“I will relate the story from the very beginning,” said he. “Some four hours after your departure from Waltham) my men brought in the malignant we were hunting. I dispatched my sergeant and the troop forthwith to London with the prisoner, keeping just two troopers with me. An hour or so later a coach clattered into the yard, and out of it stepped a short, lean man in black, with a very evil face and a crooked eye, who bawled out that he was Joseph Ashburn of Castle Marleigh, a friend of the Lord General's, and that he must have horses on the instant to proceed upon his journey to London. I was in the yard at the time, and hearing the full announcement I guessed what his business in London was. He entered the inn to refresh himself and I followed him. In the common room the first man his eyes lighted on was your son. He gasped at sight of him, and when he had recovered his breath he let fly as round a volley of blasphemy as ever I heard from the lips of a Puritan. When that was over, “Fool,” he yells, “what make you here?” The lad stammered and grew confused. At last--“I was detained here,” says he. “Detained!” thunders the other, “and by whom?” “By my father, you murdering villain!” was the hot answer. “At that Master Ashburn grows very white and very evil-looking. “So,” he says, in a playful voice, “you have learnt that, have you? Well, by God! the lesson shall profit neither you nor that rascal your father. But I'll begin with you, you cur.” And with that he seizes a jug of ale that stood on the table, and empties it over the boy's face. Soul of my body! The lad showed such spirit then as I had never looked to find in him. “Outside,” yells he, tugging at his sword with one hand, and pointing to the door with the other. “Outside, you hound, where I can kill you!” Ashburn laughed and cursed him, and together they flung past me into the yard. The place was empty at the moment, and there, before the clash of their blades had drawn interference, the thing was over--and Ashburn had sent his sword through Jocelyn's heart.” Hogan paused, and Crispin sat very still and white, his soul in torment. “And Ashburn?” he asked presently, in a voice that was singularly hoarse and low. “What became of him? Was he not arrested?” “No,” said Hogan grimly, “he was not arrested. He was buried. Before he had wiped his blade I had stepped up to him and accused him of murdering a beardless boy. I remembered the reckoning he owed you, I remembered that he had sought to send you to your death; I saw the boy's body still warm and bleeding upon the ground, and I struck him with my knuckles on the mouth. Like the cowardly ruffian he was, he made a pass at me with his sword before I had got mine out. I avoided it narrowly, and we set to work.