“The surgeon has forbidden it. They have but just cut out the bullet, and he is too weak to be worried.” “Is there—much danger?” Hugh faltered. “Nay, very little. A mere ugly flesh wound, but he has lost much blood and is near exhausted.—Come, come, don’t give way like that, boy,” the young man added, as a sob of sheer relief escaped Hugh. “Your master’ll be sound enough in a couple of weeks.” Hugh looked up with his face aflame; because his clothes were ragged was no reason that the young officer should take him for a horse-boy. “Will you be so good as tell Dick I am glad he is recovered?” he said slowly. “And give him back his pistol here, and tell him since he is in the hands of friends I have gone about my own affairs.” So saying he went down the stairs and, without a single glance at the light-haired officer, passed out into the courtyard. He would not hang about the place a moment longer, he vowed, but then he reproached himself for deserting Strangwayes and had half a mind to go back, when by chance he caught sight of the same group of loungers he remembered had spoken of Colonel Gwyeth. On the impulse he went to them and, questioning them, learned that not only had Colonel Alan Gwyeth been that very morning at the inn, but he was now not above eight miles distant at Shrewsbury. At that Hugh faced about and took the highway for the great town. It was not deserting Dick Strangwayes now, he told himself, for his father would doubtless let him have a horse and ride back next day to see his friend, and in any case he must go forward, lest his father be off to some other part of the country. So during the sunny last hours of the afternoon he hurried along, scarcely observing the villages through which he passed nor the men on foot or horseback whom he met or overtook, in the eager hope at each turn of the road that he would come upon Shrewsbury steeples. He hardly felt sleepy from last night’s long watch, nor stiff with his rough ride, just eager and happy. When he thought of Strangwayes it was only to be thankful that his hurt had not proved mortal, and to be glad that the skirmish at the “Golden Ram” had happened. For now he could go to his father, not a raw schoolboy, but a young gentleman who had been under fire; he was just a bit sorry he had not himself been wounded. But when at length he saw the last horizontal rays of the sun upon the clustered roofs of Shrewsbury, his happy mood seemed to end. It was all too good to be true; once before he had thought himself almost in his fathers arms and he had been deceived. He hardly dared ask a countryman if the king were lodging in the town yonder, and, finding it true, could not walk forward fast enough, lest before he came up his Majesty should move away.