Instinctively his hand went to Hilary’s miniature as he recalled with a shudder what had passed about it a few hours before; and then finding the way in which his shirt had been fastened, his eyes sought Falkland’s with a gratitude that touched the State Secretary. With the incomparable gentleness characteristic of him, he said a few words to the boy, which by their reverent sympathy seemed to blot out the memory of the moral torture he had undergone. Then, promising to do what he could for the prisoner in the future, he left him to sleep, and slowly paced down the street to his quarters. He had merely joined Lord Wilmot’s expedition for the relief of Devizes as a volunteer, and now in his restless mood grudged the delay at Marlborough, and by break of day was riding with a couple of his servants to Oxford, leaving the two troops of cavalry and the long train of prisoners to follow later. CHAPTER XX. “_One of the greatest clauses in Magna Carta is that which asserts in legal form the legal rights of Englishmen to withstand oppression. If the King broke his promises, he was to be resisted in arms in the name of the powers which Englishmen held to be greater than the King--in the name of God, the law and the great Council._” --_History of the English Parliament_, Barnett Smith. On the afternoon of the 15th July, a crowd of courtiers, lounging and chatting in Tom Quad, paused for a moment to glance at the figure of the State Secretary as he passed swiftly through the merry throng on his way to the King’s apartments. Oxford was looking its brightest. On the 14th the Queen had returned, and on the same day despatches announcing the great victory at Roundway Down and the relief of Devizes had been received. The church bells had pealed, and it seemed to most of the Royalists that the King’s cause was now certain to triumph throughout the land, and that the Parliamentarians would be utterly crushed. Never had there been more confident boasting, more light-hearted laughter than on that summer afternoon, and the sudden apparition of Falkland, with his pale sorrow-laden face, seemed curiously ill-timed. “What the plague does my Lord Falkland mean by wearing such dismal looks on this gala day?” said a boisterous young Cavalier, who was about as capable of appreciating the philosopher of Great Tew as of recognising the beauty of a Raphael. “He volunteered in my Lord Wilmot’s troop t’other day,” replied his companion. “They say, you know, that he is always thrusting himself into dangers which there is no call on him to face, because he is stung by the report that his efforts for peace spring from cowardice.”