'Tell her that, just that and no more, and you will see the result.' 'I shall not,' he said sullenly.

'A message from you indeed!' And he spat on the ground.
'Then on your head be it,' I answered solemnly, And I turned my horse's head and galloped fast after the others.

But I felt sure that he would report what I had said, if it were only out of curiosity; and it would be strange if Madame, a gentlewoman of the south, bred among old family traditions, did not understand the reference.
And so we began our journey; sadly, under dripping trees and a leaden sky.

The country we had to traverse was the same I had trodden on the last day of my march southwards, but the passage of a month had changed the face of everything.

Green dells, where springs welling out of the chalk had once made of the leafy bottom a fairies' home, strewn with delicate ferns and hung with mosses, were now swamps into which our horses sank to the fetlock.