“You _are_ like your father,” Strangwayes said judicially, leaning back on the window-bench. “See to it, Hugh, you do not make the resemblance too complete.” “How that?” Hugh asked guiltily. “By giving way to your ugly pride, so you do what it may take months of repentance to undo.” Hugh made no answer, and the silence between them lasted till the gallery was quite dark, when, slipping off the window-seat, they tramped away to their comrades below. Next day Hugh gave himself up to Frank, who, truth to tell, in his present half-subdued state was pleasanter company than he had been at Oxford. He persuaded Master Pleydall to come out and view the town, which took them till mid-afternoon; and then they loitered back to the castle, with discreet turnings to avoid meeting any of the other officers. Frank dodged into a tavern to keep out of sight of Griffith, but he dragged Hugh half a mile down a blind lane to avoid a suspected encounter with Captain Turner. “Mayhap I was impudent and forward, so he got at last to ask my advice about conducting the troop, when others of the men were by. And I thought he meant it all in sober earnest.” Frank made a brave attempt at nonchalance, but his lips quivered so Hugh had an improper desire to chastise Michael Turner; for all his swagger and affectation, Frank had been too innocent and childish a lad to be scathed with the captain’s pitiless sarcasms. Luckily they had no more encounters with men from the garrison till they were nearly at the gate of the castle, and then it was only Strangwayes, riding forth in full armor, with some twenty men behind him, to post the watch about the town for the evening hours. Hugh made him a formal salute, which Dick returned gayly before he rode on. “Dick is right fond of you,” Frank said, with a shade of envy; and after that they sauntered in a moody silence, till, the sight of the stables cheering Frank a bit, he prayed Hugh come in and look at The Jade. “I’ve not seen the old lass since day before yesterday,” he explained. They were still lingering to admire the mare, when two grooms came hurrying a lathered horse into the stable. “Who’s been riding so hard?” Hugh asked carelessly. “Messenger from the troop to the south, sir.” “To the south?” Hugh repeated. “Come quickly, Frank, I must see—” He walked rapidly across the courtyard to the door of the guardroom. About it men were crowded, and more were pressing into the room itself; but at Hugh’s jostling they made him a way into the thick of them. Over on a bench in the corner he had sight of a man with the sleeve cut from his coat, who sat leaning heavily against a comrade. Another, whom Hugh recognized as the surgeon of the regiment, was washing a wound in his arm, and as he moved, Hugh got a glimpse of the face of the injured man. “Cowper!” he cried, and ran forward, for he knew the fellow for one of Captain Gwyeth’s old independent troop.