"I would have you bear in mind," he continued to his squires, "that gentle courtesy is not, as is the base use of so many false knights, to be shown only to maidens of high degree, for there is no woman so humble that a true knight may not listen to her tale of wrong.

But here comes a cavalier who is indeed in haste.

Perchance it would be well that we should ask him whither he rides, for it may be that he is one who desires to advance himself in chivalry." The bleak, hard, wind-swept road dipped down in front of them into a little valley, and then, writhing up the heathy slope upon the other side, lost itself among the gaunt pine-trees.

Far away between the black lines of trunks the quick glitter of steel marked where the Company pursued its way.

To the north stretched the tree country, but to the south, between two swelling downs, a glimpse might be caught of the cold gray shimmer of the sea, with the white fleck of a galley sail upon the distant sky-line.