The way went pleasantly by, there being many folk of all degrees and qualities on the road. And as many as saw me come, stepped aside and stood respectfully at gaze, if they were on foot; or courteously saluted me as an equal if they were on horseback. Both which things pleased me well. So I went on smiling to myself for the pleasantness of my thoughts, in spite of the incident of the lasses. Suddenly, however, I came upon a horseman like myself, that rode down a loaning from the muirside. I saw no weapon that he had about him, yet he was no mere landward minister or merchant, by the sober richness of his habit. He was dressed in fine cloth of Flemish blue, with a plain edging of silk, but without lace or any broidery. His face, when I saw it, was pleasant, and there was on it a smile that spoke of good cheer. He seemed to be tall of his person, and, from the manner in which he reined his horse easily with his left hand, I knew him to be strong. A well-appearing, sober, conditionable man of fifty I should have taken him to be, fit to be head of a house or to sit at a king’s council table. But his occupation was the strange part of his sudden appearing. He was employed in reading a little book which he held in his right hand, riding easily all the while with his horse at a brisk walk—a thing which I never saw anyone do before. Then was I sure that he was a man of religion, by his busying himself thus with his devotions. At which I was the better pleased, since religion is a thing I was ever taught to reverence above all else, for that is the habit of the moorland folk who get but little of it. On the other hand, they tell me that in Edinburgh, where there are as many as seven ministers, the folk pay little heed to their privileges; and are, as indeed I have seen, given over to following all manner of wickedness and that with greediness. As my fellow-traveller came down the loaning he looked up, and seeing me, he wheeled his horse alongside of mine, and very courteously gave me ’Good-day.’ Then, as well he might, he admired Dom Nicholas, letting his eyes stray smilingly over my equipage. Yet even at that moment I marked that it was a set smile, and methought that there was a busy brain behind it. ’You ride like a soldier that hath seen the wars, young sir,’ he said. ’Ah,’ I replied, lifting my bonnet of steel as to an elder, ’but little enough of these, my Lord, for I am but a youth.’ ’You will mend of that last, I warrant,’ said my companion, ’and in the end more swiftly than you will care about.’ ’You were busy with your book of devotion,’ said I, with respect, for I care not to force my conversation on any man; ’let me not interrupt.’ ’Nay,’ he said, ’I fear I am no great churchman, though for my servants’ sake I have reading and worship daily in my own house, and generally I may claim to be very well affected toward the Almighty.’