This question carried neither challenge nor imputation, for, the times being troubled, no man could be certain that he met a friend on the highway until some declaration was forthcoming.
“Only so far as to beg of you some solution of the enigma of these roads. I am desirous of travelling southward, and seek a main highway, which I am grievously puzzled to find.”
The other laughed cheerily.
“You could not have chanced on a better guide, for I was brought up some miles from this spot, although at the moment I am myself on a southern journey. We turn here to the right, but we have far to go before we reach the highway.”
“The more lucky am I, then, that you have overtaken me. ’T would need a wizard to unravel this tangled skein of green passages.”
“Indeed,” cried the youth with a lightsome laugh, “I’ve often lost myself in their entanglements, and, what is more lasting, I lost my heart as well.”
“There is one thing you have not lost, and that is time. You are just young enough for such nonsense as the latter losing. I am older than you, and have lost my way before now, as you may well bear witness, but I have kept my head clear and my heart whole.”
“’Tis nothing to boast,” said the boy, with an air of experience. “It simply means that you have not yet met the right woman. When you meet her you will be in as great a daze as that in which I found you at the cross-roads. You will think it strange that I make a confidant in so personal a matter of a total stranger, but, truth to tell, if I am to guide you to the highway, you must bear me company through Rudby Park, for I hope to get a glimpse of my fair one before I ride farther toward Oxford.”
“Toward Oxford!” cried Armstrong, instinctively reining up his horse in his surprise. “Are you, then, making for Oxford?”
“Yes, I have been expecting a friend to come with me, but he is delayed, I suspect at Carlisle, so I must get on as best I can without him.”