A mile or more up this stream, just before the path begins to leave the waterside and strike towards the highlands, there is a little green cleuch, very fair and mossy, where the hills on either side come close and the glen narrows down to half a hundred yards. When I came to this place I halted for maybe a minute to drink at a pool in the rocks, for I was weary with my long wanderings. A noise in front made me lift my head suddenly and stare before me. And there riding down the path to meet me was a man. His horse seemed to have come far, for it hung its head as if from weariness and stumbled often. He himself seemed to be looking all around him and humming some blithe tune. He was not yet aware of my presence, for he rode negligently, like one who fancies himself alone. As he came nearer I marked him more clearly. He was a man of much my own height, with a shaven chin and a moustachio on his upper lip. He carried no weapons save one long basket-handled sword at his belt. His face appeared to be a network of scars; but the most noteworthy thing was that he had but one eye, which glowed bright from beneath bushy brows. Here, said I to myself, is a man of many battles. In a moment he caught my eye, and halted abruptly not six paces away. He looked at me quietly for some seconds, while his horse, which was a spavined, broken-winded animal at best, began to crop the grass. But if his mount was poor, his dress was of the richest and costliest, and much gold seemed to glisten from his person. "Good day, sir," said he very courteously. "A fellow-traveller, I perceive." By this time I had lost all doubt, for I saw that the man was no dragoon, but of gentle birth by his bearing. So I answered him readily. "I little expected to meet any man in this deserted spot, least of all a mounted traveller. How did you come over these hills, which if I mind right are of the roughest?" "Ah," he said, "my horse and I have done queer things before this," and he fell to humming a fragment of a French song, while his eye wandered eagerly to my side. Suddenly he asked abruptly: "Sir, do you know aught of sword-play?" I answered in the same fashion that I was skilled in the rudiments. He sprang from his horse in a trice and was coming towards me. "Thank God," he cried earnestly, "thank God. Here have I been thirsting for days to feel a blade in my hands, and devil a gentleman have I met. I thank you a thousand times, sir, for your kindness. I beseech you to draw." "But," I stammered, "I have no quarrel with you." He looked very grieved. "True, if you put it in that way. But that is naught between gentlemen, who love ever to be testing each other’s prowess. You will not deny me?" "Nay," I said, "I will not," for I began to see his meaning, and I stripped to my shirt and, taking up my sword, confronted him.