“Were you not there with one of the Hoptons?” he asked. “Ay, to be sure, the younger one, that tried to defend Castle, Ditch near Eastnor. He was worsted, and thrown into gaol at Hereford, but managed to escape by leaping a wall, and rejoined us at Gloucester. I don’t know where he is serving now.” Supper being ended Massey retired to finish his despatches, and Gabriel had orders to supervise the barricading of the streets with carts, which kept the men hard at work throughout the evening. The moon had risen, and the picturesque High Street with its gabled black and white houses would have looked like a place in fairyland had it not been for the grim preparations for defence and for the busy soldiers moving to and fro, some carrying torches which threw a fitful glare over the scene and made the bright helmets and gorgets glitter. Everyone was far too hard at work to notice the silent spectator who, wrapped in a long cloak and a hood of the sort much worn by aged men, noiselessly shadowed Captain Harford wherever he went. Waghorn’s hatred only increased when he saw how remarkably active in the cause Gabriel could be, how swiftly the orders he shouted were carried out, and what an excellent officer he made. It was impossible to conceive one more in touch with his men, and the fanatic gnashed his teeth when he reflected that one authoritative word from this young fellow of two or three and twenty would have been sufficient to level the cross with the ground. By the time all was in readiness it was growing late, and Gabriel and his successor, Captain Bayly, walked down the High Street to the “Feathers,” at the door of which Massey lounged smoking his pipe. “Bid them sound the bugle for the evening psalm,” he said, as the two officers joined him. “The men had best sleep while they may.” As the bugle rang through the little town and the men assembled in front of the market-house, Waghorn, stepping forward like a bent and aged man, stealthily approached Gabriel. “Now will this sparer of crosses join in a psalm with the godly,” he reflected, wrathfully. “Let his days be few! Even in the midst of his sin shall he be stricken!” Little dreaming that one of his worst foes stood close behind him, Gabriel joined with rather a heavy heart in the psalm which seemed to haunt him at every crisis in his life. Standing now in the street at Ledbury with the manly voices of the soldiers ringing out into the night, he remembered how the same words In trouble and adversity The Lord God hear thee still