Gabriel was too thoroughly healthy in body and mind to grasp the full import of the words; he thought the speaker only referred to that brief and natural craving for freedom which assails everyone in the extremity of pain, whether mental or physical. He himself had so quickly overcome the craving at Hereford and at Edgehill that it never occurred to him that one so immeasurably his superior could not also overcome it. But the surgeon at Marlborough had surmised rightly enough; Falkland, handicapped in the race by months of sleeplessness, could only see that his present position was untenable, could only yearn to exchange the prolonged and thankless suffering of one who metaphorically stands between two fires, for a literal and brief riding forth alone between the two armies, welcoming a bullet in the heart from Royalist or Parliamentarian, since with both alike he was out of harmony. “I shall be sending a messenger to the West to-morrow,” he said, after a minute’s silence. “If you will give me your father’s address I will myself write to him and tell him what has befallen you. Since you are known to Sir Ralph Hopton and Sir William Waller, and since your father and Sir Robert Harley are lifelong friends, it will assuredly be possible in time to get you exchanged. And for your horse, I will speak to Lord Harry about it ere he goes to the siege of Bristol. An you wish it, I will myself ride Harkaway.” So they parted, the prisoner to return to his stifling and noisome quarters, the Secretary of State to the equally uncongenial atmosphere of the Court and the presence of a King whose obstinacy and insincerity made it hard, even for Falkland, who was noted for the sweet graciousness of his manners, to refrain from sharp words and caustic comments. CHAPTER XXII. Return him safe; learning would rather choose Her Bodley or her Vatican to lose, All things that are but writ or printed there, In his unbounded breast engraven are. And this great prince of knowledge is by Fate Thrust into th’ noise and business of a State. He is too good for war, and ought to be As far from danger as from fear he’s free. “Lines on Lord Falkland.”--Cowley. Little Helena Locke was made happy one day towards the end of July, by receiving a letter from her father. That it had been long upon the road did not surprise her, for letters naturally led a hazardous existence in war time, and she never knew how nearly she had missed receiving this one; never guessed that for many days it had lain securely in Colonel Norton’s pocket, that it had been through the battles of Lansdown and Roundway Down, and had finally been given by Norton, at Marlborough, to the first messenger he came across.