"Odd’s bodikin! as Rupert would say, but how the fat corporal did puff and splutter. Poor Cicely would say ’twere wicked folly thus to anger our enemies against us, but sure such a prank can do no harm. The corporal is patently a fool, I fear him not; and as for the other——" Here she paused and laughed half-angrily. "He surely would not venge his quarrel with me on Rupert. But what an immovable fellow it is. How I would love to see him angry. ’Twere perchance a dangerous experiment, but I were no true woman did I not long to try. Ah! well, an he remain here much longer I fear he may have many chances to taste of my temper. ’Tis a brutal world." And so alternately laughing and frowning, she rode home to the Manor House. *CHAPTER III* The Durford Manor House, which for many generations had been the home of the Winslows, was a low, rambling structure of grey stone, full of strange nooks and corners and curious hiding places. Part of the house dated back to the fifteenth century, and had sheltered fugitives from Bosworth field. It had witnessed many strange scenes during the years of the Civil War; many a Royalist had found refuge there, and it had been twice besieged. Here, in the great oak-panelled hall, Lady Elizabeth Winslow, grandmother of the present Sir Rupert, had entertained the Parliamentarian officers to supper while her husband was held prisoner in the neighbouring room, and after disarming their suspicions by her wit and gaiety, had eluded their vigilance and slipped out of her window when her guests had retired for the night, and ridden through the darkness to Taunton. Here she roused the townsfolk, and herself riding at their head had surprised the small force conducting her husband to Gloucester and rescued him just when all hope of escape seemed dead. Here Mistress Penelope Winslow, the proud beauty of the House, whose portrait, a stiff, lifeless shadow of the beauty which had set fire to all the hearts in the countryside, still hung above the stairs, had refused her twenty suitors and finally given her hand to a nameless Scotch soldier and ridden away with him to the wilds of his Highland home. Here Richard Winslow, that renowned soldier, had been brought after the battle of Worcester, the very remnant of a man, spared by the clemency of Parliament to drag out a weary existence in the house of his fathers, and dream what his life might have been had not a fatal shot left him at once blind, deaf and paralysed. Here Stephen Winslow, after impoverishing his house and risking his life for his sovereign, had eaten his heart out through long years of baffled ambition and bitter disappointment, learning the gratitude of kings.