SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF SIR GASTON ROBERT BELWARD, BART., OF RIDLEY COURT, IN THIS PARISH OF GASTONBURY, WHO, AT THE AGE OF ONE AND FIFTY YEARS, AFTER A LIFE OF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE FOR HIS KING AND COUNTRY, AND GRAVE AND CONSTANT CARE OF THOSE EXALTED WORKS WHICH BECAME A GENTLEMAN OF ENGLAND; MOST NOTABLE FOR HIS LOVE OF ARTS AND LETTERS; SENSIBLE IN ALL GRACES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS; GIFTED WITH SINGULAR VIRTUES AND INTELLECTS; AND DELIGHTING AS MUCH IN THE JOYS OF PEACE AS IN THE HEAVY DUTIES OF WAR: WAS SLAIN BY THE SIDE OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, THE BELOVED AND ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE RUPERT, AT THE BATTLE OF NASEBY, IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD MDCXLV. “A Sojourner as all my Fathers were.” “‘Gaston Robert Belward’!” He read the name over and over, his fingers tracing the letters. His first glance at the recumbent figure had been hasty. Now, however, he leaned over and examined it. It lay, hands folded, in the dress of Prince Rupert’s cavaliers, a sword at side, and great spurs laid beside the heels. “‘Gaston Robert Belward’!” As this other Gaston Robert Belward looked at the image of his dead ancestor, a wild thought came: Had he himself not fought with Prince Rupert? Was he not looking at himself in stone? Was he not here to show England how a knight of Charles’s time would look upon the life of the Victorian age? Would not this still cold Gaston be as strange at Ridley Court as himself fresh from tightening a cinch on the belly of a broncho? Would he not ride from where he had been sojourning as much a stranger in his England as himself? For a moment the idea possessed him. He was Sir Gaston Robert Belward, Baronet. He remembered now how, at Prince Rupert’s side, he had sped on after Ireton’s horse, cutting down Roundheads as he passed, on and on, mad with conquest, yet wondering that Rupert kept so long in pursuit while Charles was in danger with Cromwell: how, as the word came to wheel back, a shot tore away the pommel of his saddle; then another, and another, and with a sharp twinge in his neck he fell from his horse. He remembered how he raised himself on his arm and shouted “God save the King!” How he loosed his scarf and stanched the blood at his neck, then fell back into a whirring silence, from which he was roused by feeling himself in strong arms, and hearing a voice say: “Courage, Gaston.” Then came the distant, very distant, thud of hoofs, and he fell asleep; and memory was done. He stood for a moment oblivious to everything: the evening bird fluttering among the rafters, the song of the nightingale without, the sighing wind in the tower entry, the rustics in the doorway, the group in the choir. Presently he became conscious of the words sung: