“Sir William and most of his officers lodge just over the way at a merchant’s house; Turner and Chadwell and Seymour are here under the roof with us. We’ll all meet together at Sir William’s table.” Hugh started back on his stool so he nearly overset himself. “Dick,” he burst out, “that means that thrice a day I shall be forced face to face with Colonel Gwyeth.” Strangwayes nodded, and then, the sheer absurdity of the whole position coming over them, they both went into a fit of laughter. Hugh recovered himself with a saner feeling of self-possession. “After all, it’s very simple,” he said aloud; “he’ll take no note of me, I know, and I’ll bear me as I would to Captain Turner, or any of the older men.” But, in spite of his stout words, when he woke in the dark of next morning Hugh could not sleep again for thinking of Colonel Gwyeth, and wondering if he would see him at breakfast and if the colonel would speak to him. When he first entered the long upper chamber of the house across the way that served the officers for dining hall, he looked about him, half eager and half in dread, and despising himself for both emotions. But he saw no sign of Alan Gwyeth, Colonel Gwyeth, as he named him to himself, for all he was now a mere captain. Two of the officers of the old independent troop, a German, Von Holzberg, and a certain Foster, who had come over into the regiment with the colonel, Frank pointed out to him; but Hugh only glanced at the men and went on eating. He wondered if it had been either of them that shoved him off the steps that night at Shrewsbury, and he had no desire to come in contact with them. After breakfast Frank Pleydall haled him off to view the city. “You might spare me one hour away from your Dick Strangwayes,” the younger lad complained. “But I knew after you got sight of him you’d not have a word for me.” Hugh felt conscience-stricken, so he forced himself to be very pleasant to Frank, in spite of the boy’s persisting in talking of Turner’s troop and his new cornetcy. Before they reached the High Street of the city, however, they were joined by several other youngsters, one a lad from Magdalen, the others, boys whose fathers were serving the king, with all of whom Frank seemed to have a ripe acquaintance. Hugh concluded Master Pleydall was not suffering for companionship, and presently he concluded, too, it was a companionship into which he could not hope to enter. He had an unhappy feeling of aloofness from the amusements of these boys; he knew next to nothing of bowls or dice of which they spoke, and when one lad began to jeer another about a girl, he did not understand. So presently he took his leave of Frank, who was too busied with his comrades to take much heed of his going, and started back by himself to his quarters.