But, for all that modernity, there is something essentially knightly, and even knight-errant, about our Hugh John. An elder time has touched him. Ideas growing, alas! extinct--are natural to him. A chivalrous Cromwellian is perhaps the nearest I can come in the way of definition. For years he was the only one in the house (except Fuz, of course) who sustained Roundhead as against Cavalier. Yet all his outer man (surely a boy has an "outer man" when he is six feet high) is that of the Collegians who rallied about the King at Oxford, and swept away the train-bands with Rupert the Prince at Marston Moor. But Hugh John agrees with Mr. Prynne as to the Unloveliness of Love-Locks, and no Sergeant-Major could carry a closer cropped head of hair. Also the mind within him is one that abhors restraint. That is, in thinking. In acting, he obeys as a principle all justly constituted authorities. Also, if _he_ is in authority, he will insist upon obedience even unto the shedding of blood. Only the mind is free and untrammeled. Obedience includes only acts. Thought with him is free, liberal, critical, large. But Hugh John is generally shy with the girls who come to our house. He retires to one of his fastnesses, a lonely David in some unknown Engedi. He blots himself out. Simply, _he is not_--so far, that is, as the rest of the house is concerned. But he has the most sharply defined and sudden affinities. He will see a girl for the first time--the most reserved, unlikely girl, shy as himself. He will go up to her, and lo! as like as not, five minutes afterwards they will pair off like two schoolboys arm in arm. Grown-up People, after a certain while, forget how their own friendships were formed--how much was chance, how little intention, and they judge _us_ in the light of what they now _think_ they were. They are "out" every time with Hugh John. For instance, I know Somebody who was afraid he was going to fall in love with Elizabeth Fortinbras. No such good luck! _I_ knew. The first time I surprised them having a good talk together I saw that Elizabeth would take advice from that gray-eyed boy with a man's thoughts which she would scorn from any one else. It was the day after we had been to see the Donnans. When I got home, Hugh John had merely said, "When does Elizabeth begin?" "Monday," said I; "but how in the world did you know?" "I did not know _that_!" he answered gravely, as usual. You simply can't surprise Hugh John. A momentary glitter in a pair of rather close-lidded gray eyes--that is the most you can expect from him.