Hugh paused blankly, assailed with sudden queer doubts, as Strangwayes thus harked back to his grandfather’s hints. But next instant the older man laughed off his surprise and plunged headlong into a tale that soon ended Hugh’s discomfort. “Confidence for confidence, Hugh. Would you hear something of myself? If they ever put me in a chap-book they can say I was the unhappy third son of a worthy knight of Lincolnshire. They put me to school at a tender age,—pass over that; no doubt you can guess what it means. No, I did not run from school; mine has been a sober and industrious life, fit for all youth to take instruction by. When I was sixteen I betook myself to Oxford, for my father was too loyal a gentleman to trust even so poor a piece of goods as a third son among the Puritans of Cambridge. There at Oxford I improved my hours to best advantage and learned to play famously at bowls, and would have become a past master at tennis, had not the Scots war broke out. Sir William Pleydall procured me a lieutenancy—” “And you have been to war once already?” asked Hugh, suffering the gray to slacken the pace to his natural amble. “Tell me of your battles, I pray you, Master Strangwayes.” “If you’ll clip my title to Dick,” replied the other. “It sounds more natural. Truth to tell, I was in but one battle, Hugh, and that was the fierce and bloodless battle of Wilterswick, here in this same pleasant Staffordshire. You remember, doubtless, when the king went against the Scots, how loath our excellent yokels were to follow after. Rank Puritans, the most of the levies were, and worked off their warlike energies pulling down communion rails and hunting parsons out of their parishes. We had a choice lot of such spirits in our troop, and, to put a leaven to the whole lump, the captain was an Irishman, ergo, a Catholic. A proper black fellow he was, Dennis Butler; the same one at whose mess-table we may chance to sit to-morrow night. This Butler and I took ourselves to rest one wet night at Wilterswick, and, faith, we waked to the hunt’s up of a big stone crashing in at our casement and found our trusty followers crowding the street before the inn, clamoring to hang the captain for a Papist. At their head was a venomous, two-legged viper, Constant-In-Business Emry,—he was rightly named,—a starveling of a fellow,—I’d swear he began life a tailor. Butler had rated him a day or two before, so he was in earnest, and, truth, the rest of them looked it. So Denny Butler, being a gentleman of resources, gathered himself into his clothes and left by the rear door.” “And you?” Hugh cried out, “I hold your captain went like a coward.”