“Well, you’ve enough the look of the other gentleman for Lord Bellasis to pay ten pound for the sight of your face. You can explain to him who you are, sir,” scoffed the thin-faced man. “Fetch a horse from the stable for him, Garrett.” After that, as in an ugly dream, matters went without Hugh’s agency. He felt his arm ache in the hard grip of the cross-eyed man, which he had no hope to shake off; he heard the widow in heated expostulation with the thin-faced trooper, assuring him the gentleman had dwelt with her near six months, and could not have had a hand in the mischief they charged him with; he saw Nancy come out, all blubbering, to bring him his hat, and he said, “Why, don’t cry over it, wench,” and wondered at the dull tone of his voice. It seemed an interminable time, but at length one of the plough horses was led out, all saddled, and, mounting as they bade him, he rode away with them in the gray of the afternoon. As they passed out from the yard he heard the door of Ashcroft slam, and by that he knew the widow was much moved. Then, turning eastward, they trotted slowly across gray fields, a trooper on either side Hugh’s horse, and he went as they guided. For he took no heed to them, as he told himself that Dick Strangwayes was far away in the North, Sir William busied at Tamworth, and in Oxford there was not a friend to aid him. Already he seemed to feel the chill of the cells in the old Castle at Oxford, and to see a room full of stern men who bullied and frightened him; after that he thought to hear the cart jolting beneath him across the stony streets, while the people ran and pointed at him; and then he felt a rope about his throat. He tried helplessly to battle off such thoughts, but they still pressed upon him till his head was stupid with turning them over, and, listening uncomprehendingly to the talk of those about him, he rode in a sort of daze. The afternoon grew grayer and grayer, and was merging into twilight when they rode through a poor village, beyond which, upon a barren swell of highland, they came to a stockade flung around a small manor house. They crossed a rough bridge over a moat, and so, keeping to the left of the house, drew rein at length before a great stable. “Yon’s the captain, now,” spoke the cross-eyed man, peering into the dark of the building. “Looking to the cocks, I’ll be bound,” muttered he of the sharp face. “What dog’s mischief have you been loitering about, you knaves?” came from within the stable, and the voice was one Hugh remembered. “Captain Butler!” he cried, flinging himself from the saddle, and, stumbling through the door, near embraced the big Irishman who came to meet him. “Good faith, ’tis not—” Butler began. “I am Edmund Burley,” Hugh interrupted feverishly. “Sure, you remember me, sir?”