Some one griped his collar, Hugh felt; there was a rip of cloth, and for a moment he had torn himself free and struck out blindly at the mass of them. They must have tripped him, for he felt the floor beneath his shoulders; but he still had hold on one of them, and he heard a shirt tear beneath his hands. There came a dull pain between his eyes, as if the bones of the forehead were bursting outward, and he made a feeble effort to strike up as he lay. Then the struggling was over; he could not even kick, for one that sat upon his legs; a man’s knee was grinding down on his back, and his arms were forced behind him. His face was pressed to the floor, and he could see nothing for a blackness before his eyes, but he heard Peregrines voice, cool and well-satisfied: “He’ll be quiet enough now. Here’s the rope.” Some one else had entered the room, Hugh realized; a slow step, a pause, and then a stern voice that rang loud: “Thomas Oldesworth! Bid your ruffians take their hands from your sister’s son.” “Father!” the captain’s voice spoke, then after an instant’s blank pause ran on: “You do not understand, good sir. He—” “Will you stand arguing?” There came a noise as of a staff’s being struck upon the floor. “Do I command in this house, son Thomas, or do you? You ruffianly knaves, up with you all!” They had left him free, Hugh found, and dragging one arm up to his head he lay panting desperately, without strength or heart to move. “Help him to his feet,” the stern voice spoke again. “Or have you done him serious hurt?” They lifted him up, with gentler handling than they had yet given him, and staggering a pace to the table he leaned against it. He drew his hand across his eyes unsteadily to rub away the black spots that danced before them; he had a blurry sight, then, of the troopers drawn back to the windows, and of the captain and Peregrine, who stood together with half-abashed faces, for in the doorway, leaning on his staff, was Master Gilbert Oldesworth. “Get you back to Kingsford and fight out your fight with the scoundrel who wronged your sister,” he spoke again. “At such a time can you find no better task than to maltreat a boy?” “If you would only pause to hear how matters stand, sir,” the captain urged, with a visible effort to maintain a respectful tone. “The lad holds the information that shall make us masters of that villain Gwyeth. If he will not speak, though he were twenty times my nephew, I’ll—” “If he were twenty times the meanest horseboy in the king’s camp, he should not be put to torture beneath my roof,” Master Oldesworth answered grimly. “Come here to me, Hugh Gwyeth.”