An awful thought came to me. “Supposing the lady is not the English spy, what an awful thing I have done. Even if she be, what right have I to cut her horse's harness? They may put me in prison for it. Besides, what an ass I have been. If she is what I think, she will know now that I am her enemy, engaged on very special service.” Looking back at the inn-door, I saw a party of people gesticulating in the road. A man was shouting to me. Others seemed to be laughing. Then, to my great joy, round the turn of the road came an open carriage with two horses, going at a good pace. There came my masters. All was well. I chuckled to myself as I thought of the lady's face, when these two passed her, leaving her without means of following them. When we were well out of sight of the inn, I rode back to the carriage to report, wondering how they would receive my news. They received it with displeasure, saying that I had disobeyed my orders, not only in acting as I had done; but in coming back to tell them. They bade me ride on at once to Egmont, before I was arrested for cutting the lady's harness. As for their own plans, whatever they were, my action altered them. I do not know what they did. I know that I turned away with a flea in my ear from the Duke's reproof. I remember not very much of my ride to Egmont, except that I seemed to ride most of the time among sand-dunes. I glanced back anxiously to see if I was being pursued; but no one followed. I rode on at the steady lope, losing sight of the carriage, passing by dune after dune, rising windmill after windmill, to drop them behind me as I rode. In that low country, I had the gleam of the sea to my left hand, with the sails of ships passing by me. The wind freshened as I rode, till at last my left cheek felt the continual stinging of the sand grains, whirled up by the wind from the bents. Where the sea-beach broadened, I rode on the sands. The miles dropped past quickly enough, though I rode only at the lope, not daring to hurry my horse. I kept this my pace even when going through villages, where the people in their strange Dutch clothes hurried out to stare at me as I bucketed by. I passed by acre after acre of bulb-fields, mostly tulip-fields, now beginning to be full of colour. Once, for ten minutes, I rode by a broad canal, where a barge with a scarlet transom drove along under sail, spreading the ripples, keeping alongside me. The helmsman, who was smoking a pipe as he eyed the luff of his sail, waved his hand to me, as I loped along beside him. You would not believe it; but he was one of the Oulton fishermen, a man whom I had known for years. I had seen that tan-sailed barge many, many times, rushing up the Waveney from Somer Leyton, with that same quiet figure at her helm. I would have loved to have called out “Oh, Hendry. How are you? Fancy seeing you here.” But I dared not betray myself; nor did Hendry recognize me. After the road swung away from the canal, I