"I could walk that distance easily. But you ... We must get there some way. Once there, it will be easy to secure a conveyance to enable us to reach Edinburgh in safety. I see naught for it but to go to the highroad and wait the chance of a passing coach or wagon, which we will impress." "My horse should be yonder," I said. "I frightened him away when I came up." "Your own horse?" "You drove him off evidently, for when I came to my senses he was gone." "We will go, then, to the roadway. How did you find me here, sir?" I asked, rising slowly to my feet. "You left a trail that a baby could have followed." He smiled. "And, before we start, there is another matter that must be adjusted between us." He hauled out of his pocket as he spoke a netted purse containing the money he had won from me the night before. "This," he said, "is yours. I don't play at dice with women." He extended his hand with the purse in it, and bowed low before me. I took the money--oh, I did not intend to keep it! I was never so angered and humiliated in all my life. "Surely, sir," said I, "I have some claims to be considered as having played the manly part in that, in broad daylight on the King's Highway, I have despoiled a royal messenger, a tried and proved soldier, of his charge, and, in an encounter at arms, have left him senseless in the roadway while I made off scot-free." "You have described the situation and your action excellent well, madam, but this exhibition of manly courage, address, and daring does not make you less a woman. I may fight with you on necessity, but I cannot game with you. The gold is yours and you will have need of it," remonstrated the soldier. For answer, I hastily flung the purse and its contents into the brook. "Let it lie there," I said. Sir Hugh laughed uproariously. Then he deliberately waded into the brook, fished up the purse from the shallow pool in which it lay, and put it in his pocket. "Your true woman," he said, "flings away treasure; your true soldier gathers it up, that, at some future day, he may place it in her hand again." "Lead on to the roadway," said I, as imperiously as you please. "Had best cover your curls with the sunshine in them, madam, with your wig before we go," said Sir Hugh, lifting up wig and hat and presenting them to me with a graceful but most ironical bow. I clapped them on my head in some fashion. I was so angry that I neither knew nor cared whether they were rightly placed or not; and then, meekly to all appearances but with a heart filled with inward rage, I plodded through the forest to the side of the road. _Chapter_ VI _In which, by the Favour of the King's Messenger, I am permitted to ride south again on my Quest_