“Ay, to be sure, don’t you hear the bells tolling? He’s being borne through Oxford to Great Tew this very moment, though for the matter of that they ought to bury him at night with a stake through his heart at the crossing of the roads, for they say ’twas sheer suicide--he rode out alone betwixt the two armies! just the fool’s act one would look for from a bookish coward, always trying to make peace! A pox on all peace-loving cravens say I. Don’t stand staring at me like that, you mongrel cur! What was my Lord Falkland to you?” and he emphasized the question with a brutal kick. All these weeks Gabriel had borne with patience and dignity the galling words and petty cruelties practised by the gaoler, but in the overwhelming shock of these grievous tidings his strength suddenly deserted him. Stung to the quick by the man’s coarse attack on the dead hero he turned upon him in fury. “Don’t dare again to take on your foul lips a name you’re not worthy to breathe,” he cried, with such passionate wrath and a look so threatening that for a moment Aaron quailed. But anger merely begot anger, and with a fierce laugh the gaoler eyed his victim derisively. “You will come before the Provost-Marshal for that, you numskull,” he exclaimed, and amid a general silence he seized Gabriel by the arm, and grimly escorted him from the room. To be out of the close, crowded prison was for a minute the most intense relief, and as he went down the steps Gabriel’s wrath cooled. Longingly he looked about him with the keen eyes of one whose spare time was chiefly employed in futile plans of escape. Aaron took him across the courtyard to the Governor’s apartments, where they found the redoubtable Smith busy with pen and ink and a huge ledger. He glanced at them as they entered with an expression of annoyance. “What do you mean by bringing a prisoner into my presence without leave?” he said; “I’ll not have them brought straight to my room from that fever-den.” “Beg pardon, sir,” said Aaron, saluting, “but it was a bad case of insubordination.” “Sir,” said Gabriel, “the only insubordination lay in this, that, forgetting he was my gaoler, I forbade him to speak evil of my Lord Falkland.” “_Forbade!_” repeated the Provost-Marshal, raising his eyebrows. “You are quite right, Aaron, these rebels must learn their place. You are condemned, Mr. Harford, to thirty days in irons and to be flogged--the number of the strokes not to exceed thirty.”