Striding steadily up and down hill, for Arden Forest is made up of hills and dells which follow one another as do the wave and trough of the sea, only less regularly, I made my way toward Wootton Wawen. As soon as I espied its battlemented church lying in a wooded bottom below me, I kept a more easterly course, and, leaving Henley-in-Arden far to the left, passed down toward Leek Wootton. The damp, dead bracken underfoot, the leafless oaks and gray sky overhead, nay the very cry of the bittern fishing in the bottoms, seemed to be at one with my thoughts; for these were dreary and sad enough. But hope and a fixed aim form no bad makeshifts for happiness. Striking the broad London road as I had purposed I slept that night at Ryton Dunsmoor, and the next at Towcester; and the third day, which rose bright and frosty, found me stepping gayly southward, travel-stained indeed, but dry and whole. My spirits rose with the temperature. For a time I put the past behind me, and found amusement in the sights of the road; in the heavy wagons and long trains of pack-horses, and the cheery greetings which met me with each mile. After all, I had youth and strength, and the world before me; and particularly Stony Stratford, where I meant to dine. There was one trouble common among wayfarers which did not touch me; and that was the fear of robbers, for he would be a sturdy beggar who would rob an armed foot-passenger for the sake of an angel; and the groats were gone. So I felt no terrors on that account, and even when about noon I heard a horseman trot up behind me, and rein in his horse so as to keep pace with me at a walk, step for step--a thing which might have seemed suspicious to some--I took no heed of him. I was engaged with my first view of Stratford, and did not turn my head. We had walked on so for fifty paces or more, before it struck me as odd that the man did not pass me. Then I turned, and shading my eyes from the sun, which stood just over his shoulder, said, "Good-day, friend." "Good-day, master," he answered. He was a stout fellow, looking like a citizen, although he had a sword by his side, and wore it with an air of importance which the sunshine of opportunity might have ripened into a swagger. His dress was plain; and he sat a good hackney as a miller's sack might have sat it. His face was the last thing I looked at. When I raised my eyes to it, I got an unpleasant start. The man was no stranger. I knew him in a moment for the messenger who had summoned me to the Chancellor's presence. The remembrance did not please me; and reading in the fellow's sly look that he recognized me, and thought he had made a happy discovery on finding me, I halted abruptly. He did the same. "It is a fine morning," he said, taken aback by my sudden movement, but affecting an indifference which the sparkle in his eye belied. "A rare day for the time of year." "It is," I answered, gazing steadily at him.