“Well, well,” he muttered grimly, as he sat down in his lonely room, “I have him in my power now, and can revenge myself on him! He baulked me as to the cross, and as good as called me a devil. The man’s a traitor! He’s one of the ungodly. I’ll unmask him even if for the nonce I have to play into Colonel Norton’s hands. I’ll take word to Canon Frome as to the despatches he is to bear to Windsor. Eh, eh! Captain Harford. I shall have you laid by the heels, and you shall bitterly rue the day when you set your hand to the plough and then turned back.” With bitter vindictiveness he drew an inkhorn and pen towards him, and laboriously began to write the following words: “_I have a carpentering job in the ante-room at Canon Frome Manor this day, and shall be there at three of the clocke. If Colonel Norton wishes to gett tydings of a dangerous ryvall, who is moreover a rebel, he cann obtayne it on certaine con-dishuns._” He had just sanded this document, and was about to fold and seal it, when the sound of the Old 113th in the village street made him pause. He stepped out into the road in front of the house, and saw that the Puritan soldiers were ready to march back to Ledbury, and, evidently at the Vicar’s request, were first joining the villagers in a Psalm. As the words floated towards him a look of wonder and hesitation crossed the stern face of the wood carver. It was as if he caught a momentary glimpse of a unity as yet far beyond his reach. O children which do serve the Lord, Praise ye His name with one accord, Yea, blessed always be His name; Who from the rising of the sun Till it return where it begun, Is to be praised with great fame, The Lord all people doth surmount, As for His glory we may count Above the heavens high to be. With God the Lord who may compare, Whose dwellings in the heavens are; Of such great power and force is He. But the bitter memory of his father’s death returned to him, and when another psalm was started he closed his door and hardened his heart; as soon as the soldiers had left the village he resolved to set out for Canon Frome. Meanwhile Gabriel and Hilary were viewing Waghorn’s work in the church. “It was such a grief to my uncle,” said Hilary. “Often in former times I have seen him sitting here about sunset quietly enjoying the beauty of the place and the jewel-like colouring of the window.” “I am sorry Waghorn destroyed it,” said Gabriel. “Yet it would be dishonest of me to let you think that I am wholly without the usual Puritan feeling. To paint an imaginary picture of the Christ seems to me taking an unwarrantable liberty, which we should not allow a painter to take with any other friend or kinsman.”