Hark! The tinkle of a bell, the soft lowing of a cow; not far off either. She ran a piece up the road and presently descried the herd huddling at the pasture bars waiting for their milking, yet no maid nor man in sight, no milking-stool nor pail nor cup, only the soft inviting lowing of the kine. Her bundle still tied about her waist, Her Ladyship let down the top bars, edged through, off with her once splendid but now much tarnished hat, set it under the nearest cow, knelt, and presently had the cock full of as fine foaming milk as one might wish to see. She rose and drank thankfully, rubbing the cow’s nose in gratitude; then; amid the concerted cries of the herd, she made off, a little refreshed, still keeping her southerly course; still haphazarding her way, for no house came in sight. After a matter of a dozen miles, and now reaching the edge of a woods, with the tower of a Castle just sticking up out of the horizon for her only beacon, Peggy halted and, the refreshment of the milk having been by this exhausted, the tears forced their way to her eyes and even ploughed two small furrows the length of her cheeks, cupping in the dimple of her chin, and splashing at last, on her much rumpled Mechlin lace cravat. “Bah!” cried she. “I weep only because I am hungry. I am not afraid. Odzooks! She that has had the hemp about her neck to be strung up for a highwayman must not fear to encounter one of her own ilk,” and Her Ladyship essays to laugh as she plunges into the wood. It proves a harmless, peaceful, if somewhat devious neighborhood, where an occasional rabbit scurries over the dry leaves of last autumn’s falling, and where a large company of rooks are holding a caucus, but ’tis interminable; and Peggy’s legs are not of steel, it seems, but of that lusty flesh and blood and bone which, when made to do duty fasting, now these twenty hours, begin to give out. Her head, too, spins, the knot of her cravat seems to choke her as she loosens it; the weight of the bundle appears like twenty stone at the least about her waist, and she cuts the bed-cord and lets it drop, just for a few moments’ ease, she tells herself, as, at last, the other side of the forest is gained and she beholds a wide stretch of downs and naught but the elusive tower of the distant Castle, appearing farther away even than at first. What common can this be? Once again she shades her blood-shot eyes and stares up at the sky. In crossing the woods, she must have struck mistakenly to the west. The sun is nearing the set, and Peggy now knows she has come to Farnham Heath where, report has it, some of the boldest cut-throats in the country rule the roost. Shall she start to cross it? Kennaston Village lies only ten miles on t’other side of it. That will-o’-the-wisp tower? that castle yonder? yes ’tis home! and she such a dullard as not to have mistrusted it before! She will push on. Why not? What has she, forsooth, to tempt any thief, unless he took her for ransom.