Anxiety now took me in a strong grip. Our mistaken chase had caused us to come very fast, and since we saw nothing of Chudleigh, I feared lest we had passed him in some manner. It therefore cheered me much, a half hour later, when I saw a stout man, whom I took to be a farmer, jogging comfortably toward us on a stout nag as comfortable-looking as himself. He was not like the other, suspicious and afraid, and I was glad of it, for I said to myself that here was a man of steady habit and intelligence, a man who would tell us the truth and tell it clearly.
He came on in most peaceable and assuring fashion, as if not a soldier were within a thousand miles of him. I hailed him, and he replied with a pleasant salutation.
“Have you met a man riding southward?” I said.
“What kind of a man?” he asked.
“A large man in citizen’s dress,” I replied.
“Young, or old?”
“Young—twenty-six or twenty-eight.”
“Anything else special about him?”
“Dark hair and eyes and dark complexion; his horse probably very tired.”
“What do you want with this man?” he asked, stroking a red whisker with a contemplative hand.