. Then they did off their clothes hastily and threw themselves into the water after the manner of otters, and at a stroke they came to the top of the pool. And there was a little waterfall there, and the stream of it carried them down, and they touched the stones and crept out upon them. Then they took the water again more strongly and came right to the waterfall and stood beneath it, and it splashed upon their heads and divided the hair like a cold knife. And at that they laughed together and so threw themselves back and were carried down again, and they came quickly to their clothes, blowing with their breath and shivering. But when they had run to the house they were warm and fresh.

Then the hermit set two bowls of milk with bread upon the table. And Ywain was glad of the sight of that food, and he sat where the murmuring of the stream came in at the window, and a soft air with it, and the world was made new for him. But he ate and drank with few words, for he was thinking within himself how that tomorrow had come and he knew not yet whether to go or stay. And often in his thinking he looked at the hermit, and the hermit looked kindly back at him, and nodded: and it was as though he nodded to Ywain’s thought, but he spoke nothing with his lips. Yet at one time there was a voice, and Ywain heard it plainly: and the voice said: For delight men stay, but for desire they go forth. And he looked hard at the hermit, and the hermit nodded again to him, as though he also had heard that voice, and knew it to say truth: but he spoke nothing with his lips.

Then Ywain said aloud: Surely I heard a voice and it was not your voice nor mine, yet it seemed to me that I heard it not in my imagination but in my ears.

And the hermit said: I also heard it, and before this I have heard many such, and no great wonder; for in all solitude there will be voices, as in all still water there will be visions.

And as Ywain heard those words he believed them, and he thought on still water, but found none in his remembrance: only he saw before him the picture of the stream, wherein he had but now been bathing, and the course of it was all racing and burbling, and where it lay more still, even there froth turned and drew together upon the face of it. And he asked the hermit boldly: Where then is the still water of your visions?

And the hermit answered: It is near at hand: but the looking is longer than the way thither.